the-restaurant-guys_2_10-04-2025_183520: 0:24

Okay, more shooting chefs in a barrel here at Southern Smoke. We have brought along Angie Rito and Scott Elli from Don Angie. One of the hardest reservations to get in Manhattan, New York, and for a good reason. Uh, we've also got San Sabino. These guys are amazing. and we love your restaurants. And it's funny that we should come all the way to Houston, Texas when we are like next to each other. All I walk by your restaurant occasionally. And you are originally from New Jersey even. Yes, I am from Awa, New Jersey. Uhhuh Uhhuh. so not much going on there. Well,

Mark: 0:55

bringing culinary professionals to the world. Actually there's a really good restaurant in Wan now in the old Eli's bagel, uh, Lita. Oh yeah, Lita Iss a great place. They're great. Li's a great place. Actually, Dave's gonna be on the show, uh, this spring, so, let's start with before we do the walk down memory lane and all our mutual, connections and, and our life up north. What brings you all the way down to Houston, Texas to, and why are you participating in Southern Smoke? I mean, we've been wanting to come here for years. I don't know why. the restaurants, the kids, yeah. Stuff going on. Whatever. But yeah, we're so stoked to be here. I mean, it's an amazing foundation and, um, I mean truly this entire time, we just keep going on and on about how it's just the most wonderful, well organized, like fun event we've ever done in our life. Life. Yeah. We've, we've been talking about the same thing. Yeah. But for a good cause. Of course. Uh, so it's like, yeah, it's all the things. Chris and Lindsay are the absolute best. So, you know, we, they asked us to come and it is like a well-oiled machine with thousands of, of guests and, and chefs and, but everything is super easy for us too. I mean, it. Podcasters. everything was smooth. This pie. It's, it's a little weird being around this many nice people though, isn't it? Yeah. Come on the south, close to the north. Yeah. I mean, I'm from, I'm from the Midwest originally. I'm from Cleveland. Oh right. You're from Cleveland. So I know the vibe, you know, pretty nice people. Cleveland. I feel like people are pretty nice where I'm from. Alright, so that brings us to a question that Mark has wanted to ask you. So we have our restaurant, is named it for Mark's grandmother, Brooklyn, Italian grandma. Born and raised in Brooklyn. Yeah, my mother born and raised in Brooklyn. And the sign of the restaurant does not say Italian restaurant. It says Catherine Lombardi, Italian American restaurant. And so how does Cleveland Italian marry Jersey Italian in a restaurant? You, how does Cleveland, right? How does that crossover?'cause obviously you're, you're both Italian Americans. It's a, it's, yeah, it's different, but it's the same. Yeah. I mean, we're fascinated by like Italian American culture in general and just like the many pockets, just communities of like Italian transplants in America. I mean, it's truly something that we're just like very fascinated about by and really interested in. And I like, we've bonded over so many similarities in our families and differences. Mm-hmm. Like, you know, I feel like our first, we always say our first conversation, I remember we had like late night at a bar was about copana, you know, and like. Talking about differences in family. And you, and you knew you were destined to be married, like after the conversation actually. Yeah, pretty much. But um, you know, there we have like similar family traditions that we do differently. For example, we do, like, we both do an Easter pie. Um, pizza rustica. Yes, exactly. We, well, very different. Yeah. Tell us how, tell us, tell us your version. Sure. So ours is actually, the recipe is in our cookbook Italian American, and it's based off of my. Grandparents' recipe, it's hilarious because we actually have a card of the original recipe she had in our little, I have a whole, everything is spelled wrong and it doesn't make any sense, so we had to figure it out. But it's just, it's very simple. It's basically, um, uh, sorry. It's uh, sweet Italian sausage, spicy Italian sausage, ham, mozzarella, provolone, hard-boiled eggs, parsley, and then the dough is made and you boil all the meat. First, and then, and you cut everything up and then you save all the fat from when you boil the meat and that's what you make the dough with all the fat and it's, but it's delicious. You're, you. Family recipe is different, right? Yeah. So my family, um, I actually, my, they just closed a bakery that they had for 60 years. Wow. In the family. My grandfather passed away. It was like a, you know, it's kind of bittersweet. Um, but yeah, my grandfather came from Sicily and they would make a version in the bakery and they also had like a deli in there, so they would kind of use, you know, they had like prosciutto and marella and all sorts, like, they used a lot of. Different like variety of meats in theirs. Cured more cured meats fresh. Yeah. And they would like bake it in a pan, I think just because it was like in the bakery and they had like big hotel pans or whatever. Okay. We're telling we don't throw anything away. Yeah, a hundred percent. So you got the every in, so every, yeah. Hundred percent every, I mean, they would save like my family, how we made pizza rustica. It was. Just the crap we've been saving for so long. That's right. It's just Go pie. It's getting better. At least. Garbage pie. Garbage pie. I was gonna make delicious. So Pizza Tica, I don't know if you were, you've seen the movie Big Night, but the Ano we have a, yeah, so basically the Timpano in my family, I'm like. Oh, garbage pie. They're making garbage pie. Why are they making such a big deal about garbage pie? I don't get it. Yeah, they put it in a pastry crust. That's why they put it in a pastry crust and they hard boiled eggs. That was, yeah. That's so funny. Funny. We have a, we have, we have like a bunch of decorations in our kitchen at Don Angie, and one of them is, we have a picture from that movie, big Night. And Stanley Tucci came to do an event like, oh, that's amazing. A couple years ago. And he signed it.'cause it's a, it's a picture of him, like, you know, next to the Pie with, uh, Tony. I, it's Mark and my favorite food movie, all Food movie, period. Time. Really? And since the late nineties, that movie was shot in 96, shot in Jersey, by the way. Keyboard. Yep. Yeah. Um, since the late nineties, we have shown that movie and cooked the dinner from that movie at least once a year for 25. So the hotel across the street has a, has a screening room like a. A, a stadium style screening, which seats like 85 people. We're like, that's perfect. So we show the movie to 85 people, then 85 of us come back to the restaurant family style, and we do everything from the movie. We wheel the whole pig around. We do the entire, that's super fun. It's, it is my, one of my absolute favorite movie Nights of the year. So you should do a big night. You should do a big night. You should come to our, I'm totally, I'm totally okay if you steal that as long as you come to ours first. Yeah. Yeah. Done. Alright, so, so tell, tell me, I, I'm, I really am fascinated by this topic. What's another difference, like, a big difference between Cleveland, Italian, American, Jersey, Italian American? Well, there's no, like, Angie never had baked clams. Really? Oh yeah. So like, so things that are like oreg on the east coast. Uh, so my grandma used to make eggplant oreg. Really, which is like, it's, yeah. Basically the same like breading situation. Yep. But I think it's just, you know, a product of like whatever, they didn't have clams around, they had eggplant, so, right. You know, they'd throw the crust on there. Um, I mean, clams oreg is not really an Italian Italian thing, right? It's Italian American, I think. Yeah, it did. I think it's very Italian American, so, but what my family did, we didn't really love oregano. Oh my God. So our baked clams are, are like oregano lists or clams, oreg. That is, that's wild. It's delicious. I don't, it's delicious. A little bit of lemon on top for the it, by the way, it's, if you wanna try, Mark's family's bakes. They're available at the restaurant grandmother and is an Irishman. It had raw climbs and that was it. So I, I really appreciate them. do you know Anthony Gilio? He's an Italian food writer. Uh, wine writer. He is a great guy. Sounds great. Italian American as well. Yeah. Married a Sicilian woman, first generation. Who's here actually? Who's here? Oh, Tony's here. but they're very active in the food scene. He's great cooks, food writers, and, um. He's Italian American and he writes about immigrant cuisine, and I thought it was one of the most interesting conversations I had with him. And he says, listen, I, I remember I went to Italy for the first time and people are like saute and mushrooms and grill and stuff. And he had grown up with his families and in a north Jersey, Italian American cuisine culture. And he looked at the food that's going on in Italy. He is like, what the hell is all this stuff? Yeah. And one of the things he said was that. When, when, especially in an era before the internet, when immigrant cuisines would come with you and then would change because of the different ingredients or whatever, they would get frozen in time here because, oh, that's grandma's lasagna. Mm-hmm. We can never change that. Right. She changed. That's true. You know, and I, I know, and it gets stuck in time. Whereas in Italy, food continues to evolve. American food continues to evolve, but I think that's a really cool way that it preserves. Kind of esoteric food traditions that really are, I think Italian American cuisine has a value apart from Italian or American cuisine. And I, I think it deserves a matter of respect. It's not like a weak imitation. I, I think it's tremendous. What, to what extent does that inform your cooking, or does that inform your cooking at Don Angie? Yeah, I mean, I think we're unapologetically Italian American. I mean, I. I, I don't want, you know, we, we try to, I think it's important to make that distinction, you know, we're not trying to do, we respect regional Italian cuisine. In fact, like, I mean, it's so impressive. Italy has preserved so many traditions because they have all these, you know, protections in place, like the prosciutto's been made the same way. Mm-hmm. Right? Harmony, honey, all these things. And that's why they're so wonderful and I respect that. But like, what we do is something totally different. It's, it's our, we're trying to do something new and exciting. But we use a lot of like familiar flavors and you know, at the end of the day, we want the meal to be like comforting and, you know, not intimidating for people. Like, we want there to be this like approachability to it, so Love it. Yeah. Listen, I, I like food that makes you feel good, right? Yeah, of course. I like making people feel good. That's what, that's why I'm in this business. Yeah. So it's Italian American food makes people feel good. That's why there's a zillion Italian American restaurants. Well, and you know I'm everywhere. Yeah. But because people love the food so much, but, but some of them suck. Yeah. And that's, and that's just the way it is. Ones that suck. I like, I mean it's like, I mean we, that's like what Angen, before we had our, our sun, we used to, that's all we would do. We seek out red sauce places and just go and kind of like. Rate them and be like, yo, this one's really, this one's really good for, uh, their Caesar salad's really good, but the other stuff's not so great. Or, this one makes a really good shrimp farm. You know, I'll, I'll tell you what I think really changed the game for me. So, first of all, as a kid, you would never go to Italian restaurant. He suggests that we open Italian restaurant, name it after my grandmother and like. Why would anybody ever go to a restaurant like that? They eat that food at home every day. Not if you have my grandmothers, you don't. But so, but in going to Italian restaurants, what happened to so many Italian restaurants? Certainly in Jersey, you know this, so every pizzeria in the world saw Italian, like Italian American restaurants charging more for their food. So they started to emulate them, but. If your tomato sauce comes out of a number 10 can, and your mozzarella cheese is pre grated with cornstarch on it, you're not emulating them at all. Yeah. So you, you, there is a distinction I think between the Italian American restaurants that we're talking about and the Italian American restaurant that is simply open a can pour it onto some pasta and say that's that's Italian. Yeah. Agreed. I like to make it as a non Italian at the table, feeling mightily outnumbered. I, I, there's another thing that's going on here, though. If you take French cuisine, like high ho French cuisine or various forms of French cuisine, and you make it mediocrely, it's terrible. I mean, it's terrible. The onions aren't sweated down. The garlic is too harsh. The, the pastry doesn't rise. It's te, it's disgusting. If you take Italian American cuisine. And you make it kind of half-ass, it's still pretty good. I mean, like in a pinch, you're hungry, you're drunk, you're gonna eat it. You know what I mean? You drink the calamari and some flour, you fry it. Yeah. Throw on a Caesar salad and you're, and you're on your way. But I think that's what, and we strive for this as well, but with you guys and you know, places like carbon, it's, it's hard in a way sometimes for us to make a distinction. Like we have things in our menu that, yes, you have seen those words on the local pizzeria's menu. That has very, very little to do with what we make or what you make. And I think that sometimes people look down on Italian American food. Not anymore really, but in the beginning I think people got, yeah, early on for sure, Italian American, you can't charge for that. I'm like, well, but I'm using the better reveal and I'm u and I'm making things from scratch and I have to charge more for that. But I, I, I think that you guys are, are, are, are leaders in doing that. And your success is amazing. Is it still impossible to get a reservation in here? Uh, hold on. By using better VL Francis means. And there's veal in our veal. Yeah. Right. It's not, I, I remember, well, I remember and we'll answer that question, but I remember being a kid and my dad getting like a veal Parmesan hero from the pizza place. Mm-hmm. And he goes, well, you know, it's not really veal, right? I'm like, what do you mean? He's like, yeah, it's just pounded pork or Oh pork. And I'm like, and bread. And I'm like, oh, I thought it was veal. He's like, no, they just use pork. And they could say it's veal like, I think he's right. Uh, yeah, I think he was right. The restaurant is, you know, listen, it's, we're very lucky for the success. It's been eight years. Um, it's a very small restaurant. It's great though. It's freaking great. Thank you. We went after our wine tasting and we went at like 10 30 and we were so happy to be there. It was amazing. Thank you so much. Yeah, it's really great time. It's, you gotta come back and try our, our new restaurant that we just opened last year, San Sabino. You know, our ed is constantly talking about San Sabino. The shrimp parm is pretty good. So tell, it might be, it might be Ed's favorite restaurant. Our friend Ed TAUs. Tell, tell us about, tell our listeners about Sabino. We have to come. Yeah. So I mean, it's still. So it's our, our second endeavor, Don Angie. We opened eight years ago, as Scott said. Uh, San know we opened like year and a half ago. Um, it's a little bit more focused on seafood and cocktails, but it's our, still our like Italian American style and kind of our perspective on Italian American cuisine. So, you know, we serve like a spicy tuna with crispy arancini. Um, that sounds awesome. We do a version of that. Sounds delicious. We do a version of shrimp parm with like these giant prawns and like this like kind of sweet and sour, like super garlicy. Sauce and like dollops of stino cheese. Um, we do, one of my favorite things on the menu is our clam pasta that we do with Amarillo, which is like a yellow Peruvian chili. Um, yeah, so, sounds great. So, so I want, I wanna ask a question around, I gotta answer that You, out, you outrank me at this table. We'll go right ahead. Alright. So many people in my life, nobody in my family have said, oh, you can't put cheese on fish. Yeah. And I, and I'm like. I've been putting cheese on fish since before I knew it was cheese. Okay. I think a lot about what we do is like, we break a lot of rules, like in general, but that's not a rule. It's rule breaking cuisine that we, and they're crazy. Yeah. If you grade a cheese on, on, on in the broiler on fish, since literally I was fishing as a 3-year-old, Yeah. The people that say that have never really had it. Yeah, they haven't. I mean, they have and they dunno. You know what I, I mean? Yeah. and we just make stuff that tastes good. Yeah. That's it. Hear it in the story. We make stuff that we think tastes good, that we want to eat over and over again. And that's all. And it clearly works because people are coming to Don Angie and keep coming after eight years. So, so let's talk about, uh, your Italian American family. Um, so you guys own the restaurants together. You're both chefs, you haven't killed each other. Well, how does it, how does it work? How do you make the decisions? How do you. how does the, how does the machine and, and the marriage and the relationship all keep you alive? And so, and just to start, yeah. Know that this table between France and me is three feet wide. Would've been better if it had been four. Yeah. I think we have this wonderful, uh, like. We have strengths and weaknesses that just like balance each other really well, honestly, like, and we just kind of, it's weird. We've worked together for so long, we know each other so well. We communicate without communicating. We like read each other's minds and we kind of just like, sort of like stay in our lanes sort of thing, you know, like we just gravitate toward, you heard that right Francis? You know, they stay in their lanes. I'm not married to you, actually. Did you hear me? I know sometimes we're jumping an alley, but like we just Right. Like we just kind of gravitate those. There's certain things that each of us have strengths in that we know of course. And you know, like, and that's just how it is. And I ultimately, like, I always trust Angie's opinion on everything because she and my is the best cook I've ever worked with. And I'm saying that that's awesome. Like, she's amazing. So like, and her grandmother was, I hate to say this, like my grandmother was amazing, but her grandmother on her dad's side, her food was unreal. Like unreal. And, uh, yeah, it's just so, you know, I just, we, I ultimately say, do you think it's good?'cause I'm trying to see if she likes it. Mm-hmm. You know, if we make something and if she likes it, I know it's good, you know, so That's great. It's hard sometimes'cause I can tell that she doesn't wanna tell me if, like, I'll be like, I'll be like, is it good? And she'll be like, you know, uh, and I'm like, alright, so tell me what to change. And she's like, I don't wanna upset you. I'm like, you're not gonna upset me. I just wanna, you know, I wanna make it, I wanna make it good. You know, so, so we have a hard rule in our restaurant and hard, I mean, difficult. Um,'cause it's hard on our chefs. Okay. So Francis and I sit down with our two chefs, okay? We have a chef at Ka Lombardi, chef at stage left. And when a new dish gets created, we all sit down and if somebody doesn't like it, we don't serve it that way, right? Anybody can veto. And what we've realized is. Sometimes there are good dishes we don't serve. Right. And that's the, that like I was a stats major. Like that's the type two error. That's the acceptable error, yeah. Is to not serve a good dish, but the unacceptable error is to serve a dish that's not good. Right. I agree. I mean, and by by hearing somebody descent, you know, that's got too much salt for me. we need a little asset to make that pop. whatever the thing is. Having those voices in the room makes it better. I agree. And at the end of the day, I mean, we, we strive to make things that like appeal to like a wide audience of people. Mm-hmm. Like we want our restaurant to feel like inclusive, like, you know, if someone's like a little picky about food or whatever, like we really strive to have a menu where. Anyone can come in and like find stuff that they like on our menu, you know? Yeah. Because at the end of the day, we're like big on hospitality too. Mm-hmm. We want people to feel comfortable. We don't want it to be like intimidating or, you know, whatever. So it's not about us with like, the food that we wanna make and Yeah. We're, we have very low, we're, we have restaurants and we have 140 employees within those two small restaurants. We wanna make sure that we're able to support everybody and we get customers in and the only way to do that is to make food that people like, you know? So, by the way, there's nothing, like not being able to support everybody for a while. No. That makes you appreciate being able to able to support everybody for a while, right? Yeah. Alright, so we need to, before we conclude, we have to at least, uh, talk, dishes. Can we talk about lasagna? Oh, your role. Lasagna's cool as hell. Just made it on the Yeti stage? Yes. Oh, did you? Oh, nice. Yeah. Oh, I'm so sad I missed it. Famous. Famous. So tell us about your lasagna. Well, we wanted to make lasagna that we started out trying to make lasagna look nice, right? So we were like, how do you make arm lasagna? Looks like a big pile of crap. Everybody kind of does, and it's, but they all, but here's the thing, it always tastes good. No, it's spectacular. But like, it's not like it's really hard to make serve in the restaurant. So we. Angie came up with this idea for the lasagna. We made it and then once we made it and ate it, we were like, wow. It actually, in our opinion, eats better than our regular lasagna.'cause it's not stacked on top of each other. I guess you should say. It's a, it's, it's a pinwheel style lasagna. So basically, so describe that. Yeah. You gotta tell people who have never been to Donna. Yeah, for sure. So it's. Homemade pasta that we sheet like paper thin. Uh, but we make, like our pasta recipe is very specific. We've spent forever like dialing in the ratio of egg yolks and whole eggs and three different flour to make it this kind of like sturdy dough that will yield, like we can sheet it like paper thin. Mm-hmm. But it still has a bite to it. Um, and then it's layered with bechamel mozzarella. Parmesan. We only use 24 month par. And then, uh, a bologne sauce that we make. Uh, it's, it's kinda like a classic bologne, but then we also add some like Italian American inflection. So we add some crushed tomatoes, which like in bologna, they don't do that. Um, we actually add a little cola tora, a little Italian fish sauce for like. Some umami. Oh, it's very tasty. And a little bit of, uh, you probably weren't supposed to let that one out, but that's all right. Oh, I mean, whatever. And, uh, yeah. And we add some sweet Italian sausage in there for that fennel, like little Italian American flavor. Yeah. Ours is layered with Italian sausage and meatballs. It's gotta be in there. Yeah. Um, but we roll those pinwheels up and then we bake them in, um, like a, just very classic, uh, tomato sauce made with, um, San Rosano DOP tomatoes. And then dollops of whipped robio cheese, which is like a soft cow's milk cheese, great cheese, kinda like a cream cheese situation. Um, so that's another difference too. It's like tgy and light. It's not heavy like or hot. It's definitely has more tang than Yeah, than a your average lasagna. Yeah. And then it's sort of sliced and serve in the side. So you see the side of the. And kind of seared, right? You guys are? Yeah. So you b we basically serve it, uh, there's six little rolls to a portion, which we say on our menu it's for two. It's really for like a family of four. It's massive. Yeah. Uh oh. Um, and, uh, two will saying it and uh, yeah, we bake it in the oven and kind of like Scott was saying, you get the gold, the golden crispy top and like sort of the soft bottom. It's really light. We serve it with a little garlic focaccia that we make in house. It's got like a garlic sofrito folded into the dough. So, well, if you have to have a signature, that's a great one. Uh, it was, uh, it's a shame that we had to come thousands of miles from home to meet each other, to meet each other, but I hope that we will see each other again in each other's restaurants sometime soon. Yeah. Let's reconvene north. You take the timeout. Talk to us here. Yeah. Thank you so much. Yeah, nice time to meet you guys. Thanks for coming. Thank you. Thanks guys. That was great. You guys the best. Painless. I hope I'm salivating

the-restaurant-guys_4_10-04-2025_164000: 21:45

Next up at the Southern Smoke Festival down here in Houston. We are having a fantastic time talking to some really interesting people. Next up we have Lucas McKinney. He's the executive chef at Josephine's. Yes, sir. Your tagline is Gulf Coast tradition. You're located in Midtown Houston and we wanna know all about the Gulf Coast. Yeah, I mean, where do we start? You know, um, so we, we, we've been open about two years. Uh, we source all Gulf Seafood. Today we're shucking, uh, mobile raw bar out here. I guess that's why you brought the oyster shank. Yeah, I've been, yeah. By the way, I gotta be honest. I was a little nervous when you showed up around. Yeah. Hey, you came. No, you gotta keep'em on you, you know, you came armed. Yeah. Alright, so, but I let, let's start back a little further.'cause your history goes way back from before the beginning of this restaurant. Yeah. You've been eating gulf, you've been eating gulf food, Gulf seafood, eating, preparing, getting, I assume whole life fishing. Yeah. So I grew up in, uh, I grew up in Ocean Springs, Mississippi, a little small town like right outside of Biloxi. so yeah, I grew up fishing, eating all the seafood, hanging out, you know, Shing oysters when I was little. and then I went to Ole Miss for college and cooked, uh, yeah, cooked through college. Uh, and I moved out here in 2018 to work with Chris. So, well, hold on. Were your parents really mad at you? Like mine were, when I said. Yeah, I got my degree. I'm, you know, I'm an economic psychology, statistics triple major. I'm gonna make the restaurant business my career. No. You know, so, uh, I was kind of hopping majors, right? Mm-hmm. And my mom, uh, I'll never forget, my mom was like, son, like, just pick something and go with it. Like, just pick something, dude. Um, and at the time I was cooking, um, and so I actually dropped out and, and became a professional line cook. Wow. And then just kind of chased that dream. My, my mom was less understanding than yours? Well, I think she was just kind of tired of me going back and forth, you know, so I, I don't, I'm gonna say still is 33 years later. Yeah. My mom's still like. Restaurant business really well, I wanna talk about the, first of all, there's a whole culture around Gulf Seafood and what's interesting is people don't realize, like we we're in New Jersey, we're a coastal. Yeah. So we have New England seafood above us. We have, uh, we have two different fisheries on our way down here off the Atlantic. Yeah. but there's a real culture around Gulf seafood that you've been involved in since you were a kid. Tell us about that culture. And I also wanna know. About the culture and the seafood? Has it changed over the years? Yeah. What's, I wanna know what's happening. Yeah. What's hap what's going on? What's the seafood? Yeah. You know, I think it's, so like growing up, I think it was one of the, and, and we try to encapsulate this at the restaurant, right? Where like my whole life growing up, it was like, you know, anything, you go catch, you catch a lot, everyone comes over, it brings the community together, right? The neighbors come over or um, you know, you have a fish fry and all the family comes. Um, and so. You know, I think that that's still a big part of the heart of the Gulf, and I think it's, that's a seafood thing in general, right?'cause it's such a raw product that you kind of have to do something with right away. You know, you go catch a bunch of crabs, you gotta have a crab oil, right? Yeah. Yeah. You can't just, you know, you can't just put'em in the, in the fridge and wait on'em. Right, right, right. So now or never. Yeah. You know, and I can't eat'em all. Right. Oh yeah. And so it brings people together and I think that that's still one of the great things about Gulf seafood and, and the way I grew up. a lot of the work that needs to go into it now is, is making sure that the economy is taken care of the Gulf. So, like, you know, it's really hard for shrimpers out there now. Um, you know, a lot of the oysters we're shucking today are farm raised Gulf oysters, which is a newer, industry in the Gulf. And so through the restaurant we're doing everything we can to put those industries on, on, you know, display and make sure that we're spending our money with them and. And bringing in those products that support their families and their communities. Right. So, you know, you talk about farm raised oysters and farm raised oysters are different than a lot of other farm raised Yeah. Seafood products. Farm raised oysters make the aquaculture better. Yeah. Okay. Oysters are filters. They're gonna make the water better if you, if you put a whole bunch of oysters into, into bad water. The water's gonna get better. Yeah, it absolutely, and it gets better fast. Yeah. Yeah. And, and you know, it brings a fishery, it helps the commercial fishermen, they get to bring charters out there. You know, you'll see. It's, it's just, it's so much, it's so good for the ecosystem it's different than say, I mean, and, and I just want,'cause people may not realize A salmon farm done responsibly can provide, put as much pollution into the water as a city of 10 pounds. Right. It can nuke the water. Exactly. It can nuke the ocean. Yeah. But, but oysters nothing but good news. Right? Yeah. Right. Well, and then, you know, in Texas we have a lot of, you know, beautiful red fish farms. Yeah. and they're right off the coast filtering the water into the, into the farm. The, the, the fish are eating shrimp that they're putting in there, you know, it's. It's a super clean product and a lot of like, really awesome jobs down there. So thanks Julie. Um, you know, h beverages up right? Know, farm Seafood's a whole nother conversation, but the Gulf does it really well and especially Texas down in p like Pius and everywhere. So. Well, so I wanna talk, are, are there different fish coming off the Gulf now than when you were a kid? I mean, ha has that changed at all or is it all the same? Um. Well, you know, I think that it's weird'cause you know, when you're a kid and you're fishing, uh, and then you get to see this side of it where you're purchasing and like seeing what's available. It's, it's always an ever evolving thing. Right. And like, it's fun to see like, when the migratory species like Kobe and when triple tail come around and, um, but yeah, I think that, you know, especially with like snapper restrictions and, and the, the regulations in the Gulf, you do see a lot of different. Fish coming about and a lot more of it is, uh, fish that aren't, you know, on the posters or fish that aren't well known. And so we like to get that in the restaurant, right? Like that's, you know, I think, I think that's the job of a chef we talk to. We talk to people in, uh, Charleston about that. And I think great chefs and great cooks and great fishermen bring fish that. Other people may not immediately know about it and say, here, try this great fish. And if we eat a broader diversity of fish responsibly, that's better for the ocean. It's better for our diet. And you get to try new stuff. Yeah. And you know, if they catch it, they gotta sell it, right? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I remember going to Fulton Street, right? And that was the fish market in New York, it's market in New York. And you know, you go to your local fish guy, he's like, I got two red drum. I'm like, great. Let's see what we can do with Red drum. Right? I'll buy two red drum. We'll have. 14 portions of Red Drum in the restaurant. Yeah. And we do something cool with it. My favorite, my favorite is, you know, we use a lot of local guys here and, uh, they'll text me, you know, like, they'll be like, Hey, we, I, I bought a shark from this guy, like. Is there anything you wanna sell Shark? I'm like, yeah. Yeah. And then for our guests, it, it creates an experience of like, well, I've never had Shark. And it's like, mm-hmm. Well, yep. We're serving it right now. You, you might as well try it. Right. And so you have regular guys that are your merchants, or do you buy directly from boats or do you go to markets? So where does it generally come from? Um, so, you know, sometimes, so I like to, I don't like to cut the middleman out, like, you know, we have some really great local markets here. Mm-hmm. Um, blue Horizon Airline, seafood, uh, you know, and then I, there's guys in Louisiana and then. There's a really awesome, uh, I jime like boat that's getting started here, um, that I really want to start working with. I've been talking to them, but, um, what's an i jime boat? Uh, so they're, they're practicing, uh, like ethical, like killing it Right on. Oh, right on the boat. Japanese bleeding at the Japanese way. Okay. Sticking the wire down the spot and everything. Yep. Um, and it's a super great product. I'm sorry. Just, just for our listeners, so what that's creating is there is, uh, a lot more sushi quality fish coming. Off of boats then we, than we were getting for a while. Right. Because of the way they're butchering. Very expensive way of the butchering thing. It's not typically something that like you would see people in the gulf do. Mm-hmm. Um,'cause it takes a little bit more work. It's a little bit more technique. It's just not just getting thrown in a bucket of ice. Right. So, um, it, it's, there's a lot of people out there doing the good work like that. So, um, but they'll text me and be like, Hey, you know, I have two wahoo on a boat coming in. Would you like one, you know, and, and be, we love that. Itll, yes, I would. It'll be here in the morning. They're driving in right now from an overnight trip. You, there's nothing like the, the fishermen calls you from the boat Yeah. And says, this is what's coming in. Well, they'll text our, they'll text our purveyors and then they'll call me. And That's awesome. So, yeah, it's great. That's awesome. It's really great. So you gotta tell us about Josephine's and, you know, your tagline is Gulf Coast tradition. What makes a seafood restaurant great? What makes your seafood restaurant great? What's Josephine's? Um, I think it's like, you know, kind of like what we're talking about, right? The adventure. Um, every day it's, it's, we're just getting what's available, you know? Uh, we run a lot of specials. A lot of whole fish. but I think, I think sourcing and everything that we try to do in the restaurant, like push the boundaries on, we'll run like, you know, some classic stuff that I, I grew up on. Right. But then we'll try to push it. Classic stuff like what? That you grew up on? Uh, well this isn't a seafood dish, but like pea salad is like an old school selling thing that I grew up on. we got redfish dip and things like that, but we'll, we'll run like, you know, nook mom, crab fingers, or. Try to try to put on for the, you know, the people that are actually in the fisheries now. It's, and like, kind of, uh, you know, honor their cultures as well. Tell us what that is. The crab fingers. I don't know. Crab fingers. You know, it is like a Nook ma salad with like shaved, uh, what was that first word? What was that first word? Nook Mam. It's a, uh, it's a Vietnamese, like dipping sauce that's not a New Jersey Roy for, so, you know, uh, garlic chilies. but yeah, you know, a lot of stuff that like, you know, I learned working with Chris and. Putting on for the, you know, the cultures that are in the Gulf right now, when you prepare fish, what do you do that's kind of a signature besides what's traditional? Are you, you, you try to push the boundaries, you said? Yeah, I mean it's, it kind of like, you know, even just the balance between the farmers that we use that are texting us like, Hey, these are the vegetables we have. Um, I have a lot of this herb, or, you know, and we'll figure it out. We'll just kind of put it together. And be like, alright, how do we take what we have? Honestly, we just buy stuff and then we have to figure out how to sell it, right? Mm-hmm. Love it. And so that's kind of the philosophy. That's a great fish, by the way. That's the definition of a great fish restaurant. Yeah. You know, like, I'm good enough. I don't think that there's, I'm gonna take, I, I need to, I'm gonna select between the best quality and not the best quality. Whatever species I can get right now. Right. I will go with that and be able to make great stuff. Yeah. Your restaurant's named after your grandmother? My great grandmother. Great grandmother. Yeah. So I want you as a guy who's named a restaurant after his grandmother. Yeah. I want, want you to talk about the responsibility that comes with naming a restaurant after a family member. Um, yeah. And you know, like when we were designing the restaurant, it wasn't, it was kind of what I just threw out and then when my mom, and my grandfather came, so it was his mother. Um, they came and ate at the restaurant and when we had like friends and family and in the back we have, uh, pictures, our interior designers like pulled out these pictures that my mom emailed them and they blew'em up and put'em in frames and. It really just kind of like grounds you a little bit. Right. You know, uh, my family was, immigrants in, in Mississippi that moved over, um, and started working in the seafood factories and things like that. And so came from where, so all over the place really like, uh, my grandfather's side, our, coming from like the Dalian coast area, um, a lot of those like Croatian immigrants that settled in the, in the Gulf and started the shrimping industries. Um, his grandfather was a captain on a shrimping boat. so it's just one of those things that when it, it means a lot as a chef, I feel like you, you travel around and you want to cook all these things throughout your career and then to kind of settle down and open a spot that like, okay, like this is my, this is my thing. This is what I grew up on. This is how, how am I gonna represent that and how am I gonna represent my family tradition? Right. And that's kinda why we put the tradition in there, because it's. it might have been a tradition of mine to have a giant seafood cook, you know, boil at the house. But now we get to share that with people who have never had that before. that's the biggest thing. You serve your family's food. It feels good every day. Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Feels good every day, you know? And then, you know, um, I, there's a big Italian influence on our family, so mm-hmm. I always catch myself cooking a big, like, you know, a lot of Italian specials, influence and stuff like that. So it, it always, it's, it's fun and it's easy, dude. It's easy to. It's easy for it to just come out from the heart and you don't have to think about it. You know it's gonna be good. You know, that you put what you grew up on in it. Right. You know? And so I think that that's been our, that's helped me get through the day every day. I have to sitting here with you two big guys. You two big lugs name restaurants have to your grandmother, one of'em I half own. Um, you know why Big people, big heart. Yeah. You know why still gotta come from here. You know why we didn't name a, a restaurant after my grandmother? She's a terrible cook. That's why was terrible. She was good. There's no bad cooks in my family. Oh yeah. Well, Ireland not the same. I just wanna finish with one last thing. So you're here with Southern Smoke doing this thing. I know you worked for Chris. why is Southern Smoke important to you? Yeah. You know, so we talk, I talk to the staff about it all week. Like it's, it's our Super Bowl. especially being here in Houston. When I moved here, in 2018, I, I've done every one of'em since. you know, I was, I was a cook. I was helping other chefs. Last year I got to represent Josephine's for the first time. That's great. And be a chef at Southern Smoke. Um, so I like to think that, like, you know, I worked my way up through the ranks of Southern Smoke and, uh, it's really an honor. But like, you know, the biggest thing is. Everything that we do every day and all the work that we put in for our, you know, to serve guests. But it's, it's really all about our team. And I told our team this yesterday, I was like, you know, I show up for you guys. I don't show up to serve guests. I don't show up to cook the food up. Like what drives us is the team and, and the people in this industry. And we're super lucky that all these people want to come to Houston and they're all here, you know, giving their time and volunteering their time. For what we do and to support our industry. And I told the staff like, it's, it's always something that's gonna be here for you. And we had awesome chefs come to the restaurant this week and it's just been an awesome experience and, and we get to do stuff to give back to our own people, right? So. I'll never, I'll always be here. That's as long as Chris will have me. Right. Dude, I, I have say it is been lovely to talk to you. I can't wait to try your food and, I'm sure you do. Your great grandmother proud. Thank you. You guys too, man. Thanks for having me on the pod. Thanks. Alright brother. Thank you. Yeah, thank you guys. Take care. Hey, thanks. I'll bring some moisture here in a minute. Nice. Love that. Luke and Bikini, when he sends us the oysters, he'll be our new favorite chef for a few minutes. Josephine's, in Midtown Houston. You gotta try it out. Go back in just a minute guys. Y'all be good. Thank you. Thanks

the-restaurant-guys_3_10-04-2025_160912: 37:35

So many great chefs here deep in the heart of Texas. We have with us Felipe Riccio and Austin Waiter. They are with Goodnight Hospitality. It's a local group of restaurants. We were at March last night. Had a lovely time, had some great cocktails. The Marigold Club and Rosie Cannonball. The restaurant scene down here, guys, is amazing. We're really happy to have you guys here. Thanks for having us. Yeah, we were thrilled to come for all the chefs that come from all over, but you guys are, I we also wanted to check out Houston. Yeah. It's a pretty cool scene you guys got going on here? Yeah, it really is. And it's, it's awesome that there's a good mix of, you know, local chefs and, and people from out of, the market. You know, uh, it's great to, to welcome all of them to Houston. we have two restaurants. Yeah. One is on the first floor, one is on the second floor. One's a contemporary state house. One's a, uh, Italian American. Italian American, named after my grandmother. You guys have kind of fed off of our little concept there. You got a restaurant on the first floor. You got a restaurant on the second floor, you got a restaurant next door. What's great about that is you can go to where you're needed. But at the same time, not be missed in the place next door. You know your mom's coming in, your brother's coming in. Yeah. Your friends are coming in. You can make sure you see everybody you need to see too. That's such, yeah. Yeah. And, and be. Be there for the different staffs too. Mm-hmm. Yeah. But yeah, it is, and I think it's a testament to how great the dining culture and the scene is in Houston to be able to have that many concepts. You know, right there, it's, it's very concentrated. Is it, but it really helps for operations. Is it that the dining scene is so much more diverse and there's a growing dining scene here? I mean Oh yeah. Houston's just so large in general, and I think that diversity and just, it continues to grow and I think it's awesome. some people can have two restaurants in Houston. Yeah. And be. An hour and a half away from each other. A hundred percent. You guys are, we are. We're a stair flight away. Yeah. Dude, Houston's crazy. Like, you, you can drive. Well, how long will it take to drive across Houston? 45 minutes. I'm like, yeah, yeah. At least. At least. That's crazy. Alright, so, but you guys, I want to tell everybody about your restaurants. It's, it's, it's super high-end, but it's not, I don't know. It's, it's not precious. Yeah. Yeah. So, so talk to us about that. How does that. Come out in your restaurants, what do they have in common? What do, what do Houston restaurants or Texas restaurants have that is different from New York or Paris or, I mean, I think Houston, like, you know, being in the south and our ability to just treat people right. And I think that, you know, I grew up in the Northeast and moving down to Houston was such a change, but. The people here are just so nice. And it's called Southern Hospitality. Yeah. Yeah. That's a big one. That's a big, yeah. Yeah. And, and it's part of, it's part of the concept in the ethos at a place. Like it's really a, for all of'em. But at Marigo Club, you know, it's sort of like that Mayfair, London, you know, French food, but with that southern hospitality. You know what's funny? I just wanna say it a step further'cause I just realized what it is. So we, we were, uh, last night at March. Yeah. And we had cocktails at March late and Yeah. You guys guys have a crazy million multimillion dollar wine cellar. Yeah. What a wine cellar. Oh my God. We're gonna talk about that. Yes. Oh my god. It's spectacular. But we were there and it, it, there's just a confidence and there's no self-consciousness at all. No one's trying to flash. Yeah. Yeah, what they have, it's all understated. Yes. Uh, a hundred percent. It's very much so a, a huge part of, of Houston. You know, we don't have a dress code. We don't, you know, we don't have these rules because you'll. You know, you'll walk in in shorts and a t-shirt and you might be a, you know, a CEO for a Fortune 500 company. Right, right, right. You will. You see that all the time. But you mentioned southern hospitality, right? What's one of the, the hardest things we have to do, right? I gotta weed two out of three possible employees out just by, Hey, you're not nice enough to work in our restaurant. Yeah, a hundred percent. If you don't wanna be with them and hang and you know. But every converse with them, you don't want to, but is every everybody down here nice? Is that what's going on? No, not everybody. I'm sorry. Is it easier to find nice people down here than in maybe New York City to come who are applying for waiter jobs? Oh, for sure. Yeah, I think so. And I think like, you know, people grew up here and they stay here and I think that really changes them and, and their ability to like, take care of our guests. We are impressed with, and one of the things from all the research we've done and the restaurants we've been to down here and the people we've talked to down here. How many people started here left and then say, you know what? I wanna go back to Houston. Yeah. And I, we noticed some of the same stuff in Charleston when we went to Charleston. Uh, just, that's a really cool thing, I think to, to go back to where you came from and say, you know what? I learned some cool stuff. I'm gonna bring it back to my hometown a hundred percent. And you know, it's interesting because we have very different stories, like from, from that perspective. I was born in Veracruz in Mexico, but I moved here as a young teen and. My whole career was here except two years in, in Europe, mostly. Mm-hmm. Uh, mostly Italy and Spain. And then, but I had the opportunity to come back specifically for these projects. You know, and be a partner for these projects. And that's what brought me back, you know, the fact that my career was here, and the, the industry is so strong. And then you have Austin, who, you know, came from, from B York, Connecticut. Yeah. And CIA. Yeah. Mm-hmm. you know, I feel like I always tell this story, but like I was in a target, uh, and someone came up to me and said, Hey, how are you doing? And coming down from New York, it's like. I was like, what does this person want? You grabbed my wallet, what's going on? They're like, what time is it? You grab your wallet. Yeah. You look at your watch, but you don't take your eye off them, you know? Yeah. And he could have gone anywhere. I mean, you know, CIA grad, like he could have gone anywhere in the world. Yeah. And stayed here and for a long time At, at, at, at Tony's. You were at Tony's for so long, I, that is so rare. So he left us to start us to sue as a, uh, intern. CI intern Right and left as the CDC of the restaurant. I mean, that, that, that doesn't happen that often. No, I hear you. It doesn't. So let, let's, well, let's talk about the Marigold Club and, the difference between the two, concepts, the March and the Marigold Club, hard by each other. You are the executive chef at the Marigold Club. Yeah. Chef, partner. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Chef, partner. So, so tell us about the Marigold Club. Yeah. What's its purpose? What's it do differently than anything else? Well, you know, I think like. Just for when you first walk in, like the design aspects, there's nothing really like it. And I think we wanted to create a place where it really transports you to London and like specifically Mayfair. but like pulling in from all that European influence of French cuisine and, and really like, you know, for us as restaurants, like we love Europe, we love design and I think it shines through in every single concept, but, um, I think there's a through line. In the food and, and everything. So, yeah. So I will tell you, I went to London last January. Yeah. Chilton Firehouse in Mayfair was my favorite place to, okay, awesome. And London is so special because in pretty much all the other major markets in Europe, Italy, Spain, France, they have a very strong, national or regional food culture, right? And so you don't really have a lot of restaurants from other places. And then you go to London and you have everything. You have everything. And then it's such a high quality, and that's really what inspired part of it. What I, what I liked about London was. The best restaurants were the restaurants that were doing non-traditional London food. Right? Yeah. Oh yeah. That's, that's where the best food was. Yeah. Well, like really great French restaurants now. Mm-hmm. I mean, there's a bunch of new sushi places there and it's awesome to see it grow too. in Ireland, it's, it's very similar, right? Mm-hmm. So, and a lot of my relatives will say, yeah, we're gonna stop and pick up some traditional British food, you know, with Curry, you know? Yeah, yeah. A hundred percent. Well, they, you know, honestly, they say that chip shops, fish and chip shops in London are declining and more people go for curry late night. Yeah. To a curry shop than they do for fish chip shop. Oh, I believe it. I believe it. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's part of the culture now, right? A hundred percent. So, Felipe, you're born in Mexico. Yeah. You got a huge Mexican population here in Houston. we went yesterday to the, to the Houston farmer's market. What a, what a cool. Yeah. Yeah. It's a cool place. and the Mexican produce and foods that were available there. well, I mean, we have a big Mexican population in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Yeah. There are a whole bunch of foods there that we just don't sain, you know, just like bunches of sain. Oh my god. You know, all the s papa. have you drawn on that culture living here and is that culture inform your cooking at all? Yeah, um, it does. Yeah. I mean, I grew up. In Mexico. Mm-hmm. My, my, my family's from Naples and South, Southern Italy and Seia and Southern Spain. Explaining the last name. Uh, exactly. Explain the last name. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, well, my last name, my full last name is Richo Ferre. You know the two last names? One very Spanish, one Very Italian. Uh, but. I grew up eating Mexican food, right. You know, uh, out and incredible flavors and all that, but I never really cooked it professionally, but I 100% growing up there, the seafood, all these amazing ingredients and flavors that are part of every cuisine. Uh, it is a big determinant factor. My love for acidity too comes from, from Mexican food. So let me ask you guys, what's the future for Houston Texas Dining, and what's the future for your restaurants? That's, that's, that's a really hard one. Yeah, it was supposed to be hard. I think like, you know, I think we're, we're, we threw a whole bunch of softballs. All right. So now you're, no, that's good. I mean, I think we're seeing a lot more people from, from out of town coming in opening, you know, bigger name restaurants, bigger name, rerate Tours, and I think there's gonna be a lot more of that because everyone's finally seeing what Houston is and how great it is. And I think, um. You know, we'll see how that growth, you know, does. Yeah. And, and you gotta be a good operator. You have to be unique, you know, houstonians know restaurants, you know what I'm saying? You come and you just try to take advantage of, of a growing market. It won't, it won't fly like they know, you know? So they're very clever diners and we're very lucky for that. So I just wanna talk about March for one second.'cause we, we spent some time there last night. So now the restaurant's been there for five years. And basically you've created its 10th iteration of menu. Yeah, yeah. 10th menu as well. So just talk quickly about that whole process of every six months, kind of transforming what's going on. So that was always part of the intent of the way we built the restaurant, right? The idea is we explore the Mediterranean right through the different menus and just kind of made sense, you know, twice a year. And that's where, where it truly all started. you know, it's an expensive, lengthy meal, all this. Mm-hmm. I never wanted to hear someone say, oh, I've been to March. I've, I've done it already. Right. Nice. And so the idea is like, you have this focused, menu and, you know, where you draw an inspiration from, but you give people different things, you know, different flavors, different ideas, and exploring a larger topic. And then people love it. People are like, they want to come to the new season and collect it, you know? Yeah. And that's an important thing as a, as a business too. Yeah. That's great. So here we are, we're at the Southern Smoke Festival. What drew you here? what's your connection here? Why, why did you feel you needed to be at this event, besides the fact that your restaurants are in Houston? Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, when you distill it all the way down is, is Chris and who Chris Shepherd is. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, he's a friend, you know, he's a mentor to the both of us. he's everything, you know, and he has done so much for the city, and it was a cause that he believed in and it was a cause that he believed in, because he believed in everyone else in the industry, and they believed of how great. people are the work in this industry, uh, and wanted to make sure that they were taken care of, rescuing people in this literally. Yeah. Literally, literally rescuing people in this industry, our staff at our restaurant, being able to give them, uh, an out where maybe we couldn't do something for them. And having that support is just, you know, now that we have it, we're so lucky and, and we just need, yeah. Do you guys have staff that's had to utilize Southern Smoke? Yep. Yep. Many, many, you know, because, and that's why we now. 80% probably of our efforts of, you know, donated time, donated product, whatever it may be. You know, doing these festivals is for them, uh, it's for seven to smoke because then they turn around and take care of us. Yeah. That's amazing. Well, listen you guys, thanks for taking the time out of your really busy. Yeah. We appreciate all you guys leaving your grill to Thank you guys. Come sit and talk with us, Felipe Riccio. Austin Waiter. Uh, thanks a lot. You guys are great. Thank you again. Thanks for coming. Hey, thanks, fell. Thanks. Thank you. Oh, absolutely. Hope you guys enjoy next time. Next time, uh,

the-restaurant-guys_1_10-04-2025_180622: 49:18

okay, so for podcasters, uh, Southern Smoke is the Turkey chute of going to find great chefs and, and culinary to talk to. But he, we here with the, the head honcho of it all. Chris Shepherd, you run this thing, and in fact it was our podcast with you that got us interested in Southern Smoke and convinced us to come down here. Uh, and we got 10 minutes of your time while you run this mammoth event here, Chris. Yeah, thanks for inviting us. We're so happy to be here. No, thank you. I gotta tell you. Yeah, I have never heard so many people say the same guy's name. Yeah. Everybody loves you in one day. I'm like, who's in my, that's really funny. Uh, I think it's a testament to who you are though, that you would say who's, thank you. You are honestly. After this couple of couple of hours here, the five hours that we spent podcasting here. Yeah. these people view you as a superhero. Yeah, that's that's very kind. Us too. Us too. But I'll tell you what, we've done a whole show talking about Southern Smoke Foundation and all the important work you do. Yep. Everybody else is talking about all the important work you do. I would like to talk with you about the great fucking party that you're throwing right here, and let's talk about the fun things. Oh man, you are throwing one hell of a party. It's a good banger right now, for sure. Yeah, man, it's great. And, and this year it has been very beautiful. The team has done such an outstanding job. Um, the production team, FTR, like they really. Nailed this. And this is the biggest amount of chefs that we've had, uh, ever. adding that much amount of stress to it, and our footprint kind of got shrunk a little bit this year. Mm-hmm. Which is great, uh, because it kind of brought it more to in together, but Yep. Um, it's, it's a good one. Guess how many, I'll tell you what, here's what, here's what I'm seeing out there. Yeah. Okay. You have. So many great chefs here, so much great food here that even though the place is full, there's almost no lines anywhere. Yeah, I know. Yeah. It's intentional. So it's, it's amazing. you know, I want to try, you know, March's food. So I walked up, grabbed it, had some, they put a little caviar in front for me off I went. Well, and that's the beauty of it, is like we have this year, um, where there's eight chefs in VIP eight chefs doing the Lexus, uh, what Lexus VIP eight chefs doing the Yeti culinary stage, and then everybody else is cooking. Mm-hmm. And so when you start to think about it. And we don't, you know, it's, it's, it is 3000 people roughly, but we ask them to do, you know, if you can do a thousand portions, that's great because there's not a lot of, there's so many people here that no one trying to out. It's, there's no chance. No one's trying to out and, but they're all just getting real close to it. Yeah. You know, and that's the goal is not to have a lot of waste and not a lot of leftovers and not have anybody feel like they prep too much or anything. Just do enough to run out at like, this thing's supposed to go till eight, run out at seven. Well, you know, but the thing that Mark talked about with no lines and stuff, there's no stress here. No. And there's nobody you know, and I think this may be a function. We were talking about this. You don't, you don't have enough people from New York here. No one's stressed. No one's stressed. Mark and I were talking about this as a function of being of Houston. Restaurants overall. No one's here to see and be seen. No one's here to show anything off. No one's here to cut in line. No, it's a really chill vibe and it's everyone's having a blast. Lots of smiles. It, you throw a good party. Yeah, I mean it's, uh, that's why, you know, we spend three days together as, as a unit, um, with the chefs and, and the teams and to get them kind of like, just to get them to know each other and to, if they haven't met, to meet. then to, to be able to come out here and like when we do pre-shift, you know, it's, I have a very clear conversation with them. Like, Hey man, you want water? You want some ac, you wanna walk away and just stop cooking for a little bit? Mm-hmm. Do it. They'll be here until eight or nine. So like. So who, you'll come back. Yep. Just take your own time. Who is all your staff here? Are these mostly volunteers? Are these paid interns? What, who, who, because your staff has been amazing to us. Yeah. And we're not even chefs. We're just, you know, I'm talking for, uh, no, everybody, it's all our staff. We have, um, 10 people on staff in Southern Smoke that we have, uh, Fox Club Media. They brought their whole team. They do, or they do our, our, um, Fox Club does all our PR for us, and they're such a fantastic company. And then, uh, we work with some really good companies here that do, uh, like catering events. And so we bring them on. And then, uh, ft r is doing our, uh, really doing the backbone of it and getting everything organized. And, you know, the, this year it's been one of those things where all the chefs will tell you, you know, man from picking us up at the airport in Alexis to taking our coolers wherever we need to go. And then, you know, right when they get there. They're out, they get outta the car, they pick their coolers up, and the team at FTR is like, no, no, no. We got this. Have a water. Relax. Literally, we walked in the door here. Somebody's like, what can we get you? Yeah, you need some drinks, you need some water. You need, what do you need? Hospitality starts with our own need. Your table moved around. How, how, how do you wanna set up? Yeah. And by the way, setting us up into shade in Texas. Yeah, that's good. Right? In October. Feeling pretty good about you right now. That breeze is kind of nice right now. Sitting on my butt for a minute. It's man pleasant. I'm all right. Wow. How many years has, is Southern snow? What number of festival is this? Uh, this is number eight. Uh, we've been, we started in 2015, so 10 years in, uh, the first two years, like we talked about a while back was for the MS. Foundation, Ms. Society. And then, uh, hurricane Harvey changed the focus of us to hospitality and food and beverage relief. Dude. Well, this is, uh, an unbelievable part of your throne here. Uh, I, I don't know you that well, but I am so fucking proud of you. Yeah. Amazing, amazing thing you doing. Thank you. Thank you. It's, it's pretty special. Well, we wanna say to all our listeners, listen, next year Southern, we'll meet you here, foundation. If we're invited again, we'll meet you here. I mean, its a, it's a different type of festival and, um, and not that all, not festivals are bad, right. You can get really tied into it, but this is one that like, it's a feel good. Yeah. Yep. It's, it's hospitality from the moment of go it is thought through for, uh, today is what? October 4th? Yeah. First week of October. We'll start planning this for 2026, starting November. Um, where we start working the chefs down from a list and, and, um, slouch taking three weeks off. Yeah. I feel now we gotta get the canon going. So that's in the, in the spring. Um, which is our wine auction. But this will, we, we spend a lot of time with, uh, we call it the Tetris and, and it's literally cue cards on a giant wall where we just have names and we start trying to figure out the mix of chefs and the good people that we want to have. And, Hey, we haven't met this person yet, or. You know, we've met almost all of'em. I should say that. Um, I think with the Food and Wine Best two chefs, those are our first time meeting them in September. Um, but it's, it's, uh, you know, who supports the foundation? Who do we need to learn more about this? And so it's, it's just as much thanking them for doing what they're doing, but also inviting them to learn more about what we do. That's amazing. And it's all about making the commitment to our industry. Well, while you guys need to be here next year. Because this was an extraordinary event like none other I've ever been to. I mean, there's people making s'mores all around me right now. I know. By the way, I have had a couple of s'mores already. Have you? I'm not gonna lie, it's the first time I've been able, I walked past it. It's like this just giant bowl of smoked sauce just laying there. I was like. Hold up. I know I gotta be at this podcast real quick, but I I might need a little, little B down brought horse over here. I gotta be honest with you, when either one of you guys goes for the sausage, I, I think it's okay. But when Mark channels his inner girl scout, I get a little bit freaked out. It's a little weird little, I mean, smores are good. I'm not gonna lie. Come on, it's, it's really beautiful to see Chris around here. Chris, congratulations. No, my pleasure. We're happy to be here. I'm glad you're here, brother. Thank you. Thanks for having us. Thank you. Literally, take care. Thanks for being here. I, I know that, um, you may or may not have.