Comcastrodors, please welcome Atlanta chef Chris Hall of Local Three, Muss & Turners, and Common Quarter to the podcast. Chris shares his personal experience developing within the food industry until ultimately opening several restaurants of his own. Local Three was founded by three Atlanta locals; a collaboration among Chris, Chef Todd Mussman, and business expert Ryan Turner, the restaurant represents the partners’ shared philosophies on local food ethics and seasonal food and drink, valuing people, authenticity, quality, and comfort.
Chris talks about the culture of the hospitality industry, transitioning into becoming a business owner, and making equitable choices in local and globalized food production . We all then gets real about college football as Maximüs Groves and guest host Matthew Queen try to keep their Georgia Tech alma mater fanaticism to appropriate levels.
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I have a good evening. Internet city it may be but Comcast will leave a lot of lives you know running as Maximus girl and I’m Matthew queen so we’re going to do our interview series for the show and right now we are reaching out to who we find are interesting people. Now this week we have a chef at one time Mr CHRIS Well this two part interview focuses on the restaurant business so you know what it’s like to be an entrepreneur or what it’s like to reach your goals and try and find new ones it’s actually very very hard hitting stuff like this and it was a really fun conversation for us and we look forward to sharing with you guys. So how do you get I mean it’s like you’ve been a chef for like OK so I don’t want to start with what’s known as the chef and a cook. When you when you’re a chef you actually have to manage people which kind of sucks I can’t rather be this much upside. So I mean I think a chef has there’s a there’s a creative control I guess if you want the answer that I give my staff I think there comes a time when you’re cooking and I’m not sure you can really identify but you start to look at food critically and not just sort of by rote I mean a lot of cooking is just repetition and you know more you do it the more you learn and then all the sudden you start to go OK well if that tastes like that why am I putting this here and what’s the texture and how’s it looking or the color so I think you evolve into into that but mainly honestly at some point you get into the fact that you’re managing people I mean when you’re cooking you’re kind of knocking out what’s on your station and in the five or six or seven dishes that you have when you’re a chef you know you’ve got responsibilities for the whole kitchen. You’ve got around the financial aspect of the business from that part and you’ve got creative control so there’s ups. Odds and Sods you know the upside is you get a lot of creative freedom the downside is you get to learn Excel really well because you come in the door. So when like when did you realize that you were pretty good at it. Cooking I’m not sure I never set out to do it but I’ve never done anything else. So the interesting part I think is that I never went to school I just learned by doing which I think I would actually advocate just get out there instead of taking a bunch of student loans and start cooking before you go to call in a school not say clownish goes bad I just think that you know someone can show you how to break down a fish but if you break down five hundred fish you’re going to learn. I mean it’s just as simple as it is sort of I mean compared to you know I think is take as its not as a pleasurable but people to get a liberal arts degree don’t necessarily use they use it every day but it’s not specified right. You know if you’re an engineer you can be specific you can be doing things that are pretty obviously you know engineering related as far as you know if you’re doing jet propulsion you’re probably learn about Latin in school whereas you know so I didn’t really go to school I just started doing it and like that I actually started throwing pizzas fifteen on the road at the Pizza Hut was really pretty especially a start so it’s like you were like You’re from Atlanta. Then yeah you know we moved here when I was nine so this is pretty much how I want to wait to boarding school and college but this is pretty much home. Yeah I just got into it and then I decided that I liked it and once I made that decision it became a matter of OK I’m really going to teach myself how to cook and eat and go to the best places I can find people that really know what they’re doing and trying to figure this thing out. So what was your first cooking job where you were like really in it to learn something. I cooked for a while after like during summers at jocks and jails and there’s a there’s something pretty cool about short order cooking. It’s not as easy as people think. Those guys at Waffle House some of them are pretty bad ass so I think that was kind of the first thing that I really started to think about. OK well what am I doing here it’s not just putting stuff on a pizza I was the pizza guy for a long while. I still I think I’ll probably start with pizza and finish with pizza. That’ll probably be the last project I do that will be like the new take over piece of Atlanta. Yeah I don’t know I mean you know I just think it would be cool to kind of come full circle with that but I think you know cooking is a lot of it’s just experimentation as mastering a craft and you know some people say it’s art is not art is an art like art is only worth whatever the story is right so rich people can show off like a genius prodigy child painted this and all their friends are impressed right. So of course they spent. No You know I was going to bullshit but like you spoke earlier I like being a chef is people management. Our personalities in the kitchen just you know it everyone runs a different kitchen I think. I guess the most interesting thing is you see all the T.V. shows and it’s not like that those are shows and they’re embellished. I think back in the day when I first started cooking there was a lot more yelling screaming shit being thrown at you I mean I had stuff thrown at me it’s not real pleasant. You can’t get away with that now I think the better the kitchen kind of the calmer it is. Sharon like an assembly line I mean it’s not a reflection of the of the talent because like you know if you have some talented people I can imagine getting frustrated but if you’re surrounded by everyone who’s really good likely would be a more smoother operation. Yeah absolutely I mean. When we have a table in the kitchen at local three so people can come in and check it out. That’s kind of a common theme is people go oh I thought there would be a bunch of yelling but everybody’s concentrating and working hard and you just hear yes and no in a few voices and so really it’s it should be it should be controlled chaos I guess. But there’s so many moving parts that have to work well for a for a good restaurant experience and I don’t think people taken into account just from the time you call to make a reservation to the time you walk out the door and someone says good night and hand you your coat and make sure it’s your coat. Like I mean you’ve got to have somebody setting up how you process credit cards you’ve got to have menus you could have people buying things storing things prep and things you have servers that are doing things you’ve got to have you know dishwashers always get overlooked it doesn’t matter how good your food is if you’ve got eggs from brunch on the plate. If people don’t write I mean is so in that sense it’s a it’s a very you know only as good as your weakest link as a link and a lot of things I think the interesting thing about Hitchens is I think most of them are probably a little bit like locker rooms there’s a lot of inside humor. There’s a it’s I have women in my kitchens and I’m proud of that but they got to be tough and they’ve got to be able to get popped by a wet towel and they’ve got to be able to sort of dish it out as much as they can take it and so I think it’s kind of like a locker room and that’s really a little bit of what it’s like I mean the interesting thing is you got to be ready to go every night. There’s there’s no forgiveness right I mean when we open the doors every day someone’s judging us. Well how much is it like do or die you know like that one mistake does that just make the restaurant. No no I don’t think it makes the restaurant I mean I think I you know I could make a pretty strong case for the fact that some of my most regular customers and people that are that really. Patronise us a lot started out with a mistake. So I think it’s how you handle the mistake that matters you know I think if you own it and just say look we didn’t cook your food properly and it came out cold and it’s our fault and we want you to come back and we’re going to make sure you have a great experience and you know when people trying gloss over it it’s a high pressure business I mean what can really get you is not the one mistake it’s that things are going really fast and on a busy night. If it starts to spend it’s going to spend and when it spins out of control it’s really hard to get it back because once you start to go ten minutes late then you’re twenty minutes late then the door backs up then you’re forty minutes late and you can’t get entrées out then you start sending the wrong food out. Next thing you know you get one hundred unhappy people. That’s when it sucks. You know if if if we miss I mean we make mistakes it’s we don’t like to and I certainly am a perfectionist and we don’t we don’t ever want to make mistakes but the one mistakes not going to kill you it is the multiple mistakes that lead to a kitchen going down the same as an airplane crash it’s not one thing but everything in perfect timing which is just wrong. Yeah I mean it’s it’s a little bit like a like a choreographed dance I mean when everything goes right it’s kind of awesome to sit back and watch it all happen. It almost sounds like a Broadway play but I want to say. I’m conscious of the whole orchestration around here. Yeah I mean the interesting things is the chef I’m usually work in the past so I mean I’m pretty much on most nights or my chef too busy in his really really talented air traffic control. So basically if you think of orders coming in those are planes that want to land and if you think your order has gone out that’s the runway. Yeah those are planes they’ve got to take off and it’s my job to coordinate what’s landing and what’s taking off and make sure that the stuff that’s taking off has been inspected and is perfect and is not going to crash when it gets to the table. Are you do you think the coke anymore. I do but rarely honestly my job. Now at three restaurants is more of a business person I guess. I’m not big in the titles but one of my partners insists that we have a title and he’s dubbed me chief restaurant officer which is cool because Ryan does the business side of things I mean I’m obviously involved in it but he really enjoys that and he’s fantastic at it so you know he asked me what we think we’re going to do and then he plugs in a spreadsheet and tells me what it means at the end of the year which is great. I think that’s where most restaurants fail if they don’t have someone like that to do the business side of it. But my job now is primarily teaching and making sure that what we do is is good for our guests. I mean my whole deal is that anything that faces a guess or deals with are are people I’m involved and so whether it’s the beverage menu or a new concept or how are you know what we’re serving where we’re buying it how are sharing it. That’s all what I’m doing and. I miss cooking I’d still do it occasionally if you like your skills or certainly a crusty. Oh yeah do you like it. Yeah tell you something. Whole areas I just agreed to get really really humiliated then it out a month or so every year Charleston Food and Wine Festival. They have a contest called the waffle house smack down and they take six guys like me and they make the best scrambled eggs or some you know you have to you have to cook like Waffle House orders and they have real Waffle House registers like calling orders to others fantastic to have my actual my high school football coach actually did that. We got to the playoffs no one expected it so he went and coached everyone personally. Yes shorter. So I’m going to go out there and be on T.V. and then at the end they take the six chefs and you compete against the chef that won it the year before and then the winner of that goes against some like I was. Waffle House is perfect. Yeah like there’s the Hugo and some drizzle. Waffle House veteran he was by my sixteen years. Yeah and Kevin Gillespie who’s a good friend of mine who’s on Top Chef did it last year and he was like you know they call it six or you see and he’s like that guys like finish cooking like kicking back smoking a cigarette and he’s only a second order which is like swearing Di he has no idea what he’s doing he’s like it’s the most humbling experience so I still get to cook. I still I still love to cook but it’s more now about mentoring and teaching other people to cook. When you get to a certain level I mean we’ve been fortunate enough to have three good restaurants with aspirations for more so so I know you can look at three D. do. So we have a local three Musson turners and Common Core So we have in common core last year and he’s Cabret of Johnson’s ferry and so yeah I mean at this point we’re you know we’re we’re relatively big business I mean we’re going to do you know a little more than eight million dollars in sales this year so that’s you know I’m as much of a business person now as I am a chef. Did you realize that at some point did you wake up one day realize I’m bored I’ve I’ve become more machine than man. Yes and that’s a really really hard sort of emotional issue to deal with as a cook I mean I would be totally lying to you if I told you that I don’t sometimes wish for the days where I could just go in and run my kitchen because I was really good at that and that’s what I most enjoyed. That’s exactly what do Chappelle said wife looked out for me entire. An essential thing like becoming a C.E.O. of one hundred fifty million dollars show and just leaving. Yeah I mean I totally get it. I also think you get to a weird place where you know as a chef. So when I originally started and this is still my goal I’m not going to lie to you and tell you money doesn’t matter and matters right but I’m also not going to tell you that it’s my primary motivator. My primary motivator is creative drive and my my creative outlet is the ref. A chance and now I’m also motivated by the fact that I get to mentor people and help people we’ve got a really cool stuff and a chance to be part of our community. So my When I started all I wanted was creative freedom because it doesn’t matter how much an owner tells you No you can do whatever you want on the menu. But when his wife goes I really like a Caesar salad tonight. You know what you do when you’re making a Caesar salad right because Judge smells wife I mean she’s going to get a Caesar salad right. And and so I think my number one thing was creative freedom and I had a vision and I wanted to express that and you sort of get there in you find a way to get some capital or investors and you figure it out and you get a job and and then get successful and you’re like holy shit this is the coolest thing ever and you get to a point where like what do I do now. Like what’s next. Like where where is the logical sort of am I happy doing this for the rest of my life. Well I could have been and so on. I mean I’ve said for a long time that I want to and and I alluded to it earlier I want to end up back in the kitchen. I want to end up cooking again for a couple years. Because I do really love it but also this is a completely new challenge I’ve never done this before and I’m more challenges than I’ve ever been in my life I don’t think you recognize just how beautiful what you just said was because from our perspective I mean we’re both about thirty and you know we look at you and it’s like you just like you went to the top of the mountain and he came back down you get a good view but there’s more than just the top of the mountain. Meanwhile the two of us are alike and I really hope I’m aching because there’s like there’s that word you know like when you’re just kind of starting your career it’s like OK a cow like this or like that but you know there’s no guarantee of success. Where do you want to retire like in the law. Like it’s probably just the creative parts where you actually to help somebody or other in retirement I mean I got an honest man I still have just out I just like I’m still so focused on the day to day. Even though what I want to do like long term when I was I mean I was forty when we open you know we had I bought in the muss and Turner’s way I thought forty mass murder. Now I’m forty three now so I was forty when when I opened my first place and then we opened another one I think it does grow exponentially like it’s interesting how success begets success. Well what was that stress gone like starting like the cook to the boss. I think the biggest part of it is you go from being a specialist to having to be a generalist like this is not a political statement at all and and I wanted to be interpreted that way but I could give two shits about Obamacare but I’ve had to learn about Obamacare because it affects my business. Yeah you know I mean that’s not the everyone who you get to cook in your own T.V. need to hang out with cool people I also get to take the garbage out I get to figure out Obamacare. I get to figure out how going to finance shit I get to figure out how to fix the cooling tower and we’re going to find a grand that I’ll have to figure out how I’m going to make payroll and the hardest part of it frankly was just finding or finding the money and finding the sort of. I’ve never written a business plan before you know what the business guys for that’s what he was when he did a hell of a job and he still does. We work well together and that’s that’s one of the you know the interesting thing about a partnership is they’re great when they work and they’re terrible when they don’t but it’s oh yeah this mother fucking ignorant shit about climate change on our blog and I’m going to. Yeah. And so I’d like to minimize I don’t want to shit representing my name so I immediately respond with another post that I’d like lists and Massa went through Let’s argue with each other which is great I mean there has to be creative tension. I think the one thing I mean I’m so intimately tied in. Both financially and emotionally with my partners. I mean it’s essentially I’m married to a dude he just fucks me in the same way. I want you to like the same description of a band it was the dysfunctional family that you choose. Yeah I mean it’s so like that and we have a great partnership in his strengths complement mine and it works out really well with Todd and Ron I mean all three of us are two different things and it’s great having three because there are a lot of ties with it which is helpful but it takes work I mean in that sense it’s it’s great but I do really enjoy having someone that sort of not only is really good at it enjoys a lot of the stuff I have no I mean I have no desire to call an insurance broker and get quotes on general liability insurance for three restaurants. I would rather punch myself in the. We just saw that on the mag I got punched because that was the last straw. That’s when he called him the assassin. Pretty much just like you said like you like the creative freedom but you didn’t just show up with their own restaurant and say OK now it was created for in his words you’re the head chef at a sundial for when I was at the Sun The first memory I thought this could just be me making things up I thought you were your role in this and I was kind of reinvent the menu because it got stale. Yeah so it was a steakhouse when I came there and they wanted not to do the steakhouse thing and it was it was probably two most formative years of my career I learned a ton I learned a ton about how to add a really great boss who now runs all of Google’s campuses around the world this is where the kitchens or was it one of the running. No he runs everything so it was like like if you’re at Google campus if you’re on those grounds he’s the guy to set everything up down yonder like office chairs. Oh yeah see i mean i’m sure he has people who got to become a water slide and he’s got another the next. So I never think of a big building but like if there is someone who’s like I need tables and we are all not not just that I mean he decides like you know we’re going to offer sushi here and how the dining programs going to work and we’re going to have buses that go here and we’re going to bring strippers in every third Thursday or whatever I believe that you know I want to believe that you know we all want to believe that but he can he does it I think the sun though is interesting because you know they got us in there and we did a couple years and then they just decided that we took it from about four million for happening to about nine million which was great and then they decided that some of the promises they have made about you know refurbishing the restaurant other things just weren’t going to happen. And. It’s I’m not suited for a corporate atmosphere I think I’m just a little too contrary and playing too many roles for me. Plus it’s really really hard to run a kitchen where you drug test most every good kid cook smokes weed most every good job at least at least they’re close to people who the F.B.I. has the same problem they can’t hire programmers because all the best ones are high all the time. I mean it’s an interesting societal thing but I learned a lot there and I think I guess the thing that I tell people all the time as don’t don’t be in a hurry I think there’s a real instant gratification thing right now where I room I mean I get these kids coming out of Qana school and they’re like I’m ready to be your sushi chef. I’m like Dude really you can’t even cook eggs right now. You’re not ready to do shit. One should be humble and spend ten years learning it and then you get to a point where you are really good and when you get to that point you can then start doing cool shit it is you see that zero documentary. Yeah but you’re saying like the guy is only allowed to make one egg and has to do that like constantly until they can say OK that’s good enough to move in some of those doesn’t work there five years and. Never touched a piece of fish. Think about archery or at least the Japanese approached archery were like Chinese weightlifting they just use the stick for like freaking forever that’s not like American music or anything and I think it’s like you know what you do. Fuck it just jump out there and see what sticks. Yeah and look at outcast with you know one hundred three thousand or one hundred fifty thousand you know his famous story is that he never took one lesson which I don’t believe but allegedly he taught himself how to do everything and he just you know kind of figured that out a lot and that’s the American story is like don’t don’t wait for a minute take it with a lot of people I doubt it. I’m fortunate to know him pretty well in the restaurant and he’s one of the coolest nicest and smartest people I’ve ever seen over time. Andre that’s the only thing ever here is he’s an absolutely stunningly cool dude and takes the time just to I mean I’ve been fortunate to be able to sit down and talk about my creative process with him and him. Talking about his creative process and that’s a pretty cool that you know I just think people you know I look at cooking as a craft so that early and it’s sort of like you have a tool box and you’ve got various methods of how to cook and you need to sort of put those tools in your tool box that will magically appear. They happen because you’ve learned them and you’ve repeated I mean you’ve done them and once you have all those tools you can take your palette which is basically the natural ingredients and you can start applying the tools to and then that’s when cool stuff really starts to happen but I think there’s this idea that that everyone you know I’m ready to be a rock star and it is so strange to me when you look at it like chess really are the new rock stars from the tattoos to the bad boy image to the you know the T.V. deals like images that like Anthony Bourdain makes a career out of talking shit about T.V. chefs right. Yeah I mean it’s so kind of unbelievable just how that culture has taken off. It’s very kind of the Food Network for me. Yeah it’s all it’s the Food Network. I think it’s funny because you sit and you hear a lot of these top chefs and they just want to bash people. I mean say some for the good fortune that Cook is his sixtieth birthday dinner this year for Emeril Lagasse and any cook at any level that looks that that guy and doesn’t go thanks for making me a shit ton of money dude is way off base. Because not only is he nice but he made all of this a ton of money. I mean that whole little Bam shtick which I’ll admit doesn’t really move me and sort of get me going but it sure as hell brought cooking to the forefront and it made you know T.V. chefs I mean everybody from Justin Wilson and Martin and I mean it’s funny that’s kind of how I learned how to cook I mean but in the tween cookbooks and watching cooking shows you know there’s but it’s just so interesting to me to watch the this sort of roam it’s become romanticized it’s become you know and we went hard back in the day I mean when you’re on a you know everybody in their twenty’s drinks too much and we were at heart and it was great but it’s become romanticized like like you know the rock N roll lifestyle and and all that and I think. Sounds like I mean to Chuck Palahniuk book now you know it would like that would that would that would definitely probably go over pretty well. So the story is a great I mean I have some fantastic stories and then you see some whole Leiria shit and you know this business is so so ripe with amazingly funny stuff so about six or seven years ago around my part I was just like you know what dude we need to start writing the shit down because we’re going to forget it OK. And we started to and so someday I think we’ll probably just compile all that into a book. So we’ve got like the Atlanta memoir end up like rock a chicken shit. Yeah it’s just hilarious to me and I give you guys a great story I probably shouldn’t say. Probably get me in trouble but one of my one of my server assistants was we were really busy in December and we knew we were paying attention he wasn’t paying attention because he was busy and he had a full section he’s working his ass off and we’ve been getting pounded on for days on end that he just sees he’s got is he’s got this couple with his back to him and he sees this large lady in the smaller gentleman and in the smaller person and he walks over and kind of leans in and and he says can I can I get your son a sippy cup. And and she looks back she said that’s not my son that’s my day. He was a little vertically challenged. It’s a little bit of anger ensued. How do you deal with that other than laugh. Like I really didn’t mean to do anything wrong. Was it wrong. Yeah I mean he was just like really. Did you just ask the frickin door for any of this yet sweet How do you you can make that shit up. Oh they have the same joke I’m thirty Rock where she thinks as a child Pat has had it turns out it’s Peter Dinklage I’m gay. Well actually I watched this happen in front you just watch like some of the most amazing stuff that’s hilarious happen and you know alcohol magnifies what was it’s always very interesting. You’re seeing I don’t know. It’s not before. Exactly as we sit on our scotch I just think it’s a very. That’s the fun of the restaurant business. There’s no better laboratory if your end of the human condition than restaurants from the people you work with to the people you get to serve every day. I’m constantly amazed both going to get in a bad way more in a good actually the best part of the businesses is the people you work with and the people you get to me I mean I’ve been really fortunate to meet a lot of Kopi. One have a lot of cool experiences. And that’s that’s the best part. So I feel like it’s so easy to say I like Mexico like Chinese Philip French what is American food was really good question. I mean you know the melt the melting pot is the easy answer. I do think like most things that it’s regional. I think if you go to China you know Europe is interesting because I think it’s a lot like that we just don’t have the borders. So I mean think about it Germany is not that far from from France I mean but there are radically different cuisine just as Midwestern food is different than Southern food which is different than. So do you think cultural influences play play deeply into it I think there are some common denominators. That come through certain things. I think their styles of cooking that have influenced things so it’s maybe a little long winded so cut me off if you fall asleep but I think there’s kind of two styles of cooking. And one is for lack of a better term I’ll call it manipulative and I don’t mean that in a bad way I mean that you are using a lot of cologne or a technique and things to do to make the food taste good so any two examples of manipulative cuisine would be French and Chinese. There’s a lot of sauce work where it’s relatively complicated your branding thing is you’re you’re making complex sauces as opposed to trying to bring out like natural writers and you know the opposite of that is a is a much more sort of ingredient based approach and the you know the two easiest examples of that are Italian and Japanese So the sushi seche I mean think about it. So she’s amazing complex because to make great sushi rice you have to be a master. There’s not a lot that goes into it right I mean it’s a sauce and maybe some with Savi and some rice that has a couple in grating. It’s an it. But it’s it’s the sourcing of the rice it’s getting really great rice and is learning how to cook it absolutely perfectly every time finding really great fish. It’s knowing how to cook it is like doing the common uncommonly right but you but you’re not you’re not manipulating a lot you’re not cooking a lot same of that I mean think about our past is his flour water eggs and salt you might add oil that’s where this is going and I mean it’s not that complex but it is because you can vary the ingredients you have to sounds like my old music teacher describing a B. flat scale like a serious they would sit there and talk about like I mean just the way you are words like he’s like I want to say it’s like eight notes right and Bayh’s that then say OK so the partial difference between the first and the third and now if we take the third down you have a minor and they sits there and tries to start explain you have things called overtones. You just have two people playing a novice and you have all these extra notes come out of nowhere just off the force of physics and then I was like struck me as like a very high minded way of appreciating again like Max said like making you know the on the common uncut Well honestly like when you describe cooking it really sounds like writing a song. You know it’s like the places were like You’ve got your tools you know on the way they come together and then discovering that out of your own I think it’s a lot like that I mean I definitely think you trying various things it can be disharmonious But if you tie them together properly they can make a pretty cool noise that sounds exactly like commerce analogies are like bartenders. Yeah I think I do use the term bartender mixologist sweet or open my mouth full of it. But what this cordon forces that somehow come together beautifully despite the disaster. Yeah I think that’s very true. So you’re back to your original question I mean I really do think American food is is the sum of a lot of parts I think you have to look at it regionally and I think really to dive deep you have to look. It anthropologically I mean here I’ll go on a limb here and make a prediction. Rahm is going to be the next big thing. Rob Rob that’s a good you know how Bourbons raging right Bourbons Romans is here is what it was like for the right isn’t like the cinnamon bourbon or. Yeah well you can flavor it but like really you know I mean you can get technical bobber and you know we were voted the sixpence Burma bar in the country last year at local throws us and that is that so it was an organic or did you like stand out was there you know I just like it out there now. We’ve never we don’t do any kind of P.R. like that it was totally I love bourbon and I’m a real believer in I don’t think you can be everything to everybody all the time and I think God gives entirely boring so why have fourteen vodka selections. Do you go to an old fashion I love old fashions I spun my bourbon drink of choice that is minus the rocks so you have good taste like you very much is that where you just fail as an artist when you try to please everybody. Yeah I think so and that’s why I said Look I really have a passion for bourbon and I want to go deep in one thing and really appeal to people who like it as opposed to being sort of broad I’d rather go vertically deep and really challenge people so at any given time we pour between one hundred thirty and one hundred fifty bourbons and I could make it over two hundred if I decided to. She stock cheap shit was in the lead to talk about a burger and yes pretty much. Yeah yeah we have I mean there’s nobody in it. I mean I’m confident saying there’s no money in Atlanta that has the bourbon selection we did not even close up of the states. Oh yeah I mean there’s a place called canon in Seattle that goes around the country buying vintage bourbon from estate sales that has never been opened. I think it’s like a seventy one page list unmask. It’s unbelievably cool. I mean that place yeah you can drop you can drop so much money there so there are tons of great There are tons of wonderful whiskey bars I mean so I don’t I hope you guys have been to brick store pub indicator. Yes You know first time brick store is the mecca of beer and. And Mike and Dave and Tom are really great friends and I just I wanted to be the brick store of bourbon. OK I want to have a ton of it and have really cool stuff and and we’ve got to wait like I said we could pour a lot more but I have no interest in pouring something out of a plastic jug that no one’s going to drink and there’s a bourbon called Irish Setter and I I was like we don’t have Irish Setter and my my beverage manager looked at me and he goes that’s because it smells and tastes like an Irish Setter she was like that’s a compelling argument why we should do so but it’s fun I mean it you you know we we carry a pretty big bourbon in the tory and we’re constantly look in the looking to do that. I’ll give you a shameless shill. On Wednesday of next week. If you aren’t doing anything you should come by and sign up. We have Bernie livers who’s master distiller from heaven hell and he’s doing bourbon trivia. Look at that. Astra come and drink with the master distiller and you will probably have to serve and serve in the area and learn from right. Well I’ve been trying to obscure bourbon facts six months preparing to take it or you can get to them. That’s an interesting thing too like anything else you can get to the point where I think people’s obsession with it sort of can undermine the feeling they like that so I’ve heard the definition of murder. I don’t trust to the point of discomfort. Yeah I mean at the end of the day China have some good taste good and get a good buzz on and I’d like to know a little bit about it but I mean I don’t need to know the individual strains of corn that went into the US You know but it’s also cool I mean we had a lot of opportunities to go to Kentucky pick out barrels blend barrels do some really cool things make some really good friends and that’s been called Zebulon the barrels like is there or is there a Chris Hall bourbon in the future. There’s a resume. It won’t be Chris all we have a couple we have a couple reserve so we did a barrel that for our charity last year called spirit of the giving kitchen that’s gone now we drank all that. We have a four roses barrel that we picked out called we can get your toe by three o’clock which is a big ask you reference OK we have a Breckenridge barrel right now called Medina Saab which is obviously the dude’s bowling team. So you can see a theme emerging here. Yeah we have a George pickle barrel and this year I’m trying to decide who we’re going to blend with Jackie are you going to say the we the tree hungus blend discussed at length a lot less RAM and we’re definitely trying to figure out who we’re going to blend with this year but it’s been great to go up there and sort of do that we do have a we do have a Buffalo Trace plant coming out which is going to be really cool that I’m excited about. So what’s blending mean like are you bringing their bourbon in like yours and just like several together. Yes it’s a really it’s an amazingly cool process conics always blunt some funny so what they basically do is they will see you you basically make beer and then you distill it right. So you’ve got mash and and Bourbons going to be it’s got to be at least fifty percent corn and then you’re going to have barley and rye. Then you can have I mean we did bourbon. So it’s just going to depend on what you want you know the more raw you put in the more spicy it’s going to be the more corn you put in the more sweet it’s going to be the more weight you put in the more kind of smooth it’s going to be. Well then you have to so you distill it right and it comes out and it’s huge it’s just clear liquid you take off what’s called the head and the tail the first part of the distillation the end of this distillation and then you barrel it and so there’s only one American Bourbon House that has their own cooperage and that’s what triggers are. So everybody else is buying barrels which is fun. It doesn’t really tell you a dirty secret about half the bourbon on the market right now it’s manufactured as like a small batch or like some of the. Really little producers as well produced in the same place in Indiana. That’s just something you can do different things with it but it’s kind of the dirty secret of the barrel oil and I want to talk Kentucky in the end it almost sounds like as if organic food is a scam which is the same thing is this is funny because you know you know special and we’ve done this alike it’s actually just done in Indiana to their recipe I mean but you know you can have custom made recipes and things like that so you take the bourbon and then you’re going to agent in the barrel so it depends on how much you toast the barrel heads and do things like that what the bells are made of all that and then it’s going to depend where you put them in the recounts or therapy I have to download the temps are where they are. So what’s cool is you know when we did the Woodford landing we took eight barrels and we took barrel samples from someone so you take a thief you know a long pipe at me put it in there and you pull them out and three of those barrels we took from the exact same day and from the exact same batch and they tasted vastly different there’s no way you could have ever told that. That’s cool so in essence what you do is you sit down in this really nice table with. Eight small glasses in front of you with numbers and you taste the samples and you start talking about what you like about men and what’s good and you trying it down to two two to four of them and when she gets a four then you start you know let’s say you picked. I can tell you what we picked we picked one for five and eight. So you mix one with so then you have to go get some spring water at this point it’s barrel strikes was frickin hot here I mean what’s your palate. It’s nothing not nothing you just have to man up and push. Which was actually going to go to number them so probably you do a little bit I mean we taste a lot of whiskey you know they have good pallets you know because they’re taking very small steps. Yeah you definitely you can spit and I mean they were a little bit horrified but at the end of one of the tasting. We actually took them all and blend them all together and made a giant whiskey suicide finish that off before we got in the limo back to Louisville. It’s always Yeah I mean why would you do that so then you just try and you’re going to cut it with a little cold spring water which is gets to to what they call bottle proof right. You know you’re going to get it down around one hundred barrel proof’s going to be one twenty five to one thirty. It’s going to be pretty it’s pretty hot. It’s coming out coming out pretty stiff and then you just sort of blend them and try and figure out what you like I mean you want some spicy idealisms smooth or do you have some in the middle you have some Oakie more vanilla butterscotch I mean you can play around with how you blend things with that particular time and just being like your own like distillery burdens of art of an artist maximize it a pizza pizza pizza. I’m definitely thinking I mean you know I could do bourbon. So I’m going to where we are going to we’re going to Mexico at the end of the month we’re going to hear a door to pick out a barrel of tequila because I don’t it’s in Guadalajara. So yeah we’re taking our company is this beautiful young lady and there’s she’s just made it known that we can’t sell or in the white slavery. That’s right. Well that we’re not allowed to do that we’re going to corporate takeover strategy as it is is guns that I am I take it I hope people appreciate my sense of humor. But yes so we’re going to go a little hard to pick up and they have a donkey that walks around with tequila for you and that’s a Ron White joke. Yeah you know I think you a donkey named Kuko. So yeah I mean it’s it’s completely fun to go there it’s a really cool process I think even a house as big as Woodford which is generally when I went up there I thought they were kind of one of the bigger producers know computers all their logs are done by hand. She’s the old fashioned way. It’s kind of cool it’s crazy. Our ledgers not Harry Potter. Yeah it’s like Harry Potter shit these huge ledgers in there right now in a mall that’s on the mike and you’re like damn this really is like some serious craftsmanship equerry you know they’re in there and they’re inspecting all agreeing that comes in and they’re really picky about it and I’m like this is this is really cool stuff and I just appreciate everything about you know what final records movement is yeah I mean most good bourbon if it’s not swill it’s going to be aged for a minimum of seven years. That’s an interesting idea I mean we do the same thing when you were curing things if I decide to make a push you know I cure it and I’m not going to know what it’s like for eighteen months and when I you know when I’m ready to eat it you have no idea what you’re going to get you could’ve spent eighteen months for some of the taste like total shit like irrelevant. Yeah it’s an absolute crap shoot a few minor choosing one reserves are similar. Yeah they are exactly the same way you have no idea I mean you’re entirely dependent on the weather and other things and then you’re just hoping it turns out great I mean you can control the process particularly in distillation form or in one I mean you can use sulfites and eat you know. The pump over press are there a lot of things that you can do but yeah it’s your sort of that the nature at the whim of Mother Nature which I think is comical. It’s very like very mature area that you can to be and because like if you want to turn around like because I mean like you’re saying it’s not I mean I would say like if you want to you very well could look at this is art but you’re not going to see the fruits of your labor for seven years or so later I mean you’re asking like you’re asking like where do you see yourself in the future and I’m like you know seven years and I have no idea. Reading an article saying that millennial drink wine too quickly somehow they have to make it differently just to get it out like two buck chuck style so they see that I mean you can pound it. Yeah I mean in that’s the you know there’s within the wine business. There’s an argument. CORKER don’t court depending on when and if Gati CA you can get court taint you know so people are going to drink it earlier people still aging wine you know what’s funny is I’m as much of a bearing on the wind. I don’t have the beer but both my partners have the beer bug because we have huge beer listen at all our places but I’m not a beer guy so but yeah I mean I think it’s the millennial impact will be super interesting I get to deal with them in the kitchen so that’s a that’s that’s something that’s interesting as an old man to figure that out. How is that different like the new personalities. People start yeah it’s it’s good and bad. I think my experience with millennial Zz’s they value a lot of feedback. They want to feel good about what they’re doing. They values some autonomy. They’re relatively impatient. Time is as important as money and the downside would be they are thin skinned. You know I think to do what we do on a high level you’ve got to invest a lot of time and you’ve got to be pretty tough and so sometimes I’m not sure of that. My toughness with them is appreciated and that is that despite that it goes the most fair criticism I could have heard what I actually want to do a lot of the likes of you really all these motherfuckers donor stepped up but they can’t do anything like what is that Generation Y. going elsewhere or is it just young people in general I mean do you think that the criticisms you have of the millennium goals would be invalid if you were you know in our position one hundred years ago. Yeah I mean I think to a certain extent it’s going to be the same and what I don’t want to be is you know the old man bitching about how the kids and how I held back to four. Yeah I had to walk seven miles with no shoes through the snow to school I don’t want to even bread I just think. I think what’s interesting is how how a millennial might define commitment to a person my age you know and I don’t really identify with with a generation because you know I am in my kitchen and on the rare times that we have music on or after work when they’re cleaning you know it’s their music so I am as you know if Diane’s words on I’m listening to it because it’s there and so I don’t really identify with the generation so it’s hard to me what freaks me out is our menu and what we do at level three has a lot of pop culture references. OK Clay secularly from the past and when I’m making Lebowski references or when I when I say you know I like that you know this is references right I mean there’s we call our burger the MacDowell and they’re like what’s in your leg really. And none of them have seen Animal House and they can’t quote Fletch to me I’m like so I literally made a list of movies that you have to watch if you’re going to work in our kitchen. I’ve also heard I mean and I’m absolutely like to go home you’re going to get high anyway right. Just for you not to Animal House and understand that it’s one of the most important movies of our generation of them you’ll know why I’m calling you flounder. Right exactly you don’t like we do things like that like like one of our dishes when we open was called your Delta Tau kind name is said to flounder. You know and how the rest of the dish I mean we do fun stuff like that and like if we serve something really expensive I’ll just call it put it on the Underhill stab right from floods and I like I don’t understand. Yeah you know they get the Nick Offerman references. Yeah you know we do the turf and turf and we do fun stuff like that but it’s interesting it’s funny you mention the guy you’re talking to a pair of fans and we both like Parks and Rec But if you have to got into it this guy is like the words of Ron Swanson as a human being on season five. Well overhand Why do we still have these a lot of that are for we. Oh that’s it is great. I just you know it’s so funny and and it ties in that level of humor. Yeah you know I mean you know that we actually serve the turf and turf it was like two hundred dollars a porter and I was with a robot it was it was it was a porter how it was like a forty amp porterhouse in a twenty four ounce T.V. Jesus crew with glasses a scotch and a cigar the service or yeah we let people share it it was great but oh well you know you just do fun stuff like that for to hope people understand it and what you’re going to try and do I mean how many people actually ordered that. You know I think we sold like I think we bought five of them and you’d be surprised when so and when our cast announced the tour and yeah they did some of the planning at local three at launch like afterwards which was cool. So we knew it was coming but we had a whole menu that the you know one was a fish and grits and all that Harlow I mean we had all sorts of references when when when Robin Williams died with the entire menu sort of dedicated to to him so we did fun stuff like that eventually clued into like the public consciousness like the whole city like trying to interact like the whole. By the culture of it yeah we try to be I mean I think it’s I’m not sure we do it on purpose I think we just try and do stuff that we think is hilarious and if people get our kind of Corky sense of humor then cool and some people don’t I mean if you’ve been to the restaurant when you walk in over the host and my one of my best friends and his wife is super close to my wife and I as a surprise had a velvet dude painted and it’s the picture it’s one of a kind I’ve been offered literally thousands of dollars by a very famous business. Let’s ask this is this is the dude in the bathroom with the white russian involve It made by probably the world’s most famous velvet artist. Do you wanna know. Anyway he’s only done one and one other one and it was for prime Daler I’m asked about both of them. Oh I hooked him up. FELBER those goes Iraq man they love good food and they come in all the time in the street are cool you know the alcohol gets up and I have there are three of overdoses in the front I would ask you know there’s also the Last Supper Lebowski that I get hate mail about. It’s great and I got all the characters got all the characters as a lot is a Judith and and you got to find that out for yourself if I don’t know if this is a put the turf and turf back on the man above the host stand like there’s this big of it right and it’s so funny when like old ladies come in and they’re like I don’t understand the picture. Jesus was carrying on like that’s not Jesus Jesus is the guy with the bowling ball. That’s the dude. Then obviously you’re not a golfer. You just see like the gears mash and they just have no clue and you’re like I’m sorry man I’m just like yeah the element that I mean I don’t you know we try to have a lot of fun and I think I think so much of it is is a really good restaurant should be reflective of. They should have a personality and be reflective of the people that run them and I think all of ours are. So that’s something that we have that really seems like the place where at least Atlanta has successfully tried to make sort of a culture of its own you know like special restaurants like is Atlanta like it’s described very frequently as like the foodie place that people actually try to get out and interact on this level. Yeah I mean I think we’re really good food town I mean just bay. Still inside as you know I think New York has the best diversity I think San Francisco has probably the best cooking right now. And then you’ve got Chicago and I might put Philly in there and we’re right there. I think you have a really cool scene and I think it’s a it’s a very tight knit. I mean it’s more collegial than that and sort of combative. Most of us get along we work with each other we help each other and I think there’s a good variety of food I mean there’s tons of interesting stuff from you know what Gillespie did it at gun show to places like Buz peace trio and other you know other great ethnic food is starting to really emerge and I think there’s tasty China as a personal favorite. I mean there’s a lot of really great food go on Atlanta and it continues. There’s no end in sight. Do you see any room for growth in the barbecue market because you know when I when I go to Tennessee or South Carolina or less upon that one blog post you wrote that didn’t have an Atlanta style you got pissed off. I actually was not directly referencing that. But yeah I mean like there’s definitely a North Carolina style in a Tennessee style a barbecue. I’m not even sure if there is no I don’t think there really is a Georgia style I think we’re kind of. You know with Atlanta being the terminus and I think we’ve kind of adopted other styles I mean you know you certainly have a Memphis style Kansas City has a style. South Carolina has a style with the whole hawg North Carolina House has the vinegar stuff you get into Texas and you’re talking about more brisket and sausage. So I’m not sure if we have a style. I think there’s some really great barbecue in town and I think that that culture is going to continue to grow. But I’m not sure stylistically how much room there is to play around. But there are some damn good barbecue joints in town Fox brothers is actually quickly risen to the top of my list. Yeah I like them a lot. John unjust and stuff at the top of the heap. I think they’re just they’re really really they do outstanding work. So yeah I think the barbecue scene is good I don’t know offensively amazing barbecue chefs but our boy remember when Perot but our old roommate was like he was this He just loved the smoked meat. Like as a method and as we have these big parties would he spend the entire time just getting it just smoking the exact plot twist he’s marrying a vegetarian. Yes And this is like giving it all up and moving to San Francisco you don’t realize what is a pride in the world. I’m thinking I might be home and divorced. Ah come on. Oh the best man I’m actually. I’m just you know I think it’s wonderful I wish nothing but success of course but if you put a woman in from your barbecue this to say the vision making abilities let’s just say that we are omnivores. That’s the way we like. Physiologically we were meant to eat both meat and protein and and vegetables so why limit your horizons to one thing but that’s just one man’s sort of narrow view of things so much necessary. Yeah sorry. Go girl some shit at the friggin psyche. It’s wonderful Actually I find growing to be the most fun like of all of all the ways to cook like I mean I enjoy cooking and just doing like you know whatever but I like really good not to grill number one this is kind of satisfying to be manipulating fire. Number two like there are so many different in a spa the only area of cooking that really put any like real effort into not just like OK I swear to God I said his God like I make some effort. Like make desserts on the grill like you know grow pineapple Ameren trying Courtenay bat with an appropriate ice cream and sit there and make and make sure that you know the grill marks on the steak or are perfectly done to make sure that you know there’s some presentation involved. I’ll do that whenever I make a mess of the Sanya like like oh is that my great point of entry. Grilling you know easy hobby to get into but then great want to really embrace there’s something primal about it I mean don’t you know Miss fire good. Yes you back in my cave my special lady friend. Yeah I mean I think it’s a great entry point and to your point. People get too wrapped up that it’s just throwing a slab of meat on something you do amazing stuff with vegetables and fire and you can do amazing I actually think that will be really kind of another trend I mean King induced doing it now but I think you’re going to see a lot of open hearth cooking in the next ten years a lot of fire based stuff. Well I think the grilling is popular especially men because because you know it’s forgiving and I think you know one way to look at it is like you’re just on a piece of meat on the grill but I mean yeah I mean I mean like you’re never ever going to criticize you know a burger so long as you know drop it on the floor and it’s not undercut they’ll be fine. I mean you know I mean most in Turner’s as an interesting example because we’re the first restaurant in the world to put green eggs in the restaurant like. We don’t have grills we have green eggs. We took on green eggs and bacon and ham so you know the Big Green Egg is kind of a cult here it’s our land. It’s a it’s a grilled them it’s a it’s a you know a ceramic grill and it’s it’s insane how cultish thing is the love. Yeah yeah but I mean they’re around the flame. I love them and they’re great to cook on but I mean you go I mean there’s like a cult devoted to this there’s message boards and like it’s hard. People are hard core. I mean do we love them yeah and we’re friends with the company and you know Todd my partner is an official spokes person and Chef Foreman does demos and all sorts of stuff and we love him. But like it’s amazing to see how this is caught on and you want to see people get fired up start talking about big green eggs and it’s like people start coming out of the woodwork it’s pretty crazy. Well it’s a little like cross fit in the sense that self-selecting because you know it is you know there’s a price point to get in. So the people who would go to it are the ones who are already kind of like gung ho with the whole grilling thing and then once you get into it you find other people can teach you a thing or two. It just becomes a snowball effect and before you know it you know your scenario fully put it into the green eyed cult. Yeah that’s exactly right. There’s a great thing online somewhere and some a little later basically compared all the different fitness trends to religion core and everything else and and cross fit with Scientology which as someone who has this growing emerged as someone who went to one another very close friends owns three cross Well three affiliates and has done some stuff and you know has competed and they’re pretty hard core and they’re you know it’s just humorous to Max is actually a level one chair so I was I got sort of approached and was my rugby coach. He needed some guys to staff the first ones. Trust me if I don’t have things like Helen and things like some of those ladies I mean and I’m good I’m more or less out to stay strong and a little bit athletic. BUTLER Yeah I mean like the pro war for me to fight right now you know Cross Fit has taught me more about barbell movements. Well let me rephrase it. Prosser taught me everything about barbell movements and you know once you learn the basic elements of a squat can impress deadlifting all the basics like that’s that’s a pretty masterful. All are very a political set of skills you can take anywhere and I don’t know if you’ve spent much time on it but just like the reputation in our houses like of absence of technique which is just peculiar because Marcos township was the exact opposite Yes Cross that it crossed that Atlanta was but boy it was incredible I mean like they’re winning national competitions. Actually I do have like just get back on the whole track. I found a very funny blog post it said it was a matching the best Bourbons for Girl Scout cookies. Origin Well actually going to do I don’t know where you get the bar and order Girl Scout cookies with your bourbon. OK I’m going to recommend it. Oh yeah I would have recommended pairings I’m not sure I’ll use their pairings Arca but I’ve seen it and I thought some of them are pretty good. I forget what they paired with Johnny drum but I thought it was good. The list on some of them like I don’t think they did so much because this wasn’t like planet sized on the computer you know. Yeah I remember seeing it there and there are there are some I was right there. Simonson days of Hayden’s can see it Angels and we could see was some I’m not sure about them and I don’t know what a cranberry citrus crisp as if it’s a Girl Scout cookie that’s wrong. A stick to their core values. I’m disappointed that such a thing exists but yeah well crank them out I mean you know I have tried Samoa and then angels and I mean the best the best pairings are going to be a tagalong it’s going to be the peanut butter chocolate like that peanut butter thing I mean a lot of bourbons have a hazelnut nerdy count of you know sweet so you could you could do that which would which would work well just be like the next thing like home and French is like we’ll make twenty burger burgers we only have like one box of Girl Scout cookies come and get it today. Really. Unfortunately I ordered more than one box. Yeah we can keep the same for the whole year right. Oh yeah we go out we go deep. OK yeah we load up. Just how do you prepare for like a new like let’s say I go in a while and try to have some new fish we just discovered that we can eat. Like how much do you order in advance. If it’s really new and we’ve never worked with it I mean to be honest there’s not much that’s really new and we haven’t worked with this stage. Usually people bring you samples and you’ll be able to play around with it. Bring me a couple pounds or a couple fish and I’ll be able to look at it and can’t figure out what I do. But when he did like the turf and turf where you re for casting out like what price five or six Yeah yeah for those I just do that as a as a special you know yeah we have a pretty good idea of the usage. One of the you know one of the key things of you asked originally about the difference between a chef and a cook I mean you have in the forecast you said you have to watch out for waste and you want to flip your inventory I mean we want to flip around when Tory no more than every two days. I mean so we’re we’re pretty you know there’s a lot coming and going out. That’s a pretty sophisticated logistics to have to plan all that out. Yeah I mean you know it’s not not as sophisticated as some that you better be paying attention and you know lose money. I mean our margins are razor thin. And so when you you know let’s just put it this way if I order twenty pieces of fish right an