#theroundup with Stephanie Styll from KillJoy

00:00We are supported by Jonathan Ho at Village Real Estate and Amanda Gardner from Foundation Mortgage and they want you to enjoy the benefits of being a homeowner. Yes, that dream is not out of reality. If you work in the restaurant, there's so many myths that you you have to have great credit scores. You've got to have tens of thousands of dollars for a down payment. You need two years of employment on one job. You don't need those things. Don't the interest rates right now scare you away? Right now is a great time to buy a home. They are here to help you step by step through the entire process. They're absolutely amazing. You can check out Jonathan at Housepotality on Instagram and Mortgage Amanda on Instagram is AmandaGardner's. I've talked to both of them about this whole process. It has been absolutely amazing and flawless. They are just the best to work with. Plus they'll teach you so much about this process. So if you've never bought a home before, you're a first-time homebuyer, these are the people you need to call. If you're just curious, what does the market look like?

01:06What can I afford? Give them a call. They will definitely help you. You can call John of 615-483-0315 and Amanda over at Foundation Mortgage. Her number is 865-230-1031. Welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio, the tastiest hour of talk in Music City. Now here's your host, Brandon Styll. Hello Music City and welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio. My name is Brandon Styll and I am your host. We're gonna be joined with Caroline Kalzin here shortly. We are powered by Gordon Food Service and today we've got a fun one. Today we're gonna be talking with, we have an episode of the Roundup today. This is an all-new Roundup and our guest co-host for the show is none other than Stephanie Still. This is my sister. Yes, you may have heard her on the Brandon's Book Club episode where we talked about the comfort crisis. And you may have heard about what she is doing. She has a new bottle shop that she has opened and it is called Killjoy. Killjoy is a non-alcoholic bottle shop. So if you are into not drinking and drinking non-alcoholic spirits, she's got all the beer, all the wine, all the mixers and all the fun stuff and it is just off of Wedgwood over right next to the loading dock. So we'll get into much more of that and lots of topics today. A lot of fun to be had. Stay tuned after the episode as we talk about some restaurant openings. We talked about some restaurant closings in this episode and unfortunately I have to add another restaurant closing to the list but I have an update on one of the restaurants

03:09we thought was closing. It did close. I have another update on one of the restaurants we thought had closed. So stay tuned and I will give you the details after the episode. We have a couple announcements to make today. First, I want to say that I am super excited to be the emcee for the Giving Kitchens event called the Tennessee Tasting. If you go to the giving, the givingkitchen.org and you click on the events tab, you'll see the Tennessee Tasting. I'll have all of the details. I'm gonna tell you right now though it is gonna be on April the 23rd. It is at the Bedford Nashville and it is a 21 and over event. Your ticket will include cocktails, beer, wine, mocktails, and small plates from a dozen of Nashville's best restaurants. I'll tell you some of the restaurants that are gonna be there. Mayor Bowles is gonna be there with our chef Julius Gilbert, Tandy Wilson from the City House, Julio Hernandez from Maize de la Vida. We're gonna have Gerard Kraft from Posteria, Adriana Ortega from Succulent Vegan Tacos, Alyssa Ganjeri from the Buttermilk Ranch, and so many more. So many more amazing chefs. You're gonna enjoy music by Brassfield and hey you get to meet me. Come by. I would love to meet you. So the more people at this event, The Giving Kitchen is absolutely amazing. They help restaurant workers who've been involved in any sort of crisis, any accident, anything that happened where they can't work, they will come in and help you. So if you can't make it to the event, at least know The Giving Kitchen is out there. You can go back a little while ago. We had an episode with Jen Heidinger Kendrick and she explains exactly what The Giving Kitchen is. They're absolutely amazing. I couldn't be more excited to be on their council here in Nashville. If you want to volunteer for this event, email Kelly Kaplan, that's K-E-L-L-Y dot Kaplan, K-A-P-L-A-N

05:12at thegivingkitchen.org. So that's gonna be a super fun event and I would love to have you guys go. This is for a great, great cause and it's gonna be an absolute blast. So if you, last thing here, if you have an idea for a podcast, so many people have said, oh my gosh man, I want to do a podcast. I have this idea, we're gonna do this, we're gonna do that. Anybody who has an idea for a podcast out there, the first step is like, how do I make it happen? It's really not that hard. The hardest part is finding the equipment and how to record and editing and all of that stuff and we are opening up this studio that we're in right now. This studio that I record in sits empty a lot of the time and I want to help you make your podcast dreams come true. So we are renting the studio out. You can rent it as is. It's audio only. If you want to bring some way to record your video, that's fine. It's $50 an hour. If you would like to start a monthly plan where you're coming in and you get up to 10 hours of studio time a month, it goes down to $25 an hour. I don't think there's anywhere else in the city where you can get quality studio time for $25 an hour and really any time that you want to do it. It's open kind of 24 hours so this is kind of a cool deal. We're doing this right now. If you would like to email Brandon at NewLightHospitality.com, I'll be happy to get you started. If you have questions about how do you distribute, what's an RSS feed, how do I do all this stuff, I'm happy to help walk you through how to do that, how to get your podcast set up. I will be the person to help you get your podcast off the ground. We also have the studio so this is a good time and if this is the time right now, if you want to make that happen, we have availability for you. I've got four more spots. We are already recording a few podcasts in here. I want to give a shout out to Andrea and Lila from Broadz on Broadway. That show is so

07:15funny and they have been just the best tenants in here and they love using the studio. I also want to give a big shout out to the Nashville Dads podcast. They are out right now putting episodes out. You can actually hear me on the Nashville Dads podcast. I was a guest on the show about a month and a half, couple months ago. Lots and lots of fun and go check out those podcasts because they're great. Check out the quality of what they're doing and you too could be recording right here in the studio. The other podcast they're recording in here right now haven't released yet so I can't tell you about them but when they start putting episodes out, I will help promote them as well because they're doing great things and if you were to record in here, I'd love to help your podcast be successful also. All right, we got a lot going on and this is going to be a really fun episode today. Cannot wait to introduce you guys again to my sister Stephanie Still right now. Super excited today to welcome you into another episode of The Roundup. We are joined today with Stephanie Still and she is the owner, founder of Killjoy which is a non-alcoholic bottle shop and I think her better designation is my sister. Welcome to the show Stephanie. Hi, thanks for having me. Welcome back to the show because you did an episode of Brandon's book club about a month and a half ago. I did yeah that was fun. And I'd say hi to Caroline over there. Hello, how's it going guys? You know what? Besides all of the bullshit that's happening in this world, I'm doing great. Yeah same. I mean I think that I'm doing okay. How are you guys doing? Steph? I'm feeling it. It's been a week. It's been a crazy 10 days ups and downs so yeah feeling it. I don't think you're alone with that. I don't think you're alone with that. I keep feeling this like almost like body

09:17anxiety where it's like you know when you have anxiety about something but I can't tell you the thing. You know what? I can't tell you. Here's the thing that I have anxiety over. I just kind of have this like general feeling. Yeah it's like I'm okay. I know in my mind I'm okay but like my body is still feeling anxiety and stress over just so many things I can't control and you just have to do what you can to control it but then that's it. And that's you got it. You got to be you got to like Will Gadara said you got to put your own oxygen mask on first before you can start helping other people and I think that's what I've been focusing on. Yeah I don't know. There's just like so much heaviness in the air right now but I don't know. There is so we've had a very heavy past ten days. Stephanie you opened your bottle shop on Saturday. Yeah right in the middle of all that. Tell us about that experience. Well you know we thought about after the tragedy happened on Monday we thought about not doing it but then you know we didn't really see that a better time would necessarily be coming so we we went ahead and on April 1st we had our grand opening so we are Nashville's first booze free beverage shop in case y'all don't know a bottle shop is basically a liquor store. I've had some people be confused by what that term means but it's a liquor store but nothing in it has alcohol so we officially opened our doors and we had a grand opening party and about a hundred people came out. Wow. Which was amazing. Yeah that's awesome congratulations.

10:58It's really exciting. Really good vibe in there too it's a lot of fun. Thank you. Nice. So what is the inspiration behind this for you? You know I quit drinking a couple of years ago inspired by Brandon partly but also something I've been you know interested in and I started experimenting with alcohol alternatives a little bit but not that much because they're very hard to find and there's really yeah there's really no place in in Nashville where you could go to find many of them like some places will have quite a few beers or something like that but um yeah and the alcohol alternatives are sold in liquor stores so if you're a person who doesn't want to be around to liquor or that's trigger for you that's not a great place to go so our store is a place where you can go there's no alcohol in there and we have a huge variety we're getting more and more all the time lots of different wines spirits beers and ready-to-drink cocktails and we also have some drinks with like CBD and THC in them. Oh that's awesome. Yeah.

12:02We are currently drinking while we're talking to you I have an Erdinger which is a German non-alcoholic beer which I love and you're drinking the Southern Grist company pills. Cheers. Cheers. It's fun to drink in the middle of the day you know this is a good time. It's the best and you can take this you can drink it in the car you can drink it in the morning. Just to start your day with a refreshing NA beer. Yeah I love it. I'm so proud of you and I'm so excited that you know there's a movement out there about not drinking and providing a safe space it's not just like a place you can come in you also have like books that people can make it's almost like a tiny little library of different books you can check out and take home with you you sell different things to go with cocktails there's conversations that you're having around sober curious and that's more your your speed I'm the I'm an alcoholic and I can't drink I can't have just one and I think you're more of the I don't want to label myself a certain way I just don't like drinking I don't like the I don't like myself the next day after drinking and all of that so talk to me a little bit about your experience there. Yeah well you know I drank for many years and I did drink fairly heavily with no real negative repercussions on my life I was young and you know you can kind of do that and I lived in Europe for many years and it was very much part of the culture and I I didn't ever drink and drive I was always pretty responsible but you know you get older doesn't feel as good the next day and I mean I just started learning the science behind what I was doing to my own body and that coupled with just really wanting to feel good kind of led to me realizing that hey the best way to do that is just to not drink at all I will say another thing that I think really impacted me was wearing a wearable device I had a ring for a while and now I have this

14:03Apple watch and tracking my sleep and tracking my heart rate while I slept and really being able to see that man if I haven't had one glass of wine I slept terrible for like two days elevated blood pressure everything like you can't argue with that data and so yeah decided to cut alcohol out completely and it's been wonderful for me and it's been everyone that I have talked to that's in this community that's quit drinking I never talked to anyone that goes oh I hate that I quit drinking like everyone's like oh my god my life is so much better I feel great blah blah blah there's so many benefits to it so being a part of that community you really see it and I want I want for other people to see that and for it to be normalized that like you don't have to have a problem to stop drinking and you don't actually have to stop drinking if you don't want to just experiment with alcohol alternatives I have a friend who's coming in and trying different wines to see which wine will mix best with the wine she likes so that she can lower the amount of alcohol in the wine she's drinking oh that's interesting it's an interesting thought I know that there's definitely like even in the the non-spirit free world been a movement towards like lower ABV cocktails and you know experimenting with vermouths and different liqueurs and and that sort of bitters yeah yeah it's a it's a whole thing and I I'm with you on that like I've never I'd very rarely meet people that are like yeah when I quit drinking my life got worse I mean I could never it's amazing how people the perception is if I quit drinking I won't be able to hang out with my friends and I won't be able to have fun and do you do these things and it's like no I'm I just you know I went to this event the other night at the at the Four Seasons it was the sound bites event for James Beard Foundation in the CBC and there was more alcohol there I mean it was uncle Nira sponsored it so it's just all the bourbon you can drink there are six bottles of wine on my table everybody was drinking and I was drinking they had Heineken 0.0 so I just had that in a glass and I was driving home and I drove home the person that went with me because they were drinking and I drove

16:07them home which was responsible and great but I was driving home and I thought you know my wife isn't freaked out right now that I'm gonna drink too much and then I was on the way home and I was like man it was great to see so many amazing chefs and just people and connecting and I had zero feeling on the way home like I can't believe I said that to this person all right I can't believe I acted that way or I was this I was like no I was genuinely just me the whole night and if I did anything that night that was embarrassing whatever I have nothing to blame but myself and it was a really empowering feeling because I don't it still feels new to me to go to events like that where there's just so much alcohol not one person was like you're not like well no I had a beer in a cup the whole night nobody really had any there was nothing to say about it but it was a really empowering kind of a thing to go I was able to go to that event and I didn't really think and nothing was true and I didn't want to drink at all but just knowing the next morning I woke up the next morning was at work early the next day and I felt good and I think alcohol alternatives are amazing for enabling you to participate in the ritual and not feel like you're kind of the odd person out and still get the flavor that you're used to and that you know without the negative effects of drinking ethanol where is your shop let's talk about where if I'm out there and I want to go to kill joy I want to check it out like how do I get there okay well don't look us up on Google because we're not on there yet so this is brand brand new apparently Google sending me a postcard but I keep not getting it so we are a hidden gem because once you're even if you're right there looking at us you might not be able to see us so GPS to the loading dot coffee shop that is right off 65 at Wedgewood go to the coffee shop and then inside there's a gallery and you can look down and you'll see a killjoy sign the shop is like around a little corner so it's in there we swear but yeah it's really really easy to get to it's kind of hard to find but it's easy to get to I always

18:09tell people you know that the Mac store you're on 65 you see that Mac store right there that store that was it still there the sign it's still there the sign is closed but it's right behind that so if you get off of Wedgewood and then you make a right like you're going to like the the stadium Geodes Park you make that first immediate right and you drive back there that's where the loading dock is and it's once you go in there there's like a big there's like a common area in the back corner that's where your shop is yep and I love the name I think that's very cute that you're kind of leaning into yeah kill joy I love it thank you well I think a lot a lot of people who you know were drinkers or whatever think of themselves as people who are kind of fun edgy people and I and I I don't like the like sanitized version of sobriety like this is the this is the edgy party version of not drinking we'll call it yeah yeah well it's funny because I remember going over the names and I first we first talked about the name and I was like I don't know and then after it marinated me I was like that name is fucking amazing I just love it our other brother who is a marketer told me it was the worst idea he'd ever heard and then I knew I had to do it you guys have one other sibling yeah what's the birth order he's the older one I'm the middle child she's here but we her and I are almost exactly a year and a half apart graduated the same year in high school she really she's like brilliant Stephanie's like the the super smart one of the family all the good genes well look at her I mean naturally she did okay so I I love this brother and sister dynamic happening here this is very fun for me so I was asking I can tell it's fun this is very nice I have a I have a younger brother so you know it reminds me of being around my brother what was the dynamic like between you guys growing up especially you said like you were in the same high school graduating class they assume you had the same

20:10friend groups possibly or where you guys didn't get along so much then I think I would say I wanted to be more part of her friend group than her friends wanted me to be like you get your loose her brother you know what is interesting my brother's two and a half years older so he's I'm not why I'm answering the question this is you're the guest so he's older so I was like in the middle of this and he I was competed with him but I always felt more close to Stephanie like she was a very real person and we had a lot of the same interest but I still tried my best to keep my brother to like me and all these other things and I think I've tried to do that up until like three years ago and you know in my 40s it's crazy that family dynamic but you you Brandon I've always been close yeah how fast that was Justin will actually be on the show next week yeah he was part of the book club interview with we talked about Rory Sutherland's alchemy so he's a marketer so it's marketing book he was in town we did an interview and so he'll that'll round out with next week get my dad on they'll have the whole family on the podcast family affair get your kids in here John yeah well it's a whole yeah Williams actually interviewed me in here well this time we were in here one day editing I was like dad I want to interview you so I was like he pulled up a microphone and I have it it's like a 20-minute where he interviewed me and I was like this is the most special thing I'm gonna keep this forever that's very cute as him as a seven-year-old interviewing his dad is it like the is like the Howard Stern interviewers dad screaming at him modulation no it's so sweet and wholesome and precious I'm just teasing I'm sure I'm sure well such exciting news about your shop opening I wanted to talk about you know it's kind of going through ahead of today's episode I'm like what other openings and closings do we have around town and I realized kind of in my own neighborhood the nations there is a good amount of

22:12opening and closing kind of happening around us so I thought that maybe we'd touch on that a little bit let's do that let's do a nation's roundup nations roundup well we have a couple of exciting openings that I'm really looking forward to we have a really cool dog park cafe concept that's opening down centennial so it's a husband and wife team I think they're gonna be opening sometimes it's the summer I just wrote by yesterday it looks like they're they're breaking ground and it's going to be a bar with a dog park adjacent oh very excited about that you love it you love it so I thought that's really fun I think that's just such a fun addition to the neighborhood something a little different you know something that will attract people from other areas hopefully to come what didn't that already kind of exists that was el paseo which is also on my list of the nation's roundup because I just found out apparently el paseo is closed yeah did you see that it's been a couple weeks I think mm-hmm yeah I just drove by one day and their sign was boarded up so I'm not sure what's going on over there and then their sister business the nation's bar I also heard has closed so I'm not really sure what's going on over there I know they lost their liquor license for a little while and then I heard from someone that works there that that they had closed so I don't know maybe something new coming maybe an alcohol-free bar maybe an alcohol-free bar who knows called killjoy I wish so yes we have one other place opening and actually I wanted to ask you about this brand because I feel you know so many people and so many things are happening and I've actually not familiar with this concept at all it's called burger and grain and it's opening in the in the same complex as Nikki's but like the building over where Jenny says burger and grain does that ring a bell no I don't know I need to do some research I guess well if you're affiliated with burger and grain holler at us we'll have

24:14you on the show I'm sure glad we're getting more burger places just feel like we don't have enough but grain I haven't had a lot of grains lately so that's exciting more burger places more grain places and then combining those two I mean we'll give another one I will say I love all of our fellow businesses in the neighborhood I do wish we had a couple more like restaurant restaurants you know everything is kind of bar right now and that's you know not to throw shade at anyone who's in the neighborhood because we have great bars but I don't know I want like a butchering bee or a city house or something if you guys are listening new restaurants in hopefully that's coming in El Paso hopefully something's coming there maybe that'll be like a restaurant and dog park well if you're a restaurateur you're interested in the nations I mean I'm the expert so reach out to me we want we want you in the neighborhood DM her at gals and gal you can on Instagram at gals and gal that's you that's me I'm the gals and little Instagram plug there and while you're on Instagram you could follow killjoy underscore of Nash get all the details there you go I liked I like to sneak in in the plug there for you to Steph good job so very nice the nation's update nations update you know some some things coming some things going but but hopefully some some more things will be coming this year we'll see there's a lot of really cool buildings that are almost complete we've got a lot of really great retail and restaurant space coming online so come on over guys we want we want you in the nations and now we're gonna take a quick break to hear a word from our sponsors what chefs want story is incredibly unique the owner Ron Trenier met with a bunch of chefs in Louisville back in the early 2000s and asked them one simple question what do

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28:15health insurance if you work for a restaurant right now that doesn't offer health insurance do you need health insurance because Dan Maher over at Southern Health Insurance wants to change that if you're a local restaurant and you just you really want to offer health insurance there are so many benefits improved employee retention you have happier team members which means longer tenures and less training time smoother shifts make everyone's lives easier meaning happier employees are more likely to stick around when employees take care of their health they're less likely to take sick days this means reduction in lost productivity and revenue for your business fewer sick days wouldn't that be great you have improved morale a healthy workplace with opportunities for growth is a happy workplace encouraging your team's well-being will result in higher morale and better work performance guys all of these things Dan offers health insurance he offers visual insurance and dental well as life insurance and guys if you're out there in the marketplace is just too tough to navigate Dan can answer any question that you may have any business if you're a small business it doesn't have to be a restaurant you need to call Southern Health Insurance 832-816-8602 if you prefer to email you can email dan at southern health ins.com I have I have one from my neighborhood what do you got La Hacienda is closing yeah the the La Hacienda on Nolensville Road not like La Hacienda the restaurant group what's the restaurant group well there's like there's like multiple La Haciendas around town the La Hacienda on Nolensville Road is like an independent La Hacienda that does like authentic Mexican that's a staple where Obama ate yeah it's where Obama ate when he was here yeah that's one of the first restaurants I went to when I moved to Nashville it's been around for a long time I mean I remember going there I don't know when at a time when like growing up in Bellevue I like never went to Nolensville Road no and there's a and

30:18that's you know on the border in Bellevue just closed recently and that was that was a pizza end when we moved there but that's been a staple in Bellevue for a really long time so do we know why Hacienda is closing I did see the headline that they were closing but I didn't see any further information they just said the pandemic rising inflation they cited a number of things just having challenges and that they wanted to focus on the I don't know how you pronounce it but making tortillas I think they make their own tortillas and so they're gonna kind of go back to that as a business model that's what I read well they own the little kind of like the little bodega next door that does like tamales and you know they have like a little kind of food counter in the back in addition to like being a little kind of like corner store yeah is that gonna remain open I hope I love to grab tamales from there I'm not entirely sure well I will tell you that we are going to be announcing our new restaurant on this show on April the 14th so we'll have another exciting opening well so we're doing it a little different we have Chris Chamberlain from the Nashville scene came in here and interviewed Stephen Christopher and I for his article in the scene about our new restaurant and he's gonna take over Nashville restaurant radio and he is we're gonna put out the interview that he interviews us we're gonna make the announcement as to what the restaurant is and what it is and then it's gonna simulcast with the article that he puts out in the scene so in the article and scenes that you can hear I wanted that go behind the scenes way there's all these articles written about this stuff but I want you to see the actual process the questions that he asked during the interview so he came in here interviewed us we talked about our other restaurants but the new restaurant in particular and then he's gonna put the article out so you can kind of you read the article and like oh that's cool now you can listen to the hour-long interview of him being able to write that paragraph like what he took out of it what's that date gonna be April the 14th coming up yes so I

32:22shouldn't tell everyone right now what it is no can you can you give any clues any any hints yeah it's a cantina okay so we are doing a cantina it's gonna be hyper local fantastic location we're really excited about it and it's like the worst kept secret in town no we looked at that though and a dog park yeah there's a dog park attached to it yeah no I think that's I think a lot of people will figure out what it is pretty quickly but we're excited to make the announcement we're looking to open mid-June congratulations yeah so a good little tease we're talking about openings that I'll be really busy the month of May and June preparing and we'll be hiring and doing the whole thing and we have an entire leadership team is already hired and I'm proud to say that we did not have to hire one person from outside of our restaurants we promoted a hundred percent from within to hire a leadership team so we feel really excited that our culture is gonna be completely intact and we're gonna focus on again being a community restaurant that really serves the people that live within three miles of the building that's our number one focus will you have non-alcoholic margaritas I don't think we should I think we're definitely have a non-alcoholic we'll have like a whole section we'll have a zero proof menu but I don't I think we'd need to have a non-alcoholic margarita I don't even know how to make that hey you see that that layup there yeah it can help me with that absolutely yeah I think we bought a margarita like a mixture that you had okay for that that's in our fridge right now yeah we're excited we bought a bunch of that stuff yeah the I mean we've got a Marg mixture and a couple different kinds of tequilas that are great and just mix that up that's all you got to do it's super easy add some salt to the rim we brought on the naked lady spirits in January and we are still carrying them and we've been

34:23substituting that in margaritas at Nikki's for spirit free menu people love it it's good yeah really good yeah and you guys sell the naked lady stuff too we we have it at both of our restaurants and we have like we ordered like five times nice yeah I'm excited to reorder that cuz you know obviously supporting them is a big I'd love to do that well Brandon obviously you know we we know what your new project is we're not gonna spoil it yet we'll save it for the 14th let you break that news on your own but a couple weeks ago Stephen your partner was in here and we were kind of chatting about the new project and talking about operations and different models and you know there is even more conversation even more articles this week out about tipping fatigue which is one of the things we were talking about with your new restaurant and hey are you considering a different model how are you guys gonna run and you know what do you guys think Stephanie what do you think about this kind of tipping fatigue that seems to be so much in the conversation right now yeah I mean I am not an expert on this at all because this is not really my field but I know from from the perspective of somebody who does a lot of tipping I love the idea of moving to a model without tipping I think I think it just makes sense you know we talked a little bit earlier I did live overseas I lived in Germany where you just tip a little bit and I lived in Japan where you don't tip at all oh interesting and I loved that I've also been thinking you know in Germany something that they do is taxes included and everything so when you go to the grocery store you could actually figure out like this is exactly how much I'm going to pay and have your money ready they don't surprise you with extra money afterwards it's a very American concept to be like oh everything's really cheap and then you pay tax and then you tip and then it costs a bunch of money and I that's 30% more if you have a 20% tip and then there's 10% taxes I mean whatever your total is is you're adding 30% to your total and that's a big number if you're eating at $200 dinner yeah so I'm all for it but I also have experience kind of living in that realm and that makes it makes a lot of sense to me I would be very supportive of it so so are you

36:29thinking about changing your tipping model at Nicky's I'll be honest with you it's a very serious conversation that we've had her with our team recently we're not there yet but we are very seriously considering it tell us some your thought process behind it you know we obviously during the pandemic we moved from a traditional table service model to a counter service model and we still have the experience where when you go up to the counter you have an option of tipping on the screen just like when you go to frothy monkey or you know any other place where you pay at the screen you can tip and we found that our staff right now is making on average 13% of sales is is tips and I do think that some of that is tipping fatigue maybe some of that is people don't want to tip for a counter service experience maybe it's but you guys actually provide service we do provide service to a certain extent it is not a full table service but there is a person we give you know we have food runners bussers there's somebody who's in your section of the restaurant that will refill your water bring you to go boxes you know that sort of thing but that's service I think it's service sure certainly it's different than subway so I think the tipping fatigue comes into where you go to subway and you say I want a footlong meatball and then you stand there and they make your meatball sandwich and it goes do you want chips in a drink and you go sure they hand you an empty cup they put your sandwich in a bag and then they say do you want to leave a tip and you go why am I paying 20% more for this $12 sandwich and then you may have to go sit down get my own drink sit down take this thing out of the bag eat my food then throw my trash away and clean it up myself and then leave like what am I leaving a gratuity for me to make your sandwich well I'm paying $12 for the sandwich and I interviewed a woman who ran she has multiple subways and she said well we're doing great now because we've we've incorporated tipping and I

38:31said what do you mean you've incorporated she was well we were paying people like $23 an hour and now we pay everybody $12 an hour plus tips just so it's been great for us because we don't have the labor cost and then now we just incorporate tipping and our staff is making more money than they ever have and I'm like so you're taxing your guests more is what you're really doing you're saying we're gonna stop paying the money we're not reducing the cost of our sandwich we're now reducing what we're paying people and now we're relying on the guest to pay the rest of their salary on top of paying the high price of the food well that's how every restaurant model works essentially if you pay a sub minimum wage you're relying on the guests to pay your employees you know and and I do think that certainly there's an argument that exists that you know subways posting profits they're doing great I'm an independent business coming out of a pandemic but we also subsidize our employees pay with tips you know we don't we don't pay every employee providing a service you're providing a service somebody they're not walking up and I'm using my expertise to help you pick out a wine based upon the food that you enjoy because I've learned a lot about wine and I can help enhance your utilizing my knowledge and waiting on you hand and foot right there's a side of that that the tipping I think brings in like a motivation to people to provide better service which is tips to ensure proper service right if you are a full service place and you're really good at that then I think that there's the tipping models hey I'm gonna tip you more because of what you're able to do for me sure I think that's where it kind of comes from I guess the the kind of internal debate that we have is one we don't want to alienate our customers of course that's you know kind of first and foremost will we have people who come in and they see a 18% service charge 15% service charge whatever we land on on their bill are they going to be upset about that or does it give them some relief at the counter when they're going to pay that they don't have to get prompted would you like to add a tip because we would take away that prompt the other option would be we could take away that prompt we could not charge a

40:33service charge and we can just raise our prices across the board 18% which means an $18 pizza is now $22 you know what is what do you think is more digestible no pun intended for customers because one or the other has to happen you know with inflation with rent in Nashville as expensive as it is you know being an independent business do we charge more or do we attack on a service fee what you know what do you do what are your thoughts Stephanie I think people will have an easier time with an 18% service fee understanding that hey this $18 pizza is still $18 and I'm paying this 18% I just think psychologically that'll make that'll help people to bridge the gap or do you think Nashville's not ready for this at all because that's really a big conversation that we have to is you know is this a model that just Nashvilleians won't respond to somebody's got to be brave and be bold and do it first I think a lot of people will find an identity around leaving a gratuity right so even if you're an asshole I'm a big tipper right so I need to I need to feel special are you saying that you're also an asshole no the way you phrase that you go even if you're an asshole I'm a big well no but I mean like some people want to be somebody will feel like show off I well I can leave when I come in here like when I go to Kroger I always use this example right when I go they still leave a tip on top of that I mean yeah I'm stopping them from doing that if people like let's say we went to a service charge a mandatory service charge model with no tipping and somebody wanted to tip on top of that certainly they could and we would distribute that to our team I think that's a possibility like I think that there's a like when I go to Kroger and I want to get a barrel cut fillet and there's all the fillets or end cuts and I look terrible and I asked the guy hey can you can you cut me like a barrel cut and the guy goes no I don't want to do that then maybe I'll go to Publix but if the guy goes yeah man I'll take care of

42:34you and he goes back and cuts me a really nice center cut piece of play I always give the guy five bucks but that's to ensure when I come in that guy knows hey look I'm gonna take care of this guy because he's gonna throw me an extra cash that's one of those things that I feel like those people need to be tipped that's not even a situation where tipping is required no so this is the same thing if they if your person is great and they want to leave somebody some money they can I'm with you but I think if you're prompted would you like to leave extra tip it's the same thing no yeah no we wouldn't prompt people we would just not offer do you want to leave a tip it would just be hey here's the price and then I guess the other thing we think about too is what happens when you know somebody doesn't realize that's on their bill and then they walk away and they look at their bill and then they come back and pitch a fit and say do you just take it off or do you say this is what we do and if you don't like it then I don't want you to be a customer like I don't know it's just these are kind of hard conversations we haven't had to consider before yeah and I'm just playing devil's I'm just trying to present different aspects of the thing I'm not saying I am that guy that needs to do that but there are people who find their identity and oh that guy's a big tipper and he wants to feel when he comes in he wants to know hey look I'm tip better I need to get better service whatever that may be and we there are people like that mm-hmm so I'm not I'm just presenting different perspectives for conversational judging you I'm not judging you either see how this works I think because your sister's here I feel more free to tease you today like I have a teammate I think you should yeah that's important that's like a whole family dynamic no I think there's tipping fatigue I think that I said this in the middle of the pandemic I said I think people were very generous people were very generous with people tipping anybody who was at work thank you for showing up today everybody else at home you came to work we're tipping door-dash every single person in the world gets massive tips because we're just excited that you showed up and

44:37we're on the front lines risking every day so that I can have food well that's ended mm-hmm that's ended and people are back to work and everything's back to normal do we still maintain that and did the service industry get really happy with they're like wow we're getting massive tips now and that's going away well I have actually also heard that there are new etiquette rules around tipping which is that 15 and 18 percent are out the window now 20 percent is the standard or 20 percent is the minimum 25 percent is the new standard is my understanding for according to you etiquette and if you're gonna tip less than that then you need to speak to a manager wow my husband always tips 25 percent I'm always like oh so much money gone okay I mean it's a thing it's a that's a quarter of your bill now interestingly enough I was in Florida recently near 30 a and there were quite a few restaurants that we went to that you would think of as kind of like you know your typical seafood restaurant that you go to down there that had a mandatory service charge on the bill and I thought that was very interesting because I thought if there's an audience kind of a broad audience that might not in want that type of experience of a mandatory service charge that's it you know well I'm having dinner tomorrow night at Bastion mm-hmm and I bought four seats for dinner at Bastion it's a hundred dollars a person oh are you inviting us as a matter of fact I'm not but it's a hundred it's a hundred twenty five dollars a person hundred dollars of food twenty five dollars service charge you pay for it before you even show up oh yeah well but I think that's included tasting menu experiences have been doing that for years I mean when I went to the catbird seat like twelve years ago they were doing that but is it so much dissimilar I mean they're charging a gratuity on the front end seems reasonable to me I mean you but you're you're paying for the gratuity on the front end you don't have I think that it's reasonable but I do also think that you are paying for a

46:40different experience when you go to a tasting menu restaurant you know I don't think that I think it's apples and oranges to say you know my restaurant charging a mandatory gratuity I don't think can be necessarily approached in the same way interesting I have no problem with it whatsoever yeah okay I almost prefer that it takes I think there's a little bit of ambiguity at the end of the meal like what should I do and if it's already there it's kind of like oh I've already tipped this is great like you know it's a vacation and you like you get a nice hotel and you pay for it before you go like a few months in advance so then when you get on your vacation it's almost like oh I don't have to pay for a hotel yeah maybe you can frame it as like this is all inclusive it is all inclusive and it includes everything I mean that you I feel like that a bastion it sounds like yeah oh it's all paid for in advance go crazy when you get there well alcohol is not included but I mean you know but like it's a whole thing I like it ultimately like if they were just included I think that is great and I would be excited my answer is I think you should do it and I would not bat an eye for a second if it was on there well stay tuned I'll let you know what we decide one last time a quick word from our sponsors when you hear that sound it's probably too late you need a guy I want to be your guy I'm Kevin with course and fire and security and I'm a restaurant territory account manager you know who's doing your inspections at your restaurant please reach out to me at six one five nine seven four two nine three two and I'll be glad to come out and take a quick look and look at all your fire safety inspection needs if you're building your restaurant we can help with that too as far as kitchen suppression fire extinguishers emergency lights we do it all one stop one shop call Kevin at six one five nine seven four two nine three two let me be your guy Nashville we are joined with Jason Ellis from Super Source Nashville they have been a sponsor for this podcast

48:42for almost three years we are so honored to work with them this is a great company and a great man Jason what can people expect if they give you a call come out do a complete audit of their facility see in which ways we could help them approve if any and see what we can do as far as helping them save some money so the first thing they got to do is just give us a call seven seven zero three three seven one one four three or they can email me directly at J Ellis at Super Source INC comm we'll come out take a look at your operations see in which ways we can help that's amazing so if you're out there right now listening to this call Jason Ellis or email him today we are supported by Robins Insurance offering protection you can trust Robins Insurance is an independent insurance agency known across the southeast for their customized insurance policies sound guidance and attentive service they're also known here at Nashville restaurant radio for protecting some of a music city's best restaurants look when it comes to insuring your restaurant or bar you don't want to leave the job to some strip mall insurance agency with no background in hospitality and expertise in the local market you need someone who knows the industry who understands your business who will create a policy that protects your physical space and protects you and your staff too y'all Matthew Clements is that guy he's the agent at Robins Insurance for the hospitality industry with extensive industry experience himself Matthew has the knowledge to create a policy that will protect you and your business no matter what comes your way visit Robins website at Robins ins.com that's rob ins ins.com to get in touch with him or reach out to Matthew directly at eight six three four oh nine ninety three seventy two protection you can trust that's Robins I think the I think the more controversial topic is dynamic pricing no yeah what do you think about that it sounds like so much work that's

50:50what I think about that it sounds like so much work why don't you explain what it is in case people don't know it's like uber like when it's really busy there's surge pricing so they're saying is if you have like menu boards and you walk up between the hours of six and eight on Friday night your menu prices go up 20% but if you come in between three and four your menu prices are down 15% it's kind of like happy hour so versus when people come in if you want it's the busiest when it's the prime time and you there's an hour wait you're gonna pay 20% more because we're really busy but if you want to come in earlier in the day we're not as busy you could pay less so dynamic pricing is when do you go eat based upon how much it costs for how busy they are at the time is there anyone doing that in the country yes there's it's a thing I don't know the names but I mean it's it's definitely it you're gonna hear more about it because the technology is there and I mean if you could if you could spread it apart throughout the day so I feel good nice restaurant but I could go at four o'clock then it cost me less but if I want to go at seven o'clock now it's a if you're going on a date I'm gonna take you this place at seven like oh shit yeah he's paying premium prices or she's paying me I'm not saying it's a thing I'm just you know what I mean I think I think it sounds great because it gives you the option to pay less if you're willing to go at an off time which I am I eat at off times kind of anyway so and you mean you know you know it's gonna be busy on like a Friday night or something like that but this might help even out study out business you know business you could make essentially the same amount of money because every not trying to cram everybody into that crazy time but if it's spread it out over six hours all of a sudden you may get some more people coming in because now I can eat at a place I typically couldn't afford but if I come in earlier maybe I can try something new that I can now afford because it's 15% less maybe that covers your tip you know or well I think there's a way that you could experiment with that and say like happy hour reverse happy hour and make it apply to

52:52your entire menu you know it's an interesting concept I don't know that I would call it reverse happy hour I just feel like I've heard that angry no I've heard people call it that I've think we used to call it that it was called like reverse happy hour or something and it was like they do happy hour and then you have regular service and then starting from like 10 to midnight you know like happier again yeah oh it's happier again I thought it was like we were charging more I think it was called reverse happy hour reverse happy hour seems like sad hour angry hour so now I'm second guess I know one at the at the loading dock does have grumpy hour in the mornings where if you come in early you get like a free coffee or something it's really I think it's cute that is cute grumpy hour so you can go to the loading dock which is located right next to killjoy yes and you can get grumpy hour pricing at 5 a.m. and they've got lunch specials every day for 10 bucks mm-hmm they've got delicious food I highly recommend the loading dock I recommend the loading dock also I don't think there's better people than one and Amanda I love them there's not so Brandon you said you're going to bastion not with us apparently but you are going to bastion we're taking Christopher who is our corporate chef and CTO also it's his birthday yesterday so we're taking him out to birthday with it was my half birthday it was your half birthday yeah it was Christopher's birthday yesterday so we're taking him out tomorrow night fun like get get kind of going out to try something cool take me for my birthday last year I'd love to know no okay he's like you didn't take me anywhere but Christopher he gets bastion Christopher I've been to Bastion once I see Christopher ten times more than I see you also sounds like a problem yeah who's your actual sibling here I know um well what I was gonna say is some other exciting news around town is that Josh has made it to

54:57Jim as a James Beard semi-finalist after as a final sorry sorry as a finalist after many years as a semi-finalist he is a finalist this year so exciting congratulations Josh thrilled for you very very well deserved I'm so excited for him I am too I don't you know of all the people we have had in here and talked to he's one of like the real good guys he is a great person and an incredible chef and really somebody who I think helped define dining in Nashville and get it to where it is today really helped to put Nashville on the map in recent years so our other James Beard award winners here are Arnold's princess for innovation and did Tandy Tandy one one mm-hmm and Tony Montuano is here in town well he won for best Midwest at and then Sean Brock yep another beard we're trying to think of other I think that we've got a lot of nominees I know the Goldbergs have been nominated for operators of the year I don't know if they've won one that they had they have one but they they've been nominated as operators well anyway lots of lots more exciting attention for Nashville we had Josh on the show gosh like two years ago and you know he's the architect for the catbird seat so the catbird seat was his idea and he kind of started it and then Eric Anderson and what they did there and then making way to Trevor Trevor Moran over I say over at Locust was one of the other nominees this year and did not make the finalist but I'm he'll win one oh he's he's there they're so new he's got plenty of time he'll get there for sure Locust is a phenomenal restaurant yeah it's really special just amazing so no that's a really it's one of our I saw that and I was talking to Stephen and I said man Josh made the finalist he's like let's go eat there and I was like

56:59cool I made it like right then I just made the reservation for us to like to go and we actually got a reservation which I thought was crazy that's that's a lucky that's a lucky yeah like the fact that was even available we got a list of topics Stephanie what do you want to talk about killjoy I'm not as clued into what's going on in the restaurant world as y'all are well we're we're trying we try and get the word out there this is a really good non-alcoholic beer this or Dinger is how you say I always called it Erdinger air Dinger air Dinger you would know air Dinger and when it says that it has a less than 0.5% alcohol by volume do you know like how much is actually in there is it like they just have to put that yeah that's my understanding is that it's that it's a very small amount it's not it's about the amount and like a very ripe banana who knew there was alcohol in a ripe banana and fruit that's ripening and fermenting has a little bit a little bit of alcohol in it so it's not something that most people would be worried about there are some people who are like t total not having any any any and for those people we do have some things in the shop that are not de-alcoholized versions of drinks but like just their own thing like proxies the wines things like that you've got one that I tried the other day that was like a elderberry what's that one called the sparkling look like a sparkling was a yeah it's called toast T OST with it like an umlaut in it it's yeah it's made with like a white tea and ginger and elderberry so it's got like a nice crispness it's not it doesn't just taste like juice and it's very effervescent and it's a good like poolside summertime drink that's where we had it yeah poolside why I brought it we've got like five minutes well should we do our Gordon food service final thought I think

59:00we should it's about that time can I say one more thing of course well and we're gonna let you have the last word too okay well I just want to tell people because killjoy is a shop that you can go in and I would love for you to come in we talked earlier about some products like naked lady stuff if you want to try them we have bottles open so you could come in and just take a sip if this is something you've always been curious about but you don't want to spend you know I think they cost about 35 bucks so that's like for me I was kind of scared to order that stuff online the other thing that we are doing is we're hosting events and we're catering events so on Monday night we did a book club event at the Parthenon in the room with the Athena which was really fun and the people responded so positively to it all we had were non-alcoholic wines and cocktails and they came up to the bar like what is this you know we're like it's a drink but there's no alcohol in it and people loved it so I just if you're thinking of having a party or an event and you want it to be catered definitely reach out to us and follow us on Instagram to find out about events that we'll be throwing because we're having pop-up parties where there's no alcohol but we're gonna be getting into a lot of events getting into a book club probably doing some like things like trivia bingo stuff like that and we may do some things in conjunction with the loading dock where there is like a booze option and a booze-free option hmm so yeah just stay tuned there's a lot more fun pipeline I love it they can follow you at killjoy underscore Nash yes I love that so we do the Gordon food service final thought okay we can all do a final thought today because I have a final thought today I might bow out of the final thought but I'm gonna let you guys I'm gonna keep it in the family and let you two final thought it out all right final thought Stephanie how long does my final thought get to be long as you wanted to be related to anything else we've been talking to what are the parameters here what ever you want to say is as long as you want to say it does no bearing minds not gonna have anything to do with anything we've talked about today okay well so just something that's been on my mind that I was thinking about posting

01:01:02and that maybe people don't know is how alcohol or anything that really spikes dopamine affects your brain and your moods which is that it gives you an initial huge spike of dopamine but then after that your body's gonna be trying to reach homo stasis so it's gonna be going down you're gonna have an after effect for maybe like a day or two where you're gonna feel a little bit lower and what that's probably gonna cause you to do is have more drinks it might not even be alcohol it could be other things but anything that gives you a big spike of dopamine that's gonna happen and that what you want to do is figure out natural things that are gonna get your dopamine up just a little bit or things like I mean you everybody's doing this now but things like a cold plunge or whatever that are actually gonna make you feel kind of bad in the moment but after that you'll have elevated dopamine and so you're gonna feel good but the interesting thing for me about this is I just didn't realize when I was drinking that I wasn't feeling as good in the rest of my life because of alcohol and that to me is just like something that I keep thinking about that people don't realize when they're like oh but I love my glass of wine it's like but do you know do you know how that could be impacting your happiness in your life and why people when they quit drinking are like there's so much more joy the small things I appreciate them more I feel so much more deeply it's like because it's your brain chemistry it's just very simple brain chemistry so that's my final thought I think that's a fantastic final thought thank you for that Stephanie and I think that I just wanted to touch on the world for one second and we didn't talk about today we didn't talk about politics we didn't talk about all of the crazy shit that's going on this world the mental health issues all of the trans issues and just people out there gun issues we've had a crazy past ten days in the city and we wanted to keep this episode away from that there's so much polarizing conversation around that I don't think

01:03:02that we're gonna change anything today and I didn't want that to be the topic of this conversation this is we've had some mayoral candidates in here and we've had some conversations around this stuff which I think is a great place to have those conversations but as far as Nashville restaurant radio is concerned we've really wanted to keep it towards restaurants today I didn't want to gloss over like why didn't you guys talk about this stuff it's not that we're not passionate about it I know everybody in this room right now is very passionate about this stuff wanted to keep this on the restaurant front today and kind of light and because everything else is so fucking heavy right now so I just wanted to put that out there that it's not because we don't care or that's not part of it it's just we wanted to kind of stay on brand today and be positive and hopefully do something that you could listen to that made you smile or informed you of something other than that so that being said we're gonna wrap this up well said yeah thank you guys for listening and hope that you guys are being safe out there love you guys bye all right big thank you to Stephanie for joining us here on the roundup and as I mentioned we in the episode and those episodes are fun look I like to take devil's advocates on some of this stuff and just play around so always a lot of fun on the roundup but we talked about some restaurants that were closing one of the restaurants we said had closed was El Paseo and that restaurant is closing they are closed and we I found out that it is gonna reopen as a place called the Fieldhouse Tavern I think that is a that is a brand new developing story I talked to the owners of the building and they said this can be the Fieldhouse Tavern they've got a chef they've got a guy that's gonna be running the place very cool the 51st 51st bar and grill 51st we told said that close that is not closed that is open and it is rock and roll and so sorry about that

01:05:07wanted to clarify that then I also got news I was reading the Nashville Business Journal and an article by Julia Masters that said Takaria del Sol closes their 12 South location so Takaria del Sol is closing or closed in the 12 South area so there's another closing that's happening citing too much neighborhood development I think that their building was sold for six point something million and something else we go in there rent was going up and they said we're not doing it and so you can go check out the Nashville Business Journal again Julia Masters with the article so those are the updates on the closings and the openings that we talked about hope to see you guys Monday mornings at 11 if you are somebody out there who likes to not drink area you are curious you don't want to drink you're sober curious whatever the case may be if it's a lifestyle that you're looking for kind of like we talked about in the episode today you're welcome to come join us over at Ben's Friends it is on Mondays at 11 a.m. at the Oak Steakhouse you can valet right there at the Westin it is free and there's it's a free thing to come to it's just some people that hang around that want to help you stay sober or get sober whatever whatever you're at so Ben's Friends International you can check them out at Ben's Friends International calm we will be out next week with Josh Buckley who is the CEO of 50 I'm sorry of the nation's brewing which is fat bottom brewery they do music City Light they also do the Nashville soccer club beer and bravazzi so lots of fun conversations that was a really good conversation that would be out next week and I hope you guys are being safe out there love you guys bye