1-on-1 with DP – 93.7 The Ticket KNTK - Chef Bob of Heavenly Waffles joins the show!: April 30th, 12:45pm

Episode Date: April 30, 2025

Chef Bob joins and talks all things waffles on this Wednesday!Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

You're listening to one-on-one with DP, sponsored by Mary Ellen's Food for the Soul on 93-7 The Ticket and the Ticketfm.com. It's so good. It is episode 22-922. This is day 22-922. And I know it's special. I keep telling you all that we track the day because each day is special one. It's a special day. Anytime my brother from another mother shows up here at the ticket.

Chef Bob Haney, brother, thank you for once again bringing sunshine and light into the space that we call home. It's my pleasure. It's, I can't believe it's been, we haven't been in here since December, early December. Yeah. We haven't cooked for 93-7 since before, probably September last year. Yeah. Because that's when we started the Costco Road Show. It's a busy stretch.

for you. And hopefully over the course this morning, you've got to tell folks about heavenly waffles. Sure. But I think the reason why I have been, just like with me for the ticket, the ticket is just the accumulation of a lot of life experiences. And you and I are talking, and I'm going to hold your, your chef hands to the fire. Okay. We need to get your book or books right together because your story. Greatness only happens with friction. Sure. It's absolutely required. Sure. So give them the elevator pitch to some of the friction that existed that leads us to the success. Oh, good Lord. Of chef Bob Haney. So I'm the result of 10 marriages and nine divorces between three parents. Um, my mom's, so my biological dad, Jim Swasin, um, played basketball at

the University of Creighton with Paul Silas. He got my mom pregnant when she was 19 years old. When they went to the national championship with Paul Silas, back when it was the NIT, there wasn't a national championship. The powers that be at Creighton University found out that my mom was pregnant and they benched him. And he was a blue chip athlete in baseball, basketball, and football out of Council Bluffs, but he got a scholarship at Creighton, an academic scholarship. So they benched him.

And they, so Red McBanis put him on the bench. wouldn't play him. So he had never had tumultuous any instance in his life. He was this, this golden child. And so he and my mom moved to Columbia, Missouri. I was not a twinkle in anyone's eye yet. And he basically like went into this deep depression. My mom left him and then found out she was pregnant. So then when my mom was two, when my mom was two, when I was two, my mom married this guy who was my stepfather, liked to drink and push my mom around a little bit. And one of my earliest memories was me standing in between them. I was probably three with my hands on their thighs saying, don't hit my mommy. So that was, that was a situation that is, you know, they

say when trauma happens in your life, it makes grooves in your brain. That's one of the grooves that's in my brain. And so when they got divorced, he got custody of all of us kids, not our real dad. The other guy. Another groove in my life. And then grooves that were of my own devices were the drugs and alcohol that incurred to, you know, get over that pain or to mask that pain. And so I walked out of a crack house in Harlem one Sunday morning when I was 36 years old,

took two more years before I finally quit drinking. And by the grace of God, I've been sober for 24 years. And so it's, you know, getting through those portions of my life made me who I am today. And so I don't regret any of the decisions I ever made. good, bad, or indifferent decisions, but they made me who I am. And so I take every one of them along with me to all of the meetings that I have with, you know, billion-dollar companies. We were the only company in Chick-fil-A history to approach Chick-fil-A that they invited

us into their test kitchen. By the grace of God, we are where we are today doing, you know, now Heavenly Waffles are in over 750 grocery stores, the Midwest region of Costco, the Northwest region, and Costco's about to get set. It's just, it's, and all of this in the last four months. But we've been talking about this for two years.

Yeah. Like that it's coming. Because you, you cannot be wrong in this. You love this authentically and it's in your heart and good. It's going to come from it. And it's scary. Ain't it though?

It's scary. I mean, it's just there's, you know, when it was just Kathy and me and we were, selling our mix online and we had some restaurants all over the country, all over the world, really, because we have them in Turks and Kekos, doing a bunch of catering. You know, that was a lot of work and it wasn't what we wanted to do. We didn't want to be a catering company.

But we were, it was, it was more, we had control of it. Now we don't have a lot of control of it because we wouldn't know what to do. But it's still you. It is. the good thing at the base of it is how foundations are built in the pyramid. Listen, you are my brother from another mother for life. I'm proud of you. I'm proud of you and Kathy and what you've done.

I'm going to hand you over to Varshang. Okay. And let this conversation happen. But my promise to you is that we're going to get your book, parentheses, we're going to get your books done because they need to be done. They do. And the stores need to be told.

Nebraska needs to be as proud of you as I am. I appreciate you, brother. All right, brother. Heavenly Waffles. Chef Bob 80. Don't go anywhere. Don't you dare. Go anywhere.

The captain show coming up here on the ticket.