Not Your Mama’s 4-Wheeler

Behind. Behind. Practicing. Corner. Practicing? What? Practicing

kitchen speak? Well, you know, I got the big restaurant test this weekend. I just got to remember all the terminology.

Yeah. No, it sounds good. I do think you should practice that around corners and behind people because

you're kind of using it out of context. Yeah, it's a timing specific thing. It's like when you're walking across the cook line, when you're behind people. Behind is specifically about walking behind

people on the line. I totally hear you. I think I'm practicing wrong. Because when I'm just sitting down, I got them all right. Hot hands.

I know. You were saying that in the fridge the other day.

You were in the walk -in yelling hot hands. Yeah. What I meant to say was locked in the walk -in.

That is a term you really need to learn

because you have been struggling with the push door out. We simply must have

a safety door. Yeah, well, I have a

safety door intercom. I mean, I love that it's a converted

vault.

Yes. It locks up. It really keeps everything very cold. This was the one vault that even the Joker couldn't get into.

He tried. What did he try? I don't know if we need to lock up frozen chicken tenders.

In this economy. It really locked

things down. In this economy.

Yeah. In

this economy. Oh, yeah. I mean, we've seen in the CVS, everything's behind the glass. You got to find the person.

I got help. I love finding the person, by the way. Who likes finding the person in CVS? My favorite

thing is - To

get

nail clippers.

My favorite thing is that there's - Also, these days, it doesn't seem like there's a sort of uniform presentation of an employee at a CVS.

Uh -huh. Some people will be in a polo. Some people will be in a t -shirt that's not the exact right color. They've all got

the long receipt as a tie. That's how you know.

Oh. I saw a guy, and he was dressed up in a uniform that said, Mr. CVS. He looked exactly like the sign. I said, excuse me, could I get some deodorant? And he was like, I work here. And I was like, excuse me? You're Mr. CVS. He's like, yo, I work here. I said, where are you working? He goes, Walgreens. Really? Why does it feel like when you walk into a CVS, everything is in sepia tone? Yeah.

The colors are wrong in the world

inside of a CVS. Yeah. What are we in? Back to the Future? The second one, maybe? Yeah. When they

go back? Exactly. Specific.

Come on. Also, maybe it's just a thing that I noticed, but I noticed that they've moved everything further back from the door at

a CVS. It feels like there is literal no man's land in war between the door and everything else. 100%. You have to crouch by the automatic door at the front. When it opens, you look, and you run across his battlefield.

And you absolutely run across that. I slow that down first.

I put my hat or wig or whatever on a little stick, and I stick it out a little bit in front of me and see if it gets shot off.

And does that ever come back shot?

Oh, every time, riddled with holes. I mean, you

can see the wig. Oh, yeah. Yeah. It does look Swiss cheesy.

Yeah. I mean,

I have really

been enjoying getting coffee in the little vaccine area with the three little dirty chairs over there.

I like that area. We hang out there

a lot. I wish they would take away the rule that you have to get vaccinated to get coffee, because I'm out of vaccines.

Yeah. I know that. Yeah. You were plumped up.

had the vaccine plump. And the last COVID booster hit you pretty hard.

You

I was - Well, you lied. You were full -blown COVID. You lied on the thing to get the

vaccine and the espresso. I said, no, I'm fine. My heart's fine. I don't have COVID.

They were like, do you - Well, I blame the person checking you in,

because you were literally - Always blame the other

people. Listen, you looked like a can of gas. Wavy stuff coming off of your head.

You were so hot. I was a can of gas in Phoenix, Arizona

on July 19th. Absolute distortion above your head. You were so hot. And they gave you the vaccine.

She was like, do you have COVID? Have you had it recently? I was like, sorry, I can't hear you. I'm eating the Snickers. I can't taste a thing.

Well, this

is an important thing to bring up, because if you are going to be the one doing most of the food handling and stuff,

we really need to make sure we get

you in those safety classes. Well, and the inoculation, but just in general, your health is interesting.

Yes. It's interesting at least. I agree. It will directly affect the customers if I am not up to snuff on health. Right. The safety classes - Or if you're out of snuff, because we know how crazy you go when you're out of snuff. Oh,

my God. Where is my snuff, by the way? We have the biggest - We absolutely have camel lip pack. Ah, just so much tobacco.

You look like Joe Camel. You got so much in your mouth. Yeah.

Well, I'm addicted now. I don't know what happened. I don't know how it happened. Well, I do know - It's classically something people never get addicted to.

Yeah.

Well, I started sitting in the dugouts of the T -ball games.

That's a good place for that. Yeah. I was third base coaching and stuff, and I just, you know, you got to fit in with the kids, so I started chewing and stuff. Spitting

and snuffing. These kids, they start chewing

earlier.

earlier and

Speaking of can of gas. Absolute addict.

You're on third with a can of gas. He parked at ATV, he parked at a three -wheeler at third base. Absolute addict on third.

Sending people home. I've seen that three -wheeler. It's vintage. Because they're not making three -wheelers much anymore. Oh, and he drives it home, tips it 10, 12 times. Of course. Collarbones fuck.

He doesn't understand that you can't go up a hill sideways on one of those things

without it just tinkling down. Oh, my God. He rolled.

He

rolled. Go straight up the hill. If you take it at an angle, you're going to roll every time.

Three wheels, you can do whatever you want. You can hit any angle. It's not your mama's four -wheeler. You

can hit

any angle on

this thing. Nobody's saying that. What are you talking about? You should drive your mama's

four -wheeler. Yeah. To be honest. No, she said we got to bury it with her.

Rest in peace.

No, Todd. It's okay. It's okay. It's okay. He

went into a quick fit. Not dead yet. Wasn't she killed by an orange? No, that was your dad. Oh! No, no.

I mean, your mom

might be dead, too. I don't know. Todd, I love you, man, but we've got to get you some help. You are the linchpin of this whole operation. You're the only one who can cook. Please.

You have to get your pre -grief for your mom's death.

Well,

they sell that at GNC now.

Grief it, team. Grief.

You get your

post -grief, your pre

-grief,

your pump grief. If you take a pre -grief, you will be torn up for days. Dude.

Dude, any time I know I'm going to have a

tough day or a funeral, I pre -grief up and I'm pumped. Oh, my God. I

showed up to my aunt's... Cryotine.

Cryotine. I showed up. I'm cycling right now

on pre -grief and cryotine. And I showed up to my aunt's funeral the other day.

I absolutely stone -faced. Wow.

Because you grieved it all out. I grieved it out. Absolutely stone -faced.

I was joking. They're

like,

this is pretty quick to make

jokes about the way she died. Your aunt was like a mother to you. There were those few years where she raised

you. Exactly. You lived with very informative years in your life. And when you take pre -grief, you only really need like a 15 -minute grief session. So the funeral can be really quick.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I cut it short. I cut it short. They were bringing her in. I'm like, let's wrap it up.

I'm sure everybody really appreciated that. They need someone at the service who's the strong one.

Listen. Yeah.

Which you were until the pall -bearing came. And then you were not the strong one

necessarily. Oh, no. The right side went down hard.

A lot of hurt toes

Well, how did they put him in that casket? There was a question about where he was placed in that casket. Why was all the weight

funeral.

at that

on you? Yeah. Her body had to be mostly up towards the front. That's what I

think. Kind of balled up. Well, obviously. Is she fetal? Is she fetal up at the top of this thing? Or am I the weakest man alive?

Folks, take it from people who have grieved and have been through it. No one wants to talk about this. You have to talk to the funeral home about how they're laying body

in

casket. If it's not an open casket, they've done all sorts of crazy things. They cannonballed my grandpa in there.

Well,

yeah. Most people choose. You don't have to just do.

You don't have to do what the funeral home

tells you to do with the body. There are many

different

options. That's a suggestion. Cannonball. On my will. One knee

up. On my will. I've asked him instead

of doing

embalming fluid, fill me with helium.

Hilarious. Floater. Very classic. Classic floater. Howard the floater.

That would be scary. Because then some kid, well, they'll find you in a tree a few years later. And I said, please don't put any nails in my coffin either.

Right.

You want that to still be

open.

Open, scary, floaty. You'll be at the Thanksgiving Day Parade and they'll be like, there comes Howard's corpse floating around the corner. I don't know about you guys, but I've been thinking about it. I've been looking through all the brochures, kind of planning my end of life

stuff. Right. And I think I want to be blended.

I really think I want to be blended. Oh, and did they finally strong arm that through? I know there was about a lot of red tape about blending

bodies.

Yeah. You can be blended. It's like, hey, it's burial or cremation. Yeah. No, we did a grassroots thing. We got people in the

government. And now you can be blended thanks to some hard work from the ground up. Oh, yeah. You just stood outside of. Ground up. Ground up. Part of it. We're working on that next. You

stood outside of every gathering, every farmer's market, everything and got blending signatures. Yeah. I got blending. Hey, excuse me. Are you registered to vote in this area? Knocked on people's doors.

Right. The whole thing. Right.

That's nice. Now, did you decide blender bottle, ninja blender? I want to go. Magic bullet. Magic bullet. I want to go ninja blender, biggest one they've ever made.

Yeah. And then I want to be fruit leathered. I want to be turned into a large

piece of fruit leather.

Yeah. Can I make a suggestion? Of course. I just feel like it would work with your personality. Of course. Maybe Jimmy Buffett margarita machine. That's a great idea. It could be

served.

Yeah. That could be actually really nice.

I love that. That would be really nice. I love that for you. You guys will all be at my funeral.

yeah.

And you'll die first. Yeah. Yeah. You know.

Yeah. Oh,

funeral. Well, we haven't even said the date yet, so don't say

you're booked. I'm one of your best friends. Yeah. I got so much going on on weekends, which is if we can do a Wednesday funeral

or something. Yeah. Can we doodle? Thank you. Let's doodle. Let's doodle.

It's not coming yet. It's not coming right away. Yeah. We don't have

to think about it right

now. Yeah. Yeah. In fact,

day. I mean, yeah,

that was a great. Get what? Get going on the show.

Yeah.

Yeah. Oh,

I was just shouting. Hot pot of salty water.

shit.

That's not one of them.

That could

one, I guess. It's just a little too descriptive. Why is it coming through?

be

It should just be on the stove, bake the pasta in

it,

salty? That's also a question. Yeah. What if you're a slug or a snail or a salt

of the way. Get out of the way. Right. You'd probably be

-averse? Definitely get out

Oh,

are we going to hire that snail to be a runner? We have to have limits. This

is ridiculous. We

I mean,

I know, but I like them. They're good. They were a good snail. Yes. But their skill set is fundamentally at odds

we love salt. It couldn't be a worse place

with the job. And

for a snail. It's a very

salty restaurant. Do you think we can get him to wear the uniform? I mean, he seems pretty attached

to the shell. Well, the uniform's a little back shell. I think the uniform works for him. We have shells on our back.

I guess that doesn't make sense. He's attached to his

shell. It is really the issue. Are we going to have him switch shells? That's what I mean.

I just know our shell would really nice. I don't know what happens if he

has to run the escargot.

Right. That'll be

tough

for him.

That'll be

tough for him. Well, those are questions

for - And is that his kids? Escargot?

It could be.

Yeah. Let's set that as a

rule. It's French. Let's set that as a rule.

Is

escargot snails or snails kids? Snails babies. Which came first? Let's not cook any employees' children. Right? Isn't

that a fair rule? I feel like there was some pushback to that.

I know. That's why I

don't get it. Also, Todd is obviously upset with that

huge sigh. Ex -employees, too? Like, where does it end?

It's just a hard thing. Like, because I know most delicacies are

animals' child. Yeah. Like, oh, this is a baby. This is a baby fat. I guess it's liver from a baby.

Well, we have that goose washing dishes.

Yeah.

that goose knows what's

And I think

Right? I think so. I think the goose is scared, continuing to wash, but is like, what's up with

this? He's washing dishes slash drinking cream

nonstop. Right. We're not force -feeding our goose. Our goose is absolutely pigging out.

And it's making us want to make foie gras.

Absolutely. I didn't want to make foie gras. Begging me. Begging me to foie. Yeah. I want to foie his ass.

It's

crazy that - Listen, I am dreaming

about our snacking

goose. Yeah. Making foie. Isn't it a little bit crazy when you think about it that our goose is pigging out and our pig is a silly goose?

It is crazy. It is a silly goose. Well, our

pig really keeps it light.

But the pig also, I'm like, pig, are you sure you want to work here? Because we have so many pork

dishes.

Yeah. Right.

We

are beefing the pork. And he

doesn't seem to like

structure. He doesn't seem to like structure. It's a pretty structured job. He likes to goof around. He likes to sort of take the piss.

Yeah. I honestly don't like the attitude. I'm the funny guy here, and he's getting all the laughs.

Oh, right.

You know I'm the funny guy here. You know, we're having pre -shift, and I'm throwing out jokes. I'm putting a

little hat on. I wouldn't call the meal. Somebody called the meal you made a joke. You were throwing out jokes. There were so many. But I don't think that's. Those are

funny. Yeah, they ordered burger

fries.

and

They're like, the punchline is in the toilet pretty

soon. I was like, Jesus Christ, dude.

Well, you know, we should probably actually kick the fucking show

in here. Yeah, let's do it. Folks, welcome to the Teacher's Lounge. This used to be the first Best and Only Podcast pertaining to issues relevant to the Hamilton High School community. But, of course, we're branching out.

We have to. We've tried a lot of things, but we are currently in the restaurant business, and things are going well. Well, I, of course, I'm Howard Levis, used to be a biology teacher. Now, I am the sort of front of house manager here at our restaurant, Zestaurant,

a zoo experience. And we are cranking along, getting really ready for the hard open. Soft opening nights have been going pretty well. I think the place is looking

good. Yeah. Everything seems to be in order. My name is, of course, Sam Weatherman, and I am the cleanliness orderly at the restaurant.

Right. I was buffing all last night. I don't know if you can see the bags under my eyes, but I haven't slept. I buffed. The stainless, all the stainless steel in the place looks unbelievable.

Thank you so much. I spent an hour on each piece of stainless. I spent a little bit on the floor. Once I got going, I couldn't stop. I started buffing the walls. I started buffing the ceilings. Yeah.

God dang it. I got up on the roof and buffed the roof a little bit. The whole place is looking clean and is very slippery. So be careful. And you're not taking Adderall.

Why would I?

I don't know.

Oh.

I thought

getting around it. And it's not just coffee. It is a quadruple espresso.

was

I

Right. In a thimble. So you're taking it really hard and aggressive and fast. Yeah, it's

concentrate.

Thimble size. We should say, you found us an incredible espresso machine. Oh, thank you. So I'm really excited for any time anyone orders that. Yeah. It's taking up the whole kitchen counter. It's a little. It's got all the bells and whistles, literally.

Yes. Yes.

It's the Lava Husio. The Lava Husio is beautiful.

I know. We were so lucky to get that.

Because we said we won't make coffee unless it's coming through a Lava Husio, because that's the only really way to taste

a nice espresso.

Oh, yeah. I bet you our dedicated listeners are probably surprised to hear us say this. We have flipped

from the dirtiest, yuckiest repair shop coffee to only drinking out of Lava Fusio's. Yes.

Listen, we

went. Which, which I don't know about you guys, but I'm going to say it different every single time.

Well,

it's

impossible. The Z's, the V's, they all look the same on the back of this thing. We didn't even have a Mr. Coffee. We had a coffee guy.

A small hotel, four cup machine.

Mm -hmm.

Uh, and we, we would make weak brews. Now we are absolutely pulling unbelievable shots out of the Lava Husio. It looks like a straight up, uh, uh, uh, uh, motor oil.

It looks like motor oil. It's the darkest bit of motor oil, and it's a beautiful pull.

The Lava Husio looks like a spaceship sitting on the counter. That shit is long. It's beautiful. It looks like an late 50s Chrysler.

Yes. Up on the counter. Yes. We, well, uh, of course we try, we can't, it's impossible to make a brew because Leno is sitting in the front. We're like, no.

car. It keeps wandering in. Jay, stop filling us up with fuel. He's like, hey, we're here with, uh, Mark. He brought in his late 50s, uh, Lava Husio. And he does, he does drive,

not a

he drove it to the Grove

yesterday. Yeah, well, I was going to say, I was going to say, there have been people who came in and when we offered them, when we offered them coffee, they said, no, thank you. You're serving it out of what seems to be a car. So no,

I, I'm pretty sure what we have is a Lava Husio. It's a Lava Husio. Unfortunately, our Lava Husio, uh, Leno takes it every Sunday morning to cars and coffees over at Bob's Big

Boy. Yes. I'm really excited about this. This is big. Hi, Bill Cravey. Um,

uh, uh, one of the waiters.

Um, I, my, I, I, I'd say lead waiter. I'd say chef.

No, no, no.

We are all floaters. We are all one. Bill is fully, fully rejecting any idea of power or status

at this restaurant. Absolutely. It is kind of beautiful to see Bill. I'll be honest. You know, usually you are right up

in front taking charge, but it's nice to see him being a man of the people. If I notice water glasses that are not in my section that are not filled, I go over there and I'll do that. Yes. I'll do that for Joe. It's no problem for me. Everybody should

have a good time. It doesn't matter who is serving who. And

we, we decided we're not doing pooled tips for servers.

No. Um, well, I don't know what your thoughts ended up being on that. We kind of went back and forth. Should the servers, should it be kind of a communist thing where all the servers, you know, no matter what, make the same amount of tips. Right.

Or should the best server, like how it works in the world, get the most

money? Well, I, I, I, I know a lot of people are probably going to be shocked by this, but I, I believe that the best, the way you get best, the best work out of people is to make it competitive. Right. Yeah.

And so speaking of legislation, we did have the restaurant minimum wage in town lowered to a dime an hour. Really? So we're doing die. Yeah. So everybody gets a dime. Every waiter, any tipped employee gets a dime. And so all of their income basically is based on how well they perform out on the floor.

That's

really.

And that's, and it's, it's creating an atmosphere where everybody wants to do the best job.

Right? Yes. Yes. It does. And it's, it, it, the atmosphere is inching towards Coliseum.

Uh huh.

I will say

like, I don't, I do think obviously socialism is not the way to go, uh, with, is pulling tips, but, but shit's getting crazy out there. Well, the thing that I thought was so interesting was the other night we had another soft open night where we, we opened the whole, the whole restaurant. This is our first time at full capacity. We had our waiters and essentially the way it worked is the host would go to the, would take two waiters like, okay, y 'all fight for this table. Uh, and we sort of let a, um, well,

to go back to the duels. I got absolutely stiff armed when a family walked in and they all had those, uh, little suede loafers that, that like fancy people

wear and that look like socks,

but

now. Yeah. Exactly.

Exactly. Like that is a bad shirt, but it's crisp. Yeah. And

you got the guy through

the net on you. Oh, Joe,

Joe netted me. Right.

And I shot up to the

ceiling. Well, we should say Joe is the other waiter that we've hired. We've, we've

referenced

Joe a couple of times. Joe

is one of the other waiters we've hired. There's, there's actually now it's just been two. It's been bill and Joe. And Joe's fantastic.

He's sort of a life, a lifer. Yeah. You know, he's served everywhere. He's served at macaroni grill. He's served a cheesecake. He's served

at

Bell. Yeah. He's

amazing.

He's

really

amazing. Great guy. He knows what

he's.

Yes.

And I, I'm kind

of. B .F. Chang's, uh, uh, pickup sticks.

Yeah. Pick up sticks. Served at, um. Gross burger. Gross burger. Claim jumper.

Claim jumper. Yeah. Good

burger. Good burger.

Um, boy, your hermanos. He

was

really interesting. Oh yeah. Boy, her mom was interesting. He kind of started running with the wrong crowd there. I would say,

He had a

there.

but he got out. He got out.

He got out. And he's here now, but he

is basically girls.

Two broke girls. He served

at two and a half burgers. Not.

What's that? The diner. Two broke girls. Giant.

Giant. No, no, no. Howard said it. So Howard's been having these dreams. That he talks out loud. And we're trying

to be

stuck in a

giner,

which we

don't know. Well, we haven't let him tell

the

story. It's really a shame. And we're like, why do you think you're stuck in it?

You should be

happy to be in a giner. Are you all

the way

in it? Are you in it in the way that we

think you want to be? He puts his hoodie up when we ask him, and he kind of hides away. He's like, I keep having this recurring dream of the

giner. But I also think he likes the bashfulness,

because he keeps bringing it up and then hiding. It's just one of those interesting dreams where you know something's happening, but you can't really put your finger on it. I know I'm inside a giner. Right. A late night giner. Yeah. I can't look around and say, yes, of course, this is a giner. But in the dream, I know I'm in a giner.

In the giner, do they give you the little silver tin with the milkshake, or is it just the milkshake?

In this

giner. The giner's milkshake brings all the boys to the yard, apparently. Howard keeps singing. Out loud in his dreams. I mean, to me, they seem more like

Ways to Night. It's just kind of a regular diner with sort of like a, I don't even know, name.

know. I can't even

I don't even

It's okay.

more.

He's talking about this giner

he loves. He loves this giner. Every second, we're like, don't lay down over there.

He's

pulling up the blanket.

Well, look, you know, it's important to be rested when you have so much responsibility.

It is. It is. You're right. And I am Todd Padre in charge of kitchen, back of house, the art of the restaurant, as you might say. And yeah, I'm just, I'm really stoked. Bill, you did so well in your actual interview. Spoiler alert, of course, we hired Bill.

Of course.

as the machine goes. Yes.

It's going pretty good. It's almost got me a little worried. Like, we've never had something that's gone this smoothly this quickly.

Even

when it's still weird.

Yeah. We, yeah, we, on our last soft open night we had the other night, we did actually turn a profit, which is shocking.

Unheard of. Unheard of for us.

We're

They say.

We're pulling

high. As a restaurant.

Yes. We're doing great with soccer moms.

We've been yelped. We've been zagated. Yes. Yes. Yes. So I came here. Yeah. They had some questions. They definitely had some

questions. Yes. They said, we'll be back. We're not going to judge you since you're still in soft open. Right. But most restaurants have less livestock as employees. And we took some notes. We got rid of the batting cage

stuff. Yeah. It's just a restaurant now. We took down the cage. It's like trying to turn a pizza hut into anything else.

It's going to look like a batting cage on the ground. People are showing up here with bat

bags and they're stomping off. But we did put, we took all the pitching machines out. We

took the net down. Except the one. Except the one

in the middle. But we've repurposed it for rolls. Right. We're going to sell all that stuff. We're going to liquidate

it.

Yeah.

Yes. Yeah. So if anyone needs or knows anyone that needs 45 pitching machines, a bunch of baseballs, softballs. Yeah. And those are tires too. If you want to, if you have a car that needs four white tires.

Yeah. I mean, probably golf cart would probably be a more appropriate place for them. Unless you have a

tiny car. But listen, I'm not going to tell you not to put all white tires on your car.

Right. Yeah. We're not going to tell you. It's an option. It's an option. It's an option. And we do need to sell this stuff to, like you're saying, get plates, get pans. Right.

been cooking everything on tin foil so far.

know Todd has

Yeah. Your fingers are looking a little rough there. You are burned to the bone.

Yes. My fingers.

It looks

fingerless

like you're wearing

fingers and your bones are exposed.

Yes. Yeah. That's just so it's. I kind of have like a Freddy Krueger thing as I'm going with my fingers, which is, you know.

It looks exactly like fingerless gloves. Somehow your palms have full frostbite.

And the fingers are fully out. You're in bad shape. But you just need to. You just need. It's okay if we wash a dish at the end of the night. We don't have to cook with tinfoils.

You're covering everything. I just want to save. I want to save. You know.

Time. I'm obviously. Time washing.

What?

And

time.

And time. That's it for you, Todd. You're done.

time like I'm cut off. Okay. And time. Thank you. That's been my time. It's all been great.

that's

Oh,

about different genders, but I have a lot. No, I was just saying you want to save time not washing dishes. No, don't dance. What is this lecture? It's a dancey sort of hate speech.

You nailed it. That's exactly what

I. I got you to the TEDx conference. Can I tell you something about your art?

Please.

Oh,

you're doing TEDx, right? Sorry, Zach.

It's

fine. It's totally fine. Is that something?

Oh, yeah. It's me, Brene Brown. Don't I? Who

else? Who else? Who else?

One other person. That guy who came up with the

way to net all the trash

in the Pacific Coast. He figured out how to net all the hot ladies. And his

name is Johnny Sins, right? Yeah, Johnny Sins.

Johnny Sins gave

us full nude speech. They sent him to prison. They said you can't do a thing about netting hot women. He sent him to prison. I

was into that Johnny Sins video where he goes out and he just kind of like rakes the ocean. He

got a

close to the beach.

too

little

He

got

a little

too close to the beach.

I thought he was getting trash. But yes, I mean, because for me, it's either buy the best stuff or don't buy anything.

And so I'm on, you know, I want that always pan, that $190 pan that looks like

you scrape it immediately if you use it. I've heard bad things about those

pans.

We cannot

buy at home stuff for you here, Todd. We need to buy industrial.

We need underwear for the kitchen. We need socks.

This is not

to stock your house, Todd. Please. You can buy a couple of things that you can take home, but just occasionally. But I think the I don't know how that pan even exists. The one that is just made of Teflon that you bought. Yeah, it's all

Teflon. It looks like a big piece of wax or something. Well, now the EPA is taking it away. So it's like, I can't even cook on that. But yeah, we had some immediate deaths on that cook. So

we're solving problems, though. If you're willing to put the money in, I can also get those huge, like, you know, the huge one, the stainless steel. What are those

made out of? Cast iron?

Yeah,

cast iron. But it's just, we got to hire lifters if I have one of those. Right, that's true. Yeah, you're

weak as hell. Your wrists are weak. But you have been doing a great job. We know those, like, type of cooks that just find kind of, they're able to improvise.

And Todd's been doing a really good job at just kind of looking in the fridge. He's really been finding his flow. Yeah, he'll go to local farms, chef's table style.

He's really about the ingredients. Yeah, there's a lot of video there of me out there just walking through a farm and squeezing tomatoes too hard until they pop and being, like, ripe.

And you're, like, haggling a little harder than most chefs do at those things. Right.

You go and you put your hands all over a farm's produce.

And then you don't want to play the time. I go through

the oat fields. I go through the kale, just rubbing my fingers through all of it, remembering my wife. And several farms have lost all of their produce after you've come

through. Well,

I

was

going

to say,

there is a sort of mythology around you developing in the local farms because a lot of people are saying the last few months crops have been failing.

Land has become infertile.

Yeah. Like, there's almost seems as though you sort of appearing in their lives has caused chaos. Well, this one guy who, like, he let me try his hummus.

I

didn't love it. You went like this. You dipped your two

fingers in the hummus? Dipped my two fingers in. Right off the bone. Didn't love it. And I was like, well, I'll just take a free one because this isn't great. And he was like, no. And so

I looked at him and I said, I said, whatever. Oh, you gave him the old Dune. You must listen to me voice. Todd's been working on this new voice where if he whispers right, it commands you to do stuff. It's scary

when it works. It's scary how much every character in Dune is like one of us in some

sort

of way.

The whole visual vibe of Dune is teacher's laugh. Yeah, yeah. I mean, that one guy takes baths in the same stuff we take baths in. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

He's as tall as me when I fully stretch out.

Oh, yeah.

And of course, the worm. Of course. The worm. We

know the worm. We know the worm. But yeah, I've been loving this all. And it's been so great to focus on something,

you know, with the strike going on. And,

you know, it's just so hard to find. Nobody. We know us. Anyone is involved with

the SAG strike. I support the fight. I support the fight out there. Fran, you're doing the Lord's work. Adam Conover. You're doing the Lord's work, man. Send

you a marvelous number. You're not in those unions. You're not.

You're

a must

leave. It's not mine.

Anytime you come to the table, it's not that you must join. You must

leave. You're a must leave. You're the first ever

must leave from SAG and WGA.

Uh -huh. Well, I still support all organized labor that's not in the food service industry or anything that we engage with.

Well, I'm

Yeah, it's good. You plop something down on the table for somebody, you don't want them to know exactly what they're getting into. It's

like an exploration experience. And Todd does plop it down.

He does plop

the

food.

It's very European style of dining that I like to do is it's it's dining is we don't engage anymore since the pandemic.

Right. And the best thing about it is the diner is unable to keep up with how much they're spending because you can't just order a starch, a meat and a vegetable on one plate.

So you pay out the ass. Yeah.

Yeah. It's great. It's all shared plates. And that means tiny. Yeah. And so that's what we do. We do the thing when we introduce people is like, have you ever eaten here before? And they're like, no. And we're like, OK,

well, thank God is what we say. Thank God. Yeah. The first thing you need to know is these dishes are meant to be shared. Yeah.

And we mean that we share the plate with another restaurant. So you're getting a tiny plate. These plates are meant to be shared. Yeah. Parentheses unspoken. And we share the plate. So the plates are tiny.

And we're always second. The

other restaurant gets firsts on your meal and you're eating. Every place in town. We never. The one thing about our restaurant, we've never once had dibs on anything.

Right. Boy, have we tried.

We just always laid on dibs.

Because I don't know a lot of people know this, but the restaurant world runs by auction.

Much like the car world. Yeah. They get all these cars. They auction them off. You go down. You auction on us. Or you bid on a set of pans. You bid on some old chairs. You bid on a walk -in freezer. Yes. It's an old safe. And ours is all police auction stuff. So all the knives, our crime scene

knives, the

forks,

the spoons.

The guns. The guns. A

lot

of our somewhere is guns for now. Oh, my God. Our deli, our meat slicer was involved in one of the most

horrific crimes in

the world.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, Mr. Chef. You guys remember the Mr. Chef killings?

Yes. Well, there's a whole

Netflix show about it.

Yes, Mr. Chef. And thank God they made money off of that and told that story in an interesting way.

Oh, my God. Obviously, Seth Rogen starring in it. Yep. For the first 20 minutes.

But yes, the experience we have here, I think, is unique. It's special. It's very TikTok -able. We've been on a lot of

TikToks, which is exciting. Yes. Well, yeah, yeah. Because we make a lot of noise. There's a lot. It's a big show. When people come in here, there's a lot that they're kind of trying to.

And that's on purpose.

Oh, yeah. We're doing it on purpose so that people.

We want the TikToks that say, visited world's craziest restaurant.

Yes. We want the TikToks that say, not sure it's safe in here. Come check it out for yourself. I'm here to introduce you to the first ever restaurant where you have to go up a 90 degree hill just to get to the food. And, of course, there's a lot of excitement. You know, those big skeletons

that are always big on Halloween. We've got the huge chef's hat that everyone has to wear. That's 20 feet tall. Yes. So that's out front. I also did want to mention to you guys, the free solo guy did fall off. Oh, what a shame.

He was coming in to eat and he fell off. What a shame. Is he alive?

As far as I know.

Yeah. He's still alive. But he's in bed. Damn it. Was he with Chewbacca?

Chewbacca. Yeah. Wow. Yeah.

And they were both doing the free solo thing. Chewie was up

on the line. They were free soloing coming to have dinner and we lost him. What

is Chewie up to these days?

I haven't

seen

Chewie

in

so

he's hanging out with the

free solo. I saw Chewie on QVC. Yeah. Hosting.

Yeah. It was a chance. You know, it was

weird. I went to get some ice cream the other night and he was dipping the ice cream at the Baskin Robbins. Chewie? Oh, my God.

Chewie is down. Well, because. Wait, wait, wait, wait. They're doing dips at Baskin Robbins? Yeah.

All right. I got to go. Let's take a quick break.

Sam has Kool -Aid in the wall.

Jesus. Straight through the studs. Damn. Yeah. We'll wait for Sam to get back. We'll get back into it. All right. Sam's back. We're ready to rock and roll. We're about to.

It was fine. It was fine. I didn't need to run out like that.

You looked

so happy when you were eating it. I know. I guess I had Dairy Queen dipped cone on the brain

and it was like a different ice cream in town. Doesn't work quite as well.

It was fine. I feel like Todd.

Huh?

Is that a saying?

Oh, yes.

By who?

But we're about to open up for another night. We have our dinner. Our dinner shift's starting in about an hour and we were recording and we kind of butted up against pre -shift. So we were going to just go ahead and just do the pre -shift meeting on mic. Hopefully that's interesting for everybody out there listening. This is maybe a little behind the scenes sort of fly on the wall look at what actually goes into doing one of these damn things.

That's right.

And that's a great segue. Speaking of fly on the wall, we have to figure out going into the shifts what to do with these fly traps because they're loaded up. And so do we replace the fly traps every five minutes or close the windows? I don't want to close the windows, obviously. I'm just looking around.

Yeah. What do we think the flies are really coming in for? Some part of me thinks we put up so much fly tape that they're coming in.

They think it's their house or something.

Right.

In order to trap the flies, we put out a lot of honey. We put a queen fly in. There's a giant dookie in the corner. A giant dookie. That is my bad. That is my bad. Well, we turned lemons into

dookie into dookie -nade there. And that's for the flies now. We can kind of trap them all.

You got to turn dookie into dookie -aid.

Damn. Did we advertise to flies? Is that a

problem? Not intentionally. I will say we did buy some Facebook and Instagram ads in the last few weeks. And I

did. Did it run on old fruit? Well,

there was a little checkbox at the bottom to increase your reach, use nontraditional advertising

methods. Oh, and they meant old fruit. You can't just blindly click boost ad

and not know if it's going to

run on old

fruit.

I didn't read the fine print. Hang on.

Don't tell me the ad is running at the dumpster in the dump.

Let me look.

Hang on.

I'm going to go in.

gross. The dump doesn't even want it. They're throwing it at the dumpster. The dumpster. The dumpster. Well, let me look. I'm looking in here. The dumpster. And I don't know what that is, but you get it. That

so

that's

is something for

sure.

you know who that is. That's the dump musician. He's doing

Well,

it all along.

Oh, the dump

musician only plays the dumpster.

But there's no comedian there. There's no dump

comedian yet.

We have all been auditioning for AGT as the dumb comedian. That's right. And Howie loves us. Howie, yes. Howie is interested in seeing more, obviously. Howard Stern, not a fan.

Not a fan. Neither of them will touch us. But not for the reasons we like. Well, I'm looking at the fine print here. It does look like clicking this little box. Let me hit the little I next to it to give me more info. Okay. So it says, oh, wow. You give us permission to run these ads on any available advertising apparatus.

You give us the freedom to change your voices using AI or any other means to better

articulate your message for inhuman

audiences. It says,

oh,

man. They've used AI to change our voices to talk to flies on fruit.

Oh, my God. Buzz, buzz. Oh, you know what? Buzz, buzz, flies. Come on in and get the hell out of here. You're not welcome.

Yeah. I mean, I think we should just close the windows. That's the easiest way.

All right. We'll close the

windows. And run

the AC. From here on out, let's read the fine print on this. I'm sorry. It was an honest mistake. I was a little distracted. I didn't sleep well.

You can't knock the

hustle.

We

no, no, no, no,

no, no.

A restaurant runs like a damn the army. Todd, you're not pulling it off.

Nobody cares about it. I

am here for you. I'm here for

so

you. Bill, you are

susceptible.

You guys don't

know how the army works. You

have proven

time and time again. Who is here for me? I am here for this. Yas. I am here for this. Yas. Thank you, Bill. Sam, who is here for me?

No. Yeah. You sound like Lady Gaga's

army. The army is my Roman Empire.

Yas.

Yas? Why are you saying Yas?

I am here for

you, Sergeant Sir. My guy.

My guy.

That's not what the army sounds like. Who else is my little guy? I'm not

your little guy, but I'm here and I'm ready to work. All right. Well, a little respect has to be shown in a restaurant. When I say jump, you say how high? All right? Okay. Please don't make me jump. When I say jump, you say how high. Not when I say jump, you say please don't make me jump.

You were trying to guess or figure out your vertical the other day, and you sunk into the ground, right?

Well, yeah.

I was trying to figure out my vertical because I got into an argument with a friend. I do have friends, by the way, and they are

cool. Okay.

Well, you were trying to figure out your vertical, but you figured out your horizontal because you fell. You fell in straight shape.

And it's cool because your horizontal is higher than your vertical. Yeah.

You fell

and tumbled.

But you accidentally got caught up in Todd's three -wheeler tumbleweed. He was in. Yeah.

You became

of thrashed and

flattened. Yeah. And I got chucked.

I got chucked. Thrashed, flattened, and chucked. Yeah. You really got screwed. Speaking of, all beef today is chuck. So push the chuck steak. Push the chuck loin.

What is chuck? How are we going to do chuck? We got chuck tips.

Wait a second.

What?

Yeah. Where did we come into so much chuck,

Todd? He went to a butcher house and started squeezing meat, I bet.

Yeah. That's exactly right. I squeezed in the best of the best chucks. I squeezed the little meat out.

Like an avocado? You were testing all the meat?

Yeah, exactly.

Okay. You test cows the same way as you test an avocado. It's all the same. You knock on their tummies if it's hollow.

And do we think the chuck's okay? The majority of it's brown. I think there's a little bit of red in the

center. You just scrape it

off.

You scrape the brown off and the red is still edible.

You know, and I feel like you wasted 100 pounds of beef by scraping off the top. You've wasted so much beef. And please don't go back to Chuck's beef house.

Uh -uh. Okay. Well, I don't know where to get our beef

that's what I'm talking about. I've been saying from the day we started, we need to find reliable supplies. Yes. You know,

from. Well,

it's okay. It's okay. Look, everybody out there knows, yes, the arc that we had coming with all of our supplies is still stuck in the ocean. And we've been trying to find

a new way to get

supplies here. But it's very hard. The captain knows where he's going. He

doesn't know a thing.

Well, I've been tracking.

He doesn't know a thing.

He kind of just keeps

doing the line of the Bermuda Triangle. He doesn't know a damn thing.

Yeah. It is frustrating. You're right. We did send him. Did you say he's going in a

triangle? He's just kind of doing the

line

of the Bermuda Triangle.

Yeah.

Not really going in it. Well, we sent him, yes. And his co -pilot, his co -man.

Amelia. The first mate. The captain. The captain.

Amelia.

Amelia Earhart. Yeah. She's been found. Yeah. They found him. But every time it's like he's, you know, we check in with him and every time he's 20 years older and he's like going through some

sort of thing and it's like, I don't care if you're on the lost island or whatever. At this point. We need two of every animal to eat here. Split the sea.

Yes. Moses. Moses. We need

Yes. So

Moses.

I don't want to be frustrating. Okay. But part of me seems to think that we should go out to legitimate food

purveyors. I have

a similar feeling. For beef, Pat LaFrieda, the famous beef man. Let's just get our beef from them and then problem

solved. I don't care

if he's Pat LaDiego Rivera. We're not working with him at those prices. But I'm just saying it feels like we try to do everything our own way and there are so many things that are just so much easier. Okay.

And I'm really tired of that comeback.

Yeah. I'm really

tired of that. I don't care if you're tired of my come Diego Rivera. It's coming out. Let's go through some stuff on the menu. All right.

I'm going to compromise. Let's see what we can streamline. Yes. All right. What's the soup of the day?

Soup of the day? Potato.

Okay. Potato soup. Not potato leek.

Just potato. Well, it's potato and leaky

bowl. Okay.

bowl, unfortunately, was meant to be shared. And it's being shared in this house. We only got half the bowl, so at least.

The

colander. Look, it's a colander.

It's a potato soup and colander.

Well,

good

thick soup. So we can fix that. What's a regular soup you want to have? I mean, a potato leek sounds like

it's a

actual potato leek. Or chicken tortillas, famously a soup of the day.

Okay. Chicken tortilla. Fine. You're really having

trouble taking this information. I just got to figure out where to get soup stock from. I got to figure out where to get water from. We got to take Todd's lead on this. Sounds like

we have potato soup.

And that's really it so

far. Because we're open in, what, 30? Yeah.

Okay. So what about the appetizer specialty? Do we have any special

appetizers? Yeah. It's watery mashed potatoes. Okay. Okay. So we have potato soup. And let's just call them mashed

potatoes. And Todd, I just

want

That's continuing on with the soup. I feel like that's just more soup.

Well, the soup is that dish strained a little bit through a cheese.

Okay. Okay. Great.

Okay. So the mashed potatoes are waterier than the soup?

Or is it the other way

around? I mean, that's what the review said.

Okay. What about mains? Normally, we said we were going to have a fish of the day.

Okay. Well, it was largemouth bass. Good.

That sounds awesome. Everybody wants to eat largemouth bass. Is it bassmouth large? Do not tell me you bought accidentally a bunch of billy mouth.

It's not

bassmouth large, is it? What way did you screw up the

largemouth bass, which is already a bad choice? It's already a fish that nobody has ever

ordered on a menu. Yeah, nobody wants to eat a lake fish. Bassmouth large.

Todd, pick how you fucked up. Come

on.

Don't tell us

bassmouth large, didn't you?

I thought I heard someone singing Drop Me in the River the other night.

Is it that? Okay. Look, it's all of them. First, I accidentally bought Billy the Big Mouth Bass. He was such a beautiful singer, I couldn't cook him. Well, that wasn't the

reason you couldn't cook him. He's a machine, Phil.

What do

mean? He's walking to tell AI machines. I don't know what's what. But I just

went to the CVS and asked for the fish. And that's where they pointed me to.

So then I went. I was like, all right, you don't do fish. So then I went and got

Bassmouth Large. Good job. And when we're saying Bassmouth Large. That's all. It's Bassmouth Large.

You don't need to figure it out. You just know what it is. It's

Bassmouth

Large.

I get that. You had to catch a bunch of Bassmouth Large.

Is it Bassmouth Large? Is it Large? I mean, that was what the exterminator said after it

my house. Todd, what's the

ran out of

truth? What are we? Bassmouth Large. It was the two guys

in the Titanic with

the binoculars.

Todd. Bassmouth Large. You have not been able to take a bath for weeks because

that mouth. That mouth. The mouth.

It's really hard to say these words correct. It's

almost impossible. Bassmouth Large. Everybody, for our last episode of the podcast, if we release this correctly, send us your best attempt at saying any

of those three words together. It's hard. We'll play the worst ones on air. Don't think about it. Just throw yourself into the

pronunciation as fast as you can.

All right. What's the truth here, Todd? It feels like you're just trying to distract us by humoring all these ideas. What meat are we serving? Well,

you don't want Chuck. So here's the deal.

We can take the beef out of the Wendy's burgers. I have a bunch of Wendy's

burgers. What do you mean? The Wendy's burgers that you have?

Yes. I bought a bunch of Wendy's burgers because I don't want people to go to Wendy's. So I bought

them all out. So people are going to go to Wendy's and be like, you're out of everything? And they'll be like, yeah, maybe go down to Zestron

or Zestron or

Zestron or Zestron or Zestron. Zestron or Zestron or Zestron. Zestron or Zestron. Zestron.

By the way, I think we got to change the map. Should we walk that?

Well, the zebra has left my mind

completely. So why

is it still a

zebra? And the

zebra has not made it. Yeah, we can't even get one here. Yeah,

certain things

become the lore of it where it's like, why are they even called Zestron a Zestron experience?

Why is it even called the Rainforest Cafe? I don't get why they, what was the original idea?

So we could change the name. I mean, you know, that could be part of our pre -shift. I don't know what, do we want, I would say let's talk first of style of name. Yeah. Like, do we want to be like a hipster kind of craft gastropub where it's like hammer and sausage?

Or do we want to be a little more kitschy and be like,

hamburger and screwdriver?

Hamburger and screwdriver.

What about fork and veil?

I like fork and veil.

You know, like you're eating at a wedding.

Yeah.

Right. I like that. Veil kind of makes me think of like a ghostly lady with a veil or something. What about fork and veal?

Okay.

Interesting. Because it sounds like pork. And it's a play on fork and veil. Veil.

What about, wait, what about pork and

veal? Pork and veal. And everyone will look at it and go, oh, like fork and veil.

It'll be a clear take on fork and veil. Right. Right. I love this. This is the beauty of being in such a

creative partnership.

Because

pork and veil.

You know, like fork and veil. How about pork and veil? That's what I just said. And co. And co. Pork and veal and co. And what about sons? Pork and veal and co. And sons. How about, what about brothers and veal? What about. Like pork and veil? How about. What about. What about. Pork, pork and steak and sons?

law firm. Well, that's

Like a

law

firm in town.

By the way, pork.

Shit, I knew that sounded familiar. Pork. Oh, you gotta work. If you don't work with steak or sons,

you're fucked. I was so fucked. And it was personal injury. I thought it was a slam dunk. And pork's just sitting there honking

away. Well, you rear -ended an ambulance.

Yeah.

window. Yeah. I hit the stretcher and then I went through that windshield. Right.

It

was

tough. Anyway. Well, yeah. So don't use pork, pork,

steak

and sons for your legal needs unless

they give you

steak or sons. Yes. That's tough. Okay. So name -wise, did we respond to any of those? We went. I don't know. I think pork and veal, because it's such a good turn on

fork and veil, sounds pretty Pork and veal is really nice.

Or what about pork and veal parentheses like fork and

That way there's no question mark. Right. Yeah. That's good. Yeah.

veil?

I'm just trying to think of other popular restaurant names because a lot of them are like, I'm thinking of like Girl and the Goat. Yeah.

You know? It just makes you think.

Beetle juices.

Great. Moving on. All right.

Yeah.

like them actually. You know,

I

Fleming's, Ruth's Chris. Right. Beetle juices. When you hear the one, you don't have to spend much

time on it. That's great. Put it on the board.

We're doing beetle juices. And do we need in parentheses like the Howard Stern one? Or the mixed? Yeah. That's everyone's favorite, Beetle juice.

Yeah.

It's the most famous. Yeah.

All right. Beetle juices. Folks, we can tell you right now that we're... We can officially reveal that we are now Beetle juices. Yeah. It's really fun. Okay. Yeah. Let's do that. Yeah. So tonight will be our

first night as Beetle

juices.

Great. So I'll just call the Wendy's and say when people are like, why are you sold out of beef? Like, I don't know, but go to Beetle juices.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Beefle juices. Wait.

On the board. Oh my God. So

someone walks in, we're going to say, welcome to Beetle juices. Just before you sit down, our specials are a potato soup.

Okay. Hold on. Hold on. Wet mashed potatoes. Okay. Yeah. As well as, what was the... And then it was a bath mouth large.

Bath mouth large. Bath mouth. No, that's

not. You were cooking. Bath mouth large. Bath mouth large. But yeah, we can get rid of the fish because the fish just isn't working, I think, for the day. All right. So no fish today,

but we do have, if I can win kind of my battle, if you guys can help, the lobster is strong, but it will be delicious if we get it in the pot.

It's a strong lobster. Recommend the lobster, but just say it's strong and there's no guarantee we'll get it in the pot. Okay. Okay. Now, Todd, a couple of times when you've served lobster, you were a little too afraid to get it in the pot and you just put a live lobster with no rubber bands on the claws on the plate, you're going to cook the lobster.

I would love to. That is absolutely the goal. And I think I've overcome that fear.

I've got my rifle now. So I think if it comes down to it,

I think

we'll build it. I saw you in the kitchen through that huge window just holding the rifle at a pot and I was so

confused. It's mostly to threaten the lobster and

I don't

plan on shooting

it. You

had the

pain under your eyes. You

man

were ready to go

lobster. And you know, you can't. Kill the lobster before you cook it. Like lobster has to be cooked live. It's it. Otherwise, it's not as good.

in on that

So

you told you. Cook it live. It's to scare the lobster, but I'll cook. We cook everything live here. It's

not an issue.

Freshness is number one. We do a

bill

of oil style. Well, I like that you, that we have a bunch of pigs in an aquarium up front next to the lobster.

Just fucking swimming. It's all those beautiful pigs that you see on Instagram. It's like there's an island that's all beautiful pigs in clear water. And I saw that and I booked my first flight and kidnapped those pigs. And they're on the main.

Oh, yeah.

They're all the beach pigs. We have them.

I love seeing a nice hairy pig in water.

Now, Bill, I want to talk.

Yes. As far as servers. Are you noticing anything on the floor that they can be repaired out there? Any issues in communication? Any ways we can be more efficient?

I've been really working on my signing of the final bill.

What are you going with? I know you were doing cheers for a while.

Cheers. I've been doing smiley face. Thanks for coming in. Nice. Whenever someone does those

to me, I love it.