Latest / Single Tree Nation Show / Mitchel Murphree | True Passion for Hospitality: Owner of 5 Senses, Steakhouse 5, & 5 on Black

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Mitchel Murphree | True Passion for Hospitality: Owner of 5 Senses, Steakhouse 5, & 5 on Black · Single Tree Nation Show

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for a second i'm gonna let you keep
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it we need to get him a door
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dash bag somebody get this man a white
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claw
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We are very laid back and like to
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just have a conversation.
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Yeah.
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This will be fun.
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Awesome.
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All right, you ready?
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Yes.
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Let's go.
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Here we go.
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Three, two.
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welcome back to singletree nation guys i'm
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your man charlie eblin and as always we
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have our illustrious co-host mr derry
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wells with us today what's up everybody
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that's gonna be excellent be real by the
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way he finally called it like just get
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that little it's nice it's nice um for
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all of our rutherford county residents and
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probably even in in in the outskirts for
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sure
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today's show is gonna be a good one
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we are with Mitchell the owner of three
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restaurants here in Rutherford County now
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five senses five on black and steakhouse
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five welcome good to be here thanks for
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having me we we're excited man I
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I've been,
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me and Derry both have been in this
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town since we were knee high to a
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bullfrog.
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So you have always been somebody that I
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have looked at from a restaurant
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standpoint to kind of emulate.
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Your restaurants are amazing,
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all three of them.
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I haven't actually been able to dawn the
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doors of the newest one.
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um but you have some incredible looking
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food there that I am dying to discuss
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yeah and fun playing to to check out
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so um but to start with why don't
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you introduce yourself let everybody know
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who you are and and and uh just
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a a quick snippet of how we got
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here
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all right i'm mitchell murphy uh born and
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raised in paris tennessee um sometimes
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i'll stop with the paris and people think
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wow that's what you should do you should
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work that yeah absolutely with that
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northwest tennessee yeah but still that's
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only to the train deer
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But grew up in Paris, Tennessee,
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went to school at UT Knoxville,
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and got lucky,
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got a job at the Tomato Head in
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Knoxville, Tennessee.
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I don't know if you're familiar with that
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at all.
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Great pizza place, and it...
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opened my eyes to what food was.
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I grew up pickiest kid.
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I ate pepperoni pizza.
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I ate a hamburger with mustard and that's
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it.
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Some fries.
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And I did not venture out much.
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My mom, grandmoms were both great cooks.
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But that opened my eyes to the food
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world.
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And this restaurant, Tomato,
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had lamb sausage and tofu and pesto and
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hummus and all this stuff I'd never even
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heard of.
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And I just fell in love with everything
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restaurant.
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kitchen the front of the house the
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customer employee relationship the hustle
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and bustle of it the rush on a
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friday night and i was what twenty twenty
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one when i did that and i'm forty
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nine now and that's that's all i've done
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but i ended up moving to murfreesboro i
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went to the culinary institute of america
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in hyde park new york and ended up
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moving to murfreesboro in two thousand and
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two december and uh
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get a job at as the executive chef
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at b mcneil's restaurant which is where
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five on black is now yeah i was
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going to bring that up if there was
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a connection there somehow so that's kind
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of cool no no connection necessarily i've
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always loved that building yeah but uh
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moved here to be executive chef i wasn't
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ready i had no business being being in
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charge of the kitchen at that point i
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was twenty six twenty five or twenty six
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and uh but take a leap of faith
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and and uh i sure did learn a
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lot
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I learned a whole heck of a lot,
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uh, about a whole lot of stuff.
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And, uh, so, you know,
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if I'm going to work this hard,
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you know, let's,
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let's see if we can do it on
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our own and things worked out.
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And my sister and I opened five senses
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in November of two thousand four.
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And so you were here for two years
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before you, yeah, I was here.
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I had,
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I was at B McNeil's for eleven months.
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Okay.
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And then, uh, decided,
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I think I could do this on my
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own.
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And ended up while we were building five
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senses,
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I went to work for Jody phase on
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at twelfth and Porter and cafe one, two,
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three in Nashville,
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which at that point he was at the
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end of his run.
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And are you familiar with Jody?
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I mean, I don't,
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I'm not going to emulate myself after him
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and have nine,
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nine operations like he did, but he,
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at one point as a height and the
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early to mid nineties,
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he had nine different operations running
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around Nashville.
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And he was a kingpin of Nashville.
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Unfortunately, you know,
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kind of saw him on the, you know,
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tail end of his success.
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And I helped him just kind of keep
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things in order a little bit and learned
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a lot about, again, about, you know,
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how to make things right and get things
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on the, moving back in a good path.
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But then we opened up,
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I was there for about six months,
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opened up Five Senses, like I said,
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November of before with my sister.
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and uh she kept me in line i'm
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a chef i'm back of the house i'm
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fly by the seat of my pants and
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she kind of kept everything on the
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straight and narrow getting us opened and
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and we opened up tomato tomato in which
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is a little pizza place where the alley
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is now alley on maine did a little
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uh meeting three down at the cannon county
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arts center didn't didn't work out there
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too well either so i was one for
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three at that point
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and took a long break, started catering,
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doing a lot of catering.
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One of our first big catering gigs was
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at Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival.
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Oh, wow.
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Like for the artists?
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We did VIP for the first year.
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And then we grew at our tenth year,
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which was two thousand nineteen,
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which our last year.
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We were doing VIP and artist hospitality
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and any of the fancy fundraising things
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they did.
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We did a fundraiser for Bob Weir.
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We did a...
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Um, fundraiser for Niles Rogers, um,
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fundraiser for, uh, the edge from you too.
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Oh, we got to go hang out and,
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you know,
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rub elbows with those folks down there.
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And that was a lot of fun,
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a lot of fun,
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something totally different off the wall.
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Nothing, nothing you'll ever do like that.
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You know, another time it was,
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it was a lot of fun staff.
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We closed the restaurant down for a week,
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week and a half,
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took the whole staff down there.
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We took about eight people down there to
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work.
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Lord knows I couldn't keep up with them
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all night long.
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It's like, man,
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I just hope they don't get any phone
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calls in the middle of the night.
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That's like the high school football coach
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on a travel game.
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Like, oh, man.
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There's too many fun things for restaurant
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people to get into down here.
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But for the most part,
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we were pretty safe.
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Twenty nineteen,
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we opened up Steakhouse Five.
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And then last year, August of twenty four,
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we opened up Five on Black.
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And that's that's my first venture with a
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partner, Raul Espinoza and his wife, Bree.
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Raul worked in Los Angeles during the
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pandemic,
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and he ended up getting a job in
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the kitchen and serving at Steakhouse Five
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and came to me, said, hey, man,
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I got an idea.
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I want to open a restaurant.
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I need a little help.
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And I said,
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let's see what we can do.
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And we opened up five on black and
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him and his wife run it day to
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day.
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I just left from a meeting down there.
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I go down there and have a meeting
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once a week.
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And so it's a whole new venture.
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I'm trying to figure out doing this for
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what?
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Twenty, nearly thirty years.
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I'm trying to figure out how to work
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smarter, not harder.
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I'm not good at that.
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through it i'm just going to keep working
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harder yeah no let's try to let's try
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to do something smart for once in this
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business and um and it's it's it's been
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it's been great they they they're doing a
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great job they're exceeding for somebody
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who's as most restaurant chefs are kind of
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control freak and i get that and it's
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hard to let go and so this is
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my first step in letting go and and
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luckily
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It's with two people, uh,
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role and his wife who've been very
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successful in letting me,
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letting me do that.
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Um, it's been, it's been a,
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been a great experience so far,
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so I don't know what's next.
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We'll figure it out.
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So go ahead.
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No, I was gonna say you got, uh,
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five census over in Georgetown and then,
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um, what's the other one?
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The other one's all what I always forget.
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Steakhouse five over the fountains and
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then, uh,
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five on blacks over off downtown.
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we got a catering kitchen right we i
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could have walked here i looked it up
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today i was like where's this ridgely road
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at man i got to drive all the
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way across town to go to this thing
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two minutes walking from where i was at
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nice awesome do that so yeah so you
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went to school at ut what'd you go
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to school for ut
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Food science and technology.
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Food science and technology.
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So you have wanted to be around food
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pretty much your whole life then?
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Yeah,
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my family had a country ham business back
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in the day.
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And that's what I was going to do
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was kind of go back and go into
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the family business.
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Since I was twelve years old,
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I was in the back there rolling hams
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up in paper and putting them in the
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bags.
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getting salty cuts all over my hands.
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And that's what I, family business,
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that's what I wanted to do.
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I didn't know any different.
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And I was a junior at UT.
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My dad, mom called and said, you know,
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we've sold our share of the business.
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I said, well,
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what am i supposed to do now thanks
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for putting me in on that yeah so
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my first my first summer where i didn't
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really have any path in of what i
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was going to do in life i got
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a job in a restaurant so still food
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and uh like i said i just be
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one i fell in love with it and
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the lady maha steve of five um
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Just was the most awesome,
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awesome restaurant person you could ever
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work for.
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And she had three at one point,
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three tomato heads, one in Maryville,
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one out Westtown in Knoxville.
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But she now has a Westtown and the
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main one downtown.
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But she had opened up a place called
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Lula in Market Square.
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And she was an innovator.
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So in Market Square, downtown Knoxville,
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when I was there in the mid-nineties,
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It was the place where there was nothing
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going on.
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It was empty.
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It was a ghost town.
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We would set bread out,
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and we'd bake bread every day.
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We would set bread out at the end
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of the night,
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be able to come by and grab it
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at the end of the night,
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have some food.
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It was the only business that was in
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that whole shopping center.
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Now it's this bustling economic area of
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downtown Knoxville.
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She opened up Lula,
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which was a healthy California Mexican
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restaurant with tofu and all this stuff
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way ahead of her time.
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Knoxville wasn't ready for that in the mid
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nineties, late nineties.
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And didn't laugh, but man,
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I learned how to,
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how she operated multiple places and how
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she was able to keep the thing with,
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with operating multiple places is keeping
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your staff happy.
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Like, oh, they're, they're spending,
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they're, they're,
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he's more focused over there at that one
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than us, you know, or, you know,
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people get,
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maybe get a little jealous or whatever,
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but really learned a lot from her and
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how to operate multiple places,
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how to not do what everybody wants.
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Like everything she did was different.
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There wasn't,
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would she serve pepperoni pizza at tomato
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head?
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Yes, she would,
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but it wouldn't be anywhere near the most
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ordered thing.
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It would be, like I said,
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lamb sausage with zucchini or, you know,
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back then it was roasted red peppers,
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which were very odd for this area of
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the country.
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So I just learned a whole lot about
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restaurants from her.
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Just not always going with the flow and
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everything.
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Just fall in line.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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You ever find yourself now that you've got
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three units kind of treating them like
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siblings, like, okay,
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I spent a little bit of time here.
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I better go there tomorrow.
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And like, you know, because like,
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and that's something I've thought about.
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I'm not in the restaurant or hospitality
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business, but when I think about,
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you know,
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but when i think about that just that
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share of time i think a lot of
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us think it's just uh well as long
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as i have you know whatever i need
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in the kitchen ready to go you know
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don't let one run out of product or
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this or that but then you're managing i
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mean literally you triple your employee
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base you know to go to three units
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or more i don't know like once you
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start shuffling some of that so uh
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the the sibling rivalry thing kind of came
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to my mind because like me a lot
13:28
of siblings just fight for time you know
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everybody wants that kind of thing so it's
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interesting that you brought that up that
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that's as long as you keep everybody happy
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you'll be fine uh and i think you
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can almost narrow that down to not even
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multiple units but just in in any
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operation yeah yeah because i look i i
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i've had people uh approach me at work
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and and literally think that i'm spending
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more time with someone else than i am
13:53
them on developmental things and they want
13:57
and you've only got one unit right you
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know what i mean so like and and
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even in my past life when i did
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have multiple you okay yeah it's the same
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thing right it's it's you know you get
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a gm here that thinks you're spending more
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time like i'm spending more time with
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dairy than i am mitchell and why am
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i spending more time with dairy does
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charlie not like me
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Did I do something?
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Why is he not around?
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You know, when it's typically,
14:17
and he can probably attest to this as
14:19
well, in my opinion,
14:21
the less time I'm spending with you means
14:25
I like you more.
14:27
See, that's how I see it.
14:29
Because now I trust you.
14:31
And I think you can take care of
14:32
it.
14:33
You're handling business.
14:34
I don't need to hang out with you.
14:35
I don't have to babysit you.
14:37
I'm trying to turn you loose.
14:38
If I'm spending more time with you,
14:40
then I probably...
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right there's probably things you need to
14:46
hold your hand coming through there so
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that's i think any business i mean
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restaurants especially i mean every is not
14:53
every business a people business when it
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comes down to it and how how the
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staff of any business interacts with with
15:00
the customers um and how you could i
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mean
15:05
that's what's made us successful.
15:06
It's not what I do.
15:07
It's that we've been able to put good
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people in positions and let them do their
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thing.
15:11
And then they can kind of train what
15:15
you know,
15:15
I might want them to do or how
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to do it.
15:17
Or, uh, they kind of take,
15:19
take what they've learned from me and then
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they start doing it down the line.
15:23
I think that's how it, how it goes.
15:24
Something I've been telling people a lot
15:26
recently.
15:27
And I think the more I,
15:28
the longer I own my business, um,
15:31
the more it's becoming relevant.
15:33
And I think you're hitting a nail on
15:34
the head hospitality.
15:37
is way more important than the food.
15:42
And I think,
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I'm glad somebody that owns upper scale
15:48
and fine dining says the same thing
15:50
because mine is not upscale and not fine
15:52
dining.
15:53
but i don't think it really makes a
15:54
difference you can have mediocre food if
15:57
you have exceptional service absolutely
15:59
you know like we call it undeni i
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call it undeniable hospitality right and
16:04
and uh in our in a investor pitch
16:07
a couple of weeks ago i stood on
16:08
stage in front of fifty people or so
16:12
and i told them all the same thing
16:14
i my goal is is not to have
16:16
the best barbecue in the world
16:18
My goal is to have my guests leave
16:20
my restaurant, sit in their car, and go,
16:22
holy shh.
16:23
That's the best damn service I've ever had
16:25
in my life.
16:26
Are they really that nice?
16:27
Yeah.
16:28
And if they're questioning,
16:30
are my people really that nice,
16:33
then we did our job.
16:34
We did the right thing.
16:35
Those people are going to come back and
16:36
see us.
16:37
I think that's the reason a lot of,
16:39
not a lot,
16:39
but the majority of restaurants that don't
16:43
make it is they don't.
16:45
they concentrate too much on the food or
16:47
they concentrate too much on where the
16:48
location is or whatever it is.
16:51
It is such restaurants are so simple,
16:54
but they're so hard to,
16:56
but the simple part is if you can
16:58
actually understand and commit to the fact
17:00
that they're there for the experience,
17:03
they can get food anywhere.
17:05
And you get food wherever you,
17:07
you treat them good.
17:08
You know, their name, you, you make, you,
17:10
you, they come back.
17:11
That that's all successful restaurant
17:13
takes.
17:14
I mean,
17:15
then you gotta watch your food costs.
17:16
You gotta watch your labor costs.
17:18
But if you have customers that you treat
17:19
so well,
17:20
that they continually to come back in
17:22
nonstop year after month, after month,
17:24
year after year,
17:25
you're gonna be successful.
17:26
Cause they're going to bring somebody with
17:26
them.
17:28
And this,
17:28
I don't know if this is a gloat
17:30
or a shameful thing on me.
17:32
I'm going to pitch it to you the
17:33
way, uh, I've eaten at, uh,
17:38
steakhouse five, I think three times,
17:40
two or three times.
17:41
I can't remember.
17:42
I've never paid.
17:48
I bet the table with somebody with a
17:56
bigger wallet in mind.
17:56
And so I'm like, and they're always like,
17:58
oh, well let us pick it up.
17:59
I'm like, fine, go ahead.
18:02
I haven't argued that one yet.
18:03
So, but I could tell you now,
18:05
I still remember my first experience
18:07
there.
18:07
Uh, and the, the, the waiter was this.
18:10
tall handsome kind of italian looking
18:12
middle eastern kind of guy i don't know
18:13
i mean uh and he was i mean
18:17
just on top of it didn't miss a
18:19
beat and was right on like just and
18:22
i there was something that came from the
18:23
kitchen uh incorrectly i'm not gonna say
18:26
wrong but incorrectly and he's like so
18:28
sorry and before we could like even fully
18:30
address it next one's on the plate you
18:32
know whatever it was and i was like
18:33
this is that that was exactly what you
18:35
said
18:37
They knew exactly what they were doing
18:38
that night.
18:38
It had no, like there was no shuffle,
18:41
no way.
18:41
Oh, oh, how we fix this.
18:43
They were on it.
18:44
Uh, so, and like I said,
18:46
that was my first time and I still
18:48
remember it more than the other times,
18:49
but I've never paid at your restaurant.
18:51
Let's let's take a quick break and we'll
18:56
talk about how you've made Mitchell money
18:58
instead of.
19:31
All right.
19:32
Welcome back, guys.
19:33
I'm your man, Charlie.
19:34
We always have our illustrious co-host,
19:36
Mr. Derry, with us still.
19:37
Thanks for sticking around today, Derry.
19:40
Did you expect me to leave early?
19:42
I don't know.
19:42
We took a little break.
19:43
I didn't know if you wanted to.
19:45
You stuck around.
19:46
Thanks.
19:47
I'll go next door.
19:47
Come back in thirty minutes.
19:49
It is your season.
19:49
I didn't know if you were doing something
19:51
special.
19:53
I thought we almost made it to an
19:54
episode without a reference.
19:55
We will never make it to an episode.
19:58
So for those of you who don't know,
19:59
we hadn't brought it up in a while,
20:01
but it is fall.
20:03
We need to visit this.
20:05
This is Derry's season.
20:07
He identifies as a fall and autumn
20:10
individual.
20:14
That was a season I was going to
20:16
guess.
20:18
Yes.
20:19
I had a one in four shot.
20:20
That's what I was going to guess.
20:21
Oh, man.
20:22
All right.
20:23
Well, here we are.
20:24
On that note, now I am leaving.
20:28
Y'all enjoy the rest of this episode.
20:30
That was about the best response I could
20:32
have ever gotten.
20:33
Golly.
20:34
Outstanding.
20:34
Thank you, Mitchell.
20:35
I appreciate that.
20:35
I was waiting.
20:36
I appreciate the support.
20:39
I told him I've never paid his restaurant.
20:41
That's good.
20:44
All right,
20:45
so let's let's rewind just a smidge you
20:55
started five senses in oh four.
20:58
Is that right?
20:59
Oh four Okay,
21:00
so two thousand and four twenty one years
21:02
ago.
21:02
I
21:03
We're youngins.
21:05
We got our restaurant going.
21:07
You're kicking butt.
21:10
That was the first fine dining restaurant
21:14
in Rutherford County, right?
21:15
Pretty much, yeah.
21:17
There were some nicer restaurants.
21:18
Do you count the Parthenon?
21:23
that's kind of the older school kind of
21:24
like I would think that would be
21:25
considered an upscale restaurant
21:27
especially at the time then that's what I
21:30
was going to say put it in that
21:31
era and that kind of thing and you
21:33
know and it is but I definitely like
21:37
George did an amazing job yeah I think
21:39
that's the one place that people would
21:40
compare when we opened up five senses that
21:43
was okay there you go and oh man
21:50
oh my gosh
21:52
Jack Barakat had, uh...
21:55
Milano's.
21:56
He had Milano's out by the mall.
21:59
Right.
21:59
By the Home Depot over there.
22:00
Right.
22:01
And that was what a lot of people,
22:04
when we opened up,
22:05
considered to be the best place in town.
22:07
Got it.
22:15
Got it.
22:15
Got it.
22:15
Got it.
22:16
Got it.
22:16
Got it.
22:16
Got it.
22:16
Got it.
22:17
Got it.
22:20
Got it.
22:21
Got it.
22:21
Got it.
22:21
Got it.
22:21
Got it.
22:21
Got it.
22:24
five on black opened or not five on
22:26
black steakhouse five opened in nineteen
22:29
twenty nineteen.
22:30
OK, so fifteen years later.
22:33
Now,
22:33
you said you had a couple of spots
22:36
in between there.
22:38
But there was about a ten year spot
22:40
in between there that you went with just
22:42
staying with with five senses, right?
22:48
Take me back to the moment you woke
22:49
up and go, you know what?
22:51
I need a steakhouse.
22:54
Well, you know, restaurants are,
22:58
I was listening to one of your podcasts
22:59
earlier today and, uh,
23:02
talked about how you don't, um,
23:06
anybody who gets in the restaurant
23:08
business to be rich,
23:10
it's in the wrong business.
23:12
Yes, sir.
23:13
And I remember, so there's, uh, uh,
23:16
I was in Nashville and one of the
23:18
chefs I idolize in Nashville is depicate.
23:20
Okay.
23:22
I was going to say Zola,
23:23
but it's Etch.
23:24
She had Zola back before she,
23:27
back in the late nineties,
23:28
early two thousands.
23:29
And Zola was this,
23:30
Zola was this beacon of Nashville
23:32
restaurants.
23:33
I mean,
23:34
really when we opened up here a year
23:36
later, Watermark opened up in Nashville.
23:39
And that's what set the Nashville
23:41
restaurant scene off Watermark,
23:44
was this glitzy place down in the gulch,
23:46
this new place.
23:47
But before then,
23:47
Nashville had no notoriety as far as
23:50
restaurants.
23:51
So I loved Deb Paquette.
23:53
And I remember the one thing, the one,
23:55
I mean, I remember this,
23:56
still see it to this day.
23:57
She's back there,
23:58
the owner of what I consider the best
23:59
chef in Nashville,
24:00
the best restaurant in Nashville.
24:02
We took some people up there and ate
24:04
one night.
24:04
And she's back there on all fours.
24:07
and it's in a kitchen that's half the
24:08
size of this room's your kitchen scrubbing
24:11
the low boy out at the end of
24:12
the night and i'm like man she said
24:15
yeah you know you know you don't get
24:17
in this business to be to be wealthy
24:19
one day i was like so what took
24:23
me so long getting back to what took
24:24
me so long to to opening up steakhouse
24:27
five after you know two two ventures that
24:31
didn't work out i didn't lose a ton
24:33
of money they weren't huge investments
24:36
You know, it doesn't love it.
24:37
That was a, there was, there was many,
24:40
many,
24:40
many days where after I'd been had five
24:43
sentences open for seven years now,
24:46
it's part of the reason I was in
24:47
this position because I had lost some
24:49
money on the other places, but I would,
24:51
there were days I would check my bank
24:52
account five times a day to make sure
24:54
a check wasn't bouncing.
24:55
I had a little bit of reserve over
24:56
here.
24:56
If I needed to transfer some in.
24:58
Yeah.
24:59
So really seven,
25:00
eight years into five cents, I was like,
25:01
man, this,
25:03
we're not going to make it now after
25:04
seven, eight years, I say one or,
25:05
you know,
25:05
get through the first three or four years
25:06
and you'll be all right.
25:07
Right.
25:07
So everybody,
25:08
you make it four or five years.
25:09
You're good.
25:10
So no,
25:10
that's not true at all in the restaurant
25:12
business.
25:13
And, uh,
25:14
so it took me a while to get
25:15
up some gusto to try to do something
25:17
again.
25:18
And I had to get some money back
25:19
in the bank too.
25:21
And then just something kind of clicked
25:22
about, or so, um,
25:26
One of the main things is I just
25:29
took a leap and had a really key
25:32
employee.
25:33
I said, look,
25:33
I need you to do more.
25:35
I'm going to pay you.
25:35
I don't know how I'm going to pay
25:37
you, but I need you to do more,
25:39
and I'm going to pay you to do
25:40
it.
25:41
And it was the best thing that ever
25:43
happened to me.
25:45
She ended up being running,
25:47
being the general manager over the
25:48
restaurant and catering.
25:50
She has her own wedding event coordination
25:53
business or event coordination,
25:54
not just weddings business now.
25:56
And so, you know,
25:59
after three or four years,
26:00
five years of that, I was like, man,
26:01
maybe I am ready to do something else
26:03
again.
26:03
I felt fairly good financially.
26:07
And the other big thing is at that
26:08
point,
26:10
there was no other upscale restaurant in
26:14
Murfreesboro.
26:14
I thought, man, this is like year twelve,
26:18
thirteen, fourteen.
26:20
There's not another kind of competition
26:22
type restaurant that's come in since then.
26:25
So I said, well, let's do another one.
26:29
and it just so happened that scott gravy
26:31
who's the developer for the fountains came
26:33
in and said hey you do are you
26:34
looking at doing another restaurant and i
26:36
said no absolutely not get out of here
26:39
and then i called him back the next
26:40
day i said well maybe wait maybe maybe
26:43
i am uh and and that's when we
26:45
decided to do the steakhouse so why why
26:49
not do another five senses
26:53
Uh, I don't think,
26:55
I think it's difficult to replicate.
26:58
We change our menus a lot.
26:59
Right.
26:59
We try to do local stuff.
27:01
We try to do seasonal stuff.
27:02
I think it's difficult to replicate.
27:03
Well, maybe not.
27:04
Maybe it's the wrong question.
27:07
So, uh,
27:09
are you familiar with Connor concepts, uh,
27:11
chop house and, and, uh,
27:13
their sister sister concept.
27:14
So they have,
27:15
they have two restaurants that are pretty
27:18
much identical, uh,
27:20
um but one leans on you know heavy
27:23
proteins i.e steaks and chops and stuff
27:26
like that with the chop house and then
27:29
their sister concept is more seafood why
27:33
not do something similar to that with five
27:37
senses um i think a lot of it
27:41
goes back to being a hands-on and it
27:43
may be something i look at
27:46
in the future.
27:47
But at that point I still,
27:49
and I still, to this day, I love,
27:52
I love restaurants.
27:53
I love work.
27:54
I still work way too much.
27:57
Can you sit on Mitch?
27:57
Why don't you sit back and see,
27:58
you know, smell the roses,
28:00
enjoy it a little bit.
28:01
I enjoy it on Friday night at seven
28:03
o'clock when the restaurant's full and I'm
28:05
back there
28:06
helping out,
28:07
they tell me to get out of the
28:07
kitchen now.
28:08
I'm like, get out of the way.
28:10
But I'm still like, no,
28:12
I have the right to stand in here
28:13
if I want to stand in here.
28:15
But I am in the way most of
28:16
the time.
28:16
Probably not quite as fast as you used
28:18
to be.
28:18
Not near as fast.
28:20
But I still love it to this day.
28:21
And I just like the hands-on.
28:23
I think replicating a place is not just
28:27
what I want to do or multiple...
28:33
places of the same style of cuisine.
28:38
Steakhouse and Five Senses are both kind
28:40
of upscale, but they're very different.
28:43
The blessing for me,
28:44
and I don't know how this happened.
28:46
is that Steakhouse Five, Five Senses,
28:49
and Five on Black are all three different
28:51
clienteles.
28:52
Yeah.
28:52
They're not, you could go, I mean,
28:55
it is just all,
28:55
they're all three different and it's
28:56
great.
28:57
And I hope that.
28:59
Do you find Five Senses is more born
29:04
and raised Murfreesboro?
29:06
Yes.
29:07
And the rest of them are a little
29:09
bit more implant?
29:12
Yeah, I would say that.
29:13
Yeah.
29:14
Stakehouse five is definitely more expense
29:16
account, like you're well aware of,
29:19
and business meetings.
29:24
Business meetings, like this week there,
29:26
and we didn't know this.
29:27
Gosh,
29:27
I wish we could do better at this.
29:29
There's some sort of automotive convention
29:31
at Embassy Suites this week.
29:33
Oh, okay.
29:34
We had thirty-three reservations going
29:36
into Monday night.
29:37
We ended up doing ninety-eight people at
29:40
Stakehouse Five.
29:41
All parties of seven or eight people that
29:44
were in for this convention,
29:45
this automotive convention,
29:45
Embassy Suites, came in again last night,
29:48
different groups.
29:50
Some came to Five Senses last night.
29:52
There's a bunch more larger party
29:54
reservations tonight.
29:56
So Sagos Five is where business people
29:59
come in, people in town, people visiting,
30:01
conventions, dinners, business dinners,
30:03
pharmaceutical dinners, stuff like that.
30:05
Five Senses is much more neighborhood-y,
30:08
regulars,
30:09
and they all have their regulars, but...
30:11
very much for our, you know,
30:13
regular kind of,
30:14
it's almost like a cheers bar.
30:15
Yeah.
30:16
It's a neighborhood.
30:17
He plays,
30:17
people drive their golf carts up there.
30:20
Part that is comical element.
30:22
If you've ever been in that area because
30:23
of the neighborhood, excuse me,
30:25
the neighborhoods behind it.
30:26
And you'll see somebody cruise up, right.
30:28
Where'd they come from on a golf cart.
30:29
And you realize that it connects,
30:30
you know, it's great.
30:32
So house is over.
30:33
Yeah.
30:35
They can have one more drink and they
30:36
don't have to worry about driving.
30:37
That's exactly right.
30:37
Yeah.
30:39
I've seen a golf cart crash out going
30:41
over that bump, getting back in.
30:43
I've seen golf carts crash.
30:44
I bet.
30:45
Well,
30:45
you got two or three different adult
30:49
beverage places over there.
30:51
So, I mean,
30:51
I'm sure that you can make the rounds
30:52
and have a good time.
30:54
So being in restaurants for twenty five
30:58
plus years, thirty years,
31:03
what would be one piece of advice that
31:06
you would give someone just starting out?
31:09
whether it's restaurant advice or business
31:11
advice,
31:12
but what is the one piece of advice
31:14
you would give someone just starting out
31:16
in business?
31:19
Well, the thing is to say,
31:21
don't do it.
31:24
Don't dare open a restaurant.
31:25
Don't.
31:25
But...
31:27
I think people underestimate if they want
31:30
it to succeed, whatever business it is,
31:32
the,
31:33
the initial work of those first three or
31:35
four or five years.
31:36
And it's, you know, like I said,
31:38
people talk about restaurants and you get
31:39
back to the first year,
31:40
you're going to be all right.
31:40
That is just not the case in any
31:42
business, much less restaurant.
31:44
It takes,
31:44
you have to commit every thing you got
31:47
for five years.
31:48
Your family has to understand.
31:50
yeah yeah thank thank the good lord i
31:54
have a wonderful wife that's on you know
31:56
golly how many wives or husbands are going
31:59
to stick around their significant other if
32:00
they open up five restaurants two of them
32:02
don't make it you know you're never home
32:05
on valentine's new year's eve mother's day
32:08
sunday friday night saturday night
32:11
Oh, I could come home.
32:11
Let's go have a date night.
32:12
I got a call.
32:13
I can't make it home tonight.
32:14
You know,
32:15
I got this party that came in.
32:16
So-and-so called out, you know,
32:19
so people want to really know my secret.
32:21
It's probably having a wife that lets me
32:23
do what I do.
32:24
Honestly, I woke up the other day.
32:27
normal day was planning on taking the most
32:29
of the day off.
32:31
Um,
32:31
I had to go in for a couple
32:32
hours, but was planning on,
32:34
that is a day off.
32:34
You only got to go in like what?
32:35
Six, eight, four, five, six hours.
32:38
I was planning on taking that quote
32:40
unquote day off.
32:41
Right.
32:41
So, and,
32:43
and I get a message at ten forty
32:46
and we open at eleven.
32:48
Oh, geez.
32:48
You already know where this is going.
32:51
Like I'm not even in the world.
32:53
I know what this is going.
32:54
And my opener's not there.
32:55
Yeah.
32:59
What?
32:59
Why'd you wait till ten forty to call
33:00
me?
33:01
Why'd you wait till twenty minutes
33:02
beforehand?
33:03
So that's the first thing I said when
33:05
I walked into my cook's.
33:07
No one noticed that the front of the
33:09
house people weren't here yet.
33:12
At least the friars on,
33:13
like you can drop the stuff in and
33:14
do what you gotta do then though.
33:15
I mean, like, I,
33:16
like I'm calling frantically lock the
33:19
front door,
33:19
make sure that nobody's coming in,
33:21
like put a note up.
33:24
We'll be open by.
33:25
Like, sorry.
33:26
Yeah.
33:31
So I got two people, two,
33:32
two different parties standing in front of
33:33
my restaurant at eleven o'clock yanking on
33:36
the front door.
33:36
I'm like Tasmanian devil flying through
33:40
the whole place.
33:41
And I go up front of my guys,
33:42
give me just a few more minutes.
33:43
I'll have us open,
33:44
but we are not ready yet.
33:47
yeah so it's it's it's to be understanding
33:51
is incredible because when you fly up to
33:54
your wife and say hey not gonna be
33:57
with you today no we had plans sorry
34:00
gotta go and and they i mean their
34:03
options are to not be with you or
34:07
be understanding yeah and i am i'm just
34:10
like you i am beyond blessed to have
34:13
a wife and kids that understand that i
34:15
may not make it to a birthday
34:16
party right kids do you know I may
34:18
not make it to the baseball game you
34:20
know there's there's been it the one time
34:25
I missed a baseball game I once in
34:30
in my life I've missed a one baseball
34:33
game that didn't have to do with work
34:37
and it was the only time that I've
34:41
ever looked at my son and saw the
34:43
disappointment
34:46
Never have I seen him disappointed that I
34:48
wasn't there because I had to go to
34:49
work.
34:50
But the one time I went fishing broke
34:55
his soul.
34:58
And I will never, ever do that again.
35:01
But it's amazing to see a now-fourteen-
35:05
and twelve-year-old go, Okay,
35:08
I know you got to work, Daddy.
35:10
That's fine.
35:11
We'll come get some wings after the game.
35:13
And it'll be fine.
35:14
He'll tell me about the whole game.
35:15
yeah yep but yeah i got two i
35:18
got two kids i got a uh a
35:19
nineteen-year-old now and a
35:21
fourteen-year-old and they they're as
35:23
understanding as the wife is yeah and they
35:25
have to be and uh i mean i
35:29
know yours too like that there at least
35:31
is an element there that they they've
35:33
always kind of understood yeah dad works
35:35
yeah and i think that's why
35:37
works fine don't skip out to go you
35:40
know whatever you're gonna go hang out on
35:45
a boat yeah i was on your uh
35:49
do your kids want to be in the
35:50
business not at all nothing you want to
35:52
have nothing to do with it they love
35:55
going to eat at nice restaurants
35:57
Yeah.
35:58
I mean, the,
35:58
the amount of money that my oldest son,
36:00
he's, has,
36:01
has spent on eating out and his life
36:03
is more than most normal people will
36:06
spend, you know, in a life,
36:08
but he loves it.
36:09
So he loves everything about restaurants,
36:11
but doesn't dare want to be working in
36:14
one.
36:14
You don't want to be a part of
36:15
it.
36:15
Yeah.
36:15
Yeah.
36:17
I say he's grown up in him.
36:18
He's, he's had years of seeing, uh, again,
36:20
you know,
36:21
not seeing dad home on Friday nights and
36:23
missing his band concerts and whatever it
36:25
is.
36:25
Uh,
36:27
but it's just whatever the business is
36:29
it's pouring yourself into it for four or
36:31
five years if if you if your end
36:35
goal is to be really successful in that
36:37
you have to lay the groundwork and put
36:40
in whether it's you know operational
36:42
controls staffing whatever it is to be
36:46
able to enjoy it so i was like
36:47
okay i'm gonna i'm gonna work my tail
36:49
off for fifteen twenty years and hopefully
36:52
get to the point where i'm at year
36:54
twenty one
36:56
I enjoy it now.
36:57
I enjoy what I do.
37:00
But for twenty years, I had no life.
37:02
The grind.
37:02
That's it.
37:03
I had nothing.
37:07
I think it's important to define what you
37:11
would call success.
37:13
Because like you've said a couple of
37:15
times, and I've said it before too,
37:17
we didn't get into this to be rich.
37:19
Yeah.
37:21
I got into this business to leave a
37:23
lasting positive impact in our community
37:26
and have a legacy, right?
37:28
I want my grandfather's name to live on
37:30
as someone that made an impact in the
37:32
world.
37:33
So how would you define success as a
37:35
restaurant owner?
37:38
My biggest enjoyment in what I do is
37:44
seeing people that have worked with us,
37:47
worked for me,
37:48
go on to be successful in their own
37:50
situation.
37:52
Whether it's in the restaurant world or
37:54
outside the restaurant world.
38:00
Can I do some humble brags?
38:01
Yes, of course.
38:02
Very good.
38:03
I like humble brags.
38:06
So there's been two, let's see here.
38:10
At the time,
38:11
there was only one chef who had had
38:16
a James Beard Award in Nashville,
38:17
and that was Tandy Wilson at City House.
38:21
His first two kitchen managers,
38:23
his first kitchen manager,
38:26
when he opened up,
38:27
was my sous chef here.
38:29
He came and got my sous chef.
38:32
His second sous chef after that guy left,
38:35
he came and got my next sous chef.
38:37
So I was the only person when James
38:41
Boyd Beard came and got chefs from my
38:43
restaurant to be his kitchen managers.
38:45
The only two-star Michelin chef at the
38:48
time in Nashville was Jean-Georges at
38:51
Drucy and Dar.
38:53
Yeah, Drucy and Dar.
38:56
His first opening kitchen manager there,
38:58
he came and got from my kitchen.
39:01
His second kitchen manager came and got
39:03
from my kitchen.
39:05
That makes me more happy that we're doing
39:09
something right with whatever we're doing
39:12
that people want to come and take our
39:15
people.
39:17
What is it we're doing?
39:18
That makes me more happy than being full
39:20
on a Friday night and having...
39:21
you know, whatever,
39:23
a twenty five thousand dollar weekend or
39:26
having some radio or, you know,
39:28
newspaper article written about us or
39:30
anything like that.
39:31
That makes me happy.
39:34
One of the most successful restaurants in
39:36
New Zealand right now is owned by Alex
39:39
George from Woodbury, Tennessee.
39:42
Worked at my pizza place,
39:44
worked with me five or six years.
39:47
He's he's as it's a,
39:49
it's a hot chicken restaurant in New
39:50
Zealand.
39:54
I can't remember the name of it now,
39:56
but he's, he's,
39:58
he was last time I spoke with him,
40:02
he was about to open up a second
40:03
location.
40:04
That's awesome.
40:05
That's awesome.
40:05
Yeah.
40:06
Stuff like that.
40:07
That's what excites me.
40:09
Yeah.
40:09
That, that success to me.
40:10
Cause you play a part in that story
40:13
and, and some point down the line,
40:15
they're all gonna be like, well,
40:17
I remember when I was at, you know,
40:18
five cents.
40:19
I remember when I was at steakhouse five
40:20
and that, that,
40:21
that you built into their storyline
40:23
somewhere.
40:25
And I think that's a phenomenal part of
40:27
what you get to do when,
40:28
because so much about the hospitality
40:30
industry is who's walking out my door.
40:33
Uh,
40:34
as far as the sale and the who's
40:35
at the table and whatever,
40:37
but then when you're developing those
40:38
people and you've got that as your
40:40
background, you're like, golly,
40:41
like there are no large competitors,
40:42
their friends, you know,
40:43
that kind of thing.
40:44
Yeah.
40:44
That, that, that's an impressive, uh,
40:46
feat that a lot of people would,
40:48
would skip over a mess.
40:49
So.
40:49
i think it ha you know you listen
40:51
to anthony bourdain talk about who who
40:53
staffs the kitchens in the you know that
40:55
you don't hear about whether it's uh you
40:59
know ex-addicts or whatever it is it's
41:02
it's it's a motley crew in the back
41:04
of the house in front of the house
41:05
for that matter too but they're the people
41:08
that work in restaurants are so real
41:10
they're they're just real people they show
41:13
up and they
41:14
cook food i mean food is such such
41:17
such sustenance it's so necessary for
41:19
living and they're such a part of that
41:22
and and you you feel that from the
41:23
customers hey man somebody passed away in
41:27
somebody's family we want you to come cook
41:30
the food for our family that night yeah
41:32
there's that money's not involved in that
41:35
that's that's a man that's this is a
41:37
personal thing
41:38
And then, Hey man,
41:40
can you bring so-and-so we did,
41:41
they are so awesome when they come over
41:43
to our house and cook, cook for us.
41:45
The staff,
41:46
I love the staffing and the comradery of
41:48
restaurants as much as anything about
41:51
restaurants.
41:52
I love that.
41:52
A lot of us can have that, um,
41:56
that comradery when we become a regular
41:58
somewhere.
41:59
Yeah.
41:59
So when, when Kurt was over on,
42:02
was station grill before they moved.
42:03
Yeah.
42:05
Uh,
42:06
I frequented over there and I got to
42:07
know everybody, whatever.
42:08
And I actually thought about this day
42:09
because one of the barkeepers back there,
42:13
she would like,
42:15
there was a certain point in the night
42:17
that we all knew each other and you'd
42:19
come walking out of the restaurant.
42:20
Like, did you wash your hands?
42:21
And we're like, well, yeah,
42:22
nobody ever said, no,
42:23
I didn't wash my hands.
42:24
So,
42:25
cause they knew she was going to ask,
42:27
but then she'd like call you on the
42:28
car, but let me smell your hands.
42:30
I'm like, all right, that's weird.
42:31
But she knew if you did or not.
42:34
And that there's a certain amount.
42:36
And so now here I am years later,
42:39
there's times I catch myself washing my
42:40
hands and I'm drying them off.
42:41
You're like, that's hilarious.
42:42
Like it still comes back to me.
42:44
And that's a story from, you know,
42:45
however long ago.
42:46
And cause you do develop that.
42:47
So you get those relationships that you're
42:50
not going to get anywhere else because
42:52
it's a plate of food.
42:52
Because like you said, when, when,
42:54
who am I going to call?
42:55
Uh, that it's important time,
42:57
whether it's a celebration or a passing of
42:59
loved one or whatever, like you said,
43:01
the money's not involved there because
43:02
there's a relationship that's been built
43:03
and bonded.
43:04
And that means a lot more than,
43:05
than anything else at that point.
43:07
So I just,
43:08
that's funny that some of us just know
43:10
each other too well.
43:13
you uh you got a good mac and
43:15
beans for us today i think so i
43:16
don't know we had uh i was thinking
43:18
about this you're you're classically
43:20
trained you've got all this great uh
43:23
background and and higher end restaurant
43:25
well first let me mac or beans is
43:27
our this or that segment you go to
43:30
the barbecue joint are you getting mac and
43:33
b mac and cheese or the barbecue baked
43:35
beans i uh geez man i was just
43:40
gonna say mac and cheese for sure
43:43
I do love a good bowl of beans.
43:45
I'd have to go Mac and cheese.
43:46
All right.
43:47
There you go.
43:47
That's my only two options.
43:51
Yeah.
43:52
Mac and cheese.
43:52
Okay.
43:53
Yeah.
43:54
I love some pasta and a good creamy
43:56
sauce.
43:59
I, at, at, at tomato head and not,
44:00
when you say it like that,
44:01
it just sounds so much like one of
44:03
my, and man, I just, I,
44:07
it's just so funny.
44:07
Restaurants are so funny.
44:08
I mean, I don't,
44:09
I don't know anything different.
44:10
That's all I've known.
44:11
And, uh,
44:12
I did after I worked at tomato head,
44:14
I did an internship in Mexico and, uh,
44:18
and, uh, for, uh, Kellogg cereal.
44:24
Kellogg,
44:24
we still going for Kellogg's cereal.
44:31
That was the most.
44:32
So I'd been in restaurants for three,
44:34
I guess at the point two years and
44:37
went to work at Kellogg's cereal is just
44:39
the most corporate of the corporate of the
44:40
corporate.
44:41
I'm like, my God,
44:43
I can get me back in the restaurant
44:45
as soon as I can get back in
44:46
there.
44:47
Didn't want anything to do with that.
44:48
So, uh,
44:50
I,
44:50
one of the ladies I worked with at
44:52
tomato had said, man,
44:53
we all these different cheeses.
44:54
I never heard of these cheeses, man.
44:56
Mitchell,
44:57
somebody tells me that they don't like
44:58
cheese.
44:59
I don't trust them.
45:00
I don't, I don't know about them.
45:03
fair enough so makes sense the pile of
45:06
cheese with some cream and some pasta man
45:07
i'm pretty sad so the other part is
45:09
you like i said you've got this background
45:11
with finer dining higher upscale stuff
45:14
whatever uh but when it comes down to
45:17
it i need to know on a saturday
45:21
afternoon or saturday evening we're
45:23
getting ready all right you still want the
45:25
little hole in the wall choke compute kind
45:28
of joint or do you still want to
45:29
go high-scale dining
45:32
What am I doing after, after I eat?
45:34
I don't know.
45:35
That's between you and the wife.
45:37
That's a good caveat.
45:39
I like that.
45:40
Because it's a valid point.
45:43
Okay.
45:43
Yeah, man.
45:44
I don't know.
45:45
Because if you're, you know, I mean,
45:48
just hanging out and watching a movie and
45:50
putting some sweats on,
45:51
that could be a totally different meal
45:53
than if we're going out on the town.
45:55
If I've got money and I got some
45:57
money in the bank.
45:57
All right.
45:59
I love spending money on food and drinks
46:03
and eating out.
46:04
So I'd go high end.
46:06
If I, if, if, if there's,
46:07
if I got plenty of money to burn.
46:08
Yeah.
46:08
Yeah.
46:09
I don't think enough people understand.
46:11
It's not about the money part there.
46:12
There is something about.
46:15
being out and enjoying that atmosphere.
46:18
I've spent,
46:19
I've spent amount of monies on food.
46:20
That's disgusting.
46:21
It's stupid.
46:22
And to me, it's, I don't, it's,
46:24
I don't, the money's not,
46:26
it doesn't matter, right, man.
46:27
I can't get this experience anywhere else.
46:32
Any.
46:33
think i gotta pay for it yeah but
46:35
i can't get this anywhere right and my
46:38
thing was especially if you're with
46:39
friends or you know there's five or five
46:41
six of you got a small group you
46:43
can't develop that in any way let me
46:46
tell you a story so ten years ago
46:48
i took my wife to a place called
46:50
perry's
46:52
Not the one in Franklin.
46:54
This was in Birmingham, Alabama.
46:57
My boss at the time had taken me
46:59
there to give me some bad news.
47:01
So he wanted to buy me a nice
47:02
bottle of wine,
47:03
a big old juicy steak and spend some
47:05
money on me and give me a nice
47:08
meal thinking that that would ease the
47:11
blow.
47:13
And the food was amazing,
47:14
but it wasn't even the food.
47:15
It was the service.
47:16
It was the experience.
47:17
It was just the whole thing.
47:19
You walked in and had this, you know,
47:21
ninety pound tomahawk steak that was
47:23
sitting in the corner.
47:24
You, too, can have this.
47:27
And, you know,
47:28
the martinis were just right where they
47:31
should be and everything was delicious.
47:33
I was like, man,
47:34
I got to bring my wife here.
47:35
This is great.
47:36
So that year for our anniversary.
47:41
my direct supervisor was like, Hey,
47:44
take your wife to Perry's,
47:46
put it on your card,
47:48
expense the whole thing,
47:49
stay at the Marriott, do the whole,
47:51
you know, on us,
47:52
we'll take care of it,
47:54
you gotta bring her here.
47:55
Because I had been talking about it like
47:56
every time I saw him.
47:58
So that's what we did.
48:00
We drove down to Birmingham,
48:02
we got a room,
48:03
we did the whole thing.
48:04
Perry's was pretty much across the street,
48:07
right?
48:07
So we go to dinner,
48:09
we have just this amazing meal.
48:12
Service was impeccable.
48:13
Hey, Mr. Ebelin,
48:14
anything else we can get for you?
48:15
You know, the whole deal.
48:17
Excuse me.
48:21
Fast forward to the next year,
48:23
we do the same thing.
48:24
It's the exact same experience.
48:25
It's wonderful.
48:28
The next year, we moved to Tennessee.
48:32
We're back home.
48:34
Cool.
48:35
Two years later,
48:36
what do they open up in Franklin?
48:39
Perry a Perry's yeah awesome it's right
48:42
off a forty hit on six sixty five
48:45
go up and exit there you go Moore's
48:46
Lane boom let's go have let's go have
48:48
a nice dinner we're stoked stoked that
48:54
year for the anniversary we went somewhere
48:57
else next year
48:59
let them work the bugs out it's a
49:00
brand new restaurant we're going we're so
49:04
excited we go we go in they give
49:08
us our table the servers hey mr.
49:11
Evelyn miss Evelyn understand you guys are
49:14
celebrating the anniversary great
49:17
We order our dinner.
49:18
They got a huge,
49:19
thirty six ounce pork chop.
49:21
My wife wanted a steak,
49:23
so she got a steak.
49:24
We got some tartar.
49:25
The whole deal.
49:27
None of it was right.
49:28
Oh, geez.
49:31
And that server panicked.
49:36
I mean, he total meltdown.
49:41
And at that point, one mistake happened,
49:44
two mistake happened,
49:45
three mistake happened.
49:47
Okay, now four.
49:49
Now there's nothing right.
49:51
The whole dinner was awful.
49:54
Food was probably just as good as it
49:57
was in Birmingham.
49:59
But from the moment that happened,
50:01
the experience changed, right?
50:04
So now she doesn't want to go back
50:05
there.
50:09
But I guarantee you,
50:09
if I call her right now and say,
50:10
hey, pack your bags,
50:11
we're going to Birmingham.
50:12
Y'all going to Perry's in Birmingham,
50:13
ain't you?
50:14
She'd be like, no, let's go.
50:14
Let's make it happen.
50:17
Right?
50:19
And it would have nothing to do with
50:20
any of the dollars.
50:21
Right.
50:22
And everything.
50:23
It would cost me more money to go
50:25
to Birmingham than it would to do here,
50:27
right?
50:28
But it's all about the experience.
50:30
It is.
50:31
And that experience that we had there will
50:33
never top anything that Perry's could ever
50:36
do ever.
50:36
But when I was that regular there,
50:38
and I mean,
50:39
I wasn't spending a ton each night,
50:40
but you couldn't like,
50:42
but about the experience when they saw me
50:44
coming.
50:46
knew where i was gonna sit if it
50:47
was open and before i'd sit down there's
50:50
a water and a napkin and a spoon
50:52
and it was and it was every time
50:53
and i didn't even and it just and
50:56
that you realize then you've kind of
50:57
bonded with somebody and then there's a
50:59
story to be shared and there's a this
51:00
or that and then you realize somebody's
51:02
broken up with somebody now we're all
51:04
sharing it you know and it's just you
51:06
all start connecting all because of
51:08
what initially was just a simple plate of
51:10
food or i just stopped in or whatever
51:12
and and that's where life happens across
51:14
when that table and you're breaking bread
51:16
and it's just a beautiful spot so look
51:18
i've always said that there's three
51:19
reasons why you're dining in a restaurant
51:21
i'd love to see if you disagree with
51:22
me or not and please feel free to
51:24
um value convenience or relationships
51:32
I think those are the three reasons that
51:34
people go to eat, right?
51:36
The value and convenience is the only
51:40
reason McDonald's is still in business.
51:42
It is not a culinary delight.
51:45
It is not, right?
51:47
i've had cardboard with more flavor right
51:50
i mean their black coffee is pretty good
51:51
i don't know it's got a lot of
51:52
flavor it's just i don't know where the
51:55
flavor is coming from yeah right but you
51:56
know and then you go to you can
51:59
go to some of these extremely high-end
52:01
restaurants i.e what we were just talking
52:03
about right and and not have a good
52:06
experience right so and then the
52:08
relationship is always is always to me the
52:11
number one driver
52:12
if you can know someone's name and make
52:15
them feel special every time they walk in
52:17
your doors then they're always going to
52:18
come back they may not eat in your
52:20
restaurant every single day right they may
52:22
not be able to afford that they may
52:24
not want to they may want to get
52:25
some variety in life right but they will
52:28
be a regular guest of yours so just
52:30
my opinion maybe i'm right maybe i'm wrong
52:32
who knows well i haven't had the
52:34
opportunity to go to five on black yet
52:37
I'm looking forward to it.
52:38
Like,
52:38
y'all's Instagram page there is perfect.
52:40
I don't know who's run that.
52:41
Well done.
52:41
I have nothing to do with it.
52:43
Okay, well, whoever is,
52:44
they're killing it.
52:45
They're doing a fantastic job.
52:46
Because, first,
52:48
I've never had a bad experience at either
52:50
one of your other two places.
52:51
Especially the ones when I didn't have to
52:52
pay.
52:53
But at Steakhouse Five.
52:55
But...
52:57
But at five senses and it is a
53:00
very different vibe.
53:01
Do not go to one thinking it's the
53:02
same as the other.
53:03
So I do want to hit the public
53:05
with that,
53:05
but what y'all are doing there is good.
53:08
And I'm not just pumping you full
53:09
sunshine.
53:09
Like it's a truly good experience,
53:11
which now makes me want to go to
53:13
five on black and not to mention the
53:15
fact that it looks like it's a whole
53:16
different experience as well.
53:18
And like I said,
53:19
whoever's doing their social media page
53:20
with their question, what, um, uh,
53:25
did you,
53:27
create that menu with your partner?
53:29
Or was that more your partner?
53:31
And you just said, Hey, I like this.
53:33
I like that.
53:34
What do you think about adding this?
53:35
How did that how did that menu come
53:37
around?
53:37
No,
53:37
it's I'd say it's ninety ninety five
53:40
percent him and what they wanted to do.
53:45
And then I would come in with like,
53:46
you know,
53:47
don't want to have you don't want to
53:49
get in carrots for this one dish right
53:52
and not use them anywhere else let's let's
53:54
find a way to use this uh and
53:57
on another dish or hey it's been my
53:59
experience that man i can't give away not
54:02
enough i'm just thinking iceberg wedge
54:05
right nobody orders an iceberg wedge in
54:06
this town of course obviously they do
54:08
right stuff like that it's like man let's
54:11
I have,
54:11
I've had zero success trying to sell that.
54:14
Let's not,
54:14
let's try to be more efficient with some
54:16
of the foods we're doing.
54:17
Yeah.
54:18
And I think that's what happens to a
54:18
lot of people with,
54:19
I want to open up a restaurant.
54:20
Here's what I want to do.
54:21
Here's what I want to do.
54:22
Have on the menu,
54:22
this and that and this and that.
54:23
Right.
54:24
Well, when it comes down to it,
54:25
you got to turn that,
54:26
that idea into a business and make it
54:28
work from a monetary standpoint.
54:30
And that's where you have to cut some
54:32
stuff out, combine some things,
54:33
shrink some things,
54:35
maybe grow a section of the menu bigger.
54:38
Um,
54:38
but I was much more of the tweaking
54:40
the things than coming up with the menu
54:42
there.
54:42
Yeah.
54:43
More consulting than driving.
54:45
Cause it's not stuff that I would
54:47
necessarily, uh, I mean, I,
54:50
I am proud of myself for being as.
54:53
hands off as i have been and letting
54:55
them do it uh obviously it takes them
54:58
putting forth the effort and knocking it
55:00
out of the park from day one to
55:02
give me the confidence that it's going to
55:03
be okay but like we had they wanted
55:07
to do one of the things that day
55:08
was like nacho they want to do these
55:10
wonton nachos why are we doing i love
55:12
corn tortillas why are we doing wontons
55:15
with nachos you take away the gluten
55:16
situation because you got flour and the
55:18
wontons so
55:21
you got a dish that you know gluten-free
55:23
people can't can't have or whatever but it
55:26
was this and he wanted nacho cheese sauce
55:28
and stuff and we had just got back
55:30
from dc and we had eaten at several
55:32
of jose andres's restaurants yeah the
55:34
world central kitchen guy uh he had this
55:38
little pepper from peru uh one of his
55:41
restaurants was a chinese peruvian uh
55:44
fusion thing
55:46
Ahi Amarillo.
55:47
Ahi Amarillo.
55:49
So it's a little yellow pepper that's
55:50
spicy and sweet and tangy.
55:53
And man,
55:54
I've never tasted anything like it.
55:57
It tasted like nacho,
55:59
the canned tubs of nacho cheese sauce,
56:02
but it was a pepper, fresh pepper,
56:03
a little sour cream in there.
56:05
Knocked my socks off.
56:07
I said,
56:07
so when we came back and get ready
56:09
to do this, like,
56:10
let's find out where the heck we get
56:12
these.
56:13
Luckily top men on Amazon.
56:15
There's a thousand of them.
56:16
Um, but you,
56:18
you would never know to look for them.
56:20
It just happened.
56:21
So happened that clearly they're a popular
56:22
thing.
56:24
Nobody had ever heard of,
56:25
that's not in Murfreesboro,
56:26
Ahi Amarillo and stuff.
56:27
So that's our sauce on the nachos,
56:29
and it tastes like nacho cheese sauce,
56:30
but it's a thousand.
56:31
It has that familiar flavor,
56:34
but it's different.
56:36
And it's cool,
56:36
and there's a story about it.
56:38
That's kind of what I would do.
56:40
Yeah, that's awesome.
56:40
I love that.
56:41
I love that.
56:41
Yeah.
56:44
Mitchell, look, man,
56:45
I appreciate you coming to hang out with
56:47
us for sure.
56:47
If people are trying to,
56:50
if they want to get ahold of you,
56:51
make reservations at the restaurants,
56:53
come see all the things.
56:54
How can they do that?
56:56
Man,
56:56
I don't even know how they do that.
56:58
Uh, what do you do?
56:59
You go online, uh,
57:01
I don't have a great way to do
57:03
that.
57:03
I don't know.
57:04
Search five senses restaurant.
57:07
We're on the socials.
57:08
So yeah, you are five senses,
57:11
five senses at five senses burrow is our
57:14
Instagram.
57:15
Okay.
57:15
At five senses burrow.
57:17
And then I guess at steakhouse five is
57:19
that, and then five on black TN.
57:22
Uh, five on black TN.
57:24
You can make your reservation six, one,
57:25
five, three, nine, six,
57:26
eighty-seven hundred.
57:28
Uh, Wednesday night,
57:29
they got date nights for seventy bucks.
57:31
All the restaurants open seven days a
57:32
week.
57:33
Six.
57:34
Uh, okay.
57:35
Five on black is open Sunday brunch,
57:37
close Monday, the other,
57:38
and then open Tuesday through Saturday
57:40
dinner only except for Sunday brunch.
57:42
And then five cents at steakhouse five
57:44
open Monday through Saturday dinner only
57:46
do a lot of catering.
57:48
Um,
57:49
And that is,
57:50
so we do a date night on Monday
57:52
night at five senses.
57:54
Date night,
57:54
Tuesday night at steakhouse five date
57:56
night,
57:56
Wednesday on five on black at five on
57:58
black.
57:59
And those have been so crazy successful.
58:03
Monday night is our most consistent
58:05
busiest night of the week at five cents.
58:07
It's every single week.
58:08
We'll do over a hundred people on a
58:09
Monday night at a high end restaurant.
58:11
That's awesome.
58:12
Which is unbelievable.
58:13
It's a good deal.
58:14
It's only eighty bucks right now.
58:16
One, uh, you get split an appetizer,
58:18
split a dessert and you get two entrees.
58:19
It's a great, great deal.
58:21
Um,
58:23
But it's been,
58:24
it was little things like that.
58:26
Figuring out little tweaks of how you can
58:27
bring people in without just saying.
58:29
That is an incredible deal.
58:31
Yeah.
58:31
I didn't know you were doing that stuff.
58:32
Yeah.
58:33
We do a date night and then,
58:35
and take his wife and pay for it.
58:36
You could, Hey,
58:38
don't tempt me with a good time.
58:41
Wednesday night, five of black,
58:42
you get four courses.
58:50
I was reading today saw some stuff going
58:54
on and this gentleman was referring to
58:57
just currently in his life being caught up
58:59
in a struggle and the guy's response was
59:02
there is no growth in the stagnant and
59:07
when when you are just
59:08
comfort there's no growth there struggle
59:11
comes from pressure struggle or growth
59:14
comes from pressure growth comes from
59:16
tearing down to build back up growth comes
59:18
from putting yourself in uncomfortable
59:20
situations and so if you're going through
59:23
struggle it's not always a negative a lot
59:25
of times you could be growing to come
59:27
out to the other side you'll know what
59:28
to do if that's why you know tell
59:29
me you love them
59:30
Awesome.
59:30
Mitchell, again,
59:31
thank you very much for coming to hang
59:32
out with us.
59:32
A lot of fun.
59:33
Yes, sir.
59:34
Guys, you know what to do.
59:35
If you want to get involved,
59:35
please feel free to reach out to me.
59:37
You can email me at charlie at
59:38
singletreebbq.com.
59:40
Give us a call at six one five
59:42
three zero seven zero one two zero.
59:44
And as always,
59:45
please make sure you like share and
59:47
subscribe to our YouTube channel.
59:49
And if you want to listen to the
59:51
show,
59:51
we're on every Saturday morning on ESPN,
59:53
ninety four point nine from eight until
59:56
nine a.m.
59:57
Till next time, guys.
59:58
We'll see you then.
59:59
Y'all be good.