Food Festivals and Working For Free with Chef Thomas O'Hara

Chris Spear : 0:00

Happy Monday, everyone. This is Chris and you're listening to the chef's without restaurants podcast. I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving and had some fantastic family time. I'm really excited because today you're going to be listening to the first episode with a guest. Today we're going to have on the show Thomas O'Hara. Tom is a breakfast chef at the hill Brook Inn and Spa in Charlestown, West Virginia. Tom likes to say he's an egg chef, and he's going to get into that a little bit on the show. We also dive into topics such as working for free and food festivals. When we sat down, we weren't planning on getting into it, but we kind of just went there. So I think it's an interesting topic. One we've been talking a lot about in our group in member chats, and I think it's going to be a recurring topic in the coming weeks, months and year. I hope you enjoy our show. As always, we'd love your feedback and please If you're enjoying the show, consider reviewing it, subscribing and sharing it with your friends. Have an excellent Week.

Andrew Wilkinson : 1:08

Welcome back. This is the chef's without restaurants podcast. I'm here with my co host Chris. I'm Andrew, and we have a special guest with us today. What's your name?

Thomas O'hara : 1:17

My name is My name is Tom Thomas O'Hara. I'm happy to be here. Super exciting stuff. Yeah, I'm looking forward to diving into deep, deep waters of Frederick, Maryland.

Andrew Wilkinson : 1:29

All right, so this is our official I guess official second episode of the podcast our first episode with the guest and today we are recording in chef Chris's garage.

Chris Spear : 1:43

Yeah, it's a nice a nice day here in the garage. So I can't always guarantee that we're gonna have spacious facilities, but you know, housekeepers here today, so we're holed up in the garage with some beers but worse places to be.

Andrew Wilkinson : 1:54

Yeah. All right. So we're gonna get right into it. We got Thomas with us here today. Thomas is the breakfast Chef at the hill Brook in in Charlestown, Charles town, West Virginia. Yeah. Do you want to tell us a little bit more about you and your current occupation? Sure.

Thomas O'hara : 2:12

Well, I've been there for about seven months now. Basically, there's a big in just outside of the big or the, you know, it's not a big city, the city, the downtown area, just outside of it. Two very big properties beautiful. And yet, we offer two course breakfasts for every guest. sweet and savory. And it's pretty much whatever I feel like doing, which is the most freedom of her head. In the culinary scene. People were, they put their dietary restrictions down and if they can't do gluten, we don't give them gluten but it's always good. It's always beautiful. It's a very luxury place. big wedding events. I do a lot of farm to table dinners in the Northern Virginia DC area. little plug here. It's called the taste of Blue Ridge, the big event coming up this weekend, actually, and I'm not sure of November 30. I will not be there. The executive chef executive chef Steve Carell will be there. Yeah, look him up. Follow him on Instagram. All right. So this is like my,

Andrew Wilkinson : 3:14

one of my favorite things that I'm going to get to ask people. And it's a super broad question. You can take it wherever you want, literally, figuratively, spiritually emotionally. What about are you currently cooking? At home on the job in your life? 2020

Thomas O'hara : 3:29

currently, currently, I'm big into eggs, because of the breakfast thing that I got going on. Now. How many ways are there to cook an egg? I think the answer is endless. Pretty much. You know, do you use supplement dairy? Do you leave a dairy free? What do you do? So I like looking up different ways in different shapes, sizes, colors to make them really trying to figure out a good Green Eggs and Ham dish that doesn't look you know, artificially industrialized,

Chris Spear : 3:57

disgusting green. Yeah, yeah. Have you have you In the ideas and food, frying your eggs and heavy cream method yet hmm yeah, they just it's one of these things that they did they kind of went viral I think they put it on food 52 but look it up it's ideas on food fried eggs and heavy cream. Also, quick quick side note to that is frighten them in Maple syrup. Martin Picard of IPA co Chairman Montreal has a whole cookbook called the sugar shack. And that was one of the first things I thought you just take you know maple syrup and bring into a simmer and then crack some eggs into it in a pan we'll be doing that's delicious. And then I like to put some extra sharp cheddar cheese on there and like maybe some Serato or other hot sauce. Yeah, so try to try cooking frying some eggs up in heavy cream or maple syrup. Or maybe a combo with the two that might be really interesting, right?

Andrew Wilkinson : 4:52

Hey, just a fact check on on Thomas. He's not bullshitting. He actually helped me with pizza sometimes. And he brought me some egg yolks that have an essence of women and it's the most fire thing you can. Pizza.

Chris Spear : 5:07

So what did you do? Did you put like, like, lemon zest in there when you were curing them?

Thomas O'hara : 5:11

Yeah, yeah. So in the salt, sugar, yeah, the salt, sugar 5050 with just lemon zest and some black pepper for about six days or so it off. So they were like, super hard and gradable on the microplane, and

Chris Spear : 5:23

Did you do dehydration because a lot of people put them in dehydration after that.

Thomas O'hara : 5:27

No, we don't have a commercial dehydrated.

Chris Spear : 5:31

Yeah, I think he could do like, I think standard it's kind of like maybe three days in the cure and then rinse them and dehydrate them. But

Thomas O'hara : 5:42

yes, I just left them in there for about six days. yeah, we're it's just a it's like a like a dairy free cheese. I get a lot of no dairy, no gluten. Just because that's, you know, I think right now it's a thing right now and it probably always will be whether or not they're tall. or not, but uh, yeah, it's a nice dairy free cheese. Yeah, I'm all about eggs right now.

Andrew Wilkinson : 6:06

Tell us about your introduction to food as far as like, you know, when when did you fall for food? And then like, what was your first job experience?

Thomas O'hara : 6:14

I was going to go into the job experience first, but I'm glad you said the fall for food. So first time I really fell for food, I think was was a late night and my parents house where I found myself indulging in the lovely flowers that Mother Earth gives to us and I was kind of just putting random foods together and I ended up with a bowl of mixed tropical fruit from dannan a papaya flavored yogurt, which I don't remember where that came from. And I was just putting brown sugar on it and it just the textures from the little brown. It's just that was like eye opening to me because I was a very, very picky eater for most of my life. I don't think I had a salad till like the end of middle school. Just all Mickey D's. My sweet palate was acclimated. But yeah the first time I started cooking I moved out to the eastern shore I think in 2012 my then girlfriend now lovely wife out to the University of salt Barry and I started cooking at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Cambridge Maryland. Just like a big bowl prep cook very close to minimum wage to scooping crab cakes and cutting vegetables for big banquets and stuff and I got good at that kind of moved me to like the pool sidebar area just assembling already precooked burgers and putting hot dogs on bones that's what cut where I learned my sense of urgency for cooking and yeah got got that and then the septic was even told me I was going to work at water's edge grill one day which is like their, their fine dining experience, just lunch to start but then I started to learn how to cook fish and cook meets the temp Creating sauces from nothing, not just opening a package and just kind of heating it up sort of thing. Yeah, so I started cooking, probably the first two years, two or three years was that on the eastern shore, so it was very fish, heavy, very local, you know, crustaceans and oysters and all that jazz. Yeah, I moved back to Frederick, to get married in 2014. Sorry if I got the date wrong on that one, but I think it's about 2014 or 25th. I think

Chris Spear : 8:28

Wait, do not know when you got married?

Thomas O'hara : 8:30

I know the date... not 100% of the year.

Chris Spear : 8:35

Don't share this podcast with your wife.

Thomas O'hara : 8:37

I'm sure she'll forgive me. Yeah, I started working for Aysa Mezze in downtown Frederick. And then it just kind of bounced around from there.

Andrew Wilkinson : 8:47

Alright, so for this intro, the last question I have for you is um, do you have like what restaurant dreams or certain aspirations in the commentary world that you have been, you know, brewing in that pot?

Thomas O'hara : 9:02

I definitely love the idea of it. I think Chris mentioned on one of the podcasts you released, it's like there's a there's a point where everybody kind of man, I want to get out there on my own and do this until they see the bill for it. And there's lots of things you don't really think about that cost money, like to keep the lights on, every drop of water comes out of someone's pocket. And that's not often really thought about. That's probably the biggest reason why restaurants fail. People can just because you're an amazing chef or you have these great ideas or you can cook for family really good doesn't mean you should get into the restaurant business. You definitely a lot of financial backing, which I have not found Yes.

Chris Spear : 9:40

And stop buying dumb shit. Like seriously, I'm having this conversation all the time. We're living in a world where there are hundred dollar aprons not calling anyone out, but I think everyone knows what I'm talking about. You know, and you've got like a bunch of cooks in them and you're buying all these plates from well known plate manufacturers that are like $25 a plate Nice, but I think you can find stuff that's more reasonable that holds up well. And I just think people start you start hemorrhaging money from day one. You're buying crazy stuff that you don't need to because you're trying to put on airs from the start. And you're already way in the hole before you even come out of the gate.

Thomas O'hara : 10:16

Yeah, that's a super good point. But um, yeah, I love what you're doing with the food truck, my man, I love being a part of it when I can't be. So I think down the line. Yeah. Some sort of mobile mobile thing would be ideal, where I can kind of create my own schedule. And I'm super blessed where I work now where I'm just pretty much I was telling Chris started and pretty much my day is over at about 1231 o'clock. So I'm freed up to do family time, which is hugely forgotten in the restaurant business, like kinda, you're expected to just grind it out for 12 plus hours, and I guess that's kind of fading out slowly. But there's still people that will do it, which is why everybody expects everybody to do it. I'm hoping

Chris Spear : 10:56

that that image of the restaurant changes soon, right? Like I was just in a Facebook group or something where someone said, like, Oh, well, this person wouldn't last a week in a restaurant where they're fighting and you know, chefs are throwing knives at you and you're getting cursed. I'm like, it's 2019. Like, I really hope that that's not still going on. I'm sure it is in some parts, but like a really good restaurant. Like that's hopefully not happening.

Thomas O'hara : 11:20

Yeah. And this industry definitely, like the last romanticized sort of like, overworked thing is like, gonna make you better. It gives you a sense of worth, but then at the end of the day, you just find yourself trying to de stress and then you just develop these patterns of unhealthy

Chris Spear : 11:37

it's like parenting, you know, it's kind of the whole like, my dad used to hit me, so I'm gonna hit my kids like, no, that's not accepted, like, like, we've realized that parenting today should not be the way maybe our parents or our grandparents parented, but with work, we're still very much in that like, well, I came up in a restaurant where my boss used to berate me and throw things at me and, and curse at me like, Okay, well, that's probably not a good way. live right Can we change that?

Thomas O'hara : 12:01

definitely not sustainable. I think I whenever I think of that I I've definitely been there never thrown at me but like, you know, you've definitely been,

Chris Spear : 12:11

I throw a sandwich once and I can't to trash can once and there's like two people in my life who still remember remind me of the time that I threw a sandwich. And the time I kicked a trash can and it fell over and a bunch of bottles fell on the floor and broke. My not my not my thing. But it wasn't directed at employee. I didn't throw a sandwich at employee and I didn't take a trashcan and I was also like 22 years old, 25 years old.

Thomas O'hara : 12:37

If those things kind of, they definitely make you stronger, but you just have to know when to get out of it. You have to know when enough is enough and you just have to know it's not sustainable.

Andrew Wilkinson : 12:46

So here we have another chef without a restaurant, with no plans to be in a restaurant.

Thomas O'hara : 12:52

And I will say I will say I will say technically the hilberg in a restaurant, called the Red Book restaurant. Boom. Get out. I was thought about not saying, but I guess technically it is a restaurant inside of the bed and breakfast. I mean, is that where you work? Yeah, I work in the red book restaurant at Right, right, they broke in?

Andrew Wilkinson : 13:11

Well, that's okay. You can still finish out the rest of the podcast. Just kidding.

Chris Spear : 13:18

you know, a big thing. And this is I also want to talk to people who are kind of like side hustling and doing their own thing, because I think there's a lot of people who are working in restaurants, but they're doing a lot of interesting things on the side, they're, you know, maybe working for catering companies or food trucks. I know you've helped Andrew, with his businesses before. You know, it's for me, it's more like the independent chef spirit, I think, you know,

Andrew Wilkinson : 13:41

We're getting ready to dive into the deep end in our next section. And so today's discussion we're going to talk about since we're all local here to Frederick, Maryland, we're going to talk about the local restaurant scene. Inspired chefs without restaurants in the first place. seen that it's spired Well, it didn't really inspire pizza llama, but...

Chris Spear : 14:07

You're the anti restaurants scene here.

Andrew Wilkinson : 14:18

Chris, I want you to kick this off because chef that restaurant was really started on the backs of the restaurant scene in Frederick and how it's not super collaborative and it's kind of weird. Yeah.

Chris Spear : 14:32

He you know, I I grew up outside of Boston, amazing scene, worked in Minneapolis, Seattle, and outside of Philadelphia, and all the major cities you see these great scenes and and you know, maybe as a little bit of an outsider, I didn't always participate in those scenes, but just kind of seeing the way chefs would come together, do things together. I think you see that in DC, you know, a lot of especially, you know, there's a charity event and you've got like 20 chefs and they all come together but it seems like they're having a good time where they Do pop ups and takeovers together. And Frederick had so many restaurants that I moved here. And I just thought, wow, this would be a cool place like maybe a bunch of chefs want to hang out, do an industry night get together do some things. Yeah, no. And I don't even know who the chefs are. You know, one of the things that's really interesting to me is that it's an owner driven community. You know, you've got fountain rock restaurant group, and they have, I don't know, like six restaurants or something like that. And then you got a couple other people who have you know, 234 or so, or one that or one that's been around for a long time, you know, I think tasting room, you know, well, I actually got there with by cog.

Andrew Wilkinson : 15:39

Well, it was it was tasting room. I think tasting room existed before. Yeah, that he had another restaurant. Yeah. As well as a pizza spot. He's been he's like a mainstay in the tasting room have been around for a long time. And Mike has always ended, at least a restaurant and

Chris Spear : 15:56

So like, okay, putting you guys on the spot who's the executive chef at The Tasting Room.

Thomas O'hara : 15:59

Couldn't tell you.

Andrew Wilkinson : 16:05

Actually, I know he might be one of the only chefs that are perfect that is actually like Mike's not trying to hide him. I know that.

Chris Spear : 16:12

I know but I mean, I don't know about him, but I don't feel like they're I'm not saying that. Who's the chef and Isabella's?

Thomas O'hara : 16:23

Mario

Chris Spear : 16:23

Mario.? Ok. But you know, I guess the point is like, when you go to DC, or any big city, like I'm going for the chef, right? Like, I want to go to reverie because Johnny sparrows, the the chef there, you know, I want to go to ChiKo because Scott Drewno and Danny are awesome. And you just see that in big cities. And in Frederick, I have no idea who the chefs are like, if you even want to network with them. I can't find them on LinkedIn or Facebook or Instagram or anything. And I don't know if that's intentional or not. I mean, obviously you have Volt, Bryan Voltaggio, really well known. I think he's had a lot of great chefs work for him like Graeme, and Scott and everyone, but you know, other than that, I don't think there's a lot of chefs that people know by name. I mean, being a chef I know Christian over Hootch and Banter. Yeah, but but I don't even know that the general public would know that he's the chef there. I actually think they do props to Firestone for putting their stuff out on the window. Unfortunately, I just don't know who he is.

Andrew Wilkinson : 17:23

I think that Frederick made a step in the right direction. At one point maybe was Frederick magazine or something. And they did like an expert on bunch of the downtown.

Chris Spear : 17:32

They didn't I know, Brandon from serenity tea room, I think was maybe like the cover story. There was an issue where they're all like throwing flour and stuff in the air or something like that. But you know, I think, you know, he started at rim, they've kind of had to blaze their own path for them. They were on guy's grocery games and a bunch of shows on the Food Network. So props to them. I did hear they're shutting down.

Thomas O'hara : 17:57

I remember my first experience of that building was a He used to be a labor ready. Yeah. I ever went there, but just on my brother, he was going through it and he had to go there. And he was just like, I don't love this. And I heard that that was like fine dining restaurant now is like, what 180 there

Chris Spear : 18:14

wasn't, I didn't know they were shutting down. That sucks. And the thing that jumped out at me and we talked about this, I think another podcast was I was on the committee for the Frederick Wine Festival. And we really want to make it like a wine and food festival, where we're gonna have all these wineries calm and pair chefs with them have super excited, it was my opportunity to go door to door and talk to every chef and restaurant owner in town and kind of pitch them on this idea of Yeah, we're gonna have this wine festival and you're going to come out to the creek and you're gonna have a signature edition paired with a winery zero restaurants wanted to do it literally like zero restaurants wanted to do it.

Thomas O'hara : 18:44

And I wonder if that would be like the owners making that call or just like the the managers in the in the who you were speaking to already know.

Chris Spear : 18:52

Most of what I know is that was the case because I would go into a place and I would talk to the chef and he'd be super jazzed and then an email come like fly through it by The GM and they're not into it. And in hindsight, I get it now and we're gonna dive into this whole, like, festival restaurant thing. In the future. I don't know that it's actually worth it for restaurants to do them. But what came out of that is we needed some vendors and the people kind of came and rescued me were these independent chefs. We had some food trucks. We had Shelly from rebels kitchen come and do some baked goods. You know, she's doing cottage bakery out of her house. serenity tea room actually came for I believe three years Nico at roast house came you know, we say Nico is kind of Nico was one of the chefs with a restaurant, but I feel that he kind of embraces that independent restaurant spirit. And I just kind of thought, wow, okay, so the restaurants and the chefs here are not going to be my scene, my click. But there's a lot of inclusive but there's like a very large group of chefs kind of doing their own thing and maybe that's kind of my crowd. And that's kind of how I started now. Yeah, the restaurants are great. Love them. Love going out there. I think we have a really good dining scene. I just don't think we have a very interesting collaborative chef scene. So I'm making the distinction there. And that's kind of how I started the chef's with that restaurant thing.

Unknown Speaker : 20:13

That definitely makes sense.

Thomas O'hara : 20:16

I didn't work for fountain rock for for too long. But things you said, I definitely saw a lot of inclusiveness, a lot of unwillingness to do anything different, a lot of stick to the stick to what sells and that's about it. And not that that's a bad thing. It's just, you know, it's gonna stay the way it is. Because of that mindset. It's not going to change, you're not going to see a lot of innovation across the board Unless, you know, the people that are in there doing it every day, take the initiative to change certain things.

Chris Spear : 20:51

And it's hard. I mean, when you have a restaurant, you already have razor thin margins, right? So you have to put things on the menu that are going to sell I get that 100 Like, you can't just say I'm gonna get snakehead. It's like $15 a pound and I don't even know if people are gonna eat it I'm gonna bring it in and it's super perishable and will be no good in a day. Let's just bring it in and salad so you know you do get kind of in this cycle of like, we have to put stuff on the menu that sells so I get that 100% so it can be is one of the things that is like super invasive right and I want to get rid of it. So one week, it would be like $6 a pound because a ton came in and they want to move it and then the next week there wouldn't be a lot and because I bought it before and that'd be like $15 or pounds like $15 a pound for the Super invasive fish you want to get rid of you should give it to me for free. You bought

Thomas O'hara : 21:41

it was frozen.

Chris Spear : 21:45

It came in as a fresh side like a half and if and if you've ever had that stuff, it's got like skin like an alligator on it. Yeah, I feel like I should have saved that. That's not cool. Okay.

Thomas O'hara : 21:57

Entire frozen fish. They look like it got frozen like a swim like swimming? Yeah, very tough skin. But it's good. I wouldn't bet. That's probably I'm gonna go out on a limb and say it's one of my top eight. Wow, it's got that meaty texture. I like it a lot.

Chris Spear : 22:14

I feel that way about the local blue catfish. Yeah, and that's the same thing where like, it used to be hella cheap pro fish had it like $3 a pound. Yeah, and now it's like local and sustainable and delicious. It's like, Oh, we can get like $10 a pound is how we got there with opal too used to be able to get organ meats super cheap, and now it's very kind of getting out there like so. Yeah. How are you jumping right into it? Yeah. Anything. I couldn't

Andrew Wilkinson : 22:43

say he's like, deep and

Chris Spear : 22:44

I was I were talking about this before you got here. Food Festival? Yeah, no, I just didn't think we're gonna get we're gonna get we're gonna get hella deep right here on this one.

Andrew Wilkinson : 22:54

Yeah. So,

Chris Spear : 22:56

yeah. So I guess I'll jump into this. I think you know Want to practice festival? You're putting it down there. I think one of the things, you know, that we want to talk about is this whole idea of working for free, right? And anyone who's listening to us or I mean, maybe you don't know us. I mean, we do we do. I'm big Gary Vaynerchuk fan. I know Andrew is, you know that he talks a lot about working for free, you know, D ROC, follow them around and film them for free. I think that's a little different than, you know, what we're seeing now is the expectation that chefs should work for free for air quotes, exposure, right that like there's gonna be some kind of festival and you're gonna show up and you're gonna make 800 plates of food and you're not gonna get paid for it. You're not even get anything. But everyone there is going to see you and it's your chance to put your best foot forward. Before I go any more. What do you What's your take on that? And have you ever worked as hard as

Thomas O'hara : 23:48

I have not? No, but I could see how that would be. pretty annoying. Just expected to just do all this work for The potential to do something in the future. Um, how Wait a minute, I think the effort that I would give in the moment, and also days leading up to it. But I guess, like we were saying earlier, it's like there are people that are willing to do that. And it's, you know, it sucks because it just kind of it makes people on the outside, expect everyone to have that same mentality. And I think that's another reason why people are just overly underpaid in this business because there's there are people that will do it for free or for cheaper just because at the expense of their

Chris Spear : 24:38

well one and not to call out any festivals right now. But having been on the planning end, I do know the way that it works is we're going to play a festival we're going to pick a date. And we're going to say that there's this we're going to say that there's like 10 restaurants there and you're going to come and you're going to get the food. I know for a fact that you are sometimes like a week from the event and you have two vendors lined up, but you've sold all these tickets for a while. Money. Well, that's what that's what. And if you're listening, I really have Dr. Laura Hayes at the DC city papers wrote about this a number of times. In fact, she called out the Frederick breakfast breakfast festival a month before it happened to kind of alert people that it could be a potential shift show. And I wish more people read that article. It was a shit

Unknown Speaker : 25:21

show.

Chris Spear : 25:22

And if so, if you don't know I mean, basically what happened is this person had this idea for a breakfast festival and they had at the Frederick fairgrounds, and I think they charge like $15 a person but $60 for VIP or something. And the way it presented was there were gonna be all these vendors and all this food, go online and Google Frederick, breakfast as well. I think there was like one food truck there. And people showed up like 20 minutes after it started in the zero food and nobody was giving them money back. And it was just like it's a scam. But what's really sad is the people organizing this event had done this before they were the mac and cheese festival that was originally in Virginia and then like two days before or week before that. cancelled it because they couldn't get permitting. And then they moved it to Frederick and said, all the same vendors would be there. Now, on the back end, the woman was dming me, as the founder says, without restaurants trying to get me to provide chefs and telling me that she needed a chef. So she's told the public come to this event, all the chefs that are going to be in Virginia are going to be at this festival. But then she's telling me I have no chefs who do you know, and thankfully, I didn't get involved, and we didn't get any chefs. And I think that event got canceled before it even went off. But then she changed her name, like her Facebook name literally changed, they changed the name of their company and let someone else do the marketing. So you know, reminds me of like the monorail episode of The Simpsons. You know, it makes me very skeptical just about going to festivals, but also being involved. And so and I was actually approached about helping find chefs for the breakfast festival. So, you know, as I think about this, as the founder of this organization, being you know, I have to do a lot of due diligence as far as like who's planning these events, and it's really hard, especially if they're going out of their way to change their names. Yeah,

Andrew Wilkinson : 27:01

yeah, super shady. And it's almost like people just want to like, like, whoever that woman is. It's like she just wants to really is like Michelle Hale

Unknown Speaker : 27:09

put me on blast. Yeah,

Andrew Wilkinson : 27:11

you're on blast right now. You're trying to do shit that you have no business doing. Like do your research, do your homework and actually put some fucking work in and shit my go your way. I mean, I don't know, if you're just trying to scam people, or you just think like saying you're gonna do something is enough? No, you have to actually work at it. That's all I can say about that. And you

Chris Spear : 27:31

know, what sidebar to that is that also sometimes just people planning these things. They're not being sneaky or shady. They just don't have the experience. I think a lot of people think that anyone can put on a festival and maybe they have marketing prowess or they have a network good enough and that they'd be able to get both the chef's to do it and the customers. But you know, one of the things I see is a lot of chefs, especially if you're asking them to do it for free or on the cheap, then they don't put their best foot forward. So now they're already going into this event kind of grudgingly, like, Oh, I gotta provide 200 portions of food for free. So then they show up. They don't represent themselves because they are bringing like cheap products like they're going to Costco and buying some mini quiche and reheating them. And then the customers come they don't get their money's worth, because they're getting subpar food from the shots, and it just doesn't work in the long run for anyone. Yeah. And I'm really skeptical the amount of like, exposure and close that you actually get from those events. I mean, I would argue that most people coming to those are just wanting free food. They're not going to remember who you are tomorrow. I mean, they're not gonna say I had the most delicious pizza from pizza. Llamas. Yeah, it's a really good teacher who was asking my branding. My branding has

Andrew Wilkinson : 28:37

more impact than the pizza. Honestly, in a situation like that. I'm saying, maybe the pizza would leave an impact on some people because it's good. But I think that like, people are gonna be like, Oh, I had an awesome pizza yesterday. I can't remember who was from. That's why I say your branding might be better. But real quick before we move on to any other subjects, I just want to shout out the Frederick food truck festival. Something that you said about being experienced. I think some of them might have had a little experience. But to me it's not even necessarily all about, like having experienced doing this specific thing of like a food festival or, or whatever. But how much how do you how much work are you going to put in? Like? How far are you gonna go to ensure that it goes as smoothly as possible? Like, and in that example of the Frederick food truck festival like it's three young people who haven't never done a food truck Food Festival before, I think maybe one or two of them had experience in a festival. But

Chris Spear : 29:34

yeah, I think it was controversial thing I saw was that a bunch of 10 started flagging, and at some point, like, that's just, you

Andrew Wilkinson : 29:40

know, act of God, right. Yeah. And it was a huge gust of wind tents were flying around the limo company, I guess, provide templates or something like that. I wouldn't even say obviously, like, all blame goes to the to the organizers of the event and they understand that. And, um, but I you know, I don't think they're fully at fault. And the cool thing about is, like I said before, how far are you willing to go to make sure that it goes I wanted to, they had a meeting and invited everybody who did a good and bad review, or anybody who wanted to come at all to come and just share their experience and how they can make it better. Because they're going to do it again. And I think they're going to kill it. That's,

Chris Spear : 30:16

that's really good to know. I mean, the same with the Frederick Wine Festival, you know, we read every single review and that really drove each and every move for the next year, year after year one, we had some challenges and you look at them and people talk about, you know, flow of people or number of vendors or whatever. And we really took that to heart and kind of tried to change direction a little bit the next year, and then you are fighting it and you know, unfortunately, some people are always going to be unhappy, right? Like, we've all seen Yelp reviews and whatever reviews, like that's just how it's gonna be. And I think you have to look at it with a critical eye and say, yeah, you know what, they're kind of right. This was a problem. And then some you say, Man, I don't know that that's so but we're still listening. Is there a date for that yet plans in the works for the Federal Council? We'd love to have those guys on here. I think that'd be a good time to

Andrew Wilkinson : 31:03

Yes. Even though they're not shutting out restaurants or even in the food industry, they're providing a service within the local food industry, sort of for

Chris Spear : 31:11

ancillary services

Andrew Wilkinson : 31:12

that are sort of ancillary thing, even though it's a one time, you know, business thing. They're creating exposure for food trucks in the region, because another time, there's only a very handful of food trucks in Frederick. So they're bringing some from other local counties and stuff. So they're just providing exposure for the food trucks in the region, and connecting potential customers with food trucks. Anything you want to add.

Thomas O'hara : 31:41

It seems like that they seem to handle it the way you should handle it. Just getting all feedback good and bad. And planning it again, not saying oh, that sucks. You're not getting your money back. We're never gonna do it again.

Chris Spear : 31:54

Have you ever been to a food festival as a attendee?

Thomas O'hara : 31:56

I don't think so. If I haven't forgot it was not memorable. So no, yeah, maybe that's, uh, I need to start getting out there.

Unknown Speaker : 32:03

I found a few of them, but uh, not a lot.

Chris Spear : 32:07

I'd rather go the ones where it costs a little more. I mean, that's the kind of thing you know, once again, you go to DC and you might drop like 80 bucks or 100 bucks to go to other things, but they're really well run and the food is top notch. I'd rather drop 100 bucks and go to a really awesome one, then go spend $30 and just complain about my long lines and subpar food, you know?

Unknown Speaker : 32:24

Yeah.

Chris Spear : 32:26

If anyone has opinions on this, let us know. Yeah. And, you know, we might even be working it into upcoming episodes kind of our hot take.

Andrew Wilkinson : 32:34

Yeah, definitely. That kind of reminded me of something similar. The whole idea of giving away food for free at a festival or something like that for exposure. I do a food truck and in this industry, in a lot of places. I mean, it's kind of expected you go to a festival or you go to an event like a lot of times you have vendor fees, but locally from what I've dealt with, and talk to Other food truck owners there's like at times it's like extremely high vendor fees that seemed pretty unfair I mean for some some local businesses, mobile and food truck businesses that I know of, they have the potential to to make a lot of money. And maybe that's more affordable. I know with me I'm doing kind of like a more of like an artisan approach to pizzas and stuff and and with my setup, I'm kind of confined and, you know, it's hard for me to max over like 150 200 pizzas at an event. I mean, it's taken me done, but what's hard

Chris Spear : 33:38

what I see a lot of is like they want customers to have a good good experience. So that means short lines. So that means bringing in a ton of vendors, right? So we don't want just pizza llama there because you're not gonna be able to make pizzas for everyone and I've earned on pizza or have pizza. So then they bring 10 vendors in and then you're like, Oh, I didn't make any money to exercise. Yeah. Other thing

Andrew Wilkinson : 33:55

is you don't like some of the food vendors won't make any money. But then connections at the event who you paid are literally profiting, like, if you get 10 vendors out and they're all paying 250 they made more money than than anything, like they make more money than I make in a day. You know what I mean? Like, definitely. If I have 200 dough balls, like, granted, I could probably do more than that at times. But with my setup last year, it was kind of hard to,

Chris Spear : 34:23

and I'm super interested in seeing what other people are charging you. So chefs of that restaurants@gmail.com or hit me up on social media, if someone is hitting you up for free food to come to an event for an exposure, I would love to see that you know, or trying to charge you

Andrew Wilkinson : 34:38

an admission fee and get into it. We're not going to know what seems how to some people may be right or wrong. We're just trying to collect

Chris Spear : 34:46

the data on this and I do think you can kind of push for change. You know, I've had this conversation on our Facebook group and some people say, leave it. Those who don't want to do won't do it. But I do think there's some value to going back to an organizer and say, hey, I've talked to like a dozen people. They all feel like they shouldn't be working for free. Like, can we maybe talk about, you know, if not this year in the future, paying your chefs for their food, which has a high cost? Yeah.

Thomas O'hara : 35:13

Then like that business does it they end up turning to the right province and the dominoes, you know, and then that kind of takes away from the unique experience that you're promising these people to go to a food festival or does any sort of event you have to scurry to get 100. Domino's pizzas like yeah, Domino's is gonna give you all the pieces you want, you know, and does they have to

Chris Spear : 35:34

pay and they've got that Domino's money because as you know, all these people, all these people, all these people say they want to support local businesses and small businesses. But then when you have an event that you're asking for 800 portions of free food, and not only the food cost, but the fact that you have to hire tons of staff to go to the event setup break down, you have to prep for days like that is cost prohibitive. So you're now putting it up to large restaurant groups, and businesses that have the money and the small companies aren't able to do that. And, you know, if you just want big companies to come in and have, you know, these corporate chains to bring all your food, that's cool, but don't front and send out like a message to all your chefs saying, we want you to be a part of this. And you have the opportunity air quotes to get your feet in front of a bunch of people. Andrew has the opportunity to get his pizza in front of people every night that his truck is out there.

Andrew Wilkinson : 36:24

Yeah, hopefully, mostly for free. And I'm actually next year really considering to stop. I think there's very few events that I have to pay for that. I'm even gonna try to do you know, because why should I? I'm offering a service to people I'm offering a convenience to people, right?

Chris Spear : 36:42

They need us not the other way around. The same with these festivals. Once again, like there's been festivals that like two weeks out they had zero vendors or they needed like eight right and they've already sold tickets saying that's gonna be there at that point. Remember this chefs, they need you not the other way around. They can't have this event. they've sold tickets saying, food vendors will be there. They're the ones who are in trouble. You shouldn't have to pay for the opportunity to then go, I would go back to them and say no, you need me. Without me. There's no event, I would say even even not last minute, any in any event than if you're a brewery or a winery, something you should have food options. There's the responsible thing to do you need a food truck there.

Andrew Wilkinson : 37:27

Luckily, no, no, that's another issue, which is you have to keep your vendors happy. They're not going to keep coming back. And consistency is really important. I mean, people have varying opinions on whether or not like, Oh, we should switch up food trucks or keep the same on to food trucks coming all the time. Either way, you want to keep your vendors happy. Yeah, I deal with a couple places that don't want to do guarantees. And it's rough. I mean, one of the places I really like and I'm going to continue to go there because we do pretty well there but the fact that they were Give me a guarantee when we have a rainy day, or five rainy days in a row where their attendance is low for a month, like it kind of hurts me and makes me want to pull it out.

Thomas O'hara : 38:09

Yeah, cuz like I think time is more valuable with anything as I'm progressing of this industry. I've only been cooking professionally for, like seven years. But I think about all the time I just wasted like, I'm really nothing on no benefits my end. Like, I know you're having a lot of time. We all got kids in this room, man like that could be time spent, you know? Just hearing a child laugh is worth more to me now that I have a baby than like, any amount of exposure air quotes. Yeah.

Chris Spear : 38:38

And you have to try a lot of it out. I mean, I've tried a lot. I mean, I'm at the point where I've been doing my personal chef thing. You know, I started 10 years ago on the side and I've had tons of times where I went did a cooking class at the library because I thought that would be worth it. But how many of those you're going to do when it doesn't convert into business that you're like, Okay, I don't do that anymore. You I think you just have to be able to move fast. Try a ton of stuff but be able to analyze that quickly. And That works. I'm going to do that that doesn't work. I'm not doing that.

Andrew Wilkinson : 39:03

Yeah, I just want to say that I factor in. I factor in missed title to last into my pricing.

Thomas O'hara : 39:11

There is a model, there is a monetary value on Miss channels.

Andrew Wilkinson : 39:14

If you didn't hear that I let him say it again,

Thomas O'hara : 39:17

there is a monetary value to miss child's laughter.

Andrew Wilkinson : 39:21

Yeah, so if any of you out there like, I know, most of our listeners are going to be chefs anyway, so you probably understand where I'm coming from. But anybody who's thinking about booking me for a service, if you think that it's too expensive, you really need to reconsider and put some thought into how much actually goes into that price. You know, I have to go away from my family. I have to prep days before I have to bring all my stuff out. I'm cooking pizza for you on site. I'm not just dropping off food. So as

Chris Spear : 39:49

I said to my customers, like how much do you make a day like, let's put let's put that in the context, right? Like you're a lawyer or whatever, like and you come home and send your wife I made $25 today, like, does that work? You know, when I, when I do when I do a private dinner, you know, I have people I cook for as little as two and I make that choice, but you know, my minimum is $100 ahead, people, you know, $30 ahead, let's even say, let's even say 75 Okay, I'm gonna get real. For anyone. I don't want to be super disrespectful. $100 ahead is not worth it financially for me to do that. If we start out that it's $200 before my food cost, and let's say my food costs if I'm really good, like $40 I'm starting at 163 dinner for two, but then I got to go to like, a bunch of stores. I gotta like figure out all my crap I got time to like pack my car, you might live in Alexandria, I drive an hour and a half to get there. I'm there for hours to do the dinner, turn around, come home. I gotta wash dishes. Like that's a tough nut to crack to say like that. You know, I do that because I enjoy doing dinners for two and it's some lead gen there but you know, people who are looking for dinner for two like $50 ahead, man, that's just not gonna work.

Andrew Wilkinson : 40:59

That's it. Like your name,

Chris Spear : 41:01

even though like being pink, like, I mean, yeah even then I get even that like doing a dinner for my family is like

Andrew Wilkinson : 41:07

tough. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker : 41:10

That's what the leftovers.

Andrew Wilkinson : 41:12

Alright, we're gonna jump right to hell into our final section. It's like a rapid fire around. Try to try to do like one word answers. Okay, cool. All right. favorite tool in the kitchen.

Thomas O'hara : 41:24

Vitamix Oh, Fair Food, eat pizza.

Chris Spear : 41:31

If you had the money,

Andrew Wilkinson : 41:32

who's the first person you would hire? is different because you're not. You're not like a food entrepreneur. But if you had the money in your kitchen and you call the shots,

Thomas O'hara : 41:43

I would I would hire my boy Tom camp, Shasta camp, the camp family where I met him and worked with him on the eastern shore for a long time and never cooked with anybody like them. Super mild mannered, super knowledgeable, super open eyes. India's best friend putting I ever had Tom Kemp gang gang.

Andrew Wilkinson : 42:04

Yeah, I like that answer. It's okay that you that you used a lot of words to. Because I'll stop from No, no, I couldn't see that answer without a lot of words. That's why

Thomas O'hara : 42:12

it's so it's good.

Andrew Wilkinson : 42:14

All right. Who's your favorite chef?

Thomas O'hara : 42:18

Shaumbra.

Andrew Wilkinson : 42:19

Okay. Is is your cooking art or science? Yes. That's a good enough answer for me. Thank you. Favorite digital tool or resource for your work?

Thomas O'hara : 42:31

digital tool as far as

Chris Spear : 42:33

website, app platform

Thomas O'hara : 42:37

probably going to be lame and say Instagram is that count? That counts?

Chris Spear : 42:42

I think that was my answer. Oh.

Thomas O'hara : 42:45

Through like my feed and just like, like hashtag yum. Or like something like ash. I don't even know.

Andrew Wilkinson : 42:52

But yeah, you know, I need to prepare better probably for this part of the podcast. That's okay. Because I'm still asking the same questions. I did. Last week, and I'm realizing that no of them apply. And last time it does. We got the same answers for some of them because my next question is what's the best marketing platform but you don't really do marketing. So what's your favorite social media platform?

Thomas O'hara : 43:12

Probably Instagram

Andrew Wilkinson : 43:13

the same answer. I got switch my questions up.

Unknown Speaker : 43:15

It's all right. But it's all good.

Andrew Wilkinson : 43:16

I like Instagram too. All right. What's your favorite color nary resource? magazine website?

Thomas O'hara : 43:21

Probably. I don't want to say Instagram again. Um, what Instagram page? Damn. I'm trying to get into sourdough. So there's a I think it's, I'm gonna have to look it up. I don't think I can look it up. But just like googling sourdough recipes. Oh, King Arthur King Arthur's. They got a good recipe have a lot of recipes for like bread. And then like below that. So many types of bread. They

Chris Spear : 43:47

actually have a microwave lemon curd recipe that I use, like it's you just like put all the shit in bowl and microwave. That's a quick hack.

Andrew Wilkinson : 43:55

Yeah, yeah. Check out the sourdough library on Instagram. During this hour, I will it's cool. There's like he has like a ton of like, ancient historic sourdoughs and like picture examples of what they Yeah, like

Thomas O'hara : 44:09

this so time variable anyway.

Andrew Wilkinson : 44:12

Yeah. How do you decompress?

Thomas O'hara : 44:15

stand up comedy? Nice. Yeah. Not doing it listen. Yeah, Comedy Comedy podcasts in general. This past weekend by Theo von makes me laugh and makes me happy and really brings me down to earth. But every Monday and every Thursday, yeah,

Andrew Wilkinson : 44:31

you gotta laugh. I think, gosh, it's part of people who are like, I gotta decompress. I go for hikes, but that doesn't make me laugh. Laughing makes you feel really good. It's probably a better way to decompress. And

Thomas O'hara : 44:41

you can laugh, though.

Andrew Wilkinson : 44:42

You can I usually laugh at balls. Like,

Thomas O'hara : 44:53

I'm sure gonna get back.

Andrew Wilkinson : 44:55

When we fall down. We get back on. You're good.

Thomas O'hara : 44:57

You could probably listen to some Yes. Okay. Same time

Andrew Wilkinson : 45:00

so I don't I don't like to listen to stuff when I'm hiking because I want to be I want to get I want to, I want that quietness. I want to be in my own head like I want to.

Unknown Speaker : 45:10

You know what I mean? Like a meditation like,

Thomas O'hara : 45:12

Listen, it's kind of like I do that every all the rest of the day. It's like negating what you're there for I get it. Yeah.

Andrew Wilkinson : 45:18

Perry. Last question. Why don't you quit? Why don't you just quit? Why not? Why don't you I love it. I love it. That's like the that's the that's the right answer. It is. Thank you figure. Most people would say that.

Thomas O'hara : 45:30

Yeah. I don't I don't know. Anything else. I don't know anything else. Yeah. Maybe I need to just accept too many more exact questions. Not

Andrew Wilkinson : 45:38

everybody's gonna answer it the same.

Unknown Speaker : 45:40

They won't.

Chris Spear : 45:41

Yeah, I'm waiting for someone to say Ashley. I'm going to.

Unknown Speaker : 45:50

Final thoughts.

Thomas O'hara : 45:51

Yeah, final thoughts. I'm happy to be here. I was fortunate enough to be the first guest on here. And I really like what's going on. I love the idea of it. I love the idea of trying to change the culture of the Frederick restaurant scene. I was talking to hand you a little bit before saying how it reminds me a lot what a lot of Southern hip hop artists did for the culture, particularly in Atlanta, a lot of hip hop was like me against you, better than you. This, that and the third fighting call for the same thing, but they kind of came together as family, basically.

Andrew Wilkinson : 46:34

And now Atlanta is like the unstoppable hip hop city. Atlanta is on the top everything now ever the whole culture is based on what Atlanta does

Thomas O'hara : 46:41

for real. And I think that that correlates to what's going on here as far as we're not trying to step on anybody's toes on the way to the top. We're trying to pick people up.

Chris Spear : 46:55

There's enough of love to go around.

Thomas O'hara : 46:57

Exactly. There's enough business to go didn't used to be like that. But now that it's there is like that. I think this is a huge step in the right direction I think the Frederick food scene would be foolish to continue what they're doing

Chris Spear : 47:10

and we're trying to take over the world and make this a global thing

Andrew Wilkinson : 47:13

yeah shout out restaurants global Thomas tell tell tell the listeners where they can follow you or how they can find you.

Thomas O'hara : 47:19

They can find me on Instagram at Tom ster Domus spell it how it sounds he'll like Nostradamus

Andrew Wilkinson : 47:29

All right, I think that's it. You got any final thoughts? Chris? No, just

Chris Spear : 47:34

talking. For us. I would say have a great Thanksgiving but this is going to air after that. So I hope you all had a good Black Friday a good Thanksgiving. And yeah, maybe Cyber Monday, Cyber Monday for listening. support your local food businesses and this holiday season. Saturday. Don't forget we're going to drop maybe a gift guide soon but like, go buy gift cards from your favorite food truck, hire personal chef. yada yada yada peace.

Andrew Wilkinson : 48:00

Turn it off. Transcribed by https://otter.ai