Doughboys - Doughboys Double 24 - The First Domino with Joe Quasarano

Episode Date: August 21, 2017

Mitch and Wiger chat with Joe Quasarano, who, as a 19-year-old college dropout, got a job as the first cook at the first ever Domino’s Pizza. But first, the ‘boys discuss the new Cheetos pop-up restaurant in NYC.Subscribe: patreon.com/doughboysWant more Doughboys? Check out our Patreon!: https://patreon.com/doughboysSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to Doe Boys Double, I'm Nick Weigher alongside the Spoon Man Mike Mitchell. Mitch, bad traffic getting over here. Yeah, Nick, you were there an hour and 17 minutes it said? It ended up being an hour and 18. Wow. It's a singular distinction. I mean, when you're talking over, we're talking 77 versus 78 minutes of travel time, that extra minute isn't what gets you, but man, quite a drive today.

You know that we, everyone knows that you don't listen to music. Well, yeah, I, I, I, a lot of your car rides, yeah, a lot of times I would just drive and let my mind think. So that's the old noodle wander. So, so how was this? How was this ride? How was the, how was 78 minutes of, of no music? Just why you're thinking to himself?

All right, but I don't always ride in silence. I wasn't just, I didn't just take a ride. Take a trip to Maginopolis today. I, I plugged in my iPhone and I listened to a podcast, I listened to a dunked on basketball podcast and listen to them talk about the NBA off season. They regraded the 2016 off season. Hey, NBA, hey, it's coming back, Nick. It's, it's, it's, it's, we're, we're, we're getting towards the end of summer here.

Oh boy. Man. I'm very excited about this upcoming season. You know what? What? I just bought a Roomba to celebrate. You bought a Roomba? Yeah, you didn't see it.

I saw you, I saw you introducing yourself to it when he first came in. Because we have this similar disposition. That's what you're implying. Yes, of course. Because I thought it was, I was meeting like a, someone who's an equal. Yes. All right. Um, yeah.

You didn't see it at the front door here? No, I didn't see that. I didn't see the Roomba. I bought it for the cats, for the litter that they track around. I got a little Roomba. It's a smart move. Yeah. No, I don't see it.

All I see up there, I see the, the crate where we keep all of our, we messily keep all our recording equipment. We got to fix that. Yeah. My Rachel Ray bag is on the floor. Um, and then we've got a few of your water jugs in front of the fireplace. That's right. The famous fireplace water jugs, a Mitchell signature.

You know that they're, they keep bringing them to me is the issue. Right. I'm trying to tell them to not bring them to me, the sparklets people. You got to just leave a physical note out there with your empty bottles. That just says like no delivery this week. Cause I have sparklets. That's the only thing that's worked in terms of not getting a delivery. They are, they are bad with that.

Yeah. Cause if you try to do it on the phone or if you try to do the, hey, tip out there of any sparklets users, also any sparklets users hit us up with the, uh, the hashtag a sparklets, uh, sparklets family, Sparklets family. If you're in the sparklets family, let us know. Oh God. But, um, any sparklets users, yeah, that website and that, that hotline are not good

for discontinuing a service. The best thing is just to cut out the middleman, go directly to your delivery guy and then just leave a physical note old school like you would for the milkman back in the fifties. I've seen your note. Why do you write your notes in blood? You know what I did? I just left out, he delivered a new water bottle, like a new water jug after I had canceled it.

And I just left, I just left the actual, like I left a full one outside and then he just came back recently and he like new, like there was a full water jug outside. I shouldn't put another one there. So that's what I'm going to do from here on out. Yeah. That seems like a good, I mean, someone steals it. I don't care. You got a lug of heavy water jug out there.

No, I just left it. I literally never touched it. You left it there for like two weeks in between delivery. It's now been like two weeks. Jesus. Who cares? But you know what? People are going to think the wet bandits are going to think the house is abandoned.

They're going to think they can come in and burglarize it. Yeah. Well, then they're going to get a fucking fist full of Wally. Your cats are going to mull the wet bandits. Hell yeah. This is worse than that McAllister place. We got cat scratch fever. No one is going to, if someone breaks into my L.A. apartment, they're going to just

cut my head off and take and leave here with like a broom. They're going to leave with that. They're going to leave with the Roomba. There's nothing here to take. Right. There's there's empty cheese at boxes in a Roomba. Oh, there's a Nintendo switch, baby. You could find that for big bucks.

I keep that switch on me at all times because it's portable. Right. Hey, Mitch, we have what's keeping people ideas about what to steal from my house. Sorry. What? What do you have to say? No, I'm sorry. Let's get let's say I was going to set up organ in the episode and talk about one thing

real quick and then we can get into the bulk of it. But we have a we have a break from format today. We have a very special guest who we'll get to in one second. But first things first, Mitch, this is a thing you and I were texting about. So this episode is coming out on Tuesday. This week opening to actually today, this this is coming out the same day that this will be opening. This is a pop up restaurant in New York City from Celebrity Chef Ann Burrell.

It's called the spotted cheetah. But here's the thing. It's a Cheetos restaurant. That's right. So though Ann Burrell's she's kind of she food network or she yeah, she's food network. Her her first her first big thing was she was Mario Batali's sous chef. So but she she's very esteemed in the culinary world considered a pros pro. And so I'm sure this will be a really interesting, you know, it's clearly a marketing gimmick,

but it seems like it will be a really interesting restaurant, interesting gimmick. But so here's the menu. We can talk through this a little bit. First of all, what do you think of like this concept in general? I mean, pop up restaurants seem fun, but it's just such a selective thing of like, have you ever gone? I've never gone to a pop up restaurant once. I don't know if it's ever been available or like the idea has been something that I've

like that's like is available and close. I feel like I have gone to them, but I can't remember anything specific. But I feel like that's kind of thing Natalie would have taken me to. She's a big foodie. I actually kind of am remembering some place that was in a space that later became a like a full fledged restaurant. This is funny to me just because it's like that sort of thing of like it's right up our podcast alley, right at the same time.

It's like like, oh, it is like feel very like corporate and dumb at the same time, too. But that I mean, that is also up our podcast alley. I'm just it's just it's just it's funny to me. And then I'm like, would this food be good? I like Cheetos. Everybody likes Cheetos, right? But like, would this extra be good? Because I love to read if there was like, oh, there's a pop up Dorito restaurant and

they're going to use Doritos and a bunch of different stuff. I'd be like, hey, that's cool. I was very excited about the Doritos Locos Taco. I worked out great. And I worked out great. And they do some fun stuff. I'll always try a new Dorito product. But how good is the food?

It should be good, right? I don't know. How do you feel, Nick? I'm kind of confused about it all. Well, I know it's a marketing gimmick, but I still think it's it's an interesting enough concept that I want to try it out. And, you know, you mentioned the Doritos Locos Tacos, which are fantastic. That's that's one of the best things that they're great about.

And so and but by contrast, Cheetos had the Mac and Cheetos at Burger King, which we had our episode we recently did with with Jordan Morrison. I thought they were horrible. I liked you like them a little bit like them. All right, I thought they were the first time I had them. I feel like they were better than the second time. They might they might just be a wildly inconsistent one. Also, like they didn't they didn't taste like Cheetos.

Yeah, they don't at all. And so that's what makes me think about this menu. It makes me wonder just how committed they are to the Cheetos gimmick or if it'll be a thing like because I feel like sometimes on chopped, they're just kind of trying to find ways to hide the theme ingredient. You know, like they've like, like, oh, we got to we got to use winter green and chocolate chips and, you know, prosciutto and arugula in this dish. And but they're just like, oh, we're going to try to to tuck away

as little winter green as possible. You you just listed all the ingredients in this in this in this chopped scenario. Yeah, you get four ingredients and they're weird. That's how the show works. Oh, boy. OK, so here's the menu. Cheetos, crusted fried pickles and creamy ranch. Those sound good. That does sound good. It sounds like those will maybe be the mac and maybe a better version

of these mac and Cheetos. Yeah, I mean, that does sound actually just like a better execution. Cheetos, grilled cheese and tomato soup. I mean, that sounds great. It does. But it's also it's a Cheetos tomato soup. You're you're you're going to read. You think so? I know. So wait, a hearty Cheetos tomato soup and small grilled cheese sandwiches filled with bacon, tomato and cheesy cheese.

OK, that does change the game a little bit. There's those other cheetos in that tomato soup. That's going to be a lot of cheese. Yeah, yeah. Of course. That's what Chester likes. It's going to be dangerously. It's dangerously cheesy, I think. But that is interesting.

The tomato soup being Cheetos. Right. Tomato soup is very interested to interesting to me. What do you think of Chester Cheetah? So back in the day, I feel like he was kind of like an Axl Rose, like Cool Rocker, dude. Yeah. And now he's kind of been rebranded as like this British sophisticate. Yeah, like the sort he's almost like this this hunter. Like, you know, I mean, like the kind of like the big game hunter.

Nick, you know, a good old blue collar Boston boy. Yeah, I want to punch that Britain, his fucking face. No, he's so highfalutin. He's highfalutin. He's playing like these little dainty tricks on people. He's playing these. He's doing these weird tricks with people. I don't I don't like that shit.

Yeah, he thinks he's better than us. So like, you know, you're the Cheetos guy, not better than anyone. He's a little snooty fuck. I want. Oh, whatever. I can say snooty fuck. Yeah, you can say we fuck on this podcast where we talk about come all the time. We have a great guest on today.

We're souring it, but whatever. That's fine. That's how this works. OK, next next dish. Yeah, he's a snooty fuck and I want to punch him in his little cat face. And I love cats. Yeah, but this despite your love for cats, you just don't beat the shit out of Chester Cheetah. That's 100 percent true.

Yeah. All right. Yeah, I mean, I see like with that grilled cheese, would there be like actual Cheetos in it? Like it's it's very confusing to me because like. Because if you have like if I have a like a you gave me like this is like an incredible cut of pork or something. Right. Here's a pork loin and and it's and it's just cooked perfectly. It's like a like a very fancy restaurant or something.

And then I had like Doritos on top of it. Yeah, in my mind, I know that like there's like that classification of what is like, you know, junk food, cool ranch Doritos are my favorite. Right. But then also, like if I put that on top of something that's like very decadent, like are not decadent. But you know what I'm saying? Just something fancy and classy. Yeah. That's opposed.

Like wouldn't those two tastes kind of be like battling each other? I don't know. Yeah, no, I totally get you. Yeah. It's just, you know, it's like this this it's like a does a porcini mushroom go with, you know, queso. It's it's it's just like the it's the highbrow versus lowbrow. And yeah, these two worlds, I mean, that's the challenge of it. I guess you have you get a good enough chef who can marry marry these ingredients.

And we'll keep going. The Cheetos meatballs. These are these are beef, pork and veal meatballs served with a hardy tomato, herb sauce and sprinkled with ricotta cheese. To me, this counts as this sounds very similar to the like obviously like a different version, but it sounds like you're going to get similar flavor profiles to that grilled cheese and tomato soup combo. Yeah, I agree. And then you've also got that perfectly.

It's per I said I lean on the per because it's spelled like per like a cat's per. I get what you're doing. Jesus, perfectly fried. You also didn't have to lick your hand and then brush back your hair. And then I'm going to drink from this saucer of milk just so you get the full the full effect. And then by the way, I think those meatballs look like maybe they could be the best.

But right. Keep going. Yeah, I mean, they look like they could be good. I agree with you. I'm just to me it seems kind of kind of similar to the grilled cheese and tomato soup. Anyway, we've got these excuse me. Hairball. We get these perfectly fried green tomatoes. Fucking God.

And these are these are used with using the white Cheetos. And they're the tomatoes are breaded with the white cheddar cheese crust. Cheddar Cheetos crust. You song just in his head was like, I shouldn't be in Hollywood. It's fucking stupid. I graduated from Cornell University to sit in this dim apartment. Well, two idiots pick her over. See a man.

The repertend to cough up a hairball. Right. I'm 36. OK, so. I didn't say your age. Yeah, well, I'm just saying. And cat ears. Oh, a cat would never live to 36.

How what are what are cat? What's the cat ears to human years math? Is there a formula like that? I think it's like maybe four four. OK, I think it's around four. Hmm. Zip my great cat zip died at 20. Wow. So what about 80? Yeah, that's a full life.

Yeah. Maybe maybe maybe is it a little older? Because I think zip lived like a long time. Yeah. But then there's some cats that live to like 25 or something. So I'm like, that sounds that's the four sounds right. Yeah. So so I say so like four. Buster, I think made it to 18 or so.

Wow. So still pretty old. Sixty four. Oh, man. Well, you probably like she was probably around like 70. She was probably in her 70s. Yeah. Well, I mean, like the thing is, though, it's like veterinary medicine is not as advanced and is administered as what's the word I'm trying to say frequently is like human medicine.

So I feel like the lifespan of animals is not as extended as artificially as as humans are. I put a walley and armor on IVs every night. All right. So those are the those are the appetizers. What do you think of those fried green tomatoes, by the way? Those sound interesting. I think they all sound I actually looking at the menu.

I think everything kind of looks interesting. Yeah. But but but keep it going. Let's let's let's get to the thick of it. So the big cheese, these are the entrees. Flamin, hot and white cheddar mac and cheetos. Those these to me look like the best thing. The thing that I would maybe want to try the most on them. Right. Yeah. So it's it's white cheddar, cheetos, spicy

jalapenos, bacon and then cheetos, flamin, hot chipotle, ranch, crust. I mean, you know, mac and cheese is one of those things where I guess that's the kind of thing where you'll see that as a lot at a lot of gastropubs. Yeah. It's the mac and cheese, which is kind of this, you know, every man's dish that they try to class up, they try to gussie up with the with the chef's care. And this feels like this is like, I mean, like it's mac and cheese. So of course, cheetos are going to fit in naturally.

But this feels like the the dish that's maybe the most intriguing of this this list. For sure. We also got the cheetos mix ups, crusted chicken milanese. So this is a chicken filet with cheetos mix ups and paired with a salad of mixed greens, hazelnuts and pickled onions. Which I think I think on the green salad, they said that they mentioned some sort of yeah, no, they're dusted. They're like either dusted with it or just kind of thrown on their like croutons.

What are the cheetos mix ups? I think they're all cheetos flavors mixed into that one bag, if I had to guess. So it's like a grab bag. Oh, you know what it is? I'm looking it up right now. It's the wheels. It's the Flamin' Hot. It's the wheels. It's the puffs. And then it's like like those little like ball nugget things.

Yeah, those things that are kind of minion shaped. Um, yeah, I don't know. Spicy cheetos nachos. Those look good. Yeah. Then spit. They've also got a spicy sausage, ragu, creamy cheese, crisp lettuce, tomatoes, jalapenos and dollop of sour cream. I'm just reading off the menu, which is why you're kind of hearing this restaurant copy and then the Flamin' Hot lemon chicken tacos.

This is intriguing to me. You've got these. Both the chicken options are like intriguing, but then also I'm like, they could be bad, but go on. Right. But it also is that the most exciting protein for this sort of thing? Like I wonder if chicken. Yeah. Are they just trying to cut costs? They were trying to like, oh, let's keep things a little, you know, like we'll have this be this marketing thing where we're not going to spend

a lot of money on these dishes. Possibly, yes. Because I feel like that's the kind of thing where like, well, maybe let's try this with some carnitas or something, you know, let's, let's see how, how these Cheetos pair with a different protein. Maybe part of it was that they're, maybe they try, maybe Chef Ann Burrell messed around with it and chicken was the thing that works the best. All right. Here we got the craziest shit, the desserts.

Yeah. By the way, what did you think? Because you mentioned the fried, fried tomatoes, fry green tomatoes. Yeah. Did you, did you like the sound of those or what? Yeah. I think I try those. I mean, I think like of the apps for me, I want the ones that either like sound the best, which to me is like the front, those fried chicken, those fried pickles or something. The thing that sounds like it's the biggest

deviate, like it's like the biggest risk, like, like, like, oh, they're really putting it all out there. And that's what would lead me towards the meatballs. Well, no, I was going to say, hold on, let me, I got to, I got to urinate in this box of sand real quick. That's what would lead me towards the perfectly fried green tomatoes while they were using it. All right. So let's get to the desserts, because these are crazy. Cheetos, sweetos, crust and cheesecake.

So Cheetos, sweetos, which we've tasted on the podcast, which we like, we like them. They're pretty good. They're good. But this is basically this is one of those. It's got a Cheetos, sweetos, crust, a goat cheese, cheesecake and a blueberry compote. Crazy sounding. Yeah. I mean, like, I think the, you know, it's it's the actual. It's just the fact that it's got Cheetos in it. Everything else about it is like, OK, this is some

conventional dessert that you might see on it. You might see a pastry chef do it at a restaurant, but then throwing those cheetos in there is just a little bit of wild card. The Cheetos, sweetos, sweet and salty cookies. It feels like they're really pushing the Cheetos, sweetos on this. So this is what is. Yes. Yeah. I think they have to. But we'll explain that after I think there's one more to explain this one to.

Yes. So they got the warm cookies with cinnamon, sugar, Cheetos, sweetos. Dangerously delicious when dunked in the Cheetos, sweetos, salted caramel dipper. Cheetos, sweetos. Cheetos, the Cheetos, sweetos were good. Yeah, they're pretty good. It's fun to say. Yeah. I guess for you, it would be fun to say Cheetos, sweetos. The room was nodding at me.

The room, it likes it. Hey, Natalie, sweet Cheetos, sweetos. Good, Nick. I'm going out with my guy friend. Have a great time. Are you sitting in a litter box? Yeah. So this is last dessert. And then I'm going to say what I get to say. I'll let you get your takeout.

Let me just read this verbatim. White cheddar Cheetos and Cheetos, sweetos, apple crepes, eating these light and airy crepes topped with a blend of white cheddar, Cheetos and cinnamon, sugar, Cheetos, sweetos, crumbles is like biting into a cheesy, apple-y cloud. What do you think, Mitch? That's where I feel like that that's the only dessert that I felt like they really took like kind of a crazy they went like a little crazy with it, which I liked.

I would like to see more of that. Yeah, like why not some more cheese in these desserts? Take some big swings. Take some bigger swings. That's what people, I think, want to see at the Cheetos restaurant, is we want to see all these things. Then again, I do think that the Cheetos desserts, if they did have cheese, would maybe be bad.

Right. That's probably, there's a good chance that's the grossest of these three. Yeah. It's probably the one that I want to do the least. But I do want to see, I want to see them try. Right. Because that's part of the thing is like the grim fascination to try to see if they can pull this off as part of the appeal of it. I would maybe have to get those just based on that. That or the or the cheesecake would be my first two. So Mitch, would you eat here?

Yeah, a hundred percent. Yeah, I totally would. We would be. Why did I ask that? That's not, well, of course we would eat there. Of course we would eat there. If it was near us, we'd be doing a podcast episode about it. But where it's in New York and we're unfortunately, we're not going there till for basically another month.

So. Hey, you know what? If any of our listeners out there end up going to the spotted cheetah hashtag, I spotted the cheetah. We should we should tweet this out so they know ahead of time. Yeah, we'll tweet this out. Yeah. Well, this will be on the Tuesday. And so they'll have the opportunity Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. We would love to hear from some hometown heroes.

That would be fun to hear if anyone, if anyone goes to this. And man, that'd be fantastic. He gives it a try. Yeah. All right, Mitch, we've got something very special right now. Go for it, please. We you got to pick your the three, the three dishes you would get. Oh, it's like a prefix thing. You pick the three.

Yeah, you got to pick the three. I'm going, I'm going. Crusted fried pickles and creamy ranch, knowing that knowing that I'll probably be there with my wife and that she would probably pick the more daring options so I could try bites of it. I'll take the cheetos, crusted fried pickles and creamy ranch. I take those flamin, hot, lemon, chicken, tacos.

And I'd end up just because I had more be curiousity, I'd have to try those white cheddar cheetos and cheetos, sweetos, apple, crepes. Well, Nick, I'm going with you. So I'm going to get the meatballs. You can try some of the meatballs. Awesome. And I can try some of your fried pickles.

OK, good. Great. And then I would get the mac and cheese. And then I would do the cheesecake. And we could we could we could mix and match. Can I have some of your coke? No. You piece of shit. Can I order one for myself? You can have I'm going to make the waitress only serve you

a cup of Cheeto dust mixed in with water. All right. Well, yeah. If you if you end up going to that restaurant, you let us know hashtag I spotted the cheetah. Hey, you know what, Mitch, we had a very great discussion earlier. We did with this guest. And we're going to throw to this right now.

There's a little different from our podcast. Is that what we usually do? This is fun, Nick. I was a lot of fun. I had a great, great time talking with them. Me too. And we'll just go to that now. Let's get a listen. Give it a little listen. Let's give it a little listen.

Beep, beep. What is it? What is the sound we just made? That's the tape playing. OK. Our guest is a TV director and producer with 30 years of experience on such events as Angels and Dodgers Baseball, Kings Hockey, Clippers Basketball and the Rose Parade. But prior to all that,

he was a University of Michigan student who in 1966 dropped out of school and took a job as a cook at a brand new pizza restaurant in Ann Arbor. That restaurant, Domino's. Joe Quasarano. Hi, Joe. Welcome to the show. Glad to be here. Thank you so much for being here. All right. This is this is a we were talking a little bit before

we started recording. And usually there's just a lot of nonsense on the show. Yeah, the show is. Well, Nick and I say the show is bad. It is bad. We believe that people listen to it. I guess we're now we're we're throwing this on you. The show is bad, but people people seem to like it and listen to it. OK, we have we have an audience and we don't quite understand why.

Yeah, you're you're you're you're you're bringing you're you're bringing us up quite a bit. Right. Some actual like some actual history here in the chain restaurant industry. The podcast is about chain restaurants. And so my first question for you is going back to the mid 1960s. How did you get your start working at Domino's? OK, I was a student at University of Michigan.

I think it was a sophomore. OK. And I just got tired of school, so I dropped out. Right. And I lived at 610 South Forest. I remember that. And at 612 South Forest, which was right in front of me, the guy was opening a pizzeria and had a help wanted sign literally right next door. Yeah, that's crazy. Yeah. And so you just sort of got you see the help wanted sign.

You just kind of go in there cold. You don't know the owner or anything. That's correct. And so the owner, I believe that's that's OK. This is just also a crazy thing to be like to drop out. So you're like, I'm going to drop out of school. And then literally the first business you joined is this little startup that became a multi-billion dollar corporate. Right. Yeah. That's so that's so great.

Yeah. And I dropped out of school. I couldn't go home because my father would have killed me. So. Oh, yeah. Right. They didn't know that I was out of school. Oh, I understand. I can relate to that. Yeah. So OK, so you start there. But like so what was the process like? So the Domino's founder, Tom Monahan, I believe, was his name.

That's correct. So you knew Tom and you did you meet him through like the hiring process or OK, it was, you know, it was a one man show. Right. A little bit of history. Tom was a marine in Vietnam. OK. Got out and he and his brother James. Yes. Bought a pizzeria in Ypsilanti, Michigan, which is next to Ann Arbor, home of Eastern Michigan University. OK.

And it was called Donna Nix. Right. And it didn't do very well. But Tom had this ambition to move over to the Ann Arbor campus. And he bought his brother out. His brother had half share in the business. And the payment was a used VW bug. Oh, man. Yeah. Which were not bad, not a bad buyout at the time.

I feel, you know what I mean? Like a great ROI for for Tom on that. If you bought me out of this podcast and gave me a used VW bug from whenever, from two thousands. Right. I think I would think it was a good deal. I feel like I'd be getting away. Obviously, so did his brother. Right. So then he got this bright idea because they were there were a couple

of popular pizzerias on the campus, but nobody delivered. OK. And Tom got this bright idea. I'm going to charge 50 cents more pizza and have delivery. But but even largely, I believe historically, it like pizza delivery was kind of a novel thing, period. Like not just for that area, correct? Like this is the thing that was offered really anywhere. Correct. Wow. But so extremely smart for to offer the university students.

I mean, in school, you can imagine when we went, I that's I think that's what I did the most at college was get delivery food, food delivered to my room. You know, we got in college a lot. We got a lot of shakies, which I'm looking back like that's weird, because that's like a place to go. Like you go to a shakies parlor and we just were into the dorm. Right. Yes. How often was that like a to go meal for anyone?

Yeah, I'm not surprised. That's what you did. It's like getting Chuck E. Cheese pizza delivery. Yes. Not like high quality. It's a children's pizza place. None of this surprised me. But so anyway, so this is this is a novel concept, pizza delivery. It's never been attempted. You you basically go to Tom and he's just sort of like,

yeah, we need to cook here. You're hired. Yeah. And that was your role at the company, right? You were a cook. Yes. Now and my two roommates who stayed in school for a while were delivery guys at night. Oh, wow. Oh, cool. I can't tell you what we made. It was not a lot of money, but. Right. I got a question. It was also 1966. Yeah, of course. Yeah.

And that's funny. It's the that 50 cents to make it 50 cents more expensive. And then it but also add delivery was so worth it at the time. I guess it was 50 cents is actually kind of a big jump in price. I'm sure for for a pizza at that point. Yeah, the pizzas were two bucks, two fifty. Oh, damn. Yeah. Wow, that's a pretty good markup.

I got to ask the big question, which is which is the question. I think everyone wants to know, Nick. What what is that first Domino's pizza tasting like? And you've had Domino's today and and how would you compare the two? That's a tough question. Yeah. Do you remember the pizza specifically being good at the time? Were you were you a fan? You know, as a college student, so it was filling. Sure. Yeah.

You know, Tom had had some experience on the on the previous place. So he bought, you know, the cheese, the sauce. There was nothing special, the pepperoni. Mm hmm. And he kind of taught me how to twirl the dough in the air to stretch it out. And probably the biggest thing I remember negatively was you have these pizza ovens

and they're like 650 degrees. Oh, yeah. And if you're really hustling, you tend to burn your arm. Right, right. Yeah. Getting the big pulling the pizza with that paddle. So did you notice a time where it like really where where things really took off to while working there? Like was it almost immediate or first night? We ran out of stuff. Oh, wow. Oh, so wow.

So you were there opening night and it was just immediately. I think he put an ad in the Michigan Daily, which is the student newspaper there, which is quite well read. And there's 50,000 students there at that time. Right. Mm hmm. Yeah. Phone ran off the hook and we just ran out of stuff. Wow. Yeah. That's crazy. Yeah. So and then did that volume

just kind of can can like continue with what was the at what point were you sort of like like this place needs to expand? We need more locations or we need more staff. Well, I was only there six months. OK. And before I left, he opened a second place on the other side of the campus. Oh, just like right away. Right. So basically just to feed the University of Michigan.

Right. That's they had to open up another spot. Right. That's really crazy. But I mean, that's like a mid-sized town, 50,000 people. Yeah. No, that's like students. That's students. OK. You know, we also do deliveries to residences, but it was basically the campus. Yeah. You know, the dormitories, the frats, the sororities.

He had a he was an interesting businessman. For instance, for delivery, he bought you guys maybe too young to remember this, but there was a vehicle made by checker motors. OK, which were the checker cabs in New York. I actually know about this because I had a friend, the Montoya family, my buddy, Matt Montoya, used to give me rides to school.

He had a the Montoyas were a lovely family and they had a I didn't say anything. You're looking at me like you're going to make a crack about the Montoyas. I don't know the Montoyas. I won't say anything about the Montoyas. Lovely people. But anyway, his his dad, Sam Montoya, had a had a checker cab and gave to Matt. And so I would ride to school in a checker cab. I felt really cool. And you know, you can walk into the back seat of that.

Yes, gigantic. So he bought initially two or three of these checkers and then put these ovens, which were heated by sterno. OK. And you could put it in a shell so you could put like three or four pizza boxes. So there were just ovens in the cars. Yes. So I don't know how safe it was with that sterno burning. I don't I from a

you know, for the drivers, but I don't remember anybody dying. So well, it's funny because Domino's has has just kind of advertised that they do have like an oven car. They have like a pizza oven car now. Right. But for a long time, it was just those heavily insulated, like giant pizza box, you know, covers. That was their their thing that they were using to try. So all these chains were using a transport.

So that's crazy. They kind of had a they had a prototype oven way back in the 60s that they were using, which which which, yeah, especially if there's I feel like any time order from Domino's goes out, there's there's usually usually multiple orders. Where you were taking a bunch of orders to over to the campus at once. Would it be like multiple buys? Yeah, this this this oven held like three or four boxes, as I recall. Oh, man. All right.

And so you'd send somebody out. And then another bright thing he did, he told the drivers, because, you know, this is obviously pre Internet and everything else. Right. It was phone orders, period, and occasional walk-ins. We did have a couple of tables, but it was basically, you know, delivery. He told the drivers on an undeliverable pizza, take it to the police department. Oh, wow. Oh, and they were like a couple of nights, maybe three. And so the cops got free pizza and never got

a parking ticket or a speeding ticket. That's very, very cool. That is genius. That's smart. Yeah. That's like a Serpa Co move. Yeah. Serpa Co would like with like a chase down the Domino's owner. Exactly. For a feet in these corrupt cops. Yeah. We got we got to we got to start paying off the cops for our podcasts, too. What trouble have we gotten in with the law so far? I mean, none. But just to be sure, right,

we can give them little audio files of the show. To get a free mp3 of the Doughboys double. They'll start locking us up. They'll seize your computer, I'm sure. So you were delivered multiple pizzas here. Now I got a question for you. It's the sixties. The animal house is based in the sixties.

Did you ever deliver pizza to a crazy party and want to go in and see? I never delivered. I was strictly cooking. Oh, man. And I'm sure my my friends, my old college roommates had some stories. Right. I didn't get any of those. But I'm sure there was a lot of that. Oh, yeah. But just in the just cooking, just I mean, like the volume of pizzas

you must have been putting out tonight a night. I mean, like how many was it just you back there? Initially, initially, and then we got a second guy. OK. And I have a whole story about him. But was it was he was it was he a pain, this guy? What was his deal? No, OK, we'll we don't care if you don't care if we go all over. Oh, yeah, if you got if you got if you have an order to also, we're terrible.

As you can tell, we're bad. This podcast is usually focused like a laser, but we'll make it upset and make an exception here. This fellow I was talking about who who he helped prep the stuff and eventually he started cooking. And then Tom took him on as a partner. The reason I chuckle, he was morbidly overweight, very young and huge. Yeah. And that's the wrong place to be working.

Yeah, I'm a bigger guy. I'm not going to go get a job at a pizza place. I was like an alcoholic as a bartender. Yes, yeah, it doesn't. Mitch, it's likely that like a pizza place will have a sign outside to say not to let you in because there's a few there's a few in there's a few in the Los Feliz. Yeah, yeah. So the partner, Gene, and this part happened after I left,

but it's been verified, at least, yeah, it is true. Tom was very concerned about Jean and his weight. The one thing that worked for Jean was he didn't get drafted because he was what right is selective service called for F. He was just physically unfit and so Tom said to him, I will give you $50,000. If you run a marathon successfully, wow, he lost all this weight, ran a marathon.

I don't know which one. I think it was New York, but I can't swear to it and he got the 50 K from Tom. That's crazy. I got big press on that. That was maybe a couple of years after I left. Wow. So a few years into it. Yeah. And yeah, Nick, do you maybe want to make me a little offer? Mitch, if you can successfully run a marathon, yeah, I will get you

a $50 gift card to the Nintendo eShop for a downloadable game of your choice. I'm going to run the marathon tomorrow. Also, I was also going to say, Nick, that you and I would probably be turned down by the if there was a draft. We oh, yeah, they'd find so. I mean, like the thing is, like they would find some reason for both of us, even if it wasn't like, you know,

they just sort of like, oh, yeah, you've got a you've got Chromans disorder. It's like Chromans. Yeah, it's just like you can't serve because of it. You know, they'd find some reason to exclude us. Listen, the way things are going, draft may come back. Oh, yeah. But that's another episode. Right. Yeah.

Our apocalyptic episode we'll have here. Right. So wait. So OK, so I want to step back a little bit. Yeah. So what is the end? Mitch was hinting at this a little bit earlier, like in terms of what the pizza was like. But what was the menu like back in 1966? Was it just pizza?

It was just pizza. There was no French fries that were out of this breadsticks or no wings. No wings. There was no, you know, square pizza, thick crust. It was just no salads, no salads. Right. It was a plain old round pizza. And which, which, by the way, because Michigan does

a lot of Michigan pizza, right? The Detroit pizza is square, correct? There's Buddy's Pizza and there's like a and a little scissors. I know Buddy's. I know Buddy's Pizza. I know I am. I eat too much food this year from Detroit. I'm not from I'm from Boston, but I but I love food. And so I've had Buddy's and I know that I think that little

scissors may be started as squares, too. And then they went to the oval. But so Domino's was just it was a plain round pizza. And we had about eight toppings, all right. Which were 25 cents a piece, as I recall. OK, OK. So if you want a pepperoni, that was an extra quarter. If you wanted olives, that was an extra quarter.

And again, another great Tom Monahan thing. The one item extra item we had that was 50 cents was Canadian bacon. Oh, was there any particular reason for that? I don't know, because we also had ham, right? And ham was 25 cents. Canadian bacon was 50. It came out of the same. It was literally the same product.

Yes. Wow. I just I just I don't know why I flashed on this, but there was one night we got an order for half ham and half Canadian bacon. And I said, Tom, what do we do? He said, just put a couple of toothpicks on the Canadian bacon side. So anyways, he just made a little bit more money doing that. Right. That was just a little marketing pizzazz, because he knew people would read Canadian bacon and think it was something exotic.

It seems like he was a likable boss. It seems like he was a likable boss. He was tough. And I had heard he had a short fuse, but I never really saw it, you know, being Marine Red and Nam. So, you know, who knows, right? But no, he was good. He was in place, you know.

So so when you started there, was it called Domino's right away? Yes. Yes. He dropped the Dominic's name from from the previous place. Right. And it was, you know, did you hear any backstory on why it was? Did he just make it something similar? That I don't know. Yeah, I don't know something similar.

It just seems like similar to Dominic's. Yeah, he had. Yeah, but he had somebody, you know, a marketing type friend who said, OK, we're going to come up with the two physical Domino's. I don't know if those are still on the box today. I think I think so. I think it's still around. So it just it was a neat name and graphically look good on the box.

And but I don't know where he got that name from. So yeah. Did you? OK, so you work there for about six months, right? You go back, you you end up going back to school, you abandon that job. You're so so you're still around for a few years, you're still witnessing its growth and its presence within the the Ann Arbor and I would stop in and see him occasionally. I yeah, the problem was when I was working, I ate pizza every night.

That was that was my main meal of the day. That's what I'd be afraid of. I worked like five to midnight or five to one a.m. on the weekends. So I didn't go back there to have pizza and not because you know, not because it wasn't tasty. It just I got tired of pizza. You've had enough for multiple lifetimes. Yeah, and he had like like we said, none of those other products.

No salads, no nothing. Just a very simple streamlined menu. So OK, so but were you watching it grow? Because you talked about it adding a second location while you were working there in that that first six months of business. But while while you were still going to school there for the next few years, were you watching it grow further and expand beyond? Yes. Yes. And I've remembered his words while while I was still working there.

He told me one night we had a little lull and he just said, I'm going to build a national chain of these and I'm sure. Wow. Good luck. So he had that like he was that ambitious right away. Right. That's crazy. I guess that's what it takes. Right. Just sort of like you're going to be that guy. You kind of have to be dreaming just super big all the time and having people be rolling their eyes at you. How old how old was he at the time? Tom was was.

Well, see, I was like 19 or maybe 20. And he was maybe 25, 26. Oh, still OK. He was he was he was a young guy. I pictured older in my head. He had done two years in the service. And so he was definitely a little older than than than I. But I don't remember exactly. So you went back to school.

Well, I had to. I got a notice from the Selective Service that said they were going to reclassify me one a man, which means I would get drafted. So I got back into school. Did you go you went back to University of Michigan? Right. Oh, all right. Yeah. Great. Tom Brady's Alma Mater.

Do you know that, Nick? I do know that. It's a great school. And he's from the Bay Area, right? What's that? And he's from the Bay Area. He is from the Bay Area. Right. Well, Cali connection. And guess what?

He lived in Quincy at one point, Nick. I know you told me this before. So did I. Wait, really? South Quincy. Oh, wait. Oh, North Quincy. Walliston Beach. Yeah. Yeah. Wait, Quincy, Massachusetts. Yes. We had no idea.

Well, that's crazy. Well, no, I worked there for two years. Oh, no way. In Boston. And yes. That's insane. Walliston Beach. Yeah. I lived on Walliston Hill. OK. Yeah.

And I worked at Channel 56, which was in Dorchester. So I just took the red line in. Of course. My dad worked for the MBTA. OK. Yeah. He was general counsel for the MBTA for years. Yeah. Yeah, that's.

Oh, that's crazy. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe I saw you around there. Well, maybe. Yeah. We thought this was going to be Domino's talk. It turns into Quincy chat. Is it? Isn't Wallace?

Isn't that a great little spot right there? Oh, yeah. OK, Mitch. All right. It's great, Nick. I'm sure it's great. Yeah, it was a place called The Clamshack. The Clamshack.

Yeah, Tony. You got it. You got some great stuff right over there. Yeah. That's a great spot. Did you engineer this? Yes, we did. We played this together.

That's amazing. Any opportunity for you to talk about your hometown. Yeah. Go on. Go for it, please. No, I don't know if you want to get into Tom personally. Oh, of course. Any you want to tell us about?

Please, please, tell us everything. He and his brother were orphans for some reason, very young age, both taken into a Catholic convent and the nuns raised him. And the reason I bring that up is based on that he was staunch Catholic, went to Mass every day. OK. Not just Sundays.

Wow. Oh, man. And see, where was I going with that? That's deeply religious, man. Deeply religious. The bulk of his fortune has already pledged to Catholic charity. Oh, OK.

Yeah, so every day is that's a crazy thing. Yeah, that's hard. That's like the guy, the broken detective in the movie, the guy who's recovering from alcoholism. That's like the guy who goes to Mass every day. So he's, and I'm not making any value adjustments, but he is very, very right wing Catholic. OK.

And his big thing is anti-abortion. And that's where a lot of his money is going or has gone. Carl Karcher also, apparently, like the Carl's Jr. guy was very, very right wing. A lot of these guys, I feel like a lot of these CEO types tend to be, you know, or a lot of times are right wingers and are contributing to those sorts of causes. Nick and I have talked about this and you

sometimes separate the beliefs and the creators from the franchises. It's like enjoying a Woody Allen picture. It is. It's just like enjoying a Woody Allen picture. You're biting into that domino's zah. You've got to forget about this guy's anti-choice rhetoric and just enjoy the pizza for a bit.

That is true. And also for a man who goes to church every single day, I could see why he does donate the way he does. Yeah, sure. He sold the 90% of domino's, I don't know how many years ago, not too many years ago, to Bain Capital for $1 billion. That's a lot of scratch. And kept 10% of it.

He's going to pay people back for that Canadian bacon fever. There should be a class action lawsuit out of this body. Get those quarters. A lot of the University of Michigan students could get some quarters back. Hey, man, that's appreciated with interest at this point. Being a Marine, he was a tough guy. And we did have, early on, a rash of thefts from the vehicles.

Back then, there were no remote controls. And it was, if you're carrying pizzas, it was hard to lock the checker cap. So the drivers never did. And there was one location on what's called the North Campus where every once in a while, a driver would be in delivering pizza, and someone would come and take a pizza out of the checker.

Wow. So do you know who I think it was? The Noi. It was clearly the Noi, bitch. It was clearly the Noi. We were all thinking that you just made subtext text. We all knew it was the Noi. OK.

So he got tired of losing pizzas. So he got tired of losing pizzas. So one night, he took a Coke bottle. This was back when they had the six ounce deposit Coke bottles, wrapped some gaffers tape around it so as not to completely annihilate. And he capped out in another car behind the, some guy came up, took the pizza, and Tom hit him in the head

with a Coke bottle. Jesus Christ. That's some Vietnam level stuff. Like I said, he didn't give the guy a concussion. There was some blood, I'm told, by the driver. And the theft stopped. And Tom was never charged. This guy didn't try to push charges.

Well, yeah, he was paying off the police with tasty stuff. So that was just, that was Tom. That's crazy. That is something else. And so we never had that problem again. Yeah, absolutely. There was a founder movie. It would be interesting to see a movie about this Tom character.

It almost feels like, yeah, because the founder of the movie about the Ray Kroc and then also the McDonald's brothers. And that's kind of its own interesting portrait. But it sounds like there's a lot of character to Tom Monahan as well. Well, then maybe you're a writer. Let's do it. All right, great.

I'm a writer. You're a director. Mitch is a, Mitch can be the actor. I can be that chubby guy you talked about that really matter of time. I wasn't implying that. Oh, no, but I am. I want the role now.

You can slim down a little. We can cast you. Oh, and we had a jukebox. We had a jukebox in store, because some people did eat in. Oh, right. That's the thing that, yeah, people don't think about pizza parlors again these days. Because Domino's forever now has been a place where people

don't dine in almost exclusively. Yeah, it's basically just a storefront just for delivery. And there was certain music that Tom hated on the jukebox. I don't know if it was anti-war music or whatever. So he had installed a hidden button in the back of the pizzeria so that someone was in there eating and they called up this song he didn't like. He would just hit this button and it would change to another

song. And people would just kind of look around and figure the jukebox malfunction. That's like a Mr. Burns move, it feels like. Wow, that's great. Yeah, so those are kind of the things I remember most about Tom. He sounds like a real character.

Yes. So, OK, so you knew early on that Domino's was going to be this huge hit. And you could tell that it was going to be this sensation. You knew about the global aspirations of the founder. At least national aspirations. At least national aspirations, as you're saying. What's it been like to just sort of observe this rise of this

company over the decades to sort of see it turn from this place where you were there at the launch. I still don't found it. Really? Yeah. And where it kind of came to a head was about the mid-1980s. It was traveling with the California Angels. And we were playing the Detroit Tigers.

And Tom Mullen had just bought the Detroit Tigers. That's crazy. So it took me forever to get past two secretaries to see them. But I did see him. And at least he acted like he remembered me. I think he did. I think he did.

My name's kind of unusual. And I was at the first store. But that was just kind of just blew me away. That's crazy. And for our listeners too, you worked in major league baseball. Right. I was producing and directing Angel Games, yeah.

That is also very cool. You've had some very cool jobs. And he had a few, well, he had one setback with the Tigers. They had an announcer named Ernie Harwell, who was the vinscully of Detroit. And Tom didn't like him, so he had him fired. Wow. Not for you know, from the local TV station.

That's crazy. The uproar was such that Ernie Harwell was back the next season. Was he came back? OK. That's crazy. Nobody's perfect. Right.

I mean, you can just imagine what it would be like in LA if someone had fired Chick Hearn or vinscully. It was just crazy. OK, so while we're on this topic, you're someone who's worked in sports for a long time. I imagine you've been to a lot of ball parks around the country. Right. Where would you say is your favorite ball park grub?

Anything particularly stand out in mind? You mean food that you actually eat in the ball park? Yeah, something where you go to a stadium and then. That's a tough one. Yeah. You know, we worked out of a video truck. Right. When you're doing these games.

And as a courtesy, the team feeds you in the press room. OK. So and that's usually not what they're selling out. Right, just some sort of catered food. So I really can't comment on that because I don't go to games. So you might imagine that. That's funny. Yeah.

You're in the back, basically. Yeah. You've seen so many, though. Yes. You've probably seen more. I mean, we're watching it through a monitor, but you've probably seen more live sports than almost everyone. Right.

And so I occasionally will go to a Dodger game with somebody here. Right. So OK, so let's just talk food, like food cities, having traveled across the country for your job. Like, where's your favorite place to eat? Where's your favorite place to grab a bite if you're out of town? And in Boston, Regina's Pizza. Yeah.

Oh, my God. This is wow. I talk about it all the time on here. That's a specific place that Mitch shouts out. This is a Quincy Mall. Set this up. You son of a bitch. No, honestly.

On Thatcher Street. The original Regina, right? Right. Yeah. Right near the Old North Church. Yes, yeah. That's crazy. And I sent a friend there last year,

so I know at least as of last year it was still operating. Oh, I think it's one of the best pizzas in the world. How about that for an endorsement? You got the first chef at Domino's Pizza, the biggest pizza chain in the world, shouting out your hometown pie. I have a huge smile on my face. Right. As far as ballparks, how about that Fenway park, too?

I know I'm just going to head on. You're fucking. Oh, you're not on a fan. No. Fair enough. It's small. I can barely fit in seats there. Ballpark had nothing to do with food,

but there were some we just didn't like to work, like Camelstack, only because of the winds and the weather. Oh, sure. In August, you'd need a sweater or a jacket. Right. Oh, yeah. That complicates your job quite a bit. No, it didn't.

But it was just it was a bummer when you left the truck. Oh, I got it. August and you're freezing. It was just the fact that you would actually be cold. Yeah. OK, so going back to Domino's. Yes. When's the last time you actually ate there?

Can you remember having it in recent memory? No. No. You basically were done with it once you were done with that job. You just sort of walked away? Yeah. Like heat, like Vel Kilmer and heat. You just got to be ready to walk away.

I had Domino's last night. Wow, I really did in preparation for this episode. I had Domino's. Yeah, what did you have? I had the hand-tossed pie with half sausage on it. You can do anything now. There's an app. They just they have an app and you order.

You basically order all your Domino's on an app now. That's cool. Yeah, I mean, they recreated themselves a few years ago. Nick and I talk about this a lot. They kind of they were like, our pizza got bad. And now it's now it's new. It's good again. And we've kind of changed them things up.

Do you remember that campaign at all? Go on, Mitch. But yeah, they did this campaign a few years ago. Oh, yes, yes, I do. I feel like they've been I feel like they've done really well. I mean, but they always have done well is the thing. But they've improved their product. And it feels like did you did you have any opinion on that?

Because they basically had a bunch of spots where they were saying like Domino's needs to do better. Like our pizza is bad. We're going to improve it. I wasn't eating their pizza then. I do remember the campaign. And apparently, whatever they did, it really turned the business around.

So it's right. It seems like I think the thing with Domino's now, which it seems like early on this guy, Tom, had the idea of just being able, being near campus, being available, being available, getting pizzas to people. I think that they still kind of live by that, too, with the app and everything. They just are a place that gets you pizza

within 30 minutes always. They're just always so fast and it's always so available. And it sounds like that's what he wanted from the start. So that business model has really, obviously, worked out great. Yeah, one of my brothers back in suburban Detroit kind of got onto that guaranteed 30 minutes. And he lived in an area where there was a lot of construction going on

and the roads were getting tied up. And he knew he was going to get free pizzas most of the time. Oh, man. Thank you, Brother Jim. They actually tweaked the language just because it was getting exploited. So now it's like, you've got 30 minutes was what they re-branded as.

So it wasn't a guarantee anymore. It's not, yeah. Right, well, they had because when you have that many pizzerias around the country and that many cars, you can have that many accidents. Right. And so there apparently were a couple of lawsuits of people who were killed by a Domino's driver

trying to blame it on that 30 minute thing. Good grief. That's crazy. I remember reading about that. It was a. I'm actually, I've got one of these stories I just pulled up now and said they were heading to the Mitchell residence. That he had sent in a pizza 911.

That my last name is Mitchell. He's making this up. You asshole. We have a Quincy bond. You can't break this. That's right. This is amazing. You've never been to Lakewood, California, have you?

Lakewood, no. I would love it if you was like, it sticks. Do you have any other Domino's anecdotes or any other thoughts? Let me look over the notes here. Get some very cut. You're more prepared for this podcast than me and Mitch. And then we're back.

Yeah, we've ever, ever been. Well, no, I think that basically covered what I was able to recall and my driver roommates were able to recall. They were very helpful. Oh, all right. Great. Well, thank you. Thank you.

Thank you to them as well. Jim and Justin, thank you guys. Jim and Justin, God bless you. Yes, right. Thank you for your service. And now I got to just to go back to it. Right. Do you remember just any differences?

Because the last thing, you haven't had Domino's in forever. But the last time that you had Domino's, did you remember any difference in taste from when it first started? Oh, yeah. Yeah. I probably had it while my daughter was in high school. And I remember it was fine. Yeah, right.

And back in the day, it was just like a sustenance. I needed it to survive. Sure. And it was like any pizza. And it was free. Right. But it would be like kind of any pizzeria pizza, kind of indistinguishable.

It was strictly the delivery. And you made the point, delivery was not popular anywhere back then. So. Right. That was the service. That was what the delivery aspect. We should have gotten a pizza from Domino's. We should have.

We messed this up. But we're bad at it. I mean, this is your. I was kind of expecting that. This is our proof that we are bad at this. That would have made a lot of sense. We could have said it. Well, Joe, we got a new Domino's pie for you to try.

Joe, could we set? Because we have, we can send you a Domino's pizza. Yeah, can we send you a pizza? And then we'll, and then you can let us know. You can email us. We'll pay for it. You just take a bite and then you can throw it in the trash if you want. But could we order you a pizza at one point?

Are you serious? Yeah, we'll happily do it. We'll happily do it. No, I don't think so. All right. Can we, can I order? I've lost 30 pounds in the last year and a half. Oh, all right.

Well, then we shouldn't, we shouldn't be sending you. We should be sending you. We should have brought one though. We should have brought one. We should have had one. Yeah, we messed up. We messed up really bad. That's all right.

Yeah. Well, well, you know what? That's how the spot gets. What, what generally do you do? Or is it? Oh boy. Good question. Okay.

We usually have someone on and then we just sort of BS about like any sort of food related topic on these episodes. And then we also have these, the, our main, our full episodes where we have, we'll like go to a restaurant and we'll just sort of review it. So like we'll go to, for instance, we've done an episode where we went to Domino's and we, was that with Koalic? Or was it? It was Koalic.

Yeah. We, with our buddy Matt Koalic, a comedian and writer and an actor here in LA. And so we had him on as a guest and we discussed Domino, we reviewed Domino's pizza. We just sort of treated it like you would any restaurant review. So that's normal that we do. It's kind of the poor man's Anthony Bourdain, right? Yeah, I mean, the poorest man's Anthony Bourdain. Yeah, I'd say it's kind of like the high school dropout man's Anthony Bourdain.

He, he was in town here last December. Yeah. And my wife and I went and saw him and he did a stand up at some theater downtown. And this is fascinating. Yeah. Oh man. We need a stand up guy, huh? He did stand up.

He did like a tight 10. No, no, not stand up comedy. Oh, okay. Although there were, he did have the audience laughing a number of times, but he just basically talked about traveling the world and. Okay. Oh, that's a sort of a presentation. And oh, and he blasted.

Who's the guy that's got the diners, drive-ins? Guy Fieri. Oh, Guy Fieri. Ripped him a new one. Bourdain put Fieri on notice. Yeah. What a scoop. We, we, yeah, this is a huge scoop.

Wow. We get, we get, we get to, we get to the bottom of this now. Because Nick, Nick and I are Guy Fieri apologists in a lot of ways. Right. But we also like Bourdain a lot too. This is, this is like parents fighting sort of, sort of territory for us. We should broker a piece. Yeah.

We have the clout to do that. Yeah. So for my birthday, my wife got me the, we got, she got the Primo tickets. Uh-huh. And then I got his autographed book and we got our picture taken with him when we got to talk to him for about two minutes. So it was really, it was a great birthday gift. Yeah.

Wow. That's so cool. Wow. You've met Bourdain and us. It's over. I like how, I do like how Joe, you talked to us for about, you know, 40 minutes now. Really? And you, and, and at the end of it, you were like, wait, so what is this?

You're still more confused than when we started. Well, when you first contacted me, I was expecting cameras. Right. So, okay. I don't know. No cameras. This is, this is, this is the new way. Okay.

No, this is the new way. And you, you know what? We probably should have, we have a studio, but we do it out of my house now. We should have taken you to the studio instead of my. This is fine. Okay. All right. We get self-contested.

Well, thank you so much, Joe. This, this was, this was very, very. Very cool. An absolute delight. And if you hear from Monaghan's lawyers. Oh, well, he. No, I didn't. You said nothing libelous.

No, no. And, and, and where he did go after that thief, that story is, is legendary. And I didn't even find it on the internet. I think on Wikipedia. Hey, you know what? He probably knocked some sense into him. Vigilante justice. Exactly.

Yeah. And I think this, I do think that this man is the reason that the Noid came to be. I feel like that this was in his mind. Right. This is the Noid origin story. I think so too. We'll see the scene in the Noid year one. Well, thanks for having me.

This was great. Yeah. Well, thank you so much. Do you have anything you would like to plug? No. All right. Great. All right, great.

That's a good answer. Even you're going to find a Domino's Pizza on your front doorstep. Better than a horse's head. Joe Quasarano, thank you so much. Thank you. We're back. Nick has put on a giant cat costume and he's rubbing up against my chairs. This is how I want to live from now on.

I'm surprised. I found my true self. Well, that was fun, Nick. Huh? Very, you know what? I like Joe a lot. Joe's a great dude. He is a great guy.

We really did fuck up by not getting a Domino's Pizza. We really should have gotten him a Domino's Pizza. I'm going to try to get him a Domino's Pizza. Even though he clearly did not want one. He didn't want one, but he was like kind of expecting it. We finished recording and he was like, yeah, honestly, thought you guys are going to bring me a Domino's Pizza. We fucked up so bad.

Why are we so dumb? I think we were like in our heads because this was different than what we normally do. At any event, that was it. That was this episode. You know what? I think before we sign off, I was going to say, oh, no. You know what? Maybe I shouldn't say this.

I was going to ask what people wanted to hear from the doubles. I was going to do one of those things. Oh, yeah. A little, I mean, that's fine. Nick and I, Nick and I had talked about checking our T levels, testosterone. Right. If you want to hear, if you want to see what our testosterone levels are. Just if you have any, if we, we have plenty of ideas,

but we're always thinking about the listener. We just, I mean, we have that one idea. We have the check artist. Do you want us to do the low T thing? Or do you want to end the podcast? The low T off, basically, which I think I might lose. Sadly, I don't know. I have a shot at it.

Yeah. You do. Oh, no, a hundred percent. I know you're going to be allowed to. Anyway, throw you song in this just to see how much more virile he is. And then from here on out, we'll be saying, you son, can we borrow some of your Oh God. Anyways, after that nice interview, I just got an email from you song.

Subject line letter of resignation. At least it's not a letter of litigation. Well, that does it for the double. What a fun episode. A lot of fun. We're going to leave you with a little moment of meow. Erma, hey, Erma, did you hear about North Korea? Wally, you heard about it.

Isn't it scary? Erma, no, you don't think it's scary? No, what you look forward to a post apocalyptic world. Work only cats that are alive and rule the world. Erma, hey, everybody's entitled to their opinions, Erma.