Breaking Bread with Tom Papa - Episode 115 - Andy Kadin Returns

Episode Date: July 26, 2022

Bub and Grandma's Bread is opening its doors to you and me and everybody and Andy Kadin is here to tell us all about it!  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Hey, it's our goal. Hey, it's time for Breaking Bread with Papa. Hey, don't you know? Hey, it's also a show. Hey. Hey, everybody, welcome to another edition of Breaking Bread with Tom Papa. I am Tom Papa, and if you're looking at this on the YouTube's, you'll see that I look like a fighter pilot. Partially, I've got a headgear and a remote microphone.

and yeah, I look like I'm calling the Delta flight in out of the storm. But I am, actually, this is vacation mode. I am at the beach, screwing around, eating fun things, and recorded our show today with Andy Caden from Bub and Grandma's bread company right before I left and was holding off on the intro. So now you get beach Tommy, just hanging out at the beach at the Jersey Shore. And I've got my Jersey Shore staples. I've got my Taylor Ham, also known as pork roll.

People from New Jersey slice this up. Actually, come sliced. And you put it on a roll with an egg and some cheese and some mustard. So I'm all in on that. I haven't made it yet. Very excited to. then you also get going with, look, I probably shouldn't show Hebrew National Franks backwards on my YouTube,

but, you know, because they don't pay me, but I needed to the Taylor Ham people, but I would entertain both of these people being advertisers. So if I have to entice you by holding up my weaners, I will. And then, of course, And then it's candy time also. Old timey, taffy, fudgy, chocolatey candy stuff. This is from a place called Lucille's, which is a place at the Jersey Shore and has a big giant thing on the roof that says, oh, fudge. And that's what we called it forever. We didn't even know its name was Lucille's

for 20 years. But this is it. I'm diving into the Jersey Shore. I'm diving into the Jersey Shore. I'm doing all things, Jersey. I brought some flour. I figure with no sourdose starter, maybe I would make some facacia, and it sounds appealing. And then I realized, oh, geez, I need yeast. So I got to go back to the stool, get some yeast, make some flat bread, make some pan sheet facacia. And just to keep it going, I have a friend. We have people that our friends always stay at our house and, play with our dogs and stuff, and they, and feed the sourdose starter because it is out and about. We're out and about, and it is left alone like a little McCauley cock and it needs its flour and water and we're going to have to feed it. I did not bring bread in this interview with Andy Caden.

He is one of the, my first bread friends who runs Bub and Grandmas, which makes the most amazing bread. They supply bread to so many of the restaurants in L.A., like the finer places. They made a lot of noise in farmers markets and stuff like that. And even like the places where the restaurants in L.A. where you're like, well, they obviously make their own bread. No, a lot of times Bob and Grandmas makes their own bread. And he was on before. He was one of our early, early episodes. And he's just such a good guy. And I brought him on because Bob and grandmas is finally fulfilling its destiny and opening a retail shop. So you're going to be able, lucky people, not just in L.A. when you travel to L.A., to go to the Bub and Grandma's storefront

and sit and have amazing, amazing bread and sandwiches, and there's going to be wine and beer, and I'll let Andy tell you all about it when we get going. But this is a great, great story. He started off just in his house, in his house. In his apartment, learning about bread, just getting into it, rebuilding his own oven with bricks and just kept perfecting and kept moving and all of a sudden found himself with a commercial kitchen outside of the house. And then he's supplying all these restaurants and always had the idea what if people could actually come and hang at Bub and Grandma's. And I mean, he's been talking about since I met him, which has got to be, I don't know, eight years ago.

something like that six years ago and finally finally after a lot of ups and downs and ins and outs and pandemics and and different kinds of tragedies he's pulling it off and it's going to happen very soon from when this comes out it will be probably just within a week or two so great conversation great guy just we get into everything about the bread we get into everything about just baking and food service and we go a little deeper than that and he's just really cool. So please welcome back Andy Caden. And oh, this podcast is brought to you by tompapa.com. I just put up two shows for sale in Seattle, which is very exciting.

I'm going up to Seattle and Neptune Theater. The rest of August, I'm going to have a bunch of clubs as I'm gearing up to tape my new Netflix special. So I'm going to roll through Salt Lake City and Brea, California, and Tempe Improv, and one more. Oh, Hawaii. We're going to Hawaii to perform at the Blue Note. And then we got a bunch of theaters. We got Chico and Marin.

And we just here down at the Jersey Shore, we've got Red Bank, just went on sale for November. So lots of stuff at Tompapa.com. I'm rolling around and I will be announcing the actual taping of the special. It may or may not be attached to one of the dates that I already have on sale on the website in the area northeast. I'll let you figure it out. All right, that's it. Enjoy now the great Andy Caden. Well, this is great.

It's so awesome to see you, really. It's always good to have a place to complain about stuff. Thanks for having me again. So let you come out and vent and stuff. Yeah. No, but it's, we were just off air just trying to figure out last time we were here. And we think it was like right as the beginning of the end of the, or the beginning of the troubles. The early meet of the troubles, I think.

Where we were still able to come in and do this. Yeah. But probably not too many other people were. I think there were a number a number of conversations before about like, you know, can we, should we? Can we should we? And how should we and all that stuff. Yeah. A lot of mask fumbling and yeah. Yeah. Well, it's so good to see you. To do that now. Yeah. Right. Well, kind of. Yeah. It's actually we're just exchanging COVID. Yeah. We didn't have to before either, but you just did apparently. I don't know. Yeah. Well, it's so good to see you.

You too, man. Long time. Yeah. And, uh, and, you know, I'm always, I'm always keeping tabs on all. things, Bub and Grandma, and I saw this one post where it looked like an actual building was coming together, because we've been talking about you possibly getting retail space for a while. You're creating, just for my listeners, who maybe didn't hear the first one. Bob and Grandma is preeminent bread baker in L.A. It sent out to so many restaurants and places. and if you were eating bread in L.A. at some point in a good restaurant, there's a good chance you ate above and grandma's bread. And you always had in the back of your head a retail space.

Yeah, in the front, really. I mean, because I had no intentions to open a bakery in the beginning. Right. I was just doing bread in my house to figure out how to make a sandwich that I had growing up in New Jersey and Philly and New York. And it just didn't exist here. So I was trying to figure out how bread worked. in order to make that. I never even got to make the thing that I wanted to make

because a Dune and Atwater called and I started making the bread for them. And then it became a business and I, you know, lost my life and blacked out for like three years. Wait, what was that? So you're trying to make the sandwich part. Yeah. This is refreshing my brain too.

Oh, yeah. You were trying to make it the sandwich. I was starting with like, you know, the classics like Jim Leahy stuff and no need and tartine and all of those things and just trying to get a flavor for how to make, bread in general. And where was that sandwich from? The one that you were chasing?

It's really just sort of what what people from Philly would call a hoagie roll, like, you know, a sub-roll in New Jersey or a grinder or one of those types of things. Yeah. Hero. Yeah. And, you know, there's Bay Cities and everybody likes their bread, but I don't. And I feel bad about that, but not really. But I still am happy to eat there. It's just not my ideal.

So I was trying to reach my. ideal sort of sub-role, which we still never even made until now, which we're going to debut at the restaurant when it opens. But the purpose was just to try and figure out how bread worked in general. Right. And I did that for like four, five, six months. And then someone wanted to buy the stuff I was making, just screwing around. And where did they, where did, it was as a friend?

How did people? Yeah. So my, I was giving all the, I couldn't eat the bread as fast as I was making it. So I was giving it to the TV studios and the ad agencies I was working at at the time. and then also my friends and this guy Jed Mayhew, he was working at Dune in Atwater Village, which is a great place still there, killing it. And now they have one downtown too.

And I was making Chabata at the time and gave it to Jed not thinking anything of it. And he brought it into Scott Zweezan from Dune and he tried it and was just like, this is better than ours. Let's call this guy. And then I really had to figure out how to make all this stuff work.

And make it the same every day and have it ready at the same time, every day and delivered on time. And this was still when you were home. This was still, you just, there was no, this was all out of your kitchen. Yeah. Because I know we've talked about this, but, you know, if we repeat, who cares? Because the reason I started tracking you down in the first place was pure love of

bread when I was starting to bubble up, like starting to make it and make too much of it. Yeah. And the whole thing. And there comes this point where you're like, where am I, am I, is going to do it? Am I just going to, yeah. And am I going to just keep doing this for my friends? Or is it tempting to open a shop? And, you know, I kept, I have a lot of comedy things I've got to take care of.

So I never went that way. So to hear your stories is always like, it's always like the what if. Right. You're the what if. The difference between our story is that you, you really enjoy your primary career. I was like trying desperately to claw my way out of writing and, you know, TV and advertising and stuff like that. and I would I said yes out of desperation because you know I think I was selling them for a dollar each right I was making 25 bucks a day right on bread I was I was I was I was the revenue was 25 bucks I was probably losing 50 bucks a day making 25 bucks on the bread how much did they want it first uh it was 20 it's the same thing today as it was day day which is 28 square little square sandwiched jabata a day and now we do 28 you know our house loaf as well so

sourdough for them. Right. And for their downtown place, too. Wow. That's so great. It's crazy. It's so great. You know, you have good accounts and bad accounts over the years, but they're just the

best people, the nicest people. Yeah. And, you know, couldn't ask for better partners than Scott and Ann and the whole crew over there. How has that bread changed at all? Sure. Yeah. I mean, the ingredients have changed since the beginning.

The flowers, I mean, not necessarily the grains that we use, but the purveyors of those grains have changed. You know, as I learned more about each thing and where I wanted to, wanted to put place value in the bread that I make. Right. Is it just 100% as best as it could possibly be Lamborghini of bread that will not be sustainable if I sell that wholesale because it's so expensive? Uh-huh.

Or do I make it the best amalgamation of like, you know, the best possible grains I can use to make it a product that people can actually buy? Right. I can't make 100% whole grain chabata for everybody. Yeah. Which is if I'm living in a perfect world, everything we would make would just be freshly milled, 100% whole grain stuff. Right. But once the numbers get to...

You know, and people aren't ready to eat that yet, you know? Right. And that's why I'm excited about the retail, too, is because now we can kind of, especially because of COVID and our creativity as a bakery, especially as we've gotten to the size that we are now, has definitely gone away. Right. And it's just been about getting through the pandemic, which was a very, you know, turbulent and scary time where we very well could not have made it if we made some decisions in different ways. Yeah. In a literal way.

It was very close. Yeah. I remember when you had that, when you were here last, you had already had a shutdown. Yeah. And that was, you know, we didn't know that we were going to be compensated for COVID sick time at that point. Yeah. Which was something that helped our employees a lot. we just, when we closed, I just paid everybody as if we were operating because I was like,

I don't know how long we're going to be closed. The whole purpose of us doing this is to make sure that we're taking care of the people who choose to work here. And if I can't provide a wage to them and they don't know where their money's coming from, we have to shut down for what at first was supposed to be two weeks, but turned out to be six weeks. I just, like, let's go. Let's just pay them and we'll deal with it later. And we just need to make sure everybody can eat.

Yeah. Oh, that must have been so grateful. Yeah, most of them. Yeah. Everybody's different. But yeah, we had, most of the people who came through, we didn't lose anybody. We didn't have to fire anybody during COVID. So it was like a great, it worked.

Our plan worked and we had to come up with it really, really quickly. Yeah. That was, I mean, that really is, it's kind of like being like a film director in a way. 100%. It's just problems. Yeah. You have this mission. You have this thing.

You have this idea. You want to follow it through. It's the easy part. Right. And then now here's just a world of... Human beings enter the picture. And now, like, you know, when we open the restaurant, it'll be close to 100 human beings. Whoa.

It's like, it's crazy. Yeah. And all those human beings have lives and problems. Right. You know, and some of those problems bleed into the operations of the bakery. And, you know, I kind of play a therapist. And I'm happy to do that. Yeah.

And, like, I want everybody to be happy who touches our bakery. Have you gotten good at that? because I know like the bread story is pretty nailed down. Like we know we know you make great bread and you really have a passion for it and we'll talk more about it. But you didn't plan when you when that guy asked for a couple roles. Yeah. That you would have to manage human beings. I would have never known and it's.

Are you good at it? Far the hardest part. Uh-huh. I think I wouldn't ever say that I'm good at it. I just think that, you know, I saw a therapist until maybe a month ago for 13. years or something like that straight. Right. You know, and it's just like, you know, I got a lot of reps.

Yeah. Dealing with my own shit and dealing with, you know, what I know. And then, you know, now I've got more reps with dealing with other people's shit. Right, right. And it's heartbreaking at times. And sometimes we get to a good place of understanding. I don't have anything that I feel like I can, you know, tell people or like I don't see myself like that.

I'm just trying my best to help as best that I can if I can. And if I can't, I got to back off. And there's like, that's got to be pretty, that's got to be pretty tricky because you're, you're not, you're not a cold dude. Like, you have empathy and it's like, I can tell there's a sensitivity. So there's to, to know that you can't cross a line. Yeah. There's also labor laws, you know.

There's laws and there's protections for everybody. Right. In all honesty, for good reason. Yeah. Most of those labor laws are written in protection of the employees because historically, employees are the ones being taken advantage of. Sure. So, you know, it gives very solid, most of the time, boundaries for how you can talk about

things. And, you know, if you're trying to help people, it can still, no matter what situation you're in, can be taken as the opposite. And you just have to do the best that you can and try and be supportive as you can without stepping on people's toes or getting in their business. Right, right. And it's hard. Yeah, that is hard.

because, you know, because, I mean, just you deciding I'm going to pay everybody is like a, it's like a family situation. Yeah. But it's not really. It's not really. You can't. That's the hard part. Yeah. That's why, you know, especially in a world where employers take advantage of their employees constantly.

And yet at the same time on their Instagram posts, refer to everybody that works for us as a big family. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's a big kind of a word that makes people feel uncomfortable in the food world because, you know, food workers are historic. historically so taken advantage of. Right. That, you know, it's frowned upon.

Similar to podcast, the times that Aaron and our producer has gotten handsy with me or just like just drop some lines. I'm like, what does he mean by that? Yeah. What is he trying to say like your bread is delicious. You got to check him with the HR team. Breaking bread. You're breaking bread.

Thank you for bringing bread along by the way. Of course. Any time. The baguette that I've been, I even, I can. gave up chasing it actually. Oh. Because of you, actually. You're like, there's a limit to what you're going to do in your home oven.

Unless you start putting bricks in your oven, you're not getting a great baguette. Yeah, it's hard. So I kept that off. Thank you so much for bringing it. I didn't set this up so you would bring me bread. I just always bring bread to all my meetings and all the things that I got going on so if I suck, it's compensated for. It smells so good.

Damn, like the consistency is the thing that really starts to get. me after baking bread all this time. And I brought you Biscotti because I figured enough with the bread. But it's the consistency that like, that it comes out like this all the time. Yeah. That's, Mines are just different shapes and different stuff. And it's just like, it's hard at home.

It's fun at home. I mean, it's definitely fun. And it's, and I'm pretty consistent probably for a home baker. Stuff that I see on Instagram is like, yeah, it's pretty dialed in. But knowing there's just a difference.

It's just a difference. It's all the equipment and the ovens and all that stuff. But ultimately is like having people manage the bakery who care about the bread as much as I do and maybe more. You know, we've had conversations recently where I feel like consistency is our number one most, like that's our best quality as a bakery. Besides just having bread that we like to eat, which is our only metric for determining if it's good or bad is do we like it? having it be the same every day, I think is the number one, like, thing that we're proud of. Yeah. With so much bread to make and so many people touching it throughout the process across three days.

Like, that's the thing. That really is crazy. It's a crazy. I mean, what are the numbers you're at now? Like, what are you, what comes cranking out of there every day? We're doing, it's like 600 to 700 sourdough loaves. Sometimes, I'd say 300. to 400 baguettes,

a bunch of chabata, a bunch of flatbreads like faccato and barcée. What's that? This is in a year? This is a year. I wish. I really do. That's a day.

Yeah, that's a day. Those are on big days, for sure. Yeah. But on like Farmers Market days where we're doing our regular distribution of red to all the restaurants, plus like another 200 loaves for the Hollywood Farmer's Market. It kind of knocks things up a bit.

Right. Are you bringing a lot more to the farmer's market? We're bringing the exact same because we just, now we're at a point where the, facility that we have, um, that was probably only half in use the last time we talked is completely maxed out. You were now you're both, you were both floors, I think. Yeah. We were like maybe activating them or just started using both floors. Yeah. Um, and now we can't do any more bread. Um, you're maxed out. We could do like we're only operating from, you know, on big, big days, two a.m. to three 30 p.m.

Uh, and we could activate three 30 p.m. to, but it's just like, you know, our equipment will die half, you know, half as quickly. And, you know, our employees will die. And like, it's just like we can't. It's not worth it. Everything's good. We're doing fine. So what's, so what do you say, 2 a.m.? 2 a.m. is on big, on big days.

Yeah, they don't work that whole time. But typically we try to keep everybody to eight hours as best we can. Right. Which is another thing that I think helps to maintain the consistency as our guys, they're tired. Yeah. But they're not burn out like they would burn out in a restaurant or another bakery space where their schedule's changing days every week and times every week.

And they're working 12-hour days automatically. Right. Just don't do that. That's smart. We'll see how that goes when we open the restaurant because it's more complex. But this is, we are a slave to whatever the schedule is for bread. And, you know, the more you keep the bread on the clock, the more you get what you expect at the other end. Right.

And then everybody, so, yeah, and everybody just getting their shipments for their restaurant. Yeah, because it comes at the same time. at the door at the same time. So that helps with our doing the same thing every time at the same time of day situation. Meanwhile, all the variables are fluctuating, the temperature is fluctuating, so you have to learn over time how we compensate for those things. And that's why the bread stays consistent. It's just because they've got a handle on it.

I just was reminded of something. First of all, that's insane. No, but insane, but in such a good way. Because it is such a, it is a math kind of thing. It's like from the time you start just baking at all. Yep. Your head is systems, right? It's your systems.

It's like system, just to crank out a couple loaves, four lobes a week. Or it's all just bigger systems. And it sounds monstrous on one hand, but on the other hand, it's like, no, that is the math. That's what goes into it. We can do it. Yeah, and we need these amount of hands. We need this number of machines. We need these number of bins.

You know, even just making the same, you know, one loaf at home, you need this, these objects. Right. And once you, you know, rise into another level, you have to upgrade those objects in order to make it work using the same timeline. Because the timeline is, our timeline is the same as your timeline. Right. Same shit.

It's funny because I just had this, uh, had this a little back and forth with my wife where she's, there's, you know, I also cook. So there's like a lot of shit like near the stove. Yep. And she wants, she wants some of her counter space back. Like if she's looking at it. It's too late. But I do most of the cooking, so I'm always like, my system and my stuff for the cooking is like right there.

And she was moving stuff. And I didn't realize until we start, I could just let her have it because I know she can mess with the cooking and the olive oil and the salt and all the stuff that's over there. Yeah. But when we were having the conversation, she kind of glanced over at the bread corner, which literally had a 50 pound bag, two buckets full, all of that. I'm like, I'll let her. I don't want her to mess with the cooking part, but if I blow it, if I blow it, she's coming for the bread.

Yeah. Yeah, you got to, you know, cut your losses and focus on what you can maintain. Exactly. Okay, so the thing that popped into my head was, listen to this. I have this great Italian restaurant in the valley. I love, it's like one of my, it's my staple. It's the place that I go.

I won't name it because. of what I'm about to say, which is so insane, and maybe they'll hear it and I won't have to complain to them. Okay. And would you complain to them? That's a good question. I've been going there forever. It's a great place.

And real legit Italian stuff. And I went there with my couple of friends last week. And a thing on top of the menu said, we are charging, if you would like bread, we're charging a $1.50 per person. Per person. Per person. for the bread. Definitely never seen that specific,

you know, that seems crazy. I haven't seen any charge for bread ever, unless you're like, they're saying, you know, you get the bread with the goat cheese or whatever, like that kind of a setup.

It's incorporated into a dish. Yeah, like as an appetizer. But just bread in an Italian restaurant? Yeah. Have you ever heard of something so insane? If I were them, I would just raise all of their prices a quarter

so you don't have to put that on the top of your menu. But there's a reason why. Why? Because everything is insanely expensive right now. Everything. Everything. Just because of inflation.

Yes. Right. Global inflation, by the way, which we always think it's an American problem. Not an American problem. The whole world is. The reason why we had to raise our prices for the second time in seven years, a couple months ago, I think it was in February. And the reason why flower prices have skyrocketed, which they have,

up from, let's say, November. in 2021, the price of a 50-pound bag of Sir Galahad, King Arthur Flower, was like $18. As of last month, it was $27.50. So if you can extrapolate that, I say we go through 650 bags a week. Right. And you figure out what that totals at the end of the year. It's like business-defining kind of losses. Yeah.

So, you know, we had no choice but to raise prices, at least for the time being. If we have the ability to bring them back down when things settle, and it seems like they might. Yeah. We'll do that. Right, of course. But I think that that's where that's coming from is like, normally they could just toss a basket of bread on the table. People might not even touch it, but it doesn't affect their bottom line. Right.

But now it does. Right. And it's like, you know, same thing with like gas. Gas prices have never been a thought of mine. We charge $5 per delivery. Right. Which is really low in the bread world. Yeah.

$5. delivery. Yes. And that includes, you know, we have to pay for a driver. We have to pay for the fans. We have to pay for gas. Um, right. But now you look at the P&L at the end of every, every month. And gas is an extra thousand dollars a month. Wow. That's $12,000 at the end of the year. That's a huge amount of money. And you have to take that back somewhere. Yeah. So we had to raise our delivery fee for the first time. And I, I think for us is like, you could, you could say, um, every account, we're going to be charging you a flat rate of extra of $20 a month because of inflation. Yeah.

Or, which is like the same as like putting that on the top of your menu, even though the specific, you know, like 150 per person is really weird way to do that. But they're just trying to control their costs. But I think they could have done it in a less silly way. They're trying to control their costs. Yeah, like I wouldn't, you wouldn't blink if the salmon, the $36 sandwich was $40. Yeah. Who's going to, right? Yeah.

And even if you raise your salmon by $4,000, that's going to be like $100,000 at the end of the year. Like that's how significant that change would be. If you raise it by a quarter, you're covering your bread costs and you're fine. Right. You know, it's like. Is the bread thing at all? Is this just general inflation? Or is there you feeling any ripples from Ukraine?

That's what it is. It is Ukraine. It is 100% connected to Ukraine because Ukraine. Ukraine is, uh, produces 10% of the world's flower. God. World's flour. So when you just yank 10% out of the world market. Yeah.

The U.S. is now exporting to, to replace, because we're next in line. Right. To replace all of that, which means that there's a shortage in the states and the price goes up. So that's what happened to like all the bakeries in the states is that they're compensating for the absence of Ukraine's wheat in the market. God. And so I wasn't sure if Ukraine. was just feeding Europe.

They are. They are, but then now Europe can't get it. Europe can't get wheat. So it's coming from us. Yeah. It's pretty wild. Yeah. Because I noticed that like the price of flour for like central milling and those places

hasn't really changed much because they're small. Yeah, but King Arthur is buying from more industrial sources, be they, you know, responsible. Right. Because they are. They're great. Yeah, they're great. But Central Milling is just mostly domestic. And they're not sending anything out.

Right. So they're not affected. Not really. Yeah, which is great. Which is kind of they're not affected, but I guarantee they're having a talk about their delivery prices. Oh, I'm sure. Because I mean, every single thing is. All the delivery prices from all of our distributors for everything went up.

Yeah. Because those guys are on the road constantly. Right. Yeah, how does your, how do you get, how, what is literally the physical, when you order from King Arthur, they use 650 pounds. Yeah. Or bags, was it? How many? Yeah, well, that's a spread across, uh, that's not per week.

How often do you get shipments? Uh, every other week. Every other week. Yeah, and we get big ass bags come. Four, three or four pallets full. So each palette has 50 bags. Got it. Um, and then we just rip through those.

And then, so we're getting, we get King Arthur, Sir Galahad. That's our main bread flour that we use in most. spreads and then all of our whole grains, most of our whole grains come from Camus, which is up north. They ship it down directly to us, but we buy through a distributor for King Arthur breadflower, and it's, you know, I don't want to name their names, but like because of how screwy the prices have been and because of how much they're competing to pick up our business and other bakeries businesses, they're trying to undercut each other by like cents to get our business. And we've just And like, I don't really have any allegiances to either of you gigantic distributor, national distributors.

Whoever gives me the lower price, I'll go with you for now. Right. Right. It's the same product. Until we can buy direct from King Arthur, but don't tell them that. Right. You have to buy the minimum purchase from them as like a large number of pallets. And then you can order direct from them, but we don't have the space for that. Like a dozen more. Like a dozen more.

Yeah, which is like, you know, more than a month's worth of flower for us. That's a lot. Yeah, it's a lot. And we just don't have the space for that. but we would maybe do that at our next spot, which we need immediately. Are you outgrowing this? Do you want another big spot? We're not going to outgrow. I think the plan is to keep that and get another one.

So I've been trying to get this restaurant open for so long that it's been backburner, but now it's very apparent that we're maxed out. So I've got feelers out all over the place. But because we're there now, because we're maxed out now, I can't just find a space that's, empty and build it out because it'll take 18 months at least. Yeah. So then we'll just be not able to grow for those 18 months, which is kind of gnarly.

Yeah. So the hope is that we can find a bakery that's closing or closed or wants to sell or something like that or not even a bakery, just a catering business or a big kitchen approved space that we can do some stuff to and open in six months. Right. It's got the ovens. It's got everything in there. Not even.

Yeah. I mean, even if it's just a kitchen approved space with the city, then we can move the ovens in much more easily than if it was a non, if it was just a warehouse. Right, right. Which we've looked at plenty of those and got pretty far down the road on some of them, but then realized, like, why are we paying a premium for this really nice space when it's going to take us two years to open here? And we're going to just never grow during that time.

That could some other bakery could come in and, you know, do something else during that time that. Two years. That's pure regulation on passing all the California regulation. I have so many, like, little notes in my little notepad in my little notepad in my phone after dealing with inspectors or city bullshit and, you know, just letting it all out.

That's crazy. Especially in this, you know, extremely fast-growing business-oriented city that fancies itself really great supporters of small business, yet they make it excruciatingly difficult and illogical to open a small business here, especially one that deals with food.

I mean, the system doesn't make any sense. Any sense. But no one wants to do the work to change it because that might mean their job goes away at the city because it's been so screwed up for so long. The bureaucracy is bonkers. And when they don't want to hear what you're trying to say, be it logical. Yeah. They are in the authority position and just say, I don't give a shit what you think. Do what I tell you and you have no choice. God. However, in this, at the last run with this restaurant, the last like two months, We have had fantastic inspectors, and they've been kind and generous, and they hear what happened to us with our contractor, which I'm sure we'll get into.

But, you know, there are good people within the system. They're just, their hands are tied. Yeah, man, that's so frustrating. But, I mean, that's kind of the story for all of California. And that's why these big businesses are just leaving. Because it really is a, it's. We're paying a premium on taxes. And why is that not translating to it being easier to do business here?

Yeah, we're paying so much. But every time we go to vote. there's so many things on the ballot of and you're just like mindlessly like yeah you should of course you should make that safer right that safer but that all comes down to just bogging down the system i was kept putting solar panels up on my yeah on my roof i'm literally in the fourth year of it oh yeah this is the classic bill mar thing it's the same thing yeah yeah it's the same exact when he i could when he started talking about it just laughing to myself because it's been just kind of this quiet funny thing in the background of my life is, oh, and then check in with the solar company.

And we're check in. And now we're so close. It's all on. And then we passed inspection. Yeah. And then they're like, okay, now we just. Oh, God. I don't know if it's ever going to happen.

Yeah, it's wild. Oh, my God. It's, um, you know, like with comedy and, and just the way my brain works, like everything is, is, you know, A produces B. It's all like logic. Yeah. You're like, oh, okay. so if I do this, this is what you're, I have to follow these instructions and when I get to the end, I'll have the thing that I need to have.

Right. Like a laugh or a solar panel or a loaf of bread or whatever. Right. And seems so simple. That shit does not compute in the city. They are so wrapped up in all their bullshit that it doesn't, it's impossible to pull it apart. It's like someone with their headphones all tangled up and you just decide to throw out the headphones because you cannot tangle them. It is this kind of thing where you, uh, you, you see.

like the Supreme Court just had that big decision for the EPA. Oh, yeah. And but you see, you know it, it's root like, where these businesses can just, you take that off them, they just thrive. Yeah. They just explode. Yeah. And there's got to be some balance. I mean, once it deals with like that stuff.

Yeah. Unfortunately, thriving in that case means like pumping a bunch of black smoke into the sky. Yeah, that we're not going to. Right. Right. We'll never have water in L.A. Yeah, right. All those little things.

We'll have tons more cancer, but no water. But it is that. that dance, that is that dance that even just like Texas and California are going through of like, hey, you guys can come here. We're not going to do that to you. You can have your bakery open in three months if you want. But if it gets cold, we won't have power for like maybe a month. So these are the tradeoffs. Yeah.

And I've got teenage kids and they can't go get jobs at food places. Yeah. We all worked the ice cream shops and bus tables. And if you're under 18, you're not allowed to be near food. Yeah. That is insane. All right, but enough of that bullshit. Let's talk about the space.

What is the space called? Yeah. Because this is a huge milestone. Yeah. When, how, what's up? When I'm really creative with the name. It's called Bub and Grandma's. Clever.

Just to make it as confusing as possible for people trying to figure out whether the wholesale bakery space or this space is the restaurant. Yeah. So, so yeah, it's actually right around the corner from the bakery. It's in Glassell Park. Cool. It's on Eagle Rock Boulevard. It's a space that I've been driving by for 12 years as long as I've been living like five minutes from there, which is why I chose that space is, you know, it's pretty much a straight

line from my house to the bakery and right in the middle is the shop. Oh, that's great. And, you know, like in the beginning, when I was just trying to escape advertising and open a food business, I was like, oh, I just have to raise a little bit of money or I can maybe even save enough money to buy a closed subway or Jimmy Johns or whatever and turn it into the sandwich shop. And that'll be what I want to do, 500 square feet or less. Sounds like a perfect plan. Now we have a lot more facets to the business.

There's all of the breads. Chris Lear, who's been with me for six years and is one of my best buds, was our head baker at the bakery and is now our head pastry chef. So we built him a pastry kitchen. So we'll have all of his insane pies and cakes and cookies and biscotti and rugelah and a bobby. and a bobka and all sorts of stuff every day. Oh, Bobca, man. Yeah. I was just looking at this cookbook called A Good Bake.

I don't know. I'll look up her name. Okay. She's really, like, I love just reading these books. Yeah. Just reading them as books. I got to snag it. And she has some Bobca things in there that just look like, I never even thought about

making Bobca. Yeah. And now I'm just driving around thinking, I've got to make Bobca. It's so good and it's so messy. It is. It's gooey. Yeah, I mean, it depends what you fill it with. But if you fill it with chocolate, it's everywhere. But to most people who love chocolate, that's probably a good thing.

Melissa Weller. Oh, that's, I saw that book the other day at the bookstore downtown. Yeah, in Chinatown. A good bake. Yeah, I didn't open it, though. I cut it off. Yeah, Melissa Weller with Carolyn, with Carolyn Karen. But Melissa, she worked in a lot of major places.

as the pastry chef and baker and stuff. And yeah, she's got some kill. The Bob killed just looks insane. Oh, yeah. I mean. So he, was he always thinking pastry? He was a pastry chef. So Chris,

Chris and I lived, the last place I lived before moving to L.A. in 2009, I think, something like that, was Boston. I lived in Boston for two years. Okay. Which was intense as a person not in college at that time. It was fine. I moved there for a job. and it was fine.

But I met Chris there, who was living there, who grew up in Boston area. Right. And at the time, he was a partner over a bike shop and a musician, played in a bunch of bands with some of my friends that I, that's how we got connected. Okay. Sweetest guy in the universe, always cooking crazy shit. Right. Experiments, whatever.

Nice. I moved to L.A. for an ad job. And right when I left, he decided to go to pastry school in Boston for two years. And then him and his wife moved out. And, of course, he immediately got a job at Moza. Right. because that's who Chris is. I'll go to the best place in L.A.

And they'll hire him, you know, like even though it's literally his first job. He just goes in and whows people because he's so diligent and on it and creative and smart. So he worked there for a year and then he moved to the tasting kitchen in Venice and worked there for a year. Briefly was the head pastry chef there. And then the timing just worked out where our original first head baker, who's named Kevin Morton and now owns Villisville. bread in Redlands off the 10. Chris came in and became our

second head baker and has been basically since then until we maybe six months ago he moved off of our bakery payroll and is now on the sandwich job payroll and Jess Abel who's been our head baker at the bakery for now two years, two and a half years

something like three years. I'm not sure. I mean I'm not sure. Time doesn't mean anything. Yeah. Time means nothing right now. Yeah. Chris is this is something that, you know, we always kind of fantasized about doing is now like, okay, let's cut Chris loose. Let's give him whatever he needs to make whatever he wants. Just basically the criteria that we talked about is like, I don't know, like. So when I go into Bub and Grandma's retail space, what's going to be the, it's going to

be sandwiches and pastries. Yeah. It's going to be. So we've got like, it's a little alcove at the entrance and there's a little to go window there so that for folks who just want to come and get pastries. or coffee or bread or pick up in order. I don't have to like deal with going inside. So we've got all the retail breads there.

We've got a whole range of retail pastry per day. Nice. We're roasting our own coffee. So we'll have. That was my next question. I had it locked and loaded. We're like, you know,

we've made everything as hard as possible thus far. Let's just tack this on top and maybe think about trying to start a coffee company. Oh, that's, we're doing that. And the bakery's been drinking the coffee for a while and they like it. Yeah. like it and my wife likes it. Really?

So far so good. That is exciting. We're going to sell it in cans, so that'll be cool. Old school. Yeah. And if you bring the can back, you get a discount, which is good. Clever. Is there a name for the coffee?

Bubbs brew, naturally. Good, good, good, good. It's like don't love the name, but also it's the only name that it could be. You know, it's like just fits. It has to. I'm sure. I've to learn a little bit. What is your, what is your, the blend?

Yeah, what is your, when you go to fancy coffee places, like what are you looking for and what did this achieve? Nothing? You're not a coffee snob? No. Okay.

I'm, I'm, I kind of like, I mean, we tasted, we tasted so many different blends of beans that we put together to try and make this what we wanted. Yeah. Which was just like not offensive to anybody, but also not bland. Right.

So it's like. It's good solid. Or like diner coffee that's always watered down and is never good, but it's always satisfying for some reason. Right. It's like that. but like not watered down. Right.

It's like a quality basic, straightforward coffee that everybody can like, that everybody has like can access and not feel like they're dealing with something snobby. Nice. But like I just drink black coffee and cold brew.

That's it. Yeah. I just, you know, I'm not really like a big milk guy in general. Yeah, me neither. I know. My wife was actually saying that the other day,

I had a gig in San Diego and we went to get coffee on the way out. She's like, I really don't understand how you can just drink black coffee. Oh, yeah. I'm like, I don't want to put anything in it.

It's delicious. If she said to me, if someone came, by mistake, gave you a coffee with a lot of cream in it, I said, I wouldn't drink it. I don't want that.

Yeah, I really would have a hard time getting it down. It happens, it's happened, you know, or like, oh, I'm going to go grab some coffee. Do you want one?

And then they just instinctively put some, we're like, I just put some cream in there. And it was like, cream and sugar. Thanks. Like, try to feign that you're, but I,

I get roast out. So I can go get some pastries and some coffee and just split. Yep. Or buy some bread and go split. Yep. Or if I want to hang. Yes. So inside,

it's one of those newfangled things where you order and take a number and sit down. Okay. And we deliver the food to your table. So it's a sandwich shop. Nice. That's getting back to the original idea. Yeah. So it's about a dozen different sandwiches to start.

We're going to have specials and stuff too. On a variety of different breads, including the bub sub is what we're calling it, which is the sub roll. that we've made and is waiting to go. So is that the Holy Grail? We've actually, after all this time? Yeah, it's really, really, really, really good.

Is it? Yeah, I'm very happy about it. Oh, that's great. Chris took the reins on that and just like, you know, nailed it. Oh, that's so great. It took six months. Like, it took, like, a lot of time and development and reps and different equipment and different, you know, now we're using, we bought a molder, which, like, takes the dough,

you just dump it in it, it rolls it in. into like a tube and then we can just stretch it out to what we need it to be. And it kind of takes some of the, like with our baguettes, which are all done by hand. Right. I like the uniqueness of everything. It should have like, they should all be different. Some of them might be curved a little bit sometimes or have different unique qualities. This I want to be like the sub roles that are made in machines, but they're made by hand.

So it's like kind of a combo. What a great combo. But yeah, it's like kind of modeled after mostly Philly style. stuff. It's got sesame seeds. It's like a shiny crust. You know, and it's, it's just perfect for holding things together without destroying your mouth. How long of a roll? Six foot or 12 foot.

They're all, they're all 20 inches. 20 inches. And then we're going to cut them, sorry, 21 inches. And then we're going to cut them each of the thirds. The sandwiches will be like a little more than seven inches each. Okay. And that are on that bread. And what's on the bubsub?

A variety of different things You know The sandwiches are kind of all over the place We have classics like an Italian Oh so Bub Sub That's just the bread Just the bread Yeah that loaf is called the Bubbs sub

I gotcha But there are a variety of different sandwiches that are on it Is there the holy grail of the Andy favorite That he was chasing when he was a kid I think the Italian is that The Italian is that Yeah I mean I'm more of a turkey guy generally

You know I was very a picky eater when I was a kid, even though I eat everything now, I feel like it's a common tale. Yeah. And Turkey was like, and my parents always described this,

like what I ate as a kid is like, you only eat white things. So like white pasta, like pasta with butter and salt. Yeah. Like, you know, grilled cheese with white, only white cheese, no yellow cheese.

White bread. Yeah, it was just such a pathetic little child. I had a thing with my daughter who was only, plain pasta with butter. I still do it all the time. Yeah, and then I may have said this to you.

And then we went to, and it's really like decent Italian restaurant in New York that was in the West Village that we would go to all the time. And we were like making an excuse for our daughter, like, we're so sorry, she just wants pasta with butter. And she schooled us. She was like, no, no, no, you have to understand where I came from

in Italy. That is how you eat it. You eat it with a little bit of salt, a little bit of butter and you get the real pasta and it had and my daughter was just at like six like, well, well look who's more Italian than you. You are so inauthentic dad.

With your carbon era. Yeah, with your just trying to be fancy. Yeah. Yeah, it faded, you know, but I still you know, if Patricia's, if my wife is out and like I'm that's like, she'll eat it too, but

like I still think about it all the time. It's like, it's It's solid. Yeah. No problem. It's like the silly with, you know, where the butter really gets in the little nucks. Oh, a little salt on it. But the Italian sub.

That's kind of the New Jersey sandwich of record. There was a problem with North Jersey and South Jersey. Not a problem, but a difference. And I call it a problem because I came from North Jersey. Yep. And when you would get subs down south, they always took the lettuce and shredded it. Okay. It was always kind of shredded with.

It might be upset. And then some crazy onions on it. Yep. And up north, it was, it wasn't as shredded. It would be like a little more solid and you wouldn't notice it as much. We're going to shred. Okay. But that was actually not my upbringing.

I mean, I'm north central Jersey. Right. Where are you? Milburn, short hills. Milburn, okay, yeah. Sorry, but like Milburn Deli is the famous deli in the area. And they didn't do subs per se. It was mostly like sloppy Joes, or I guess they call them Joe's, but Turkey Joe has like, you know, Coleslaw and Turkey and Russian and stuff like that.

Right. But they would do it on like a, you know, on a sourdough loaf and then they would cut it into thirds with triangle cut, which we're going to mimic on one of our sandwiches in homage. Nice. But yeah, so the shred us situation is definitely going to. Well, just don't go too heavy with it. No, no way. No way. It has to be balanced.

Yes. And there will be onions in there too. Balance is the key. Yeah, but things like that, also the other kind of classic lunch sandwich that we're going to do, I want to have things that are cheap and things that are not quite as cheap, but are still not expensive. So like one of the cheapest sandwich that we're going to do, that's not a breakfast sandwich. We're doing that too, and we're going to bake Kaiser rolls in-house, which is huge, is kind of an R.B-style roast beef sandwich, which will be on a Kaiser roll.

You know, you take the top, the top roll, you put mustard on it, and then you dip the top in the juice and you put it on top of the sandwich. Just a little bit so you can actually hold it and it's not dripping all over the place. It comes with a side of juice too. So it's going to, it's... This is going to be insane. You're going to have lines out the door. When is it opening? I would say this was a very productive week.

Oh, good. So I can say with more certainty that it will open in August. In August. Most likely towards the end. Okay. it's looking like that's what we're where we're at and meanwhile for the last 12 months I've been like it's looking like it's looking like April it's looking like March yeah yeah but it's just you know will there be a grand opening party I don't think so just just a quiet we're open I don't want to even tell anybody yeah we'll do our let it be take care of our investors and our neighbors and all the people who live in the neighborhood right we're already doing a thing where I had all of these a couple different things made up like all of our employers get a little like actually I have one in my my pocket um you know everybody's gonna have one of these things which says Bubb's staff on it and then you come and get a discount but then

on top of that all anyone who lives in 9-0-065 can come and show us a piece of mail or their driver's license or whatever and we'll give them a little metal it's actually it's actually a dog tag but it says Bub's local on it and you get 5% off if you come nice so just like try to you know I live in the neighborhood I live there for a long time like yeah we've been waiting for this yeah Let's celebrate that a bit. But yeah, so we'll probably do some sort of like slow roll, soft open kind of things to get our staff trained up. But then we'll probably just open the doors. What's cool about that is it's going to be rather than the, it's kind of like discovering a band on your own.

Yeah, exactly. Rather than you have to like this band. That too. And also like the band doesn't have to be that polished on day one. Right. They're not going to be. And I don't want to like blow out our staff because. Right.

know, this is like a three year, a three year thing leading up to three weeks to figure out who's working there and, and, you know, how to make all this shit and get it all together. And that's how restaurants work. And then, you know, I've been dealing with the absurdity of the city and our fraudulent contractor and like all this stuff for the last however many years. But that only builds to an even more insane prospect of an open restaurant with all these people you've never met before who are running it, not who are running it, who are operating it. Yeah. And it's, It's, yeah, I'm very excited, but now there's this new, new horror being born of like, oh, fuck, we have to do this. Yeah, God, once that's open.

It's open. Any days off? Any days when it's closed? I don't have days off, so. Yeah. Oh, it's going to be open seven days right out of the gates. Seven days, right. Yeah.

I say that now, but that's the plan. Right. Yeah. And what do you, where will you be physically? I mean, it's nice that they're close. Yeah. But will you be in the beginning? I imagine you're going to be in the restaurant a lot.

Yeah. Yeah. And the bakery is doing a fantastic job on its own. Jess is a killer. We have, you know, multiple managers who are doing great on the floor. And then, you know, Zach Huber is our ops manager. So it's a whole other half of the bakery is not just bread stuff. It's packing all the bags and making sure they get to the right places all over,

Los Angeles, from Venice to the valley to wherever to Englewood. And that's Zach's management job. And the combination of all of our bakery managers plus Zach and his. his team, like, they are just humming. It's hard, but they are humming. So I'm, you know, going to be back and forth, and I still handle a lot of the money stuff over there, so I'll be doing bank runs and deposits and all that shit. But that's just Monday.

It's all just from making a couple rolls. I know, I know. It's like, what am I doing? It's a lot. It's catastrophe. But, yeah, it's really good. And, you know, the other thing that's unique about this is everything with the bakery since day one has been my job.

It's been, I've had that job. Like, I've been the baker and then I, I was the baker and the driver. And then I was the baker, the driver and the accountant. And then I could eventually, as we got big enough, kind of like, you got this. Okay, you do that. Right. And now it's the point where they don't really need me at the bakery anymore and are, in fact, like, get the hell out of here, man. And I also, at the shop where, like, we're opening from scratch and have never done it before.

Yeah. All of the positions are filled with people who. have. So there is no position for me other than to be support for whatever's needed, be it all the food or the front of house people. Yeah. So. Well, it's going to be a big, there is definitely

just, just as a fan and an eater of Bubb and grandma, like the idea that you can actually enter Bubb and Grandma. Yeah. And that you'll be there. Yeah. Like, you'll see, like, that's a,

that's a, people have been into this for so long that there's actual a physical manifestation of the place and you is going to be that's going to be big for a lot of people i hope so you know like that even just the fact that i'm not manning the farmer's market stand anymore at hollywood or now we have culver city and altadena too um is a is was a loss for me because like that was my connection to the people who enjoy the bread that we make right um and you know now i only kind of communicate with the restaurants via email and stuff like that. But, you know, this is something, this is what I wanted to do from the beginning. Yeah. I, you know, as much as I hate people, I also love a lot of them. Yeah. You know, people are

the best and the worst. So I, I can't wait to see the best, you know, because they, we've had only just such a ridiculously wonderful people that I've met through this thing that are now lifelong friends. Yeah. You know, part of our, I just said, I wouldn't say family, but it, you know, they are kind of pretty much. No, they are. It's a business family, but it's family and that context. And, and, and it's going to be such, it's going to be a little bright spot. Like, wow, there's so much shit going on and everybody's kind of at their wits end. Sure. And I literally was on the beach yesterday. And, uh, we drove down to Malibu just, we snuck away for the afternoon. Yeah. And, uh, it's, it was nice. It was because it was after the holiday and everything,

it was midweek and was like, just enough people. And there were, the forecast was going to be kind of cold. So people weren't jamming out early. And it was like, it was like, like just the right amount of people. And everybody was cool. Like, no, someone was playing music, but not crazy. Yeah. Someone was putting up a little thing for their kid, but not a giant structure where they're building like a house on the beach, you know?

Totally. It was like, it was just so perfect. And then I'm just sitting there reading and I hear someone behind me go, and this is right after another horrible tragedy. And I hear a woman going, of course, they're going to start blaming the guns. They're going to start saying it's the guns and not the other stuff. And just the way, like, it wasn't, it was loud. It was just talking points that someone who's regurgitating from watching some kind of

like there wasn't nuance. There wasn't whatever. It was just, and I turn over and I turn back and there is this woman like, I don't know, 60 with a big giant American flag umbrella and just by herself, just spouting this stuff. And it's like, do a phone. You know, a phone. We're all here to escape that. Just turn it down a notch.

Just turn it down and not. This ain't the place. This isn't the place. It's the beach. Exactly. It's free. Yeah. And that there are places like your spot's going to open and it's going to attract good people.

I hope so. We need these little escapes. And it's not like what's most important to me is it's not a place that shuts anyone out and not I'm not speaking about that woman because she might find a way to get shut out. And if you're that person, like, just turn it down. I'm going to have a sandwich. Right, when we're all here. I don't care. I don't care what you're into you.

I don't care. I care if you like my sandwich. There's nuance on all parts of this, but there are, the thing that's exhausting about the culture is that we feel like that's like our opener. Like, people think that they're going to lead with politics, which is something that we weren't even allowed to talk about. Not that longer. No politics or religion. Just keep it out. And we'll all get along.

you need those little spots. Yeah, yeah. I hope that it's that. It's certainly going to be that for us on our side of the restaurant. Yeah, yeah. I wouldn't count on it. Well, it bleeds in. Yeah.

But I... It's certainly not the focus. It's a place to have a good time. We're going to be doing live music at night. Nice. Like, you know, it's going to be a celebratory place. Yeah. That includes everyone.

The thing that makes those places, is stick and makes it and makes them valuable as when the owner's involved. And I know just from comedy clubs, like from when I started touring, if you went to a place where the owner was involved, it was heaven. Right. It was heaven. They gave a shit.

It's their place. And you went to a place where these chains where it was just some manager, the new manager this week. Yeah. They were soulless. Yeah. You just would never want to go back. You could feel it on your performance too. You feel it on stage. The audience. Yeah, the audiences feels lesser than the whole.

thing. Yeah, that's the restaurant world too. Yeah. 100%. It's like what your motivation to open one of these places is either because you love it and you want to be a part of it. Right. Or you are trying to make money. Right. And if your sole purpose is trying to make money, then that is what's going to be eaten or heard or whatever. And that's, like, that is unconsciously felt. A hundred percent. And even if it's good and successful, it will overtime fail. If you. if you're facing your judgments on money or, you know, likes or whatever. So back to the $1.50 for bread. Yeah. Okay, we understand why.

Maybe they should say it in the verbiage or maybe they should. It's hard because, you know, I think about all this. It's like there's a million things that have run through my head over the last however many years since I thought about doing this. Yeah. The thing that keeps popping up that I'm still not going to do, but still want to do is like on the. on the counter next to the register is a binder. And it just has like facts, FAQs.

It just has like reasons why the bread is cost more than the bread at the supermarket. Right. Like, you know, a million different things. Why are we sold out of XYZ? Like, you know. For you or for the customer? It's for the customer to look at. And it's like, you know.

Right. You know, or on the, another thing is like, did you have a bad experience? Please let us know why so we can fix it. Right. Tell Yelp. because they are extortionists and they are just trying to get paid to remove bad reviews from your site. Right, exactly.

I can't wait. Oh, I forgot about that part. I forgot about that part. I care so much about stuff that I shouldn't like that because I don't, like, this is why it's really hard to manage large numbers of people. Yeah. It is because I am holy, my whole life is dedicated to making sure that, like, everybody's happy. It was in my life, which is problematic for a number of reasons. Sure.

But, like, having irrational people, like, lash out at us for minuscule things that went wrong, yet not telling us about it in the moment. Let me tell you what's wrong with Bubbing Grandmas. Because I am in a 40. I parked a block away and I got a ticket. Wait, what? And that lowers your rating, which is all that somebody looks at. I mean, if I'm looking for someplace to eat, sometimes I pull it up.

I'm not really reading reviews, but it's just like I just need to know what's nearby. Right. Right. Do you think that over time it kind of met's out? Yeah, I think so. But it just doesn't mean that it doesn't cut because it does. Yeah, welcome to it. I mean, I'm sure your whole job is that. Right. You suck. I did a funny video about New Jersey yesterday because I'm playing in Atlantic City and some guy who got offended. I'm like, I'm from New Jersey. Yeah, what are you talking about? Everyone's so sensitive.

You got to kind of, yeah, you can't really, well, good luck. Yeah, you can't pander either. You just kind of like that, that's like, I'm not going to, you know, there's a, a cookbook that I love from a restaurant that I loved when it existed in its first format, which is, wow, I just kind of blacked out. Oh my God, I'm going to have to come back. Where was the restaurant? It was in the city.

It was on carmine. And it was... Blanking. Juisto. No, not juxto. It was a... It's basically like a lunch counter kind of sit-down restaurant

with an extremely long menu of items. Now he moved into Essex Market and he just makes burgers. Oh, yeah? Not just burgers. He makes a bunch of different things, but it's not as special as the place that he was in on Carmine.

And he had a cookbook off of that? Yeah. And it's basically his whole philosophy and I'm going to have to look this up on my phone. It's all right. We're allowed. You have a lot of things on your head.

I do. I do. This is like, you know, I stopped smoking weed this month too. You did? It's affecting my processing. That's so weird because I'm just starting to go back to it. Oh, yeah. It's wonderful.

I miss it so much. You do? I'm like day six. Hold on. Is it awful? It's hard. It's hard. It is hard.

When would you smoke, though? Because you're so busy. You're so. Not during the day. You're so, right. It's the come down. Just at the end of the night. Yeah.

And how many hours before bed do you, like a lot of times I'll think about doing it and then be like, I'm going to bed in an hour. Is that? Like I pass out on the couch at like 9.30. At 9. Because your day is over at. Well, I just like, the stress of the day is often in the morning. Damn it. You didn't do it?

I didn't find it. Keep going. It's just two. All right. I'm going to look. Yeah, you got to find it. And his daughter is a novelist. And I love to her book.

before you know, I don't even know what it is. You variable may. It might even not. Sandwich shop. Bedford. It wasn't a sandwich shop per se. Where was it? Hold on.

He's still in the Essex Market. Let me see. Downtown LA. No, no, no. New York. Oh, New York. Yeah. Oh, shitballs.

Oh, you're talking about, um, Nicks. That had a giant menu. It was a Greek place. He had two of them in the Upper West and Upper East. Where's the list of Essex Market? Our vendors. And it was.

so that it was like the menu was so long that it was like it was almost like you wanted to order the most obscure thing like there's no way they're going to have a meatloaf soup right now and they would Shopsins Shopsons? Yeah

I have no idea. That's his last name but he's famously angry like this is my restaurant and my family's restaurant and we do things exactly the way that I want to do them and if you don't like it, you're 86 and don't come back. So you constantly be like, no more than a table of four. I don't care, whatever it is. We don't do that. I don't amend any of the things on my menu. It's exactly as they're supposed to be because that's how I want to present them. Right. He's right about nearly everything. Uh-huh. But, you know, to me, there's something, like,

the customer is always right is the dumbest thing I've ever heard in my life. That's, that is so not true. Like, and that's not how people, that just, that, that, by, that, that, that, by, that, that, that, that, That just implies that you can be a shithead to people working in a restaurant. Right. And entitles people. Yes. People to be shitty to other people. Right.

Who invariably have nothing to do with your problem with the restaurant. It's like the wait staff or someone else who's not associated with your problem. I've been talking about that in my act. I talk about being nicer to people in customer service. Yeah. And I say, why would you attack the waiter? They are the last person in a long chain of events. has nothing to do with them.

Nothing to do with them at all. And they're already underpaid and they're already dealing with bullshit from other people and probably their boss and probably all sorts of stuff. And they just want to make, I always say, they just want to make their rent and buy some cocaine on the way home. You nailed it. Yeah, it's pretty absurd. They don't want to serve you.

Yeah. But his whole, like his ethos is, is that it's not, the customer is not always right. Yeah. And having really strong opinions about what you do, no matter what you do and sticking to that, no matter what comes at you, is how you succeed and how you do something tremendous. It's like why artists are artists.

It's like, I'm not going to go and try and draft behind Picasso. Right. I'm going to just develop my own style naturally without thinking about anything because it's of me. That's right. So that's what we want to do here is like, this is very much of us. Right. And if you don't like it, that's totally cool. Yeah.

But fuck off. And don't give a shit. If you don't like it, just don't come back. We got other people who want your seat. Why are you here? Why are you here? But I highly recommend. I'll get you a copy next time.

His book is amazing. Oh, yeah. And it has the whole first half of it is just philosophy. And then there's a bunch of stuff. Oh, that's great. Peppered throughout with all of his recipes and stuff like that. Fun stuff to eat. That's great.

Yeah. Yeah. There is, I mean, the right cookbooks reading just their philosophy where they came, like some of the best stuff you could read. Yeah. It's so good. Humans. Yeah, it's human. Like really human stuff.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. from people who automatically by working in food have suffered a lot. Yeah. Just by nature. Well, that's the thing when you were talking about just the sandwiches. Like I went back to when you were first saying just this loaf, like you want the consistency is such a thing.

Yeah. Now you've got to be consistent with a menu filled with. Yeah. Diverse, crazy stuff. Crazy stuff. Yeah. It's really hard. It is hard.

Daniel Zachrizuk is our GM. And, you know, he comes from the bar world and has lots of experience. dealing with human beings. And the reason why I'm really excited to have that is because I don't think I will be very good if I get into those situations where, you know, people say those things or, you know, talk shit on you, not knowing that you've been doing this, working on this with everything you have for 30 years or whatever it is. Yeah. How dare you? Yeah. How dare you?

Do you have any concept outside of this individual moment of dissatisfaction about how hard it is to do what we're all doing? Exactly. And it's, you know, especially coming from the corporate world prior. Yeah. Where it's not hard. No. There may be hard moments in the job, but all of the corporate advertising jobs are working on TV sets, writing, and stuff like that.

All of that stuff is extremely easy. And your meals are paid for and they take care of you and there's free beer and coffee. And everyone's like, you know, paid. Yeah, and you leave and you don't bring the job home with you. It's not in your head boss. But yes. Yeah. Yeah.

It's not something that you have to because it's being. taken care of by someone else. There is a real lack, I think, of considering the source. Like, you come in and you have a bad experience with this restaurant or just because it's on the top of my mind, people are attacking Bet Midler. Yeah. Like, you're not considering the source, but she was a gay icon. Like, this is a powerful, there's a lot behind this.

filled with love and filled with nothing but good intentions. And like to come at without considering any history, anything, is just an infuriating knee-jerk reaction in the culture. Yeah, we are professional knee-jerkers now. Yeah, yeah. And, you know. But that's the cool thing about your business is that it has, you, you enter, you buy at the farmer's market, you have to slow down. Yeah. It's literally like you're.

And I love that. Yeah. Like, I, I, it's, it's, um, you know, obviously it's maybe not as slow as some other meals or whatever. Sure. Like, but it's still meant for that. It has, it demands it of you. Yeah. It really does.

It's such a cool. I hope that it knocks people into that place, you know. Yeah. And we're having, we're going to not at open, but eventually do live jazz there and we're permitted for that. So it'll be really nice to have. Is there alcohol? Yeah, we have beer and wine. No way.

Yeah. So we're open from eight to four to start. So we'll have breakfast and croissants and all that stuff. and egg sandwiches. But then, you know, eventually when things hopefully smooth out and the first few months, we have two tables that are not connected to the floor that can be removed and we have a whole section in the front where we can fit a jazz band. And we'll just do like simple bread and cheese plates and bread and dips and stuff like that with beer and wine and live jazz. And it's just going to be.

This is amazing. So nice. And we'll do it on off nights too. Like Sunday Monday is like the idea. Right, right. I don't, we don't, I never leave my house on. Thursday through Saturday because it's just cuckoo. Yeah, no, that's perfect.

That's when all the humans are out. Yeah, and it's good because it lines up with my date night. Yeah, boom, perfect. Because I've got, you know, I'm always gigging and doing stuff. That's how Monday's Tuesdays. That's the spot. Yeah, that's me too. It's like, it's chill.

Man, you've created the perfect place. I hope so. We're trying. Man, how many years ago did we go down to San Diego to that festival where we... That was before the last time I was here, right? That wasn't like COVID. Yeah, that had to be before... Four years.

ago, five years ago. That was so great. I forget what it was called like the can do, Cabo, Cazu, Cazoo, Cazoo, some festival down in San Diego and they, I did stand up, but they also gave me a stage to talk about bread. So I just called on you. It was great. Yeah, we, it like worked out really well. And there was a lot of people. It was a lot of people. It was a lot of people. Good crowd. Yeah, there was like, just threw bread out to them. Yeah, they started just chewing it. That's all it. That's how we, that's how we, I think we did talk about that. That's how we know it was before COVID. People were literally taking a loaf of bread,

biting it and passing it to their neighbor. To a stranger. Eat from my bite mark. It's the best part. So great. Yeah. Oh, my God. All right, let me ask you just a personal thing about baking at home before we get out of here.

I have so many, should I dial in or should I just keep experimenting to the end of time? because it feels like there's like the solid like three types that I'll make. Yeah. And they're like they're so good. And then there's like, but I know there's like this whole world of like other stuff to open up to. Just.

Yeah. It's like I don't, you know, then I get in another, in deference to my wife. I don't want to have like 17 bags of flour throughout spelt and all the rest of it. I mean, you got to. You know what I mean? We're sick people. You know? Like, there's, you just got to do whatever is calling you. Yeah.

That doesn't destroy your family, family. You know, like, I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm so, you know, I'm not religious. Did I always feel weird saying blessed, but like, I'm blessed that my wife who's, I'm not married to yet, but is my wife. But, like, you know, my life is so hard. This shit is so hard and demanding. and you know she is exceedingly supportive. And understands the depth of how painful some things can be in this job and how it involves human lives.

And, you know, I'm, then that's an extension of me fucking around in the kitchen and making bread. It kind of went off the rails into this territory where it's not just about making bread anymore. Yeah. hasn't been for a while. Right, right. There's always room for tinkering. Yeah. I mean, we, during the pandemic, just because I wanted to make things as

excruciingly difficult as possible, we, when everybody was baking, I put together like a 40-page designed recipe with one, just to make one sourdough loaf. Right. And it was long and illustrations and worked out, people really liked it. Yeah. And then we turned it into a book. Oh, wow. And the book, which is just 100 pages, but has some more philosophical background stuff about bubs, was initially called, You Must Suffer.

And that is the name of the book, you know, because that's life. Yeah. If you want something of value from life, you've got to go through it. Yeah. And if you don't, you're either really, really rich. Right. Or you cut a corner. Right.

It's not going to be as legitimate. Same thing if you're just doing it as a wealthy person. But, like, it's just. Just, it takes your guts on the table. Yeah, 100%. You got to cry and you got to suffer and you got to fuck up and lose and make bad decisions. And that's how you get really good bread. That is the, that is kind of, you kind of nailed like the heart of why the thing that stops me from experimenting sometimes.

Yeah. Is because you have to suck again. That's the whole thing. I'm like, no, I know how to do this. And then you bring in rye and you're like, oh, shit. I'm a more. Rye. Rye ruins everything. It really does.

It's so delicious, though. It's such a, yeah, yeah. It adds to the, just a trace of it can change a loaf. Oh, man. That's our house loaf is. A little more than a trace and it's a sloppy mess. Yeah, it's a pancake. Yeah.

Yeah, you're just like, I can't even put this. Like, it can't get off my hands and I can't get into the basket. Yeah, exactly. Crazy, crazy, crazy. But it is so good. Yeah. Well, this is very exciting. I mean, look, we've been pals now for, for a while.

I can't wait. That you've actually at this. moment that you're going to like it's crazy man i'm flipping the sign and saying open yeah is a pretty great thing and uh it's making me congratulations it's it's it's felt it's like uh it's it's been an absurd seven and a half years of this shit yeah now getting back to the thing that i actually want to do and now as of this week really feeling like okay we can put a date on the calendar and say like this is really going to happen is like a lot of a lot of stuff that's been stuck in my body and in my brain for a very long time is like gun

to start pouring out. You would not be a human being if there's not a moment where the shop is closed and you're not laying on a pallet of bread just sobbing. It's definitely, I know it's going to happen. It should. And you deserve it. Oh, thanks, man. Yeah, and thank you for bringing the bread. Anytime. All right, man. Okay. Aaron, we got it. Okay, everybody. That's the big show. I told you, Andy, was a great guy. Thank you, Andy, for coming back for a second time on the podcast. Go to tompapa.com. look up all of my dates. I will be, I think I'm going to have one more here from the Jersey Shore. Next week we're going to have Katie Parla, who, if you remember, we did Rata Pizza with Dave Richer.

He was on the podcast, and he created his pizza book with Katie Parla, and we get to interview her from Rome. So we're going to get all into pizza and all into Italian cooking with Katie Parla next week. By then, I'll probably have some more Jersey treats to share with you. So in honor of summer vacation, get yourself some tail of ham and some taffy and enjoy yourself. All right, I'll see you guys real soon.