Doughboys - Checkers and Rally’s with Neil Punsalan

Episode Date: February 8, 2018

Writer and producer Neil Punsalan (No Script with Marshawn Lynch, @GotEm_Coach) joins to discuss his fast food centric Ohio upbringing and to review dual branded burger and seasoned fries chain Checkers and Rally’s. Plus, after a lengthy hiatus, it’s the return of Pie in this Guy.Want more Doughboys? Check out our Patreon!: https://patreon.com/doughboysSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Cha-ching! This two-syllable chunk of automotapia, symbolizing the sound of an old-school cash register opening, generally a celebratory exclamation to signify an imminent financial windfall, feels as if it's always existed in the collective consciousness. But the phrase actually has a highly specific source, a 1991 television commercial for a then-regional burger chain in the American heartland which starred a red-headed young actor named Seth Green. In the 32nd spot, Green, a former child star who would go on to long-running success in

film and TV, played a greedy fast-food clerk who uttered Cha-ching as he rang up a series of upcharges on a distressed father in the drive-through, the spot ending by specifying the sponsor as a budget-friendly alternative. Like Where's the Beef? and Yo-Ki-Er-Oh Taco Bell, Cha-ching was a fast-food commercial catchphrase that quickly entered the common tongue and would in short order appear in recurring SNL sketch turned feature film Wayne's World, though it was deployed less frequently than their signature sound, Shwing, used in reference to a physically attractive woman and accompanied by a cartoonishly

horny hip thrust. Incidentally, Wayne's World star Mike Wires would later cast Green as Dr. Evil's son Scott Evil in the Austin Powers franchise. Aside from shaping the lexicon, the Cha-ching ad was beloved in its day, part of a clever campaign that raised the profile of a young burger chain that hung its marketing on its good value. Like Carl's Jr. and Hardy's, this chain has one core menu split across two geographically distinct brands, stemming from its origin as two separate companies.

In 1984 and 1986, a pair of burger restaurants opened in Tennessee and Alabama respectively, and each centered its concept on an innovation that would become a part of the Merge Company's core business, a double drive-through in the volunteer state, and a focus on budget-friendly combo meals in the heart of Dixie. The chains would expand across North America independently, and in time, Merge, after CKE restaurants, incidentally the parent company of Carl's Jr. Hardy's, purchased the Tennessee chain and sold it to its Alabama counterpart. Today, the Combined Corporation, with its uniform packaging that shows the logos of

both brands, has 784 locations across the continent, including some owned by hip-hop artists and wingstop franchisee Rick Ross, and remains focused on Value, a restaurant where you can feed your family without the dreaded Cha-ching. This week on Doughboys, Checkers, and Rallies. Welcome to Doughboys, the podcast about chain restaurants. I'm Nick Weiger, alongside my co-host, Michi Chuchins, the Spoonman Mike Mitchell. Oh my God, a quick, with the name change already. James Oxalis on top of that one, at James Oxalis.

If you've got a roast like we use on Mitch at the top of the show, roastspoonman at gmail.com is the address. That's fucked up. Chuchins I'll take, actually, who gives a shit about that? I've heard worse. It's not great for you, yeah. Hey, you know, Mitch, I know you went to the Super Bowl, and we want to talk about that a little bit.

That's right, we will talk about it. Yeah. But before we get to that, I have a little bit of business for the show. Uh-oh. What? Recently, we had Dave Schilling on, and we reviewed the Halal Guys. Yeah. And I got some flak, both from him and you in the studio, and then also, after that,

a torrent of flak on social media. And as a result of my three fork review, and I was being honest, and I basically said that we had had it post-mated, and I didn't feel like I had a fair assessment of the chain. And based on the meal that I ate in your apartment at this table where we record, I thought it was a three fork experience. But I was convinced to revisit, I revisited today before our record. I went to the Halal Guys in West Hollywood, I got myself the fries sandwich with Yero meat, which is the sandwich in the pita bread, Euro sandwich, and then it's got fries just

jammed right in there, lettuce, tomatoes, hot sauce on that one, which has a good amount of heat, a bunch of white sauce, onions, and jalapenos for a little extra heat, because I'm something of a heat seeker. Got a side of falafel, the falafels were tasty, especially dipped in that white sauce, woke them up a little bit, and a nice tea. As a result, and the fries sandwich is great. It's only available for a limited time. In fact, by the time this episode's out, it probably won't be available anymore, but

they'll still make it for you, because it's basically just a Euro sandwich and they add fries into it. But it was a very fun experience, and as a result, if you maintain the Doughboys Wiki, listen up, I have a new canonical fork score, four forks for the Halal Guys, which means, based off of your score and Dave's score, it is now a member of the Golden Plate Club. You really fucking caved. Wait, what do you mean I caved? I was doing my job.

I was being thorough. It seems like you caved. You throw is caving. Coming around to having taken a second look is caving. No wonder our discourse is so toxic. It's canon. I don't think it's canon. It's canon.

It's like the special editions. They're canon. No, that's bullshit. Don't bring Star Wars on this. I have updated it. We have. We have. People are mad at me for Star Wars.

Yeah, I know. Well, let's get away from that. Also, I just want to say, first of all, you were the one who mapped out Star Wars Month, you fucking idiot. We thought we both thought it was a good idea on the on the Patreon, whatever it's over. Second of all, I people can like it. I'm fine with people liking it. People were mad at me because they were like you didn't express his views clear enough,

which for sure maybe, but then also like isn't that isn't that boring? Do you want me to get into how like structurally it's wrong or the characters of this or that? You know, I don't care. Back to didn't use enough soft focus lenses. They went that court. That's sort of the blocking was a little off. They went for a medium close-up when they should have used a true close-up. They're here.

Do you know what? One of the things recently I've been talking about that I just was talking about today before we get into this. I just want to say we want to know. No, no, we can. No, I want you to finish your thought. I just want to say. I think I feel a little slighted that I went.

I revisited a chain. I went to like I actually went to it and I had another meal there just to give it a second look and then you're batting it down is saying it's not what you want me to say. Good for you. Yes, I go. No, I'm saying that like that's I thought you you like this chain. I thought you should be happy that I'm happy. It's rightfully in the golden play club.

Yes. Good. Thank you. Thank you. I think we're on the same page now. All right. Please continue your thought. I was just going to say that, you know, the character of Finn, he should be like trying

to figure out who he is. You know what I mean? But I guess like two days have passed, which is also insane. It's a good timeline is so the timeline is so fucked. I think I mentioned it on one of the Star Wars month doubles that it's basically a week in these characters lives, episode seven and eight. It's like a such as compressed timeline. And then if you look at the original trilogy or the prequel trilogy, each of those is

spanning years, if not decades of time. Yeah. It's crazy. Jack brought up a good point, but no one's going to like his point because they'll be like, who cares about Jack Allison, who's a very cynical. Yeah, sure. But how you don't know Ray's last name. After two movies, you don't really know any.

You don't even know where the last name is part of the mystery of the character. Okay, fine. You know, I don't care. People can like it. I don't care if they like it. It's fine. You care. I you are the one I care about and you know why, but that's fine.

I care about you too, buddy. No, I care about whether. No, I won't get into it. Right back at you, my friend. Anyways, to Mitchie two spoons nation. I got a drop Liger. Here we go. Nice and smooth.

Here we go. We got some real audio whз out there. That's a nice bit of editing. Oh yeah. Good. I stopped it in time. Yep. What was going to play next?

I don't know. So weird song. I have no idea what it is. No, it's I. This was from Daniel Weimels. I don't know how to how to say your last name. W I E M A L S. Okay.

Weimels. I don't know. Why would I know at Daniel Weimels on Twitter? I just spelt out the last name. So it's fun and Mario oriented. I agree. That was good. I agree too.

22 seconds. It's been tight. And it's titled. Wow. Luigi. Hey. Okay. All right.

I'm on board with anyway. Great job. Great title. Great name. However, it's pronounced. Nick, I went to the Super Bowl. You went to the Super Bowl. Mitch, let's let's get into the Super Bowl.

I want to introduce our guest because I guess. Sure. Let's talk about it with the guest. We can get him in here. He's a writer and producer from No Script with Marshawn Lynch and Sports Show with Norm MacDonald. Neil Pencilan is here. Hi, Neil. Hi guys.

Thank you very much for having me on the show. I'm really tickled to be here. Thank you for coming. Nice to have you in town from New York. Thank you for making time for us. Get right up on that, Mike Neil. So, Mitch, you were at the, you were in Minneapolis. You don't have to put your mouth around it like Wagner does.

I kind of treat it like an ice cream cone. Sure. An ice cream cone. All right. Take it easy. So, Mitch, you were in Minneapolis for the Super Bowl and your beloved New England Patriots fell to the Philadelphia Eagles. One of their first Super Bowl.

Great moment for the city. Sure. But an unfortunate one for your hometown. I'm fortunate for me too. But you know, Wagner, I told you this before I left that I was going because it might be the last chance to see that combination of people in the Super Bowl. Justin Timberlake in a Prince hologram. That exactly.

Yeah. You know what's crazy is that behind the blanket, Prince was there. Whoa. So it was his shadow. They should have revealed them at some point. Definitely. Rest in peace, Prince. The halftime show, by the way, was not great and people in there was like a big debate

whether people were enjoying it in the audience or not. And they, I think the Prince part was maybe the part that people liked the most. Yeah. It's a local legend. There was there was no there. The people were not really digging it. It was not. It was people were like meh about it.

Neil, did you watch the Super Bowl? You know what? I did not. I did not. Oh, wow. Not not for any real reason. I booked my ticket to come here. Okay.

I was with my family up until the point that my kids went to bed. Uh huh. I drove to the airport. I saw literally 60 seconds before halftime. Cause you're an East Coast time. East Coast time. Got on the plane. Landed the game was.

Oh, wow. I found out who won because I get mobile notifications from Kobe Bryant who was thinking about the Eagles. All right. Yeah. You was very excited and very an elated Instagram post. Yeah. I, you know, I thought there was a good chance that they wouldn't win because I

thought the Eagles are good. Right. And I said that about them too. I said Nick. I thought Nick Folz was good on this podcast or maybe it was. Maybe it was on Mitch dot pizza or something stupid, which should make no sense to you. And I apologize, but uh, I went with Wu Tang.

It was, I had, I had a blast. It was an awesome weekend. Do you live and die by, by their wins and losses? Like if I watched the Lakers, you know, in a finals game, like when they lost to the Celtics. Oh yeah. I was ruined. Like furious.

Live it. I hated it. Even the championship, the Lakers won the game seven in 2010. It was miserable. One of my least favorite. Yes. I hate it. Are you that way?

But like was your trip ruined by the fact that they lost when you are on the other end of both of those series? Yes. Yeah. Celtics fan in, in, in by the way, fuck you in the cell. My trip wasn't ruined because it was just such a good time and I had been building it up in my head for so long that they had a good chance of losing and it was an awesome game.

I mean, there was no defense, but it was an awesome offensive game. It was like a fun, exciting game to be at and I think that they blew it themselves and a lot of I think they were all coached and I didn't like a few of the calls, but I'm not going to blame that on it. We've been the, the benefactors of, is that the right word? Beneficiary beneficiaries. Thank you Nick of, of, of some good calls in the past. I think I think the truck.

I think the Patriots is our benefactors of the Donald Trump campaign. Oh, that's what they're sending their money. I thought it didn't. Where did Nick foals go to school that you didn't like foals as a graduate student of Liberty University, which is a very, very evangelical borderline white supremacist here breeding ground, didn't he probably plays probably played sports there, so maybe they were there for grad school. No, he's doing online grad school.

Excuse me. Pardon. We could have chose any school. I think the defense you could maybe make and I, why, why do I care? I don't care. I learned who this man was like this weekend, but the, I think the defense you could make is it's an online school and maybe that was just to him. It was the same as University of Phoenix or National University, Liberty

University sounds kind of vague, but it actually is a pretty, I'll say the only person in the house that I stayed in, I stayed with Kristen Lee. He was great and I, she used to live in Quincy back in the day and, and she hooked us up. It was a great weekend. She has an awesome place. The one Eagles fan of the house was a Trump supporter who was that's fine. I mean, look, I'm saying, I'm saying it's okay.

I'm not a per. I look. I'm not going to hate someone because they're uninformed or something. I don't know. What do you want me to say? I'm like I can disagree with their views, but I'm not going to hate the guy, but he was kind of an overbearing Eagles fan. That was a Trump guy that talked to me about Trump within the first five

minutes. I was in there, but, but besides that, hey, I was, I was, I was happy for the Eagles fans in our section. There were nice people that had that were up there that were excited to see it and, and, and it was, it was a crazy game that came down to the end and, and, and they, they messed up a little bit, but it was still such a fun weekend when I went to a Dave Matthews Band concert. We went to a Dave Matthews Band concert and then went and rooted for the Patriots,

which I will admit sounds wider than anything you can do very. I mean, it's just, just extremely on brand for you. Hey, I know people hate Dave Matthews too. What am I supposed to do right after that? Did you go on a shot? Do you go on a shopping spree at a flannel store? Who was having a blast? He was shitfaced.

Yeah. Every time I've seen who he's been drunk out of his mind. I think that's a common thread. I've noticed with your group of friends is they tend to be very extremely shitfaced when I, whenever I encounter that, hey, if I had a great, a crazy experience with a good friend like Wu Tang, how can you beat that? That's that's not a losing weekend priceless as price. It's real right.

You can't put you can't put a number on. I was you can't put a very specific high number. It was it was expensive, but also you only live once Wu Tang and I. We know that more than a lot of other people. I think and and and I think that that we really we enjoyed ours. It was it was it was a fun bonding weekend. It was a lot of fun, cool stuff to see there and the price stuff sure. And I get that that were where we were lucky to be able to go to it,

but I was disappointed that there weren't. It was like 70 to 30 Eagles fans to Patriots fans. Oh really? Maybe even I feel like almost Patriots Pat Pat's fans were underrepresented way and way. I wonder why that is probably because they've been there for so many times. Yes, that's that's what I think that's what it's a little old hat and that's also maybe why it didn't sting as much, but it was cool to see them playing.

Hopefully that's not the last one. If they go back, maybe I'll go back again. Can I Mitch? I know we just met and that we don't know each other. Can I give you my opinion of Dave Matthews please? I hate them too. That's that's fine. I just wanted you to know, you know, here's here's my issue.

I think they're terrible. I was more afraid of people. We're just going to lay into me for the Patriots stuff, but I so knew that that I was so afraid of our defense and I knew it was going to happen. But did you tell did you tell the people at the Super Bowl that you went to the Patriots concert because that's when you get beat up. I did not. I did not tell it. It was all very civil because I think we were all everyone was it was an exciting

game and everyone was being friendly in our section to each other. So I didn't too much money to be there. They don't want to get in a fist fight. Yeah, no. There were Philly fans that I congratulated at the end of the guy said great congratulations and stuff, but the Dave Matthews thing. It was last second. We went halfway through the concert.

Who was who was great? Who was you? He's going to be. He listens to the podcast, but he he was a mess. But it was a great show. Dave Matthews Band is for people are too mean to Dave Matthews Band. I get that they don't like them, but I don't know. It's the sound of his boys.

Yeah. Yeah. Sure. And the music it's it's it's it's this thing that like they get like and look there are like a bunch of fratty yeah guys that listen to the music, but like I think that the music is genuinely good and I don't like those type of fans either. You know like and and Dave Matthews himself. He's a guy who's from South Africa. Half the band is African American. It's not like I like like that.

It's the African American or they also from South Africa. I honestly don't know they're African American. Okay. Okay. So but that's what I'm saying is like it gets this label as like it like a what such a white band right, but I'm like sure that's yeah. There are a lot of white listeners and stuff like that, but and it is dorky and I get why people don't like it. So I don't even know what I'm saying.

I just had we had it. We had just we had a great time. We got Juicy Lucy's at the end of the trip at Mass Bar. It was a great. It was a great time. I'm glad you had a nice weekend. It was a nice weekend. I'm glad you had a great time. Glad you got to see. They should have put Malcolm Butler in. They should have gone for it on fourth down a couple times. I didn't agree with a couple of the calls, you know, but congrats to the

Philadelphia Eagles. Good fans will Skype and Bella check. You can say him. You can tell him what you think he probably will be a better host than you probably say more would say more. Anyways, that's my Super Bowl breakdown. It was it was. It was a great time. Congrats to the Eagles fans out there. They're there. Don't eat any more horseshit for God's sake. Yeah, that was excessive. No one needed to see that. That was very civil of you Mitch. Thank you. You're more civil to the Eagles fans for beating your favorite team in the Super Bowl than you were to me for

revisiting the hall guys. I was just giving you a hard time. We're friends. Nick. All right. That's fine. Hey, I am your friend. We are. We're friends. I know we're colleagues. You can put on your friend list that you have on your wall. You can put me under it. Am I supposed to have one of those God. This just proves you have no friends. Am I supposed to have a friend list? No Neil. So you're originally from Toledo, Ohio. Correct. Yep. And then you've lived in both New York and L. A. So you know both big food cities, but I want to step back to Ohio. We've had a few Ohio guests on here. Ohioans. That's

what you say. We've had a couple Ohioans on here. What is the what is the food that makes you think of home? What is the food that you were eating growing up and any childhood change specifically if anything comes to mind? I grew up on fast food. I was one of I have two brothers and two sisters and I'm the youngest. Oh, wow. And my parents are of the age where I think they were brought up in that sort of period where the FDA would stamp and approve everything, you know, like they didn't care about anything. So fast. I grew up on fast food. It's all I ate. All of them, you know, majors, there was one strip in my

small town that had all of the major fast food chains. So for the, for the most part, rather unspecific things, McDonald's, Burger King, Wendy's, Taco Bell, et cetera, et cetera. But then Marco's Pizza, which, you know, I read some, someone sent me some article that Marco's Pizza at some point was one of the fastest growing pizza chains. And the original Marco's Pizza was literally the pizza, the place where we got our pizza from and it was right around the corner from us. And I don't know, I can't verify how popular Marco's Pizza was, but those were the chains that I, that I grew up eating, but I ate them quite a

bit. Not to disparage my parents who worked very hard and cooked for us a lot, but we ended up eating quite a bit of fast food. What was the Marco's Pizza? What is, was there anything that made Marco's different? It was, the pepperoni was spicier. Oh, interesting. Okay. But otherwise, completely normal. Right. Right. So outside of Marco's, like, what are, you know, like it sounds like you're kind of got the majors there, but I assume, you know, your McDonald's, your Wendy's, what were your favorites? You know, I don't, you guys tend to bag on Burger King a lot and I don't,

I don't love Burger King now, but as a kid, maybe it was the, the, the marketing, but like though that, that flame broil, you see the commercial and those flames licking the bottom of that burger. I was like, I thought it tasted different. I thought you could taste that. You could almost say that flame. Burger King is your Dave Matthews. I own, I too love Burger King. I, we, when we revisited it, we did have a bad experience the last time we went. Yeah, we went as a kid, especially I loved, I loved it. I loved it. I haven't had it in years.

I mean, it could be 12, 15 years at this point, but growing up, if you had put a gun in my head and said, choose one, I would have said Burger King. I feel like the quality has declined a little bit, even cause I used to live, I used to have an office when I worked in video games that was like, right across the street from a Burger King. It was the easiest lunch option. So if ever was in a pinch, I'd go there or the Albertsons grocery store, which was right next to it. And even that, and that was like 10 years ago. I remember Jesus Christ, more than 10 years ago. How old are we?

It was like, this was like 15 years ago. Maybe not 15 years. This was like split. This was like 12 years ago. 12 years ago. You were 40. It was between 12 and 14 years ago, but the exact year isn't important. But anyway, but that was a, I remember Burger King being pretty decent then. And I feel like my most recent visits absent the farmhouse king. We had the farmhouse king and that was pretty good. I like the farmhouse king, but overall, I think I feel like the quality. I feel like there's a, I feel like there's some good BK locations out in the world.

Yeah. I think it's maybe just, I think there's some listed listeners who have, have a good fucking BK that they go to that they like. Yeah. I feel like, and it's something you've mentioned on the pod before, Nick, fast food, it seems like a lot of chains have become playgrounds for testing new things coming up the way it is. And it does seem like Burger King rarely, if ever does that comes out with a new thing, experiments, tests out wild sort of inventions. It seems like they're behind in doing that. Yeah. Mitch has made that, that same point as well.

And I think the, about that, that, you know, like a lot of fast, a lot of the better chains, like Carl's junior hearties or, or the chains we, we hold in that higher regard, like Carl's junior hearties or especially Taco Bell do a lot of innovation, a lot of experimentation, just to sort of see what works. And yeah, you're right. Cause I feel like Burger King, they tried the mac and Cheetos and that was, I thought those were pretty, I was okay with them, but also I know what you're saying because I think with Burger King, but I think this is the weird thing

that it's like they changed. So the first big thing that they did years ago is they changed their fries. Sure. And they made them these kind of coated. They kind of like put breading on their battery, their battery fries. So not battery, B, A, T, T, E, R, Y, bad battery. Yes. Not like something C three P O would eat. Yes. And not like something Park McGuire would eat or something Count Dracula would like Dracool would like right. Well, I mean track those. I guess don't eat bats. You get what I'm saying. Yeah, because you're saying

but I think that change like from there on, I think it just became like for me back in the day, it was like the flame broiled place. This is kind of like a more authentic experience. You get a McDonald's McDonald's is this mass produced stuff. Burger King is they actually they flame broil each burger patty. Sure. And it's it's kind of and like I think in like honestly, I truly think in my dad's mind, not that he thought it was healthy for you, but my dad was like, I'd rather have my son Burger King McDonald's. That's right. This process, right? This thing that's actually cooked on a on a grill

in some way, even though it's a conveyor belts grill or whatever. Yeah. And then yeah, and then I and then I think that they made that change and maybe that's and I think they continue to make changes and they they kind of became trashier quote unquote, but maybe that's how they survived. I don't know. You know what I mean? Like it's kind of it's it's it's interesting, but I but I at one point that was like my favorite. They used to have warm apple pie there that you could get a slice of. There was a lot of good stuff to like about Burger King. It kind of it kind of makes me sad. Yeah, I will say

I think you're to your point about the patty. I think patty to patty. It maybe has some of the better fast food patties, just that beef alone. I want to step back for a second because Neil, you mentioned being a fan of this as a kid and you know, one thing that I think was a little thing in in Burger King's favor from a kid standpoint is the BK Kids Club. I've got an image of the the vintage BK Kids Club, which I'm not sure if they still exist anymore. I think they've been discontinued, but the original BK Kids Club in front of me. We got Jaws, who I think is the tall jock. We got lingo snaps. Was there a snaps? Does

that sound right? The girl kid vid who has like it looks like a VR headset on IQ, who's a little nerd with red hair. That's the lager. Come on. There's Boomer and there's JD, who's the dog with like an evil Knievel suit, including a helmet. I think I'm like Boomer, but I don't know what he looks like. Boomer's a girl really big group. Yeah, there's that and then there's there's of course there's wheels, who's in who's a disabled character, which is something that you didn't see a lot in kids media back in the day. But yeah, the I feel like did they have personalities today? Were they ever in like comic books or anything? There was

a Burger King club. I believe I talked about it on this podcast, but my friend Justin, one of my best best friends back in Quincy was sent BK Kids Club stuff for ever. Like he got to he like I remember he was like in high school and still getting it or they trying to get him to join. No, he had joined as a boy okay, and then they kept sending him stuff like long after you think that it was even done right. He was getting BK Kids Club stuff. Also Mitch, so you know when you reference someone on the podcast, all everyone knows it's one of your friends from Quincy.

Justin is Justin is one of my street friends. I could break it down. There could be a breakdown. That's how I know Wu Tang from from through Justin. Yeah, but also just shout out. I love Wu Tang. Thank you for a good weekend Wu Tang. Hey, he's a good dude. He's the best. Yeah, he's a lot of fun. I don't like you. I wish you hated his friends. No, he met. He fell in love when he met them. Wu Tang is great. You got your friends are great dudes. They're all like they all kind of were like, Hey, man, thanks for hoping out Mitch. You're going to have that five, which is interesting. Thanks for thanks for giving

Mitch something to do. Getting him on his feet. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But um, they're there. There's some sort of charity. No, not at all. Kill you. But honestly, there's also part partly a pragmatic decision on my part where I know if I shit talk your Quincy friends when the pack of them descend on Palmerston as they've done a couple of times, I'm going to get the shit beaten out of you. Get the shit beaten out of you bad. We'll stun you. He'll give you a stone cold stunner. But so so Neil going, getting away from Quincy and back to your upbringing. You moved to you moved to New York. You moved to

alley. Where did you live first? New York first. What did you think of it as like, you know, and I think this is kind of a cliche and discussing food, but I'm always interested in what people have to see. What do you think of New York as a food city? Like the best. Yeah. I mean, I know that you're an LA guy Rick and I know Mitch has, um, well represented the East Coast on this podcast. To me, New York is the greatest city in the world in almost every single aspect. And I don't need personally, I don't think it's even remotely close. Yes. So the food in New York, I mean, what do you want? It's all there

and you can get it at any hour of the day. And that's how do you compete with that? That's the leg up it has on, on LA. The availability is, is released. Oh my God. I mean, it's whatever you want. And recently I went to a very, you know, a high end restaurant, which I don't have much experience with as a non high end person. Yeah. But I went to, um, Eric Repair. If you guys know that celebrity, I only know him because I know Letterman liked him and I love Letterman. And so I was like, Oh, I'm going to go to this restaurant that Letterman loves. I went to that place and it was otherworldly. It was

otherworldly. And I'm like, I can go get this, you know, a, a, a burrito at this place at any hour of the day. And it's fantastic. I can go get Thai food or this food or, you know, Turkish food. I can get it, you know, anywhere I want in all of these little neighborhoods. And then they also have these incredible home run hitters. I just, I don't know what New York is missing. I don't, I don't really know how you compete. Right. New York in a bunch of ways. Was the restaurant a Lebanon? Yes. Yeah. I bet we, me and Natalie went there once and we went for lunch and it was in like, it's in state, it's insanely

expensive, but it's so, it's like so good. And like, I just remember I had one of the most amazing fork fulls there. It was just like, I like put it, it was like a dish that was just, it was just a raw salmon and smoked salmon. And it was just like divided into individual bites, but it just got the most perfect fork fulls. And it was the kind of thing you look at and you're just sort of, all right, what's this going to be? And then just taking the bites of it. I was like, this is amazing. It blew my mind. But also too, I was just like, I'm like you, I do like fine dining, but I don't like go to that level of high end restaurant with

any sort of frequency. Same. And so it, like having like waiters like sort of stand behind us, put their hands behind their back and like step up to literally like sweep breadcrumbs on the table. I was like, I feel uncomfortable by this level of service. I'll go a step further. We were, when we were there, they bring out like a little dish, a little plate with a little pad of butter. So it's just a plate just for butter. And I would take off a little butter. I'd put it on my bread. I'd eat, I'd turn to my wife. We'd start talking. I'd turn back and someone had taken that pad of butter and replaced it with full

pad of butter. And I'm like, what are you doing? That's insane. This is just the involvement from the staff. There is to a point where if you're not used to it, it can be a little off. But yeah. And you realize part of the, like part of the reason there's such a premium on everything is because they're just waste. It's kind of wasteful. That sort of practice. Right. Yeah. Mitch, did you ever get to like ask people if I go fine dining? I go to the French laundry every week. No, I was going to ask you if that, if you're who they give that leftover butter to.

I think like the Flintstones, I'm like under a sink and they, they push the butter down the sink and I eat it. It's all living. Can I say something about you guys? I am tickled to be here. I'm a huge fan of the show and it's like, to a certain extent, it's like I'm using for the first time in my career, it's I'm using my entertainment background and career to be on a show that I'm actually just a fan of. I'm a huge fan of you guys. I think you're incredibly talented. I think you talk all the time about how food is a part of the show and how it's,

you guys, I don't know how the fuck you eat all this food. I felt like pure garbage, which will come up later. You don't need to do it. I encourage you to keep continuing with the show. It's honestly great. I love it. I have talent and I want to say one last thing. I also know why you don't dine in fine restaurants now is your taste is bad. Oh my God. I want to say one last thing. I'm sort of obsessed with things like charisma and pop music.

I find them to be magical. Like charisma, like a guy walking into a room that's charismatic or a woman and everyone just rises up. You know what I mean? It raises everybody up to their level and pop music. You can put a bunch of people standing in a room. You turn on pop music and all of a sudden they start dancing like it's magic. And I think that you guys have something in your chemistry together. That's magic. I'm not, I don't want to embarrass you.

This is your show. I'll stop talking about this immediately and I'll return to insulting Mitch's music. And, and, and my strong belief that Nick is very weird and a robot. Yeah, a robot, but for a moment I want to tell you, I think you guys have something that's magical between the two of you. I hope you continue the podcast or do something else together because I think what you have together raises both of you up and is, is powerful. I think Nick's done with me now.

That's insanely done. That was insanely, insanely nice. And I, and I wonder if are you trying to get Nick and I to fucking? I think everyone is. I think you're both talented guys. That was huge. It's probably my the hardest I've ever laughed in a video was the gung gung gung gung style video. I've seen all of your work on, on the different shows. You guys are very talented on your own, but together I just think you have something that really endears people to the show and, and engages people with your show.

And I'm one of them. I wanted to mention just a couple of episodes that I happen to love because one thing that, you know, Nick is always mindful of people that are joining the series for the first time. And you guys rarely talk about your show. I think because you're polite gentlemen and you don't want to seem like you're bragging, but as a fan of the show, I wanted to just call out a couple of episodes that I think are particularly

Can I quickly, before you do that, just tell me that Nick is more uncomfortable than he's ever been in his life. I'm glad. I'm glad to be a part of it. Yeah. I don't remember receiving this much praise. No, it's just, it's just a great show. I honestly, I love the show. And if you think about it from my perspective, like it's a thing that has provided me hours of enjoyment.

Sure. Oh man. On commutes, on bad, you know, bad moods, I put it on. It's, it's, it's, you guys should. I am a little like you in that, Nick, I'm a little like you in that. Sometimes I question my career and what I'm doing. Right. And I do feel like you guys provide entertainment to the level that I think makes people feel good about themselves and makes people enjoy

their time. Oh, that's nice. You should know that you should keep doing comedy. We'll see. Eva phase. I think it's maybe her second appearance. Yes. I loved Claudio d'Ordi's episode.

It was just, I thought was fantastic. I was going to have her back. So funny. I can't believe you guys haven't had her on again. She's super funny. I thought she was going to come back. Oh yeah. Maybe she, maybe she didn't.

It doesn't want to come back. Paul F. Tompkins, you know, is, has been all over television and I've never really seen a lot of his work. So I had no opinion on him and then I heard him on your thing. I was like, what a gentleman. He's so smart and so funny. Yeah. A great episode to start with.

Hey, any episode with PFT is going to be a great episode. That's fantastic. He doesn't need any podcasts. Jensen Karp, who I think is a genius, his episode, I won't go into it because I don't want to ruin it, but there's a story in the Jensen episode that's so goddamn funny. And then I will say it's, it's one of the hardest I've ever laughed. Certainly the hardest I've ever laughed at a podcast and I re listened

to it on the airplane on the way out. But when you asked him if he's ever taken a shower after that story and you were like, yeah, Mitch, I took a fucking show. That is the funniest, that is the funniest moment in the history of the show. And I not ruined it because the story in front of it. I know what you're talking about. Yeah.

Oh my God. This is our, this is our Yosha Noia episode. So you can maybe sort of figure out what the subject matter might have been. And then the last one was Stony Sharps episode and I tweeted him. I don't know. I tweeted him to tell him the restraint that it took to stay out of you guys singing chocolate wonderful and doing the Oasis parody cover. The restraint to stay out of that and to let two idiots sing a ridiculous

song was made that thing brilliant. And I thought it was not, it's not surprising to me that Stony is the director because to know to stay out of that mix and let you two morons do that and make it so funny. I think, yeah, I think he actually left at that point. I think that's what. Yeah. Yeah.

I think he walked outside. I have a family. I don't need to be doing this. That was, that's extremely. That was very nice deal. And that's not why we brought you on for a little embarrassed. But thank you very much for saying all of that. Yeah.

And also I wanted to throw something back. Well, first of all, I am kind of, I have an East Coast bias. It's true. I do. You have a West Coast bias. Yeah, I know. We know you have an East Coast bias. Okay.

That's what that was for. I was gonna, but here I was gonna come over and take the West Coast side. Oh boy. And I was wondering what you think of this as far as, no, but I don't know. I feel like you're gonna just, you're gonna just dunk on me right now. But I was gonna say, I think Mexican food out here is campy beat. Yeah. Sure.

So I think that's fine. We had some good Mexican food in Texas. We did, but I, but I just think I just think in California besides actually going to Mexico. Right. I just don't think it can be beat. And then there is a different type of, I mean, but New York has so much, so much, so much different Asian food, but there is, there is, there's some Asian food out

here that I, and it's different. And I love, you know, I love some East Coast Asian food, but there's some out here that is, that is very special. Yeah. I love New York city and I was quick to jump down Los Angeles's throat. You're right. It's a tough one. It's tough one.

You're right about Mexican food. I would agree with that. And I really wanted to try sugar fish because I know you like it. I did not get the chance. I would say my palate as it pertains to Japanese food in particular is not refined enough for me to probably, you know, notice a huge difference between the two. I mean, maybe it's because I haven't had the right place, but I would, I would agree with you on Mexican food.

But I would, I feel very comfortable saying New York has a lot of the other places. Yeah. A lot of, it's so tricky because there's, there are some phenomenal, like Italian restaurants out here, but then like, New York's going to win that though in the end. Right. There's no doubt. It's just, they have a billion places that are amazing and authentic and this and that. You know what I mean?

Like, yeah, the fact that John and Vinnie's is amazing is that there's probably how many John and Vinnie's in New York, you know, style of John and Vinnie restaurants. Right. It's like with anything, but I think, you know, I think there's a, you know, I think there's fantastic Thai food out here. There's a bunch of different. There's there's fantastic Persian food out here. There's a bunch of, you know, different cuisines.

Do you think New York in LA though? They're top two food cities in the, in the country. Well, I don't know if there's enough cities to say, but I think LA is definitely has a great food city. You have Neil. Well, I mean, I, I don't, I think it's hard to compete with, with these, with those two cities. Sure.

Because they're, that's where all of the talent tends to matriculate. I mean, you know, if you, if you want to be the best, you go to the biggest stage. And so I don't know, I'd be hard pressed to under, to, to, to find a city. And again, you might have like a fantastic chef or a fantastic restaurant in a, in a Midwestern town. I'm from the Midwest. I appreciate my roots and I love where I'm from. But the truth is, is even though there might be one particular good restaurant in this

small town, you can't compete with the volume in both of these cities. Sure. I don't know how I lived in Chicago for a year, right out of college. And it's, I just, it's, it doesn't hold a candle to either Los Angeles or New York. Wow. That's crazy. How do you write? How does, how does hashtag?

I want to hear people's ranks because I wonder if people rank another city above the two. Yes. Let us know your, let us know your, your favorite food city. Hashtag food capital. Ooh. I liked that. Yeah. I like you as a friend too.

I would have loved to have you at the Super Bowl with Wu Tang and I. I like you too, Mitch. I think I would have been a wet blanket at the Super Bowl because I would have been just complaining about CTE the whole time. Oh Jesus. It's a lot of fun to watch you guys tuck yourselves into being friends. This is a normal friendship, right? Yeah.

We like each other. Wu Tang would have gotten you shit-faced, even though there was a terrible Brandon Cooks hit and it was bad and you would have bought a font CTE at that point. But so, but Wu Tang would have gotten you. Maybe you would have, maybe you would have been emotional. Maybe you would have cried or something. You put your arm around me. I don't know.

You think it would have cried? How many beers would it take you to put your arm around me? Genuinely, 12, 14. I feel like I'd do it after four. Wow. I think if I had four beers in me, I'd get a little friendly, a little handsy with my pal. And I'd say, what's that cold sensation? I realize it's your arm.

Your cybernetic on it. So Neil, I know you are a big NBA fan, a Lakers fan specifically. And you know. Fuck yourself. Hell yeah. So we've talked about it. We've talked about arena food a little bit on this podcast. Are you a hot dog guy?

Are you a nachos guy? What do you go with? Yeah, I'm really unadventurous at ball games. I always, always, always get two hot dogs. It just feels American to me. Two hot dogs specifically. That's it. I get two hot dogs.

I put on. I like that. I only get ketchup and that's almost always what I eat everywhere. Baseball, basketball, nothing. Wow. And it's probably tied to the fact that when I was a kid, and you know, my old man took me to a game, that's exactly what he'd get.

Right. And that's all that would be on it. And so I just am repeating the, you know, the pattern. What were you saying? Cleveland Indian games back then? Detroit Tigers. Oh, Detroit Tigers. Okay.

Toledo is closer to Detroit. I learned something about Ohio's geography today. Oh wow, Nick. You were just talking about us being friends a second ago. Now you're making fun of my voice. Natalie. Be consistent. Toledo.

Yeah. I got news. I'm going out. Nick. Who's that out front? Wow. He's a home. Sure thing.

Nick. Here's a new farming. Sim. I bought you. This should keep you busy. Oh boy. Do you show? Do you show?

Do you show? Do you show Natalie the veggies you grow for her in this? The RPG land? The RPG world? Stardew Valley? You show? Yes. I'm not growing the vegetables for her.

I'm growing them for my gay wife. Jesus. Leah, the artist. Oh my God. Does Natalie know about Leah? I did tell her. She was watching me play. Were you shaking and sweating when you told her about Leah?

I was giving her gifts. Leah loves salads. Oh, interesting. Regular salads. Okay. I was giving her gifts. I gave her a few more gifts. She's going to fall in love with me.

Then I'm going to ask her to marry me. She's like, why are you spending time doing this instead of hanging out with me? Like hanging out with me. Yeah. No shit. Yeah. So yes. Our marriage is not perfect and some of that's on me.

You'll be dead soon. Come on. I'm saying she'll be free. Oh, I guess that's a good way to look at it. So you've been out here in LA for a little bit. I know you're just out here for work. But what have you, have you had any great food out here outside of the chain that we were going to cover today?

Every time I've come out here for work, for a show or something, my wife and I find the Mexican place that's closed and we just hammer that Mexican food. Oh, awesome. So, I mean, to Mitch's point earlier and to me walking back over my initial statement, the Mexican food is fantastic. And I don't even remember any of the names of the places because it's literally like, let's find the two or three places that people seem to like or that someone recommends. Yeah.

And then it's just Mexican food again. You want to have Mexican food again? Sure. And we were just Mexican, Mexican, Mexican because the places we've lived back home, the Mexican seems to be lagging and at least in the particular vicinity that we live in. Yeah. It is nice to just have such an abundance of options no matter what neighborhood you're in.

Almost like even if you're, you know, even if you're in the suburbs or honestly, a lot of times if you're in the suburbs or a smaller town, they're even more gems sometimes. You know, a funny thing that's happened in the last few years, I mean, like there's always been great Mexican restaurants. I feel like a lot of the sit-down Mexican food restaurants you go to are usually not as good as some of the stands, the whole in the wall places. Yeah. The taquerias and the trucks can sometimes be fantastic.

But that's kind of changed in the last few years in LA. There's been a more movement. Yeah. A movement towards more upscale, like a Mexican food, which is, and there's some that's really fantastic. Sure. There's also something fun about finding those whole in the wall places and feeling like it's your place.

Right. So that's exactly what we would do every time we stay out here as we just find those places and then just constantly reorder. Yeah. Yeah. And yeah, I mean, like for me, I think that I used to be very, like, you know, because I remember I used to be a little bit more skittish about like ordering from trucks. But then there was a point where we got, Nali and I went and got some seafood from this

well reviewed truck that did like, you know, like, like ceviche. And it was like, I remember went to this food truck was this dingy looking food truck parked on us on a side street in Venice. And we saw when we got there, it had a ranking health ranking of sea. And I was just like, so like, man, this feels like dangerous territory. But then we ordered it and we got like these shrimp cocktails and the ceviche and these fish tacos. And it was like fantastic.

It was just this like this amazing transcended meal that we ate while seated on a curb. And is that the lowest grade that you can still open? I think that's a little, yeah, I think that's the lowest one that you'll like you can post. I think after that you've got to like shut down. Yeah, exactly. But I was still, but I was at that point, I was after that point, I was just like, man, I just have an open mind towards anything because like they're there. There's so many.

I don't want to say that I don't know what a better phrase to use than gems in the rough. There's so many places where like, boy, another cliche. You can't judge a book by its cover. It may just like look like a truck, but maybe it's just got like the most, you know, transcended Alpa store inside and you don't want to pass that up. It's good to hear that when you want to grab your, your torta that it wasn't, it didn't start moving away from you. One of those classic roaches under the, a little roach under the sandwich.

Right. Or what did you get? I forget what you said you got. I said ceviche and shrimp cocktails. It's hard to do with those. So just, I'll stick with torta. Tortas adjacent. We'll take a break.

We'll be back before. No boys. Hey Mitch, you know this, but our listeners may not know this. We do a weekly bonus episode for our subscribers on Patreon called the dough boys double it comes out every Tuesday. I should know that. I've been recording it with you. It would be crazy if I didn't know we're up to about 50 episodes at this point.

We've been doing this for almost a year and there's a new, like I mentioned, there's new episode every Tuesday. They're like our regular shows, but a little looser. For instance, we did an entire episode about toast with our friend Aaron Whitehead from why our old horses. We did the snack log. We'll rate through our backlog of snacks with the Lana Johnston. And of course we had our feature commentary for Star Wars, the force awakens.

That was very polarizing as you might expect. Yeah. No, it was not well liked. Well, you know, that's the kind of content you can expect if you're a premium subscriber. So join the golden plate club for $5 a month that works out to about a dollar 25 cents per episode and you'll get access to our entire back catalog as well. You can listen in whatever your favorite podcasting app is. Mitch, I know you're a member.

I'm a member because you signed me up. That's right. I pay for it with a Doe Boys corporate card. Hey, you know what? That's kind of a weird inception thing that someone subscribed subscription is paying for your subscriptions. That's true. Yes.

Weird. All right. Well, thanks for whoever is sponsoring Mitch so we can listen to his own podcast. You don't listen, right? No. Okay. Well, you can listen. Go to patreon.com slash Doe Boys.

That's patreon.com slash Doe Boys to join the golden play club. And if you're already a member, you're doing okay. Check it out, baby. Welcome back to Doe Boys. We're with Neil Poncellon, our chain this week, checkers and rallies. Mitch, I cut you off a little bit just before the break. That's okay. Yeah.

I mean, you do it all the time. We don't care. No, I do care. I didn't mean to do that. All right. Thank you, friend. I found it. I thought you got us to a nice transition point.

You know what? Mitch and Two Spoons like swagger. Oh, hey, how about that? That's a character trait I could get used to. By the way, am I the first guest you've had on that also had a roast spoon man? Oh, no. Oh, yes. Previously on the show.

Do you know who yours was? I do. What was it? You son. I call, I, uh, I called you unkar putts. I didn't want to, I didn't want to make fun of your weight, which I think you look great. Oh, thank you. I did want to make fun of how stupid I think you are.

God damn you. It's funny. You'll see off air that I'm one of the smartest people you've ever had. Had a not a stuffy shirt guy like Nick over there, even though what the hell shirt are you wearing? This is a nice shirt. I was just confused by it. It's a shirt.

It's a button down. Okay. It's like a lighter material because it's kind of a warm day. We'll take a picture. We'll post the picture. And if you like the shirt, hashtag, wiger shirt approval, I didn't say it was bad. I was just confused by it. It was a I looked over and it looked like I was looking into the night sky.

It's a bunch of little stars or something because it's like a midnight blue with a with a little bit of a print to it. That's all. It's fine. I like it. Jesus. Anyway, you said that you know you said you hammer some restaurants. Yeah.

That was gonna be my big question, Nick. Are you? Are you cool with repeating the same place a lot? Or do you get to change it up because when I will go to lunch with Armin all the time? Yeah. And Armin, you know, Armin Weitzman, my good friend. Of course. My friend as well.

Hmm. Yeah, I don't think so. We're friends. No, you're not. We were texting early. Have you ever hung out because you wanted to hang out? You mean, like just made it like, hey, Armin, let's go. Let's go get lunch.

Yeah. No, because if I do something like that, he's like, what will father think? Do you know how hard is to coordinate an activity with Armin? It's like trying to like it's like trying to get a forest nymph to get into your car. Sure. Okay. Anyway, we would get into arguments because he will get on a place and he'll want to go again and again and again and I'll get sick of it.

I want to I just want to switch it up. Yeah. I definitely like switch it up. I definitely like regular place. Like we have we have this in this vegetarian Indian place we go to every week and it's like just like a regular thing. I definitely get that. I think into I don't think a rut, but a groove.

I like finding those places that I really like and I just want to keep hitting them again and again and again. But your thoughts, Neil, I go to this, I go to the same place a lot and I don't just go to the same place. I get the exact same. Oh, wow. Yeah. I'm really a creature of habit.

I'm a fairly unadventurous eater and if I find something I like, I will just order it over and over and over and over and over again. I feel like when trying now trying to eat healthy, I'll do that if I'm like, oh man, I like this salmon plate. Yeah. I'll eat this every night for dinner. If I have to, am I to get food out? Yeah.

That's that's kind of so if it's something that's like decently healthy and tastes good enough for me, I'll get it over and over again. But usually I love to switch things. I get so bored. I get bored of salads. You're a salad man, Nick. I get sick of salads every day. Yeah.

I have a boring salad for lunch almost every day. I'd say five days a week, five or six days a week. I just have a big boring salad, but it's fine because I'm just like, okay, this will be my healthy meal that will power me through the day. And especially if I'm working, it's like, okay, I'm not going to get something very heavy that's going to slow me down and make me sleepy in the afternoon. I can just sort of like have this meal, whatever it's, it's more fuel than food. And it's not, you know, it's maybe not fun, but it will make me feel good.

So yeah, that's that's how I kind of rationalize it. What will you do? You usually like, you toss that salad in the slow cooker overnight? Come on. It's room temper chilled even. So Neil as a creature of habit, what are you, what would you say are like your most frequented, your most frequented, like sort of restaurants and your most common meals, if anything comes to mind?

Chain-wise? It doesn't have to be chain-wise. It could just could be a local favorite. It could be something you just, you just used to do in back home. Well, the, like Mitch just said, I'm also, I've tried to be on a more of a health kick. So I've been doing a lot of Panera lately because they have a salad that I like and I just have a great Greek salad over there. That's what my wife gets.

I don't get that one. But I just get that over and over and over again. Cause I, same thing I go, well, this makes me feel slightly better. I'm, I'm removing one meal where I could eat something terrible and replacing it with a bunch of salad. You get over there. What's your salad? It's the Asian sesame chicken salad.

Okay. I've gone so far as to go. I found out that the target sells the salad dressing. Oh wow. And so I will go to the target, clean off the shelf because then I can put it on any salad and right for all intents and purposes, make it something close to the Asian sesame chicken salad. Yeah.

They used to, for me, the one that, that, that got me was the El Torrito has this a Mexican Caesar salad. They do, and they have this, like this Pepita Caesar dressing and it's like green and it's like, it's taste magical. And when they started selling that at retail, I was, I was on a real El Torrito dressing kick for a while. The, the, the, um, and I went in one day to get the salad and they didn't have it. And I asked why.

And they were like, well, we don't, sometimes we take things off and I'm like, isn't the point of a chain restaurant to have the same thing. Oh wow. And they were like, well, we took it off. And I was like, that's insane. And I was like, oh my God, how am I going to get these salads? What am I going to do? And then I realized, wait, hold on.

I went to the app. I found out in the app, you can build your own salad and then I remembered the ingredients and started remaking those salads, uh, in the app because I already had the salad dressing at home. I was so excited that I was able to reverse engineer, uh, the salad that I, I searched on Twitter, uh, Asian sesame chicken salad, Panera found anyone else that also said, why did they take this out? I tweeted them and said, Hey, look at what you can do.

You can get download the app, reverse engineer the, the recipe here at all the ingredients. And then if you go to your local target, you can buy the salad dressing. I'm not joking. When I say, I probably tweeted that to 50 people and I think two people responded were like, cool. I like, I was hoping like this was how Reddit formed with the, with the Panera person get furious that you had that he had broken his steaming red. He's pieced it, five easy pieced it, right?

That's the Jack Nicholson thing. He's one's white toast and he orders a BLT hold the bacon, hold the lettuce, hold the tomato, hold the mayo and get me a little butter on it. You know, I felt that same way when they got rid of the cheesy Gordy to crunch, which they have since brought back. It's fantastic. It's one of the best. How could they ever think about taking it off the menu at one point?

You know, it's a one that upset me. Veggie grill got rid of their bond me salad by far the best salad and also one of their healthier salads and then they, they brought, they got rid of it and I complained to them and they're like, oh, sometimes we shift out some items and then they brought it back and I was like, thanks for bringing it back. They were like, they're like, you got it, you know, and then they took it off again. Make up your minds. It's not a seasonal thing.

There's nothing seasonable. Right. Right. Have it your own. Yeah. That's crazy. Hashtag missing menu items. Sure.

Straight forward. Well, let's get to this week's chain checkers and rallies, not a place that varies their menu very often. And in fact, that was one of the founding principles of the chain is that they wanted to have a specific, I think a checker specifically, they, which was there, these two companies that ultimately merged into one and now they have a shared menu, much like Carl's Junior Hardee's. And at one of them specifically, they had, it was a former Wendy's franchisee.

I believe the founder of checkers and he got upset that Wendy's kept adding more and more items and these new items wouldn't sell. So he's like, I'm just going to do a streamlined, basic combo meal focused value restaurant. And I think that's definitely reflected in the checkers and rallies menu, at least it wasn't one point. It's now kind of gotten a little bit sprawling and it felt like they had a bunch of different options on my recent visit. But Neil, one of the reasons we wanted to discuss this with you is that you and I, a

while back had been, because we've been, we've been following each other online for a while and we... What the fuck is this? What? When the way back when? We were DMing and then this came to mind when Neil was going to be on town, you could come on the show that we'd had this conversation about... Bagger, slid into your DM.

Come on. Take it easy. So we'd had this conversation because there was a checkers, or was it rallies? Rallys, rallies. There was a rallies in your hometown and then that went away and there was a plaque referencing it at the McDonald's in your hometown. That's right. I will exclusively refer to this as rallies because it was rallies growing up on that

strip that I mentioned earlier where all the fast food locations were. Rallys popped up, you know, right when I was sort of in probably middle school. So it was like a big deal. Everybody was like, what's this new one? Because we've had these Titans for so long. Here comes rallies. The restaurant ended up coming and going with fairly little fanfare. Like it was, it was a fad for a bit and then it sort of went away.

It went away? It went away. Okay. And I went into McDonald's in high school and I made my order and I took a look at the guy runs away to make the food and then I took a look to my left and there was a plaque on the wall of the McDonald's that said the Golden Hose Award and there was like a little piece of like garden hose that had been spray painted gold and it looked a little chintzy and goofy and I was sort of like Golden Hose Award.

And so I took a closer look because it seemed so stupid and there was a little inscription underneath the Golden Hose Award and it said something to the effect of, or very close to, for when rallies on Navar Avenue needed was drowning. Yeah. For when rally was drowning. I actually have it verbatim here if you want me to read it out for you. So the Golden Hose Award for putting rallies on Navar, is that what I say? Navar Avenue out of business and then the inscription at the bottom of the plaque, it's

a quote that's, this is a Ray Kroc quote and he actually, this is something from, I think they may reference it in the founder. They do. For when my competitors were drowning, I didn't reach down to help, but instead put a hose in their mouth. Dear God, isn't that the coldest fast food thing you've ever heard? That's insane. Crazy.

They celebrate crushing, not just a, not a franchise, but locations in Ohio, wait, this, and this isn't, this isn't my hometown. Okay. In your hometown in Ohio and Ohio and Ohio was just a McDonald's country, right? Is that the issue? Is that why? Why? Why is it there?

I think it was. I think it was a probably a competitive corner and then the McDonald's did enough business where rallies had to fold that location, but I don't remember that specific of it. I mean, we've talked about how like Ray Kroc is like like in real life when you see him and stuff, he looks like super villain territory and like looks like a bad man and literally in like the DC comic world or something like that, but that's that's that's insane.

He's so much more likeable in the father, right, right, even though he's still like a rascal or because he's played by Michael Keaton, right? He's a likable man. It's the charisma thing. Yep. Man, the I I plan on doing that to you. You're gonna get me a golden hose when when you're doing the Nick loves to swim. You're a big swimmer.

Yeah, I shove a hose in your mouth. I feel like you can't get to the success or the height of a McDonald's unless you have that sort of maniac mentality, right, yeah, crush this business and we'll celebrate it right man. Poor route. That's insane. That's brutal, right? It seems like they're just a little they're just trying to do their own

thing by the way, the Golden Hose Award sounds like they something they give out at the AVN awards. Best big dick water sports video Jesus. All right, that's my I apologize. I went blue. So I went to the rallies in Glendale, California around noon on a Saturday. Let me say this, the service was so friendly. The people working there were so, so nice.

And you know, it's a it's it's one of these chains. If you're not familiar with it, I mean, they're kind of across the country. So I think there's probably a checkers. I feel like I knew of checkers and didn't really know rallies that that much. Yeah, but they generally don't have indoor seating, at least the ones out here don't they're they're just more they're more like they've they've got a little window that you walk up to order and they're more drive through focused. In fact, you know, they a big thing they used to pioneer was the double drive

through so they could have two lanes going, which you see in a lot of chains replicate at this point. And but, you know, the walk up window, very, very friendly. I will say there was minimal shade and maximum birds at this location. So I was just like, I felt like I was dodging birds the whole time. And then I just had this lunch. It really was. It was quite hitchcockian. But I think but they were they were so nice.

And it was this is the thing I like when if you get someone at the fast food counter who like if you ask for something, they figure out a way to package it as a combo to save you some money. So like I was ordering like a burger and and and decide and and a shake a la cart and she was like, oh, we could just upgrade your drink to a shake. Like just was like going out of her way to help me. And I was like, oh, God bless you, you don't have to do that. So we're just trying to get you out of here quicker, sir.

And these birds that followed you to our restaurant. Yeah, I got the I got the big Buford combo, which is there. That's their their signature burger, the number one, the number one. Yeah. And so it's two one two beef hamburger patties, melted cheese, American cheese, lettuce, tomato, red onion, dill pickles, ketchup, mustard and mayo on a toasted Kaiser bun. It is very bunny. There's a lot of bun to work with.

I would say the toasted element that didn't come through, at least on this particular visit for me. How bunny is it, Nick? Oh, it's. It's so bunny, when you got this thing, Easter eggs start appearing. Oh, boy. That was good enough for me. Yeah, we're good. Yeah, we'll move on. But it's a little bunny, but the the I really like the red onion.

I really like the pickles. I think the there's a good amount of mayo, maybe the other condiments were a little slopped on there. Here's my only my only issue with this. I think the the patty itself was kind of in gray meat territory. You know, when you sometimes have those fast food patties and they're just like kind of like, yep, for me, it felt like the quality of an AM PM hamburger.

Interesting. And I don't know if that was just a a, you know, consistency issue with this location, but it was like a good burger when I got everything that was surrounding the meat. But the meat itself, when I got more meaty bites, I was kind of a little a little off put. Let's let's get into your guys's experiences a little bit before I get into my sides and drink. So, Neil, which which location did you visit?

Baldwin, Baldwin Hills, Baldwin Hills, the mall. I thought that I was curious whether the interior sitting down because I thought that that was the case that rallies does like sort of outdoor drive through spots. I was curious if I got the chance to sit down, if that would affect the the experience. So I went to the mall. I had the exact opposite opinion of the burger in terms of its look.

I have a huge. I hate White Castle because if you derive any enjoyment of your food from the way it looks, if White Castle, you're starting in a hole. Oh, interesting. It's like I've never had it. White Castle, it looks like garbage trash. And in my opinion, it tastes like dog food. But looking at the burger, you'd damn near lose your appetite.

I was a little I had a very bunny experience as well. The the the burger constitute a very small portion of the cross section of the burger as I took a bite. But as I took off the bun to take a look at the patty, I actually thought the patty looked fairly like handmade and like fresh. OK, I thought it was fairly well cooked, which I was shocked by, just as sort of a fast food restaurants. I would have assumed that it was that they're all sort of overcooked.

Right. I actually thought the patty looked good and tasted good. My condiments, the the mayo sort of ketchup ratio, I thought was perfect. I actually enjoyed the burger far more than I expected to. I will. I actually will agree with your final point there. I did like I was kind of aside from my my patty issues. I overall really enjoyed this burger. And I was kind of like a like, oh, wow, it like opened my eyes a little bit because I hadn't had rallies similar to you.

There were some there was a rally, as I remember, that opened in my hometown. And it was kind of like a sensation for a little bit. And it didn't close, but that but it reached a point, you know, it was like it was like very high traffic and it was like a treat to go to. And then it sort of, you know, faded away. And now it just sort of is around and it's just sort of there. But I hadn't had it since I was probably 14, 15. It had been a long time and, you know, I didn't have much memory of it.

But yeah, definitely this experience, so I would say was was was generally a lot better than I expected. Mitch, what about yourself? So I actually ate my burger last. Oh, do you want to go in reverse order? I should probably go in reverse order. OK, so we'll end with your burger. So I because I was I was I was having a lot of fun. So I'll I'll go over my sides, but I'll tell you that I got a number one as well, Nick.

Oh, wow. What is what is the what is it? Buford big big Buford who is Buford? It sounds like a character from American folklore. Yes, Buford big Buford like he like a drink the Rio Grande. It's it's it said meet the Buford's when I pulled in. Oh, there were actually was a Buford like character there. No, it said meet the Buford's and it was all the sandwiches stacked up on top of each other, but I was like, but then it seems like their signature sandwich.

Right. Definitely their signature sandwich. I got the cheese champ. Oh, you got the cheese. I was sort of cure. I see cheese champ and I'm like, well, I'm curious about that. It's just the cheese burger was just totally. So I wonder if they're like, you know what we should do is jazz up the names of all these things. Just okay. Did it have extra cheese on it? Oh, no. That was just what they call a straight up cheese burger. That's right.

The big Buford I think is is specifically it's like they're double. I think it's like they're they're double burger. Yes. I I don't know what I thought a lot of things that you guys thought to, but I'll start off with what I got. I'll start with my sides. So I got I got the mozzarella, the fry breaded mozzarella sticks or whatever called monster, eller sticks or something. I got four of them. By the way, I made my visit. I landed from the in LA exit about midnight from yeah, Minneapolis, and I went to the one on Century Boulevard right near LAX. You went like

like right off the plane. I driven down. I stopped. I stopped at wall. I parked my car at Wally Park. I closed at one a.m. So I got off the plane, drove back to rallies and ate it in my car. Wow, and it was somehow sadder than when the Patriots lost. I don't know how that happened. So I got the mozzarella six. I tried them. I said wow, this is good. All the food was very hot and seemed nice and hot and and it felt like it was cooked and this is you know almost one a.m. on a Tuesday or Monday night or whatever. So the mozzarella sticks with a side of marinara pretty good and then I also got the I got a Kool-Aid slushy

like a tropical punch Kool-Aid slushy and that was great. It was the sweetest thing I think I've ever had in my entire life, but it was it was fun. If you were a kid, you'd love that drink right and then I got a spicy chicken sandwich and it was very similar to the Hardee's Carl's Jr. Spicy Chicken Nick. The car. It was like almost exactly the same as the Carl's Jr. Spicy Chicken. Okay, I don't know if there was like maybe a little toddler on there or maybe I got like a little bad weird Mayo, but towards the end there were the Mayo is a little off, but again patty super hot and fresh like seemed fresh. Yeah, but super hot,

which sometimes you run to the problem with Carl's Jr. It's not that way, right? Did you like this place to change? I also got a spicy trick and I tried to sample as much as I could so I could be thorough with my judgment. Did you like the spicy chicken? I mean Wendy's blows it out of the water, but but the I like the Carl's Jr one and I'm like I was okay with it. It's just kind of plain. You know what I mean? It's like it's how a lot of places like McDonald's does there the while they don't have a spicy McChicken, but it's kind of like McChicken like sure lettuce, Mayo, bun, but I was I was okay with it. I was

really enjoying myself with all the stuff that I got beforehand. It was it was fun and I was surprised. It was kind of weird and different. So I wanted to get a hot dog or chicken wings, but I didn't yeah, but I'll leave it on that because after that is just my burger and fries. So Nick, you can you can go ahead. By the way, I did look up the the sticks. You were correct. Monster. Ellis sticks. Okay, yeah, like big, big mozzarella sticks promising monster flavor. I liked them. Yeah, but it was just a mozzarella stick, right? I mean, it's yeah. They were like and it was fine, but it was just there was nothing like my point is to

say they have the cheese champ. It's just a goddamn cheese burger. Yeah, the reason right the monster. It was funny because like monster Ellis six and I was like they're not even really that big right. They're just like kind of like thin and normal. Like they were a little crispy. Like I like more so they should have been like they should have pushed home that fry factor that they were not like fries, but but they they were they were they were good. They were fine. Hey, they're pushing it in terms of branding. That's their thing. I got I actually did get a hot dog. I got their grilled hot dog, which is on their value menu. Just a

dollar, just a buck for that one. You know, a good value hot dog. Just a simple grilled dog on on a on a on a toasted bun again. It didn't get too much toast off of it, but it was good and hot. Got just got ketchup and mustard. That was that was how she said it comes. So I just got it like that. Yeah, I mean, it was fine. I would say it's like, you know, it's nothing I'd go out of the way for it. Certainly versus chain hot dogs. I think, you know, Wiener schnitzel is a much better chain hot dog at a similar price point. But you know, if you were there just getting a burger and you wanted just a little extra fill me up for a buck, I

think you could do a lot worse than that grilled hot dog. And then I got then we can get to the fries. So these are seasoned fries. Yeah, the fries are big. Yeah, they're they're big. They're they're pretty thick and they're yeah. They're a little battery. I just meant they're a big topic. Oh, I feel that they were a little thicker than normal. I mean, they are. They are. They are definitely, but I feel like people who like rally's fries or checkers fries really like these fries. Yeah, they're pretty bad. I mean, I get it because it's like the same thing is in and out or not in and out, which is not seasoned. It's the same thing as

Jack in the box. That's what I was thinking of Jack in the box or Arby's curly fries that that the seasoning if you like it seasoned, this definitely delivers and these are straight fries, though. They're not curly or anything. They're not curly, so they're not going to confuse you. I mean, you're not going to mistake it for your crazy straw. You know that this is just the thing that goes that you actually eat. You don't suck a drink up with it. So I I really like these fries again, very hot. They came out just, you know, like straight out of the fryer and I do like that they are aggressively seasoned. You know,

seasoned fries, I feel like most people just like a normal basic fry, but I think like most most of the time, maybe six times out of 10, I wouldn't go as high as eight or nine times a 10, but six times out of 10, I think I prefer a seasoned fry to a to a normal. That's a bad decision. Really? I mean, yeah. Yeah, I think it is. Did you like these for this this version of their season fry? Well, I liked it more than their old version. And that seemed to be, you know, one of the things I remember, the only thing I remember from rallies is it came into my neighborhood as a youth was the fries are different. That seemed to be

what they were hanging their hat on. I hated them at the time of just vehemently opposed to eating rallies, french fries at the time. I would get rallies, but then not get the french fries because I hated the french fries so much. And I love french fries. I have a real issue with french fries. So I did not like them as a kid. I like these better, but I still think the seasoning is just a gimmick. Wow. Wow. I like them, but I get that if you don't like seasoned fries, you're not going to like the fries convert you. Yeah, it's not going to convert you. I like them. It is strange to not have an option, I guess, for unseasoned fries.

It doesn't, I don't even, I don't understand it from a business sense either. I mean, they, I'm certain they lose out on french fry orders because they only have season fries. Well, cause Jack in the box does offer just like a straight to traditional fry, even though I think they're curly fries or they're money maker, but they just offer, you know, if you're, if you're seasoned a verse, you can get that straight traditional fries. Yeah. I guess it is a bold move to just say like our straight fries are seasoned fries. We're not fucking around with curly. Hashtag sees on and hashtag sees off. I'm on board. We're friends. This is what friends say to each other. He hates us now.

Which is good. It's the right to, we've, this is, this is our mission all along. We wanted to get someone who really liked the podcast on and then convinced them that it was bad or vision is accomplished. I get, I get what you're saying. I do, I do like them. I think it's fun to have those, have the seasoned fries and, but I, but I get that, you know, like my favorite fries are probably at one point. Wendy's might have won, but McDonald's are my favorite fries and they're not right. Those aren't seasoned. You know what I mean? Those, I think those are like the perfect french fries. Yeah. That's why I said six out of 10 instead of, instead of nine out of 10, I mean you can get there. There's so many good

regular fries. There are times I will definitely crave those. It almost feels like, think about it this way. If it, if, if seasoned fries were a big huge deal and there was a big giant market and a lot of money to be made from them, wouldn't McDonald's be making them? Yeah. That's true. But I took them a long time to come around to even having bacon on a burger. It was a long time before they did that. So I think they're, but McDonald's is pretty risk averse. I feel like I'm never eating bacon at the burgers at McDonald's anyways. I think they're kind of, I think they might be right on that too. Yeah. Maybe they're right. And I also, moving on to sweet treats. I got myself a banana split loaded shake, which has strawberries,

pineapples, hot fudge and whipped cream and cherry. Here's the thing. I was tasting this bad boy. Didn't taste like a banana split. I feel like I got the wrong shake. Like I got some banana in there, but it like, there were like different elements. I almost tasted like it had like a, caramel in it, not a hot fudge. It just like it looked like it had it, but I feel like the mix in was, did you see any minions about that? Maybe you wanted to steal your banana split shake. The mischievous Stewart and the adorable Bob and the Brainiac Kevin were lurking about. Sure. That's what their personalities are or whatever you shoot me with a fart gun and then make off with my banana shake. No, I did not see that Mitch. I would have been delighted

if I had. I know. But the, but yeah, I mean like, I think I might, that said, it was really good. There was some crunchy element in it that I could not identify. I was like, what is, yeah, there was like, it felt like a cookie crunch of some kind. Probably bugs. Hey, you know, if it was bugs, it was working for me. Who you liked it? Yeah, throw more bugs and shakes if that's what it tastes like. But yeah, it was a very good shake. It just, it just was deviated from what I expected from the menu description. And again, I don't know if I knew the, I got the wrong one or just the balance of the different elements is different than, than what it sounds like in the description. Let's, let's hear the rest of your guys's meals. I had the cheese champ,

as mentioned earlier, I got the spicy chicken sandwich. Damn. And I also got, I got the season fries. Right. And I got some of the classic wings. Ooh, all right. That's, I didn't try those. How were those wings? I was very curious. Not good. No, not good. And I listened to this, this might, this might be just a general prejudice against something like chicken wings at a fast food restaurant. But just, I don't know. It's, you know, you look at a chicken wing and it's just very clear it's part of an animal. Sure. I mean, it's very clear you killed this thing. There's just something about a chicken wing that goes, I want this to be prepared in a different way other than like a heat lampy style. Right. So I, I, maybe I dismissed it out of hand because

the premise bothered me, but the taste of it certainly did not, did not sway me to think differently. I feel like that's a step above seven, 11 wings or something, but still not. Correct. And I would rather do Buffalo Wild Wings, a place that focuses on a sure down place. Yeah, absolutely. It's weird. A drive through, if you're going through a drive through and you can get wings, kind of strange. Yeah. Stay away, maybe. Yeah. Nuggets are one thing, but wings are. Yeah. It's, that's, that's tough to do it at a real budget level. Yeah. And my, my, the woman that helped me was also very, very kind, very sweet, very helpful. I was asking lots of questions. I asked,

what do people order most? She says it's either one or, you know, combo order number one or two, which is the big Buford or the bacon Zilla. I asked if what she liked, she said she's only had the chicken. Oh my God. She's exclusively had the chicken. I said, is it better than Chick-fil-A? She said she had never had Chick-fil-A. Wow. And then she followed up by saying she was highly doubts it's better than Chick-fil-A, which I find to be very telling, considering she had never been to Chick-fil-A. Right. That's very, and also it makes me feel like, why isn't she eating the meat, which should bring me because I've, I've basically said everything I've had. Yeah. And that Kool-Aid slash, I gotta say it was, it's a fun kids thing, but I liked it. I was kind of having

fun. Then I had the, the big Buford and I kind of, I kind of agree with you guys. I just had like taste of it where I was like, take getting the meat and I was like, this meat seems like not as quality. Yeah, it just seems like kind of like I say this all the time, but when like poultry or beef tastes off to me, it sometimes tastes like gamey ish or like gamey or something. Sure. And you can, it tastes more either, but whatever it tastes, it kind of just, it tasted strange. Right. And then there were moments where I had the bites where everything mixed together and it was, I did enjoy it. It kind of reminded me almost of Wendy's. Wendy's, I think is way better, but like the, the mix of the mayo and the lettuce, the ketchup and the mustard. Yeah. Neil pointed. I mean,

you got, you agree with that one. It doesn't surprise me that you said, I heard you mentioned that one of them, one of the people behind that, the franchise used to be a Wendy's person. To me, it's very clear that they're trying to be like a Wendy's knockoff. Sure. Like a budget Wendy's. Yes. And it's, it doesn't feel like it's remotely close to me. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. I'd agree, but I think for how inexpensive it is or relatively inexpensive it is, you know, it's, it does a decent job. Well, let's get to our final thoughts on checkers and rallies. Neil, you've obviously heard the podcast, you know, all this works, but we'll go around. We'll sort of give our closing arguments, if you will, and end with a ranking on the order of zero to five forks. Neil, you're

our guest, we'll begin with you. I mentioned earlier, I thought the cheese champ, I thought the burger different from the two of you. I was delightfully surprised. I thought it looks good. I thought it tasted pretty good. It was a little bunny, but I, I enjoyed the burger. My intention was to eat a little bit of everything that I ordered just to get a tasting of it. And then I ended up eating the entire burger. So I was surprised by the burger. I ate that. I would describe the chicken sandwich, the spicy chicken sandwich I have as soft. There was virtually no give to it whatsoever. You just like, I mean, bitch straight through the thing. No given the meat. It made me question what, what the thing is made of. Tasted fine, but I was a little put off by how incredibly soft

the entire sandwich was. The wings were not good. The seasoned fries, I'm offended by the fact that you don't have regular fries. I did not, I did not enjoy the seasoned fries. They ran out of water, which was like a very fast foodie thing to, to run out of is the only thing that could possibly be considered not terrible for you. I thought the food, the taste of the food in general was three forks. However, I can't come up with a reason why anyone should ever go to rallies. Wow. As I said earlier, I grew up the majors, McDonald's, Burger King, Taco Bell, Wendy's, that was what was on my drag. Rally showed up. It felt like they went all in on the season fries, which to me, they weren't, they've never been done particularly well. I've had better season

fries. I'm not completely against seasoned fries. They've never been, to me, experts at seasoned fries. It seems like a very small thing to hang your hat on and hope that that's what becomes the diversification for your brand. Sure. They came, they went, I don't know who has a tie to rallies. It seems like your parents had to own a franchise or you had to go up right across in the street from rallies. The others were around sooner. They have a deeper tie to most people's nostalgia. Under what circumstances do you go to a rallies? I can't figure it out. I truly can't figure out why anyone would go, you know, when I'm going to go to a rallies. To me, that makes it a one fork restaurant. Hold on, hold on, hold on. So I'll average the two,

the taste and the fact that why would I ever go to a rally? So to me, it's two forks. The food tasted fine, but why would I ever go to a rally? Yeah, I get that. You know, you've really made me think about stuff here because there's no circumstance where you'd ever go. I'm going to go to the rallies over the in and out right or the McDonald's or there's no circumstance. Yeah, I should. And in my mind, I'm like, you're right. I'd like Burger King. I would rather go to Burger King than rallies. Do you think checkers and rallies like the corporate board will listen to this and be like, he's right. Let's fold the company. I think the answer why you would go to a rallies. I'm going to answer it right now is for those season fries. You don't like. I think that that's what people

like and I think that they are. I do enjoy them. I but I like season fries and and and are those the best season for you? They're not the best season. Do you think they're better than the Arby's season fries, the curly ones? Probably not. No, I agree. I mean, what are we doing here? Yeah. Yeah, I know what you're saying. I felt like for me the meal as it went along. I was at first pleasantly surprised. I thought the mozzarella six were good. I had it sip of the Kool-Aid thing. It was super sweet, but I was like I get what they're doing and then the spicy chicken sandwich was like a little. I was like, okay, it's kind of like the Carl's Junior, but I like that and it's served hot and it seems all right. And then towards the end of it, I was like,

oh, some weird mayo and then the burger kind of threw me off because and I had I was eating the fries before that and I liked I liked the fries. I didn't think they were. I don't think that you're right. I don't think that they're the best, but I think that they were pretty good and the burger then the burger was kind of a let down. Yeah, and that just kind of I was in my mind. I was like man, this might maybe this will be four forks made there and then just as I went along, I kind of got sunk down lower and lower right and I agree with you why I have no connection to it. I like the look of it. I'll say that like I like that it's like this weird and there's two drive-thru lanes. I like that it's kind of like this weird place and I wonder if people do have some emotional

attachment to it, but no one does. Hashtag that for some mother fucker out there. I want to hear from someone that goes I have an emotional attached. It's got to be your your old man owned franchise or you live across street. That's the that's it like for example. Hold on if you if someone were looking for seasoned fries, would you not recommend that they go to Arby's before telling them to go to rallies? I would definitely recommend Arby's or Jack. So would I. If someone were like, oh, you know, I want the kitsch of a drive-thru, would you not tell them to go to Sonic? Yeah, tell them to go Sonic or in and out even. That's what I'm saying. What do they have? Sure. Yeah, no, that's fair. I want to flip one of you. I want one of you two to have thought something

in now to be. No, you really made me think a lot about it and I think I'm just going to go with a boring score. I don't think it's going to bring me down to the twos. Yeah, but you definitely have affected my score and I and I agree with a lot of what you're saying. And you know, it's just it's funny because we do we do a lot of these places. Yeah, I'm going to be angry. I think that my final score and I'm going to say this. I think that a lot of the places that we do are these places that were like we don't expect anything from sure. So when they're just like fine and and we're just like oh cool because we've had a lot of bad meals and the food was hot. The service for me as well was was nice. There was a there. They were they were very helpful

and there. So there was things that I liked about it and then there were things that I didn't like about it. Here's what I'm going to do. Yeah, I'm going to give it a two point nine five forks. Wow. I'm not going to even officially give it a three and because I agree with a lot. A lot of what you said rang true for me. Sure, but but but then there was some stuff that I did enjoy about it. It was definitely the most depressing part of my entire weekend, even though the Patriots lost. Wow, but but a no. So it's I feel like honestly a big thing about it is it sounds like the quality was different at different places. So it has some consistency issues, which is which is a knock. So yeah two point nine five. I would love to try checkers. I would I would I would love

to see rallies at its best. I wonder if rallies could ever win you back up from two, but I don't know. I think I think the fries are the best thing they maybe have going right and then also how in the honestly the mozzarella sticks were were good, but what like when you're like you're saying like you said, if there's other places that have spiced or what are they called spicy? What are you trying to say? The spicy fry, the season. Thank you season fries. If there's other places that have season fries that are better than and that's the best thing they have going, then then what do they got? Yeah, that's fair. One other thing. Yes. The lion's share of them don't have an interior. That's true. I think hurts it now for someone like Nick who likes to sit in

his car and not speak to anyone or licky or any sounds whatsoever. Maybe he enjoyed sitting in his car alone and eating, but as you mentioned outside, I took in the whatever I took in the fresh air. Sure you did. The real human stuff. I was part of with birds. I got yeah, I got some fresh air. They thought you were a statue. Wait a minute, but it doesn't surprise me that Nick's like a little or Mitch is saying he's a little depressed eating and I've I found one that was indoors so I could sit down and eat human being. I don't know. I don't like sitting and eating in my car. Yeah, that's that's that that is a knock to really lobbying here for you guys to drop your scores. I sat outside at concrete tables just for the record. They have an outdoor dining area.

It would have been nice if they had some an umbrellas to guide me from this guard me from the sun and the birds, but I did not eat in my car. They were sitting on you because they thought you were a statue. So all right, fair points. Yes, there's no real reason to go to checkers or rallies. Yes, these chains date all the way back to 1984, making them younger than the original, the entire original Star Wars trilogy younger than me. They don't have a lot of history. They haven't existed for very long. That's a fair point. A lot of people aren't going to have necessarily attachment growing up to it growing up because maybe it wasn't around when they were kids or maybe, you know, it just opened up when they were kids and it was the new thing for a

bit. But then, you know, it maybe never really established itself as a childhood favorite. There's no real reason to recommend it. Everything is perfectly fine. It's better than I expected, but my expectations weren't particularly low. That said, I think we're ignoring their ace in the hole. They're branding. It's fun to say Big Buford. Oh my God. What burger did you get? Oh, I got myself a Big Buford. Welcome to Spoon Nation. Give me a Big Buford combo, please. Honey, what burger did you get at rallies and checkers? Oh, I got myself a Big Buford. Boy, that's fun. Monsterella? That's a treat. That sounds like a Bride of Frankenstein ripoff directed by Ed Wood. Monsterella. I'm on board with this. Sure. Yeah. I think it's a lot of fun. I think

the same. This restaurant is perfectly average and I think that the branding keeps it from going below that. Three forks from Nick Weiger. Dear God. But you know what? Hey, we're all in the same sort of general range. So this one, we're ballpark buds. We're ballpark buds. Sure. Appropriate for three sportos like us. That was our review of rallies and checkers. It's the return of a beloved segment. I've got a slice of pie and Mitch and Neil must divine a series of clues to guess what it is. The winner keeps the pie. The loser goes home empty stomach. This is pie in the sky. I started singing pie pie, which one is in the sky baked a pastry that was tasty but a mystery which kind and Mitch and our guests were given if their best try. Yes, and this will be the type

of this pie. Oh my this will be the type of this. Why do you do this now? Okay, so did you when you weren't that comedy bang bang? Did you did you just see weird Alan? What what is made you want to do all these parody songs? Don't let him talk you off this precipice. I don't know. I love it, Nick. It was it was a great job. It was great. Thank you. We're friends. So you listen to that and you have fun but think about the the time he had to spend writing it. That's phenomenal. Oh my god, those three and a half minutes. I did write that on my phone while I was getting coffee. All right. So you've got you'll take turns getting increasingly more obvious clues. I know what Neil you've got to go. So we'll speed through this. We got two

lifelines, the smell test and phone a friend so you can smell the pie if you like or you can phone somebody for help and but you know what in lieu of the phone a friend will just see if Emma will help out our engineer so you guys can reach out to Emma she'll be our audience audience surrogate and then Neil you're a guest you get to go first or you get to choose whether you go first or second you can go first or you can defer to Mitch. Keep in mind is the hardest and the first clue is insane. Yes, I will go second. Okay. All right, Mitch. Here's your first clue for pie in this guy. I may have forgotten which pie this is. My memory is a little fuzzy. My man's memories a little fuzzy. I may have forgotten what pie it is. My memory is a little fuzzy.

Huh? What can I do? Can I smell the pie? You can have a smell test. Yes, I'm gonna smell the type. All right, great. This is this is what I always do by the way. He gets a clue and he gets to smell the thing. Yeah, you get you get two lifelines that smell a smell test is off. I want you to know that I know what this pie is right now and if you really if you miss it, I'm going to get it. All right, take a look a sniff but don't look Mitch. Mitch is sniffing into the the bag. This is I mean what he says. He's inhaling. It's just fucking eat the thing. Fuzzy. I'm gonna go with like, you know what to huh? I should have phoned a friend. I fucked up.

I should have fucked up. I fucked up. It's okay. I could have phoned her. Couldn't I have? Yeah, you could have instead of the smell test. It's okay. No, it's not. I lost but I always lose this. So it's fine. Do you really want this pie? You're trying to eat healthier. It's probably better if this pie gets out of your house. I want to take a little bite of it. I'm going to go with a God. I don't even know. I'm going to say honey pie. What the honey pie like the Beatles song terrible. Not a pie. It's like a song by George because fuzzy. I thought bear. Oh, okay. Sure. Yeah. Good guess, Mitch. It's all right, Neil. You get you get the second clue. You may know what it is. Maybe this clue will clarify it. I want to just answer right now.

Please. It would make you look very bad. Okay. Here's the clue. Some meals are fit for a king. This pie is fit for a princess. It's a peach pie. Let's go to the feedback. Congratulations, Neil. You have one pie in the sky. Fuzzy. That's what fuzzy meant. Well done. Emma seemed very confident as well. You get to keep the pie. I know you're going to something after this. So if you don't want to keep it, you can go to Los Angeles, Lakers. Oh, fuck you and fuck you. I don't usually joke on that pie. How did you not get it off fuzzy? That was easiest thing. I thought I got I got two in my head. I thought I was trying to be trickier than that. I didn't have bears on the brain. I had bears on the brain. All right. Just like a

restaurant. When I was thinking like fuzzy, like, you know, like I thought I was thinking like a meringue or something. Right. Right. Right. Wait. No, I don't. I don't know. I don't know. I thought something soft. I fucked up. What do you want me to say? I fail at this all the time. That's fine. It worked out fine. I'll be the cohost. Thanks. Today's email comes to us from Rachel Love. Rachel writes, my boyfriend Ethan at Ethan is a fun guy on Twitter and I at Rach on the Cobb started dating because or at least partially because of the podcast, the Doughboys podcast. No, no. I had two common interests. Doughboys being one. When we started talking, we realized we had both previously had questions right on the podcast,

his on the Burger King episode and mine on the Book of De Bebo episode. You probably don't remember my question was actually sent in soon after I got broken up with by someone else about if you lose your appetite, when you get very sad. I clearly am feeling a lot better these days on the episode. You were both very reassuring and Mitch actually said, who knows, you're probably dating me now, which clearly didn't pan out. So sorry, Mitch. What the fuck? Anyway, you should have reached out. I thought this might be a nice sentiment for an episode close to Valentine's Day. My question is what is the best food plan for a Valentine's Day date, make food at home or go to a nice restaurant. Thanks for everything, Doughboys. You made my life much better in more ways than one happy

Valentine's. Oh, that was very nice of you. Rachel Love. You know, I remember this because her last name was so distinct and she was Rachel Love and she'd endured a little heartbreak. But now she's found love again. Yeah, good for her. Good for her. I bet you guys in your podcast are responsible for more breakups than I agree with that. Turn those idiots off. Sooner divorce. Rachel, come on. I'll give my answer. First off, Ethan and Rachel, congrats on the relationship working out. I think make food at home. I think that's because I think a lot of these Valentine's Day dinners, they gouge you. They have some sort of prefix menu and they charge you up the wazoo and you're paying a bunch of money for these small plates. Make a meal for

yourself. It can be nice and romantic. Hey, you know what? Natalie did that for me once. It was lovely. She prepared like she surprised me with a very nice meal and we shared a bottle of wine when we were in her ship. The sort of meal that she makes for in Phantom Thread. I haven't seen it, but I'm going to laugh because I know that's a reference. Yeah, I say make food at home. Make something for your sweetie and maybe even make their favorite food and see how that works out. Neal, admit you guys have any thoughts? It totally depends on whether you can cook. I cannot cook at all. I made one meal for my wife. I saw some New York Times video and I was like, oh, that's easy. I can do that. And so I went and got the ingredients

and I cooked for my wife and I thought she would appreciate my effort and I gave it to her and she ate it and she went, this is very good. But it was very clear that she was trying her absolute best to be as kind as she possibly could. And there's just, you know, listen, the work only goes so far if you didn't have to eat and it doesn't taste good. Like, you know, come on, you're wasting everybody's time. I would, you know, I generally will take people out, you know, well, now just exclusively my wife. But you know, I'd rather pay for money and do something nice that way and, you know, go to like a Libertad and try and make it special that way by pulling out all the stops and doing the nice meal I could possibly do rather than cooking. Yeah, I'll go,

I'll go in between the two of you. Order up a light some candles. There you go. Order up a little pizza, get some wine, sit on the couch and watch a movie together. It sounds great too. Yeah, that's adorable. You guys can snuggle up under a blanket. Wait, when you got love, there's no wrong way to do it. But for me, I'll just sit with Wally and Irma. Have fun, Rachel and Ethan. If you have a question or comment about the world of chain restaurants, you can email us at Doughboyspodcast at gmail.com and hey, to get the Doughboys double. Also, congrats to the two of them. Congrats to the two of you. I'm joking. To get the Doughboys double, our weekly bonus episode, join the Golden Plate Club at patreon.com slash Doughboys. Neal Punsalon, thank you so much for

making time for us on your trip out to the West Coast. Thank you guys. At Godham Coaches on Twitter, great NBA follow. If you're a sports fan, check it out at one of my favorite Twitter accounts. Anything else you would like to plug at this time? Oh God, no. I like that. Yeah, we both, that's how we do it too. And that'll do it for this episode of Doughboys and all next time for the Spoon Man, Mike Mitchell. I'm Nick Weigher. Happy eating. See ya.