Hey Nicole, if there’s something strange in your neighborhood. Who are you gonna call? Ghost Kitchens. Ghost Kitchens. This is “A Hot dog, is a Sandwich.” That’s the podcast. 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.” What? Sick. That was rad dude, I love this. We’re so good at this. Hey, welcome to our podcast, “A Hotdog Is A Sandwich.” I’m your host Josh Scherer. And I’m your host, Nicole Enayati. And neither of us have seen Ghostbusters, but… No. I’ve been meaning to since like 1987. I have a confession to make. What’s that? I’m afraid of no ghost. Sorry. Did you just learn that was part of the song like 30 seconds ago? No, I knew that from before. You knew the song, but you’ve never seen the movie? Yeah, it’s iconic. That’s incredible. Today, Nicole, we are talking about the problem with ghost kitchens. We’re talking about how they are scamming America out of their hard-earned money. They really are. Right, okay, well let’s diagnose what the actual scam is. Okay. Let’s talk about, so Ghost Kitchens, right? Okay. They tend to be established restaurant brands or established restaurants, at least in the past they tended to be. Mm hmm, the past yeah. That would then effectively work out of a larger commissary kitchen? Yes. Right? Yes. And so a larger commissary kitchen could share several restaurant spaces, these are virtual only concepts. So restaurants that only exist on mostly delivery apps now right? Yeah. Postmates, GrubHub, Deliveroo. Why did it go right to Deliveroo? I’ve never heard of Deliveroo, I’ve heard of Caviar. I think Deliveroo is like an England thing. I don’t know but anyways. Interesting. So they’re operating out of these larger kitchens and they may share, you know, 10, 12 spaces in one kitchen and they sort of slap a label on it that says like, “Chicken Sammys.” Yeah. And then they send it out to people, but it’s a very opaque process and it’s something that especially exploded during the pandemic. Oh, you’re correct, sorry, I was drinking. Oh yeah, no, drink your tea Nicole. Drink your tea. Sip that tea ’cause we’re getting into the tea of ghost kitchens right now. Yeah, I know there was this crazy video that Eddy Burback played about like… The Eddy Burback video. Yeah. And it was iconic. He’s like a PI kind of. Eddy Burback’s, like a modern day Hunter S. Thompson out there. Except he’s going to all the Margaritaville’s and Rainforest cafes and then exposing the Ghost kitchen scam. ‘Cause he found out something incredible, he went to one of these ghost commissary kitchens and found 44 different concepts operating outta the same kitchen space. That’s nuts. Was that the fish sandwich one? Or was that like another part of that? That was the fish sandwich one. Tell them about the fish sandwich part. Yeah, so Eddy goes and he like calls, not calls, he like orders a bunch of sandwiches from these different spots and then they end up being the exact same sandwich down to the onions, down to the sauce, it’s just the same exact thing. And so there’s no thought that goes into the ghost kitchen. Well, no there’s an incredible amount of thought that goes into it. Really? Right, so, okay. I feel like it’s like trickling down and there’s no thought and there’s no creativity and it’s just pumping stuff out for people to consume. It’s like goo. No, it is… It’s like I’m eating goo. It feels very dystopian in a way, right? That’s where I’m… It’s like Soylent Green. It’s like Soylent Green. Yeah. But now our Soylent Green is like some influencer has a, you know, “This is Jimmy’s special fish sandwich.” Who’s Jimmy? “It’s got mayonnaise on it.” Mr. Beast, right. Mr. Beast, one of his name’s Jimmy Donaldson but… Yeah, Jimmy’s great. Mr. Beast Burger is, to me the biggest thing that really kicked off the ghost kitchen, I don’t know, scandal kind of thing? Yeah. And right now he is actually being counter sued by Virtual Dining Concepts. Mr. Beast sued Virtual Dining Concepts. Yeah. Because they exploded from zero Mr. Beast Burger locations to 1,700 Beast Burger locations in a matter of like two years. In the US? In the United States. Holy crap. Which is absolutely crazy. That is crazy. When you were looking at the explosion of restaurants, like I remember Chipotle was one of the fastest in history. Oh sure, yeah. You know, and that was 1,700 locations in a matter of like 20 years. Yeah. You know, you look at Blaze Pizza is another one. Similar numbers. But now the fact that we are being forced to reckon with the question of like, “What is a restaurant?” Yeah, that’s very true. A restaurant used to be a building, it used to be a building that you would go into that had a kitchen and there were governing bodies that regulated it. And you would go, you would sit down and people would serve you food and you would pay for it there. Yes. Right? And then the fact that we’re talking about the ghost kitchens feeling very dystopian. So much of my worldview is sort of dominated by the fact that every era and every generation has gone through cultural panics and freakouts about so many things, right? Yeah, but I wouldn’t say this is a panic or a freakout. I’d say it’s a… Even just a cultural criticism of… It’s a critique, we’re critiquing it. It’s a critique. And things are definitely changing, right? For the first time ever in 2015, the amount of money that Americans spent on dining out surpass the amount of money they spent on groceries. Which is just insane to me. But it was a very slim margin, right? Yeah. But then now only in the last eight years, we’ve seen like a 20% increase in that margin. Wow. So Americans spend like $92 billion dining out every year compared to 73 billion on groceries which is crazy and a big part of it is the convenience level, right? Yeah. We’re in the age of convenience right now. We’re in the age of convenience right now, but we kind of have been sliding down there for a while. So one of my favorite works of fiction, we’re talking about dystopian cyberpunk fiction. That’s okay. Get on board. I’m excited to learn. Tell me about it. “Snow Crash” by Neil Stevenson. You’ve talked about this before. It’s one of my favorite… You love this book. Books of all time. I love this book but they sort of go through that cultural critique of Americans loving convenience, but through the lens of delivery pizza restaurants. Okay. So in this book, not the spoil it, but like the Mafia effectively runs all of America and they run it because they found the most efficient systems at getting anything done with delivery pizza restaurants. Interesting. So the Mafia bought all of them. So literally you need like anything done, a pizza delivery driver is going to be the fastest, most efficient. Oh wow. And that’s a reference to Domino’s 30 Minutes or less. Okay. Which a lot of people at the time were like, “That’s too…” That was nuts. It was nuts. I remember when that happened, it was crazy. But there’s also this idea of like, that’s too fast for food. You shouldn’t be able to get food that fast. Getting food shouldn’t be that easy. Americans are lazy. It is that easy. They’re not willing to go into a restaurant to get food. And now we’re like literally too lazy to even Google what the restaurant that we’re eating at is. That’s so true. Right? Yeah, we’re just going on an app and just looking up whatever comes up. Have you ever eaten at a ghost kitchen that you’re aware of? I’m sure I have. And I think the times that it’s probably happened, so anytime I’m on an app and I see something that looks sketchy, you can kind of tell if you’re getting, you’re effectively getting catfished. That’s what this is. Yeah, ghost kitchens are cat fishing people. You’re on Tinder, you’re swiping and like the pictures are weirdly pixelated and you’re like, “I feel like you screen grabbed this off of Google images.” You know what I mean? And like the description of the person doesn’t quite add up. You’re like, that’s a catfish. Like stay away from that person. You can tell this on delivery apps now. Yeah, I mean to the untrained eye, I think it’s a little bit difficult though. I agree with that. Especially ’cause me and you have worked in like food media. 100%, 100%. So we can tell whenever a photo is like, not from a restaurant almost. You can tell though, yeah. And like, I actually used to work with someone who took pictures for GrubHub and Uber Eats and stuff, and she told me that a lot of these concepts, this was when it was just like bubbling under the surface. Yeah. She’s like, I had to take one photo and this one photo, I would do it from 14 different angles and we would go to a bunch of different places that sold the whole thing. And I didn’t realize until right now that she was working for ghost kitchens. Oh my God, yeah. I know, how crazy. That’s incredible. I had a run in with a ghost kitchen once. A run in, so… A little paranormal run in with a g-g-ghost kitchen. So one thing you should know about me is that I don’t have food delivered to my house ever. Wait. Ever, ever? Or because kosher or? No, no, no, no, no. It’s just, I don’t like the idea of having food delivered to me. I like the idea of takeout, like going there physically look, opening the food, making sure it’s everything that I want and whatever and then I take it to my place. Am I a little bit neurotic and crazy because I do that? Yeah. Yeah, did you not think you were neurotic and crazy? Not until right now. Oh yeah, no, we all know that, right? What? Yeah. No, that’s kinda like part of your personal brain. Oh my God, shut up. That’s a huge part for both of us. Really? Yeah, yeah, just general neurotism, you know what I mean? Yeah. That’s like very on brand for you to not do that. No way, okay. So like I go to this place, and I see it’s like behind an existing restaurant is just… Wow. Do you know what an ADU is? No. Like when someone builds a house and then they have an ADU, it’s like a garage that they’ve converted. A house behind the house. A house behind. It’s a garage that they’ve converted into a habitable space. Yeah, yeah. So someone took a restaurant on 3rd Street behind it, built a kitchen inside this little tiny like domicile. Oh my God. I go in and then I see that it’s like 117 and a half ’cause you know how it’s like, it was like a half building. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s like platform 9¾ in the “Harry Potter.” Exactly. So I go back, it’s dark. It’s dark and it’s scary, there’s no lights. And then I see this bright light of this restaurant, of this one guy operating. And I’m like, “Do you have my bulgogi bowl ready?” Oh my God. And he’s like, “Gimme one minute.” And then literally these tickets just go I literally felt like I was on platform 9¾. It was like crazy. And it just goes. And then he goes and he makes our food. And then I’m like, “Hey, is this a ghost kitchen?” He’s like, “It is.” And I’m like, “How many restaurants do you have back there?” And he’s like, “Honestly, we have like 12 menus.” Whoa. So out of this one space, he is responsible for 12 menus. And they’re all in these little like compartments of this little space. Yeah. And also those menus online are so tiny. Like you have like maybe like four to eight options. Like literally this comes down to like a philosophical question of what is a restaurant? What is the thing? It’s nuts. Look at the Cheesecake Factory, right? Oh, what about it? Cheesecake Factory menu. I love it. Hundreds of items. How many different restaurants, if you just circle different parts of their menu, right, they have a menu for salads, that’s a whole salad chain. That’s a salad restaurant. You circle… No, you’re so right. The salad part of a Cheesecake Factory and suddenly you put that on Uber Eats as, “Just salads” or like, I don’t know. Does Cheesecake Factory do that? I dunno if Cheesecake Factory does, but a lot of restaurants do and so… Okay, like which ones? That’s why this is like a very philosophical question, like is Uber Eats one giant restaurant, you know, that you are ordering from? I don’t want it to be. Right? Nobody wants it to be, I hate it. I was so confused when you said, “Have you ever had a run in with a ghost kitchen?” Because they did not expect a person to show up. No, no, no, they didn’t, they didn’t. Nobody gets takeout from a ghost kitchen. That is ridiculous. Unique. I’ve never heard. Because I’m thinking about the times I’ve definitely been, you know, kind of scammed by a ghost kitchen. Sure. Which is to say I got like a mediocre pizza, but it’s ’cause I probably ordered at 3:00 AM it was the only thing open. Sure. And I was like, this is a stock photo of a pizza. It’s gonna be bad. And then it was indeed bad, but this whole idea of there are these incredibly small menus on like GrubHub and all that’ll be like, “Just cheese steaks,” and it’s like three cheese steaks, you know, and people order from it. Nuts. And a lot of that is coming from like these very strange brand deals that are being signed. Very strange, yeah. So this is another part of Virtual Dining Concepts, which is the company that is being sued by Mr. Beast. So the reason they’re getting sued is Mr. Beast said that they are not holding up their end of the contract in terms of retaining quality, right? Sure. There’s no QC. Why does there have to be QC? There’s no QC because not all of these are giant commissary ghost kitchens run by big corporations. Sure. A lot of them are mom and pop restaurants that have sort of signed up for this. Signed a deal and they’re like, whatever, we’ll make your burgers for X amount of dollars. Yeah, yeah. And the menu has to be so basic. I mean the Mr. Beast Burger menu, it’s like, “Beast Burger,” which is a hamburger and then there’s Karl’s Style, which is like, ooh, this has, you know… Onions on it. Yeah, it’s like a patty melt, you know? Sure. So there’s very, very basic menus that almost any restaurant can just sort of execute but now off the back of the popularity of the Mr. Beast deal, ’cause that has I’m sure made so, so, so much money. Yeah. And to his credit, there’s a whole argument on whether or not Mr. Beast is like altruistic or exploitative. You know, he’s healing the blind but he is making millions of dollars off of it. He wanted to support family owned restaurants during COVID that’s why he started this, but he is also profiting a ton from it. And then anytime somebody orders a Mr. Beast Burger, they’re not ordering from that mom and pop restaurant. So it’s just continually diluting, you know, people’s demand for mom and pop restaurants. I don’t think life is that simple, I think… No way. Right? It’s somewhere in between all altruism and exploitation. That’s where everything lies in that gray area, but there’re these other brand deals that are being signed. Things that I didn’t know about. Nicole, I would like to read for you. Oh my gosh. I would like to read… I like being read to. This is the Real HouseBowls. This is… Oh my God. Is it “Real Housewives?” It is “The Real Housewives.” Which one? Bravo. All of them Nicole, all of them. So this is not launched yet. I can get a Nini bowl. Can I get a Nini Bowl? This has not launched yet, but it is through Virtual Dining Concepts. Nini Leaks. Virtual Dining Concepts and Bravo have teamed up to create The Real HouseBowls. A virtual restaurant that delivers curated meals for hungry fans to enjoy while catching up with all their favorite Real Housewives franchises on Bravo. Super fans and foodies will adore the chef created menu. Who else is creating menus other than chefs? That is a perfect balance of light and decadent, much like the Real Housewives cast, the menu features a wide range of offerings ensuring yada yada. So it’s literally meant to like you’re watching Housewives. I’m in Danger. And they’re gonna start just like coordinating the marketing efforts of if you are watching “Real Housewives” or searching for anything, you are gonna just get shoved ads for Real HouseBowls. And there is going to be nothing different about it other than an actual bowl. And you the consumer, if we are talking about Ghost Kitchens as being a scam, you have the power to not be scammed. You should have the wherewithal to say this is just a normal bowl with the 20% markup to continue feeding the Bravo, “Real Housewives” machine. You are the one being scammed and only you have the power to not be, we must remain guarded against these marketing forces that we are so incredibly susceptible to Nicole. Unless Mythical Kitchen launches a ghost kitchen. I was gonna say… In which case, buy our products. Let me tell you that was the scariest rant you’ve ever gone on. Was it? I felt like the world was about to crash. This stuff freaks me out though you know, like we’re just cons. We’re bombarded with so many more advertisements than we ever have been before. I was literally as I was pulling up our like, you know, the menu for Real HouseBowls, I got an advertisement for the exact T-shirt that I’m currently wearing. Freaky. Literally. And I was like, did it know that I was wearing this T-shirt? And was like, it looks a little thread bearer. Probably get a new one. Hide your camera. Hide your kids, hide your wife, hide your camera. No, but we’re being bombarded with so much more and we are being told to consume, consume, consume. And our lives have already been dominated by that. And you know, even the business that you and I are in right now, you know, is reliant on people consuming. You are watching, you will buy, you’ll buy. The ghost is inside the machine. Can I tell you though, I don’t think this problem affects rural America as much. Well, someone stand up for rural America. Nicole, you grew up in? Los Angeles, California. What part? You know what part. What part, what part? If you’re listening, you know what part. Everybody knows already. I talk about it too much anyways. Why did we do this to ourselves? What do you mean? I’m just upset. I’m just upset that we’ve created such an insane way to consume food. Do you know what I’m talking about? Yeah, no, 100%. And when I sort of talked about this like personal responsibility, if only you can remain guarded against this kind of stuff and teach sort of literacy to not be susceptible to marketing, we are all the problem, right? Yeah. And these things only exist because there’s demand, right? The supply is only going to follow the demands. Now I think we are probably in for a bubble and I think that is the most unique thing. Like the housing bubble? Like the housing bubble. But God do I not know about the housing bubble? I don’t know what to think about. Oh my God, I’ve never even seen the big short. Like I’ve never been in a house. My brother tried to like have me like read a book about it and I just got so bored, but what I do know a little bit about is the entertainment industry. And we are now in a very strange point in the entertainment industry where it is no longer the supply meeting the demand. Sure. And we’re seeing this a lot with the strike right now, right? Absolutely, yeah. It’s we are obsessed with this idea of permanent growth and just getting out to as many people as possible, right? Like Netflix just loses billions of dollars. Spotify loses billions of dollars. Hell, Uber is the same way, but it’s this new like VC backed idea that, Amazon is the perfect example of this, is we are going to lose as much money as possible to create the biggest consumer base possible. And then once we have them all hooked on our product… We’ll recoup it. We’re gonna flip it. Uber is going to kill the entire taxi industry that has had rules and regulations and standards forever. Uber is going to kill that until they’re no longer there. And all you can do is flip on your little app to get anywhere in the world, right? This podcast turned dark. It’s dark but no this is fine, Nicole. “The Real Housewives” are putting chicken in a bowl. But really… And you can eat it. I know, I know It’s just scary to me from someone like, me and you started in the food world. And you know, simple start, but now that we’re in it, it’s insane to see how it’s grown. And I don’t want it to grow anymore sometimes. I think we’re gonna see the bubble burst, right? Because this is the same thing that’s going to happen, right? There’s gonna be no demand for The Real HouseBowls. God, I hope not. Who do you wanna see have a ghost kitchen other than us? There’s somebody that’s coming out with one I’m rooting for Wiz Khalifa. He’s also doing bowls, but it’s ’cause bowl Nicole is a feature in smoking marijuana. And when you smoke marijuana you often put it in a bowl. And Whiz Khalifa is famous for his marijuana smoking. He had a song called “Reefer Party.” You know that was a, it was a remix of “Grove St. Party.” Never heard of either of those songs. ♪ It’s a party, it’s a party, it’s a party ♪ No? Mm mm. Oh my god. I’m not a big Whiz Khalifa fan. Everybody rolling papers. Nobody smoking blunts. Come on. It’s legal in California This is a family show. Whiz Khalifa is a family guy, but. I wanna see more Barbie stuff. I was actually surprised that there wasn’t more. Was there Barbie stuff in the ghost kitchens that I missed? I didn’t see one. Because I’m not on the… I haven’t seen one, but imagine a Barbie Ghost Kitchen. I think it would’ve been perfect. I mean that is one thing is that one, Barbie, I haven’t seen it, but it generally. You haven’t seen Barbie yet? It generally… The doors right there. Generally sickens me because it’s this giant Mattel advertisement that’s like masquerading is like feminist praxis. And it’s just all very strange to me in the world that we live in. Josh, come on. You can’t be too… What do you mean come on? Why are people like… You can’t be altruistic so much and you can’t be… I’m not like, not a good person so much. Exploitative so much. I’m just a person. I don’t know, just, everything’s an ad for everything now. Yeah, I know. And it’s just like super gross. The reason I think the bubble’s gonna burst. What’s up? We’re seeing like one of the other factors in ghost kitchens is that you have these established brands that are just changing their name and their branding. Yeah. To appear to be other things. Like we talked about how Cheesecake Factory could do that. There’s restaurants that like are doing that right now. That’s so scary. Red Robin was one of the biggest ones that people were criticizing. They launched a thing called Chicken Sammys where they were like, “We serve chicken sandwiches.” Okay. “People love that. We’ll just put those on a separate menu with separate branding.” They would physically cut off their labels where it was gonna say, “Red Robin.” That’s so funny. And just put that on stuff. So many people have been doing this. Another famous one was Chuck E. Cheese as… Oh my god. Pasquale’s. I remember this. Pasquale’s, that’s right. Pasquale’s Pizza. So ridiculous. Denny’s was doing a thing called like Crazy Melts. Yeah, I remember that. Like, Melty Burgers. I remember that. But some of the numbers, I don’t have the numbers for everybody, but some of the numbers coming out of it were like shockingly low like Bloomin’ Brands, which is Outback Steakhouse. They launched like a wings concept and they did… And it failed? $330 Of business in like two weeks. Shut up. ‘Cause you’re, I mean… Plus because every single restaurant that makes wings probably is doing the same thing, right? Correct. And well… And how do you stand out? You don’t stand out. You don’t. It’s not about standing out. It’s about blending in. I think it’s about blending in and I think it’s about, “Hey, if somebody wants to order this good luck.” Sure. “We’re number seven on the page or something,” you know. But that’s also like antithetical to what a restaurant used to be, right? Like so Outback Steakhouse for instance, right? Yeah. They are now, so sort of, their brand equity has been watered down so much. They’re cheugy. To the point where they’re trying to hide it. They’re a little cheugy. They’re like, we spent years, we spent decades building the name of Outback Steakhouse to be vaunted in the customer base. And now we’re trying to hide it to sling wings on the cheap on an app? Like, it’s really genuinely sad to me. It’s keeping up with the times though. It is keeping up with times. Like I think you don’t really have a choice. Oh no you don’t. Yeah. Well you do have a choice, but it’s like. You do have a choice. It’s like let go or be dragged. But like, I don’t think a lot of places are actually making money off this, I think they’re doing it on speculation. Yeah, it’s not about the money. It’s about catching the wave. Correct. And I think a lot of people trying to catch these waves… So hard. Are going to crash and burn. You know what I mean? Like for every Mr. Beast Burger out there that has 1,700 locations and again it’s to no risk of the influencer or whomever is doing this. Yeah, sure. ‘Cause they’re just signing a licensing deal, right? Yeah. You pay to use our name and then we get whatever profits come and so it’s like the responsibility is almost being trickled down. Yeah, exactly. Like I said, trickling down, yeah. And it’s always going to fall on low wage workers who are actually working these ghost kitchens who are losing jobs from real restaurants that are being shut down that probably care about their employees a little bit more. Sure. You know, and then they end up there and then you end up eating a soggy fish sandwich that could have come from 15 other different restaurants. My question is, is there any actual, like what’s the name of the overarching restaurant again that’s which responsible for this? VDC? Virtual Dining Concepts. Virtual dining Concepts. Yeah, yeah. Do they have like a QC thing where somebody goes and like teaches them, like teaches them mom and pop shops how to make these? Or do they just print out a like recipe book and say, “Learn this?” I’m sure, I mean I’m sure they do have quality control protocols in mind. I’m sure they have terms of agreement. I’m sure they have contracts that all these restaurants signed, but when you’re spreading so, so, so thin. Yeah, it’s like impossible. Right, I mean that was the one of the problems with like Uber, right? Sure. Is you just had no way to control it. It’s so sort of decentralized and spread out. Spread out. Because it’s about numbers, numbers, numbers. That you just couldn’t control the quality on all this and you had all these problems. That said, is it like any worse than the cab industry? I don’t actually know I mean. I don’t work in the cab industry. We work in the food industry, you know. Me neither. We work in the food industry. I think we’re trying to understand it by seeing other industries. ‘Cause it’s just so new to us that we have no idea what this is gonna look like. And that’s the scary thing about Ghost Kitchens, it’s like what is it gonna look like in 10 years? What do you think it is gonna look like in 10 years? Can you go back… What do I want to happen or what do I think is gonna happen? Real quick as an exercise. Go back to 2013. Do you remember, what was Nicole doing? She’s like working at Less Cosmetics. Was that 10 years ago? 10 years ago, yeah. I was in culinary school. You were in culinary school? I was in culinary school. What was happening in restaurants then that people were like, this is going to be the future. Oh my gosh, what was happening in 2013? It was all the burger joints were like popping up. Yeah, oh my God. Like very gastro puby. Like fancy Umami Burger was at the height. Oh I miss Umami Burger. It was so good. Umami Burger, Plan Check all of these little burger like concepts were like popping up here and there. Yeah, it was off that. So were people saying like the future isn’t in fine dining, it’s in creating comfort foods like a burger that’s really good. And like innovating, and innovating within the confines of a burger I remember. Yeah, yeah. Was big. Yeah, but that kinda like a reframing, right? Because before that, people weren’t like, who’s gonna pay $30 for a burger? And now it’s a very normal thing. Almost every restaurant now has to have a burger on the menu. That’s true. Even like upper class dining places, they do. 100%. Yeah. Thinking about Petit lovely upscale French Bistro from Michelin Star Chef. Hinoki and the Bird. Oh my God. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They have a $40 burger after tax and tip on their menu. For what reason? it’s so good. Oh wasabi. In 2013, I remember I would’ve been like freelancing, writing about restaurants at the time. Yeah what were you noticing? And there was this sort of almost anxiety. So this would’ve been like 2015. Okay. Where we were talking about “Los Angeles Magazine’s Top 10 Best New restaurants in LA” and Howlin’ Ray’s had just opened their brick and mortar. Oh no way. And this is before they had like super exploded into having four hour lines great hot chicken restaurant in Los Angeles by Chef Johnny Ray Zone. So good. Fantastic, but they had just opened and before they had four hour lines and I was talking with our head food critic, Patric Kuh, who’s been on the show, check out his episode where we judge, our three course fine dining meal, but I was like, “We have to put Helen Rais on the list or we’re gonna look behind the times.” And he straight up goes, “It’s not a restaurant.” And I’m like, “How do you mean?” He’s like, “You can’t sit down there.” He is like, “There’s four stools, but they’re trying to shuffle people out all the time. People are just spilling into the streets eating their chicken sandwiches. It’s not a restaurant. A restaurant is something that has hospitality. It has service. How can we judge it?” And then I was like, “Well, times are changing, right? It’s more expensive than ever to open a restaurant. More restaurants are failing than ever.” Already been a pretty crap industry anyways, I almost said the S word. No, 100%. And it’s only getting harder. And so it’s like, I don’t think we can fault great chefs like Johnny Ray Zone who worked for Gordon Ramsey and Thomas Keller and ran French restaurants in LA to open a concept serving great innovative food in a tiny space that doesn’t have these trappings of what you thought a restaurant was, right? And this is when popups were becoming a thing and restaurants were just, you know, “Hey we’re one day a week at this wine bar, but we have our own branding and stuff and maybe we’ll be.” This was happening during 2015 time. Food trucks as well, right? It’s the explosion of . Oh my gosh, remember food… This stuff is all new. I mean, food trucks have been around for forever, but. But like, the explosion. The brand of food trucks was a huge explosion. And that’s a paradigm shift. And so looking back then thinking, “What’s the future in 10 years?” Wait, quick aside about Patric Kuh after this. Go ahead. We kind of got in a little row, a little fight. And I’ll never forget, he goes, “Does wine service mean nothing to you?” And slams the door and left and that was hilarious but point is, 10 years ago we had this like, oh, restaurants are shifting to being more nomadic to being food trucks, popups, these tiny holes in the wall that are still serving great food. Joints, joints. Joints. It’s a joint. And then now 10 years later, we’re in like the dystopian hellscape of what we created by not having that sort of respect for restaurants. Oh. And now ghost kitchens are the just the logical end point. And there’s probably another logical end point. So, this is our fault. It’s our fault. We did it Nicole. We did this. We did this you know. Are we just like old? Is this what it is? Is this us aging? Oh yeah, I’m sorry about all this. This is just too old people complaining that the world’s changing around us and we don’t understand it. I think that’s what this whole podcast is. Yeah, yeah, which is totally fine but no, a lot of this comes for me at least from like a genuine love of restaurants and a real care for the industry and I don’t want to see it get diluted. And that’s what’s happening. In the same way that you ever hear Snoop Dogg talk about Spotify? He sure doesn’t like it. No, I haven’t. Snoop Dogg had this great thing where he was like, when I used to sell albums, CDs, we sold a million records at $9 a pop, that’s $9 million. I know I get 20% that’s, you know, roughly $2 million from me. He’s like, now on Spotify, you just put a song up there and it gets 9 billion plays and nobody tells you how much money it’s making and they’re taking all their cuts off the top and you’re only paying $12 for a month of unlimited music to get every song in the world, Nicole, you gotta pay $12 a month. I can listen to Beethoven right now if I want to. You just have to pay like $12 for a single CD. It’s so nuts. It’s nuts. And it’s cool that I can listen to anything and I’ve found so much good music from there that I never would’ve before but we’ve also diluted the product and how much we care about it when a restaurant is now just a thumbnail of a logo on an app that you don’t care about, that you’re ordering when you’re sat on the couch, ’cause you don’t wanna leave, right. We’ve watered down the concept of what a restaurant is and all the hard work of all these people that have created great brands and people that treat their employees well and give a crap, you know what I mean? I think we’ve kind of erased a lot of that and I’m like hoping that this bubble bursts, you know, that we sort of can get back to that. I’m hoping people who are spending more money on restaurants than ever can actually walk into a restaurant and eat the bowl of fuzz it was meant to be served and not in, you know, plastic deli containers. I yearn for that era. That was… Biblical Kitchen, Ghost Kitchen. This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. It may seem like Nicole and I always knew we wanted to go into this wild culinary world we live in, but that’s just not the case. It takes a while to get to know yourself and discover who you really are and what you truly want. Yeah, because getting to know yourself can be a lifelong process. Especially since we’re always growing and changing. Therapy is all about deepening that self-awareness, understanding and it’s a great way to learn more about yourself. Not just the who and the what, but the why. Why do we act certain ways? Why do we feel the way that we feel? And if you wanna start your journey of self-discovery BetterHelp is a great place to start. It’s designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule, plus it’s entirely online so BetterHelp can connect you with a licensed therapist who can take you on that journey of self-discovery from wherever you are. There are so many benefits to therapy from learning how to deal with your emotions, to empowering you to be the best version of yourself more often. And the therapist you’re matched with on BetterHelp will help you to guide you based on your specific goals. Discover your potential with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com/hotdog today to get 10% off your first month. That’s betterhelp.com/hotdog. Weren’t able to join us for Good Mythical Evening this year or wanna experience it all over again? No problem. GME is available on demand for a limited time only. Head over to goodmythicalevening.com to stream through September 5th. All right Nicole, did you fall asleep? No, I was looking at drag queens on YouTube. I was looking at Willem. I dunno who that is. That’s a problem. We’ve heard what you and I have to say. Now it’s time to find out what are the wacky ideas are rattling out there in the universe. It’s time for a segment we call, Opinions are like casseroles. Opinions are like casseroles. She ate that honey. I wanted to feel like Julie Andrews. Why? I don’t know. She’s magical. I guess so. She’s still alive? Yeah. Good for her, man. Hey, before we get to your opinions like casseroles, we gonna check in on the poll we posted to our Spotify page. If you go to that, you can vote in the polls as well, which would be super cool but we posted from a couple weeks ago, pho versus ramen to see what the people think Nicole and we got up to 694 votes. Wow, no way. Yeah, yeah. 67% said ramen, 33% said pho which… Am I supposed to be dancing during this? Oh yeah, I’m so sorry. This is the poll dance portion. Nicole, you gotta do your poll dance. Yeah. Oh. Ooh. What? Ah. I’m dancing. I’m also dancing with my mouth? So you can hear it on the audio only version. Yeah, shout out to our audio only listeners. We love you audio only listeners. Anyways people prefer Ramen to pho about a two to one clip, which is roughly expected, right? It’s expected. It’s expected. But not honored. I’m just kidding. I’m totally kidding. I had ramen last night. Did you really? Where? From a ghost kitchen? No. Just go to a ramen place that you like Nicole? There’s so many like independently owned ramen restaurants that you enjoy. I was having a… Did you go through a ghost kitchen . I need you to know that I went to like four different grocery stores after work and I was dying on the inside and I said, “David, get ramen.” And then it was gonna be $65 and I said, “Don’t get ramen.” So I found a random spot that literally had three reviews, sat my ass down and had ramen for $20. Oh, my God. And I got an extra one too. What restaurants do you order delivery from the most? I really don’t do that much delivery. I don’t either ’cause it’s so expensive. I cook it. It’s so expensive. And listen, I spend money but spending too much money on food, I can’t do, I grocery shop. Yeah. I feel like anytime I get dinner delivered for Julie and I just ends up being like $80 plus. Yeah, I don’t, I can’t, I can’t. That’s like five days of groceries. We also spend a lot of money on groceries because I like cooking nice things. Yeah, also, I go out to eat a lot, but. Yeah, but I mean I would much rather do that than all the service charges, you know what I mean? But there’s only like three things I get delivered. It is Dan Modern Chinese. Which is good delivery. I’ve had that once. Chinese food is great delivery. Yeah. I get Torrench, which is my favorite, my new favorite Persian spot. By the way Torrench does great work. They’re juicy chicken. They do great work. We get like Kebab, Shirazi salad, rice, hummus, kashki, badam, you know, I have that. And then Thai food from… Oh great. Shri Siam. But they’re all things that deliver well. I get my food from Hot Thai. From where? Hot Thai. Hot Thai? It’s the best Thai food place because it’s close to our house. Hey, listen. And the best Thai food is the one that’s closest to your house. Please don’t Google it and find out where I live. I just thought Sri Siam does great work. I think with without Sri Siam, I don’t know if night market could’ve done what they did. Shout out to LA restaurant references we see out there. Let’s get to our first opinion. Oh, yeah. This is the opinion part, we should talk about this on the pod. I know, I just wanted to talk to you… Well ’cause I hate delivery food. Most of it’s bad. Eddy Burback in that video getting fish sandwiches delivered. If you were getting a fish sandwich delivered. A fried fish sandwich, you’re a crazy person. You gotta reevaluate your choices. Oh my God. This should be in the podcast. I know it should’ve been in the pod. This is the podcast. Nicole, this is still the podcast. No, it’s a different section. And all these places tried to like go, we invented a new box to keep your fish sandwich fresh and crispy. No you didn’t. You put holes in a box. You put holes in a box. Okay lets get to that . Put holes in the box baby. Sugarfish, sushi. I get sushi delivered. They deliver. You get sushi, that’s insane. That’s crazy. I get sushi picked up. Probably the best way to eat sushi is right outta the sushi chef’s hands. And they’re putting it in a Corolla? Do you know who I’m married to? They’re putting it in a Corolla and driving it half an hour to you. Yeah, so what if it’s in a Corolla? You got probably against Toyota Corolla’s? Do you know a Corolla’s a good car? It was a top selling model in America for a long time. The car’s Japanese. Fair enough. Oh, okay. That makes sense, yeah. Here we go, okay. No, now I get it. I only get my schnitzel delivered in Volkswagen. You want duck a l’Orange a Peugeot better pull up. Deep cut. You want that better be a Hyundai. That better be a Hyundai coming up with your . Hi, this is Luke from Northfield, Minnesota. Absolutely love you guys and your podcast. Listen to every single episode. And I called in a couple of times with the opinions. Chef pull . I’m gonna call in for advice because now I’m a drag queen. Kind of probably for Nicole, just because I’ve never seen Josh wearing makeup. I don’t know, maybe he has a little foundation or something. Love it. But what is something or things that are good to eat if I have a full face of makeup and I don’t wanna like smudge myself, like something small that just goes in my mouth and is not intrusive you know, because, you know, if I have a bunch of makeup on, I don’t want, a chili dog or a BLT or something like that. Like I don’t wanna do my makeup again. I don’t wanna mess it up you know, if I’m drinking something, then you know, you just have a little straw and have a little something but if I’m in drag for hours, then I need something that I can eat that isn’t intrusive to my face. So yeah, lemme know. Very important. Gonna keep a drag queen alive if you lemme know. Lemme know. Come on, come. Lemme know. Come on. Okay. I’ve never heard of an opinion that needs to be answered by me before more than this. This is incredible. First of all, I was just watching Drag Queens. This is crazy. Literally, literally. And so is there a water bottle around? Is there a water bottle you can just like throw at me really quick. Okay. What are you about to do with that? I’m gonna give you an example of what I do because with drinking you can have a straw, yeah but what I do is I literally put, everybody makes fun of me about how I drink water. I drink water like this. What the hell? You’ve been doing that for like the four years that I’ve known you? Yeah. I don’t put my lips in the water. I wrap my lips around the top. I’m just gonna… And I go like this. I feel like I’m watching something I shouldn’t be. I drink my water with my lips wrapped around the top because I don’t want my lips to get screwed up. Yeah, that’s good. So it’s very important whenever you’re drinking out of a bottle, if you don’t have a straw handy, just wrap your lips over it. And then for foods, little foods, okay, the best thing to do, like for example, get a chicken cutlet and cut it into little pieces and then eat it individually like this. Yes. And then like things like sushi, like little bites are good. Anything that you can cut into little pieces. Sandwiches, never. Soup never. Noodles, better not. What about soup with a straw? No. Whenever I have a full face of makeup on, like whenever I’m like, I’m trying to think of like when I’m sitting in a chair, getting myself ready and having food on the side, which I don’t typically do because I don’t eat in my room but like whenever I’m getting my makeup done, I normally have like, yeah like a salad is also really great too but I like to get chopped salads because they’re chopped super fine and I can use a spoon to shovel it in instead of a fork. Oh, also Shirazi salad’s a great one too. I concur. This is the best opinion of all time. And you helped out at a drag queen. I love that. That’s great. Yay. Hi Dr. Nicole, this is Katie from Iowa. Hey Katie. My unpopular food opinion is that I have always dunked my salmon in ranch dressing. Yes. I know that’s a very Midwest opinion. And my boyfriend judges me hardcore. My defense is that I am a medical student and I know that salmon is really good for you. Definitely. And so I try to make it more palatable because I don’t really like the taste of salmon, so I dunk it in something I like. Please don’t judge me too hard. I love the pod. Thanks you guys. I don’t understand the medical student defense. I don’t understand the medical student defense. Well because it’s full of omega threes and fatty acids. How does that defend ranch? Read a book. Is ranch the only way to make it palatable? But no, you shouldn’t need a defense but if you did, there’s a culinary defense. Okay, what’s the culinary defense? People would put tartar sauce on salmon, right? Okay, fair. That’s what it was made for. It’s just acid, it’s mayonnaise, you know, it’s herbs whatever. What is ranch if not tartar sauce on? Nicole that’s what I’m saying, ranch is just, it’s a delightfully flavored aioli with other things in it. It’s good. Yeah, it’s okay. I imagine what I would do is I would make a salad and put the salmon on top and then drown it in ranch or I could take ranch powder. Why do you have to hide? Why do you have to hide your ranch? You want the ranch on the salmon and you have to hide it in salad? No, you don’t have to hide anymore Nicole. You’re safe here. You can put salmon on your ranch. I was saying ranch powder on the salmon, cook it with ranch powder. I’m sure it’s really dank. It’s probably really dank. It’s probably really dank. It’s probably really dank. Dairy and fish. There’s nothing wrong with it. I grew up eating creamed herring. That’s disgusting. What Nicole? My culture is not your costume. We eat creamed herring. We’re proud of it. I’m literally wearing a high necklace. Get out of my face. Hey guys, this is Ray from Southern New Jersey and… Yes. I was watching one of your shows… I spent 10 days in Southern, New Jersey. I thought about something, how food can be great when it comes to bringing back memories. Especially smells. Mine is my mother would boil cabbage for my father and I would come home from school and the smell would hit me in the nose and I would absolutely hate it. And to this day, I hate boiled cabbage. Funny. Do either of you have food memories that just take you to a negative place? I’m just curious. Keep up what you’re doing. Love the show and God bless guys. That’s interesting though. Food smells associated with negative memories. I have like really weird ones. I have one that’s kind of, it’s not a smell but it’s a taste. What’s the taste? It’s those candies, those strawberry candies that like grandma’s have. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I don’t like those. What does that take you back to? I don’t know. I think it takes me… You have a mean grandma? Huh? You have a mean grandma? Yeah, I did have a mean grandma. Yeah, she was a teacher. She’s actually a first grade teacher for David’s parent… She was David’s mom’s first grade teacher. In? In Iran. Oh, my God. Yeah. She taught a lot of kids. That’s incredible. Yeah, yeah, I had a mean grandma. And every time I see those candies and I see ’em, I’m like, mean grandma. That’s funny. Mine is the smell of fresh basil that I hate. And no, it’s really bizarre because when I first started cooking, we lived right next to a Trader Joe’s and I was the total latchkey kid right. My brother was out hanging out with his high school friends. Dad was working like 14 hour days, stuff like that. And so he would just like gimme a 20 and I’d go buy ingredients and Trader Joe’s and they would always at these giant clamshells of fresh basil, and I was like watching Food Network at the time, like green things on food make it fancy. Sure. And so I’d always buy a thing of fresh basil. I put it on everything that fresh basil taste just infected every single thing that I made. And it was a very strange and lonely time in my life where I was trying to figure out what it meant to be a person. And now when I smell fresh, gotta be Italian basil, Thai basil doesn’t trigger the memory but Italian basil does. Okay. I get weirdly sad. Do you use any basil? Almost never. Almost never. Almost never. I like don’t like the taste of it now. Yeah, when you were doing that chicken parm episode, you were very sullen. Yeah. You were quite sullen on the inside. I’m a sullen man. No you’re not. Men are overly emotional. That’s why we can never be president. I was just talking about how we called it Hillary killery literally this morning. Oh, what a strange times we all in. May you live in interesting times. Next opinion please. Hi Nicole, hi Josh. Hi. This is Will. I’m from Kentucky. Hi Will. I’m an assistant manager outta McAlister’s Deli. Congrats. Cool. And my opinion is that avocado belongs on French dips. Think about it. Avocado meets salt. Everybody knows that you can put like soy sauce on avocado and it’s really good and on a French dip is essentially just like watered down soy sauce and beet juice. It’s delicious. You have to try it. Avocado on your next French dip. Thank you. Love you guys. This is interesting. I eat a lot of French dip sandwiches. I would say the restaurant that I frequented most in my life is probably Philippe’s. Yeah, interesting. It’s the one place I can say I’ve been there more than 10 times. Yeah, yeah. And the thought of asking those lovely ladies in their cute uniforms and their little deli hats, “Please put avocado on my French dip sandwich.” I think they would have a conniption. Oh yeah. But if I could bring an avocado to the restaurant and eat it outside, it could work. It could work. I don’t like it, but it can work. I think this is a deceptively good opinion. It is. In terms of like what a French dip needs, right? ‘Cause you already have like the meat… do you get cheese on your French dip? I do. I generally don’t for some reason. I’ve never been that big of a cheese guy. I just get American. You get American? Yeah, it’s the best one. It supposed to be Swiss on a French dip? I was gonna say, I also sometimes get Swiss. If it’s lamb dip I get Swiss. If it’s beef dip I get American. That’s so funny, but like when you add avocado to a sandwich right, it’s adding fattiness it’s adding creaminess. And it’s kind of like this bland, almost refreshing, fatty, creamy layer that, like you said, takes really well to salt. Yeah, of course, I always associate avocado with Mexican food. So a Torta which is a Mexican version of a French dip effectively, right? French dip, yeah, yeah. So it’s a soaked sandwich, but that has spice to it but you don’t inherently need spice for avocado to be good. No. But I’m wondering if you do need acid. ‘Cause that’s the thing that a French dip is missing. Do you need spice in a French dip? No, but I’m saying does avocado need acid to set it off? Doesn’t need, I mean. It’s doesn’t need, I mean, nothing needs anything but. Mm-mm, mm-mm. Because you’re getting like Umami from the beef and salt from the . Oh there’s spicy mustard on the side. Not always though. At Philippe’s you’re talking about one specific restaurant. I like that. I did invent the French dip allegedly in Los Angeles. I like it. Oh, that mustard atomic. That’s so good. I really wanna try this. The closest equivalent I can sort of thing to like avocado in that sort of sandwich deli context is like when there’s fat fresh mozzarella and the fresh mozzarella, that’s like not very salty. You know what I mean? It kind of adds the same thing as avocado. No, it doesn’t. For me it doesn’t. I always add avocado to my deli sandwiches especially when… Which is weird, because you do that to your Uncle Paul’s sandwich. Yeah, yeah, I do that. But like that one has a big wedge of fresh mozzarella. That’s weird to me. Those are substitute goods to me. Really? No. Mayonnaise is a substitute good for avocado? No. Only if it’s avocado spread. If it’s an avocado spread, but if it’s whole avocado. You know what happens with an avocado when you mash it? What? It’s spreadable. You don’t have to mash it. You put slices on it. It’s a different experience. It’s like saying relish versus pickles. It’s like relish versus pickles. Shut up. No way. Why are we fighting? Avocado? Why are we fighting? Hold on, hold the phone. You mean to tell me that relish and pickles is the same as sliced avocado and regular avocado? I’m saying relish is to pickles as mashed avocado is to sliced avocado. No way in heck. Of course it is. No way. It’s just a broken down version of that ingredient that creates a different experience. Yes it is but you can’t compare the two because of the texture and the crunch of a pickle and the texture and the crunch of an avocado is non-existent. No, there’s a difference . That would go really well with a French dip. I’m talking to Will from Kentucky. No, I’m not talking to you anymore. Will great idea. You wanna host a podcast Will? Fly out to LA. Nicole, you ever work in deli? You’ll be the assistant manager for a deli. You might have to work your way up from dishwasher. I don’t wanna work in a freaking deli. Why not, why not? You too good at work for . You too good for Will now? I smell like beef anyways. You want me to smell more like beef, double beef? Okay. And thanks so much for listening to “A Hot Dog Is a Sandwich.” If you wanna hear more from us, we got new audio only episodes every Wednesday. Video comes out on Sunday over on the Mythical Kitchen Channel. If you want to be a feature, I’m sorry. Oh, worked up from that little tiff. If you wanna, stop shut up, if you wanna be featured on Opinions are like Casseroles, you can hit us up at DOG-Pod1. Our number again is DOG-POD1. Yeah. For more Mythical Kitchen, check us out. We got videos. Every week. We got videos every week. We’ll see you next time. Sometimes there’s a week where we don’t do a video, but that’s pretty rare. Very rare. We planing to give ourselves those nice little treats, like a little break. Like sleep and spending time with our loved ones. This video. I went to Cabo. Yeah and I went to South Jersey. Yeah. We didn’t talk about the South Jersey Man’s accent.