Speaker 17 0:20

Thank you for listening to The Restaurant Guys. But you are listening on the regular feed, not the paid feed, so you're gonna miss a little bit of the show. We have a great story at the end having to do with Bailin' Out Loud, a television appearance, Till Death Do Us Part. It will be great, and if you wanna hear about that, you can become a paid subscriber at restaurantguyspodcast.com.

Speaker 6 0:50

Hello everybody and welcome. You are listening to The Restaurant Guys. I'm Mark Pascal and I'm here with Francis Schott. Together we own Stage Left and Cathal Lombardi restaurants in New Brunswick, New Jersey. We're here to bring you the inside track on food, wine, and the finer things in life.

Speaker 2 1:04

Hey there, Mark.

Speaker 1:05

today?

Speaker 2 1:05

I'm doing great, and I'm excited for our guests who are gonna be joining us. We have Phil Warden and Andrew Luce from Till Death, a speakeasy run in the basement of a funeral home in Kansas City.

Speaker 1:16

Yeah,

Speaker 6 1:16

the guys are really entertaining and more entertaining than you'd expect a mortician to be,

Speaker 2 1:21

And everything's up to date in Kansas City. You don't get that article, do you? No, I don't. So Rod- Rodgers and Hammerstein, Oklahoma. It was-

Speaker 6 1:28

So, Rogers, why is it Hammerstein, Oklahoma? And that would explain why I don't get it.

Speaker 2 1:29

And that would explain why I don't get it. Yeah. Our demographic skews older. Yeah. I hope some of you out there are getting

Speaker 6 1:32

the Hammersteiner here.

Speaker 2 1:34

Okay. well, before we get to that cheery concept of a bar, I wanted to talk about something that struck me on the way out of my house

Speaker 6 1:42

Okay. Was it a car?

Speaker 7 1:44

No.

Speaker 6 1:44

Bicycle?

Speaker 7 1:45

No.

Speaker 6 1:46

E-bike?

Speaker 2 1:47

I should've- Cane I should've known when Wile E. Coyote ran by that, uh, I should look up. No, I was struck by, there's a restaurant near my house- that isn't very good.

Speaker 6 1:57

it's 100 yards from your house. You have banned me from going there.

Speaker 2 2:00

the food you can get of this type in ShopRite is significantly better than sitting in this restaurant and getting the frozen crap that they s- I do not know how they stay open. And, and I'm in Jersey City, where there are

Speaker 6 2:11

gonna be temporary, honestly

Speaker 2 2:12

been years now. But in any event, I was thrilled when I saw this restaurant open across the street from me. I thought, "Uh-oh, I'm gonna be here every night." And I went there, like, three times and I was like, "This is inexcusable." And the people don't, they don't have the culture of hospitality. Mm-hmm. So it's a sushi And there's a great sushi restaurant in town. Hanshu Sushi in Jersey City, reliable, good sushi for delivery or sit in all the time. But this other place-

Speaker 6 2:35

now I want sushi.

Speaker 2 2:36

Hmm. Maybe we can have some after the show. But, this place food's not very good, people aren't very nice. I mean, I guess they're nice enough, but they don't have a sense of hospitality. But what they really don't understand, like when you sit there, like the lights are too bright, the music is wrong, the temperature's wrong, they're just too curt. But I was looking outside at their storefront-

Speaker 6 2:54

Cause you don't go in there anymore.

Speaker 2 2:55

oh, I've, I've never seen anything- beyond the outside of their storefront. Now we have just spent on our storefront b- probably $100,000 in the last couple of years, right? Because that storefront is you, you're announcing to the world what you

Speaker 6 3:07

your invitation in.

Speaker 2 3:08

And they had a very s- simple storefront- uh, with just the name on it. But they

Speaker 6 3:13

as we did when we first opened

Speaker 7 3:15

mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 3:15

Which is fine. There's nothing wrong with that, especially it's a neighborhood spot with some windows. But they have slowly been adding signs that, I, I guess as things piss them off, they add more signs- to the outside of them. And I looked at their storefront today, and you can see one of the smallest to medium signs on the storefront is the name of the restaurant.

Speaker 6 3:35

is showing me a picture of these signs right now.

Speaker 2 3:37

right now. But you can also see, uh, there's a one little thing that says the name of the restaurant, and then there's a sign bigger than the name that says, "Please leave strollers and wagons outside the store. Thank you." Then there's one that says, um, in English, "Please don't touch the robot." And then there's one in Spanish that says, "Please don't touch the robot." And then there's another one right on the door that says, "Please leave strollers and wagons outside the door."

Speaker 6 4:02

I don't think they want your wagons or strollers

Speaker 2 4:05

then right next to there, there's one that says, "No smoking inside or out." And then there's another- one-

Speaker 6 4:10

sign. Just so you know, you don't, you don't need that sign. It's a, it's a New Jersey state law.

Speaker 2 4:14

law. Then there's another one that says, "Deliveries around the corner, not here." And then there's a sign that says, "No pets."

Speaker 6 4:20

just so you know, also against the law, can't have pets

Speaker 2 4:24

have pets in a food establishment and then there's the two signs that say again in English and Spanish, "Please don't touch the robot." That's a very fussy robot, I gotta tell you. That robot doesn't like to be touched.

Speaker 4:32

My

Speaker 2 4:36

Yeah

Speaker 4:37

touched the robot.

Speaker 6 4:37

That's a very fussy robot Robot, it doesn't like you. My guess is the people that you took out of the strollers- Yeah touched I'm gonna guess that they're all over that robot.

Speaker 2 4:42

their whole- their whole storefront is, "Go away. Don't do this. You're all wrong. Don't touch that." See, if-

Speaker 4:46

It's,

Speaker 2 4:46

it's- you

Speaker 6 4:50

Dude, their whole, their whole- "Scram, get away. Don't do this. You're all wrong. Don't touch me." See, if you let the strollers in- Oh, god then the kids are strapped down and they can't touch the robot

Speaker 2 4:52

care if you let the strollers in or not, but you have all your signs are like, "Get away from me," you know? It's, it's, it's what the, it's, it's really the worst. And I thought everything, uh, is h- is in red on this door. There's all... It's all full of stuff you can't

Speaker 6 5:06

Don't eat the sushi.

Speaker 2 5:07

if I put a sign on the door, that's what I would say about that place. No,

Speaker 6 5:10

should put a sign on your door that says, "Don't eat the sushi."

Speaker 2 5:12

the... I'm not gonna do

Speaker 6 5:13

I think it's been done

Speaker 2 5:14

I wish them well. I just, I- If they listen to this show, they're gonna hate their neighbor, but they should take those signs down. by the way, it's on the corner- Mm-hmm so there's two facades you can... And that was just one side. Yeah. That was one side of a small restaurant. And wow, I think it's just, if you got a restaurant out there or any business, you gotta be really careful what you're

Speaker 6 5:35

what if you put the robot in

Speaker 5:37

stroller?

Speaker 2 5:37

Hmm, or what if you had the, the robot just programmed to be like, "Don't touch me. Don't touch me." "Get away from me."

Speaker 5:42

What

Speaker 6 5:43

like, "Don't touch me! Don't touch me! Damn you!" What if I have a robot dog in a stroller that smokes?

Speaker 2 5:47

With a baby.

Speaker 6 5:48

if he-

Speaker 2 5:49

I think you're banned from the block, as a matter of fact. Anyway, there's our little bit of Restaurant Guys advice. We're gonna talk to a couple of guys who are operating a speakeasy out of a funeral home. I can't wait. We'll be back in just a moment. Stick with us, and you can always find out more about us at restaurantguyspodcast.com. Hey there, everybody. Welcome back. Today's guests have created what may be one of America's most genuinely hidden cocktail rooms. Beneath the working funeral home in Raytown, Missouri, just outside of Kansas City, Andrew Luce and Phil Warden opened Till Death The Speakeasy. It's a private prohibition-inspired cocktail room. It's genuinely not open to the general public, but regularly hosts events and cocktail classes. If you know, you know, and if you don't, you can't get in. So that's the most important thing about speakeasy Andrew's, actually the funeral director. Phil is a banking executive. Together with their wives, Liz and Laurie, their enthusiasm for home bartending was turned into one of the most unique cocktail spaces in America. The room has a casket for a bar, an urn that smokes cocktails, and a history of secret drinking that predates its current owners and us.

Speaker 6 6:52

Andrew and Phil, welcome to the show.

Speaker 13 6:55

Hello. Thank you for having us

Speaker 2 6:56

You know, I think... You are welcome. I think it is, um, really fantastic that, you know, there was that whole speakeasy era that was started, uh, pretty much by Sasha Petraske with Milk Honey, where you really had to have the number to get in because he was trying not to get thrown out of the building in the beginning, and that, spawned a whole era of speakeasies. But what the speakeasies would do, they're like, "It's behind the hidden telephone behind the hidden door on the left, and we have published this in The New York Times." you know, and, and come whenever you want. Please make a reservation. You guys, actually, you are not open to the public in general. I wanna talk about, your bar and what people can expect if they are lucky enough to be invited to your bar or come for an event. But you're not open all the time. You're not open to the general public. Tell us about your bar

Speaker 12 7:44

Yeah, we're, we're not open for the, to the general public. Uh, started out, nine years ago coming up this December. Phil and I had been doing, basement cocktail events, uh, menued for our friends. had gotten pretty proficient with, prohibition style cocktails. Uh, we were too inspired by Sasha Petraske and, and Milk Honey. And, for me, my, my origin story is the documentary Hey Bartender! That was on Netflix. I was obsessed with it, kind of obsessed with that scene and, and the, uh, revival of, of that coming back.

Speaker 6 8:11

Francis was in that movie

Speaker 12 8:13

yeah. so we just, w- kind of at the very end of that they celebrate, uh, repeal at, uh, employees only. And I thought, "You know what? I wonder if we could do that in the basement of our funeral home." And there was kind of a hidden bar down here that had been kind of just filled with file cabinets and, and paint cans and mortuary equipment. And so brought him down. He said absolutely. We had a flat top casket that we used for, just for exhibition. Never, never, was never in use. we set up a pretty, aggressive menu or, uh, made drinks all night. And that night, at the end of the night, Phil said, "What are we gonna do with this?" We should turn it into a charity." And from then on, we've started doing, make it so there have been charity events around repeal. It's kinda grown and grown and grown. But it's, it i- it isn't open to the public. It's, invite only. It's, it's here in our, in the private space of below my, one of my funerals.

Speaker 13 9:00

And we, we were really inspired by, Ryan Maybee, who's co-founder at J. Rieger Distilling in Kansas City. He had a bar called Manifesto- Yeah which was kind of the, you know, first like bar that became a speakeasy in Kansas City. And we were blown away by the creativity and the artistry that, uh, they were making cocktails with. And we were like, we were just eager to see if we had the guts to actually, or the, uh, the skills to actually try to recreate some of that stuff. Guts

Speaker 12 9:26

and skills, actually.

Speaker 13 9:27

And we were fortunate too. There was a, there was a group of bartenders at a, at a, what was our favorite watering hole back then, that we would just show up and we would just start asking questions and we would say, "Hey, can we taste that?" Or, "Hey, can we taste that?" Or, you know, "How'd you do that technique? Can you show us that technique again?" And we just started accumulating all this information. When people ask us like, "Hey, how'd you guys learn how to do all this stuff?" We said, "Well, we sat at a lot of bars and we drank a lot of cocktails. That's how we learned."

Speaker 6 9:53

Well, I, I need to say we talk to a lot of people who own speakeasies across the country, that's part of, you know, the restaurant guys. You know, we have a lot of people in the business. Uh, you are the first people to do one in a funeral h- parlor that we know of. And ironically, about 20 years ago, a little more now, Francis and I, when we were looking for a space for Cathal Marty, looked at a funeral home in Maplewood, and we said, "We can't open in a funeral home. This has been here for 40 years. Everybody knows what it was. No one will come and drink in a funeral home. There's no way anybody would ever do that," but here you are making that happen.

Speaker 13 10:32

I remember when he pitched me the idea I said, "That's freaking genius. Who wouldn't wanna come to a funeral home and have a cocktail?"

Speaker 2 10:40

by the way, not only are you smarter than we are. Well, we, we were thinking about it for an Italian restaurant, not, not for, for a speakeasy. But not only were you smarter than we were, we were looking at something that used to be a funeral home. It wasn't a working funeral home, so... And I think there's a whole lot of bars that are, you know, it might be a funeral home theme bar. But you are in the basement of a working funeral home. You bury people out of your funeral home. That's really cool. That is, that is super authentic.

Speaker 6 11:07

creepy as shit, though. Yeah.

Speaker 2 11:09

yeah. Totally. It is.

Speaker 12 11:10

Yeah, the way, the way we bring our guests in, it's, it's a little

Speaker 2 11:13

Which ones? The ones for the funeral home or the ones for the speakeasy?

Speaker 12 11:16

well, both. A different door. Yeah, they actually come through the funeral home door, kind of sit awkwardly in the funeral home up- upstairs until we gather them all together, and then they come down, uh, secret knock, you know, the revealing door, the whole, the whole thing, just, really speakeasy style. And we, we stay in that style all the way through our, our events

Speaker 6 11:35

I read something, that you said that was the exact same thing my mother said. Well, not most of our listeners don't know, my grandfather was a funeral director at a place called Torregrosso in Brooklyn. So my mother was raised with her father as a funeral director, so she would occasionally be in the funeral home. you said the exact same thing she did, which was you didn't wanna open the wrong door, 'Cause once you open the wrong door, it was a very different experience.

Speaker 12 12:03

It's a fun game to play 'cause upstairs w- in the funeral, funeral business, we very much are deconstructing that. So we have French doors on public spaces. the only doors that are private are closets and bathrooms. Otherwise, you can see through every place else because people are afraid behind those doors. We flip that on its head for the speakeasy. We make people go through a series of, of doors to make them feel like they're really traveling kind of almost back in time that whole time

Speaker 2 12:27

I, I just wanna share a, a similar experience. This really has nothing to do with the show, I have one similar experience. I lived for a while in a building that was a small manufacturer of prosthetic limbs and body parts, and his, his, his manufacturing facility was in the basement. And the

Speaker 12 12:46

I know where this is going.

Speaker 2 12:47

the fuse box, if you, if your fuse went out on the second floor apartment and they weren't there, you had to go down into the basement where there were no lights, just you and your flashlight, and you'd be like, "Ah! That's an arm." You know? So, so similar door, but those weren't actually real people. Uh, but it was

Speaker 12 13:01

Yeah, of course, they, it's always, the fuse box, it's always gotta be in the scariest place of every building, and then you put it in a scary building, it's like 10X

Speaker 2 13:09

I made a note about this when we were preparing for the show, and Mark found it kind of amusing, and I, I think I have a I think I have a whole new revenue stream for your guys. I would like to book my wake and funeral now. I just want cocktails to be served. I want the party downstairs afterwards. Can we do that? Can I... I want a destination wake at your place, and I want cocktails served downstairs, but only for the people in the know. I'll leave a list of who gets invited to the cocktail party or not. What do you think?

Speaker 12 13:37

If you only knew that that was on our whiteboard

Speaker 2 13:39

Are you serious?

Speaker 12 13:40

be the first. Heck yeah.

Speaker 2 13:42

l- I absolutely would pre-pay for

Speaker 12 13:44

if it evolved to that, we would be thrilled

Speaker 2 13:47

you get the permits for that? So we have, permitting in New Jersey that you can't really serve alcohol in a funeral home. And we also have lot, lot of stuff where you can't have a, a wake at home either. You've gotta surrender the body to a licensed, mortician. But Mark and I would build a series of bars attached to funeral homes, like Irish bars. W- can you do that in, your city, in Kansas City?

Speaker 12 14:08

It is state by state first, then city by city after that. And we are currently working on our liquor license for one of my establishments. We're gonna start with more event space first, and if it goes well, we'll see where it goes from there. But we wanna, we wanna do it where it's most obvious, most easy. This will be difficult just because it's in a basement. Um, but yeah, we could absolutely serve alcohol. We hope to be the first alcohol licensed funeral home in the state of Missouri

Speaker 2 14:33

I'm booking my party. Everybody, if you hear about it, you should go. I won't be there, but, uh,

Speaker 7 16:03

you should-

Speaker 6 16:04

Oh, you'll be there.

Speaker 2 16:04

Oh, I'll be there. That's

Speaker 12 16:05

Yeah.

Speaker 14 16:06

Oh, you'll be there.

Speaker 2 16:07

All right, so, so let's, let's go to the obvious question of have you had any spooky, real ex- experiences there? Unexplained phenomena? You know, poltergeists, things like that

Speaker 12 16:20

I've owned it for th- over 30 years and, you know, you just kind of don't pay attention. You know, every once in a while you get the spidey sense going, you hear something that doesn't sound right, and you just, you just have to move on 'cause you gotta be here day and night, weird hours, you know, close up, all... You know, like, like, like all business owners do. And you, and there's... You just don't know what you don't know. However,

Speaker 6 16:44

see dead people, so

Speaker 12 16:45

And we see dead people. Yeah. I mean, yeah, we... Certainly, yeah. But we had something that occurred. You wanna tell them the story about that?

Speaker 13 16:50

Well, yeah. We were down here, it was after an event one night. We were just washing up and, and so forth, uh, putting things back. And all of a sudden, one of those, you know, like, old doorbells that goes doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo went off.

Speaker 12 17:05

The old Winchester chime.

Speaker 13 17:07

And, uh, and I said to Andrew, I'm like, "Is somebody at a door?" He's like, "We haven't had that plugged in for, like, decades."

Speaker 6 17:15

Wow

Speaker 13 17:16

we have had a few very interesting- So he,

Speaker 12 17:17

he said, "Well, let's go check the doors." We checked all the doors, checked all the cameras, and the, the thing is right here by us, and it's, there's no wires to it. And it clearly came from that box. So that was... We just figured, well, they had the... They enjoyed the party tonight

Speaker 13 17:33

and- But we, we play around with it, too. So, like, uh, the former owner that had, you know, kind of a secret drinking club down here before Andrew and Liz bought it, you know, we kind of play up to that. We have an old fashioned named after him, and we smoke that old fashion in the world's only urn smoker right here, um, we smoke it. We get a lot of smoke going, so then we pull the top off of it, and that's Gilbert's ghost go- you know, going out all

Speaker 2 17:57

Oh, I love that

Speaker 17:58

But

Speaker 6 17:58

you gotta tell me that nobody's ever been in the Erin though.

Speaker 12 18:00

Nobody's been in that urn

Speaker 13 18:01

No.

Speaker 12 18:02

No. Nobody's been in the urn. Nobody's been in the casket. Yeah, we're

Speaker 2 18:05

When I book that, wake with you, I wanna go in the urn. I wanna be, I wanna be in the

Speaker 12 18:10

Oh, that's the second tough request of the night. Yeah.

Speaker 14 18:13

Okay.

Speaker 2 18:13

be extra? Will that be extra?

Speaker 12 18:16

We'll have to retire this one and start up a new one

Speaker 2 18:18

I love it. I intend, if this actually happens, one of the reasons I want it to happen is I would like to haunt your place. I mean, if you're gonna haunt somewhere, I get to be in a bar the whole

Speaker 14 18:26

Sure.

Speaker 6 18:27

That's my thing So there's a lot of history in the space that you're in right now. This is, this has been a, little speakeasy men's drinking club for a long time before you guys owned it, before you guys were there. So, you took something that kind of already existed and said, "Let's, let's make it real again."

Speaker 12 18:44

Yeah, I'll give you the, I'll give you the story and then kind of the legend behind the story. We're the third owners of the funeral home. The first owner was very briefly, it was a home that became a funeral home. The second owners had it for 35 years, and then we're, my wife and I are, uh, 31, 32. We'll, we'll pass them, which is crazy 'cause I remember that newspaper article, Hinton's hand over to the Gibson family, after 35 years, and I thought there's no chance I'll be here 35 years. I'll blow by that. Um, but they were s- in their late 70s. My wife and I were 24, and they were Southern Baptists. The b- the largest Southern Baptist Church was right across the street, and, honorary degrees from Baptist universities. We were told, you know, these are Baptist people. The funeral practice is really their tribe. it was a real small little neighborhood funeral home, you know, old rugged cross in the garden, you know, evening before visitation, same ministers, kind of the same thing over and over again. And these old guys would grab me in the hallway, and they'd tell their wife to go on in the chapel, and they'd say, "Is the bar downstairs?" there really wasn't, and I didn't know what they were talking about, and there were these guys in their 70s, and, you know, I heard that these were straight-laced people, you know, living at the foot of the cross, and it just... and this happened over and over and over again, and I just would say, "I, I, I don't know what you're talking about, sir." I didn't want to upset the apple cart. Uh, they pass away. We do some technology upgrades. We start to uncover the bar, the back bar, fireplace. We actually find the bar, and so the next time one of those guys pulled me aside, I grabbed him and said, "Hey, uh, it is. What's the story?" And we had heard some other stories around that they had a partying past. So the folks we bought it from didn't start as f- funeral directors. They owned a paint and wallpaper store across the street, and they would sit back in the day and answer the phones and answer the door when the first owners wanted to go on vacation. But back then, they weren't who they were when they were l- in their later years, and they, they partied. They had a great... They had parties. Now, back then, the funeral director also had the ambulance, so they would have big parties down here, and these guys would tell me they'd get kind of loaded down here at the parties in the basement. The kids would run around and play and hide in the caskets, and they had a record player, mixed up drinks, you know, the very, you know, 19, 1950s and '60s, little skinny ties. And they'd get a call and, and he'd grab one of those dudes, and they'd take off screaming in the ambulance and go pick somebody up, you know, half-crocked, run them to the hospital. And those were the stories that we heard. And so what they would tell us is that they would tell their wives, you know what? The, the classrooms over at the church are full. We're just gonna have B- you know, have Bible study or men's group over at the funeral home. And it just seemed safe enough. It was over at Gilbert's. He was a deacon in the church. But all the time, it was a little, kind of a, a little, um, hidden drinking club for Southern Baptists. And so we,

Speaker 6 21:32

I'm gonna

Speaker 12 21:32

where this kind of came from.

Speaker 6 21:34

my, my wife knows when I've been drinking. Okay? My hair gets messy. I get a certain look in my eye.

Speaker 12 21:41

Yeah. Yes.

Speaker 6 21:41

she knows. So, so the wives had to know that this was a, that this was a, a dr- a men's drinking club

Speaker 12 21:47

And we found later it went from men's drinking clubs to some, righteous little parties down here for those folks that couldn't drink out in public. And I don't know when it tapered off. Their daughter, their daughter graduated in, the late '60s, and, her husband became a Southern Baptist minister at a big church, and they're, they're very much... They, they live in the area here. I'm kind of surprised that, uh, um, they haven't come wandering over this way. Uh, Gilbert was a Irish guy, and so we do an Irish, American-style, Irish whiskey old fashioned, and we smoke it, and it's our... That's our Gilbert Ghost old fashioned. So he has a, cocktail named after him.

Speaker 14 22:21

Sure.

Speaker 6 22:21

that's pretty

Speaker 13 22:22

probably why he haunts us, right? Yeah,

Speaker 12 22:23

it's probably him with the doorbell.

Speaker 2 22:25

The... I, I, I just, I, I wanna say Southern Baptists, man. They're like... Southern Baptists, for those of you who don't know, they're notorious teetotalers, right? They, th- drinking is not part of So- Catholic, Irish Catholics, we drink. The, the, the Southern Bapt- I love that Southern Baptist deacons were holding this secret drinking club. Somehow I bet the drinks tasted better because of it.

Speaker 6 22:44

I love that you used that expression that, that we Italian Catholics never would, would've... I've never heard before. Living at the foot of the cross.

Speaker 12 22:51

Living at the foot of the cross. That's a, we're adjacent to the Bible Belt here, so that's a very Bible Belty kind of thing. I'm living at the foot of the cross

Speaker 14 22:58

Yeah.

Speaker 2 22:59

I l- I love a guy, I love a guy who's living at the foot of the cross except when he goes to the funeral home and sneaks down the back. But again, that is the spirit of a speakeasy. I wanna, give a shout-out and call a parallel to two guy- two people. I don't know if you know Joe and Nicole Desmond.

Speaker 6 23:13

They were at, the same event you were at.

Speaker 12 23:15

Oh yeah, the gri- the live event? That was fantastic. if you haven't gone to one of their live events, they're awesome, guys. They're fantastic.

Speaker 7 23:21

Thank you.

Speaker 2 23:22

we'll talk about

Speaker 13 23:22

I want a beef, I want a redo of the beef steak, because I wasn't able to make it

Speaker 6 23:26

Come next year.

Speaker 2 23:27

We're, we're gonna do that again next year. We'll talk about that event in a second 'cause I, I do wanna mention it, 'cause you guys were there and we appreciate that. But, Joe and Nicole Desmond, I, uh, to, to finish the shout-out, they owned a bar that wasn't really a bar. It was kind of a speakeasy. It was kinda just in their apartment. Uh, it was called the Rum Rum Room.

Speaker 12 23:43

Oh,

Speaker 2 23:44

and the Rum Rum Room was in their Greenwich Village apartment, and it wa- went on for years, and they never charged, but he had this amazing collection of rum, and it was just free. They just did it out of the kindness of their heart, and they were really important in the renaissance of the American cocktail, Joe and Nicole Desmond, It was truly invitation only. You had to be discreet 'cause they were afraid of getting thrown out of their condo. and it was amazing.

Speaker 12 24:08

there's a bunch of those now. Wow. I meet people- Wow I meet

Speaker 13 24:11

Yeah, we d- we did a presentation at a group, called Creative Mornings here in Kansas City, a couple of Fridays ago, and we had a young lady hand us basically her little menu, which she's a- Coolest menu I've ever

Speaker 12 24:21

seen graphic designer. Yeah.

Speaker 13 24:22

Might've been the coolest menu we've ever seen, and that's what they're doing. They're just ha- they just got a little kind of fun bar- Eight seats that they run out of the apartment.

Speaker 2 24:29

I love it.

Speaker 6 24:29

Well, when we come back, I, I wanna talk about how charitable you guys are and the amazing things that your bar is bringing to the world and, and making changes. I love it. We'll be right back. You're listening to The Restaurant Guys at restaurantguyspodcast.com.

Speaker 2 24:44

Hey, everybody. Welcome back. We are with Phil Warden and Andrew Luce of, Till Death The Speakeasy, just outside Kansas City, Missouri. We alluded to a show of ours. You attended one of our live shows when we were down in New Orleans at Tales of the Cocktail, and we had, what was it? 80 people in the room for the, for the live show, and then we did a, a beefsteak after. And one of the things about that... First of all, thanks for coming to the live show. We

Speaker 12 25:07

Thanks for inviting us

Speaker 2 25:08

Well, it was, it was super fun. It was so... All the cool cocktail people from around the country were there, and, um, we were surprised that beefsteaks aren't well known around the country. Like, we always knew it originated in New York, New Jersey, but we didn't know that it was still a New York, New Jersey thing. And one of the things that Mark and I w- kind of blew us away, we asked how many people had heard of a, a beefsteak in, in the audience. Restaurant people, cocktail people. I'd say 80% of the people had never heard of

Speaker 6 25:35

It was really surprising.

Speaker 2 25:36

Have you guys heard of a beefsteak before, and, uh, what did you think of ours?

Speaker 13 25:40

Only in a tomato Yeah Beefsteak tomato. That's all I've ever heard I

Speaker 12 25:42

actually thought we were coming for a sandwich, like a, like a cheese steak. I thought maybe that's kinda what I was thinking, and we got there, and then you, as you described it, and I think the political part of that and the, the gathering and Tammany Hall, that's familiar f- just from I, I love political stories in that era and, all that, all that was tied together, and of course, the tie-in of, suffrage and prohibition. That was amazing, but I'd never heard the specific meal around it and then the aprons and, kind of declassifying everybody by eating with your hands in the white aprons. And it... And of course, the food was fantastic, but the... What, what... I, I've retold that story I, I'll bet 50 times

Speaker 2 26:21

love

Speaker 6 26:21

I hope you guys still have your beefsteak aprons.

Speaker 12 26:23

Uh, heck yeah.

Speaker 2 26:25

guys should have your

Speaker 12 26:26

I didn't, well I haven't washed mine yet

Speaker 2 26:27

You should do a beefsteak for one of your charities. That'd be... You could do it in the parking lot. Yeah. but let's talk about your charities and, and the work that you're supporting.

Speaker 26:35

And

Speaker 6 26:35

you're not making any money off of this. so you run a funeral home, you are a banker by, day, and this is just making the world a

Speaker 13 26:43

It's our passion project. It's our passion project. Yeah. You know, that first night when we were talking about it, it was like, "Well, what are we gonna do with this?" And, um, you know, I don't know, just figuring out a way to do our part in the community. we had an easy kind of like, transition. Andrew and one of his partners had founded a, uh, charity called Operation Toy Soldier, which pushes toys to military bases for deployed, you know, military families and things, they had begun that a number of years before. And so that seemed like a, you know, genuinely easy kind of like ask to make to our patrons. Plus our event was in

Speaker 12 27:22

December.

Speaker 13 27:22

It was in December- Yeah just before, you know, the holidays. So, we just started asking people to bring, unwrapped toys, you know, instead of paying for a ticket or anything like that, or making a donation. And I mean, we would have just piles of toys around the Christmas tree that was upstairs in the funeral home that we would end up taking, to bases. And, eventually after doing that for a few years, honestly the, feedback from the bases was, "Please don't bring us any more toys. We, we can't go through all of the toys that you bring us already." And there'd been some transition in that a little bit too, and we were searching for what could be the next phase of us. And I just happened, as part of my like banking life, to spend some time at a group called Veterans Community Project in Kansas City. They have a community village here. I think it's 45 tiny homes. they are actually doing something about veterans homelessness and about providing services, to veterans, in need. And I was just blown away with the place, we just got to investigating it a little more, and we decided let's transition our model from, toys and things of that nature to where you're actually, you buy a ticket, but you buy the ticket directly from the charity. So 100% of the proceeds goes to the charity, and then we're gonna go out and, you know, we know enough people in the industry, between distilleries and bottle shops that we frequent, that we can, you know, get some donations and things like that, and we'll foot the bill, you know, the rest of the way ourselves.

Speaker 6 28:58

are donating all your time. You're donating... cocktails aren't just a couple bottles of alcohol, right? You're... There's a lot of work. There's a lot of other products that go into it, and again, it's a lot of time

Speaker 14 29:10

Yeah.

Speaker 13 29:10

But you know, that's the fun of it, I think, for us because we were drawn into this and cocktails in general because of the hospitality aspect of it. Our families had known each other for quite a while. We were doing wine tastings and other dinner things and stuff, and Andrew took me to a, a speakeasy that was upstairs over another, place at one point in time, and, we just both got smitten with the hospitality aspect and the creativity aspect. And, you know, being a banker, the, cocktail recipe to me is like a, it's like an equation that's waiting to be solved in a way. And so we d- that, that just became fun and a creative outlet for us, and our wives, who are tremendous, providers of hospitality as well

Speaker 6 29:55

know, I know a lot of bankers, and I'm gonna say that none of them get to do anything near this cool

Speaker 14 30:01

Yeah.

Speaker 13 30:03

Well, and it's been a fun story to tell too, Mark. I mean, like look, uh, we've now done this for a number of years we would say kind of like in the ballpark we've raised a, you know, a half a million dollars either in cash or in goods, for charities here in town. And, I think we're just trying to give back to the community that gave so much to us when we were, you know, sitting at the bars, you know, asking questions

Speaker 6 30:31

You know, we talked at Tales of the Cocktail for a little while, uh, and you really struck a chord with me that, with one of the specific charities that, that has become important to you guys. veterans charity that, re-houses unhoused veterans. please tell us about that charity, 'cause it was, that was so riveting and, changing people's lives. I love it.

Speaker 13 30:52

I was just there actually, uh, earlier last week. They opened a new, visitation center where veterans can come in and get immediate needs, like if they need a hygiene kit, they need to talk to somebody. The s- statistics about how many veterans die every day because they're not hooked into a program is just off the charts just sad. And so part of their outreach is to get to those people before there is a problem, and then part of their outreach is to actually go to the homeless, you know, encampments and shelters and things like that and try to find veterans. They tell me the number one reason a veteran is homeless is because they can't navigate the VA system to get access to their rightfully due benefits, which is nuts, right? So they go out there and they find these people, men and women, and they bring them into this community, and they, they have these communities all over the United States now, too. It's not just in Kansas City as well. They're... And they bring them in, and you get a caseworker that works with you on personal issues and things like that. They help you do, connectivity to the VA system and figure out-

Speaker 12 31:59

Personal banking

Speaker 13 31:59

I mean, they've talked about- Yeah they've talked about that they find couple of... Some veterans are due a couple of hundred thousand dollars, and they're living on the streets. And so they bring them in. You get a place, and here's the, here's the big deal to us-

Speaker 12 32:12

This

Speaker 13 32:12

is the cool part 'cause we're results-oriented givers, 85 to 90% of the veterans that go through their program within 12 to 18 months have their own job, have their own permanent place to live, and are no longer considered to be homeless.

Speaker 2 32:27

That's amazing

Speaker 13 32:29

If you, if you, go to any other homeless shelter around the United States, I would bet... I don't know exactly what the statistics are, but I would bet it's 10, 15% actually make it out of there. These people are actually doing the Lord's work in making a dent in homelessness for a specific, group that, should have a home.

Speaker 12 32:50

They do a couple things that are unique, too.

Speaker 6 32:52

talk to me about the tiny houses project

Speaker 12 32:54

yeah. The tiny houses, they- when they built their first village, they wanted... They maintain, they maintain that size. at least the now. It's started by two combat veterans. when a veteran moves in, you know, of course one of the biggest things, like Phil said, is navigating the VA system, but the other thing is, like, a physical address is the foundation of them getting benefits. If they don't have a physical address, I've dealt with veterans benefits, burial benefits my whole career, they send four or five verifications prior to paying, which is the most insane thing ever, but if you can't get that verification email, you're not gonna get paid, and they'll only do it through a physical address. The other thing they do is when you move into a tiny, one of those tiny homes, everything's brand new, and then when they move out, they take everything with them. The bed, the dresser, the fridge, everything goes with them, and then when they, when then someone moves in, it's completely refurbished. So it's not like they're moving into something janky. It's about giving them this, not only something to take to start a new place- It's- but everybody gets a brand-new interior, new fridge, new bed, new bedding, new paint, new f- new flooring. Everything's brand new in that tiny home. And so they have that, dignity to start off and saying, "You're important. You're not fourth or fifth or sixth or seventh in that

Speaker 6 34:04

S- and, and both people get a jumping off point, right? You get the, the person who just starts into the program who moves into the tiny home who, starts with everything brand new. And you get that, the person who's hopefully upgrading, hopefully moving up, into the next phase has all the stuff that they need so that's one fewer thing for them to worry about

Speaker 12 34:23

They have a big event called House Party, and it's their major event, we now auction a whole session off and we're one of their top auction items, and we do a cocktail class and some different things. But, they always do a profile of one of the veterans of previous years, and it's amazing h- how quickly some of those veterans get right back into what we would think is normal. Own a home, get their children, maybe get custody, partial custody of their children back, have a new relationship. And also, prior to them getting there, how low their low was, but how quickly they got to their low. that's where it just grinds to all the way to the bone. And they don't take a penny from the federal government, uh, 'cause they wanna do it their way. If they take any money from the VA or from any part of the government, then there's rules. So they do... They're, completely cavalier and, and maverick in this thing, and they do it their way, which is fantastic.

Speaker 13 35:11

The last thing about this that's so, like, impactful to us is almost every time I go there to their campus, uh, to their welcome center, inevitably they'll introduce a veteran to me who used to be in their program that comes back and volunteers now because that veteran wants to help the next group of get to where they're at at

Speaker 2 35:36

That's amazing. Leave no man behind. It's

Speaker 12 35:38

Leave no man behind, yeah

Speaker 13 35:39

That's exactly right

Speaker 2 35:40

Well, what kind of charity events do you do every year, and are you open to doing more events if someone approaches you to do a charity event?

Speaker 6 35:50

To do, say, a

Speaker 14 35:50

We did

Speaker 6 35:51

in Kansas City, Missouri

Speaker 12 35:53

We did our first Veterans Community Project event and knew, we knew, we, we'd already expanded our, our other events prior to working with VCP to I think maybe, I think we were doing maybe like two or three in a weekend. So, and it always started with Repeal. But we only had done things on Repeal weekend, so around December 5th. And we, and we have admired Sother Teague forever, and so we stalked him. He did a, he did a guest shift at the Hay Club, uh, with Ryan Mabey. And we went first night, first tickets, center bar, logos. And you guys know Sother. He is, the number of people I've met that he mentors is just overwhelming. He is, he is the mentor's mentor. And he, he said, I'm coming." And we're like, Sother Teague's coming to this. Yeah. Hilarious. And then I, all of a sudden, I see, uh, you know, a, a Zoom, uh, email from Phil. Uh, Till Death guys and Sother Teague Zoom. I'm like, "Yeah, he's not gonna show up." Not only did he not show up, he came, did a guest shift. But the first thing he said to us was, "You need to do more." And he challenged us to do more. Yeah. He goes, "You guys, you guys got your shit together. You make great drink- drinks. Your experience is cool. Your guests are awesome. This is really remarkable. You need to scale up." And he, made a case for if we're prepping for a weekend, instead of doing two two-hour shifts, let's do three nights of two-hour, and let's add an industry event. So we, we now do an industry, almost always do a Saturday. We don't do it in December 'cause industry people are tough. But the one that we do in the wintertime, which will become our New Orleans cocktail event, we do an industry event. And then we do one for, in the spring, for Harvesters, Food Bank, our community food bank. One of the, gift people at Veterans Community Project moved to our food bank and said, "Will you ever consider doing another one?" And she's just, she's the president of our fan club. She's fantastic. And it gave us an excuse to do something different. So at that, at that event, it's the same style. Little bit more relaxed than our Repeal party, which is k- a little bit of a pageant. Um, but we do, only do sugarcane and agave, spirits at that event in June. And we try to do 'em in, new classic or, prohibition-style cocktails. So people can try these great spirits, but done in not, you know, not, you can't have s- we don't have eight margaritas on the f- on the menu. and that allowed us to bring in different distilleries and different, different bottles. And that's now grown. it's now its own monster, um, too. So your question was do, are we open to other charities. It's tough to do other charities because we do depend on, the folks that are donating to us and being on that same message. And so we have people approach us all the time, "Would you do this for us?" Because this is our, Batman gig, not our you know, not our real-time thing- it's us two, our wives, and my dad is behind us on the other side of the camera. He's our, he's the head of our bar team and has one of the coolest home bars in Kansas City, makes good cocktails himself. But this is our, our bar team, and we used to drag our kids until they decided to get engaged and then be too cool for us. But that's, that's it. So again, it's, it... We're open to it, but we don't... Right now we, we've kinda got all we can handle. I think

Speaker 13 38:55

what we decided to do rather than doing more charity work is we, we got asked all the time, "How'd you guys learn how to do this and stuff?" And we both have, like, teaching backgrounds or at least genes, you know, of teaching, you know, in us. And we started thinking about, well, how could we give back to all the bars that taught us how to do this, and all the people who actually have capital at risk here? And so we launched a group cocktail class called Till Death The Academy, couple years ago. This weekend we'll have a couple classes. We'll have, like, 28 people come through. our kinda thesis there is, like, let's educate people so that they can be better patrons when they go to the real bars that our friends own out there, because more educated patrons probably have higher check sizes than do, you know, uneducated

Speaker 2 39:47

Oh, 100%. Well, we are gonna put, uh, the Veterans Community Project website up on

Speaker 12 39:52

Thank you.

Speaker 13 39:53

Thank you so much.

Speaker 2 39:54

we're gonna put, Till Death KC up on the show notes, and, uh, hopefully people will contact you. And I hope we run into each other again, uh, at cocktail things

Speaker 6 40:02

100% certain we'll run into each other again, and we will be doing a beef steak in New Orleans again next year. So we'll make sure you guys are on the head

Speaker 13 40:09

And you're welcome to come to Kansas City

Speaker 12 40:11

if you need us to be on, uh, staff for the beefsteak, we'd love to

Speaker 6 40:15

You're hired.

Speaker 2 40:16

It may be at your funeral home. We haven't quite, we, we, we, they, we haven't delivered the ask yet. Who knows? Anyway, hope you guys have enjoyed, uh, meeting Phil and Andrew and hanging out with The Restaurant Guys. We certainly have.

Speaker 12 40:27

you guys have time for a quick

Speaker 2 40:28

Yeah, please. Sure.

Speaker 16 40:29

So that's the end of the line of this interview if you are not a paid subscriber to The Restaurant Guys. If you are a paid subscriber or if you were a paid subscriber, you would be about to hear a great story that they have to tell about them being on TV, bailing out loud, Tourette syndrome, till death do us part. It's a great story. If you would like to find all of our great stories, get invited to parties like we talked about, please do help us by becoming a Restaurant Guys regular at RestaurantGuysPodcast.com. It's only a couple of bucks a month to you, but it means a lot to us

Speaker 2 40:59

Yeah, those guys are great.

Speaker 6 41:00

that show was a lot of fun, really interesting. What a story, doing a speakeasy underneath a-

Speaker 2 41:07

Working funeral home?

Speaker 6 41:08

I don't

Speaker 2 41:08

I'm in. I'm all in underneath a working funeral home. I'm 100% in. I really am. Bury me there. If I go soon, Mark, bury me there.

Speaker 6 41:14

So I, I have a story for you that I don't know if you know

Speaker 2 41:18

Oh, okay. I thought I knew all your stories.

Speaker 6 41:20

within the last few years, Jennifer and I were at a, a friend's parents' funeral, and it was in Nutley.

41:26

So the funeral parlor was

Speaker 6 41:28

Nutley'd Out. It was really over the top Italian. Yes. As Nutley

Speaker 2 41:31

Yes, as Nutley people tend to be.

Speaker 6 41:33

we talk about Mary on the half shell out on the front yard. There's a very, very religious and overdone funeral

Speaker 2 41:40

Yeah, you- Yeah Italians are so dramatic.

Speaker 6 41:41

Italians are so dramatic We, we, we do the drama. So much so that Jennifer goes into the ladies room and then comes out, and says, "You gotta see this."

Speaker 2 41:52

What the hell was in the ladies' room?

Speaker 6 41:53

the hell was in Jennifer leads me into this bathroom in this funeral parlor, and it is incredibly Italian-American, gaudy, crystal chandelier in the bathroom, mirrors. Just unbelievably over-the-top bathroom. Too much. Too much. So Jennifer and I come out of the ladies room in the funeral parlor. Yeah. And my brother goes up to me, he goes, What's this, the mile high club?" To which I immediately turn to him and go, More like the six foot under club."

Speaker 2 42:22

terrible. You're I'd have thought the same thing. I, I thought, "Look at Jen and Mark getting frisky at the wake. I thought that would've been

Speaker 6 42:27

It was the bathroom was amazing. The one-liner I was pretty proud of.

Speaker 2 42:32

It would've been more amazing if you wouldn't... Never mind. Uh, so I, I hope that you guys... I- You know, the, the thing is you said something earlier. I'm amazed at how often on this show it comes up that your grandfather was a funeral

Speaker 6 42:43

It, I, it

Speaker 2 42:43

does come up a lot. They're everywhere. A lot of funeral direction going on here.

Speaker 6 42:47

A lot of funeral direction going on here. Well, everybody's been through a funeral,

Speaker 2 42:48

That's true. That's

Speaker 6 42:49

We all gotta die.

Speaker 2 42:50

not my own yet. So listen, if you hear about my passing, I would look for the secret, speakeasy wake that I intend to have in Kansas City. Hope you've enjoyed this time listening to The Restaurant Guys. I'm Francis

Speaker 6 43:00

And I'm Mark

Speaker 2 43:01

We are The Restaurant Guys. You can always find out more about us at restaurantguyspodcast.com.