that seven filet all day come on the Coco Banner dying in the past hands I need hands we’re 86ing the corn dogs oh no we’re not opening a restaurant are we don’t look at me this is a hot dog is a sandwich ketchup is a smoothie yeah I put ice in my cereal so what that makes no sense a hot dog is a sandwich a hot dog is a sandwich Welcome to our podcast a hot dog is a sandwich I’m your host Josh Cher and I’m your host Nicole anaiety and today we are joined by Robert Irvine everyone yeah the second buffer Chef in this room right now don’t hurt me don’t hurt me oh my God yeah you said the second I’m the strongest I overcompensate yes um that’s okay we can talk about it afterwards so Robert of course is a world-class Chef entrepreneur and Food Network host of Restaurant Impossible among other shows he’s a multi-time author and you can buy his newest book overcoming impossible learn to lead build a team and catapult your business to success he also may or may not be my biological uh Robert I totally wasn’t going to talk about that all right we have a paternity test you thought it was a covet test that was actually normally it was positive oh my God my long lost son that’s great he’s already tried to follow the father I wanna know who the mother is I think that means I’m not Jewish we’ll figure it out later I’m not even circumcised anyways Robert so but we wanted to talk to you about good morning this is it the morality Clause is gonna be fun we wanted to ask you whether or not we should open a restaurant because we have a very I don’t know if you’ve heard of it a very strong digital media brand we have a lot of fans out there who always say you should open a restaurant we wanted to ask you whether or not it would be a good idea all right so this goes a couple of questions sure do you have two million dollars in a bank Nicole how much money you got then you’re expending or your expected Revenue so for six months you expect to do a million you need to add a bank then you need a low Fund in case something goes wrong and normally when you went to a restaurant the hood system breaks the refrigeration breaks the oven breaks and it’s so as hit moments right so the answer to me would be no but we wrote a pitch in everything yeah here is that here’s out because we we have some connections here right so we know two guys who own a relatively successful digital media company their names are Rhett and Link we call them daddy right daddy red daddy link so I’m not gonna ask why they were able to say invest a million dollars each and we were able to do this you know we we have a whole business plan and we actually do get that initial seed capital so if you you make 1.2 million dollars in Revenue you’re lucky to walk away with ninety thousand dollars a year if you’re willing to work 90 hours a week for ninety thousand dollars a year go for it but I will guarantee you’ll be calling me in a couple of months saying remember again because that’s exactly what happened somebody says oh we’re going to investors or we’ve got credit cards my mom says I make the best sauce and the best gravy and the best meatballs I should open a restaurant and they do the biggest failing restaurant in the United States is an Italian restaurant hands down because everybody wants to make Mama’s meatballs that’s Rocco oh my gosh I mean that’s a true statement yeah so you open the restaurant it’s gonna hope for the first six months you bring all your friends in and then six months later you got no money yeah and that’s that’s normally what happens in a restaurant impossible yeah yeah right of course and we’ve done 340 350 whatever the number is now and it’s the same story and I hear all the time look if you want to go to work for somebody and really understand what the restaurant business not just food because anybody can cook yeah I mean if I can cook you can cook but it’s understanding the financial obligations that you have and how to control costs but you can control cost and go from one mythical kitchen to two to three to four if you get ten and the purchase power is big and somebody comes and say oh I like this concept let’s open 30 of them that’s where you make money that’s a 300 million dollar company that’s right that’s interesting franchising what percentage of opening a restaurant and it being successful actually has to do with you being able to cook good food zero like really full on zero because because I I could hire you who is a great chef and and look I’m a good cook yeah I hire people way smarter than me yeah right they cook I make money I’m really good at that yeah but you don’t have to be the cook you have to be the the vision of that and the leader of that and the the biggest failure in restaurants is lack of leadership lack of vision and holding people accountable because they’re like oh I mean I just did one oh the defining cabinet was a garbage bag full of paper gosh and then he’s wondering why they’re 450 000 in debt yeah if you’ve got the training and somebody can help you walk through it you’ve got a strong enough brand to be able to bring people to it and franchise I’m a big believer in franchise because you’re taking the car and somebody else is doing the work absolutely yeah well okay so so let’s actually game plan this out right so us actually Nicole and I being the executive chefs co-executive chefs which one leadership vacuum we would be dead already but two say that instead of us going out and actually finding the real estate building out a restaurant ourselves training the staff ourselves say we did some sort of a licensing deal right or say there’s a company that you know they control the real estate and they’re building out say a uh fast casual sort of food Hall situation they want to slap the mythical kitchen name on it we can take some of our best dishes our most proprietary inventions you’ve never had orange chicken parmesan have of you It’s a combination of orange chicken no chicken parmesan what about I’m so excited what about popcorn ice cream cake doesn’t that sound yeah oh that’s good that’s good stuff yeah yeah um what about beef bile cheesecake now I understand that beef bile might be a little bit polarizing but the whole brand of mythical is you know making people try new things and you know sometimes you might need a barf bucket on the side sometimes you know you might eat the most delicious thing it’s all about highs and lows of the mythical kitchen well you look dubious so far you just discussed a lot of Loaves and a bath bucket but it got a visceral reaction from you Robert and I think that’s what we’re really trying to create with the mythical Kitchen restaurant experience it’s something unique yes my God you’ll be closed in three minutes well it’s like hey you go to a Joe’s Crab Shack and they have the the bucket for the crab shell yeah all right so look on a scale of one to ten that’s an 11 no we’re deleting that from the road okay delete it delete it delete it that’s completely deleted but for real like you’ve I mean obviously you have worked with the Food Network for a long time there’s a lot of chefs from Food Network yourself included who it’s like your name will be on the restaurant obviously you are not the person who’s there cooking every day but you’re using a brand power that you’ve built over for blood sweat tears I’m gonna correct you slightly different because there are two ways to do this right so I can either use my name and my likeness um to sell which is normally is seven percent royalty yeah or I own it so we own most of our stuff so our manufacturing plants are distilleries we own it simply because I can control it then if I if if I license my name to you yes I can put in an executive chef in like we do in Vegas who controls my piece of that in other words the food the quality Etc the systems but nine out of ten times yeah Guy Fieri has 500 restaurants he’s not in he’s filming TV there’s different ways to to create Revenue um I chose to fund fit Crunch and all the other things that we do I fund them myself well I don’t have Partners you don’t have any Partners so for me um it works yeah otherwise I’ve got to deal with bath buckets you know dating you’re not feeling good about yourself I’m not coming in today you know so it’s much easier to control the the Avenue or the direction if you own the manufacturing and the product itself yeah do you see more people getting into hot water from trying to own everything themselves or from taking on extra partners and investors I think it’s more like there’s no saying right the more Cooks in the kitchens for the broth sure the more parties you have the more say they have the more messed up it gets in my opinion right yeah unless you’re the expert so we have technology we have clothing we have nutrition we have food we are um and if we don’t have the the knowledge we bring the knowledge in to support it that way you know hey we’re paying you a salary but if we get to this point then there’s a percentage of that Revenue that you can Garner based on your knowledge so I think it’s surrounding yourself with good people sure that’s important so say say you don’t have two million surrounded yourself with good people we have good people I feel very surrounded by black people likewise but I mean that’s what does give us you know a little bit of Hope for at least the mythical kitchen this is more of a thought exercise right of course but of course this is something that people throw out the idea and of course the worst reason to open a restaurant is people telling me you should open a restaurant or to make money or to make money but say you don’t have two million dollars in the bank what about the idea I’m thinking of the guy like Roy Choi who started a food truck and then was able to very organically build a brand over time and time and time and God he’s 14 years now Cinderella Story yeah the Cody food trucks but that also kicked off a wave of a lot of failed food trucks absolutely but but here’s the thing think of a food truck the Army’s just done it no the army bought five food trucks no no because not because it’s a food truck fattest because people can get from point A to point B yeah as food trucks are a great in my opinion in and it’s a humble opinion are a great way to learn business there’s a program for veterans right now called ciao where we put you in a in a food truck we train you how to run a food truck we train how to do financials then we put you in brick and mortar oh my gosh that is so wonderful I I think it’s the quickest way to your own business because hey look you can up and move number one if your business isn’t good but it also gives you the education of all right what are the people asking for yeah because you can change your menu look if you have brick and mortar yeah you can change your menu it takes forever to change the menu because you have a guaranteed uh influx of gas a food truck you move it it’s all new yeah so you can you can really adapt and re reinvent yourself every week every couple of days it’s the quickest way you buy a food truck you do it up you make your money and so on and so on and I’ve done food truck shows it’s a great way to to get into that business world and yes it’s not fast fake crunch took me eight years to build did it really incredible eight years that’s so much because I I even though you think that I don’t eat I do think that I eat a lot and I do eat a lot of protein bars and you know what I’m saying okay fit crunch was something where and I guess this is a testament to how Brands build I had never seen it before and then one day I was in the Costco and I saw it in the Costco and I was like oh damn Robert Irvine has protein bars but there must have been so so much work in time before it actually crossed my literally five years of you know there are 231 protein bars in this country right win number four I think or number five now wow eight years yeah but it’s it’s creating a product and and look your name will only get you so far it’s the product that they that they come back for they don’t um and most protein bars you know you used to lift oh my God my gosh say something tried I TR this is embarrassing I tried to get a pump before this I was in the gym literally until we arrived here because I was like Robert I know this is all I got Josh I’m proud of you that’s all I get you look good creatine I’ve been sick for two weeks my knee hurts oh my gosh I want to hear more about like this this aside from restaurants like cpg is just so interesting like the whole world and just the the testing and the QC is just exhausting it is but once you get it and you harness that like almost like grabbing the golden snitch it is truly like levitating you have to come up with something that’s so unique so why do we go into protein bars because my kids wouldn’t eat breakfast so I’m like oh let’s give him something to take because of at 10 o’clock they all dived yeah you’re not interested and we started it we baked we baked the cookies the only baked Bar for a reason and they said oh it’s never going to work never gonna work I mean I schlep myself after TV shows to Costco and all these other places we didn’t even have a package it was in a silver foil thing yeah uh and here we are now you know a couple hundred million dollars later and you know that’s the way you build a brand new business people think that it comes overnight it doesn’t it takes forever I finished selling some folks last night you finish a TV show you go and you say hey please sir can you try my boss so can you try my food or pizza you know whatever it is and eventually something clicks but but too many people give up too fast because it costs time and money sure sure of course yeah and the mythical kitchen it’s great but then then come up with a concept that’s franchisable that there’s some wacky food of course because that makes it fun yeah yeah but it’s also food that people can go in their daily and get yeah that they know oh oh I’m gonna go there because look an average franchise restaurant think about it um McDonald’s for a franchise is 1.9 million dollars dang yeah so you you paid for yourself in the first year um so it really is What Makes You Different and why are people going to go there and what’s fun about it especially young people yeah because they’re the future I mean I’m curious what you’ve seen from say like the young chefs in the industry I know you’ve shot with guys like Nick digiovanni before but there’s there’s a lot of these young chefs we’re I’m I’m 30. she’s hurting towards it let’s say people like Addison below yeah my grandkids but like uh where do you see this generation going in terms of Entrepreneurship what have you already seen out there does it excite you or look at where we are now look at what you’re doing okay this is entrepreneurship right yeah Nick is a great I remember doing a thing in Miami with him in a fake Crunch bar and a a bowl of Nutella and a knife I mean he gets you know 24 million hits or whatever and people go and buy this product yeah and I think that’s great for him he’s making x amount of money I’m not that good at that I’m old school I’m like oh yeah chop there yes you know yeah I think the younger generation wants something fast um which is why mythical kitchen has to be if I look at Taco Bell 34 seconds to put a product out of a window yeah 34 seconds because we’re instant gratification we don’t want we don’t want to sit down and and like you know forever yeah people just want to get in get out and get on with life and I think that’s the the difference between the Knicks uh and and you guys is hey we’re bringing it to you whether you like it you’re breaking the mold of traditional TV and and uh technology yeah which I love by the way it’s the future of gone are the big days where we’re going to go into a studio and you know I did I did a show uh four years ago traveling the globe looking at Salt and oils and vinegars and from literally Sri Lanka cinnamon with with a camera uh two guys and it was unbelievable I’m sure and that’s and I think that’s the future of you know restaurants what what titlators titlates us right yeah why do we go in there is it because we get on the internet is it because we can do this is it because there’s so much going on that it’s mesmerizing yeah yeah and then the food jumps I think he’s talking about the Rainforest Cafe oh yeah I would love to be a part of that franchising kind of deal why we know him I know the guy who develops I just I just let’s okay so when I was when my parents used to go to yeah my parents used to go to Vegas every single I don’t know Thanksgiving or so and they would always take me to Rainforest Cafe because whenever the lights would turn off and then the Thunder would go off and the gorillas around the corner like oh I would just freak out and I loved it to this day I will go to Rainforest Cafe well do you know how they started right no I don’t so Justin what was the name of the guy right he he had this idea of the Rainforest Cafe and he turned his apartment who was no bigger than this into a Rainforest Cafe to bring people true story absolutely true story and he brought the investors and and he had the parakeets all that stuff and that’s how he sold Rainforest Cafe unreal and I know Stephen very well he has a um in Minneapolis he has what is tantamount to a museum he bought two two uh containers full of broken pieces right let me explain that in a second and he just paid sixty thousand dollars per container and he had a guy over 24 years take all those pieces he now has like 20 Ming Dynasty full-size in a warehouse protected by the FBI in Minneapolis sure I’m not kidding and this one guy piece by piece is unbelievable and that’s this is the guy that’s the kind of guy he is The Boathouse in in Orlando a big hit 28 million dollars a year plus and and he is this Visionary that that almost um I don’t know like wacko right because I think you need to be a little bit Yeah Yeah to be able to get to that point but there’s a guy I met and I was like my God this guy’s really good but he’s a he’s a genius yeah so while you love Rainforest Cafe The Boathouse in Orlando he did the same thing there he put these vintage cars that drive into the water you know they’re they’re duck boats or whatever they call but not dog boats as we know them they’re real cars that were fitted with propellers and you get in you drive around then you go in the water it’s like a fantasy Builder it’s crazy he’s a Fantasy World Builder but but I feel that’s the entrepreneurship of of young people and we’re thinking out the box now you’re tapping into the psychology of what people want and where the white space is like even if you look at fit crunch so I I’ve eaten countless protein bars believe it or not in my life but for me no way I’ve seen the industry change myself like there seems to be an industry standard right now I blame Quest right so Quest right now the industry standard you have Quest you have think you have another couple bars kind of pure protein they’ve all boiled it down to 200 calories per 20 grams of protein and they didn’t used to have those macros they used to be a lot more in the in the 300 gram range why is it and then because a lot of people are focused on weight loss right and so but then you have the opposite side which is this very hyper masculine metrics big crunch 100 yeah which are delicious they’re about 450 calories the protein I don’t know if there’s no that’s no Tiger’s Milk bars that’s a candy bar oh um but like there’s you know these things and then good research it was either like this very and it was a more feminine branded for weight loss protein bar or a hyper masculine interesting this is for bulk monsters and here I am in the middle going I just want something to tastes good and I see fit crunch in Costco yeah and it says baked and has you know a reputable Jack Chef on it and I’m like this is where I’m at right that’s you but it’s funny because we we’ve extended their brand now because then them masculine guys that want to look huge I didn’t want that I wanted the mums the dads the grandmas the grandma Yeah uh apart to eat that we’re going into minis we’re going into cookies now we’re going into rtds the cookie bar is amazing right yeah so and Trail mixes things like that the extensions of the brands but again listening to what you want yeah for your lifestyle and I think that’s the same with restaurants look I go into a restaurant every week and and I sit down and go your food sucks you suck um your leadership sucks the place sucks and they just break down which is normal when somebody tells you you suck at everything yeah and then we we build them up but I have to look at the skill level in the kitchen the skill level around the area what are what are the businesses you know is there a mythical kitchen is there a right where is the where are the young people going yeah because I’ve got to make that it may be there 40 years and Grandma’s meatballs right and how do we how do we bring that into the 22nd century because you can do you can do three million dollars in a 500 square foot um open kitchen yeah believe me I’ve seen it um it’s I think it’s a fun game to be in um food nutrition Health style hair I mean clothing because that’s what we do every day right yeah it’s part of life what have you seen the trends right now where the restaurant industry is going like if you were to open up like don’t release any proprietary information but if you were to open up and New Concept from scratch right now what kind of food are you serving and and what’s the medium everything’s fresh yeah I mean I we have one in the Pinnacle I don’t mind telling you can’t get in it but it’s called Fresh kitchen um and it literally is scratched cooking from uh in in a in an environment where we have 38 000 people go through that building incredible always go through the restaurant but 38 000 people in that building and I think if we take that and move that out into the real world which we’re doing right now um it will be a huge hit because you want something first of all time is of the essence of course you want to walk in you want to pick it up yeah you’re eating on the go eat at your desk I don’t want to wait so I think speed to service technology is changing that so fast now not only think about computers but think about going to a football stadium it’s got 17 different uh restaurants in it and you can go up to a place and go just put yourself on it yeah pay it and it comes to you is happening now supermarkets or checkouts all those kind of things I think our our food system will change dramatically from you preparing it from from the Publix and the Walmarts and all these and instead it will be ready prepared it would be look you’ve got um you’ve got fish you’ve got chicken you’ve got this inner thing you’re dropping in a thing of water and you’ll eat it allow all the nutritions uh nutrients that you need for a healthy lifestyle it’s going that way sous-vide quote I call it boil in the bag yeah yeah that’s true but it’s the same thing it’s happening we see that now you know for a resilient Soldier sailor air or whatever and they’re the biggest uh purchaser of food in the world the military yeah think about it makes sense I mean it’s exciting for me because we’re all involved in it yeah that’s it do you do you see that future though in which people are relying less and less on their own home cooking as a good thing or do you think that skill loss is just inevitable and we just need I think we again I go back to the younger generation look I was taught to cook because I had to cook because my mother was a terrible cook yeah right so you survive now you can go anywhere you can go to a Wawa put it in you go to a 7-Eleven you go anywhere and you don’t have to cook because your time is more important doing other things and I think the priority driven um youth is like look if I spend 20 minutes doing this as opposed to this I can make that much money productivity right yep and I I’m a I’m a big Watcher of that so I think food’s Gonna Change we’re going to have prepared food in in very different ways in China and Japan there are food courts like this automated everything is fresh they make your pizza in 90 seconds and make you a salad so cool it’s crazy but you don’t need people and and that’s our biggest thing right yeah you know I’ve got a skilled labor yeah that’s interesting I am I think people don’t recognize the opportunity cost back to our fans telling us we should because we just really wanted to dispel the myth that we could open a restaurant because we can’t and everybody asks us why we don’t do it and it’s because the opportunity cost we are very good at making media and the only reason we’re good at it is because we’ve been doing it for several several years we’ve gradually refined our process right we started out making one video a week that went up to two that’s going up to three eventually wink wink now the podcast is on a full video the podcast is streamed across Spotify and apple onto YouTube all those metrics are tracked we sell ad deals across five different platforms short form content short form content yeah sweetener to share with friends but the point is we’re very good at doing this we’re not good at opening restaurants no that’s the thing the the biggest like predicator of skill is have you done it and have you done it successfully yeah I don’t think people recognize that they’re just like open it you can take one and you can cultivate it and learn from it before or you franchise that and look Robert Earl did that with with uh Planet uh Planet Hollywood yeah yeah I mean he did the same thing oh let’s open a thing with a bunch of guys put some jackets on the wall yeah uh and he’s still going by a very eccentric guy another eccentric guy yeah he’s a great guy but you know at his Heyday they were making hundreds of millions of dollars that’s right yeah celebrities just walking through yeah let me just put my jacket up yeah you know so I think there’s definitely a um you have a following that can be curtailed into a small you know even an airport restaurant right Burbank airport right next to it to start it where where or or do a pop-up we did a we did a hot dog pop-up and it was really fun it was really fun we kicked ass moved about what 500 hot dogs in like what like a day listen I mean it was like what four hours it’s like 500 hours partnered with the local Venezuelan hot dog vendor yeah shout out head art though I hope you’re watching hey um but yeah that was our first kind of foreign just to test like hey how can we actually do this but uh yeah but there’s no difference to when you decided this right one video two bit of it yeah it’s a process of learning the system putting your system in place anybody follows that system then it grows we did the same thing with fake crunch no I mean hey taste the bar taste the bar taste the bar taste the bar cost me more money to taste the bun that I was making sure but but you got to get the name you gotta do it and then you get the name out there it goes I one of my biggest questions is because there’s the idea of the sunk cost fallacy right people who say well I’ve already spent so much money on these sample bars and I should just quit because I’ve sunk money into it and I can’t get that back how do you know when to give up I don’t think the zebra I give up point I think look you’ve spent your hundred thousand dollars minimum run or whatever it is of your bars you give them out it takes one person to say oh you know what I really like that buy the problem is when you send the bars out we forget about it right nobody ever follows up instead of saying hey by the way Josh can you did you like that oh yeah here’s three million dollars go and buy make more yeah yeah right and they’re out there people are out there people want to invest in small business because it’s a quick return for them if it’s a good bit if it’s the right business right um I do that every week I invest in lots of stuff because I see the future of a technology in our world point to Sales Systems in between Control Systems all those kind of things yeah well Robert you said you invest in small businesses we have an idea for you so what is it it’s called the mythical kitchen we have a vomit bucket at every table I know you didn’t like that idea but I think that’s really core to our business model but it’s also a food truck the what did you just add that in without asking me Nicole I’m sorry this is the business I don’t know my driver’s license was revoked so you have to drive I don’t want to drive I don’t like driving a regular location I’m hiring a driver I think we should just keep doing the videos I’ll tell you what I’ll do I’ll tell you what I’ll do yeah I’ll give you I’ll give you a challenge I’ll do a pop-up restaurant with you okay go to the Robert Irvine Foundation I’m in on it you gotta shake Nicole’s hand at the same time same time so you give me this no no you gotta cross it and then I know the left hand doesn’t really count this is a legal Banning project it’s just like wait Jessica I gotta Flex [Music] and I strive to do everything we can to keep our cats healthy and we can see the benefits of our fur baby’s overall happiness yeah but since we’re not mind readers we don’t always know when our cats are healthy helping us know that our cats are healthy is just one reason to go with pretty litter pretty litter is its own little Health detector the litter changes colors to help detect early signs of potential illness in our cats including urinary tract infections and kidney issues this helps give us peace of mind with our cat’s Health it’s got Ultra absorbent crystals that trap odor instantly and minimize mess and dust no more cat bathroom smell and these crystals last up to a month which means less scooping and fewer trips to the garbage can it makes me feel like I’m doing that little extra step in being a really really good cat Mom listen I want to be the best cat parent that I can but I’m not gonna lie I love the fact that I just don’t smell my cat’s pee pee in the apartment anymore pretty litter is also super convenient since it ships free to my door in a small lightweight bag I never run out of it and I don’t have a huge container litter taking up space and stinking up the place pretty litter helps keep my cats healthy and keeps odors down you you and your cat are going to love pretty litter as much as we do go to prettylitter.com hot dog to save 20 off your first order that’s pretty litter.com hot dog to save 20 pretty little.com slash hot dog between the podcast and our mythical kitchen YouTube videos we’ve been keeping busy but Daily Harvest helps with stress-free meals delivered to our door Daily Harvest Works directly with Farmers so they can send you harvest bowls smoothies and more built on organic fruits and vegetables and more of the best ingredients around I love their flatbreads and they have a bunch of options from artichoke and spinach to Portobello and pesto their flatbreads are made from 100 real fruits and veggies they’ve got a crispy crust and piled High toppings so they’re good anyway you slice them Daily Harvest meals are freezer fresh so everything stays fresh in my freezer until I’m ready to enjoy it helping me reduce food waste and easily prepare my meals triangles you like to cut them in triangles yeah just I don’t know it kind of makes me feel like you’re not the pizza parlor anyways they’re committed to human and planetary Health as well which is rad Daily Harvest does her absolute best to ensure transparency and integrity when it comes to their ingredients and the humans who grow them Daily Harvest supports farmers who invest in good practices for biodiversity and soil health I don’t like when people do squares it’s like where are you Chicago let Daily Harvest do more so you can do less go to daily harvest.com hot dog to get up to forty dollars off your first box that’s dailyharvest.com hot dog for up to forty dollars off your first box dailyharvest.com hot dogs I mean slice it any way you want just triangles are correct [Music] all right Nicole and Robert we’ve heard that you and I have to say now it’s time to find out what other wacky ideas are rattling out there in the universe it’s time for a segment we call opinions are like casseroles [Music] uh also we got a new mythical Society app out there that’s right there’s a new look there’s new features there’s even a whole new dang website it is available for everybody download it for free on the App Store or Google Play Store Robert have you downloaded the mythical Society app Justin did thanks Jeff thanks Justin MVP Justin’s my right and left-hand guy oh what a cutie yeah and he’s sleeping let’s listen to some voicemails just to wake up hey it’s Peter from Chicagoland and frankly I’m an ideas man and not a logistics man so every restaurant should have free samples like a Baskin Robbins or you can try the ice cream I don’t know how it’s gonna work look there’s enough food waste I’m sure there’s little bits left off of plates just give me a free sample aside if I wanna like I’m I’m gonna eat there but I want to know what I’m eating first also if somebody sends a dish back I should be able to claim it for my table I agree with that oh okay Robert what do you think free samples free samples of what the whole menu before you choose what are you crazy I think you get like you get to try two things like Baskin Robbins like yeah only allowed two two samples and then you’re just an a-hole because you’re open you’re holding up the line they get two things but it’s different in a restaurant it’s to an ice cream shop you go in your Scoopy you suck it you eat it right we go to cook it that’s right you can’t just like you can’t just a thousand mini meatballs he wants us have tupperware’s filled with like Duck mashed potatoes and the sauce and then you give them little spoonfuls and you have to hand feed them like here you go here you go yeah yeah exactly exactly okay so there is really quick a story I want to talk about that is in this vein there is a local tamalera a lady who sold tamales outside of a Trader Joe’s in Los Angeles you see the story yes and she went to the Trader Joe’s and saw them giving out free samples and she’s like I should do this with my tamales and so she made tiny little corn husk tamales wrapped them up they are freaking adorable and they’re samples and the journalist friend of the show memo Torres from La Taco wrote about him and this thing went viral okay she blew up so you know there’s there’s a little bit of Merit I’m just saying Robert little there is but there is but but when you when you’re when you’re a One-Stop shop tamales okay yeah three different somalis is great here you can do that um you can do it with a bar right you can cut a piece up you can taste it do it with vodka and gin and all those things that we do but but the restaurant that has 27 items on an entree menu and you know sorry just you can’t figure out what you want to eat so you want to try a piece of everything um does Merit to it in a small version somehow yes I just I as a business owner small Mom and Pops are going to laugh at you yeah Peter you are truly an ideas and not a logistics man though I’ll give you that but I will say claiming someone’s plate no that’s okay that’s a health food violation but it is but like whatever just go like just close your eyes and do I’ve eaten Sushi off of a neighboring table’s plate because they left a whole roll and I had been drinking I just oh my goodness yeah it was raw fish well if I would have waited any longer it would have gotten warm all right next opinion please Peter Peter pumpkin eater you know I wouldn’t you said that on live air I know listen I like this there’s so much stuff it humanizes me to them you know they’re like oh he’s just like me a gross piece of crap yeah you do it for the people man of the people he takes one for the team I like this that eating at the bar stinks I need elbow rooms I need space to spread out I’m eating at the bar most likely there are people on either side of me it’s tight um I’m the bartender is watching me eat which makes me very uncomfortable you can talk to them even though like they could watch me eat if I’m at a table I would keep my distance um who are your tanks are you Pro eating at the bar are you against sitting at a bar let me know love the show thanks thanks Julie so tell us Robert what do you feel I like to be served I like to be like like pampered I don’t look like I look like the Pampered Chef I’m like you Joe I don’t I’m not a big city bar and eating um because I don’t want this hang on I don’t want people pushing me I decide um I’d rather sit at the table on my own or with with folks and get served I just think it we go to eat to have an experience that’s right um and being pushed and by the way I’m not a female so I’m not being stared at like you are so I’m sorry for that um but no I’m I’m definitely a table guy interesting I I have a lot of no you go you guys so I’m left-handed which I means I eat like this and I’m very annoying to sit next to like like at a booth or like at a bar so I like to sit at a table where I’m not around people as well aside from that it’s just I don’t know a bars for drinking and maybe like get in a fry but whenever it’s like a fork and knife or like a spoon situation it’s just out the window I can’t do that it doesn’t make sense for me Justin we can go out drinking with her yeah I can DD like I don’t have to drink I’ll wait in the car I’ll keep it running I can hold my own I love eating at the bar and I love eating in the bar for a very reason no no I’ll I’ll let you know why I feel like there was a point and I think Food Network really brought this along where the chef was elevated to this Rockstar status right of course okay and people it shifted from people wanting to get served in a restaurant at least in a very specific Cadre of La Spots I’m talking about Father’s Office specifically where they famously just treated customers like crap they were like no ketchup no substitutions if you asked for ketchup we’ll kick you out yeah it was dark it was loud the seats were all communal there was no backs on any of the stools you get a splinter on the table and it was the best burger you’d ever eaten in your freaking life kicked off a fancy Burger revolution in America and I grew up sort of idolizing these restaurants and so for me I don’t want to go to a restaurant and feel served and pampered I want to go and feel like I’m serving some sort of higher art form by eating a 20 cheeseburger right so what he just said that was like an oxymoron 20 Burger well that’s why to me it’s so cool because it’s something I never had before right and without this I can tell by the location in my in my I don’t I just I just don’t think it’s worth it the disc discomfort is not not nourishment at all yeah me and Julia go on like if we go on an impromptu date night on like a weeknight and we go to a restaurant that’s hard to get into we’ll go sit at the bar and absolutely love it you’re you’re talking crap with the chefs you’re talking to the bartender you know you’re you feel like you’re part of a community sitting next to other people all enjoying the same thing I love cramped dark loud restaurants and I hate I hate plush cities sitting in a booth that’s like not what I go to restaurants but again it’s all about finding it but it depends on it depends on the restaurant because you’re you’re describing a place yes right I can go to a hole in the wall I was in a Navajo Nation in the middle of nowhere in a restaurant that was all in the Wall Restaurant uh I fixed it made great food I it depends on the people you’re with the food is really and this is my take on food it’s not necessarily the food you go for it’s the people you spend the time in there that make the difference in that experience or not of course you can have mediocre food have great people and have the best night drinks ever yeah then you go to a three-star Michelin and sit with a bunch of boring people eat two peas on a plate and and not be satisfied right yeah so I think I you know I’m with you I’m not a bar person I like to drink at the bar yeah I like to drink at the bar eight people at an Olive Garden don’t want to go to the bar well to drink oh by the way two to one you’ve failed yeah yeah get wrecked next ly cheaper to go out and eat fast food than it is to cook home made meals now and it’s because of inflation um Andrea this is something we were talking about earlier a bit right inflation is killing not only the the home Cooks it’s also killing restaurants you know like a case of eggs used to be 48 dollars it’s now 168. nuts right um I I just think that the state we are in right now small businesses are struggling families are strong it’s really interesting here’s a figure for you one in four of our active duty men and women in our U.S military are food insecure damn right it’s a shame so and how can you have that in the United States military it’s crazy but I feel for the folks that you know are out trying to take care of their families and and it’s I I see soup kitchens um and I was at Fort uh Fort Hood Texas um giving a thousand service members food you know uh Tyson give me 40 pounds of chicken for a person um it’s tough um it is cheaper to go and get not so good fast food right for cheap so at least you get fed but I would rather and I’ve been trying to do this for years a supermarket and say look and if there’s any supermarkets out there listening to this do it right I have a section of fish and chicken and and um a protein vegetables the recipes in 16 different languages right and the the cost of a burger per person so it could be 20 bucks for a family of four yeah they can afford to do something uh we’re in this we’re in this situation right now that it’s tough for everybody it really is yeah and you get these big businesses like say McDonald’s they can keep costs artificially low at least because they’re doing everything at such a heist of scale 50 000 you know locations across the globe whereas mom and pop shops can’t do that um but I’m curious to see how the grocery store industry is going to overhaul itself in the future there were a couple places that really tried a chain called Fresh and Easy where they were damn near no employees in the store everything is automated they had great fresh produce great fresh meat and it was cheap as heck and then they just went under I don’t know if they got bought out by a bigger company but I think something needs to be done you’re seeing groceries here’s the thing I I just partnered with a technology company for the same reason labor right now whether you’re in a supermarket whether you’re in a restaurant obviously people have to do things right but if you if you look at McDonald’s or Chipotle they have machines flipping burgers and making chips and right so uh is that the future certain jobs yes not every job can be done by that but but you know technology is is taking over because in the mundane jobs remember when I grew up I’m 57 years old a little like your dad right literally there was there wasn’t any there was no jobs as such other than these mundane cooks and dead today right you come to L.A everybody wants to be an actor they go to a restaurant to be a server or they used to now they don’t need to do that they can do it whatever else so I think it’s changed dramatically I would jump at a job to serve I’d be really bad at serving uh I’m not good I’d be spill everything over you and I’m sorry yeah I got weak wrists could never be a server one more opinion let’s do it one more yo what’s up this is Molly um Molly I’m a little high so I thought it would be a good idea to call and my controversial restaurant opinion is that Macaroni Grill is a seller restaurant and their best fish is their children’s macaroni and cheese sounds like she had a great night yeah I’ve never been to Macaroni Grill I’ve only been once nor have I none of us no I okay I can only go off my one experience I will say there’s a couple big chain Italian restaurants that I love Buca di Beppo I think does a great job yeah uh uh what’s the other one Maggiano’s Little Italy The Old Spaghetti Factory giant giant family style portion is great my one experience at Macaroni Grill was on Prom it’s not going where you think it’s going they spilled straight up my my uh date got the penne arabiata right the spicy sauce and the cook must have spilled a half a bottle of crushed red pepper pasta and I see this and I you know new enough to know that’s not right and she takes one bite and is crunching through crushed red pepper and she’s like it’s good and I’m like hey no like I really am against sending dishes back but this you have to build this back yeah and she just didn’t want to raise a fuss and so she ate like half this thing of pasta and then melted and then was just yeah itchy and uncomfortable bowl and then she was hungry at the dance and Tess McCarthy if you’re out there listening to this was she your date I’m sorry what was yesterday yeah she dumped him out there oh it was a mutual oh yeah I cried in my car a little bit but you know and he blamed the cook of course so children’s macaroni and cheese best thing on the menu probably listen listen kids menu is it’s comfort food it hits sometimes all right Robert thank you so much for joining us man um again if you want to invest in a restaurant but I’m dead serious about the pop-ups I don’t want to invest in a restaurant we’re at uh please tell tell the people about your book tell the people about what you got coming up it’s the best book you’ll ever talked about empathetic leadership talks about losing Egos and your own and it talks about you know uh trust um lots of great information for families as well as uh businesses but it’s also um a time where I I thank I’m military for the service that families will stand behind them you know you’re doing a great service for all all the listeners you don’t it doesn’t have to cost money to help people it could be open in the car door helping somebody across the road giving them how somebody a hug if they say is okay and we all buy food at supermarkets and we see that more and more of the food going um through the cash register then push to the site if you can afford to buy it please do so it could be for a child that’s not being fat you know at the end of the day it’s up to us collectively to say look I know you all do great things for people you know how about doing one good thing a day for people that you don’t know collectively we all do that our world would be a better place lots of Restaurant Impossible coming up um lots of new stuff happening um yeah it’s just uh business as usual I’m going to get you to eat more food I’m dead serious I’m committed to gaining 15 pounds 15. I can give you 15. give you four weeks you for 15 minutes four weeks I’ll get 15 pounds I love that one of your plugs is just for um altruism that’s beautiful being morality and being a good person very nice we also support that yes we just didn’t say it as eloquently yes yes yes all right but we’ll do we all want to do the same thing we don’t want to put on this planet help people give information and have fun doing it you have a lot of fun so do I when we do the pop-up I’m going to teach you an awful lot of business lessons you need to come back and you go oh my God that Robert Irvine what a Taskmaster or something like that and I can’t wait for in four years to you come and rescue the failing mythical Kitchen on restaurant and thank you all for uh listening to the podcast subscribe to the YouTube channel if you haven’t done that yet subscribe to Spotify we’re also over on YouTube at mythical kitchen check us out we launch new videos every week and again Robert thank you so much appreciate you guys cheers go out made the girl kitchen let’s go hurry up [Music]