Food Sales Rep Jacob Pratt Discusses the Affect of Covid-19 on the Food Industry

All right. Welcome everyone. This is Chris with the Chefs Without Restaurants podcast. Today we have Andrew Wilkinson of Pizza Llama back co hosting. Exciting I had him on as a guest which seems seems weird a couple of weeks ago. We got Jacob Pratt from international gourmet foods here as our guest today. So Welcome gentlemen. How's it going?

Good man, thank you for having me enjoy the podcast.

Great. I love hearing that. Yeah. Why don't you give us a little bit of background about you what you're doing maybe start with your culinary background. How did you get into food and where that leads you to today?

So you pretty long journey in all honesty I got into food from my grandmother's watching them cook I always loved cooking with them My fondest memories making stuffing on Thanksgiving with my grandma in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Her teaching me how to mix everything together and do that. And you know from there, I started out at a pizza place when I was like 14 years old as a dishwasher. They taught me how to make their dough and they taught me how to make their sauce that I was making pizzas that I was making subs and I was dropping wings. Everything that anybody's ever worked in a pizza place has gone through. And I did that all through high school, you know, just worked in different places. I worked at the Bavarian Inn in shepherdstown, West Virginia, which is a little bit more upscale, worked in a place called subway, seafood and Hagerstown, Maryland, where I was literally just Steven crabs all day, and they taught me how to cook scallops. And then they taught me how to, you know, actually burl, seafood and things of that nature. So I picked up a lot of stuff as I went. When I got out of high school, I did construction, and I was a plumber, actually a plumbers helper. And I worked with this company that traveled all across the country, from Charlottesville, Virginia, to Orange County, California, to Topeka, Kansas. So I'd go and I would do these jobs and even at that time, like I would get side jobs at restaurants because I like doing it and it was beer money. So always just stayed in rest. And then I eventually just migrated back into, you know, there wasn't a lot of construction work. So I became a line cook, and got into a few restaurants then just slowly worked my way up the ladder to where I became a sous chef, but I wasn't exact. I went down to the Outer Banks of North Carolina. I did that for three summers, that was incredibly high volume, you know, just bam, bam, bam, the whole way from May until August, mid August, then it just drops off and it's a ghost town. And I mean, I've worked every position that you can think of in a restaurant from back house, the front of house, I've worked at Chinese takeout strip mall joints, just because I wanted to, you know, went in there and just said, I just want to work here. I want to get the experience so I've worked in them. Then I stepped into management eventually became a food and beverage manager for the US Fish and Wildlife Service Department of Interior. I was a contractor through Aramark. So that's where I am I started my sort of corporate career, the food industry, and that was dealing with government officials and government employees from all over the world that would come to this learning center. And I would do the dinner and we had a bar downstairs, so I would do dinner for them. And I would take care of the bar downstairs. And yeah, I mean, just a lot of different experience, never went to culinary school, was one time working in a French bistro with a French chef. And in the middle of service. I just asked him, I said, you know, do you think I should have gone to culinary school? Without even skipping a beat? He just looked at me and he said, Well, you're in it. And you're not paying for it. I'm paying you. So that was kind of my quote. That was the end to my question whether or not I should have gone to culinary school. And, you know, after management, I sort of wanted something different. So I got into sales, used to work for the biggest online food distributor in the world. That Cisco everybody knows who that is. And then I ended up at IGF. I love the company that I work for now. Favorite We're independent. We carry quality products, and we provide Prop, you know, quality services. I couldn't ask to be in a better place. And, you know, universe tends to fall where it's supposed to. And I really feel like this is where I should be right now. It's a great company to work for, and I love it. So that's a short on a bird story to my food.

It's quite a background in food. It sounds like you've done a little bit of everything.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I got add like a motherfucker. Crazy. Sorry. It's fine. We can add like crazy. And like, if I use my head, I can be pretty smart. So it's like, oh, you can put Jake over there. He'll at least make it through. You know. So then that's like, that's how I got on broiler station. You know what I mean? And like, actually, the first way that I ever took over a restaurant was I was working for the southern man, a mike battle. He taught me how to cook. Somebody was crazy as all hell and he loves smoking crack. And so we were on. We're in the restaurant. And like I was working with him for a long time, and he taught me all this stuff. And one day I show up, and he's just not there. And I'm like, what's going on? And the owner of the restaurant goes, Well, it looks like you're the chef now. And I said, What do you mean? He said, Mike's on one of these benches? He does about every six months. I didn't know I'd been there that long. But that night, I took the reins over and I ran a relatively busy risk restaurant on the Outer Banks in the middle of August, or I'm sorry, in the middle of July by myself. And that's just sort of when I took over and was like, I can do this whole thing. And then I got into the ordering. I got into, you know, meeting with people, you know, menu planning, menu development. So, yeah, it's a crazy story, how I got to where I was, but it was just sort of being the girl who didn't give up in a sense.

You know, disclaimer, everybody's listening. But Jacob was actually my rep at IGF. So we get Jesus and stuff through him. And I don't want to make this a commercial anything, but I never heard that whole story before. Makes me feel really good to know. You have that much excited. Like, that's a shitload of experience more than most people I know. And it always seemed like, even already, I already kind of trust you, you know, sometimes you just give me something on the fly what I want not available, and it always is good. And I think it's just because you know, people do

I mess it up enough myself personally to know to send out email and I'm, like, like, I've been through the wringer of all that. It's been great. I mean, food is beautiful. It's art. It's life. It's everything. And it's all encompassing. So, you know, I have a degree in marine science. When I was down on the Outer Banks, I put myself through college by borken. And kitchens. So I got a degree in marine science, but I'm not a Marine Science. I'm in food, because it's, it's just what I do. I'm sort of destined to do it, I guess you could say. I think that's how kind of most of us feel.

Yeah, so if you had to throw like a rough number out what percentage of sales reps have a background like yours in cooking? Do you find that it's a lot of guys who've worked as cooks and chefs and have a pretty good idea of what goes on in a kitchen.

Yeah, I'm gonna say 65% 90% of the people that are in this, that are in my line of work, they were definitely in the food and beverage industry. And I would say probably about 90% of that 70 is chefs. Other than that it's Front of House managers, you know, things of that nature. But yeah, a lot of guys that are in this have been sweating behind the lines have been in the weeds for years. And it's their way out. It's almost like the last place you can be to still be in the industry, but not be in those kitchens. Sweat your ass off for 14 to 15 hours a day.

So do you ever get a lot of crap about that? You know, it's kind of like the same in our industry. Like when you stop being a chef or line cook even guys like me, who got to become a personal chef. It's like, Oh, those who can't teach or you know, you couldn't handle the kitchen. Is it kind of the same? Does anyone ever razz you and say, like, Oh, you know, got burned out, you couldn't cook and now you're just kind of like a sellout. Have you heard that at all?

Yeah, a little bit, a little bit. My response to that usually is kiss my ass. I put my time in.

That's a good one for sure. You know, you get any weird requests for any things like what are some of the things that people come to you and want you to try and find for them? Is there anything really interesting or anything that's been hard to get?

oddly enough, I got a request for fish semen. There's a Michelin starred chef, who actually does a pickled beet covered in fish semen in Japan, and one of my customers was like, You ever heard of that? And I was like, No, but I'll check it out on my computer. So I wanted a search engine, pressed in semen. Nothing came up. So

and then. And then you get the worst targeted ads for the next year and a half on Facebook and Instagram.

Right? Right. But now I mean, nothing really big. nothing's really even that far left anymore because the food world is so exposed. You know, like, um, like, activated charcoal became big at one point in time and we had it in stock. People had been using it. You know what I mean? There's people who utilizing, but then it came on an Instagram post or Food Network and then people started one of them, you know, so like miss stuff like that. And every once in a while I'll get a request for a very like rare cheese from somewhere and I could usually source it. But other than that it's not really weird request because I get a lot of like, you know, I have a lot of different types of restaurants that want different types of stuff. So I've even become more well versed in product I had no idea about in my culinary career, because people were doing it now. Really everything everybody knows about almost everything. So now it's easy to get

So are you integrated into like, what do you still do work with Sysco, or us foods or any of those? Like if someone works at a place where they order from Sysco like are you third party and you do drop shipping? Are you 100% independent? How's that?

No, we're 100% independent, we stand on our own 100% we have three warehouses, one in Springfield, Virginia. One Charleston, South Carolina and one in Atlanta, Georgia. We bring everything in our own, we do our own distribution. Nobody has a piece of us. So the thing I'm very proud of To tell you the truth, because we got some really, really good stuff and we do it on our own.

So Andrew, you're getting some of your pizza stuff from him?

Yeah, and I think a lot of it is actually like in house stuff too, which is really cool. Um, Jacob probably speak more to that. But yeah, like, I get some cheese's. I get my tomatoes from them. And it's like, can you tell them about that brand? Jacob?

Yeah, yeah, no. Um, so he gets the Mauricio tomatoes from a and he's got the qualitatively from me before and we're actually the importers of them into the country. So there's who's my boss. We don't sell them off to other companies. You know, they're ours and ours alone. We're an Italian own company independently own. He started out with four items about 32 years ago. We're now to about 6000 that we have in our warehouse. And we have a lot of outreach that we can do to get you whatever you want. But I mean, yeah, the tomatoes you're talking about. It's not a San Marzano, but it's a, you know, it's the next thing to it just doesn't have the stamp on it, you know, it's a plum tomato from Italy, done wonderfully. The crops are amazing, you know, and just wonderful product that we bring in. And Mauricio, who's the president of company, and, you know, sort of an idol and mentor to all of us, has a wonderful relationship with his people with everything that he imports, and we have some stuff that other people have, but then nobody's ever going to have that Mauricio tomato, you know, nobody's gonna have the Miguel Valentino, olive oil. And if they did happen to get it, they got it through us, some way, you know, we're the importers of a lot of different really good products.

You know, I can attest to that. I use the olive oil too. So, yeah. I'll get you a sample Chris.

Yeah, that sounds good. So Andrew, is this something that he sold you on like, did you find out about these tomatoes? And you went looking for them? Or is it like you guys started developing a relationship around products and then you learned about the tomatoes and such?

Pretty much. I mean, we talked about, we talked about what I needed, and I had some suggestions and he had some suggestions, we, you know, is kind of like we found a good middle ground for me between like quality and, and the best product you can get for your buck. You know what I mean? And sometimes that is the best quality. So,

Jacob I mean, obviously keeping with current situations like COVID-19 like, can you talk what are you seeing? How's your business? You know, because like, with so many restaurants closed, so many specialty restaurants closed? I'm sure it's not a great situation for you guys. Like what are your numbers down and sales like what are you seeing out on the ground?

No, no, I mean, it plummeted. It literally plummeted overnight, March 16. They made that you know, they made that announcement and away from them March 23, the numbers were just drastically down. Everybody's down. The whole industry is whether, you know, be a specialty restaurant or, you know, just a mom and pop shop, everybody's down. You know, we've seen it's been hard for a lot of people, you know, like, it's been hard for the owners. It's been hard for the line cooks and it's been hard for the dishwashers. It's been hard for us, you know, my, my sales, they I mean, they plummeted, they just skyrocketed down. But like I said, I love my company. They kept me on and now we're just plugging through and sort of keeping a pulse on what's happening with these restaurants. You know, I am, I reach out to people, if I don't hear from them. When I do hear from them. I take what they need, you know, let them know I got the back. How can I help? Everybody obviously has transitioned to the takeout curbside pickup option. And I believe that's going to be in our future for at least a year. I don't think it's going anywhere until there's actually a vaccine For Corona, I think that's when people are going to feel comfortable with perhaps going out again, and even then there will probably be some social distancing. But yet to go and curbside pickup is now the name of the game. I was listening to the podcast that you did with Andrew about him and how he flipped his, you know, business model. And it just made sense, like plant yourself somewhere, establish yourself and get that business going. You know, there's some I've spoken with some people in the industry who were like, Well, you know, I thought about getting online ordering, but I don't want to, you know, invest this 2400 or 3600, or whatever they have to invest to get a new POS system to do online ordering, or to do to go and I tell him like just do it because it's the investment you need right now this is going nowhere. And even I believe that even after we get back to normal per se, whatever that may be, I think that to go and curbside pickup is still going to be an integral part of the industry. Because if nothing else, these restaurant owners are seeing how much money they can make from to go.

Like Outback. have been doing it. So I had to be a viable thing.

Yeah, somewhat now,

I think I mean, high end is going to have the hardest time. Like, if you're like that Michelin star restaurant, like what does your food look like, especially if you're doing, you know, molecular gastronomy, stuff, and foams and pleadings and all these sauces, like, I think they're gonna get hit hardest, and you're gonna see kind of like the upscale homey places translate maybe a little better, like, I'd be concerned about a place that kind of is one of those places that has like 17 line cooks, and they're all have their hands on these plates to put them out, like, how does that translate and what do you do?

And that I've seen, actually, a lot of chefs adapt to it, you know, whereas whereas fine dining or nicer restaurants before, they're still putting out amazing food, but it probably scaled down a little bit.

Yeah, I think grant Achatz at Alinea. i saw a post. He and his business partner, Nick oconus are doing a lot of cool stuff. And, you know, their signature dessert is this thing where they spread out this giant like paper tablecloth on your table and bring you this giant chocolate shell and like smash and all the sauces. And he's been doing that to go and like actually loves people posting on Instagram. So he's sending home these kits with all the components and encouraging people to like, throw this paper out on their dining room table, just smash it and make this big thing and then take a picture and post it. You know, I think those guys are so far ahead of the curve, they they seem to always be like 10 steps ahead of everyone else. So I'm paying a lot of attention to what Nick and grant are doing at their restaurants because I think that's a good model for you know what high end dining can look like in a takeout scenario.

Yeah, but also to say like, I mean, shout out to one of my favorite local restaurants a tasting room in Frederick, Maryland. Nathan Johnson, great chef over there. They just reopened and they're doing to go and I mean, his menu was stellar. looks amazing. And I saw pictures of him this past weekend. I mean, just like tickets lined up. selling out. So I think Yeah, in a sense, it's gonna scale back a bit. But I think people still want that element of nicer food. You know, like, I think they're still gonna want that. So it's gonna be sort of finding that balance of how nice Can we make it? But how nice Can we make it to make it suitable for takeout?

Yeah, and how much? Yeah, how much do people want to pay? Like, exactly, you'll maybe pay $35/$40 for dinner, but these places that have these like, hundred dollar, what about a Volt? That you know, has a table 21 where it's, you know, like $125 for this multi course meal. How does their food translate to go if it does at all, and what are people willing to pay to have that kind of experience in their home? How do you adapt tasting room I feel like you can still do a lobster mashed potatoes, a fillet. some really cool vegetables like that holds up well, but to really get into that, like, very fine dining intricate stuff. I don't know how that's gonna work out and it took some time. Do you and I don't

either. And, like, you know, Dan up at Boulder is also a friend of mine to climb. I don't know where they're gonna stand. You know, I'm actually I'm looking at my biggest client that I had. I'm really not even banking on them coming back to you. It was a it's a huge resort down in Middleburg, Virginia. And I mean, like, I think the cheapest room is like $450 a night, and how are they going to populate that in order to facilitate the five restaurants they have inside this resort to be ordering this massive amount of food? Like it's just not going to happen anytime soon? Yeah, so in my head, I've almost put it out. I'm like, they'll come back when they come back. If they do, and I hope they did. You know, but like that, that is, it's very daunting. And it pains me to even think about some of these people that put out some of the most progressive amazing food around this area. Not being able to open their doors again.

What do you think ofthis idea idea of like turning your restaurant into a high end grocery store where the restaurants are ordering products in and then kind of setting them up. I've seen a lot of people on social media saying they hope that that continues. I haven't seen that really in Frederick, the way that they're doing it in some bigger cities. But that idea that like, open up your doors Could you put together almost like your own, you know, dinner meal kit, where it's shrimp and grits and I'm going to give you this, you know, two cups of artisan grits and I'm going to give you these really awesome shrimp and I'm going to give you a spice pack and a recipe and like, send that out or at the very core say, here's a can of really awesome tomatoes and it's five bucks, okay. Like, what do you think about that?

I think that it's great. You know, and my company and every other food distribution company completely pivoted and angled towards that, when all this happened of if you have the ability to do retail, then do some retail and here's some retail items that we have. You know, here's some ideas for take home dinner kits that we have. And if that means that in this time keeps the lights on and keeps the leases open. They still have them by all means Yeah, do it. And also support local, really support local. And we've all been to a Martin's or, you know, a giant or anything like that. It's scary. Like it's kind of scary going in there and having a mask on and not being able to find a cut of beef. You know what I mean? Or going for our canned tomatoes and there's none off the shelves. So if any of your local retailers have it, by all means support and yeah, there's a couple people out this way doing it. Some people really picked up on it, but in the major cities, that's a huge thing. You know, and I think it's great. I think it's one way that we can keep afloat and keep the lights on and pay ourselves something through all

are you do you know, personally, are you dealing with any clients that have the market thing going on?

Yeah, I got one or two, the you know, sort of transitions and you know, carrying some more stuff as into go items, bags of pasta cans of tomato, you know, little personal charcuterie and cheese boards that my company actually made to where it's already pre made, you have four different cheeses, you get some charcuterie, we give it to you, and then you can retail it, you know, we pivoted and thought about what we could do, and it's going off. Unfortunately, a lot of my markets closed, though, you know, they were just like, we're, we're COVID closing, we don't know when we're going to be back. And we'll see what happens then. So the actual retail market that I had 95% of it shut down. And then the other 5% have sort of been in limbo, and it's, it's been treacherous waters, and just, yeah, there's some people doing it. And we're all just getting through it. Really.

What issues are you having with supply chain, if any, I mean, we're hearing now a lot about beef and how bad that's getting anything that you're selling, that you normally have a pretty good supply on that you're starting to see close up or is it a total Different market with you.

Not a totally different market, but it is a different market. It's a different market. And the fact of the beef that I got is Mishima reserve wagyu. And it's not going to go as quick as a USDA choice because it's not as cheap. You know, I mean, that that isn't going to go out as much the breed that I have is a heritage breed pork, you know, and it's just, it's not going to go as quick. That's, you know, just the raw reality of it. So I haven't seen supply chain problems. I would say maybe our inventory went down a little bit because we're just not moving the product as much so we don't need to order this frequently. But I'm on my end of it. No, I really haven't seen a whole lot of things going out every once in a while get an out of stock item, but we usually have a sub for it. Or every once in a while you'll see like a vendor out of stock. And but that goes away in a week and then it comes back into stock. But I do know like on the you know more I guess not as fancy food side of it, I still know some people and the big broad liners and I mean, you know, just it's been hard for one of my restaurants reached out to me last week, he ordered 80 pounds of ground beef and 60 pounds of pork and he got nothing is not like they gave him 20 of the beef and 15 that, like he got nothing. And he was just like, you know, what's going on? Can you do anything? So I helped him out with what I could. And yeah, it's crazy, you know, but there's plenty of produce. He they're throwing away tons of that out on the fields, and it's kind of crazy.

Yeah, it's a good time to maybe look at diversifying your diet. You know, there's been a little talk about more vegetarian, which I think was coming anyway, a little bit. So maybe now's the time to get some people accustomed to that and not getting into the I'm not a big fan of the fake meats. So maybe not looking at the beyond or impossible but just looking at like some really good vegetarian plant based dishes. Yeah, it'll be interesting to see what what comes out. Out of this as far as diet preferences when we're all done, but I know I was at the grocery store last week, and there was nothing like, I was at Aldi and they literally pulled down all the curtains on the meat section like nothing, no ground beef, no steak couldn't get a bottom round. There was no nothing, no poultry, completely out. Time to get down on that wagyu tip and that heritage stuff, but you know, I do have a lot of friends who have farms, especially pork and it's, you know, we're seeing locally, you can still reach out to them and a lot of them have great products. It's not going to be a $2 and 50 cent a pound pork tenderloin, you're maybe going to be paying like 899 a pound for like a heritage breed pork chop.

It's from a small independent farmer who needs 100% you know, and if, if nothing else from all this, I hope that that does make the populace reevaluate how difficult and intricate are, our industry is and how have one thing goes wrong, you know, these, these things that you like and have come to expect that can be taken away from you. Yeah, I mean, you know, like it can go down, I just hope that people can, you know, gather from this, that our industry is important, and that we need it and that it's very delicate at the same time. And then also, you know, if you have to go to these small farmers and you have to go to these independent guys, you're gonna have to pay a little bit more, but they're not laughing the whole way to the bank. I mean, they're, they're just keeping their bill pay to keeping the lights on. And, you know, I've had the discussion with a few restaurant owners and a few chefs, this whole thing is really making them reevaluate how they do business, making them evaluate what's important in life. I had one person Tell me, you know, I'm not from here on out even if it gets back to normal. I'm just going to open up at three I'm not doing my lunch, because I've seen how much did you know I just wasn't making money off will tell you the truth. Like we kept it up and sort of for the status and I can run my together. business from, you know, three until not at night with two people in the kitchen and make it work. So when it comes back, it's going to be a whole different dynamic. And I hear a lot of people saying that and I know for a fact, I've talked to a lot of people who they actually can talk to their kid, they can actually have some time to sit down and be like, you know, Hey, how you doing or talk to their family, because they're not in the restaurant at 9am in the morning, and they're not leaving at 10 at night. You know, I mean, they might be working from three to eight, but at least they get that morning with their kids and with their family. Because as all of us no been in this industry, if you're in it and you hold any type of managerial position, you kind of don't have a life. Other than that, and everything else is secondary. So, um, I hope that it makes some people appreciate what we do and how hard we work. And also the you know, some people gain some perspective on this on what's really important in life, because I've personally sacrificed A lot of hours for a restaurant that paid me the same per hour, regardless of how much I put into it, you know, and I think that that's important for us to recognize right now is that this is amazing. It's a beautiful industry, but maybe it got pushed kind of hard. Maybe it did. And this is a reminder maybe for us we can find a different way to do it, but still make it lucrative. Yeah, I, you

know, I want to get back to work. But I've always wanted a good work life balance. I feel like there's still so many people I'm seeing out there, especially on social media who seem like they have no other life. And that's so sad to me, and not that you can't enjoy your job. But I see people tweeting all the time. Like, it's Friday night, I was wish, wishing I could hear that ticket thing going and I was with my butt like all day, their tweets are like, it's Mother's Day. I never thought I'd be off on Mother's Day. It's like, go talk to your mom or your wife or whatever, like but these people are just lamenting, it seems like all day every day. They're so caught up in that restaurant machine. It's like that became a their whole life and still two months in seems like they have not reconnected to life outside of the restaurant. To me that's, like, I never wanted that to begin with these people. They're just like, all day. Oh, another Saturday night. I don't know what I'm gonna do wish I could be having, you know, shift meal with my homies. It's like, oh, maybe find a hobby or like connect with on your friends outside the restaurant. I don't know. Like, that seems to be a thing in the restaurant industry that we get so caught up in that, that it's like the only thing we have going for us.

I'd be interested to see the percentage of the people who are saying that don't have families, you know, cuz like, we all have children here, right? And we all love to spend time with our kid. It's been good to have some extra time. But I know when I was aspiring chef at 25 years old that I didn't have a kid. I was in the Outer Banks in North Carolina. I was surfing and my time off and as soon as my time came to go in there I was hitting it as hard as I could to be creative to make something work to To get you know, have the the best, you know, red drum that was caught that day off the bags. Like that was important to me. So I can kind of see those guys who are these budding chefs that are always in the weeds and trying to get through it like that. It's almost their addiction. That's what they want right now, you know, so if you I can see the people who have families and have stuff outside of that this is almost a celebrated relief. But if I was still that 25 year old guy who my world revolved around, you know, my meal for that night and a specialist I was getting and I can understand people want to get back to that.

Yeah, I guess I just don't want to be so one dimensional. Like, if I didn't have my family here, I'd be going out with my camera taking photos. I'd be you know, like I'm trying to learn guitar, I would listen to like, some cool albums and sit down. I'd read the books I want to read like, I feel like there's a lot going on besides just your job. And I think really quickly, you also realized a lot of those jobs didn't give a shit about you. Like I hope that I don't want to have I hope that kicks in. But these people who gave everything their life to these restaurants and these jobs like, how's your boss doing right now? Is he checking in on you? Is he helping financially support you? He kind of did he cut off your health care. Like, that's the things I think a lot of people are gonna see really quickly that like, they were just, it was just business, it was just work. And at the end of the day, when shit hit the fan, a lot of bosses covered their asses to do what they needed to do and cut a lot of these people loose. And I think you have a lot of people maybe not go back to this industry after this.

I think you're 100% right on that. Yeah. What I said is like, understand that people want to get back I can understand it. But you made a very valid point on and I think that may speak to the mental health, our mental health of the food and beverage industry, like you, you sort of have to have like a twist, like a tortured soul to almost work in this thing. You know, like I always said, if you're in the industry, your elevator can't get the whole way to the top. Because you got to be a little bit crazy to deal with a rush. You got to Get a little bit crazy just to deal with everything. But maybe that does speak to where we were at mentally with what we thought was expected of us, and what we thought we should do. And maybe a lot of us did put in too much for these people who dropped us. I haven't been dropped personally, you know, I'm feel fortunate for that. But I have seen that and it's a very valid point. And I've talked to some people who said, I'm just leaving, I'm not coming back to the industry. You know, it's over with, it's like, I'm at Ground Zero already with nothing, you know, there's nowhere to go but up. So they're gonna take an entry level position driving a truck or something like that. More power to them. I wish him the best all the time. Yeah.

But I mean, there's opportunities here. We've been talking about it for weeks. I mean, Andrew, we did a whole episode about how he's kind of adapting to this thing. I think you're creative. If you've got the drive, if you really want to make your business work. I think there's ways to figure that out or to do something. So

everything's getting a lot more efficient. Now, I think Basically, and I mean, restaurants take a big hit. And a lot of them can't figure out how to pivot, especially if they're a big restaurant. It's like makes it even harder to pivot your whole operation. You know what I mean? So, but I think there's a lot of opportunity as well, because everybody still needs to eat. It's almost just like, I think, going back to what we talked about earlier, like fine dining, I think the way fine dining is gonna change is it becomes this whole new experience, like elevates to something that you know, you don't go to an establishment and that's fine dining anymore. Like, you know, maybe it's time for that anyway. Yeah, well, but I also agree with what you were saying about people being stuck in it and addicted to it, because a part of my whole switching in the way I was doing business was kind of like, over the summers. I don't really spending any time with my family. It's very inconsistent because you know, we might have a busy event on a Friday night. That really ends up not being busy because of rain or something like that. But either way, I'm not seeing my family, you know, so a big part of the way that I'm doing business now is actually to minimize my hours. And make the best of them, you know, and then that way I get time with my family and stuff like that. So it's harder to do that with this big machine that's running, you know, and keep everybody fed in the whole system. And for me, it's kind of like I have very few employees, we're starting to bring them back on now. They were, you know, unemployment and stuff. But their hours were already limited. And now I kind of see it as a beneficial thing for me. I kind of get to build it into a place of comfort between family and and my passion with pizza and everything else.

And I think I think the raw reality of it is the three of us have no idea what's gonna happen, neither the rest of the industry. I mean, like this is a brave new world that we're all walking into, with our heads up. Hi. Trying to make it but I mean, it is daunting. Like I look at it and I'm just like, Where are the orders? You know, where the people call me.

If you can adapt really quickly, I mean, that's to your benefit. I think the problem is people don't adapt. Like if tomorrow Andrew decides it's in his best interest to start making salads, put for salads on your menu and send them out there, you know, like he didn't make him. There you go making salads already. I

kind of almost look at it too. Sometimes, like you said about adapting the people who can do that. This is survival of the fittest. The people who are going to, you know, have enough gumption and enough heart to go in and be like, okay, here's where the markets going, here's where I need to be in front of it. That's who's gonna be here in three years being like, man, Whoa, that was crazy. You remember that? In the people who were like, I'm doing a change nothing and serve the same thing that I've been serving. Why are people coming here? It's like, I mean, it just is what it is, man. You got to be smart enough to adapt through this.

Yeah, that's essential right now. Like we're declared essential an essential part of this duty. Is to adapt to the situation that's going on. Right?

Right. Because I don't know, foods have never gone away my point of view, there's always gonna be people like us to sell it, to make it to report on it, and to do everything that's encompassed inside of it, you know, but, um, it's just going to be very, very strange to see how it all unfolds. And I think that, uh, some of our ideals of you know, what good food is can change too, because I know that me and Chris spoke before about it. And it's like, you know, there's a couple of culinary techniques that are taught and how to make this wonderful food. But really, there's like a Nicaraguan, you know, launch that you've never heard of, it's one of the best things that you've ever tasted in your life. And how can we make that to where that's the fancy food, you know, to where we're bringing in different cultures, and we're bringing in different ideas of what can be nice and what can be good because there's not one right answer to it. So I think that it would be cool to start exploring and seeing really well can come to market and actually sell as opposed to stuff that we've been practicing for years.

I think the thing about that is like if we're talking about quote unquote, like ethnic foods or cuisines that people aren't familiar with, those tend to be not necessarily formal experiences. I think there's definitely an opportunity for people on these small kind of strip mall shops that really primarily rely on takeout. You know, I'm interested to see if you're going to have some more of those cuisines popping up like, in town, we have jerkin jive. I love them. I've never sat in their restaurant, like it's not about the service experience is about the food and a place like that, I think is doing really well right now. I think we've gotten them like five times in the two months that you know, we've been sitting at home with this thing because it's super convenient. And it's delicious food and I think you can see a Nicaraguan restaurant do really well in something like that, where it's not about this white glove formal service experience just like really solid food that translates well to a takeout environment.

Good food is good food and that's what it is.

made me think of all the things that people would do. Like I'm not eating that if you put it in a takeout container, like you go to these fancy restaurants and they got these dishes that are like beautiful, and you got to get in a takeout container. And now all of a sudden, it's not appetizing.

Maybe that says something about food and that food should be delicious first, and pretty second. I don't know, like everyone likes to throw around that "you eat with your eyes", which I really hate that expression, because I also eat with my taste buds. And how many times have you gone out to a very formal fine dining experience? And it looks really pretty. And then you eat it, and there's like, 15 ingredients, and probably you didn't need 10 of them. And it was just to like, make it look a certain way and at the end of the day. It didn't taste that great. And I'd rather go have a taco on the way home.

You know, I was just gonna say you eat the meal out there and then you stop for like three tacos because you didn't even get filled up. Yeah, yeah.

So I'm gonna jump into like speed round right now and kind of get into some of these questions. If you're ready to roll with that. Can you handle the speed round? I'm gonna try my best No one does it really fast anyway, okay. For these times I've kind of adapted some of these questions. So one of the things I've been talking about is, you know, quarantined at home. So what are some things that you stocked up on before we were going into lockdown now? I mean, that's not really fair because you are part of like a supplier and you could probably get whatever you want. But most normal people had to run to the grocery store like it was the end of the world and stock up on stuff so what are some things that you grabbed or you wish you grabbed or just things that you think are essential pantry items?

Um, for me, it was proteins. Yeah, I stocked up a lot of proteins when all this first happened. frozen vegetables I mean, I stocked up on them basically, I went as health conscious as I could, you know, I got some fresh produce, but I also made sure I got some frozen one. I got some a lot of pork tenderloin because I love and it was on sale. And then I got any type of beef that I could find and I really just stocked up on what is essential and help You know, I didn't really I wasn't going to get you know doublemint Oreos because that's one of my guilty pleasures, you know, I wasn't really worried about that i stocked up on like the essentials and stuff that's gonna keep me alive as opposed to like what I want and I try to eat healthy prior to all that but actually this has just been like it's been more of a thing for me to try to be as healthy as possible because those are the essential foods that you need to survive. So that's that's where I came out with it.

We stocked up on some treats as well not just the essentials we got some My kids love the talkies, you know the Taki chips like the spicy freedom type things. We stocked up on a ton of those, but not a ton, like two bags and they were gone and

Oh no, I mean my son still has a salt vinegar chips and dip. I mean there's still the

only thing I stocked up on was rice. Actually.

We have eaten a lot of rice in this house. And we you know, one of my favorite things is like fried rice too because fried rice is like the best vehicle for leftovers like just cook up some rice and like you got a pork chop left in there you got some weird vegetable like we did one two days ago actually wasn't rice it was leftover Kima and like we put brussel sprouts and eggplant, peppers and onions in there and then just like this cook Kima if we didn't have cook came on we would have done rice and like I think we had leftover pork chops and just like chopped them up and throw them in there so your fried rice guy and Gerardi was not your jam fried rice fried rice. I mean

I just like rice in general. Obviously I love pizza and I eat enough of that. So at home I make I like eat a lot of rice dishes and stews and fried rice is like Kevin I'm always making more rice I can make tigers.

So do you have any favorite culinary resources? Like are you someone who still stays on top of things? Are you reading cookbooks? Go watching cooking shows going to websites do you stay in it like that? Yeah, most definitely.

I mean like, I keep my ear to the street if you would in the in the food world and see what's going on. follow a lot of stuff on Instagram. A lot of cooking shows, I mean, shoot, you go into my Facebook into the video section every other thing is just something about food. Something about this and that I'm very interested in To tell you the truth. It's part of my job to make sure I know where the industry is at. But yeah, I definitely always, you know, wandering about food trying to find something new trying to find a new taste and seeing who's doing it.

Do you have any favorites? recommendations go-tos anything.

It may not be as professional as some people say, but "fuck, that's delicious with Action Bronson". I don't know if you've ever watched that. But for the entertainment factor and also for some of the food they put out. Like really, really good. You gotta love him into that new season. It's funny. I mean, I'm looking at a lot of different stuff. It's almost like there's so much out there right now. I can't pinpoint. You know who I'm really following. I try to follow all my local people see what they're doing. And I try to find, you know, follow around the DC Baltimore area to see what's going on. Just because it's local when you know, this is my home. But I mean, there's there's amazing stuff everywhere.

I'm sorry, I was just gonna say that's a great segue because we also asked like, who are some places that are still open that you'd like to give a little love to? Like Are there any? I'm sure you have tons of customers who still open that you think people should go check out right now. All right, here's my long answer because I'm shouting out Everybody, please do. Okay.

So first and foremost go to Pete's allama.

Right Andrew? Thank you sir. Go get you some squares.

Exactly. Exactly go support that God house girl down in Knoxville Maryland. Go see Darren go see Sarah. They've been doing it they put out amazing food. Always have always will go to the tasting room. Make sure you're doing that show love that the star rose over in Frederick are doing a great amount of takeout as his brewers alley. canopies catering out in Frederick. They're still doing their thing. chrysalis vineyards in Middleburg, Virginia. They're still doing it. Don't change the bottom and Leesburg, Virginia. Go down there and get some amazing pastries. Get other stuff Who else can I shout out Dan's restaurant tap house in boones borough Maryland for that area. They're doing a great amount of takeout Catherine benders Tavern go see Stephen Sharpsburg, Maryland, the green pineapple and shepherdstown West Virginia that's a ramen spot Korean fusion place. Go check them out. Domestic and shepherdstown go check them out. Who else to if you're ever up in Berkeley Springs go to flair delete cheese shop. My Girl Up there is running it. She's doing a hell of a job. Shout out to Regina. Yeah, I mean, we're all still going and I could probably honestly name more people. But that's just you know what's going on Cush wall over Williamsport. They just opened up their new place and they're doing to go saw post with Chris and white rabbit out there who wants to growlers I'm hoping maybe they get back to the package and some stuff and selling out of there. But yeah, I mean, seriously go out to every single independent restaurant that you can go support local. Go do all that there's a million ways sights. I started one which was take out for the eastern panhandle, Frederick and Washington County. There's a Frederick to go. There's a Washington County to go there's a McHenry County to go. I mean, really like in this time for anybody that's listening. Definitely support local support everybody that I talked about and everybody else that I forgot to talk,

awesome love given that love. There's like you said, I can't even say it better. So many places still out there. Go check some of them out. Do you have a favorite meal? I hate to say like best meal ever, but like what's a really memorable meal that you've had somewhere?

My most, most memorable meal probably that I had was coming down a mountain and Waimea Canyon and Hawaii. Were coming down the mountain and along the side there was a fish shack with a Hawaiian running in it. I mean, it was the stereotypical thing you'd see Tiki fish, you know fish. He had a papaya glaze and he had a mango glaze, both of which he picked off of his You know, backyard. And he was just serving up shrimp. And he was sort of I think it was mind that he had. And he had so much stuff there. But I just remember coming down that mountain stopping on the side. And he had this glaze he put on the fish and the shrimp are just so fresh. And I just asked him, I said, you know, where do you source this, and he just pointed behind them to a trail and there was a boat down there. And he's like, I bring it in every morning. And it was the freshest, most like effervescent meal that I'd ever had in my life and just talking to that guy on the side of the road, and like, you probably been doing it for 25 years catching his own fish bringing it right in from the Pacific. That that at least sticks out to me now. You know, I've had a lot of really good meals, but that was one where it's just like, so natural, so fresh and just so delicious. And then seeing where it came from also.

Yeah, I'm sure the scenery wasn't that bad either.

No, not at all. Not at all. I have no idea why I ever came back.

We usually close out with asking what do you want to be remembered for? And that could be personally professionally or both.

I think what I want to be remembered for is overall being a good person. I know I got my flaws as does everybody else. But being a good person, a good dad and in business a fair, you know, good person, really is what I want to be remembered as I'm not that special, but I just hope I did good business and was a good person.

We all do. I know. I do. Sure Andrew does.

For sure.

Andrew, what do you have for questions, any parting words, anything we didn't get into?

No, I better. We better get off here and get my order in

those reps in their cutoff times. They're rough.

Nothing specific. It's been good talking to you Jacob and getting some perspective that I don't usually it's usually just business. So

those definitely and I thank you guys for having me on. And I applaud what you're doing. It's a great podcast.

Well, thank you. Thank you so much. I was glad to hear that you were listening to the show and that you reached out to all our listeners. This was the chef's without restaurant podcast as always, you can find us at chefswithoutrestaurants.com and .org, and on all social media platforms. Thanks for listening and have a great week.