Latest / Hey BigHead: The Vegas Local Podcast / Building Carson Kitchen and Butcher & Thief with Cory Harwell | 336

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Building Carson Kitchen and Butcher & Thief with Cory Harwell | 336 · Hey BigHead: The Vegas Local Podcast

• 0:05
  SPEAKER_03: Alrighty then.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_03: Julie, we're back again.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_02: No boys and girls today?
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_03: What?
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_02: When you usually go, hey boys and girls.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_03: Well, you know, you you made fun of me for the way I uh start every show, so now you got me self-conscious.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_02: I know, do something different every episode.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_03: Well, listen, you and I have worked together for how long now?
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_03: Six months.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_03: Six months.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_03: You know me pretty well.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_03: You know that I'm a simple man with simple needs.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_03: You know that when it comes to this show, I I it's not too overly complex.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_03: We have a handful of topics that we talk about.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_03: There are two specific things that I absolutely love talking about.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_03: Do you know what those are?
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_02: I bet I can guess.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_03: Go ahead.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_02: Business, how people do their business.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_03: I do love business, yes.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_02: And I would say probably food.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_03: I do love food.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_02: You love food?
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_03: I do.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_03: I also love talking about sports and technology.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_03: And upcoming events and music.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_03: So maybe it's a few more than just two things that we love talking about.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_03: But fortunately, today, the guest that we have on today is going to cover a handful of those, plus maybe a little bonus topics as well, which I'm pretty excited for.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_02: I'm excited too.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_03: Well, he's the president of Eleven Hospitality Group.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_03: He's the co-founder of Carson Kitchen, the owner of Butcher and Thief at the Bend.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_03: Corey Harwell is here.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_03: Corey, welcome to the show.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_03: I should say hello, boys and girls.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: I wanted to give it to him.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: That's what I wanted to give.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_03: It's a give-take relationship that Corey and I have.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_03: Um Corey, you're giving off rock star vibes.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_03: I dig this look you get.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_03: You get the shirt, the nice shirt, you got the arm sleeve.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_03: I try, I try.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and granimals.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: I match the animals.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: I learned it as a kid.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's a good thing.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_03: Are you done with the tattoos?
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_03: You have more coming up or what?
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: I I said I was only going to do the left arm.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: I'm running out of space.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, my wife and I, what's occupying a lot of it on our first date, my wife says to me, travel changes you.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: And that is now kind of our our motto.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so everywhere we go, we get travel changes you on us in different languages to commemorate visiting that location.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I I think I'm gonna end up having to find a another body part or two.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_02: You know, leg sleeves are really cool.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_02: You do leg sleeves.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: Let's see those legs cool.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_03: Episode two.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_03: That's fine.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_03: We'll we'll save that for when you come back.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_03: Um well, listen, you obviously are very well established, not only in just the hospitality industry, but here in Vegas.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_03: But I want to learn a little bit more about your history before we talk about all the successes that you have and the ups and downs that you have.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_03: So you got started as a dishwasher, but you lied about your age to get the job.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_03: Is that true?
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: I did.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: I did.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's funny because you just watched a recent podcast that I was on because I I think that's the first time I had admitted that.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: I believe you had to be 16 to have a work permit in the state of Georgia at the time.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and it wasn't my first job under 16, but it was the first one I had lied about to get.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: I had worked at a it was called Jimmy, Jimmy's Superet.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: I was un you know, unboxing, stacking shelves and breaking down boxes when I was like 14 years old.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, Jimmy paid me under the table.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: We won't we won't tell anyone about that.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_03: We'll keep that between us and Jimmy.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_02: The IRS is coming after you now.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: Jimmy's long gone, so good luck, IRS.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_03: Jimmy had a good run.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_03: God bless Jimmy.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_03: Um, do you feel like there's a strong connection between starting off at not say the the lowest of the low when it comes to the rankings?
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_03: Obviously, dishwasher and back of the house is very important, but starting off where you're getting your hands dirty and you're in the thick of it and you're getting dirty dishes thrown at you and all that, do you think that's crucial to be to where you are today?
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_03: Do you feel like starting at that point is crucial for you?
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: I I do, and I think for a couple reasons.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: I I think it gives you the the knowledge base that you need to run all the positions uh in a restaurant.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: But most importantly, I think it enables you uh a greater depth of leadership over the people that that work uh alongside you because you've done everything you're asking them to do.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um there's not this like I I did a brief uh stint in the military after high school so that I could pay for college.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: And there was a big difference between the officers that got out of college and went straight to OCS versus the enlisted that worked their way all the way through the ranks and then got an opportunity to go to OCS and became officers 10, 20 years later, the respect level was just significantly different.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: And and I think that translates uh very well to our business.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, I I know on a Friday night when I walk into the dish room, um uh there's there's nothing that they're doing or dealing with that I haven't done or dealt with gives me a greater empathy for for them during their job and and I think it enables them to respect me a little bit more that that I've done it all.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: I've cut my teeth properly.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't just walk in and mommy or daddy wrote me a check for a restaurant.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_03: Well said.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_03: I don't think we've ever had a guest on that had a situation where like mommy and daddy wrote me a check for everything.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_03: No, I don't think that on has really started from the bottom and worked their way up to where they are.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_02: Well, and even in the reverse, too.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_02: Like even, you know, I I've never been high up in any kind of hospitality or food and beverage business, but even as a server, when I had known that the owner of that restaurant had been where I am, I respected them more too.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, absolutely.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I was more willing to take critiques.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: Good.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and all too often I think uh our business, our industry attracts people very quickly, very easily.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: So you get a lot of people wanting to own restaurants, wanting to own bars because they think it's exciting, it's uh it's glamorous, there's there's so much good uh parts to it, they don't know the bad sides of it.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and there's very little barrier to entry to get into the restaurant or bar business.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: You if you got a checkbook with some zeros behind it, you can get in.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it it's that easy.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I think people do have a greater amount of respect for for people that came up through the ranks that that uh really earned their stripes.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_03: Well said.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_03: I always say this, I've said this multiple times on the show.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_03: I feel like everybody should at least one time in their life work in the hospitality or food service industry.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, absolutely.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_03: For sure.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_03: Just to whether it's out of respect for you know understanding what these people are going through with the guests that they have come in, or just uh just a different experience that you get to, you know.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_03: I've I've worked in the service industry for a good portion of my life, and it was some of the best years.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_03: I met the best people, created incredible relationships, learned a lot about business, learned a lot about even then the marketing side, learned a lot about what people are attracted to or what engages them.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_03: Um and I wouldn't really wouldn't have known as much as I did.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: You learn about being a part of a team, yes.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: There's a there's a different level of camaraderie in our industry, and some people call it incestuous, uh, which it can be.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but yeah, I agree with you.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody should should have to work.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: I I've often said people should have to work in the hospitality industry, and everyone should have to live in New York City for at least a year.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_03: I like that.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_03: What did you learn about living in New York?
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_03: Because you you're you're not from New York, but you're not from.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm from a small town in Georgia, uh about an hour north of Atlanta.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_02: Was it Woodstock?
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: It was Woodstock.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it looks like Woodstock is now considered a suburb of Atlanta, but we were significantly north back in the late 70s, early 80s.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: Uh now it is, you know, very much a part of it.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um but moving to New York, uh, and I know this it almost seems like an easy answer, but appreciating diversity and and just embracing different cultures and and what they bring to the table.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: I was never exposed to that growing up.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, uh, you know, we very small town.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: We were a very much white and black town.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um there weren't any other races around.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I honestly never heard the N-word until I moved to New York City.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: Really?
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: Never heard it growing up down south.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't a part of our vocabulary, it just it didn't exist.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I know the South gets a bad rap for for you know being heavily racist.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: And honestly, I never saw any aspects of racism like that until I moved to New York.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so you get exposed to so much more.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: Uh not all bad.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, obviously that's a negative side of it, but from a positive side, just being exposed to to so many different cultures and being exposed to so many different cuisines.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I had never had Ethiopian food, I didn't even know what it was.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so yeah, it was a it was a remarkable experience.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_03: So fast forward to let's say 97.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_03: You you is it from New York you came to Vegas?
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_03: It is, yeah.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_03: So what brought you to Vegas in 97?
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: I was working for Mark Packer.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, he was the guy that owned Tao and Marquee.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um he also at the time owned Harley Davidson Cafe.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: I worked at the one in New York City.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: I was still a struggling artist, wanted to be on Saturday Night Live trying to do stand-up around Manhattan.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: And uh he came to me.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: He and um uh a guy that uh has has been a significant mentor in my life for forever since, uh gentleman named Scott Young.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: Uh he and Scott came to me and said, Hey, we want you to go to New Orleans, we're opening a place.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we need someone out there that we kind of know and trust.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: Uh well you go out there.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: We just go for one year.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, I don't know.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: And they offered me a decent chunk of money, and at the time it was a huge amount of money.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: How old time I would have been 26, 25, 26.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so you know, I mean, him offering me a decent annual salary and I couldn't even afford headshots in New York City.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I I'm still playing guitar and singing, you know, Cecilia on the corner of you know 74th and Broadway, trying to make, you know, just a little bit of money so I can go to Big Nick's and get a slice of pizza and a beer.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: Please, sir.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_03: Like a little Timmy.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, offering me a little bit of cash to come out to give him one year, I was I was all for it.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, here I am almost 29 years later, still here.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_03: Do you how close?
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_03: I know SNL was a dream of yours to be on.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_03: How close were you?
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_03: Did you audition at all?
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I did not.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: The closest I came, I was actually in the audience the night that Sinead O'Connor ripped up the picture of the Pope.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: Really?
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's as close as I got.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: I was an audience member.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: You still have the ticket?
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I don't know, unfortunately.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_02: Who was your like SNL idol?
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_02: Like, was there a comedian on the show where you're like, I want to be like them?
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there there was, but it changed so much.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, when I was a little kid, John Belushi was was it for me.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um Aykroyd, I mean, all of them, Gilda Radner, Garrett Morris.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that that original cast, those first few years, uh, I mean, I could almost recite every single skit, still to this day.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I've seen them so many times.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: But but over time, um, Dennis Miller, I thought, was just absolutely fantastic.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Chris Farley, of course, uh, Adam Sandler.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's just been so many wonderful ones.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_03: When you were in New York, was it during the Sandler, Chris Farley, David Spade era?
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: Early 90s.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_01: Interesting.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_03: Do you do you remember any of your stand-up routine at all?
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: I I I still do remember.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: I do remember a couple things.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: I used to do this joke about um you know standing in line.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: You get really impatient when you're in line at the either the post office or the bank and you're weaving your way through all the way, and you get up front and the lady goes next, you're like, that's me.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: Like if you I'm next.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: And if you like being next, you can stay next.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: You let the person behind you go in front of you, next.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: Let me tell you something.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's been 30 years since I told that joke.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: I I almost got it.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: I think I stepped on it a little bit, but yeah.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: You made her snort.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_03: Whenever she needs to be getting it, that's usually a good thing.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_02: No, that's funny.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_03: That means you're funny.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_02: That's a joke.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_02: I have never heard that joke before.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_02: That is a good one.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_03: That's because you weren't in New York at the uh comedy clubs.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_02: I know, you're right.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_02: Should have been.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_02: Wasn't born yet.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_02: That's okay.
• 11:31
  unknown: That's okay.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_03: Um in 97 with Vegas, what was Vegas like?
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, I I wasn't here at that time.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_03: I was, you know, I just here as a visitor at the time.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_03: But to me, I was you know, Treasure Island was everything to me.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_03: I was 12 years old at the time, and it was it was blowing my mind.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_03: But to you, a businessman coming to Vegas at in 97, what was it like compared to what it is today?
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: Well, uh it was the last kind of uh custard stand of the old Vegas.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, this was uh New York, New York had just opened in January of that year.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: Bellagio had not yet opened, Mandalay Bay had not yet opened.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um Vegas was going through and in '97, it's hard because we didn't even know what we were about to go through.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll explain that in a second.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: But 97, I remember um there were two clubs in town.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: You had the drink and the beach, that was it.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: The drink down on Koval, um, Koval and Um, I don't know, whatever the road Ellis Island is on.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then uh the beach, obviously back over by uh where um uh over by the convention center.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, convention center.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so that that was it.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: That that literally was it until I think Studio 54 opened up in MGM a year later.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: And obviously you saw the the um the progression of the nightclub scene in in Vegas through the late 90s and and early um 2000s.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: But the big um I think catalyst for change for Vegas was in '98 when Bellagio opened.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: Steve Wynne, who I think really is, I won't say the only, because there's been others, but I will say the greatest visionary that Las Vegas has ever seen.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um just everybody else I think has copied um his visions to some degree.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, what he did at the Bellagio with Elizabeth Blau, she obviously had a great part in it, um, transformed what what Vegas is and allowed us to become what we are today.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: And um, by bringing um, you know, Syria in from Le Cirque and bringing Prime Steakhouse with John George and Carrie Simon, who was John George's chef at the time, um uh putting a focus on fine dining and significant culinary opportunity, nobody else had done that really.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: You had a you had a steakhouse and a coffee shop, right, and maybe a buffet at every other casino in town at the time.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: 295 Prime Ribs or whatever, 695, whatever it was.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: And now all of a sudden, here's this focus on making food and beverage no longer a loss leader, but a but a revenue center, a profit center.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and and they were the ones that started that and and I think laid the groundwork to allow Vegas to become what it is today, which I would argue is the greatest dining city in the world.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: Well said.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_03: Can we talk about Elizabeth Blau for a little bit?
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_03: I feel like she's as as many accomplishments as she has, I still feel like she's underrated to the public.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_03: The people that are in the industry know who she is and they they know her accomplishments.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_03: But like Julie, for example, do you are you familiar with Elizabeth Blau?
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_03: Can you kind of explain to somebody who's on the outside looking in of you know what kind of impact she's had and here in Vegas?
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I I'll speak on it from two fronts.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: And obviously, her involvement with Steve Wynn and and what they did at the Bellagio and the what they curated, the restaurants that they brought in, really kind of um set the set the tone for everyone else to to begin following.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: And before long, you saw every every hook casino and hotel in town started having finer restaurants and outside celebrity chefs and all of you know, they really started that.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um Elizabeth is um, I think, probably one of the most renowned restaurant consultants in the world at this point.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, she still has some of her own restaurants, one here in town, Honey Salt, actually a couple, I think Buddy V's uh at the Venetian, she's still involved with that.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: Uh but for the most part, her business is in helping other restaurant groups develop concepts, design concepts.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, she she does a significant amount of business around the world um doing that.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I think um the other thing that I've always been impressed by her is her uh ability to um grow the female talent in our industry.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um she's put so much focus on that.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I know right now she and Jolene Manina, who's another big um food and beverage name here in town, they have this um women's collective um where they really focus on developing uh female leaders in the in the restaurant and hotel spaces, and and they do a phenomenal job at that.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so I you know uh hats off to Elizabeth and the role she's played in in making Vegas what it is, and and she was instrumental in um we were um kind of connected that six degrees of Kevin Bacon, if you will.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, she had a hand in Carrie Simon and I uh ended up being in business together, so there was a little bit of kind of side relationships there.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: Love that.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I I always will have uh wonderful things to to say about Elizabeth.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_03: That's great.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_03: Julie, do you know who Kevin Bacon is?
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_02: I do know who Kevin Bacon is.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_03: Every now and then I gotta I gotta check in with him and see if what we're talking about is beyond her expertise.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_02: See, I do feel like my parents were born in the 50s, but I was adopted, so I and I was born in the late 90s.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_02: So I feel like I have a good range of cultural decades.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_02: Listen.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_03: We're we're working on the music scene with her.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_02: We're working introducing her to listen, smooth jazz, I've got it.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_02: Zeppelin.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_02: 80s rock, I'm out.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, well.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_03: Were you offended when New York coming from New York?
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_03: Were you offended when New York, New York opened, and you're like, this is not New York at all?
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_03: Or were you pretty open to it?
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: I was open to it.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: I I mean I'm I could see why people would, you know, but I I didn't I wasn't from New York.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I I moved here from there, but I grew up down south.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: So I I didn't have this kind of you know, birthright to the Brooklyn Bridge that, you know, how dare anyone else, you know, build a version of it.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: How dare you see it?
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: You know, yeah.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_03: So you've you've had your hand in obviously the corporate side of uh food and hospitality, uh, because you you worked your way up to VP of food beverage for MGM while here in Vegas.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: At New York, New York.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_03: At New York, New York, sound of a gun.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_03: That's right.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_03: Um so you had a good balance between corporate and then the independent side of it.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_03: This is kind of a two-parter.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_03: What can you take away?
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_03: What did you learn from the corporate side that you wouldn't learn from the independent side and vice versa?
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_03: What would you learn from the independent side you wouldn't learn from the corporate side?
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, the biggest thing on the corporate side, and I um uh talk about the things that I liked and then one specific thing that I didn't like.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, please.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um the the building of a culture and building of a team, the importance of of working together.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um nobody does it like corporate America.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it uh if you want to go learn that, then then go go go into that environment and learn it.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: Conversely, though, the politics involved with that um can be can be choking.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: It uh I I I would never want to go back into that environment again just because I mean it's just I'm not a yes man, and so it it pains me to you know have to nod and go along when I did you know disagree with something.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: You know, fortunately right now I don't have to do that.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: I we were joking this weekend with me and some family, and um they had asked about you know um what would I do if I wasn't doing what I'm doing now, and I said, you know, it's hard to even consider that because I would be a terrible employee today.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: I'd be horrible after being you know on my own for 15, 17 years, however long it's been now.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: I I couldn't go work for anyone else.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: So it's either this or I'm you know homeless Joe down on the on the corner, I guess.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: Doing stand-up.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, stand-up.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: I'll tell that joke 20 seven times in a row.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: I don't need new jokes, I just need a new audience.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: Uh what about from the independence side that uh something that you learned from the independence side that you wouldn't learn from the just the freedom, uh the ability of of doing what we want to do.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, and I don't answer to any bean counters, and I don't I don't have a CFO uh intentionally, don't have one in my company.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, we kind of have an outside, you know, CPA that helps us, et cetera.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: But I don't want somebody in the company that's making decisions that's solely financially based.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I have that freedom now.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: We make decisions based on people and product, and ultimately, if we focus on those two things, the profits will be there.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: And um, and and so I don't want anyone impeding the focus on that.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_03: Why'd you leave MGM?
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: I had an opportunity.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: I I you know it's that it's that entrepreneur bug that's kind of eats at you, and uh it had been there.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: It had been there for six months or a year.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: I'd already been contemplating a couple opportunities.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: I had already formed an LLC.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_00: My first company was called Uber Hospitality Group.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: Before Uber, the you know, thank God that didn't work out because that had been a massive legal battle.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: They'd have been in huge trouble.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: Oh brutal.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: But uh uh yeah, I I uh my president of the hotel at the time, Cindy Kaiser Murphy, who I'm still very good friends with.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, she was in in Butcher and Thief, you know, just a month ago.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, she came to me and the MGM was going through uh multiple rounds of layoffs uh as a result of that kind of 07, 08 um financial crisis with the housing, the mortgage crisis that was happening, all of that.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_03: That was a hard time.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: We were in round number two.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: She came to me on like a Friday and said, Hey, I I'm gonna need two more, two more names uh by Monday.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: And and I went home that weekend and uh came back in on Monday and I said, I'm gonna give you one name.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: And she goes, Well, I need two.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: So hear me out.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: So instead of laying off two other salaries, you're gonna lay me off.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: You're not gonna replace me.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: You'll operate without me for a while, and and I'm gonna go do my own thing.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's a ballsy move.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: Some people would call it stupid.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: I like that you chose ballsy, I appreciate that.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um it's a it's a matter of respect.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: It could have gone either way.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, listen, I uh within a year I had my first restaurant open, uh a little tiny place called Canya, which means sugar cane.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: It was a little um cevicheria and tireditos, kind of a South American thing, which if I opened today, we would crush it.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: But the timing was horrible then.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: It was right upstairs next to Blue Martini, right across from their bar.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_00: And uh and I lost everything within 15 months.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: Every every dollar I had saved up.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_00: What went wrong?
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: It literally was just a timing thing, and I think we made a bunch of mistakes.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: Uh uh, you know, just um we we were severely undercapitalized, which is the death of.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: most restaurants.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: You know, uh most restaurants they talk about the the the lifespan of restaurants being so so um shallow I mean most restaurants don't make it to a year very few ever make it to five um and I and I'm really convinced that it's not conceptual it's not menu it's not I mean it could be a combination of some of those things but the biggest factor is they're just always undercapitalized.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: We don't have enough money to to become consistent to grow to build the business and you know when you have gosh there's a neighbor to ours at Butcher and Thief that you know they opened up after we did and they're already closed that's awful in less than six months.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so and and if you talk to him the owner he'll tell you I just didn't have enough money to give it a long enough run.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: I need a longer runway.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: Very rarely are you going to open in this business and hit a home run at your first hit bat.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: You got to go up and take a few swings.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: So you got to give yourself time to do that.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_03: My dad at at that point in your life my dad was on a very similar career trajectory.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_03: He's uh was is also in the restaurant business.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_03: He do you remember uh Bertolini's it was in the forum shops absolutely yeah it was under you know uh Lombardi group and all that my dad was like president or vice president of the company and he helped open that their restaurant and he was pretty much based out of that restaurant as in the 90s um and very similar he left uh this corporate gig went to New Jersey and opened up his own shop and I loved it as you know a 12 13 year old kid it was fantastic I get all this free food free pizza you know right everything you need great um and unfortunately after a year maybe year and a half it it closed down and I know it was tough for him at the time but I still today ask him more questions about why it didn't work than the successes that he did have and obviously I'm is it because you ate all the pizza it's because I the the tab is astronomical I can't believe he's still charging me these days but I I do you learn more from failures than you do from successes.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought that's yeah I mean it's funny because uh I I like to play um poker in in my private time I don't get to play it that often but I love it and uh I was laughing not too long ago because uh poker players are notorious for they'll know every bad beat they've ever had they'll rarely remember the big hands that they won and and and so I think you do learn a lot more from failure than you do from success.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_02: Well said so with with the failure of that one I know one thing that you've talked about before is uh a dish that you really loved there that was not able to save the business but you brought it over to Carson Kitchen which I think it's called killer shrimp.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: It is it wasn't at the time it was just called crispy shrimp back then um and and Carrie Simon uh there's a guy here in town was a music producer has done a bunch of stuff named Seth Udoff and Seth was really good friends with Carrie and and friends with me and so Seth called me up saying he says hey do you know who Carrie Simon is oh absolutely he says well I'm gonna bring him in for dinner tonight and so Seth was the one that actually introduced me to Carrie gosh this would have been in 2010 is my is my guess maybe oh nine I kind of forget the exact date and then Carrie came back a uh a number of times after that and this was a dish that he especially loved.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_02: How did it feel seeing it be so successful at Carson Kitchen when it wasn't at the at the original place.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_00: Well so he he told when I told him I wanted to put it on the menu when we were finalizing Carson Kitchen um he just had this kind of little twinkle in his eye um and and it was almost this kind of you know yeah I I can not like an I told you so but it wasn't an I told you so but it was like you know I knew this was I'm glad you finally got to this like um yeah it was it's a great dish still to this day it's a it's a fantastic dish um and and I I still swear by Kanye if I opened it tomorrow in the same location maybe not the same location because I I think town square might be a bit cursed uh but if I took that concept and put it in the right spot I think we would absolutely crush it today it was just bad timing and and a and a very young owner who needed to learn a lot more um before he did it.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_03: Is it if we dive into Carrie Simon a little bit please so I've been in Vegas for 15 17 years whatever um I from the outside looking in I knew of Carrie Simon but to describe him to somebody like Julie who is relatively new to the the Vegas scene I wouldn't be doing him justice.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_03: So do you mind kind of explaining to her who Carrie Simon was what kind of impact he had on Vegas?
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: So uh Carrie was a hotshot cook out of Chicago, Illinois that uh went to CIA um ended up um becoming the youngest head chef of the Edwardian room at the Plaza Hotel in New York City.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: I think he was 25 maybe that we can and I say we uh others in the industry we've talked about this the first chef that we can uh pinpoint to put a table a chef's table in the middle of the kitchen and he did so at this aduardian room um where he would put a Polaroid camera down on there so if had celebrities or friends that wanted this reservation they came in literally sat in the kitchen now you see them all over the place they're glassed in you were in the kitchen you could reach out and touch him back at the time and still to this day his brother Scott and and Glenn and and Doug, his three brothers they have all of these photographs and they tell such an amazing story about his time back then like David Bowie proposed to Iman at that table and there's pictures of them the night that that he proposed and so there's phenomenal stories but he was this young hotshot chef that um I would argue is America's first celebrity chef.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_00: I mean Wolfgang was probably the first celebrity chef in America but he's not American and and so Kerry went on um you know he worked for Jean-George after that um Mercer Kitchen you know Jean-George um from from many restaurants went down to Miami um he he toured with multiple bands was their private chef uh I think he cooked for Alice Cooper and Motley Crue and I want to say he cooked for Led Zeppelin and if the if the Simon brothers can correct me please tell me I'll I'll stop telling that story if I'm wrong.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_00: But I believe I remember him telling me that and Rolling Stone magazine came out with a a picture of him and and nicknamed him the rock and roll chef.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_00: I love that and he was this long hair good looking guy who women loved him guys wanted to be him he was just an absolute rock star as a as a chef and and and even more so as a human being just a just a phenomenal person.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_00: Was the relationship between the two of you like a mentor mentee or was it more like brothers where you're kind of like along on the same it was a little bit of both um it started out you know he he called me up hey you know what are you doing after Kanye closed and I'm like I don't know at the time I had no clue what was next for me.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_00: I I borrowed I think it was 10 grand from my mom and dad just to be able to get caught up on some bills and um you know unwinding of failing companies is is never fun for anyone involved and so he invited me to lunch and um we sat down and we ate and he said you know he says I've got um I've got a bunch of deals out there that I need some help with and I'm like well what do you need and he says well he says I'm sick but I don't know what it is and and no one can tell me what it is.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_00: Something something's wrong and we're gonna figure it out but but I need some help while I'm dealing with this and what year is this?
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_00: This would have been in 2013.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_00: Okay and so he um not shortly before that um carry was a very healthy he ate healthy he ran every day he was not a a a drinker or partier I mean he loved staying out late but was not a you know drinks and drugs and that was not his thing and um he lost his balance jogging um and just you know okay well I must have just you know you know misstepped or whatever.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_00: And then when it happened again and he actually fell kind of faceplanted he realized something was wrong and and he went you know down to the Mayo clinic and the Cleveland clinic and I mean you name it and he was trying to find out what the heck was going on and and and they literally said to him it's everything from mercury poisoning because you eat too much fish to you know ultimately they they after gosh it was probably a year and a half two years before they finally said you have what's called MSA multiple system atrophy uh which is like a really aggressive form of Parkinson's and so the disease was attacking his all of the systems of his body and and for him it was starting with the um muscular um you know the skeletal system um and and you know unfortunately it his his brain was almost completely intact in in his final days and it just started shutting his body down um all throughout the rest.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_03: That's so unfair but that's yeah sixty years old I mean yeah yeah uh the I I'm sure there's a lot that you taught him and he learned from you.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_00: What's something and I'm sure there's a tremendous amount that you learned from him what's something that stood stands out to you that he passed on to you that well I mean the number one thing and I've told this um story before I used to I used to cook for him because he um when he started losing his balance he couldn't cook anymore.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so I would I I'm trying to impress this guy that you know I mean he was he won on Iron Chef America and so I'm making what at the time I kind of uh lovingly referred to as tweezer food um which which some of my friends in the industry will actually get a kick out of.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_00: And it's that more fine dining approach very delicate very uh and it's not at all my type of food and and it was clear in in what I was making him that that was not my food.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_00: But nonetheless I thought that that's what he wanted and that's what I needed to try to make him and so I'm trying to my best to make him the prettiest uh food I possibly could and uh and he would eat it and nod and yeah very good thank you and uh was just very kind about it and then one day I just went over to check on him um and while I was there he asked if I would cook him some lunch and I didn't hadn't planned on anything and I go in and I'm just trying to see what he has in the kitchen and I ended up making him some shrimp and grits and um he took I I don't know if it was the first bite maybe it was the second but he sets the spoon down and he says why aren't you cooking like this right like this is this is your background this is your story this is who you are in a bowl this is how you need to be cooking and and that changed my mindset not just on because we were already talking about what Carson Kitchen was going to be what did that menu look like um at this time Carson's wasn't open yet.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_00: Not yet yeah it was uh literally wasn't even called Carson Kitchen yet it was still called Carson's table um was the original name that that he had for it and I ended up changing it to Carson Kitchen.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_00: But it but it was that bit of advice that um I think helped me greatly in the kitchen.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah um but even more than that helped me just personally just um quit trying to be something that I'm not just go out and be yourself and I think it has an allowed me to succeed in in so many more ways than just in business.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_00: Julie have you been to Carson's kitchen yet?
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_00: I have nothing so good.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_02: Everyone always gets on me and I'm I'm running out of time we're 12 years old now.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_00: I mean come on I yes you just had your 12 year anniversary congratulations we did thank you yeah it it's funny it um it feels like just yesterday that it was the first couple and and I know everybody says that I guess the older we get the more we make those kind of comments but um yeah I mean I guess we're kind of like the grandfather of the industry in town one of them I mean obviously there are there are people that blaze trails long before we did um what Nina Manchev did um uh I'm drawing a blank on Nina's uh restaurant it's closed we'll come back to we'll get back to so but Tony Shea what was Tony Shea's level of involvement in downtown when Carson Kitchen opened so Tony and Carrie were friends and Tony told Kerry listen I want you to do a restaurant downtown and so Carrie came to me and said hey here's one of the deals let's go look at this and we went down um the deal hadn't yet been struck the the ultimate deal um Tony funded the whole thing right he wrote the check he built the whole place and then basically handed us keys and said here make it successful um but our first visit down to the to the John E.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_00: Carson building um uh involved spraying off human feces off of the front door so that we can walk in talking about I mean to the vision that it took to to look at this building which was completely dilapidated I mean just completely run down and to look at it and say okay not just physically I can put a restaurant in here but I can make one work here.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_00: It took a lot of vision it was not mine it was Carrie and Tony sure um and and I bought in shortly thereafter it was harder for me to see it um once once it went from Carson's table which was going to be this kind of um go for a Michelin star um you know maybe a ticket price per seat you know fine dining um once it went from that you know two turns a night kind of a deal to what Carson Kitchen ultimately became which is this approachable recognizable familiar comfortable you know like I want to wear it like a like an old coat gastro pub um then I was all in.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah does it bother you when people say Carson's kitchen as opposed to Carson's it used to it did it used to I used to correct him and I'm like being a dick let them say whatever they want bigger problems at least they're talking about it.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly also to interrupt Nina Manchev Forte sorry Nina I totally I I had a brain fart there but but listen Nina Nina was open years before any of the rest of us tried to do an independent restaurant off strip.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah and she was doing you know um guest chef dinners uh at Forte with you know john courtney and all these you know great chefs that were going and doing dinners there and so hats off to what Nina did i i always try to pay a little a little respect to the to the people that that paved the roads for us to do what we did and then I know we then came and repaved them and allowed a whole lot of people to come behind us.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_03: Well said Carson Kitchen has been open for 12 years and we talked about how hard it is for restaurants especially today to remain open after a year, two years X amount of years so I'm not asking about the secret of a success of being open for 12 years.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_03: What I'm asking about is it's still such a beloved restaurant that anybody that knows downtown fine dining it's always at the top of the list because it just like you described it like it you draped it drapes over you and like you you you're comfortable there.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_03: What is your strategy when it comes as a business owner as a you know restaurateur when it comes to creating the vibe and the experience that people get at Carson Kitchen other than obviously the quality of the food which is delicious but what's your behind the scenes secret for how it's so beloved?
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_00: Well the people in the building are are are are are probably paramount to to the success of it the every every single server and bartender.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_00: I think the philosophy to the menu um it has really allowed people to to grab hold and and there's kind of it's it's two um kind of uh trains of thought and the first one is um how do I reinvent recreate modernize uh reintroduce you to dishes that you're already familiar with yes um and and I we've been very successful with that and and and I'll give you an example uh you take a shepherd's pie um and and we took you know the lamb out of the shepherd's pie and instead of ground lamb we made a crepinette and instead of mashed potatoes on top we made gnocchi and before you know it we have all the exact same ingredients same flavor profile and a completely new modernized dish that we called shepherd's 3.14 and so I think that that approach to the menu people really bought into the second side of that approach is I really wanted to introduce people to typically fine dining ingredients.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_00: And this came from Kerry this you know the Kerry was the first kind of big name chef to leave the Bellagio, the prime steakhouse, the big restaurant and go do an independent restaurant and serve meatloaf and mashed potatoes and mac and cheese and fried chicken and, you know, just taking that fine dining approach to comfort food.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_00: And and so I you know I took that mindset of of what he accomplished with Simon Kitchen and Barr and I added back the old fine dining the foie gras, the caviars, the rabbits, the all of that stuff that we've been successful in introducing people to at Carson Kitchen and and we almost trick you into eating it.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_00: People like oh I don't know about caviar but if I put it on a deviled egg it's just a deviled egg.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_00: It just happens to gotcha exactly and then before you know it I mean you know we were we were kind of um benefit of the time because social media was really you know what it is booming.
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_00: Really people 12 years ago everybody was on Facebook.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_00: You know they weren't on Instagram and TikTok and all that stuff didn't exist.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_00: And 12 years ago everybody's on Facebook and everybody's posting this is what I had for dinner tonight and they're they're humble bragging I had caviar and I had oxtail and I had so that really helped us um as well but you know I think at the end of the day it oh and the other side of the menu was um attaching stories to it um and not that every single dish that a guest orders that a server takes the time to tell the story behind the dish but that there is that human connection to the dish and I think you can feel it whether whether you were aware of the story or not but I think everybody just aware of the presence of them.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_00: And and so they're almost like little Easter eggs when you go in you know next time you go ask them where the chicken skins come from and they'll tell you that you know little fat kid Corey on a Sunday afternoon when grandma was making fried chicken after church I used to go in and just rip the skin off the damn chicken breast that's all I wanted to eat.
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's a dish that we ended up putting on because of that.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_00: And and there's so many of those little stories.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_00: I mean even the names of the drinks all are you know kind of paying respect to parts and times of my life or people in my life that mean something to me.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_00: I mean that really was the restaurant that and I and I kind of subscribe to this mindset and and everywhere in all of my restaurants but this one really embraced it much more than anything else which is I just don't think there's a single greater way of connecting with another human being than by sharing food and drink.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's what we do in every aspect of our lives the things we celebrate commemorate even the stuff that we mourn.
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_00: Were you a fat little kid?
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_00: I was a little fatter I refuse to believe that yeah well my brother I swear that my brother was really skinny which made me look fatter.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_00: So it's really Wayne it's your fault skinny little dick.
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_03: Classic way you recently so your your newer venture that you have uh Butcher and thief you recently had to create a brand new menu for this yeah and you kind of touched on this a little bit with with this last question with the last answer but when you're when it comes to building a menu what's your approach to it well it's a great question.
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I think there's it depends on situation.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_00: There are times I think when an author has a title and overarching story of a book in mind and starts to write and then the characters are born from that writing.
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I think there are other times when the characters are the first thought and the story is written around them.
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I think a menu is very similar to that.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_00: Butcher and thief the menu it it wasn't as difficult as Carson Kitchen because we weren't trying to reinvent the wheel right we were just trying to make the wheel more affordable so it was it was a little bit easier to do now granted we still wanted to take our approach to the food and I I think food needs to be opinionated.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't like it I want you to hate it I'd rather that dish piss you off than for you to just say it was okay.
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_00: So because I think at least you'll know we tried we tried to do something different with it.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_00: So I didn't want just the plain boring mac and cheese that you can find at every other steakhouse or plain boring mashed potatoes or you know any number of the other kind of uh obligatory steakhouse dishes.
• 43:10
  SPEAKER_00: So to that end we we put a lot of uh thought and intention into it but but the menu really is a classic American menu.
• 43:19
  SPEAKER_00: Our uh hook if you will is I want to give you that classic American steakhouse without you bitching and moaning about the price tag on your way home.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah I mean that's one of the reasons like me and my husband we have never been to a steakhouse together and we've been together for six years and it's because we're like well we want a good steak but why are we going to go spend three hundred dollars?
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah I I agree with your philosophy on that.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_00: And and listen Vegas has some fantastic steakhouses and I am friends with many of the owners of them and I love what they do but unfortunately every time you go to a lot of These high-end places, I end up saying the same thing.
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_00: It was wonderful until the bill came out.
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_00: And then you look at it and you're like, ooh, it just wasn't that good, was it?
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_03: So is is this does this uh uh kind of lead you to what Butcher and Thief became?
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_00: So Butcher and Thief really was kind of born out of that uh void in our in our industry.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_00: I I I miss the days of that local neighborhood steakhouse that you would go to on a Friday night.
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um and nowadays the steakhouses um in most cities, and it's not just Las Vegas.
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_00: This is not a dig on on Vegas, this is everywhere in America.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_00: Most steakhouses are uh it's a corporate card event or it's a celebratory.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um we're doing a birthday or an anniversary or somebody graduated from med school or whatever it is.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, even even if you've you can afford it.
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I you know, my wife and I do fairly well, but we're not looking to drop$400 on a random Tuesday night for dinner.
• 44:59
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 44:59
  SPEAKER_00: And and that's where Butcher and Thief really really came from.
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_00: And and then the real challenge was well, how how can I offer a comparable experience um with less money at less cost?
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_00: And um, you know, we were fortunate in and um technique um being technique driven in our approach to the stakes kind of saved us there.
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_00: We sous-vy everything.
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_00: So I bring in a choice quality product instead of a prime.
• 45:24
  SPEAKER_00: Only five percent of of meat is prime grade, so you can understand why that meat is so expensive today.
• 45:30
  SPEAKER_00: So we bring in intentionally bring in a choice, um, you know, probably half the price of of the prime meat.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_00: We sous-vy it all to 105 degrees.
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we we then hard sear on a 800-degree flat top, uh, and then let it rest, hit it with tallow butter, and then finish on an open flame.
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and at the end of the day, um the vast majority of the customer would never know the difference between our steaks and and and one that's twice as much money across the street.
• 46:00
  SPEAKER_00: That sounds like I'm I'm starving.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_00: Well, let's go.
• 46:03
  SPEAKER_00: Let's go.
• 46:03
  SPEAKER_00: What are you doing?
• 46:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going there for happy hour today, honestly.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_00: I got a birthday party I'm going to.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_02: I did have a question that's not on our list because it just popped into my mind.
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_02: And maybe the name refers to a parable or something I'm not familiar with.
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_02: But when you're talking about uh it it's almost like there is a sense of thievery to a lot of steakhouses.
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_02: Oh perhaps where the name butcher and thief came from.
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_00: It is not, but I like it.
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_00: Son of a gun.
• 46:30
  SPEAKER_00: I like it.
• 46:31
  SPEAKER_00: So obviously everyone knows what a what a butcher is.
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um the thief is a tool used in winemaking.
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um so i let me back up.
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_00: Steaks are not the only thing that have become incredibly high priced.
• 46:43
  SPEAKER_00: Wine also has.
• 46:45
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you you're hard pressed to find a a good bottle of wine for less than$100 anywhere here in town.
• 46:51
  SPEAKER_00: And we really wanted to make sure that we were um taking the same uh fervor with the pricing of wine as we did with with the steak.
• 47:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so thief uh refers to during the aging process, while the wine is in the barrel, they will periodically go and extract or steal some of the wine to taste.
• 47:11
  SPEAKER_00: And they're trying to look for structure, they're looking for any bacteria that may be present in the wine.
• 47:16
  SPEAKER_00: There's any number of reasons why they're they're doing that, but that is called a wine thief, and it's almost like a turkey baster.
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_00: That's a long glass tube that they will stick in the side of the barrel and they'll steal some of the wine.
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_00: Hence butcher and thief.
• 47:29
  SPEAKER_00: Son of a bitch.
• 47:29
  SPEAKER_00: Look at that.
• 47:30
  SPEAKER_00: But I like where you were going, yeah.
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_00: Julie?
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_00: What a bunch of thieves out there.
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_01: Highway robbery in the steakhouses.
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_00: I think my friends might might not like me saying that too much.
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry, I didn't mean it either.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_00: No, that's okay.
• 47:41
  SPEAKER_00: That's okay.
• 47:42
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I mean, so you're six months in with Butcher and Thief at the bend.
• 47:46
  SPEAKER_03: Being that you're keeping things as reasonably uh uh reasonably priced, yeah, how are you able to make a profit off of that?
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_03: Like what's your sourcing strategy when it comes to finding the food?
• 47:59
  SPEAKER_00: So we have wonderful vendors that we're working with, but like I said, the fact that we're bringing in a little bit of a lesser product at a significantly lesser price than the prime, our margins are about the same as theirs.
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_00: That's great.
• 48:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um we're we're just able, by technique, able to serve a comparable product because we do take the time to sous vide.
• 48:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's a it's a much you know, much more laborious three-step process than you know the average steakhouse down on the strip just grabbing a slab of really great meat, salt and pepper, and throwing it on a grill.
• 48:31
  SPEAKER_03: So a majority of the steakhouses in town, they're phenomenal steakhouses, but they're dark.
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_03: They're yeah, very not gloomy, but they're just it's it's the vibe that you get.
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_03: With butcher and thief, you have floor to wall or floor to ceiling windows at your patio.
• 48:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was important.
• 48:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um women make most of buying decisions in our world today, um, especially when it comes to to dining out.
• 48:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I don't understand the my father's old mobile approach to steakhouses.
• 49:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so we wanted it to be light and bright and and a little bit more feminine and sexy and modern, and and uh I'm very proud of the the the look of the steakhouse.
• 49:09
  SPEAKER_00: I think we we definitely hit a home run there.
• 49:11
  SPEAKER_03: I dig it.
• 49:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 49:12
  SPEAKER_02: Was all of that was it designed by you, like the appearance of it, or did you have someone else on your team who did that?
• 49:18
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, it's well, not on the team.
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_00: I work directly.
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Ryan was our architect and designer from uh Rad Design.
• 49:25
  SPEAKER_00: Uh shout out to Rad.
• 49:26
  SPEAKER_00: Shout out Rad.
• 49:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, Rad Rad is uh down in the uh in the uh container park is where um their offices are.
• 49:34
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Ryan and Yanina um is his wife, and um they just did a fantastic job.
• 49:40
  SPEAKER_00: And and uh Ryan and I worked really well together.
• 49:43
  SPEAKER_00: And and there's only been a couple in my career that I can say this about Craig Palacios and Tina Wickman um designed from Bunnyfish.
• 49:52
  SPEAKER_00: They designed Carson Kitchen, uh, and then what Ryan and and and and very similar, both of them um they were able to kind of take vision out of my head and and get it, because I'm not an architect or a designer.
• 50:05
  SPEAKER_00: I know what I like and and what I what I want something to look like, and and they they both just did phenomenal jobs with both those venues.
• 50:13
  SPEAKER_03: You ever throw your apron on and get in the back of the house?
• 50:15
  SPEAKER_03: Or is it the same thing?
• 50:16
  SPEAKER_00: I I do.
• 50:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um they they don't want me to because I just get in the way.
• 50:20
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I'm I'm what you call a dinner party chef now.
• 50:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 50:24
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I'm the guy you want in the kitchen at my house when there's six or eight of us and there's no timetable.
• 50:31
  SPEAKER_00: I can cook for two hours and we can get drunk and listen to great music, and there's no rush.
• 50:37
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I love.
• 50:38
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to be um behind the stoves now uh with with people yelling at me times.
• 50:44
  SPEAKER_00: I I just want to be the guy in front yelling the times out.
• 50:46
  SPEAKER_02: That sounds fun.
• 50:47
  SPEAKER_02: We want to come over for dinner.
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_02: Let's do it.
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_02: Let's do it.
• 50:49
  SPEAKER_03: This is the music.
• 50:50
  SPEAKER_03: You can introduce Julie to some some 80s rock.
• 50:52
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, 70s and 80s.
• 50:53
  SPEAKER_00: We've got to do a little yacht rock in the middle.
• 50:57
  SPEAKER_02: My parents were in college in the 70s, so I feel like I know that a little bit more.
• 51:00
  SPEAKER_02: There you go.
• 51:01
  SPEAKER_00: The yacht rock, I don't know if you know this.
• 51:03
  SPEAKER_00: The yacht rock's got a yacht house channel on Sirius now, and it's I did know this.
• 51:09
  SPEAKER_00: Imagine like um Michael McDonald and the Doobie Brothers to like an underlying Tiesto beat.
• 51:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's fantastic.
• 51:18
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, you got you sold me at Doobie Brothers with Tiesto.
• 51:22
  SPEAKER_00: It really is fantastic.
• 51:23
  SPEAKER_00: We'll take it.
• 51:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 51:24
  SPEAKER_03: Um this question is mainly asked to chefs like that that are you know day in, day out in the back of the house.
• 51:32
  SPEAKER_03: But I want to ask this to you too, with social media the way it is today compared to what it was twelve years ago or so.
• 51:38
  SPEAKER_03: Uh how important is having influencers be a part of the marketing strategy when it comes to butchering thief or even carcinogens?
• 51:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I I I uh I've heard all sides of the answers of this question.
• 51:51
  SPEAKER_00: As have we.
• 51:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I and I and I think they're all correct.
• 51:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um it's massively important.
• 51:57
  SPEAKER_00: I I don't think you can have a presence online and on the right platforms that you need today without involving the voices that have the audience that you need.
• 52:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um the challenge and the dilemma is the budgeting and the and and and where do you fit them in?
• 52:15
  SPEAKER_00: How do you compensate them for their time?
• 52:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um we don't outright pay um any influencers, but we're very happy to have them in um and provide them with food and beverage so that they can enjoy an experience that we would want them to enjoy, and then they voice their opinion of that experience however they they see fit.
• 52:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but it is absolutely a um a strategy.
• 52:38
  SPEAKER_00: And and and one, I mean, I our publicist Lauren, who's here in the room with us, just sent me an email today of someone that is looking, wants to come in and collab with us, and and and I just approved uh their their ability to come in.
• 52:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I it's very important.
• 52:54
  SPEAKER_00: And if you'd asked me three years ago that same question, I'd have said, ah, F them.
• 52:59
  SPEAKER_00: Influencers, they're I hate them all, that blah blah.
• 53:02
  SPEAKER_00: Why do they deserve anything for free?
• 53:04
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, so with all things, with time, we mature, we grow, we understand um the necessity of and the importance of, and and honestly, not to disrespect any of them, let's give them their their their just due and and their props.
• 53:20
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we want their audience, and they've worked hard to develop that audience, so uh absolutely it's a critical component.
• 53:27
  SPEAKER_00: That's a very professional answer.
• 53:29
  SPEAKER_00: How'd I do, Lauren?
• 53:30
  SPEAKER_00: Is that good?
• 53:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 53:33
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 53:33
  SPEAKER_03: Love that.
• 53:34
  SPEAKER_03: Uh in terms of your leadership style, I'm very curious about all the guests that we have on that are, you know, where they are in their leadership style.
• 53:42
  SPEAKER_03: What would you say your leadership style would be similar to?
• 53:46
  SPEAKER_03: Um Are you more of a hard closed fist type of leader?
• 53:50
  SPEAKER_00: I am I'm uh I'm firm, absolutely firm.
• 53:53
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have a lot of tolerance for for bullshit.
• 53:56
  SPEAKER_00: I just don't, especially when it has to do with business.
• 53:58
  SPEAKER_00: I I want to have as much fun as anyone else, but when in business it's time for business.
• 54:02
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 54:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I I don't I don't um I'm firm, but but but I'm I'm empathetic.
• 54:09
  SPEAKER_00: I'm compassionate.
• 54:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not I'm not just a complete um dictator.
• 54:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's not my way or the highway.
• 54:15
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm very collaborative, um, but I absolutely will not ever sacrifice my um standards, and I will I will ask you to bring yours up to mine, and if you can't, then good luck to you.
• 54:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um but but I will not bring mine down to yours.
• 54:30
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 54:30
  SPEAKER_03: Well what what was Carrie like?
• 54:32
  SPEAKER_03: What was his dialogue?
• 54:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um Carrie was an absolute teddy bear.
• 54:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um and and I would think underestimated as a result of it.
• 54:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um because he had such a wonderful ability of getting people to do things the way he needed them done, but without having to ever come across as firm.
• 54:56
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, he never I never heard him lace anyone up and down like most chefs do, and you know, it was none of that.
• 55:02
  SPEAKER_00: He just had a wonderful ability of bringing out the best in you.
• 55:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I think I learned a lot of that from him.
• 55:10
  SPEAKER_03: Well said.
• 55:11
  SPEAKER_03: You uh you've been on a handful of podcasts before.
• 55:14
  SPEAKER_03: Obviously, Julie and I have done our research.
• 55:16
  SPEAKER_03: It's been 95% Julie doing the research.
• 55:19
  SPEAKER_03: Look at that face that she's given me.
• 55:21
  SPEAKER_02: I wasn't gonna correct you this time.
• 55:22
  SPEAKER_00: I know, thank you.
• 55:22
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, she didn't go to Carson to Kitchen to research, but Okay, in my defense, and I know that I'm running out of time to use this excuse.
• 55:30
  SPEAKER_02: Here we go.
• 55:30
  SPEAKER_02: I've been in Vegas less than a year.
• 55:31
  SPEAKER_00: You're running out of time to use this.
• 55:33
  SPEAKER_00: When is the year?
• 55:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, the end of July.
• 55:35
  SPEAKER_00: All right, she has till the end of July, Laura.
• 55:38
  SPEAKER_00: I'm even gonna buy the dinner.
• 55:40
  SPEAKER_00: I just want her to go down and enjoy it.
• 55:41
  SPEAKER_00: I've I do want to go.
• 55:42
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 55:43
  SPEAKER_00: There you go.
• 55:44
  SPEAKER_00: No excuses.
• 55:44
  SPEAKER_02: There's no excuse.
• 55:45
  SPEAKER_02: I'll message all.
• 55:48
  SPEAKER_03: You've so you've been on a handful of podcasts before.
• 55:50
  SPEAKER_03: One of the things that we have here in our notes is you said that most interview questions are bullshit.
• 55:54
  SPEAKER_03: Do you feel do you still feel that way?
• 55:56
  SPEAKER_03: I do.
• 55:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 55:57
  SPEAKER_00: Not this kind of interview.
• 55:59
  SPEAKER_03: Good.
• 56:00
  SPEAKER_00: The interview I'm talking about is when I'm interviewing staff, potential employees, team members.
• 56:04
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 56:05
  SPEAKER_00: Most of those questions are bullshit.
• 56:07
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 56:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, if you were a flavor of ice cream, what flavor would you be?
• 56:12
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you know, for fuck's sake, I I don't know.
• 56:15
  SPEAKER_00: Fucking mint, chocolate, rocky road, um, a little bit of all of it.
• 56:19
  SPEAKER_00: I just I don't put anything into those.
• 56:22
  SPEAKER_00: And and honestly, what I really mean by that is that at the end of the day, there's only one thing that matters.
• 56:27
  SPEAKER_00: And and so there's one question that I have found over the years that gets me to to what matters.
• 56:33
  SPEAKER_00: And that's if I'm interviewing you and I, hey, listen, if I'm if I'm coming over to dinner tonight, what are we having?
• 56:41
  SPEAKER_00: Or if you don't cook, that's okay.
• 56:42
  SPEAKER_00: You could be a bartender and not be passionate about the kitchen.
• 56:46
  SPEAKER_00: If we're going to dinner tonight, where are we going and what are we eating?
• 56:49
  SPEAKER_00: I just want to hear you talk about food.
• 56:51
  SPEAKER_02: Do you have a most memorable or favorite answer you've ever received to that?
• 56:55
  SPEAKER_00: I spent an hour with somebody talking about Eleven Madison Park.
• 57:00
  SPEAKER_00: Because they talked about this is where we would go and here's why we'd would go there.
• 57:04
  SPEAKER_00: And then I shared my wife and I went there the night before I cooked at the James Beard house in New York, and here was our experience.
• 57:10
  SPEAKER_00: Literally, an hour we talked about 11 Madison Park.
• 57:13
  SPEAKER_02: I assume they got hired.
• 57:14
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, without a doubt.
• 57:15
  SPEAKER_00: Without a doubt.
• 57:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 57:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 57:17
  SPEAKER_00: What's that?
• 57:17
  SPEAKER_00: I said I would hope so.
• 57:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 57:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 57:18
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
• 57:19
  SPEAKER_00: And all I'm looking for is do you get excited?
• 57:21
  SPEAKER_00: Does your does your voice raise a little bit?
• 57:23
  SPEAKER_00: Do you get a little passionate talking about what you're going to cook me or what restaurant you want to take us to?
• 57:28
  SPEAKER_00: What are we going to eat?
• 57:29
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you don't, I can't do anything with you.
• 57:31
  SPEAKER_00: I I can't teach you the ability of getting excited to talk about food.
• 57:36
  SPEAKER_03: And that that leads to the guest experience.
• 57:38
  SPEAKER_03: Correct.
• 57:38
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 57:39
  SPEAKER_00: Because I I mean, I've often said I can teach you everything there is to know about this business.
• 57:42
  SPEAKER_00: I can teach you how to cook.
• 57:43
  SPEAKER_00: I can teach you how to do numbers.
• 57:44
  SPEAKER_00: I can teach you all of that.
• 57:45
  SPEAKER_00: I can't teach you to give a damn.
• 57:47
  SPEAKER_00: So I need to hire people that give a damn, and then we'll we'll teach them the rest.
• 57:50
  SPEAKER_02: Andrew, what would you cook for Corey?
• 57:52
  SPEAKER_00: What would I cook for Corey?
• 57:53
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah, yeah.
• 57:54
  SPEAKER_03: I have an incredible turkey chili recipe that uh will definitely it's got a little kick to it.
• 57:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 57:59
  SPEAKER_03: And you may be you may be on the toilet the next day.
• 58:03
  SPEAKER_03: But let me tell you something.
• 58:04
  SPEAKER_03: We call that weight loss.
• 58:06
  unknown: Exactly.
• 58:06
  SPEAKER_03: You'll be you'll be you'll be singing my my praises by but by that.
• 58:09
  SPEAKER_03: You may be on the toilet, but it'll be great.
• 58:11
  SPEAKER_00: I like it.
• 58:11
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 58:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um white chili or red chili?
• 58:14
  SPEAKER_03: Red chili.
• 58:14
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 58:15
  SPEAKER_00: Red chili, yes.
• 58:16
  SPEAKER_00: You threw me with the turkey.
• 58:17
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know if you were going like a chicken.
• 58:18
  SPEAKER_00: I'll kind of white.
• 58:19
  SPEAKER_03: I'll tell you why, because um my dad, again, getting back to my dad being the restaurant business, he worked closely with Robert Irvine on uh one of his uh restaurants, and I just had a chance to sit down with him and bullshit with him, and we were doing shots of Jameson.
• 58:34
  SPEAKER_03: He's he could definitely throw back.
• 58:36
  SPEAKER_03: And I somehow got on the conversation of going on a date and needing to have some sort of recipe.
• 58:41
  SPEAKER_03: And he threw out this turkey chili recipe and I wrote it down.
• 58:44
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know if it was date worth, I don't know if it was like a good first date type of recipe to do.
• 58:49
  SPEAKER_03: What he's saying is Robert Irvine got him laid.
• 58:51
  SPEAKER_03: Robert Irvine did get me laid, and then Thank you, Robert, and then she blew up his bathroom the next day.
• 58:58
  SPEAKER_03: And then it was love after that.
• 59:00
  SPEAKER_00: It was thank you, Robert, for lady.
• 59:01
  SPEAKER_00: It was damn you Bob the next morning.
• 59:04
  SPEAKER_03: Damn you, Bob Irvine.
• 59:05
  SPEAKER_03: Oh my god, that's so good.
• 59:07
  SPEAKER_03: You've oh my god, I love it.
• 59:13
  SPEAKER_03: Um, all right, Julie, where are we on these notes here?
• 59:15
  SPEAKER_02: We're jumping around, but I know, we're jumping around.
• 59:17
  SPEAKER_03: I want to talk about you cooked at a James Beard House for a Las Vegas themed event.
• 59:21
  SPEAKER_03: Is that true?
• 59:21
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, can you tell us a little bit about that?
• 59:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so uh it's actually kind of funny.
• 59:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um uh I was represented by a different publicist at the time, and I had gone to her and said, you know, I I have this idea.
• 59:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I want to go to the James Beard House, let's call them, and I want to do a Vegas dinner with other like chefs, like some of our other independent chefs around town.
• 59:45
  SPEAKER_00: And she um kind of giggled and said, You should go talk to Brian Howard uh from Sparrow and Wolf.
• 59:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um and evidently Brian had a very similar idea.
• 59:55
  SPEAKER_00: So I called Brian and I'm like, hey, I had this thought and shared it with him, and he laughed and he goes, I'm I'm thinking the same thing.
• 1:00:02
  SPEAKER_00: Let's put something together.
• 1:00:04
  SPEAKER_00: And so we went, um, and it was Nicole Bresson and Gina Marinelli and Jamie Tran.
• 1:00:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it was um oh gosh, who else was there?
• 1:00:17
  SPEAKER_00: Kai Vu uh was there from the old district one uh and Mordeo.
• 1:00:22
  SPEAKER_00: I love District.
• 1:00:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um there was uh Gary Lamort, who's now the chef for the Raiders.
• 1:00:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um anyway, we we took all these uh kind of Vegas um you know neighborhood people, everybody that had kind of cut their teeth in all the big chef about big hotels and and were doing their own thing.
• 1:00:42
  SPEAKER_00: And and we did, I think, what was a just a phenomenal dinner.
• 1:00:46
  SPEAKER_00: We all paired up, so there were two of us on on on we each had a couple appetizers as guests would arrive, and then we each shared a course that we did.
• 1:00:54
  SPEAKER_00: So Jamie Tran and I uh worked together on that, and we did a Nigerian prawn.
• 1:01:00
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 1:01:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um with and I forget the name of it, she would have to to tell you it was Vietnamese, but it's essentially a Vietnamese tamale.
• 1:01:08
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, uh, and it was absolutely spectacular with little pumpkin fume.
• 1:01:13
  SPEAKER_00: It was it was very, very good.
• 1:01:14
  SPEAKER_00: It was very tweezer, yeah.
• 1:01:16
  SPEAKER_00: It was very tweezer food.
• 1:01:17
  SPEAKER_03: But but I put a little soul into it.
• 1:01:19
  SPEAKER_03: Good for you.
• 1:01:19
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:01:20
  SPEAKER_03: Julie, this this next section is is gonna be Julie's baby because Julie was very passionate about one of the interviews you did previously, and this is something that she just she's like, why didn't he ask more about it?
• 1:01:31
  SPEAKER_02: So I I did say that with no no critique to the people that you're talking about this with.
• 1:01:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's all love.
• 1:01:36
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I'm throwing them under the bus.
• 1:01:37
  SPEAKER_00: Whoever's gonna be able to do it.
• 1:01:38
  SPEAKER_02: Now listen, I don't know if you were just joking or if you were being honest about this book that you mentioned, but please, for the love of God, tell me about that fucking bowl of rice.
• 1:01:50
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 1:01:50
  SPEAKER_02: Because I I feel like you didn't elaborate on it, and I said and you said bleeping.
• 1:01:55
  SPEAKER_02: I assumed that that's another word.
• 1:01:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it absolutely was.
• 1:01:59
  SPEAKER_00: Well, so this goes to This is 11 Madison Park, right?
• 1:02:03
  SPEAKER_00: So I I have the outline and some of the chapter titles.
• 1:02:09
  SPEAKER_00: Remember, I told you sometime the titles come before the content.
• 1:02:13
  SPEAKER_00: So I have it going.
• 1:02:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's a work in progress.
• 1:02:17
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know that it'll ever be done.
• 1:02:20
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe.
• 1:02:21
  SPEAKER_02: Well, if it is, I want a copy.
• 1:02:22
  SPEAKER_00: But one of those chapters is called That Fucking Bowl of Rice.
• 1:02:26
  SPEAKER_02: Well, what about it?
• 1:02:27
  SPEAKER_00: So we we go.
• 1:02:28
  SPEAKER_00: My my wife fell in love with a show on Netflix called Seven Days Out.
• 1:02:33
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a documentary series that starts filming seven days from the launch of a major event.
• 1:02:40
  SPEAKER_00: It could be New York Fashion Week, the Kentucky Derby.
• 1:02:44
  SPEAKER_00: Well, this one particular episode happened to be the reopening of Eleven Madison Park.
• 1:02:50
  SPEAKER_00: Because as most of you know, they won number one restaurant in the world and immediately shut down to remodel the entire venue.
• 1:03:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so this was seven days out, and of course, this was Will and Daniel still together, Will Gadera, Daniel Home.
• 1:03:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, they were still together and they were reopening 11 Madison Park.
• 1:03:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so she was watching this and she loved the way they, you know, they brought the the hot uh scissor clamps to snap, to they they literally sear off the top of the wine bottle as a part of their wine presentation.
• 1:03:26
  SPEAKER_00: Then they take that top of the wine bottle and they put it in a little box and let you take it home with you.
• 1:03:31
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, they literally thought of everything.
• 1:03:34
  SPEAKER_00: So I come home and after I worked on this with Brian Howard, and we decide we're gonna do this dinner, and I, hey, baby, uh uh we're gonna go to New York and I'm gonna get to cook at the James Beard House.
• 1:03:46
  SPEAKER_00: And listen, this is a huge, huge moment for me.
• 1:03:50
  SPEAKER_00: The James Beard House, being able to go cook there.
• 1:03:53
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, everybody in our industry wants to go do that or to be recognized in some way, shape, or form from them.
• 1:04:00
  SPEAKER_00: And as I say to my wonderful wife, I I'm gonna be able to go cook at the James Beard House, and we're gonna go to New York.
• 1:04:08
  SPEAKER_00: And she says, can we go to 11 Madison Park?
• 1:04:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, but but what about me?
• 1:04:17
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, so so I call uh a really good friend of mine.
• 1:04:21
  SPEAKER_00: He's an attorney uh in New York, and and he's a just a huge foodie.
• 1:04:25
  SPEAKER_00: And by huge, I mean fat.
• 1:04:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, Pete, I've called you fat.
• 1:04:30
  SPEAKER_00: No, he's not really.
• 1:04:31
  SPEAKER_00: Uh he actually ran a triathlon, but he's the fattest triathlete I've ever met in my entire life.
• 1:04:36
  SPEAKER_00: God bless him.
• 1:04:37
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I don't know that I've ever known a pudgy.
• 1:04:39
  SPEAKER_00: Can you be pudgy and complete a triathlon?
• 1:04:42
  SPEAKER_02: I think you can.
• 1:04:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, if the first leg is uh, you know, a mile and a bar, and then it's you know 22 fast food restaurants.
• 1:04:52
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, Pete and his lovely wife Erin joined us at 11 Madison Park.
• 1:04:56
  SPEAKER_00: And we sat down, and it's like I think it's 375 a ticket.
• 1:05:03
  SPEAKER_00: So you buy the tickets ahead of time.
• 1:05:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I intentionally put a personal email address down, not a work one.
• 1:05:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um why I had already read Danny Meyer's book, Setting the Table, and I knew Danny, who was Will's uh mentor, I knew Danny was known for going into Union Square and checking the reservation list every day and looking that and he would Google this.
• 1:05:33
  SPEAKER_00: Is back Google was just launched.
• 1:05:35
  SPEAKER_00: He would Google the names to see if he could find any information about them that would give him the ability of connecting with them personally.
• 1:05:43
  SPEAKER_00: And and so I didn't I wanted to see kind of what Will and them would do, and I didn't want to make it easy on them by giving them my 11 hospitality group email address.
• 1:05:54
  SPEAKER_00: So I buy the four tickets, we show up, um, we sit down and And um first of all, they had my wife and I on our honeymoon, the first few days we were in Napa and we stayed at the Cane uh winery, and they had a bottle of cane five from the original year that they launched, I think in 1974 or whatever.
• 1:06:17
  SPEAKER_00: So it already became a special experience, just the fact that they had this.
• 1:06:21
  SPEAKER_00: So we bought that wine and we're drinking some wine, and the first course comes out, and it's a caviar course, and you can't fuck up caviar.
• 1:06:29
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you really just just put it on a plate, give me a couple things to schmear it on, and we're good.
• 1:06:34
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, nothing remarkable or bad about the first course.
• 1:06:39
  SPEAKER_00: Excuse me.
• 1:06:40
  SPEAKER_00: Cut that out.
• 1:06:42
  SPEAKER_03: Um we're leading the episode with that.
• 1:06:45
  SPEAKER_00: There you go, yeah.
• 1:06:46
  SPEAKER_00: The second course, um there's a chef comes rolling behind us with a Gyaradon, the fancy, you know, wooden cart right behind me and just over my left shoulder, and he pulls up next to us and he tells us that our next course is going to be porridge.
• 1:07:06
  SPEAKER_00: And my first thought was motherfucker, I spent$375 a ticket.
• 1:07:14
  SPEAKER_00: You are not gonna fucking serve me porridge.
• 1:07:18
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't say that, but I thought it.
• 1:07:21
  SPEAKER_00: I wish you didn't.
• 1:07:22
  SPEAKER_00: And he proceeded to ladle this porridge out into these pretty little bowls, and he set them down in front of us, and I leaned forward, and the smell hit me in the face like a ton of bricks.
• 1:07:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm immediately like, what is that?
• 1:07:38
  SPEAKER_00: I can smell the ingredients in this little bowl of soup, and then we taste it.
• 1:07:46
  SPEAKER_00: And the four of us for the next 20 minutes, 15 minutes, used every adjective you could possibly find to try to describe this amazing bowl of rice.
• 1:07:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I was blown away at how incredible they could make something so basic.
• 1:08:08
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 1:08:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I later learned they steep the rice in tea.
• 1:08:13
  SPEAKER_00: They use tea bags when they're cooking the rice.
• 1:08:16
  SPEAKER_00: And that was that fragrant depth of that I just couldn't pinpoint what it was.
• 1:08:22
  SPEAKER_00: It was floral and it was spicy, and there were so many things going on.
• 1:08:26
  SPEAKER_00: I was literally, as a as a guy who like one of my greatest attributes is my palate, and I couldn't figure out what the hell was going on in this bowl.
• 1:08:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:08:35
  SPEAKER_00: So they clear the dishes and uh off he goes, and we're still talking about it.
• 1:08:41
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, the timing is it's just impeccable in a in an experience like this.
• 1:08:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so just when you're thinking, I wonder what's next, out comes this guy with this Gyaradon right behind me and just over my left shoulder.
• 1:08:56
  SPEAKER_00: And he leans down and he says, I understood you guys enjoyed that last course so much, we decided to do it all over again.
• 1:09:03
  SPEAKER_00: And they brought us another round of it because we loved it so much.
• 1:09:07
  SPEAKER_00: That's incredible.
• 1:09:08
  SPEAKER_00: And it it just spoke to so many things that I want to write about in this chapter, and and being able to make special out of simple uh is one of them.
• 1:09:17
  SPEAKER_00: But the the paying attention and being present and um understanding when you can make such a moment like that special.
• 1:09:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I get a little emotional even telling the story because it was just it's a moment I will never forget for the rest of my life, all because of that fucking bowl of rice.
• 1:09:38
  SPEAKER_03: Well done.
• 1:09:39
  SPEAKER_03: I like I like the special out of simple.
• 1:09:41
  SPEAKER_03: I like it.
• 1:09:42
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:09:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:09:43
  SPEAKER_03: It really was remarkable.
• 1:09:44
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:09:44
  SPEAKER_00: And then, you know, I mean, the meal just uh hit after hit after hit.
• 1:09:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um, Daniel came out and and came over to the table uh about three quarters of the way through and leaned over and said, I understand you have a big dinner tomorrow night.
• 1:10:00
  SPEAKER_00: Uh just wanted to say congratulations.
• 1:10:02
  SPEAKER_00: And when you guys are done, I'd love to have you back in the kitchen.
• 1:10:05
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 1:10:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so we toured the kitchen and uh it was just a really remarkable, a remarkable experience.
• 1:10:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:10:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's so funny.
• 1:10:12
  SPEAKER_00: That me and Fat Pete will never forget.
• 1:10:14
  SPEAKER_00: Classic fat pete.
• 1:10:16
  SPEAKER_03: That's so fat Pete.
• 1:10:17
  SPEAKER_03: I love it.
• 1:10:18
  SPEAKER_03: Oh my gosh.
• 1:10:19
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, we got a few more questions before we get here, but Brandon, do you mind actually getting Corey another water?
• 1:10:23
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you.
• 1:10:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um frog in my throat there.
• 1:10:26
  SPEAKER_03: That's right.
• 1:10:26
  SPEAKER_03: Um, true or false, though, you own an agave farm?
• 1:10:30
  SPEAKER_00: I do well, uh yeah, I own the plants, I leased the land.
• 1:10:34
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 1:10:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, my wife and I leased uh 10 hectares or 25 acres of land up in Jalisco, and we have 38,000 agave plants in the ground.
• 1:10:45
  SPEAKER_00: They've been in there for a little over three years, about three years and three months.
• 1:10:49
  SPEAKER_00: So we've got a little under two years left minimum.
• 1:10:52
  SPEAKER_00: By Mexican law, the agave has to grow between five and seven years.
• 1:10:56
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 1:10:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um so we've got a little bit more time before we can harvest that crop and and hopefully sell it all to one um one potential uh buyer.
• 1:11:05
  SPEAKER_03: Did you have experience in any of this before jumping into it?
• 1:11:08
  SPEAKER_03: Hell no, I don't have experience in anything, man.
• 1:11:10
  SPEAKER_03: Are you kidding me?
• 1:11:10
  SPEAKER_03: Just do it and hope for the best and see what happens.
• 1:11:13
  SPEAKER_00: I never even sat on a blue couch before today.
• 1:11:17
  SPEAKER_00: First time for everything.
• 1:11:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so my my I have two uh partners in my business, uh Keith and Fred.
• 1:11:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um they also own uh the Nacho Daddies uh around the country.
• 1:11:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um and uh I think 18 or 19, I'm not sure of the exact timing.
• 1:11:33
  SPEAKER_00: Sometime before the pandemic, they decided they were gonna make their own tequila.
• 1:11:36
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 1:11:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so they went down and they met up with a guy, Daniel, is our partner down there.
• 1:11:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um Daniel uh found a distillery that was making um the Telsone uh tequila for them.
• 1:11:49
  SPEAKER_00: A little shout out to Telsone.
• 1:11:50
  SPEAKER_00: Shout out to Telson.
• 1:11:51
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Telsone uh is the um a Mexican or Spanish word for uh the stinger on the back of the uh what you call it?
• 1:11:59
  SPEAKER_00: Uh uh scorpion.
• 1:12:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 1:12:02
  SPEAKER_00: I'm 55 now.
• 1:12:03
  SPEAKER_00: Brain doesn't work like it used to.
• 1:12:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um so they they developed Telsone.
• 1:12:08
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the pandemic happens.
• 1:12:09
  SPEAKER_00: Fast forward, the distillery that they were working with was having some troubles.
• 1:12:14
  SPEAKER_00: So they stepped in, bought the entire distillery, um, brought Daniel in as a partner to run the whole thing.
• 1:12:20
  SPEAKER_00: And then shortly after that, they came and asked if I wanted to be involved in any way.
• 1:12:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I didn't want to do the distillery.
• 1:12:26
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't want to make a brand of tequila.
• 1:12:29
  SPEAKER_00: It cost too much money to develop a brand.
• 1:12:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, you very rarely do you get the the big, you know,$1.2 billion hits like Clooney and those guys.
• 1:12:38
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 1:12:38
  SPEAKER_00: You know, most of them, you know, really kind of suffer in silence for years trying to grow a brand.
• 1:12:43
  SPEAKER_00: So I knew I didn't want to do that.
• 1:12:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but they gave me two opportunities.
• 1:12:48
  SPEAKER_00: They one of them was the Agave farm.
• 1:12:50
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so my wife and I jumped at that opportunity.
• 1:12:52
  SPEAKER_00: And then the second one was, you know, during the pandemic, everyone stayed home and drank quite a bit.
• 1:12:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and there was a real big shortage of aged, well, rested reposado or aged onyeho tequilas.
• 1:13:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and the price was going through the roof because of this shortage.
• 1:13:09
  SPEAKER_00: So um I bought a hundred bourbon barrels and had them shipped down to the distillery, filled them with 22,000 liters of Blanco tequila, and that has been in barrel now for about two and a half years.
• 1:13:23
  SPEAKER_00: So it's already an onyeho.
• 1:13:25
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't like where the market is right now to sell it, so I'm leaving it in.
• 1:13:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's now an extra onyeho.
• 1:13:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and sometime, probably by the end of this year, we'll sell all of that to one large distillery or we'll parcel it off to a couple.
• 1:13:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but yeah, so my wife and I have uh some barrels of tequila and some plants, and it gives us a good excuse to go down to Mexico, which I absolutely love.
• 1:13:48
  SPEAKER_00: And uh yeah, it's been fun.
• 1:13:50
  SPEAKER_03: I like that you're a man that is very focused on attention to the detail with Carson Kitchen, like you do a great job at the comfort side of things, and you know every guest feels welcome and has their own story with it.
• 1:13:59
  SPEAKER_03: With Butcher and Thief, obviously it's it's very focused on cost and quality at the same time.
• 1:14:05
  SPEAKER_03: Um has this owning an agave farm has this changed the way that you've uh enjoyed tequila or like focused on the what you're actually consuming when it comes to tequila?
• 1:14:16
  SPEAKER_00: It has.
• 1:14:16
  SPEAKER_00: So I mean really only drink tequila now.
• 1:14:19
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not because I'm involved in the business.
• 1:14:21
  SPEAKER_00: I as you get older, allergies change, body changes.
• 1:14:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um I'm I think my biggest gripe about our industry is um really a gripe about our government and and what we allow our large food companies to get away with and and how much they poison us.
• 1:14:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um all these people that think they have a gluten allergy, they really don't.
• 1:14:44
  SPEAKER_00: They're irritated by the glyphosates that are on the crops, whether it's grapes or whether it's wheat, it's the pesticides that they're really irritated by.
• 1:14:52
  SPEAKER_00: Most of those people, unless they're true celiac, most of those people could go to Europe right now and eat pasta and bread all day long and not have any problems.
• 1:15:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so I have a huge problem with our government and our food industry because we allow that to and ultimately we as the voting public allow it to happen.
• 1:15:10
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 1:15:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I digress.
• 1:15:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um because of those chemicals, I struggle drinking wine and and beer anymore.
• 1:15:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um I get really stuffed up.
• 1:15:20
  SPEAKER_00: I I I mean, you give me a really hoppy, uh, big cloudy IPA, and I I mean I struggle breathing.
• 1:15:26
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's it's labor for me.
• 1:15:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so um uh yeah, as a result of it, I I started drinking tequila a number of years ago, and it's really all I drink.
• 1:15:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, a little tequila on one big rock with an orange peel, and uh yeah, I'm a happy man.
• 1:15:42
  SPEAKER_00: Not to any time of day, by the way.
• 1:15:44
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 1:15:44
  SPEAKER_00: Listen, I don't, I'm not picky.
• 1:15:46
  SPEAKER_00: My dad said you can't drink all day if you don't start in the morning.
• 1:15:48
  SPEAKER_03: Brady, do you mind getting them a glass of tequila real quick too?
• 1:15:51
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, if you have tequila, let's go.
• 1:15:53
  SPEAKER_00: We'll be here all day.
• 1:15:54
  SPEAKER_02: We should add a bar for our guests, just in case.
• 1:15:56
  SPEAKER_00: For the guests.
• 1:15:57
  SPEAKER_00: Little spot in the corner there.
• 1:15:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, little spot in the corner.
• 1:16:00
  SPEAKER_02: And for when we clock out.
• 1:16:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, right?
• 1:16:02
  SPEAKER_02: I did want to ask the all the the treatments and stuff that like the public should be concerned about.
• 1:16:08
  SPEAKER_02: Is that something you pay attention to when you're sourcing for the restaurants as well?
• 1:16:12
  SPEAKER_02: Or is it harder to do?
• 1:16:13
  SPEAKER_00: We try to buy it organic as much as we can.
• 1:16:15
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, it's it's price-driven.
• 1:16:17
  SPEAKER_00: Uh-uh.
• 1:16:17
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, absolutely.
• 1:16:18
  SPEAKER_00: We pay a lot of attention to that.
• 1:16:19
  SPEAKER_00: And we wash everything incredibly thoroughly.
• 1:16:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:16:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, and not just with with water, but uh there are there are fruit and vegetable sprays that you can use to really um help help uh help treat those those items at home.
• 1:16:32
  SPEAKER_03: With the restaurant that you did have that closed, what was it called again?
• 1:16:38
  SPEAKER_03: Kanya.
• 1:16:38
  SPEAKER_03: Kanya.
• 1:16:39
  SPEAKER_03: If you if you were to open it today, not a town square, yeah.
• 1:16:42
  SPEAKER_03: You said you'd be successful with it.
• 1:16:43
  SPEAKER_03: I think so.
• 1:16:44
  SPEAKER_03: Why would you be successful?
• 1:16:44
  SPEAKER_03: What would you do differently?
• 1:16:46
  SPEAKER_00: I think the consumer is smarter today.
• 1:16:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um I think they're more open to to to different types of cuisine.
• 1:16:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um they weren't necessarily as as smart back then.
• 1:16:57
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I love that's why I love Food Network and I love food critics, and I love anyone that wants to write and talk about food.
• 1:17:04
  SPEAKER_00: It just makes people smarter, and a smarter consumer wants to go spend more money on food.
• 1:17:09
  SPEAKER_00: And and so I'm I'm all for that.
• 1:17:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um I I think I I'm better at what I do today than I than I was then.
• 1:17:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um I was my own worst enemy.
• 1:17:20
  SPEAKER_00: I I didn't know who I was in or out of the kitchen, and we talked about that a little bit with Carrie, and my approach to that menu, my approach to that restaurant would be a little different.
• 1:17:30
  SPEAKER_03: I like asking guests, especially ones that aren't necessarily in the you know the entertainment industry.
• 1:17:36
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, you're kind of with the restaurants and the presentation, but with Vegas where it is today, becoming very sports-driven, very event-driven, how do you feel uh Vegas is the direction Vegas is is headed?
• 1:17:50
  SPEAKER_03: Being that you're such a significant part in the city.
• 1:17:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I I um I'm gonna answer it two ways.
• 1:17:56
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I I love the resilience of Las Vegas, the ability to morph, the ability to grow, to the ability to attract a different customer base.
• 1:18:06
  SPEAKER_00: Uh you know, there are people in town that that market and and and and strategize about that.
• 1:18:11
  SPEAKER_00: That I my hat is off to them.
• 1:18:13
  SPEAKER_00: But I do think we are gonna encounter another price correction as we did in in 08-09.
• 1:18:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um I said back then I thought we were way overpriced.
• 1:18:25
  SPEAKER_00: I think all the parking fees and the$12 waters and all the nonsense stuff is gonna be corrected again.
• 1:18:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um my guess is it'll happen next year.
• 1:18:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um you already see our numbers starting to decline um as the casinos start to realize those um declines, they'll start to to wisen up a little bit.
• 1:18:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I think you see some of that.
• 1:18:47
  SPEAKER_00: MGM's approach is a little different.
• 1:18:49
  SPEAKER_00: I say MGM because they're the biggest in town, not because I'm I'm picking on them, but um MGM's approach today is a little different than it was even six months ago.
• 1:18:57
  SPEAKER_00: Resort resort resort fees are are coming down a little bit.
• 1:19:01
  SPEAKER_00: Some of those um crazy prices are coming down um not enough yet, but but they will.
• 1:19:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um I think Vegas has to continue to remain to be a value proposition.
• 1:19:11
  SPEAKER_00: There are just too many other places.
• 1:19:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um we went through a massive 21 and 22 on the heels of COVID because nobody could travel anywhere else.
• 1:19:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um they could, but they weren't traveling overseas.
• 1:19:26
  SPEAKER_00: There were there was a greater reluctance to go too far away from home.
• 1:19:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so you know, we Vegas was the beneficiary of that.
• 1:19:34
  SPEAKER_00: Orlando was a beneficiary of that, and and everybody's trying to chase those same numbers, and and I don't think they're gonna be able to.
• 1:19:41
  SPEAKER_03: Is this harder than it was in 07?
• 1:19:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it is.
• 1:19:46
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it's easier and harder.
• 1:19:48
  SPEAKER_00: I I I feel like I'm I'm kind of dancing on a lot of your questions, but but I see both sides of that.
• 1:19:55
  SPEAKER_00: It is easier in a lot of ways.
• 1:19:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um the accessibility of uh uh product is is significantly greater than it was 20 years ago.
• 1:20:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um the the cost of that product is is is better in some instances than it was.
• 1:20:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, if I wanted to, for example, we talked about the crispy shrimp or killer shrimp, I had to bring those peppers.
• 1:20:16
  SPEAKER_00: There's two Peruvian peppers, the Aji Amarillo and the Ricotto.
• 1:20:19
  SPEAKER_00: I brought both of those peppers in.
• 1:20:21
  SPEAKER_00: I would actually was finally able to order them off of Amazon to get them here at a at a premium.
• 1:20:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but but uh nowadays I can get them from any vendor.
• 1:20:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um so so the availability of the the is much more convenient and and there.
• 1:20:36
  SPEAKER_00: The downside today versus 07 is the human asset of the business.
• 1:20:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I and I'll tell this to as many podcasts as want to listen because um that's the real danger that our industry faces is um there's a shortage of people that want to get in the kitchen and and and and cook for those amount of hours and that amount of um just brutal impact on your body.
• 1:21:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um we've got to be able to take care of those individuals.
• 1:21:03
  SPEAKER_00: We have to be able to pay them a uh a wage that they they they deserve.
• 1:21:07
  SPEAKER_00: I won't use the term livable wage, they um but but a proper wage and um uh the the amount of people and I think I talked about this in a in a previous podcast.
• 1:21:18
  SPEAKER_00: The way our kids grow up today is different than it was when we were kids.
• 1:21:23
  SPEAKER_00: You know, families don't have those dinners and game nights like we did.
• 1:21:27
  SPEAKER_00: There's there's too many TV channels and too many um hulus and Netflix's and all that stuff to to occupy.
• 1:21:34
  SPEAKER_00: People are on their phones 24-7.
• 1:21:36
  SPEAKER_00: So I I think that we don't allow our kids and teenagers to fall in love with food or the connection that food to human brings um like we did 20, 30 years ago.
• 1:21:49
  SPEAKER_00: And as a result, we have people that aren't as interested in our industry.
• 1:21:53
  SPEAKER_00: Do you have kids?
• 1:21:54
  SPEAKER_00: I do.
• 1:21:54
  SPEAKER_00: She hates our industry for now.
• 1:21:56
  SPEAKER_00: She'll end up in it at some point.
• 1:21:57
  SPEAKER_00: You think so?
• 1:21:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, she actually works, uh, she works with my publicist.
• 1:22:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um and and and she's she's she's loving it.
• 1:22:04
  SPEAKER_00: She's 24.
• 1:22:05
  SPEAKER_00: Love it.
• 1:22:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um I I love that for her.
• 1:22:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, if she ends up coming and hey dad, I want to learn the business, then then great.
• 1:22:13
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, at the end of the day, I keep telling her, I said, listen, just go fall in love with something, and once you do, you and I will sit down and we'll figure out how to get rich at it.
• 1:22:24
  SPEAKER_03: Blew my mind.
• 1:22:25
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:22:25
  SPEAKER_03: That's a that's a great, great way of looking at it.
• 1:22:27
  SPEAKER_00: Fall in love with something first and then figure out how to make money.
• 1:22:30
  SPEAKER_03: And there's always ways to make money.
• 1:22:31
  SPEAKER_03: 100%.
• 1:22:31
  SPEAKER_03: 1000%.
• 1:22:33
  SPEAKER_03: Well, Corey, this was fucking awesome.
• 1:22:36
  SPEAKER_03: This was so much fun.
• 1:22:37
  SPEAKER_03: God, I need a tequila then.
• 1:22:39
  SPEAKER_00: I know.
• 1:22:39
  SPEAKER_02: It's time to drink.
• 1:22:40
  SPEAKER_02: Well, we're coming over tonight.
• 1:22:41
  SPEAKER_02: You're making dinner.
• 1:22:42
  SPEAKER_02: Let's do it.
• 1:22:44
  SPEAKER_00: Be at the restaurant.
• 1:22:44
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna hear stories.
• 1:22:46
  SPEAKER_00: Happy hour at Butcher and Thief today.
• 1:22:47
  SPEAKER_03: Let's go.
• 1:22:47
  SPEAKER_03: I'm gonna get a tattoo with what does the tattoo say again?
• 1:22:50
  SPEAKER_03: Travel changes you.
• 1:22:51
  SPEAKER_03: I'm gonna get I'm gonna get a travel changes you tattoo.
• 1:22:53
  SPEAKER_02: Corey changes you.
• 1:22:54
  SPEAKER_03: Corey changes you in different languages.
• 1:22:56
  SPEAKER_01: Just happening.
• 1:22:58
  SPEAKER_03: A little creepy.
• 1:23:01
  SPEAKER_03: Who is this Corey that's tattooed all over the mouth?
• 1:23:05
  SPEAKER_03: Oh my god.
• 1:23:05
  SPEAKER_03: Well, this was fun.
• 1:23:06
  SPEAKER_03: This was so much fun.
• 1:23:07
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you so much for coming down.
• 1:23:10
  SPEAKER_03: Carson Kitchen.
• 1:23:11
  SPEAKER_03: Is there anything else that we need to we need to give a shout out to?
• 1:23:14
  SPEAKER_00: Go support your local restaurant.
• 1:23:16
  SPEAKER_00: No matter whose it is.
• 1:23:17
  SPEAKER_00: Get out tonight, take your wife, your your boyfriend, your significant other, your kids.
• 1:23:22
  SPEAKER_00: Go out and enjoy a meal.
• 1:23:23
  SPEAKER_00: Put your phones down and look at each other and laugh and tell stories and connect.
• 1:23:28
  unknown: Fuck it.
• 1:23:28
  SPEAKER_03: You're good.
• 1:23:29
  SPEAKER_03: Thanks.
• 1:23:30
  SPEAKER_03: When's the book coming out?
• 1:23:31
  SPEAKER_00: No, I'm gonna read it.
• 1:23:32
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna write a chapter tonight.
• 1:23:34
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna listen to this because I think I wrote something on this podcast, actually.
• 1:23:38
  SPEAKER_03: If Big Head doesn't have at least part of a chapter, I'm gonna be very disappointed.
• 1:23:41
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 1:23:42
  SPEAKER_00: All right, fair enough.
• 1:23:43
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 1:23:43
  SPEAKER_00: I think I can I think I can do a chapter.
• 1:23:46
  SPEAKER_00: We'll do a chapter of your podcast.
• 1:23:47
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, we'll just have to make more stories together.
• 1:23:50
  SPEAKER_03: That's what we're gonna do.
• 1:23:50
  SPEAKER_03: I love it.
• 1:23:51
  SPEAKER_03: Well, Corn, this is great.
• 1:23:52
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you for coming on.
• 1:23:53
  SPEAKER_03: Julie, any final words before we say goodbye?
• 1:23:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, shout out fat P.
• 1:23:57
  SPEAKER_03: Shout out Fat P.
• 1:23:59
  SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna make him listen to this.
• 1:24:02
  SPEAKER_00: We love Fat P.
• 1:24:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, all of our friends are gonna rag on him.
• 1:24:06
  SPEAKER_00: You got so much love.