Doughboys - Carrows with Erin Whitehead

Episode Date: July 24, 2015

Actress and writer Erin Whitehead joins the Doughboys for the wake of disappearing southwest diner chain Carrows.Want more Doughboys? Check out our Patreon!: https://patreon.com/doughboysSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In 1970, David G. Nankaro opened his hickory chip restaurant in the northern California city of Santa Clara, giving it his last name, minus the first syllable. One location grew into many, and for decades, the diner-style chain flourished in the western United States, becoming known for its breakfast, prime rib, and pies. In fact, in the 1990s, the magazine Consumer Reports rated it as the best chain restaurant in America. Yet much like the publication that once praised it, the company failed to evolve with the times, and its market position gradually eroded into irrelevance.

As recently as 2013, it still maintained 55 eateries across the American Southwest. But after food management partners, the giant conglomerate that owns Buffalo Wild Wings and Little Caesars bought the chain in early 2015, corporate overlords rapidly shuttered most of the remaining restaurants. As of now, it's down to a mere 16 locations, all in California. With this once-proud chain on its last legs, the question becomes, can it survive? And to be frank, does it even deserve to? This week on Doughboys, we mourn and celebrate caros.

Welcome to Doughboys, the podcast about chain restaurants. I'm Nick Weiger, alongside Mike Mitchell. Mitch, how are you? Good, the Spoon Man. Don't forget. Mike, the Spoon Man Mitchell, we'll call you. And Lil' Wags the Burger Boy. Wait, those are just two nicknames, neither of which I agree to, in order.

Lil' Wags the Burger Boy. Alright, fine. Whatever. Mitch, it's been a while since we've recorded one of these. Now we just released the, yeah, we just released the Matt Koalic episode with Domino's Pizza. Yep. Sorry about that, folks. Sorry you had to listen to Matt Koalic for an hour.

I will not join in that apology, I thought that was a fine episode. Koalic was a great guest. But it's been a while since we recorded that one. It was, I think, over a month because you've been in Quincy, Massachusetts. I have, I've been in Quincy, Massachusetts, not Quincy, Quincy, Massachusetts. But it's spelled like Q-U-I-N-C-Y, correct? That's correct. You've pronounced C like a Z?

In Quincy, that's how the family, whatever, that's how they pronounced it. Alright. I believe you. So please don't mess that up again. So when a lot of people, when a lot of adults go home, it's like, you know, a weekend, maybe you're there for the week of Christmas and stay through New Year's. You go home for like a full month at a time. Why is that?

Spoon Man gives a good month, chunk. How are you able to endure like a month in your hometown with your mom? It feels like, like for a lot of people, it just feels like a little much. Well, Weigar, I, you know, I'm adult enough to say I love my mommy. I look, I love my mom too. I love her very much. I love my dad as well. I love my mommy.

She makes me sandwiches and I sit about the house and try to do stuff and I help her out. I put the AC, the air conditioning unit in. Oh, that's nice. Yeah. I helped her out. I, it was a good trip back. I see all my friends, Micas, Frailba, Issa, Ramondi, all the guys and yeah, and then I get to eat all at the places I like and I haven't been back for summer in a really

long time. So it was, it was great to, to kind of have that summer heat and that summer feeling, you know, it's nostalgic. Sure. I, walking around the streets of Quincy, it was great. What are the, like the old haunts you have to hit up? Like when you're back in Quincy, yeah, you got, you got some time there to, to spend, like where are the places you're definitely going to eat at?

Oh, the place I'm definitely going to eat at. Okay. So there used to be this ice cream shop called Brigham's and it was great and it was a, it was a really great ice cream shop and they had a raspberry lime rickies, which were delicious and they had a frappe. Is this the chain or is this like a one? It was a chain. It was, it was a Boston slash New England chain and then Hood bought them and then they shut

all the Brigham's locations. They still make cartons of Brigham's ice cream. Gotcha. But there was this one place in Quincy and it was like one of the last, like two or three remaining Brighams and then they were like, we're shutting all of them down and this guy Dieter, he, they bought, they own the shop and they just, they renamed it the ice cream pallor and I always go in there for a raspberry lime rickie or a mocha frappe. You're a living encyclopedia about the history of Brigham's ice cream parlor, really, really

knew every detail of their history there. It's, that's, I mean like, I'm, I'm afraid I'll never be able to get a good raspberry lime rickie again cause I'm, I'm also like, man, I hope this place doesn't shut down every time I'm there and that always, that, that kind of scares me and bums me out. And then I went to Pizzeria Regina, which is a, I think the best pizza in the nation. Wow. Which is, I know we'll get a lot of tweets about what's the best. I tried the best spots in New York.

I tried the best spots in LA and there's other spots. I know there's one in Arizona that Maddie Smith has told me about and, and then there's that one in Connecticut that has like the first, like one of the first pizzas or whatever the, but I haven't tried there either. Pizzeria Regina, Pizzeria Regina. Yeah. Yeah. Pizzeria Regina and then there's Santa, Santarpios in Boston too, which is really good in East

Boston. What makes a Pizzeria Regina stand out? What about their pizza that makes you give it that lofty position as the best in America? Gee, what, what, what about it was, what is it about her about a girl that makes you fall in love? Okay. I don't know that it's the old brick oven pizza. The sauce is just right.

Sure. Just the right amount of sauce, the cheese is, I always will get a large cheese when I go there. And, and I mean, like the dough is, is just perfectly cooked and like kind of crispy and there's some bubbles and a little bit of char. It's great. 24 hours in Boston for whatever reason. I should make a special trip, go to Pizzeria Regina and what should I get?

I say go with a large cheese and then get a smaller like fun specialty pizza. All right. Bring it home. Get a, get, go to Mike's pastry around the corner and grab a pastry. Okay. Yeah. All right. Well, appreciate the advice.

Of course. Yeah. I'm a little, I'm a little ticked off today. Yeah. You see, you were in a sour mood from the moment you walked in. You texted me right earlier. For some reason, LA turns into like the Mario Kart verse when there's the smallest bit of rain on the ground and it's chaotic and lights are flashing and you can't do fucking anything.

Yeah. And it drove me nuts. It's like, well, there's a, there's a somewhat mild thunderstorm today. The most mild of mild thunderstorms and like if you're from, I imagine if you're from storm country, you would find it laughable and power has like shut down in half of the city. Excuse my language. We are such pussies. It drives me nuts.

We are such little fucking pussies. We're like, it's the, the storm is nothing. It's a nothing storm and me and our lovely guest, it took us forever to get, it took me an hour to get here cause like just three traffic lights were out and people don't know what to do and they spin out like Donkey Kong, but it's insane. I don't, and then people were like, wow, that was quite the storm. It's like there was nothing. There was literally, it was just gray.

Rain doesn't fall from the sky anymore. The pavement is slightly moist and all of a sudden the 405 freeway turns into Rainbow Road. Yeah. It's, it's pretty crazy. I wish, I wish I could knock people out of the way, I would love that so much. You mentioned our guest, let's introduce her, a hilarious actress and writer, one quarter of the best improv group in LA, Wild Horses, our good friend, Aaron Whitehead.

Hi, Aaron. Hi. I already have so many things to say about what you're talking about. Oh boy. Oh no. Am I in trouble? No. I was just like, I kept wanting to be like, oh my God, me too, me too.

Really? Well, first of all, speaking of Domino's, I used to deliver for Domino's. Did you? Really? Okay. I'm also from Massachusetts. That's right. Also used to go to Brigham's as a kid like all the time and would happily go to the East

Coast for a month cause I like to pretend that I live places when I go there. It's sad to me to go for less time. Have you been to Pizzeria Regina? No. And now I'm really excited cause I have tried the Connecticut place. Oh, okay. What did you think? Not that enchanted.

Does it have a name other than the Connecticut place? We can look it up. It's the one near Yale, right? Okay. Is that the one? I think so. It has like the clam, like pizza is the one you're supposed to get. Well, we did not get that.

So maybe that was the mistake. Oh, yeah. I don't know. See, I like seafood, but I don't want a clam pizza. I don't want a pizza. So assuming that means white sauce, which on pizza I'm not okay with at all. I'm kind of a, I'm a pizza traditionalist. I think I've said it on this show where I judge a pizza place on its cheese pizza, on its

basic cheese pizza. Sure. I think that's fair. Is that okay? Yeah. You should be able to. If you can't do cheese pizza, I don't want to try anything else. Yeah.

That's your basis for everything. Okay. Cool. Aaron, when you were a driver for Domino's, what was a, did you have any like particularly worthy deliveries that you made, any particularly a madcap stories? Yeah. I have one. So it was in Ojai and in Ojai, there's a lot of-

There's Ojai, California. Ojai, California. Not Ohio. It's a very like rustic artsy country little town and a lot of people don't have addresses. And so it would be like, here, this is where you're going. You're going to take this dirt road. And then when you see the daffodils, you curve left, you'll see like a clump of mailbox. It's turn right.

Like this is how you would get to the goddamn place. You're getting instructions just purely based off of landmarks. Yeah. They're like, technically there's a number, but it's on a different road than our house. And you're like, all right, that's not helpful at all. There's an old tire swing where- Truly. A kid once broke his leg.

Truly. And then no one would have their lights on. And then you're like driving back and forth and finally a light goes on. And it's like, you've seen the Domino's person like driving back and forth. And now you're like, maybe we should put our porch light on. But I once- They didn't put their porch lights on? It was crazy.

I mean, it was just like- That's a huge delivery faux pas. You need to put your front light on. And this was, I didn't have a cell phone. There was no GPS. Like this was quite, you know, I was on a horse. But I went to one house and this was very, very curvy driveway. And I got to the top.

I delivered the pizza and there was no turnaround. I was like, oh my God, I'm going to have to back down this driveway. And I start backing down and I went right off the cliff. Oh my God. And my car was hanging off. Like front tires stuck on the road, the back of my car completely in this forest against the tree. And I had to walk back up to the house and be like, could I use your phone? I fell off your driveway.

Oh my God. Jesus. It was so terrible. Too bad it wasn't the Mario car first because then our friend, what's his name? Lakitu. Lakitu would pick your car off. Oh boy. No one would like to deck with a couple of coins.

Some people like that. I'm sure there's an overlap. There's a Venn diagram of Doe Boys listeners and Mario Kart players and some of those two circles overlap. They'll enjoy that. Erin, so like how much of a cliff was this? Was this like a... It was pretty steep. Oh really?

My car was at a good angle. Like it was, there was no driving it back up. I mean it was absolutely had like fallen. I truly was like, I'm about to skid backwards for a long time and like luckily there was a tree. So when the AAA guy came, I had to use the people's AAA who I'd deliver pizza to. Oh my God. I did not have it myself. I was 16, I think, or 17.

Jesus. The AAA guy had to tow it out. I just couldn't believe he was even able to because it seemed like we should just leave it. I would have eaten the pizza and been like, I had to eat the pizza because it's for survival reasons. And then you could get away with it, right? I would be doing that probably. I'd probably do that quite a bit if I was a Domino's delivery driver. That is such a nightmare to me that like, not just okay, your car's in peril,

but then also having to interact with people and ask them for a favor. That was the worst, that was the worst part. If I could have somehow gotten out of the whole cliff thing without ever talking to the people, that would not have been as bad. For me it was like, they were nice so they were insisted on sitting with me and waiting for the AAA guy. And that was worse because then like their pizza's in the house getting cold. And like, I felt terrible even though they were the nicest people. Like this is awful, every second that ticked by, I was like, this is the longest second I've ever experienced. Well, they shouldn't have their house on a giant cliff side.

I'm mad at them. Or at least have a turnaround. Yeah, give you a little warning about the huge cliff that you could fall off of. I mean, I'm guessing I was the first. And last. Did you, so Ohai, you were there as a teenager driving for Domino's at age 16. But you're originally from Massachusetts. When did you make that move across the country? We, so we moved when I was six from Massachusetts to Altadena.

Okay. And then moved from there to North Carolina. And then North Carolina to Ohai when I was in seventh grade. So I was in Ohai from seventh grade until I went to college. Oh boy, the middle school move. That's a tough time for a kid, I think. Yeah, and I was already not, I didn't have an easy time as a kid. I just, I was, I just said the worst thing at the worst time ever.

Oh boy. All the time. It was bad. It was bad? It was bad, yeah. Fourth grade was particularly, probably the worst. Fourth grade? Fourth grade was terrible.

It was the first year I was in North Carolina. And this is, on the second day of school, I still remember I was like really nervous. But on the first day I saw everyone in the cafeteria and they had like cookies, like hot cookies. And I, I didn't know, I didn't know where they were. I'd never been in the cafeteria. I came from Montessori school. And so I raised my hand in classes on the second day of school and it got called on. And I was like, I saw yesterday that some people had hot cookies on their trays and I

didn't know where to get one. I was wondering if someone would like to volunteer to be my buddy. In Montessori school, this is very cool to say. Like this would be super fine. The teacher looked at me for like, she was just like, wanted to die. And then she just like looks around and goes, does anyone want to be Aaron's buddy? And like, no one raises their hand. And she goes, okay, let's move on.

Oh my God. And that set the fucking tone. Like that was me for the rest of school year. Like people would walk by and be like, smells like peed and air and water pants. And like, I didn't help. Like anytime there was a cloud in the sky, I was convinced there was a tornado because there were tornadoes in North Carolina and I was terrified of them. So I'd go home sick.

So I went home sick like four days out of the week. Oh, Aaron. I know. What kind of fourth grade teacher, what kind of monster scolds a little girl for being adorable? Raising her hand and asking if she can have a buddy to help her get some hot cookies. Oh boy, wasn't that adorable? That sounds cute.

You are so sweet. It was no one in the room. No one in the room found her adorable. Wow. She's ice cold and I kind of like it. Yeah. So much for Southern hospitality. I mean.

That's crazy. Really. That's bananas. You know what? I will say, I think that, but you turned out great. Oh, thank you. Here's the thing, like if things are hard in fourth grade, like I was nothing. Like even in middle school when people were like, middle school was hard.

I'm like, I had like tomato sauce on my face all the time in middle school. Like when you're in middle school, nothing matters, right? I don't know. That's not a common experience. I'm saying, I was just like, I was a big fat, like little idiot. All that really matters is the later, you know, like high school is more important. Middle school and elementary school are like nothing. You're just a little dumb monster child that doesn't matter.

High school. But do we think it molds you for who you then become? Like I know in high school, I was who I was because I was such a fucking outcast. But I finally like, I think in 10th grade, I finally was like, dude, I don't even want to be friends with any of you anymore. Dye my hair blue, started writing poetry by tree. And then everyone was nice to me. I was like, oh really, all I had to do was be a freak who didn't care.

And then suddenly I had friends. Well, I've always been a freak, baby. So no one has liked me forever. So that's maybe why I can't relate to any of this, to anyone ever. The most unlikable guy we know. Yeah, the most unlikable guy we know. I want to give a shout out, by the way, to all the spoon heads out there. Spoon maniacs who have been a...

What's wrong? Nothing. I'm seeing where you're going to go with this. The spooners, all the spoon family that Spoon Army. Spoon Nation that's been a tweet and hashtag go go get him Spoon Man. I really appreciate it. Because you just reminded me that. Spoon family.

Those are people that make me feel good. All the spoon allies out there. Which one are you going to settle with? Spoon Nation? Spoon Nation's pretty good. Spoon Nation's pretty good. All right, roll with Spoon Nation. I'm going to change it up.

Marin style, every episode. So moving to Ojai, a bit of an adjustment socially, obviously. Food wise, where did you end up eating in that age range in Ojai, California? At that time, there was one chain restaurant in the whole town. And that was Carol's. Oh, that was Carol's, okay. Yeah. And then there was the outskirts, which is like Oakview had a McDonald's.

I think that was the only other chain restaurant. And other than that, you would eat it like ugabuga, hippie dippy type places. Very healthy. Ugabuga. Yeah. Or there's a fake chain, I feel like. It was like a frosty. It was called Ojai Frosty.

Oh, okay. And it was exactly like, what's that soft serve place in the south and midway? Foster's Freeze. Foster's Freeze. It was exactly like that. But just one guy's, his kid was actually in my class. That's Israeli mean. That's an interesting move when there's the fake chain or the one that's a clear ripoff

of an institution like in the LA area. There's a bunch of Tommy's, which is this like chili burger restaurant. It's kind of iconic, but then there's a bunch of Tommy's ripoffs. Like there's Tommy's, but it's just got like one M instead of two. And it's like a standalone place. It's whole business model is tricking you into thinking you're going to a Tommy's and they have a similar menu. New York does that too with like the pizza places.

Oh yeah. I know less about that, but I've heard like the whole famous raised, famous original raised thing is there's some deal with that. Also Frank Pepe's is the one in Connecticut. Oh, you looked it up. It is. White clam pizza. That sounds not good.

Yeah. I feel like that's a bold thing to say this white clam pizza place is the number one pizza place in America because I feel like that just does not fit people's expectations of what pizza is, you know? Yeah. I agree with that, but they say it's the best. I guess. I don't know.

I'll try it. I have an open mind. This is the one chain restaurant. How often are you going there? My mom was not a fan of it. My sister and I thought it was great, so I'm no problems with it when we were children. And so we'd get my mom to take us like maybe once a month. Gotcha.

So you tortured your mother. We really did. And you can see hers is so unhappily perusing this like menu with pictures of the food, you know, which at the time I was like, but it's great. You know what your food's going to look like. Yeah. There's nothing wrong with a menu like that. But then as, and at this point too, when you walked into this carous to the right, it

was like a, like a sort of a diner with a, you know, curve around. No one can see my hands. It was a curve around bar with stools and then very dark booths. And they always had the blind shut. And that was a smoking section because you could still smoke at this point. And then to the left was like the really brightly lit family area. So we always ate in the family area, but then in high school, I would always sit in the smoking section.

Oh, nice. That's cool. I mean, I don't smoke, but that's the cool place to sit. Yeah. I get that. Yeah. That's definitely the cool place to sit. That was, yeah.

Cause I remember when that happened in California as a teenager, like there was a point where they were like, oh, like now smoking is banned in restaurants. There used to be a smoking section. And then it just like, you couldn't smoke anywhere. That's eventually moved on to bars too. I just remember so many restaurants. Just you could like, you were just, people were just smoking while you were eating. Oh, so crazy.

It was, yeah. And it was just like, at this point we stopped, but there's no wall. Yeah. There's, and this one in particular, it worked because there was like the entryway was the middle. So. Yep. I remember restaurants just being not even having sections back in, there were some places

in Massachusetts. Oh, just everywhere it was. Maybe they did put them, but I don't, I don't know. I feel like there was a place, I used to go to where they just would smoke cigarettes. And then I remember going to Rochester where the garbage play is made. Stanford would know the place of the name of it, but there was a smoking section that was just, there was a glass wall and like you would go through and it would just be all smoke.

Like the section was like, yeah, it was like, not only like there was no, they actually did have a glass wall between the sections and it was just like going into like a little smoke den. Yeah. It was so gross. I still remember when you could smoke on planes. Yeah. I was on a plane when you could do it, but I don't remember that as much.

I was, the part I remember, which is, because I hate smoke so much now, like that if someone's near me smoking, I'm the one who's like, hi, excuse me, could you put that, like really really? Sure. But I, on the plane, I don't remember the smoke itself. I just remember my mom like wanted to die because we somehow had seats that were in the back of the plane, which is where the smoking was. Oh, okay.

And she was so upset that that's the part I remember. Yeah. I feel like, well, especially if you're flying or if you're eating, I think eating and having smoke around you is awful. I never liked it. And I've smoked before in my life, but like, if I'm eating a meal, a breakfast meal or something and like you smell smoke, that's disgusting. I feel the same way about perfume.

I think people wear too much perfume when I smell it when I'm eating, it ruins my palate. You know, my hangup is when eating, and this is weird, this is weird because I'm a big, I used to be a smoker and I quit and I switched to mints and I'm something of a mint obsessive now. I'm always popping Altoids in my mouth. However, if I smell like a mint smell while I'm eating a meal, I get really like nauseated. Like I can't handle it. Like if I smell like someone's someone's got fresh breath or is like just brush their

teeth or like it's popped is chewing like minty gum and I'm like trying to eat a sandwich or something. I just like, I'm disgusted. I have to walk away. I can see that. And it's the mint signifies you're done eating. I think that might be it. It signifies fullness and or it signifies like oral hygiene, which makes me think of

like brushing your teeth or using mouthwash or something. I'm just like, that's like, you don't swallow that. I don't know. It just sort of freaks me out. Here we go. Big question. Yes. Breakfast before or after you brush your teeth.

Oh, for me before. Yeah. I've made that switch in my lifetime of actually switch back. But now I am a eat first, have coffee first and then brush my teeth and then go to work. Okay. Fair enough. Yeah. I eat and then brush my teeth, but I hate eating with gross morning breath.

Oh, interesting. Like I don't like that. If even if given the option, I probably would like to do it twice or something. But then also, if you brush your teeth before you eat. It makes the food taste hard. Stuff up a little bit. Yeah. Yeah.

Like your orange juice is rancid and you know, like there's stuff that it can ruin a meal sometimes. Yeah. I don't have bad morning breath, so I don't know. Let's get into Keros a little bit. So speaking of bad morning breath, let's talk about the chain equivalent of bad morning breath. Well, this is the thing.

So I have some nostalgic affection for Keros myself because I am from Southern California. And it used to be like, Keros to anyone who isn't from the region and may not be familiar with it. But I'd say it characterized it as kind of, it kind of fits into the genre, the same class as Marie Calender's or Baker's Square. If you've heard of Baker's Square, Coco's, where it's, it sells pies and it's also like it's like a nice like pie bakery and then it's also like kind of a diner. So it's kind of, oh, another way to think of it is like a more upscale Denny's.

And I remember I used to go there like as a treat, largely for breakfast. For me, it was like a place like my dad would take me and we'd go to Keros and they'd have a nice egg breakfast, maybe with a chicken fried steak or something. And so I have a lot of, like I was saying, some nostalgic affection for it. When you were a kid, Erin, like what were the things that you were getting commonly? So I was, I was really into potatoes. So I would offer breakfast order a side of hash browns and a french fries. No wonder the kids were all making fun.

I had it all over my face, you know, I just called me Erin Hashbrown Head. Yeah, I was really into potatoes and also from like ninth grade. After ninth grade, I was a vegetarian. So I was piecing together a meal when you're a vegetarian at a place like that. Sure. Especially if you're not super into salad, which I wasn't, was a funny thing. So I'd get like the mozzarella sticks and french fries. And hash browns.

You know, I had a, I flirted with vegetarianism for a time last year and I found that I was eating less healthy because I found that if I went to like a restaurant like that, like you were saying, then yeah, your, your, your options are a little limited and it's very easy to gravitate towards like very starchy like foods that are loaded with cheese. Like just a big plate of nachos ends up being what you get with no meat, you know. So yeah, I, I don't know. It's, it's a thing like we commonly associate vegetarianism with some sort of like gradola sort of health food thing, but I think you can be a vegetarian and, and still just eat

like shit. Oh my God. I feel like everyone I went to high school with was that. Yeah. Like any, because a lot of us in Ohio were vegetarian. I think it was maybe more common in that kind of area for a lot of kids. That makes sense. And we ate horribly.

It was like, there were vegans who essentially were like, all I can eat is cereal, like all they ate. What do you put on cereal as a vegan? You just eat dry cereal? Or soy milk. Or soy milk, I guess. Yeah. You know, it'd be like a fun test to see if I became vegan, how long it would be until

I killed myself. I give myself like maybe a week or you can't drink milk. You drink milk as an adult? Yeah. No, not really. Good point. You called me on it. I put it, I put it on cereal at least.

I've never been able to do that. I hate milk. I hate. Milk is gross. I agree with that. It's also weird that we decided, we saw cow and we're like, we should milk its teeth and get milk. Well, it probably got the idea from milking ladies.

Oh yeah. I'm not part of that weird. Oh yeah. You know, when you used to go out back and milk your mom as a kid? What are they doing, oh hi. Well, you know, you don't wean kids to learn like fifth, sixth grade, so. What did they do? Did cavemen milk cows?

They milked ladies and saber-toothed tigers. They did? They like drank lady milk? Cavemen? I don't think so. I don't know. They must have nursed. They nursed, they nursed, but I don't think as adults, I don't think they were drinking

breast milk. No, I bet not. Not according to the paleo diet. Do paleo people drink their breast milk? Yeah, that's part of it. Paleo baby. Paleo baby is the newer paleo diet. Things mashed up and you do suckle your girlfriends teeth.

Teeth. Okay, all right. Yeah. I'm kind of into it now. So you've been a vegan for that since you were that young? I what? No, so I was vegetarian from ninth grade until six years ago or so when bacon arrived on my egg sandwich and I was like, God wants me to eat bacon.

You started again? That was that. Actually, that's not completely true. There was one meat incident in between that, do you want to hear it? Yeah. Okay. So I, my boyfriend at the time had this Republican friend in Texas, and he had inherited a bunch of Harley-Davidson dealerships from his dad and was very, very rich and often had a ton

of cash in his wallet. So when he came out to visit, he thought it was, he thought I was insane. He was like, your girlfriend's hilarious, like look at her, she dresses weird, she's vegetarian. Like I think he just thought I was so amusing and he'd always go like, Aaron, come on, one bite of steak, like one bite of meat, all the money in my wallet. And I'd be like, no, Adam, it's, it's not about money. I'm, you know, this is a moral thing.

And then I went to house it for him in Texas. He flew me out for six weeks because he didn't trust anybody else in his house. This is weird. This is your boyfriend's friend? Uh-huh. And they were going on vacation to Italy together. So it just gets weirder and weirder. So he flies me out.

I know. Wait. The two of them were going on a vacation together. And I stayed home in Texas to house him. Okay. His two Rhodesian Ridgebacks. Man, what a catch this guy was. Really, yeah.

I was, I was in deep. So I, I got there and he said, he was like, I had been thinking for a while about starting to eat meat just cause I was like, it's been years, like I, I, it still smells good to me. I'm sort of curious. And so he, he's paying me $1,500 for the house sitting and he puts his hand down on the check and he goes, Aaron, come on, double your money. You eat a steak.

And I was like, all right, you're on. And he was like, but here's the caveat. Like you can't tell Patrick, this is the guy I was dating, you can't tell him that you're going to eat it. You guys have to just go to a restaurant and you should, you just have to like impulsively order it and like see if he freaks out. So this, I'd wait six weeks to do this bet. And then I did.

And I kind of love this weird Texas villain that all sorts of stuff he had, he had a bathroom in one of his Harley Davidson shops that had no windows or anything in it. And so he bet this guy that he couldn't stay in there a week with no clock and no means of knowing what time it was at all and getting food like given to him intermittently. He said he couldn't last a week. And so the guy had no idea how, how much time had passed completely, completely dark. There's no, and he came out after six and a half days because he had, he, he was going crazy.

He thought maybe it had only been 24 hours and he wouldn't pay him. He wouldn't pay him any of the money. What the fuck? I mean, it was, he, it was nuts. This guy sounds like a Batman villain. A little bit. I was going to say, did he become, he became jigsaw. You finally be, that's so crazy.

Yeah. That, that. I guess that's one way to spend your money and that, that does like, that's the kind of thing that just kind of makes me angry at capitalism that they're, that people who just like can accumulate wealth and then they are just sort of like, I can use this to make people do my bidding because I have more means than them, you know? I don't know. It's just like a very cruel.

That was how I felt. Use of money. But I was like, and then my boyfriend at the time was very defensive of him because he was like, he has a sense of humor. Like, this is what he does. He was funny. And I was like, or he's maybe a sociopath and he was like not paying you guys who are like doing bets because they're like, I really need the money.

He's so funny. Just relax. We're going to go to Europe for six weeks together. Yeah. You stay here. Have fun, honey. Don't think about it. Is he like a European villain now or no?

Uh, you know, I don't know what he's doing now. When, when, so what's his, he's governor, who was this? This was in like, uh, oh my gosh, I don't even know, like 2007 maybe. Okay. All right. This is a little while ago. Yeah. Interesting.

Well, your ex-boyfriend was a weirdo. That's true. That's true. That's true. That too. And so that was the first, your first taste of meat and then the bacon on the sandwich. And then that clinched it. That, because I was like, the universe wants me.

Welcome back. Thank you. I love it. That's great. Well, this has been a great new segment here called a weird exes, which we'll cover on Dover's. We'll dig into people's past romantic failures. Let's talk about, uh, caros a little bit, uh, a little bit more.

So Mitch and I took the trip to the South Pasadena caros yesterday. Oh yeah. Uh, so, um, as we mentioned earlier, as I mentioned my setup and as you alluded to, Aaron, because, because that Ohai location where you used to go all the time as a girl, that's no longer there, correct? It's not there. I don't think, I think nothing is there. It's been dead for a while.

Yeah. So yeah, these caros have been shuttered. I'm sure just like a virus, the caros killed everything around it. So Mitch and I went over to caros yesterday and I guess we'll get into a little bit why he's so enraged about it. Uh, but we, we took the drive over there and, um, I drove actually with my roommate, Jack Allison. Oh yeah.

Jack Allison, the third part. It was very nice. Yeah. Yeah. He's got a new Honda cord hybrid. It's very, very sharp. Like, uh, a haunted house version of a chain restaurant. Ooh, now I want to go.

It looked, it looked run down and today on a rainy stormy day like this, I'm sure young kids are afraid to walk by caros because it's so old and spooky looking and it looks like nothing is going on in there. There's an old caro sign, but besides that, there's no personality to the building at all. Like a Denny's has more personality than the caros that we were at. Yeah. It's very generic.

I'd say maybe kind of like a public library exterior. It's just, it's not necessarily identifiable. In fact, I actually drove past it accidentally. I had to loop back around before I noticed the caro sign. Um, and, uh, the interior is very much like, you know, a rat. I'd say more like a rat-a-son hotel lobby from like 1995. It's just, it's a little frozen in time. It doesn't feel like it's been upgraded recently, but very homey, kind of fitting that old sort

of diner model of just like a very friendly sort of homey sort of ranchy feel. Do they still have pies? They do still have pies. In fact, I think they were, they were pimping a peach pie, a seasonal peach thing that they were going for. They also have like an apple pie that they were pushing. We didn't actually get dessert though, but to get into what we ordered. So we started with the appetizer platter.

This kind of came with Southwest chicken rolls, mozzarella sticks, Southern style chicken strips and a green chili quesadilla. It was supposed to come with three sauces. We only got two of the promised three sauces. We only got the ranch and the barbecue. We did not get the marinara dipping sauce for the mozzarella sticks. Um, Mitch, uh, and you've had the mozzarella sticks before, Aaron, as you mentioned. What's your memory of the mozzarella sticks?

You like those? Okay. I remember really liking them a lot. So I'm not, I'm feeling like maybe you guys did not have that experience. I didn't mind the mozzarella sticks. In fact, I feel like this appetizer sampler platter as a big old fried sampler platter goes. I thought it was pretty good.

It was, I did not like it. You didn't like it. Okay. I thought that the quesadilla was maybe okay and God, it was fucking gross to you though. And the chicken strips were the closest thing, but it was all like that kind of like old greasy fryer feel it had going on and the Southwest rolls, I don't, it was like beans that were in there. I don't, I don't even know.

I was, I was not a fan of, of any of that. I wish we had a third sauce to cover up all the taste of the, of the food. It was, it was awful. I would say, I do say not having that marinara dip and sauce, which we should have identified. But I think we, we were like, we were like three quarters of the way, by the way, I should mention that they, they say on the menu serves four, Mitch and I took this down. Ourself. The two of us took this down.

Which you'll find out was good for me. Yeah. Because. Jack Allison did not partake. Jack, Jack's doing a low carb thing. So he had a, he had a prime rib dinner with a double spinach and that's what he went with just some meat and vegetables. Double cream spinach.

Double cream spinach. Yeah. I don't know. I do feel like the chicken strips were the best thing on that plate and the chicken strips with that barbecue sauce I thought was a pretty good bite of food. The chicken was good and hot and well fried. It had a good batter on it. Yeah.

The mozzarella sticks not missing the marinara I thought was just like a big deficiency because just like both of your dipping options don't really work there. Like it doesn't quite work with the ranch. The barbecue, it definitely doesn't work and then dry. It's like, well, it's just, it's just very gummy without some sort of sauce to soften it. The ranch, it was like a Chipotle, yeah, it was, it was sort of a pinker sauce or something. Oh, that sounds terrible.

I don't like any kind of creamy white sauce at all. Yeah. Really? It was, it was kind of a pink. And you're the opposite. Yeah. No, I'm a, I'm a big time creamy sauce guy. I'm like anything creamy just gross as man.

Oh, see, I'm all about ranch and blue cheese dressing. Those are my two go-tos. But you don't like white pizza. Yeah. Or I get some clams. I'm okay with white pizza. Clams are on it. I just think the clams thing sounds weird.

I bet I would like that. I would like this weird Connecticut pizza place that puts clams on, on its white pizza. But I'm just saying like, this is a separate discussion. I just feel like if you're going to, you're going to elevate and say like, this is the best thing in America, then I feel like it should have some sort of nod to conventional tastes. Like it's like saying like, oh, this is the best hot dog in America. It's a lamb merguez sausage that we put a, you know, horseradish aioli on and we top it

with arugula and throw on some porcini mushrooms and we serve it on a Portuguese roll. I'm like, that sounds so foreign from a hot dog to me that that may be a fucking tasty little treat. That may be a nice hot dog sandwich, but that does not meet my American expectations of what a hot dog is. And so if that, I was going to say, this is the best hot dog in America. I'm not going to say this hypothetical lamb merguez sausage on a Portuguese roll. I want something a little bit more conventional.

I agree with you. The lamb pizza thing, we could talk like, that's just how I feel. No, I agree with you too, but I will say that made my mouth water whatever it is described. I want that fucking hot dog. And you know what? I like to see that little fucking life coming out of a little Y, because I love that. That's what I want to hear from you. You're right.

Especially if this is a separate discussion, but that was the, that was a little bit of what we got. I can't wait. I want to, I want to read the book. It ends with him choking me in the doble studio. Something that shakes me out of my normal monotone droning, I think. Maybe people will respond to. You know what?

I like, I didn't like ranch and blue cheese as much growing up. I mean, when I was little, I still kind of liked them. And now I'm a fan. I can go with the white sauces. Yeah. I think, I think especially for dip in, I feel like ranch, ranch comes in very, very handy for dipping vegetables, fries, onion rings, it works for all of them. So let's see what else we mentioned.

Yeah. The Southwest egg rolls, I think were kind of gross. I agree with you. That was kind of a low like quesadilla was kind of fine. I can still taste that, like the film, it had like, it had like the greasy film that covered my mouth. It was fucking, it was, it was bad. Also, I will say we asked the waitress, we were like, what do you like here?

And like, I was trying to pick stuff out on the menu. And we're like, have you ever had this? And she's like, no. And we're like, have you ever had anything here? And she was like, I've had like two things off this menu. Now, right then I was like, well, that's a pretty good indicator that this is going to be, she had truly just tried two things. And usually you get like free food at your work.

So she's like, no, thanks, I'll go out. She goes, yeah, she goes somewhere else and buys a meal instead of eating at carers. I'd rather spend my tips on real food. And I, when I was looking at the menu online, just recently to review, I can't believe how extensive it is. I mean, there's like pasta primavera. The kind of things that you don't order at a diner type of restaurant that I was like, I feel like six pages you don't even need to look at.

You know, it's in the development, I used to work in game development, video game development. And in that or any sort of software, the software term might be feature creep, is that you add like a new feature and you keep adding additional features until eventually your product is so bloated. There's just like so much going on. And I feel like that's happened with the carers menu is I remember it being kind of like a homie simple thing. And now it's just got pages and pages of, they've got this whole shrimp thing now where

they've got like all these shrimp tostadas and I'm like, why do they have all this stuff here? They know they're dying. Yeah. It's that last gasping breath. I saw, one of the sections that made me laugh on the menu was, I took a screenshot, but I don't know where my phone is, but it was something like for healthy actives and it was super high cholesterol stuff.

It was like, for those of you who are warming, period typo, you're cholesterol. Oh my God. None of it made any sense. One of the other things also said, we always have cream of broccoli soup, ask your server about Toadies soup. And I was like, does Carol have a character now named Toadies? Toadies. But it's today.

Oh wow. Oh my God. I was so excited by it. I wish there was Toadie. Anything could have helped this place. So I was like, if they added a character that, I mean, Carol's was really taken off. It's like, there's a point where you're no longer proofreading your menu where you've just given up.

Yeah. It's like whoever's in charge of designing the Carol's menu, just type that out lazily and then put his head into a noose. Nick, I want to say, I appreciate you giving that video game comparison for the Mario Kart Venn diagram, virginal listeners that we have. It was very great. I love any sort of video game history, because Nick used to work in video games. So I love the crossover.

Well, you know what? That's actually interesting because I wasn't thinking about this till now, but when I worked at Activision, which was my first video game job, I worked there originally as a customer support rep, which was we would answer the phones when people would call in with problems with their video games. And then I later became a game tester. I was actually a game tester on the original Call of Duty. So we were like in crunch mode, which means you get there early in the morning.

We'd get there at 6 a.m. and then we work a 12-hour shift just testing this game because it had to come out by a certain date. And so when we get in there at 6 a.m., we could order a breakfast from, they'd pay us for a, pay for our breakfast from a nearby restaurant. And very often that was Carol's because there was a Carol's in that same office complex, the one on Ocean Park right by the Activision building in Santa Monica. Now closed, closed this year. But yeah, very often get like a little Carol's breakfast.

But I remember the guy who sat at the workstation next to me, he would always just get a fucking big old club sandwich and it was like 6.30 in the morning and then you'd have like this huge like turkey club with like bacon and like a big thing of fries and he'd be eating this first thing. I was like, what are you doing? I'm so jealous of people who have that stomach. I was at the airport, it was like, it was probably 6 a.m. and there was a guy eating fully loaded nachos with like jalapenos and everything.

How do you do it? I don't know. I was like, even if that looked good to me, I would die. I think that now. Like what is he going to chase it with coffee? That's a disaster. How do you, yeah, I don't get it. So I will say, just speaking on the stomach side, after my Carol's meal, I tried to go

to the Los Feliz 3 to see train wreck. Oh no, was it a train wreck? It certainly was a train wreck. It was sold out, which was good for me because right around that time, I was about to walk home and my stomach just dropped and I just started like, do you know that feeling when you can feel all your bones and sweat was just pouring down my face? I sweat a lot anyways, but this was the sort of sweat that was just cold and it all just came out and I was texting Jack, my roommate, and I was like, where are you?

He was at this bar, you rustic nearby, and he was like, I'm at you rustic, but I'm sweating so bad. No, no. We both at the same time just like, the caros kicked in and we both went home and just like laid on the couch and shook for two hours into the night. That's really, I mean, that's not even just like, you get diarrhea, that's like your body physically was. It was awful.

Oh God. It was, I told Nick last night, I was very, very sick. That is really upsetting because so far, based on your review, I was like, maybe I'll go to get us from here, but now maybe I'm not so sure. We've kind of gotten a Tarantino structure with a podcast here where we've jumped ahead to the ending and now let's trace back how we got there. So we had our appetizer platter, but in between that and you getting cold sweats while waiting to see Trainwreck in Los Feliz, we had our entrees.

So I got the bacon and onion potato pancakes with scrambled eggs and bacon. This was one of their entrees that had a little, you know, when you're at a restaurant, it's got like a little star next to it to say like, this is one of our specials. This is one of their caros specials. And I never had it before and actually didn't remember it though, must have been on their menu for years. But it is very much like a latke, like a potato pancake that had some crumbled bacon and some green onions in it as well as a green onion garnish on top of it.

And then a dollop of sour cream. I found that very tasty. I actually think it was the best, the best thing I had of my meal. And then also the scrambled eggs were good. The, the eggs, I feel like were really, you get a good scrambled egg and it's like fluffy and buttery. And that was the thing I remembered caros doing well and it's still delivered at least for this visit.

It still had those good quality scrambled eggs that I remember going there as a kid and getting breakfast and good bacon. That's impressive with the eggs too, because I feel like there's many diners that are known to be good diners. I have shitty eggs. Yeah. For me, that's a mark of like a good place. This is such a dumb, obvious thing to say.

But I mean, like, like if you have a place that can do a good scrambled egg, then that's a place you go to for breakfast. And I feel like if I was going to return to caros for whatever reason, I would just stick with their breakfast. That's what I remember getting as a kid. And that's what I got this time. And that was the, I feel like the part of the, the meal that succeeded for me. Talk about your entree a little bit, Mitch.

You guys are being so nice to caros. I'm being honest. They're hostage at one point and now you've fallen in love with like, I can't, what is that called? The Stockholm. Stockholm syndrome. Thank you. Uh, I can't, it almost killed the spoon man.

Weiger, you don't think about that. You're good friend. Uh, we don't like each other. Uh, and so I got this thing that was a roast beef sandwich, a barbecue roast beef sandwich Um, it was a prime, a prime rib, correct? Oops. Well, I don't know. It looked like a spider's nest, so I have no idea what it was.

I'm a guy who will eat. I eat a lot of things. I give good reviews to a lot of things on this podcast. Uh, I, I'm very open mind. I'm very open mind. I, I, I generally, I will finish a meal no matter what my, uh, what is it prime rib barbecue sandwich was so bad, so, so bad. It was the, it was a buttered bun, but like, it was like, but like the bun was like buttered

or like seeped up the butter from the grill and it just tasted fucking gross. Like I tasted like a part of the grill from 40 years ago that was on this bun or something. And the, the prime rib was so overcooked and so hot within the sandwich, it was just like steaming, like a steaming hot like center mess. And then, then there was like these onion strings on it and barbecue sauce and it was fucking god awful. I didn't even, I couldn't even eat half of it. It was, it was crazy, crazy, crazy bad.

Don't get the spider's nest from the haunted carat. It's so much like a, uh, uh, it's so much like a haunted house over there, including the oldest people on earth who are eating there. I've never in my life, this is mean, but it's true. I've never in my life felt like they were just doing a service to this old generation until they all live out their lives and then they can close caros or something like that. Like there's so many old people that are carrying on because of caros or something. So for that, I commend them, but it, it, it, there, it's-

They could be transferred to other delis and diners though. And of course, yes. Like we could, we could stick all those guys in the diners. Caros is keeping them alive or something. Maybe. Whatever made you shake makes them, they're like 400 years old. Let's keep them going. In all fairness, we did actually have dinner at 5.30pm yesterday.

So we were, we were there for the early bird shift. We were there for the early bird shift. Maybe that's not their entire clientele. Yes, yeah. But it definitely was an older demographic that was frequenting it at that time. Well, so it came with, it came with Mike's sandwich, came with French fries. There was cheddar cheese on it, onion strings and barbecue sauce and then the prime rib, which was thinly cut, but then so overcooked and so over seasoned.

And the, the roll was just bar, it was, you took a bite of it. Was that not an awful, awful sandwich? I will say that was one of the bites of food we've had in the Doe Boys podcast that I would characterize as repulsive. Wow. It was really, really bad. It was fucking disgusting. Like I would have considered sending it back.

Yeah. It was really bad. It was really like gummy and the, the flavors were all off. It's like the barbecue was kind of overpowering. The beef didn't really, the beef was like sub Arby's quality. It was just like not, not a good, a good quality beat. And yeah. And the roll was really weird too.

It just like didn't fit with what the, that sandwich was. There was like a mushy fry in there and the fries weren't even good. The fries weren't even good. You guys, I feel responsible. No, no, this is great. I, I, I, it was, it was, I liked, I enjoy experiences like this. I'll never go back in my entire life. But the, the fries were, were, were not even that good.

And the garlic bread, I had some of Jack's garlic bread was like, I thought it was nasty. I know that you were okay with it, but like garlic bread was okay. And then Jack's, even his, his prime rib was, was, was like undercooked and like rubbery and it was all just a nightmare. And then there's a big mural on the wall and, and, and there, there were like dying flowers in the mural. Like everything about that place was, Oh yeah, there was a mural at the Ohai one.

Yes. I just remembered that. Everything about it that was death. It was like a big golden field with like dying sunflowers. It was really strange. Do you remember the details of that mural at all, Aaron? Or just remember that a mural existed? I want to say that it was like a, it was like very scenic in that I think there was like

a grass field and I want to save people and butterflies. Gotcha. I don't remember wilted flowers, but they could have been there. Yeah, this one felt like it was the muralist had, was like an artist for hire and decided to like, Hey, we just want you to paint some sort of California landscape. And then this artist decided to inject some political commentary in it very subtly and like, like just like instead of a field of grass, it was like a field of like, it was all dried out.

Like it was drought stricken. Like the flowers were dying. There were just kind of some hints at like death throughout that felt like an artist's little like sly touch. Which felt appropriate for the haunted house that we were eating inside of. It's funny to me too. And I'll be interested to see how many of our listeners are familiar with caros in any sense because a lot of people here are producer Dustin had never heard of caros,

Mitch, until I think yesterday when we were going to go to caros, you had never heard of caros. I think it's a joke you two made up. You got us, Mitch. I mean, I used to go in high school. I went twice a day sometimes. Oh my God. Yeah, I think it's a regular.

I think you're going to go to West Coast. I'm starting to agree with the people who bullied you. I like, I love older, I love older Aaron, but younger Aaron is fucking awful. It was the place to be. Like always in high school, the thing you did was cruise around town. Again, this was pre-sale phone, cruise around town and like look for your friend's cars. And if you like did a loop of the town or like didn't find any, we'd go to caros, get coffee and french fries, do some more loops and then three hours later, we'd be back

for coffee and french fries in the dark side. I think we're both older than you two, by the way. No, you're absolutely not. Oh, come on. Weiger is really old. Weiger is 53, but it's great. I fought in Korea. For which side?

We know when our war is over. Let's get to our verdicts. We've discussed caros, which I'd say is eviscerated it, but let's get to our final assessment of this chain based of our lifetime of eating there. So the way we'll do this is we'll go around, kind of give your summation of your argument and then give it a rating on a scale of one to five forks. So Aaron, we'll start with you. Oh, wow.

Okay. Um, all right, I'm going to, I'm going to bring in a little bit of the nostalgic. Like I'm going to, I'm going to give caros nostalgic points. Uh, and I'm going to give them, I'm going to give them points for having pies still. Cause I think pies are the first thing to go when you're dying and pies are great. They just eat sets of atmosphere, even if the pies are bad. And plus we used to sit there. No, that's nostalgic too.

They only get two forks. Wait, hold on. So this is your favorite place as a kid. Okay. You went there only place as a kid. So you went here all the time as a teenager. This was like, this was like the peach pit for you. This was like your regular hangout.

Yeah. And you're still, there's no Nat. You're still only giving it two forks. Well, I can't say, I can't honestly say that I have a single good memory of the food itself. Okay. It was all nostalgic. What was your childhood like?

I mean, I have good memories of food in general, but not the food at Keros. I'm so afraid that you're, you had the most like a horrible childhood. And then this place, Keros was a shining light that you still don't even like. I mean, I'm telling you, Oh, I was so small. I still remember when Taco Bell got there and all of us at high school left campus at lunch to swarm it. Cause we're so excited about for Taco Bell. God, I don't know how Keros got into Oh, hi.

I don't either as the one chain. Well, there we have it. Two forks for Marin. Mitch, go ahead. Um, well, you guys know how I feel about it. Um, I should have had the, there was a roast beef sandwich I was looking at. That's why I got confused. And I think that maybe it was like a grilled bread and on sourdough bread.

Maybe it would have been a little different. In your defense, because I think this was your thinking a little bit is that they Keros really pushes their prime rib. They're like prime rib is a specialty and they have a prime rib sandwich. Um, and so to me, it seemed like a thing to get. And then like, as you mentioned, you asked the waitress and she said, like, I don't know, I don't need anything here. Um, so you do really have any guidance.

So I had no guidance. She doesn't eat at the restaurant. She doesn't like it. Just like everyone else on earth. She's trapped there with chains around her shackles. They're walking around that haunted house. Everything there just seems like it's dying. And when a chain is supposed to die, maybe sometimes it's supposed to die.

I never got to see the heyday of Keros. Oh, you should have been. The name alone. And you know what? Erin is a great person. She's funny and nice and one of the nicest people. Uh, but I don't have that nostalgia. You have fuck Keros.

I don't care about that nostalgic factor. Like, uh, I think you mean fork Keros fork Keros. I, it's like, it would be like me getting nostalgic over like the dentist or something. I think you guys are both crazy. Um, I, and also on the way out, I said that I would give it more points. I went to the, they had a little grab, stuffed animal grab machine, you know, like the. Oh yeah. I documented this on video.

Yeah. Uh, little wags documented in our video and, uh, and I lost there too. Nothing went well. Nothing at all. Don't, don't you lose those everywhere? I've never lost. I thought those claws were rigged. No, not for me.

I always win. Well, my carousel is a cigarette machine, so I didn't play that. Oh God, smoking a pack of cigarettes is better than eating anything at carousel. It's awful. Uh, the waitress was nice, even though she had never eaten there before. But I think it's time for this chain to die. I'm going to give it half a fork based on the waitress being nice. Half a fork.

Uh, all right. You know, um, I remember carousel being a, not a treasured place, but a place I enjoyed going as a kid. I do remember getting a chicken fried steak breakfast there on some occasions. Uh, enjoying it, their scrambled eggs seem to have stayed at a same similar level of quality, what I remember. Uh, that said, I have to agree with the consensus of this is a chain that's staggering, uh, that's got a foot in the grave.

Maybe it's got two feet in the grave and it's shoveling dirt atop itself. Totie is shoveling. Totie, it's mascot Totie that makes the broccoli soup is shoveling dirt upon carousel is still twitching, uh, almost lifeless corpse. It's, if you have to go to a carousel for whatever reason, that's a place you have to go to. I would assume that you would have, that maybe because you have a grandparent or a parent who likes the place and wants to go there, then I would just say stick

to the breakfast because the breakfast seem solid to decent. But overall, not a great experience. Uh, it, it was a place that feels like the specter of death is hovering over you at all times and just, that's just not a fun way to spend your dining dollar. Uh, so for me, I'm going to have to, uh, agree with my friend, Aaron, and give carous two forks. Jesus. I could listen to you review things forever.

That was delightful. Well, good. That's kind of what the podcast is banking on. Thanks a lot. Mitch, Mitch, you're lukewarm on. No, I mean, I enjoyed Mitch's as well, but twitching corpse coming. It's a haul. That's, he's a wordsmith.

Yeah. Nerd is more like it, but, um, carous should just make the grim reaper there mascot instead of toady, uh, because it is, it is, it's dying. And you know what, sometimes places are supposed to die. Like, yeah, carous is supposed to die. It's, it's dead. It, they're like, or reinvent it completely. But right now it's, it's nothing.

It's, it made me sick that, that it truly, truly made me sick. So let me, let me add one little ray of hope here. And this is how, you know, legacy can lead to new beginnings. So David Nankaro founded carous, his son Chris Nankaro. Founded an up and coming chain, not exactly up and coming, but, but one that's, that's continuing to thrive and expand Elephant Bar. So maybe David Nankaro's legacy is not his restaurant carous, but his son's restaurant Elephant Bar.

And maybe as that continues to thrive, uh, his name can live on there. Good for you. I've never heard of it. Unlike Aaron's ex-boyfriend who is a Batman villain. You sounded like a good guy in a Batman movie. All right. If you're a regular Doughboys listener, you know our segment, snack or whack, where we test a snack and just determine if it's worth your dollar.

This week, we debuted, we debuted with a beverage equivalent. It's time for our first ever, drink or stank. So I've got a beverage and we're going to taste test it and determine if it's something that you should put in your mouth. So I'm going to go fetch it from the fridge real quick. You guys can banter for one second. I'll be right back. All right.

What are we going to talk about? Mitch, is this something that Nick made? Uh, no, because I a hundred percent would not drink or trust it. Yeah, I got worried. I thought it was going to be creamy. It's a hundred percent going to be creamy. And if Nick made it, I have a feeling like we'll both pass out Cosby style. If Nick is actually the true creator of the drink.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Does that mean to say that he is like Bill Cosby and puts sleeping pills in drinks? No, I think Bill Cosby is a really funny guy. I think he'd be flattered. He's a comedian and Nick's a comedian. What do you mean?

So, so do you miss Massachusetts? Is it mean that I call you a traitor to our state? You call me that to everyone we know and it gets back to me. That's the part that bothers me. I miss it so much, but what I missed even more is Maine. I would, I've been going to Maine every summer, almost every summer since I was a baby. Okay. And my grandparents still have a house there.

So I, that is what I miss the most is Maine. Maine is a great, great little vacation spot. Yeah. Thank you so much. Thank you. Oh, and it comes straight in a glass. I was comparing you to Cosby while you were gone. Yeah, I heard.

Oh, sorry. Yeah, you guys are monsters. Okay. So our, our, our candidate for drank or stink is V8 spicy mango. Spicy mango. This is a new vegetable juice cocktail described as having two vegetable juices and mango puree from concentrate with other natural, natural flavors. If you check the ingredient list, one of the natural flavors is abanero pepper puree.

So this might be a little spicy guys. This is like, uh, when you buy that cut mango on the street from the guys of the carts, oh yeah, little, uh, yeah. Little L.I. Feature spice on it. Yeah. All right. Let's okay.

It smells interesting. Wait. So is there, is there tomatoes? Yeah, it's, it's a vegetable based cocktail juice cocktail. So it's kind of got the, the look of a slightly orange, uh, tomato juice, slightly orange or V8 smells like V8, smells like V8. Hmm. It's, it doesn't have much sweetness.

I'm so glad that you told us what it was in it, at least cause I didn't know. Oh my God. This is, it very much has a gazpacho quality to it. It does. Jesus Christ. Hmm. Oh, you know what it tastes like? It tastes like you put, uh, come.

The Aaron, no, that is all I was going to say. God, oh, it's, I can't even describe what it, what it tastes like. You know, they're clearly going for like a health food angle here, cause they've got a whole thing of like one and a half servings of vegetables, no fructose corn syrup, um, and also it tastes really bad. So that's the health is like all they've got, but also it's only 75% juice, which for me is like, well, if you're going to have, market, this is like a healthy thing, like shouldn't that be all juice?

Like why is it, what's all this filler that's a quarter of the product? 25%. I will say, I know what I can say. I can describe this taste. It tastes like you put a caros, put a little cum and caros into a giant blender and blended it down. It tastes like blended caros. It's, this is.

I'm really surprised by how bad this is because if you look at it, it looks like spicy mango. Yeah, it's got the V8 logo, but it looks like it's going to be a, like a sweet juice, right? And for a while I liked the V8 juices, but they were, they were all juice, I think. Do you remember that? Yeah, I do. Remember they kind of punches.

Yeah. They had like the, these fruitier ones for a time. Those were actually pretty good. I mean, yeah, it's fucking gross. It tastes like cum. If your boyfriend just ate jalapenos, and I say boyfriend because how else would you know what cum tasted like, anything else would be scandalous. I can't, it just, it can't decide if it's like, even, everything about the smell

even, like the, I'll smell it once and it's like, oh, kind of sweet. And then I smell it again and it's way too savory. It's not. I thought it was mango. I thought it was mango. Like they put a piece of mango in the V8 is what it tastes like. Oh God. You know, I gave it a good, are you guys going to have any more?

Fucking no way. So, am I going to go back to caros? No. I gave this a shake. I'm going to have a drink right out of the bottle just in case there was like some ingredients were settled at the bottom and we didn't quite get the flow. Your pills. Yeah.

No, it still tastes the same. There's just not much sweetness here. It's very much like kind of a slightly less bitter, less salty tomato juice, which to me is like, if you'd, I'd like, I'd just give me tomato juice. If that's the flavor I'm craving, I don't, I don't want one that's like a little this is going to stay with numbed a little bit. Yeah, this is really bad. I'm voting stank.

Yeah. Mitch is with stank. I'm also going to say when it comes to drank or stank, if those are my options, this is a clear stank. Aaron, how about you? Clear stank, zero forks. Okay. Good call.

All around, besides our wonderfully delightful guest, everything else about this episode has been a nightmare. And you even turned on me halfway through you. Young, young, young, the young Aaron. All right. Well, that was drank or stank, just like a restaurant. We value your feedback. Let's open up the feedback.

Today's email comes to us from, hold on for one second. I'm going to double check this because, uh, this guy, Mike S emailed the feedback. And then I emailed him back because I wasn't sure how to pronounce his last name. So I want to double check to make sure that I've got it right. Okay. Here we go. Mike Saltzgoober. Mike Saltzgoober emailed us in.

All right. Mike writes. Hi guys. Love the cast so far. I've made the claim that wet naps should be made available with all chain fast food meals, not just chilies. Think about it. Most of the food is designed to be eaten by hand.

Burgers, french fries, tacos, fried chicken, et cetera. And having wet naps afterwards would really class up the experience in my mind. Where do you guys stand on this issue? Mike. Thanks for the question, Mike. Aaron, what do you think? A mandatory wet naps at all? Chain restaurants and fast food joints?

I really like that he's using the word wet nap and classy in the same sentence. Sure. I think it would be helpful. I think classy is really taking it kind of far. That's true. I don't know if it's the classiest thing on earth, but I like where his head's at. I think that's really nice. It would be a nice thing to have.

Yeah. Here's where I got to differ with him though. Go ahead. Like almost like someone who grew up like a hippie in Ojai, I gotta say, I feel like it might not be good for the environment to do that. Oh, interesting. You know what I mean? Yeah.

We got to think about what's going on right now that could cause a lot more garbage than we need. Though it does give you one single or nap to wipe your hands, so maybe that is helpful. But would it create more garbage? Or can you just go and wipe your hands off with some soap and water? This is clearly for people who don't want to wash their hands. Yeah. His alternative is not washing his hands.

It's just going through the day with really greasy fingers. But you know, I think he makes, because look, I've been in a situation where maybe I'm eating in my car, or maybe I'm getting this food to go, or if you're eating at a Burger King, like you're dining in, the Burger King in restaurant restroom isn't necessarily the most hospitable place. Sometimes they won't even have a soap or paper towels in the men's room. So I get worries heads at, and I agree with Mike. I think wet naps should be a thing.

If they've got a little condiment area where some fast food places have, have a little stash of wet naps there. If you're given the option, whether you want to use them or not, maybe they're not given out automatically with every, every meal. But I think it makes sense to have that as an option. And then if you've got it in the, if you're in a to-go line and you say, hey, can you throw in a wet nap in the bag? If you're getting it to go, or if you're getting drive-thru, like, that feels like a thing

that I think more restaurants should offer. I have read that the, there's like a major problem with sewers these days because of all these flushable wipes, these like the wet ass wipes that people use. Like those clog up toilets, I guess? I am very against those. Yeah. Those seem like a... They're not good for you either.

Like, when women say they use them, I'm like, do you also have horrible used infections? Like nothing. Oh my God. Because it just takes all the bacteria away. Like it takes good and bad. Yeah. So like for guys I'm like, maybe, but still you're... Well, cause there's some hemorrhoid wipe.

I remember when I shouldn't... But those are medicated. Right? Right? But yeah, they, the medicated pads my dad would use sometimes. Those I can see, because that's to alleviate something. Yeah. Like just fucking, just get good at wiping yourself or like take an extra shower if you

need to. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Wet wiping is, even just saying wet wiping is making me sick. Yeah. But you know what? It fits in with this gross podcast experience. And yeah, I mean, I care about our, are you going to care about that carbon footprint?

You know what I mean? Sure. Yeah. We're all not, we don't all own Harley Davidson shops. We got to think about this world and try to, I feel like wet naps might cause some problems. So I don't know. That said, there's so much waste already in food packaging. Yes.

Like I feel like any fast food restaurant, you're getting so much extra shit that you know, you're getting, if you're getting a spork at Taco Bell, it's wrapped in a little plastic thing, right? Maybe not Taco Bell, but a lot of places like your utensils are wrapped in plastic and there's just so much extra waste already that I feel like, to me it seems like a drop in the bucket to add some extra wet naps. Like have that as an option for people who need them. That's fair.

I'm with Mike. Stop eating meals in your car, you sad, sad way. If you have a question or comment about the world of chain restaurants, you can email us at doboyspodcastatgmail.com. Erin Whitehead, thank you so much for being here. Thank you for having me. What a delightful time. Do you have anything you would like to plug?

Yeah. Come see Wild Horses at UCB Franklin the first Saturday of every month. Awesome. Check that out. I just want to say, I want to give a shout out to Michael Cassidy who does the music for the podcast, which you hear every day and I know we'll thank him forever and Chris Vain Arsdale who did the art for the podcast and our producer Dustin Marshall. Of course, yeah.

Also, I want to thank, one last time, those Spoonman fans out there, last week the hashtag go go get them Spoonman was trending, I think it was number one in the country possibly. Not true. Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's true. And me and Little Wags were thinking, maybe we'll make some t-shirts, tweet at us if you'd want a Spoonman t-shirt. Wait, hold on. This is not something you and I were thinking about.

This is something you propose. Tweet at us if you want a Spoonman t-shirt and then tweet at us if you want, if you want a Spoonman t-shirt, hashtag, give me that T Spoonman. If you want a Little Wags, if you want a Little Wags t-shirt, hashtag, I guess I'll take the Little Wags Burger Boy t-shirt and let us know which one you want. Look, if anyone tweets, I guess I'll, was it take? I'll have. I guess I'll have the Little Wags Burger Boy t-shirt.

If everyone says, I guess I'll have the Little Wags Burger Boy t-shirt, I guess I'd be all right with that. Oh, well, let's see what happens. We'll see what happens. It's not a competition or anything. Well, you've got admitted to it. All right, that'll do it for this episode of Doe Boys. Thanks for listening and until next time, happy eating.

See ya. Bye.