Latest / The Inspired Stories Podcast / Barrels, Brews, and Growth: Ted Mitzlaff's Goodwood Vision | Restaurants & Franchises Series

Transcript

Barrels, Brews, and Growth: Ted Mitzlaff's Goodwood Vision | Restaurants & Franchises Series · The Inspired Stories Podcast

0:04
Welcome to another edition of Inspired Stories, where leaders
0:07
share their experiences so we can learn from their successes,
0:10
how they've overcome adversity, and explore current challenges
0:13
they're facing. Welcome to another edition of
0:18
the Inspired Stories podcast, where leaders share their
0:21
experiences so we can learn from their successes and be inspired
0:24
by how they've overcome adversity.
0:27
My name is Anthony Kotaspodi and today's guest is Ted Mitzvah,
0:30
CEO and co-owner of Goodwood Brewing and Sports.
0:34
Founded in Louisville, KY in 2005, Goodwood produces a
0:38
variety of craft beers and spirits focusing on high quality
0:42
ingredients and sustainable practices.
0:45
They stand out for their use of barrel aging techniques and
0:48
commitment to local sourcing, resulting in distinctive flavors
0:52
and a loyal following. Ted has LED Goodwood's growth
0:56
while also bringing his extensive experience in the food
0:59
and beverage industry, including management roles at various
1:02
companies. Under his leadership, Goodwood
1:05
has expanded its reach, adding new tap rooms and restaurant
1:08
concepts across Kentucky and Missouri.
1:12
Ted's background as Chairman and CEO has helped The Brain gain
1:15
recognition for its innovative blends and community driven
1:18
mission. His passion for creating a
1:21
memorable experience shines through every customer they
1:24
serve. Now before we get into all that
1:27
good stuff, today's episode is brought to you by my company,
1:30
Add Back Benefits Agency, where we offer very specific and
1:33
unique employee benefits that are both great for your team and
1:36
fiscally optimized for your bottom line.
1:38
One recent client was able to add over $900 per employee per
1:42
year in extra cash flow by implementing one of our
1:45
innovative programs. Results vary for each company
1:47
and some organizations may not be eligible.
1:50
To find out if your company qualifies, contact us today at
1:53
AD Back benefitsagency.com. Now back to our guest today, CEO
1:57
of Goodwood Beer. Ted, I appreciate you making the
2:00
time to Share your story today. Thank you very much for having
2:02
me. All right, so let's go back to
2:05
before Goodwood. What were you doing before you
2:09
got involved in Goodwood beer? What kind of opened the door to
2:11
this opportunity? I was a chemical engineer.
2:15
Chemistry and business is what I studied in undergraduate school
2:19
and then went into the specialty chemical company that my father
2:25
had started. It was a fledgling company and
2:28
ramped that up to the point where we what we were a a
2:33
national company that became a a target for acquisition.
2:38
In 2005. I was approached, I never
2:41
thought I'd sell the company and somebody floated a number and we
2:46
sold the company. So.
2:48
And So what kind of chemical company was this?
2:51
You guys were manufacturing chemicals and selling them.
2:54
Blending and we it was for specialty chemical applications
2:57
mostly food processing was sort of our niche.
3:00
We did a lot of cleaning and sanitation of large food
3:04
processing plants as well as boiler cooling, wastewater
3:07
treatment. And then I started a an
3:10
automation business. I patented a wastewater
3:13
optimization system and started an automation company that was a
3:19
tangent to my chemical business. So when I sold the chemical
3:23
business, I continued to operate the automation company.
3:26
What's the name of that automation company?
3:28
That is this reliance automation and we still.
3:31
And can yeah, tell me a little bit more about what it does.
3:34
You said wastewater, but what? What specifically?
3:37
It monitors the the waste stream and food processing plants.
3:41
It also will work in large manufacturers, metal companies,
3:47
you know, like automotive companies.
3:49
And it, it measures the, the, the relative clarity of the
3:54
water. And they add chemicals that are
3:57
positive and negatively charged polymers to basically coagulate
4:02
and flocculate all the solids, either sink them or float them
4:05
to make the water clean enough that they can then discharge it
4:08
to the city without getting fined.
4:10
So in the case of a food processing plant room, we remove
4:13
fat, oil, grease, blood marinations, all those things
4:18
that would cause them to be out of compliance.
4:20
And what, what happens when they dial in those those chemicals,
4:24
if there's a change to the chemistry, like when they go to
4:27
a cleaning and sanitation period, for example, or if they
4:30
dump a a massive fryer or even changing from a teriyaki sauce
4:35
finish to a BBQ sauce finish, that'll screw up the wastewater.
4:39
So in real time our system will recognize an upset that make
4:46
adjustments in the chemistry and then enable them to keep going
4:49
without periods of of getting surcharged.
4:53
So let's say I'm in a restaurant, I'm making a huge
4:56
VAT of teriyaki. It goes bad or the recipe was
4:59
not good. I just dump it out into the sink
5:02
so I can start over. And somewhere along the the
5:06
wastewater pipeline, your tech is in place.
5:10
It detects that and says, oh, alarm, alarm further down the
5:14
line, let's put these chemicals in place so that we can help to
5:18
capture these solids. Sort of the chemicals are
5:21
already in place and they're they're, you know, let's say
5:25
they're breaking the emulsion of, of blood.
5:28
Let's say it's just a normal killer.
5:30
You got blood, fat, oil, grease from a poultry processing plant.
5:34
And they add a certain it's, it's almost like a liquid
5:36
magnet. If you, if you overcharge it or
5:40
under charge it, it either doesn't work or it repels
5:43
itself. It becomes too charged like 2
5:46
magnets. So we, we basically monitor the
5:50
clarity to make sure it's good Clearwater.
5:53
And if there's an upset, like you dump a bunch of teriyaki,
5:56
the changes the they called Zeta potential changes, the the
5:59
positive and negative charges within that waste stream.
6:04
The the system will then make adjustments to the polymers in
6:10
real time and identify what combination gives it the optimal
6:13
clarity. So instead of it going for hours
6:17
until somebody notices the system's out of whack it it
6:20
notices it right away, makes changes right away and and fixes
6:24
the problem. And so with either Reliant or
6:29
the chemical company that you mentioned before, did you have
6:32
customers then who were in the beer, the brewing industry, Is
6:36
that sort of how you became aware of this opportunity?
6:40
Yeah, I came in backwards. I started off at the on the
6:45
downstream, the production side. And then breweries use a lot of
6:49
cleaning and sanitation chemicals.
6:51
We always joke around here that, you know, they brew about 20% of
6:55
the time and they clean about 80% of the time.
6:59
OK. And so through your interactions
7:04
in the brewing industry, somehow you became aware of an
7:08
opportunity. Tell us about that.
7:10
Yeah, This small, very small company was a little production
7:14
brewery that was having a lot of cash flow issues.
7:20
They had over 50 people who were on their LLC, which was not very
7:25
efficient and they were having difficulty even paying us for
7:29
our chemicals that were needed to clean and sanitize the back
7:33
of the house, the, the fermenters and the, the, the
7:36
cookers, the, the mash tons. So we, we knew there was a
7:39
problem. And then one of one of my
7:42
friends put together a group of us or five of us that negotiated
7:47
to acquire the business and that was in 2005.
7:53
And, and what did you see there? What?
7:55
Why were you excited about pursuing this opportunity?
7:57
Well, I I'd always been a fan of, of beer and craft beer going
8:01
to school in Virginia, I was at the University of Richmond
8:06
craft, the craft beer renaissance, if you will, sort
8:08
of started at either coast and worked its way inward.
8:12
So the, the, the two companies that really put craft beer back
8:16
on the map were Boston Brewing and Sierra Nevada and then kind
8:21
of moved inward. There were a lot of others that
8:23
that that were players as well, but those were the main 2.
8:26
So, so we were at the at the precipice of the of the craft
8:30
beer movement. And then the if you look at my
8:35
high school yearbook my senior year, it actually said, when I
8:38
grow up, I want to and it said own a brewery.
8:41
So sort of sort of funny that that that came to fruition, but
8:47
wasn't wasn't necessarily my goal, but but I sort of felt it.
8:53
OK. And So what were those early
8:55
days, months and years like? Like what were some of the big
8:58
changes that you wanted to implement right away?
9:01
Yeah. Well, I didn't take the company
9:02
over until 2013. So it had grown from just a
9:07
small little mom and pop to the point where we were distributing
9:12
in three States and had a had a pretty significant portion of
9:18
the Kentucky market. However, there weren't that many
9:21
breweries in Kentucky. When we bought the brewery in
9:25
2005, there were about 1200 breweries in the US and Kentucky
9:29
was grossly under represented per capita by craft breweries.
9:34
So it wasn't, you know, too much of A bragging right to say that
9:39
we were one of the largest in Kentucky.
9:41
But as the industry grew and certainly as more and more craft
9:46
breweries came to be in Kentucky, and decent craft
9:49
breweries at that, you know, it was a it was a more competitive
9:53
environment. So when I took it over in 2013,
9:59
the, the, the company was, was basically insolvent.
10:03
That point unfortunately there had been a lot of mismanagement
10:08
prior to my taking the reins. So, so the, and the landscape
10:13
had changed dramatically and craft beer.
10:15
So when, when I first took it over, the, the challenging
10:19
challenges were dumped. It just really overwhelming.
10:25
Can give voice to what some of those challenges were.
10:27
Sure. You had mentioned, you know,
10:30
we're known for our barrel aged products.
10:33
We do a bourbon barrel stout, which was our flagship.
10:36
That product takes about three months from start to finish
10:40
time. We brew the beer, aged the beer
10:42
and barrels and then the package the beer and then get it to to
10:47
market. So, So when I took the company
10:50
over, we had no product in the pipeline.
10:54
None of our suppliers would sell to us.
10:56
We tapped all of our credit and all of our fermenters were
11:00
empty. So knowing that I had to go to
11:03
all of our big clients, the the Kroger's of the world, I know in
11:07
Ohio you all have Kroger as well.
11:09
That was our biggest client by far.
11:12
And tell them, yeah, not only do we not have product to fill
11:16
those shelves that have our name on them, but it's going to be 3
11:20
months at the earliest before we can get product in those
11:23
shelves. If I pulled the trigger today.
11:26
So, so it was, it was a lot of begging and just, and we had to
11:33
work with our distributors a lot of damage control.
11:36
So, so the first several months were were brutal.
11:40
And I had so many creditors calling me and, and folks that
11:46
we owed calling me that I got to the point where I wouldn't even
11:50
accept a live call. I would wait until it would go
11:52
to my voicemail here at, you know, hear what the problem is.
11:57
I might not even know that we owed them money.
11:59
And then wait till I sort of had a plan to reach back out to them
12:05
and say, hey, you know, I apologize, this is what
12:09
happened. We'll work with you, You know,
12:12
please give me a little bit of time to pay it, work out payment
12:15
plans. So that was the better part of a
12:17
of a year, year and a half after I took the company over.
12:21
So it was. It was quite unique.
12:26
So did was this an asset purchase when you took it over
12:29
or was it a stock purchase where you also assume the liabilities?
12:31
Asset purchase only. So it wasn't, you know, the
12:35
company we bought was tiny and and there was really no issue
12:39
with moving forward from there. The the problem became with our
12:43
managing partner was not doing a great job as far as being a
12:50
steward of of our resources, not necessarily up front.
12:55
He was cooking the books he was sending us P and LS that were
12:59
that were phony. Then taking some extreme
13:03
liberties with expenses. For instance, we had season
13:06
tickets to Manchester United soccer and he was going to games
13:11
on the company dime. And believe me, we weren't
13:16
selling much beer in Manchester. So the issues that you had with
13:22
having to explain to, you know, having to repair relationships
13:26
with distributors and say, hey, we will pay you or your
13:28
suppliers, we will pay you. That wasn't from what you had
13:32
acquired from the original owners.
13:34
This was from one of your managing partners and some of
13:39
the misdeeds that had gone on since you had acquired the
13:43
business, correct? And how did this all come to
13:48
light? Well, I was on a business trip.
13:52
I was just an investor in the brewery at the time I had, I was
13:56
running the Eastern US for a company that had acquired my
14:02
chemical business. So I was in the Atlanta airport
14:06
and I got a call from our biggest distributor, which was
14:10
the, the, our Louisville distributor.
14:12
And the president of the company and owner happened to be a good
14:16
friend of mine. And he said, Vince Loft, why
14:19
can't I get your beer? And I thought he was pulling my
14:22
leg. I said, I don't know, John, why
14:24
can't you get my beer? I'm waiting for the punchline.
14:26
And he said, he said, no, I'm serious.
14:29
He said all your fermenters are empty and your suppliers
14:32
apparently won't, won't sell to you.
14:34
He said there there's a problem. So I called the plant and the
14:40
managing partner was AWOL and the, the guys at the plant told
14:44
me that they had been instructed not to talk to any of the
14:47
investors. And I explained to them, you
14:50
know, I owned 1/4 of the business and I was a guarantor
14:53
of a note. So they were going to tell me
14:55
everything they knew. And I jumped to, I canceled my
14:59
business trip, jumped the next flight home and met with them.
15:03
I got three years of bank statements, could have gone back
15:06
seven, but I only went back three.
15:08
And you know, just right off the cusp, I found about 1/4 of
15:12
$1,000,000 of theft. So, so it was a it was a
15:16
daunting situation and in a difficult situation because all
15:22
the partners were friends and several were related and related
15:26
to that managing partner. So, so it was.
15:30
It was an interesting time. Wow.
15:34
And I, I think you, you sort of intimated at this already that,
15:38
you know, you were, you were seeing P and LS, but they
15:41
weren't accurate. You know, you, you were running
15:44
your other businesses, you had invested in this one.
15:46
And I'm sure that you're checking in, you're having board
15:47
meetings and whatnot. But the information that you
15:50
were getting funneled was cooked.
15:52
It was, it was, it was false. They were lies.
15:55
It was false. You look at this and you think,
15:57
OK, we're in good shape, but I. Not the case.
15:59
And he would say, oh, well, we need another capital call, you
16:02
know, due to our growth. And so I thought, OK, well,
16:05
that's a good thing. So you know, you, you contribute
16:08
and I didn't didn't think a whole lot of it until it kind of
16:16
of given a, an ice cold bath, if you will, of of reality.
16:23
Now this can you know, post mortem this can always be
16:25
difficult to do. But as you look back, were the
16:28
red flags that you missed along the way or knowing what you know
16:32
now, would you have done anything differently?
16:36
And, and the reason I ask this is, you know, for everybody
16:39
listening, you know, who's in a business deal or thinking about
16:42
entering into a business deal, you know, help help them sort of
16:46
identify and understand what, what kind of flags and warning
16:48
signs they should be looking for.
16:50
Yeah. Well, one of the biggies was
16:53
make sure that you're transparent with cash.
16:56
You know I give everybody in our, I have several investors,
17:00
one in particular significant, you know they all have the
17:04
number for our controller. I can give bank statements and
17:08
whatever they would like to see. We we are completely
17:11
transparent. I do put out a monthly PNL,
17:15
anyone that's interested in seeing it?
17:18
Anyone within the company? Any of the employees.
17:21
Well, from the employee standpoint, I let our executives
17:24
see that we have. So we're basically a A3 legged
17:28
stool. We have our restaurant division,
17:32
we have beer and we have bourbon.
17:34
So that I have individuals, you know, I was and I have a CCOO of
17:41
operations on the production side and I have ACO of
17:45
restaurants and I do share the information with them.
17:50
OK, so OK, so you find out the shenanigans that are going on
17:56
now this is the time where you step in and start taking active
18:00
control of the business. Well, the other partners asked
18:03
me to. I had sold my chemical company,
18:07
you know, I was running a division for the company, the
18:11
bot line, but I knew that that was not long term.
18:15
I owned a mill with another guy. I was the operating partner in
18:19
that. But truthfully, we had people in
18:21
place that we're we're doing the day-to-day operations.
18:25
So I did have the flexibility to come in and and take the reins.
18:29
I didn't realize what I was walking into initially.
18:33
I thought it was going to be a, you know, a 20 to 30 hour a week
18:37
job and it was a 60 plus. But but that's OK.
18:41
You know, that's to your, to your point, everybody thinks,
18:44
oh, it must be great to be CEO or owner of a brewery.
18:47
And a a good friend of mine always, always laughs and goes,
18:52
yeah, it's a A10 year overnight success.
18:57
Right. People don't see what goes on
18:58
behind the scenes. They just see, they just see the
19:01
pretty facade. Yeah.
19:02
So, so you come in and obviously a big thing that you had to
19:06
clean up were these vendor relationships, the, you know,
19:09
your customer relationships, everything had kind of been
19:11
soured by the poor operations and management of before.
19:16
Once you started to get all that stuff settled, cleaned up,
19:21
resolved, what were some of the big forward-looking changes that
19:25
you wanted to implement? Yes, that that was the, the fun
19:29
part. First and foremost, we got into
19:32
a little bit of food service here in our tap room.
19:36
Our tap room was is not a large facility and our kitchen's not a
19:39
full kitchen. We built it out as much as we
19:41
could, but we're limited without putting a huge investment in.
19:46
So we, we basically just did you know, light bar grub and and
19:53
added spirits. Because we are in bourbon Mecca,
19:56
we get about 2,000,000 visitors a year to Louisville for the
20:00
Bourbon trail. So I wanted to have spirits and
20:03
wine available for our guests. You know, my wife is a big wine
20:09
drinker and I don't want her saying no, I don't want to go to
20:11
the brewery. So because you don't have wine,
20:13
so. I wanted to have no reason for
20:16
someone to say no. We also noticed that with food,
20:20
you, you keep people in, in seats a lot longer.
20:23
They'll stay if they can get, you know, a dozen wings and
20:26
enjoy a couple more pints of beer versus having a pint,
20:29
getting hungry and going, going down the road to a place where
20:32
they can, they can have it all. So, so that was our first foray
20:35
into food. And then we opened our first
20:38
restaurant in 2019, which was in a small town in Kentucky,
20:44
Frankfurt, which is our our state capital, but there wasn't
20:49
a lot of competition. So, so when we opened there, it
20:54
was exciting and fun and I didn't know what the hell I was
20:57
doing. So, you know, we stepped on our
21:01
ourselves several times, but as awful as the COVID lockdowns
21:07
were, you know, to open in August of 2019 and then be shut
21:11
down in March of 2020 was brutal.
21:14
But it enabled us to reboot to find some outstanding talent
21:21
that was available in the in the market because so, I mean,
21:24
everybody had lost their jobs pretty much.
21:27
So we were able to identify a few individuals that were
21:32
exceptional and bring them on board and they helped me fix the
21:37
things that we were not doing correctly.
21:39
And really when when COVID finally relented and all the the
21:44
lockdowns, we were in position to to grow that pretty rapidly.
21:49
And we were able to during COVID to take over several businesses
21:53
that had gone out of business, several restaurants.
21:56
And so we ended up growing by acquisition during that period
22:01
as well. So this is interesting.
22:04
So when most people are hunkering down and they're
22:07
laying off their staff and they're trying to get as lean as
22:10
possible, you took a slightly different approach.
22:14
You're like, this is an opportunity for us.
22:15
Like you kind of put on your creative problem solving hat and
22:18
said, how can we take these lemons and make some lemonade
22:22
out of this for us? And at a time when you weren't
22:26
sure what the future held, if I'm hearing you correctly, you
22:28
went out and you hired more key staff.
22:32
That's that takes a a special kind of of vision.
22:36
Where did that sort of gumption come from?
22:40
Stupidity, I guess. No, you know it, it really was
22:45
dumb luck. We the, the 1st, we, we hired a
22:49
guy right before the, the lockdowns that had a lot of
22:55
restaurant experience. And he told me when I hired him
22:58
that he had aspirations to open his own restaurant, which was
23:01
fine. You know, I learned a lot from
23:03
him and he was able to hire a couple of these individuals
23:08
that, that when we, when, when the governor finally sued over
23:15
linted, I would call it because we were extremely restricted.
23:19
But we, we brought on a guy, his name's Chris Sparks.
23:23
He had opened 140 Darden Restaurants.
23:26
He had worked as middle management for Craftworks, which
23:30
was Logan's Roadhouse, Old Chicago Pizza, Gordon Biersch,
23:35
Rock Bottom Brewery and Big River Brewing.
23:40
So he knew restaurants inside and out.
23:42
He's kind of a savant when it comes to all that.
23:45
So we hired him to just be our general manager in Frankfurt.
23:49
And after I got to know him a little bit, realized, you know,
23:54
that he had tremendous restaurant experience and, and,
23:57
and scaling a business, that's what we did.
24:01
So he, he runs, he overseas all the restaurants and he's, he's
24:06
helped me pick out sights, help us develop our brand.
24:10
Obviously the menu, which is is constantly evolving and we try
24:15
to integrate a lot of our beer into our food, which is fun.
24:21
You know, beer battered fish. All right, Obviously the beer
24:25
cheese utilizes our our product at any time we can, you know, I
24:30
call it cross pollinating. Anytime we can, we can use
24:33
products in different areas of the business we do.
24:36
Another interesting foray for us was I had done a couple bourbon
24:42
collaborations with friends of mine in the distillery industry
24:46
where they took their aged bourbon and finished it in our
24:51
beer barrels. So we, we buy once used bourbon
24:54
barrels. We put, you know, four of our
24:56
beers in those beer barrels. We have a stout, we do a walnut
25:00
brown finish, we do a honey ale finish and then we do a, a mild,
25:07
an English mild, an ale and barrels as well.
25:10
So we have 4 different barrels, you know, full of, full of beer.
25:15
Well, after those were emptied, the, the friends of mine that
25:19
that had these distilleries, 1 was Bardstown Bourbon Company,
25:22
The other was chicken cock whiskey.
25:24
They said, hey, you know, let's, we'd like to do a collab where
25:27
we put our bourbon in your used beer bourbon barrels.
25:32
So we said, sure. Well, our collab with the
25:37
Bardstown Bourbon Company got double gold at a, in a, a
25:42
bourbon Yeah spirits competition in San Francisco.
25:48
So those bottles which sold at the time for like 175 a bottle,
25:53
I've seen them on the secondary market well over $1000, which is
25:57
crazy. But we then in, in 2019, we, we
26:03
acquired a bunch of bourbon, finished it in our, our own
26:07
barrels and then had it packaged and released.
26:11
It was a 12 year 1792 if you know the, the Sazerac product
26:18
1792 we, we bought a bunch of 12 year 1792 and finished it in our
26:21
barrels and then released it and, and that was that was
26:25
successful. So post COVID we launched 4
26:30
products and that's what we're doing today.
26:34
So we we have the bourbon, we have we have beer and then
26:38
restaurants. So tell me more about the beer.
26:43
The the collabs are are a lot of fun.
26:45
And that's such a neat story about how, you know, we've heard
26:47
about, you know, people taking the the bourbon barrels and
26:51
then, you know, finishing some beer in them.
26:53
And, you know, you're kind of taking them back and forth,
26:56
which is is a neat way to, like you said, cross pollinate not
26:59
just the brands, but sort of the, you know, the flavor and
27:01
the nuances of the product. But yeah, tell us a little bit
27:04
more about the beers that that you guys brew.
27:08
Yeah. So we, we have our our core
27:10
beers, we have a lager, we have a walnut brown, we have an IPA,
27:18
we have a salad. And then we do barrel aged
27:23
products. We we do a a stout year round.
27:26
We do a walnut brown finishing and barrels.
27:30
We do a Brandy barrel honey ale. We, we take our honey ale and
27:35
finish those in Brandy barrels and then we also do the an ale
27:41
finished in, in the bourbon barrels as well.
27:44
So that we've also over the years had a lot of fun just
27:49
experimenting because we are a bourbon Mecca.
27:52
We, we have unfettered access to, to barrels, or at least
27:55
until recently, recently, it's, it's been a bit of a challenge
27:59
with the explosion of the bourbon industry to get barrels.
28:02
Even for us with our relationships that I've had, you
28:06
know, with several of these, these sellers, most of my life,
28:10
we've still run into some challenges getting barrels.
28:12
But historically we've had the, the extreme luxury of being able
28:17
to get barrels whenever, wherever we want.
28:19
And, and that's been fun And we, we've finished the product and
28:22
tequila barrels because in addition to bourbon being here,
28:26
you have a lot of the cooperage companies that are headquartered
28:29
here. So Space side or Kelvin
28:31
Cooperage or some of these big cooperage companies, yeah,
28:34
they're servicing the the bourbon industry, but they also
28:37
we'll get back wine barrels, tequila barrels, Brandy barrels
28:41
and they'll either repurpose them in the spirits industry.
28:45
A lot of them are should charred and shipped back over to
28:48
Scotland for use of Scotch. Scotch then if they don't care
28:51
if it's had product in it before or not.
28:54
Same thing with rum, but bourbon has to be a never used barrel.
28:59
So bourbon has to be, you know, new white oak, freshly charred
29:04
barrel rum, tequila, Scotch, they don't care.
29:08
So and and sample wine. So you you basically have access
29:13
to all these different barrels. So we've had a lot of fun over
29:17
the years. We do we've done saison and wine
29:20
barrels. We've done a Oktoberfest and rum
29:23
barrels. We've had our initial brainy
29:29
barrel Honey Ale was basically on a whim, a friend of mine that
29:35
owns Heaven Hill Distilleries contacted me, said, hey Mitzvah,
29:39
I've got a bunch of Brandy barrels, do you want them?
29:41
Not do I want to buy them like do you want them?
29:45
I said, OK, so we got about 20 of these Brandy barrels.
29:49
Didn't really know what we were going to do with them.
29:51
So whatever was in the fermenters at the time, what we
29:54
stuck in these, in these, if we had excess beer, we just stuck
29:58
them in these barrels. And the, the barrel that that
30:01
was wildly successful was the Brandy barrel honey ale.
30:05
And it's our most awarded beer. So it's, it's a, it's a fun,
30:11
very different beer. Now a, a lesson in marketing,
30:14
because I'm a, a, a, an engineer, not a not a marketing
30:18
guy. I know how to make the trains
30:20
are on time. But as far as you know, thinking
30:23
outside of the box and what's going to resonate with with
30:25
people that it's not always my Forte.
30:29
We we were selling it as a Brandy barrel honey ale.
30:32
The consumer had no idea what that package was.
30:35
They what what the world's a Brandy barrel honey ale.
30:39
So it was and it was a big, you know, high alcohol beer.
30:42
So we didn't didn't sell a ton of it.
30:45
Then we rebranded it as Sting like a beer as a tip to Muhammad
30:49
Ali used from Louisville, like Sting, like a bee.
30:52
And we put the city skyline on it and a pair of boxing gloves
30:56
and, you know, and products sold like crazy.
30:57
So you just it's, it's so much of it is marketing.
31:03
And so you've got somebody on your team that kind of helped
31:06
you with that rebrand. Yeah, much, much smarter people
31:08
than me. I try to start myself with SO.
31:11
I, I think the innovation that you're talking about sounds
31:14
fascinating, like, hey, let's take, you know, a Brandy barrel
31:17
and let's mix it with this kind of a beer.
31:19
I mean, do you get like extra excited to roll out of bed in
31:22
the morning and to say, Hey, I'm going to get to go to work and,
31:25
you know, taste these, these creative concoctions that we put
31:29
together? Yeah, it is fun.
31:31
And and in this industry in particular, because the Brewers
31:36
are artists and they love to create, it's often difficult to
31:40
get them to stay focused on, you know, hey, we still need to
31:43
produce, you know, X gallons of lager and X gallons of walnut
31:46
brown. And I know it's more exactly,
31:49
you know, like time to do the doughnuts.
31:50
But on the same hand, you know, give them the flexibility, the
31:55
beauty. Now I've I've got a team of the
31:58
three, three Brewers. They're terrific.
32:01
They love to experiment, but they also understand what it
32:04
takes to make money. So they're all about getting
32:09
product out, letting me, you know, forecasting when we need
32:11
cans, when we need grain. They're wonderful on the
32:14
business side, which I need. And then I give them the carte
32:20
blanche to create and have some fun.
32:22
And that's the, the beauty of having, we now have 7
32:25
restaurants getting ready to open up our 8th.
32:28
You know, we, we can really use that as a as a litmus.
32:33
We put beer in all these locations and we'll see what
32:36
sells because sometimes what we think's going to resonate with
32:39
the population doesn't necessarily right now we just
32:44
started doing a blood orange blonde and I'm not a big, you
32:49
know, like fruity beer type guy, just like your basic loggers and
32:52
scouts Browns. This beer sells like crease.
32:57
So. So we're going to start putting
33:00
it in cans and we're launching in the spring.
33:05
I know that sustainability is a big cornerstone for you guys at
33:08
Goodwood. What are some of these
33:10
sustainable practices that you're most proud of, and why
33:14
have they been so important to you and your business model?
33:16
Well, obviously, you know, the use of the bourbon barrels, we
33:20
use them three times, which is great.
33:23
A lot of folks you know use them once and then get rid of them.
33:25
The what we've done with our grains has been fun.
33:32
We have contacts with farmers up around the state really or in
33:36
the region. We produce a lot of spent grain
33:39
with each batch of beer. We're the second largest brewery
33:42
in Kentucky. So we put the grains out.
33:45
The farmers come by, pick it up, they're happy to do it, feed
33:48
their hogs the, the cattle. Then we've, we've got a plan in
33:55
place to roll out the grains to produce our own bread using spin
34:00
grains, which we're looking forward to that as well.
34:04
Our kitchen staff. We, we now have a, a director of
34:08
culinary, which is, has been phenomenal.
34:11
He and the gentleman that I mentioned earlier, Chris Marks.
34:14
So the guy's name is Ty, Ty and Chris that they put together
34:19
sauces where we use the beer infused BBQ sauces and hot
34:25
sauces to complement our our food and we sell those in
34:29
retail. So it's also accretive to the
34:31
brand. And then we're also Kentucky
34:36
proud. So the vast majority of our
34:41
product is is grown in state or in region.
34:44
So we're real excited about that.
34:45
There's a, a friend of mine, he actually is a, a family member
34:51
of the Brown Foreman family, which is Jack Daniels, Woodford,
34:55
Sonoma Coutrera. It's a huge company.
34:58
He's a great guy. He's got a, a farm in the
35:02
adjacent county, a large farm called Ashburn Farm.
35:06
And we've done some collaborative beers with them
35:08
where we've used products that they've grown on their farm.
35:11
So, so that's fun. And we're also trying to
35:15
incorporate, incorporate more of their products, their their
35:19
materials into our other products as well.
35:24
Your mission statement, Ted, you know it.
35:26
It talks a lot about delivering outstanding service, creating
35:30
this upbeat atmosphere. I'm curious if maybe you can
35:33
share a particular moment or experience that really
35:36
exemplifies that mission in action.
35:39
Yeah, I mean, there are, there are many, but I think what's
35:44
most gratifying for me is, is when I I get a, a note or I see
35:50
a, a Google critique, you know, they'll give us a five star and
35:55
say, you know, the, the, the service that Crystal gave us was
36:01
exceptional. Food was great.
36:04
You know, the value was there, but the, the, the experience
36:08
that we had, the service was, was exquisite.
36:11
And we really do hammer that. You know, there's a lot of
36:15
competition and particularly in today's world where the the
36:19
people are more discriminate with their entertainment dollar
36:24
as inflation's gotten up, people don't have as much discretionary
36:28
money. So when they do go out, they
36:30
expect a little bit more than they used to, frankly.
36:33
And there's a little less tolerance of of poor service.
36:37
So knowing that, you know, we're not the only folks that are
36:41
selling burgers and grilled chicken, you know, beer, beer
36:45
process. So how do you differentiate
36:49
between US and, and everybody else?
36:51
And it's, it's got to be service.
36:53
You have to go the extra mile. You have to be friendly, you
36:55
have to be prompt, listen to the customer.
37:00
And it's, it's, it's really a culture that we've tried to
37:04
Foster and, and develop. And it's become more challenging
37:08
the more locations we have to keep that continuity to, to, to
37:13
keep the to to and really instill in your staff the
37:19
importance of positive experiences for clients.
37:24
And for us, it's even more important because if they if
37:28
they have a great experience in our restaurant, chances are when
37:31
they're at their local grocery or liquor store and they see a
37:34
six pack of, of Goodwoods lager or Walnut Brown or if they'll
37:38
pick it up. So, yeah, I had that in the
37:40
restaurant or had a great experience.
37:42
I'll then I'll try this. You actually touched on what was
37:47
going to be my follow up question, Ted, you know, you
37:49
guys have expanded quite a bit, you know, new, new locations
37:53
like Hauser Tavern and game your social and you know, you talked
37:57
about another one coming online soon.
37:59
And yeah, it I, I can see that it would be a big challenge as
38:03
you've got, you know, sort of these diverse restaurant
38:06
concepts and you know, locations throughout the state.
38:10
How do you go about maintaining sort of the core identity of,
38:17
you know, what Goodwood is, what it stands for, what your core
38:20
mission is, are are there things that you've sort of put in place
38:23
that you've found have have been successful and sort of making
38:27
sure that that mission statement remains consistent throughout?
38:30
Yes. In fact, you know, we've got a
38:33
great executive management team on the restaurant side, the
38:38
gentleman I mentioned, Chris Parks and then under him we have
38:42
two regional managers. They've both been with large
38:47
corporations, you know, Cracker Barrel, Buca di Beppo, a lot
38:51
other large organizations. Our culinary director has been
38:57
in a number of different locations as well.
39:00
He's he's dynamite. We've created best practices not
39:04
only in the kitchen for all the staff, but also front of the
39:08
house and, and we really instill it.
39:11
And we, I, I send secret shoppers around to different
39:15
locations and I've got a score sheet and I have them score and
39:19
give me feedback. You know, how long did the
39:22
ticket time take? Did they ask, you know, if, if,
39:25
what sauce you would be interested in, if you like to
39:27
try any of our homemade sauces, you know, were the bathrooms
39:31
clean? Were the window sills clean?
39:35
You know, it's little things like that.
39:37
If, if you walked into a, a restaurant and they're dead bugs
39:41
on a, on a window sill, you're going to think, OK, well, if, if
39:45
it looks like this, you know, this is my first impression.
39:48
What's the kitchen look like? So you, even though might be the
39:52
kitchen might be spotless, you know, but you've got a big
39:55
spider web in your, in your front window.
39:58
It's going to be a horrible impression.
40:00
So all the details, every little detail, it's important.
40:06
You know, and you touched on earlier, we're talking about the
40:10
mission statement of sort of delivering, you know, this, this
40:14
exceptional experience and high value service.
40:18
And you said, yeah, you know, if I go on Google and I see how,
40:21
you know, they gave you 5 stars because Crystal delivered a
40:24
great experience there. You know that I think it says it
40:29
all right there. Like it all comes down to the
40:30
quality of the people that you've got in place, right from
40:34
leadership on down. And, and what most people still
40:38
describe to me as a pretty tight labor market can be hard to
40:41
find. Good folks can be, once you find
40:43
them, it can be hard to hold on to them.
40:45
I'm curious what you have tried and found success with in that
40:49
realm. Yeah.
40:50
And that, that's a great point. It is it.
40:52
It is just as hard to keep talent as it is to find it.
40:56
And we know quickly who our A players are.
41:01
And when we have B players, we try to coach them up or, or
41:06
coach them out one one way or the other, but they, they, they
41:10
need to buy in fully. And then, you know, I think the,
41:15
the, the main incentive is the money to these folks.
41:19
So the the better they do, the, the more tips they're going to
41:24
make and, you know, the, the happier they're going to be.
41:27
So we, we want to keep them busy.
41:29
We want to keep them wealthy and we want, we want the money to
41:32
come in so that, that's really the goal.
41:35
And, and we just explain to them, you know, the, the, the,
41:38
the happier our clients are, the, and the more throughput we
41:43
have, the harder you work, the more money you're going to make.
41:47
No, you know, in talking with you Ted, it's, it's clear to me
41:51
that you're a forward thinker and an innovator right from the
41:57
wastewater automation, the the chemical company that, that you
42:01
help to grow and sell. And now you know, some of the,
42:04
the cool things that you guys are doing with the, the
42:08
collaborations, you know, with some of the, the bourbon brands
42:12
and you know, aging beers and different styles of barrels.
42:17
I'm curious, as you look to the future, are there some new ideas
42:23
or innovations that you're excited to explore that you're
42:26
able to share with us at this point?
42:29
Yeah, for sure. From AI mean we're looking at
42:34
the number of different options from a beverage standpoint.
42:37
As we've seen, you know, the seltzers are now 15% of the malt
42:41
beverage market, which is unbelievable to me.
42:45
My son was AKA at Auburn University.
42:49
And if if you had told me five years ago that when I visited my
42:54
son at KA that I'd see a bunch of guys drinking, you know,
42:59
White Claw, I'd have told you you were crazy.
43:02
But indeed, that was reality. So I, I'm not naive to the fact
43:06
that that things change and, and there are new, new things in the
43:11
pipe. We were looking at ready to
43:13
drink products we're looking at which, you know, those have
43:17
spirits in them. We're looking at CBD options
43:23
with THC. So we are right now we're we're
43:29
willing and and interested and, and want to be at the forefront
43:34
of the, the market as it changes.
43:38
So with the RTD drinks and you know the seltzer world, is that
43:45
a significantly different manufacturing process?
43:47
Will that require investment in a different style of equipment?
43:50
Are you able to use a lot of the same equipment that you already
43:53
have? We can use a lot of the same
43:55
equipment. The frankly, the, the seltzer's
44:00
are easier to produce because you, you basically take water,
44:05
you take a sugar source, you convert those sugars to alcohol,
44:09
just as you do with beer. You add some flavor and, and
44:13
carbonate it. It takes a couple of days where,
44:17
you know, the quickest beer we can produce is 10 days and it's
44:21
up to three or four weeks depending on the type beer
44:24
you're producing. So you have to, you have to put
44:26
the grains in a the ton heat, heat it to 180°, create your own
44:30
sugar water. Then you've got to Add all the
44:34
other components that give the beer the profile that you have
44:37
to ferment them at a certain temperature.
44:39
I mean, it is a it's a process. So that versus seltzer.
44:44
Seltzer takes just a few days. It's very simple.
44:48
Even easier are ready to drink products.
44:51
You, you mix the spirit, you mix the, the water, the flavor
44:55
profile and carbonate, that's it.
44:58
And then stick it in a can. So that's, that's really simple.
45:03
The bigger hurdle in, in those areas, particularly with the THC
45:08
but also ready to drink are regulatory licenses and the, the
45:13
myriad of, of licenses and regulations that we go through.
45:17
It's, it's unbelievable. We go through it at the federal
45:20
level. Every product we produce, we
45:23
have to register. They call it the DTB.
45:26
Now they it's Tobacco Tax Bureau basically, but alcohol falls
45:33
into that used to be called ATF, alcohol, tobacco, firearms, but
45:36
that's now more. So what you have to jump through
45:38
all these hoops with the the RTD and the seltzers as well or just
45:42
the CBDTHC? Every product we produce beer,
45:45
we come up with a new beer, we have to register it and the
45:48
package, you know, the can correct warning labels, all that
45:52
with the with the federal government, then we have to
45:55
register it with every state that we're going in.
45:57
So and, and some states have different laws than even the
46:02
federal government. Like when we started
46:04
distributing beer in Texas, even though the federal government
46:08
said percent ABV was acceptable alcohol by volume and Texas, we
46:14
had to say alk by Vol ABC, you know, ABV wasn't acceptable.
46:20
So we had to spell out alcohol. So I had to, I had to buy an
46:23
entire truckload of cans just for Texas, you know, just to put
46:28
beer in for Texas. So it's, it's interesting and
46:31
goofy and anyone that has dealt with the government at all
46:35
levels like we have would be as almost libertarian as I am.
46:41
You know, I've just become very anti government because it's it,
46:44
it doesn't help anything. It just slows processes we have
46:49
for our restaurants. We have a beer by the drink, you
46:55
have a wine and spirits by the drink.
46:58
You have a special Sunday license, and then if you want to
47:02
sell package, because we're a brewery, you have to have a
47:06
separate package license. So each one of our restaurants,
47:08
you know, we're carrying five or more licenses that you have to
47:13
pay an annual fee on. You have to pay, you know, every
47:17
year you have to pay the register.
47:19
It's crazy. When you purchase a beer at a
47:24
restaurant or at Kroger, up to 60% of the cost of that year is
47:27
tax. Just crazy that right up to 60.
47:32
Percent up to 60%. Wow, is there anything besides
47:37
cigarettes that is at a similar level?
47:40
Well, it's all spirits, and I suspect as they continue to
47:46
legalize marijuana and once the federal government gets
47:49
involved, they're not yet, but once they do, I'm sure it'll be
47:53
at the same level or higher. So when can we expect to see
47:57
some of these new beverage concepts that you guys are
48:00
working? On well, right now we're we are
48:02
in the in the process, we've got playing with some of the the
48:06
labels, we have the regs, we understand what we need to do to
48:12
make it happen. We're, we're basically weighing
48:15
whether we want to do these in house or contract it out.
48:20
You know, if we contract the recipe and oversee the, the
48:24
production that places and that may be the way we go into it
48:29
initially, you know, sort of a walk before you run so we can
48:34
try it, see how it goes, somebody that's already set up
48:37
to do it. And, and just see what the what
48:40
the market's temperature is for those products and if they
48:43
resonate, then then probably bring them back in house where
48:46
we get more margin. If not, then you know, maybe I
48:50
don't need to to complicate things too much for my folks
48:53
before we reinvent the wheel. That makes a lot of sense, and
48:58
I'm not sure how the RTDS and the seltzer's are priced, but
49:02
the manufacturing process is much shorter, much simpler.
49:06
If it's a similar price point to beer, am I correct in assuming
49:09
that the margins would be much better on on these new product
49:13
ideas? The seltzers are are a little
49:16
lower margin simply for the fact that the big boys got in there
49:20
quickly and threw a lot of money at it.
49:23
So trying to, trying to break that market now and White Claw
49:26
and Anheuser Busch, you know, truly all these, you know, big,
49:31
big companies have, have invested a lot and their volumes
49:35
are huge to, to try to come in. And basically our price point
49:39
would be double with what they're selling it.
49:43
It doesn't make much sense for us.
49:45
And I think the seltzer run has plateaued that we're seeing a
49:51
little bit of a decline actually in that area.
49:54
RT DS are on the rise and that seems to be the, the kids, 21 to
50:00
30, that's what they want. You know, I think you and I are
50:04
of the generation where I'd rather, I'd rather buy the, the,
50:09
the spirit, you know, bring home the mixers and make it, make it
50:13
how I like it. But the the the younger
50:16
generation, they want convenience, so they're willing
50:19
to pay for it all. Right, you know, is that you've
50:25
got an engineer's brain, you've been involved in several
50:28
businesses, including, you know, the turn around of, of this one.
50:32
You know, as a business leader, one of the things we've always
50:35
got to keep our eye on, which you're managing partner, you
50:38
know, originally was not is, you know, the bottom line, the PNL
50:42
and I, I think that these are sort of like two big levers,
50:44
like what can I do to increase sales and what can I do to lower
50:48
expenses? I'm curious, you know, with sort
50:52
of the creative, innovative plus engineering, you know, mind that
50:56
you've got, are there different things that you've tried with
51:00
either one of those levers that you know, maybe it's a little
51:02
bit outside the box that you found some success with?
51:05
Yeah. I mean, not, not, not too
51:07
outside of the box other than really just trying to develop
51:11
relationships with our suppliers and being transparent with the
51:14
suppliers saying, look, if you guys can help us here, you know,
51:18
if we can, we can get the cost down, you know, a nickel a
51:22
pound, I'll give you the, the business that, you know, all of
51:25
our business for the year. Or if not, I'm, I'm going to
51:29
continue to shop it and you know, and I'll switch, you know,
51:33
for, for a nickel or a dime here or there.
51:35
So I'd rather have the relationships that's
51:39
particularly been instrumental on the on the food supply side
51:45
with the food costs skyrocketing over the last couple years of
51:49
real inflation, cumulative inflation, it's about 30%.
51:53
So dealing with that has been been difficult.
51:57
We've been very fortunate that at the same time we've we've
52:01
grown like crazy. So our volumes have gone up like
52:04
crazy and we've been able to negotiate with our principal
52:08
food supplier. Hey, you know, we'll enter
52:11
longer term agreements with you if you keep our costs flat or
52:15
give us plenty of notice when we're going to have price
52:18
increases. So we're able to absorb that,
52:21
pass it along, figure out options to to substitute, you
52:27
know where we where our customer won't notice, but we can
52:31
maintain the same price points, keep the same margins.
52:35
So that's that's really been the the biggest challenge in our
52:40
world the last couple years. Yeah, going through COVID was
52:44
rough for a lot of businesses. Certainly, you know, restaurants
52:48
were top of that list. And, you know, going through and
52:52
coming out of COVID dealt with, you know, huge price increases,
52:56
you know, in in your cost of goods, lots of lots of headwinds
53:00
that you were facing there. How do you feel we're recording
53:04
this at the, you know, the end of 2024?
53:06
How do you feel about 2025 and beyond going forward?
53:10
What? What's your Are you optimistic,
53:12
pessimistic and why? Extremely optimistic and I'll
53:17
tell you that the main reason why is I believe that the the
53:23
biggest mistake the Biden administration made was when
53:26
they went and they went after the energy for whatever reason,
53:33
they were very pro green energy instead of you know what what
53:38
makes the most sense economically.
53:40
I'm all about, you know, green energy if it's viable, but right
53:44
now there's there's really no viable alternative.
53:49
And to be honest, you know, what we're happening in the United
53:55
States is cleaner. We do it better.
53:57
We have EPA, we have all these other standards.
54:00
So the, the energy that we're producing and capable of
54:03
producing is cleaner than what we're we're buying.
54:05
We're still consuming energy. Now we're just buying it from
54:08
Venezuela, which is dirty. And, you know, we've got to ship
54:13
it here, which burns more energy to get it here.
54:16
So it just doesn't make much sense.
54:19
So everything is tied ultimately to energy.
54:24
Well, I think that part of the inflation was the crazy spending
54:31
that went on. I think a bigger the initial
54:34
domino that fell was, you know, canceling the Keystone Pipeline,
54:39
prohibiting a lot of the, the new drilling those, those items
54:45
caused fuel to basically double. Everybody saw it in there at the
54:49
gas tank. Well, everything is driven by by
54:52
that, although the the food that you process, the food that you
54:55
transport the inside of each location, our energy costs, our
55:04
electric costs, our gas, we use a ton of gas in the kitchens,
55:08
all that's affected. So those those costs were just
55:14
out of control and and. So you think that the cost of
55:17
energy are going to come down and that's going to have sort of
55:20
this cascading effect of you guys in in your industry as well
55:24
as many others? Yes, I think it's huge.
55:26
And I also like what Elon Musk and, and Brahmaswami are looking
55:30
at as far as the the the doge, I guess they call it just getting
55:34
rid of a lot of the inefficiencies of government.
55:36
And frankly, that's what we deal with on a regular basis is, you
55:40
know, the, these, these onerous regulations and inability to get
55:44
to get an answer. I got a bill from the IRS last
55:48
week. I almost had a heart attack,
55:50
said we owed $104,000, that they were going to seize assets.
55:55
And I contacted the IRSI sat on the phone for 45 minutes before
56:01
I got somebody to, to answer the phone or to, to, you know, I was
56:05
in the queue forever. And finally, the woman, after
56:10
speaking with her for 20 minutes, she was delightful,
56:12
said, well, we sent that as an error.
56:14
Mistake. So what?
56:18
What repercussions are there on you guys?
56:21
You know, you you gave us a heart attack.
56:22
You're threatening to seize assets and oh, yeah, our, our
56:27
bad. Sorry.
56:29
That's crazy. Let me shift gears on you, Ted.
56:33
I'm curious to hear about a serious challenge that you've
56:37
gone through, overcome, and maybe some lessons that you
56:40
learned coming out the other side.
56:42
Yeah. Well, I mean, the, in my career
56:46
here at the Brewer, the two biggest challenges were
56:47
obviously the, the mismanagement prior to my getting involved,
56:52
that which we talked at length about.
56:56
And I've, I've tried to be the opposite of trying to be
56:59
extremely transparent and, and forthright good, bad and, and,
57:04
and indifferent. You know, I'll let everybody
57:06
know this what's going on. The other major, major hurdle
57:11
was COVID, just, you know, having 97% of our revenue stream
57:17
cut off twice and seeing how some states dealt with it, you
57:24
know, states like Indiana, Tennessee, border states of ours
57:28
that were open, Florida, Alabama, meanwhile, we're
57:32
closed. And to, you know, their
57:35
positivity rates were the same as our positivity rates and
57:38
their death rates were going to our like, what what are we
57:41
doing? You know, it was, it was crazy.
57:44
I, I'm hopeful that that nothing like that ever happens again.
57:48
And I ended up litigating against our governor and 1 he,
57:54
he was given executive order authority by our House and
57:58
Senate in January of 2020. Obviously, you know, he closed
58:04
and shut us down twice. And then when he did open, we
58:08
were very limited, you know, 30% and then 60% capacity.
58:12
And then you could eat outside in a tent, but you couldn't eat
58:15
inside in a restaurant. None of this made any sense.
58:19
You know, you could wear a a porous mask that, you know, if
58:23
anyone's ever done drywall work, you know, you wear one of these
58:27
masks, your face is still covered in dust.
58:29
It's not they're not effective. So we ended up after a year of
58:38
his executive order authority, the House and Senate revoked his
58:43
executive order authority. They rescinded it and he sued in
58:47
Franklin County and won. There's a judge there that's
58:50
very pro pro our governor. So he gave him executive order
58:56
authority in perpetuity. So basically he said you're
58:59
king. And I, I was on a, an e-mail
59:02
thread with about 100 other restaurant tours and I was able
59:07
to come up with a, a law firm, a Pacific legal foundation.
59:14
They're very pro constitution legal organization.
59:19
They took our case and I sent out a document to all the folks
59:24
that were on the e-mail thread saying, Hey, you know, here's
59:27
how you join our suit. There were only two other two
59:29
other restaurants that were had enough courage to, to join our
59:32
suit. So, so because we were the
59:35
biggest, they, they named Goodwood as the lead.
59:38
And so we, we sued in Scott County, which is the adjacent
59:43
county to, to Frankfurt and, and we won.
59:46
And then the governor appealed it to the state Supreme Court
59:50
and we won there as well. So he no no longer is king.
59:56
I'm curious if you experienced any either direct or indirect
1:00:00
backlash? Yes, because of that.
1:00:03
Yeah, all of my businesses, including me personally were
1:00:08
audited by the state. Come back eight years, I've
1:00:10
never been audited in my life. And then.
1:00:13
Sorry, they were audited by the by the state or by federal?
1:00:16
State the state, State. I'd never been audited at the
1:00:19
federal or state level. And and then, yeah, we had, you
1:00:24
know, a lot of folks felt that I was, you know, being aggressive
1:00:28
because he's a Democrat. And, and I really don't care if
1:00:31
he was a Republican or a Democrat.
1:00:33
I care that, you know, my business was shut down and
1:00:37
impeded. So.
1:00:38
So there was some initial backlash and you know, the
1:00:43
negativity just because I opposed the governor.
1:00:47
But hindsight now I think, you know, it, it was shown that
1:00:51
those lockdowns were unnecessary, that, you know,
1:00:54
the, the states that were open versus states that were closed,
1:00:57
they benefited. We, you know, we lost.
1:00:59
So for a myriad of reasons, I feel justified that that what we
1:01:05
did was the correct thing. And, you know, moving forward, I
1:01:08
think we all learned valuable lessons.
1:01:10
And, you know, hopefully people won't surrender their freedom so
1:01:16
readily moving forward. Ted, I've just got one more
1:01:22
question for you. But before I ask you, I want to
1:01:23
do 2 things. First of all, for everyone
1:01:25
listening today, I know that you love today's content.
1:01:28
Please hit the like, share or subscribe button on your
1:01:30
favorite podcast app. Ted, I also want to let people
1:01:33
know the best way to get in touch with you.
1:01:35
What would that be? Yeah, through our our website.
1:01:40
There's a link there info at Goodwood dot beer.
1:01:44
That's the the easiest way and and quickest way and that'll go
1:01:48
through our our marketing team and then they'll kick it over
1:01:50
directly to me. They can reach out to me Ted M
1:01:54
at Goodwood dot beer, which I like the the dot beer.
1:01:59
It's kind of a fun little platform, but.
1:02:05
Yeah, for the uninitiated.beerworksthesamewayas.com.
1:02:09
So you, whether you're, you know, typing in the e-mail
1:02:12
address that he just gave you or you're looking for the website,
1:02:15
the website is Goodwood dot beer.
1:02:16
You don't have to put a.com on the end of it.
1:02:18
It's just Goodwood dot beer. Sorry.
1:02:19
Go ahead. So those would be the two ways.
1:02:24
Go to his website, Goodwood dot beer.
1:02:27
You've got info at Goodwood dot Beer and then Ted dot M is that
1:02:31
right? Ted M Ted M Goodwood dot.
1:02:33
Beer, Ted M Goodwood dot beer OK, so last question for you,
1:02:37
Ted. I'm kind of curious what you see
1:02:40
being the big changes come into your industry in the next couple
1:02:43
of years. How do you see things unfolding
1:02:45
from here? I think it's people want more
1:02:48
than just a box to walk in and get a get a burger.
1:02:52
I think they're looking for more experiential dining.
1:02:55
You've seen, you know, things like duck and bowling and you
1:02:59
know, trash can beer pong and things like that, that it could
1:03:02
become a shuffleboard become sort of staples in a lot of
1:03:07
restaurants. We're getting ready to to roll
1:03:09
out a new concept. It's going to have a lot of game
1:03:12
activity. Obviously we're going to have
1:03:14
food and beverages as well, but but it's more more of an
1:03:18
experiential dining type environment.
1:03:23
So, so I do think that that we're going to see a lot of
1:03:26
that. I think people post COVID are
1:03:30
more inclined to, to sit outside, which I like.
1:03:33
I love the fact that people are, are sitting on patios more
1:03:37
porches. So we're, we're really focusing
1:03:39
on either retrofitting our existing restaurants with more
1:03:44
outdoor seating or seeking new locations that have great
1:03:48
patios, great, great outdoor dining.
1:03:54
Say more about the new concept that's coming.
1:03:57
Is there a name that we can give?
1:03:58
Is there a location or a timeline that we can talk?
1:04:01
About so that's going in in Bowling Green, KY it's about 45
1:04:05
miles north of Nashville and that's called game yard social,
1:04:10
which is going to be fun. We ran into some construction
1:04:13
issues, but but we we seem to have, we've gotten past all that
1:04:19
the the bedrock and some of the supply chain issues with
1:04:23
construction. But but we're rolling so, so
1:04:26
hopefully we'll have that open in the coming months.
1:04:28
And then we're opening a a new location in Louisville.
1:04:32
It's going to be very music focused.
1:04:35
It's got a phenomenal stage. It's in the heart of Whiskey Row
1:04:40
right next to Old Forester. They have a a wonderful urban
1:04:43
experience. Evan Williams is around the
1:04:45
corner, Mcter's Fearless. They're a bunch of distilleries
1:04:48
within a stone's throw. Angels envy.
1:04:51
So we're right in the middle of it.
1:04:52
We're obviously beer focused, but but we're going to have
1:04:56
spirits and the stage is phenomenal.
1:05:00
A lot of private event space. So we expect to to sort of be a
1:05:03
a spot of Nashville and downtown Louisville.
1:05:09
Well, that's some fun stuff. It'll be really neat to follow
1:05:12
along with those new concepts as they open up.
1:05:15
Hopefully sometime here in 2025, we'll be able to provide some
1:05:18
updates to folks. But Ted, I want to be the first
1:05:21
one to thank you for sharing both your time and your story
1:05:23
with us today. I really appreciate.
1:05:24
It was a pleasure talking to you.
1:05:25
I appreciate it. Folks, that's a wrap on another
1:05:28
episode of the Inspired Stories podcast.
1:05:31
Thanks for learning with us today.