Latest / Chef's PSA Podcast / Amanda Rockman on the Real Pastry Chef Life: Pressure, Craft, and Survival Ep. 179

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Amanda Rockman on the Real Pastry Chef Life: Pressure, Craft, and Survival Ep. 179 · Chef's PSA Podcast

• 0:00
  Hello chefs, this is Chef's PSA and I'm your host Andre Natera.
• 0:03
  Today I'm joined by Chef Amanda Rockman, A pastry chef with over
• 0:08
  20 years of experience who spent time working in Chicago's top
• 0:11
  restaurants like True and three Michelin starred L2O before
• 0:15
  returning to Austin to open Rockman Coffee and Bake Shop.
• 0:18
  We talked about the grind of pastry, insomnia in the kitchen,
• 0:22
  launching on your own, and some advice for up and coming pastry
• 0:25
  chefs. Stay tuned.
• 0:38
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  checkout. I'm coming up in 25 years which.
• 1:20
  25 years of what? Of being in this industry as a
• 1:23
  profession, right? And you think about, you know,
• 1:27
  since I was 19, I've pretty much worked almost every day in this
• 1:33
  industry. Like, sure, you take like 3 days
• 1:36
  off here, 5 days to go on vacation.
• 1:37
  But like for the last 25 years, I've been working in a service
• 1:41
  every day. So like, there's a lot of
• 1:44
  different, you know, experiences that you have.
• 1:49
  And like, sometimes it's like, it's funny, like in my bakery
• 1:51
  now, like I'll be like rolling like croissants or something.
• 1:54
  And I'll get like a flashback of like something that happened 20
• 1:57
  years ago. And it's like a very surreal
• 1:59
  feeling. I don't know, maybe it's like a
• 2:00
  smell or something. But like one particular service
• 2:02
  I remember. So I was at a, it was like when
• 2:05
  my first fine night experiences in Chicago when I first moved
• 2:08
  there, didn't really know anybody.
• 2:09
  And I think it was like Halloween.
• 2:11
  I'm like, not even pretending, like not even like making it
• 2:13
  spookier. But I remember like the oven
• 2:16
  caught on fire and like the, the fire department came in and it's
• 2:20
  like right for service and then take it out.
• 2:21
  And then the lights went out and like, they're like, we're still
• 2:23
  doing service. So like we had like a lamp and
• 2:26
  I'm like plating up like, and you've got like something like
• 2:28
  20-7 courses because you suck you up a caviar course and
• 2:31
  you've got like a million unused Boo shoes.
• 2:32
  And I remember like plating like via a light and then people like
• 2:36
  walking through the kitchen thinking that this was like an
• 2:38
  intentional spooky moment and you're just like fuck like and
• 2:42
  then you're like clean down in the dark.
• 2:43
  So it's just like you have moments like that where it's
• 2:46
  just like you have like crazy ass services and you're, I'm
• 2:49
  like 21 years old, you know what I mean?
• 2:51
  Like you're like, and like you don't even like at that point,
• 2:54
  it's like early 2000s. Like no one talks about like
• 2:56
  emotionally managing yourself and you're just like having a
• 2:58
  meltdown inside your head and you're just like trying to get
• 3:00
  their service. But I just remember like they're
• 3:02
  being like, it was, I think it was like a crappy IKEA lamp too
• 3:04
  that they found somewhere like in the basement.
• 3:06
  And I'm like holding it like while I'm planning and like
• 3:09
  putting souffles in the oven. And it's like moments like that
• 3:12
  where I'm like, when you have a hard day, you're like, but it
• 3:15
  wasn't that day. It wasn't that service and
• 3:18
  everything's going to be fine because literally you're just
• 3:20
  making food. So it's just, I'm just rambling
• 3:22
  at this point. But you have so many of those
• 3:25
  services. And it's funny because like a
• 3:28
  lot of my cooks now we're just like, well, like how come?
• 3:30
  Like you don't get anxiety or like you don't have like an oh
• 3:32
  fuck moment. I'm like, because I've had all
• 3:34
  these oh fuck moments where like every single time you're like,
• 3:37
  what the fuck do I do? And like, Oh my God, I messed
• 3:39
  this up. Like, I remember one time, like,
• 3:41
  making so much brioche and again at a restaurant in Chicago and
• 3:45
  like, the way that I rolled it, there was like, there was like a
• 3:48
  hole in the middle of every brioche.
• 3:50
  And the chef came and he cut every single loaf of brioche
• 3:53
  and, like, shoved it in my face. And I remember just being like,
• 3:56
  I fucked this up. Like, what am I going to do?
• 3:58
  And I made like so. Much.
• 3:59
  It wasn't like an intentional hole that you're going to put
• 4:01
  like a foie gras, no. No, no, it was like the way that
• 4:03
  I rolled it maybe had a little too much flour and like I had
• 4:06
  like this perfect hole and he just every single loaf.
• 4:08
  And it's like, and it's demoralizing because he's just
• 4:10
  like, he's just like not even saying anything.
• 4:12
  He's just like showing you like the hole and you're like in your
• 4:15
  head, you're just like, what the fuck am I going to do?
• 4:16
  And you turn into bread pudding and then it's sold out and
• 4:18
  you're like, great, I made a ton of money.
• 4:19
  Or the, you know, the restaurant made a ton of money, but.
• 4:23
  When you first started working in Chicago, you were coming like
• 4:25
  straight from Texas to. Chicago, No.
• 4:27
  So I when I graduated high school and from Texas, I moved
• 4:32
  to Boston to go to film school. That's what it does, you know.
• 4:35
  And I was going to Emerson College and I noticed that I was
• 4:39
  skipping class to go Stash for free in restaurants.
• 4:42
  There was a restaurant called Radius was like fine dining in
• 4:45
  the financial district. And that was like my first place
• 4:47
  that I went. And I remember the chef Patrick
• 4:50
  something, I'm sorry, I don't remember your last name, but I
• 4:52
  remember going there and him being like, why do you want to
• 4:55
  stash here? And I remember being like, well,
• 4:56
  I want to work at the best, so why not start there?
• 4:58
  Like the amount of cockiness that I had in that moment to be
• 5:01
  like, well, I should be here because I want to be here.
• 5:03
  And he was like, fuck it, let's go.
• 5:05
  And so I would stash for free in the restaurants.
• 5:07
  I remember it feeling like a pirate ship.
• 5:10
  Did you even know what a STAJ was coming from film school?
• 5:12
  Like working in a restaurant like I want.
• 5:14
  A staj I did because like I had originally, like I had gone to
• 5:16
  like CCA in San Francisco and I looked at CIA, but, you know,
• 5:21
  good Jewish girls don't go to culinary school.
• 5:23
  Yeah, in 2000, you know what I mean?
• 5:25
  My mom was like, you go to college and I was like, the next
• 5:27
  best thing was to piss her off. I was like, I haven't got a film
• 5:29
  school, right. And because I want to be
• 5:31
  creative, like I couldn't I it was either like, I can either
• 5:34
  take a creative path or I needed to be like in the Army 'cause I
• 5:37
  need structure, but I also like to be creative, OK.
• 5:40
  And so, yeah, I was like skipping if I was like, if I
• 5:43
  just see Blade Runner one more fucking time, I was like, I'm
• 5:45
  gonna just not make it. So I was like be staging.
• 5:48
  And I remember like, I really wanted to work at #9 Park
• 5:51
  Barbara Lynch. And like, I was just really
• 5:53
  enamoured with like, the food world.
• 5:56
  You know what I have in my in my office?
• 5:58
  I have a a painting by Barbara Lynch.
• 6:00
  Really. Yeah, a lithograph anyway.
• 6:03
  I had a friend who just bought like some She had like sold some
• 6:06
  books and he was like in a rare books at cookbook store in
• 6:09
  Portland. I literally just got off the
• 6:10
  phone with my friend Earling and he like bought like he really
• 6:13
  wants to she like she had like sold like an LBE set and he's
• 6:15
  like I really want to buy it my. Old my old blue set got stolen
• 6:18
  from my office, like the whole set, like I had all the years.
• 6:21
  And you remember back when I came with like the CD-ROM, Yeah,
• 6:23
  it was great It's like, how do you use this?
• 6:25
  That's where all the recipes were.
• 6:27
  That's where all the recipes were, right.
• 6:28
  And it was like they. And I thought they were so
• 6:30
  cutting. Edge It would be cool to have a
• 6:32
  like a color Museum of like really cool things.
• 6:35
  I have a couple of cool things. I'm gonna brag.
• 6:37
  OK, what's your coolest thing? Well, I'll tell you my like top
• 6:40
  three coolest things. OK, you got three coolest
• 6:42
  things. Well, I'm struggling for wine.
• 6:44
  Like my top, I have a menu from the Savoy in London when
• 6:49
  Escoffier was the chef signed Oh.
• 6:51
  Jesus. OK, that's cool.
• 6:52
  That's pretty fucking cool. That's pretty cool.
• 6:53
  I have a lithograph by Barbara Lynch.
• 6:55
  I have another one by Jacques Le Pen that he drew that he painted
• 6:59
  right because he likes to paint. Those are top two.
• 7:01
  Then I got like signed cookbooks that are pretty cool.
• 7:03
  But those are like, you can get a signed cookbook by a chef
• 7:07
  that's alive. You can't get a menu by a
• 7:08
  scoffy. No, you can't.
• 7:09
  Yeah, man, I don't think I have anything that cool.
• 7:12
  I have some cool cookbooks that are signed, but yeah, OK, Now
• 7:16
  I'm gonna go home and think about what I need to go get.
• 7:19
  That's cool. OK.
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  Back to film school, sorry. Film school, right?
• 7:23
  So and then went, and then I ended up dropping out of like I
• 7:27
  was going to go to NYU for film school and then end up dropping
• 7:29
  out and going to CIA. And then I had my externship in
• 7:32
  San Francisco with Emily Lucchetti back at Fairlawn,
• 7:34
  which was like a Pat Coletto, like crazy, like glass work on
• 7:39
  the ceiling. It was an open kitchen, like the
• 7:41
  best experience a 19 year old could freaking have.
• 7:44
  And then I went back to school, finished it, and then I wanted
• 7:46
  to work at True or #9 Park and I got both jobs and working for
• 7:52
  GAIL Gann was definitely like a dream of mine.
• 7:54
  Yeah, so. That dessert cookbook, right?
• 7:56
  She's has many cookbooks, but she also was like on Food
• 7:58
  Network. That's right.
• 7:59
  I'm trying to think like, yeah, yeah.
• 8:01
  I mean that whole time for people that don't know these
• 8:06
  young cooks don't know about true in the glass staircase of
• 8:09
  caviar. Oh yeah.
• 8:10
  Oh yeah. Fucking amused bouches with the
• 8:12
  little shot glasses. Zatchi.
• 8:14
  Right? Like, no Zatch it was.
• 8:15
  You were all soup course. Where did the soup course go?
• 8:18
  Where did soup go? Soup's not cool anymore.
• 8:20
  I mean, it's still cool to me, but amazing.
• 8:22
  I love soup, I know, but it's not a thing anymore.
• 8:24
  You can't do soup. You got to do like a broken
• 8:26
  white sauce with green oil. That's cool.
• 8:28
  Soup not so cool, even though it probably tastes better than
• 8:30
  green oil. But it's funny because like, I
• 8:33
  remember getting that true cookbook.
• 8:34
  Yeah, with the, with the staircase, with the caviar,
• 8:38
  Yeah. And it had.
• 8:38
  Try polishing that every. Night the amuse bouche section,
• 8:41
  which was like the first book that did like a real true and
• 8:44
  there's like juice, right? It was like a juice section,
• 8:47
  right. I'm trying to go back.
• 8:49
  Shout out to Rick. Crimano.
• 8:51
  Crimano. Yeah, he man.
• 8:54
  And I was 21 when I went to that kitchen.
• 8:57
  And I remember going and staging and I found out when I, the day
• 9:00
  that I graduated, I got a phone call from them.
• 9:02
  And I remember because I was like, I had my U-Haul packed and
• 9:04
  I was like, I'm either moving to Boston to go work for Barbara
• 9:07
  Lynch or I. You know yours roughly this.
• 9:09
  This is 2002. OK, so linea doesn't exist.
• 9:12
  Yet linea doesn't exist yet. Yeah, Alto doesn't exist.
• 9:15
  Yet Alto doesn't exist. So either like when you went to
• 9:17
  Chicago Trotters, you want you went to Trotters or you went to
• 9:20
  True and those are the two people that you worked for.
• 9:22
  And I never got to work at Trotters.
• 9:25
  I just, that wasn't my path. I mean, a lot of people who like
• 9:28
  went to True and then went to Trotter, I just, I was a little
• 9:30
  bit more into like, not that they Trotters wasn't because I,
• 9:34
  I remember I probably one of my best meals was at Trotters.
• 9:38
  I just liked like a little bit more of like the showiness of
• 9:41
  like true and like I kind of liked like the little more
• 9:43
  bougie of it. Yeah.
• 9:44
  Then more like maybe like the classic.
• 9:46
  And that was just like where I was in my life at that point.
• 9:48
  I mean, I'm I'm still bougie. Still.
• 9:51
  Still. Haven't grown.
• 9:53
  Like nice things, you know? Right.
• 9:57
  Yeah. What are my favorite?
• 9:57
  Like caviar? Some nice cigars, some expensive
• 10:00
  whiskey. I'm good.
• 10:01
  Anyway, we digress. Root is the shit.
• 10:04
  A lot of people. Not caviar.
• 10:05
  I fucking love it. It tastes good.
• 10:06
  It's delicious. I love caviar.
• 10:08
  Yeah. I mean, maybe they're eating
• 10:10
  shitty caviar. No, I think, I think it's either
• 10:12
  you like it or not. I mean, there is actually, you
• 10:15
  know what caviar like whatever I could eat like the crappiest
• 10:17
  caviar. I'd be like, I'm still happy.
• 10:19
  But like every year for my anniversary, my husband and I
• 10:21
  like we go, we get like caviar, caviar and martinis, like every
• 10:24
  anniversary. That's what we do.
• 10:27
  And I'm just like every year I'm like, made it one more year.
• 10:29
  Get that caviar. I mean, I definitely think
• 10:32
  caviar has a place now. I get it.
• 10:33
  I think we're why caviar gets a bad rap is just be like, oh,
• 10:36
  just got to throw it on something, right.
• 10:38
  OK, I get that. Like for me, caviar, if you're
• 10:41
  getting caviar, it's like you're getting caviar.
• 10:43
  Yeah, get the whole setup. Yeah, that's what you're
• 10:44
  getting. You're getting caviar.
• 10:45
  You're not getting this, that and the other with caviar.
• 10:48
  Yeah, no, no, you're getting caviar.
• 10:49
  Yeah, I want like caviar and I'm like lump crab.
• 10:51
  I want caviar and a freaking Bellini with some creme fraiche
• 10:55
  and some red onion and I want a dirty ass martini with it and I
• 10:58
  just want it like. I'll take caviar with like wheat
• 11:01
  thins. What about brisket?
• 11:03
  It's one more Frenchy. Yes, caviar and Triscuits, that
• 11:07
  anyone listening, boom, there's stop.
• 11:09
  You don't have to do potato chips only.
• 11:11
  You could also do Triscuits, Yeah.
• 11:12
  Salty, crunchy, multi layered. Absolutely right.
• 11:15
  So so true. You know, and it was like a very
• 11:19
  formative, I think I was there for almost 2 years and I became
• 11:23
  the rounds man. And like so many tears.
• 11:26
  So I cried so much. In the walk in.
• 11:29
  Or no on the train on. The train, yeah.
• 11:31
  Well, eating for the round line, we'll see waiting for the round
• 11:34
  line or the red line. But I think that just like, but
• 11:40
  like again, like, and it wasn't because like, I mean, granted,
• 11:43
  it was like hard, it was a hard kitchen to be in, but like the
• 11:47
  camaraderie was really great. But like I also was just like
• 11:49
  really young, you know, this is like my first like Fairlawn was
• 11:52
  really great. That's also in California.
• 11:53
  Like the antics in California are a little bit different than
• 11:56
  like the rest of the country. I'm even at that time.
• 11:59
  So like, I just had like a lot of learning and growing up to
• 12:01
  do. Yeah, but I.
• 12:04
  You worked in some great kitchens overall in Chicago.
• 12:05
  What were some of the like for people listening?
• 12:07
  Sure. L2L2 OI worked for Sean McClain
• 12:11
  shout out. So he had Green Zebra.
• 12:13
  I worked at Spring, I worked at the Bristol with Chris Pendell.
• 12:16
  I opened Ballina with Chris Pendell.
• 12:18
  I opened Nico with Paul Kahn and Earling Wu Bauer as at the
• 12:21
  Peninsula Hotel. That was my first hotel, which
• 12:24
  talk about a hell of like I was a really, I was a sous chef
• 12:28
  there, which I had no business being a sous chef.
• 12:30
  I was thinking it was like 26 and it has five restaurants. 1
• 12:33
  is a two star Michelin with Curtis Duffy.
• 12:37
  Oh, that's right. What did he have there?
• 12:38
  We had avenues. That's right.
• 12:41
  Incredibly talented. Like I remember the reason why I
• 12:43
  took that job is so they had me. I I had a two days dodge.
• 12:48
  It was 48 hours. I didn't sleep.
• 12:50
  I had to do like a 360 showpiece, something like 8
• 12:53
  plated desserts, an amenity like and I've never done a hotel and
• 12:57
  I passed out in my stage. I was, I remember like I was
• 13:01
  putting macaroons into the Avenues oven and I remember it
• 13:05
  like it was and I was like dialing because it was like a
• 13:08
  Alto sham and I was like dialing it.
• 13:09
  And I just realized it was in Celsius, not in Fahrenheit.
• 13:12
  And I think my brain just like was like we're turning off and I
• 13:16
  apparently fainted. I wake up to them carrying me
• 13:18
  out of the tiniest kitchen. And I remember being like my
• 13:21
  macaroons, like, you know me. And I remember at that point he
• 13:24
  thought he looked at me and he was like, are you gonna go home?
• 13:26
  And I was like, no, I'm finishing my thought.
• 13:27
  I'm finishing my tasting. Like let's do.
• 13:30
  What was the tasting again? Walk me.
• 13:32
  Walk. It was like it was a showpiece.
• 13:34
  Showpiece. Sugar showpiece.
• 13:36
  OK, I did sugar and remember it was something like 8 desserts,
• 13:41
  but it was like 4-1 had to be for Shanghai Terrace, two had to
• 13:44
  be for Avenues, one had to be for the lobby.
• 13:46
  Then I had to do like a tea service thing.
• 13:48
  Oh, we also had Pierre Grame. So I had to be a retail pastry,
• 13:51
  so like a tarde or padishu or blah blah blah.
• 13:54
  And then I had to do an amenity. Granted, like all I had was
• 13:57
  restaurant experience. So doing an amenity for a hotel?
• 14:00
  Like you don't know what the fuck that means.
• 14:02
  Right. Well, yeah, you're just kind of
• 14:03
  like, OK, so like I'm making some bon bons and then like
• 14:05
  you're making like something judged.
• 14:06
  But like when I worked at the Peninsula and I had.
• 14:08
  Did you have, by the way, sugar pulling experience?
• 14:10
  No. OK.
• 14:12
  So it's me just like raw dog in it.
• 14:13
  You want to hear something fucking stupid?
• 14:15
  I used to do so when I was in California, we had this tasting
• 14:17
  menu restaurant that I had to oversee and they wanted the menu
• 14:21
  to change every day because this is like, well, the Trotter
• 14:24
  Traders menu every day you got a French Laundry does it or So I
• 14:27
  was like, OK, And so my for every table, my pastry chef had
• 14:32
  to make a sugar showpiece. And we didn't do a ton of
• 14:34
  covers. Yeah, but like every like for
• 14:36
  the pedophors, right? Yeah, my fucking pastry chef
• 14:39
  hated me. I was like hating.
• 14:40
  I was like, fucking pull that sugar bitch.
• 14:42
  Start stretching. You're.
• 14:44
  Like we had an executive chef, I'll just call him the German,
• 14:49
  but he everything would be like bigger, bigger.
• 14:52
  And and my chef at the time, Celine Polano, God bless her,
• 14:56
  she's the best, but we would just be like, I don't know how
• 14:58
  much bigger we can make this. And she's like 5 foot and like
• 15:00
  we're trying to carry this thing through like the banquet kitchen
• 15:03
  into the lobby, into the lobby. But I was just like, this is so
• 15:07
  stressful and no ones eating this.
• 15:09
  No, like, you know, I mean like what you're gonna like it like I
• 15:12
  hate showpieces. And then on Top Chef, like every
• 15:15
  single, every single fucking thing that we had to do was
• 15:19
  like, and we'd be like waiting for them to tell us, you know,
• 15:21
  what our challenge was? And it'd be like, and another
• 15:24
  showpiece. I'd be like, why?
• 15:27
  Why are it should be just called like just not like, it was like
• 15:29
  Top Chef just dessert. It should have been like just
• 15:31
  showpieces because that's all it was.
• 15:33
  It was, I hate showpieces. But yeah, how do you do that?
• 15:38
  Staj got the job. I remember just I remember then
• 15:41
  that they offered me the job like at the table.
• 15:42
  And I remember just I started laughing because I was so tired
• 15:45
  because I was like first of all, like how am I getting this job?
• 15:47
  And secondly, like I need, I remember being like I need to go
• 15:49
  home and get some sleep. 48 hours without sleep?
• 15:53
  Are you exaggerating? Or no, I'm not exaggerating.
• 15:55
  How did you work 48 hours straight without sleep?
• 15:57
  Were you hallucinated? I was just like slap happy at I
• 16:01
  remember going to like the downstairs staff changing room
• 16:05
  and like doing like a French bath and just being like like
• 16:10
  you gotta like cuz I thought maybe like I could go home for a
• 16:13
  few hours, but like I just was running out of time for the
• 16:15
  amount of stuff that they wanted.
• 16:16
  And like I didn't have the foresight.
• 16:17
  Like when I saw when we got a new executive pastry chef, like
• 16:20
  she brought in a bunch of stuff that she already pre made.
• 16:22
  And then I was like, oh, that's how you do a tasting like this.
• 16:25
  But I had never done this. Yeah, fair, fair.
• 16:28
  I I know you know, anecdotal, but I used to have really bad
• 16:33
  insomnia. Like really bad.
• 16:34
  Like I'd sleep like one or two hours, Yeah.
• 16:36
  And sometimes I would go no sleep.
• 16:38
  And I know, I mean, like, insomnia is bad, but it's like,
• 16:41
  I got to work. I got to.
• 16:43
  And I used to hallucinate things that were not there.
• 16:45
  Oh, wow. When I'd get really, really
• 16:48
  sleep deprived, like, I'd see someone walk by.
• 16:49
  I was like, I'm home alone. No one's happens to be in the
• 16:52
  house with me. And I just saw them make coffee
• 16:54
  over there. And I'm like, I need to sleep.
• 16:56
  Yeah, yeah. Sleep is important.
• 16:58
  Yeah, sleep is. I have AI have a very very
• 17:00
  regimented sleep. Like like sleep hygiene?
• 17:04
  Yeah, like I have like how I go to bed and like how do you go to
• 17:07
  bed? How do I go to bed?
• 17:08
  OK, so wow. People can learn from this like
• 17:11
  it's. Sure, we have.
• 17:12
  So I had insomnia for about 10 years, and it was like it
• 17:15
  happened like when I was like 30.
• 17:18
  Like all of a sudden it was like I could sleep anywhere.
• 17:19
  All of a sudden it was like, I can't sleep.
• 17:21
  Yeah, I remember it was happening when I was opening up
• 17:23
  Nico because one of the owners was like, rock me.
• 17:25
  You look like shit. Like you need to get figure out
• 17:27
  your sleep situation. And it wasn't until recently,
• 17:30
  but recently called Zenzone at my house where basically like I
• 17:33
  turn the lights down at a certain like degree.
• 17:36
  So these like smart lights, I play 432 Hertz music.
• 17:41
  I take 5 milligrams of THC with CBN.
• 17:45
  With CBN. CBN is like where they basically
• 17:48
  like they take, I think they apply more heat to cannabis
• 17:52
  where they take the psychoactive out and so it's just like a
• 17:55
  relaxing. So like things like no problems
• 17:57
  like falling asleep. I have a problem staying asleep
• 17:59
  because I'll wake up and all of a sudden I'll be like, did you
• 18:02
  order the butter? Is the oven going to be OK?
• 18:05
  Is someone still going to show up to work tomorrow?
• 18:07
  And like I try to solve like all the world's problems and I'll be
• 18:09
  like, just go to bed, please. Like you're not going to solve
• 18:12
  this. But like I now that I do this,
• 18:15
  it's like, I can like sleep through the night.
• 18:16
  So I just need to like turn my brain off do.
• 18:18
  You take like like magnesium or anything like.
• 18:20
  That no I tried all that didn't work.
• 18:22
  No. So that's sponsoring the show.
• 18:25
  Shout out to my sponsor Shepherds in Bregard.
• 18:28
  But anyway, not sponsoring the show is athletic greens.
• 18:31
  I think it's AGZ. It's probably good.
• 18:34
  So I just bought it. So you're supposed to take it
• 18:36
  for like 30 days and see if you sleep better.
• 18:38
  So then I have the sleep tracker thing.
• 18:39
  So I notice when I'm taking it, my sleep score is better.
• 18:42
  OK. But I'm I stopped taking it the
• 18:46
  last couple of days because I also noticed I woke up dizzy.
• 18:50
  So I'm like, is this? Is this related or unrelated?
• 18:53
  So I'll start taking again tonight.
• 18:54
  If I'm dizzy tomorrow then. Yes, then you'll know.
• 18:56
  Fucking athletic greens or I love it.
• 18:59
  Depends. Yeah, you're like, hit me up.
• 19:01
  5050 here. We go, do I love?
• 19:03
  I don't. Know, I don't know, I'm a huge
• 19:04
  proponent of THC for medical purposes, yeah.
• 19:08
  So that's just a personal thing. It's helped me like a ton.
• 19:12
  Yeah, for sleep. For sleep, yeah.
• 19:14
  I don't, you know, I'm not looking to get like fucked up.
• 19:17
  I'm just, it puts me out like, like I sleep too hard.
• 19:21
  God, what a dream. No, but but back to the insomnia
• 19:24
  piece. A lot of chefs.
• 19:25
  I didn't realize how many chefs struggle with insomnia.
• 19:27
  Oh, I'm sure of it. Because it's like your brain
• 19:29
  like not only that, but you're getting so overstimulated.
• 19:32
  Yes. Like I noticed like if we have a
• 19:33
  really hectic day or like I'm doing a lot of prep or if I'm
• 19:36
  working front of house and you see something like 500 customers
• 19:39
  in a day and you're like, let me talk to those chocolate chip
• 19:41
  cookie and let me talk to you about the cursion or something.
• 19:42
  You know what I mean? Like you're just like repeat,
• 19:44
  repeat, repeat. Then like, I think it's harder
• 19:46
  to turn your brain off to the point where like you can
• 19:49
  actually relax and like kind of like just separate yourself from
• 19:53
  the day. You have a very intense service
• 19:56
  and it's a good or a bad service.
• 19:58
  Let's just say it's a bad service.
• 19:59
  And then you go home and, like, you fucking upload all the
• 20:01
  cookbooks because, like, we need to improve the menu.
• 20:03
  And you're there with, you know, like Charlie and it's Always
• 20:06
  sunny in Philadelphia. Yeah, you're a minority
• 20:07
  reporting the shit out of it. Yeah, what's going on?
• 20:11
  And you have all these ideas, and then you're trying to
• 20:12
  correct and the lights are on, the music's going, and it's
• 20:14
  like, fuck, it's 5:00 in the morning, I need to sleep.
• 20:17
  Yep. We'll just get like a quick
• 20:19
  power nap and go right back at it.
• 20:21
  Yeah, yeah, it was. It was a problem for me.
• 20:23
  It was a problem for me for a number of years until I like,
• 20:25
  OK, I really got to correct it. So in my case, I didn't like
• 20:31
  sleeping. I thought like I could
• 20:32
  accomplish a lot more if I didn't sleep.
• 20:34
  God, I love to sleep. Like I, no, I didn't like it.
• 20:36
  I was like, I think about how much more productive I'd be if I
• 20:39
  didn't sleep. And so I would like, force
• 20:43
  myself sometimes even to just stay up longer so I could write
• 20:46
  more, create more, whatever. And then what ended up happening
• 20:49
  is like, you know, this is probably not healthy.
• 20:51
  Yeah, you you need to sleep in order to be productive.
• 20:53
  Like your brain needs rest. Because I would start to get
• 20:55
  delirious and I'd say stupid shit and then, you know, Chef,
• 20:57
  that's delirious, right? Not that I was that, but you
• 21:00
  know what I mean. Yeah.
• 21:01
  You don't have. You don't have like the
• 21:03
  mechanisms to make you be like. Don't say that.
• 21:05
  Don't say that. Yeah, yes, let's say the
• 21:07
  stupidest shit we can. But what ended up happening for
• 21:09
  me is I couldn't turn it off. So when I realized like, OK,
• 21:13
  this is unhealthy, I should probably sleep more, I was like,
• 21:16
  I can't. I'd lay there like, I don't know
• 21:18
  how to sleep now, like a full. And so sleep hygiene was I, I, I
• 21:23
  went down that rabbit hole so I could really correct it.
• 21:24
  Now I don't have that big of a problem.
• 21:25
  I'm just trying to get better at it.
• 21:27
  Yeah. It's a sport.
• 21:29
  I, I mean, I feel that. It's like, it's like, did I get
• 21:31
  a good sleep tonight? OK, Yeah.
• 21:32
  What's my score? See, I don't do any of that just
• 21:35
  because I feel like I would get too competitive about it.
• 21:37
  So I'm just, I'm just trying to get good sleep so I can be the
• 21:42
  best that I can be every day. I notice because I do like, a
• 21:46
  lot of brain games, puzzles and stuff like that.
• 21:47
  I notice when I get a good night's sleep, like, I'm like 10
• 21:50
  IQ points better the next day. Yeah, I notice it just because I
• 21:53
  could. I could track it, right?
• 21:55
  Yesterday's performance was, you know, this score.
• 21:57
  Today with a good solid sleep, it's this score.
• 21:59
  It's like, OK, yeah, it does make a significant tangible
• 22:02
  impact. Back to the tasting.
• 22:06
  So when I was a chef, and if I was hiring a patient chef
• 22:09
  specifically in a hotel, if I'm, you know, for a luxury hotel, I
• 22:13
  would make them do 2 desserts, one for the fine dining
• 22:18
  restaurant, depending on what that fine dining restaurant
• 22:20
  looks like. Another dessert that's like for
• 22:22
  1000 people. Yep.
• 22:23
  So they can't look the same. Yeah.
• 22:25
  Show me, show me different skills.
• 22:26
  Like, can you, do you have restraint pull it off for 1000
• 22:29
  people? Do you have finesse to pull it
• 22:31
  off for 10, Right. Or for the taste.
• 22:32
  Like you make cheesecake, you make for Marge Blanc.
• 22:34
  Yeah. Exactly.
• 22:36
  And then make bon bons decorate a cake.
• 22:39
  So I wouldn't have them bake a cake.
• 22:40
  I would give them like Styrofoam, like decorate, like
• 22:42
  decorate. I want to see that you could
• 22:43
  decorate a cake. And then.
• 22:47
  Yeah. So it's cake, dessert, bonbons.
• 22:49
  And I think that was it. Oh, and I think of bread, but it
• 22:52
  wasn't too crazy. Like, oh, laminated dough.
• 22:54
  That's what it was right? To make some sort of laminated
• 22:56
  dough. But before I had much less
• 23:01
  common sense, I would also say and a fucking showpiece.
• 23:04
  And I want to see a sugar showpiece of some sort.
• 23:07
  I stopped doing that. Yeah.
• 23:08
  And honestly, people don't do them anymore.
• 23:10
  I mean, I think I've seen like a few, but yeah, it's not.
• 23:13
  And also like the some of the showpieces that you see now, I'm
• 23:17
  just like, that's AI mean. They're like sculptures.
• 23:20
  Like it's incredible. Whereas like the stuff that I
• 23:22
  made, I'm like, I don't want to relook at that or relive that.
• 23:27
  It's just like not my strong suit and it's not what I was
• 23:29
  passionate about. Yeah.
• 23:30
  I wanted to make stuff that you could consume.
• 23:34
  You bring up something interesting and I think it would
• 23:36
  be good to talk about. OK, let's do it.
• 23:39
  Because a lot of people go into culinary school for pastry and
• 23:42
  then do they? Well, yeah, they do.
• 23:45
  I mean, they do, strangely enough.
• 23:46
  Like why? I'm just kidding.
• 23:48
  But they do. They do go into culinary school
• 23:50
  for pastry. And then when they get out, I'm
• 23:53
  oversimplifying, there's usually 2 paths.
• 23:55
  Pastry chef, it's going to an independent restaurant where
• 24:00
  you're working by yourself and you're making the same as the
• 24:02
  line cooks. Yep, right and.
• 24:04
  Team of 1. Yeah, team of 1 and you probably
• 24:06
  got a creme brulee and a chocolate dessert and some ice
• 24:09
  cream and. There's a fruit somewhere in
• 24:10
  there. There's a fruit, right?
• 24:12
  And then or go the hotel route where you're gonna have to learn
• 24:16
  a whole lot of shit, but a lot of it.
• 24:18
  You're gonna learn a whole lot of shit, but 50% of it's gonna
• 24:20
  be boxed. Depends on the hotel.
• 24:23
  Depends on the hotel, right? So obviously it's a sliding
• 24:25
  scale of luxury hotels and everything from scratch to the
• 24:29
  fill in the blank chain hotel that like, OK, you're only
• 24:32
  making desserts for the restaurant, everything else.
• 24:33
  Is coming up, I'd like to introduce three other options.
• 24:35
  You can go into bread, yes, So you can work at a bread bakery.
• 24:39
  You could go into a like bakery like Vanuiserie and you can also
• 24:42
  go into like chocolate. Those are very niche, like the
• 24:46
  chocolate's niche, but you can go work like a Norman Love or
• 24:48
  Jacques Torres or blah, blah, blah, blah.
• 24:50
  So like there's people or like a, you know, there's just like
• 24:53
  other chocolate companies you could go work for, but those are
• 24:55
  like smaller people have to really know what they want to
• 24:59
  do. Or you could also go into
• 25:00
  wedding cakes, plenty of that. So there are like smaller little
• 25:04
  things. But again, it's all really small
• 25:07
  niche things. I do suggest that pastry cooks
• 25:11
  do go through a hotel once in their career and I would prefer
• 25:15
  a luxury one where it's like a bigger picture, bigger staff,
• 25:17
  bigger equipment you're doing. A pastry chef that is there.
• 25:21
  Exactly, yes. I wasn't really into hotels.
• 25:24
  And I remember I had a friend who worked at Avenues at the
• 25:27
  Peninsula who then I was looking to leave L2O at the time because
• 25:33
  I think I've been there like maybe a little less than a year.
• 25:35
  And we got our three stars. And I just kind of realized that
• 25:38
  like molecular gastronomy, like while it was fun, it wasn't
• 25:41
  really what I was interested in. So you.
• 25:44
  Like eating bubbles. Bubbles are great.
• 25:48
  I think it was just like, honestly, wow, I thought it was
• 25:53
  too easy. While the like, while it's like
• 25:55
  there's like, yes, like the prep was just like a little too easy.
• 26:01
  And like you had all, I made all the prep and then I would hand
• 26:03
  it off to people who played it at night.
• 26:05
  And like while the schedule was great, I just was really hungry
• 26:09
  to be challenged. And so I then went to the
• 26:12
  Peninsula Hotel, which I mean, I got what I asked for.
• 26:16
  I mean, that hotel broke me but also remade me because I ended
• 26:21
  up working for Celine Plano, who taught me everything.
• 26:25
  Like I thought I knew I didn't have no fucking idea.
• 26:27
  Like she taught me Vanuatrie showpieces, entremes, play
• 26:31
  desserts, like how to be smart about your production and then
• 26:34
  like also like how to create for volume.
• 26:37
  But like still. But The thing is like they
• 26:38
  didn't have so much volume where it wasn't like thousands.
• 26:41
  It was like 300. So it's like that sweet little
• 26:44
  spot. So you know, I've done both.
• 26:47
  I've done restaurants, I've done luxury hotels, luxury hotels.
• 26:50
  Not a lot. Sometimes luxury hotels, hotels
• 26:54
  in general all get lumped in together.
• 26:56
  And I, and I don't think that's fair because luxury hotels are
• 26:58
  very different from all hotels. When you're at when you're at
• 27:01
  the top end of hotels, it's also like being at the top end of
• 27:04
  restaurants. Yep.
• 27:04
  And you have one of the differences that I don't think
• 27:07
  people realize is when you're in a luxury hotel in a, in a big
• 27:10
  luxury hotel at that you get so much more exposure to different
• 27:14
  things. Like you were just talking about
• 27:17
  Bonbon making, you know, making entremes, etcetera, etcetera.
• 27:21
  But one of the one of the things that I guess that I was going to
• 27:23
  ask you, this is where I was leaving you with the question.
• 27:25
  So I'll bring it right back. Take the wheel.
• 27:28
  Is for someone that's coming right out of culinary school and
• 27:32
  has no frame of reference of what it's like to be at that
• 27:34
  little. We're not in not little, but
• 27:36
  just an independent restaurant, you know, a good independent
• 27:38
  restaurant or a, or a hotel or luxury hotel or like, what are
• 27:43
  some of the things that you would say, Hey, here's some
• 27:45
  things that you need to know before you go into each one of
• 27:47
  these and This is why they're different.
• 27:50
  OK, what I always suggest staging now I know it's hard to
• 27:54
  get into places now. Like for example, people ask me
• 27:57
  a a lot for stash stages and I said no for the first year.
• 28:01
  And I actually shout out to Maya.
• 28:05
  She convinced me to, she's going to CIA in January.
• 28:07
  That's where I went. That's where my Lee Baker went,
• 28:08
  Amanda, Amanda, Amanda. And so she wanted to get some
• 28:12
  experience before she went and she pleaded her case and now
• 28:15
  she's with us. So I would highly suggest that
• 28:18
  people who want to do this stash out all the variations like a
• 28:23
  bakery, a bread bakery, you know, if you can get into making
• 28:27
  cakes, even if it's just for like a day or a hotel, if they
• 28:30
  light you just so you can see the movement of the kitchen, the
• 28:33
  energy. And then like it might help you
• 28:35
  kind of like direct as to like where you want to go.
• 28:37
  The other way that you can do it is you kind of like cherry pick
• 28:41
  your way as to like, I'm going to be here for, you know, two
• 28:45
  years and then I want to go get bread experience or I want to go
• 28:48
  get this experience just so you I think it's important for the
• 28:51
  1st 10 years. And I know that people are going
• 28:53
  to gasp and they say 10 whole years.
• 28:55
  I think you need to kind of like explore the whole market.
• 28:58
  Yeah. So you can see what is it that
• 28:59
  you want to do that you can then like dive into and then like
• 29:02
  dedicate your career to. So I remember I had a, my
• 29:07
  roommate in culinary school, she did her externship at Jacques
• 29:11
  Torres. I remember like we went to New
• 29:12
  York, we went to go visit him and he's like showing us around
• 29:14
  his chocolate shop and remember, he gave me a piece of ice.
• 29:17
  He was like, don't try to do everything.
• 29:19
  Just like pick one thing and really hone in on it.
• 29:22
  You know what? I agree with that because it's
• 29:23
  just like, you could kind of like jump around and like, I
• 29:27
  could go make, you know, bread and baguettes and then I could
• 29:29
  go do this. Whereas I think a hotel is great
• 29:31
  because you can see a lot. And then I would kind of like
• 29:34
  cherry pick, like what area of that hotel did I love a lot and
• 29:38
  then go towards that. But some people might like the
• 29:40
  variety too. So I know I'm kind of talking at
• 29:42
  both sides of my mouth, but I think it's important to explore
• 29:46
  the 1st 10 years and not be so fucking concerned about the
• 29:50
  title. Like, and I personally, I went
• 29:53
  from cook to cook to sous chef to cook to chef to cook again.
• 29:57
  Like I went back and forth because it was all about the
• 30:00
  experience. It was all but the chef I was
• 30:02
  going from the food that I was making, the actual learning that
• 30:06
  I was going to do opposed to like, why I'm a sous chef.
• 30:09
  Like I don't fucking care. Like I could be a sous chef, but
• 30:12
  like what really like when it comes down to the nitty gritty,
• 30:15
  like what do I know? What do I what, what don't I
• 30:18
  know? So I just wish that people, I
• 30:21
  guess my, my words of advice would be like, take the journey
• 30:26
  and, and, and live in that moment and explore and don't be
• 30:30
  so concerned with like titles. And I mean, you got to make your
• 30:33
  money, but like, don't be so consumed about that extra
• 30:36
  dollar. If like you're learning
• 30:38
  somewhere or there's like it's a great place to be, you know, put
• 30:42
  that time in. Speaking of making dollars, you
• 30:47
  recently opened up, which, by the way, it's amazing.
• 30:51
  Thank you. I appreciate.
• 30:52
  That it's, it's fucking delicious.
• 30:54
  Like every time. I've been there a couple of
• 30:55
  times and every time I leave, I leave with a box and I fucking
• 30:59
  eat everything. I love that.
• 31:01
  Like that lonesome one. You're like, no.
• 31:04
  It's it's amazing, Like everything that you make is
• 31:06
  extremely delicious. But let's talk about for people
• 31:10
  that don't know, like what is the behind the scenes of opening
• 31:13
  the Rockman Bakery? Behind the scenes.
• 31:16
  Like what? What, How?
• 31:17
  First of all, when did it start? And then walk us through the
• 31:21
  process of how we got to where we are now.
• 31:23
  Sure. I'm gonna try to do this
• 31:25
  concisely because this bakery took so long to open, so long to
• 31:31
  build, that it's it is not the norm.
• 31:35
  And it was laughable. Like sad cloud, laughable.
• 31:40
  So I got the idea in 2020. I always thought that I would
• 31:44
  work for other people. I like infrastructure and I felt
• 31:47
  like while I like to take ownership of like where I work,
• 31:50
  I liked having like an accounting department and
• 31:52
  marketing department ownership, being part of a team.
• 31:56
  And it wasn't until and also like I am slight, I am risk
• 32:00
  adverse. I'm not like a big gambler.
• 32:03
  So during 2020, you know, world ends, everyone's getting
• 32:09
  furloughed. All these restaurants are
• 32:11
  closing. And like just being in the
• 32:13
  meetings, like, I realize like nobody knows what they're doing.
• 32:16
  And so I was like, well, I can be someone who doesn't know what
• 32:19
  they are doing either. And I also kind of realized in
• 32:22
  that moment where everyone's like, especially during COVID,
• 32:25
  it's like we didn't really know what it was.
• 32:27
  Everyone was scared that they were going to get it or get sick
• 32:30
  or whatever. And I remember thinking like,
• 32:31
  what is the one thing that like, I would be really upset if I
• 32:35
  didn't do? And it was just try to open up
• 32:38
  my own thing. So Rockman did basically during
• 32:41
  COVID, I would go work at the hotel and then I'd come back
• 32:44
  because there's like, no, you couldn't go out.
• 32:46
  And I, I write, I wrote my entire business plan and I
• 32:50
  create a whole deck. It did all the financials, blah,
• 32:52
  blah, blah, blah. And then, and again, like I, I
• 32:55
  try to do it in a way that was like, it wasn't so much pressure
• 32:58
  where I was like, I'm building my, you know, my favorite bakery
• 33:00
  and, and no one has to necessarily see this.
• 33:03
  And maybe it amounts to nothing. So it's kind of like a thesis.
• 33:06
  And then when it was done, I showed it to a friend of mine
• 33:10
  and who's in this industry who's well connected.
• 33:12
  And she was like, you should take this to market.
• 33:14
  This is a good plan. And I was like, really?
• 33:17
  She's like, yeah. So I started to kind of talk to
• 33:19
  other people and then I met my partner Mike Ripka, who is like,
• 33:24
  he's the chef, founder of Torchy's.
• 33:26
  My husband used to work for him for about 7 years.
• 33:28
  So he had a good working relationship with him.
• 33:30
  Kindest man on the fucking planet just really is a chef.
• 33:35
  Like he just wants people to be creative and do good work.
• 33:39
  But he's my partner along with Lorena and, you know, off to the
• 33:47
  Marches, had money and I was like looking for a space, right?
• 33:50
  So I really wanted to be on the East Side.
• 33:52
  I felt like it was independent. I felt like it was kind of edgy.
• 33:55
  I wanted to be an urban bakery. That was important to me.
• 33:58
  Like the the feeling, especially like having worked in Chicago,
• 34:01
  working in Boston and San Francisco, I wanted to have like
• 34:04
  that city feel, but like it was independent, a little grungy.
• 34:07
  I'm a 90s kid and I found the perfect spot in EC Chavez, right
• 34:11
  across the street from a BBQ. Like everyone's staring at your
• 34:15
  building because they're waiting in line, right?
• 34:18
  And then I was like, this is going so fucking well.
• 34:20
  Like it was like a dream. I was like, and I was completely
• 34:23
  romanticizing how great it was going right And I was designing
• 34:27
  the interior myself. I found, you know, my besties
• 34:30
  from lake. They connected me with their GC.
• 34:33
  They connected me with their architect.
• 34:35
  Everything's going so well. We start building out,
• 34:37
  everything's aligned. It's a little more expensive
• 34:39
  than I thought. We're going to make it work.
• 34:40
  I'm going to get rid of the terrazzo.
• 34:41
  A slight little tear. It's fine.
• 34:44
  And then all of a sudden everything falls apart because
• 34:46
  of sewer line is not there. So landlords from Los Angeles,
• 34:52
  they go radio silent for like 9 months.
• 34:55
  The city doesn't really care. I'm also not being vocal about
• 34:59
  it because I have a very, I'm a director at a, at a larger
• 35:02
  restaurant group in Austin. So I'm just like trying to
• 35:05
  manage it on the back end. I go through three different
• 35:08
  sets of lawyers. Like it was 18 months of like
• 35:10
  it's happening. That's how it's just it was.
• 35:13
  I don't wish this experience on anyone.
• 35:15
  But it's common. It's it's a common experience.
• 35:18
  That I think it's more common now, like I hear like what
• 35:21
  happened with Nixa and Austin Electric or like I have a friend
• 35:25
  who's opening up one down the street like there's not enough
• 35:27
  power. Like especially when like now
• 35:31
  that I know, for example, the east side is incredibly, there
• 35:36
  is not a lot of information about the utilities on the east
• 35:39
  side. I know this now.
• 35:41
  Why would I think I needed to know about sewer lines and and
• 35:45
  amps? I'm a fucking Baker.
• 35:47
  I hired an architect and MEP. They should know these things.
• 35:51
  They should come and they should.
• 35:52
  But at the same time, it's like you only know to ask these
• 35:56
  things until you go through the bullshit of it.
• 35:59
  So what I will say is if you want to open up something, go to
• 36:02
  your community and ask people what you need to ask.
• 36:05
  Like make sure you have a really great lawyer when you're
• 36:08
  negotiating your lease. Make sure that you have an
• 36:11
  incredible GC. If you need AGC, please reach
• 36:14
  out to me. I have a great one.
• 36:16
  Hank Haynes, the best man ever lawyer too.
• 36:18
  I have a really my third lawyer was the best.
• 36:21
  She actually listened to me. There you go.
• 36:23
  And the other two just wouldn't. They're like, it looks kind of
• 36:26
  Gray in here. And she was like, no, it's right
• 36:28
  here. Let's go get him, you know, and
• 36:32
  it just it. And The funny thing is the way
• 36:33
  that it actually kind of got resolved was because I'm in a
• 36:36
  building that has other units. Another unit was getting their
• 36:40
  sewer line was getting fixed. And I just happened to be there
• 36:42
  that day and I called up the landlord and was like, when are
• 36:44
  we going to make it equitable for everybody that leases from
• 36:46
  you? And they're like, what?
• 36:47
  And I was like, what do you mean?
• 36:48
  What if you're fixing their sewer line, you're fixing mine
• 36:52
  and then they they realize that they got caught.
• 36:55
  So then it just took a really long time, but like, kind of
• 36:57
  like once it had like once the ball started rolling and we
• 37:01
  actually opened, you know, it was a lot easier.
• 37:06
  I just needed to get closer to opening day because that's what
• 37:08
  I felt comfortable with. Because people need to
• 37:11
  understand like, like these relationships are hard, right?
• 37:18
  Like your relationship. I, I learned that like your
• 37:20
  relationship with your landlord is hard.
• 37:21
  While it was really difficult, I always made sure that when I
• 37:25
  talked to them I was respectful. There was maybe like one
• 37:30
  incident where I was not. So how long did it take to get
• 37:32
  to the from the time that OK like you know, you have an LOI
• 37:37
  to. Opening to opening.
• 37:39
  I signed my LOI in 2001. For people who don't know this
• 37:42
  letter of intent. Right.
• 37:43
  Letter of intent, yeah, 2001, signed the lease in 2001.
• 37:47
  We opened in 2024. Yeah.
• 37:51
  This was not normal. This was like, this is like such
• 37:54
  an abnormal case. Like most people.
• 37:56
  You have like 1 little blip where you're like, Oh my God, we
• 37:59
  have to move. The, the, the, the this is
• 38:01
  horrible. I would like fucking dream here.
• 38:04
  It was like all of the sewage is going in the ground because
• 38:09
  there's no, there's nothing for me to connect to.
• 38:11
  Oh, City of Austin. Can I connect here?
• 38:14
  No. Can I connect?
• 38:15
  No. Where can I connect to?
• 38:16
  They got no answers. You're hiring a civil engineer.
• 38:19
  Like, it's just like it gets. That's why it became so
• 38:22
  laughable, because it's like you try to like, OK, like, we're
• 38:25
  going to go here. We're going to pivot dead end.
• 38:27
  You're going to put it. It almost seemed like it was
• 38:29
  impossible to make this space a restaurant.
• 38:32
  So now, now you're in the building.
• 38:34
  Let's Fast forward just a little bit.
• 38:35
  Now you're now you're in the building and you're leading
• 38:38
  A-Team. It's on your own.
• 38:39
  You are everything. You are everything.
• 38:41
  How do you, it's, it's, it's now 2025260 my God.
• 38:47
  And everyone's different now, yeah.
• 38:49
  And kitchens are different now, yeah.
• 38:51
  And you came up in some kitchens that were different than they
• 38:55
  are today. So how do you adapt your
• 38:57
  management style to today? Sure.
• 39:05
  So I think that. There's probably some, you know,
• 39:07
  ghost in the machine still lingering back there in the
• 39:09
  subconscious. Sometimes, you know, it's funny
• 39:10
  because like sometimes I miss the old days a little bit where
• 39:13
  I'm like kind of wish we could bring back like we you and I
• 39:18
  talked about this like the no music in the kitchen.
• 39:20
  I'm a no music in the kitchen. And I brought it back after
• 39:23
  having music in the kitchen for like 10 months, and everybody
• 39:25
  freaked out. But I thought it was important
• 39:28
  that people focus during the busy season.
• 39:32
  And I think I thought it was a good learning lesson.
• 39:35
  And then I just brought music back and sometimes people just
• 39:38
  turn it off. Interesting.
• 39:40
  Right, because now they understand.
• 39:42
  They like it. The quiet focus.
• 39:44
  Right. So I, I think it's like moments
• 39:46
  like that when like you can still bring some of the old
• 39:48
  stuff, merge it with the new stuff.
• 39:52
  I think that while like the pendulum has swung so far,
• 39:59
  right? Because like back in the day,
• 40:02
  the kitchens were hard, you know, there wasn't any room for
• 40:05
  the individual. There's also supply and demand
• 40:08
  issue because if you go back, you're pre covad, I had a stack
• 40:14
  of resumes all the time. Like I have too many resumes and
• 40:17
  everyone has a culinary degree. Like maybe maybe I'll let you
• 40:22
  like do a viewing stage, right? And then after cover is like,
• 40:26
  please come work for me. So the power flipped.
• 40:29
  It went from a, you know, employee or.
• 40:31
  Employers market. Yeah, exactly.
• 40:34
  So it's interesting, I think. I think it's still that way.
• 40:37
  I don't I don't think it's it's swung back to everyone needs.
• 40:40
  I mean, maybe with AI when it comes for everyone's tech job
• 40:42
  and they got to learn how to cook.
• 40:43
  Oh my God, maybe but and it's a whole that's a whole other
• 40:45
  conversation. But yeah, so I think that was
• 40:47
  also a big reason why kitchens were that way is because you
• 40:50
  just you just had a line out the door to work for you.
• 40:53
  And, and in Chicago, I'd imagine like you're, you're a three
• 40:56
  Michelin star restaurant, like everyone wants to work there.
• 40:58
  Yeah, I mean, I, I don't think I, I still don't think that even
• 41:02
  if you had a line out the door for people who want to work for
• 41:05
  you, they shouldn't condone bad behavior.
• 41:07
  I agree, I agree, but I could I what I'm saying is I could
• 41:09
  understand. Yeah, because yeah, because
• 41:11
  you're like, I'll just get somebody else.
• 41:13
  But like, I mean long term wise I'd much rather have somebody
• 41:15
  stay with me for a year than like 3 weeks because it's like
• 41:17
  the training takes a while. Also like when people start to
• 41:20
  know what they're doing, you can really start to like collaborate
• 41:22
  and make cooler shit. However, when you coddle, that
• 41:29
  becomes problematic too, which I'm kind of learning.
• 41:33
  Like I feel like I really started to hone in my my
• 41:36
  management style at Nico in Chicago.
• 41:38
  Like everyone worked four days, a 10 hour shifts a three days
• 41:41
  off. I was really in like my whole
• 41:43
  thing was like, I need to set you for success.
• 41:44
  That means you have recipes grammed out, yields like
• 41:48
  methods, training, equipment, ingredients.
• 41:52
  That's why I promise to you also, I'm going to treat you
• 41:54
  with kindness. Like I'm going to talk to you
• 41:56
  like an individual, a professional.
• 41:58
  So like, if you don't know, I'm going to show you, don't care.
• 42:00
  We have a conversation and that's my promise.
• 42:02
  That's my promise to everybody. So like you're not holding up
• 42:04
  your end of the bargain of like showing up on time or fulfilling
• 42:08
  your prep list or acting like a professional.
• 42:09
  I'm going to talk to you about it.
• 42:10
  And I still do that now where you know, I push people, but I
• 42:14
  don't push them around. I'm going to continue like what
• 42:19
  I tell my team now is like, look, I have a standard.
• 42:22
  I'm always going to hold that like the expectation, like
• 42:25
  understand, like I'm never going to come down from it.
• 42:28
  So either you need to meet me in the moment or it's not going to
• 42:30
  work out. Now.
• 42:31
  If you don't know how to do something, I'm going to explain
• 42:34
  away. I'm going to show you how to do
• 42:36
  it. I'm going to work with you until
• 42:37
  you get it. But if you come in with a bad
• 42:39
  attitude or you complain about stuff, I'm going to send you
• 42:42
  home or you're not going to work here.
• 42:46
  Because it has to be a team. It's a team.
• 42:48
  It's just it's so much of A team collaborative effort that if one
• 42:51
  person doesn't pull their weight, everybody feels it.
• 42:55
  You said something earlier and, and I'm much like you where
• 42:59
  you've seen kind of every disastrous situation, so you
• 43:01
  know how to remain calm in these disastrous situations.
• 43:04
  Do you feel like with what you understand from being in some
• 43:08
  really tough kitchens to being through some disastrous services
• 43:12
  and situations that that has made you into a very competent
• 43:17
  leader now to the point where it's like nothing phases you or
• 43:20
  do you still, you know, does it still sometimes?
• 43:23
  It still phases me, like some of the new stuff now, and a lot of
• 43:28
  it's more like the emotional management of people.
• 43:30
  Yeah, has me reeling sometimes because it's like never in my
• 43:34
  wildest dreams did I have to, Did I do that to my chef back in
• 43:37
  the day or early management did I have to?
• 43:40
  But now there's like so much more information that people
• 43:42
  give you about themselves that sometimes I find it to be very
• 43:46
  overwhelming because the expectation to absorb it is
• 43:51
  expected. And I'm just kind of like, no,
• 43:53
  I'm like, I'm your, I'm like your chef, I'm your employer.
• 43:56
  But like, I'm not like your therapic.
• 43:58
  Sometimes it gets to be too much for me.
• 44:00
  And it's not that I don't want to be there for my people, but
• 44:02
  it's sometime it's like I need to make sure I'm running this
• 44:05
  business for the 17 people. I cannot curate A
• 44:10
  individualistic experience for 17 people that makes sense for
• 44:15
  the business. Now I think I can have best
• 44:17
  practices. I can create a good working
• 44:21
  environment, safe environment, a collaborative working
• 44:23
  environment. But when you start, I, I feel
• 44:26
  that when you start to try to make everybody happy, I feel
• 44:30
  like I try to do that a little too much.
• 44:31
  The first year I drove myself crazy and I, I wasn't able to
• 44:35
  like have any kind of semblance of like any kind of like rest or
• 44:39
  well-being because I was too concerned about like making sure
• 44:41
  everyone was happy. And then there's also the guest
• 44:44
  happiness that I kind of realized after year one.
• 44:46
  I was like, I need to make sure the like things are running
• 44:49
  while everyone's safe and in a in a good position, But like I
• 44:53
  can't be so concerned about each individual's personal happiness
• 44:57
  beyond work and. Yeah, I'm, I'm with you.
• 45:01
  It's. Which I know it's like, it's not
• 45:02
  a really popular thing to say right now, but it's just like
• 45:05
  you do the best that you can, but sometimes that there's a
• 45:08
  threshold. There's a threshold, and I think
• 45:11
  boundaries work two ways, Yeah, they work from, you know, on the
• 45:13
  employee side and the employer side.
• 45:15
  Employees need to have boundaries to make sure they're
• 45:17
  not taking advantage of by their employers.
• 45:19
  And I'm very into that, like because I remember what it's
• 45:21
  like to be a cook. You're working 18 hours a day,
• 45:23
  you're on shift pay. You don't even get overtime.
• 45:25
  And employers need to have boundaries to make sure that
• 45:27
  they are not being abused by their employees.
• 45:31
  That happens, too. People don't talk about that.
• 45:33
  They talk about toxic chefs. There's toxic cooks.
• 45:37
  Yeah, sometimes. I mean, I got great stories
• 45:39
  about that one. Sure, since you brought it up.
• 45:44
  OK, well there was. I had an overnight Baker who got
• 45:48
  caught sleeping in the job, went to HR and then said it was my
• 45:51
  fault because I wasn't motivating him.
• 45:53
  Like shit like that, that I'm like bro, like.
• 45:56
  Like shut the fuck up. I did not tell you to go to
• 45:58
  sleep. Like it's just like, it's like
• 46:01
  silly things like that. We're.
• 46:02
  Like you got to motivate me to wake up.
• 46:04
  Yeah, it's like you get paid or people are like, I want to get
• 46:06
  paid for what I'm doing. I'm like, what do you think your
• 46:08
  paycheck is? You know what I mean?
• 46:09
  It's just like, it's like stuff like that, that I'm like, I, I,
• 46:12
  I want to work with people who like, who just for me, it's
• 46:17
  like, yeah, I, I, I like nice things.
• 46:18
  I want to make, I want to make a great living, but I also just
• 46:21
  want to work with like like minded people who just want to
• 46:23
  make amazing stuff every day. Again, it's like being on a
• 46:26
  team, you know what I mean? It's, it's about like everyone
• 46:28
  together. And again, like if we all do
• 46:30
  well and we move up, everyone's going to do better.
• 46:33
  Everyone's going to make more money, everyone's got more
• 46:35
  opportunity. But it's like it's hard to find
• 46:37
  people who see that. And I, and I guess like, also
• 46:39
  like being on the other side now.
• 46:42
  Now I'm on ownership side. Before I was like executive chef
• 46:46
  side. I still felt that way.
• 46:48
  I feel like the the feeling has been the same throughout.
• 46:50
  I I thought it might be different but it hasn't been.
• 46:53
  Can I ask you just you, you were talking about your bakery and I
• 46:57
  was saying earlier how amazing everything is there, how
• 47:00
  important it is to to you the qualitative difference that
• 47:08
  great ingredients make and great technique and the craft in what
• 47:12
  you do. Because it's not easy.
• 47:15
  No, it's not easy. And a lot of people know how to
• 47:17
  like think they know. But when you work at a high
• 47:19
  level, you know, it's like there's levels to this game.
• 47:22
  And you have to do it every day, right?
• 47:23
  Need to be consistent, right? That's what makes it.
• 47:25
  So what makes a great pastry program?
• 47:27
  Let's start there. Like let's start with quality
• 47:29
  ingredients and then let's move into the the craft.
• 47:33
  So I think that having a perspective is important.
• 47:35
  So like, what makes you different, right?
• 47:38
  So for me, it's like classics, like we have our classic line,
• 47:42
  which is like all the things that you love about pastries.
• 47:44
  And then having like little riffs like the churro croissant
• 47:46
  or the Parisian flying again basin rooted in technique, but
• 47:49
  then having our little choice, that makes it us.
• 47:52
  I think great ingredients. I think consistent ingredients
• 47:55
  are important, you know, especially when you're dealing
• 47:57
  with venoiserie and dough's, you know, sometimes working with
• 48:01
  different flours that the protein content can kind of
• 48:03
  change can make it really difficult.
• 48:05
  Do you have like a preferred? I like King Arthur.
• 48:07
  Yeah, King Arthur. That's a personal preference.
• 48:09
  That's what I've always used. But like there's things like
• 48:11
  barn springs, mills and things like that.
• 48:14
  But again, like that's a totally different structure of flour.
• 48:17
  It's going to give you a different mouthfeel.
• 48:19
  It's going to give you a different, it's going to give
• 48:22
  you a different texture. So for me it was like when I
• 48:25
  made like the our biggest like thing is our croissants, right?
• 48:28
  Like obviously we do like cakes, cookies, celebration cakes, like
• 48:32
  we do the whole gambit. But like croissants, it was like
• 48:34
  rooted in croissants in venoiserie.
• 48:35
  So queen among Danish just blah, blah, blah.
• 48:37
  For example, the croissants, I really wanted to have an
• 48:40
  irregular cell structure as far as like the flakiness.
• 48:43
  So like usually when like you laminate, you have something
• 48:46
  called folds, you lock in your butter.
• 48:47
  You have a ratio of like how much butter that you lock into
• 48:50
  your butter or into your dough. Played with that a little bit.
• 48:54
  My whole thing was also like, how do you laminate?
• 48:56
  How many folds do you give? Whereas like I wanted to have
• 48:59
  this like irregular pop. Like when you cut it, it wasn't
• 49:01
  like this like tight crumb. It was like this like kind of
• 49:03
  like airy flaky. So you only do 2 folds.
• 49:07
  And so it's like things like that where it's like again, it's
• 49:10
  about perspective. Do I think I'm the best?
• 49:12
  No, but do I have a perspective? Absolutely.
• 49:14
  And I think that that that comes through because I was pretty.
• 49:17
  Fucking good, by the way. I appreciate it.
• 49:19
  Yeah. I mean, I think, and again, it's
• 49:21
  you're constantly like the other day, like my playing croissants
• 49:24
  came out like shit and I was like, I was like reeling.
• 49:27
  And I was like, OK, like it keeps you so humble because like
• 49:30
  every day you just have to be like, you have to be so mentally
• 49:33
  engaged. You cannot phone it in.
• 49:35
  You cannot phone it in when you're making a pastry cream
• 49:37
  because it's like you don't mix, you know, you don't mix your
• 49:40
  sugar in with your eggs. You'll get egg burning and you
• 49:42
  want to make sure that you have a little bit of cold milk and
• 49:44
  then you like make sure it's like slurred in with your corn
• 49:46
  starch so there's no clumps. And then you make sure that you
• 49:48
  engage with the corn starch to make sure you cook all the way
• 49:50
  out. And also how you cool it down is
• 49:51
  important so it doesn't get a skin.
• 49:53
  Like every single moment matters of that process.
• 49:57
  So you just, you cannot. You have to be engaged.
• 50:00
  It's what I say, everything's they say like everything is
• 50:02
  important. Everything's important.
• 50:03
  Everything, even a scoop and your cookie, make sure you're
• 50:05
  patting it down, making sure that's all the way crisp and
• 50:08
  it's you. It's like the dough's not too
• 50:10
  warm, so it's not getting moopy like you have to have.
• 50:14
  Again, it's all about like how you want the end product to be
• 50:17
  and you want the experience to be, and you work your way
• 50:19
  backwards on how to do that. Do I hear a random fact?
• 50:22
  I don't think I've ever shared this on my podcast.
• 50:24
  Let's do it. I started as a pastry chef.
• 50:29
  I did my first, my like, like my first year was in the pastry
• 50:33
  shop. And then I got thrown on the
• 50:35
  line because someone someone called out.
• 50:37
  Oh damn it. You're like, done.
• 50:39
  And I was like, they're like, hey, we need.
• 50:41
  And I was like, OK, I don't know shit.
• 50:42
  I like I'm making. I know how to make fucking
• 50:44
  champagne cake because that's what we were making back then.
• 50:46
  Like sponge cakes and weird shit.
• 50:48
  Like like it was, if you, if you remember like mid 90s because it
• 50:51
  probably bled a little bit over. It's like back then it was like
• 50:54
  soccer tort and yeah, it was like, I know how to make all
• 50:57
  that shit, right? Well, at least I thought I did.
• 50:59
  I don't know. I can't.
• 51:00
  Make it. But I think it's important for
• 51:01
  savor chefs to know the pastry world because I think my
• 51:04
  favorite time working for executive chefs were the for
• 51:08
  those who knew a little bit about pastry, liked pastry,
• 51:10
  respected pastry. Yeah, it's and, and strangely
• 51:13
  enough, we talked about those restaurants where sometimes
• 51:15
  there is no pastry chef and so. There's a lot of them now.
• 51:17
  There's a lot having. Desserts like I always fell into
• 51:20
  that well. I'll make the decisions.
• 51:21
  I'll make the chocolate mousse. Yeah, so later on, as I grew
• 51:25
  into other positions where now I have pastry chefs, I always
• 51:28
  fancied myself as a fucking pastry chef.
• 51:31
  And so my fucking pastry chefs used to hate it because I would
• 51:34
  like all the creativity comes to me.
• 51:35
  Here's what I want you to make. Figure it out.
• 51:37
  Oh, damn, How was that guy? Like, how do you make it, chef?
• 51:40
  I don't know. In my brain it works.
• 51:43
  I'm sure it'll taste. Really.
• 51:44
  I have a 15 point twill here. We go, yeah, yeah, if I could.
• 51:47
  Many people used to hate me. I'm sorry, chefs, if you're
• 51:50
  listening, we digress. I was thinking about that cuz I
• 51:55
  was like the other day I was, I had to make a pie, like a meat
• 51:58
  pie. And so I was like really perfect
• 52:01
  Brunoir of like celery root, carrot, onions.
• 52:04
  And I wanted to make everything like just fucking perfect, like
• 52:08
  really meticulous, the way I would hold my cooks accountable
• 52:10
  to. And it took me so fucking long.
• 52:12
  I was like, why did I make them do this, this fucking stupid,
• 52:15
  but I still did it. But I still did it the.
• 52:17
  Thing is, like, it's even like the little things like that,
• 52:19
  like you have to learn like the projects that could take you
• 52:22
  down. That's when you have like the
• 52:23
  mental fortitude. We have something called cookie
• 52:25
  butter, right? Because we have cookie butter
• 52:26
  lattes and we've got cookie butter glaze and it's like we
• 52:29
  Bake Off cookies and then we blend it with milk and you add
• 52:32
  salt to it and it's like we make probably like 8 gallons at a
• 52:35
  time. And so you're on the Robocu like
• 52:37
  for like 2. Hours.
• 52:38
  Cookie butter for We have cookie butter syrup for our lattes and
• 52:41
  then we also we have a cookie croissant so we have like.
• 52:44
  That sounds delicious. I don't know if I had it one.
• 52:46
  Exactly. My husband, Nick Taylor, he made
• 52:48
  the idea of the cookie butter latte because we wanted to
• 52:51
  bridge the gap between coffee and pastry.
• 52:52
  Because in the beginning people were like, you just do pastry.
• 52:54
  Like, no, we actually have a full coffee break.
• 52:56
  Our beverage program is really amazing.
• 52:57
  And also because you have the pastry program and you've got
• 52:59
  people who are really into beverage and then we all work
• 53:02
  together like we've got like a banana bread, Chai latte, like
• 53:05
  everything's made in house, right?
• 53:07
  I digress. So the cookie butter, the cookie
• 53:09
  butter, like everybody has, the first time they make it, they
• 53:11
  have like AI can see in their face, they have a full mental
• 53:14
  break. And I'm like, you need to have
• 53:15
  the mental fortitude to get through that two hours of prep,
• 53:19
  Bruno. Like, you need to be able to
• 53:20
  just keep pushing. You have to Bruno cookies.
• 53:23
  No, but like I'm saying, like I'm saying like that Cook has to
• 53:27
  have the mental fortitude to get through that long project
• 53:30
  because you're going to need to have that through your entire
• 53:33
  career. You need to be able to self
• 53:35
  soothe and be like, I just have to keep going.
• 53:37
  Yeah. And that's, I feel like in fine
• 53:38
  dining, like in those kitchens I worked at, like you just had to
• 53:41
  keep, keep going. Yeah.
• 53:43
  You're. Building a skill, you're
• 53:45
  building a skill that yeah, that will.
• 53:46
  And The thing is, like when you're building the skill at a
• 53:48
  young age, it stays with you forever.
• 53:50
  Oh yeah. I wouldn't change it for the
• 53:52
  world. Yeah, no, I agree.
• 53:53
  But I want everybody to do it. I don't think everybody could.
• 53:57
  I think that they should dabble in it.
• 54:00
  Yeah, I'm. I'm in the civilian world now,
• 54:02
  though, so like when I see myself doing stuff that I used
• 54:04
  to make people do, I'm like, wow, this is crazy because I
• 54:07
  haven't had to do this in so long.
• 54:08
  So it's a little different for me, but I But if I but the
• 54:11
  thing, if you put me in a chef room, I'd be like, yeah,
• 54:13
  fucking. Fundamentals it's.
• 54:14
  Yeah, it's like, no, do it. Do it the right way there.
• 54:16
  But I'm at home, so it's a little different.
• 54:18
  But put your time into. I did.
• 54:19
  I did. Like I put in enough time to not
• 54:21
  have to do it anymore. By the way, because you were
• 54:26
  talking about drinks right now, you made me think about like,
• 54:28
  where do you stand? It's controversial subject when
• 54:29
  it comes to tipping. Oh yes, I have so many thoughts
• 54:32
  on this. What are your thoughts?
• 54:34
  Especially right now because I know it's a It's a hot take when
• 54:38
  you know the iPad just gets flipped over.
• 54:41
  Sure, tipping is important to the the ecosystem of pay for
• 54:50
  your team. And where my ass gets chapped is
• 54:57
  where people are like, it's a bakery and it's a barista, so I
• 55:00
  don't need to tip. I'm like, okay, let's break this
• 55:04
  down. So the barista is creating,
• 55:06
  let's say, a cappuccino for you. They're using a $30,000 machine.
• 55:11
  They are in real time making sure that the temperature of
• 55:15
  your milk is the appropriate temperature, the foam density is
• 55:18
  correct, the extraction of your espresso is correct.
• 55:22
  But they don't get a tip. But like I can crack open a Lone
• 55:25
  Star and throw it your way buddy.
• 55:26
  And I get 20% because what's night time and it's alcohol.
• 55:29
  Like the fact that they don't feel like that is a craft makes
• 55:36
  me upset. Now people like you can just
• 55:38
  raise your prices and then you can like we have an $18.00
• 55:41
  Guaranteed Rate. Everyone gets tipped out in
• 55:43
  kitchen dish front of house. So you know, the reason why that
• 55:49
  we do, we have like a like a base rate that basically is like
• 55:53
  11 to like $13 and then you get tipped out is that and we have a
• 55:58
  guaranteed $18.00 rate. Is that when we're busier, they
• 56:01
  get more money because it's like it fluctuates with seasonality
• 56:04
  and we're a small business, right?
• 56:06
  Like margins are small. Everybody knows it's the tail as
• 56:09
  old as time, margins are small or trying to pay more.
• 56:13
  It has to come from somewhere. When you do tip or you do
• 56:16
  service fee, that signals to your staff that that money is
• 56:21
  theirs when guests tell you just charge more.
• 56:23
  As an owner, I can do where the fuck I want with that money, but
• 56:26
  I'm trying to signal to my staff this money is yours, You know
• 56:30
  what I mean? So like for example with our
• 56:31
  catering or anything pre-ordered, there's a 20%
• 56:33
  service. We got a lot of questions about
• 56:35
  it. A hundred, 100% of it gets
• 56:37
  divvied up to the staff and again, it signals to them that
• 56:40
  money is yours. It's not the business's money,
• 56:43
  it's yours. You know, I think our average
• 56:46
  tip is 10%, which means most people don't tip.
• 56:50
  So where do you if you had to advise people on like tipping
• 56:54
  practices? Because the other day I was like
• 56:58
  20%. That's where my my.
• 56:59
  That's usually what I tip. 20% But the other day, I don't
• 57:02
  remember where I was and they flipped over the thing.
• 57:04
  It was like options were like 20 percent, 25 percent, 35%.
• 57:08
  Like when did that happen? I don't remember.
• 57:10
  When did we get to 35%? Yeah, that, I mean it's like I
• 57:13
  would rather do like a custom tip I think.
• 57:15
  I think ours is like maybe 18/20/22 and then like no tip
• 57:20
  and custom tip. I think that that is like some
• 57:23
  people want to do the 18, it's a little below.
• 57:24
  I still think that that is reasonable.
• 57:26
  The 22 is like they had a really great experience.
• 57:28
  Maybe their service industry, because sometimes I'm like, I'm
• 57:30
  service industry 25% because it's like, I know how hard this,
• 57:34
  this job is. It's a very physical job.
• 57:36
  It's a, it's a mental job. And also like every single
• 57:39
  drink, like when they're just getting crushed on the barista
• 57:42
  line on a Saturday and they're getting your drinks out in 5
• 57:44
  minutes and like they're, but they're still temping.
• 57:46
  They're still like all the homemade syrups, you know,
• 57:49
  they're they're hand whisking your matcha, you know, to say
• 57:53
  that like, and again, like, could we change the pricing
• 57:57
  structure? Could we just make everything
• 57:59
  more expensive? And then we've got like a flat
• 58:01
  rate for everybody. Sure, I could do that.
• 58:03
  But again, like I'm also trying to create messaging to my team
• 58:08
  that they feel comfortable. And then also it's like this is
• 58:11
  kind of how this business has been running for decades of how
• 58:14
  this has worked. Right.
• 58:15
  And something else to consider that a lot of people don't talk
• 58:17
  about. Some people want to be generous.
• 58:19
  They want to right? They they view it as I let me be
• 58:22
  generous and give you some money.
• 58:24
  But for the people who are like, oh, I don't need to tip you
• 58:26
  because I you know, it's to go or like you're not making
• 58:29
  anything. I'm not making anything.
• 58:31
  These cooks came in at 3:30 in the morning.
• 58:32
  Like to me, that is the most undereducated answer someone can
• 58:38
  give me because it's like you don't know.
• 58:41
  And also, I refuse to be devalued because just because
• 58:46
  you do not value what I do or value what we've built does not
• 58:49
  mean that that I should have to then, you know, absorb like
• 58:53
  whatever you're perceived thought processes on pastry or
• 58:57
  coffee. I know how hard it is.
• 58:59
  I know what I've dedicated my life to and what it took to get
• 59:02
  here and what these people do daily.
• 59:04
  I'm not going to let you devalue us.
• 59:06
  I have one last question before I get into like my standard
• 59:09
  questions. Yes, they're real.
• 59:15
  What is next? Like, do you ever anticipate
• 59:17
  like maybe Part 2 bakery or Part 3?
• 59:20
  Like what what? What is your personal goal with
• 59:23
  this business? Sure, I do growth for sure.
• 59:27
  I have a lot of really talented people that work with me that
• 59:30
  deserve to have opportunities to grow.
• 59:34
  So if that means a second location, if that means we
• 59:38
  venture into, dare I say wholesale, I don't know yet.
• 59:43
  I'm kind of exploring like you have to kiss a lot of frogs to
• 59:46
  kind of like see what feels good.
• 59:49
  You know, I'm also I, you know, I talked to my lead Baker and my
• 59:54
  other lead Kelly a lot, a lot about like what are you, what
• 59:56
  are they interested in? Because I can't do this alone.
• 59:59
  Yeah. You mean it's about the team And
• 1:00:01
  and I'm always like kind of like probing them.
• 1:00:03
  Like would we wanna do a second store where maybe we have more
• 1:00:06
  like bougie coffee where it's more about like single origin,
• 1:00:09
  it's pour overs or do we wanna get into wholesale and we've got
• 1:00:12
  like one big person that we pushing towards so.
• 1:00:16
  Right now I'm exploring all of those things, but at the same
• 1:00:19
  time, like you still want to stay focused.
• 1:00:21
  Like the, the Cesar Chavez store will always be our flagship.
• 1:00:24
  We'll be always doing like kind of an egregious amount of
• 1:00:27
  specials on the weekends that'll be where we do a celebration
• 1:00:30
  cakes. And then kind of it's like
• 1:00:31
  growing the business up. So that again, I would love to
• 1:00:35
  be able to put everybody on salary at a really great salary.
• 1:00:38
  So I'm working towards because there's not a lot of
• 1:00:42
  opportunities for pastry people because a lot of restaurants
• 1:00:46
  don't have pastry chefs anymore and a lot of hotels are moving
• 1:00:49
  towards box things. So making opportunity and space
• 1:00:52
  for people who want to be in this industry that can have a
• 1:00:55
  livable wage and and you know, good work life balance, but
• 1:01:00
  still really motivated to build something.
• 1:01:02
  So for people that are listening, go to Rockman Bakery.
• 1:01:05
  Please do. It's amazing.
• 1:01:07
  So I'm going to ask you some some of my famous chef closing
• 1:01:12
  questions, but they're they're geared to you.
• 1:01:14
  So if there was 1 iconic dessert, what is the most iconic
• 1:01:18
  dessert for you? Brownie sundae.
• 1:01:22
  Brownie sundae? Is that what you I'll?
• 1:01:24
  Fuck that up. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:01:25
  I love a brownie sundae. OK, I I love sundae.
• 1:01:27
  Also, like, you can do it upscale, you can do a Chili's
• 1:01:29
  version. Yeah, yeah, Station version.
• 1:01:31
  It can go across all boards. Brownie sundae.
• 1:01:33
  Brownie sundae. OK, who?
• 1:01:34
  If there was a Mount Rushmore of pastry chefs, OK, the four
• 1:01:38
  pastry chefs that should be up there, who would they be?
• 1:01:40
  Cindy Siegel, Celine Polano, Cherry Yard.
• 1:01:50
  Jacque Terez. OK, is there if you had like a a
• 1:01:59
  bucket list dinner that living or dead, who would you want to
• 1:02:04
  cook for you? I don't know why this is popping
• 1:02:19
  in my head, but I think I wanted to be Charlie Trotter.
• 1:02:22
  Yeah, me too. Yeah, me too.
• 1:02:24
  There's. Like so much legend behind.
• 1:02:26
  And I remember like, yeah, I just remember like touring the
• 1:02:31
  kitchen and like talking for like it just like it was such a,
• 1:02:33
  it also like, because most of my time was in like most of my, all
• 1:02:36
  my formative years basically was in Chicago.
• 1:02:38
  And it was like such like a it was like in the air at all
• 1:02:42
  times. Trotters, trotters, trotters,
• 1:02:44
  you know, and like all these people came from it.
• 1:02:47
  Like the lineage that came from him is just.
• 1:02:51
  And I'm just so embedded in that still like mentally that that
• 1:02:54
  would be mine. I had the opportunity at
• 1:02:56
  Trotter's and I I decided not to because I went to another
• 1:02:59
  Michelin star restaurant to go eat and.
• 1:03:01
  Biggest regret? It's one of my biggest regrets.
• 1:03:04
  Like fuck, I should have gone to eat at Trotter's.
• 1:03:06
  But anyway, I didn't. Are you a blue tape or a green
• 1:03:12
  tape person? Green tape.
• 1:03:13
  Green tape and the. Tape is lighter in color.
• 1:03:16
  Yeah, do you do something? So if people wanted a quick pro
• 1:03:19
  tip in in pastry, like start doing this with your desserts
• 1:03:22
  and you'll see and everything will start to taste better.
• 1:03:25
  What would that that salt? Yeah, yeah, salt to everything
• 1:03:30
  and finish it with salt inside, like kosher.
• 1:03:33
  And then my favorite salt is Pink River Murray sea salt.
• 1:03:40
  But Malden's really great too, for like, cookies and things
• 1:03:42
  like that, like finishing salts on a dessert.
• 1:03:44
  I like the Pink River Murray, but Malden is great for, like,
• 1:03:47
  chocolate chip cookies. Like I just love, like a little
• 1:03:49
  dash of like, my thing is always like, whenever, like I taste
• 1:03:51
  stuff, everyone's always looks at me and they're always like
• 1:03:53
  more salt. I'm like more salt.
• 1:03:54
  More salt. Yeah, I'm with you like it
• 1:03:55
  makes. They're best friends.
• 1:03:57
  And back to the salt, are you a Diamond Crystal or a Martins?
• 1:04:02
  What's in what's in the Rockman Bakery right now, so far?
• 1:04:04
  Kosher. Yeah, it's called Ellington's.
• 1:04:06
  Ellington's I've never. Heard Benny Keith Brand.
• 1:04:10
  Benny Keith brand Ellington's shout out to Ellington.
• 1:04:12
  And shout out to Benny Keith. Shout out to Benny Keith.
• 1:04:13
  Great company. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:04:15
  Major brow liner. They'll work with small
• 1:04:17
  businesses. They'll get you small vendors.
• 1:04:20
  Their dairy is great. They're plastic wrap.
• 1:04:22
  I cannot tell you pastry chefs out there, the Benny Q plastic
• 1:04:27
  wrap does not fray in the freezer.
• 1:04:29
  It doesn't like you know when like it does like unravel and
• 1:04:31
  you have to like take a knife and like you have like a mental
• 1:04:34
  like you're about to lose your shit.
• 1:04:35
  Never has happened to me. Do you remember when the cutter
• 1:04:38
  inside the boxes used to like fucking cut your hand off and
• 1:04:40
  now it doesn't anymore? No, they still do.
• 1:04:42
  They still. Oh my God.
• 1:04:44
  I remember like you accidentally.
• 1:04:46
  Scraped my arm with it once it was just like just like blood.
• 1:04:50
  No, they still do. I guess they they don't have a
• 1:04:52
  slide guys, but that's. The funny thing was like at
• 1:04:54
  home, yeah, I mean, I hate to reference my home cooking, but
• 1:04:58
  like at home my plastic wrap is fucking sharp.
• 1:05:01
  But the one that worked was like never sharp like once.
• 1:05:04
  We're just like, going to take it to the throat.
• 1:05:06
  I don't know, I don't know. Well, Chef, this is fun.
• 1:05:09
  Where can people find you on social media?
• 1:05:11
  Social media, they can find that rockman ATX or a rockman and my
• 1:05:16
  personal one, which I don't really do much with, but our
• 1:05:18
  rockman ATX. I think it's fun.
• 1:05:19
  Yeah. I think it's.
• 1:05:20
  I think your social medias are fun by the way.
• 1:05:22
  I know I'm 40 plus, so you know, the age of social media was
• 1:05:27
  later in life for me. So in order for me to do social
• 1:05:30
  media, it just had to be me. Like I had to be authentically
• 1:05:34
  who I was. And I just couldn't be like
• 1:05:37
  tough chef, you know, because it's just like not my
• 1:05:39
  personality. And I just, I find it all to be
• 1:05:41
  a little ridiculous. Like I just kind of want to be
• 1:05:43
  like, I just want to run a bakery and I don't want to talk
• 1:05:44
  to many because like chefs generally just like want to be
• 1:05:46
  in the back right with their people and saying some weird
• 1:05:49
  shit or whatever, like being a little nerds that we are,
• 1:05:52
  especially pastry chefs, right? And now you have to be like out
• 1:05:55
  in the open and be charming. It's just kind of like it's
• 1:05:57
  laughable. So that's why we just, we just
• 1:05:59
  make it weird enough where it's like I can stomach it.
• 1:06:03
  Well, this is great. We'll have to have you back.
• 1:06:04
  Absolutely. It was a pleasure.
• 1:06:06
  Thank you, I hope you enjoyed the show.
• 1:06:07
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• 1:06:09
  make sure you leave Five Stars or Apple or anywhere else.
• 1:06:12
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• 1:06:15
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• 1:06:17
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• 1:06:20
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• 1:06:21
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• 1:06:24
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