Latest / Sidewalk Talks / Old World Pizzeria: From Fermentation and Rabbit Farming to New York-Style Slices in Saginaw

Transcript

Old World Pizzeria: From Fermentation and Rabbit Farming to New York-Style Slices in Saginaw · Sidewalk Talks

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: I got these chairs from a place that's it was like a marketing PR building down the road on Watershed.
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: They're very ergonomic.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: They are. These were, like, $700 chairs or something at the time. Got It was, like, like, a $100.
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: I love those moments.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I also but the thing is about these chairs is I don't really know how they work because there's so many knobs and buttons and stuff.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: Woah. What are you doing?
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: So you You're making me so nervous. You can lose the arms up
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: and down? I feel like you're just gonna launch up to that the window ceiling is gonna open up.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna hit like the emergency jackpot.
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: Objection butt.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: Willy Wonka, this place. Right through the glass ceiling. You were supposed to bring me tinned fish. Shit. That's fine.
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: I got more coming in the tent.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: You're on a tin like, what started the tin fish kick?
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: I don't know. I don't know. Get your get
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: your face, like, right in front of them.
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: Don't like, did you have a can of tin fish? And then you
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: I grew up on tin fish.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah. It's really good.
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: Like, literally, you know, I was, like, telling a story the other day about what caviar did to me.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: What did caviar do to you?
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: So we had caviar, creme fraiche, and potato chips. Right? That's a thing. Like, growing
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: up as a kid, you
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: I'm talking, like, later in life, like, Napa. And I
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: was like Say that again? Caviar?
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: So it's caviar, creme fraiche, sour cream, and potato chips.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: And you you put all of that on a potato chip and then eat it?
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: So it reminded me of eating a tinned fish in the boat while we're fishing. Yeah. And the smell of, like, minnows on your hands and shit, and you're, like, eating sour cream and chive potato chips.
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: I could get behind that. I don't think I've ever
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: had caviar. But I grew up on the tinned fish.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. You know, most people find tin fish revolting.
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: It's a whole fad right now. It's weird. All of a sudden, I just turned on the YouTube maybe because I said something about tin fish. Yeah. They're listening.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah. There they go. Zuckerberg. Hey. Hey, Mark.
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: Send me some tin fish for the so, yeah, anyways, tin fish. They're delicious.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: They it is delicious.
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: And now they're doing sardine fast.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: They're making so I I part of the reason I like doing the sardine tin fish thing is because people think it's revolting and disgusting. Fine. Like, more of this glorious food for me. It's so
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: good for you.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: But now it being all over TikTok and they're like, it's like you just fast for two days and then you do tin fish, sardines for a couple more days and it burn ah, don't cheapen this experience for me. Right. Don't turn this into an influencer thing.
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: But it's become one now. Yeah. That's right. Goddamn it.
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: Last time last time we did an interview, the first time we did an interview before you opened your place, you brought me some tortilla chips and some of the Mexican salsa that Yeah.
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: Brought you a half a quarter eating cookie today if you want. And a half thing Is that what happens? A quarter of Leland Altea here.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah. The first time you were trying to impress me and make a good impression and now you just like Hey,
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: listen. You eat there all the time. You eat there like what? Twice, three times a week sometimes?
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah. When I'm in town. Yeah. When I'm in town.
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: You know what it is? Yeah. I don't have to I don't have to be like, hey,
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: check
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: this new thing out.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: That's true. I'm giving you your money anyway.
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: Alright. We're good now.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So this is actually our second interview. Because the first time, it was kind of up in the air what you were gonna do.
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: Sure got it. Things were real weird real quick.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: It was Preservation Food Co, and you were really leaning to the fermented food thing.
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah. It'll come back.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah. It'll be there. So where did well, first, like, the let's talk about the fermented food thing, and then we'll talk about, like, how you ended up doing the pizza thing. I don't
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: even know.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: How how'd you do the like, how'd you get into the fermented food thing? I don't I don't even know
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: how you anymore. I mean,
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: how'd you tell me about the fermented food thing because it was delicious, and also I was eating that constantly.
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: I mean, again, growing up, Crocs and stuff in the basement. You know?
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: Me and the neighborhood kids would see who could drink the most pickle juice. You know? There was, like, competitions. Like, you know?
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: Like That's a health fad too. Know.
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: That's what I'm trying to say. Like, were we were ahead of the game. Mhmm.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: Here in Saginaw?
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: Nah. Out in the Thome in Cairo.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Out in the Thome.
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah. That's cool. But, yeah, that's I mean, that was not knowing it was a health thing, it was just a cultural thing. Yeah. Cultures and culture.
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: That's a dad food joke. He got a two for one deal. So so when we we did our interview, you it was kind of up in the like, it was preservation food, like fermented foods, then you you kinda slid in there. I look back at our at our conversation. You kinda slid in there the the New York style pizza.
• 4:40
  Yeah. But it was kinda like a footnote. Yeah. And we'll do this.
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah. We were thinking about it.
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: How did it look, how did Old World Pizzeria come to be from from there? Like, why did you decide I'm going all in on new stuff?
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: OWP, man. I mean, we grew up in Old Town. We we had a group called OWP. It was our skateboard gang.
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah. What intrigued you about pizza though?
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: Because that's what we ate. We ate pizzas at San Fagos, man. Little Caesar's. Yeah. But it's Like the OG.
• 5:10
  Like, the good like, when it was good. I mean, it's still
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: There is an
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: nostalgic and good, but
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: It is there's a nostalgia. There's an accessibility to pizza.
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: But then, you know
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: Who doesn't like
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: pizza? Who doesn't like pizza exactly? Who doesn't like pizza?
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: But I just I I just wanna confront you with it. Like, you you just you took that idea and then, like, you went all in.
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: Well, that's what I do.
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So tell me a little bit about developing it because you, like, you went out to New York.
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So we traveled we traveled up to New York. I went up there for forty eight hours and ate pizzas for pizzas for two days. Yeah. Slice shop after slice shop after slice shop.
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: What was your best? What was your worst?
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: Nothing is ever the worst because it's just an experience. So I couldn't say the worst. But my the ones that I enjoyed that were quite memorable because I went back to both of them twice the next day to see who was going to be the top on my list. And Lindestree and Mama Twos were the number two number one and number two.
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: Was it the the the crust?
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: It was all about the dough. And it was the balances of flavors. We could talk about, you know, the acidity of the sauce, the sweetness of sauce, whatever. Whatever was in there was fucking amazing. So Yeah.
• 6:18
  And ferment I mean, then again, we get into fermentation. Fermentation of dough.
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: It's true. Shit. Yeah. Because you I mean, you came back from you came back from New York, and I remember walking over to your place as you're setting up, and I'd walk in the door and you'd say, Phil, I have this dough that's been fermented at I'm gonna screw up the percentages, so don't judge me, but it's 37.5% and this dough has been fermented at it has a moisture content of 38%, and this one has 39%.
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: And you
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: just sit there and, like, munch on dough and then
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: I mean, double those numbers and you get closer to what we're doing. But yeah.
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. I don't wanna give away the secrets.
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: There's no secret. I know. There is no secret. I mean, listen. They're out there.
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: That's true. I mean, it's pizza.
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: It's pizza. But you do it really well. Thank you.
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: You do it really well. You take it really seriously, which you love.
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: Well, I do.
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And there's also a creativity to it. Every week, you're rolling out some kind of new thing.
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: Oranges and pistachios.
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: Was it good? Was that good?
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: That's delicious. Well, we did an orange pistachio burrata salad, and I was like, let's just put it on sorry.
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: No. You're fine.
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: I was like, let's just put it on pizza. Why not? Yeah. So we tried it.
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: And it was good?
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: And it was delicious.
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: Have you have you done a recipe that you were like,
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: yeah. Pumpkin.
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: The pumpkin? Pumpkin's a weird ingredient. I tried to home brew with pumpkin, and it was just like, I don't know. Pumpkin pie is good, but you don't taste the pumpkin in pumpkin pie.
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So we took all the pumpkin and did pumpkin cheesecake and said it was delicious.
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Oh. Yeah. Your cheesecake is good.
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah.
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: Can you explain the cheesecake for for folks that come in for the first time or they see it on on the Internet and they're like, bro, why is the top of your cheesecake burn?
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: Why is the of the year? Burnt. Yeah. Everybody wants to talk about burnt in their shop. Yeah.
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: So talk tell me about the cheesecake because the
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: cheesecake cheesecake is actually a burnt cheesecake. It's a Bastille cheesecake. In theory, you basically are taking a bunch of cream cheese and sugars and some other ingredients and cooking it a little longer than a like a normal New York style cheesecake. Yeah. But I make the best.
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: It's really good. Yeah. I would eat it every day.
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: My bro, Chad, that's coming back.
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Chad.
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: He travels the world, been to Spain, and ate these things. He helped me come up with the idea. He said, make best cheesecake. So I did.
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: Can we talk about Chad later? Because I wanna talk about you first. Yeah. That's fine. Because he's big on the Internet, so we don't really have to give him more attention.
• 8:36
  But There we go. We should probably give him a shout out. We will. Roll out the red carpet for Chad.
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: We should.
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: Anyways.
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: So I wanna I wanna ask you the kind of the origin story of
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: Can we get back to pizza? We'll go back to pizza.
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: So the origin of it. It started at a young age. We all loved growing up with pizza. I had a pizza shop growing up as a kid called Capri. What's the name?
• 9:02
  Yeah. The Capri out in Nathalm in Cairo. And that that was great pizza. Good cheese. You know, thick, heavy Midwest style pizza.
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: Mhmm.
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: Then traveling around in the nineties, I made it out to San Francisco. We all skateboarded. Every night, we'd stop at one of the many slice shops. There was one specifically in the corner of Jones And O'Farrell in the Tenderloin District of San Francisco. It was called pizza two thousand.
• 9:29
  And they they would bring guys in from Afghanistan for three to six months to work in this pizza shop, and then they'd send them home. Really? It was weird. One guy was like, I don't wanna go back. So I asked I asked, well, why?
• 9:43
  Yeah. That's all I'm gonna say. Yeah. And that was pre all the you know, that was, like, '96, probably, '97.
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: All the stuff?
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: But, yeah, they were he was like, they're they've been training us, like, forever. Like, it's not good.
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: What was it like in San Francisco then?
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: For a skateboarding scene, music scene, punk rock scene, rave scene, all of it was amazing. It was just like the foundation of new things. And about '96 is, you know, you're looking at changes Yeah. Coming. Yeah.
• 10:13
  You're looking at tech technological advancements.
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Before San Francisco priced its out self out of everything cool. Pretty much. No offense, San Francisco. I've got an uncle there.
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: But Yeah. It's You guys
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: are in a situation.
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: It's not it's not great.
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. So you're growing up, you're skateboarding, you're eating pizza, then what what do you do?
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: We'll leave that story blank for a while, but it'll be in a book one day. Okay. Just a lot of traveling, a lot of eating Yeah. In and out of other countries and areas and stuff and, you know, got to experience culture and culture within The United States. There's so many different Mhmm.
• 10:51
  From a Laotian culture to a Yugoslavian culture, like you're just experiencing food everywhere, you know, and that was a I've kind of been obsessed with that since I was a young kid. Like, food was like it's what kept everybody together.
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: You you talked about this a little bit in our first interview, and I'd love for you to talk about it again. This this idea of food memories.
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: It really started with my my cousin, Liala. She got dementia. And we would bring her some of the food of our of our of our people, Russian or Eastern European Russian slash Ukrainian, however you wanna look at it right now. But it really you could see the changes Justin, you know, a couple bites that she would take, and there's times she wouldn't even eat. And we were starting to bring this stuff, and now she's starting to eat again.
• 11:42
  Mhmm. And the hard part of this whole thing is is now my mom has dementia, and we're doing I'm doing the same thing for her. Mhmm. And it it really helps keep them I get I don't know if they're I'm sure there's been studies. There's studies on everything now.
• 11:55
  But for me, it really helps see that with everybody. You know? It's I remember being a kid and, you know, when we would make Palmetto or Veranaki, my grandpa would, you know, everybody would just put a smile on their face. It would just create such I don't know. It was like labors of love.
• 12:11
  You learn that food is the the way to somebody's heart in so many ways. Like, when we go out on dates for Valentine's Day, what do we do? Mhmm. We go eat a memorable meal. Like, this is, like, all a part of this this thing.
• 12:24
  I mean, even McDonald's french fries, you know, like Mhmm. You it all it all is something. You know? It doesn't have to be this, like, amazing Michelin star thing. You could just be eating canned fish and have a memory of, like, childhood or
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: For for me, it it one of the memories is that my my mom growing up, she she canning. Like, we had a cellar, and she she would just go through these weeks of canning all the vegetables and canning all the fruit and canning all the And we had the cellar in the in the basement, and me and and my two brothers would go into the cellar, and we would sit on the floor, and we would grab just like cans of things and open it, and we were just eating green beans out of the And for me, it was always canned peaches and cottage cheese.
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. So good.
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: Or pears if you wanna change it up a little bit, but you throw those two things in a bowl and that to this day, that is what I eat. Like, I I would that is what I love. Like, it's it again, like you said, it's not complicated. To some people, it might even sound gross, but it's two ingredients connected to something important in your life that creates this
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: memory. But then it was also a health thing too, I think. Yeah. True. And survival.
• 13:39
  True. We don't have that anymore. We were people are learning it again, I guess.
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: What? It would tell me.
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: The canning aspect. Yeah. Sorry. Yeah.
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah. True. You you mentioned the the Michelin star thing.
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: K.
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: What was your experience in San Francisco? Like, how'd you end up kind of in the fine dining world?
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: So I ended up raising rabbits, which was kind of more of a fine dining piece of meat. So Yeah.
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: How did that start? Because you talk about the rabbit farm, but, like, you never told me why you I'm just gonna start a rabbit farm today.
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: I don't know. Was kicking it around. I was in Northern California cultivation world, we'll say.
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: Uh-huh.
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: And I got tired of that. I'd seen that thing crashing quick. Yeah. And I said, I wanna do something else.
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: Humboldt County. Is that where you're
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. The good old Humboldt. Yeah. Yeah.
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: So you saw it crashing, and you're like, I need something else.
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: I need to do something else. And were you farming in the thumb? Yeah. We had families that were farmers. We know we raised some rabbits as kids, and Yeah.
• 14:35
  My ducks flew south for the winter one time, and we ate really greasy chicken for dinner. You know? Yeah. That stuff.
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: So you start this rabbit farm.
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And they they breed like rabbits, and before you know it, I got a few 100 rabbits and walking in the back doors of some of the best restaurants in the country and world.
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: So Yeah. Tell tell me why they love Dure Rabbits. Because they love Dure Rabbits, and they love Dure Rabbits for a reason.
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Because I do the same thing with everything, Phil. I just try to do it. I don't try. I do it to the best that is humanly possible for myself.
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah. You get this, like, obsessive look in your eye where you just kinda, like, wild eye stare at Yeah. Well, that's crazy.
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: Sorry. Just like dough. Yeah. It's all about the dough.
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: Explain the processing of the rabbit.
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: Processing. Okay. Oh, I gotta go through that?
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Oh my god. I mean, is part of the story. This is why.
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: This is Oh, man.
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: This is why you why everybody wanted
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: read Here's the part of the story. The part of the story is I was speaking with a guy by the name of I worked with a guy from the culinary institute. He ran the restaurant up front. His name is Larry Forgione. He is the godfather of American cuisine.
• 15:45
  He termed free range chicken, free range chicken. He's the dude. You know? Interesting character. So he he's told me he we would go back and forth with stories, and then one day I was up there and he he got I was up there probably talking to Marni at the front desk or something, and he's like, Eric.
• 16:00
  I was like, what's going on, Larry? He goes, bring me some more rabbits. He might have been a little more brash than that. He may may have put up a couple cuss words in there, but whatever. Anyways, he was I was like, well, alright.
• 16:11
  I was like, what's going on? He was like, man, we get out of these other rabbits, and we go to braise them, and it's an hour and a half, hour and forty five minutes or so. And he goes, we check yours in forty five minutes, they're done. He goes, why? I says, well, here's the story.
• 16:26
  I says, first and foremost, during processing, we make it very less stressful.
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: You know? So I'm just gonna give any vegans listening to this?
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: Plug your ears.
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: And and don't say that with any disdain. You were a vegan for seven years.
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Vegetarian and vegan for seven years.
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So don't say that with any disdain, but we're gonna talk about some animal stuff. Yeah. Continue.
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: So a rabbit, when it's flipped over on its back, plays dead. So in my mind, I was like, okay. So now they're relaxed. They go into the psychoma state. So you'd flip them over, start the process.
• 16:59
  I'm not gonna get too detailed.
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah. That's what we can do. That work.
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: Then we hang them, and then we just bleed them out.
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Which you could also make the case, like, it's also more humane, though.
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: It was a very humane way to do it because of there was, I mean, humane way to do it and also better for the meat. There was a very minimal amount of, like, lactic acid. Yeah. It's better for everybody. Panic and stress.
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah. It's better for everybody.
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: And some of that process prior to that was feed programs, really paying attention to nutrition and things that would create a muscular marbling or fat. You know? People say rabbits don't have fat in them, but I I I proved people wrong for the most part. Yeah. By what we fed because it created intramuscular marbling.
• 17:38
  So just like Wagyu or a fine steak Uh-huh. You produce you try to push high amounts of a certain fatty acid that creates you know, which is heart healthy for us. You know? Like, you want milk that's high in CLA. Mhmm.
• 17:50
  Well, those dairy cows are fed high CLA diet. So those dairy cows in return, which is a whole another venture, were well marbled almost as good as Wagyu beef.
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: Oof. Yeah. So you start to get the attention of these restaurants because not only is it better meat, but it also cooks faster
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: Cooks faster.
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: Which is great for the kitchen.
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: Right. But the quality as well, like the chickens we did, the young chicken poussin we did for a while. We were feeding, like, water buffalo milk and fermented grains, or, like, the waste product from a mozzarella thing up the road from us. Wow. That was crazy.
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah. What was that, like, kind of being in that circle of some of these these restaurants? I mean, wait, what year is this? Like, what kinda
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: I think we it was right around 2010 is when I moved closer to Napa Valley.
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: Okay. So I mean, you you fast forward fifteen years now and like food is is
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: Food was my thing when I was even younger. Yeah. I mean, my good friend, Lauren Garcia, he was like he's a dude. He's like, why aren't you a chef? Like, why aren't you cooking more?
• 18:53
  You know? Like, we've talked about all these things we're about to do here in Old Town. We were talking about these things in the early nineties because we've seen Saginaw slowly losing food security, we'll say. Mhmm. I mean, that was a big thing for us.
• 19:07
  You know? We thought we talked about farming. We talked about these things. Like, these are all, like, important factors on not just losing food security, but also losing culture. There are cultures here that we let's talk like Polish culture.
• 19:21
  Like we're we're lacking in Polish, good Polish food or Eastern all the European Eastern European, even Italian food. There's not for me, it's just, you know, let's go to on a date or something, and they're like, oh, let's go to Olive Garden. I'm like
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: Mhmm.
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: Mhmm. They have their place. I get that. But it's like, we're seeing more and more of that unique food coming to Old Town. I mean, I'm hearing there's two or three more restaurants gonna
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: open up
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: here, which is amazing to me.
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: The the thing and and I I wanna just say on record as somebody who works with hundreds of communities across the country, Like, the the thing about Old Town is the you take two I mean, Old Town is all of two or three blocks. And the the food that's available right now just it has it's it's good food. There's also a depth to the food. Like like the story with your pizza. Like, it's more than just pizza.
• 20:14
  Like, there's there's a story behind it. Lani Lani, the matriarch of of Old Town. Like, she's just an amazing human being cooking food with heart. And you got Tina. You just got you got really, really great food.
• 20:26
  Fralias. I mean Fralias, like everybody.
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: I even we I I haven't ate a Jake since I've been here, and me and Chad went through the other night, and we're like, this is great.
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: It's great. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, you go you go across the river down the road to downtown, and you got SVRC Marketplace also with incredible vendors there. Everybody's trying to do something creative and bring something new and I and I just I love that.
• 20:48
  So you're like in this fine dining world in San Francisco. Like, what like, what was that what was what was that like?
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: So I would purposely do all my deliveries in the Bay Area just so I could eat family meal at Atelier Creme. Smoke weed, eat family meal with them before their dinner rush. So I would just sit there because it was on my way out of town back up to the North Bay, and I would go in there and hang out with Dominique and her other chefs. I was good friends with her pastry chefs and their their it was just amazing. It was amazing.
• 21:21
  Amazing why? Creativity. Art the artists, the artistic aspect of it all, the creativity, the attitudes, the we were all alike. There was no, like You know, it's like you found your you found your people. Mhmm.
• 21:36
  You know? And it was they're always progressing. You know? And that's some of the things that I'm hoping to see more here for, not just myself, but other other places here in Saginaw. Just progressively going into getting better, getting better at everything, like, just Mhmm.
• 21:52
  Yeah. Anyways.
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: I love that I love that you point that out because sometimes and and this is also an earned reputation and and is true in many cases, but the the fine dining world has this reputation of being very pretentious. Like, it's about being elite and it's about being best, and that's absolutely the But something that's impressed me about you and, like, your experience with it is that it really leans hard into the creativity part of it. Like, how can we create something? And how can we make something new? And how can we experiment?
• 22:23
  And that kind of part of it, I think,
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: is really beautiful. And then that's another reason pizza. Pizza is a great vessel for all those things.
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: Yep. There's also simplicity to pizza too that I think also encourages the creativities.
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: I mean, a simple cheese slice, you could really screw one up real quick. That's true. Like, it can be real gross.
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah. You might pull it out of the oven and dump it on the floor.
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. You've been there for that one. Yeah. Those moments.
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah. You're fun. Yeah. But, like, here are three ingredients on a cheese cheese pizza. Like, how can we make the best ingredients and how can we use those ingredients the the best and Yeah.
• 23:00
  Technique and it's just three. Three. I love it.
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: Well, flour, water, salt, oil,
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: and
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeast. There's four in there.
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: Four. I was just thinking, like, dough,
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: sauce, cheese. Sauce, cheese.
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: But
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: yeah. Can not that you can elevate to a point where it gives somebody, you know, an experience. Tim Tim told me yesterday the other day he was somebody came and bought a cheese slice. First time he's been.
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah?
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: About twenty minutes later, the phone rang, and the guy's like, oh my god. I'm in heaven. Had to call the shop after eating the pizza to tell somebody there that they were in heaven by eating this cheese slice of pizza. What the is going on?
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: The first the first few weeks, it was really funny because I would come by to buy buy some pizza. And at any given time, you could you could ask the people that were either waiting in line or eating their pizza there, like, where are guys from? And, like, half of the people in the room would be from the East Coast or they lived on the East Coast for twenty years, or they were in New York City for fifteen years, or for college, or whatever. And it was it it really became like this magnet towards people who really understand and have experienced that kind of style of pizza.
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah. You know, we have our naysayers. We have that 1%, and I'm glad they have their 1% club. Yeah. And that's okay.
• 24:19
  It's not for everybody.
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: So, I mean, I've had people cry in the front, get up and give me
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: hugs Mhmm.
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: Like we never thought we'd ever. And I spoke about Lindustry. Right?
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: Mhmm.
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: Three people so far. Some lady from Austin, Texas no. She was from Philadelphia. They were here for the VA hospital doing work. VA hospital sent them over to have lunch where we were at.
• 24:42
  Thank you. VA hospital. And she's, oh, yeah. Go out to New York all the time. She goes, what was your favorite one out there?
• 24:49
  I go, I or something of this nature, but somehow Lindustry got brought up.
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: Mhmm.
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: And this is the fourth time I've heard about Lindustry Pizzeria again in our shop, which they were one of my, like you know? I think they're everybody. They just everybody wants to go experience Lindustry. Yeah. They're they got a good vibe.
• 25:06
  They got good pizza.
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: I
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: mean and she said, yes. It reminded her of. Awesome. Lindustry Pizzeria in New York. So
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: Awesome. So you're doing kind of right.
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: It's yeah. It's called the elite like an elite style New York pizza. Yeah. You know? Some people think it's gonna be too dry or where's the cheese or where's that?
• 25:20
  But it's like there's a balance, man.
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: There is a balance. And that's the thing that I love about, like, the New York style and, like, what you're doing is there's a balance. Like, some people are dough fiends, and they want they want that crust to be four inches thick, and that's their jam, like you said. And you make a good deep dish, let's just say. And and like you said, what I love about what you said when I asked you the question, like, who in New York was your favorite and who was, like, the worst?
• 25:45
  And you you kinda checked me a little bit and said, well, I don't really look at it as the worst. Like, it's just not for me. Or and and and similar here, like, your pizza might make somebody cry and they might say, this is complete garbage and I love x y and z place way better. Like, awesome. Like, you found your pizza place.
• 26:03
  Please go eat more of their pizza. So you're you have this rabbit rabbit farm. You're you're eating family meal at fine dining restaurants. You're live like, in that circle, like, why do you come back from, well, San Francisco back to Saginaw? Like, what what's the pull?
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: I've done it more than once. I don't know. I heard there was I heard something a long time ago because the river runs from south to north. There's a weird vortex here, I guess. I don't know.
• 26:32
  And everybody gets sucked back in.
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: I believe it. I believe it. I tell people all the time, Nick, there's something in the dirt and water or in Saginaw that just makes it like this.
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: I don't know. I don't my mom wasn't getting any young getting any younger, so, you know, I had to come back and take care of her.
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And then did you come back with the idea that you wanted to open a business and do something, or did that happen after
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: farm thing when I got back. I kinda tried to hold on to that that torch for a while, and that just it just wore me out.
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: It's a tough business Yeah. In so many ways.
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: I'm like, let's open a pizza shop. It's gonna be so much easier.
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: You know what would make my life easier?
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: Opening another business. Another one. Oh, wait a minute. Another one after this. Right?
• 27:15
  Is that what we heard?
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah. That's what we heard.
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: I heard that to you, but, you know, we'll see what happens.
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah. We'll just we'll leave that rumor on the street Yeah. For now. Give me a one zero one of Old World Pizzeria. So so if some if nobody if somebody listening to this watching this has
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: never been man. What's the one zero one? Let's not even get into the one zero one. Let's talk about our daily life. We're about to start live streaming this so people understand, you know, even our cost of our pizza.
• 27:40
  Like, we've had people that were like, oh, it's so expensive, but it's a 20 inch pizza. Yeah. Hand stretched into an oven.
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Hands not that expensive. If you're buying large pizzas
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: I just looked I just looked up Sbarro's, man. Sbarro slices are $4 to $5 a slice for Sbarro. Yeah. And
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: we're So y'all gotta calm down.
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: Yes. We're a little bit hot. We're a little you know?
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: You get what you pay for it, and it's $4 more. So just chill out.
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: Our ingredients are as clean as we can get them. You know? No potassium bromate in our flour. There's things that we don't do because, you know, I don't really I mean, we wanna do the best. We want people to experience good, clean, healthier food.
• 28:21
  Yep. Pizza. Mhmm. I don't know. We were going somewhere before we got sidetracked there.
• 28:26
  Yeah. Oh, so, you know, I mean, our mornings start there at, you know, sometimes 6AM, sometimes 5AM. People are making dough. People are making, all our desserts and our cookies that we just started.
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: Cookies are so good. Brown butter sea salt that you did. I know. I ate three of those in one sitting.
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: Now, don't brown the butter now, but we add a little bit of the kettle cooked potato chips to it.
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah.
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Some garlic chocolate and milk chocolate.
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: Could you do a brown butter potato chip and call it like the Phil dough?
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: We could do that.
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: Because I really like that brown butter.
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: I will brown we'll brown I mean, we can still brown the butter.
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: I mean, I I've been melting the butter, but we just haven't got we just kind of are trying to simplify just a little bit.
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: Okay. That's fine.
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: But then we're gonna do one, I'd say, chocolate chip, two cookies together with cannoli filling. Like a sandwich. I was like, that looks so good. A little ricotta. Sweet ricotta.
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: So you're making all that stuff.
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: 5AM.
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah. 5AM, 6AM, your day starts.
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Then what? Then, you know, we'd start turning customers away about 10AM. They say they start coming at ten? Oh my goodness.
• 29:34
  Is it this morning, 10AM? They were there.
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: See, I would come at ten.
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: I think we had some $9.40 fivers a couple times.
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Sometimes I get a 10AM itch, and then I'm like, I gotta wait until eleven.
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: You're welcome to come in at ten, 10:30. It's fine. We usually will have a pizza or two in the window by then. Okay. And they know So you
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: can come in early. Like, you might not have a full counter, but
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: Correct.
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Okay.
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: But I guess one zero one is, I don't know, to be prepared to be razzled and dazzled.
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: What I love about it too is, like, it's it's pizza by the slice too.
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. I guess some people didn't realize that we were doing it by the slice. We always get those phone calls or asks.
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. It's pizza by the slice. What what I love about it, it's like it's it's like, you're buying local, you're supporting local business, you're getting takeout, and it's usually faster than takeout because you walk in there and you say, I want this slice and this slice and this slice. You can choose choose your own adventure.
• 30:25
  Yeah. And then you pop it back in the oven, and then you're you're out the door. And I I love that.
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: Out the door. That's what I love. And I think that's part of why we did the slices. I mean, can do whole pies like everybody else and
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: You know, still give people experiences, but it's that slice culture. To me, it's better to come in and get a slice than it is to get the whole pizza anyway. So
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. I love it. Yeah. What are your hours days, hours?
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: We just switched our up to some winter hours. We're doing Monday through Thursday is 11AM to 8PM. And then Friday, Saturday, and Sunday or wait. Sorry. Friday is still eleven to eight, and then Saturday and Sundays now are twelve to eight.
• 31:08
  Cool. We were doing the later hours, but just didn't seem to be doing as well as we did in the summer, so we just cut it back a little bit.
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You you mentioned earlier that your brother Chad's coming back. Yeah.
• 31:19
  Who's Chad?
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: Chad Coplinger. He just I've known him since I was 15.
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: He does okay tattoos
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: and stuff. Yeah. He's alright. Yeah. Yeah.
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: Why is he coming back? Because he's down in Nashville?
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah. He's in Nashville. Owns a shop down there. He's gonna pass that the torch off to his all his shop employees there. I think one of them is actually purchasing it from him, and he's coming home.
• 31:38
  Well, he wants to be home.
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: So that'll be cool. Ah. The Bash brothers back in time.
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: I know. That's what I'm saying. And I'm like, was it kinda weird. He just went out to go visit his mother's grave and drove down the road and looked at a house and said, wow. I'm gonna buy this.
• 31:53
  Really? And they bought it, and now they're moving.
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: It's that Saginaw thing. That river running the other way.
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: Opposites. Yeah. I don't know. We're vortex.
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: And I and I love that because, like, here you are in San Francisco and your brother in Nashville, and and a lot of folks you said, like, the that's where everybody wants to be. Everybody wants to be in Nashville. Everybody wants to be in these big metropolitan cities, but here you are feeling like an emotional connection to this place and
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: those experiences back here and give people those new experiences. That's I'm in the I'm in the job of making experiences, I guess.
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You are.
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: Changing lives.
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: Speaking of experiences, do you have the most memorable meal? I I think the first time we talked, like, you you went to the French laundry
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: French laundry with
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: with brother and Spud?
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: Spud from Australia. Yeah.
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: And then was there a friend who passed?
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Josh. Josh. Obi.
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah. What was that like, that meal? And why was it memorable?
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: The memories was just friends.
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: Mhmm.
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: The meal was it was a French laundry.
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, your food's good.
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: Their food was great. It just it just wasn't I've enjoyed those things. I enjoyed eating those type of meals, but it's just basically, it's the company you're with. Like, you and I could be sitting here eating a bag of potato chips, and it would be a a great memorable meal.
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: You know? I'll never forget your your Mexican sauerkraut and tortilla chips.
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: Oh, dang it. You're trying what are you trying to say? I gotta make it a game.
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: Well, I mean, I bug you all the time about it because I really, really like it. It was so good. Yeah. I think I think and that's what that's what I love about your perspective on fine dining because looking at it as somebody who is not really who is into food and loves that world, but not personally experienced it. So many folks can kind of idolize it and turn it into the like this thing, but you're you always steer it back to the people.
• 33:46
  Yeah. You can be drinking beer and smoking weed and eating nachos and be like, this is the greatest meal of my
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: life. Yeah.
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: Or you could be eating pearls and oysters and being like, yeah. Okay. This is great, but my friends are here.
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. It's the people you're with, not the food you're eating.
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Right. You ready for some rapid fire stuff?
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: Oh,
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: shit. I mean, this the first one is not so quite so rapid fire.
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: Let's go.
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: But it's not related to pizza. You were on a TV show.
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: Oh, shit.
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: I was. What TV show were you on?
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: Outlast season two survival. It was a survival series.
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah. What is that? What's the premise? What's
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: the Four teams of four get to compete against each other. This one was up in the Tongass National Forest in Alaska.
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: Like, how did how did you end up on the survival trail? Thanks
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: to Sean Hayes. Little shout out to him
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: about it. How?
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: Got cast for naked and afraid.
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: And then he was talking about his mentor, which he was out, you know, processing pigs with me and processing deer and foraging and doing stuff out at the farm. Yeah. And we'd travel and do other things, and he's big into outdoors. And so that's how he got cast. And he was like, oh, my mentor.
• 34:59
  And I was like, oh, okay. He's they're gonna be giving you a call. Was like, great. They're like, hey. We want you on naked and afraid.
• 35:05
  So I said no. I I I entertained it for a little bit just because it was kind of fun and silly, but I was like, this is not my forte. Yeah. I'm not like the outdoors naked kinda guy. Yeah.
• 35:16
  Anyways, just gonna read that in a little bit. And then about two months later, they're like, we got the perfect show for you. I'm like, really? You guys are calling me a gay. This is weird.
• 35:23
  I must I must be some sort of weird character of sorts.
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah. They probably saw the tattoos
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: and stuff. I got cast for another show before this quite a while ago. But so before you know it, I'm in Alaska, you know, going to get the psych tests and the physical tests, and I'm on an airplane. I went to Alaska to live in the woods for thirty plus days. What was that experience like?
• 35:46
  Interesting. Why? We'd with two weeks in a hotel room without just, like, three three meals or one thirty minute walk a day,
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: little drink. Before you go out into the wilderness?
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah. They, like were stuck in
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: a hotel you in in a hotel room?
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: And you couldn't meet any of the other competitors. You had chaperones and
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: Why do they do that?
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: Oh, they didn't want you to meet the other other they don't want you to get any step above shit. I probably am not even supposed to talk about these things. I think I am. I'm still on contract. But anyways, I don't care.
• 36:17
  They can come get me. Yeah. Scrum. Could've mad at Netflix anyways. So I'm not gonna get into the reasons why, because then I would really anyways, here or there.
• 36:29
  They would do that because we weren't supposed to meet any of the competitors.
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah. You didn't want
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: And weren't well, we were supposed to meet the people in the town. We had to do minimal talking with the people in the town. I mean, we were like on lockdown and shut down.
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: They want a, like, blank slate. Yeah.
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: Like, going into
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: the wilderness blank slate.
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: Yes. Because we had to pick our team, which I ended up getting to pick my team and do all that stuff. We picked an amazing team. Mhmm. I I love all of them to this day.
• 36:49
  It was just so Yeah.
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: You guys are, like, in a group thread or something like that. Yeah.
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah. That's cool. Yeah.
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: What what was what was your takeaway from that experience? Like, what did what did you learn? What was awesome?
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: I don't know if I learned much, but I think I learned how to talk better in front of cameras and all that stuff, I guess.
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: Did you learn anything about yourself?
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: I don't know. It gave me a bit more confidence in life. Yeah. You know? I mean, I already had the confidence, but it was getting through and getting over that first three days.
• 37:21
  That was like, if you can push through that, you've got it. You know? But I think on day two, that evening, one of those nights I had a pretty bad meltdown.
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: Why why are those first three days so important?
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: I guess you wanted to get food, shelter, and fire together in those first three days, which we did within two. I mean, we got food, fire we got fire and shelter within less than twelve hours. Then we got those done the first day within hours. Yeah. And then we just expanded shelters from there, and then we just started hunting and collecting clams.
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: Did anything surprise you or catch you off guard or you're like, oh, dang, this is gonna be way tougher than I thought?
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: I I almost bailed on day two.
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: Did you?
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Why? I had a panic, like, full on, like, panic attack. I was hallucinating. It was weird.
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: Really?
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah. It was maybe the lack of food. Yeah. Lack of hydration, you know, the stress, the the pushing yourself. You're with strangers in the woods.
• 38:22
  Yeah. Camera crews around during the day and, you know, nobody else during the night for the most part, and it got it got weird. You know?
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: What would you say to somebody like me that watches shows like this and go, oh, man. Like, I could go, like, seventy days or, like, you dummy. Like, of course, that's
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: you don't drink the water. It takes a very special person to do these things. So you gotta know what you're doing before you even go out there. You can watch all the TV shows you want. I didn't really watch too much.
• 38:49
  I read a few books, watched a couple YouTube videos. Mhmm. I just kinda knew this stuff growing up.
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: Mhmm.
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: And, you know, I came into a lead role, which rubbed a lot of people wrong, but, you know, being in from kitchens and doing this stuff, it kinda helped. It helped a lot. Why did
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: it rubbed people wrong?
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: Why did I? Yeah. Part of it part of it was just who we are. We are all kind of like arrogant, like
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: Type a.
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Everybody wanted to be a boss. Yeah. But I don't know. Brandon was really awesome.
• 39:19
  He was a Idaho wolf trapper. Joe was amazing. He came in kind of, like, without a lot of the knowledge and walked out with more knowledge than he knew what to do with, I think. Cool. Have played a little psychological game with him as well.
• 39:33
  But you do that in things when you run a good business and you do things, you gotta play those games.
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And it's I mean, it's also like a show. Like, the goal is to win.
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Goal was to win, and we did win.
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: Do you wanna talk about why you're why you're mad at Netflix or no? You can say no.
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: I can. I don't care, to be honest.
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Tell yeah. Because I
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: In the end interviews, I told them to go fuck themselves for the most part. So
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Oh, okay. Let's talk about because I think it would make might give, like, an interesting insight to the experience of being on a show. So because everybody's, oh my god. You're on a show.
• 40:03
  That must be amazing.
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: We made it thirty plus days in, and we were doing great. We could've kept going. It's called Outlast for a reason, and we figured, you know, they changed some things this season. Last season, there was a foot race in the end. Right?
• 40:17
  Of course. It's a foot race again. And you start to figure these things out after you get time to actually get some nutrition and you're back at the hotel room and you're just thinking through it and you're like, this didn't something doesn't seem right. I'm not gonna say too much more than that, but there's a thing called ratings. And, you know, some of these, I'm pretty sure shows like to do things for ratings.
• 40:42
  And the only reason I recognize that is because I'm not much of a chef. I like to cook. I like to experience things. I'm more of a chef now than I was, you know, ten years ago. I was a farmer and a cook.
• 40:53
  I loved cooking food. I loved working with people, learning the trade of being a chef, and not really going to school for, but working with some of the best guys. Like, one of my mentors was eleven years with Thomas Keller from the French Laundry. You know? Joshua Schwartz, amazing dude.
• 41:06
  Now he has, like, a travel it's called Travel Creel, c r e e l, which is a fishing company that travels around and cooks for people and fishes.
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: Really?
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: He's so stoked for him.
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: That sounds awesome.
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: But he says he goes, Eric, he's congrats on the pizza shop. If there's anything else ever to do, it would have been pizza.
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: Really?
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Instead of the thing he's doing now. But but yeah. Anyways, I forgot where I was going with Netflix.
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: The foot race and the ratings.
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So, anyways, I got I got cast for Chopped, and I told them I was like, I'm good.
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: Oh, really?
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: And they kept hitting me with it. You I had a beard. Well, a pretty long beard. It was like almost down to my belly button. And they're like, no, it doesn't matter.
• 41:47
  And we don't care. You got the look we want. It doesn't matter. You got the look we want. Then I just, you know, I just realized it's just you know?
• 41:56
  I get it. Yeah. I get it. But I'm also like, okay. I wish I would have done that.
• 42:04
  You wish you would done I'd have failed I would have failed horribly, but it would have been great.
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Would have been an experience. Like, you're not going on to, like, to win. You're just going on to go on. Yeah.
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: So going on to that camera thing, like I said earlier Yeah. I had a interview for a vitamin company eons ago. I had to be, like almost twenty years ago or longer. And then they put me in front of a camera and said, do this sales page, and I just joked. It was the worst.
• 42:35
  I was like, there goes my television career.
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah. It's hard to be on camera. It's it's hard to be on camera. Yeah. I mean, this is different.
• 42:43
  Like, we're on camera now, obviously, but this is different because we're not, like, talking to the camera.
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: Oh, it's in your face
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: and the yeah. If I'm ever on the news or something and they've got the camera in your face and they say, okay. And we're on in three two. Your mind goes blank and everything that you say sounds dumb. It's very much a skill.
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: So let me tell you what. Hardest part of the whole show is the cameras. Really? Yep.
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah. I could see that because you just kinda wanna put your head down and win this thing and and get your food and shelter, but then there's cameras in. They're pulling
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: you away. They're doing interviews with you every day. You're like, ugh.
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I'm trying to chop down this tree, bro.
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: Leave me alone. They didn't even put that in there. I wish they would've.
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: You chopped down a tree?
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: Me and that guy, Joey. Oh my god. It was the big it was the day it was the day that we made sea salt or the day that I made sea salt, and we ate 10 grams or more of salt that day. We were like, we're superheroes. Then there was this dead pine tree that was probably, like, three stories tall.
• 43:40
  And we literally took, like, I I mean, energy that was probably unnecessary, but the pent up anger and aggression from living with people and and dirt and just eating clam every day, you're just pissed. I will I will never eat clam again. Like, I might.
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: Clams are gross.
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: They're gross. I mean, when you're, like, not able to purge them and they're gritty and they're making soup clam soup every day.
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I love oysters. Clams are gross, though.
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I'll eat canned oyster smoked. Yeah. Yeah. I don't
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: even You know, that's how they how people lose naked and afraid. Like, they go out and they're like, I'm gonna cut down this tree, and they spend seven hours cutting down the tree, and they're like, nah. I'm going home, man. I am
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: done. Nah. But it was we pushed I mean, we were, like, we were probably three weeks in when we did that. Really? Like, we were cutting that tree.
• 44:29
  There was no stopping us. We're knocking this tree down.
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: What would you rate the experience on a scale of one to 10?
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: Oh, man. I can't I can't even give you the number would be so high, dude.
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: I don't even Really? It was awesome.
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: I can't count that high. So, like, 20.
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: Really?
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: Top top life experience. I don't wanna say the top, but a top life experience.
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: You know, it's a very it was memorable. Yeah. Yeah. Anyways. Yeah.
• 44:53
  Awesome. Quick fires.
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: Best city happened. Best city for pizza besides New York?
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: Oh, Saginaw.
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: The most over the most overrated pizza ingredient. I love that answer, by the way. Saginaw, Michigan. Michigan.
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: Boom. New York City,
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: we're coming for you, baby. Most overrated pizza ingredient.
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: It happened on day two, and they asked for bell peppers. And I said, we don't have them. They said, well, you well, what kind of pizza shop are you?
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: I said, it's a real good one. Most underrated ingredient.
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: Like, under great. I'm like Underrated ingredient? Yeah. Sauce. Everybody fucks the sauce up.
• 45:44
  Most
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: ingredient weirdest ingredient that you wanna try that you think would be awesome.
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: So we talked about the other day. I know it's kind of foofy and weird, but pepperoni, caviar, and truffles all on one pizza.
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: Oh. It's happening. Triple threat.
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: I'm actually going to the truffle guy this next week.
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: Oh, yum yum yum.
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: Yep. We're changing our hot honey up actually to a truffle.
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: One thing that sucks about food critics, both, like, literary food critics or just, like, local food critics. What thing what thing sucks about food critic?
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: Rating their experience off of one experience and not coming in a couple times to just rate the experience, I guess. Sometimes. It's like I said, I had to go to a place twice just to make sure they were Yeah. Up up to par, I
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: guess.
• 46:34
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: One thing that customers are right about.
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: Customers are always right. Just kidding. Isn't that how we're supposed to do that?
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I think that's that's the
• 46:47
  Speaker 2: right
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: answer. Think our customers are always right.
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: You guys are always right.
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: Customers are So you're wrong. Till I disagree with you. Describe your pizza in pretentious fine dining language.
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: Well, I don't even know what that is.
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I don't think I could do that. That's a stupid question.
• 47:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Don't know.
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: I I like that question.
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: Like the question, but I don't know. It's not like I don't know how to answer your question. So I don't know. It's a it's a great vessel for I don't know. I don't know.
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Skip that one.
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: What is the thing you're a year old? Two years old? A year and some months. Yeah. A year and some months.
• 47:24
  You're a year and some months in. What is the thing that you have loved the most about this experience so far?
• 47:32
  Speaker 2: How amazing Saginaw and beyond has been to travel. There's I mean, there's people coming to get pizza five times a day. There's people traveling five hours away to come try our pizza. Mhmm. The words out.
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: That's gotta feel validating.
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: It's crazy. Mhmm. It's just weird. It is validating. Yeah.
• 47:50
  You know what? I'm trying to be as humble as I can, but it's Yeah. I think it's no one now Yeah. That we might be the best in in the state and a little beyond. So
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: Are we gonna see more from Old World Pizzeria?
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: There's some projects coming. More yummies? More yummies. More things.
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: Eric, I wanna thank you so much for the conversation. I wanna thank you so much for your cheesecake and your cookies and your pizza and for coming all the way back from San Francisco to your hometown, I say. Alright. Love you, buddy. Love you too, bro.
• 48:20
  Thank you so much.
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: Ciao. Ciao. Ciao. Gotta bring pleasure.
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: You gotta bring me fish next time.
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: I mean, maybe on on the tenth. There is more coming. Yeah. I just got the weird Yeah. They were okay.
• 48:34
  They were some