Doughboys - Dickey's Barbecue Pit with Jamelle Bouie

Episode Date: April 17, 2025

Jamelle Bouie (@jbouie, Unclear and Present Danger) joins the 'boys to talk new movies, airport eats, and southern BBQ before a review of Dickey's BBQ Pit. Plus, another edition of Snack or Wack.Watch this episode at youtube.com/doughboysmediaGet ad-free episodes at patreon.com/doughboysGet Doughboys merch at kinshipgoods.com/doughboysAdvertise on Doughboys via Gumball.fmSources for this week's intro:https://www.rolanddickeyjr.com/https://www.dmagazine.com/publications/d-ceo/2010/july-august/dickeys-texas-barbecue-aims-to-conquer-the-country/https://texastimetravel.com/directory/dickeys-barbecue-pit/https://www.restaurantbusinessonline.com/financing/dickeys-barbecue-closes-113-units-franchisees-bolthttps://www.restaurantbusinessonline.com/financing/dickeys-sales-plunge-franchisees-pay-pricehttps://www.dickeys.com/company/our-storySee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is a headgum podcast. Want to watch this episode? Check it out on our YouTube channel by going to YouTube.com slash doughboys media. New Year, same extra value meals at McDonald's. Now get a savory sausage McMuffin with egg, plus hash browns, and a small coffee for just $5. For limited time only.

Prices and participation may vary. Prices may be higher in Hawaii, Alaska, and California, and for delivery. We're blazing new trails. No one has ever done what we're doing. We are bringing. bringing barbecue across the country. This hyperbolic bluster, typical of the asshole executive class, is proudly trumpeted by

chain restaurant Kingpin Roland Dickie Jr. on his own website. The current steward of his family's eponymous smoked meats chain, Dickie Jr. made the remarks in a 2010 interview with D CEO magazine. Surprisingly, the D stands for Dallas, not douchebag, in which the Nepo baby, back ribs, executive also promised, quote, world domination, one store at a time. Founded in Dallas in 1941 by Roland's grandfather Travis Dickey, a World War I veteran who actually worked at least a single day in his life, the family business is the oldest still operating restaurant in Texas's largest city. And for the vast majority of its existence, the company seemed content being exactly that. It didn't begin franchising until 1994, and when Roland took the reins in 2006, it had just 20 area restaurants.

But the young Dickie Jr. insisted on a strategy of aggressive worldwide expansion. opening dozens of new franchises across the continent every year, peaking at 564 in 2017. However, as rapidly as it grew, the balloon deflated. The very next year, 2018, 113 of those locations shuttered. And it's only gotten worse since the pandemic. According to a December 224 piece in restaurant business by Jonathan Mays, quote, 28% of the chain stores have closed just in the past 18 months. An attorney representing jilted franchise owners has an even more dire

assessment in that same article, quote, 70 to 80% are shutting down. With a company hemorrhaging money and franchisees declaring bankruptcy en masse, it's worth highlighting another quote from Roland Dickie Jr.'s DCEO profile that's notably omitted from his website, quote, a company is either growing or shrinking. Due to Roland's hubristic mismanagement of his family's historic brand, it's pretty clear that it's shrinking. This week on Doe Boys, Dickie's Barbecue Pit. Welcome to Doe Boys, the podcast about chain restaurants.

I'm Tiger Weiger along with my co-host, Nutty Buddy Young Jr., aka Mr. Saturday Bite, the spoon man, Mike Mitchell. Nuddy, can you say it again? Nuddy Buddy Young Jr. aka Mr. Saturday Bite. Nuddy, Nutty, Buddy, Young Jr.? Nutty Buddy Young Jr. AKA Mr. Saturday Byte, a Mr. Saturday Night reference.

What is his name in the movie, though? It's not, it's... I think, you know, I'm realizing... It's got to be Buddy Young. I've never seen it. It's Buddy Young. I've never seen Mr. Saturday Night. I have not.

Nutty Buddy Young Jr. Nutty Buddy Young, Jr. Nutty Buddy Young, Jr., aka Mr. Saturday Bite. Hey, Doe Fam, just wanted to pay homage to Billy Crystal, as his presence has loomed large in this year's tournament. Congrats on another thrilling Munch Madness and sorry about Susser. God bless you all and God bless Billy Crystal, Kevin, Kevtron and the Dosecored, Roasted BirdFuck.com. Billy Crystal, how you doing, our friend?

I'm glad you're not doing BlackBase anymore. It was a different time. 1995 or whatever. No, when I was 10 years old, yeah. Actually, incorrect. There was a sloppy boys episode with Tom Sharpling. Yeah. And he said, when do you think of the last time he did?

What's the character? Who was the character? Who was the, it was Sammy Davis Jr. They said, when do you think of the last time he did it? And the answer was 2012. Jesus Christ. Barack Obama is in office. Second term.

Yeah, second term. Yeah. I believe, too. I think it is like Obama. That's wild. I think 2012 is the answer. Insane. But we loved it.

We were laughing. We had Sammy T. I now want to see if I can't actually reach out to the former president and ask him, did you know that when you were in office, Billy Crystal was still doing blackface? Just to see how he reacts. This is like a legitimate thing I could probably manage. Wow. Please do.

Oh, man. He's right now is at Netflix producing the Billy Crystal Sammy Davis Jr. I'm finishing my email to my doctor. I'm sending it right now. Great. Hog transplant. Like, we were talking dog man in the beginning. We were talking dog man, which we haven't seen, but our guest has seen.

But dog man seems, Cronenberg-esque, my understanding of what the, what the lore of it is. A man's head is removed and that a dog's head is put in its place. That's right. The man just goes away. His hog doesn't, though. He's a dog with a human hog. Is that the truth? I mean, I think it's implied.

That's crazy. Yeah, it's weird to think about it. Other dogs are like, it's not red. Like, they'll be like whispering to each other. You know what I'm saying? Anyways, I wonder, has Jemmy seen dog man? No, she has not. We've got to take her.

Yeah. Yeah, we got to take her. Can we take her to the movie theater? You know, I've never tried. Why not? Let's try it out. A dog-friendly movie theater could be fun, like, to do a special show or something. I think you'll never see a movie quietly.

Yeah, right. If you've got a bunch of dogs and, like, she's a quiet dog, but most dogs don't do what she does. Sure, yeah, yeah. Have you seen the things where it's like service dogs and they're training them to, like, I think it was a clip that was in Canada, but they were training, like, Canadian service dogs to be quiet through, like, an orchestra performance. Yeah, that's part of their training because they have. they have to sit through an entire theater performance and there's like pictures of like theaters

and all the seeds are just filled with like puppies or dogs just like sitting there watching and they have to sit through the whole performance quietly that's like part of their training. That's adorable. It's so cute. I wonder what it must be like, is it like a live performance or just like a recording?

I don't know. That's a good question because like why would it feel like if you're the performer and tired to come perform for an audience. They don't tell you before him. You just show up and this is the audience. I would love that as like a performer. That'd be awesome. So cute. Oh man, we're doing our live production of dogs.

man. It's what Lydia Tarr's up to these days. It's conducting for dog audiences. Playing the soundtrack from a monster hunter. Mitch, I know you got a drop. Yes, Emma hit him with a drop. Tiger now. Tiger now.

Tiger now. Tiger now. Were we hearing some of the high and mighty theme in there? I don't know what that was. It sounded very similar to it. We got a DCMA for the high and mighty theme. Yeah, Gators is going to come for us. Hi, doughboys and crew.

Nick is tiger now. That's right. Regards, Brent. New Hampshire. New Hampshire, what's up? Thanks, Brent. The south of the north, as they call it. That's what they call it.

I would say that's true. It's very true. That has been my experience. The Trump and don't tread on me signs as soon as you cross over are. Got to have a Gadsden flag in the yard if you're in New Hampshire. It's the requirement. It's an interesting, and they hate, they hate, uh,

taxachusetts, as they call us. Yes. I live for your die, no sales tax, no seat belts. Yeah. I said don't tread on me, which is also,

I mean, also believable, but I meant to live free or die, which is very, it is the state, that's the state motto, right? Yes. They tried to change it years ago to just live free

and they got very mad. And they were like, no, it's live free or die. Bad movie, uh, but great title, the fourth diehard

Free or diehard. Free or diehard. It's a great. Fucking good. Yeah. And maybe like the movie like a half star more. It's just a good title.

It is. Now you're thinking in letterbox terms. I, it makes me sad that that poor Bruce Willis who's going, who has health issues, but it makes me sad

that we never saw like another reboot of die hard because they would have and I'm like, I feel like the second reboot they maybe would have done better than the last one. You're saying there would have done some sort of requal. They would have done some like, like, die hard, a new legacy.

And it would have been, like, a proper John McLean movie. It would have been bad. I take it back already. It would have been, like, John McLean would have been sad and, like, you know, his divorced and then he would have died at the end of it. That's like that, that's the requal. It might have been like a sad sack sort of like Indy 5 sort of treatment. The requal, the requal equation is that the person is sad and then they die or someone

they like dies. Yeah, they've been robbed of their victory at the end. end of the previous movie. They just like, they're, they're miserable, they're lonely. It happens so much. I don't understand. I don't want to see Sad Indiana Jones. Why?

We could have a scene with John McLean on like a grave site. He's like weeping to Hans Gruber. Like everyone I ever knew was dead. Didn't you kill that guy? I don't worry about it. Drop some birdfuck.com. Mitch, very, very excited to get today's guest in studio here at Hadgum, a columnist for the New York Times and co-host of the podcast.

podcast, Unclear and Present Danger, Jamel Bowie. Hi, Jamel. Welcome back. Hello, thank you guys for having me. What a treat. You're in LA briefly. Thank you so much for making time for us. Happy to. Always treat to have you on the show. I don't want to make you talk politics. I know that's not why you're here. But what's going on. I mean, I don't know. The country's collapsing. I don't know what to tell you. I keep joking with my wife. She does not like this joke.

Yeah. I keep saying, you know, the odds of me getting. rendition to an El Salvadorian prison have just gone up a couple percentage points. The next time I'm laughing about it, but the next time it says, you know,

times it's like, well, you know, am I going to open the door one day and like some ice agent will be like, you know. Just quick aside, a jemmy just farted on my leg, I felt the vibration. Did you? I don't smell anything, luckily.

Oh, no. Okay, good. But off to El Salvador with Jemmy. She's going to go on. Chip her right out. Look, I'm going to admit this right off the bat. Voter regret. I got voter regret.

Well, you know, I was, it's for you to hear you say that because, you know, I wanted to congratulate you for the pardon you got earlier this year. I would have been in for a long time. I mean, that was the first sign that things were probably not. Not great. It happened on day one. It's kind of funny. It's like day one, like hour one, Jan Six, guys, you're free now. Yes.

Yeah. Yeah. He should have reinstated Jimmy Pesto. He should have been from back in the... I'd love to have Jimmy Pesto. Like, if part of it was Jimmy Pesto is coming back on Bob's burgers, then it'd be like, all right. Okay.

Yeah, last part of the executive order. We're doing another story of the story of Everest sketch. Okay. All right. I feel like the whoever we elect hopefully a Democrat who wins in the next whatever in three years or whatever. Maybe a certain podcast host, draft Mitch. Wait a minute, me. I'm hearing draft Mitch come around.

Which side am I running on again? Look, I could not be president and I admit that, but anyone can be president. I mean, anyone can be president. Any one can be president. Quite literally. Anyone can be present. It's not a big leap from like host of the apprentice to host of dough boys. No, you're right.

It's like two rungs of the ladder away. Can I clean up my act and three and no, whatever. We'll see what happens. You don't got to clean up your act. Yeah. Yeah. All right. All right.

If someone goes to jail for doing something to a Tesla, like they, they should, whatever Democratic president comes in, they should, what's your call? You just said they should let them free. they should, what is it called? Pardon? They should pardon. Jesus Christ. Are you okay? I'm nervous.

I can't, I'm going to sound dumb no matter what. But I'm saying they should pardon whoever, people who fucked up Tesla should be pardoned if there's a Democratic president, right? Is that what you're emailing your doctor about? That I'm nervous? We're going to sound dumb on the podcast. And it's just like, I'm sure that whenever, whoever gets elected will be like, I'm not going to do that or so. I'm sure that it won't happen.

But they should be pardoned, right? Yeah, I mean, they should be pardon. You know, we should be throwing people in jail. I've gotten very militant about this. Like, next Democratic president, we got to arrest Elon Musk, throw him into jail. If there are, this is, I think I'm quite serious about, if there are any American residents in that El Salvador and Gulag in Goulag in three or four years, we're going to invade El Salvador and get them back. Yeah. Yeah, I love that.

We should, we should do a Manuel Noriega on those people. And sin, the United States military, and we got to have him back. Yeah, I agree. It's a, yeah, grim times. But like in lighter news and on a funner topic, I know you're big. I want to quickly say, a thing that's making me feel sane is watching your Instagram videos. Oh, thank you. Jebel will just bring, you bring sanity to the world.

And it is, it's grounding to watch things like that. And I was saying, instead of looking at X-Bel, which I don't post on anymore, but I haven't deleted it, and I'll look and be, you know, just my jaw will hit the floor by the way people act now. And then watching something like your posts make me feel so much better. Yeah, obviously doing great work in print, but on video as well, yeah. Thank you. I've been trying to do a balance of, like, informed stuff,

and then like a minute-long video where I call J.D. Vance a pig man. Would someone remix into a song, which is a lot of fun? I'm going to play that drop. You know what? You're an offense to pigmen, J.D. Vance. There's some good pigmen, right? Yeah, yeah. Gammary and guards, you know, good pigmen.

Porco Rosso, good pigmen. Who else? Rock steady? Or Bebop, right? Bebop, sorry. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Bop is the pig. You call them, it's rock steady, right? So we said, okay.

I also, I don't know if you're not. you watch the John Oliver thing that they did last. John Oliver, I like watching a lot, too. He did a great thing on trans athletes in sports, and it was fantastic. There's just a plug. If you want to watch out. Check out. On HBO, on Max, if you want to check it out.

It's great. And there's some things that make me feel more normal, and you're one of them. So thank you. I know you're big movie guy. Obviously, you talk about a lot of political thrillers on unclear and present danger. You know, you got a family. it's a little bit tougher to got to the theater, but have you seen any movies in 2025 that you've enjoyed?

I've not been able to get the movies. The only movie I've seen in theaters this year is Dogman. Was Dog Man? Wow. But I haven't had a chance to go see anything that I would like to see. We did watch when it got on streaming Conclave. Oh, yeah. Which I loved. A lot of fun.

And I got the, they released a 4K Blu-ray of To Live and Die in LA. Okay. Which I'd never seen before. And I watched that not long ago. And it was like, in love with that. Great movie.

Yeah. Yeah. Lennie uses it as his theme song. The, uh, the, who is it, Wham? Wang, Wang, Wang, Chang. Yeah, Wang Chung. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Great, great song in the beginning of that. Mm-hmm. Have you seen it ever? No, I've ever seen it. You'd like, it's wild. Yeah. It's great. Yeah.

Yeah. One of my favorites. I got to watch it. Now, you get to see William Peterson's hog. Oh. Oh. He's in. Yeah.

Yeah. We went and saw, I saw 1900 with Neil Campbell, where you get to see, um, Robert De Niro and... Girard de Pardue. Gerard de Pardu. Yeah, they both hang hog.

They hang hog and they both, they get... They get skiing, I guess you could say. They get masturbated at the same time. I was really trying to... I was like, I think that's where he's going, but I'm not entirely certain. It is a very... It's a six-hour-long movie.

Yeah. I saw it with Neeler dude, Neil Campbell. But also, it is... It's funny. It's like a six hour long movie, but the last 45 minutes is like where you're like, all right, enough of it.

But there's a lot of great stuff in there. You've never seen that before? No, and I would Bernard or Berlucci film, six hours? Never seen that, no. I get to check it out.

Yeah, I think you'd like it. Yeah. You know, I just saw it the first time, I can't remember if I said it on the podcast, but I just saw a late spring, the Ozu film.

Oh, yeah. A wonderful movie. And I was like, I'd never seen it before. I'd seen as Tokyo story, which is obviously a masterpiece, but it's like, I was like, this is fucking good.

And just saw it in a theater, just like an absolutely locked in, like, crowd. It was great. Yeah. Wow. Yeah, I love that the, that's one nice thing about LA. Is Ozu?

I know it's his last name, but is it a flavor too? Or is that my making that out? You're thinking of, Yuzu. Yeah. Yep. That's what I'm thinking of.

Hashtag Grap for Mitch. I mean, that's, that's relatable to like, you know, ordinary people in the heartland. You know, they don't know what... They know what Yuzu is. They know what Yuzu is? Is it a flavor?

Is it a director? Who knows? The people in the heartland are going to love me. Everywhere else, maybe not as much, but we'll see. Wait, speaking of movies, Casey, you just got bagged. You saw a black bag. I finally got bagged. What did you think?

It was great. A lot of fun. Fun ride. You like presents more, though, the recent Soderberg. You came in kind of being like, it seemed like you weren't liking. Or you kind of were, like, trying to let us down or something. No, no, no, no. That was not my intention.

Okay. I just know you guys. were big on the bag and I think I'm bigger on presents between the two brand new Sitterberghys. Enjoyed both films. I enjoyed both quite a bit.

Two in a year. This movie year I think is turning out to be a lot better. It's looking up so far. Make you 17 a lot of fun. Apparently the new Coogler is pretty good. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm excited to see sinners. That's is it or next weekend. Next weekend. Yeah. Dogman, would you classify

by, you know, ACAB, all cops are bastards. Sure. Where does dog man fall in that? I mean, he seems like a good, competent cop, not too violent, but also ACAP. You know, unfortunately, he's part of an oppressive system.

All right, fair enough. A-Dag. I know you're an avid home cook. Like, you're cooking for a family. Obviously, you get kids' pallets to account for. but any new dishes in the rotation? What's your kind of like regular sort of meal routine? New dishes in the rotation.

I feel like sometimes you get like, oh, I've started making this, you know, this one pot, like miso pasta I didn't used to make. And this has become a go-to for me or whatever, you know? All right. I think sometimes that happens. Usually, my kids actually have a pretty decent palette for being kids. Like we can do a lot of things. Often, like, a meal I will make, in general, it's going to be like, you know, there'll be a grain.

There'll be like a legume or something and then like some other protein or a vegetable or whatnot. But I can't I can't think of anything that's new in the rotation other than, you know what? You know what's new? This is going to sound very fancy, but it's not. It's just like a white bean grattan, grattan. I don't know what I say that. Grattan, I think. Retton, I don't know.

Yeah, grottin. Yeah, grotten. I don't know if that's right. That's just sort of like caramelized fennel and celery and garlic and white beans and and some cheese. And then you bake it with breadcrumbs. Okay. And they could really like it and it's really good. Rotten too close to Rotten for whoever named that, however long ago, too close to sounding

like rotten. The French fucked up. The French did fuck up. We were talking about this earlier because we're going to do a snack or whack, not today, but in the future episode. And they're macrons, macrons. Macrons, which are in macaroons. I think I've only ever known macaroons.

I was saying this in the, in the, well, there's three. And there's a French press. Emmanuel Macron. Macron, yes. Yeah. Which Amelia said that there was, she was at a bakery and it said to specify

between the three. The three. And the third turned out to be the French president. They just had a picture of the president's face and said, do not order this. That's funny.

But I don't, I didn't know, I didn't know, I think I had only ever known of macaroons. I don't even know, I don't even really know Macron's. Macrone.

Macrone. Macarones Macarones It's macarones right Macarons Well there's Okay so there's Jesus Christ

There's Macarons And those are the sandwiches There's the sandwiches Yeah yeah Lots of colors and flavors Maccourons There's macaroons

There's a coconut guys Yes coconut guys Okay yeah And then there's of course The leader of the Fifth French Republic Emmanuel Macron Okay right

Macrone Yeah I think I only knew Macaroons existed Of the bunch I'm not going to try this again. Mitch only knew McCrone. I only knew McCrone.

I only knew McRone. I only knew. Look, is this, we're clearly the dumbest people you've spoken to this whole trip, right? Not at all. Oh, wow. That's nice. I've got brain fog going on today, wise. You're doing great.

I got 99% on my CPAP machine. I got a 99% score last night, which is pretty good. But for me, still pretty, you know, I'm still operating at like 48% percent. of a normal human being. But 99 wags last night, a good REM sleep. How many French republics are we up to now? We're on the fifth. We're on the fifth one.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. It's almost kind of unfair to the French at this point because the joke is like, they can't figure it out. But they've been on the fifth for like 50 years, 60 years. Pretty good. Pretty good. Yeah.

Are you looking at French republics? I'm looking at Emmanuel Macron's Wikipedia page, okay? And I'm realizing I was thinking of a different. guy. I was thinking of the guy before Macron. You were thinking of

this guy. Who was before McCrone? Was it Marcozzi? Was it? Charcozzi. Someone with a

semi-similar name. That's the face I was picture. That's my corner. Okay. So you were, you were, McCrone's looking good. They were all over there.

Can I close this other tab for this Steam dating app? There we go. It's a dating sim. It's not an app. Can I tell you who I was thinking of? Yeah. Okay.

You were thinking of Mr. Bean. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely Mr. Bean is not, was not ever in charge of it. He never was in charge. Did he ever go to France?

Maybe in one of the Bean movies he like ascended to the president, the French presidency and there were some Pratt Falls as a result. But I can, I don't know specifically if that's happening. All right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

I mean, it would be funny. You think about Mr. Bean being president of France. It'd be pretty funny. It'd be very funny. Because they'd be, they'd be all like, you know, stuffy about it. And they'd have all their parliamentary procedure and all. their pompant circumstance and he'd be like tripping

over something. And you could have a big baguette sticking out of his boss. Yeah, yeah, that'd be good. I mean, make Mr. being president of the United States, you know. Why not? Why not? Pretty good. He seems like a, he seems like a pretty intelligent man when he's not being being. Is he, is the real life actor, is he a Brexitter? Rowan Atkinson? Is Rowan Ackinson? Is Rowan Abregson?

Uh-oh. I just basically assume... After we just commended him on being us. I basically assume every British celebrity has the worst politics imaginable. It seemed to be the pattern. No, I don't think you, I'm thinking of Martin Freeman. Okay. Bill, Bilbo.

No. Bilbo, not Bilbo. I think Bilbo, I think Bilbo is, uh, is, uh, you know. Britain for, for the British. Bilbo is a Brexeter? Is Bilbo a Brexeter? Are you, are you binging this? I'm binging it. Let's see what happens.

Oh my God. Um, no Bilbo Baggins is not a Brexeter. Bilbo is a fictional character from J.R. Tolkien's the Hall Bay. Okay. Well, that's good. That's great. Good, good.

Great. Is that the AI overview? It's a, I just try not to dig into that at all. Like, like, what's like, I feel like anytime I know anything about a celebrity's politics, I regret it. It's almost, it's almost never good, right? Right. That was like when I found out, was it, that Marion Cotillard is like a 9-11 truth or something? Oh, boy.

I didn't know that. I don't want to say that. And then I'm like libeling someone. Yeah, exactly, yeah. So, uh, maybe she is. Parity, fair use. Yeah, fair use. Yeah.

Uh, but I, I found out something like that that she was a conspiracy theorist. Wow. That's too bad. Yeah. It's too bad. Mitch, what are you looking up? I'm looking up to see if he's, it seems like there is a controversy around Martin Freeman, who is, who is Bill Bow Bagan's. Yeah.

Um, it seems like he might be a Brexeter. Oh, boy. But look. Look, that worked out great. It worked out great. Right. England's doing the ring for a long time right now. The ring changes a man.

That's what happened. All right. So you're out in L.A. for a brief stretch. I'm not someone who loves to travel. I imagine you travel a fair amount. When you're on an airplane or you're at the airport, like what is your flight food routine? My flight food routine. It kind of depends on when I'm flying in which airport I'm flying in.

Right. So where I live in Charlottesville, The connections for me are either to LaGuardia or to Atlanta. If I'm falling really early in the morning, I don't usually eat breakfast until like 9 or 9.30. And so when I land, I'll usually just like grab something like a, like a, you know, a fair life protein shake or something from a store. If I am really hungry, I will sit down for a meal somewhere at LaGuardia, which has recently been renovated. They have like actual legitimate like food options. So I will sit down for a meal in Atlanta.

If I have like time between a connection, there's like a, in the, in the terminal that I usually end up in, there's like a place that does a pretty decent breakfast. And so those are, that's typically the case. If it's at any time away from meal times, I actually don't really eat. Maybe I'll carry some snacks on me. The thing about having two kids is there's just a ton of goddamn snacks at my house. Yeah. It's like put a couple of things in my bag.

And I'll have a snack, off a bottle of water, but like I try not to eat when I'm flying. Wow. Speaking of flying and kids, do you ever, like, do the airplane with your kids? You know what I mean? Do you ever like, here comes an airplane? Does that a thing that parents still do? I've never done that with my children. I'm also not a whimsical person.

So maybe parents do it. But one time I tried to feed my youngest, like something by hand, like there was a cupcake, and she bit my finger. Oh, my God. Wow. And, like, bit my finger hard. Like, if you don't stop biting my finger, I might lose this finger. Dear Lord.

So I don't do that anymore. Did it once. Dear Lord. She's a very aggressive little girl. Very. Yeah. The thing about like, we've been, Mitch and I have gotten into this before about like travel and food, specifically airplanes and food. I feel like I have to have a meal before I get on a plane.

We don't know a very big fight. We don't need to re-litigate this. Also, also, just to be clear. I was feeding Wags like an air-pricing, and he bit the shit out of my favorite. We got to a big fight about how we have different schedules. Yes. I would just say, like, I-

Wake up at 5 a.m. I'm sorry. I tend to wake up pretty early, but like I feel like I have to eat something before I get on a plane because I just feel so fatigued otherwise. And also I make really poor decisions, even if I'm eating some relative garbage at a terminal, it's going to be, or in an airport lounge, it's going to be better than what I can get on a plane. You need some brain food before you got on a flight because with the doughboys,

you're the one who's almost missed flights multiple times. I missed one flight. And you almost missed the second, big time. But I okay, fine. I missed one flight and they almost miss a second. Who cares? You make me nervous on flight day. You do.

Because it seems like a guy who also doesn't care to miss it. Let me tell you, with this haircut, I make a lot of people nervous on flight day. Yeah, no shit. Timothy McWay It's a, it's a, I My big thing is I get, I get very anxious about flying. I'm like very, I get claustrophobic on planes.

It's less so the fear of, you know, aviation disaster, although that's obviously like a thing to worry about now. I mean, yeah, they took away all the woke and now planes fall off the skies. But also it's like, like for me, more so it's just like I feel like I'm trapped and so I don't know for whatever reason I feel like if I'm if I'm an empty stomach that's even worse so I have to like consider that but yeah I don't I don't really feel anxiety on planes and I know there's there was this thing like what six months ago where people are like raw dogging flights oh yeah not not not doing anything on a flight but I will say

that's sort of just like my natural state on a plane like I can just sort of sit there and and kind of like daydream and not worry about it I love to sit there people get on me for listening to like nothing when I'm like in a car. I was like, yeah, you just let your brain go to work. I don't know. That to me is weirder, but I, on a plane, I can just sit there and do nothing. I mean, I sometimes I'll put on headphones and fall asleep, but I don't need, I don't need really anything at all. Driving, I like to, I like to listen to things. Driving, I can only listen to music. I can't do audiobooks. I can't do podcasts because

then I will fall asleep. Yeah, I'm, whatever reason, hearing people talk while I'm driving will put me right to sleep. Yes, I'm a music in my car guy, basically, only. I can't do it with other people in the car, my kids. Sorry, sorry, kids. Wait, have you done a Waymo while you were out here? No. Waymo is an interesting experience.

I'd be curious about your take on it, because it's like, it's, you know, it's the automated cars, obviously, but they've been testing it in parts of L.A. And they're, it may possibly where you're staying. I'm not sure what exactly what neighborhoods it overlaps it with, but it's like, it's, I've witnessed this, I witnessed this actually with my parents recently, the experience of people being like, I'm never getting in one of those. And then like, all right, let's try one ride in it. And then after like, oh, this is actually kind of nice. It's a weird, like, you don't want to give tech people any credit. But this is one thing where it's like,

ah, fuck, this is kind of, they kind of figured it out. It feels, I guess it's statistically safer than an Uber and also feels safer than an Uber, which is huge from like a user experience. They are, they're taking away from obviously from humans. You know, right. You know, paying human beings. And the bad thing is is that they're cheaper right now, but at some point they just will be. They'll jack up when they take over the market, of course.

Yeah. We're flying for, we're going on tour, and so we're flying soon, and we are, I am kind of nervous about, about flying. We're flying Waymo Air,

so that'll be important. Turns out woke floats, like you were saying. Woke floats. I was, after, there was the really unfortunate accident at the DC airport.

Yeah. And the next day I was flying, home from a trip. Oh my god. And so flying Delta, flying in fact the same kind of plane that went down. So we get safely to Charlottesville and as we land and before before they let us off the captain was like, I just wanted to say that we had Delta take your safety very seriously and we were really making sure that we would get you guys home today. And I'm just like, why did you tell me that? I don't need I don't need this. I don't need this. reassurance. I'm home,

safely. This just makes me think that we almost fell out of the sky. Wow. Yeah, that's, it is, I, I went to, I was, I went to, uh, Arkansas. Uh, right? Yeah, yep. Yeah. Bill Clinton, the old, old Billy's home. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, uh, and, uh, and, what were you? I'm gonna do a lot. No, I don't know.

What's what I'm gonna do? Uh, Bill Clinton said when you showed up, I don't know what I'm interested. Be curious. Obviously, it didn't happen. Yeah, it didn't happen. Yeah. Yeah, he's on Epstein Island, these things. Yeah, yeah. That's great. That's where he resides.

He was, he was, he was, he was, I saw him when I, when we were landing, I saw him on the tarmac looking at his watch waiting for the Lonely Express. Where the hell is it? Um, he still takes it, which I feel like is a bad move. Yeah, not a great luck. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, a friend of mine was in New York and sent a picture of, uh, their mom in front of, uh, Epstein's house mansion in New York. Oh, man.

I know. I was like, oh, that's pretty dark, but I did kind of love it. And if we're in New York-wise, I think we have to, we must visit. But I, like, like the same thing in Arkansas, I was like, it feels like with, I feel like with a smaller state, the chances of falling out of the sky feel greater or something like that. But we're going to, we're going to fly into New York City or to D.C. So we should, we should be, okay, even though that's where the accident happened. statistically will be fine. That is not necessarily going to be to help my anxiety.

I understand that intellectually, but you can't like outwitness your hippocampus. You know, you're just like if you're, you're fucking nervous, you're going to be nervous. Well, it'll be fine. I'll take some drugs. If it is the case that what's happening is they took away the woke and the DEI and the plane stop flying, can you just have to hope you get on the sole plane, you know? I would love to be on the sole plane. That would be a fucking blast.

Yeah. The plane looks like a riot. I'm a blast on that thing. I do like, you know, you said you had Ghost Zoo as an idea, but you just said hippo campus and it sounded pretty damn good. Wow, like a hippo university. It's hippo universe, hippo campus. It's pretty good. And also right now, you know, it's a mudang is so big.

Like I like hippos are so in the zeit guys, I bet you could sell it like a hippo animated movie. We're saying mudang is big when it was like eight months ago. I don't know if anyone cares about boo dang anymore. You know how Hollywood works. They'll be very late to a trend. That movie will come out like in five years. Yeah, yeah. But, yeah.

Five years from now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Boudang was, quite the juicy one. I don't fantasize about eating Moudang. What are you talking about? It's perverse. Come on now. We had barbecue today.

Name does translate to juicy pork, I believe. Or Spongy pork and something like that? Moodang's name is spongy pork. Can someone look it up? What kind of pork is it? Bouncy pork maybe? What? Bounty pork. Yeah, bouncy pork.

Bouncy pork. Yeah. Cute. That is cute. Yeah. All right. So let me ask you about about barbecue. Okay.

Because you're from Virginia. Yes. Casey also from the south from Florida. So I know you both have some barbecue opinions. We're talking about a barbecue chain today. First of all because I just don't, Florida for some of every reason doesn't count for me. I mean, the funny thing about this is that like, okay, Virginia, Floridian, but like barbecue

isn't really a Florida thing or a Virginia thing. That's what I was going to ask. If Virginia has its own bar. barbecue culture, and I guess you just answered it for me. Not really. Not really. Yeah. I mean, obviously you can find good barbecue in Virginia, but there's no like Virginia barbecue. Right. And then there's like a Carolina style. Obviously there's Texas style. Right. Like these regional styles exist, but it's less so of a thing in Virginia. But you are saying like, like I do imagine you've had some good barbecue in your life. Yes. Yeah. And I imagine where you live, it's like there are good barbecue options. Like, you know, relatively close.

There is one. There's one. There's two. There's two good barbecue options where I live. One is in a little town called Gordon'sville in a place with barbecue exchange And it's wonderful It may have Oh, they used to have pre-pandemic Every February Porkapalooza Where you would show up

And it was just a big barbecue festival And you eat all the barbecue you wanted Yeah We got a similar thing for the doughboys Where all our fans meet up at Dorka-Paloosa Hey, come on now Fucking losers You're pathetic

Why are you here? And it's that's you know, like during the Republican convention or whatever, like a grinder goes crazy. For ours, none of the dating apps, they're just dead silence. Yeah, there's nothing. There's no sexual activity. Grinders go crazy. People are looking for sandwiches. The G-R-I-N-D-E-R app goes nuts.

The grinder app goes crazy. There is a pizza festival coming. and why as you sent it to the doughboy sex chain and you said, should we do this? And then Susser replied, yes, we, capital W.E. should. And I am interested in going to the... We don't do things like that very often. But that's like the sort of thing that we could do as a show.

We could cover... We could go to this big L.A. Pizza Festival and see what that's all about. And we probably won't just because we're bad at our jobs. But L.A. Barbecue was pretty dire, I would say, for a long time. And then was it... Was it bloods or was there blues? Was that one? There's a few different concepts that kind of like beginning, but I think Bloodsos was one of the big ones, or at least even if that wasn't the first, that was kind of like the, you know, that was a signifier that like kind of like L.A. Barbecue is becoming more of a thing. Now, I'm sure you compare it to other barbecue cities and the nation. And I'm sure it pales in comparison to what you can find in the South. But like, there are good barbecue options out here now. And then obviously there's Korean barbecue, which is its own thing. A hundred percent, yes. And I was, I was saying Moosecraft is a new one that is great. But sorry, go ahead.

I know how recent are these like new barbecue entrance? I think within the past 10 to 15 years, I feel like. Blood so's I feel like is probably close. That's the one that I was like, oh, like the barbecue trend or whatever is happening in L.A. And I'm sure that you could find, like there was probably one good spot in L.A. at some point. But the history, like blood sows was the thing that I feel like really took off, right? I think there was another good spot like not in Hollywood, but like maybe in like West L.A. or something at one point. Yeah, I know.

It's not baby blues, or maybe it is baby blues, but it's something like that. It's got blues in the name. It was baby blues. Okay, that place was all right. And then also there is the Adam Perry Lang restaurant, which has a, you know, Adam Perry Lang, something of a celebrity chef. He has his barbecue concept. I'm trying to look up what it's called.

But we were talking about Epstein earlier. Adam Perry Lang also was like. On the fly log? No, he was like Epstein's personal chef for a time. Wow. It's like an insane personal history. Oh, my God. Yeah.

I mean, the thing about barbecue, like, I'm not one of those people who's, like, you can't find good barbecue outside of the South or outside South Carolina or whatever. Like, you can find good barbecue everywhere. I do think it's a similar situation as with, like, pizza and, like, historic pizza hubs, right? You can find good pizza everywhere, but, like, the median pizza in, say, like, New York or New Haven is probably going to be a little better. Yes. Than, like, the median pizza where I grew up from Virginia Beach. Right. Yeah, I think 100%.

Yeah. There's got to be, right, in every, look, I'm no day. Portnoy, but I feel like in every town in the United States, there has to be at least like one decent pizza shop, right? Like at this point, I don't know. Yeah, I mean, like Italian food is, you know,

there are regions where it's better, but it's kind of a national cuisine. Mexican food has become kind of the same thing. There's good Mexican food all over the country now, but there are pockets where Mexican food is better. In the middle of the country, you're not going to hit. L.A. Pizza was tough for a while. Yeah. Like, when I first got here, yeah, it's gotten

a lot better. But I think a lot of what you see, and this supplies both the barbecue and to pizza in L.A. is like there's not like a what you might see in regions more known for it where you can find like a cheaper or a working class version that is like very good. Whereas in L.A. it's like you're paying a premium. These are like, you know, these are more upscale. These are fancier like concepts. So much of that's just the function of like cost of living. Right. Like if you are in, you know, rural South Carolina, if you're in Charleston even, You can find a bunch of space to, especially in the outskirts of the city, a bunch of space to open up a place and, like, do barbecue. You're not going to be spending so much money on rent, right?

Right. Or in parts of the rural south where there's basically no laws anymore, you can, you can just, you can just, like, have a shack. I'm not joking about that. Maybe Casey could attest to this, but, like, once you get out of major population areas, like, in, I think in, like, any place it's sufficiently rule. Yeah. Law doesn't exist anymore. Yeah, it just turns into fall out. Yeah, it's just, it's not that it's like chaotic.

Right. You can do whatever you want and no one's going to bother you unless it's like really egregious. Right. Brother New Hampshire is like that too. Yeah. And you get up there, you can do whatever you want. Yeah. Live or die.

Lockhart. I went to Lockhart. I actually demanded that you go to Lockhart. Remember when we did our, this is now almost 10 years ago. Did you go to that bad place in LaCard, Texas. Oh, yeah. We went, we, we did a barbecue tour in, which I had been before. I've been to Lockhart like three or four times,

and it's like the bar, it is the barbecue capital, right? Or maybe it's self-proclaimed barbecue capital of the world. I don't know if there's an official title. Maybe Trump will give one. It's like when there were two popes, you know? Right. The Pope and Avignon and the Pope in Rome.

Yes. The barbecue capital. And I'm sure there's some other barbecue capital that's been declared. Yes. I think Lockhart should, I think Lockhart should be the one. It is, it is, it's, it is awesome. And you walk in, you're basically, walking into like the walk-in barbecue pits.

You feel like you're Hansel and Greteling yourself. Yeah, there were like three spots we went there. They look at you. Look at that Boston butt over there. There were three spots. I would feed millions of Texas. Because you, me and Gabras, we went to three different spots. Oh, man, me and Gaboris?

Yeah. The country would be eating good for a long. With me, you and Gaborz, we cooking us up? Yeah, we had a, we had a, wait, are you saying wheat? Wait, hold on. I just realized what you're saying. You're talking about cooking the. the three of us and serving us.

Yes. Okay, I was talking about the three of us went and ate at these places. Yes. Which is also true. I was saying there's the walk in, you walk into basically into an oven. So hypothetically. Right, we could have been cooked and turned into meals for dozens. I do have the, I do sometimes when I look at like one of those like wood fire ovens,

I do sometimes think about like what if I just baseball slid into there? What would happen? That would be crazy like a brick pizza oven. You just go head first. It would be very sad, but I would give the safe signal. I guess you'd be out, kind of, in a way, right? You'd be gone. It is, I get, I get what you're saying.

It's like when you put a, there's, like, videos of, like, goats just running into fires. I don't know why they do that. But, like, the result. It's like being on a building and wanting to just jump off a field. Yeah, 100%. Is there a name for, I feel like that's an experience everyone has. Like, you're doing something, but you have no intention of, like, running, like, driving off the side of a mountain. But you're, you're bros.

brain's like, what if I did it? Yeah, exactly. That's fucked up. The fact that the brain does it, we are fucked. We're all fucked up. It's called Call of the Void, I believe. Call of the void. Of course, you freak, you know it.

Lockhart was fantastic. And when I was just in Bentonville, I went to Wright's barbecue. And Wright's barbecue is really, really good to. This is in Arkansas. In Arkansas. Yeah, yeah. Wright's barbecue. And I got what I was just making fun of.

I got there and I was like, can I get some brisket? And they're like, no, we're out of. and they were out of everything. Wow. And I got, it's funny because it's similar to what I got today, but I got a jalapeno sausage, like a jalapeno cheddar sausage. And I got pulled pork,

which I said I didn't like today, which I am kind of a pulled pork skeptic. I was just saying, you weren't here for this, but I was saying how you said that the floor for chicken is very low. Right. And I was saying the ceiling for pulled pork is pretty low. Like, like,

the best version of it is still not going to, not knocking your socks. But now I'm going back on what I said because the rights barbecue pool park was fantastic. It can be good. I think because pulled pork is maybe on the easier side of what you can do barbecue-wise, it's like much more common.

And so you're more likely to encounter like really mediocre pulled pork. Yes. Great pulled pork can be quite good. That was, for me growing up, barbecue was, we're making pulled pork and it's super, like super saucy.

and like candy, you know, like ribs that are so, like, and not good quality ribs. Yeah. Like, like, Chili's level of ribs with just glazed over, giving, being served to their sticky son, me. Like, already, I was already sticky. And then what? Their sticky son. Their sticky son. Is that how they introduce you to everyone?

This is our sticky son, sir. This is Michael, my sticky son. They shake my hand and I won't. I can't let go. But this memory, which I'm sure you, like, I remember watching, it's the same year, I think the same year Chris Farley died. I'm putting all these weird things together in my head. I was in middle school. Yeah, you have those markers.

And it was the Green Bay Packers were in the Super Bowl. Okay. Maybe with, I guess with Far? Had you been? Yeah. And I remember like not even really caring too much about sports at that point, but was so excited about the halftime. and we made ribs. And I just remember it was just like the sticky,

like that to me was barbecue. Yeah. Like the sugary sticky sauce on on ribs. And I don't even like, like I almost don't even like ribs now. Right. Because I had such a bad version of them forever, which is like, you know, like the little vainy, like not meaty ribs. And now I think ribs are so in today, not to get into the food,

but today my favorite thing was the ribs, which is crazy. but for me barbecue growing up in soCal a lifelong socal super dude it's like we just there just isn't like much of you could do places that do good barbecue there you know some good barbecue restaurants in long beach was like never really a thing for my family we had like a barbecue outside but it was never for barbecuing it was for grilling you know it's a totally it's a different thing and so for me honestly a big part of what i thought barbecue was uh i want my baby back baby back baby chili's baby back room i was like i would go and i was like oh this is what a barbecue This is a big slab of meat that's got a really, really like, like saccharine sweet sauce.

There's that video of them recording that song. I was just thinking about it. It's so good. It is, it is, it is, it is, it is, it is, it is, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's such a cultural touch. And they're so locked in. And they sound so, like, just, their individual voices, they sound so good. The drummer's just drumming the shit out of it. It's fucking awesome.

Just session musicians is just, like, locked in. It's great. This used to be a damn country. What the hell's happened? Make jingles great again. The jingles suck now. It's true. Jingles are bad.

I mean, everything is a fucking joke now. That's the issue for me. Everything has to be funny. Yeah, you can't have like that. And none of it is funny. Like, give me sincerity over that. Right, right. Give me the baby back ribs some.

That's real. We like that because it was trying to be earnest and it didn't care about being cheesy or not. It just was what it was. And we liked that it wasn't commenting on it. itself. 100% It was beautiful. Yeah,

it was great. People were singing across the country. You guys don't even know this. Insink was singing it. Zoomers have no idea. I'm not a zoomer. The country was going wild for the baby back ribs.

Jingle, you heard it everywhere. The president recited it. I wouldn't be surprised. Was it bill? Yeah, Bill probably was coming. Probably 100% was. I want my bow.

Yeah. I'm sure he did that. Come over here. Monica. Baby back, baby back. Yeah. He was singing it after everything went down. He'll around my baby back, baby back. Sorry about what happened. This is him apologizing after the blue dress.

Do you remember his speech? I did not have sexual relations with those baby back, baby back. Do you remember he gave like a speech from, it might have been from the Oval Office, like addressing the allegations and basically like, so like, you know, saying that he was, like, I remember watching that. Like, it was such a big news story at the time. They remember watching that with, like, a group of friends. It was like, that's such a weird thing that we all like,

hey, let's go see what the president said about, like, getting his dick suck. Yeah. Yeah. So when I was, I wanted more details first thing about it. When I was in college, what of my part-time job, I was doing archive editing for like just video and audio coming out of the White House. Since the White House, White House, White House was used to produce that stuff.

Right. Put it out there and then researchers would just sit through it. So I was like an editor. editing some of that stuff. And I was editing the press conference, the first press conference where Clinton addresses the allegations. Wow. And it's so funny.

Oh, my God. Because when you, when it's like, if you watch a documentary about the 90s, they just show the part where he's like, I did not have sexual relations with that woman. But that comes at the end of like an hour-long press conference about education policy. So he's just like talking about federal education policy.

And they're not at the very end. He's like, and I have one more thing to say. I did not have sexual relations with that woman and then he walks off wow it's very funny to be

yeah in context that's so strange did he ever give an excuse I like blue blue turns me on blueie the dog is hot I don't know I mean I can try to think

I mean blue he didn't exist at this point but I was gonna say that's disgusting what it's a child well oh my God Bluey the dog is a child, that's your issue? Doesn't bother for fucking Bill.

The father and Bluey is blue. There we go. Right. That's my dad and mom. How is that? Or it's just the, it's just the dad. The mom is orange. Bluey's dad, are you happy? Does that work? Yeah, okay, that fixes it. When it comes to barbecue, just like growing up, my dad had a smoker.

So he would like smoke, you know, smoke meat on a cage. We used to smoke turkeys for Thanksgiving. Oh, that's fun. And so that was like mainly, I don't, we didn't go out to eat at times. That was like my main exposure to barbecue. And I don't think I really began like eating more barbecue until in college. Yeah, I think I was a dumb enough kid and just was not exposed to it. I thought barbecue.

I thought barbecue equaled barbecue sauce. Right. That's pretty dumb. The barbecue sauce you get for like a chicken McNugget was like, that's what makes it barbecue, you know? Do you know my first introduction to smoking was the mask? What kind of sauce do you like barbecue-wise? I don't like sauce.

Wow, you like it dry. I like it. I didn't, hold on. Like Jim Shapiro. I like it dry. I didn't mean like that. I dry it out. Wags, that was gross.

What? No, I mean, I'm, I'm just of the opinion that like your barbecue should be good without a bunch of stuff. Yeah, sure. You shouldn't have to rely on sauce. Like, sauce is something like extra that you can add if that's what you want as another flavor. But in terms of like the quality of the meat, it should be perfectly, now I want to say perfectly juicy. But like now it just sounds weird.

I say it. He started it with dry. Perfectly, perfectly wet. I get where you. Look, barbecue people. out there, if you're listening, you are annoying. Like, they are, they are very annoying. Is that the most annoying, annoying, like, food person?

I don't know. I'm trying to think. Everyone is so annoying now. Barbecue people are very annoying. Barbecue people are annoying. I feel like coffee people are more annoying. I was just about to say coffee people. Yeah.

Speaking as a coffee guy. Yeah. Beer people can be pretty. Beer people can be pretty bad. Beer snobs are bad. I think especially, I mean, they, they get, and it's, it's funny because you and I will talk about IPA beer snobs and people get mad at us for that and they're like, we're not, like, they just get, because we both aren't huge IPA fans.

Yeah. And then we're always like, they always want IPAs and they're, and we say that they all taste the same. And then people get mad at us for making fun of IPA people. But IPA beer snobs, I think, are the most annoying people in the world. Yeah. Do they even still exist? I feel like that was a thing 10 years ago.

It feels like that's faded a little bit. It's faded a little bit. The double IPA, quadruple IPA, just how hoppy can you get it? Right, right. It's less of a thing. IPAs, I think, kind of suck. But barbecue people are very annoying. You are annoying.

But I will say this. They are right that, like, when it's like, you've never had real barbecue before. And then, like, when I think on the past, I'm like, yeah, I never really had real barbecue. Yeah. Until I, you know, like, lockhart or wherever. Like, like, until I had real southern barbecue chains. And it is a different. Barbecue, I wouldn't even put that high on my list.

And then when I have real barbecue, I'm like, oh, real barbecue. is fantastic. I know it's Casey's one of Casey's favorite foods. I love it. Casey loves a cue. And when it is good like that Moosecraft barbecue in L.A. I mean, that's the thing. It has to be good barbecue. Yes, yes. I mean, the thing about barbecue,

it's genuinely interesting about it, is that like it's one of the food ways in the country that did remain regional for like much longer than the other one. Like pizza, even Mexican food became much more national, but it's only been relatively recently where barbecue is a thing that

is somewhat, I wouldn't say common, but like, yeah, you can find barbecue around the country. You're saying like that real deal barbecue. Yeah, whereas like for the longest time, right, like if you wanted to get real deal barbecue, you have to get a ticket and go to Texas. You have to go to Kansas City, if you go to the actual place where it comes from. And I've never had, we want to do a show in Kansas City. Kansas City barbecue is my favorite. I love that show.

Wow, Kansas City. We've never had it. Yeah, never been. I remember going to dinosaur barbecue when I was in college in that. being like... That's in Ithaca. And there's a one in New York City, right? It's Syracuse.

Oh, Syracuse. There's a bunch of people from Syracuse and I think. From the Coos and they always be like, Dinosaur barbecue. And then I went and ate that and was like, oh, this is good. And now I wonder how dinosaur barbecue is compared to like some of these really good barbecue places. It might be bad.

I have no idea. But, but... So I'm like, college is the first time I had good barbecue. And then great barbecue, not until I was in my, like, maybe almost 30 years old. Yeah, again, you from New England, me from Southern California, we just weren't exposed. Yeah, and there's still like, there's still styles that are still very regional, right? Like, you can, like, Texas style, which I think is the one that's become more national because brisket is, like, widely available. And the technique is, you can replicate in other places.

But, like, whole hog is still very much a thing that you have to go to, like, South Carolina. Get your mind out of that gutter. Yeah, yeah, that's right. I mean, there's so many doughboys style barbecue. dry rub dry rub whole hog burnt dance

that works Mario when he falls on lava um I for me I don't think I don't know if I've ever had Kansas City barbecue or like definitely haven't had real deal

Kansas City barbecue Texas I've I've knocked off the list and then I know like I think I've had like what's the other is it the Carolina styles of or is it a Well, there's like North Carolina is known for, well, the Carolinas for pooled pork. And North Carolina is like the vinegar-based sauce. Okay, yes.

Or least like a part of the state. And then South Carolina is like a mustard-based sauce. Okay. I'm intrigued by the mustard-based sauce. A big mustard guy. It's good. Yeah. It's good.

The guy who didn't know who DJ Muster was for like eight months after everyone. When people were yelling mustard, he thought it was actually, he thought people were talking about mustard. People were talking about mustard. I did it 100% about that. I mean, that's legit. Must have a great condiment. It is great. There's a lot of styles we haven't tried.

We should go to different cities. We haven't done that. One interesting thing is there's barbecue fusion. So like I was reading some years ago about how I saw Dallas was like Ethiopians last like barbecue. Oh wow. That's fun. Up near D.C. I think in Maryland like in one of the counties around the city, there's like maybe a Guatemalan joint that like does like you know barbecue fusion.

So you can get like that, you can get like a papusa with like brisket stuff in it or something. Right. Which sounds, when I say it out loud, sounds incredible. That sounds awesome. Yeah. I'm going, I'm getting Korean barbecue this weekend, Claudia and John Early. The three of us are going to Parks Barbecue. Oh, wow.

One of the best in the country. And that's the thing. And, you know, obviously it's a different thing. So different. But that is the one thing that you can definitely point at in that L.A. has is just like world-class Korean barbecue. For your kids, have your kids had good, have your kids had like sushi yet or like, uh, wow. So my, my, my, my son loves sushi. Yeah.

Wow. Um, we actually recently got sushi for dinner and I was like, okay, do I have enough? And I just like, I just got to buy like two whole separate rolls just for him to eat in addition to everything else. Wow. I love it. So he loves sushi. We don't get barbecue a ton, but they both had barbecue and they both like it. That's great.

So again, their palettes are like surprisingly broad for being little kids. Part of it is that like we never did the thing where like we made food separately for them. It's just sort of like you're just going to eat what we eat. And if you don't like it, I guess too bad. That's how it was for growing up, that's exactly the same. Like my face would be mushed into my meal if I didn't eat it. But I, maybe that's a little too much. Also, you were going to eat it.

Yeah, that was never an issue. I never got the face mush. But for me, we've talked about this before, like, the idea of sushi, it was so foreign to me. And I had never, like, I remember trying it in middle school, like, or maybe even high school when my parents got it. Yeah. And being like, this is, this is so strange to me. And it just not. And now I feel like kids are used to that growing up.

Like, kids just eat sushi or, like, Chankton's daughter, my goddaughter, will, like, she just eats sushi. And she's like a baby. What's at the grocery store, you know? Like, you go to, you go to our local wagons and they have like, you know, two guys making sushi fresh right there and you just pick some up. I do think about, like, when we were, you guys are older than me, but like not that much older than me. And I'd say that when we were kids, like the quality of sushi you might get at a restaurant

is now basically what you can get at a grocery store these days. Yes. Yeah. 100%. For sure. That's wild. I got exposed to sushi and related dishes. like Spam Missoubi, like, fairly

early on. So, like, I kind of knew, like, I knew that sort of, you know. Which makes sense in California. Yeah, yeah. But, like, it was treated in pop culture as, like, this weird thing for a time. Like, raw fish. Like, it was like a sitcom joke. I'm not going to eat raw fish. A weird, feminizing thing.

Exactly. I'm sure I could think of some joke where, like, a man's eating sushi. And it's like, oh, look at that guy as a huge pussy. Wasn't there a book called? If I still saw that movie, I'd be, like, slapping my leg. That's right. He is a huge question.

Comedies are back. There was a book. I would think the title was, in the 80s, I think it was titled Real Men Don't Eat Kish. That's right. It was one of those things that was just like, you know, again, just a masculinity tome or whatever. Soft egg? Someone has a, I can say someone has a pussy. I can't think of anything else.

The Simpsons have Homer, like a very early, I think a season one episode is Homer at that sushi. restaurant. Yeah. And it's like eating like this blowfish that's like like, and it's like, it's poisonous or whatever. So it also seemed like, oh my God, like it's dangerous and it's raw. And it was it was completely, you know, it was strange to me as a boy. And now the most common thing in the United States.

Yeah, it's everywhere. Which is a good thing. It's a great thing. But people out there, you know, if you eat your pussy. I mean, now with the tariffs, you know, we might. Yeah. Also, did you want to announce the doughboys Patreon increase? Yeah, we have the doughboys tariffs have gone into effect. So if you're outside of the country, you're going to be paying a premium on the dough boys of Patreon. And unfortunately, it's affected people inside the country, too. So platinum play club is now 17 bucks.

It's easier to just make it global. It's actually fairer and easier just to make the tariff supply to Americans as well. So, yeah, that Patreon is going to be a little more expensive. Yeah. But thank you for subscribing. Thank you for subscribing. Dickie's Barbecue Pit was founded in Dallas, Texas in 1941 by Travis Dickie. Last week, Mitch with Stav, we talked about Carl's Jr., founded the very same year, 1941 as Dickie. 1944 as Dickie's barbecue bin.

This is nearly a hundred-year-old, it's 80-something years old. That is shame. That is shocking to me. It is wild. Dickies is older than Burger King, Denny's, and Waffle House. the reason it doesn't seem on the same level as those places is because Dickies didn't begin franchising until it existed for 50 years. So 1994 was the first time they said, like, let's make some more Dickies. And then this leads to Travis Dickie, the founder, his grandson, Roland Dickie Jr., becoming CEO in 2006.

And Dickie Jr. just was like, we're going to be everywhere. He just began an exponential growth, you know, policy. They had 20 locations when he took over in 2006. In 2010, four years later, they had 115, and in 2017, they had 567 locations. So they just scaled up massively, Mitch, in like, you know, a decade in change from 20 locations to over 500. However. Can I tell you? Let me make a clear of how old Dickies is.

Yeah. It's older than Joe Biden. Older than Joe Biden. Wow. Dickies is older than Joe Biden. What year was Biden born? 42. Same as my dad.

My dad was actually older than Biden. That's wild to think about it. He's dead also, but he was, he was, he was, he was an old, an old man. Yeah. Martin Scorsesey, Dickies is older than Martin Scorsese. That's crazy to think about. It's old. Dickies is old.

But it was just like a regional, like Dallas thing for, you know, most of its existence until this recent decision to, to, to, turn it into an international brand. Does it say when the various expansions happen? Is it like, you know, they expanded 200 locations and then like 10 years passed and they do like another big expansion or it just a. I believe it was. was, I don't have a year-by-year TikTok here, but I believe it was just kind of a, you know, it was a conscious decision by the new CEO to, to, you know, make it a bigger brand and they just basically just grew,

like, franchised as rapidly as possible. I do remember a story Biden told about how he and corn pop after going swimming in a swimming hole, went to Dickies. Can I say sometimes, sometimes, and I'm just like, remand thinking about the past, I remember that that corn pop story was real. Like, I remember, I remember watching him tell that story and being like, he's an adult old man.

And then like a week later, there's a story in the Washington Post by like Corn Pop's daughter. And it's like, yeah, cornpop was my father and him and Joe Biden had a blood feud. What can I say? And it was like at that moment

when I read that corn pop was real, I was like, Joe Biden can become president. God is smiling a Upon him. I think Biden would be doing so far. I mean, he would clearly be, I think it would be doing bad, but I think the country would be doing much better. I would take the sleepiest Joe. Yeah, sure.

The deep sleep. Give me, give me weekend that Bernie's 2. Joe Biden. So. That is right. So does Weekend of Berners 2 just take place right after the last movie? Because it must, right? I don't remember, boy, it's been years since I've seen it.

I've seen both those movies. A year later, he's deposing. The thing, the gimmick of Weekend at Bernie's, too, is there's like a voodoo ritual that brings him back so he can, like, move and, like, dance on his own. So, but I don't know if it happens right after the first movie. Did the curse keep him fresh? Yeah, I don't know. Yeah.

There have been a great inauguration for Biden, Biden, too, right? Like, they push him onto the stage, and then there's, like, a voodoo ritual. Jumps up. Got sunglasses on. Come on. Force ghost corn pop smiling down. He's smiling. So the issue is they over-expanded, as these chains tend to do.

As per a December 2024 piece in restaurant business by Jonathan Mays, the great Jonathan Mays, the title is Dickie's sales plunge and franchisees pay the price. A couple quotes from this. The company's corporate franchise revenue declined 12 and a half percent last year and is down 20. 24% over the past two years, as many as 28% of the chain stores have closed in just the past 18 months. And then as of 2025, they now have 360 locations, so down over 200 from their peak about eight years ago. So we went to a downtown L.A. location. There's a few locations in the greater L.A. era. Kind of a weird place in downtown.

It feels like where it's situated on Spring Street, kind of an odd spot. Yes, 100%. But we did a pickup from there. and I'd never been to Dickies. I mean, I imagine none of us had been to Dickies. No, never been to Dickies. I honestly, I knew of Dickies just because I've seen it in those lists of like, you know, top 100 chain restaurants or whatever.

And it was, I think, in 2012, like, the fastest growing chain in the country. So, like, I was aware of it. In 2012, it was the fastest. Yeah, isn't that weird? So my, because I, before you guys reached out to me with, like, a list of possible choices, I had never heard of Dickie. Yeah. Like, not, never encountered my life.

I believe it is the largest. barbecue chain in the world in terms of number of locations, which is so weird to think about because, again, it just seems to have had no impact on, you know, on food culture or it isn't like a thing you see ads for or whatever. No one's talking about diggies, but it just instantly kind of became ubiquitous. We ordered from the downtown LA location, and I mean, like, it's basically a place, like they've got, they've got meat plates and they've got sandwiches and they've got sides. They've got what you'd expect a barbecue restaurant to be doing. They've also got wings, which we got some of.

Mitch, you got a three meat plate. I got a two meat plate. Jamel, you got some brisket and a kibbas and some turkey. I mean, I guess we can just start with the meats because that's the reason to go to a barbecue restaurant. Is this an Arby says, do they have the meat? Do they have the meats? Do they have the meats? I don't know.

I'll start. I mean, obviously in a literal sense, they have the meats. They have the meats. We all got the brisket. I was, I thought the brisket. brisket was functionally fine, but like I was not particularly impressed by it. Like I was like, oh, this is brisket, you know, but like it felt like it was, I don't know, it felt like it was lacking both flavor and then also fat. It kind of felt like it was like a little bit leaner than I would like.

My brisket was fatty. It had been more the fat. It was like, it was like well smoked that it wasn't like tough to eat, right? Like really bad brisket can be tough to eat, but it just had no flavor. It was just sort of like you needed the sauce to give it any kind of anything worth eating. And there are places that that's their approach. We were talking about Raising Cains, which I'm less a fan of than some other people, but that is a place where you're just supposed to be like, yeah, the sauce is, you know, the attendees are a delivery mechanism for the sauce. With barbecue, it shouldn't be that way, ideally.

You shouldn't need the sauce, but I feel like you kind of need it here. I don't know. What did you think of that brisket? I think you liked it a little bit more. Mine was, I think mine must have been a little bit better. Yeah. But I had pieces that were pretty gray and overcooked. Yeah. So I think you're, I think you summed it up pretty well with, oh, this is brisket.

This is brisket, not said in the 300 way. Yeah. Not said like this is smart. Yeah. Said like, this is brisket. Yes. It would be a fun commercial though. That was, I would love it.

This is, yeah, that would be good. It would be fun. I would like it if... This is brisket and you kick a pork shoulder into a barbecue pit. I would like that if that was what... Who's our guy there who we defended for a long time? He's now doing like a right wing movie, I think. Gerard Butler?

The guy who did 300. 300. Oh, uh, Zach... Zack Snyder. Snyder, yeah. Snyder's doing some sort of... I love being so fucking old. You can't remember, like, the name of, like, someone you're a fan of it.

I'm not remember shit. I know, well, I think Snyder's gone. I think he's making some sort of righty. right way. I mean, that seems, that tends to use the pattern. I,

I, when I first took a bite of it, I was like, okay. I was like, this is an equivalent to an okay brisket,

but as my meats went on, I got the jalapeno cheddar sausage. Yeah, how big, he got that as well. Yeah. It was,

I was going to be like, this is really bad. This is going to be the worst thing I eat today. And then I was wrong. But it was not, it was just, just so dry and overcoved.

That's the thing. It wasn't like I, the picture, obviously the pictures in the website, I mean, don't mean anything, but the picture suggested like a juicy sausage. Right. But this was just sort of like dried and, and triveled up. Slim, almost Slim Jim S. Yes. Yeah.

It was, it was not. And also, here's a funny thing about that website is like, even the website pictures just look, okay. It's one of those places where like, you're like, the website seems shoddy. For a thing that's a huge chain, apparently. or was. Everything about this place seems a little janky, which makes me just feel like this is,

there's some sort of scam going on. Every time I see that, I'm just like, okay, this is a, this is like a scheme to like bilk your franchisees or something. You know what I mean? Like,

I just, I, I don't know. Like, like, yeah, you look at the app and the app's kind of crap. It's like,

it's like a little bit janky. It feels like, um, it, everything feels just a little bit, like, what's the word I'm looking for? A rough shot, a little bit, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's, something is off.

Yeah, just shabby. Yeah. And I, and I, and I, and for the brisket, I was like, okay, and then the sausage, this is, this is how I was like eating the things. I was like, brisket, okay, that's not bad. Sausage, real bad. Ribs, which I said, I'm not even usually a huge ribs guy. You try the ribs, why.

Yeah, you got some pork ribs. I did take a buy of that some bitch. I was, it was decent. Maybe, yeah, maybe the best meat, honestly, of, of the day. but then there was another pork rib below it that was so dried out and horrible. But the one that was cooked decently was good. And so I was kind of still on board a little bit

when I was realizing you guys were starting to hate this place. And I had the mac and cheese, which I thought the mac and cheese was okay. And the mashed potatoes, like the loaded mashed potatoes, which were like trying to do like a baked potato and a mashed potato. There was like green onions in it

and bacon and cheese in the mashed potatoes. Those were bad. Straight up. That's the thing. Like, that looks like something they're trying to market as one of their showstoppers of like, look at what we did. Like, we have a loaded baked potato, mashed potato. Like, how wild is that? And then, yeah, you have it. It's just kind of underwhelming. Yeah. Not to mention that there was also multiple things missing in the order, which, look, you get it delivered. That is just what's going to happen. You can't, there's like no real way around that. I feel like it's going to, it's going to happen. But it was like things are missing. And the food. And then the, it was much like the economy wise. It was, it was, it was, it was crap.

Things were going downwards as the, right? The economy went down. As dac went down. Ashtag draft Mitch. Things, the, the meal experience as I was looking around and realizing what was happening, it was, it started to, it started to plummet. So I also had the sausage and the brisket. I got the smoked turkey as well. I also got the smoked turkey.

Because I'm always, is my second protein. Smoke turkey is kind of a difficult meat to do. do because turkey is not a very fatty animal. It's kind of bland animal. And so it kind of, it's not, this isn't like a rule of thumb, but I feel like if a place can do a decent smoke turkey, it probably can do a decent job with other things. And the smoke turkey, I thought had more flavor than the brisket. I agree.

It was also kind of like stringing and not great. No, it was, it was, yeah, it was pretty dried out. And, you know, which turkey tends to do. but, like, I didn't find the texture of the meat particularly pleasant, but I did feel like it had more flavor. Maybe it was just better season than the brisket. And I don't know if that's just how they do their turkey, or maybe this is how this particular batch was.

But yeah, you and I both agreed. Like, we were talking during lunch, like, yeah, the turkey was just straight up better than the brisket, which should not be the case. Right, right, right. The turkey should be like, oh, yeah, they also have a good turkey. It should not be like, well, the brisket was bad, but the turkey is a little better, you know, that's damning it a bit.

You know, the first time I had smoked turkey, I went over to the masks house for Thanksgiving. You welcomed you in. Does he have the mask on still? Yeah, of course he's wearing the mask on. Oh, that's nice. Look, I'm going to just say this. He's like, what are you having for dinner,

mask? It's like, well, it's smoking. You don't know what he means because that's just how he talks. But it was the turkey. Yeah. It was the turkey. It was weird. It was slightly weird that I just showed up to his house home.

He invited you. He's a girl man, and he's looking for children to invite over because he's a cartoon character. Look, I'm going to say this. I bet, Matt, I bet him saying Grace would be so funny. I was just going to say, I know that this, look, I know that the way the joke went over it, it wasn't to people's liking.

But I'm going to say this. If they made a movie, the masks Thanksgiving, how fun would that be? I'd be pretty great. I would watch. Thanksgiving at the masks. That's Thanksgiving. That would be a blast.

Have you seen the Sonic movies? Yes. I do like Jim Carrey at the Sonic movie. I keep telling people that Jim Carrey is giving like a 90s performance in the movies. Yeah, he's really, he's killing it. And there are definitely a lot of kids

that like their understanding of Jim Carrey comes through the Sonic, the hedgehog franchise, and that's it. Yeah. But he is like, I mean, it's classic Jim Carrey. Yeah, I got to see a rhino giving birth to him or whatever in Ace Mature 2. There's guys who are just, I mean,

Jim Carrey's undeniable, Jack Black, come on. These guys, they're good, they're good, they're all good. I have something for the mascot Thanksgiving. What's that? He goes for like a third or fourth helping and he goes, somebody, stop me. That's really good, Amelia. Get you in that room.

That's really good. Get her in the room? Get in the writer's room. All right. Amelia and I had a productive day. She helped me with an audition earlier today. Oh, that's nice. Yeah, Mitch did a good job.

Wait, were you auditioning for the Masked Thanksgiving? That's what this is all about. Maybe. Guess who I'd be playing. Fat Thanksgiving guests. I don't think they'd say the turkey. They're like human being. I thought the turkey was fine.

And it definitely needed some sauce to wake it up. And let me just say this. So we got a bunch of different sauces. I was not particularly, I was not particularly into any of the sauces, honestly. Like their sauces come in their branded little cups. And I thought their default sauce was whatever. I thought their sweet sauce was like way too sweet. And I thought their hot sauce.

I was just like, give me a little bit more burn or something here. Sure. They're hot barbecue sauce at least. They have a straight up hot sauce. Yeah, yeah. But like they're packaged branded dicky sauces I thought were all pretty underwhelming. I just got mad thinking of how much my body looks like an uncooked turkey. It's just like very similar, very similar.

Right. Very, very similar. Turkeys look a lot like you. They do. Yeah, down to the big hole. And look, I stuffed that thing. I don't even know what that means, but, uh... I mean, we can, we can need to probably figure out a joke about fucking a turkey.

Yeah, I guess. It is, there's, yeah, there's, there's something very, uh, Mitch-coded about an uncoached turkey. The sauces were pretty, the sauce, I mean, I, I don't know, maybe someone wants to defend the sauces. I think the sauces were, I didn't have, I didn't have an issue with it. I only had the, the, the standard sauce. I thought it was fine. I will say, like, the bottled, like, Wegman's brand sauce I get at the grocery store is, like, better. Yeah, that's the thing.

It's just like, I'll get some sweet baby raise or whatever, you know, and, this should be better. their signature sauce should be better than some bullseys I can get from the supermarket. The size. I thought it was, I personally thought that was better than bull's eye or something.

That's fair. That's totally fair. I mean, I didn't think they were great. I'm not going to bat for them. I didn't mind the barbecue beans. I didn't get my green beans. I did not like the barbecue beans.

Wow. Okay. They were, so like, I like beans a lot, one of my favorite food groups. Yeah. And we make barbecue beans sometimes.

And the thing about barbecue beans is, like, they are supposed to be sweet, but that should be balanced with, like, heat and a strong, savory note. That's, like, sort of what the, all the bacon or the pork is for. Like, it's a balance of these three elements. And I thought these were, like, sickly sweet without enough of the other elements that you need for them to work. I found them, like, just, I had a couple bites, and I was like, I can't. And I, like, I love beans. Yeah, I will, you know, I will look past a lot. But I thought these were not good.

How do you prep a barbecue bean at home? The way I do it is I cook the Navy beans first, like from dry Navy beans. Maybe with some bay leaves and garlic and like a whole onion thrown in just for like some additional flavor. And then you make sort of the sauce, like ketchup, mustard powder or actual yellow mustard, brown sugar. What else is in there? There's a bunch of stuff in there. Chop up some jalapenos, chop up some onion. and makes sort of the beans and some bean liquid,

like enough to kind of in a casserole dish, like kind of submerge the beans and put whole strips of bacon on top and then pop it in the oven. Cover it, pop it in the oven. Because the beans are already cooked, basically you're like cooking it so that the liquid reduces and the vegetables kind of like dissolve and everything.

And after like 40 or 45 minutes, to take off the foil and then let the bacon on top around. And then you got baked beans. That sounds delicious. Yeah. That sounds fantastic. There's molasses in there. Right.

Wow. Yeah, I, like, for me. Can I also just say? Yes. I know that this is the, but liquid bean made me think of Mr. Bean as the T-1,000. So that was also very funny. He pulls himself through metal bars and then does a pratfall. I mean, I love it.

And he falls straight. a turkey. That sounds so good. And as you were saying that, I was like, oh, yeah, the beans steak did suck. I think that they were serviceable, but I thought the chili was worse, by the way. Yeah, the chili was definitely worse than the beans. Which, again, the chili had brisket in it, and they were talking up their brisket chili.

So, like, I'm expecting a little bit more. It was not anything particularly exciting. Yeah, I guess they were just kind of canned beans, but I don't know. They got the job done for me, at least. I was able to try the, I got green beans. And I thought they were fine. They tasted like canned beans that they added a little meat to, which I'll say growing up, like I grew up eating canned green beans. And so I do have to do it like a nostalgic, you know, this is a flavor I recognize.

Were today's beans better than Bush's baked beans? My guess is probably no. No, I think they're about the same. Yeah, I haven't eaten Bush's baked beans. I used to love them. That was a huge go-to. That's my dog about them. Jimmy's quiet.

She's being quiet. I guess is that specifically Boston baked be or there's a different with Boston baked beans. I mean, you should be the one who knows. I know. I know. I can talk about the difference.

Oh, please do. Boston baked beans. So Southern style baked beans can't have tomato in them. Boston baked beans generally don't. Boston baked beans are generally just molasses, whatever the bean liquid is,

mustard and some brown sugar. Okay, yeah. And that's generally what you get in Boston beefies. And like, not bacon, but like some other kind of salt. Yeah, there's sometimes some pork in there or something. Yeah, yeah. I love, I'm a big Boston bag. I know about them too. I know. I know about them.

I, as far as the sides when I thought the mac and cheese was, did you try any? Yeah, I thought the mac and cheese was fine. And I also thought, and it was a thing that got lost in the shuffle until it was a, you know, sub room temp, we somehow just overlooked it. but the fried ochre that I ordered was also... This is kind of devastating.

It was also fine. But that was like one of the better sides. Jamel and I were like, I think that was the best side. Yeah, and I wish we'd had it hot, but we somehow just missed it. What else did we miss? I mean, are there other... Well, to go into the awful side of stuff, you got Buffalo, you got Buffalo wings. Yeah, we should talk about the wings were really disappointing.

Half Buffalo hot, half Carolina barbecue. I could not taste a difference between them. whatever sauces they, you know, rolled them in a bowl with. Those are two pretty different things. Pretty distinct sauces, and I could not tell the difference between the two sauces. And the ranch that they came with was, you know, pretty inert. But I just also felt like, I don't, are these even smoked? It feels like they were from, like in a deep fry.

It said they were smoked wings, I think, on the app. Well, when I first took a bite of them, they take, what we sometimes say on the show is gamey, which is, we'll get into a second here. This is exactly how Amelia described what she ate. But the wings tasted so much like dominoes, like bad domino's wings. Yes, they taste like pizza place wings, for sure. Which was like how, when it's a barbecue place, and I know it's a fast food barbecue place, but you're like, I wish that these have to be a little bit better, right?

Or the friar has to be cooking or something like the, you have to have a good fry on them or something and there is not. It says they are pit-smoked wings. So that's what they're claiming on their site. To me, they, you know, they seem to be like they, they were in a fryer, but I'll believe them that they, they were, they were actually smoked. I did not get any sort of smoky character from them. I mean, if they were, I didn't try the wings, but it would make sense if they were fried, that would make them a little more disappointing. I don't know. Just sort of like, there's a reason why fried chicken dedicated restaurants have better fried chicken in places that just have fried chicken as an option.

Right. Like, fried chicken is an intensive thing. It requires, like, a lot of moving parts. Yes, yeah. And so, like, if you just, if you have a barbecue restaurant, you're all. also frying wings. The wings are not going to get the kind of attention that everything else is. That's a great point, yeah.

Mitch, you got the jalapeno and cheese trail boss sandwich as a side sandwich. This is another thing on a normal visit. This would be the worst thing I got. Go ahead. Casey, you also got a brisket sandwich and Amelia, you got a crispy chicken sand dough, correct?

So the trail boss jalapeno cheddar sandwich would be the is a chicken fried steak. Yeah. Brisket, jalapinos and cheese? Is that what's on it? Yes.

It's, um, yes. That's what it looks like the components are on the app. And I took a bite of that and it was bad. It was really bad. And I let you take a bite of it wags. You also thought it was really bad. I thought it was pretty repulsive. And then I took a bite of Amelia's fried chicken sandwich that Emma and Amelia split and then

didn't eat too much of because I think it was horrible. And it was truly rotten. I did one bite and then I was like, nope. Well, they forgot my brisket sandwich, and Amelia was like, you can have my chicken sandwich, and then she was like, well, we can share it. And then she texted me was like, this is bad. And so I was coming in with low expectations. It was bad.

The chicken sandwich was the worst thing I had. Yeah. It was, it was, it was, it was, it completely, it was chewy and gamey, like you said. The chicken patty was like half the size of the bun, too, or the piece of chicken. There was, like, a lot of extra bread around. I didn't try it. I just noticed, like, the cross section when you had yours, and I was like, not for me. No.

And there was nothing on it, but sauce. There's no. It was just chicken sauce. Right? There's no Homestyle sauce Yeah, yeah But there's like

No lettuce, tomato, nothing Wait, Wait, Home style or Ho style? When I was

eaten it was a hostile I'm sure When you When you saw the bisect The CSAXed I hate that

I say that Because you say it all the time When it was bisected It's a good word bisected It does

make it Some very clinical It does Yeah, that's true Yeah Yeah In Very dexterous

Yeah Which is a great way to describe Wiger Am I Dexter? So sorry. Yeah. And it looks like you cut and have an old sandwich.

It looked old. Here's what I'll say. Super size to me, like the old hamburger. It was like, it was like this looks like a sandwich that's been sitting around. And it's new. It's fresh. It didn't make any sense. It's not only like new in the, it was just made. It's new to the menu. All of their chicken sandwiches and the ranch boss sandwich and the trail boss sandwich.

By the way, Trail Boss sounds like a show that's been like on TLC for like 10 seasons. It's like somehow like the second most watched show in America. Trail boss. It's on like the, it's on the Paramount Network. Yeah. Peterberg directed the pilot. It's there,

these are all like things that they've added to the menu. Isn't it? I messed it up again. It is Peterborough. Peterberg. Yeah, I got it. These are all things that they've added to the menu in, you know, it recently. And I generally think goes back to something you were saying of just like you're a barbecue

restaurant. Why are you trying to do all these fried chicken sandwiches? And the only reason I can think of is they're just trying to cash in on the fried chicken sandwich trend, which is, you know, it's not a... Which is almost over at this way. It's kind of over, yeah, it's kind of the tail end of it. I mean, just thinking, you know, you talked earlier about they did a massive and rapid expansion and sort of like that, this is all testament to why that's sort of a bad idea, right?

Like you want, you are a barbecue chain restaurant. You should focus on that and you should remain in places where there is like a barbecue culture that people are just going to, maybe they don't want to wait. at like a nicer place where they go to your fast food restaurant for a quick barbecue meal. But trying to both expand and then offer everything to everyone. Like why in God's name is their chicken fried steak on a barbecue restaurant's menu? First of all, I really doesn't make sense.

I don't think I've seen chicken fried steak in like years. But like why is that there? Like who's buying that? Yeah. Only the doughboys basically. Only the doughboys, right? And it was only the doughboys in like an 82 year. old grampy.

And it was immediately like, oh, this is not. We both were like, this is not good. This is garbage. We threw it away immediately. Here's the thing I was concerned about is, you know, when you get chicken wings and the bones don't look right? Like the bones look like, they were like kind of dark, like the bones were kind of dark. And I was like, there's something, this wasn't a healthy chicken. You guys were describing the chicken as gamey.

And I got each time, I'm just like, how does one get gamey fast food? chicken, right? Like, where is this chicken coming from that it doesn't at least taste like bland? Yes. Yeah. Like, it should have no flavor versus a distinct flavor of game. Yes. I think it was a prison exchange. It was from El Salvador in prison. It was, it seemed very, it's, it, it either felt like it was old or meat that had sat around. There was something that just wasn't right about it. It's, it's kind of the thing. This is, this is, I guess, maybe a grim thing to voice. It's like, when you think about like our agricultural system, our food supply system and factory farming, I feel like sometimes you can taste when something had a horrible life. You know what I mean?

It's like this was a chicken who they like this was just like an awful sort of existence and it kind of comes through in the meat and the way that it was raised and the way it was slaughter. I can just like fucking horrible. Take a big bite. I can taste that to spare. But it's a bummer. And like if you have something that comes from like a, you know, whatever. It seemed like the chicken when it was younger, it had so much potential. Like after high school, didn't really do much.

And it just kind of stuck around. It just didn't do much with itself, you know? But it, I sadly agree with you that it does. I'm happy that that soul is at rest now. That chicken's soul. Because it seemed like it was not happy. By the way, to bring this on a lighter note, I think I know what the new trend of food is going to be.

Oh, I'll listen. The Italians are taken over. Let's fucking go. No, no, no, no, no. Right. Like Italian, like right now, like the Italian sandwiches, there's like big facetia Italian sandwiches,

like I think like Florence style sandwiches. You mean beyond like pizza and pasta, you think like Italian food at large is going to become bigger thing. but the new restaurant trend is Italian. Wow. I took a picture. There's a place at the Americana. There's like a new Italian, I think, ice cream.

It's just, they're pushing Italians on me. Who is they? Big Italian. Tony Sepretto, a big Italian? Yeah, big Italians are pushing it out. Hey, new switch coming out, Mario. Yeah. Wow.

Wow. And you don't sad about that? They're fucking withholding the Mario on that one. We can't get into it. I know, I know. I'm sorry. But there was, there was at the, at a, look at this. Look at this.

Look at this shit. This is at Americana the other day. Mitch is holding up a sign for a chain. Venchi, bono, bonoissimo. Mitch, you have sound like you're going to be like a no Italian, Italians allowed time. No, no Italians, no dogs. I love Italian. Italian people.

It is, but I'm telling you, the Italian trend is coming. It's coming. You say that and in, in, in, where in my neighborhood, they opened up, like a sort of a, a pizza shop that's like a Roman style pizza shop. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, Roman Pete, that's, that's, that's, that's pretty, like a, in L.A. Quarter Sheets has the big slab slices. And I think, I think Roman style is very in right now. Yeah.

You got mesmerized by Gemmy, it seems like. Thank you. Eventually. It looks like an Italian chocolate and gelato shop opening soon at the Americana slash, what is it called? The Americana. What is it? That's right. The Americana.

American. At brand. At brand. That's what I was thinking of. Anyway, Italian is in, I think chicken sandwiches was the last. Chicken sandwiches feels like that's done. Feels over. We're kicking out all the immigrants and so we got to return to the classic.

Casey, you're. You're a big fan of the queue. You got yourself a Texas brisket sandwich. How was that? It was kind of exactly what I expected as far as like fast food barbecue goes. I mean, like the texture was like fine. It was it was tender enough. But yeah, it was like not really seasoned.

I didn't think. Right. And really needed a lot of the sauce. You were okay with it for a fast food bar. And I think you and I maybe got the juiciest. cuts of the brisket. It seems like, like, mine was okay.

And then as I was taking off pieces of brisket, it got like grayer and grayer. And I feel like that's, you guys had gray, the gray E.T version of the brisket. It seems like, yes. I was definitely, as I was going,

poured more sauce on every bite. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, like, it should, that rib was the, and if everything was the quality of that rib that we, that we shared there,

I think it would be good. It would be like a decent spot. But there was a lot of things, when you take a lot of bites of stuff and you're like, this is disgusting. It's going to hurt the fork score. And I think there's also just the element of, usually with these places,

usually with any chain we talk about, there's at least something we're like, hey, that's pretty good. We're like, huh, I like this. And there's nothing that I go back at everything that I tasted. There was not, there's nothing where I was like,

I actually enjoyed that quite a bit, you know, like despite all these other things, this one bite was working. Like, nothing really fits that criteria for me. I guess we should talk about the people. Pekan pie slice. Oh, right, yes. Before we moved to the Pekan pie, I do have to say, we all got pieces of Texas toast.

Oh, my, yes. Texas toast. Oh, right. That was awful. It was so bad. Like, not even disappointing as, you know, mediocre bread can be, but just actively not good. Yeah. Yeah.

It was, it was, it was horrible. It tasted so much like an old hot dog bun that was grilled. I mentioned Raisin Cains earlier. Their Texas toast is legit good. And like there's no, like, this is, I don't know, I'm kind of looking forward to like getting to have a big piece of Texas toast. I have two bites of this. I don't even want to be slathering in its sauce.

It's buttery grilled bread. It seems like it should be kind of easy, but it was. And this is a Texas-based chain. This is a chain from Dallas that says they're bringing a Texas-style barbecue nationwide. Texas toast should be a thing they excel at, at least in the fast food chain version. It's not working. The pecan pie was fine. I felt like it was like, you know, kind of like from a grocery store.

Yeah, it was the, I thought the crust actually was like, So first it wasn't like a rolled out crust. It was like a pressed in crust. And I thought it was just sort of like a salty crust. It was like, yeah, but it was fine. Yeah, that and the ochre had so much salt on it. You were saying at the end of the, those are the last two things we tried, basically. I thought it was, it was fine.

It was, look, it wasn't bad. I don't think it was a bad. No, it wasn't bad. Yeah, it wasn't bad. The thing about pecan pie is actually of the view that, like, there's no, like, the only good pecan pie is a pecan pie is pecan pie you're going to get from somebody who made it at home. Mm-hmm. Like, I don't think you can have the good store-bought pecan pie.

Pecan pie. Right, right. It wasn't, I'll give it this. I'll give it credit for this. It wasn't completely dried out. It was like a moist, basically. One of our top pies. Can we say pecan pie?

Can we say? I think that's on my mouth, my personal mount pie more. On your personal Mount Piemore. I don't, I don't, it's not on mine. Wow. Yeah. Wow.

Are our cupcakes on there? Emma, we cannot get into this. Yes, they are, Emma. I like that I've been listening. to this podcast for so long that I like know what you guys are talking about. And for that, we apologize. What would be, quickly, what would be your mom pie more? Can you, can you, can you, can you, can you, can you, can you, can you, can you, can you, can you, can you, can you, can you can you can you can't have an apple pie.

Yeah. Um, uh, key lime pie. Oh, that's a good answer. And, uh, lemon meringue pie. Wow. Two citrus pies. Here's, this is, this is crazy, but I made it once and now it is one of my favorites, but, um, apple cranberry pie is on. Okay.

And I know that that's, but I mean, like, I guess I would put apple on the, because a good, a good apple pie. I think that you just, it's the one that you get the most, so you've had bad versions of it. And if the apples aren't cooked well, it can be bad. It has that, the floor can be pretty low for apple pie. But a really good apple pie is, it's the best. Yeah. Okay, so here's a question. I like, and I got this from my father-in-law, I like a slice of sharp cheddar shoes on my apple pie. Really fun. I do like that. Yeah. I don't know. Johnny Rockets used to do that. They stopped doing it. I think I maybe had a bite of it with you when I had never done it before.

But it was not a thing that I got often when I was younger. But I do like it. It's a sweet and savory sort of thing. Yeah, it's a sweet and savory thing. It's just like a nice, like, if the cheese is just put on, it's not like quite fully melted, there's a bit of a temperature contrast thing that I like, too. I don't know. It just works.

It's delightful. Yeah. I think I had to put cherry pie in my top pie. but it needs to be alimode. I need it to be cut a little bit. I need, like, the tartness to be cut with something. Yeah. And so I need a little bit of ice cream.

I like a, like, a chocolate mud pie. That's fun. If you guys have ever had a buttermilk pie? I have, yes. I have not. Yeah. Grape pie. It's like, it's like a, it's like a tangy custard almost.

We could just talk about pies all day. This is so much better than. God, man, yeah. Pies are fucking, we have we, have we never done a deep dive on pie. We've done a few pie chains. What was the pie concept we did with Marce Suterre? Pie hole, yeah. Pie hole was good.

There aren't a lot of like, like, you know, pie chain restaurants. It tends to be, you know. There's a place like Marie Callender's that has pies, but it's not their main thing. Piehole was trying to do exactly what Jamel was saying of trying to be like, we may, we may, or it's like a homemade pecan pie and we slice it and you get a slice of it. But it felt like the concept just maybe, it feels like it's, is it shuttered completely? the one at the Americana is now gone. A lot of them have closed. I'm not sure if the chain is still hanging in there in some form.

That gelato chocolate, Italian chocolate place took over sprinkles at the Americana. So the sprinkles is now gone. And then there's a pie hole. And where the pie hole was, I think a Cinnabon went. Wow. Yeah. It feels like a pie only restaurant or chain is like a tough proposition. Yes.

If you're running a bakery and then also made pies on occasion, that's one thing. But like only making pies. pies and hoping to like make your business selling pies, it sounds really difficult. Yeah. Because I feel like for most people, pie isn't a go-to dessert. Right. Pie is like an occasion dessert, right? It's Thanksgiving.

You have some pies. It's Christmas. You have some pies. Yeah. Just on a daily basis who wants to get like a slice of pie. I liked it because it was like, I think it was a local LA spot and then they tried to make it a chain and it just it doesn't work. I think it is that sort of thing of like there should be one of these in the city. Right.

My Mount Pie more real quick, I would say, I mean, definitely have Pecan on there. I definitely have coconut cream on there. The remaining two slots, I think I am going to be willing to get along. Let me guess what one of them goes to? Yeah. 3.14-579. I think you got three digits, right? I'm just thinking where you ran out.

I got the 3.14, right? No, I, Mitch, I think you got the, I think. Go on order. No, no, I think 3.14.7. 7. I think 7 is there. I think it's 3.14159. 26.

5353-5-3-2-3-8-4-6. I don't know. I got a lot of them wrong. So she's the AI? That was shocking to hear you do that. I love it. I mean, if it was probably just wrong. Eyes rolled back.

If anyone in this room had done spice, it would have been Amelia. I am going to, like, yeah, I think my, no, I think I would do coconut cream and becan for two slots. Yeah, Pican would take one of mine too. I think I would put blueberry on there because I do love a blue, a fresh blueberry pie. Now, the last slot, I mean, I'm weighing a couple of Jamel's picks, but I think the one I'm going to go on with is actually key lime because I do love, like, a really good key lime pie. Key lime is pretty damn good. It is so specific and so delightful. We should get to our fork scores for Diggy's barbecue bit.

We can do doughboys in Key West. I've pitched it forever. We haven't been to the South enough in general. We haven't. We only went to Texas once back in 2017. And, you know, we've never been to Florida. We've never been to, you know. Call up Ron DeSantis.

I will say, like, in like 2020, we were just like, we were talking to our, like us, you have a, you have an agent you work with who books like, you know, like touring gigs. We had, we were talking with our agent about. And this was during deep pandemic. And we're just sort of like, what's the future hold or whatever? He's like, ah, you know, things are just kind of shut down right now. Unless you want to do Florida. You can do Florida now. It'd be great to do a show for like 17 people down there.

May of 2020, like Jacksonville. Let me, let me, if you guys come through the South, let me recommend Richmond, Virginia. Oh, wow. Oh, I would love that. Blast, yeah. The Carolinas, too, we got to go to. Dave Matthews also lived in Virginia. I would like to see.

Dave Matthews from Charlottesville. Yeah, yeah, Charlottesville, yeah. I want to go to Millers, the bar that he would go to and look, I won't go down to Dave Matthews hole there. But I have a proposition. Yeah. Replace DeSantis with DeSanta. That's good, Mitch. It would be an upgrade.

Are you okay? You're doing great. We like the mask Thanksgiving. That was fun. That was very good. We should get to our final thoughts on Dickens's barbecue. What would be nice if DeSantis was replaced with? It would be an upgrade.

Everyone loves Santa. I don't think of like a nice DeSantis. I think of like an anti-woke Santa. Yeah, I know that. I think that's what right. This Santa doesn't come to my house. Oh, my God. De Santa.

He is like, oh my God, Juan De Santa. That's a bad Santa. That's a bad. That is worse than bad. Bad Santa is pretty nice. That's kind of fun. Bad Santa's nice. Dickie's barbecue pit.

We should get to our fork scores. Jamel, you know how this works. We'll go around. We'll give her closing argument, our score from zero to five forks. Your guest, we'll begin with you. Your thoughts on diggies. So when we were eating, Mitch raised the question of whether it was even possible to have a good barbecue chain.

Precisely because both barbecues mean quite specific, but it also requires time and attention. Right. It's sort of at odds with the whole notion of fast food. And I'm inclined to say that Mitch is totally correct. Wow. That it's not, it may not be. I mean, here I am to prosecute the case against Mitch. No, I'm not sure it's possible to have a good barbecue chain.

It's certainly not one that has engaged in this rapid expansion that seems to want to do too much, has too much on its menu, provide, have too many options. The meal itself, I think, reflects kind of the basic conceptual flaw with the enterprise. the meats the meats were there yeah but the meats weren't sweet I don't know

they weren't particularly good no the verskit was bad the turkey although it had some flavor was dry the sausage was just really

bafflingly disappointing yeah the sides my green beans were okay and I thought the beans were bad I'm going to give this two forks

two forks wow Mitch your thoughts your fork score It's almost like I'm going to be Look, the day hasn't gone the way I wanted I was stuck behind Kuala's mom and traffic wags If you check your phone, you'll see you. Wait, really?

Yeah. I was stuck behind Matt Kualik's mom in traffic. That's crazy. And then I came here, I'm like, barbecue, that will be fun. And, um, and This is a custom license plate that says rat mom one. I know rat mom one. Oh, wow.

You know Mrs. Coalick? I do. I actually know Rat Mom won. Wow. Rat Mom won. I was behind in traffic. The barbecue I came and I wanted it to be good.

My DeSanta thing didn't go over the way I wanted to. The day's just not, even though you liked it just like you liked the mass thing. I know you liked it just as equally. The day is just not going my way. And I just, barbecue seems like it's going to be fun. Yeah. We have a great guest to you. Right.

But we were saying. Sometimes the bad food is a fun episode. Yeah. And I've had a fun time today. I'm at a blast. And I almost want to give Dickies the benefit of the doubt, which I shouldn't. Why? Why should I give it the benefit of the doubt?

There were bites in there where I was like, this could be good on, is this a bad outing by this place or something? Or is this just the way it always is? And I got to go by my one experience from it, which is, I guess, handholding club, two forks. And I had a better experience probably than you, Nan. But the lows were really low. I feel like there's a version of this chain that could be fine. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And there was things that I was eating that I was like, this isn't bad.

This is like, this is decent for a fast food barbecue chain. And also that's a thing that you don't get often. But I do, I think my hypothesis was correct. I think I just don't think you're going to get a good barbecue. And it's a bummer. I wanted it to be good, but it is not, Wig's. Dickie's barbecue pit is now a two forks from the spoon man. Biggie's Barbecue Bit is now a subsidiary of Dicky's Capital Group.

Of course. Like this whole thing is, we see this pattern repeatedly, Mitch, where these companies have... What else do they make? Like jail bars or something? They're building ice detention pants serving Dickies there. These companies start as, you know, these maybe beloved local institutions, and then they have aspirations to become global brands. and then they either themselves become like some sort of, you know, holding company, a private equity company, or they're sold to one of those companies. And just to read a little bit more from this restaurant business article by the great Jonathan Mays, reflecting on Roland Dickey Jr., who is the failed grandson, who is kind of, you know, torpedo this brand.

When I said when you said to read a little bit more, Jamel and I both went for drinks. We knew it was time. Interviews with about a dozen Dickies franchisees, details from legal filings, and numerous complaints submitted to federal regulators all suggest that challenges have exacerbated problems in a system that has long had difficulty with high numbers of store closures. Operators complain that it's difficult to generate a profit in the Dickie system. They complain about cost overruns on new unit openings, high cost for food and supplies from Dickies company-runs supply chain subsidiary, frequent discounts on digital orders, and pricing limits from the franchise. I add it all together in the system is one in which franchisees are closing at a rapid rate. Some locations are viable, says an attorney represents a number of diggy's franchises, but very few. 70 to 80 percent are shutting down.

The whole business model is simply not working. Wait, how much are shutting out? 70 to 80 percent. 70 to 80 percent. Yeah, I mean, so far about 30 percent of shutdown. They're foreseeing for even more. I mean, this chain is one where it's kind of like they had, you know, they ballooned, and now the, the bubble is collapsing. And it speaks to things like the subway, and Subway is the most predatory of all of these.

Subway's whole model was like, we're just going to collect franchise fees. We're going to expand as much as possible. We're basically going to get all of our franchise owners trapped in debt cycles. And, you know, they have to buy from the company suppliers, but they can't turn a profit on their stores. A lot of people like, you know, put their homes as part of their up as, you know, to get these investments so that they can. Um, you know, they put their houses up. Yeah,

they put their houses up. And so like, it's, it's a really, uh, like, it's just a real bummer what they are doing. And I think also that is just kind of reflected in the quality of the barbecue,

which I, I think the food is just like, just not very good. And it, the whole thing just kind of bums me out when you dig just even a layer deeper. Uh, but also just by sheer coincidence, the last two meals I've eaten have both been barbecue,

in the headgum kitchen. Because last night I was recording my other podcast Get Played and we ordered Blood Soes for dinner. Wow. What the fuck? Bloods... I got to work for Get Played. What the hell? Bloodsos was, you know,

again, this is an L.A. chain. There's only a few of them. They have retained the level of quality as they've expanded. And it's just on a completely different level. Also a Texas barbecue concept. And it's so, so much better. we all

we'll give it fork scores on get played and Mitch we'll give it five forks I'll talk to Leav I talk to my lawyer about this tonight

what a day it's going to be for him when we finally sue each other our lawyer that we share wouldn't be the first podcast host to do that that's very true I was very true I think in comparison to that obviously it's not the same

it's not a national concept but it's just like if I'm going to go I'm an indulgent barbecue, this big heavy meal that's very often going to be a day-ender, a day-ruiner. I want it to taste fucking good. And I just did not get that from Dickies. And I don't see any reason to even be as charitable as give this a second fork. I think this is a one-fork experience, one fork for Dickies.

Nikki didn't like Dickies. Pretty disappointing. Nicky didn't like Dickies. You have threatened to sue me once on a tech show with me, you insusser. And then I threatened to sue you later on for a different thing. Have we ever actually due to each other? We both lost it. And we should be put down.

Amelia, you were going to say your fork score. You said, I want to know what my fork score is and we never heard. Oh, in the kitchen. Yeah. Handholding club. One fork. You almost said star. I do letterbox system now.

If this chain was a movie, it'd be Christmas with the cranks. Oh, my God. You were saying we're cranks. shots fired at like Christmas with a crick. No, I just don't like that movie. If I were reviewing Dickies as a letterbox review, I would write something like Dickies, more like Dick cheese.

Hell yes. That's good. I think that says it all. I'm just realizing we fucked up we should have all worn Dickies for this episode. That would have been good as hell. Jamel gives me an idea. Dickies, the smegma of chain restaurants. Jesus Christ.

The schmegma. It's disgusting. That word is so gross. No one wants to hear that shit, Amelia? Schmegma. It's fucking awful. No, I say to get a few more times. They probably love it.

Hey, that was our few of Dickies. It's time for a segment. We've got a food stuff. We're going to decide if you should put it in your mouth. It's snack or whack. And hey, courtesy of gold belly, we've got some barefoot contessa coconut cake. I'll read the copy here.

Celebrate in style, the Ina Garten Way. This snow white coconut layer cake is layered with cream cheese icing and coated in shredded coconut and is guaranteed to be a centerpiece your guests will go crazy for. A hint of almond extract really puts it over the top. I will say that Mitch, we have tasted also on the podcast, courtesy of our buddy

Drew. My bowls. There were no plates. It's going to work out fine. All right, that's fair. We've got some bowls for our cake here. Courtesy of what ones? Courtesy of our buddy Drew Mcweeney, we have tasted the Tom Cruise cake on the podcast, also a coconut cake.

So we'll see how this celebrity coconut cake compares. But this is Barefoot Contessa's recipe. The Dough Boys can't be bought. Also, I want to just say that Amelia said, would you like for me to present the cake uncut? Was that what you're wording? She did say it.

I think you said, would you like me to present the cake uncut? Yeah, and then she asked if you wanted to perform its bris on camera or not. You got to remove the foreskin from the cake. Which is the box? Get rid of the schmagma. You're a freak.

And of course you brought up Schmegba. I don't love coconut cake. You don't love coconut cake. Do you like coconut in general? I'm okay. I'm okay on coconut cake. Okay. Has this been in the fridge for?

So this was delivered frozen and then Anya kindly pulled it out of the fridge for me yesterday around noon and put it out of the freezer, I mean, and put it in the fridge. So it's been defrosting. So it should be defrosted by now. It seems to frothed. Yeah. Perfect. I'm not a big coconut fan myself.

Interesting. My dad is a Florida man, and we grew up, you grew up making lots of coconut cakes. Wow. I love coconut. Florida man also has, that's a, that's a, the Florida man is like the, the, he wasn't a Florida man and that's, right. No, no, no, Florida, I was, I was born in Florida. I'm texting. Wow.

By birth, I am a Florida man. Casey, is that, were you born in Florida? I was born in Florida also. Wow. Okay. Broward County. Okay. I was born in Jacksonville.

Okay. Wow. Broward County I once I once I don't want the cake I once gave a talk this was in 2016

I gave a talk at a college in Broward County yeah and I was like the talk was basically sort of like this Trump guy he fucking sucks yeah and afterwards the guy

who had invited like reached up to my agent to invite me he was like he took me I really like Trump you know and I was like sorry I don't know

who you thought you were bringing to your campus? Okay, so we can all take a little bit of this cake. I'll show some on camera. Amelia, thank you so much for divvying this up. Thank you so much, Maria. Well, not thank you for everything. I want to say this, Wiggs. The doughboys can't be bought.

Yes. We are advertising with Goldbelly. I was supposed to bring some... Bagels. No. Oh, no. We didn't even bother with the bagels. We thought it was such a big food day.

But then it was wrong because we didn't even because the barbecue was so bad. I was excited to pig out on barbecue. And I was just kind of like, all right, I'll eat enough to get a sense of what this is. Because it was very good. The doughboys can't be bought. We are advertising with Goldbelly. That's the truth. Yes.

And this got sent to us because of that. Sure. But I just want to say, this is not, we're not advertising for Go Belly here in this moment. But I think Go Belly is a good. You're saying too much. It's one of the good ones It's good Do boys

Not bought by Goldbelly Is enjoying a cake Brought to us by Goldbelly That's what I'm trying to say It's everyone's liking it This is really good To be fair we're doing the cake Not Gold Belly so

That's true Right I will say We also love five force I'll say this I like Anna Garden I like her show I've talked to Natalie about this

And she doesn't like They say this But I was like I really like I really, my life I want to, is the life of her husband, Jeffrey. Yes. Who just is like. Yeah, I could see how Natalie would enjoy that.

It just seems to not do anything. And he just sort of shows up. It's like, ooh, what are you cooking? It's kind of like, like, mints is in there and then just has like a bite of whatever dish she's prepared. It's very stuff your leg. The food appears. Yeah.

Her memoir is super interesting. She had like a really rough childhood in rough life and like Jeffrey. They have like a really lovely relationship. This is, I think, somewhat more known. But she was like a nuclear policy analysis in the Carter administration. And Jeffrey was the undersecretary of the Treasury under Clinton. That I didn't know. And there's a undersecretary for like foreign trade or something under Clinton because there's a book.

Now I'm going to start talking about my job. There's a book I recently read about the Clinton administration that he plays a prominent part as like a policymaker negotiating international trade in the first. couple years of the Clinton administration. Wow. Yeah. That's so funny because all I know him as is a guy who's like, oh, a cranberry tart. I'll take a bite. You know, it is, yeah, that obviously it was a very qualified individual in the government.

I do think that her arc is fascinating and I do envy anyone who's like, hey, I've achieved some level of success, but I just want to do something else and then they're able to succeed at that. I don't know. That's the dream, right? This cake is good. This cake is good. I'm really enjoying it.

It's like not too sweet. I like looking at a cake sometimes you're like, oh, it's going to be sticky sweet. And I'm only going to want like one or two bites. It's like perfect. No, this is wonderful. There's not too much frosting either,

just like the right amount. After the after such a letdown with the barbecue, I might finish this whole slice of cake. It is, it's good. So even as like someone who doesn't like coconut, that's not bothering you. I'm not like a huge,

I'm not like a huge coconut guy. I think honestly it's kind of a texture thing for me. I don't like to, But also, this is fantastic. This is delightful. I agree with you. This is completely redeemed this as a food day. Like just having this.

And it's another thing where, you know, a cake is frozen shipped across the country. You don't know how it's going to hold up. But this, this defrosted nicely and is delicious. Well, you know what? It worked out perfectly with Goldbell. I, we were supposed to review something that I, well, I can't say that I still, I forgot how to to say it. Macrons. Macrons. We were supposed to review some macrons. And I put them on top of my keys. Yeah. And we did that audition earlier and Amelia was like, don't forget the macrons. And I was like, sure.

They were on top of your keys. They're on top of my keys. And I managed to leave without them. And I managed to leave without them. And I like moved them to get my keys. You know what? I understand that. That happens. It happens. It happens. And we, luckily, we had this to go. So a big, big time snack for me. This is this is a big time snack. It's fantastic. Yeah. Gobelly.com slash doughboys. I don't know what the code is. That is, that's, that's really, that's, that's really, that's good. Jamel, even as a coconut skeptic, you're, you're enjoying this? Yeah, this is great.

Yeah. Hey, just like a restaurant about your feedback. Let's open the feedback. Today's email is from Tom H. Tom writes, hi from New Jersey. I recently saw a discussion on Reddit. From New York. Not the doughboy sub, don't worry, about whether or not a bowl of cereal with milk can be considered soup.

I scoffed the notion immediately but since I've been coming around to the idea that cereal might actually in fact be soup so what do you think I truly cannot wait to hear your thoughts specifically Mitch's thoughts okay on the issue thanks Tom Hage

because it's cold I guess that's the argument is that Emma great point but it's a gazpacho a soup guesspacho I think is a soup yeah okay so okay I think this is ridiculous he's talking about the whole podcast

He gets up on link up and leaves. I know who's here for a slay political gab theft. What the fuck is this? Where's John Dickerson? So cereal specifically refers to the dry good, right? It's not, you can have cereal without milk. Milk is not a necessary part of eating cereal. So it's sort of like adding the milk to the cereal doesn't make it a soup.

It's just cereal and milk. Like soup implies that the entire thing is like a unity, right? Right? Yes. Soup is not a dry. Like whatever you want to, however you want to break down the taxonomy of soup, soup is not dry dish. Like wetness is inherent to it.

And if you're at, like you're saying that all the moisture is coming via the milk, then that's a pretty strong argument against a bowl of cereal with milk being soup. Amelia was going, like you were winning her over with it. She was, it seemed like you were clearly on the side of cereal is soup. Yeah, he convinced me. It seems like you're going to say the opposite, though, right?

Is that where you're going with this? I don't think cereal is soup. I don't like a bowl of cereal with milk. I was like, yeah, you eat it with a spoon. It's in a bowl. You eat it's soup. And then Jamel was like, but you can have it without milk. And I was immediately switched back.

Yeah. It's a very strong argument. You can't have like, I don't know, chicken noodle soup and just like remove the chicken noodles. Right. It would just be, you wouldn't do. I mean, you're. Now you're kind of winning me back over the cereal of soup side.

I mean, the other thing is, if you went somewhere and they're like appetizers a bowl of soup, and they don't tell you what the soup is, soup with the day, and you order it, and they put a bowl of fucking frosted flakes in front of you. Yeah. I would shoot everyone in the rest of it. It is a sort of thing of, I think that's a great test. And Mitch, I think this is the thing you've talked about in terms of the hamburger sandwich thing. Of like, if you're someone like, hey, uh.

This is an issue, though. Do you want a sandwich? And you're like, sure, and they bring you a burger. You're kind of like, okay, I get what you're doing. But this is not what I thought of when you offered me a sandwich. Also, if I asked for a soup and I asked for a sandwich and you brought me a bowl of Frost and Flakes and a burger, I love it. I like both of those things.

So I would be happy. That's sick. Yeah, that's like a meal Tom Hanks and Big would eat. What is that? It's like a meal Tom Hanks and Big would eat. It's like a grown-up kid meal. How do you know that I'm not? How do you know that I didn't make a bunch of?

Mitch might have big disease. I maybe made a wish on Zoltair. So what do you think of that? It big everything except your hog. The fuck? Zoltair was specific about that problem. I didn't have to, yeah, well, why did I? You think either Zoltair did that to me or I specified that I want to keep my hog?

Zoltair did it to you. Yeah, yeah. Zoltair did it to me. That's a good question. How much weight or how much age would I have to lose for my hog to look normal? 31, 39 years. 100 pounds, 39 years, one of the two. I, I, I, I, I, I'm going to say this.

I'm going to put an end to all of this. A hamburger is a hamburger. A hot dog is a hot dog. It is not a sandwich. A hot dog is not a sandwich. A burger is not a sandwich. A burger is a hamburger is a burger. A hamburger is a burger.

Cereal isn't soup. Soup is soup is soup. Gispocho is, is, is a sandwich. a subcategory of soup. Yes. Yeah. Raman is a subcategory of soup. And then I think it's fair.

And then when I said what is better, soup, ramen, fah, it still made sense. I still stand by the, no, that makes total sense to me because like when I think soup, I don't, I mean, ramen and fah are soups. Yes. But if you say what's better soup, ramen or fah, I think of like a traditional Western soup. Yes. Thank you. It's like, it's like, to me, it's like lentil soup or chicken noodle soup versus like whatever ramen or whatever.

or fa you're going to get. But I think people trying to make this, like a hot dog and say, it's not going to happen. It's just not happening. A hot dog a taco. I was just about to ask that. No.

Have you heard of French tacos? I have heard about French tacos. I have about this. Mitch, you have, because I fucking told you about it on the podcast. French tacos is a, I mean, you can go ahead and explain it.

It's like an Algerian, you know, I believe it's Algerian immigrants in France have like made it. into a street food that's become very popular. Tacos is plural. They call it a singular tacos, French tacos. And it's basically like flatbread with a halal meat in it, fries, and then like a bacon sauce.

A cheese sauce. You can put all kinds of stuff in it. I was reading a New York article about this. I'm going to put on my NPR voice. I was reading a New York article about it. And they talk to some Mexican restaurateurs in France who are fucking furious. Yes. Yeah.

That this exists. Oh my God. Which is very funny to be. Especially because the French are so protective of, like, how you define and label foods there. And then just, like, for this, this immigrant cuisine is now like, you know, like, hey, what the fuck. This is, now they're calling this a tacos. And people come in and are looking for a Mexican taco and they're disappointed by our offerings. Yeah.

Yeah, they'll come, like, they want a French tacos. They'll go to, like, a Mexican restaurant and order a taco. And they'll be like, what the fuck is this? That is. Soccer boo. I think they're at the same New Yorker piece. Where did they get the term the name tacos from? Is it from like the Mexican version of tacos or is it from somewhere else and it just happens to like...

I think it might be a weird cultural exchange from the Mexican taco. Yeah. It kind of looks like it. They use a, it's a flour tortilla that they use. So it's not there's like there's some like genetic, you know, connection there. I think they specify French tacos. This is the thing. You have to say French.

Well, Mitch, this is a thing that'll, that'll, I think, get your attention to ral you up as an Irishman. The number one tacos chain in France is O-apostrophe tacos. Okay, this is, I'm pissed off. Now they cross the line. These fucking frogs. I, uh, Wiger will always give me the comic section of the New Yorker. That's right. That's, I read the comic section.

And I'm always like, what the fuck is this shit? I think that we try to There's things that have been And this maybe sounds old fashion I don't mean it to sound old fashion There's things we try to recategorize It's not gonna happen It's you can't do you get

French tacos are French tacos now Yeah I sound annoying I'd be annoyed to see that sounds fucking annoying You guys should go to France and try it though I bet I do want to try it because I'm reading the description I was like I bet this is fucking great I bet there's a reason they love this Yeah when I was in Vienna

and we had a Kaiser Krona. Yeah. And it's like this, this, uh, this, uh, it's like a hot dog with cheese in it. And they put it, they hollow out the bread. They put it in the bread and they put the condiments in there. And it's like one of the best hot dog type meals I've ever had in my entire life. Yeah.

They are. The, Europe does a, does a lot of that stuff better than us. And I don't know why we haven't, we got to steal it. We got to do it. We, there should be a French taco shop in L.A. I don't understand why there's not. I, I, I think where we've, we've all landed is that a bowl of cereal with milk is not soup. And I just generally, I actually do, I think these taxonomical discussions are fun, but you can get very cute with it and you can all of a sudden you're arguing that like,

It's oatmeal soup. Exactly. Like, is a comet a battleship. Like, you can try to like argue anything and it's a what? Is a comet a battleship? You know what I mean? A comet from space? Yeah.

It's like you could start arguing like any, like you could talk yourself into arguing anything that's ridiculous. That one works for me. But at the end of the day, I mean, like, we know. what soup is and a bowl of cereal with milk are the dough boys comedians you know don't worry about it I'm just imagining a politician running a campaign and we know what soup is

cereal is not soup there are two gender I was into this guy for a second I was into this guy for a second then he went off on the soup there that's Nick that's my impression of Nick if you have a question or comment

about the world of Shane restaurants you can email us at Feedbag at birdfuck.com or leave us a voicemail at 830-0.636844. Our producer is Emma Erdbrink. Our associate producer is Amelia Marino. Our supervisor is Casey Donahue. Our video editor is Mike Dorfman. Hey, you can check out our merch at kinshipgoods.com slash doughboys. And you can get the doughboys double a weekly bonus episode plus our entire pre-2018 back catalog, subscribe at patreon.com. Jamel Bowie, the best in the biz. People should definitely read you in the New York Times to make sense of our world. It's a, you know, it's a regular read for me. I love your writing.

And as Mitch mentioned, just, you know, incredibly, you know, comedy. Great exploring, explaining things on video as well on social media. I love watching your videos and I see likes on there of people I know, even from like back in Quincy and stuff and, uh, too, too smart, too nice and too funny to be on our podcast. That's the thing that's always I, I, we love having you here. We love, you know, we're fans of yours and we love that you, you know, check it with the show, but it still continues to baffle us. But thank you for being a part of it.

And also, can we just say one thing about the, you know, about the politics and the government? We fix it. Can you just fix it? Yeah, fix it. I'll go get those clowns out of Washington. All right. Thank you.

People should also check out Unclear and Present Danger. A great pod. Boyf Nellie, also a big fan of the podcast. People should definitely listen to that. I'm on an episode discussing executive decision, which was a lot of fun. A movie where Stevenson's a goal gets got. It rules.

But please plug away. And thank you so much for being here. Thank you guys for the kind of words. You can find me at the Times. I understand the Times is controversial. So if you don't want to pay for the Times, I don't care. I just work for them. If you follow me on Blue Sky, I always post free links to my stuff at the time.

So that's how you can get around it. And then, yeah, I'm on TikTok and on Instagram and Blue Sky and the podcast. And you should also, I'll plug my co-host, John Gans's book. When the Clock Broke, it's about 1992. in American politics. It's very illustrative and illuminative of the current period in American politics. We'll highly recommend John's book. Wow. And yeah. When I think of when I think of how the world is crazy and you're one of the good forces in the world. So thank you for doing what you do. That is that is the truth. Thank you. It's the truth. I hope that things get better for

your line of work soon. I do. Listen, I do too. Don't want to be an El Salvadorian gulag, personally. You won't allow them. The dough boys will not allow that. Hopefully we still have freedom of the press. Hey, on that note. I'll do it for this episode of Doe Boys. Until next time.

Hey, you know what? The Doe Army will stand up for you or we'll be there with you. One of them to do, yeah, yeah. That'll do for this episode of Doe Boys. We're the next time for the speed about making control. I'm Tiger Weiger. Happy Eaton. See ya. That was a hate gum podcast.