Porch and Parish The Podcast
Our mission is to make sure every Zachary resident feels heard and engaged! Host Mike Gennaro facilitates candid conversations with local leaders, influencers and innovators in Zachary, Louisiana and beyond with the help of producer Mike Holt. New episode every Monday at noon!
Porch and Parish The Podcast
Joel Frosch of South Plains Food Company: Serving Up Community
Ever wondered what it's like to be at the heart of Southern hospitality? Join us as Joel Frosch from South Plains Food Company takes us on a flavorful journey through his life in the food service industry. We reminisce about his great-grandma's unforgettable cooking, his go-to comfort food—the Rib-eye Melt—and our shared mission to bring back the charm of open-door hospitality with heartwarming Sunday gatherings. Joel's story is a testament to how food, family, and community can create unforgettable experiences.
Meet our intuitive self-taught chef who transformed a spontaneous flounder dinner into a culinary passion. He reveals his unique approach to cooking, relying on memory and instinct rather than formal recipes. Despite claiming a poor palate, his knack for perfect timing and remembering customers' preferences paints a vivid picture of an artist at work. Plus, hear about his early days managing Sammy's in St Francisville—a period filled with unexpected love, lifelong friendships, and invaluable lessons in restaurant leadership.
We also discuss the challenges of updating a lunch menu amidst rising costs and the incredible generosity that sustains our community. Finally, take a walking meditation through the heart of Zachary, fostering a sense of unity and connection. This episode is a heartwarming exploration of the ties that bind us through food, family, and community.
It's Jesus Christ Superstar meets Sister Act! Inspired bt4 gospels of the New Testament!
Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify
Hey guys, this is Joel Farosh from South Plain Food Company and this is Porch and Parish the podcast.
Speaker 2:Hey there, zachary Fall is in the air. Well, kind of To kick off the season. Our crew is busy at work compiling the fall edition. More on that in weeks to come. We recently enjoyed Southern Hospitality at the establishment we're about to highlight today. The menu is truly vast and the lunch in the private room above the staircase was quite a treat. Ask about that in person, though. Today we're thrilled to welcome a special guest to the show, joel Frosch from South Plains Food Company. Joel's knowledge of the food service business will leave your head spinning, if you ever get him to stop working long enough to speak with him. He's at the helm of a modern Zachary business that we're all getting to know and love. Welcome, joel. As always, we're bringing. Take this part again. Welcome, joel. As always, we're here to bring you the best of Zachary in the Baton Rouge area through engaging conversations every Monday from our Virginia Street headquarters.
Speaker 3:This is Portrait and.
Speaker 2:Parish the podcast. Stay tuned because the lightning round is coming up next. Looking for a family outing off the beaten path? Trot over to Breck's Far Park Equestrian Center for a unique experience. Far Park offers guided trail rides throughout the fall. Starting on September 22nd, you and the family can enjoy the fresh air, beautiful scenery and quality time with loved ones perfect for all ages. Follow the link to sign up. Spots are limited. Oh and hey, jen, hi, all right, we're back from the lightning round. All right, I've been enjoying having jen on pretty much every show for the past three or four here, so you know, welcome back. So, joel, lightning round questions. What is your go-to comfort food from South Plains Food Company? Rib-eye melt.
Speaker 1:Rib-eye melt Absolutely All right, you're going to have to explain that Six-ounce piece of rib-eye meat that we smoked the rib-eye, we cut it, we seared on the flat top. Onions, mushrooms, bacon, two pieces cheddar cheese, toasted bread yum, so it melts because there's cheese on it.
Speaker 2:Put the seven sauce on it. Seven sauce, okay, I don't know, that's a weird question they just always called melts, like onions, mushrooms and melted cheese.
Speaker 1:Right, that's just my ignorance. I don't know. I don't know either. It sells.
Speaker 2:I had the eight ounce and that melted, but there was no cheese on it, so that was amazing. All right, if you could cook a meal for any historical figure, who would it be and why? Oh, wow.
Speaker 1:I guess it'd be like Tiger Woods. I don't know, he is kind of. Yes.
Speaker 2:He is kind of yes, he is, he's old, he's past his prime for sure Probably not win much.
Speaker 1:Historical. You probably meant no go for tiger.
Speaker 2:I love it.
Speaker 1:Gosh, my great-grandma could cook this. She could cook this casserole that we've all tried to redo it and where it would take her three days. There would be stew meat in the crock pot or in the big cast iron pot. On her stove. It was always lit, it never burned, and then she would put it in this pasta, the sauce and cheese.
Speaker 1:Like maybe cheese was just different and you know back then and it didn't just like melt out and turn into oil, uh, so I'd probably try to do that for her. Yeah, but she also cooked her hamburgers with butter. You know, when the burger was just about done, sliced butter went on it.
Speaker 3:Right, and that's how she finished it off. Okay, so I'd probably cook something for her.
Speaker 1:Yeah, not very appealing to anybody that's listening, but that's beautiful man, I think you know those meals. Probably I feel the most like those down-home meals that you went to great-grandma's and didn't you. Yeah, it was just there. It was always there, like she knew you were coming. Time's different, you know it's like back then you could just go to someone's house, knock on the door and then visit for two hours.
Speaker 2:Right Like Sunday.
Speaker 1:Now you're like your parents are here. They didn't even tell us they were coming.
Speaker 2:Watching Netflix.
Speaker 1:Yeah, come on. You can't just go knock on someone's door these days. You can't do it.
Speaker 2:I don't know, maybe we can bring that back. It seems like it's possible, right.
Speaker 1:I don't know. I feel like they didn't tell me before you come, man.
Speaker 4:Right, can I get a text? Yeah, anything.
Speaker 2:Right, right. I got to know Jen's grandparents really well and they're both passed now, but they had that open door policy on Sunday and it was just a revolving door of wonderful who's who.
Speaker 4:And literally the door was, like, literally open, and my grandmother would just sit at the head of the table and hold court, and people would be in and out all day and there was always something to eat.
Speaker 2:Yeah, in the morning it was French bread with hog head cheese, and then, you know, butter. Well, like the butter would just sit out on the table and oh, it was great.
Speaker 1:If y'all ever decide to do that, let me know.
Speaker 4:Yeah, all right we're trying to kind of bring it back. Actually we've only done it once, but we're trying to do this sunday spaghetti thing, where we we've been walking to church at saint john um since we moved here downtown, and then we'll have mike's parents and a couple of our friends who also go to the same church. We'll come over and we'll cook a big spaghetti.
Speaker 2:But it's cool because we walk back from church and they walk with us and we've got a bunch of kids. We've got the little. It's not a power wheel, it's a dad power wheel.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 4:I push them back.
Speaker 2:But all these kids come over and wreck our house.
Speaker 1:So Push them back. But all these kids come over and wreck our house. So great we love it.
Speaker 2:All right, a couple of months you could take them across the tracks, right, oh, yeah, yeah, do you have scoop?
Speaker 1:on that? I do, yeah, jen's got some scoop, you got some scoop. Yeah, I mean we can talk about it, or is this a jinx.
Speaker 1:I've got a lifelong friend. They do like custom recipes. And then I think we talked about this Like you, you come up with your great recipe and then all of a sudden you don't have time to make as much as you need. So you, you go over to their place and, uh, it's a really cool place. Yeah, they do their own stuff, but they'll do custom, but in a batch that's like 400 gallons, right?
Speaker 1:and then they'll freeze it in bags yeah, and then, uh, they'll send it to cisco. Cisco sends us, so it's our product. Well, my is working with this guy, and then, obviously, lisa does the farmer's market and they have food trucks all the time. Yeah, this guy has a food truck, that's been here and he's a super decent guy from what I understand. Yeah, awesome love that guy.
Speaker 4:Yeah, let's pray over him, pray over the successful breakfast on weekends initiative, because man would that be convenient.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm a breakfast guy. Senator John Kennedy came to Zachary Rotary this week and he said Zachary is a breakfast community. What?
Speaker 4:does that mean?
Speaker 2:He said it's just a simple breakfast. I don't know, but he said it Okay, I don't know, but he said it Okay, I don't know. Now it sounds nonsensical, but to me it made a lot of sense.
Speaker 4:It just yes, we like our breakfast. I don't know the way he said it too. Yeah, it was Guess you kind of had to be there.
Speaker 1:Okay, probably called it the 100 towns of Breakfast Town and people cheered him.
Speaker 4:Yeah town and people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, on the commercial he called it a sleepy little town. So anyway, let's move on. I'm a political, here we go um all right, where is you got a lightning round question?
Speaker 4:it looks like you have a burning lightning round question for him um, I kind of do, but I haven't looked at your script yet I don't have a script on your toes, okay, I want to know when did interest in cooking for other people take hold of you?
Speaker 1:Oh gosh, for me it was weird. I'm such a storyteller.
Speaker 4:No, I love it, we need stories.
Speaker 1:My answers always end up in stories. So this guy, jim Kitchen. I met him for the first time. They caught some flounder and they were pretty excited about it but they didn't know exactly what they wanted to do with it. And I was at Sammy's and I said I'll give him to me, I'll take care of him.
Speaker 2:Is this.
Speaker 1:Lori's gym. Yeah, lori's gym. Okay, yeah, great guy. So it was Joey, john Williams and Jim. So I said, bring me the flounder, I'll take care of it. So I cleaned him for him and filleted him, and I've been fishing my whole life. There's not a fish in the world I can't clean Sheephead. Yeah, I mean I don't want to, but I will Just give me your knife to do it.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 1:And so I fixed him up with like this crab stuffing and eggplant and crab and topped it with whatever sauce I made for it. I brought it over there to them and they're like you want some. I was like I don't really eat that, I'm more of a Ham. Sands kind of guy. And Jim, who I just met that night, looks at me in the most serious and he says so. What is your inspiration for cooking?
Speaker 4:I can just hear Jim saying that.
Speaker 1:I don't what do you mean. And he goes like Emeril, who do you watch, who do you take after? And I was like, oh, I don't know, I just make food people eat. Like if you like it, I can probably make it, and if you tell me what you like, I can make something along those lines. Even more so if you come into my restaurant and tell me that you had something really good, like we don't have eggplant on the menu, if you the menu, if you tell me that you had eggplant, and it was really good, and you tell me how it was over at you know geno's.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I promise you, the next time you come in, I'm having eggplant there and I'm gonna feed you what you told me was really good somewhere else. Right, right, and it's gonna be really good like it's just food people eat, I remember I remember. If you tell me you don't eat raw tomatoes, I'll remember that for the rest of my life.
Speaker 3:Oh crazy.
Speaker 1:There's customers that come in and like, hey, I used to go to Sammy's all the time and I don't remember their face or I don't remember their name, and then they tell me like we used to get the seafood platter no oysters and like extra crawfish.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:That's crazy, it's weird that I remember things like that, but I can't remember other weird things.
Speaker 2:You see food in colors or something.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't know how much salt goes in something. All of my recipes, and it never fails when someone new comes in and they go well. Do you have a recipe for your green beans? I'm like, no, I don't, I just dump honey in there and I put brown sugar.
Speaker 1:You know, like the old people you say sprinkle this, sprinkle that, that I dump honey in there and I put brown sugar and you know, like the old people you say sprinkle this, sprinkle that. Yeah, uh, that's kind of how I cook. But I'm lucky I don't have like a two pound bag of green beans. You know what I mean. And if I put too much salt in it you got to go back to the store and get more green beans. I've got a 30 pound case green beans.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's like a total cheat you know that's right 20 gallons of etouffee and I'm over salted. You just start with salt and then add food that's right.
Speaker 1:That's kind of what you do around here so did you have any formal training? None zero wow. I just watched other people cook and I messed up a lot. Yeah, there's people in this world who tell you, joel Frososh has never fed me anything that wasn't delicious and I'm like, yeah, that's because I threw it away and I started over.
Speaker 2:Well, I'll vouch for you on the chicken parm like. All right, so I would. I would not expect south plains to come up and like impress me and wow me on chicken parmesan right that makes me feel good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm telling you, but the sauce was right on it was. We talk about grandma's cooking. I would would go every Sunday to my Cestillion grandparents' house and they would have the same thing every Sunday with chicken parmesan. Sometimes it wouldn't be the parmesan, it would be chicken put in with stew, meat and everything into the spaghetti. But I mean it was a fantastic dish. I loved it.
Speaker 1:Okay, let me tell you a secret about me real quick.
Speaker 1:Only certain people know this and they don't even believe me. I have the worst palate in the world sweet savory. Yeah, all that stuff doesn't make sense to me. I just cook food and it ends up really good. Like I, I can cook a perfect medium rare steak sitting here and the grill is outside and I'll just tell you when to flip it. It's going to be perfect because I can time stuff in my head on. I know the grill is scorching hot or I know the grease is 350 degrees. Yeah, I've just been around it that long You've got your 10,000 hours in beyond, but when it comes to tasting.
Speaker 1:I eat like a bear's chasing me.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean?
Speaker 1:I just take big bites and swallow huge chunks like a shark. So I don't taste food, I don't eat it. The chicken parmesan. I'm like, yeah, it's good, it's filling my stomach, yeah, yeah, but I'm not enjoying the food like my wife enjoys good food.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know.
Speaker 1:I don't have that. I'm like that's too much garlic Right, Not possible. What is the best meal that someone else has ever cooked for you?
Speaker 3:a restaurant or I mean. The obvious answer is a sandwich on a boat.
Speaker 2:If you've never had a, you've never had a bad sandwich on a boat right, there's not a lot of resources on the boat either so, um, my wife actually cooks really good.
Speaker 1:I just don't eat much of the food that we. She likes etouffees with rice and gumbos and soups and yeah, stuff like that. I don't eat a whole lot of that. I'm steak and potatoes kind of a guy. Um, my brother-in-law makes an incredible caesar salad and he does it from like he has to go buy all the ingredients because that's the best a perfect olive oil and fresh garlic that he roasts in the oven.
Speaker 2:What's the fish that goes in? Is it anchovies?
Speaker 1:Yeah, anchovies, and he buys the anchovies and he peels the top off and he smashes them with a fork and it's all done in a wooden bowl. He makes a really, really good. He also makes a really good grits and griot that we eat every Christmas Thanksgiving if we go there for the morning. He makes that and Mandeville's a little bit different. You drink wine with your breakfast down there for the most part mostly because it's a holiday and that's always good.
Speaker 1:It's on a cheesy grit and he does it just perfect and we always get to bring a little bit of that back. I don't get to eat much of it when it gets back, but as far as someone else cooking a really good meal, it's tough, because I do a lot of the cooking whenever I'm around.
Speaker 4:Okay, but do you all go out to dinner?
Speaker 1:We used to. Yeah, we did that a lot. Rufino's was a place that Lisa and I, when we had money left in our college days, we'd go spend a little bit at Rufino's. Yeah, nice, okay. So if I go to Rufino's I don't need the menu. I don't know how clean we are on this, but I'll tell you, if I sit down at Rufino's I don't need the menu. I just get a calamari prime rib medium rare and don't let my crown run out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know what I mean, and Lisa's like I want the stuffed pork chop.
Speaker 1:I want the veal. And do y'all still have that fish, katie? Yeah, you know the fish, Katie, they gotta still have that. That was like around when DiNardo's was there.
Speaker 4:I know I actually ate the fish, katie, because we went to that restaurant for our senior prom and that's what I ordered.
Speaker 1:Yeah, fish Katie, it was so good it had the little lemon, it was DiNardo's, and then with the Rufino's and it comes out on a wooden plank. I think it had like maybe some balsamic vinegar on it and some tomatoes or something like that.
Speaker 4:Can we get a Fish Katie at?
Speaker 1:South Plains. Oh, it's time, let's do a special.
Speaker 2:I could.
Speaker 4:Okay, so that's where that local knowledge, that baton rouge knowledge comes in. I was not in in like the little what cheese cloth with the lemon in?
Speaker 1:it but yeah, yeah, they did what cheese, cheese cloth.
Speaker 4:Okay, like is that the right thing?
Speaker 1:that's, that's exactly right. You tie it around the lemon, so when you squeeze the lemon, the seeds don't come out yeah, it was like grilled.
Speaker 4:Oh man, it was so good, and they had that bread where you could they.
Speaker 1:They pour the olive oil in the bowl and they shave fresh parmesan for you and then twist the pepper cracker and right, that's when that was like a new thing and they, they spoofed it on saturday night live and he was like do you want some more pepper, yeah, yeah um.
Speaker 4:Wait, I was gonna ask you um. So you mentioned when y'all had leftover money in college. So you, you and Lisa have been together since college.
Speaker 1:Since 2000. Oh wow, I say 2000. I met her in well. She graduated high school in 99. I was working at Sammy's in St Francisville. For some reason, I was 20 years old and they thought I'd be a great manager to open a brand new restaurant in St Francisville.
Speaker 1:And I did too at the time because, it paid much better than being a fry cook. Yeah and uh, so I went up there. She had to get a job over the christmas holiday. Her dad made her get a job. I didn't know anything about this girl. Do you want to hear the story? Yeah me and lisa gosh. We don't have. This is going to last so much longer than 45 minutes yeah, we like the stories all right.
Speaker 1:So, uh, lisa had to go up there. I didn't know who she was and, uh, I remember she'd asked me like I was on the grill, and she said, look me and my boyfriend just aren't really getting along right now. Should we break up? And I was like yeah, and so that afternoon I was at the fountain machine getting something to drink and she said, hey, do you have any gum? I said yeah, so I pulled out my gum and it was green extra.
Speaker 1:That's what I had in my pocket at the time I could care less what kind of gum I'm chewing. And she goes oh, my husband's going to chew green extra. And I was like this is fantastic. Good, I'm happy for him, and I put it in my pocket and walked away and at the time I was seeing this, this girl, not very seriously at all, and lisa decided. Little 17 year old lisa decided to go tell this girl, who's probably 20 or 21, hey, I'm gonna uh steal your man from you, and so we went to this. This is on brand yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So I had this is.
Speaker 1:I had to be 21 because we went to the casino and she was, yeah, you know. She's like, hey, that little girl has a crush on you and I, I'm like, not my type, she's 17. I think her dad owns a gun store. He doesn't even have to be a good shot.
Speaker 4:He's got a lot of bullets.
Speaker 1:So, and then that summer came around. She turned 18 in December. She didn't work there very much, and then that summer she went to LSU and we just kind of hooked up. Yeah, crazy enough, one of her friends started liking my roommate, which is what they told me at the time. Now, sitting in this chair, looking back, it probably wasn't the case. And we just started hanging out that summer at LSU. Yeah, and off and on, off and on. And six years later we got married. Beautiful man, we just made 18 years Nice.
Speaker 3:Thank you for sharing that 10 days ago. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4:What a good story that's awesome.
Speaker 3:So, on brand, though, you're so right so on brand for Lisa.
Speaker 1:She's never changed.
Speaker 3:Never yeah.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 4:I'm going to let you take it away, because I've been riffinging I love it, I love it.
Speaker 2:All right, so let's focus in a little bit on the south plains food company journey. So you gave a little bit of background there that you were at sammy's. You were, um, did you? Did you maintain the manager job or like, demote you back down to spongebob fry?
Speaker 1:cook.
Speaker 2:Sometimes I did yeah, sometimes I didn't yeah, I have this distinct honor.
Speaker 1:listen, I wouldn't be sitting in this chair talking to you if it wasn't for Jason Jackson. Jason Jackson was Sammy's and we worked. We had this incredible management crew that he put together and we worked extremely well together. I have and we joke about it now the distinct honor of being one of the only people in Jason's life where I'm the last person he ever wanted to see and I'm the only person he ever wanted to see.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:Like we've. We've been as low as we can go, we've been as high as we can go, uh, and we've always been very honest with each other and been good friends. And he knows there's there's never a day that my phone would ring. I wouldn't answer for him. And I know the same thing about him, you know, uh, and he taught me not by teaching, because I don't know if jason's a good teacher. I watched everything he did, his reaction, the way he talked to people that I knew he didn't want to be talking to at the time. Or the way that he handled managers that he had a lot of respect for who'd done something just boneheaded, yeah, or a boneheaded guy that had done something really good that he showed a lot of appreciation. You know what I mean, yeah, and I still go to him now in times where I'm like, hey, how?
Speaker 1:do I handle this situation? Because I don't quite want to handle it. I don't want to come out of my shoes upset with this person who just completely disrespected this company, right, because as a business owner, you have to watch out for that stuff. Yeah, you can't just come unhinged. You know what.
Speaker 3:I mean.
Speaker 1:You can't. Just you're dependent on the community, but you also have to be a little bit authoritative. In what you did was disrespectful and I'm going to hold you responsible, not for the damage you caused or not for the people you offended. Yeah, because the standard of this restaurant is we don't allow anybody in that does what you did. Whether guys will get into fights at the bar, yeah, you can't fight. You got to go and I know we've been friends, but you can't come in for six months, right, I can't have people thinking we can't go sit in the bar. Fight might break out. Yeah, and if you just let one guy go and don't let the other guy go, uh, saint roadhouse it's not, and it's the same way in the kitchen yeah, you know we have.
Speaker 2:We have. We have fun rules in the kitchen I work. I was a cafeteria chef for 400 uh kids up in north carolina. It brought out the worst in me many times.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, we have like no fighting in the kitchen. It gets hot in the summertime. I get it, yeah, mostly because I know that those two guys that just got into a fight are probably riding home together.
Speaker 2:You know what I?
Speaker 1:mean, and so like we have no fighting in the kitchen, yeah, there's people out there. Don't care if y'all are getting along, they want their food right, and if y'all can't get their food to them, yeah, y'all go outside and fight, I'll get their food for them. Yeah, and whoever loses is fired and whoever wins comes back in and you have to work your station and the person whose ass.
Speaker 3:You just kicked. You know what I mean. Yeah, uh it's never.
Speaker 1:It's never happened, by the way, yeah these aren't real rules uh, but they're just they. They keep the the mood light, sure, in the kitchen, uh, uh, or like guys will start singing and then another guy starts singing along too. Yeah, and now you got two people singing the same song and neither one of them can sing very good. So I have a rule if somebody's singing, the other person can't sing along unless they sing the girl parts right, you know what I mean like you have to, you have to be the backup singer yeah, endless love
Speaker 1:yeah there, it is there it is uh, you know, look you gotta. You gotta keep it light in the kitchen. Uh, you have to keep the attitudes going. There's a million things that can go wrong in a kitchen. That caused your hamburger to not come out on time yeah, like there aren't like it's just a hamburger man. What'd y'all have to do?
Speaker 2:go back there and catch the cow and kill it like no, we didn't man, but it speaks a lot to morale, though. Yeah, morale connecting to back to just the simple process of creating something absolutely and I think so to bring the story full circle yeah I learned that from jason, learning how to handle situations, learning how, um, you know.
Speaker 1:So to tell on myself, one time we had this fry cook and I don't want to say his name, I remember his name perfectly and it was probably 15 years ago, yeah and he decided well, I'm not dad gum, I have to give myself away in order to tell the story no, it's okay.
Speaker 2:No, no, it's okay.
Speaker 1:It's okay because it ends up funny. So this kid's a really good fry cook and sammy's back in a day.
Speaker 1:We needed three really good fry cooks on a friday night, yeah and uh. And this kid comes in at like five o'clock and he brings his buddy with him, who's never worked in a restaurant before, and he looks at me, goes hey man, I got a really good job at Turner and I'm quitting. But I brought this guy and he's going to take my place and I was like oh, not tonight, right, yeah, you can work this weekend. He's like no man, I'm quitting, dude, this job's paying me like $30 an hour. I'm out and I had some choice words for him and then, as he decided he didn't want to listen to those words anymore, which he didn't have to, he decided to walk to his truck. I halfway followed him to his truck, finishing my sentence, and he got in his truck and he left and I get a phone call from Jason like 10 minutes later. He goes hey man, did old boy quit?
Speaker 3:I said yeah.
Speaker 1:He said yeah, she got a call from his mom. Oh no, got a call from his mom, oh no. I said okay. He said, um, she's the vice president of the bank that we bank with and she wasn't real happy. So let's not say those words to people anymore. I know you're upset, but you can't say that to people. Just let him quit, let him go. We'll figure it out, man, we'll be all right. Yeah, I said all right, yes, sir, I'm sorry. And he said and, by the way, you can't take the deposits to the bank?
Speaker 2:anymore. Beautiful, you've been banned.
Speaker 1:Nice, I like that one man uh, you know, it's everything that I that I've ever done watched him being successful. I try to do. And you know, restaurants are so fluid, there's so many moving parts, and just because your hamburger came out burnt this time doesn't mean that the next time it's burnt it's for the same reason. You know, sometimes the temperature of the meat the meat could have been the cooler was too cold because the thermostat went out and the cook just threw a burger on it and it was frozen, and it takes longer to cook when it's frozen and so it burnt.
Speaker 1:But at the same time, every time there's a problem, I always tell everybody this, because some people just choose to run from problems. They don't like the confrontation of it, and I'm like y'all. Every problem we have is an opportunity to present. These people just came in for good food. The experience isn't happening. Let's go talk to them about it. We're real people. They're real people. They'll understand, and 99% of the people understand. Like, if you just acknowledge we messed up, I'm going to fix it as fast as possible. Like, again, I tell.
Speaker 2:Talk about the bigger story that you shared before.
Speaker 1:Oh well, so I'll tell both those stories. Yeah, they're both pretty short stories. One day at Sammy's, guy sends back his fried shrimp and they were burnt and he was upset in the service that he doesn't want anything else. I always tell them when they don't want anything else. They came in here to get food, they want something else. They just are mad. So I go out there to talk to the guy and he's at this big table. I could take you to the table right now with my eyes closed and the guy's sitting, the wife is at the head of the table and he's right there at the and I said hey, man, look, I'm sorry we burned this ramp. I'm going to get you some fresh ramp because I don't want nothing.
Speaker 1:I said okay, and he just kind of turned away from me and snubbed me.
Speaker 2:So I looked at his wife and I said is he?
Speaker 1:always like this oh yeah, but you have to own that part, yeah. And so I ran back into the kitchen. He didn't say anything. Thankfully he didn't say anything to me, and she just kind of laughed it off, because maybe he is always like that, or maybe he's just when he's like that she thinks it's funny.
Speaker 1:Like my wife if I'm in a bad mood, my wife is going to have a good time. And so I go back in the kitchen and I fix the shrimp and it's perfect. I mean, the potato is perfect, everything in there is perfect, the garlic bread was toasted, perfect, and I put it in the box. And I walked out and I set the box in front of the lady and I said ma'am, this is exactly what he ordered. I know he don't want to talk to me, but if he gets hungry, here it is and it's perfect In 10 minutes. It ain't going to be perfect in that box anymore. The table, I don't care what you do with it. This is exactly what he ordered. I did it myself, yeah, and I'm not charging you for anything. And I just walked away.
Speaker 1:A little while later, server comes in the kitchen. She goes hey, joel, somebody's out here to see you. I said all right. So I walked out and there's that guy standing right there, right outside the kitchen door. Yeah, I said, hey, man, how you doing? He said this shrimp are perfect and he gave me a hug.
Speaker 2:And I hugged him back. You know what I?
Speaker 1:mean, and that's what you can do if you care to do that for people. How simple is it to go? Oh shoot, we burned his shrimp. All right, I'm sorry. Tell him we're sorry and we got all these other tickets. But you take a little bit of time and give somebody this personal thing, and maybe it was like the little jab that I gave him. I don't know what it was.
Speaker 1:But I also took time to fix it right and tell him I don't care what you do with it, I'm going to make sure what you ordered was perfect. And he was hungry and he did eat. He ate it all and it was perfect. He was hangry, perfect enough. And maybe his wife told him now go get that boy a hug.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, but you got to put effort into it. Jason jackson's done nothing but always put effort into everything he's ever done and he does it for people. Yeah, you know he wants people, he genuinely wants people, uh, to enjoy themselves at his place, and so that's just kind of the spirit that I brought to south plains. Yeah, there's other other stories. This guy, uh, we ran a special one day and it was, uh, if I can remember right, it was like mahi, my fresh mahi. Mahi blackened over pasta with, like, uh, crab meat, lemon butter, whatever it was. But it was really expensive. It was 28 for the for the. And the girl who wrote this is a crazy story. Just how little things can go wrong. And the girl who wrote this is a crazy story. Just how little things can go wrong.
Speaker 1:And the girl who wrote the special boards had great handwriting. She didn't write the prices next to the specials. And he comes in for lunch. He's by himself. He says never been there before, and he says that looks good, I'll take that. And so she gets that and she brings him a salad and then she brings him his meal and he eats the whole meal and he enjoyed everything he had until he got the bill and his bill's like 40 bucks yeah and now he's got to leave a tip.
Speaker 1:He just spent 50 bucks on lunch and he just walked out of there upset, so he took the time, like when he got home, to write me this letter. I've still got the letter yeah and uh and it was a full like typed page, like it was tight was typed or handwritten. No typed. Like you remember in college when you had to type, I want one full type To whom it may concern.
Speaker 2:It was hard. Yeah, no double spacing, you know, I think I typed like eight words a minute or something in college. It was terrible.
Speaker 1:I typed with two fingers yeah, me too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I got Mavis Beacon though Anybody else who struggles with typing.
Speaker 4:Mavis Beacon go ahead so.
Speaker 1:I don't know. Don't make me ask you what Mavis Beacon is, Don't don't?
Speaker 2:I just throw these things in for other people to cut down their time frames, so I get the letter and you could take that 100 ways.
Speaker 1:You could crumble it up and go. I don't have time, man, I'm up and go. I don't have time, man. I'm sorry, but we did this, but so I just took the time to go back and write a letter to him.
Speaker 1:Did you type it? I think it's handwritten, but he can tell you if it was typed or not. Maybe I'm. I'm a handwritten guy. Yeah, I write everything down, I'm. If it, I'd still be typing, obviously, if I typed the letter to him. No, it had to be handwritten, and uh, and so I type him a well thought out letter of genuine concern for what we'd done to do everything right except for one small thing yeah and end up with this.
Speaker 1:And the guy, the manager that came up with the specials right, he really wanted that responsibility and I guess you learn everything, like I learned that you don't throw a knife into a dirty sink by an old man oh yeah, ripping me about it. And 18-year-old Joel Frosch has no idea that you're not supposed to. That's where the dirty dishes go and he made me fish it out. Yeah, and he's like that's a dirty sink, it was just water in there. I can't see that knife. I'm going to cut my hands.
Speaker 4:He always says that.
Speaker 3:Say that to everybody, yeah but I had to learn that.
Speaker 1:And so this guy has to learn. We don't run $28 specials for lunch, we run like $16. We try to go $12 if we can. People are just eating lunch. They got two more meals to eat that day, right. And so I returned his letter and I mailed it to him. And he comes in. A couple days later. A guy walks in I don't know who it is and he, uh, he says Joel. I said yeah. He said, man, I want to let you know something. I really appreciate you sending me this letter. I said, well, man, I kind of hope that you did. That was my intention, but I know you live in Baker, that's what your address was. You drove from Baker just to come up here and talk to me. He's like man, business just isn't done like this anymore, like it, it. It feels good that there's somebody running a business, yeah, that cares enough about their customers to return a letter, yeah, and, and I think we're losing that because we're losing sight of what's really important.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean like it doesn't matter what I eat. And I tell people this it doesn't matter what I eat. You might not like that, so what I try to prepare, jim, my inspiration is you jim kitchen? Yeah, he's a great, you're not gonna find much better guy than jim kitchen no, he's perfect he's a really really good guy. Always got a smile on his face.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, You'll have to find him when he's at Fenwood singing Dinosaur one time right.
Speaker 1:Okay, let's make that happen, yeah.
Speaker 2:We'll have to have him maybe play the podcast, outro that would be, so great, just play Jim Dinosaur yeah. That's excellent, all right, right. So here you are, you're running, you're running this, this massive operation, now south plains.
Speaker 1:I think you asked me, like, where the inspiration was to in the beginning for south plains. Yeah, and I did not answer that question, by the way well, what was it like?
Speaker 2:it's hard to go back to the start of south plains at a minute 45. No, I'm just kidding. No, let's go there, let's go there, the start of south plains.
Speaker 1:Um, we always wanted to be in zachary. Since sammy's left, there was a void, absolutely. Uh, you know chris evans, which coincidentally jim's brother-in-law yeah, uh was at my house the other night talking about like when you went to sammy's you didn't know anybody that was going to be there, but you knew everybody that was there and you never had to worry about like hey, I wonder who's at sammy's tonight?
Speaker 1:like you knew there was just going to be people there, yep, and, and like the, the people that sat in the bar, when they would come in with their family, you'd see them in the back of the restaurant and you'd go hey, what are you doing back here, man?
Speaker 3:You're supposed to be up there. This is very weird right now, go now.
Speaker 1:But there was just a lot of people who really enjoyed that place and I don't know what made it that place, whether it was the managers who made it that place because we kept the employee morale up, but we had a lot of really good managers. I can them all right now and I'm still friends with all of them right now and I can text all of them like a funny story that happened that they'll never forget for the rest of their life you know what I?
Speaker 1:mean, and uh like, the cool thing about a restaurant is you meet a billion people and they all have very different uh stories about you. I guess to tell, yeah, you know like I remain the same, everybody else revolves around you. I'm a king of a 15 second conversation, yeah, but those 15 seconds with that particular person means something, yeah, and if it doesn't mean something to me to go have that conversation, then you lose, uh that community you know what I mean.
Speaker 1:If I just stay in the kitchen all night, which I could and be like, oh, tell them I'm busy. Tell them I'm busy, you'd never. I always wanted them to go see my buddy Joel, go see my buddy AJ, go see. You know, I think Chad works on Tuesday nights. Y'all can go up there, everything will be fine, and we had that in the beginning. That's what I wanted to replace and give Zachary a place where the community could go, and that was the initial idea.
Speaker 1:And then you realize that's a lot harder to pull off when you don't have seven really good managers who all want the same thing. We were all very well trained. Nowadays I'm not saying they don't work hard, you just have to show them how to do that, you know, whereas back then we just kind of we just kind of did it, we worked for that purpose of all the people that were there, yeah, and you get a lot of other people doing that from day one, two and three. You can't train them to do that, to create that, and then it just creates it's. It's something that happens over time where time and time again, people are seeing my guys, are seeing me make decisions and do stuff, and then it takes them a little while to adjust, to do those things as well reminds me of, like lsu, starting a new season, losing the quarterback over and over and over every three years.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1:And you bring in Joe Burrow, then you bring in Jaden Daniels and you think well, heck, now we're back. What's Nuss going to do? You can't possibly do that, can you? And hopefully he does. I saw somewhere they had him at SEC first team, all-american or SEC first team. I was very excited about that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, jordy Collada came and gave us the recap at Rotary a couple weeks ago, so it's looking like the defense is going to be healthier this year and you know, we'll see Sunday night, but this episode will be airing the day after that.
Speaker 1:Funny back story about Jaden Daniels. Yeah, when he came to LSU I didn't know much about him. He was from Arizona State. I don't even know where Arizona is, it's on the other side of Texas.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean. Yeah, I know what you mean.
Speaker 1:It's that weird Nevada Arizona area You're in food service.
Speaker 2:You don't have time to think about these things.
Speaker 1:I know that I get vegetables from somewhere out there, right, right, which. If you get the opportunity to go to California to that valley and see the vegetables, it's amazing, I think, like 70% of the world's vegetables are grown like in this mountain valley.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's a very cool.
Speaker 1:Monterey Bay is a very cool place. I went in there at night. You'll appreciate this. I flew in at night, had no idea what was on either side of the road. I'm smelling this weird thing. I'm like God that smells good.
Speaker 2:What is that it?
Speaker 1:smells like something that I'm familiar with, but I don't know what it is. And four days later I'm driving back to the airport and it was a garlic farm. Yeah, wow, that was amazing.
Speaker 4:It was it was garlic.
Speaker 1:I knew I liked it, but but Jaden Daniels comes in and we were all hyped up on Miles Brennan. Yeah, and I was like man, I'm putting $50 on Miles Brennan to win the Heisman Trophy this year. This is the year he's going to win. And then, obviously, he fell off a pier and tore his stomach off of his hips Ow no no, that's one way to put it. I think that's what they said.
Speaker 2:I can't confirm that he tore his shoulder off.
Speaker 1:They said the injury. If they'd gone and done surgery it would have been the first time that surgery had ever been done. It would have literally like Tommy John was the first guy to get the elbow. It would have been the Miles Brennan surgery because they had to put his torso back on his hip.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, it was horrific.
Speaker 1:It was absolutely horrific. They've never done that surgery before.
Speaker 4:And all these surgeons- trying to figure out I'm going to have to do a deep dive.
Speaker 1:It was going to be called the Miles Brennan surgery and he opted out of it. What? Or his parents?
Speaker 4:did it could have been a legend, could have been.
Speaker 2:Well, he's still a legend for that, apparently.
Speaker 1:Yeah for losing 50 bucks, he didn't even play were losing 50 bucks. He didn't even play. He retired. Watch. His parents are gonna be like from okay, he went to school in bay st louis. They might not be from bay st louis, he went to st stanislaus he went to stanislaus, he did wow who knew that's right.
Speaker 2:They're in bay st louis yeah, yeah, but I mean it pulls from a regional crowd um tell me about the lunch menu the lunch menu in case you missed our real and my story recap yeah, that's been, that's been, it's been successful.
Speaker 1:We uh, I don't know you have to I think I said this just a little while ago but like, if you're not in tune with what your customer base wants, you're not going to be around for long and you can go back and look before the restaurant ever opened, like in our um, not our motto. What is your business plan?
Speaker 1:or whatever the case may be, and then you have to have and I said we need to be geared to change with the times. If what we're doing isn't working, I need you to tell me what is going to work and then I'll try to match that. Yeah, and I just realized, like with the, with the price of everything being so expensive, like you can't go to the restaurant, to rouse's, without spending 90 bucks yeah, inflation is oppressive right now, um, everything's just really expensive.
Speaker 1:And lisa doesn't grocery shop a whole bunch, I just. I do it because it doesn't bother me at all and I don't know what I'm getting. She's very organized with you know she needs frozen corn three pound pack and she needs and if they don't have the three pound pack, then she's like gosh. Should I get like three, two pound?
Speaker 3:to make that three pounds, six pounds trying to math and it just overwhelms her a little bit here.
Speaker 1:Recently she's gotten much better since I started working seven days a week, and so I had to come up with an idea, and I saw lunch is fading. People just couldn't come in. We have one portion of shrimp and it costs $20, and catfish is $20. And it has two sides and it's three-quarters of a pound of catfish.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And then I realized, like Joel, that's what you would eat you know, mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:So the sleepy little town of Zachary has people you know plenty of people over the age of 50, 55 that just don't eat as much, and then in the summertime I don't eat as much. So I just came up with this idea let's change the menu and put a few new things on and take some stuff off that's not selling. In a restaurant you can't just have one thing, do one thing. Yeah, you know calamari, for instance. You can't run specials with calamari. Who's going to eat a fried calamari? Po' boy, that's not. That sounds pretty good. Actually, I did not think of that. So we brought in some new things that we had multi-use for.
Speaker 1:We lightened up lunch a little bit and I think that's the word we used on the menu is the light portion of shrimp.
Speaker 1:So now it's $13 with one side and it's six shrimp instead of 10 shrimp with two sides and it's going over. Well, you know, and obviously in business you never, you never want to lower your price right on something. And then people now instead of spending 20, they spend 13. But like it's, let's take that chance and maybe we get two people to come in for lunch and eat the light side, as opposed to the one person who was eating that big, heavy lunch.
Speaker 2:The Parmesan was enough for two people. Like I went back the day after I had it and I was like I have to have this Parmesan and then I brought half back to Jen and it was like a solid value. Tell me the price of that again. $16? Yeah, $16. I'll do that all day if I can bring back some from our wife Like that's incredible.
Speaker 1:What a value. My buddy Martin Goo came. It was his wife's birthday. He came in and they were just having some appetizers and wine and I said, hey, I knew she liked chicken parmesan.
Speaker 2:Well, we don't have an Italian restaurant, so that's now my go-to, else I can go it's just uh that.
Speaker 1:Back to the thing. I just remember what people eat, and not even because you came in the restaurant, like we went to the camp one day. I saw that was in your refrigerator. You had chicken parmesan, something like that. You know what I mean weird stuff and uh. So I had them go make them one and they brought it out and they both ate. They didn't eat like a full meal, obviously, they were just snacking, but they ate. And then the next morning their 17 year old son finished it off for breakfast.
Speaker 2:Yep, and parmesan for breakfast. Absolutely, I can do that absolutely cold too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I can do that, he said I'll eat that with coffee, he said.
Speaker 2:Man elliot said this is fire and I said well, it's, it's not counter warm papa john's the next day.
Speaker 1:You know, right, it's hard to beat that Papa. John's pizza at 7.30 in the morning. I don't know it really is there's something wrong with it man, leave it in the box on the counter, it's perfectly fine.
Speaker 2:I don't get nauseated at Lit, I'll leave it there. I like me some Lit pizza. Lit pizza's good those guys.
Speaker 1:As far as business owners go, those guys are really really smart.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the whole QSR Chipotle layout. I mean it's just.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but it's good food.
Speaker 2:Oh no, I'm saying yeah it's a smart way to get in and out of a restaurant.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I know Ozzy and I call the guy bookie, but his name's conrad yeah, and they've both helped me, um, understand things about business that I didn't quite understand, or or how to do things, um, that I didn't quite understand, and I lean on them a little bit too. Yeah, and they're both super gracious guys, both really good not like just good people in general, you know, and it's nice to do business with people like that, yeah, yeah, or have friends like that, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I want to get you talking about food costs a little bit more, because I mean you know food costs.
Speaker 1:So I started purchasing for Sammy's, probably in like uh 2012 yeah, at the time, I think we're I couldn't even tell you like buying six million from cisco.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like we were four stores and we were big and we were busy at all four of them. We were very popular and uh, you know, doing maybe buying 25 million annually and we were a big customer for a lot of people. And uh, in the beginning I kind of I never I didn't see it anywhere. I just I thought about different scenarios that you can purchase by and I came up with this, this deal where you can buy for three different reasons, and it probably applies and it's probably in a book somewhere. I'm going to get beat up for not giving them credit where credit's due.
Speaker 1:But honestly, I thought of this myself and I remember telling Jason this conversation. I was like, hey, man, we can buy for three different reasons. Right, we can buy for a price. If someone's got the lowest price, we're just going to buy for them. But that doesn't work, because what if this little guy stocks our shrimp and someone beats him by a quarter a pound? Now he's stuck with that 3,000 pounds of shrimp that he can't sell that he was counting on us buying. So you can buy for price if you want to. You can buy a product that you really like Like they had this shrimp that we used and we really like that product or we can buy.
Speaker 1:Well, if that product runs out, we're in big trouble. You know what I mean. If someone's just giving us the best price, we're going to end up hurting one of the little guys somewhere along the line, and that's not what we want to do. We were a little guy, we're big guys now, but we can buy from people who we have relationships with. And I think if we buy from people who we have relationships with, that we trust that are looking out for our interest, our price and our product is going to stay in a range where we can sustain, you know. And so that's what I did. I started purchasing from people that I like and that I trusted, and then, anytime somebody else wanted our business like, let's just say I had two different seafood vendors at the time, bayou Golf and MJ Seafood and MJ would have a better price on oysters this week he's like hey, man, I got this gallon of oysters for back then they were like $30. And I was like.
Speaker 1:I got them for $28 this week you want some and I was like I mean I would, but Todd John's already stocked us up for this week and I'm gonna buy from him. And then I'll let todd john know, like, if he can get to 28, I'll buy from him next week, if not, I'm gonna get from mj. Yeah, and that would hurt mj's feelings. He's like, well, now you're just gonna take a lower price and still buy from him. Like, well, mj, what if I did that with todd john for you? What if, todd john, you know the crab meat that I get from you? What if todd john gets a good price on it? You don't want, you don't want to lose the crab meat that I get from you. What if Todd John gets a good price on it? You don't want to lose that crab meat. Right, I do it for everybody, like that.
Speaker 1:And then your guys start trusting you too and you're always looking out for them as well. Yeah, and when you have two people, I'm buying, you're selling, but I'm also looking out for you as a seller, which means I'm not just giving my price to everybody out on the street that has crab meat and you believe that. Then you start to trust me a little bit more. Those relationships work out. I'll bet right now there's not one vendor that we buy from at South Plains that if I called at midnight on Saturday, is that the end of our interview.
Speaker 4:No, that's my carpool alarm.
Speaker 1:I'll bet you there's not one person that I buy from at South Plains. If I called them at midnight on Saturday, If they didn't answer, the second they saw it they would call me and do anything within their power to help me get whatever problem I'm having resolved.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean shoot. We've had the vice president of Cisco and the president of the company that represented McCain French Fries at the Cisco warehouse on a Saturday and in the food business everything shut down on Saturdays. Nowadays they work on Saturdays. Back then they didn't. They were there Sundays for the Monday trucks. They cleaned up. Friday and Saturday was their weekend. That was their whole weekend. We unlocked the Cisco warehouse and loaded up some French, and Saturday was their weekend. That was their whole weekend. We had we unlocked the Cisco warehouse and loaded up some French fries because there was a mistake that was made and I don't know that anybody would have done that for anybody. But that's the kind of respect that they had for us and our business and that we had for them as the people who represented the business that that we purchased from.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah Awesome represented the business that we purchased from. Yeah yeah Awesome. Um, that's a good segue into um, how available you have been for the Zachary community. Um, and you know this isn't this goes beyond just some big love fest, right it's, but this is real. You show up for Zachary. Um, you always haven't looked before I finally got you to talk to me, like you.
Speaker 2:You, I had these 15, uh, second conversations with you for the first 15 years that I lived here and then you finally, you know, talk to me for more than 15 seconds and I'm like this dude is he shows up, so talk about that a little bit.
Speaker 1:I don't know that, like there's's, there's anything to talk about I'm gonna let jen do it.
Speaker 4:I just do let me just brag on um y'all jen you have proof of it. Yeah like time and time again. Okay, so when we first started doing those uh, cooking classes or whatever- we called it last year.
Speaker 2:I mean mean you generously donated, the wine that's right and the lettuce yeah, and the lettuce and the tomatoes yeah, all of it, I can't remember specifically no, but he shows up with, like a case of wine, exactly, and I'm like man, I just needed like two bottles.
Speaker 4:But thanks, Thank you.
Speaker 1:Okay, so I'll tell you this.
Speaker 4:And turkey dinners. We're going to talk about that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, liz and I have already talked about the turkey dinners. We're excited about that.
Speaker 4:I don't know about this Last year when he generously donated 10 full Thanksgiving meals to people in need in the community. Yeah, that's right, and we helped get the word out. And I mean he was.
Speaker 1:Somebody called me at like four o'clock that afternoon.
Speaker 4:Yeah, four o'clock that afternoon. Yeah, I remember.
Speaker 1:I found somebody else. I forget who called me.
Speaker 4:I think it was me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was me. Absolutely.
Speaker 4:Remember last Thanksgiving. I don't want to make you feel bad, but I gave you my turkey. Oh what? Yeah, I mean, what did you eat for Thanksgiving dinner? Cereal.
Speaker 1:Ham sandwich. Obviously, we went to my brother-in-law's and we smacked his grits and grits, that's pretty good, yeah, no, no, I think I just got like a half a prime rib. I made like a prime rib roast or something like that.
Speaker 4:That's too good of you.
Speaker 2:Well, anyway, I don't want to make you feel awkward, man, but I've just noticed that anything that this community needs, you're always the first one to to be there to volunteer, and that's just. You know it's. It's what makes zachary go around, and it's a good example. We're all. We're all watching, you know, even though we get to talk to you for 15 seconds at the restaurant.
Speaker 1:You know, the first time I ever met dave brewerton yeah, and I've. We've been standing in you in a group of six or eight guys and they want to talk about the play he ran on third down to win the state championship. What a genius call that was and all that stuff. I don't really Great call. That's what you do. You win football games, he called. So we knew each other in passing.
Speaker 3:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:And he probably had Miss Diane called me and wanted to set up a meeting with Brew and I said, okay, that's fine, tell him to meet me upstairs. And so we went upstairs. You know, dave is a big guy. Oh yeah, he sat right in that chair, you're in. Such a nice, gentle human being. But he commands respect when he walks in the room.
Speaker 1:Yes he does. I was, legitimately, a little bit nervous about how this was going because I had stuff I wanted to say too, but he's the one who called the meeting, which means he has something to say. So how do I get the things I want to get out to him? And it turns out he's the easiest person to talk to. He's the easiest human being to talk to in the world. He's always smiling. He's like Jim Kitchen, but a little heavier. And he said I got him to the room and before he could even sit down, before he could even get comfortable, I was like hey, coach, listen, I know you've got stuff to talk to me about, but can I start this conversation? He's like yeah, whatever you've got to say. And I was like I don't know exactly how to say this, but here's the deal. If you just want to put my name on the jumbotron, I'm not interested.
Speaker 1:If you need to feed 200 parents because somebody messed up. You call me and I'll have food there. Yeah, like I don't just want to give zachary high money. That's not what I'm about. Zachary high can get money from a lot of people and if y'all run short, let me know yeah I want to give zachary high food.
Speaker 1:I want to give parents food. Um, and it's kind of like that whole deal where, like it could be taken two ways, like oh, you're just kissing up to the parents and stuff like that. I'm like, yeah, kind of him, because I want them to come have a good time in my restaurant. I want them to know, hey, south plains is doing stuff for our kids, so, like the girls soccer team on away trips, they had to eat. So I'm like, yeah, sign me up, I'll give 17 boxes of chicken sandwiches to the girls going to. That's not a big deal.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Just make sure those 17 girls' parents know South Plains gave it to them.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean, because that is word of mouth and that's doing something for the community. I don't want to put my name on a baseball team's jersey. I don't want to do that Every time a foul ball's hit. I don't want it to be that. Well, that foul ball, south Plains Food Company. You know what I mean. But when Jacob has his auction which is the biggest thing, he has, right For somebody to tell me like let's just say you walk up and go. Hey, man, I'm feeding 300 people tomorrow night and I don't really know what to do. Or I'm feeding them in two months and I don't know what to do. What do I do? I'm like, just tell me how much money you got to spend. If you got like six bucks a person, I'll tell you what I can get for you and it's not a big deal, and you're like, okay, well, let me know.
Speaker 1:When do I need you to? Let me know? By Thursday at 10 o'clock in the morning, and it's not a big deal. Or like we do these big golf tournaments at Fenwood and we're feeding 150 people, sometimes really good food. Well, when you're putting on a golf tournament, when you're putting on this baseball auction, you've got to get all these guests and you've got to get all these seats and name cards and the flowers and the decorations and all the stuff that goes into a baseball auction that I don't know anything about.
Speaker 1:I'll tell you what's easy and what. Just, you don't have to worry about the food. Yeah, you just go. Hey, joel, I need the food here at six o'clock, I need it hot, I need sternos, and I go, okay, no problem. And then everything goes off perfect. You know what I mean. Like they had enough to feed everybody, because I really brought enough for 350 people, or you know something like that. And they're like hey, what do you want us to do with all this food? I'm like I brought you boxes to take it home. Yeah, like that's such good publicity. That's not a billboard sign and that's not a commercial on Jordordie collada's show yeah, you know that says tell everybody, go to south plains food company because that stuff costs money, just like food does. Yeah, but if I could.
Speaker 1:Weddings and stuff like that, you know what I mean. Yeah, um, funerals happen, and when funerals happen, people don't. They've got, they've got grief to deal with. Why should they have to worry about feeding, about feeding the guests that are coming through too? And that's what Jason always did, that's what Jason always said, and I wholeheartedly agree with taking care of your community, your communities. Who takes care of you? We're a community business. If we can't take care of Zachary, uh, why is that supposed to take care of us? Yeah, you know, and that's just how we felt. Yeah, that's how we'll always feel. As long as I'm there or wherever I am, anywhere I'm at, yeah, you take care of the people around you well said man.
Speaker 2:you know my grandpa um, not a very tall guy, just just like me, but he was really successful in business and everything in Metairie, right, little Sicilian guy. But when he passed away, at his funeral, the only thing that anybody had to say about him was he fed me he was a restaurateur too, but he would bring people like ham sandwiches at lunch from the local deli deli meat, all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2:It matters when somebody takes the time to feed you and look you in the eyes as they give you a plate. It's just, it's next level. Yeah, it goes beyond Southern hospitality and you know all these catchphrases. It's something at a higher plane.
Speaker 1:Okay, so there was I told you about Fenwood the golf that there was a little bit of a higher plane. Okay, so there was. I told you about Fenwood the golf there was a little bit of a mix-up. Maybe somebody had a little too much to drink and they said something. That doesn't bother me.
Speaker 1:It never did. I called the guy to talk to him about it. Yeah, and I said hey, if you have any questions, we've been me and Jason have been feeding doing the Fenwood Golf Tournaments for probably seven years now. Yeah, I said, you know, on Saturday nights when we feed like the big, like we do prime rib this year we did fillets, smoked fillets we always do something really nice and it's a really good meal.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I said listen, when I get all the food over there. And it was some dispute about, like what I thought about doing the food, and somebody said the words were misinterpreted but they couldn't have been misinterpreted. I said I want you to think about. We serve at 7. At 7.15, have you ever noticed where I'm at? He goes? I don't know. I said I'll tell you where I'm at.
Speaker 1:Every time at 7 15, at 7 15, I'm standing in the back corner right there by the kitchen door and I'm watching everybody eat. Nobody cares what they shot today, nobody cares how far back they are from the lead, nobody cares how many strokes they have the lead on, nobody cares how much money they lost, how many balls they lost. Nobody cares about any of that. They're eating the food. I said I'm not eating the food, I'm enjoying watching them eat the food. Like that's my time to provide something to a group of people that they really enjoy.
Speaker 1:And if you think that, like what is said or what was being said is true, that's okay. I can't change your mind. But the next golf tournament, 7 15 find me. Yeah, you know, it's just something about providing something to somebody. And cooking is not difficult. For me, cooking comes very easily for me. It doesn't not for everybody is it like that, but you're also. You know, I tell people it's. You go to the dentist and you need let's just say that color in your teeth or whatnot, and the girl goes, oh, he's a v26. And they pull the v26 and she's like gosh, you're right. Or you're like some guy walks up and goes, oh, that's a three-eighths hex, right.
Speaker 3:It's like how do you know that's a hex?
Speaker 1:and three-eighths for real. But like some people, the people that do those things are really good at that. That's what I'm really good at doing. I'm really good at food. It doesn't scare me to say I got to cook for 400 people and it's got to be ready in like six hours. I'm like okay no problem, I'll I still got an hour and a half before I have to get the rice going.
Speaker 2:Well, we are out of time. Let's wrap on that.
Speaker 1:Joel, it was a huge honor to have you here at Headquarters man.
Speaker 4:I don't think I said anything productive, by the way, oh no, are you kidding me? That was amazing. I brought nothing to this conversation.
Speaker 2:No, I love stories. You always bring something to the table, and so does South Plains Food Company Go table, and so does South Plains Food Company Go. Check them out for lunch if you haven't checked that out in a while and you know what? I was there last week and I saw everybody that I know that is the place to be at lunch. That's it for this week's episode of PNP. Catch us on all local newsstands or on the World Wide Web at portsandparishcom. Make sure you spell out the A-N-D. It means thanks to all of our sponsors who make this content free to you. So please go out and support them.
Speaker 4:Oh, one more thing.
Speaker 2:Wait, no, I ended it really smoothly.
Speaker 4:Now what? No, it's okay. I is going to be September 13th, so shoot me an email at editor, at porchandparishcom.
Speaker 2:Nice. Bye-bye, great voices. We received such a positive response on our walking meditation last week. We're going to do it again, so here's a little encore for you. Find a comfortable position, whether you're seated or standing, close your eyes, if you'd like, and take a deep breath in and slowly exhale as you breathe naturally. Visualize yourself moving through the vibrant heart of Zachary. Feel the connection to the ground beneath you and imagine it linking you to every corner of our lively community.
Speaker 2:With each breath, focus on the spirit of Zachary, our shared spaces, local heroes and the warmth of our neighborhoods. As this music flows, think about the exciting events happening in Zachary the football jamboree LSU playing this weekend, football jamboree LSU playing this weekend, energy of the cross-country meets and the band's joyful practice in front of the high school. Feel that pulse of our community's vibrant life and the joy it brings, whether it's lunch at your favorite restaurant or you see your favorite friends, or just going to the doctor and getting a healthy checkup this week. Allow that beat of that music to guide you to a peaceful place within. Focus on your breath. Let the rhythm help ease any tension away. Embrace a sense of calm and balance.
Speaker 2:As you relax, reflect on something you cherish about Zachary it might be a person, a place or a memory and imagine sharing that feeling of appreciation with others, spreading that positivity and warmth throughout our city. Envision the shared positivity growing into a giant wave of unity that connects everyone in Zachary. Picture a community where we all feel embraced and valued, thriving together with harmony and strength. Take one final giant, deep breath, feeling invigorated and linked to Zachary. When you're ready, gently open your eyes, carrying this sense of unity and peace with you into the world, and that might be in Baker, baton Rouge, st Francisville or wherever. We send love with you and enjoy the rest of your week, thank you.
