Latest / The Inspired Stories Podcast / The Recipe for Resilience: Joel Rodriguez's Journey from Army to Ovation Bistro & Bar | Restaurants & Franchises Series

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The Recipe for Resilience: Joel Rodriguez's Journey from Army to Ovation Bistro & Bar | Restaurants & Franchises Series · The Inspired Stories Podcast

• 0:03
  Welcome to another edition of the Inspired Stories podcast,
• 0:07
  where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from
• 0:10
  their successes and be inspired by how they've overcome
• 0:13
  adversity. My name is Anthony Kotaspodi,
• 0:16
  and today's guest is Joel Rodriguez, owner of Ovation
• 0:20
  Bistro and bar The Best Smokehouse in Central Florida.
• 0:25
  They are unashamedly passionate about the food and drinks they
• 0:28
  create. As a family owned and operated
• 0:31
  business, they are always ready to serve.
• 0:34
  Their mouth watering ribs and in house smoked meats have earned
• 0:38
  them serious St. cred among locals and visitors alike, and
• 0:42
  for good reason. They are part steakhouse, part
• 0:45
  BBQ smokehouse with tender brisket, smoked in house, daily
• 0:50
  craft burgers, juicy steaks and all certified Angus beef.
• 0:55
  They have three locations in Florida, Lakeland, Winter Haven
• 0:59
  and Davenport. Joel and his co-owner Fernando
• 1:03
  come from a migrant family where they were no strangers to hard
• 1:06
  work. They both served this country in
• 1:08
  the army in Afghanistan and upon their return from duty, their
• 1:12
  next experiences would lay the groundwork for them to start
• 1:16
  their own business. But they didn't stop there.
• 1:19
  They also started a nonprofit to help feed Polk County, Florida
• 1:22
  residents, having donated over 30,000 meals already.
• 1:27
  Now before we get into all that good stuff, today's episode is
• 1:30
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• 1:34
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• 1:37
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• 2:00
  All right now back to our guest today, the owner of Ovation
• 2:04
  Bistro and Bar, Joel Rodriguez. I appreciate you making the time
• 2:07
  to Share your story today. Anthony, I appreciate the
• 2:09
  invitation. I really do.
• 2:11
  I I'm excited to see what, what you know, to tell our story.
• 2:16
  It's always a good, it's always a good, it's always a good time.
• 2:19
  All right, let's get right into it then, Joel, so every
• 2:23
  inspiring story has a beginning. Joe, what sparked your journey
• 2:28
  in this industry and what moments made you realize that
• 2:31
  this was your calling? So previous to me finding out
• 2:37
  this was for me, I, I was, you know, I was, I was OK, high
• 2:43
  school student, You know, when I say OK, I don't mean as and BS,
• 2:46
  I mean C yeah, we're I was skating along right?
• 2:48
  I, I did just enough not to get trouble or not to be or not
• 2:52
  fail, but I never had a real, you know, I was just kind of get
• 2:58
  through the days and the weeks and the years came by and then
• 3:01
  like my senior year came up and I was like, wow, what am I going
• 3:03
  to do? I knew that I wasn't a person
• 3:08
  that was ready to, to, to go to college because I didn't like
• 3:12
  going to school to high school. I didn't like classes.
• 3:14
  I did them because it was like what I had to do.
• 3:17
  And, and so I, I, so, you know, one day recruiter came by the,
• 3:23
  the high school and, and you know, hook, line and sinker, he
• 3:28
  got me. So he told me he would take me
• 3:31
  around the world. He'd show me a lot of things.
• 3:33
  He trained me and, and he did that and then some ended up
• 3:38
  spending almost 10 years in the Army between and two, two
• 3:44
  different enlistments. And it was, it was, it was a
• 3:47
  game changer for me. I really needed, I didn't know I
• 3:50
  needed that discipline until, until I had it.
• 3:55
  So I was, you know, it was if I, as I go back, I was really
• 4:00
  scared. Like the night before, I
• 4:02
  remember talking to my mom and she came to my bed and she was
• 4:05
  like, son, like, if you don't go, you don't, it won't make me,
• 4:08
  you know, I was like, I told my mom, will you tell me what to
• 4:11
  do? Like, because my mom kind of
• 4:13
  didn't want me to go either. And she was like, you know, I
• 4:16
  was cooking that Bob Evans was a breakfast chain and I was in the
• 4:22
  mornings and on the weekend and I was cooking at a steakhouse at
• 4:27
  night in the evenings. You know, I worked two jobs all
• 4:31
  through my last like 2 years of high school once I got my car.
• 4:35
  So, so she told me, he'll, we know we'll work it out.
• 4:37
  We know we'll figure it out. Like, well, so I know I just, it
• 4:40
  was a long, I, I didn't sleep. And the recruiter there to pick
• 4:45
  me up at 3:30 in the morning. So I just, I laid in bed.
• 4:49
  You know, we had to be at the Tampa map station, I'd say
• 4:53
  around 5:00. And it was a good hour drive.
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  But of course, he wanted to leave some time in there.
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  So just laying in bed, you were pretty.
• 5:02
  You were pretty nervous. You.
• 5:04
  Yeah. Oh yeah.
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  I mean, I was. Initially you were excited about
• 5:07
  this. Yeah, He's going to show me the
• 5:08
  world. He's going to teach me all these
• 5:10
  things. But then as it gets closer to
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  it. It gets real.
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  It gets real and and you got, you got your stuff packed.
• 5:16
  I mean, you got a bag and and it gets real now.
• 5:21
  What do you think was the most nervous about?
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  I, I was, I was the most nervous about my, my physical condition
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  'cause I wasn't an athlete. I was, you know, I, I worked
• 5:32
  and, you know, I had a nice, had a nice size midsection.
• 5:36
  I didn't have, I had asthma. Come to find out, I was
• 5:39
  diagnosed 20 years later, you know, which did help me not be
• 5:44
  able to run. I just I, you know, we were
• 5:46
  very, we had, we had very meager means and going to the doctor
• 5:53
  and getting, you know, and seeing doctors, it wasn't
• 5:56
  something that we did. So I just, I dealt with it.
• 5:59
  I couldn't breathe well. And that's just, that's just
• 6:00
  something I dealt with. I didn't, you know.
• 6:05
  You said you came from Mead or mains Kind of paint a picture.
• 6:07
  For yeah. So we, we, we, so both of my
• 6:10
  parents when, when I was younger was, were then they, they worked
• 6:15
  in the fields of the orange Groves in the, in the, in the
• 6:18
  winter here and then in the, in the, in the summers.
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  We would travel, we would, we would migrate to New York or
• 6:25
  Indiana wherever there was work. We would pick up vegetables or
• 6:29
  apples in New York. We would do tomatoes in Indiana,
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  squash and, and New York or Ohio, like wherever there was a
• 6:37
  farm that needed help, we would live on site on the farm and we
• 6:41
  would just go out every day. You know, if it was daylight, we
• 6:43
  were working. Then when it got dark, you know,
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  we were actually up, wouldn't showered up and ate dinner and
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  then we did it again. Did it all summer.
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  I was working the field that, you know, 12111314 and it's
• 6:58
  just, yeah, it's just, you know, it was, it was, it was the
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  labor. It's physical labor and it's not
• 7:03
  hard, but it's just tedious, right?
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  It's just tedious going up and down.
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  Like sometimes I would have like a, a, a hole and I would just
• 7:11
  hold the, the plants. And now, you know, I would just
• 7:14
  hold around to get all the weeds out.
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  I would just go right down the road.
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  And it's just like, it's just, I mean, just 12 hours, 11 hours,
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  it's just, it's not hard. It's mental.
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  Like I remember I found a way to escape in my mind and I, I, you
• 7:27
  know, I'll, I'll, this is, I don't know what it's called when
• 7:30
  you, you foreshadow something later on in my story.
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  But this, when I realized I could do that, I can actually
• 7:36
  leave my body and just focus on something else.
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  Like I would watch, you know, the, The Simpsons episode the
• 7:43
  night before in my mind as I was owing or I would watch a movie
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  and I it would just, and I realized and it was like
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  nothing. I was like, oh man, I already
• 7:51
  did this whole, this whole acre here, these old 2 acres and it's
• 7:54
  just a blew by 'cause I was, I was entertained, you know?
• 7:58
  Say, wait, say more about this, Joe.
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  So it was like, I didn't realize I was you or you just no, no,
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  no, it's just, I just like, you know, I just because we, I
• 8:06
  didn't have, we didn't have like this is back in the, in the, in
• 8:09
  the, the, the, the late 80s to the early 90s.
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  And so there was no, you know, iPhone or like, what are the
• 8:16
  Google glasses they got now? So they got all the stuff now.
• 8:19
  But, you know, I just so, but in my mind, I could, I could do
• 8:22
  remember them the, the show last night, you know, 'cause I 'cause
• 8:26
  we would get home and we would watch, you know, The Simpsons
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  was on at 6:30 or seven. That's about time.
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  We're showering up, we're eating, we're getting ready and
• 8:34
  for bed and, and that was our show.
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  So I used to watch it to be on, I think used to be on an hour,
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  maybe hour and a half like The Simpsons would like pull and
• 8:42
  the, I think The Simpsons are still on actually, which is
• 8:44
  pretty incredible here for The Simpsons, but uh, yeah.
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  And it was just funny, man. It was a funny show.
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  We used to all watch it, the family, we sit around the TV,
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  but, uh, what was the next? I guess I could see the whole
• 8:56
  episode of my mind again, right? Or a movie or like I had to and
• 9:00
  I would, and I'm still doing my task.
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  I'm still getting the job done. I wasn't slacking there,
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  Anthony. I was working, but, but I could
• 9:08
  transport myself and, and that made the, the days and the weeks
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  tolerable as we, as I help the family.
• 9:16
  All right, because it was, it was a, it was a summer.
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  I was in school, you know, I never miss school.
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  Like school was very important to to my parents, but I never
• 9:24
  miss school for work, but in the summers and on the weekends and
• 9:27
  where I could, you know, we would help not like, and that's
• 9:31
  in our culture to help like my dad would help his dad, even
• 9:35
  though he had his own family and so forth, so on.
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  So everybody just. So you've learned hard work from
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  your parents in a very. Early.
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  Oh, very early, yeah. And I see my dad and like, so
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  I'd be done, you know, he'd get us out.
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  He'd Get Me Out early so I couldn't, I could go play
• 9:50
  basketball. It was a bar and they had a
• 9:52
  basketball hoop on. He'd Get Me Out early.
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  He'd just come by his, me. All right, you're done.
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  Come on. You know, everybody else because
• 9:57
  everybody leaving and all just you.
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  And he gets it because he saw all the kids out there playing
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  and he just, he'd send me, he'd get me home.
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  He, he was a, it's kind of a he, he was a, a crew leader.
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  So he counted like the number of, of, of paints or baskets
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  that each person would, would do themselves.
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  Like in the, in the orange girls down here, he would, they call
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  him a Chevetto. And that because the, the gold,
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  the gold is the, is the, is the big truck that has the claws
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  that gets to the, that that has like gets the orange, the orange
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  buckets. He scoops them and he picks them
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  up and they dump some of his thing.
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  And that's called the goat. And the gold in Spanish is
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  achievable. So they just caught him.
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  He's the gold or he's a chevetto.
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  So he drove the bus. He picked everybody up in the
• 10:45
  morning. He had he had to make sure he
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  had ice water in the back of bus.
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  He had this posters very good for the, the, you know, for the
• 10:53
  labor laws and stuff like that. And so, so he so he did that.
• 10:59
  And I mean, so I used to go out and pick oranges too on the
• 11:01
  weekend. I'm I'm going to Fast forward to
• 11:04
  when I'm in high school now. So we did that all, all through
• 11:08
  my elementary years, right, summer boom.
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  We just find a time to go boom and we didn't go every year if
• 11:14
  the if the harvest wasn't going to be big and, and he there was
• 11:17
  no need or if it was, if there wasn't going to be no other
• 11:20
  families that were coming. It was just all single migrant
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  workers. And he's like there, there's
• 11:27
  nowhere for us to stay. You know, sometimes they had it
• 11:29
  depend on the farm. Sometimes the farm had like
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  individual like trailers, you know, and that each like
• 11:35
  families could live in. And sometimes they just had kind
• 11:38
  of like a like a kind of like a barracks or dorm with a with a
• 11:43
  centralized kitchen with a bunch of stoves and refrigerators
• 11:46
  around it. And they have rooms.
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  And when there was situations like that, then we wouldn't go.
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  We would just stay here. My mom would get a job in the
• 11:54
  kitchen somewhere. So I would follow and we just
• 11:57
  cut grass and stuff to maintain. But so I remember you one year
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  the fast. We did this through throughout
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  my childhood. So I was, I was a stranger to
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  hard work, but I didn't think it was, I thought it was normal,
• 12:10
  right? Because that was my reality.
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  My reality was, you know, this is what we do to make money like
• 12:15
  ends. And, and I know the people did
• 12:18
  other things like the banker, you know, he typed on his
• 12:21
  computer and he had, he had the keys of the safe.
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  And I could see that big old safe and went in there to cash
• 12:26
  our checks on Friday, right? So I know the people don't
• 12:31
  think, but I know that's what we did and I was OK with it.
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  Truth be told, I was, I was a little ashamed in in school that
• 12:37
  that, you know, that we had to, that we had to do that.
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  But that's, you know, and in the long run, it, it was, it was the
• 12:45
  the, the best blessing that I could ever gotten.
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  So at that point, did you feel like these were two separate
• 12:50
  worlds and you were kind of always be in this one and not?
• 12:54
  Yeah, exactly right. That's exactly how I felt.
• 12:57
  You know, like I, I, I knew that other people, they have to do
• 13:00
  that and, and they got to go to camp.
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  I said, well, and, and I would lie, you know, in the 7th, 6th
• 13:06
  grade, 7th coming back, I was like, where were you?
• 13:08
  I was at summer camp. You know, we was, we was here,
• 13:10
  we was, we was at the Bahamas. I would just tell the whoppers
• 13:13
  and, and we're really, I was up in the fields working,
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  especially if I came home late because the season didn't end on
• 13:19
  time. And we got here a week or two
• 13:21
  late, you know, before after school started, a little friend,
• 13:23
  like where were you at, man? We've been at school two weeks
• 13:25
  already. I said oh, oh man, our vacation
• 13:27
  was just crazy. And honestly I was like, we were
• 13:29
  just trying to scrape enough money to get back down.
• 13:32
  So but but but yeah, so. The job that the things that you
• 13:38
  used to be ashamed of are now the things that you give so much
• 13:43
  credit to. For where you are.
• 13:45
  And I'm most proud of too. Like they, you know, my, you
• 13:49
  know, we didn't have, we didn't, we, we didn't have to work as
• 13:53
  hard as we did, right? But my dad was always trying to
• 13:55
  get us ahead and trying to, you know, move this out of a it was,
• 14:00
  it was horrible. We lived, you know, my first
• 14:03
  regulation recollection was like a duplex of, of our home when I
• 14:08
  was like 456. I remember was like, because
• 14:10
  there was always somebody right next door and I could hear him.
• 14:13
  We would, there was another kid next door.
• 14:14
  I'd knock on the on the on the wall.
• 14:17
  He would knock back and I remember that.
• 14:18
  Then we moved to like a different part of the town.
• 14:22
  We had our own house. It was a single house.
• 14:24
  It was very meager, but but still, it was nicer, right?
• 14:28
  We rented that one had a had a had a convenience store right
• 14:32
  next to his soul. You know, he would come back
• 14:35
  with a bag of Doritos and a can of bean dip.
• 14:38
  I tell you why I wasn't I was in heaven, man.
• 14:40
  I was like, it was the best thing ever.
• 14:42
  When he got home from work. I remember those things.
• 14:44
  I just remember him also never being home like when he was
• 14:49
  working like he would, he would like leave before I was awake
• 14:52
  and he'd be come home well into the evening, 7-8 at night.
• 14:57
  I know. Then he said there and he had to
• 14:58
  count up his, his cards and his tallies to all for all the the
• 15:03
  guys who were working. He started off as a picker and
• 15:05
  then he got, you know, they promoted him to to be the, the
• 15:08
  crew lead. And then we moved and we then we
• 15:11
  bought a property next to my grandfather's.
• 15:13
  Then we upgraded again. We got a we got a big trailer,
• 15:15
  you know, a big double Y, you know, with a 3 bedrooms and two
• 15:20
  bathrooms. That was pretty cool because our
• 15:21
  other one only had one both of the previous ones.
• 15:23
  I remember, I remember I remember seeing like, wow,
• 15:26
  there's two places I can go to the bathroom here.
• 15:27
  I was like I was like 7 or 8. That was a big freaking deal.
• 15:32
  That was a big house. We had a yard finally and the
• 15:36
  sole and and and. How many of you were there?
• 15:40
  There was. So there was.
• 15:41
  There was myself, my younger brother of Fernando, my other
• 15:46
  younger brother's name is Eric, and and my baby sister, who was
• 15:50
  ten years my junior. She was kind of like I tell her
• 15:57
  she was the whoopsie. But but but, but now it's a
• 16:02
  grown up. Like, you know, we have a great
• 16:03
  relationship, all four of us. So so yeah, man.
• 16:06
  So we worked through and then, you know, and and or was I.
• 16:09
  So now we're back in high school and on the weekends, I mean, I
• 16:13
  was like, I was like, dad, I need to, I see, give me a spot.
• 16:16
  And some days he would let me go pick and and you know, he did
• 16:20
  depends on my report card. It depends on how I was acting
• 16:22
  at the house, because he knew if I could go pick, that's easy
• 16:26
  money for me. I wasn't the fastest, but you
• 16:28
  know, 50 bucks is 50 bucks. You know, when you're 1415, No,
• 16:35
  you take that. So I remember you one time I was
• 16:40
  like, I say, you know, I'm that, that I'm the most straight
• 16:44
  shooter ever. But one time I was picking a
• 16:47
  row, like a row of oranges and I and I was doing really good
• 16:52
  because they were small trees, right?
• 16:53
  All depends how much you could pick was it was a landscape.
• 16:56
  If they're a big tree, then you have to get a ladder to get to
• 17:00
  the oranges. The very top right.
• 17:01
  You have to make it a hook to hook them off and drop them.
• 17:04
  Do you got to go down and collect them?
• 17:05
  Or if you had like a tree that was smaller that that blossomed
• 17:09
  earlier and they were like 7 feet tall, right?
• 17:13
  And they were really, they were just there was, you know, they
• 17:16
  were blooming with oranges everywhere.
• 17:18
  I mean, you'd make a killing, right?
• 17:19
  So that's the kind of row I had. I was doing good.
• 17:22
  I mean, I knocked out two tubs, 2 tubs before lunch and I was a
• 17:26
  34 tub kind of guy all day, right.
• 17:29
  So but but then but the but the trailer where the where he he
• 17:37
  dumped the right. So I'm going to set this up for
• 17:41
  you, Anthony. The guys would pick it to their
• 17:45
  back, right. They would go to the back and
• 17:47
  drop it in the tub. It was a big circle.
• 17:48
  So I don't know how many gallons there.
• 17:50
  I don't know. It's big, though.
• 17:51
  It's you could, you could fit like 20 people and it's standing
• 17:55
  up maybe 15. So it's a pretty big tub.
• 17:58
  Yeah. Right.
• 17:59
  So then you would dump this bag, carry this tub.
• 18:01
  No, no, no, no, no. You carry your bag and then you
• 18:03
  take it and you dump your bag on the tub and then you unleash it
• 18:07
  and the, and the bottom opens up and your oranges fall in.
• 18:10
  Then you, you strap it back. Then you go back and pick more.
• 18:13
  And the faster you can do it, the better, right.
• 18:14
  It's, it's, you know, it's, it's the faster, you know, more.
• 18:18
  So I, I, so I, I was doing great and I was like, man, I don't
• 18:24
  know, I couldn't have been 15. Maybe I was 16.
• 18:26
  I wasn't, I was a 16 year because I didn't have a car yet.
• 18:28
  So he put me where I was beside the where and then so then, so
• 18:34
  then the tub full, right. Then he comes with the goat that
• 18:37
  I spoke about earlier and he gets the claw, he claws it.
• 18:40
  He dumps it in, in his, in his, in his, in his, in the goat,
• 18:44
  which carries, I don't know, like 20 or 30 of them tubs.
• 18:47
  Then he goes into the trailer that's out there in the field
• 18:50
  parks somewhere and it's up on hydroxyl, lifts up and it opens
• 18:54
  up on the side and he dumps it into the trailer, right.
• 18:57
  So and then the trailer starts to and then, you know, he can go
• 18:59
  back and forth and kind of levels out the oranges and
• 19:03
  that's the process. Then the the truck driver comes,
• 19:05
  backs up, takes the trailer and then he goes to get processed.
• 19:10
  But in the back there's a lever that opens up the the bottom
• 19:15
  switch so that way they can fall out and then they're lifted up
• 19:18
  at the plant, the orange girl plant, right?
• 19:20
  And I was right beside it and I looked at it and I was like,
• 19:22
  man, that sucker looks like there's a lot of it was almost
• 19:27
  full. It was full.
• 19:28
  So I figured I could just open the lever up, dump a couple like
• 19:32
  bags and then close it back and then go dump my bag into the
• 19:35
  thing. Right.
• 19:36
  Trying to cheat because that was the easiest way that I was like,
• 19:40
  he won't notice that I'm killing it today.
• 19:41
  I already got two. I'll get two more.
• 19:43
  Maybe I'll get 5 today. You know, I think they were
• 19:45
  going for, I don't know, $10 a barrel.
• 19:48
  So, so I was like I said, man, man, I'm going to bang out 50.
• 19:51
  I might get 60. So I go to the back.
• 19:54
  I opened it up and it's hard. I mean, I'm, it's, it's, it's,
• 19:57
  it's, it's a big trailer, right? So I pop it, open up, I fill up,
• 20:01
  I fill up and then I close it. I said oh, oh.
• 20:08
  Not and I can't right, and I close it and I can't close it
• 20:11
  right. I didn't realize that the
• 20:14
  pressure behind it, like the flow would not let it close.
• 20:17
  So there's the way it's going to close.
• 20:19
  So now I have to sit there and wait because God forbid I let
• 20:22
  that whole freaking that that whole trailer of oranges that
• 20:27
  people already picked go on the ground.
• 20:29
  So I'm just holding it. The thing is super heavy on my
• 20:32
  back like it's dragging me down. I'm holding it up and I start
• 20:35
  yelling, Dad, damn, he can't hear me.
• 20:38
  It's a big, I don't know how many acres it was.
• 20:40
  I mean, you know, thirty, 4850 acres, 100 acres.
• 20:43
  I don't know how big it was. Huma.
• 20:44
  He couldn't hear me, so I just had to wait.
• 20:46
  I'm sitting there. I'm I'm.
• 20:47
  I'm. So this was your penance for
• 20:50
  trying to cheat but. I'm trying to tell man I was I
• 20:53
  and I was thinking right there. And I was like, man.
• 20:55
  And again, I went back. I went back in my mind, I was
• 20:58
  just like, man, what am I denying forever?
• 21:01
  Like thinking about the basketball game.
• 21:02
  We used to play basketball in high school like, you know, just
• 21:06
  like for fun, not on the team or not, but I'm just thinking about
• 21:10
  stuff. And then finally he pulls
• 21:11
  around. He pulls out.
• 21:12
  He's like, and he he put my hands down still.
• 21:15
  I took my right. I couldn't put my hand.
• 21:17
  I was like, let me put my head back down.
• 21:18
  But he came up. He's like, man, were you sure
• 21:22
  smart, huh? I said, Dad, I just, I thought I
• 21:25
  was gonna he's like, he started laughing.
• 21:26
  He started cracking up. He went he was like, he was
• 21:30
  like, you tired. He's like, yeah, yeah, let me
• 21:32
  push it back. He said, I think can't go back.
• 21:34
  He says you got to you're gonna have to walk with the trailer
• 21:37
  back to the plant. And I said I can't do that as
• 21:41
  well. So he said, so he laughed.
• 21:43
  He walked away and I was like, Dad, dad.
• 21:45
  So he came around with the trailer and he got the what he
• 21:47
  did. He got the claw, the hook that
• 21:49
  hooks the the the tubs. He just he put he's like watch
• 21:53
  out, watch out. He pulled it right on the thing.
• 21:55
  He just he prayed because it had this hydraulics.
• 21:57
  They just closed this shut. I just remember seeing all the
• 21:59
  juice come out of the bottom, like he just smashed so many
• 22:02
  oranges right there and then. And he said I closed it.
• 22:05
  So I closed it. He said.
• 22:08
  He said, how many, how many, how many bags you get?
• 22:13
  I said I got one. He's like, that's the it's your
• 22:16
  lucky day because I'm gonna let you keep that bag.
• 22:18
  I said, OK, sorry, Dad. He's like, he just drove away
• 22:20
  laughing. You know, he never mentioned it
• 22:22
  again. I mentioned it to him like, I
• 22:24
  don't know, maybe the 30 years later and he remembers, though,
• 22:27
  he just he just thought it was funniest thing is like he's like
• 22:30
  he's like he says you ain't that smart, huh?
• 22:33
  I said, well, I never claimed to be.
• 22:35
  He said you thought you could close your eyes, Dad.
• 22:37
  I thought so. But but but our relationship was
• 22:40
  good. Yeah.
• 22:41
  So we, we, we've sort of laid the foundation here for the the
• 22:45
  great work ethic that you learned growing up from a very
• 22:47
  young age working out in the fields.
• 22:50
  Let's Fast forward to your time in the military.
• 22:52
  You did, you said you did two enlistments.
• 22:54
  Were they back-to-back? Yeah, so, so and so so we made
• 23:01
  it to basic that day and and I was I was overweight so that,
• 23:05
  you know, to the so we're back that morning there.
• 23:08
  He's being picked up and and I had previously tried to go the
• 23:11
  week before, but I didn't make way or the tape and the and the
• 23:16
  same. So these these little things
• 23:18
  that happen in your life, people don't realize how they have an
• 23:21
  altering effect is I have to have a ripple, right?
• 23:24
  And they just ripple throughout your whole life.
• 23:26
  So the same guy that taped me the day at the at the at the map
• 23:30
  station a week before he recognized me, he said back, try
• 23:33
  it again. He's right.
• 23:34
  I didn't eat the night before I was in the I was in the sauna.
• 23:37
  I was, you know, I was running every day.
• 23:39
  I had to lose 10 lbs. I didn't get, I lost like 9.
• 23:42
  So I still had to eat taped because you could be overweight
• 23:45
  if you taped right, if you had the right measurements, you
• 23:48
  know, right. So so he came to my belly and
• 23:50
  like it had like that much on it.
• 23:52
  And it was like, so he just like I looked at him, he looked at me
• 23:56
  and he was like, he just, he squeezed that sucker.
• 23:59
  He bought cut my skin. He said, all right, you're good.
• 24:02
  He put me through right. So, so, so that single thing
• 24:06
  that put me in basic training that evening that let me go
• 24:11
  through and like I said, I had asthma undiagnosed.
• 24:14
  So I started to run and I, I struggled and I think I was
• 24:18
  going to make it just because of the, the physical, the physical
• 24:21
  activity that was not used to doing.
• 24:23
  But, you know, through all the training, I just, you know, I
• 24:28
  thought, you know, the, the, the basis for my work ethic, like,
• 24:34
  and being able to put that, put myself somewhere else.
• 24:37
  Like you're running 5 miles and, you know, you have asthma and,
• 24:40
  you know, you're actually blacking out.
• 24:42
  Like you, I'd fall over and I'd get up and start running again.
• 24:46
  And after I catch my breath, you know, and I just, I, I'll put
• 24:49
  my, I would go somewhere, I would go somewhere.
• 24:51
  And I think all that to the, to the time I was in the fields,
• 24:55
  all them hours and hours like, and I could really, I could
• 24:58
  really transport myself where it wasn't a big deal like, and it
• 25:03
  wasn't that hard like, so I just, I did it, you know, I, I
• 25:06
  lost, I don't know, it's 60 lbs and basic training.
• 25:10
  Wow. I finally saw some muscles on my
• 25:12
  chest had, I saw a little like 6 pack, you know, I had like a 2
• 25:16
  pack. The 1st 2 ones are coming out.
• 25:18
  And I was like, what? I was flexing my arm.
• 25:20
  You can see the little triceps. This is crazy.
• 25:23
  So I continued on to my individualized training.
• 25:26
  I was air traffic controller for the first five years and went to
• 25:29
  8. So the school school was like 6
• 25:32
  months to learn how to become AATC personnel.
• 25:35
  So my everyday I work out. I mean, I just I, I, I became
• 25:40
  that I got the body I never had and had a lot of confidence and,
• 25:44
  and I was making money. I was sending all my checks back
• 25:46
  home because I didn't need anything.
• 25:48
  I wasn't training. I would that they fed me at the
• 25:51
  at the at the town hall, you know, three times a day, you
• 25:54
  know, I just I kept I kept a couple 100 bucks for me to go
• 25:58
  out on, you know, Saturday and then Sunday and, you know, go
• 26:02
  out, go downtown and, you know, go shopping or do whatever I
• 26:05
  wanted it. But you sent the bulk of what
• 26:07
  you. Were yeah, all at all.
• 26:09
  It all went back. Yeah, it all went back.
• 26:11
  It all went back. It all went back Well, and and
• 26:15
  and I I didn't have any qual. I didn't have any.
• 26:18
  I wasn't ill will about it. Like my parents were still, you
• 26:21
  know, they were doing better, but they weren't quite there
• 26:23
  yet, you know, and it's so it really, it really was nothing to
• 26:30
  me. Like I didn't need it.
• 26:31
  You know, if I needed some, I'll get it.
• 26:33
  And people like man, but I will tell, I'll tell my roommate.
• 26:38
  I said, what you doing with your money?
• 26:39
  I said, I'm sending it all home. I said, how much you keeping?
• 26:41
  I said I'll keep like 100 bucks. I said, you know, you're going
• 26:43
  to pay for two weeks. I said, yeah, what do I need it
• 26:45
  for me? I just need.
• 26:46
  I said we're walking everywhere we go.
• 26:47
  I don't have guy to have a car to have any expenses.
• 26:50
  And the food was there. I just, you know, if I wanted to
• 26:53
  try to sneak in some beer money here and there, you know, I was,
• 26:57
  I was 18 at the time. And you know, I would, you know,
• 27:00
  that somebody hooked me up, you know, the older GI walking on
• 27:03
  the hey, sorry, you give me a beer, you know, and it was like
• 27:06
  kind of it wasn't allowed, but it wasn't frowned upon.
• 27:11
  Like you're a soldier, Like you can have a freaking beer.
• 27:14
  Like it wasn't illegal, but it was like one of those things
• 27:17
  like you go to the Class 6, but. It looked the other way.
• 27:19
  Out yeah, I kind of and everybody did and you just had
• 27:22
  to but because if you messed up, man, your that your ass was in a
• 27:25
  ringer and that's not a ringer. You want to be in they you know,
• 27:30
  and don't get in trouble outside the base because that's even
• 27:32
  worse because you have to do civilian punishment the
• 27:36
  whatever, whatever for whatever. And then you get to get the UCMJ
• 27:39
  action. That's that was that was levied
• 27:42
  against you when you got back on base.
• 27:44
  And then that was sometimes worse.
• 27:46
  That was most times worse. So what was the biggest thing
• 27:51
  that you learned from your first enlistment?
• 27:53
  There man, the the the that I that the, the, the world is very
• 27:58
  big, right? The world is super big and, and
• 28:02
  then I'm very, I'm just like like a 1/2 a sand grain.
• 28:08
  I don't know, I don't know the analogy for it, but I just, I
• 28:12
  realized that the world was really big and that, that I and
• 28:15
  that, that I was able to do things that I never thought I
• 28:17
  could do. I was running 2 miles and 12
• 28:20
  minutes. You know, I was, you know, I was
• 28:22
  with full blown asthma without knowing it.
• 28:24
  And I have it. And I had, I had, I lost like a
• 28:28
  bunch of weight. I looked great.
• 28:30
  I, I passed, I, I became my air traffic controller.
• 28:32
  So I was smarter than what I thought I was, right.
• 28:35
  I, I thought I didn't, I never gave myself a chance, you know,
• 28:40
  and, and now, now my wife speaks of it because she's a, she's a,
• 28:47
  she's a professor at University of Central Florida.
• 28:50
  And, and she does a lot of research to, you know, it's
• 28:55
  academic research. Like why do some kids succeed?
• 28:58
  And when it comes when some kids don't, and she says that nobody
• 29:02
  was there to advocate for me. You know, when she, she says, I
• 29:06
  have, I have ADHD and, and I, I've never been diagnosed as a
• 29:10
  dude, I see this all the time. Like you have ADHD and, and
• 29:15
  you've never been diagnosed and you wonder why you were in the
• 29:19
  6th grade in school. I was in in school suspension
• 29:21
  pretty much the entire year and and you know, I always I did bad
• 29:25
  at school and but people still pass me though, because you
• 29:28
  know, they don't want they didn't want me back in in the
• 29:30
  class, right. I was a disruption.
• 29:31
  The next person's. The next guy's problem.
• 29:33
  So, but the 7th grade year, I did better, you know, in the
• 29:35
  eighth grade I did better. And I, and I had, I never had a
• 29:38
  problem with that. It was a transition from
• 29:39
  elementary to to middle school. But my wife says, like, if you
• 29:43
  had somebody to advocate for you.
• 29:45
  And that's what her research focuses on, on, on, on why some
• 29:48
  people are more successful than others.
• 29:52
  But the, the ASVAB, they kind of figured out that I'd be, be good
• 29:55
  at, at the ATC thing. So just by the way, I, it said I
• 29:58
  couldn't be a mechanic or an engineer like those two things.
• 30:02
  I was. I don't know how gears work
• 30:03
  together. And I just, these are jobs you
• 30:05
  can't do is you can do anything else.
• 30:07
  And I picked, I picked, I picked that one because I had a
• 30:10
  girlfriend and the school was in Fort Rucker, AL that's lower
• 30:16
  Alabama. It's like 6 hours from where I
• 30:18
  lived then and currently actually.
• 30:21
  So I knew on the weekend I could, I could, I can make a
• 30:24
  beeline home. And so that was the main reason
• 30:28
  I want to be a traffic controller because where the
• 30:29
  school was, it was six months school and I'd be, I'd be
• 30:33
  driving distance away. So your first stint in the Army,
• 30:39
  how many years, 5, five years. And were you deployed?
• 30:44
  No, I went overseas but not deployed.
• 30:48
  It was not, this is 97 to 2002 and you know 911 had just
• 30:56
  happened when I got out. I will stop loss for you know,
• 31:00
  for like a month and I everybody would think would stop loss but
• 31:03
  but then like the end the next year I got out, I had to go to
• 31:07
  Korea. That was a was a pretty awesome
• 31:09
  experience. And then I got out and I came
• 31:12
  home. I was I'm going to use my GI
• 31:15
  Bill because I wanted to be a banker, Anthony, like because
• 31:18
  the bankers, they had the money because they had the keys to the
• 31:21
  safe and they always wore a suit and they always had a tie.
• 31:25
  And every time I went to the bank, we always had mud on our
• 31:28
  boots and, you know, dirt on a blue jeans, right, just to cash
• 31:31
  our check. So that was very impressionable
• 31:35
  upon me when in my younger years, I mean, we had no, like I
• 31:41
  have no financial literacy. I didn't know how to use the ATM
• 31:46
  card. When I got my ATM card from the
• 31:48
  Army, remember the first time I got, I said what I do it, what I
• 31:51
  get the money. I said, 'cause I used to get my
• 31:53
  check and I just go to like, you know, a convenience store or
• 31:56
  like a grocery store to cash it, give my money, give my money,
• 32:00
  the money for the car and or whatever and keep the what I
• 32:03
  could have for myself. So, yeah, so who was I?
• 32:08
  So I remember the first time I pushed the card in so hard at
• 32:12
  the ATMI, got it stuck and they, they, they wouldn't come out.
• 32:15
  So it ate it and I had no money for that weekend but.
• 32:19
  So you use the GI Bill? Yeah, use the GI Bill.
• 32:23
  Yeah. So I got out and I got thanks
• 32:25
  for keeping me on track. I got out.
• 32:27
  I started going to college. I was a 28 year old.
• 32:31
  I'm sorry, 24. I was like No 20. 2002. 2002 So
• 32:37
  I was like 2324 and I go in there and for the first time
• 32:43
  with the class I iron my slacks. I'm having a long sleeve shirt
• 32:48
  ironed down had had had my backpack, you know, nice.
• 32:52
  I was still I was still in good shape.
• 32:55
  I was ready. I was like, this is this is a
• 32:56
  big day. Like did five years for this day
• 32:59
  and I walked in the the the 1st girl said, are you the new
• 33:02
  professor we're getting? I said, no dude, like I'm in
• 33:06
  class. They're like, oh, really?
• 33:08
  I said, oh, you look like the teacher.
• 33:09
  I said, OK, So I looked around. Everybody's in shorts and flip
• 33:12
  flops and it's Florida and it's Florida and in August, so it's
• 33:16
  blazing hot. I'm sweating because I got a a
• 33:19
  wool. Like it was insane.
• 33:21
  But like, that's what that's what that's what I assumed it
• 33:23
  would be like really. But it wasn't like that at all,
• 33:26
  right? It was.
• 33:27
  So, you know, I dressed like that for a couple more couple
• 33:30
  more months just because I bought the clothes like right
• 33:31
  when I got out of the Army, got to use a man.
• 33:34
  So, but then, but then my cousin who I grew up with, he, he went
• 33:39
  to a college right next door and he's like, dude, what are you
• 33:43
  doing, bro? I said, go get some shorts, some
• 33:45
  flip flops, man, and, and a couple T-shirts.
• 33:47
  He'll be good, I said. So I was like, really, I felt
• 33:49
  weird the first day, but I did feel more at ease because I
• 33:52
  didn't like the teacher anymore. And so I was going to college
• 33:57
  and I was doing, I was doing my thing.
• 33:59
  Yeah. Go ahead.
• 34:01
  Did you did you end up finishing or?
• 34:02
  Yeah. Yeah, no.
• 34:03
  So. So I was, I was, we, we then.
• 34:07
  So my thing, my brother was actually in college with me.
• 34:10
  He started, he had just graduated the year before.
• 34:13
  So it was, but he went into the National Guard and his unit just
• 34:17
  got for deployment. So we actually were in a couple
• 34:19
  classes together. We kind of planned the dots off.
• 34:21
  I thought that was cool because he was I was a senior, he was a
• 34:24
  freshman, right? And that that wasn't so we hung
• 34:26
  out a little bit as my senior year, but he was kind of like
• 34:29
  the hang around kid, right? He's going out to senior skip
• 34:32
  day with us. Like, bro, you can't go to
• 34:34
  senior skip that you're a freaking freshman.
• 34:35
  I'm going to tell mom then if you don't take me.
• 34:38
  So I said, I get in the car. Bro went to the beach, right?
• 34:41
  So, but but this time, like, you know, he's grown up.
• 34:43
  I'm grown up both in college. He got orders to go to
• 34:48
  Afghanistan and his unit did and he had already been deployed.
• 34:54
  He got deployed right after 9-11 to the Tampa airport for a year.
• 34:59
  So and I would come and see him because it was a nice
• 35:02
  deployment, right? They got to stay at the Marriott
• 35:04
  in the airport and they got to eat at whatever restaurant they
• 35:07
  wanted. They just did security around
• 35:08
  the airport because nobody knew what was going on.
• 35:11
  They were just burning money, right?
• 35:12
  The, the DoD was so, so you know, we had a conversation one
• 35:20
  night. We're out, we're having fun.
• 35:22
  We're having some drinks at there's a place called Disney
• 35:25
  Springs that used to be like a club in the area, like it was
• 35:28
  called Downtown Disney. And it's, it's, it's, it's
• 35:32
  relatively close to where we lived, maybe 45 minutes, half an
• 35:36
  hour. But so we're down there.
• 35:37
  He's like, man, I really don't want to go.
• 35:40
  I said, I don't know if I'm going to, I might need to hurt
• 35:42
  my back. And he was just, he was really
• 35:44
  concerned. I said, man, don't be concerned.
• 35:45
  I said, easy for you to say you did your time.
• 35:48
  You can. I said, I said, I'll do my time
• 35:49
  again. I said, I'll go with you.
• 35:51
  And he's like, he's he said, he said, I said, yeah.
• 35:54
  I said, yeah. I said, but you got to take care
• 35:56
  of all my drinks because I hadn't been paid yet.
• 35:59
  And I said, you got to get all my drinks this weekend.
• 36:02
  So he said, all right, that's a good deal.
• 36:03
  I said so bull so so I saw we started drinking up it took a
• 36:07
  shears and gave a high 5 and and a hug and.
• 36:11
  So your brother bought your drinks and you go to
• 36:14
  Afghanistan? Yeah, so we so I went, so I went
• 36:17
  that so Monday morning and and like, so Sunday morning he was
• 36:23
  like, man, that was awesome last night.
• 36:24
  Yeah, that was cool, right. Boom, boom, we get in and then
• 36:28
  he's like, man, that's cool too. About the whole Afghanistan
• 36:31
  thing. And I said, what?
• 36:33
  Oh yeah, you're going right. She's like, yeah, but when
• 36:35
  you're going with me, I said, I am, I said, what are you talking
• 36:38
  about? He said, you said last night I
• 36:40
  was like, oh, I was like, Oh yeah, yeah, that's right.
• 36:43
  That's right. We're going to do that.
• 36:45
  So, so, so, so it was, it was hazy.
• 36:48
  I kind of, I didn't, it was foggy.
• 36:50
  But what he said I was like, I did say that.
• 36:52
  I was like, wow, I did say that. So, you know, but when when they
• 36:58
  more talked to the commander, I said, if I don't have to go back
• 37:00
  to basic training and I don't have to and and I can be with
• 37:03
  him the whole year in Afghanistan.
• 37:05
  I you know, because they were losing soldiers.
• 37:07
  This is National Guard, you know, National Guard people sign
• 37:09
  up to National Guard because think they're going to be home,
• 37:11
  right, They're going to be. And they didn't start deploying
• 37:13
  those guys until the 90s, I think till like Clinton years.
• 37:16
  But so he was great that he was glad to have me and and I was I
• 37:24
  was glad to go. I had to, I had to go back to
• 37:28
  Tampa maps and it was a little easier around the waist this
• 37:32
  time and I got right in. I did my physical and then then
• 37:36
  we mowed to Camp Shelby. I don't know, probably like a
• 37:40
  year later, a six months later, excuse me, that first.
• 37:45
  So I went. So do you remember a couple
• 37:48
  years ago in 2004 with it, Florida got ravaged by like four
• 37:52
  or five hurricanes like the same year.
• 37:54
  They were like Charlie, then Eileen, then Irma and then so
• 38:00
  that was, that was the month, the, the month that I signed up
• 38:03
  with the, with the, with the National Guard.
• 38:06
  And so I got in that Humvee and I was like, man, I thought I was
• 38:09
  going to go to drill once a week.
• 38:10
  And, and we're going to go to, you know, because if, if you're
• 38:14
  mobbed, active duty is different, right?
• 38:15
  That's what you just live it. But I didn't think I was going
• 38:18
  to go like for that month. We're in the back of it.
• 38:20
  We're, we're on a Humvee or on the back of a ALTV, like just
• 38:25
  going up and down, doing guard duty, doing patrol, helping hand
• 38:28
  out water. And so that that was my whole,
• 38:33
  that was, that was summer that. Summer.
• 38:35
  And then how long were you actually in Afghanistan?
• 38:38
  So we we mowed to Camp Shell, Mississippi.
• 38:41
  After that we were there for I think four months, five months.
• 38:45
  You got all your immunizations and you did all your training
• 38:48
  and you do like, you know, they have mock cities, Afghanistan do
• 38:53
  all your training, like, you know, your combat training,
• 38:57
  like, you know, your entry into buildings, do all that kind of
• 39:01
  stuff on top of like the basic commands on, on like, on the
• 39:04
  languages like Dari and, and things and things like that.
• 39:09
  So that we we left and did the end of June 04 and we got back
• 39:17
  July 4th, 2005 SA year. A year flew by, lots of fun.
• 39:26
  I lost even more weight. I got.
• 39:28
  Even more fun, I I haven't heard many people.
• 39:31
  No. Well, you know, it was a really
• 39:32
  light. It was a really.
• 39:34
  Yeah, it was a really light year that year.
• 39:35
  I don't know. I don't know.
• 39:37
  We were at Camp Phoenix and and Kabul and the word had it that
• 39:41
  of course I didn't know anything about anything.
• 39:44
  You know, I was and I was a specialist.
• 39:46
  I didn't, I wasn't, you know, I was a RTO.
• 39:48
  They made me a radio transmission operator.
• 39:51
  So I just the the big dogs were behind me, the generals and
• 39:54
  colonels and they get on the horn, tell this person to do
• 39:56
  this and I track it where the the the units were were
• 40:00
  different assets were in the field, but but the rumor had it
• 40:05
  that the the base, the camp that was called Camp Phoenix.
• 40:11
  Was owned by the biggest drug Lord in in Afghanistan.
• 40:16
  And so the the United States Army, the DoD was paying him
• 40:21
  rent to own I think it was like 3 blocks.
• 40:24
  It was it was it was it was fortified like I was just a good
• 40:28
  place. That's why they picked it right.
• 40:30
  And there was big old like one story tall sandbags like around
• 40:35
  the whole building, like too high.
• 40:36
  And and so it was it was towers everywhere, like guard towers.
• 40:41
  But so we had it like when I was there, it was a light.
• 40:44
  It was, I think there was a couple of explosions at that,
• 40:46
  the front gate. But really, really a calm year.
• 40:51
  There was that was that was before the surge.
• 40:55
  They did the surge in Afghanistan.
• 40:56
  So it wasn't it, it wasn't, it wasn't, it wasn't hot that year
• 41:02
  at all. I mean, it wasn't hot at all.
• 41:03
  Like it was, I was like, man, we're just working out and like
• 41:06
  walking around the city and like we just, you know, we and the
• 41:09
  and the, and the mission was a presence, a presence mission.
• 41:13
  We're just here to support, you know, the new, the new
• 41:16
  government, right? The one that collapsed in a
• 41:19
  matter of a day, right. But we want to go into that.
• 41:22
  But but that was, that was, that was the mission.
• 41:24
  Just, you know, we, we carried around little Snickers bars for
• 41:28
  the kids. We throw them, you know, right
• 41:31
  when, when they got nearest, because you know, earlier that
• 41:35
  that year, the kids were, they rushed, they were handing out
• 41:38
  and they got through them and the kids are grabbing anything.
• 41:41
  They're talking about impoverished people, right?
• 41:45
  So, so one kid he grabbed like a live grenade off of, off of
• 41:49
  soldiers. So we weren't allowed to, to
• 41:51
  hand them anything anymore because he got it, He took it.
• 41:54
  And he, I mean, he, that's going to be a year's salary in
• 41:58
  Afghanistan. So, so we had to throw the candy
• 42:01
  And there it was sad. It was sad seeing that state of,
• 42:05
  of, of people like, who live like that and they just live in
• 42:07
  the mud. And, and I felt like I sure we,
• 42:11
  we, I felt like I was blessed, right?
• 42:13
  Restaurant. Yeah, I feel like I was blessed
• 42:15
  because now my, I had a roof. We had water in my, in my
• 42:18
  trailer, right? We had two, we had two toilets,
• 42:21
  right? These guys sold like
• 42:22
  everything's perspective manly. So yeah, so, OK, so boom, went
• 42:28
  there, got back, went back to work at the Outback Steakhouse
• 42:32
  where we were working. He got me a job when I got out
• 42:36
  the Army. He was assistant kitchen
• 42:38
  manager, got me a job as a dishwasher.
• 42:40
  I became a dishwasher and then salad guy.
• 42:42
  The fire worked my way up the line is like, wow, man.
• 42:44
  I was like, you're you're you're really trainable.
• 42:46
  Like how do you learn so quick? I said, it ain't hard, man.
• 42:49
  You just tell me what to do and I'm going to do it and I'll just
• 42:50
  keep doing it, right? It's just for repetition, right?
• 42:54
  So, so I'll continue to do that. And the while, while we were,
• 42:57
  while we were doing all this, we had, I was going to college,
• 43:01
  right? So I transferred to University
• 43:03
  of Phoenix because I knew I was going to go to Afghanistan and I
• 43:06
  start, I went to college there. I got, I, I finished my, my
• 43:09
  bachelor's while I was over there and then got back and once
• 43:15
  I got my degree, I had one like one more credit and I was like,
• 43:18
  man, I said what I said I don't want to do it at University of
• 43:20
  Phoenix because dude, they're expensive, man.
• 43:22
  So I said, so I went to the community 'cause I did it like
• 43:25
  a, like a pottery class, like a pottery class and got my credit,
• 43:32
  got my credit. Then I told the Outback, I said,
• 43:34
  hey, man, I got a bachelor's degree in management.
• 43:37
  Now that's you guys should make me a front of house manager and
• 43:41
  they're like, well, we don't have a spot right now, Joel,
• 43:42
  like we can make you a kitchen manager, as I don't want to be a
• 43:45
  kitchen manager like I'm I'm I'm articulate.
• 43:48
  I've I've LED troops before. I'm you know, you know, now I
• 43:51
  was thinking I was smart, you know, stories changing in my own
• 43:55
  mind, right, and but they have a spot.
• 43:58
  So I went on career builder. I went on monster and he's a job
• 44:02
  boards back in back in 2007, right, and and Longhorn called
• 44:12
  me LongHorn Steakhouse, you know, and they did me an
• 44:15
  interview and and and they were telling me that, you know, so I
• 44:18
  told him my story when I was last 10 years of my life after
• 44:21
  high school and and then so his Oh man, we give you job is all
• 44:26
  man. It's I'm a great cook too.
• 44:27
  He's I don't need you to cook no more, as you know how to cook,
• 44:29
  but I was a great cook, but he didn't.
• 44:31
  He said the guy told me that his name was Matt 1st.
• 44:34
  And this is the first guy who gave me a chance, right, because
• 44:37
  I, I had the sheepskin. I had the, I had the what I
• 44:40
  thought was knowledge to, to manage a restaurant, but I
• 44:44
  really didn't know anything at all about managing restaurants.
• 44:48
  So it gave me jobs and and I learned and, and, and right when
• 44:52
  I got back from from Afghanistan, I, I met a girl who
• 44:57
  I, who was just at the end of the night where we used to make
• 45:01
  it the you know, I was a girl cook school.
• 45:03
  I said need the reports, how many steaks we sold and she'd be
• 45:06
  the the head, the head server and she had to give me the
• 45:10
  report so I can tally up the the meat sheet.
• 45:13
  I had 50. I sold 20.
• 45:15
  I should have 30 left, right. And so I had to do that every
• 45:18
  night on a nightly basis. So she would always get given to
• 45:21
  me. And I just remember looking at
• 45:22
  her and I was like, man, I said, I said, you like me, don't you?
• 45:26
  She's like, what are you talking about?
• 45:28
  I was like I said, you always, you always like.
• 45:30
  The confidence is high. No, it was, it was high, man.
• 45:32
  Like I was like, because like there was always a tug.
• 45:35
  I remember like I'd like take the report, but they would like
• 45:38
  it wasn't released. Like, like, you know, when
• 45:40
  somebody grabs it, you release it.
• 45:41
  I got it. But there was always that that
• 45:43
  little tug, like she didn't want me to leave.
• 45:45
  So, so you know, I maybe we'll talk about talk about my love
• 45:51
  story on another podcast. But so, yeah, we're we're still
• 45:57
  together all these years later, but have two kids.
• 46:02
  So in 07 we had our first baby, right?
• 46:05
  And I got back in 06, you know, she got and also like I knew I
• 46:11
  knew, like haven't seen the things I had seen that I wanted
• 46:13
  to, I wanted to, you know, I felt like I was ready to be dad.
• 46:15
  So so I became a dad in 07 and all in August, August 15th of 07
• 46:23
  and I got I started looking. That's when I was like, man, I
• 46:26
  got to be, I got to get a decorate at this kitchen.
• 46:28
  I'm not making enough money. I think I'm making 13 bucks an
• 46:30
  hour. That's a sole.
• 46:32
  I met with a guy called Matt first at, you know, at, at
• 46:35
  Longhorn and, and he gave me the biggest promotion I ever got in
• 46:40
  my life. I mean, it's from, from an
• 46:42
  hourly employee, somebody who's going to manage a million
• 46:44
  $1,000,000 restaurant, a multi $1,000,000 restaurant, you know
• 46:47
  what to train in, right? And he has, you know, he worked
• 46:50
  me 5560 hours for a you know, I was making a lot of money back
• 46:54
  then for $39,000. I mean, I was always, you can
• 46:58
  tell me I wasn't the king. I mean, I was making more than
• 47:00
  my dad. So I had to be the king, right.
• 47:03
  So I worked hard at Longhorn. I did well, I transferred.
• 47:08
  I learned a lot, made a lot of mistakes.
• 47:11
  I mean, I've remember this one time.
• 47:14
  Yeah, man, yeah, I learned. So one time there was there was
• 47:17
  this guy who his state can get right, like and I, we can made
• 47:22
  him up the first one, a second one and then he didn't like how
• 47:25
  that would taste. So I went to the back and I got
• 47:27
  a rib eye loin because we had the rib eyes pre pre cut, right.
• 47:30
  But then when it got him off the rib eye loin, we did the prime
• 47:33
  rib and I, I cut him a loin and it was a little bigger, a little
• 47:35
  juicier, trimmed it up nice firstly.
• 47:38
  And and also so we cooked that one.
• 47:40
  He finally liked it and I'm so pleased, right.
• 47:44
  And this is like my first week and the weights like we're going
• 47:47
  to charge it for that last one. I said, yeah, I think so.
• 47:51
  You know, I didn't. I was, I think so I had the key.
• 47:54
  That was my third and 4th shift by myself and the rest like I
• 47:57
  was that I was the boss, man, that was, that was really scary
• 48:00
  for me. And so I made a chart.
• 48:02
  But then there was a big e-mail like you made me wait, you know,
• 48:05
  you know, for four steaks. So I got the right one and you
• 48:08
  still charge me. And then then, you know, then
• 48:10
  that's when I really realized that it really wasn't about the
• 48:14
  sale, right? It was, it was, it wasn't about
• 48:16
  the sale. It was about the customer
• 48:19
  satisfaction and the indulgence and take care of the people.
• 48:22
  Man, I wasted an hour of his life 'cause he was waiting for
• 48:25
  us to get right. Now, whether the other three
• 48:26
  steaks were good or not, that that's not my prerogative.
• 48:29
  It's not my concern really. And and.
• 48:32
  Just not making the customer. Must have kept the customer
• 48:34
  happy man and and and I took that to heart and and I I never,
• 48:38
  I've never made a mistake like that again.
• 48:40
  Why I've forsaken customers time and or money?
• 48:43
  That lesson was really imprinting.
• 48:44
  I mean, the first powerful for you the first week this my first
• 48:48
  week and then it was like I still catch it still was still
• 48:52
  locked in my head so. So when's the idea to start your
• 48:56
  own restaurant come about? So Fast forward two years now.
• 49:01
  Now my boss who didn't have a position for me as a front house
• 49:03
  manager at the Outback has one and he calls me.
• 49:07
  He wants me to meet his boss for interview.
• 49:08
  I do, you know. Then I get another raise.
• 49:11
  Now I'm to to to 52,000 a year. I'm making 1000 a week.
• 49:17
  Anthony. That's freaking that's that's
• 49:20
  banana. That's bananas man.
• 49:21
  I've. Seen money like?
• 49:22
  That well, that's bananas, but, but, but, but it was good 'cause
• 49:25
  my wife was still in college getting her PhD.
• 49:28
  We had a kid, right? We had a mortgage and it was it,
• 49:31
  it came right on time. And so, you know, that's, you
• 49:36
  know, I lean big on my faith when we struggled and we had to
• 49:38
  get food stamps and, you know, at first, before I got the, the
• 49:41
  job at Longhorn, I would take, you know, whatever, like
• 49:44
  leftover prime rib. I would ask the manager, Hey,
• 49:46
  you're going to throw this away, right?
• 49:47
  He's like, yeah, I said, man, can I have it right?
• 49:49
  I will take it home. And it'd be good with some
• 49:51
  ketchup on it or A1 sauce, like put on some bread.
• 49:53
  It'd be delicious. But so struggled a while and
• 49:57
  exchanged the struggle and I but it was, but it was normal having
• 50:00
  to feel like just the being able to get by like that was normal,
• 50:05
  right? That, you know, and, and later
• 50:09
  on I realized and I went back to Outback and not making a little
• 50:14
  bit more money. Like I start reading books about
• 50:18
  like society and like a Alcolm Gladwell.
• 50:21
  He's a, he's a, he's a writer for The New Yorker.
• 50:23
  He read a couple books, I think the, the book, the Outliers
• 50:27
  really stuck home to me in a tipping point.
• 50:29
  I mean, I was like a sponge. I was, I was reading them.
• 50:31
  I couldn't read them fast enough.
• 50:33
  I had them. I still got them all in my room,
• 50:34
  but now they're all on, they're all on my, my audible account,
• 50:37
  right? But they, but it was, it was
• 50:40
  great, man. They know just and I remember
• 50:42
  this one passage, this one story talked about it takes time for,
• 50:46
  for a family when they get here to establish themselves, right.
• 50:49
  As long as everybody does the right thing every generation,
• 50:52
  right, You know, it'll get better.
• 50:54
  You know, my, my great granddad was actually in Texas when it
• 51:00
  became a state or my great great whenever, whenever they became
• 51:03
  became a territory, I became there.
• 51:06
  My granddad went to World War 2. I had uncles and stuff and they
• 51:10
  go to Vietnam. So we're we're all in the and we
• 51:13
  all served our country and we we're all proud of it, right?
• 51:16
  Military. I had, you know, and I just did
• 51:18
  my part, but everybody kept doing better, like and then so
• 51:23
  now, now, so I was like, I got A and now it's my turn to up the
• 51:27
  to up the brand to, you know, to level up and keep doing better.
• 51:31
  And, and and so it was so and in 2000, now we're now we are,
• 51:36
  we're 2000 and thirteen, 2012 somewhere around here quote.
• 51:44
  Now you're back at Outback. And is this kind of when the
• 51:47
  idea? For yeah, yeah, right.
• 51:48
  Because they had an IPO and they went public and, and, and they
• 51:53
  had so many bosses, I couldn't shake a stick at it.
• 51:56
  I mean, there was a VP of everything.
• 51:58
  There was a VP of productivity. Oh, there's A to come down and
• 52:02
  breathe down my neck on a Friday night and tell me what I can do
• 52:05
  better to be more productive when there's food like in the
• 52:08
  window and needs to be exposed out and got out to the guest.
• 52:11
  He was talking about how, you know, this shelf could be like
• 52:14
  this and this could be like this.
• 52:16
  So the flow and I was like, Sir, I said, can we do this after
• 52:19
  after I get that food out? He said, let me show you one
• 52:21
  more thing. I said, I said, this is, this is
• 52:23
  nuts. I said we're not being
• 52:24
  productive right now. I got upset and I walked away
• 52:27
  and I got in that window and he stood there and watched me for
• 52:29
  like 10 minutes. I said, I, I won't, I won't be
• 52:31
  able to help you for, for tonight.
• 52:33
  Maybe you can come back. So I got reprimanded, you know,
• 52:37
  he left and, and then so that was OK.
• 52:41
  I was like, whatever, you know, there wasn't no skin off my
• 52:44
  back. Like you could yell at me, scare
• 52:46
  me. I don't like come.
• 52:48
  On the. Customer yeah.
• 52:49
  And then that's why you didn't get there.
• 52:51
  Like I could have done it a better way.
• 52:53
  That was a whole. The shelf over 6 inches.
• 52:55
  Yeah, that was a whole thing. He's like, you could have been
• 52:57
  more tactful about it. And that was that was what my
• 52:59
  boss said. I was OK, sure.
• 53:02
  Then a couple months later I got in trouble for for giving out a
• 53:07
  couple cases of bread to to a church for a local charity for
• 53:10
  their their they had like a soup kitchen.
• 53:13
  Then the weekend they asked me for I see absolutely.
• 53:15
  You guys just threw my and grant the the case of bread was like
• 53:18
  16 bucks. I think it's 15 something like
• 53:20
  in the invoice that we paid right.
• 53:22
  It was the nice brown Outback bread.
• 53:24
  It's fantastic bread. And I gave it to him and then
• 53:30
  then he got word back that that we were giving out bread.
• 53:33
  So another church came out. So I gave a cut.
• 53:35
  So then, so, so then it was like I didn't get, I ordered a
• 53:39
  special order just to get like 20 cases of bread in so I can
• 53:43
  give them away. And, and, and, and, and at this
• 53:46
  point, I'm the, the, the actually managing partner in
• 53:50
  this area because she went, she went to have a, a baby, the
• 53:53
  managing partner did. So I took over that role.
• 53:56
  And so, and then they then they told me you can't do that.
• 53:58
  You have to, we want you to. I said, you want to be a part of
• 54:01
  the community, right? You wanted me to run this ship.
• 54:03
  I came in and cleaned it up because they were doing there It
• 54:05
  was it was it was a chaos store, a clean house.
• 54:09
  I ran grill shifts a couple nights because I just didn't
• 54:11
  take somebody lipping back. I said go home, you don't work
• 54:13
  anymore. I got to go over, right.
• 54:15
  I was really passionate about what I did.
• 54:17
  I did it well. But then when when they started,
• 54:20
  you know, they say you want to build a store, you got to bring
• 54:22
  you all these churches around here, all the local businesses
• 54:25
  to come to. I was doing that, but I didn't
• 54:27
  do it because of I didn't submit a form to donate something to
• 54:32
  the corporate office now, right? You didn't go through the
• 54:34
  proper. I didn't go to proper channels.
• 54:37
  There's somebody who has to checklist and say, OK, it was,
• 54:41
  it's it's astronaut and and and and at this point I was just, I
• 54:45
  was like, I'm done. So I told my wife I'm gonna
• 54:47
  quit. So and she said, no, you're not.
• 54:49
  So she was almost She wasn't her last month of her PhD program.
• 54:57
  Needed the money. Needed the money.
• 54:58
  I couldn't quit. Yeah, she she graduated and went
• 55:02
  to her first interview and supplemented my income with her
• 55:05
  first job actually succeeded. She got a PhD in chemistry and
• 55:09
  like so she's she's got we haven't increased our bills.
• 55:11
  We haven't everything's the same Lotty Dottie.
• 55:14
  So I said now's the time, now's my time.
• 55:18
  So so we took a leap. There was a diner a block away
• 55:23
  from my like we turned off the highway and came back to our our
• 55:27
  our development was back there, but like a block away on the
• 55:29
  highway there was a diner that was struggling.
• 55:32
  And I went in and we bought the diner just to draw the.
• 55:37
  Diner. Just to just throw it away with
• 55:39
  just credit card was like 1010 grand.
• 55:42
  Like there it was, it was it was struggling and they they they
• 55:45
  wanted out. They wanted out of their lease
• 55:46
  more than anything is what they wanted, you know, so we did just
• 55:52
  bought it 10 grand. I got my uncle and and my
• 55:56
  brother's father-in-law to invest $30,000 in, in, in, in in
• 56:01
  this new idea. I wrote up a business plan.
• 56:04
  First of all, let me go back a little bit.
• 56:05
  So I quit. I wrote up a business plan.
• 56:08
  This what we're going to do. It was and I look back at it
• 56:11
  because I still have it on on my G drive and it's it's it's it's
• 56:14
  evolved. Not what I what I wanted for at
• 56:17
  first, but yeah. But everything it kind of
• 56:19
  settles, right. Like it settles where it should
• 56:21
  be. So we, we, we so my brother was,
• 56:28
  was a managing partner at the Outback Steakhouse as well.
• 56:32
  So he's I'm going to quit too. I said wait, wait, wait, wait,
• 56:34
  wait, wait. I said, man, this like my girls
• 56:38
  got me like, like you know, you, you're a one income.
• 56:42
  Yeah, man. So I said, I said, so they had a
• 56:44
  program that was like a four day a week manager that you would,
• 56:48
  you know, if you had five days, right, you would lose 20% of
• 56:51
  your, of your salary and you would work four days a week.
• 56:54
  And they were just trying to because there was they were
• 56:56
  hemorrhaging managers and they didn't realize why, like why?
• 56:59
  So they made this program a four day manager.
• 57:02
  So if you know, you lose 20% of your your salary, but you don't
• 57:05
  work four days a week. And, and because then I was one
• 57:08
  of the managers at the Hemorrhage along with a bunch of
• 57:11
  other people left. And there's a lot of great
• 57:12
  concerts out there around around the Florida area that came from
• 57:15
  old Outback, old Outback managers.
• 57:18
  But. So how did you come up with the
• 57:20
  idea? Like why did?
• 57:21
  Why was Ovation Bistro and Bar? So the so me, me, me and
• 57:26
  Fernando used to to smoke and do BBQ competitions on the weekend.
• 57:30
  We would cook steaks, you know, for a living and, and then we
• 57:33
  used to smoke and have fun with the barbecue on on the weekends,
• 57:36
  right. And I have to, I have to say
• 57:40
  this little story earlier that year, I, I took a, a flask into
• 57:46
  a Sonny's barbecue and, you know, and we, we got kind of
• 57:49
  trouble like because I got caught with it.
• 57:51
  You can't do that, Sir. My wife's like, why'd you do
• 57:53
  that? She was embarrassed.
• 57:54
  Why'd you do that? I was like, because I want
• 57:56
  whiskey, man. They don't have nothing but Bud
• 57:57
  Light in here. I was like, I want a freaking
• 57:59
  drink. So I was like all the way home.
• 58:01
  So if you want a place that has a has those barbecue and sells
• 58:04
  whiskey, then then why don't you make a restaurant up?
• 58:07
  She's just mad. She didn't mean nothing by it,
• 58:10
  right? But then boom.
• 58:11
  So then we're sitting out. Then we're sitting out.
• 58:14
  Like Fast forward a couple months, we're sitting out, we're
• 58:16
  smoking a brisket. Me and my brother, we're just
• 58:19
  hanging out. We're drinking beer.
• 58:20
  And and she was like, man, you know what?
• 58:24
  Because we're he was talking about I want to leave Outback
• 58:26
  this before this before I left too.
• 58:28
  He's like, man, I'm ready to go. Yeah, we too.
• 58:30
  I said, you know what we should do?
• 58:32
  I told him, I said, I said, I said we should do like a BBQ
• 58:35
  place, but that does like wine and does like like like like
• 58:39
  full liquor drinks, like cocktails and like especially
• 58:42
  coffees, like cappuccinos and espressos and macchiatos and all
• 58:46
  that stuff which do that and still sell steaks.
• 58:49
  But mainly be BBQ like be like a, he's like man.
• 58:52
  Well, like a, like a, like a fine dining BBQ.
• 58:55
  I said, we don't want to go that far, but like, but, but like
• 58:58
  nice, like casual dining, not like in Saran wrap or eat with
• 59:01
  your fingers, right, like slop, like on a, on a, on a paper
• 59:04
  plate, like a cheap, a cheap, like, you know, those little
• 59:08
  cheap place they would like like with actual cutlery and actual
• 59:11
  like plate where I said we could do it.
• 59:13
  And then we looked at it. We started looking on the, you
• 59:15
  know, on the computer. I had AI had a, we just got one
• 59:19
  on the iPads and we started looking.
• 59:21
  I said, there's nowhere like that.
• 59:22
  It's not going to work. I said, there's nothing like
• 59:24
  that. So it's going to work, man,
• 59:25
  that'll that'll be our kind of our thing and like, right.
• 59:28
  So he, you know, my Business School, right?
• 59:32
  I remember them saying you got to have a niche, you got to have
• 59:34
  something that nobody else is doing, bring something new
• 59:37
  because at the end of the day, you're just serving food that
• 59:39
  everybody can get anywhere and right cooking themselves, but
• 59:41
  you got to create that. That's something nobody else
• 59:44
  has, right? So.
• 59:45
  I'm going to interrupt just for a second, Joel, because I'm
• 59:47
  realizing that there's a pattern that I'm noticing here of of
• 59:50
  Joel kind of being a little mischievous and getting himself
• 59:53
  into trouble. Yeah, man, it's.
• 59:54
  The orange truck thing, there was the the detentions at
• 59:57
  school, there was giving bread out, you know, from the
• 1:00:01
  restaurant you took a flask into Sonny's.
• 1:00:04
  This is. Trouble and it hasn't stopped.
• 1:00:06
  Just throwing it up a little. It hasn't stopped.
• 1:00:09
  I just can't help it, man. Like that's what my wife says.
• 1:00:11
  She's like, if you would have been, if you would have had the
• 1:00:13
  right mentorship and your parents wouldn't know what they
• 1:00:15
  were doing like you, you would have been so far along.
• 1:00:18
  But they just said you were bad, not because they just said you
• 1:00:21
  were bad because, you know, she says like you have, you have
• 1:00:24
  severe ADHD and you can't. And, and ever since she told me
• 1:00:28
  this, she told me this a couple years ago, But, and she still
• 1:00:30
  brings it up because both of my daughters have it.
• 1:00:33
  And then, but we treat them and they're, and they're, and
• 1:00:35
  they're well controlled, right? Like that's how I do my, that's
• 1:00:40
  hard work, like open up my tabs and my emails And it's just
• 1:00:43
  like, there's all these tabs, but I'm doing payroll on one
• 1:00:45
  thing. Send an e-mail about this.
• 1:00:46
  I have a catering event about back and forth.
• 1:00:50
  It's just, it's so satisfying not to be stuck in the zone,
• 1:00:53
  right? Like it's satisfying.
• 1:00:56
  So, so, so back to that night right there.
• 1:00:58
  He was like, Nah, no way. I was like, yeah, bro, I think
• 1:01:00
  we can do it. So got on, I got on my, on my
• 1:01:03
  laptop and I started typing away and I was like, man, yeah, this
• 1:01:07
  one right with a basic menu. And they were like, we're going
• 1:01:10
  to do it, man. And then, then with the bread
• 1:01:12
  incident and then with my wife graduated, everything kind of
• 1:01:15
  was falling in place. And it was like, I got to like,
• 1:01:18
  this is my one time up at bat. I got to swing.
• 1:01:21
  I, I got to go for the home run. My wife was really supportive.
• 1:01:27
  Babe, whatever you want to do. So, so we did it man.
• 1:01:31
  Like, and we pulled off and I, I, I wrote this, this 50 letter
• 1:01:36
  of business plan with graphs and like demos of the area and, you
• 1:01:41
  know, and I sent it out to people.
• 1:01:43
  Only two people I knew had money, my brother's
• 1:01:47
  father-in-law and my uncle who owned a construction business
• 1:01:50
  in, in, in, in, in Houston, TX. He still does.
• 1:01:55
  So they, they wanted to give me, you know, I, I asked for 50
• 1:01:58
  grand. I think I could do something
• 1:01:59
  with. Now I look back at the, the
• 1:02:01
  amount of investment they gave me, it was nothing.
• 1:02:02
  They both cashed out really good and I was happy to do it too,
• 1:02:05
  where they were ready to be bought out.
• 1:02:07
  But yeah, man, we got going and that's what kind of our deposit.
• 1:02:10
  Like we bought the old equipment in there and they got them out
• 1:02:13
  of their lease and they left and we remodeled with a handyman.
• 1:02:19
  Like we did all painting, we did all the electrical.
• 1:02:21
  I popped my finger one time when I was, I was touching wires.
• 1:02:24
  I shouldn't have been. But like when we figured it out
• 1:02:26
  and we pushed through it and, and we got open, we got open
• 1:02:30
  probably, it probably took me like 8 months to get open.
• 1:02:34
  So I got AI didn't know how to make it a license.
• 1:02:36
  I didn't know how to how to apply for it.
• 1:02:39
  Like I had to figure it out and it was just like constantly
• 1:02:42
  figuring it out. And then actually it got to the
• 1:02:45
  point where I thought it would take like three or four months,
• 1:02:48
  but it was like 8 months out. And so I had to make it a job to
• 1:02:51
  to suffer my income. And so I went and got a job at a
• 1:02:54
  wing a way. I looked on monster really
• 1:02:56
  quick. I went and did one interview
• 1:02:57
  that do hired me and I was at a wing, one of the wings, you
• 1:03:01
  know, one of the restaurants that were really prevalent, you
• 1:03:04
  know, back then, it was it was a wing house and they pay me
• 1:03:08
  really well. And I was like, man, I don't do
• 1:03:10
  nothing because at the wing house they don't want you to
• 1:03:12
  talk to the guests at the wing house.
• 1:03:14
  They want you to basically be the bodyguard for the girls.
• 1:03:17
  Make sure that you counted the money, do inventory, do your
• 1:03:20
  spreadsheets, do your inventory. It was it was really, it was the
• 1:03:23
  easy, it was the easiest managing job.
• 1:03:25
  I come from Outback in Longhorn when they were in your tail
• 1:03:27
  about touching every table, talking to everybody, being out
• 1:03:31
  the community, they're just being that you just got to be
• 1:03:34
  back in the cut. You got to be watching that was
• 1:03:36
  that was your Montreal. But.
• 1:03:39
  What was the What was the opening day for your first?
• 1:03:41
  So, so we incorporated in September, September 12th of
• 1:03:45
  2014 and we open, we finally got open like, but we started doing
• 1:03:51
  this in the in the early summer, the end of the end of spring.
• 1:03:55
  And finally I forgot how I incorporate.
• 1:03:56
  I used I forgot what that that website is that it's a it's like
• 1:04:02
  a squeeze. You just call them and they do
• 1:04:04
  businesses for you. I don't know, it's a bunch of
• 1:04:07
  them out there. Yeah, yeah, I got registered.
• 1:04:10
  They did all of it for me. They.
• 1:04:12
  Like how many people came in the door?
• 1:04:14
  So, so we had a, we had a friends and family, right?
• 1:04:19
  Because you know, I've been through Outback openings and
• 1:04:20
  Longhorn openings. So had a friends and family.
• 1:04:22
  We tried it out. We messed up a lot.
• 1:04:24
  We had, I remember like the baked beans were so freaking
• 1:04:27
  spicy hot that nobody hate them. And so that's what you do,
• 1:04:30
  right? During the time I thought they
• 1:04:31
  were delicious and sort of my brothers, sort of my mom.
• 1:04:34
  But then we had to realize the palate should be geared for our
• 1:04:38
  customers, which are the gringos, right?
• 1:04:40
  You know, the Caucasian was the the predominant ethnicity around
• 1:04:45
  here, right? And that's what we're shooting
• 1:04:46
  for BBQ, you know, hamburgers. It wasn't a Mexican place.
• 1:04:51
  So did that. We opened up the first week of
• 1:04:55
  of in January and it's the middle of season down here, you
• 1:04:59
  know, and I'm coming from Outback and Longhorn and they're
• 1:05:01
  getting the business right there.
• 1:05:02
  You know, they're, they're it's busy.
• 1:05:05
  We opened up, there was nobody came and a week later nobody
• 1:05:08
  came. We have a couple people show up
• 1:05:10
  like you guys open like what are y'all doing?
• 1:05:12
  Right? So, so we struggled, we
• 1:05:15
  struggled for for an entire year basically, you know, we were
• 1:05:20
  doing $500 in sales. This is open from 11:00 to
• 1:05:23
  11:00. What?
• 1:05:26
  Did you eventually figure out, Joel, that sort of flipped the
• 1:05:29
  switch and and got people coming in the door?
• 1:05:31
  So what the but the but The thing is that that we still did
• 1:05:34
  it the right way. We didn't cut corners, Anthony.
• 1:05:37
  So we realized looking back is that we were so we were so slow.
• 1:05:42
  It was an advantage to us because we perfected everything
• 1:05:45
  about every recipe. We make everything ourselves,
• 1:05:48
  right? So we had the time to do that
• 1:05:50
  and we had the time to to, to just just a door.
• 1:05:54
  Every table that was in there. I made sure I made a couple
• 1:05:58
  visits at the table. The server we had on, we just
• 1:06:00
  had one bartender, 2 servers on most nights.
• 1:06:03
  It wasn't nobody. I would open the kitchen in the
• 1:06:05
  morning as a Cam, a lunch cook would come in, I'd go off, I'd
• 1:06:09
  float back and forth at lunch. In the evening, I have a second
• 1:06:13
  girl guy come in a kitchen guy. Those two would work it with my
• 1:06:16
  help and I'd be in the front and the back and I will close the
• 1:06:19
  dishwasher at night, have a couple front of house people.
• 1:06:22
  And we're, we're full service cutlery and glasses, wine glass.
• 1:06:26
  You know, we, it's a full service restaurant.
• 1:06:28
  And we just had to say, I mean, my payroll used to be like $900
• 1:06:32
  every, every week. It was nothing.
• 1:06:34
  And, and, and so I, we really, we took advantage of the
• 1:06:40
  slowness to just perfect standards and, and, and, and I,
• 1:06:44
  and I took, I had a bunch of my, my, my MIT stuff from Longhorn
• 1:06:48
  and Outback still at my house. So I just, you know, I didn't
• 1:06:51
  copy anything, right? I just benchmarked a lot of
• 1:06:54
  stuff that, that they were already doing and I had the
• 1:06:57
  time. So our reviews were like they
• 1:06:59
  were climbing up the ruin like that back in the day.
• 1:07:01
  It was back then it was TripAdvisor.
• 1:07:03
  It was like the like kind of now it's Google, everything's Google
• 1:07:06
  Now. But back then in, in 15, it was
• 1:07:09
  TripAdvisor. It was the big thing.
• 1:07:10
  They would rank the restaurants in each town.
• 1:07:12
  I remember I looked well, man, we're, we're 25, you know, out
• 1:07:15
  of out of 140 or something. And then we're like 17 and then
• 1:07:18
  we're two and then we're the number one restaurant in
• 1:07:20
  Davenport. And that was that, that was kind
• 1:07:23
  of the hot dog. And that was like about the 9th,
• 1:07:26
  10th month mark. And that's, and that was like
• 1:07:29
  October, November, which is a slower month in this area right
• 1:07:32
  before the boom hits. So, and then we did things like
• 1:07:37
  whatever I could do to bring them in.
• 1:07:39
  We did trivia, we did bingo, come in and try the food, man,
• 1:07:42
  the, and the food was so good. People like blown away.
• 1:07:45
  This is not a bar. It's not bar food.
• 1:07:47
  I said, no, no, we smoked the sucker all day.
• 1:07:50
  And and like we do the rub. We make our own rub.
• 1:07:52
  We make our own recipes. We make the, you know, the meat
• 1:07:55
  season and we do the pork season and we created from scratch.
• 1:07:58
  I remember my brother took like 2 weeks to make the, the, the
• 1:08:02
  rub, the the brisket rub. I was like, dude, make the
• 1:08:06
  freaking seasoning already. Like, what is it?
• 1:08:08
  Oh, it's not right, It's not right.
• 1:08:09
  I need to add a little this. And he would have a big Lexan
• 1:08:12
  lid and he would just have read right on it and have a little
• 1:08:15
  pockets of seasonings. I would think about this for
• 1:08:17
  chicken. We'd think about this report.
• 1:08:19
  I said they're eating season. I don't know, cook something.
• 1:08:22
  I got really tired of eating like steak.
• 1:08:24
  I stopped. I'm tired of tasting this stuff.
• 1:08:26
  So he so, so like can't create He he must have wasted $1000.
• 1:08:31
  We didn't have in like sample packets of seasons, but we had
• 1:08:37
  the time to experiment. So he so I I never went back to
• 1:08:40
  the four day manager. So he worked four days at at
• 1:08:44
  Outback and he worked three days.
• 1:08:46
  I can't at three. I guess I got to show you
• 1:08:49
  because I don't know why I got to show you, but he worked three
• 1:08:52
  days at Ovation and then I worked seven days.
• 1:08:55
  Like, so we both work seven days a week.
• 1:08:58
  And I, he's not a very talkative person.
• 1:09:01
  So I got a lot of the, I do a lot of like these things.
• 1:09:04
  You know, we had a couple interviews on, on TV and stuff
• 1:09:07
  like that. And, and like, and he doesn't
• 1:09:09
  ever want to be involved. He's like, do whatever, bro.
• 1:09:11
  I don't want to, I don't want to talk to nobody.
• 1:09:12
  He does. He's an introvert, which works
• 1:09:15
  well for me because they used to call me iron lungs in the in the
• 1:09:18
  military and not because I could run right because that because
• 1:09:22
  that blocked. You got the gift of gab, I got
• 1:09:23
  the. Gift of gab.
• 1:09:25
  OK. So from humble beginnings, 3
• 1:09:28
  locations now as we wrap up here, Joel, what does the future
• 1:09:31
  look like for Ovation? Oh man, the the future looks
• 1:09:35
  good. I, I, you know, it's, it's the,
• 1:09:37
  the economy is kind of tough. We, we have seen a slump the
• 1:09:41
  last two years. We're holding strong and we've
• 1:09:47
  actually expanded and we've opened, we've opened a different
• 1:09:51
  brand of, of, of restaurant just to kind of wet our feet and kind
• 1:09:55
  of still the same type of service.
• 1:09:57
  But it's called the social on Cyprus and it's the.
• 1:10:02
  Social on Cyprus. Right.
• 1:10:03
  And it's a it, it does Mexican food because that's what we want
• 1:10:09
  to pivot to, right. So it's the Mexican food and
• 1:10:11
  it's kind of sports bar TV's all over the place, nice American
• 1:10:17
  dishes, like really inexpensive. Not, not that place we're going
• 1:10:23
  to, you know, we're like 15 bucks a head.
• 1:10:25
  But the, but if, but food made fresh and that's kind of what
• 1:10:28
  the market it's, it's kind of demanding right now.
• 1:10:31
  They want to go out to eat, they want to have a beer.
• 1:10:33
  They don't want to pay $10.00 for it.
• 1:10:34
  They want to pay $4.00 for it, right?
• 1:10:36
  They, they don't want to pay a $20 sandwich.
• 1:10:38
  They want to pay for like a 8910 dollar sandwich.
• 1:10:40
  That's what we're giving them, right.
• 1:10:42
  So all the beef at Ovation is, is, is really expensive to
• 1:10:46
  source. So we can't we can't you know,
• 1:10:49
  we have to charge what you know the appropriate percentage and
• 1:10:56
  and so it's doing great. We're opening our fifth
• 1:10:58
  restaurant right now. Currently we should be open in a
• 1:11:01
  matter of the goal is in March 1.
• 1:11:04
  It's being built now that's going.
• 1:11:06
  To be 1 of 2025, we're recording this at the end of January 2025.
• 1:11:10
  What is the name of the restaurant and the location
• 1:11:12
  going to be? It's, it's, it's, it's in
• 1:11:16
  Davenport and it's going to be, it's going to, it's going to be
• 1:11:18
  called Margaritas Cocina Mexicana.
• 1:11:23
  So Margarita is my mom's name. You know, I'm sorry, I don't
• 1:11:27
  think I've mentioned her name. She's been she's been the reason
• 1:11:30
  that I get to drive and the tenacity from but so we're so
• 1:11:33
  it's in her honor. We're we're opening a Mexican
• 1:11:36
  restaurant and doing all her recipes that we grew up on as a
• 1:11:39
  kid and some you know, and some obviously some some other
• 1:11:42
  Mexican fanfare that that that's really going to go over.
• 1:11:45
  Well, it's going to be polished. It's going to be like Ovation
• 1:11:49
  did BBQ, right? They just polished it a little
• 1:11:52
  bit, shined it up. This is what margaritas is going
• 1:11:54
  to do to Mexican food. It's going to be shined.
• 1:11:57
  It's not going to be it's not going to look like you're,
• 1:11:59
  you're at a chichi's in the in the 80s It's good.
• 1:12:02
  It's going to be nice and polished almost, you know, a
• 1:12:05
  little sophisticated, but nice food, nice tequilas and, and,
• 1:12:12
  and, and, and an awesome service.
• 1:12:14
  And that's, that's kind of our focus now.
• 1:12:16
  Everything we have, I have, we have a great team on, on, on
• 1:12:20
  staff that they're holding me down while I'm, while we're
• 1:12:23
  building out here and getting, you know, the Ecolab installed
• 1:12:26
  and getting the, the coke in there to get their product and
• 1:12:28
  they're getting the, the construction guys to be on time.
• 1:12:31
  The bathrooms get redone, the bar is getting redone.
• 1:12:34
  So it's going to be so. We'll have to have you back on
• 1:12:38
  after the restaurants been open. Oh man, it's going to be great.
• 1:12:40
  Yeah, we should be open soon. I'll be right at Davenport at
• 1:12:43
  45653 US Hwy. 27 in Davenport. We'll make sure we include that
• 1:12:50
  in the show now. Thank you, Joel.
• 1:12:52
  We've we've covered a lot of great ground here today, shared
• 1:12:55
  a really amazing story from humble beginnings, learning
• 1:12:59
  really hard work, serving your country in the military, coming
• 1:13:02
  back and learning, getting promoted, showing yourself how
• 1:13:07
  smart you are, building up your confidence, starting your own
• 1:13:11
  restaurant, struggling those early months, but focusing on
• 1:13:13
  that time to really dial in and make sure that you got the
• 1:13:16
  recipes and the. Service and.
• 1:13:18
  All the, the, the accessories like really dialed in correctly.
• 1:13:23
  And you know, I think the proof's in the pudding.
• 1:13:26
  Now you're opening up your 5th location.
• 1:13:27
  So I think that speaks volumes to what you're doing.
• 1:13:31
  So Joel, thank you for sharing your story today.
• 1:13:34
  I want to be the first one to show my appreciation for you,
• 1:13:37
  sharing your time and your energy today.
• 1:13:40
  I appreciate that, Anthony, and thank you again for the
• 1:13:42
  invitation. It's been my pleasure and, and,
• 1:13:45
  and thanks for taking me down a trip down memory lane.
• 1:13:48
  I mean she was really mad at me when they got me with that flask
• 1:13:51
  on my shoe. I appreciate it bro, you have a
• 1:13:54
  great. Joel Joelster in the pot and and
• 1:13:57
  getting in trouble. You know, great things came from
• 1:14:00
  it. That's right.
• 1:14:01
  That's right. Yeah, well, folks, that's a rap
• 1:14:03
  on another episode of the Inspired Stories podcast.
• 1:14:05
  Thanks for learning with us today.