Doughboys - Boston Market with Annie Mebane

Episode Date: August 20, 2015

The 'boys recruit former Boston Market employee and current TV writer Annie Mebane (Community, The Goldbergs) to help evaluate the homestyle meal chain. Plus, a Lay's edition of Flavor of the Week.Want more Doughboys? Check out our Patreon!: https://patreon.com/doughboysSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Newton, Massachusetts dates its founding back to the 17th century. The namesake of the Fig Newton and the town in which the composers of patriotic hymns America the Beautiful and My Country Tis of Thee once resided, Newton is also where, in 1985, partners Stephen Colo and Arthur Choriz opened a shop they dubbed Boston Chicken. As opposed to Deep Fried Southern Stylework KFC, this Yankee aspirant served rotisserie birds, along with its signature sides. Partners expanded first throughout the Northeast, and when the chain added turkey, ham and meat loaf as proteins in 1995, it rebranded itself with a name that still sticks to your ribs

today. In its rocky 30 years of operation, it's created its own grocery store Frozen Meals, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, expanded into and then retreated from both Canada and Australia and been bought and sold off by the McDonald's Corporation. Since 2007, it has been owned by parent company Sun Capital Partners, whose diverse holdings include restaurant brands, Johnny Rockets and Friendlies, as well as American Golf and Gem Shopping Network. Currently with over 450 locations and 10,000 employees, this New England creation has now

spread to much of America. This week on Doe Boys, Boston Market. Welcome to Doe Boys, the podcast about chain restaurants. I'm Nick Weiger alongside Mike, the Spoon Man Mitchell. How you doing, Mitch? Hey, what's going on? Spoon Man just wants to say a howdy to Spoon Nation. I say Spoon Nation is a triumph of branding.

I was skeptical when you dubbed yourself the Spoon Man. It felt like a little, a little, a little bit of hubris to give yourself a nickname, but it's caught on. Yeah. No, it's big. It's huge. I think it's trending on Twitter every day. Spoon Nation, you know, you shouldn't deny it, Weiger.

I think you should get on board. I am on board. I had some initial skepticism, but yeah, I'm a member of Spoon Nation myself. Wow. I'm the burger boy, a member of Spoon Nation. You know, last week on the podcast, Mitch, we discussed asking for corrections. If anyone out there, any of our listeners had heard anything that was perhaps a little eschew.

If they wanted... People love to correct people. People do love to correct. It's one thing about the internet. So, and we actually got a couple. One at Dan Engler, he noted that the is not, maybe not a correction as much as a little bit of a filling detail, a little bit of background. The Dutch restaurant you mentioned, this was on the Jim Woods episode.

We also mentioned this on the Heather Campbell episode, is called an Automat, once popular in New York. This was the Dutch restaurant that has all the cubby holes. It's fully automated and you open it up. And apparently this was, we thought of this as this is weird Netherlands thing, but it actually originated in, not in Amsterdam, but in New Amsterdam, in New York. They had, America had conceived this thing. It went overseas and then it just kind of hasn't really come back to America, but it's

still a thing in Europe, apparently. Why don't we call New York, New Amsterdam more often? I'm fine. You know what? I'll be on that team. I'm just, I'm gonna say, I'll call it New Amsterdam from now on. Me too. Dan Engler also suggested, because we were looking, we're trying to figure out how to...

Jesus Christ, Angler, relax. We got a note for you. Yeah, he was, he suggested, because we were soliciting, well, what should we call this thing when we're looking for corrections? And I think his is the current front runner, hashtag glaring domission. Yeah, I like that. I think it's pretty good. Sorry, Dan.

Dan's a good guy. Yeah, don't sit down, Dan. We also got a note from Cara or Cara Olsen, sorry, Ms. Olsen, however you say her name. Oh, she's gonna correct us about that, too. I want to admonish the Spoon Man for not correcting Mr. Weiger on his pronunciation of the way I said it was Haverhill. Cara continues, as a New Englander myself, I expected more from you, Spoon Man. It's pronounced like, Haverill, sorry, that's a little shitty phonetic, but you guys let

me down, just kidding, who really gives a hoot. So apparently it's not Haverhill, it's Haverill, and you didn't call me out on that, Spoon Man. Well, you know what? Like most times on this podcast, I wasn't paying attention, I was, Lil Wags the Burger Boy was saying, and now you called me out, why do you turn a son of war with me? It doesn't make sense. I'm not trying, I'm not calling you.

Spoon Nation, flood this girl's Twitter feed. No, don't do that. Please don't do that. Booter offline. I think you could pay me a little closer attention instead of browsing a GamePro magazine while we're doing the podcast. I wish I had a GamePro. Oh man, that was great.

I was more of an EGM guy, but I definitely picked up both. I was a Nintendo Power guy until like, Nintendo Provedi, as far as I'm concerned. What? What? From the big N. I didn't know that you'd have such an averse reaction to the Nintendo Power children's magazine. I do actually like Nintendo Power, but like Disney Adventures, you can't really consider

it an objective source of information. It's by the company. Yeah, that's fair. I had it for too long. My mom was finally like, you need to stop doing this. Get out of the house and get laid, you dork. She threw the magazine at me. I was 30.

Um, uh, that does it for our video game periodical wrap up segment. No. I was playing, I was, I revisited Banjo-Kazooie. Oh, Banjo-Kazooie is great. Speaking of not getting laid, I've been playing Banjo-Kazooie again as a 32 year old man, a game I played when I was 16 years old. Are you just playing it on the Nintendo 64? No, I'm playing it on the Xbox One.

Oh, they have like a collection, like a rare collection. Yeah, they're the rare collection. I really like, I think Banjo-Kazooie, my memory of it is Banjo-Kazooie is great. Banjo-Kazooie, I feel like, is a little bloated. Um, I mean, like it's cool. They've got some new mechanics. There's just like so much going on in the sequel Banjo-Kazooie. And then the, then they made, after that they made Donkey Kong 64, which is just a mess.

It's just a sprawling, huge collectathon with just no direction at all. Wow. I think I have a Mayamoto-san doesn't listen to this podcast because those are fighting words. Actually, I don't know if he had anything to do with that one. I think that was all rare. Yeah, that was rare. That's a UK developer.

All right. Well, I disagree, but I liked it. Yeah. I mean, I don't know. Those games are fine, but I do think- We both should have been doing something else with our lives. Instead of playing Nintendo 64 games as adult men. That arguably came out pretty late too, I feel like, for most of us.

Yeah. No, I was definitely in college playing Banjo-Kazooie. On that note, let's introduce our guest, a very funny actress, a writer for community happy endings of the Goldbergs, a good friend, Annie Mebin. How are you, Annie? I'm good. Thanks for having me. Oh my God.

Thank you for being here. We're so happy to have you in studio. Hi. Annie is one of our early supporters, and some may even call her a Doughboy Super fan. I would do that. Actually, now that I said that, that almost seems insulting, and I apologize to ever call someone a Super fan of this show. It's a little egotistical too.

Oh no, I like that part of it. But Annie was on board early on. She loved the show. I think the reason I bring it up is because I was shocked that someone of Annie's caliber enjoyed it, I guess. Someone with talent and good taste actually appreciated this bullshit. That was kind of my issue with it. I still think it's some sort of weird con.

You take issue with it. I kind of do take issue with it. But she's the best. Annie and I go way back. We're old school friends. Does that make sense? Yeah. You just asked her if that made sense.

I think it makes sense. I never ate Chipotle before I listened to your podcast. Really? I was like, I'm going to try Chipotle, and then I did. I find that surprising because I feel like Chipotle is a thing where it's kind of a, oh, this is like a thing people do now, and people just end up finding themselves at Chipotle, or it's like a work lunch someday, and you just, like, Chipotle is just there. That's really interesting.

That was the first experience you've had there. What did you end up having on your first visit? I got a bowl. I took your advice, and I got the guacamole on the side. Gotcha. Great. It was delicious. I didn't know that the chicken was ethically sourced, and then they had that vegan thing.

Yeah. Yeah, and they didn't actually, what's the deal with them? We talked about this a little bit, but they broke off of McDonald's again. They were a person. They were like Boston Market. They were owned by McDonald's for a time, and then McDonald's sold them off, which is an interesting thing to think about. I guess that's part of McDonald's business model, is they acquire smaller companies,

and then just sort of like help them expand a little bit, and then just take a profit off of it. Interesting. Yeah. That's crazy. Yeah, but they no longer have any McDonald's affiliation. There was something with them doing their, like a... There was something with tomatoes that was controversial or something.

I thought there was, but I thought that there was something about like organically sourced chicken. I thought that there was some sort of thing where they're like, oh, we're going to stay with our organic... Well, the thing, I don't know that this is chicken specifically, but the thing I've seen is you'll go to some Chipotle's and they won't have the pork. They won't have carnitas because they... Yeah, it was pork.

Yeah, they're trying to source their pork ethically, but that's... That's what it was. That's prohibitively expensive, so at some locations, they just don't sell pork entirely. Oh, good for them. That's a good thing. I guess they're taking a stand. Yeah. I think it's...

Yeah, I have no qualms about supporting Chipotle. You know, I certainly... Some of it is a marketing posture, rather is what I'm trying to say. I can turn that into the compound word, monster, which does not exist. Part of that is a marketing posture, but also... But it's like to a good end, so I feel like that's okay. Yeah. Yeah, I agree with that.

I started a new diet, which we've talked about off there. Chipotle is kind of like a savior on that thing. It has one of my favorite meals, so a no-carb meal. Sure. And so I'm really digging Chipotle lately. It's gone even more higher up in my book. Yeah. Yeah.

Isn't it nice when you can have some sort of tasty thing to go that also fits whatever specific diet you have. Yes. It's a little easier to accomplish there. Yeah. So, Annie, this was your first experience with Chipotle, but what chains do you eat at with some regularity, or have you eaten at in the past? I guess I eat at Subway a lot.

Oh, yeah, sure. Just because we'll get it at work or it's close to my house. It has at least the artifice of being healthy. I don't know that it actually is healthy. I think you're right. I was kind of like a Subway hater when I... Well, and we'll save a lot of this for the Subway podcast, but I disliked Subway a lot and then I got out here and I was like, oh, I can get a turkey in Swiss on wheat bread,

and that seems kind of healthy. It's much healthier than a burger, and it's... I know it's not a salad, but it's a nice little in-between or something. Yeah, I felt the same way. I grew to like it way more, because you can toss... And you can make it almost like a salad in a loaf of bread. You can toss so many toppings on there. It's great.

Yeah, and I really like PF Chang's Chinabistro. Oh, yeah. I mean, I will go there for a special occasion even. I'm not... PF Chang's? I love it. I think it's delicious. Maybe that's a Boston thing, speaking of...

Like, PF Chang's is big and... I feel like that's like a night out in town. Yeah. There was one in the theater district, and I was a hostess there briefly, and I was like, I still like it. You know, when you work somewhere and you still like it. Hey, that was below my... That's the transportation building.

Yeah. Yeah, that's... My dad worked upstairs for me. I wonder if I ever brought him to a table. A thousand percent, I'm sure you did. I wonder if he was the guy who pushed me, and I said, don't touch me. Probably was.

Did he reply, give me a break, my son's a loser. That's nice, Weigher, very nice. Yeah, I'm... My dad sounds so dumb. He was so much smarter than I am. I'm old enough to remember Chipotle, but Subway being a new thing in my town of Lakewood, California. Like, there was no Subway there for a time,

and then a Subway opened, and me and my dad were there, like, oh, what's this new place? And we went into a new Subway for the first time. I remember it being nice, and it's funny that that memory has now turned into my experience with Subway now, which is just, it's always like the, I gotta eat something, fuck, you know? I don't feel like there's ever a satisfying set of circumstances

that leads you to eating a Subway sandwich. Yeah, you're like, this is food. Yeah, exactly. I would say PF Changs has a higher, I feel like it's a higher quality. I feel like, oh, that's kind of like a little fan, I mean, it has to be, then Subway. It's higher up on the list than Subway sandwiches.

I like PF Changs, I'm a PF Changs defender. I actually never had a bad experience in a PF Changs. I don't dislike PF Changs. Paul, there's a new sub, I don't know. I was gonna try to make fun of you and your dad, but fuck both of you. From Southern California, why'd you adopt a hate seat accent? I don't know.

I feel like you guys are yokels. So, you're from the Boston area originally? No, I'm from South Florida. You're from South Florida? I went to school up there. Okay, gotcha. So, what's the situation like in South Florida, like food-wise?

Is that kind of like a sort of part of the Southern cuisine tradition? Is a lot of that sort of spill over? Some, but I'm in so far south in Florida that it becomes sort of Latin. Okay. Are you from Cuba? Well, kind of.

My mom is from Cuba, and so... Oh, that's right, I knew that. Yeah, and I lived in Miami for a while, and there's a franchise there that is so good. It's called Pueblo Tropical, and it's Cuban fast food, and it's my favorite thing, and you have to try it if you're ever down there. I like it better than a lot of upscale Cuban restaurants.

Oh, wow, okay. It's so good. Hopefully, I bet you there's probably a lot of fans who hopefully who are listening to the podcast. That sounds good. What type of, what is the food? Is it just a... It's similar actually to Boston Market,

but it's sort of Caribbean, so they'll have like yucca and plantains, as well as chicken and... Yeah. And they have sort of like Taco Bellified Cuban food. Like, they're like, it's a trumpet chop, which is like not a thing. Do you eat conk at all?

I have eaten conk recently. I remember when I went... Oh, recently, okay. Yeah, a gator I had recently. Oh, just, and only recently, was it, did you go back home or something? Yeah, like that swampy food, when I was a kid, I was like,

I'm sophisticated. When I go home, I'm like, I want to eat Florida kitschy food. Yeah, when I visited, we went to Key West when I was a boy, and I had to use an umbrella because I was so pale. That's so cute to picture.

But conk, I remember everyone was like, you got to have conk while you're down there. I mean, this is also like, you know, like 1994 or five or something. So maybe there was a... They were really pushing in whatever book my mom was reading, but we had conk and I thought

it was maybe a bigger thing down there, but interesting to hear that you've never had it till just recently. I think it's kind of for tourists more than it's like, mom, fire up the grill and put some conk on. Do people eat gator regularly or is that just kind of a tourist thing? That's more like it's a street festival

and you have gator. How is it? I've never had gator. It's very tough. Okay. Chickeny sort of. Gotcha. Yeah, I wouldn't seek it out, but I don't know if you're down there.

Drier, I might assume, than chicken. To me, gator feels like one of those foods that's eaten just as like a fuck you to the animal just to kind of say like, we don't like you. We don't like what you represent. We're going to kill some of your friends and we're just going to eat them.

Yeah. It's because it's like, no one's like, oh, gator, it's so good. Yeah, it's sort of like, you'll eat me, so I'll eat you first. Yeah, exactly. Here is much gator lash back. Jesus, my brain is broken.

For like, eating gator and also like, in Florida you could get like gator heads all the time, like they sell like little baby gator heads and stuff like that. Yeah. It's kind of. It's like a chochki to have. Yeah, and I feel like even like, you know,

like white sharks, so I guess they're kind of more endangered, but people, I think gators are just so scary and mean looking. Maybe people don't care as much. I don't know. I think, yeah, I think any reptile people have a hard time empathizing with, you know.

Yeah. Even like something cute, like a little turtle, people are just like, I don't know what this is. This is like, is this like a bug? Like, what is it exactly? You know. Who are these dummies? That turtle's a bush.

I like her stat again. No, but I think like people are just like, oh, this isn't something cute and cuddly. I feel like most people, people hate most animals. We may have had this discussion before, but I feel like, you know, there's certain animals that people are like, oh, I love this thing. It's so cute, but I think most animals are like

gross and shitty and people just don't want anything to do with them, you know. Like this is going to bite me or poison me or just generally bother me. We kill a lot of animals because they bother us. And gators are kind of hard to read and that's why they're sort of scary. Yeah, yeah.

My neighborhood was built over the Everglades. We kind of like threw sand in the Everglades and we're like, there's a golf course. But there would always be gators in the little golf ponds and they would be sunning themselves and we'd panic, but they weren't, you know, one time one sort of chased me and I remember hearing that you're supposed to run zigzag away.

So I ran zigzag, but I didn't look back. I don't think he was really chasing me. I think he waddled towards me and I freaked out. How old were you? Probably 11. Wow, you're into the Mitch version of a gator who lazily gave up and walked away. You're very lucky.

That's kind of terrifying. Gator is also kind of... I mean, it's so weird to be on a golf course and there's a dinosaur suddenly right near you. My experience with gators were in zoos or whatever growing up. That's so weird to me in the United States that it's like, oh, it's a pest.

Oh, yeah, they're around a lot. They'll get in your pool if it floods. There's a gator in my pool. We go kayaking on the Loxatch River when I go home and there'll be gators kind of floating by and you're like, ooh, don't bite me. But really, sometimes I'm like, is this a good idea that we're in a kayak?

I'm not a good kayaker. Yeah, I would say my guess is no. I'd be very scared. Gators are also interesting in that there's no gator for when they make the meat and they cook gator. They must be individually caught, right? Like a...

Like a crocodile dundee goes out. There's no gator farm or something where they breed gator for food, right? I wouldn't... It's like a shirtless hillbilly puts a knife in his mouth and jumps into the bayou, wrestles this thing into submission. You're going to get a correction about that

from an angry gator farmer. This has been a very anti-Yokal episode. We're going to get a lot of angry... We're socking it to rednecks. We're going to get a lot of angry snail mail because they can't use emails. That's a bad joke. Anyway...

So you went to school in Boston, correct? Yes. I knew that. I was just kidding around like I didn't know her. And you went to Emerson? I went to Emerson, yes. How did you like the food in Boston when you got there? Where you were like, this is cool

and this is a great experience and also were you freezing cold? That's a big change from Florida to Boston. I was so cold and I didn't know about layering. It took me like a year to figure out, oh, you could be warm. It's possible.

My dorm was near Chinatown and there was a place where you could go get Bon Mise for $2 and I lived off of those. And in the transportation building also there was a Bennington's and that was like... I probably ate there twice a week. Okay, so you mentioned Cuban food.

Cuban food certainly famed for its sandwiches. Bon Mise, one of my personal favorites. We talked about Subway. Specifically about sandwiches, what's kind of your go-to or your favorite sandwich? I love a Bon Mise.

That's probably my absolute favorite. And then I like the Mendocino Farms sandwiches, like the turkey one that has the, I think it's called the sandwich study of heat. Yes. For outside of LA there's a local micro-chain called Mendocino Farms,

I feel like everything is $12 to $16, but really good sandwiches and salads. Yeah, they do a good sandwich there. They do a great sandwich there. And they kind of do that little Subway trick where they're like, this is kind of healthy. This is like a really good sandwich

but it feels like it's kind of healthy. That turkey, it's like turkey and avocado and some sort of hot spread or something and it's really good. Yeah, and everyone who works there is aggressively cheerful and nice. To a point where I'm like, were you trained to say certain things?

It's so uniform in the friendliness that it seems like. Here's my question, do you like that in a place? Do you like when they seem almost robotic or you want a little bit more personality? I like a little personality, but I do feel like Mendocino Farms is one of those places where I feel like

they're almost on the edge of making fun of me. Yes, exactly. How's it going, boss? Let me hook you up with that iced tea and why are you doing this? Just calm down. I recently went with my husband and he asked for one sandwich

and they were like, we're out of that. First they were like, we're out of that but that's a great choice. It's my favorite one and he's like, oh, well what about this one? I'm like, oh, that's my favorite one. You're lying to us. Hello, Mendocino Farms.

Tell people the truth. How about back in Boston, you might not eat things like that because you're not like me, but... There was this one place I think it was called Darwin's in Cambridge and they had this sandwich called the Eggman

and it was just an egg salad sandwich with avocado and it was insane. I feel like I'm going to use this term wrong. I feel like egg salad is a little slept on, if you will. I feel like people often times I think the big thing now is a sandwich with a burger

with a fried egg on it, a little sunny side up egg but I feel like just egg salad is so satisfying at times. A good egg salad sandwich is really good. It's that weird thing of I'll think of something like that or a tuna sandwich

and I'll be like, in my head this is pathetic but I don't want to waste a lunch on it. I like it and I know it will be good but I don't want to make my lunch an egg salad sandwich. With a turkey or a chicken sandwich you get kind of like

a different feel in your mouth and with egg salad it's softer and mushy and maybe that's a part of it but I've always kind of thought that's a wasted lunch for whatever reason, that in tuna fish. Try the Eggman

before you write off egg salad. If it's still there. By the way, this is 12 years ago. And both of them were giving me a lunch but I stand by it. It doesn't feel like a real thing to me for whatever reason. I feel like you have plenty of meals

you don't need to worry about wasting one. Just go for it. I just got some teeth today. I wasn't making any sort of weight crack or anything. I just feel like as an individual you eat three meals a day. Yeah, you know. Three to six.

Have an egg salad every now and then. Alright, so Boston this week's restaurant. Is that where the fandom for that developed or when did you start becoming someone who goes to a Boston Market or has it some sort of affiliation or history with Boston Market?

Well, when Boston Market was expanding heavily in the late 90s it was coming to my town Wellington, Florida. And everyone was really excited and all my click my whole friend group all got hired at Boston Market.

We all worked there for like a year and it was glorious. It was a glorious year. How did you rate, was there like a group interview or something? How did all of you get hired? It was like three people got hired and then they just would bring us all in. Okay, some cronyism.

Yeah, it was pretty messed up. A little bling ring in the old Boston Market. But at the time it was the hottest restaurant in town in my suburban town and there would be lines at the door roughly the same time frame. I don't know the exact year but I

like going with my dad to that subway. I do definitely remember going with my dad to the new Boston Market and it being a thing of us being really excited about this meatloaf and this mac and cheese and these mashed potatoes we were going to get and bring home to our family and having a great meal. Just like being so excited

and so satisfied with this new arrival that had kind of come to conquer the town. Why was Boston Market such like a thing for a brief period? I think because it preceded all of the fast casual restaurants.

It was the first fast food that was trying to be real dinner. Yeah, like wholesome like a... I think I was going to talk about a lot on this podcast was kind of Boston Market versus KFC and I think it was like that

alternative to KFC. You could get a full rotisserie chicken and these delicious sides and even dessert. I remember for a while people would get pies from Boston Market to bring to Thanksgiving and

people would get a pie from Boston Market. Yeah, it was really looked upon like this is a decent place to eat. It's just a fast kind of a fast food place and for me it was when it came to Quincy it was later on

maybe a little bit before you guys but it was still I'd say when I was like 12 or 13 or something when it finally came to Quincy and I kind of knew of it but it was a later thing in life. I was like Boston Market is here now.

It wasn't like a thing where there's other places like Dunkin' Donuts or Puppageno's who like from the time I was like a little kid I saw those all over the place. Boston Market was kind of a little bit more rare. But it is about the suburb of Quincy that made

the Boston Market Corporation like spread to the rest of the United States before circling back to this neighborhood directly adjacent to its original location. Don't start talking bad about Quincy, man. It's the one thing I can't stand. Alrighty,

my blood was boiling when you were talking about Newton even so. Your high school football rivals. Newton North you've got to, and I think you should share this with some people who follow the Doughboys on social media but some of the videos you've shown me

of quarry jumping in the city of Quincy I guess this is how the working class folks in your town take a look. Tell Colos what you want to call us. Scum with the blue collar

Scum Wager. How they blow off some steam when they jump into an old quarry and these guys are jumping off of what is it, 25 feet, 30 feet? No, it was like 100 feet. Yes, it was insane. I did, but I literally

jumped this jump that was called Pussy's Peak that was like the one where I would jump a lot. This one's fun and they're like, okay. It was named after you, correct? You should name it after that pussy. That thing that's not a jump. The guy who keeps going, yay!

On the way down. So Quincy had a lot of granite and there were quarries there where they got the granite out of the quarries and over time they filled up with water and

people would toss old cars in there and people would go up there drunk and jump into the water and I did this when I was in middle school and I was really scared, but some of my buddies my buddy Anthony, two of those jumped a bunch and Adam Wu jumped like the 100 foot one.

Wow. It's one of those things that they jump off and then it would be like a few seconds and then you'd hear like, it sounded like a bullet but they were so big. Like walking near them, I was like, if I slip and fall I'll die. I thought I would, I knew that I would

probably break my neck or something. A lot of people, there were quite a few people that died up there and they filled them in. Yeah. Because we were talking about this earlier and you had I was like, oh I was watching these quarry videos like, oh that's kind of crazy, these guys are kind of nuts.

And then you sent me like a link to like a New York Times article about like, they dredged like 18 bodies out of a quarry or something. People were just dumping like the, I don't know the Irish mob or something. The Irish mob kind of made me through some people in there and then also who knows what other people in there but then also kids did get

like there were cars so like, that was a scary thing about it like you could get your foot caught on like a car and drown or whatever or you know, just, you know, you go so deep that you'd hit something and... Oh a body! Yeah, no it was, it was really, that's

why I stuck to the old pussy's peak. I remember the first time when I went up there my friends Anthony and Dan tricked me and they told me this other kid, Colin who I love there but he's, I love this guy but I guess I was a little competitive with him and they were like, Colin jump this jump like you, you're not gonna do it and I was like

I'll do it and I jumped, it was this jump called Gorsky I remember the name and it was, and I jumped and when I was in the air I was like, oh my god, what have I done? Like I realized I made the biggest mistake of my life, it was like, and it was only also by comparison, it was probably 50 to 60 feet, it was somewhere

in there but I was like, I'm gonna die like my man boobs are gonna like hit my head and snap my neck or something, like I was so afraid cause all the other guys were all skinny guys so they can just do little pencil dives and for me like, I would jump in and then like, ah there's like a

like a roll on my back I hit or like I would hit like, just like weird parts of the water and never do it correctly, you know, like a cause you had to like just kind of have nice form going in, you'd wear shoes and stuff anyways, no one cares about my my quarry days but you got me excited about it

oh okay, it's interesting that you grew up in like an HBO series this dark little town with a secret so Annie, talking more about Boston Market what was it like working there, do you have any particularly notable experiences?

I was a server, so at the time you would go down the line and the server would like give you your side dishes and there was like a chicken carver in the back who did that part in the back? Yeah, like just kind of just behind us, like they were visible

still. Oh okay, alright. Oh yeah, that's right yeah, they added a cold case like maybe nine months into me working there and by then I had a really bad work ethic at Boston Market I just was there for the cornbread I would convince people to clean my ovens for me you had to, everyone had to clean an oven

like the rotisserie oven and I hated doing it and I would talk people into doing it oh man, that seems like kind of a scary job on top of it all to clean a big oven. Oh yeah, I was like with this horrible chemicals and you have to dump out this big drawer of oil on the street. Oh man.

It was gross. Are you in the street? Yeah, we would just take it out into the parking line and just dump it out. Wow. That seems so not right for them to do, I feel like. But they added a cold case and it was like the salads and they added a new position for that

which was when you clocked in it would print out a little receipt that said what your job was for the day and it would say salad tosser. So I was like, I have to keep boarding here until I can get a receipt that says that. Oh my God. Salad tosser? I was 16. I was like, that's

hilarious. That is great. I talked you up as being refined and everyone, every time I talk someone up on the show, they tell a salad tossing joke. I'm always fascinated when we have someone on the show who worked at a place and also

you wanted to do this. You gave us a couple of options and you wanted to do this one a lot but how do you feel about the restaurant it's kind of like I always wonder that. Do you like it to this day? Did you dislike it? Was it a hard

when you parted ways? Was it kind of like a tough breakup or what? No, I have fond memories of it but I did feel like that you couldn't become a chicken carver unless you were a guy. Oh, interesting. At the time I was like that's messed up

although I didn't really want to do that it just seemed to me they were only promoting guys to chicken carver. But in general it was a nice place to work the food was good, you got free food it felt kind of homey people you knew would come in and my big prank was that

if people were coming in like during the rush hour there was a lot of stone people who would come to Boston Market if you think about it it's like great food for that Oh yeah, that's true. So my thing I would do is when people were going down the line I would be like so do you want cream spinach, do you want corn

do you want gravy on that, are you high do you want stuffing and they'd be like what do you want gravy on that and try to make people freak out? What the hell? I had no idea you were like a member of Jackass down there

this surprises me, Annie You disappointed me I'm very disappointed in you I'm not, I'm on your side I think that's great Mess with those druggies He's on it for the wrong reason Those moon brain drug addicts

I was going to say I remember coming in probably back from the quarries or after having drinks when I was a teenager and getting some microwavable Boston Market Oh sure I do this

I got it today, but back in the day I loved the Boston Market mac and cheese microwavable dinner or whatever it was I would come in from a late night out with friends and I would love those things and the mashed potatoes were pretty decent too They did a good job

of transferring their food from the store into their microwave dishes not a loss in quality That makes me wonder, so Annie how much of the food there is I guess was when you work there prepared fresh and how much of it was

like oh the potatoes are here the mac and cheese is here, we're going to heat this up Well it's been a long time, but the chicken is all obviously cooked there, you can see it But I remember, I have a vivid memory of one of the cooks in the back taking out a giant plastic bag of cream spinach and dropping it on the ground and picking it up

and cutting it open and dumping it in the chafing dish But it didn't stop me from eating it It's still delicious It's pretty good So when's the last time you've actually eaten there It had been I think since high school I mean maybe

once in between, but I don't even remember So I was kind of curious to see what it would be like now because it's been such a long time But you did go recently Cool, so let's get into it What did you get? I got the quarter chicken white

with mashed potatoes and cream spinach and cornbread, a classic quarter My husband got the, what was it called the roasted turkey carver and multigrain bread with the steamed vegetable side and then we saw that there was a pulled pork special, so he got that

Matt, keeping it healthy Yeah, and then we got fancy soda fountain drinks They had that sort of computerized thing Did you go to the Burbank location? I did Mitch and I went just before the podcast This is actually like

a segment of the podcast We went and ate a gigantic meal like seconds before walking into the studio I truly am like sweating from feeling sick I haven't been eating so that diet I'm doing I haven't been eating carbs and I am now

like I feel like I ate a brick and I've just been sweating the entire podcast So sorry to gross out Spoon Nation there There's no need for me to tell anyone that But yeah, we ate But yeah, we both used to

made use of that high-tech soda fountain they have there, which they have at some places I've seen it at some flood ruckers some independent places. I don't know if this is a nationwide thing with Boston Market, but it's certainly pretty great. You've got like a touch screen You're probably, if you're listening you're probably have seen this at some restaurant

in your town, but it's one of those big like refrigerator-sized machines that's got a touch screen with like I feel like 50 to 100 different beverage options you can menu through Yeah, it feels very future. It feels like it feels like, oh yeah, this is futuristic. We should have these and

they should be, I feel like they should be in almost every fast-food restaurant at this point because it's so satisfying to be like oh, I can have a diet Coke or like I can have a cherry Coke Zero or like a lime Coke or whatever any mixture you want. It's really great

Yeah, I've seen those once before at a movie theater where they had ones that also had like margaritas or Oh, wow. Margaritas. Where is this at? This was in New York. They have that movie theater with the sort of reclining seats and they had one of these touch screens but with alcoholic beverages.

Man, theaters are getting lazier and like Yeah, they're like, please lie down and be drunk I had a me and two other friends worked at a movie theater in Braintree and we kind of had our own little squad up there even though it wasn't cool in any way and we were 18 but I just went there

recently and they had Braintree Cinemas and they the seats are so big and you can recline backwards and they'll leather and they make noise like it's like like when you go when you when you're reclining backwards during a movie like and there's you know like 50

seats or whatever. Yeah, yeah like I feel like that's the maybe that's the way they get people to go because I feel like that no one went to that theater anymore but you can you can lay you can literally lay down like I watched Ted 2 reclined completely I was a

bored laying completely stiff watching Ted 2 which was good for Ted 2 because it was boring. Yeah, there's an AMC like that in Santa Monica where it has the life flat chairs and it's very strange because you can lie it so far so far back rather that you can't

see the screen like I'm like this screen is now partially occluded by the seat in front of me so I'm just like I guess these are just for people to come and nap or like just make out. I don't like it's such a weird feature to have this where you can prevent yourself from actually watching this movie you paid

$14 to see but I guess they are also like we don't care what people do in the theater we just actually want them in there. Oh yeah, it's all about the bottom line baby. So you got the the quarter dark or no sorry the quarter chicken. Why you're dark?

What did you think of the chicken? How does that hold up? You know I didn't eat chicken when I worked there I would just eat the sides because at the time I was a vegetarian and so this is my first time having Bob's Market Chicken I thought it was really good. Yeah I had the chicken too I got the quarter dark. I got to say I remembered being good chicken although

our family would usually go for the meatloaf growing up but it's a really good rotisserie chicken it's very moist and delicious the skin is good you know it's got a lot of flavor to it it tastes pretty fresh and hot and yeah I got I got no complaints about that rotisserie

bird they do a good job with it. Are you guys white meat or dark meat what do you prefer? I usually get white meat. I'm a white meat guy too. Yeah I prefer dark meat in general but I am fine with white meat actually if I get a chicken a lot of times I go with a half chicken

because I get a little bit of everything and it's not like it seems like a lot to eat but it's not a crazy amount of food for a grown man to eat half chicken. No. I mean it's not like a snack or anything. It's a reasonable portion as a dinner. Yeah yeah no I think so.

Go for it. I was going to say I got the chicken carver sandwich on a white on a white bun and I got mac and cheese and mashed potatoes as sides which I remember liking a lot and I haven't been to a Boston market in at least 10 years

and it was good I liked it I liked my sandwich it was nice. Yeah I had a bite of your sandwich and I think that roll is really good it's got like a little bit of crunch to it which is pretty satisfying. It does yeah those things are thick and that's a part of the reason why I'm sweating and feel sick right now I feel like

but it was good and the chicken is really the chicken is good the chicken is really really decent there's nothing else to really say like I feel like

it feels a little like cafeteria help me out here. Cafeteria E Esk Not a word. I think they were both words. It feels a little bit like cafeteria food

is what I'm trying to say and that's the weird thing that we were talking about with Boston Market now is like what is this place because like you said it was like it was fast food but it was kind of like a

fast casual or something. Yeah it's meal replacement they used to call it but I think that's what they call fast casual now. Meal replacement that was the buzz word when I was working there I like that. That's so I guess that makes sense because I feel like oh yeah we'll bring a big chicken home for our family

or whatever. Oh I get it okay like replacing the family dinner this is a big that's how our family used it so that makes sense I get it. Yeah that's but now I feel like every supermarket does kind of a big rotisserie chicken and you can just grab one at the store maybe maybe it wasn't as big of a thing back

then that like every single supermarket would have a rotisserie chicken. Yeah you can go to like a Vons or an Albertsons or whatever grocery chain and they yeah they usually have a rotisserie chicken with like some sort of sides deal that's quite a bit cheaper than the family meal deal you'll get

at a Boston Market of comparable quality. I think they're trying to sell this like Thanksgiving homey this is the food you cook at home and I noticed they were really pushing that they have real plates now. Yes they're like real food on a real plate. We didn't get

any of the real plates but we had heard that yeah. Yeah I've seen that's like a new marketing bullet point is that some of these places they have real plates with real silverware they're handing out we still got it on the plastic did you dine in or did you get it to go? I dined in. You dined in yeah so did you get on that on did you get real plates or did you get like a plastic

plate? I got real plates. You did wow. Real food on a real plate it was it was good and I kind of felt good that it wasn't just being thrown away but it was strange to eat on a plate in an environment that felt like a fast food restaurant. Sure yeah.

It felt sort of off. It's so it's so like I can't even tell you know like I really can't tell what they're trying to do like I feel like what drew people back to it in the back in the day was like the the fact that you did see those chickens cooking

and stuff like that and it did it didn't feel like it didn't feel like a fast food place and now I'm like it's kind of a cafeteria it's kind of not like you get a number they bring you your food I just don't I can't I feel like it's

having an identity crisis I feel like it doesn't know what it is or kind of what it what it wants to be it's really strange. I agree it feels like it used to be something and now it's sort of like dingy like staying at like a weird 90s comfort in or something.

Yeah. Like the service is good and the food is good but it's just feels sort of depressing or I get that I definitely I definitely get that and another surprising thing was it was it was there were a lot of people when we were in there that's pretty hoppin yeah it was it was kind of

it was kind of busy I mean we went at the right time but there were quite a few people there are a few families you know you mentioned earlier that that it gets a lot of stoneers it makes a lot of sense but I was a little surprised to hear that because I just wouldn't naturally think of Boston Market and stoneers but a lot of seniors

there and it does make me think and we've made this connection before but there is something of like stoneers and drunk people and like older people have a lot of the same taste in food like you'll that's that's who you'll see in an I hop that's who you'll see

at a Denny's that's who you'll see it at a Boston Market you know at a McDonald's having breakfast and I wonder if there is something to just like the aging process kind of doing the same thing to you that that you know altering your brain with chemicals does is you just kind of go like fuck it I just want to eat something

that's going to be good you know was that too dark it was it was slightly depressing for me as you get older you're in a stoned haze and you're like what I'll eat anything no my point was more just like kind of getting the attitude of just sort of like ah you know what I'm just

going to eat something that makes me feel good that gives me a little bit of satisfaction in life okay all right that's that's fair a kale salad that you feel like you should eat yeah exactly at this point I'm just like you know what fuck it I want pancakes I'm gonna get some pancakes I feel like some meat loaf and some cream spinach from Boston Market that's

what I'm gonna put yeah I feel like if you get if you get to a certain age I think it doesn't you can do anything you want to do right like go for it yeah I mean I don't mean literally anything you want to do but like you can eat any you probably can eat anything you can't commit a crime you don't get like a hall pass when you get over the age of 90

but if you want to eat a little unhealthily feel free I also I also do that I mean like Boston Market is comfort food but it it is kind of like that weird traditional dinner food like when I think of like yeah when I think of like sitting at home when I was

like 11 or something it would be like here's rotisserie chicken and like ah corn yeah and like ah some cream spinach or something like like it just it reminds me of what what dinner is in a typical family on any given night

or something well it's actually wondering that because that's one thing that I like about Boston Market is I was like this seems like food that a family that I'm not in would have like this is my idea of like TV families at the end of an episode eating around a table like they're eating

Boston Market like that wasn't my experience I was actually wondering if why and why is it called Boston I was wondering if in Massachusetts that's like normal dinner yeah you know what maybe it has to do with the the climate like the fact that

a big like kind of a hearty chicken dinner like we would in my house we would have rotisserie chicken quite a bit it definitely wasn't like family matters all of us going around the table and and like having fun and eating a

rotisserie chicken dinner but we would eat like chicken with like you know rice or in corn or whatever in peas and we would do it quite a bit and I think it maybe it was because it gets so cold in the winter and it's kind of a hearty thing that warms you up or

something you know like I feel like it's more out of place in Florida or even LA or something like that it's a nice like a Thanksgiving type of meal you know yeah but I think it did kind of approximate the kind of you know a suburban dinner

that my dad would prepare I mean certainly we would have like a meatloaf with some boiled potatoes or some mashed potatoes and some green beans I mean that that felt a little pretty analogous to the kind of meal you would get to go from Boston Market I think what it might be

is that that was maybe a thing that was happening 20 30 years ago but these days families they're not really eating like that in general so the idea of I guess meal replacement is less of a novel thing less of like oh this is how we'd normally eat it more feels like oh this is how we'd eat on a special

occasion so maybe it's a thing that now just the older generation is is still eating you think it's too you think it's too heavy for the for newer generations it's it's a pretty heavy meal I mean you know I certainly I'm not sure how you felt after eating your meal Annie but I feel like the both of us

were a little certainly a little a little sweaty and a little gross feeling after that little more sweaty a little more gross how did you feel Annie I actually feel good I didn't finish it oh got you but I felt pretty good I think because we got like steamed

vegetables is one of the sides which felt like vegetables that your parents would give you and be like eat these yeah I don't want to oh those are the worst ones yeah that that style of vegetable I still get mad at stuff like that I shouldn't but like even like if I'm back home or something in the wintertime and there's it's like

snowing I'm like man I hope there is a fucking snow day tomorrow even though I have no I don't have to go to school anymore but I kind of still I rally for the kids that's right spoon man is so cool he's still he hopes you kids get

the day off from school and that you don't have to eat those nasty vegetables that's how hip and and with it I still am yeah those those were always like a and that was a great thing with a Boston Marguerite meal which now I think

parents have come a little bit more savvy and I would just bury those vegetables in like a mashed potato and like I'll have more mashed potato and then I'll eat these vegetables by covering them in mashed potato and gravy and I can't taste them anymore sure yeah

like putting peanut butter on a pill for a dog is kind of very similar for me let's dig in on our meals a little bit more so you had the cream spinach I also had the cream spinach this was an old favorite of yours from when you work there I remember loving it and eating it

now I just thought it kind of tasted just like heavy cream sure yeah light spinach flavoring but it was still pretty good I actually I didn't enjoy that cream spinach quite a bit but it is very heavy it's like it's exactly what you're saying it feels more like you're almost eating a cream

sauce than you're eating anything with any sort of maybe because how vegetables are served is kind of changed to usually get things a little lighter and fresher you know but yeah I agree with you it was it's pretty heavy but pretty tasty what about the cornbread the cornbread

what is you know how I remember it kind of like almost sweet like it's a cake kind of gritty but in a good way gotcha yeah I agree that's a little bit sweet it's it's it has it's very it is weirdly cake like but

I just want to say I agree with you on the there was a weird thing with when I ate the mac and cheese I was like I remember loving this and I said to Nick I was like I was like I don't know if my taste have changed or if the quality of the food has changed or if I like just haven't eaten this in so long

but I wasn't as into like my mac and cheese and the potatoes like never really truly blew me away but I remember really enjoying them and they might have been the weakest the mashed potatoes might have been the weakest part of the meal sure they felt very not kind of real

they felt very processed and yeah I don't know what I don't know what it is I honestly don't know if like oh I've matured and I don't I don't but that's not true because I like to eat cheesy things still you know like it was kind of confusing this whole trip was a little bit confusing to me I agree I had I was

really excited to go back because I thought oh why don't I go to Boston Market I used to love Boston Market now I eat chicken let's do this and the whole experience reminded me of like if you were like a sophomore in college and you came home and you're like I'm gonna visit high school and just say what's up and then you go inside

and you're like what am I doing did this actually happen to you did you go did you visit your high school you're after your sophomore year I was like oh I'm gonna say hi to a teacher and then I was like why am I here this is horrible and that's kind of how it felt going to Boston Market just like I don't eat this food anymore like the

it felt like it was this time capsule like the whole restaurant feels like it hasn't really reinvented itself yeah it is weird when it is weird when you you can't tell if your mind is correct or you can't tell like if you're

if it was your false memory or not you know like what you're relying on because I do feel like there are times when you kind of get that perfect bite of nostalgia and you're just like oh man this is exactly as they remember it and that makes me suspect that was it not was it not as good back yeah was it not as or

has it got has it actually declined in quality and you know like maybe if we've been eating their steadily over the years we would have noticed this a little bit as it progressive just like oh this just isn't as good anymore because that happens with chains it would certainly happen we tackled caros on the the program rather infamously yeah and

you know that was a place I remember being great like Collins I'm a super fan by saying that episode is infamous I've been infamous in terms of you and you and I that's really no one out there cares about it but you know for the two of us that was like an experience where I

you certainly had no point of reference for but I remembered caros being great and I knew that this was not the place that I had eaten at previously and all that being said it wasn't 100% that like the chicken is still really good and I still kind of enjoyed it all like it like

it was it was a very strange trip for me well I have a theory and I love to hear it the dining room the dining room experience is reminiscent of McDonald's and I wish they would put in I'm not saying real hardwood floors but like laminate

like if they would suggest the feeling of a home dining room have a fake fireplace or that's a great idea yeah like fake paintings on the wall even fake flowers yeah make it feel like grandma's house or something I like that a lot I think that's I think especially out here

that's how you would adapt to and you know like toss out whatever you know like make your potatoes more organic or you know like you could do multiple things like take a little Chipotle root you know what I mean

as well but yeah the hardwood at home feel the thing that we're talking about the suburb family the family matters dinner would be like a nice would be a nice feel to that place yeah I mean certainly as a former employee you have some knowledge

of the company and its workings and I feel like that's a good amount of insight because you are eating comfort food and being a more comforting environment instead of like yeah just it feels like I don't know it feels like it could have been inside a shake ease or any sort of kind of kind of not the nicest interior and

yeah if that was a little homeier I think I would have enjoyed the whole experience a little bit more I think they could take a cue from Cracker Barrel Cracker Barrel the food is sort of comparable even though Cracker Barrel serves breakfast but it's like that's the puritanical New England version and Cracker Barrel

is the sort of southern version but if they try to make it sort of like kitschy New England yeah the family matters opening yeah just make that the family matters living kitchen and put in a wax figures of all

the characters reaching for the food and I think that would be a nice little theme to the restaurant I think that would disorient people you know what you might you could be right on that one throwback to a 90s sitcom digging into the food a little bit more so I got

the in addition to the quarter dark chicken I got the combo meal which also comes with a quarter rack of ribs the baby back ribs are a new item they have there and then the two sides I mentioned the cream spinach I also got a sweet potato casserole which was something I'd never had at the Boston Market before I had the cornbread of course

a slice of pecan pie and a little bit of high seafood punch from that high tech soda machine I feel like the ribs were all right you know I feel like if you are going to get the ribs I would do this combo where you get a little bit of ribs and the chicken because I just think the chicken is better so if you want to try the ribs

that's a good way to experience it and if you don't like it well you've got the chicken to fall back on I think if I got in a half or a full rack of that those ribs they were like a little sweet and the meat wasn't the best I feel like they would have been a little overwhelming I had one of your ribs and though it wasn't the worst and I like a

kind of so so wasn't that great it was nothing certainly not if you have a good barbecue restaurant nearby that's going to be superior to what you get at Boston Market cream spinach we mentioned quite good a highlight a very little to do with spinach but the cream part was good and

the sweet potato casserole you know what I'd say is that should be your dessert course don't think of that as like a savory side and maybe I should I should have known better getting it but it is really sweet it's got an overpowering sweetness having that plus the pecan pie I felt like I was having two desserts and it was just a lot it was

very dessert like in the pecan pie I thought was pretty good as a good pecan pie but yeah the I can't believe that the sweet potato casserole or whatever would be a side even it like a it's it's way too much like a dessert yeah the pecan pie you know it comes in a a package container that

they've just got stacked at the register and I feel like you know they go easy on the pecans a little bit probably as a cost saving measure getting a lot of that pecan pecan pie filling whatever that brown mush is I love it but it's sort of like butter and caramelized sugar sort of the sort of whipped together you're getting a lot

of that not as many pecans but it's not bad for something that's pre-package yeah and I agreed with you guys the cream spinach was a little bit too creamed up it was a little too creamed up and I had like I said I had the chicken the rotisserie chicken Boston Carver

sandwich on white the roll was I liked the roll too but it was a little thick a little almost almost too kind of crunchy sure but that was my go-to sandwich back in the day and I used to really really enjoy it has like some nice mustard and cheddar on there and lettuce and tomato and then the rotisserie chicken and then I had

the mac and cheese which was good it was good it just it wasn't as good as I remembered it but it was still pretty good and the mashed potatoes with gravy were kind of so-so they were they were they were they were right but I think that the star was the chicken even in my Carver sandwich the chicken still kind of

stands out it's still good like like I think they're still doing chicken well and that's probably keeping them going you know it is so fascinating to me how like because I had no idea they were originally Boston chicken till I did a little bit of research in advance of this recording

and to find out that that was like kind of what built the company and that still is probably their standout menu item it's the kind of thing of like is that part of their identity crisis like you touched on is that they've just tried to do too many things because it should they be adding a baby back rib at this point I don't

know if that's the right move to make maybe they should be focusing more on hey we have this fresh wholesome rotisserie chicken that you know if you're eating a low carb diet or something this is the kind of thing that like me yeah like you but this is the kind of thing that you know could be an alternative to you know something

that's deep fried like a KFC or a Popeyes yeah and that was just a thought I was like why why why doesn't this place do I mean like KFC just has fried chicken and fried chicken is delicious I guess but I was like why doesn't it do that and I think that I honestly this might be crazy and I'm sure

some people like what the fuck is he talking about but I feel like rotisserie chicken has become more commonplace I really I really really do I think I feel like it was maybe a bigger deal back in the day to be like oh cool the heck you can get a big whole rotisserie chicken at this place and I don't think it's that big of a deal

anymore to get a rotisserie chicken anywhere on earth like I think it's easy not anywhere on earth but anywhere in the US you can get a rotisserie chicken pretty easy such an innocuous thought that followed that ramp up of this might sound crazy I don't know people are going to take this but rotisserie chicken is

a little bit more available than it used to be I was so worried about where that thought was going to go I was going to hear your conspiracy theory blaming I had fallen in line blaming the JFK assassination on Zionists or something

oh boy well I believe that too but we don't have to talk about that right now do you think rotisserie ovens had a moment like in the late 90s because I remember seeing ads for rotisserie ovens that you could have at home 100% I've never seen that again

for sure I think there was a little way I think it's so much more who would even buy a rotisserie oven unless you were maybe a chef or something I don't know why you would I feel like it's not a home purchase really but I think you're right

because that's the kind of thing that you could it makes sense to have in a restaurant when you have 30 birds on a rotisserie where you would never do that in your house yeah you're right I think there was like kind of rotisserie craze and I feel like it's due for a comeback actually was that there's like kind of this cool

hip new restaurant newish restaurant called Ingo's Tasty Diner in Santa Monica that we've been to and they have like vintage rotisserie there it's like this old super old French rotisserie from like the 30s or something they've installed I don't know if it's actually from the 30s

but it looks like vintage and old and that made me think like oh is there going to be like this artisanal rotisserie craze that's going to be on its way back but yeah you're definitely right there was something to that in the 90s or so yeah and I wonder if it is like we were saying now which is that sort of thing

of like well I can pick up a rotisserie chicken at the supermarket yeah sure and then it's like oh if you want like really really you know it's that in between thing that kills that play that kills Boston Market it's like you want to go to Nick's weird Santa Monica restaurant

like I think people will be like oh I want to go like to a real restaurant that has this high quality rotisserie chicken or if I'm going to get a rotisserie chicken that's kind of like a quick thing to buy and I can get it for the family in a second I'm going to just get it at the supermarket

yeah I'll spend six dollars or I'll spend 60 dollars why would I go spend 18 dollars yeah you can buy toothpaste and paper towels sure yeah I think they should go full cracker barrel and be available at exits because imagine you're driving on a long road trip and then you're like oh Boston

Market that's food that yes and it's kind of fun like you know like you're like oh New England New England meal you know like it tricks people you get like a cracker barrel feels kind of like a southern comfort kind of breakfast yeah in a way and I feel like

Boston Market could have that if you're out on the highway on a long family trip it'd be great to stop in for a little rotisserie chicken it's healthy you don't have to get pizza or McDonald's for the kids I'm going to call them former employee Annie Mevin here call

your specific Boston Market if it's still open I'm sure it is alright good do you have any what we're wrapping up our discussion of Boston Market do you have any hacks sometimes people have like oh here's a Chipotle hack any Boston Market hacks you remember from your time

there secret menu items perhaps no but when you could talk to the server if people would be like give me double give me double mashed potatoes and I'd be like okay alright that's probably why they don't let you interact with the customers because they didn't even have to sweet

talk you they just had to ask I was real push over but I noticed they had this like a citrus garlic sauce for the pulled pork we were out of it when we were there but I thought that would be delicious on your chicken

yeah I think like some more sauce options would be nice that's funny because yeah now I'm like thinking of like oh Zanku chicken and there's so many places like this in in LA and that just kind of popped into my head but I don't know if everyone like thinks of

Zanku is specifically rotisserie chicken but uh yeah that's a great side they should definitely offer that because that is kind of a weird thing with a rotisserie chicken there's no real condiment if you want to dip it into something there's nothing really that works besides a garlic sauce

they should offer that up yeah and I would take the cornbread home when I worked there and toasted to put jam on it oh that sounds good you stole a ton of cornbread I stole so much cornbread I basically look on cornbread um did you ever become did you ever become the salad tosser

yeah just once and then I was out I actually met my high school sweetheart there that's right I want to touch on that let's hear the story um he was a chicken carver I was a server we would tell boston market jokes to each other and then love blossomed that's great that's like two different two sides of the

tracks the carver and the non and the salad tosser there's also kind of there's also kind of the you know the basketball aspect of he's like kind of he's got the man station of they only let the men do the carving station and you've got to kind of uh got your

separate task but you both are like doing the same thing yeah there could be I think you should write this romantic comedy and it's just branded content for boston market set it in boston market we open on a boston market logo I would I'll write this

with you I think we'll make some money off of it we'll ask Jennifer and us to do it tonight or probably won't finish it so what happened with this high school sweetheart sweetheart oh we broke up and yeah that's it

sorry buddy lost out to my boy Matt who's the man take that jackass you hate this guy right you want us to lay into him perfectly nice person oh no he's dead to me no boys are telling you to eat shit motherfucker I hope you carve your fingers off you

fuck anyway um I hope he's doing fine I'm sure he was a great guy um uh god I hope nothing horrible happened I would feel so bad if he really did carve his fingers off

the last I heard he's literally a rocket scientist oh great he's doing good he's doing better than either of us sounds like a real nerd I think he made the right move enjoy playing with your rockets poindexter what's your favorite periodic element you fucking dork I

was going to make a joke and say a periodic element I couldn't think of one alright let's uh let's wrap up our discussion on uh Boston market so Annie as someone who's listed the podcast before you you know the drill we'll go around uh sort of give our overall assessment and then uh assign it a rating

of one to five forks so you can go ahead and start um it was nice to go back like we touched on before it was like just the tiniest bit disappointing because it feels like you know it's glory has faded but by the same token the food was pretty good the sandwich the bread I agree was

really good it was chewy and the multigrain was nice and the the turkey was brined and there was like a nice sauce on it so our meal I was happy with but I wasn't I didn't think oh I'm gonna bring this back into the rotation um but I do think it's a nice place

to go if you if you just got out of college and it's Thanksgiving and you can't afford to fly home oh man yeah or uh I feel like that adds to the depressing nature we were talking about or I think you know if you just want like a hot meal that feels like

something a family with family matters would have the family matters and the service was really good my server was really nice she called herself our server which was nice yeah it was nice um and I mean everything was pretty appealing my baby who is not into food was really

wanting to eat Boston market did she did she have anything or she put her hand into some cream spinach intercepted her before she can eat it um but yeah overall I felt like it was pretty good I think I remembered it being sort of like a superstar of fast food and now it

feels like you know maybe it's just primed for a comeback but I think I would give it um three and a half forks three and a half forks okay very nice um I love Boston the city uh this place I it I kind of held it close to my heart it was a place I did like to go

to when I was in high school and was driving around and it was like oh this could be a nice little Saturday afternoon meal a chicken, carb or sandwich or something like that I feel like Boston market is like similar to Eddie Murphy in a lot of ways of like uh I can't wait to hear that

he started out in the 80s and it became a big deal and then kind of fizzled in the you know in the last decade or and a half no offense Eddie Murphy everything is great and I think that Boston market is great now I'm afraid of insulting either one

but but now is trying to figure out his identity what do I do do I do some silly uh clumps like comedy or am I going to do some uh serious dramatic acting sort of deal and I think Boston market kind of falls into the same category what do they want to do with themselves do they want to be

do they want to be fat like a really nice fast casual they want to be like a cracker barrel or they want or they want to be like a KFC or you can just get rotisserie chicken and I don't know I don't know what they want to do I don't know if they want know what they want to do and like you said the interiors it's it's hard to tell even though

there's cool soda machines the rest of it is kind of feels like any sort of fast foodie place so so I still think that the chicken is really is really good and the sides can be decent in the in the frozen uh the the frozen sides when I was

younger were really good and so overall I'm going to give it three and a half and I don't know if that's a nostalgia thing but I feel similar to you it's right in the middle it's still pretty good could be better I'm interested in seeing what they do I I hope that they don't I hope they don't drop the ball I hope they kind of

uh do the I've been uh interior ideas and kind of turn it around yeah I I agree I think um my overall assessment of Boston Market is when I was younger

this would have been an easy four maybe five forks when I was when I was a teenager and my parents would get this this was a real treat and I love Boston Market and I was kind of half expecting that um on this return visit I've been at some point maybe a couple of times in the interim

and had a positive experience um but this was the first time I feel like I was really evaluating the quality of food since I'd I'd eaten there as a kid and I do think it's really interesting that they're kind of dipping their toe in the water in kind of the

things that have been touched on here of remaking themselves as this homey sort of place to eat and I think you know the first step there is they've got these real plates and this real silverware with their experimenting with in some locations I wonder because a chain really hasn't made

that transition where they went from oh we're primarily being a takeaway place we're going to try to rebrand ourselves as kind of this dine-in experience that's a little bit more wholesome a little bit more homey this is your home away from home I think it's an interesting gambit and I feel like I I agree with what Annie's saying of like I think

if they push that further and really go for that maybe that could be a way that they could kind of stabilize and develop a brand identity um because you've seen a lot of brands kind of go the the other route which is kind of the Pizza Hut way of we're this big restaurant and now we're going to switch down into just being a little

kiosk that pretty much just does take out and delivery primarily delivery but we haven't seen the other the other direction and I think that could be an interesting strategy for Boston Market the quality of the food I can't tell if it's stabilized or if it's declined a little bit it is very tasty

but it is very heavy I would say almost punishingly heavy it's it's quite a meal that I think you'll need a little bit of recovery time from if you don't necessarily eat like that and I think that's a thing to consider when choosing to eat there that said a very satisfying

fairly unique of fast casual experience and I enjoyed my food and I think we have another entrant in the handholding club because I am also going to give Boston Market three and a half forks this is the silver

silver spatula handholding club I don't know if it has silver spat I think we vetoed it handholding is when we all give it the same rating it's the handholding club consecutive handholding clubs and a three and a half forks level original Tommy's our previous entrant

into the handholding silver find the silver spatula handholding club who cares you're so mad he hates me none of this matters what are we doing

alright folks you're about to witness the first waggle breakdown I've eaten a lot of chain restaurant food now I'm going to eat a gun that will be the last doboy sound you hear couple bullets shot into the spoon man and then one last bullet

put between little waggle burger boys teeth yeah I like Annie's I like Annie's plan I also want to say it would be fun they should hire each location should hire a little old lady walks around oh yeah I love that how is

how is everything I don't know you know I think that could be charming what are you going to bring home a girlfriend you need to lose weight she slucks now I root for these I just I root for the the ones that come in in around three and a half

I want I want it to I want it to succeed I do I want it to succeed I don't know why I want Boston Market to succeed because they're standing on a precipice yeah yeah either gonna be over with or they're gonna take off like a bird yeah and you kind of always root for the little

what seems like an underdog even though it's a multi-million dollar chain yeah yeah who knows if there's possibly terrible people who run it we found that out we at one time were like uh who we're talking about Domino's we were like the owner seem like nice guys oh yeah we read an article that's like he's the worst man

on earth so you can never tell that'll do it for our discussion of Boston Market let's move on to another segment we've done this before we have four different flavors of the same food stuff and we're going to determine which is the best we're going to rank them this is flavor of the week

so right now it's this promotion that lays potato chips has turned into an annual ritual do us a flavor where they've got four new fan submitted flavors that are available in stores and America votes on which one they're going to keep

so we here at Doe Boys plus our guest are going to taste these flavors on your behalf on America's behalf and determine which one we like the best which one we think that America should keep so Mitch I'm gonna take these out of this this reusable Trader Joe's bag

these were not purchased at Trader Joe's wait hold on you make it sound like it's a reuse like it's one of those nice bags it's a brown paper bag but it says reusable on it Trader Joe's has printed reusable recyclable on the outside I think it's their lie not mine

alright so I'm going to hand these to you one at a time Mitch you can go ahead and tell our listeners what you got alright the first one we got is the New York Rubin flavored Lay's submitted by Jeff Salinsky great awesome cool I'll hand you this next one

open this one up the Kettle Cooked Greek Town Euro flavored submitted by James Wagner they all sound gross so far here's one that's perhaps a little bit more conventional alright we got Lay's Wavy West Coast

Truffle fries submitted by Angie Foo great and then one more I'll hand this over to you this one looks like a nice bag oh my god Jesus Lay's Southern Biscuits in Gravy flavored submitted by Hailey Greene

so they all sound gross possibly besides the Truffle fries we'll see it really makes me wonder cause it's just like how can they be this out of flavors where they've got these very very specific like approximations of not just a flavor but a

full dish like this is like this is a Southern Biscuits and Gravy flavored Lay's it's so so jam packed with stuff I thought there would be people like why does it say like submitted by Angie Foo when it's like any they just said a meal that they like

they didn't really do anything now I'm worried that we're going to break some aspiring flavor persons oh no that's terrible these people have you know they put themselves out there we certainly know from experience how vulnerable that makes you to put yourself out for

all of the internet to criticize so nothing against these young entrepreneurs but let's uh your ex-boyfriend fuck him let's dig into these and let's sort of evaluate these so I'm going to go ahead and put these in the middle we can sort of just reach in here

nice plan I fucked this up he really wanted to use this reusable Trader Joe's bag so all the chips are now in the Trader Joe's bag oh okay that looks good oh shit I take it back so guys

feel free to just sort of reach in here and taste these and you can let us know which flavor you're experiencing and what your reaction is I'm going to try to do the Annie and Mitch are reaching into the bag now I'm going to do two handfuls at once

looks like a bitch is going for these biscuits and gravy lays if I'm not mistaken and also the New York Rubin I have a Greak Town Euro Greak Town Euro Annie is going to drive let us know how that's smelling and tasting

I'm going to go over here it smells like lays sour cream and onion the biscuits and gravy one ooh no it kind of smells like gravy too gross this kind of has a tzatziki sort of taste I'm like maybe there's a Reagan now

oh okay I've got the southern biscuits and gravy in one hand go ahead and taste these the biscuits and gravy are not bad they almost taste like pizza flavored chips to me for some reason if you gave me these in a blind taste test

I would not be able to identify what this is I think there's a lot of rosemary in it which is sometimes a gravy component that's really coming through and yeah maybe that's kind of what it's supposed to be the sausage flavor they're not

surprisingly not too bad though these Greek ones taste like an ethnic food version of sour cream and onion interesting I felt like the biscuits and gravy kind of taste like sour cream and onion a little bit too mmm I'm going to taste the ruben ones I tell you the ruben when I opened it

I was taken aback by the smell of the bag because it is a very very strong sort of corned beef smell to it it smells also like rye bread yeah it does give you a little ruben taste it kind of tastes like an entire ruben sandwich which is a pretty remarkable feat of flavor engineering

yeah that's impressive but maybe not what I'm looking for in a potato chip but it does kind of remind me of like a Willy Wonka like creation of like we're able to put all these flavors in this one chip it tastes a little bit like ketchup when you first taste it and then it sort of blossoms we're kind of getting

ketchupy sour cream and onion there's kind of similar taste to the two I've tried so far so now I'm interested in the Euro Nick can you point that bag this way please alright I got the Greek town Euro what is Greek town I've never heard of a Greek town

hold on a second sorry I'm just going to take one more just to they smell kind of like nothing okay I've got the truffle fries and I've also got the Greek town Euro so many Chan I'm going to start with these truffle fries Greek town Euro is strange

it tastes like tzatziki oh man I don't like that you know the truffle fries ones are wavy for what it's worth so can I have that wavy character I definitely agree with kind of this kind of similar to a sour cream and onion the truffle I don't know I'm not getting that much of a I'm not that much of a truffle fan

I'm not getting a lot of truffle in this though so I don't know if you're expecting a truffle-y flavor I'm not sure if that's going to really deliver I'm having the truffle right now also and it's like just the faintest as if it was put in a bowl that there were truffle things in previously yeah there's like a fine mist of truffle that's been sprayed over it

it's very very faint this Greek town Euro one is messing me up because it has an aftertaste of like lamb it's fucking gross it's really bad tastes a little bit like tzatziki and then also like I can taste like feta

the back of my throat feels like it ate feta I didn't enjoy it have you tried it yet? I find this one unsettling you get like a full kind of Euro flavor to it it's really weird to experience all in one bite

I'm eating the biscuits in gravy right now and it tastes like like old gravy I don't know what else it would taste like it's powdered and not a chip oh boy I know what you mean

I'm having another one of these Euro chips I'm having the truffle which have no real truffle I'm guessing they're expensive they don't smell like them let's check the ingredient list to see if there's any truffles on this oh wow it says it does include

as a later ingredient both black truffle and duck fat what? very strange I guess they're trying to I've certainly had like the duck fat fries I feel like that's the thing that some places have

something that's fried in duck fat but it's really interesting to see that added to a chip that's sold in supermarkets like a lot of these with the truffles it took a couple to get the taste of truffle going but I got it now

it does kind of taste like truffle fries it does it has a little bit of a taste to it wow I don't know that they can ever go big with the truffle fries if they rely on duck fat truffles of the truffle fried chips yeah there's also

it just says truffle seasoning but I don't know how much actual truffle is in that I think that's maybe a thing where if they could synthesize truffle flavor they would do it because truffles are so amazingly expensive to harvest

and I guess they probably just can't quite approximate that in the lab yet I think you need a pig to harvest truffles or is that? yeah you need a pig or a dog to dig them out in the wild it's like a really crazy food that's gathered by an animal I can find them for you alright so we

I'm always bummed out when none of the snacks are really that great yeah I feel like you know usually there's like a we may be able to determine a winner here but I think it's something of a pure victory because I don't know if any of these are ones I would have unless I didn't have another option

yeah I agree so let's go ahead and try and determine any of you if you tried all these at this point I have I have a controversial pick ok so here's how we'll do this we'll rank them from 4 up to 1 and we'll do this by pointing

so we've got our bags in front of us we've got the as a refresher we've got the greek town euro we've got the truffle fry we've got the southern biscuits and gravy and then we've got the ruben so ruben is red biscuits and gravy this is purely for

our reference in studio the listers this will be nothing to you truffle fries is green and then the euro is in blue so let's start by pointing to our fourth place entry so we can all go ahead and point fourth place entry now ooh

any it seems like you pointed to the biscuits and gravy am I correct correct and Mitch and I both pointed to the euro why the biscuits and gravy and fourth place I thought it felt like dusty and unnatural sure and I don't want and I could

kind of taste biscuits and I'm also eating a chip so I felt like I'm eating a potato on a bread it just felt wrong to me you seem like someone who's kind of a spoonful of old gravy before the complaints you're making and I'm scarred by it

got a sense memory that's very disturbing alright let's go ahead and point at our third place now wow here's all four of us are united in our this taste for the ruben flavored what is it about the ruben one that made us put it in

third position it was they it kind of was crazy like you said how how well they kind of pulled it off it tasted a lot like a ruben I just didn't I didn't want I want a ruben instead I don't want a chip ruben yeah it's like

it was shockingly like I could taste rye in corned beef but I just didn't I didn't want that yeah my favorite part of a ruben is the sauerkraut and I couldn't really taste that that is true I was kind of yeah that was absent yeah you're getting kind of the corned beef

and the rye certainly but yeah you're not getting a lot of corn or rather sauerkraut flavor okay let's go ahead and go with our second place are you pointing at the southern biscuits and gravy yeah okay so the two of us that are agreed on southern biscuits and gravy I gotta just say it why granite agreed on every one

where yeah we're we're at we've got our old hand-holding club and the flavor of the week statement give us a fucking silver spatula or whatever it is so so uh any you picked the um the truffle fries as your second

place entry why is that I thought they were fine I didn't think they were as different sure like oh how crazy like if you had the dill flavored ones yes I had those that feels like a fun treat to me but whereas this just kind of felt just sort of innocuous mm-hmm it was good though they're pretty neutral

uh on on I just want to well we'll get to it in a second I just can't believe what her number one was I'm shocked well I'll say this the southern biscuits and gravy which came in as both of our number two pick like for me it's just sort of like it's it's fine like I was saying earlier if

in a blind taste test I would know have no idea what this is really um it's not particularly unpleasant but it's also not a thing I would eat with any sort of it kind of tastes like sour cream and onion or whatever to me I didn't really bother me too much yeah okay great and uh let's go ahead and and pick our winners

we know what all right so Mitch and I we we know yeah if you've been paying attention you can figure out what they are but Mitch and I have agreed on the truffle fries as our winner um any explain yourself any what the fuck what's going on you're our super fan even though I gave you that title but still

why on earth I thought it was tangy wow delicious and I could taste like what felt like herbs in there I don't know I want to see more of them I gotta have another one because now I'm wondering about my own evaluation no they're fucking awful

yeah maybe I'll do it maybe I just got a good ship oh wait did you I ate like three no I don't I stand by it I think this is my least favorite um I mean it's just like kind of like a it's just weirdly

a lot of tzatziki the lamb taste I feel find very disconcerting in a chip I like you know what I don't like lamb uh lamb isn't my favorite meat so that could be that could and and it really threw me off like you said for whatever reason like I get a

Reuben seasoning on on the Reuben one like oh yeah it doesn't have to be the meat this one had like a weird lamb meat flavor and it really kind of it kind of weirded me out and I did I did not like it I didn't like it one bit I've never had lamb so maybe I'm not oh

that's right you don't eat red meat yeah wow wait hold on let me see you met you might have just had lamb let's see oh shit sorry yeah the old dough boys we uh we got you on our podcast and we made you eat red meat next time we'll get

an orthodox Jew on here on here and a force for me some lobster it says Euro seasoning does not include any sort of lamb products as far as I can tell it just seems like it has kind of that a bunch of the different powders

that you would associate with a sort of Euro flavor profile that's what lamb tastes like sign me up a little bit right kind of gets that seat well it certainly gets the seasoned lamb quality that you might get any Euro sandwich so Mitch you and I were united on

our truffle fries as the big I kind of let down that that's my pick because it's such a safe I feel like it's the safest of these it was a safe one but if someone had a bag of that at a party I'd try it a couple times I don't know if I keep going back to it but it was

it did it did its job I feel like it's sort of my I guess it's the pick of the litter but kind of is litter if you know what I mean catch it yeah it's they're all kind of the litter it's a bad litter it's a litter gone wrong and that one to me is just kind of the best

of the worst also I mean fries flavored potato chips if that's really what we're saying that's kind of bullshit alright that's flavor of the week it's time to sit here from our listeners like a chain restaurant

we value your feedback let's open up the feedback today's email comes to us from Michael Herndon greetings from Minneapolis I've been really enjoying the show the Hardee's episode reminded me of two things Hardee's was my first encounter with curly fries which blew me away at the time the other thing I remember about Hardee's as a kid was that

they heavily promoted the movie days of thunder with Tom Cruise which strikes me as an odd fast food tie-in I also remember proudly sporting a watch with the logo from the movie Kongo on it that I got from Taco Bell these promos seem a little odd to me and maybe wonder if you can recall any particularly memorable

promotions from any of your favorite chain restaurants this one leapt out at me because I had that Kongo watch I went to Taco Bell and I got the Kongo watch and I wore it and I was so excited for the movie Kongo the Michael Crichton movie that I think was maybe the first Michael Crichton movie that came out after

Jurassic Park or the second I thought it was gonna be so awesome and I Bruce Campbell and Ernie Hudson in it who I loved oh yeah and it had like apes and it was a giraffe the Jurassic Park guy I was so excited for and I wore my Kongo watch to see Kongo with

my friend John Saville and it was a fucking terrible movie it sucked so bad and then afterwards I sat in gum and I was so excited for this movie and it was so bad I sat in gum like outside of the on like a bench outside of the movie theater and it was

I've lived a charmed life this was maybe the worst day of my life yeah maybe not by the standards of the world I've lived a charmed life this was the worst day of your life I was like so

let down didn't your pants got stuck to the seating at a walk home bottomless yeah yeah it was just all these things coming together in such a bad way maybe the worst day of my life up to that point as a boy

certainly I've faced real tragedy at this point but I mean like that was really that was a real fucking bummer but let's talk about this question at any fast food restaurant promotions or chain restaurant promotions that you remember as being particularly standing out in your mind

by the way I saw Kongo too and boohoo I was fine about it I was looking forward to it and I didn't cry about it like wire I was really disappointed because my friends and I had made a movie adaptation of Kongo in middle school and then I was like the real ones

gonna be awesome and then it was not as good as our middle school did you guys play monkeys and stuff yeah we had my friend's little brother dressed as a monkey and we just on the screened in porch we just moved all the plants to one area and we were like this is the Kongo

that sounds amazing that's um I tried to read some of the Creighton books when I was younger and then they would just get to like mathematics fuck this I can't read this so I was I didn't I never read Kongo but I was really looking forward to it

but I've never done anything like that before so ambitious yeah that's so ambitious and good you know you're smart and funny person that's creative like I never would do something like that I'm kind of jealous that's uh that's so cool my friend had a video camera I didn't have one

I just was like wanting to be a part of it act it out yeah I guess it's not cool but I like it I think it's cool it's very yeah it is cool um did you and did you remember the Kongo promotion or no I didn't the only thing I can think of is that Denny's has a bunch of promotions

for movies that don't seem like movies that would be promoted I cannot think of an example well we had we recently had the slamtastic for which is their fantastic for menu um and that was an interest I mean that was probably better than the movie fantastic for yep but they've certainly had their hobbit breakfast I think

the hobbit breakfast is maybe the most the best example of this of being like oh that's really weird that's a weird thing to do um and also like not really appropriate for the franchise or for not we're not appropriate for the movie franchise

or for the restaurant franchise but also too like the Denny's hobbit breakfasts were pretty good I had I had him two years in a row and I had a good time it's maybe because of the two breakfast thing is that why hmm I wonder I don't because hobbits eat two breakfasts

is that a Denny's appropriate thing okay yeah he just blew my mind with that yeah that's good but I don't know what Fantastic Four has to do with Denny's and that has no connection as far as I could tell I've actually never seen I haven't seen the new Fantastic Four movie I don't want to shit on it because I haven't seen it but

I remember one that sticks with me is the Casper promotion at Pizza Hut and I went to Pizza Hut and they gave you hand puppets of the Casper ghosts is that the Devin Sawa Casper oh yeah yeah yeah I believe so yeah

yes and Christina she was yes yes yes Devin Sawa played the dead little boy Casper yes okay yeah who comes back to like it's really weird like he comes back to life as a real boy at some point yeah there's like a machine also I guess I think that movie might have been a let down too

there's like a machine that turns them back into a boy but then also maybe the dad dies too and the dad is like an animated ghost at one point now I want to re-watch it it was really strange but I liked the way the ghosts look and these little

plastic puppets glue and they glowed in the dark and I was excited about that yeah I certainly the one that sticks out in my mind that I liked there's a Taco Bell Star Wars promotion at some point I don't know if it was the prequels or what but they had a thing that was the Yoda disappearing cube

and it was like a little cube you had with a little mirror in it and depending on what angle you held the cube you could either see Yoda or see nothing it was like a cool little magic trick that also had some sort of Star Wars affiliation for whatever reason that one stuck out in my mind pretty cool for that

senior in high school um put on my letterman jacket put my arms around to cheerleaders and blow their minds with my Yoda disappearing cube from Taco Bell I think the only other one I remember the I guess I'm not as good with promotion like

I remember the Fraggle Rock Happy Meals where they had the racers I think it was like a thing where you could like a switch the racer that's like it would flip up to be one guy or another guy oh sort of a Mario Kart double dash sort of thing yeah kind of I know that game sucks

but uh but yeah no that that's another one that sticks out to me now I got all nostalgic thinking about going to the Pizza Hut yeah and we just talked about how it uh how the restaurant has gone it's just a kiosk now pretty much did you have a bucket yes yeah oh that's what

what's bucket yes oh that's a great one you were rewarded for reading books oh you would have like little stamps yeah if you read like if you have you read a book was it like a small personal pizza which is like nothing for the other they throw like a glob of dough on the

oven yeah no that I remember that uh promotion big time I used to lie about how many books I read for that promotion yeah this is how a piece of shit it was a good way to look at me just honest about reading I remained dumb and just got fat I was a fat little kid

uh if you have a question out there or comment about the world chain restaurants you can email us at doboyspodguest at gmail.com you can follow us on twitter at doboyspod check out our facebook fan page uh any mebbin thank you so much for making time for us this was so much fun uh do you have anything you would like

to uh plug or promote or mention here no I guess just follow me on twitter just my name yeah and thank you so much for having me this is such a delight well you know what you've been very supportive of us and we this is our longest episode yet and we're we're we mean that in a good way I thought it was a great one

uh and we would love to have you back at some point oh thanks so much you're a great you're you're five forks in our book don't rate our guests at the end of the podcast I think that's a new thing no don't do that maybe we'll not want to come on no I think we're gonna do I want to give a shout out to our

intern Eson he's it's his last uh it's his last day with us and he's going back to uh Ithaca to Cornell he goes to Cornell he's smart and he's single ladies is that true I don't even think he is he's hiding behind his hands is he he is and he's single

help him out I would have liked that back in the day when I went to Ithaca Cornell smart guy great guy he helped us out big time on the show so thank you a lot of help a lot of help um thanks so much for listening out there uh that'll do it for this episode episode of what the fuck I'm at the finish line I fucking fumble Jesus Christ

fuck of course he god damn it it's a disaster oh my god uh that'll do it for this episode of Doe Boys until next time for Mike Mitchell I'm Nick Weigher happy eating see ya as always Doe Boys is produced by Dustin Marshall

and brought to you by FeralAudio.com the home of Harmentown call Chelsea Peretti we should have a podcast and many more our theme song is by Michael Cassidy and our cover art is by Chris Fenarts-Dalen you can donate at our show page at FeralAudio.com thanks for listening FeralAudio