Latest / Corpus Christi Originals Podcast / EP101: Marty and Amber Flores - From Marine Corps to Pizza, Building Marty McPies Downtown

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EP101: Marty and Amber Flores - From Marine Corps to Pizza, Building Marty McPies Downtown · Corpus Christi Originals Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_08: What's going on, y'all?
• 0:00
  SPEAKER_08: Welcome back to the Corpus Christi Originals Podcast.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_08: I'm Jesus Ladio.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_08: Today's guests are Marty and Amber Flores, the owners of Marty McPies, the pizza restaurant on Shoreline Boulevard in downtown Corpus Christi, Texas.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_08: Marty is a Marine Corps veteran who deployed in Iraq.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_08: He later worked in the Navy as a welder.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_08: Then spent years as on the railroad and in refineries during that time.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_08: He taught himself how to make pizza with a single goal to come back home to Corpus Christi and to build a life here.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_08: Amber spent 10 years as a teacher before leaving the classroom to help grow the business.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_08: What's up, y'all?
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_04: Yo, how's it going?
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_04: Y'all didn't have a bad thing.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_08: When did we schedule?
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_08: Last month?
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_08: Month before?
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_04: Maybe the month before.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, right now.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, it's been a long time.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_08: And you were excited.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_08: You're like, yeah, hell yeah.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_08: It's like, let me know what I gotta do.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_08: And then uh Drift Corpus was in here.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_08: They were talking, they were talking about y'all.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_08: They gave y'all a shout out.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_08: Well, he he said what he even out he even said one time that uh they go over so much that you're like, hey man, we got only so much supplies.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_02: They sold us out a couple times.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, they bring like their whole crew.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_01: Awesome.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we love them so much.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_04: So every time they they have like an event, it was like, let's prep just a little bit more.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_04: Just in case.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_04: Nice.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_08: So you already know they're coming.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah, that's cool.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_08: Uh yeah.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_08: So what does the typical day look like at uh Marty McPye's?
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_04: Uh wake up.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_04: Uh I got uh six litter boxes I get clear.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_04: We do have six cats.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_06: We do.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_04: But uh six litter boxes.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_04: Go to work.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_04: Uh we got our managers that show up, you know, get us ready for the day, give us our prep list.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, I I love being the boss, but also love just like doing the prep and kind of being told what to do.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_04: Like, I don't like to think too much at this point.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_04: You know, it's like just tell me what I gotta do.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I'll do it.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_04: It's nice.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_04: Our managers are great.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: They're really great.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we we taught them well.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, as good as we could, you know, and um now we basically just listen to them.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, so like they don't have a problem telling me what to do.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm not the best at telling people what to do.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so we hired people that could, you know, like maybe be a little bit bossier than us.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_08: Wow, that's so interesting.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_08: So you guys are owners, yeah.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah, so y'all are like owners, but like employees still kind of like I'm cashier a lot of times.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: I like I'll go show the manager here's my checklist.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: That's so crazy.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: I get it, guys.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: So I get so started.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_04: It is funny.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_04: Like the whole like my whole life, I was like, Man, I want to be the boss, I could do that better than that, blah blah blah.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_04: But now I'm just like, I want a boss.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: Someone just tell me what to do.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: I want to zone out.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_08: Wow.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_08: So, what surprised you um the most about going from the food truck to the brick and mortar, other than the managers, I guess.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_04: Man, surprised uh how hard it was gonna be.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, the food truck was super easy.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_04: I did everything myself.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_04: I knew it was just gonna be this many pizzas.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_04: Um, if I sold out, I sold out.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_04: That's fine.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_04: But now we have to prepare for big events that come to town, conventions, uh caterings, and like uh managing.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, for me, like definitely like managing a lot of people.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, because it was just like the three of us in the food truck for years, and we had like a good flow, like we didn't even have to talk to each other, we just knew what needed to get done.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: But having to teach, you know, like 15 people like the ropes, and you know, oh well, this person wasn't here that day, so I need to make sure and go talk to this person, and oh, this person called in, so now blah blah blah.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, yeah, just dealing with like the people for me was like kind of like the biggest like learning curve because like we already knew everything, but the two of us we can't do it all.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: So we had to teach everyone.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_08: Wow, oh my gosh, what was the learning curve like as far as like finances go?
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_08: Because you have to pay somebody and you gotta worry about uh having supply and all that stuff.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_08: Is that something that you guys were like, oh shoot, what do I do?
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we can just like cross our fingers every week.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, let's just uh get faster at making pizzas, the faster we make pizzas, the more money we make.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, it just you know, that's the more you make, the more, you know, whatever.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: And like um, there's a tip option, of course.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and the tips are shared.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: So I feel like that makes the employees pretty happy, you know.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: Like um everyone's working together, everyone's part of the team, everyone's out there cleaning tables, everyone's nice to the guests, and it bumps up their pay like a pretty decent amount.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_04: So wow, that's pretty nice tip pool, man.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_04: And especially whenever we're on the clock, we take like a I guess a shift off, so it's less people to share.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: The amount of tips for the shift are divided only amongst like two or three people versus five people.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_08: So interesting.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_08: So um, so um, what's the biggest misconception people have about what you actually do for Marty McBride?
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_04: Um misconception that we do.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_04: Uh pizzas.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_04: Slices.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_04: Okay, okay, okay.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, even not since a food truck, everyone's like, Do you have slices?
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: Or you it's only one size.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_04: Oh wow, yeah, yeah.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_04: It's always been one size.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: I even made like a little paper mache pizza that's the same size, and I just point to it.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's that it's that big.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's that big.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: I just got so tired of like repeating myself all the time.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's I think it's a pressure, I know.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah, I think it's a very cool concept.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and like personal.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_08: I think personal personal.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, like uh pizzas are you know, any pizza could be a personal pizza.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_04: Bill Murray said that or something like that.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_08: Man, um yes.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_08: So running a restaurant, obviously, you guys do a lot from sun up to sundown.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_08: What's uh what what part of running a restaurant drains you the most and what parts fill you back up?
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_04: I guess maybe starting a restaurant drains us the most because we didn't know what we were doing, we didn't know how hard it was gonna be, how much we had to prep.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: So we were there all day and we were drained and burnt out because I mean it was it was hard because like we didn't really know what to do at the very beginning, so we couldn't really teach people how to help us because like we're like, I don't know, man, we're just we just gotta cut up all this cheese.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: We need Pazerano, like I don't know.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but once we figured it out, then we could teach other people.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: Then I feel like that's when we first started to like get that like sense of relief, like, all right, I'm gonna go take a nap.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: Just getting faster at things, you know, faster, and everyone kind of like slowly but surely like learning how to do everything that we had taught them.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah, like I tell them, like, I'm gonna teach you how to do it, just learn it my way, please.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_04: And then, you know, once you perfect it, try to get faster.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_04: Right, right.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_04: Your way.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_04: If you can get faster, get faster.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_04: But like if you can't, then I feel like I've learned it to be like the fastest.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_04: You know, like I I've I've shaved the time off, you know, shaved a couple seconds here, a couple minutes later.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_04: But if you could do it, you know, do it.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_04: You know, I'm not gonna criticize your technique or whatever, as long as you come up with the same product, you know, it's great.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: I definitely feel like um, like you said, what fills you back up is the employees.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: Like they're so great, and you know, they go above and beyond, and like we just love them to death, and they're just always there for us.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: Like, if someone calls in and we're like stressed and like, oh, like I just really, I really need to go home, like I'm really tired.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: You know, someone would be like, oh, well, you know, I'll work, I'll do it, I got it, or you know, I'll make that extra batch of dough, or oh, I'll I'll help out so and so.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, no, they're the best.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_06: We love y'all so much.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: They they care, like, and I feel like that's really what makes the restaurant what it is, is because everyone just like really cares, right?
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and you can't you can't like fake that.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_04: And when they make better pizzas than make pizza, yeah.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_04: Yes, some of my employees, like my managers, Cindy and Gavin, we did let's both do a Garfield pizza, let's both do a cheese pizza, and then blind, you know, judging like with Amber or just one of someone, my pizza never wins somehow.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_04: Wow, that's so cool.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_04: I don't get mad, I'm proud.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: If I make me happy, like yeah, it makes us like confident, like when we go home and the restaurant is still doing its thing, or maybe we go like out of town or whatever, or deal with a family issue, like we're confident that you know they got it, they can handle it.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: Whatever happens, like we trust them.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: Like, we know y'all got this.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_08: What so what is the the I guess the hiring process look like now compared to when you first started hiring people?
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_04: Um have you gotten used to do you like referrals or like like a little bit?
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_04: Bring your friend in if you trust your friend.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: We have hired lots of friends of friends, and they're all great hires, and also desperation hires.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: There's some desperation hires, but they they turned out good.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: Half half of them, half of the desperation hires.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_04: Right on, yeah.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_08: We haven't fired a lot, and but uh we there's still there's still that side of business, you know what I mean?
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah, you still have to deal with that.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: You gotta do what you gotta do, you know.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: Just part of it.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_04: Everyone to be there, but not showing up, then I can't do it.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_08: You gotta you gotta work.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_08: It's your business.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_08: Help me, help me.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_08: So that's the operation.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_08: Uh Marty, you said you've always wanted to be home.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_08: Uh you're always away from home before this, uh, and made pizza on your own time, uh, so you could come back.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_08: Uh, when did that click?
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_08: Because you mentioned you you went to different places, right?
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_08: And yeah, experiencing different types of pizzas.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_04: Yes, so as soon as I graduated high school, uh 2005, joined the Marines, was gone, you know, until 2009, and then after that, you know, I was home for a couple years to at least 2012, and then I started to work in uh no, not the the railroad 2012, because I got laid off from a company, Schlumberger.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_04: I was like building directional drilling motors, I was here at home.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_04: Well, but then you know the oil field took a dump, so I had to, you know, I joined the the Navy and then I worked on the railroad for four years, and then that was like around the time like uh my nephews were growing up, and it was I was like missing like the little pee-wee football games, I was missing them growing up, and like it just it hurt, you know.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_04: I was like, man, I miss these guys, you know, they don't really have a dad in their life, so I was always kind of like their uncle dad.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_04: And um so I came up with a plan to come home, and the railroad wasn't it, and came home, started learning how to make pizzas, then I still needed money, so I joined I I did the the refineries.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_04: Uh that was all on the road, too.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_04: You know, turnarounds, you know, it's a tough life, you know.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_04: Much respect to everyone that works in the refineries.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_04: Uh it's it's it's a hard life, man.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_04: You know, it's dangerous.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_04: Uh and then um my last job was in St.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_04: Croix, Virgin Islands.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_04: Pretty cool.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_04: Um but then COVID hit, and then whatever I had saved up, uh came home and then just built uh built the food truck, try to perfect the pizza.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_04: It wasn't even ready whenever it opened.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_04: Like now it was still not like the best pizza, but it was getting better every day.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_04: I was like, I ran out of money, I just had to start it.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_04: I had to throw it out there, and then just over the years it's gotten better, and now it's where it's at now, and people seem to like it.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_08: I really like that.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_08: Um a lot of times you s when you start stuff, you're not all the way ready.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_04: You just gotta shoot from the hip, man.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_04: You just gotta pull the trigger and just do it.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_08: So crazy.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_08: Um what were you what were you where were you physically when you were teaching yourself to bake?
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_08: Just when you started the truck.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_04: Is that when you really started or uh no, because like on the railroad, every I would be on the road for about three months and I'd come home for two weeks.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_04: Just two weeks, and then I'd go back on the road.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_04: But those two weeks, it was just practice, practice, practice, you know.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_04: It was the first one I had, uh, the first pizza I made was uh because like the ovens were made for like traditional Neapolitan style pizzas.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_04: And you know, I I looked up the recipe online, I was like, I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna follow the rules.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_04: So crazy.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_04: See how like you know, the the the sauce is just like salt, basil, olive oil.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_04: Uh the dough is just, you know, uh real basic double-O flour dough.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_04: Um, and then just the toppings with just fresh mozzarella.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_04: Um, I didn't like it.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_04: It was just it was too bland for me for me because like working on the railroad and working in like the Virgin Islands and all over the country, I was having really good pizza.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_04: Good pizza, yeah, yeah.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_04: Like Neapolitan, I get it.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_04: It's tradition, it's it's a beautiful pizza.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_08: Well, what's what's an what's an example of Neapolitan that we know around here?
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_04: Uh Odis.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, not I mean it's a different style.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, yeah, of course.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_04: It's it's so many different styles, and like that's why you see all the skateboards, because it's styles and it's all art.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_04: It all kind of connects.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, um but uh yeah, uh, I just didn't I just didn't like it.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_08: So how come not burgers or or like I wanted burgers?
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_04: Like really Bob's burgers was real cool at the time.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_08: Wow, so crazy.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_08: So you just landed on pizza.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_08: I mean, you felt pizza was the was the answer.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_04: I pizza was more universal than burgers.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_04: Like, because I was going into uh hotels, I was in and out of hotels and motels working on the railroad, you know.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_04: Right, we're bouncing, working in different territories and stuff, uh from Mississippi all the way to New York, you know, for CSX Railroad.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_04: And pretty much every hotel you go in, there was like a little delivery pamphlet or something for pizza.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_04: Wow.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_04: Or it was just the easiest thing.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_04: So it was very it's not accessible pizza, you know.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_08: It's maybe like the oldest, like one of the oldest uh dishes, I guess maybe.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_08: I don't know, maybe it was it where it originated like makes me think of Italy, which has been around for years, you know.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_04: Well, if it wasn't for Mexico and our tomatoes.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_08: Hey, come on.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_08: We have pizza.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_08: Uh so Amber, when Marty first told you about the pizza plan, what did you think?
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_08: Like the plan for the restaurant or for the restaurant, for just starting the food truck, or I mean for the restaurant, we can say that.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: For the restaurant, yeah, we had because um he had already started the food truck whenever we met.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: He had like kind of just barely started, and then I think one of your cashiers had like MIA, I don't know what happened, but he's like, I just really need a cashier.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's like okay, well, you know, like I worked in restaurants before, it can't be that hard.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, the pizza's really good, you know, and I um started working in the food truck more and more, and um, we were selling out a lot, and you know, I was trying to help as much as I could just being there and you know, like getting the like refining the menu and little things just all over, and we were just selling out and selling out, and I was like, well, like I I would support a restaurant, you know, like I'll help you, like I want to get out of teaching.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, for real.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, um, and like like on our first date, like we had talked about we're at the keg room.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: We were at the keg room, we were up and um you had said that you wanted like a bar slash an art gallery slash a restaurant.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, dude, that sounds like really great, you know?
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: And he loved art.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: I was an art teacher.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, tell me more.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but yeah, like I was I was in it like from the beginning.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: I was just like, he just needs like a little, like a little tweak.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: Let me help you, let me help you.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_04: I'm bretting show to advance and forget flour to toss the pizzas in.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_04: Forget the pizza pizza.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: I was always like the one, like, okay, I guess I gotta go run to the house and pick this isn't up, and then I'll meet you back over there.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_04: So cool.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_04: A ladl.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: A ladle, I know.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_04: I'm not gonna just scoot soften the pizza.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: It was hard because you know, like you had to wash the stuff, so you had to bring it inside the house, you had to wash it, but then you had to remember to put it back in the trailer.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_06: No shit.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but we figured it out.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we eventually made like checklists and stuff like that.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_04: Eventually, we got smart about this.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I got a lot smarter.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_04: I needed a boss.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_08: That's all it was.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_00: Like, yeah, we figured it out.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_08: That's awesome.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: We got it down to a science, and you're still working together too.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_08: That's that's awesome.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_08: That's a good thing.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_08: That's a good thing.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_08: Uh, the pizza give you a new identity or permission to stop chasing one.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_08: I don't know where I put that question.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_08: I guess um like doing pizza, like did because obviously you guys worked something other than pizza.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_08: You did also, right?
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_08: You taught what art for 10 plus years or whatever.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_08: So did you feel like you you found a new a new self or something like that when you know what I'm saying?
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um before I was a teacher, I worked in restaurants for like nine years.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: I waited tables, I did prep, I was a manager for a little bit.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um I just loved it.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: I love like the energy, I love the chaos, um late nights, and then I started teaching, and I loved it.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: The kids are great, but you know, you do have to be like I don't want to say like a role model, but like you kind of gotta you gotta behave.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: You know, like people are looking up to you, and you know, it's a little intimidating.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and you always gotta go to bed early, you gotta be there really early, you know, and long hours.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: I was really tired, but I feel like working in a restaurant is just more it's just more fun, it's more lively, and I feel like I get to be myself more.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, I was I was always missed flat as a teacher, but now I just get to be myself as like working at Marty McPies.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_08: That's cool.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_08: It's like that's that sense of freedom that you have.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_04: I I think I'm just like proud of myself, you know, and I just wanted to make my mom proud, first of all.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_04: Like, you know, she's been the hardest working woman I've ever known, you know.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_04: So, like, she's always worked for herself, you know, she cleans houses still to this day.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_04: Wow, and uh she helps us out at the restaurant too, you know, she'll come by and clean our rags and stuff.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_04: So it's still like a family, a family thing.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: And oh yeah, no.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: She brings everyone food, of course.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: And she's like, here, eat it, eat it, eat it in front of me right now.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's like okay.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_04: It just feels good that like, you know, my whole life, you know, I've always had all these jobs, you know, all these like real manly jobs, hands-on stuff, and I was always good at all of them.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_04: You know, I just never got the promotions, never got the raises, and like I always wanted to be the boss, and you know, now finally reaching that point, it it feels good.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_04: Like I knew I could do it, and I I were doing it, you know, and it's I don't know.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_04: It just and being here from Corpus, you know, it it's nice that the community has accepted me, you know, it's just a kid from 17th Street, you know.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_04: Wow.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_04: Um, the same neighborhood, you know, lived right there near Buttercrust, you know, my whole life.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_04: And then uh, you know, just finally making something, making a name for ourselves.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_08: Do you feel like do you feel like this whole creative process is has helped you because you're a veteran, right?
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_08: You've been to Iraq.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_08: Obviously, there's a lot of mind stuff happening, you know what I mean?
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_08: Do you feel like this had this has helped you?
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_08: This creative part of your life, you know what I'm saying?
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I mean, those are part of me, you know, going through the whole disability process, you know, like I thought back, like, I also wanted to make my friends proud that I lost in Iraq.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_04: Like, you know, I I I still talk with a lot of my friends, you know, that I went over there with and they messaged me and they're just like so proud of me.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_04: And you know, I go visit them sometimes in Chicago, and like it just feels good, you know, like I don't know.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_04: Awesome, man.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_08: Well um, so what what were some uh before we go to the next section, uh uh what were some of the biggest uh failures early on?
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_04: Um I guess I mean it's been a learning process.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's definitely we've definitely made mistakes along the way, a lot of mistakes along the way.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um just I want to say like management.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: It comes down to like being maybe a little bit too lenient, like letting people slide when you really should be like, that's not acceptable.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: You know, like you can't do that.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um I mean, I think that's really about it.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I think what we've been trying to do is just like really slow and steady progress, like not taking on more than we can handle.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: Like when we first opened, we had a very small menu.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we were only open for like lunch, and then we closed, and then we reopened for dinner, um, and we kept that way until we We figured it out, you know, and then once we figured it out, once people got trained, then um, like, okay, well, let's introduce wings, okay, let's introduce salads.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: Let's um let's be open all day.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: All right, let's new, let's do happy hour.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, and I feel like that's really was like really beneficial for us because we didn't take on too much at a time.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so it's just like little by little we kind of grew.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, there's been like you know, things that I wouldn't say necessarily failed, but you know, we've learned from.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, definitely, yeah.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_04: We've always been able to adapt, and like the other day uh the the fridge went out.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_04: Oh yeah, you know, the before, you know, it wasn't too busy, so I told my manager I was like, I'll be there like around nine or whatever.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_04: And then they sent me the picture, and I was like, I'll be right there.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_04: But they handled it just fine, you know.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_04: The the the fridge failed, but they were able to handle it.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_04: They were right on top of it, they made the dough, they started like another batch, you know.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_04: It didn't really set us back, you know.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_04: We learned from it, and now I have yeah, a little plug that warns us if it goes.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I really like that.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_04: I like that word adapt.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, it's very good.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I mean I've always had to adapt.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_00: Like we'll see kind of something going like a little sideways, but then we'll like okay, like we know how to handle this because this happened a while back, or I can see what's going on, I can see what's happening, so we'll kind of you know, like make adjustments as we go.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_04: Like, if I gotta make a tool or something, like that, I'll customize and build a tool or something, you know, like that that that helps us, you know.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_08: But figure it out, figure it out.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah, so why Marty McPies?
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_04: Uh well my name's Martin.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_04: Uh but I didn't come up with it.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_04: My buddy uh Josh did.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_04: I wanted wise pies.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, but then when I was working in like Tullahoma, I think it's Indiana or something like that.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_04: Um there was a uh a restaurant called Wise Pies, and it was a pizza restaurant.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_04: I had it, and it was like sliced New York style pizza, and it was good.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_04: But I'd already seen, you know, someone else already had the name, you know, maybe I couldn't come up with anything.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_04: And my buddy was just like it was gonna be the first time I was selling pizza, the first time I sold pizza was at Studio B.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_04: Uh Tony, I asked Tony if I could sell pizza, and they wanted to put me on the flyer, and I couldn't come up with anything.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_04: And my buddy Josh, that got me in touch with them, just like he's like, just Marty McPie.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_04: So I was like, that's pretty slick.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_04: Came up with it pretty quick, and I just rolled with it.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_04: And it was it was fun.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_04: And then I got a cool pizza tattoo, and then I ended up making that my logo.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I asked Matt over here, I was like, Can I use this tattoo as my logo?
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_04: He's like, What's your tattoo?
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_02: It's like, yeah, but you did it.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_04: You know, it's I don't know what if there's a gray area, I but the the boards are a nice touch, yeah.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_08: Skateboards, yeah, man.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_04: It's nice to I really like that.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_04: It's the culture, man.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_04: Like skateboarding culture is has always been the most welcoming culture, you know.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_04: Like it it we all share the same passion for skateboarding.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_04: You know, if anyone wants the skateboard, there's always been support.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_04: You know, if you you could try a trick a thousand times, fall a thousand times, but the one time you land it, everyone's gonna cheer you on.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_04: Everyone's like so stoked that you know, you worked so hard for this, and you know, there's always that one saying, like, one more try.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_04: And that one more try could be ten more tries, and it's just like I just love the culture, and that's what I think about pizza.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_04: It's just a welcoming food.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_04: You know, we could all share it, we could all be happy about it, and you know, it's just it's universal, you know, and and and it's fun.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_04: And the first 30 seconds of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 Secret of the Ooze intro, you watch it and it's all pizza, and it's all fun.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_04: There's like a cop and he has like someone arrested, and he's just eating pizza and they're just like happy.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_04: You know, like it's it can you cannot you never be in a bad mood, like skateboarding or like eating pizza.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah, the old 90s culture.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_08: Like pizza, pizza.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_08: Ah, it's mad.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah, yeah.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah, you're building the vision.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_08: Uh uh, what um but it's happening after the Marines Navy Iraq PTSD.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_08: Uh you want to talk about that a little?
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_04: Uh yeah, it took me 17 years to talk about it.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah, I got out.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_04: Like the the incident happened in 2008, and like um, it was crazy because it was only like two months into my deployment in Iraq, and then a couple weeks after the incident happened, my four friends, you know, they got hit with an IED and they're Humvee.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_04: Um like a couple weeks later, uh, we had a little video conference with my mom, and it was like whenever video chats were barely happening or whatever, and uh it was on the news, and then I had to lie to my mom that everything's fine, we're all good out here.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_04: When my friends had just passed away, and then I think after that I kind of just buried it and didn't talk about it, and then I told her, you know, I was in the Marines, but I'm good.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_00: Oh wow, yo, yeah, but I knew like I had only known him for a couple hours, you know, and the way he was talking about it, I was just like, Oh yeah, no, maybe you should go talk to somebody.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_04: And then uh and then uh I went to go get a tattoo at Pinnacle.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_04: My buddy Lucas, uh, he was telling me about his experience of like going through the process.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_04: He was a veteran too, he's a veteran too.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_04: And then I told him my story, and he was kind of just like, yeah, you should probably talk to somebody.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_04: Like he kind of went through some stuff.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_04: I was like, okay, I'll do that, you know, we'll see.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_04: And then, you know, just the the stress and the pressure of like opening the restaurant, you know, it was like all at once, you know, we just bought a house, we we we just uh bought a restaurant basically.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_04: Uh what else happened?
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_00: Well, in like this was like kind of as the restaurant was opening, but yeah, like we opened the restaurant, we moved in together, we got engaged, and we got married in like six months.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_03: It was like six months.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_03: Oh yeah, marriage.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, one key ingredient we're missing here.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and uh dude, it's just like all finally like broke me.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_04: Go ahead.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_04: And yeah, then I was going through the process and I had to talk about it, and then I guess they dude, I looked at like their criteria or whatever they're writing about me, and they're just like unkempt, looks like a like basically, you know, didn't maintain hygiene, but I was just like scrubbing and in sweats, dude.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_03: I was like, this is like Tuesday, bro.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_03: I was like, I'm like dope, what are you talking about?
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_03: Scruff I got unkempt.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_04: I was like, unkempt, I was like, dude, I'm fine, but you know, I guess, you know, if you're in sweats and crying talking about your experiences, it kind of looks a little crazy, rough.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_04: Wow, yeah.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_04: So yeah, I mean, you know, talked it out.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_04: Uh they kind of like gave me a little therapy and you know, made sure I was okay, but uh went through the process and it's you know, glad I went through it.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_04: You know, the BA's not all that bad.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah, right on.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah, I've I've had some guys on here talking about the BA, like sometimes it's a d it's a difficult process.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah, they definitely made him like jump through like all the hoops.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and that of course they make it you know hard, so you'll kind of give up, but you know, you just gotta stick with it and just keep going, keep going, keep going to all the meetings, keep saying, you know, keep saying your story, you know.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah, that's awesome.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_08: Uh do you do you ever see uh PTSD show up now, like in daily life?
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_08: Like, do you notice it?
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_08: Uh do you feel like you're more knowledgeable about it?
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, no, I definitely uh they gave me a therapist, you know.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_04: I I was I was going through therapy and talked about it, and you know, I've learned, I've grown from it, and you know, I I definitely snap less.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_04: Uh you know, from starting the restaurant, you know, I I would kind of be military, but now I'm just chill it out.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_04: You know, now that everyone kind of knows what to do and it's a lot easier, it's a smoother process.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_04: Um I pretty much don't have to tell people you know anything except for please show up to your shift, you know, on time.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_04: You know, uh I'd appreciate it.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_04: But now it's like there's no more pizzas being burnt because when we first started and people first start cooking and learning, yeah.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, house pies all day.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_04: We call house pies like the pies that are maybe a little burnt or a little messed up.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_00: Or if they like get a hole in them, you know, like when you launch them, um, like maybe a little hole will pop up, or they'll be just like super oblong.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_00: Like if you don't have just like the right touch when you launch it, they'll be like soaked, like way long.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, if there's like a little drop of like sauce on the peel.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_04: Just like little anything can happen.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_00: But hey, no one never leaves work hungry.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, those house pieces.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_00: There's nothing wrong with that exactly.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_08: Y'all give them to the cat, y'all give them to the cats.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_03: No, I don't think they've even eaten pizza ever.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think they have.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah, I don't know.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_08: Do y'all want to disclose how many cats y'all have?
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_08: Six.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_00: I had two, she had two, and then we accidentally adopted a brother-sister combo.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_04: So we have their aunt, and then my mom.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_04: Well, I got the ant from my mom, and then that cat had another litter.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_04: So it's like they're family.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_08: I go to the plant, the plant in Helena, and there's a black cat there.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_08: The other day he asked me if I had a permit.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_08: Because he's always there.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_08: He's always like the cat for the plant they eat him and stuff.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_08: So he's like, uh, where's your where's your PPE?
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_04: Do you have all your PPE?
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I love talking to my cats.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_00: They're so entertaining.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_00: Like, they're just hilarious.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_04: This is my big orange cat.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_04: Nice.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_04: It's my uh tortoise cat right there.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_08: Wow, you still getting are you still getting some?
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_08: Uh you still getting work done on like tattoos and stuff?
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, we just got what was my last one?
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, our uh anniversary.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_04: It's 1221.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, I like the Amber and Martin.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, I don't know.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_04: 1221 a.m.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you can see mine.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, so cool.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_00: I I got six tattoos last year.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_00: I was so excited.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was like my my New Year's resolution.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_00: Like, get more tattoos.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_08: Oh, nice.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_08: Do y'all go to the same spot or uh uh we do pinnacle?
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_00: Usually pinnacle, yeah.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_00: We usually do get uh at the same time.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_08: Oh, okay.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah, William Barry, Cindy, well.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_08: Oh, cool, man.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_08: That's awesome.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_08: Uh what's yeah, hey cousin.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_08: Uh he says, What's up, y'all?
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_08: I'm glad we finally got on the show.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_08: Yes, sir.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_08: Yes, sir.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_08: What's going on, rap?
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah, man.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah, my cousin, he's been following lately, uh, like on the page and stuff like that.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_04: He's doing his doing doing his stuff out there, man.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_04: He's a great supporter, man.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_04: Great supporter.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_04: You know, he's always making sure checking in with me, VFW, the newsletters and stuff like that.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_04: He's on it.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_08: He's a good uh leader.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_08: What's that community like for you?
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_08: I mean, do you do you visit as often or or not as often as I'd like.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_04: Um I'm just super busy.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_04: Um and right now it's you know, now we're working more shifts and we're there more often.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_04: So, you know, just haven't been there.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_08: Are there they are there days in the restaurant when it's harder than in the refinery or being uh in in the classroom?
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_08: The office 4th of July.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_04: Oh crazy.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_00: Because the fireworks right there.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um and of course, everyone, oh I'm just gonna get a pizza before the fireworks.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone can get a pizza before the fireworks.
• 34:26
  unknown: I'm sorry.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_08: Well, it's right underneath the hotel, too.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_08: What's that?
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_08: I mean, y'all have a lot of traffic from that pizza.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, it's a lot of railroad people, and I always kind of like uh I always kind of want to talk to them about the railroad, but they don't know anything about the company I worked for.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_04: Oh wow.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_04: Uh but uh yeah, only like uh locals don't stay at that hotel, they don't allow locals to stay at that hotel.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_04: Seriously, wow.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_04: Always people from out of town.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_04: You know, it's always like, oh, what's your phone number for the order?
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_04: And they're like 956.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_04: I'm in my head, I'm just like, cut.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_03: I don't say that.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, it's always like different uh phone numbers, and it's kind of cool, and they they they come back sometimes, they'll order their one and they're like, so good.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_04: Let me just get one to go.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's like and we get a lot of people um from out of the country also like uh it was like these Italians, they were there for like two weeks.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, literally.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_04: Is that like the ultimate test or what dude?
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_04: They were there every day.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_00: They came every day.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, yeah.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't tired the pizza yet, and they can't.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_04: There's other restaurants downtown.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_04: Like, I'm not saying like go somewhere else, but thank you.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_04: Like, I appreciate it, but dang, like it can't be that good.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_04: Like I guess I love it, yeah.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah, that's maybe reminded of him home or home or something, you know.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_08: Uh yeah, so Amber, uh, what do you see in Marty that made you believe he could build what he's what I guess what y'all built?
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I always thought, you know, Martin's very creative.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, he comes up with really fun specials.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that's of course like why I like the pizza so much, because it was like different.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_00: It was like really different pizza.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_00: He's really creative, he's very passionate, and he knows everybody.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_00: Like he literally knows everybody.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_00: I can't walk like I can't go anywhere with him without him saying hi to like 10 people.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_08: I used to work at Jack Ashes and he just got like connected, you know.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_08: So cool.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_08: Networking and stuff, I guess.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah, sociable.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_08: And what's what should people understand about supporting veteran-owned businesses?
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I mean, definitely come by.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, for sure, come visit.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um it's we're just a small business, we're trying our best.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_04: Um, you know, like yeah, it it's just like the pizza that I created.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_04: It doesn't like fall into any category, so it's literally just a pizza of its own creation.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_04: Like it was, you know, I like the sauce from this area, you know, from this uh restaurant in Georgia, and I like the the crust from this other place in Chicago or something.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_04: So it was just like I created something, and it's I have no kitchen experience.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_04: I've I've never been, I'm not traditionally, you know, uh like that's something else too.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_00: Like Martin will like learn something like like it's nothing.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_00: Like he'll just watch a YouTube video, he's like, Yeah, I got it.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_03: I was like, until you make it.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_08: So awesome.
• 37:28
  unknown: Yeah.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_08: Do you so like do you do you mention that you're a veteran-owned a veteran-owned business or I didn't for the longest time.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_04: I didn't for the longest time.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_04: Honestly, no one even knew I owned it in the the food truck because my back was always turned and I was always faced towards the wall making pizzas.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_04: So for the almost every time everyone thought the cashier was any cashier I had, they thought the cashier was Marty.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_04: Uh I'd have to turn around and be like, that's me.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_04: You know.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_04: I never like told people that I owned it or that I was a veteran.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_04: Like I kind of just always relied on people liking the pizza.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_04: You know, I didn't want to use it as like not a crutch or whatever.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_04: You know, it's of course, yes.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_08: You know, that's that's kind of why I'm asking.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_08: Like, maybe some businesses use that purposefully so they could get more business.
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_04: I started because uh our advisor from Del Mar, Teresa Moffitt.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_04: So if you're gonna open up a business, yeah, go reach out to the small business development center at Del Mar.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, very helpful.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, she said I should probably start using my veteran presence or my my whatever ad you know your cred.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, start using it, you know.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_04: You know, you could reach other people and there's more opportunities for you.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_04: So I took her advice and yeah, it's kind of helps.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah, yeah.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_08: Is there a discount for veterans or okay?
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_08: 20%.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_04: We give someone.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, really?
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_08: Wow, that's cool.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah, yeah.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_08: What are some of the discounts y'all that y'all do get?
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_04: Uh the hotel gets 10%.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_04: The hotel employees uh that that they don't really, I mean, they just work at the hotel, but since they clean the restrooms, because we don't clean the restrooms.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we don't have a restroom in the rest in the restaurant.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_08: Right.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_08: So they use the hotel restroom at the end.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, like we look out for each other, of course.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_00: Like we love all the employees at the best western, they're so great.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_00: We love them.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_00: Your neighbors basically for sure.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_08: Awesome.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_08: So after service came, uh after service came railroad and the refineries, totally different.
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_08: Wow.
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_08: Uh, were you baking through all of that?
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_04: Uh yeah.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_04: Um, I was baking and just eating pizza everywhere I was going.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, like I said, like on the railroad, I was always eating almost every pizza.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_04: I think like my favorite pizza was it was a little place right next to a Piggly Wiggly in Montezuma, Georgia.
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_04: Papa's pizza.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_04: It was just so good.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_04: Wow.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_04: You know, I I I didn't understand it.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_04: I did I was why is this pizza so good?
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_04: And why can't we have this in corpus?
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, there's it's a different style than what I created, but like I took things from them.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_04: I was like, there's a little sweetness to this.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_04: I don't know if it's in the sauce or if it's in the dough or the cheese is just good.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah, like but um You basically do you consider yourself like a culinary artist?
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_08: Because that's what it seems like.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_08: Do you would you consider what would y'all do art?
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, for sure.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, for sure.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I but like I told you that like pretty early on.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, babe, you're an artist.
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_00: Like, shut up.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, no, you are.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_04: No, but you know, I mean, I look at it like it, like I like we could go back to skateboarding, like you know, there's so many styles of skateboarding, you could be technical, you could be a smooth style vert, you know, a hippie skater or whatever, you know.
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah, there's all different styles, like same with pizzas.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_04: There's deep dish, there's Chicago, there's uh Bar style, Neapolitan, New York, Sicilian.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_04: Like I could go on, you know.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, yeah, but uh mine doesn't fall into that category, which is cool too, you know, because it's art, you know, like all the skateboarding uh styles, it's it's all beautiful, it's all art.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_04: And a cake flip could look so many different ways, you know.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_04: It could be sloppy, but it gets a job done.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_04: You know, or it could be the cleanest cake flip ever, and it's still a cake flip.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_04: You know, you play a game of skate, it counts.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_04: Yep you know, so it's like pizza, it doesn't have to be a certain style to be pizza.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_04: It's pizza.
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_04: And it's it's it's still delicious, you know, just however you make it.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_04: Every pizza has a place, you know, and uh I love that, you know, pizza.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_00: I I do love that there's like no rules with our pizza.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_00: You can we have ranch.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_00: If you want pizza, you ranch together, or if you want to put honey on your phone.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_00: You make open the ranch is really good.
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_04: No, it is I want to say we have the best ranch in town.
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_00: People like look down their nose when I say, Do y'all want ranch?
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_00: And they're like, No.
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_03: Alright, that's on your ranch.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_03: You could you could try my ranch.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_03: You can take shots of this ranch, all right?
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_08: Like, it's that good.
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah, so cool.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_08: Well, how did you come up with a recipe for ranch?
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_08: Wow, that's that's pretty cool.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I just put like a shit ton of garlic and dill.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_00: That's all it is.
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah, yeah, little citrus in there.
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_00: A little lemon, yeah.
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_08: Well, so what classifies it as ranch stint?
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, uh, it's like a mayo base with sour cream and buttermilk.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um interesting.
• 42:35
  unknown: Yep.
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_08: That's so cool.
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah, it reminds me of mu because I'm a musician uh I got a degree in music.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_08: So like what you're talking about, like kickflip is a kickflip, pizza's a pizza, you know, pizzas is just different, made differently.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_08: I guess in music, if I'm looking at it from that angle, musicians take from other musicians and just make their own type.
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_04: You could still music.
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_04: You could tell just by hearing like soul.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_04: Like the the every every musician has a different touch, a different sound.
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_04: Like it's still the same notes, yeah.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_04: But it's just how it's played, you know.
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, that's it.
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_04: You know, technical or super passionate.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_04: It's music.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_08: That's interesting because how do you teach somebody who's not you to make it like you?
• 43:19
  SPEAKER_08: You know what I'm saying?
• 43:19
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah, I mean, well even like a painting or something like that.
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_04: They're not all exactly we all don't make the same pizza.
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_04: Some might have a little bit more crust.
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but it's like but it's like you have to have been looking at this pizza for a certain amount of time to like understand the subtleties, you know, between like, oh well, you have to press it just a little bit more right here in order for it to behave this way.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_00: So, like, as a beginner, like you don't really know what you're doing, and it takes a couple months, maybe even a year, to like actually be pretty good at it, you know, and to really have a feel for it.
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_08: Wow, man.
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_08: So, how do y'all feel about I guess employees that are not even there that long and then You got another have to have another employee come in and then reteach them.
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_00: They definitely have to like work up.
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_00: Like for the most part, um there's like cashiers, um, but then the guys usually start as like a dishwasher, then if they like show up to work on time and you know they do what they're told and whatnot, then they'll move up to cook.
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_00: And then once they learn that, then they'll move up to tosser.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_00: And tosser is kind of like top top tier.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_00: You know, like you know, you know your stuff if you're a tosser.
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah, you made it.
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_04: It's cool.
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_04: Like, it took me four years to like really get the hang of it.
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_04: I've made thousands of pizzas.
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_04: I think I got carpal tongue.
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_04: Like every morning, I'm just like, these hands up Lord, please help me.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_04: You know, my arms fought, like, you know, I I have the practice, you know, but it's taken me four years, and then I'm able, I've gotten to a point where I could teach them how to do it, and they catch on in like a week.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_04: And I'm just gonna go.
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_00: And some people are like naturals at it.
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_00: Like, some people will struggle a little bit, they'll take a little bit longer, they still get there, but then there's some other employees that just boop, boop, boop, boop, and they just get it like right away, and we're like, No, that was cool.
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_04: It's it's it's easier now because we're like in a controlled environment.
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_04: Whereas when I was in the food truck, when it's hot out, it was getting like 120 degrees, and the dough acts different, so I had to like either make them super fast so like it doesn't stick to the table, yeah.
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_04: Or you know, I I I adapted, I learned, but now it's so much easier in a controlled environment.
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_04: Like in my head, I'm like, I used to walk through the snow, barefoot, you know, you know, you don't know my struggle.
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_04: I paved, you know, I paved this path, you know.
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_04: It's like you know, it but it I I I love it, you know, it's it's they catch on, and I just pass on my knobs.
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_08: It's like you are now yeah, you don't have to go outside and you don't have to shovel snow anymore.
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah, how did so how did your co-workers react or when you were working in their fine before you started doing this?
• 46:04
  SPEAKER_08: When did this how did like people people around you how did they react like, oh, I'm gonna do pizza?
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, every okay, so I only worked in the refinery for like a couple months, and it started at my first job in the refinery was uh scalpel, and it was just a tough job, you know, it wasn't for me, but every time you know I would show up, be like, I'm gonna do a food truck, oh yeah, pizza.
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_08: Like, I don't want to do this all the time.
• 46:31
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I totally move.
• 46:32
  SPEAKER_08: I can relate to that.
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_08: I'm getting out of this guy.
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_08: I'm jumping ship soon.
• 46:37
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and then uh I I still see him around town, like you know, at the Trade Center, Oscar, the one guy we bumped into, and he was like one of my coworkers scaffolding.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_04: He's like, dude, you did it.
• 46:49
  SPEAKER_04: Wow, and then just the other day, uh, this guy Anthony, I worked with him in Motiva in Bayside or whatever it's called, and uh Pay Town, whatever.
• 47:00
  SPEAKER_04: Um he came in, I was like, why do you look familiar?
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_03: And he had like, you know, he had this haircut, you know, I can watch a haircut.
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_03: And I and uh I looked at him, I was like, why do you look familiar?
• 47:14
  SPEAKER_04: He's like, we worked in Motiva, we worked together.
• 47:16
  SPEAKER_04: I was like, oh could we uh I ended up taking the Boilermaker test and like all my knowledge, it's not even that hard of a test.
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_04: Uh but like I passed it, no problem, Boilermaker, instantly.
• 47:29
  SPEAKER_04: Um, and then we worked together, and he he showed up, he's like, Oh shit, you did it, dude.
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_04: Like, and just a couple people have come in and they're like, You're doing it, man.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_04: You really put it out there and you're doing it.
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_08: Like, wow, it's crazy.
• 47:45
  SPEAKER_08: How long do you how long did you work the food truck before you got the brick and mortar?
• 47:51
  SPEAKER_08: Three years?
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_00: I think three years.
• 47:53
  SPEAKER_04: 21 to 2024?
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_04: And then Yeah, and then we opened June 2024.
• 48:03
  SPEAKER_04: It's been a year and a half.
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 48:07
  SPEAKER_04: Two years in June.
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_08: What scares you the most industry work or entrepreneurship?
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_04: Uh industry is very dangerous, man.
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_04: Like working in okay, so we were like restoring uh old refinery in uh the Virgin Islands, you know, it was just all rusted out.
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_04: There was almost no rules out there.
• 48:27
  SPEAKER_04: Like OSHA was kind of there, but not really.
• 48:30
  SPEAKER_04: They're just like chucking stuff off, like all the tanks were like really uh like uh deadly exposure gases, like you know, it was just crazy, you know.
• 48:43
  SPEAKER_04: It's a hard job, you know.
• 48:46
  SPEAKER_04: And I remember one time, thank god, we didn't like hit nobody, but I was working with someone on top of a tower, and we're trying to like bolt down this one thing, and like the nut, no, not the the socket, and it was like maybe like a two-inch socket.
• 49:03
  SPEAKER_04: Dude fell like maybe 50 feet down, and I was just like, I think we killed somebody, dude.
• 49:10
  SPEAKER_04: We I just heard a boom, and I was just scared.
• 49:13
  SPEAKER_04: I was like, we killed somebody, like, because if that landed on someone's head, I was like, dude, we're done.
• 49:18
  SPEAKER_04: Like, we're fired, we're going to jail, we killed somebody.
• 49:21
  SPEAKER_04: Like, I was just freaking out.
• 49:23
  SPEAKER_04: Like, I've never, you know, I wasn't in the refineries that long, you know.
• 49:26
  SPEAKER_04: I was like, dude, this is this is it for me.
• 49:29
  SPEAKER_04: Like, but luckily it just landed on like some some grading.
• 49:34
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I was like, we're not doing that again.
• 49:36
  SPEAKER_04: Like, I I wanted out of that job.
• 49:38
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah.
• 49:39
  SPEAKER_08: If you work in the refineries, you get so used to it that you you forget, like, this is actually dangerous what we're doing out here, you know.
• 49:46
  SPEAKER_08: And then something happens, you're like, oh, and then it wakes you up again, like explosions that happen.
• 49:51
  SPEAKER_04: You see the stories on you know channel three.
• 49:53
  SPEAKER_08: It's like, yeah, yeah, it's dangerous stuff.
• 49:55
  SPEAKER_08: So, Amber, uh, you were watching this uh while teaching full-time.
• 49:59
  SPEAKER_08: Uh, what was that conversation like?
• 50:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I mean, teaching is teaching.
• 50:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I was helping him after school, so I would a lot of times go straight from the classroom to, you know, downtown art walk or whatever.
• 50:16
  SPEAKER_00: And it was hard.
• 50:17
  SPEAKER_00: I was pretty stressed out.
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I do think it was worth it.
• 50:21
  SPEAKER_00: You know, like I had a lot of fun.
• 50:22
  SPEAKER_00: Like, this is what I wanted to do.
• 50:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I love teaching.
• 50:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it was really great.
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_00: All the kids are great.
• 50:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I still have some of my students come in to the restaurant.
• 50:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um, some of them, you know, draw little pictures for us and we put them up on the wall.
• 50:37
  SPEAKER_06: Cool.
• 50:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um Jack.
• 50:38
  SPEAKER_00: Jack Scale, nice.
• 50:41
  SPEAKER_00: He's got some couple pieces.
• 50:42
  SPEAKER_00: He's very talented, yeah.
• 50:44
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, my teacher friends come by as well.
• 50:46
  SPEAKER_00: They're always very supportive.
• 50:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I just I was so burnt out um teaching.
• 50:54
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I would get home from being around, you know, like hundreds of kids, and I was just tired.
• 51:01
  SPEAKER_00: I was so tired.
• 51:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I just knew that like I don't want to do that forever.
• 51:06
  SPEAKER_00: I was just exhausted.
• 51:08
  SPEAKER_00: I wouldn't do anything after I got home from um teaching.
• 51:12
  SPEAKER_00: I would just like go lay down on the couch because I was just like done.
• 51:15
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, I'm gonna take a shower, I'm gonna lay on the couch, and then that's my life.
• 51:18
  SPEAKER_03: And I just met me and I was like, let's go have a drink, let's go party.
• 51:22
  SPEAKER_03: Like, come on.
• 51:23
  SPEAKER_03: I'll carry you.
• 51:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 51:26
  SPEAKER_00: I was about to do it.
• 51:26
  SPEAKER_00: It was oh for sure.
• 51:28
  SPEAKER_00: We had fun.
• 51:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but yeah, like I just I mean, teaching is a great job, obviously.
• 51:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I could have done it for you know forever until I retired.
• 51:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but there's just something about, you know, like I mean, obviously working with my best friend every day, and you get to be your own boss, you get to make the rules, you get to do whatever you want to do.
• 51:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but then you have to be there, obviously.
• 51:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um but yeah, I I definitely want to say that teaching was very difficult.
• 51:57
  SPEAKER_00: I want to say more difficult than the restaurant.
• 52:01
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, yeah, it it takes a lot out of you.
• 52:03
  SPEAKER_08: And you and you were an art teacher, right?
• 52:06
  SPEAKER_08: Wow.
• 52:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 52:07
  SPEAKER_08: You would think like, oh, it's a creative aspect, might still like it.
• 52:11
  SPEAKER_00: It was really great.
• 52:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I feel like um my management style in the classroom is very similar to how I manage the restaurant.
• 52:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, like I would train the kids early in the school year how to do things.
• 52:24
  SPEAKER_00: Every all the kids had little jobs.
• 52:26
  SPEAKER_00: They had like, you know, art experts.
• 52:29
  SPEAKER_00: Like, this is who you go talk to if you have a question about how to do the art project.
• 52:33
  SPEAKER_00: There were kids that, you know, pass out all the supplies who would push in all the chairs, clean up everything.
• 52:39
  SPEAKER_00: And then I eventually, after they were trained, I would just kind of step back.
• 52:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 52:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I would just kind of like oversee all the little kids doing their thing.
• 52:46
  SPEAKER_03: That's how it's like at the shop.
• 52:48
  SPEAKER_00: And that's how it's at the shop now.
• 52:49
  SPEAKER_00: It took a minute to train them all, but now I'm like, Yeah, got this.
• 52:52
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah, I was gonna ask that.
• 52:54
  SPEAKER_08: Uh uh how what you had to do, and like like which skills did you transfer over to what you're doing?
• 52:59
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, yeah, definitely like management, um, yeah, and dealing with kids.
• 53:07
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah, not to mention parents.
• 53:08
  SPEAKER_08: Oh, shoosh.
• 53:10
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, for sure.
• 53:11
  SPEAKER_08: So what what can what convinced you to to leave after tenure?
• 53:14
  SPEAKER_08: Like what was what would you say was like the moment like we're gonna do this, or I'm gonna leave, you know.
• 53:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I mean, after a couple years teaching, I I kind of knew like what else is out there, you know, like I love this, but also this is might not be what I want to do all the time.
• 53:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then I just met Martin, and at first I was like, whatever, he's just like a guy, you know, like we'll see where this goes.
• 53:41
  SPEAKER_00: But the more I kind of work with him, um, I was like, you know what?
• 53:45
  SPEAKER_00: Like this is this is actually like gonna be something, you know, like and he's it got more serious.
• 53:52
  SPEAKER_00: We were like selling out all the time, and you know, popularity was rising, and I was just like, I think we can do this.
• 53:57
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I you know, I think that our skills combined, you know, like our very diverse backgrounds.
• 54:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, like we're very different people, you know.
• 54:05
  SPEAKER_00: He was, you know, refineries, military, all that, and I I did have a lot of restaurant knowledge, and I loved restaurants, and I missed like the kind of like fast-paced, kind of chaotic late nights and all that of restaurant work.
• 54:18
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, I I definitely kind of wanted out.
• 54:21
  SPEAKER_08: Wow, that's so cool.
• 54:22
  SPEAKER_08: Um, did you have any colleagues?
• 54:24
  SPEAKER_08: Uh what's up, Pete Trevino on Facebook?
• 54:27
  SPEAKER_08: Um yeah, so when you so you say you mentioned that you sold out a lot.
• 54:32
  SPEAKER_08: Was there a like a following from just friends to start off with?
• 54:38
  SPEAKER_08: Or like what what would you say could cause like those customers to come in for you guys to sell out all the time?
• 54:45
  SPEAKER_00: I do feel like it was art walk.
• 54:46
  SPEAKER_00: Art walk was intense, it was great, um, but it was intense.
• 54:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, that was definitely our busiest night of the month every month.
• 54:56
  SPEAKER_00: And we would uh basically prep all day.
• 55:00
  SPEAKER_00: This is when I wasn't teaching anymore, is when we like really started to like kind of like prep a whole lot.
• 55:04
  SPEAKER_00: So Martin and I were prepping all day, all day, all day, and we're like, we're gonna make all this dough, we're not gonna sell out, we're gonna make it.
• 55:11
  SPEAKER_00: And then, you know, like 9 30 at night, we're out of dough.
• 55:15
  SPEAKER_00: And we're just like, we tried so hard.
• 55:18
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, we tried so hard to you know to make it keep.
• 55:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 55:23
  SPEAKER_04: Are we talking about like the food truck?
• 55:25
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, the food truck, man.
• 55:26
  SPEAKER_04: That was a time.
• 55:28
  SPEAKER_04: That was a time.
• 55:29
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah, I was at I was asking, like, how what would make what would make y'all sell out?
• 55:32
  SPEAKER_08: And she mentioned the art box was y'all's biggest network that had the most customers, yeah.
• 55:37
  SPEAKER_08: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 55:40
  SPEAKER_04: And that was just like three, four hours, just straight line.
• 55:45
  SPEAKER_00: And it was just we would have to stop taking orders.
• 55:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 55:48
  SPEAKER_00: We put a little sign out that says, like, we're catching up, guys.
• 55:51
  SPEAKER_00: Like, come back in 20 minutes.
• 55:53
  SPEAKER_00: Like, let's go get these pizzas out real quick, and then then we're not taking more orders right now.
• 55:57
  SPEAKER_08: So, so so once y'all saw that, was it like, okay, we want to get this type of sales every day of the week, you know what I mean?
• 56:03
  SPEAKER_08: Like, what where's what was the process like?
• 56:05
  SPEAKER_04: Now, yeah, we have a par now.
• 56:07
  SPEAKER_04: Like, we have a par set, you know, let's have 200 dough balls.
• 56:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we don't want to sell out.
• 56:13
  SPEAKER_00: People are like, oh, congratulations, you sold out.
• 56:15
  SPEAKER_00: And we're like, we appreciate it, but also we don't want to sell out.
• 56:18
  SPEAKER_00: Like, we don't like it.
• 56:20
  SPEAKER_00: Going back to failures, like, I feel like we come in and they're like, Oh, yeah, we're so excited to have pizza.
• 56:26
  SPEAKER_00: And we're like, We're out of dough.
• 56:28
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
• 56:30
  SPEAKER_08: So, okay, so you don't want to run out of dough, obviously, because it helps make you more money.
• 56:34
  SPEAKER_08: Is it would you say it's because you want the customers to enjoy the pizza?
• 56:37
  SPEAKER_08: Like, what's why wouldn't you want to run out?
• 56:39
  SPEAKER_08: Why why don't you why wouldn't you want to just sell out and then call it?
• 56:42
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like if we're selling out all the time, we're unreliable.
• 56:46
  SPEAKER_00: You know, like people might not want to come visit us all that often.
• 56:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, oh well, they're probably sold out, they're probably they probably don't even have pizza.
• 56:52
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, but then also see, like, you know, there's influencers like, oh man, there's this new restaurant, it sells out every day.
• 56:58
  SPEAKER_04: Some something and like, yeah, we used to sell out pretty often.
• 57:02
  SPEAKER_04: We did, but like, I was in my head, I was like, that's not that doesn't look good as a business.
• 57:07
  SPEAKER_04: That like maybe I'm just not prepping enough, or it's just uh, I don't know.
• 57:12
  SPEAKER_04: I just feel like we should make make it to the time we say we're gonna be open.
• 57:17
  SPEAKER_04: You know, I I hate selling out except on Saturdays.
• 57:21
  SPEAKER_04: I don't mind selling out on Saturdays.
• 57:30
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, get a drink.
• 57:32
  SPEAKER_04: We deserve it, you know.
• 57:34
  SPEAKER_04: Um we have a shop bottle.
• 57:36
  SPEAKER_04: We'll just have a look.
• 57:37
  SPEAKER_08: Nice.
• 57:38
  SPEAKER_04: And you don't tap.
• 57:40
  SPEAKER_04: Uh but yeah, no.
• 57:41
  SPEAKER_04: Did Lock and Key got a combo for it?
• 57:44
  SPEAKER_04: It's just uh, you know, I I just I I guess sometimes I just felt like a failure that you know we didn't meet, you know, we weren't open all the way till the time we're saying gonna be open, you know, because we sold it.
• 57:53
  SPEAKER_00: And like customers were never like mad or anything.
• 57:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, they were actually like pretty happy.
• 57:57
  SPEAKER_00: They were always like, Oh, that's awesome for you guys.
• 57:59
  SPEAKER_00: We're so happy for you.
• 58:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, but we're not happy.
• 58:03
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I let myself down.
• 58:05
  SPEAKER_00: I know, like we felt really bad.
• 58:06
  SPEAKER_00: And at Art Walks too, we would sell out too.
• 58:09
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, loved selling out in the food truck.
• 58:10
  SPEAKER_04: That was always nice because I mean I only had one little fridge that fit as much as I could.
• 58:16
  SPEAKER_04: I think it was like maybe four, four, four, forty, forty, forty eight.
• 58:19
  SPEAKER_04: Like maybe like two hundred dough balls I could hold in like the fridge, and then another couple in the um the the the food trailer in the the prep fridge.
• 58:28
  SPEAKER_04: Uh so I would max out at an art walks and we would still like 220, 250 dough balls.
• 58:34
  SPEAKER_04: So crazy pizzas would be gone, like, and it's it was great, you know, but you know that's good for a food truck, you know.
• 58:43
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, I don't want to hold on to product because you know I work Wednesdays at the farmer's market and my next event isn't until Friday.
• 58:51
  SPEAKER_04: So I don't like having stuff sitting around.
• 58:53
  SPEAKER_04: I used to like it, you know, I I like it as fresh as possible, but uh it's different now because now you know we have the the 48 uh 48 hour fermented fermentation process.
• 59:04
  SPEAKER_04: Right, right, right.
• 59:04
  SPEAKER_04: And it just makes a better pizza where I didn't know that in the food truck, you know.
• 59:08
  SPEAKER_00: I was just like, you know, you make like same day, though, right?
• 59:11
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, well, yeah, same day, kind of.
• 59:15
  SPEAKER_04: I would always have like the the bulk like in the fridge, and then whenever I needed it, you know, I didn't really know all that much, you know.
• 59:22
  SPEAKER_04: It's a science, and you learn and learn as you go.
• 59:26
  SPEAKER_04: Learn as you go, learn as you go.
• 59:28
  SPEAKER_04: Figured it out.
• 59:29
  SPEAKER_04: We have like a nice process and the dough's consistent, except for the other day, whenever the dough just blew up all over the place.
• 59:37
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, that was a crazy picture.
• 59:39
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 59:40
  SPEAKER_04: But uh that had to be same-day dough.
• 59:42
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, you adapt.
• 59:44
  SPEAKER_04: You adapt, you know, you get over it.
• 59:47
  SPEAKER_08: How do y'all feel about okay?
• 59:48
  SPEAKER_08: So I made a post about corpus like being hype, right?
• 59:51
  SPEAKER_08: Do people flock around the hypeness of it, or are they more loyal to local restaurants, or both?
• 1:00:01
  SPEAKER_04: I think it's a little bit of both, you know.
• 1:00:03
  SPEAKER_04: Um you know, you see the the 4.9 uh reviews, you know, the the rating on you know Google.
• 1:00:10
  SPEAKER_04: So you're like, oh, let's see what the hype's about.
• 1:00:13
  SPEAKER_04: And then they have it, and you know, it's sometimes people ask, oh, is it is this a chain, or you know, is there multiple locations like this is the only one?
• 1:00:22
  SPEAKER_04: You know, so it's local, and they love that it's local, so they keep coming back, you know, they check out what the hype's about, and then they have it and they understand.
• 1:00:32
  SPEAKER_04: You know, it's like okay.
• 1:00:34
  SPEAKER_08: So have the hype, but also have the food, the quality to back it up.
• 1:00:38
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah, it's nice, you know.
• 1:00:40
  SPEAKER_04: I mean and then our our staff are very friendly, and we get a lot of like staff reviews, and that's that's awesome because I've told my staff before, you know, the hype and us being local isn't gonna save us.
• 1:00:54
  SPEAKER_04: My pizza is not even gonna save us.
• 1:00:56
  SPEAKER_04: You know, it's like the pizza cannot carry this 4.9 rating, and whenever it was five for the longest time, uh I was just stressed.
• 1:01:05
  SPEAKER_04: I was just like, dude, we have to perform at like the top level.
• 1:01:10
  SPEAKER_04: But then, you know, there was some bad customer reviews, or someone had like one bad experience or something like that, or the hotel had a gnat situation that had nothing to do with me.
• 1:01:20
  SPEAKER_04: Oh wow, but it was in the restaurant, and um, you know, things happen, you know.
• 1:01:26
  SPEAKER_04: So I was like, the pizza's not gonna carry this this rating, you know, it's gonna be how we treat customers, how cleanliness, yeah.
• 1:01:34
  SPEAKER_00: We do get a lot of reviews, like mentioning how clean the restaurant is.
• 1:01:38
  SPEAKER_04: Like the location and the views, the views for sure.
• 1:01:42
  SPEAKER_04: It's like the pizza's good, but it's not I don't want to say it's not that good because I think it's delicious.
• 1:01:48
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:01:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's just like in order to be like a good restaurant, like you can't just have good food, like there's more to being a good restaurant if you have to hit all those categories.
• 1:01:56
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah, and that would you say that that's part of your brand?
• 1:02:00
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I think so.
• 1:02:02
  SPEAKER_04: We're like real relaxed, real laid back.
• 1:02:04
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah like we're not table service, you know, we don't have servers, it's it's real fast casual, but it's still like an elevated version of like a fast.
• 1:02:13
  SPEAKER_00: And just like the like decor of the restaurant is just like real casual and like fun.
• 1:02:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:02:19
  SPEAKER_04: Um, we get local art, there's artists, we've made ourselves a little arcade.
• 1:02:24
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you come here, you're gonna have fun.
• 1:02:26
  SPEAKER_00: You're not just gonna eat good pizza, you're gonna like talk to someone friendly, you're gonna get to watch people make pizza, which of course the kids love.
• 1:02:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, there's arcades, there's a beautiful water view.
• 1:02:37
  SPEAKER_00: Like, there's just a lot going on.
• 1:02:38
  SPEAKER_08: There's definitely a vibe.
• 1:02:40
  SPEAKER_08: Definitely.
• 1:02:40
  SPEAKER_08: Last time I had gone in there, it's been a while, it's been a minute since I've been, but it's definitely a vibe.
• 1:02:44
  SPEAKER_08: So it was orange and white.
• 1:02:46
  SPEAKER_08: Is that still y'all's cook?
• 1:02:46
  SPEAKER_08: That is that your cup?
• 1:02:47
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah, we've got another.
• 1:02:48
  SPEAKER_00: We definitely took like the like aesthetics of the food truck and just put it in the restaurant.
• 1:02:53
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah, really, yeah.
• 1:02:53
  SPEAKER_08: The board, y'all had the boards in there too.
• 1:02:55
  SPEAKER_04: That was cool.
• 1:02:56
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah, landed on orange just because uh at the time when I was in the market for a trailer, it was the cheapest one.
• 1:03:03
  SPEAKER_04: It was just an orange trailer with the windows.
• 1:03:06
  SPEAKER_04: Wow, the inside was just plywood, so just so bare.
• 1:03:11
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, I built it myself by hand.
• 1:03:13
  SPEAKER_04: Well, the only thing I couldn't do was the electricity.
• 1:03:16
  SPEAKER_04: I told you I don't like electricity.
• 1:03:18
  SPEAKER_04: I I will not mess with electricity.
• 1:03:20
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, and uh I needed help putting up the hood vent.
• 1:03:24
  SPEAKER_04: Like I can't.
• 1:03:25
  SPEAKER_00: And like really, like whenever I first like when we first met, when we first started hanging out, like that was like really great for me to see like the aesthetic of the food truck, the branding, the logo, and all that kind of stuff, the t-shirt, stickers, magnets.
• 1:03:39
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, this guy's got like a good eye for like design.
• 1:03:43
  SPEAKER_00: Like, if he's an art teacher, I was like, hey, points right there, buddy.
• 1:03:47
  SPEAKER_04: Points.
• 1:03:48
  SPEAKER_04: Good eye, but he's so unorganized.
• 1:03:52
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we nobody's perfect.
• 1:03:55
  SPEAKER_08: Uh so you guys are married right as things exploded.
• 1:03:59
  SPEAKER_08: Uh, how did you manage that?
• 1:04:01
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, it's chaos.
• 1:04:04
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 1:04:05
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, we're still kind of together 24-7, you know, but you know, our shop time is not quality time.
• 1:04:12
  SPEAKER_04: You know, we we clock out at three, and you know, we have our quality time.
• 1:04:17
  SPEAKER_04: We'll go now, we're able to go to the gym, we're able to like do date nights, you know.
• 1:04:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, um, we are together a lot, and we do like make a point to like, okay, well, I'm gonna go do this, and I'm gonna go do it by myself.
• 1:04:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and it took a while to like learn how to do that because we're just like, oh, well, we like hanging out, we're just gonna hang out all the time.
• 1:04:38
  SPEAKER_00: But then we're like, yeah, we do need to like have our own life.
• 1:04:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:04:43
  SPEAKER_00: And it took a little bit.
• 1:04:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but you know, things are a lot better now.
• 1:04:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, we were just working, you know, like a crazy amount of hours every week.
• 1:04:52
  SPEAKER_00: We were stressed, we were burnt out.
• 1:04:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but we still came together in all the stress.
• 1:04:57
  SPEAKER_00: And now that we actually have like a normal schedule, we're working just like just regular 40 hours, you know.
• 1:05:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we'll make time to go to the gym, we make time for you know, our relationship, we make time to maintain friendships.
• 1:05:10
  SPEAKER_04: Um it's also like whenever we run run errands, you know, it's always like, Well I'm gonna go to H E B, I'll be back.
• 1:05:18
  SPEAKER_04: But you know, whenever my mom would ask me, Well, I'm going to H E B, I'd be like, I wanna go.
• 1:05:22
  SPEAKER_04: You know, like I wanna go to H E B too.
• 1:05:24
  SPEAKER_04: What are you talking about?
• 1:05:25
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, gonna go without me.
• 1:05:26
  SPEAKER_03: Come with me.
• 1:05:27
  SPEAKER_00: I know, and then like we always do something fun too.
• 1:05:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, well, we're gonna go to Sam's, but also we're gonna go get a coffee.
• 1:05:33
  SPEAKER_00: You know, so like we still have fun.
• 1:05:35
  SPEAKER_00: That's cool.
• 1:05:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:05:36
  SPEAKER_04: You gotta work it down for sure.
• 1:05:37
  SPEAKER_04: And also sometimes if I do like go to H E B, sometimes I wish it was like a little further so I have more time for myself.
• 1:05:44
  SPEAKER_04: We're so close to H E B, it's like three blocks away.
• 1:05:47
  SPEAKER_00: Three blocks away.
• 1:05:48
  SPEAKER_04: I'm gonna get like 15 minutes away.
• 1:05:51
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:05:52
  SPEAKER_08: We do that.
• 1:05:53
  SPEAKER_08: My my wife and I will do that.
• 1:05:54
  SPEAKER_08: Like, she'll want some time, and I'll be I'll be like, just go go for a drive, go do something.
• 1:05:59
  SPEAKER_08: Um, even my Like the other day, I went to go see uh a movie by myself.
• 1:06:02
  SPEAKER_08: Uh Is Is This Thing On?
• 1:06:04
  SPEAKER_08: It's called Is This Thing On.
• 1:06:06
  SPEAKER_08: It's about uh it's kind of like a marriage movie.
• 1:06:08
  SPEAKER_08: It's pretty cool.
• 1:06:09
  SPEAKER_08: This guy um he separates from his wife, spoiler alert, and then he's at the bar.
• 1:06:15
  SPEAKER_08: The only way he can get in is to sign up for open mic, uh otherwise it's fifteen dollars.
• 1:06:20
  SPEAKER_08: So he signed up, started getting into open mic, got better.
• 1:06:24
  SPEAKER_08: His wife showed up at one of the shows, and it's just it's a pretty cool.
• 1:06:27
  SPEAKER_08: It just ends up, they end up back mad.
• 1:06:29
  SPEAKER_04: I see, I see you're doing it too.
• 1:06:30
  SPEAKER_04: So it's pretty cool.
• 1:06:31
  SPEAKER_08: Kind of connected, and yeah, it's pretty, yeah.
• 1:06:34
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah, I've had been wanting to try it.
• 1:06:35
  SPEAKER_08: I have some comedians on here, uh, and I kind of picked their brain a little bit about about it and stuff like that.
• 1:06:41
  SPEAKER_08: So it's been fun, pretty interesting.
• 1:06:43
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I've done I've done a couple of Miguelitos, uh uh the lab at Shapology.
• 1:06:49
  SPEAKER_04: Shout out, dude, if he's out there.
• 1:06:50
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah, he's probably out there.
• 1:06:52
  SPEAKER_08: Uh Melanie from Hype Bike, great relationship advice.
• 1:06:56
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:06:59
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah, no.
• 1:07:00
  SPEAKER_04: I've done a couple of his mics over there.
• 1:07:01
  SPEAKER_04: And it just made you want to you just wanted to check it out or I've just man, I it's the only like genre of like movie and entertainment I I pretty much like.
• 1:07:11
  SPEAKER_04: It's comedy.
• 1:07:12
  SPEAKER_04: You know, it it's always helped me escape things, you know.
• 1:07:15
  SPEAKER_04: Like growing up, I didn't have like the best childhood, you know.
• 1:07:18
  SPEAKER_04: Always had like working parents and they didn't have the best relationship sometimes, and it was always comedy, you know.
• 1:07:25
  SPEAKER_04: Like I remember just always watching like Eddie Murphy Raw.
• 1:07:29
  SPEAKER_05: Wow.
• 1:07:29
  SPEAKER_04: Like just comedy growing up.
• 1:07:32
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I loved it.
• 1:07:33
  SPEAKER_04: And uh I always thought I was kind of funny, you know.
• 1:07:38
  SPEAKER_04: So so I wrote some stuff down.
• 1:07:39
  SPEAKER_04: I got a bunch of stuff on my phone.
• 1:07:42
  SPEAKER_04: It's all outdated now.
• 1:07:43
  SPEAKER_04: It's all outdated now, but uh yeah, I've always wanted to try it and give it a couple times at um I did the first time I did it was at Mesquite Street where you're gonna be doing it.
• 1:07:53
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, uh, and then uh did a couple at uh Tapology, the lab, those uh McGill's labs.
• 1:08:00
  SPEAKER_04: That was pretty fun.
• 1:08:01
  SPEAKER_04: I got a couple good laughs.
• 1:08:02
  SPEAKER_04: I got one really good laugh.
• 1:08:03
  SPEAKER_05: That's awesome, man.
• 1:08:04
  SPEAKER_05: I shoved my butt, dude.
• 1:08:05
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, it was all purple because I felt so hard.
• 1:08:08
  SPEAKER_04: And I told him I was like, I didn't bring the food truck here because I got hurt.
• 1:08:12
  SPEAKER_04: I was like, I feel like y'all don't believe me.
• 1:08:14
  SPEAKER_04: And then I turned around, I showed my butt, and I'm like, They're like, get out of here.
• 1:08:21
  SPEAKER_08: It was purple, dude, just a plum butt.
• 1:08:24
  SPEAKER_08: Well, how come you pick purple for your brand too?
• 1:08:27
  SPEAKER_08: Right?
• 1:08:28
  SPEAKER_08: That's funny, bro.
• 1:08:29
  SPEAKER_08: Wow, uh, so man, you guys starting in 2021.
• 1:08:32
  SPEAKER_08: What is that pandemic?
• 1:08:33
  SPEAKER_08: Uh so launching during mid-pandemic.
• 1:08:36
  SPEAKER_08: Uh, intentional or accidental?
• 1:08:39
  SPEAKER_04: Uh intentional, maybe.
• 1:08:41
  SPEAKER_04: It was intentional, but also out of necessity.
• 1:08:45
  SPEAKER_04: You know, I I didn't even have money to even start it.
• 1:08:49
  SPEAKER_04: I started out of my mom's driveway, you know, where the food truck was parked.
• 1:08:53
  SPEAKER_04: And uh I ran out of money because I I spent all my money building it.
• 1:08:57
  SPEAKER_04: Ran out of money, and then just uh put out there that I needed a couple extra bucks to get licensing and permits and a couple some some equipment, dough boxes and stuff like that.
• 1:09:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um everything is so expensive, like restaurant supplies so expensive.
• 1:09:16
  SPEAKER_04: So, yeah, I just I just did it because I I needed the money and I needed to I I ran through all my savings.
• 1:09:23
  SPEAKER_04: I've cashed out my 401k that I got from the railroad, uh maxed out credit cards.
• 1:09:29
  SPEAKER_04: Go crazy.
• 1:09:29
  SPEAKER_04: Don't suggest doing any of that.
• 1:09:31
  SPEAKER_04: Or by the way, yeah, man.
• 1:09:33
  SPEAKER_04: Uh if you're gonna start a business, probably do it a better way.
• 1:09:37
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah, I've had I've had another business in here that did something similar to that, which is that's like you're going all in.
• 1:09:42
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah, you're going all in.
• 1:09:43
  SPEAKER_04: I was all in.
• 1:09:44
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, that's also another thing.
• 1:09:46
  SPEAKER_04: Like uh why I think like I made it is because I went all in.
• 1:09:53
  SPEAKER_04: You know, I had nothing to fall back on.
• 1:09:55
  SPEAKER_04: I was like, this is it, or I'm back on the back out in the refineries.
• 1:10:00
  SPEAKER_04: Or because I could have easily gone back to the refineries, I could easily go back to the railroad, but I just went all in, you know, and and I was like, it's either this, and also my mom said, Why don't you just do tacos?
• 1:10:15
  SPEAKER_04: I was like, well, because everyone does tacos.
• 1:10:16
  SPEAKER_04: Everybody's doing tacos.
• 1:10:17
  SPEAKER_04: She's like, Why pizza?
• 1:10:18
  SPEAKER_04: I was like, because everyone loves pizza.
• 1:10:20
  SPEAKER_04: She's like, Well, you're not gonna you're not gonna beat Pizza Hut.
• 1:10:23
  SPEAKER_08: I was like, Oh, sure.
• 1:10:25
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, that hurt a little bit, you know.
• 1:10:27
  SPEAKER_04: I she didn't mean it, you know, in in a mean way, but she's like, Well, you're not gonna beat Pizza Hut.
• 1:10:32
  SPEAKER_04: I was like, Oh, I will I'll pizza Hut.
• 1:10:35
  SPEAKER_04: Now that you said that, now that you said it, like I'm gonna prove you wrong.
• 1:10:39
  SPEAKER_04: So, like the whole time, like for about two years, she's like, Well, why don't you get another job?
• 1:10:45
  SPEAKER_04: You know, you need to get another job.
• 1:10:46
  SPEAKER_07: Oh, two years.
• 1:10:47
  SPEAKER_04: I'm going all in.
• 1:10:48
  SPEAKER_04: You know, she was worried about me.
• 1:10:49
  SPEAKER_04: She loves me, she wants to see me do well.
• 1:10:51
  SPEAKER_04: And the first year or two in the food truck was not the best.
• 1:10:54
  SPEAKER_04: You know, I was barely getting out there.
• 1:10:56
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, I would go to some apartments and only get like one cell, you know.
• 1:11:00
  SPEAKER_04: Wow.
• 1:11:01
  SPEAKER_04: And it was rough, you know.
• 1:11:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um It was my apartments at the time.
• 1:11:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:11:06
  SPEAKER_08: Well then and now, what was your like which what was your role like then versus now?
• 1:11:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I mean, when I first started, it was just strictly cashier.
• 1:11:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I didn't know what I was doing.
• 1:11:17
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't really know the menu that well.
• 1:11:19
  SPEAKER_00: Like, yeah, I had like, you know, restaurant experience and you know, like customer service experience.
• 1:11:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but as you know, the time time went on, I started helping him prep because I love prep.
• 1:11:30
  SPEAKER_00: I will cut vegetables all day.
• 1:11:32
  SPEAKER_00: I love it, it's so fun.
• 1:11:34
  SPEAKER_00: You can just like zone out and just chuch.
• 1:11:36
  SPEAKER_08: Um you listen to podcasts when you do stuff like that?
• 1:11:39
  SPEAKER_08: Just curious.
• 1:11:40
  SPEAKER_04: Just lo-fi all day.
• 1:11:42
  SPEAKER_08: Oh no, oh I love this and and one piece fan theory.
• 1:11:47
  SPEAKER_08: Oh, dude.
• 1:11:48
  SPEAKER_08: Anime.
• 1:11:50
  SPEAKER_08: Do you like that one?
• 1:11:50
  SPEAKER_08: Oh man, that one piece got so many episodes, dude.
• 1:11:53
  SPEAKER_08: I'm kind of like, that's why I'm that's why I'm doing it, right?
• 1:11:58
  SPEAKER_08: That's so cool.
• 1:11:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so you started as a cashier and then eventually you started Yeah, um, started prepping, and then um, of course, in the restaurant, um, it was more like um like building the framework of what the restaurant was gonna be, you know.
• 1:12:13
  SPEAKER_00: So, like, did we need a bartender?
• 1:12:15
  SPEAKER_00: We found out we did not need a bartender.
• 1:12:17
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, did we need a person specifically on expo?
• 1:12:21
  SPEAKER_00: No, we didn't need that.
• 1:12:22
  SPEAKER_00: So it was a lot of trial and error, um, a lot of putting people in positions um and figuring out you know if it worked or not.
• 1:12:29
  SPEAKER_00: So now we kind of have a system down.
• 1:12:31
  SPEAKER_00: We have like a manager and we have like a tosser, a cook, a cashier, and a dishwasher.
• 1:12:36
  SPEAKER_00: Like we can handle just about everything with five people.
• 1:12:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um but it took a while to figure that out, you know?
• 1:12:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 1:12:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:12:43
  SPEAKER_02: That's so cool, man.
• 1:12:44
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I could do it all if I wanted to, but yeah, yeah.
• 1:12:48
  SPEAKER_00: I don't need a one.
• 1:12:51
  SPEAKER_08: I need all y'all.
• 1:12:53
  unknown: By the way.
• 1:12:53
  SPEAKER_04: Do you also have partnerships with uh bus and rebel toad?
• 1:12:57
  SPEAKER_04: Uh no, no longer.
• 1:12:59
  SPEAKER_04: Um, I appreciate Ben letting me post up the food truck there for about two years, man.
• 1:13:05
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, like every Friday and Saturday.
• 1:13:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:13:08
  SPEAKER_04: He let me just keep it there, you know, on the weekend.
• 1:13:10
  SPEAKER_04: Wow.
• 1:13:11
  SPEAKER_04: Uh it was a cool, you know.
• 1:13:13
  SPEAKER_04: I I sell the food, you sell the the alcohol, and you know, and he was just kept growing, kept growing.
• 1:13:18
  SPEAKER_04: And, you know, uh they ended up doing like the kitchen, you know.
• 1:13:22
  SPEAKER_00: That family has that's whenever they opened up the kitchen, I think is when we started doing art walk more like on the streets.
• 1:13:28
  SPEAKER_00: Because we were doing art walk inside of bus, and it was pretty busy, you know, but it was like a whole nother deal once we got here on a street.
• 1:13:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was like this is what it's been like this whole time.
• 1:13:40
  SPEAKER_00: Oh really busy.
• 1:13:43
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, so we we don't have that partnership anymore, but you know, but we have uh partnerships and uh with uh the ice rays.
• 1:13:51
  SPEAKER_04: Uh you know, we got a little sponsorship, we're uh affiliates with them and the hooks.
• 1:13:56
  SPEAKER_04: Uh it's just fun.
• 1:13:58
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, I that's awesome, man.
• 1:14:03
  SPEAKER_08: When did it feel real like this is this is real, like this happen, this is happening.
• 1:14:07
  SPEAKER_08: You know what I mean?
• 1:14:08
  SPEAKER_04: When did it hit you?
• 1:14:09
  SPEAKER_04: When they when I was just getting emails, like I thought it was all fake.
• 1:14:12
  SPEAKER_04: I was like, nah, the hooks, the hooks don't want to be like partners.
• 1:14:17
  SPEAKER_04: I did, you know.
• 1:14:18
  SPEAKER_04: I was wow, man.
• 1:14:19
  SPEAKER_06: You know, hey Priscilla.
• 1:14:21
  SPEAKER_06: Hey Priscilla.
• 1:14:22
  SPEAKER_04: Priscilla C says what's up, y'all.
• 1:14:24
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, she's I about to say she's probably one of the biggest pizza uh enthusiasts in Corpus.
• 1:14:30
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah, I she was on an episode when I when I was doing the Zoom, I was doing Zoom meet Zoom meeting for the interview and she was on there.
• 1:14:38
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah, she's awesome.
• 1:14:39
  SPEAKER_08: She supports local a lot.
• 1:14:41
  SPEAKER_08: It's so awesome.
• 1:14:42
  SPEAKER_08: For sure.
• 1:14:42
  SPEAKER_08: Hello, Priscilla.
• 1:14:44
  SPEAKER_08: Man, that's awesome.
• 1:14:45
  SPEAKER_08: Uh see, we got 15.
• 1:14:47
  SPEAKER_08: Uh down so the move downtown.
• 1:14:49
  SPEAKER_08: What what made you guys uh decide, okay, this is our this is gonna be the spot compared to Southside?
• 1:14:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we I think there was like a video circle circulating around with like Casey from House of Rock.
• 1:15:03
  SPEAKER_00: It was just like some video about like downtown businesses, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:15:06
  SPEAKER_00: And we watched it, yeah.
• 1:15:07
  SPEAKER_00: Some I don't even remember, but it was like we were looking for a spot and we're like, we want to be downtown, but like it's kind of hard to get into downtown.
• 1:15:14
  SPEAKER_00: Let's think about other options.
• 1:15:16
  SPEAKER_00: And then we watched that video and we're like, We gotta be downtown.
• 1:15:21
  SPEAKER_00: And like we just like really tried, yeah, and it just worked out.
• 1:15:24
  SPEAKER_00: Like, we I don't even think we looked at any places that were not downtown.
• 1:15:28
  SPEAKER_04: Like uh because I mean, I pretty much for the second half of the food truck life, uh, it was always the farmers market, art walks, uh the people's street, uh the people's market, um all downtown.
• 1:15:45
  SPEAKER_04: There's a bunch of events downtown.
• 1:15:46
  SPEAKER_04: Like I was just constantly down here, and I I build a name for myself down here, and I was like, this is this is where we have to be.
• 1:15:55
  SPEAKER_04: You know, this is where we have to be.
• 1:15:56
  SPEAKER_04: And at the time, the I think the executive director of downtown management, uh Alyssa Barrera, uh I think uh Mason.
• 1:16:07
  SPEAKER_03: Mason.
• 1:16:07
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, uh whatever.
• 1:16:09
  SPEAKER_04: Alyssa.
• 1:16:10
  SPEAKER_04: Uh she we went to school together, you know, and then she reached out and uh the downtown management team, uh Jenny from downtown, she was so helpful.
• 1:16:22
  SPEAKER_04: Like as soon as like a spot opened up, she's like, let's go check this spot out.
• 1:16:26
  SPEAKER_04: Let's go check this spot out.
• 1:16:27
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, none of them really panned out.
• 1:16:29
  SPEAKER_04: Even like I went to go look at uh Dusty's spot up on Taylor Street, not like that.
• 1:16:34
  SPEAKER_00: And the one next to Retro, I think Retro ended up buying it, maybe.
• 1:16:37
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, something like that.
• 1:16:39
  SPEAKER_04: But yeah, a lot of things didn't work out, so at least three or four spots downtown didn't work out.
• 1:16:44
  SPEAKER_00: Uh PKK before they moved in there.
• 1:16:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um but yeah, we like all the other spots were like, yeah, this is cool, but you know, like it's a lot of money, or you know, whatever, whatever.
• 1:16:55
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 1:16:55
  SPEAKER_00: And then um we finally looked at you know the old blimpy, and um we're like, dude, this is like exactly what we wanted, you know, like where the um making the pizza is visible um to the employee or to the customers.
• 1:17:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, she is and huh?
• 1:17:09
  SPEAKER_04: Nothing's like definitely a lot of things didn't pan out in that that last spot.
• 1:17:18
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, they weren't even they didn't care for it to be anything after, you know, because it was a blimpies, a coffee shop, and a smoothie uh smoothie spot.
• 1:17:26
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, all three things in one where Marty McPies is now, right?
• 1:17:32
  SPEAKER_04: Those all three failed.
• 1:17:34
  SPEAKER_08: That's what I yeah, that's what I was thinking.
• 1:17:35
  SPEAKER_08: Like, how I mean, did so you did that thought cross your mind before you got in there, you know what I mean?
• 1:17:40
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah, I I was like, or we're like, it went out of business, is that a bad scale?
• 1:17:47
  SPEAKER_04: And they didn't care for it to be anything, and then uh we met with uh the owner, Mr.
• 1:17:52
  SPEAKER_04: Patel, and he was super nice.
• 1:17:56
  SPEAKER_04: And uh Gabe, the the hotel manager, he was a fan of the the the the the food truck, and he thought we would be a good fit, so he kind of got us all you know together and we worked things out.
• 1:18:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, really like as soon as we walked in, we're like, dude, this is like it's got so much storage space, it's got like a walk-in, it's got a freezer, it's got like um perfect seating.
• 1:18:18
  SPEAKER_06: It was already a restaurant.
• 1:18:19
  SPEAKER_00: It was yeah, it was our that all the other places that we were looking at just oh wow weren't really like restaurants yet, but this basically already had everything that we needed.
• 1:18:27
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 1:18:28
  SPEAKER_00: We didn't have to put a lot of money into it.
• 1:18:29
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah, that's the thing, right?
• 1:18:31
  SPEAKER_08: That's that's our word right there.
• 1:18:33
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah, it's so busy to see it.
• 1:18:36
  SPEAKER_08: Uh Priscilla says it's been so amazing seeing the come up.
• 1:18:39
  SPEAKER_08: You've worked hard so damn hard.
• 1:18:41
  SPEAKER_00: We love you, Priscilla.
• 1:18:43
  SPEAKER_00: Love, yeah.
• 1:18:44
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah, it it was really hard, you know.
• 1:18:46
  SPEAKER_04: So when we found that spot, I was like, please, let's just hold it real quick.
• 1:18:50
  SPEAKER_04: You know, we weren't done with the the loan process that you know doing all the paperwork from uh Delmar, you know, uh it was in the process and I took a gamble because we hadn't gotten approved.
• 1:19:02
  SPEAKER_04: We had the one the loan money yet.
• 1:19:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and we we were gonna sign like this five-year, you know, like lease on this spot and we didn't have the money yet.
• 1:19:11
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, they're like, we need a couple thousand dollars to sign the lease.
• 1:19:15
  SPEAKER_04: And I was like, I don't even have that, but I did have this credit card.
• 1:19:18
  SPEAKER_04: I have this monopoly money.
• 1:19:21
  SPEAKER_03: I was like, there you go.
• 1:19:23
  SPEAKER_04: I was like, there you go.
• 1:19:25
  SPEAKER_04: And then like I gambled, I banked on us getting approved for this loan.
• 1:19:30
  SPEAKER_04: Just total risk, you know.
• 1:19:32
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, she's been with me, she's seen the risks I've taken.
• 1:19:37
  SPEAKER_04: Man, does that make you nervous?
• 1:19:39
  SPEAKER_04: That gotta make you nervous.
• 1:19:40
  SPEAKER_00: I was really nervous.
• 1:19:41
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, are you sure you don't want to wait?
• 1:19:43
  SPEAKER_00: But then like if we waited, then like basically the the hotel owner is like, hey, if y'all don't sign right now, I'll find somebody else.
• 1:19:50
  SPEAKER_03: We're like, oh like nah, we'll we'll take it.
• 1:19:55
  SPEAKER_08: Wow.
• 1:19:56
  SPEAKER_08: Do you feel like you would have to grow that type of rapport now if you was to go to like the south side or a different side of the uh the city?
• 1:20:05
  SPEAKER_08: Because you mentioned that a lot of your fans were already here downtown.
• 1:20:09
  SPEAKER_08: It made sense to go over there.
• 1:20:12
  SPEAKER_04: Um, I don't even know if I would want to go over there.
• 1:20:15
  SPEAKER_04: There's like already enough pizza over there.
• 1:20:17
  SPEAKER_04: There's like two B and J's, Cody who's doing awesome over there.
• 1:20:22
  SPEAKER_04: Uh Pam at Safe Mark is pretty central, so she's got that covered.
• 1:20:28
  SPEAKER_04: Um I mean, at the end of the space for us down here.
• 1:20:32
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah, there's no pizza you guys are the only ones down here, huh?
• 1:20:35
  SPEAKER_04: No, no, there's Mesquite Street and House of Rock, and uh you know, but we're all different styles.
• 1:20:42
  SPEAKER_04: We're all different styles, and you know, we all play fair, we all play nice, yeah.
• 1:20:48
  SPEAKER_00: There's enough people for every pizza restaurant.
• 1:20:51
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 1:20:52
  SPEAKER_04: There's like 300,000 people in corporate.
• 1:20:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, everybody likes pizza.
• 1:20:55
  SPEAKER_00: Why should everybody 5%, you know?
• 1:21:00
  SPEAKER_08: I don't know.
• 1:21:01
  SPEAKER_08: Why should a pizza place be a cultural hub?
• 1:21:04
  SPEAKER_04: Um, just because it's like a it's a perfect gathering food, you know.
• 1:21:09
  SPEAKER_04: It's it's everybody likes pizza.
• 1:21:12
  SPEAKER_00: Little kids love pizza, you know, grandma and grandpa's love pizza.
• 1:21:16
  SPEAKER_04: It's there's no age, you know.
• 1:21:19
  SPEAKER_04: Um I don't know.
• 1:21:22
  SPEAKER_04: Any age can enjoy pizza.
• 1:21:24
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 1:21:24
  SPEAKER_04: Uh I see babies chowing it down.
• 1:21:27
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah, dude, my son loves that.
• 1:21:28
  SPEAKER_08: He loves that Schlockke's pizza, the little uh I gotta take a middle of the all time.
• 1:21:34
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah, he's he'll love that.
• 1:21:35
  SPEAKER_08: He'll love that.
• 1:21:36
  SPEAKER_08: Uh um, yeah, it makes you think about like New Jersey, they call it pie instead of pizza.
• 1:21:41
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh, we would get so many people that would come to the food truck.
• 1:21:44
  SPEAKER_00: Like, well, what kind of pies y'all have?
• 1:21:45
  SPEAKER_00: Apple, cherry.
• 1:21:48
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry, it's pizza pie.
• 1:21:50
  SPEAKER_08: Do y'all have y'all thought of doing like actual pies?
• 1:21:53
  SPEAKER_08: Or like what are some what are some things that y'all have thought of that you're like, well, maybe not, as far as like the types of food you should have in there?
• 1:22:01
  SPEAKER_00: Pasta.
• 1:22:02
  SPEAKER_00: We probably don't want to do pasta.
• 1:22:04
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of you know, pizza restaurants do kind of dip into pasta, but it's we just don't yeah, fries, we don't have fryers, we don't have you know all the equipment that's required for frying.
• 1:22:14
  SPEAKER_04: So like our wings aren't even fried, they're like double baked.
• 1:22:17
  SPEAKER_04: Oh well, we bake them to golden, like a light golden, and then we'll finish them off in the the oven at like 760 degrees.
• 1:22:25
  SPEAKER_04: It's crazy, like they get nice and crispy.
• 1:22:28
  SPEAKER_04: It's almost like similar to being fried, right?
• 1:22:31
  SPEAKER_04: Since it's such high heat, it gives them like a nice charge and a nice crisp, like in that oven, you know, it's 760 degrees, it's gonna char something up.
• 1:22:41
  SPEAKER_08: How do y'all approach like the like the health aspect of pizza?
• 1:22:45
  SPEAKER_08: Because pizza could get like a bad, like it's unhealthy, this or that, or whatever.
• 1:22:49
  SPEAKER_04: How do y'all use quality stuff, man?
• 1:22:50
  SPEAKER_04: Quality stuff, right?
• 1:22:52
  SPEAKER_04: We use grande cheese and that's like award-winning.
• 1:22:55
  SPEAKER_04: It's you know, it's it they use it on like some of the top pizzas in America.
• 1:23:01
  SPEAKER_08: Uh what kind of what kind of cheese was it?
• 1:23:03
  SPEAKER_04: Grande.
• 1:23:04
  SPEAKER_04: Grande.
• 1:23:04
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, grande.
• 1:23:05
  SPEAKER_04: It's just a quality cheese.
• 1:23:07
  SPEAKER_04: Wow.
• 1:23:07
  SPEAKER_04: Uh no preservatives, it's all natural.
• 1:23:10
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
• 1:23:10
  SPEAKER_04: Uh the Stanislaus tomatoes.
• 1:23:12
  SPEAKER_04: I got a tattoo because I I love them so much.
• 1:23:15
  SPEAKER_04: 7-Eleven.
• 1:23:16
  SPEAKER_04: It just has like a nice sweet flavor to it already.
• 1:23:20
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, and it's America.
• 1:23:22
  SPEAKER_04: You know, it's all American.
• 1:23:24
  SPEAKER_04: It doesn't have to be imported, you know, to be good.
• 1:23:27
  SPEAKER_04: It doesn't have to be fancy.
• 1:23:29
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, it doesn't have to be expensive.
• 1:23:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and you can create your own pizza too.
• 1:23:34
  SPEAKER_00: Like, um, we have a five veggie pie.
• 1:23:36
  SPEAKER_00: You could put all the veggies on there if you want to.
• 1:23:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's really like personal preference.
• 1:23:40
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like if you are trying to, you know, be good, you can definitely do that at our restaurant.
• 1:23:45
  SPEAKER_00: But if you want to be bad, you can be bad too.
• 1:23:47
  SPEAKER_00: You know, whatever you want.
• 1:23:48
  SPEAKER_00: We got to do that.
• 1:23:49
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, the dough's there's nothing uh bad about the dough.
• 1:23:54
  SPEAKER_04: It's it's got a good fermentation process.
• 1:23:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's actually olive oil, it's a stumble recipe.
• 1:24:01
  SPEAKER_08: Nice.
• 1:24:01
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah.
• 1:24:02
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah.
• 1:24:02
  SPEAKER_08: So we've got to be wrapping it up here soon.
• 1:24:05
  SPEAKER_08: Uh, so community and giving back.
• 1:24:07
  SPEAKER_08: Uh, where does the instinct to give back come from?
• 1:24:10
  SPEAKER_08: Or just give in general?
• 1:24:12
  SPEAKER_04: Just uh we feel the love and the support from the community, so we want to give that right back, man.
• 1:24:18
  SPEAKER_04: Like her student drew like a doodle of uh Margaret McPies, but he kind of like kindergartened it up because I know how good he is.
• 1:24:28
  SPEAKER_04: Like his art is amazing, but he kind of like kindergartened this little doodle and it said Murdy Mopes.
• 1:24:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and it was because it was like the day that I had told his class that you know, like it's my last year, guys.
• 1:24:42
  SPEAKER_00: You know, come see me at Marty McPies or whatever.
• 1:24:45
  SPEAKER_00: And he drew that right then, and he's just such a sweetheart.
• 1:24:49
  SPEAKER_00: We still keep in contact.
• 1:24:50
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, so we used that doodle and then we made t-shirts, and then all the proceeds from those t-shirts, uh, it was like a thousand dollars that we raised, yeah, and we gave that to K-Space.
• 1:25:01
  SPEAKER_00: It was like a K-Space funded uh we love K-Space, we love the arts, we do what we can, you know.
• 1:25:08
  SPEAKER_00: Like we're not made of money or nothing, but we try.
• 1:25:11
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I mean, a thousand dollars isn't like a crazy amount, but I think it at least helped them uh rent the the lift for like another day or two or something like that.
• 1:25:21
  SPEAKER_04: You know, it all costs money, a little bit, you know, it goes a long way.
• 1:25:25
  SPEAKER_04: And I was like, man, that really helped their summer program, you know.
• 1:25:28
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah, it's awesome.
• 1:25:29
  SPEAKER_08: Uh is Corpus Christi supportive of small businesses or only after success.
• 1:25:35
  SPEAKER_04: Nah, they they they they liked it from the jump.
• 1:25:38
  SPEAKER_04: Oh yeah.
• 1:25:39
  SPEAKER_00: We have uh like OG supporters that have been coming to us like since the very beginning.
• 1:25:44
  SPEAKER_00: I think so.
• 1:25:45
  SPEAKER_04: I saw I saw it from like uh the driveway days.
• 1:25:48
  SPEAKER_04: You know, it was cold, raining, people are still showing up.
• 1:25:51
  SPEAKER_04: Wow and you know, I was like that's when I uh I thought I had something, you know, at least influenced you know the locals that you know it could be something if y'all supported it and they did, and it just gave me hope.
• 1:26:07
  SPEAKER_04: It gave me hope, and you know, I just kept doing it and they accepted it, they liked it.
• 1:26:14
  SPEAKER_04: Nice, I appreciate it so much.
• 1:26:16
  SPEAKER_08: Awesome, man.
• 1:26:16
  SPEAKER_08: Shout out to CC.
• 1:26:18
  SPEAKER_08: Shout out to CC Priscilla C last comment.
• 1:26:20
  SPEAKER_08: Uh sorry, I'm a yapper.
• 1:26:22
  SPEAKER_08: Keep commenting.
• 1:26:23
  SPEAKER_08: I love the location.
• 1:26:25
  SPEAKER_08: I live on this side of town, and it's nice to not have to go to the south side.
• 1:26:29
  SPEAKER_08: Yep, definitely.
• 1:26:30
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah, got a beautiful view out here, too, man.
• 1:26:32
  SPEAKER_08: The ocean, the water's just right there.
• 1:26:34
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, whenever it's not Hurricane Alley, oh, no, it's so sometimes.
• 1:26:40
  SPEAKER_00: But uh like once a week, maybe it'll be like perfect weather, no winds.
• 1:26:44
  SPEAKER_06: It's really nice.
• 1:26:45
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah, so awesome.
• 1:26:47
  SPEAKER_08: Uh so uh um, I guess what are some final words you guys would like to share um to the to our audience here?
• 1:26:54
  SPEAKER_08: Maybe what's next or inspiration, whatever comes to mind.
• 1:26:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um if y'all have suggestions, uh if y'all wanna throw like recipes or uh if you're looking for like a specific kind of pizza or maybe like an old special that um we haven't done in a while, let us know.
• 1:27:16
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone's gonna say the PBR, I'm sure.
• 1:27:20
  SPEAKER_04: Maybe the Peachy King.
• 1:27:21
  SPEAKER_04: Peachy King, yeah.
• 1:27:23
  SPEAKER_04: I'm gonna bring back the date night next month.
• 1:27:26
  SPEAKER_00: Uh that one was really I really like that one a lot.
• 1:27:29
  SPEAKER_04: So cool.
• 1:27:31
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Martin's so good at the names.
• 1:27:36
  SPEAKER_04: I pun everything there.
• 1:27:38
  SPEAKER_04: Um I'm a wordsmith.
• 1:27:40
  SPEAKER_04: I like messing with words.
• 1:27:41
  SPEAKER_00: Like I know, don't make me come up with the name.
• 1:27:44
  SPEAKER_05: Did you ever play an instrument in any time of your any time in your life?
• 1:27:47
  SPEAKER_05: Trumpet.
• 1:27:48
  SPEAKER_05: We're both in band together.
• 1:27:49
  SPEAKER_05: Wow, okay.
• 1:27:50
  SPEAKER_05: I played the clarinet.
• 1:27:51
  SPEAKER_08: Clarinet.
• 1:27:52
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, clarinet.
• 1:27:54
  SPEAKER_03: I should play the two, but it's only two options.
• 1:28:00
  SPEAKER_04: It's fun.
• 1:28:01
  SPEAKER_04: No, but yeah, I mean, thank y'all for supporting, getting us to this point.
• 1:28:05
  SPEAKER_00: Like, we love y'all from the bottom of our hearts, like for sure.
• 1:28:09
  SPEAKER_00: Like just know we appreciate y'all so much.
• 1:28:11
  SPEAKER_00: Going all the ups and downs, you know, good days, bad days, y'all keep coming back, and we appreciate y'all.
• 1:28:17
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, we're just gonna keep getting better.
• 1:28:19
  SPEAKER_04: You know, there's there's no way we could go back to the first day, you know, grand opening pizza didn't suck, but it wasn't great.
• 1:28:27
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, you know, we're just gonna keep getting better and better and better.
• 1:28:30
  SPEAKER_04: It's awesome.
• 1:28:31
  SPEAKER_04: And you know, let's see where we're doing.
• 1:28:33
  SPEAKER_08: Do y'all do y'all do y'all this is a Hispanic goodbye?
• 1:28:36
  SPEAKER_08: We say goodbye and then we keep talking.
• 1:28:38
  SPEAKER_08: Do y'all think do y'all think past like five years, ten years, twenty years, like some people do?
• 1:28:43
  SPEAKER_01: We got some ideas.
• 1:28:44
  SPEAKER_04: Okay, cool.
• 1:28:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we got some ideas.
• 1:28:46
  SPEAKER_04: San Antonio.
• 1:28:47
  SPEAKER_04: I would love San Antonio or Austin, but yeah, wow.
• 1:28:50
  SPEAKER_04: San Antonio just feels more homey.
• 1:28:52
  SPEAKER_04: Really?
• 1:28:52
  SPEAKER_00: We like San Antonio a lot.
• 1:28:53
  SPEAKER_04: So cool.
• 1:28:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but we'll see.
• 1:28:56
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we still have the food trailer.
• 1:28:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so we would like to possibly set that up somewhere, but we don't know where.
• 1:29:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's not even it's a piece of junk right now.
• 1:29:06
  SPEAKER_00: It needs a lot of work.
• 1:29:07
  SPEAKER_06: I strip it.
• 1:29:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, yeah, we took everything out of it.
• 1:29:10
  SPEAKER_00: It needs a little love, but um, I mean, that's an option as well.
• 1:29:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, man.
• 1:29:17
  SPEAKER_08: Good luck with that, you guys.
• 1:29:18
  SPEAKER_08: Wow.
• 1:29:19
  SPEAKER_08: Thanks for coming on the show.
• 1:29:20
  SPEAKER_08: Uh, 300 Shoreline Boulevard, right?
• 1:29:22
  SPEAKER_04: 300 North Shoreline Boulevard.
• 1:29:24
  SPEAKER_04: North Shoreline Boulevard the best western big octopus mural.
• 1:29:28
  SPEAKER_04: Big old octopus can meet out.
• 1:29:30
  SPEAKER_04: Um did a great job, but it's not pizza related.
• 1:29:34
  SPEAKER_04: Octopus pizza?
• 1:29:36
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, what I called that one.
• 1:29:38
  SPEAKER_04: Um, I had a good name for it.
• 1:29:41
  SPEAKER_04: Nice.
• 1:29:44
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah, something.
• 1:29:45
  SPEAKER_08: All right.
• 1:29:46
  SPEAKER_08: So, you guys have been listening to this conversation with Marty and Amber Flores of Marty McPies.
• 1:29:50
  SPEAKER_08: Uh, their story is uh one of service, persistence, and building a life rooted in a place they call home.
• 1:29:55
  SPEAKER_08: Uh, Marty McPies is located at 300 North Shore Boulevard.
• 1:29:59
  SPEAKER_08: You can find their hours and updates online and on social media at Marty McPies.
• 1:30:03
  SPEAKER_08: Uh, this is Corpsecritic Originals Podcast.
• 1:30:05
  SPEAKER_08: I'm Hisussi Ladio.
• 1:30:07
  SPEAKER_08: Thank you for listening.
• 1:30:07
  SPEAKER_08: Stay tuned for the next episode.
• 1:30:09
  SPEAKER_04: Thanks for having us.