Doughboys - Grocery Store Month: Kroger with Dave King and Esther Povitsky

Episode Date: July 30, 2020

Writer Dave King (The Good Place, Parks and Rec) and Actor and Comedian Esther Povitsky (Hot For My Name, Esther Club) return to close out Grocery Store Month and help the 'boys review America's largest supermarket chain, Kroger. Plus, another edition of Spoonman's Sip or Ship.Sources for this week's intro:http://www.ufcw.org/about/ufcw-history/http://www.ufcw.org/tag/kroger/https://pando.com/2015/03/13/as-right-to-work-becomes-law-in-wisconsin-a-reminder-of-its-inventors-racist-past/https://www.nsfwcorp.com/dispatch/right-to-work/https://www.thekrogerco.com/about-kroger/history/Advertise on Doughboys via Gumball.fm.Want more Doughboys? Check out our Patreon!: https://patreon.com/doughboysSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If you're not used to the up-and-down style language manipulation of American politics, you might be confused to learn that right-to-work laws are in fact anti-union measures designed to suppress labor power and decrease wages. The right-to-work formulation was the creation of a now forgotten Texas political figure named Vance Muse, a racist anti-Semite closely affiliated with a Klan who used his business influence to muscle through pet political issues, a sort of protocoke brother. By granting companies tacit union busting power, right-to-work laws accomplished Muse's twin goals of crushing collective bargaining and keeping workplaces racially segregated,

and so right-to-work became a rallying conservative cause and is today the law of the land in 27 U.S. states, mostly clustered in the south and mountain west. And it's right-to-work laws that led to the downfall of one of the most influential labor unions in American history, the amalgamated meat-cutters formed in the 20th century partly as a reaction to the conditions described in an episode in Claire's muckraking classic The Jungle. Aggressively employing strikes among its multiracial membership, the AMC was a thorn in the side of American agribusiness who'd prefer to treat their workers like the livestock

in their factory farms. And so, as Republican legislatures implemented right-to-work laws in rural states, plants wriggled out of union contracts by relocating to those same states, hiring mostly immigrant non-union workers to labor under egregious conditions for minimal pay, including currently the risk of COVID. And so amalgamated meat-cutters adapted, merging in 1979 with two other unions to form United Food and Commercial Workers, a move that reflected the U.S.'s shift to a service economy. And as American labor power has reached a nadir, it's perhaps a hopeful sign that the

largest grocery chain in America, found in Cincinnati in 1883, has a union workforce organized with the remnants of amalgamated meat-cutters. This week on Doughboys, our month-long review of supermarket eats, Friendly Green Grocer Mitch's grocery store month, concludes with Kroger. Welcome to Doughboys, the podcast about chain restaurants. I'm Nick Weiger, along with my co-host, King of the Chews, the Spoon Man, Mike Mitchell. I don't know, this, that seems, is that supposed to be like King of the Chews? I think so.

Oh, so I'm like Christ for eating. Yeah, I think that's what's behind that one. This courtesy of Joseph Borkowski, roastspoonman at gmail.com if you have an insult, you like me as I'm Mitch at the top of the show. King of eating, okay. In the same way that Christ is the King of the Chews, you, Mike Mitchell, are the King of the Chews. No, I know.

I know, I figured that the puzzle has been solved. Now, do I like the puzzle? I think it's pretty cool. It's like having a big puzzle. It's like having a, you know what, Emma has made fun of me for this before, and she's like, where's your mic? Truly was not talking into my mic for the start of this episode. Wow.

That's exactly why I asked the question when I didn't see the microphone, because you never know. And also, Mitch got mad about that. I know, I heard, I heard that and I heard you in the episode saying lots of things about it. It's fine. I wasn't there to defend myself, but it's fine. Well, also, it's, it's the truth of the matter is, is that I knew you were going

to listen to the episode. I know it wasn't talking behind your back. Also, to also be fair, I caught it myself after this is, this is not a big issue. No, not at all. What I've said, what I've said in this episode so far is meaningless. Is it that most episodes? It's me, it's me trying to figure out King of the Jews.

And I was going to say, I was just going to say, like, that's like putting together a puzzle and then like, you figure out like the puzzle is of Jeffrey Epstein. It's a big Jeffrey Epstein picture. Well, I think you'd know that earlier on. I guess it would be like the last piece that gave it away. If you had a mystery puzzle and the final piece happened to be his face, then maybe, but generally most puzzles, you know what your target is.

Unless you're a hardcore puzzler, those puzzlers, they'll solve the damn thing upside down. So they're just assembling the cardboard and then they'll flip it over and see the completed product. It's amazing. The puzzlers. Yeah. Puzzlers, puzzlers out there.

Yeah. People who are really into puzzles, those things are Natalie does a lot of them on her computer. She'll do like, and she does like, like extremely difficult puzzles. I was like, I don't know. Natalie is a puzzler. She's something of a puzzler. Wow.

You guys are both Batman villains. The puzzler and. Yeah. What? I don't know what you are in IG 88. Well, that's a Star Wars droid. No, I know. So you're mixing franchises.

It's a crossover. All right. Howdy ho to Spoon Nation. Let's play this drop liger. Um, a friendly, Greengrocer mitch's grocery store month. This is Green grocer Mike's grocery store month. I agree. Greengrocer Spoonman's grocery store month.

Greengrocer Spoonman's grocery store month. Wiger, that's what it is. Hey, Hey, Hey, it's Mitch's grocery store month. Greengrocer Spoonman's grocery store month. Friendly Greengrocer's, Mitch. Friendly Greengrocer Mitch's grocery store month. No, you're intentionally getting it wrong. What was it again, Friendly Greengrocer Spoonincipe?

Spoonman's grocery store month. Friendly Greengrocer Spoonman's grocery store month. Grocer Mike's grocery store month. That just flows perfectly. Time to ring you up, bitch. Wow. A little Freddy cameo at the end. We made it to the end.

Was that an actual cameo by Freddy? Yeah, that was a little cameo. He's on cameo for 50 bucks. Imagine if you get a cameo from Freddy, that would rule. I'd be scared. I'd be afraid I was having a nightmare and I was going to be murdered. Or what were they, micro naps? What was the newest one on the, it's micro naps, right?

Yeah, we don't need to dwell on the reboot. The reboot kind of did not know what was going on about Freddy. The reboot went like too far into the dark side of Freddy too. Just was not a fun. Yeah. Not a fun one. Hey Spoonman, I'm Corey C on the Dosecord. Wow.

Hi, Corey. Here's a drop. Wow. An unenthusiastic high from Weigher. Here's a drop that popped into my head as I was listening to the Trader Joe's episode. It's my first drop submission. Love the show, Corey.

The first one you got to hit, Corey. Thank you. Wow. Congratulations, Corey. You happened to be at the top of the inbox. So you were the first one that Mitch saw, clicked on and then played on the show. Actually, Nick, it said grocery store month drop. And since we're at the end of grocery store month, we're going to be

we're at the end of grocery store month. Greengrocer Mitch's grocery store month. Friendly greengrocer Mitch's grocery store month. Friendly greengrocer. Friendly greengrocer. All right, Emma. Emma, take note here. Lots of edits.

Zero edits. Got it. Yep. On it. Friendly greengrocer Mitch's grocery store month. Got it. Yes. Nailed it first time.

Uh, we're at the end, Nick. We did it. How do you feel? This is your brainchild. This is your passion project. Don't put this on me. You're Coondoon, if you will. You're, uh, this is, this is like the thing you've always wanted to make.

And you've always wanted to do. How do you feel at the? Marty, love that movie. What is it? What is it? Christopher Sopranos? Christopher and Sopranos. Yeah.

He did. He loves Coondoon. He tells Martin Scorsese. But we're at the end of this. Is that how you pronounce it? I think it's Coondoon. Hmm. Maybe I'm wrong.

Maybe it's Cundun. I don't know. I've always heard it as Coondoon, but I don't know. I don't know either. I'm not even going to attempt it. I was watching, um, I was watching, uh, full metal jacket. I've seen it before. I've seen it a bunch.

Um, you know that I almost joined the Marines when I was younger? Did I ever tell you this? Yeah. We've, we've talked about this. All right. You're considering enlisting. And then I almost went into the Navy. Yeah.

Damn, I would have, my head would have been shot. So fast. My big ass head. Ah, the bubble head on the battlefield. But I was watching, um, full metal jacket last night. You know what I realized? Yeah. Private pile is my goal weight, Nick.

It's really something how the body of the American male has changed over the decades where he was once considered a young Vince Denafrio, just a little bit doughy who'd be considered like a man who's like in as of average build in this day and age was considered the fat kid, the fat guy, whoever was going to bully until he fucking off himself. Yeah. And so it's so crazy. Yeah, I could, I feel like I basically, I, yeah, I could drop a few pounds

and look like private pile. Yeah. You know, he's, he looks, he looks fine. He looks great. And he gained 70 pounds to play the role. Man. So he was positively gaunt before. Yeah.

I saw a photo of a young Jeff Bridges shirtless. What are you a fucking Southern bell? He was positively gaunt before. It's not a Southern bell turn of phrase. He was positively gaunt. Oh, have mercy. Well, when you throw in that accent, you can make anything sound like a Southern bell saying it.

I think that sentence was particularly Southern. He was a very, he must have been very slender. And then he bulked up and he still is not that big. Me, oh my, it's a Jeffrey Epstein puzzle. Yeah, I guess it does work. Yeah, it's the accent you're using, not the words I use. It's, so how do you, yeah. Oh, how do I feel about this shit?

How do you feel about grocery store month as we, as we are in its final episode? I literally, I believe this episode is coming out the final day of July. So this is the, or the second to last day in July, final episode of July. How do you feel about how the month has come together? Um, like most Doughboys events, bad in many ways, um, we saved the worst grocery store for last. Interesting. And, um, I'm more confused than ever.

I, we'll get to it because I don't, I don't even know. I don't even know if I've learned much from this experience. How about you? Um, I feel like this ended up being more annoying than our normal show. Yes. We, I had to eat, I ate way more than our normal show. More food. And then actually going to like making extra grocery store trips each week was

just, uh, it's just a big ball of stress having to deal with that. For me, adding grocery store trips, cause I don't go. Right. So you're a delivery man. I'm a delivery man. That's a good movie. You mean like a guy who's just delivering stuff? Delivery man.

I mean, it sounds like not knowing what the premise is. I guess it could be an okay title. Okay. It's no ghost zoo. Your piece of shit. Ghost zoo is a great premise. It'd be a fun, fun, all ages horror movie. All right.

We can, you can ask our guests after we introduce them off what they think of ghost zoo. Our guests are returning to the show. First up, a writer for the good place in Parks and Rec. Dave King is back. Hi Dave. Hey guys, how's it going? It's, it's going great. And you are joined by an actor and comedian from her comedy central special,

Hot for My Name and the podcast Esther Club. Esther Bovitsky. Hi Esther. Hi. Thank you for being here. Hi Esther. Thank you both for being here. You know how I, you can tell I realized that you're not an A-list guest is that Mitch

doesn't announce that he's embarrassed to say hi to you and drop to the audience. I know, I know both of you too well. Yeah, no, that's part of it. But also if it's usually if it's anyone of renown, Mitch is like, oh God, I can't believe I got to look at this person while I do this. None of that for us, but we're happy to be here. If it does make you feel better. I quick, I, if you, if you notice, I went, how do I really quick?

Yes. I appreciate that. Kind of a middle ground. Mitch, you've now, so your, your microphone is out of frame. And so now you've gradually been shifting your head out of frame to where, where we're just getting half of you. You're just a half man. I look a little like Too Faced.

Yes, speaking of Batman villains. Yeah, I, I, uh, what was that? Yeah, Too Faced. Oh yeah. Classic Too Faced always saying there. Was that the Tommy Lee Jones one? Yeah. It's Too Faced was up.

Didn't you just rewatch that one? Someone was rewatching the, I did not rewatch Batman forever, but obviously the RAP Joel Schumacher, the director recently passed away. That's right. He got, I think a lot of people were watching it as a result. Yeah, I think, sorry. Um, yeah, no, um, uh, that, I've, I've heard that that movie is still kind of fun. It's like an insane experience to watch the, the two.

Um, Nick, I was going to say half of, half of me is probably the size of a normal man. One half Mitch is one, Vincent's Dinofrio in a full metal jacket. Guys, I'm very excited to have you both back. You've both been on the show, uh, but this is your first time together. And I'm curious in this, uh, you are cohabitating, correct? Yes, you're in the same domicile. What does that mean? Like house, like place, place of residence.

Yes, we're one of Hollywood's hottest power couples and we do live together, but we're recording from different rooms. So we're not, we were told to like, you know, for audio, we're not near each other. We're also quarantining in different rooms. I read about this, that was the wrestler, Rick Flair, legend, a wrestling legend. His wife has COVID and he does not, but they're living in the same residence and they're like just living on different floors, which seems like a very stressful situation. Also reports that he does have COVID too.

He might also have it and just be denying it publicly. And was, and was getting fast food without a mask, uh, in a photo. Oh, man, that's rough. Who indeed? Thoughts on Rick Flair, Esther? I don't know what that is. No idea. He's a wrestler, he's like a pro wrestler from the 80s, 90s, who somehow stayed relevant.

It sounds like a fashion designer. I mean, he does have a lot of flair and he does have some great fashion with his ring apparel. So he, his, no, his big thing is woo. If you think, uh, like, uh, like Too Faced goes, nah, and Rick Flair goes, woo. I was just saying who a second ago, but it is, it is woo. It's woo. Yeah.

Um, a guy everybody loves. But if he was around today, I think he would be a pretty problematic guy. But his, his daughter, Charlotte is in the WWE. And I have a crush on her. She's, she's, she's, yeah, she's cool. She's taken Mitch. Yeah, I know. She's a very, she's a, uh, she's a fantastic wrestler.

Fantastic, the talent has transferred from generations. Why are you looking her up? Why are you looking her up right now? I'm curious what kind of, I was curious. I've never heard. No, what are you curious about? I'm curious what kind of women Mitch finds attractive. Why?

There's a friend of mine. I don't know. That's worse. Maybe you and I, maybe, yes, or maybe you and I know a single woman who looks like Charlotte Flair, by the way, I'll say update that might put you in disaster. I am, I do not have a crush on Charlotte Flair. I'll say that after looking at the picture, but I love that you do. And I'm rooting for you guys, you two kids to somehow work it out someday.

We will, I think we will. Are you calling out Andrade? Yeah, you know what? Andrade versus me. Falls count anywhere. The winner gets Charlotte's hand. Wow. I think, I think she may have to agree to this too, but.

Yeah, that's, I don't think you can just stipulate a woman as a prize in a wrestling match. I'm sure she will. I mean, it's good she has to. It's good content. It's good for her career. She's to be to be the prize of a fight between a guy she's never heard of and some guy who, another guy who I don't know who that is.

He's strong. He's very strong. So strong man. Another, another great performer. I'm so I'm curious about you guys are living together. We're in these, these quarantine times. How have your eating habits adapted to this new world? Well, the first few months I was doing a lot of cooking, which has since

faded away and I'm back to a lot of takeout. I will say that because we're always here together, sometimes we'll be at meals, like sitting at a dining room table, eating a meal and Dave will be like, so like, how are you? And I just look at him and I'm like, don't talk to me right now. Like I just want to eat. I have nothing to say. Oh my God.

It's great. No, but can I just say in my defense that I don't, I don't think I actually say, so how are you? But what has happened is we, it's not like we're just meeting each other. But I will say something like, oh, hey, so I was like talking to whoever and she'll be like, not right now. Like, I just want to eat, which is, okay, then we're just going to eat. And that's how it goes.

Or she hates me. I'm not sure. There was a lot of cooking up top. You, you're still cooking way more than you used to, which I think is great. Um, we, we've been on the very conservative side of like picking up and, and getting takeouts. So like only in the last couple of weeks have we even started getting deliveries at all.

Yeah. As far as this episode goes, we, neither of us have set foot in a grocery store or really in anything. Wow. Since the quarantine started, including today, we instacarded. Um, so we're, we're very, um, yeah, we're being very cautious. I'll just. Have you, have you, have you both been in Ralph's before?

Cause if not, we do need to stop this episode. I've been in a row. Yes. I've been in the rock and roll. Ralph's that used to be mine to, yeah. That's, yes, you've seen, you've been to the depths of Ralph's. If you've been to the rock and roll, Ralph's that is the, the heart of the God, that, that rock and roll Ralph's that is a Ralph's and so Ralph's is a Kroger

nationally Ralph's is, it's called Ralph's out here. They're a bunch of different regional, neat, regional labels for it. But they, there's one in West Hollywood, designated as the rock and roll Ralph's. Is it just because it has some rock? Cause I've been inside of this like, I don't know what makes this rock and roll. I thought it was cause it was like a sign outside and it's by guitar center. Oh, that's what it is. It's by God.

It's a tar sign proximity. Well, it's gotta be because it's like a bull and those clubs, right? I mean, it's like, but if it's further down, it's a 24 hour Ralph's. And if you're in there, like I used to live right there. If you're in there three or four in the morning, you see some of the weirdest shit. And I think that's why I got the like rock and roll reputation. That's what I thought was that it was like, it was like the kind of place where like Nikki Six would stumble in at four in the morning and get this.

Yes. And then go to have like a guitar outside and the sign. Yeah. It's like painted on the side of the pool. But it is also on Sunset Boulevard. Like it's going towards the sunset strip. But yeah, the thing I know it by more recently is when I was looking up places that were affected by COVID

and I'm going to share this with you right now, the rock and roll Ralph's had a coronavirus cluster strikes at rock and roll Ralph's here in Hollywood. That's that's what the article says. But this is this is this is this is this. Don't worry, this is this is article is from May. This is ancient history. This is ancient history.

But there was a coronavirus cluster at the yeah, the rock and roll Ralph's broke is there any context in this article? I'm seeing now that there is a big signage that says rock and roll Ralph's underneath the main Ralph's sign. Is there any context right here for why it's designated the rock and roll Ralph's or just doesn't seem like that article. They're saying that Nicky, Nicky Six. Is that his name? Yes.

They're saying that he he he was the one who unleashed the cluster. Oh, OK. I wish there was more like specialty themed locations of chains. Have you guys ever been to Fry's electronics? No. Yes. So Fry's is a big the big electronics super store. But every each individual Fry's is themed to the gills. And it's like it's like a gigantic.

It's like a Costco size electronics and computer store. And so like there's one that's like an area fifty one Fry's. There's a Tiki Fry's. There's a there's like a like a fairy tale Fry's. They're all there. I'll just like go one hunt like we have to go. I guess so. I mean, it's something to do. Sure, I'll go Fry's electronics on a date.

Yeah, I would do that. Are they out here? They are out here. Yeah, they're mostly out here, I believe. Am I wrong, Mitch, that are that Jordan's furniture has like theming in it? Oh, yeah, Jordan's furniture. Hmm, like isn't one of them like a Mardi Gras or like a New Orleans themed place? Oh, that's right. I think one of them does have that.

I haven't been in Jordan's furniture in forever. No, it was a Boston area chain known for their advertisements. Jordan's furniture is the one that had mom, the ride, right? Yes, it had a mom, which is what was it? Motion Odyssey movement or something. Motion Odyssey movement or movie ride or something. Most of us in movie, movie ride, maybe mom, mom, mom, the ride, Nick, mom. Wow. Mom, he's saying mom, the ride, mom, the ride, mom, the ride.

It was like, yeah, it was a furniture store with a movie theater in it that only showed one kind of movie and also they have a Kelly's roast beef attached to their native franchise, which is amazing. And it was the first place I ever tried the is it space ice cream, the little the little balls of ice cream, dipping dots, dipping dots. Dipping dots is let's get the nomenclature correct because because dipping dots is the ice cream of the future. Astronaut ice cream is some is the space ice cream that's something of the past.

Yeah, Nick, mom, mom, the ride is really interesting. You go in there and then it's like being John Malkovich, where I was I was like, then suddenly it was in my mom's body. What? Wow. What did he say? Alex Planet later is it's confusing. Suggesting he was kind of going into an FPS version of being in his mom's brain looking out her eyes.

Well, let's be clear. He said he said in his mom's body, which is very different. But that's what in John Malkovich, she goes into his body. She's in his body, basically. She controls his body. Yes, that's very different than saying I was in my mom's body. It's different than saying I was inside. Oh, it's this shit out of my head.

Hey, Nick, so so fries, electronics, it's out here, but it sounds a little out. It sounds a little out there. If you ask me, I'd say I think that's fair. Absolutely a fair thing to say. They have they have one of their locations that has a spaceship crashed into the front of it, crashed into its signage. That's is that north, north, north.

Is that north Burbank? That's somewhere in the valley. Yeah, it might be the Burbank location. North Burbank. North Burbank. Honestly, I like north Burbank. Maybe better. It's good.

It's a good name. Now, Dave and Esther, I, one time early on when I didn't know you too well. Oh, I kind of still knew you, I actually probably knew you pretty well at this point. I met you with Harris at a Ramacan. Do you remember this? Yes.

At a Ramacan. Ramacan, that place on. Oh, yeah, yeah. I missed that place. I was just going to say, I miss I missed that place. What a cool little dessert place that was. It was fantastic. Just a dessert restaurant.

Nick, I don't know if you ever got the chance to to check it out. It was never went to Ramacan. It sounds like a pretty could be a pretty fancy pants place, but they just have a little like I assume it wasn't that fancy. You know, all right. Sounds the name sounds fancy. They also just had like fresh baked cookies and stuff like that.

Oh, that's something we used to get every time we went. There was like a bread pudding or something. That was really like a tart. Like they were, it was just, I know it was very specific. Like you have to call ahead. You guys have this today. It was kind of didn't really have it a system down. It was a little bit difficult.

You had to chase it. I wish I could remember. Yeah, there was one item that they always like a gluten free something maybe. Yeah, because I feel like they only carried it. Sometimes it was delicious. It was, it was, it was great. It was a great dessert restaurant.

Turned into a, it turned into the churro borough. That's right. That's cool. Which I feel like that's been a sad part of living in LA is like you fall in love with these little places, but then they don't, they don't last. Yeah. They didn't live in an LA.

That's called getting older happens to us all. I remember there was a place in Los Feliz called mother dough, which was a pizza place. And like one of my favorite pizza places in LA. Yeah, we loved it. And I remember I talked to the guy and they were closing. I was like, what happened? He's like, I don't, I can't do this anymore.

I remember he was just like, I got kids. I can't, I can't, he told me he was like, it's like too much work to run a restaurant. I'm just going to, I got to stop doing it. He was like, that's why I was shutting down. Cause I, and I was like, are you going to, going to open up again? He's like, maybe when my kids are grown up,

I don't know, that was kind of, that was it. You know, I suspect happened. What's that? His place is called mother dough. I bet he like found like a secret room in his kitchen that put him inside his mom's body. And then he kind of had an existential crisis after that. And he was using it too much.

And, and yeah. Yeah. Yeah, probably. Well, I used to think that coffee shops were like the goldmine because it's so expensive. Like I buy like $7 lot days. But then I recently talked to a coffee shop owner and he was like, no, we barely make any money.

It's all just like for street cred. And then we try to sell our beans online. It's like the model of making money. Yeah. The margins are razor thin and with, with, and coffee and, and most, I mean, honestly the food industry in general, I think bars are the one place they can clean up because of, because of alcohol sales, but it's a, it's tough.

And it's especially tough going right now, where at least some of these places can have dine in. It's, it's, it's fascinating. I like, I, the businesses that I always am intrigued by are like a place that has like such a hyper specific concept that I feel like, did you come up with, did you think this was going to have staying power? Like, did you think that this place was,

was going to stick around or are you in this for, is your, is your like artisan soft pretzel place really? Like that has an $8 soft pretzel. Is this just designed to be like a hot spot for 18 months and then you're going to cash out? Or do you really have dreams of making this like a thing that will exist for a while? How long, how really how long is the cream shop

going to stick around? Right. You know, things like that. I mean, I'm there every day, but I'm not everyone. Right. Yeah. The rice pudding place in Soho. I always think about that one. But is that still around? I don't even know. I don't know. I also saw a funnel cake shop opening up in like Silver Lake.

Wow. Yes. It's weird. That was my big idea for a while. I've talked about it on the podcast before. I thought that could be a, like this, the new Cinnabon could be a funnel cake. Nick, we agreed on this and we, I think possibly wrong.

Did you guys open this place up and forget about it? Possibly. Yeah. I think we, we did invest substantial amount in a, I guess we just forgot it was going to open up eventually. Yeah. It's there. You guys did it. I gotta go. I think we got, I think we got Cuban to, I think we got Mark Cuban to invest with us.

I think we were on Shark Tank. Nick? We were on Shark Tank and, but the, the agreement was that Mark Cuban got 80% of the company and in return we had to put in extra money. So we kind of got hoodwinked a little bit. And then there was also a thing where we had to get in the actual Shark Tank for, for three minutes.

Yeah. That was the point where I was like, what are you guys, like you guys are really not master negotiators here. Cause you offered that up to them. Like they weren't even talking about it. Cuban was like, I guess if you're willing to do that, I'd like to watch that. Yeah. And then they were like, that's, you know,

it's honestly cost a lot to put together a Shark Tank. Like it's just permitting it and just like getting the sharks from very, We'll take care of it. We'll pay for all of it. Don't worry about it. Like this is, That was a mistake. But I don't, if you're happy, I don't know. Sure.

Yeah. I mean, we don't have this restaurant. We, we're just learning exists. So that's something. But I think that, that like, even that, like, okay, this funnel cake place, like that's like a, like it's, it's clearly probably going for a fancy pants funnel cake place. I was like, does that have legs? Or do the, do the people creating that business think

like this, this is going to be a thing. Or is it just like purely short-term thinking or what? That's a, that's a good question. I mean, the, the signage, to be honest, it didn't really look that chic. So it did feel like it was going for a more youthful, like not classy version. I wonder what places like that too.

Like how much of it is, are they like, Oh, everyone will come here and Instagram their funnel takes and it'll be popular because of that. But I don't know. That's another thing. It could be a cool podcast. If you guys had like people who actually are in the restaurant business on, instead of people like us

who have no idea what the answers to these questions are. Well, if it's for Instagram, they should do then a funnel cake museum. Now we're talking. I like that. People like the museums. They like to take pictures of themselves, the museums. You can't do that anymore. That was a whole thing.

You go to the ice cream museum and it was like a big, like you could top into a big tub of sprinkles. How on hygienic is that? And people were doing it every day. Every day? Just for the gram. I guess so. People were doing it every day for the gram.

Did you ever do it? I never did it, Nick. No, I wouldn't do that. What am I going to do? I would like to jump into a big Sunday or something would be if I told you that like on shows like, what would you do or stuff like that? Like I always really, or double dare,

the like jumping into a big Sunday or something like that for as a kid was kind of a dream. I'm kind of still what would you do? Isn't that a different show? Isn't that a totally different concept? It was like a Mark Summer spinoff show. Okay. Where like, it was kind of a similar.

Yeah. What was that show? I can hear the thief song in my head. It fell under like the messy branch of shows. It was a messy show. Yeah. And it was kind of like you get into a big Sunday and everyone would be smiling.

A simpler time. Back when the kids were entertained by just people getting messy. Everyone's going to get good and sloppy and everyone can enjoy that. Still kind of entertaining. Yeah, I agree. All right, I'm looking up the show, what would you do?

Don't you remember, am I crazy? It was like, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what? Yeah. You, what would you do? You got it. I can't remember anything other than that. That's all I remember about.

The issue is, is that it's been overtaken by the what would you do TV show on, on ABC? Okay, that's what I was thinking of. Where the one, where it'll just be like it's, it's like a mom and kid in a, in a busy deli. And the mom will just be like shaking the shit out of the kid. And then you're waiting to see if any bystanders react to what's going on.

So, by the way, it's not always shaking children. I know just an example. That's so dark. An example that I don't think they've ever done. But quickly I wanted to say, what would you do? You thought when I said, when I said like, it's a show where you jump in a big Sunday.

You thought that was still what would you do? Well, you said what would you do? I hadn't heard of the Mark, the, I almost said Mark Mary. Yeah. Mark Somers. They do have the same. Mark Somers won. This shows have the same name in, in Weigar's defense.

Got it. And so Weigar, so you thought that like, I would like, they're like, we're going to have this man jump into a big Sunday and see how people react. Like that's what you thought it was the undercover too. Yeah. Then make everyone feel bad for reacting the wrong way.

I thought, no, I seriously thought that was what the, what would you do? I didn't know about this other version. A poll quote from the, what would you do Nickelodeon Wikipedia page? The cream pie was central to the show's premise. Wow. Wow.

So there's a lot of cream pie going on. Oh, like in the thing. They had a pie pod, a pie slide, a pie pendulum, a pie roulette. Wow, this is, they were, they, they weren't lying. There was definitely a central to the premise. Sounds like big pie was involved in this show. Yeah. I have a, I've heard, anytime I've heard of someone doing

a pie in the face gag, they've always been like, it's miserable. It's just like, it's so sticky and like it burns your eyes. I guess the way you're supposed to do the cream pie gag is you use like shaving cream because like that's like, that won't fuck up your skin. But if you have actually like whipped cream in there, it's just like, it's, it's a miserable experience.

And it seems so playful and fun, but anyone who actually does it is just like, no, it fucking sucks. Do you think that you could drown in a pie? That's how I plan to die. That's, that's actually, that's actually how the show ended. That was the final episode that never aired. Esther, walk us through that.

What are you picturing that like it is? Yeah. So you get, so you're like doing a contestant game and then you fail and then they get the pie in your face, but nobody gets it off in time and you can't see, so you can't touch, like you don't know how to touch, right? And then you're like, and you're breathing in all the cream

and then that's how it drowns you in itself. Yeah, that seems, that seems plausible. I'm searching drowning in pie. I was picturing someone going face down into a pie on a table and then they can't like get any air that way and possibly drowning from that. I think that could happen. Also could be just a big pie, a giant,

like a, like a kiddie pool sized pie. If you're face down in that, maybe you could drown. Yeah. Only one way to find out. I liked, I liked Esther's thing of, you hadn't been taught how to touch. I think there was a part of that. Somehow, somehow not being able to see incapacitated

the other senses disabled ones, the person's arms. I think that there, you could probably kill someone in the big pie. If you put them face down, you could probably suffocate. That's what I'll, you know, I'll start suffocating. But if it is Esther's got a point here, like if your lungs are filling with pie, I guess I would, I would go to,

might come down to like what part of the pie are you suffocating slash drowning in? Yeah. The cream. The cream. Is that a liquid? Hard to say. It's not a solid.

Let me just say there's, there's way more results for suffocating pie than I ever would have thought. And, and they are dark, dark results. I did not worth looking at. You found, you found Esther's fan fiction. Yeah, I guess it would have to be, to drown in a pie would have to be a watery.

Yeah. It would have to be a giant pie with a watery base. Right? There's a lot of fruit pies that I feel like have kind of the, the consistency of the, you know, the filling. I feel like could be enough. It could be, yeah, it could be like thin enough where you could drown in it.

I think you could asphyxiate a number of pies. If you, if you, if you fell into a giant cherry pie, would that like, would the. Yes, go on. Yeah. Would that count as drowning the, the, the, the, you know, like the base of the cherry pie is kind of like the, the jam. You know what I mean?

Well, here, well, here's what I'll say. So a very common agricultural accident is someone in a corn silo. Wow. Falls into the corn and they asphyxiate cause they can't, there's no way to pull them out and they're just breathing in, they can't get in the air and they're breathing in corn. And, and I've heard that described as drowning in corn.

So I think you, I think the term, I think you might actually be able to drown in a food stuff. And that's how the cause of death would be classified. I fell into a corn silo once. I was all right. He ate his way out. I ate my way out. Wait, remember when you had that corn stuck in your teeth

for like a year? Who me? Yeah. You had, you had some corn that was in there for a while. Pup corn, a corn, a kernel. Yeah. Yeah. Or wait, are you being funny that I had a big piece of corn stuck in my,

no, I really didn't, I didn't have a corn, a kernel I went to the dentist. Yeah. The dentist got it out. Yeah. He gave it to me. He gave it to me in a little jar. Did you make a necklace out of it? I certainly did.

And then it got stuck back in my tooth somehow. Nick, sounds like, sounds like the end of a, sounds like Del Close's big cameo in the blob remake. When at the end, he's the guy who has the blob in the jar. Was that what it is? Yeah. Have you ever seen the blob remake? Have you ever seen the blob remake? No.

Del Close's big role. I've heard that Del Close is in it. I just didn't know what he actually did. The man that we worshiped and studied, his big role is in the blob remake. Del Close, the improv guru from Chicago, who taught the members of the upright citizens brigade theater and many other well-known Chicago comedians.

And they kind of as the disciples, if he is Jesus, they were his disciples, spreading his gospel of improv nationwide. And so yeah, like a lot, I've never, I'm aware of the man, but he's just a mythic figure. Well, you got to watch it. He's in Ferris Bueller too. Oh, that's right.

He is in Ferris Bueller. That's pretty good. Yeah, he's a character actor with some real credits, but he's mostly known for the, the improv, fathering the improv scene as we know it. Hey, I'm not making fun of the credits. I would love to be in the blob remake, remake. Go ahead, you piece of shit.

Motion capture for the blob? Yeah, exactly. I knew you were going to say some fucking bullshit like that. I'm curious because- Motion capture for the blob. So I like roll around. You know how they do CG these days?

They put you in the suit with all the ping pong balls. Drop a bunch of marks on your face. Did you get to do that for Tomorrow War at all? Your upcoming action film? Put on the motion capture suit? Yeah, did they do any motion capture with you? For like later, for like building a CG Mitch for some, some FX shots?

They put me in a scanner. Wow. They put me in like a scanner that they like, they used to like make like, the, they obviously they used to like put you in whatever. It's like documents. Like they turn you into a PDF. They turn me into a PDF.

That's crazy. I sat on, I sat on this, I like, I stood on this platform and then they had like, a ton of cameras go off at once. And they had me like make two faces. One was like a normal face and one was like a scared face for this thing in the movie. And, and as, as like the, like for like the normal face,

they're like, you want to come and see it? And you're like, you come in, you come and see like this like basically 3D scan model of yourself and I just look like shit. Like it's just like your, your fucking face is just there and you can see every angle of it. And I'm like, oh, one of my eyes droops down. You know what I mean?

You're much in detail. You see everything about yourself. But they, they scan you in there. I'm, they scan my whole body. Wow. I heard that I took up like a lot more gigs than the other actors. Did they charge you?

Yeah, they, I cost money, which I thought was weird. But yeah, I got scanned. I'm a PDF now. How exciting. I also wore one of those motion capture suits for Jimmy Kimmelbit and it was me and Jack Allison Worm and then Kate, Jack's wife posted online and some guy said, where, where's his dick?

That's what he said. Oh, it's pretty good. Where was your dick? Up in there like usual. Yeah. Up in there. Oh no. Okay.

Tur, you know, it's turtling out a little, you know, it, it, it, it, it, it, it's a sensitive area, Nick. Help me out here. What, what are you trying to say? It changes sizes. Sometimes it's very compact and in there, you know? People, you know, depending on what you're wearing, absolutely can impact that depending on the weather.

People know these things. There was a Seinfeld episode with this very premise. That's right. I was in the pool, George said. I feel like I'm always in the pool. We'll take a break. Way back with more Doe Boys. Welcome back to Doe Boys.

We are here with Dave King and Esther Pavitsky for Friendly Green Grocer Mitch's Grocery Store Month as we review Kroger this week to close things out. Founded by Bernard Kroger in Cincinnati in 1883. It is the largest supermarket chain in America and the fifth largest retailer period in the world. Wow. Under Kroger's umbrella are, of course, Kroger, Ralph's,

Food for Less, Dillon's, Smith's, Fred Meyer, Harris Teeter, many, many more brands. If there's a, if there's a major grocery store next near you, that's that the chances are that it is either a Kroger or an Albertsons. That's one thing I think we've learned this month, Mitch, is that those companies have near total dominance of at least the mainstream, mainline grocery store

supermarket side of things. And their store brands are Kroger, Private Selection, and Simple Truth. Let's start here. Dave and Esther, so what is your normal, and I know, obviously, in these current circumstances, you're not going to grocery stores much at all. What was your pre-lockdown grocery routine?

What were your go-to stores and what are your shopping habits? I'm a big Whole Foods person. So Dave, for some reason, like doesn't like to go grocery shopping. He says it makes him feel sad. Wow. This is true.

And am I allowed to say that? Yeah, it's true. Certain rules. So I love Whole Foods. That's like happy times for me. When I, like, if I'm sad, like I love the West Hollywood one because it's open till 11. So I'm a Whole Foods person.

And I'm also a big believer in like, you have to do multiple hits. You can never just do one. Like, you got to go to Whole Foods, Trader Joe's. But those are probably my only two mains. I don't, yeah, and yeah, I don't typically love Ralph's, but I guess that's not, it's not time to say that yet. But, and then we've been ordering delivery.

So Dave will get delivery from Gelson's because it's a little higher end. So they're not as picked over. So we'll do delivery from there because we have been so strict in not leaving the house. And then I do produce a weekly produce delivery. That thing is great. Wow.

Yeah, we've been doing a, there's a, we were doing, we had like a vegetable box that we were getting. And then it was just kind of like that service, that particular service we were using was a little wonky. I think they were a little overwhelmed by the increased demand during lockdown. But we switched to this local restaurant

that puts together their own like farmers market box that you can just go and pick up. And so we switched to that and getting all this fucking amazing produce. Natalie is cooking up each week. It's a delight. It's just like, it's, that is a thing of just like, man, do I, do I keep doing this

when things are turned to normal? Cause it is like, it like, what I like about the vegetable box, I'm curious about your guy's perspective, but. Hey, how about, how about you? Why don't you, why don't you do some of the cooking? Why is Natalie always cooking up this thing? I do cooking.

I do cook. I'm just saying like, she's more, she's more versatile. She has more skill in the kitchen. She's a more creative cook. She can figure out how to use these. Like, I get all this shit. And I'm just like, I don't know what to do with this. So when it comes to dinner time,

you were just dropping a big old fucking egg plant on the plate. There's certain ingredients where I'm like, I don't know. I wouldn't know where to begin with this. I can look up a recipe or whatever, but my mind doesn't like, I can do certain things. And this is outside of my wheelhouse.

But I do like that they, that the box kind of challenges you to be like, okay, I'm going to figure out how to make whatever this thing is work. And which more often falls to Natalie and she's very adept at doing that. But do you customize what you get? Are you just kind of, you sometimes just like,

okay, well, we got a, hey, we got a bunch of, we got a bunch of fucking, why am I, I'm not remembering the name of any vegetable. Carrot. We got a bunch of carrots this week. Whatever will we do with carrots? And then you kind of game plan it that way? I feel like in the beginning,

there was a little more adrenaline behind everything. And so I could get behind the like creative challenge of having to play with the produce box. But now I'm very strict about customizing. Also, well, one thing I'm forgetting that really got in our way is we had no fridge or freezer for two weeks. Oh my God. That was awful.

It was awful. So we had just like stocked up for the apocalypse. And then we had to throw everything away. So like, I would say this was like a thousand dollar or deal. What a nightmare. But so now we just got it back working again. So we just like ordered a new box and customized it. Wow.

Yeah. Fridges stopped working in the middle of the heat wave and the quarantine. It was a bummer. Terrible. That was awful. Well, I mean, it's fine. People are going through worse things than broken fridges. So we survived.

But. That sucks. It's a tricky thing. It's a tricky thing to happen now, specifically. Yes. Yeah, it's a bummer. Timing-wise, it's pretty agreed. Pretty rough.

Not ideal, not ideal. What did you guys do, guys, do take out for that stretch? Was that kind of, yeah. That's when we started expanding a little more, you know? Yeah. At first, I was like, oh, this won't be that bad. Like, I'll just make a big batch of pasta every day because you don't need a fridge for pasta.

But then that lasted two days and it was not working. Any specific take-out spot that you guys have liked during quarantine? Is there one that you have a go-to for or no? We've been ordering all time because I do really appreciate that their delivery people work for them. And it's not just like a third-party delivery service. I don't know why I feel like good about that, but.

It's crazy expensive, but it's so good all time. I really like Kismet Rotisserie, which is not far away from there, and Kismet too, but Kismet Rotisserie is just, I love that place. Kismet took the place of Mother Doe. It's in the same spot Mother Doe once was. So for people not in LA, Kismet is a Mediterranean place, yes, and in all time?

All time is more, I don't know what you call it, American Californian or something. Got it. Cuisine, but it's like, and Kismet Rotisserie. New American, I don't think we'll call it. New American, sure. Kismet Rotisserie is kind of like, you know, Zanku, but better, I guess you might say.

Got it. And they've got like a really good like wedge salad. Oh, it's so delicious. I don't know if it's better, but it's very good. It's like a, it's like a, it's like a Zanku is. Classier. You don't know if it's better than Zanku? I don't, I don't know if it's better than Zanku.

Wow, that's interesting. I mean, look, I know what you mean. There is something about Zanku that just, when you're craving it, it hits the spot and that garlic paste is so good, but they have that at Kismet too. I don't know. It does.

It feels like a, it feels like a healthier and kind of like whatever. It feels like maybe a quality level difference. Yeah, better. So that's the, that's like when I said it's better. That's kind of what I meant. I don't know if it tastes better to me though, especially the chicken shawarma or the tarna, the tarna plate.

That's not what I'm going for, yeah. To quickly go back, eggplant has shot up to be one of the more famous vegetables, huh, in the, in the... Interesting observation. Don't you think? Do you mean recently? Do you mean like in recent years

or do you mean just like in general? I'm saying in recent years. Why do you say that? It's because of the emoji. Oh, because of the emoji. Because yeah, I think people are more aware of it because of the emoji, yeah. What would you say was the, what do you think,

what do you think was the most famous vegetable for, you know, for a long while? Well, I mean, I, you know, you could, yeah, you could say lettuce. You could say tomato. Wow. I mean, tomato technically a fruit. I mean, a lot of people will go with the carrot,

which we mentioned earlier. Carrot might win it. Yeah, carrot might win. I'm not sure if corn is classified as a vegetable, but certainly very popular here in the States. Maze. It's a grain. It's more of a grain, yes. Corn is a grain. Is lettuce a vegetable?

I think so. Look, can we, look, we're just gonna, we're gonna put them all vegetables. They're, we're classifying all of them as vegetables here. Mitch an Irish man. Potato, potato, potato. That's what I was gonna, that's what I was gonna say is an Irish man, potatoes.

Potato to me is probably one of the most famous. Yeah. But eggplant definitely shot up with the emoji. Yeah, it's true. Mm-hmm. Anyways, that was a good, that was a good conversation. No, I'm glad we doubled back for that. So Zanku for, also, you know,

an LA institution, a mini-chain out here for people who aren't familiar with it or live elsewhere. It is like, it is like a Mediterranean rotisserie chicken. They've also got like the, these got these, the big spits where they've got all sorts of roasted meats on them. It is fantastic quality, but it is like a very, it is like a, you know, just like a counter service.

Like it's a dinky looking place. It doesn't look like it's anything fancy. It's kind of bare bones in terms of the presentation. I brought my mom and sister and my dad to Zanku one time and they like, my mom and sister like won't let me forget it because like the one on, first of all, I don't think that they like loved the food there, but I brought them to the one not far from where I live.

Is that on sunset or is it on Hollywood Boulevard? I think it's sunset. Let's nail down the closest intersection by your apartment for all our listeners. The one on sunset and it is just, Nick, like you're saying, like the insides of it like make some school cafeterias look fancy. Yeah, it's kind of dingy feeling.

The food quality I think is great. I do love it, but it is like, yeah, if you're taking, you get relatives from out of town, Zanku's not a place to take them. But the food, Nick, the food, that's what it's all about. I was giving them a little Bourdain trip. I was taking to, I was taking a Jonathan Gold trip, Nick. Oh, I got you.

I was taking to the good food and they didn't care. They didn't like it. My mom and sister still give me shit about it. I don't want to like make this gendered, but I do feel that every guy I know loves Zanku and I don't know any women that are that into it. I could be wrong. Wow, interesting.

Of course you want to make this gendered. It seems like I've died. You can get into this podcast with such an agenda. All you want to do is gender restaurants. No, I think there's something to that because there's, it's also like, it's Seth Rogen wears that Zanku shirt in Funny People. That's right.

There's like, it is a fave, it is, here's what I think it is. Ira, his name is Ira in the movie. Yeah, Ira. I think Ira Weiner. Ira Weiner? Weiner. Yeah, yeah, no, because he did, yeah.

I think a lot of guys would be like, first come to LA are either like single or poor or both. And it's like a very easy, so are girls, but it's like an easy place to stop. But I think like girls tend to be better at like, well, I don't want to be gendered, but I think they're like less likely, I think men are more likely to go to a gross place

like Zanku because they don't care about like the cleanliness and that sort of thing. Also, I just want to shout out, Pita in is a similar style of food and is one of the best restaurants that's from my hometown, Skokie, Illinois. And when I took Dave there, he wasn't that impressed and it's a difficult situation.

Definitely a problem. I was like, yeah, this is fine. Yeah. And that was not the right answer. Wow, see, when I brought Nick Weiger, who auto-corrects in my phone from Weiger to, from Weig's or Weiger to Wifey a lot of the time. Interesting.

Are you blown away by some of those Quincy spots I showed you? Huh? We had a nice time. Okay, fuck you. What are you talking about? What do you mean specifically? What was I blown away by? You liked all of it.

You liked all, it was good, you liked all of it. Yeah, I had a nice time. You liked Fat Cat? Had a lovely time at Fat Cat. Had a great meal, great service. You liked the ice cream parlor? Ah, what fun we had at the ice cream parlor at Brigham's with Dieter serving us

with his pearly whites. Dieter behind the counter, just great set of chompers. His teeth look fantastic. This is what you remember from your trip to here. He got new teeth, that's why Nick is here. So weird. How was, oh, how'd the trip go? This guy had new teeth.

The bartender, let me tell you about the bartender's teeth here, I have pictures. Damn, I just wanna quickly say, you say, a lot of people come to LA single and poor. I actually, when I moved here, I was a married millionaire. You always forget that, yeah. Oh yeah. That is weird.

Real decline. I know, I don't know what happened. Right, you had no excuse for eating at Zanku when you did it anyway. I do wanna say, it's just that Dave treats both of you the exact same way he treats me. It's really weird. How would you describe that?

Takes every opportunity to cut you down. Hey, I got an idea. Let's kick his ass, the three of us. I deserve it, that's fine. Honestly, if the three of you beat me to death, I would be like, as I was dying, I'd be like, fair, fine. That's the deal I have with you. I would say if Dave decided to kill me,

that I know my parents would be like, well, we trust that he did the right thing. Right, Dave is right. Dave is rational, he wouldn't have snapped. This is probably a reasonable, well thought out decision that he made. We can tell this is premeditated because he went to the trouble of baking a pie

and then pressing it into her face. Why, he wagger. Yeah. You wanna say what, cause I said last night, I said that my dad could kick my ass for the, and my sister used to kick my ass when I was younger. And then I got strong enough to where I could just like kick her away, kind of like a mule.

I just kick at her and she'd get away from me. But you were saying you were the strongest, cause I said my dad had cancer. When my dad had cancer and was 68, 69 years old, he could still, he was actually, he was 69. He could still kick my ass, even with cancer at 69 years old, he could easily still kick my ass.

Last night, you said that you could kick your dad's ass and that you're the strongest wagger. Yeah, I think I'm the strongest wagger. I think I could dispatch my dad pretty easily. He's at advanced age, he's a strong man. He does, you know, he- Which by the way, it just means that my dad with cancer could just destroy your entire family.

He could just kick the shit out of all of you. I think I could beat your dad. My dad would fucking destroy you. I feel like I could take your dad and I feel like I could take you cause I could do the ropa dope. I could get you winded. My dad, you couldn't get winded.

I think I probably had a better cardio. My dad weighed less than you, you fat fuck. Also, I've said this before, but the issue with you, and then my dad would run into this too, is like, while you're beating the hell out of wagger and like knocking his teeth out, he's just getting hard as a rock. So this week's chain Kroger,

I went to the Ralph's that is near our apartment and I got a few items, I'll start with the hot bar. I got the two-piece fried chicken combo with mac and cheese and scalloped potatoes. I will say all of their side options because they have a two-piece chicken combo and you know, you choose lighter dark meat and they choose two sides.

It's like $6.99, it's a pretty good value lunch, but they're all very starchy and cheesy. And you know, I ended up, I was just like, I don't have a lot, I can get potato wedges, I can get scalloped potatoes, I can get mashed potatoes, or I can get mac and cheese. It was just like, I would love, give me some cream spinach or some baked beans or something,

something that's not just more starch with this already breaded chicken I'm getting. But I got the mac and cheese and scalloped potatoes. The fried chicken was good. I mean, it was well seasoned, it had a good texture to it, the meat was well cooked. The issue is, we're comparing against the Albertson's fried chicken,

which we tried last week, Mitch, and that fried chicken is just clearly superior. It's just head and shoulders above this iteration. So viewing it through that lens, it's fine. It's fine fried chicken, I wouldn't go out of my way to get it. Mac and cheese, I feel like a little under-seasoned, you know, it had some decent amount of cheese to it,

but just not a ton of flavor. And the scalloped potatoes were just so, so heavy. I feel like I was just eating, you know, I felt like I was eating like a really, like a warm cereal, like just with that, that was like that I poured whole milk over. Just like a really, like it was, it was just so, Jesus.

So heavy. It was just like, like just heavy cream and you know, little potato ringlets and just, it just wasn't super, it was a lot to have for lunch. And I did have it for lunch. So I'm not sure, mixed feelings here. I do feel like the fried chicken was good, but the sides kind of disappointed

and I would have liked some more side options other than what I was stuck with. Mitch, let's go to you. What did you, did you get anything from the hot, hot bar slash hot counter slash deli counter at your local Kroger? I got something from the hot deli counter. I got myself, I got myself a meal deal as well, Nick.

Wow. I got fried chicken, a breast and a wing, even though I asked for boneless wing because they had boneless wings, but they didn't give me one. And I got myself for size. I got myself onion rings and mac and cheese. Those are the two ones that kind of like looked all right.

They all looked like they were kind of sitting out. Also, there was a corn dog and I asked the guy, I was like, does corn dog count as a side? He laughed at me. Wow. And said, no, corn dog does not count as a side. You know where they won't laugh at you for asking that question?

Cookout. Wow, I agree. Cookout, you can get a corn dog, and maybe that's why Cookout has infected my brain. But here's the deal. Let's not be too mean to this guy. He was, he's setting up, he made my meal at the end. He tossed a corn dog on there at the end.

Wow. Gave me a corn dog. Nick, I agree with you. The fried chicken was good. The breast fried chicken was good. I do think Albert Sins is better. Everything else, the onion rings were one of the grossest things.

I bit in them and they were hollow and old and hard. And just biting into, they were shattering and hard and fucking, look, the food might've been out for a while. And then also, it took me a while to get home, but there was no, they should've been thrown away. They were just hard crunch messes. Breaded stuff sitting in the steam tray is tough. That stuff gets gooey real quick.

But overcooked. It was just hard. It was just like hard and empty and fucking disgusting. And the mac and cheese, the mac and cheese, as I went on, wasn't too bad, but also just like had the issue of like, this is kind of sad out for too long. I think I, compared to Albert Sins,

I, this one is like kind of cheesier. And if it was fresh, maybe we'd be better, but just the way it was was not good. And then the corn dog, man, the corn dog was such a bummer. I bit into it and I thought that I had bit into the stick, but it wasn't. It was just that the outside of it was so awful. The outside of it was so hard.

So it was, it was, it was, it was fucking, it was rough. Nick, I also got from the, the deli also got some test, from some Tuscan pesto salad. Tuscan being from, it's a Tuscan. Tatooine. Oh, Tus, Tus, Tuscuin. I think it's, I think even as there, I think it's, it was from Tustin city.

Yeah. They just drove it in from Tustin this morning. Unremarkable local city. And this, I was like, this one looks like the, I asked the guy at the deli case, I was like, what are your favorite deli things? He's like, I don't need anything from the deli. So bad sign, immediately.

Yeah, that's a bad sign. This guy doesn't eat anything from here. I would say good, actually not necessarily like, to me, that's a sign that you're talking to a smart person or at least a reasonable person. It's a bad sign for the food. It's a good sign for that guy. Sure.

And also like a guy who's being honest with me, he's telling me the truth. But this one looked the best. All of them looked like pretty bad. I was going to maybe get the meatloaf and I backed off on the meatloaf. And I'm happy I did because the Tuscan pesto salad sucked too.

It was like dry, much drier than I thought it would be. This was like such a disappointment. I was so hungry. I went to the Ralphs down on the Hollywood Boulevard Ralphs that you have to look and I'll get to that too. But the parking there is like a mess. I don't know if you know this one. Also near my, not far from where I live, Nick,

the Ralphs closest to my place. A lot of the parking situations, I feel like in LA grocery stores are LA specific because Ralphs was my grocery store. Ralphs slash Kroger was my grocery store growing up. It was, we were a Ralphs family, we were a Costco family. And the Ralphs always had, in Lakewood, California, always had ample parking.

I mean, just a gigantic, a lot, the footprint of the lot was larger than the footprint of the store. Sounds like South Park. Sounds like South Park? Oh, ample parking day or night. Gotcha. Yeah, also Cartman work there.

So also Lake South Park. Oh God. Price check on cheesy poofs is what I was gonna say. There you go. There you go. Price check on cheesy poofs. Yeah, we liked it. Boy.

Should we go next? Are you done, Mitch? Should I stay in Quincy when I go back? Wow. No, no, man, come on. Have you discussed, have you disclosed this on the podcast that you are weighing a return trip to Quincy for the long haul, just sort of to stick it out for the...

I have not. I guess this is the announcement of it. I'm moving back to Quincy. Wow, breaking chews. Not for good, but for till things settle down with coronavirus. So 2022, see ya. Yeah, it's unfortunate for you a while.

Wags, will you miss me, Wags? I feel like we'll be in contact the same amount. Okay, so most normal people would say, yeah, I'll miss you, Mitch. Well, it's not like I'm driving by your house, like waving to you from outside. All right, anyways, I got one other thing right near the cold deli.

And I don't know if this really counts because I'm not sure if it is Ralph's, but chicken salad croissant. Is this Ralph's? I don't know if this is Ralph's. Mitch is holding up his phone screen. It just, no, as far as I can tell, there is no brand on this.

This is just a generic chicken salad croissant. I would assume this is store brand because of the label. It looks like the brand is chicken salad croissant, like that's the name of the brand. I cannot believe that you purchased that item. That looks like the most foul piece of food I could imagine. Well, funny, funny you say that because it was not good at all.

It was, it was, I drank this with a strawberry bubbly. Oh God, what are you doing? Ellen, the very nice Ellen DeGeneres' Seltzer company, bubbly. I heard she personally calls you up after you drink a bubbly to thank you for being a picture. How you doing?

Hope you enjoyed bubbly. Okay. Thanks, Ellen. No problem, I'm notoriously nice. See ya. Then she sends you a gift. All right, the phone's off. Fuck that fucking fat piece of shit.

The chicken salad croissant just, here's what it was like. I mean, the chicken salad in the sandwich was wrapped in lettuce and then it was put in the croissant. To me, the best way to describe it was just kind of like an old sandwich. You know, if like you have a sandwich that's been in your fridge for like, like when it's in the fridge for like two to three days

and you're like, this is just now like... Yeah. Look, I'm not saying like, obviously you can make a sandwich that's with the ingredients that have been in fridge for two or three days or a week or whatever. But when... We get what you mean.

Yes. The sandwich was made and then wholesale put in the fridge and now three days later. But just to clarify, for any of our listeners who are maybe still confused, what Mitch is describing is like a fully assembled sandwich. So like you put mayonnaise on one side. That's a good way of describing it.

You put like some turkey and cheese on there, mustard on the other side, wrap it all up and put it in the fridge. Nick, don't get ahead of yourself. First you take the croissant, you cut it in two. Yes. And then, well, and before that even, you're gonna get the knife out of the drawer.

You go to... But then if you look in there and then you look and they said, there's no clean knife, so you gotta do your dishes. You gotta do your dishes. And then the dishwasher is broken. You're like, well, I guess I gotta wash this by hand now. But then you don't have any dish soap

because you're used to using the dishwasher. So you gotta make an extra trip to the store to get some dish soap. And then when you're at the store, you buy some Vaseline and you're like, I might as well jack off when I get home too before I do this. So then you're there, you're jacking off.

But then you're looking for something to jack off to it at home. All you have is the Bible. Then you gotta find the horniest Bible passage so you can fucking bust. That takes forever. In the horniest Bible passage, I got news for you. It's the birth of Christ.

You know, a sandwich. Vaseline? With Vaseline? Is that normal? Vaseline is maybe not normal. I feel like that's like a teen boy experimenting thing of just like, oh, I need, I'm gonna wanna try something to feel, I'll try this Vaseline.

And also STP kind of puts your mind there too. Oh, yes, right. What? Isn't there a famous diss track? No Vaseline? Oh, that's right, yes. Yeah. Isn't that, that's a, is that, that's cube, right?

I don't know, I guess so. Yeah, it's, no, it's ice cube. It's, it's a, it's ice cube to, is it two? I don't know. I'm pretty sure that it's against Dre and Easy. I think it's, I think it's against all of them. Yeah. Anyways, it was bad.

The sandwich was very bad. The croissant was like, oh, look, this, this, this, this isn't, this isn't the last thing that fell apart on me, but the croissant itself was like wet. Oh. And it just, it was just, this was just a mess. It was, it was a bummer. It was a bummer.

Yeah. Wet savory foods for the most time are a failure. Flies in the Vaseline we are. That's, that's what I was, that was the STP song sometimes. Oh, oh, I was thinking something totally different, Mitch. I thought what you were saying was STP, the motor oil, also you also makes you think about masturbating with an unusual lubricant.

And I was like, what? Okay, dude. That is not what you were talking about. All right, I'm relieved. I feel so much better than I did for me. No, but Dave, you were also right on that one too. So anyways. Oh no.

Nick, Esther and Dave, did you guys get anything from, you guys didn't get anything from the deli, correct? That's right. Look, we, we instacarded, I tried to, I couldn't find anything from the deli case on instacart. And I, so I did, look, we basically just got some products and sampled them.

So we didn't really have a meal. Should I just dive right in and let you know? Yeah, let's get into it. Okay, so the first thing that I got were, at least this is like a baked good, were the Kroger brand blueberry muffins. I got like one of those plastic thing of four blueberry muffins.

And those were gross. They're really bad. Every, I mean, basically they were the exact opposite of what you want from a blueberry muffin, in my opinion, which is the top bite, the muffin top, which I want to be like kind of like, not quite crispy, I don't know, but like dry. Yeah, sugary.

Yeah, sugary. You want that sugar crust and you want it to be dry. So that part was like super wet and like spongy gross. It felt like it had been, someone had inverted the blueberry muffin and dipped it in water. And then the inside, which you want to be like moist and rich was like dry and bland. It was bad.

And then I also got, oh, so this was the closest thing to a deli item I could find was I got fresh watermelon spears, which came in like a plastic tin, not that bad. That was the best thing I got. They were like surprisingly fresh and they were okay. And I actually thought you got a pretty good amount for the money you spent. And then I got Kroger mini like little ice cream sandwiches

from the frozen section. They're called mini snowboard sandwiches. I don't know why. Wow. Hey, cause they have a little- Oh, I saw those, yeah. Yeah, there's like a dude snowboarding on the front. And those were pretty good too.

I mean, I think it's like hard to fuck up ice cream sandwich. And it is like, it pretty much gives you exactly what you want, which is like that traditional ice cream sandwich taste. But they weren't like- You know, Mitch, we recently did an ice cream sandwich episode of Doe Boys Double, where we came to a similar conclusion. It's hard to fuck up an ice cream sandwich.

The one that was maybe the worst was the one shaped like the Millennium Falcon, the Star Wars one was a big disappointment. Other than that, those were pretty, they were pretty great. I kind of think it's one of those items where you almost want it to be, like the quality is less and like, I don't know, like the more upscale it is, sometimes the worse it is,

like you just want like that old, that taste you had when you were a kid. 100%. Yeah, yeah. And then Esther, you got a couple of things too. Okay, so I, as some of you may know, I'm a bit of an alternative milk expert on the scene. So I got the Simple Truth brand almond milk

as well as two different styles. This is not milk, but two different styles of Kroger orange juice. Wow. I got the Kroger Original orange juice as well as Homestyle. Original is, they're both from Concentrate. Original is no pulp, Homestyle has pulp.

Original was absolutely vile, it's sour, it's like somehow thin, it was really bad, but Homestyle, on the other hand, was actually kind of good, it kind of tastes like, you know when you're in the hospital and they give you that little tiny thimble of orange juice and you're just like, oh my God, like I, so good. It's such a small amount, kind of had that like shitty,

but like saving your life taste. And then the almond milk. Are you okay? Is there something you need to tell me? Well, you were there that day when I had the shingles and everything. Oh yeah, that's right, yes. So then I, the almond milk, I was honestly

so afraid to try it, like the branding is just creepy. I'm like, it's gonna taste like mucus, like I just judged it so hard. Oh my God. And then when I tasted it, I thought it was absolutely absolutely excellent. It had a really nice almond taste to it that, so my favorite, when I don't really love almond milk

that much anymore, I use it just for cereal, but my favorite almond milk is the Whole Foods Unsweetened brand. This one was a little thicker than that, not in a good or bad way, but it had a more of an almond taste than the Whole Foods one, which was really nice. Like this is definitely a solid,

and again, this is unsweetened, I didn't say that. Unsweetened almond milk, simple truth brand, pretty good. Wow. I kind of don't believe you guys that your fried chicken was that good. Like, I have to be honest, like Ralph's counter food to me in my experience,

which is admittedly like 15 years ago, I guess part of me just feels like how bad can fried chicken be if it's actually chicken and it's actually fried? Because it's like, I don't know, I just, maybe, hey look, I'm not calling you guys liars. I guess I'm just, I'm surprised to hear that anything from the hot deli area was even decent

because it's like scary to me to think of getting food from there. Right, I think that, and you were kind of saying this, but I think that just the fact that it's fried chicken is going a long way. It's just a food item with a very, very high floor and they have a serviceable execution of it. It's, you know what, hey, we mentioned Del Close earlier

to quote a passage from his book, Truth in Comedy, written with Sharna Halpern. Fried chicken, to paraphrase, fried chicken is like the Herald. When it's bad, it's still pretty good. Ew. Is that really from the book? Yeah, he says the Herald when it's bad is still pretty good. Ew, that is wrong.

Yeah, not true. That is not true. The Herald when it's good is still pretty bad. Yeah, it's probably like famously always bad. Yeah. What food do you think has the highest floor? I was going to say pizza. Pizza's pretty good candidate.

You can have some pretty wretched individual pizzas is the only thing I would say. I mean, like people who are like, when people say that like, that is a funny thing of that thing of where people like, sex is like pizza, even when it's bad, it's pretty good. I'm like, that's not true. Both of those are bad, awkward, bad sex or bad pizza.

That all sounds like, you'd rather not have it. What are you talking about? This is insane. Fully agree. Terrible statement. I feel like if our friend Paul Rust were here, he would make a joke that like the food with the highest floor, that's the, well, that's the concession stand

on the roof of the Empire State Building. Yeah. And he crosses his eyes on the Zoom call, which would just be for us. The people listening wouldn't know it, but we'd laugh extra hard at it. Yeah, I would laugh a lot. Yes, he's the best.

I actually don't understand how you guys are saying that fried chicken has a high floor because there's so many things that can go wrong. The chicken itself could be dry, the outside could be not crispy, even hot, it has to even be hot. Like that feels like difficult. You can definitely fuck it up.

Know what I'll say? The food with the highest floor is something that I partially ate, which is the hot dog and a bun. How's that? Yeah, I mean, you know, it's hard to fuck that up. I was gonna say something similar is just like a very simple food

that I think it's hard to make a bad version of is a quesadilla. It's just like, it's interesting. It's a good nominee. Tortilla with some cheese in it. You can't really burn it in the same way they can burn a grilled cheese sandwich. And Nick, I was just thinking about like a shriveled dog,

like a hard shriveled dog. You'll get like- You can get that bad old dog that's been on the rollers for a while. It was a weird choice given that you had a bad one today. You're like, here's something that you're never gonna get a low quality one.

The exact item that I ate earlier and was- Mine was a corn dog. It's true, in his defense, it was a corn dog. The food that I confused with the stick. Wait, sorry. Yours was, oh, you're saying a hot dog on a stick? No, no, no, I mean, you still make a great point. But mine was a corn dog, but you're right.

Quesadilla, I think, I think Waggar maybe nailed it. Like if you're not, if you just don't have like spoiled rotten food, like Quesadilla shouldn't be bad. Yeah. It's at least a candidate. Let us know what you think. Hashtag high food floor.

Give us your nominees. Mitch, I got some other items. I got a Kroger Zesty Hot Dill Zingers, which is a jar of pickles. You know, I like spicy foods and something of a heat seeker. Similar to Dave, my favorite item was a spear and I got a disappointing blueberry item.

The disappointing blueberry item was the Kroger Blueberry Waffles, which is like their version of an ego. And it just didn't have a great blueberry flavor. I mean, it was just like, you could tell it was the generic version of an ego. And I'm like, why would I not just spend a dollar more and get the ego one,

which I know is going to execute this better. The Hot Dills Zingers though were nice. They had some great flavor to them. I'm gonna finish them. I'm gonna go through that whole jar. This is, by far, the best item I got from Kroger. The Simple Truth Curry Potato Salad was another one I got. And so Simple Truth is like one of their higher end labels.

The other one is private selection. And in the potato family, I also got some private selection, Fresno Pepper and Manchego Ripple Cut Kettle Chips. So these are both attempts at an elevated version of a simple food. The Curry Potato Salad, I feel like, was just, I would have rather had normal potato salad.

I don't think curry potato salad is a flawed concept. I've had good versions of a curry chicken salad, which is delightful. I think you could make a good curry potato salad. I just feel like this curry flavor was just not on point. And the Fresno Pepper and Manchego Ripple Cut Kettle Chips Natalie had the observation. These were just too sweet.

They had this weird artificial sugary character to them. And I feel like they, I like in theory, like, hey, we're gonna get like a roasted pepper that's kind of a mild pepper, and we're gonna get a cheese that's not normally associated with chips, something that's a little bit like a sharper hard cheese. But it just didn't come together.

The last couple of things I got was the Kroger Crunchy Fish Sticks, which were bad. They crisped up nicely in the oven, but they were like, weirdly, they had the same form factor as a mozzarella stick, which I found very off-putting for a fish stick. I feel like a fish stick needs to be a little bit more oblong or a little bit more like, you know,

just not like a perfect cylinder. Okay, or like in a dinosaur shape or something. Yeah, dinosaur shape would have been fun. But the, here's the issue. They had a good crispy coating, but the actual fish meal was so bad. It was just like terrible, terrible quality fish. And then the last thing, another highlight,

I got a slice of Tres Leches Vanilla Cake from the bakery, which was, I ate the whole thing. It was delicious. It had a nice, you know, it was just sitting in a pool of its own juices, but it was a well-executed Tres Leches cake. Rose, dude. I'm remind, it was sitting in a pool of its own juices,

and it was good. I will say- It says it again. Yeah, it was. This reminded me, so as I mentioned before on the show, as Nali and I eloped, we got married in Vegas, just the two of us, then we came back to LA,

and our version of a wedding cake is we went to our Kroger, and we got a little slice of cheesecake from the bakery there, which we shared, and it was delightful. So I feel like their bakery has been a go-to for me, for individual slices of cake in the past. I feel like they have a quality bakery there in-house, and I have a nice memory associated with it.

So I'll say kudos for their Tres Leches Vanilla Cake. That was an item that I felt succeeded. Nick, how many weeks until you told George Weigher? Is your dad's name George? George Raymond Weigher, that's right. Yeah, I got it right. Yeah. How many weeks until you told, what's my dad's name?

Mr. Mitchell. You're a true piece of shit, you know that? That is so funny. I just wasn't expected to be quizzed on it. All right, then what is it? Let's hear it. We've learned this, I've learned this before. I know this, I know your dad's name.

No, I know, all right, so just say it. It'll come to me. It'll come to me. That's like in junior high when I was on a date and I closed my eyes and I'm like, what color are my eyes? And then if you can't say, you're in trouble. Nick, think of his nickname, Whammer. Oh, that's right.

He went by Whammer, also went by Mitch, much like you. That is right. Is it William? Yes, William, Jesus. Bill Mitchell, yes. There you go. Oh, God.

Where's my cats? I wanna test the Whammer all in them again. The Whammer. Nick, I got a lot of things. The Whammer and his son, the Stammer. That's right, I stammer a lot. He has a failed son, he was better at everything. He beats me at everything.

Besides maybe I am, I think maybe, but he was pretty funny too, I don't know. I was gonna say I was funnier than him, but he was pretty funny. That's always real humbling when you've got the guy who's like his job is, I mean, you think of our buddy, Dana, who's been on the show, just like, as this union guy who's just got a regular job,

but then is just also funnier than me and I'm ostensibly someone who works in comedy professionally. I'm just like, well, what am I doing? Fucking wasted my life. Yeah, Dana and I are gonna take over the show together. It's gonna be great. Be a better show. I got myself a couple of kombucha's.

I got Simple Truth Organic, Cranberry Apple Kombucha, and also... And did that pair nicely with the chicken salad croissant? I also got myself... Really sounds like you went in and purchased intentionally the most disgusting food you could. And I also got the blueberry ginger kombucha, and look. Oh, God.

I'll say this. The blueberry ginger kombucha was not very good. The cranberry apple one was, but it just tasted like... It was 100 calories, which is kind of high for a kombucha, and it just tasted like... It tasted like a cranberry apple juice, you know what I mean? It just seemed like it was...

And also, I did pair it with the couple bites I took of the chicken salad croissant. The three-day-old sandwich. Next, from the freezer section, I got myself some spicy, boneless chicken wings, wigs. Here's the thing with these. These are raw. I think they're raw-frozen, which is weird.

Really? It's said to be careful while handling them, because you can't use a toaster oven. I think that it's raw chicken before... Oh, okay. But they're seasoned. They're seasoned? Yeah, I don't know. Maybe not. I have no idea.

But there was warnings on it, so it seemed weird. You don't know if it's raw or not? The food you ate? What is going on? So I put them in my air fryer. You're supposed to put them in your oven, and you weren't supposed to microwave them, so I don't know what the deal was.

I put them in my air fryer, but I cooked them longer, probably, than I should have. These were not great. They should have been so much better. Especially, well, they seem like there's something. They seem like they should be good. These seem like they should be good, especially if it is the thing of like,

be careful of handling these. These might have some raw meat in them. I'm like, oh, these might taste better than normal fucking... There may be a little fresher, I get what you're saying. They may be a little fresher. There might be something to this, but no. Less processed. The stuffed jalapeno peppers with cream cheese,

so jalapeno poppers. These might get the Spoon Man bite of the night. It's up there with a chicken breast. I bit into it, and then the cheese melted down onto my finger, and I saw my finger turn red, like a cartoon, because it was so hot. And it just like fucking burned the shit out of my finger. But that being said, these are maybe the best,

these are maybe the best things I have. The jalapenos had like a nice sweetness to them. Besides that whole cartoon situation. I got myself a self rising crust. Pizzeria style taste. You make it home. Four cheese pizza from Kroger. This was unbelievably such a let down.

It was so crazy. Really? It was so much like a Dijorno pizza. It was so fucking thick. It was like bread-y thick, and they were like, this looks well done, right? It's just holding up a picture of his phone to his camera. Yeah, it looks pretty crispy.

It looks like it's got like a char to the outside of it. But it was just a fucking doughy mess. It's, and it was like so Dijorno-like. Yeah. Look, I didn't eat the whole thing of any of these, so I'm proud of myself. I also got some dessert. I got some deluxe jammed chocolate chip cookie dough

ice cream, a quart, I believe, right? Or no? I mean, you would know. We didn't have it. I guess I would look at the box and see what it says. This says. It doesn't say anything. But look it.

This was, it says, 48 fluid ounces. OK. Oh, one and a half quarts. OK. So this is like, look, chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream, deluxe jam, Kroger, you can't get this wrong, right? But just kind of like not that good.

Yeah. It just wasn't that good. Like that's a bummer. The cookie dough tastes, you know when you eat like raw cookie dough, not from Ben and Jerry's, like you're just like making cookies or whatever and you eat the cookie dough? The cookie dough kind of tasted like that to the point

where I'm like, this feels like maybe it's unsafe to eat it, even though I know it's not. Sure. But it just, it just wasn't great. And then I also got myself this Oreo cake, like a slice of cake that has like cookies and cream. That looks pretty good. Oreo cake.

Not good. It just wasn't good. Everything was a fucking letdown. This morning, I had onion bagels and Kroger whipped original cream cheese. And that was one of the better things, but still not great. I had myself some grapes from the fruit aisle. How much food did you guys get?

I got, I got, I got over the top. I go over the top. I guess it's a grocery store, you're just going shopping. Yeah. The grapes, the grapes were not good. The grapes were like, I opened this thing up. I just bought this. There was like five grapes on the top that were just like

fucking Freddy grapes, Nick. They were like, they were, they were fucked up and squishy and you know what, like the old grapes, you know what I'm talking about? Yes, I know what you're talking about. I have a Ralph's grapes thing that's etched into my memory for some reason. You know, sometimes someone will say like a sentence

and you'll just remember the way that sentence was said forever. So my, I was, this was in college. I went with my roommate to a Ralph's, made a big grocery store trip. He'd picked out some grapes. They went and they weighed the grapes and they were like, it was like 8.50 or something.

It was like a lot for like a normal bundle of grapes. And he was like, he was like, really? It's that much? Yeah, a period of price is higher right now. And he's like, I can't hang with that man. And then this dude behind us, this uninterested, this unrelated third party goes, that's fucking ridiculous, man.

And just the way this guy said, that's fucking ridiculous, man. It's kind of like a low energy thing, but also taking everyone's side. I just like, I'll never forget that. I don't know why that's one of the memories that's just indelible for me. I feel like this guy jumped into your body.

It was like that. I think you guys need to understand that like, by the time you get to like the 16th product from a place and it's all so bad, it's not a let down. Like you guys seem to keep expecting something to be good. You're like, okay, so I had 14 things and they were pretty gross and it was terrible. And then I got this ice cream thing and that was bad.

I was like, yeah, it's Kroger, it's Ralph's, they're shitty, it sucks. No, I will say no, I'm surprised because I genuinely was always under the impression that the generic is literally like made at the same factory as the brand name and it's just a different packaging. So I'm shocked to hear that like the ice cream,

the waffles, this is blowing my mind, those were bad. So what you just said is actually that is something that Crater Joe's in particular does. They will just take someone else's brand and repackage it as Trader Joe's brand. And so, and I think that's why there's a more like a higher level of quality for the Trader Joe's store brands.

But yeah, Kroger a lot of times a lot of these bigger chains will just like completely cut corners and make these things as cheaply as possible. So Nick, did that laid back energy guy, did he grab your arm and jump into your body like fallen? Like fallen? The movie fallen with Denzel Washington. You don't remember the devil movie?

I got myself some donut holes, munchkins to the Duncan crew. These were the things that I hinted at earlier. They were like wet, like just feeling them. They were like wet. They had a wet consistency. And these are honestly where some of the better tasting things, these donut holes,

despite the fact that they had like this wet consistency, there were two- Consistency was wrong. They were regular powdered donut holes and then cinnamon sugar. And they just like, just felt like soggy and wet. They were, look. Damn.

This is, and then I made myself a peanut butter and jelly Kroger sandwich. Kroger, crunchy peanut butter, Nick. Organic, the, what is it? Simple truth, organic, strawberry fruit spread on 100% whole wheat, private selection bread. Wow. All three store brands collabing,

like a triforce of Kroger. A peanut butter and jelly sandwich, it just was like, it was like a lower version of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, like truly nothing. No shit. Nothing was working. Organic, simple truth, organic, barbecue potato chips.

Oh, you got more. Barbecue potato chips, they tasted like, you know how baked lays? Yes. These tastes like baked lays, barbecue chips, but they were not baked. They were frozen. Oh, wow.

That's, yeah, that's a huge, huge bummer. You know what's crazy is that even though Dave is making fun of you, that each thing is bad and you know it, I was expecting the barbecue chips to be good. So was I. These things all sound like they can't go wrong. Look, and here is one that was like fine.

Yogurt covered raisins, which is simple truth, simple truth, yogurt, cousin raisins, they were fine. They delivered on what they were. And then also finally, the last thing I got was private selection tortilla chips and private selection salsa. And they were both not good, not worth it. Man.

It was hot salsa and it was just like an overwhelming jalapeno taste and the chips, here I'm gonna just have another one right now. The chips were not, the chips are just not great. So everything, almost everything was a lot down here. And Nick, this is the last place I now just feel, I'll get into it in the final thoughts. Wow.

Well, hey. When we do final thoughts, I want Mitch to recap every item that he ate. One thing you can recap for us right now, Mitch, is these are out of 10 carts. And there are, so there are 10 categories that you can potentially rate this chain. You don't have to hit on all 10 categories,

but they are just things that you can potentially explore. Recap the categories, please, Mitch. Okay. Overall impressions, including name and mascot. Including name and mascot, parking. Produce, snacks, frozen snacks, cold snacks slash drinks. Check out, hoity-choitiness, bagging in carts, price. And then hot bar, which is disqualified

because of grocery store month, but for you guys that doesn't apply. For Nick and I, we did get some hot bar stuff, so. All right, Dave King, your judgment, your closing arguments on Kroger and then your rating out of 10 carts. Oh, and I'm supposed to evaluate it based on those categories?

I mean, you don't have to touch on all of them, but if anything comes to mind. A half cart is a basket. Just a half cart is a basket, yes. Okay, and it's out of 10 carts. Yeah. Well, it's just tough, because we didn't go there and we didn't get hot food.

It's definitely not hoity-toity, but I don't know if that's good or bad. Is that, hoity-toity is a negative quality? Kind of undecided, yeah. Interesting. It's definitely the opposite of what that is. You know, name and branding, one thing, which is not interesting, but I have to mention,

is that every time my parents would see a Ralph's when they visit, they're always like, I can't believe a food store is named Ralph's. And I'm like, what are you talking about? And they're like, Ralph means to throw up. When we were kids, you'd say, I saw Ralph last night, sounds like it's from the 1750s, but apparently they say that is like vomiting.

Wow. So now I occasionally think of vomit when I think of Ralph's, in part because of my parents, and mostly because of the food is disgusting. What else? The food was bad pretty much across the board. The watermelon was fine. The ice cream sandwiches were fine.

It's usually not a great place to go shopping, but some of them are cleaner than others, and I don't know, it's like, I haven't been there in a while. Let's just wrap this up. Overall, I'm gonna say, honestly, three carts. Three carts, wow. Yeah, three out of 10 carts.

Not a great score there. By the way, Ralph's, people see Ralph's and they assume it's possessive. It's a first name, Ralph's, with an apostrophe between the H and the S, it's not. It was founded by a man whose last name was Ralph's, George Ralph's. Strange.

It's not Ralph's market, it is Ralph's market. It's insane. I would respect it a lot more if it was called Ralph's, and there was, they made it really unwieldy. All right, Esther, your final thoughts on Kroger and your score out of 10 carts. I, based on what I tried, you know, I was really shocked that the almond milk

was as good as it was. The orange, one of the orange juices being just plain sour was like unacceptable to me. If you're like, I don't know. And the experience there, it kind of has like a nice California feel to me because it's like the first grocery store I went to when I moved out here.

But I'm gonna say three cart, is that what Dave said, shit? Yeah. I'm gonna say three carts, I guess. Three carts, wow. Yeah. You two are in the hand holding club so far. Spoon Man, what's your verdict? Dave hit on a great point of the Ralph's thing

that it's like throw up. It is, Kroger and Ralph, that's like funny names. We talked about how it's close to Kruger. Yeah. Freddie Kruger, who is fun and funny. Also Kruger on Seinfeld, George's boss in season nine, who's also funny. Ooh, how about Kruger meets Kruger?

That would be a fun, it would be a fun something, a fun sketch. Yeah, that could be a lot of fun. Overall impressions, look, the parking there was very bad, but there's better parking at Ralph's. Here's the issue, you have to park below the building unless you're there like at a good time, which there never is, at this one on,

what is it on, is it on Western? It's that one on like Sunset and Western. It's right by the metro stop, yeah. So you gotta, so there's like, I feel like there's like 20 spots on the top level. And then if you don't get one of those spots, you have to park down below. And there's an escalator, but they don't have it

so that you can take your shopping car down on the escalator, like it doesn't make sense. It just is like, you know what I mean? Like what's the point? You hear me, Wags? I get it, I understand, but this is a very micro-targeted concern about a national chain.

Okay, sure. That pissed me off, but I know that there's other Ralph's that don't have that issue. mascot, I mean, Ralph is funny. There should be some sort of Ralph man mascot guy. That would be fun. Produce bad experience with those grapes were not good, Nick. The snacks, frozen snacks, cold snacks, drinks,

pretty much everything was a let down. I don't think anything was good. Damn. Should I go through the products again? Yeah, just recap real quick. Quick recap. Got myself a fried chicken meal with mac and cheese, onion rings, corn dog, breast and wing.

Got myself the Tuscany pesto salad, got the chicken salad croissant, the bubbly Ellen, strawberry drink, got the two kombucha's, one was cranberry apple, and one was a blueberry ginger. Are you guys still here? Yeah, I mean, this is the long list of foods. I don't know what to tell you, man.

I thought it'd be funny for you to recap it again, but then I got bored real quick. Here's what I'll say. I didn't say this. I also got myself, Nick, an Arnold Palmer. Wow. A half and half, half iced tea, half lemonade, light. And that was very nice.

That was probably- Croger brand? That was probably my sip of the night. No, this was just Arnold Palmer brand. I just got this for myself. Well, then that doesn't even qualify towards the score. Yeah, who gives a shit? I'm just telling you.

Look, Ralph's was my first grocery store in LA, Nick. It was the one I went to. This is the one I went to the most, and I started going to Trader Joe's across the street from it. Back when I lived down on Citrus, 645 South Citrus, if you want to go and see it. I'm sure that a lot of people want to see the house

I used to live in down there, 645. South Citrus, lived with three people I did not know. I found it on Craigslist, my first year in LA. And I thought Ralph's was fine. And I'll say this, this is the plus side to Ralph's, is that they do have a big selection of things. I saw the Dijorno-Crescent pizza that people say is good. I saw it at Ralph's.

I have not seen it anywhere else. Weird specialty items are like new things. You can find them at Ralph's. You can, they're good with that stuff. But man, everything else, just a fucking, this was a dud, Nick. And honestly, it's made me question, what is the best, you know, like now I'm wondering

what is the best grocery store? Cause I thought Ralph's was going to really change shit up on me, but maybe I'm a Gelson's man. The most, the Hoity-Toyty, the Hoity-Toyty fucking grocery store, but maybe I'm a, Gelson's is much better than fucking Ralph's is. Hoity-Toyty is good now. Maybe.

LA is changing, man. I think, I think Albertson. You're not Quincy Mitch anymore. I think Albertson's is going to be my, I think Albert, that's the thing is if I can Quincy like stop and shop, I'd get great stuff at the deli case. Yes, yes. This shit sucked.

I think Albertson's is the one I'm going to stick with, Nick, after all this whole experiment. I think I'm just an Albertson's man. But I'm going two and a half carts, two carts, one basket. This sucked. It was pretty low score. It was fucking awful. I was expecting stop and shop to be a member

of a gigantic conglomerate, but it seems like it is still its own corporation. It seems like it does not have a ownership, is not owned by Albertsons or Kroger or another larger brand. Yeah. Who do I got here? You got Wally.

Mitch is holding his cat Wally up to his webcam. Hi, Wally. So I think that Ralph's slash Kroger was my childhood grocery store. It's where we would go as a family. It's probably the groceries chain I have visited the most in my life. I will say this is a, we've talked about,

we've said a lot of negatives about Kroger. Two positives, one, it has a unionized workforce. Two, it has larger aisles than a lot of other chains. I feel like the aisles are pretty wide. And I find the store- The store is a good point. More comfortable to navigate versus like in Albertsons

where things are oftentimes pretty compact. So that is a check mark in its favor. I think that their store brands are bad. Of course, girth is a fucking- All right. You give points for girth. Store brands are bad. Their store brands are really under deliver

which is a disappointment outside of their bakery which I'd argue is pretty good in general. But they have everything. So evaluating as a grocery store in terms of, hey, this has what you need. If you want groceries, I think I have to go slightly higher than the consensus. And I'm gonna take up to four carts for Kroger.

I feel like that's my score. I feel like it is just slightly above a below average rather because of its various deficiencies. Well, Nick, you threw this fucking union shit on us. We didn't know. Okay, we didn't know about the union. Albertsons is also a unionized workforce. It just depends that some of those larger grocery chains

are some of the ones that you think of as more progressive, quote unquote, like your Trader Joe's and your Whole Foods or not. Shout out to Orlando, who was my checkout guy. He was very nice and helpful. And he knew Love. He watched the show Love. Wow.

Dave and Esther both worked on. Very cool. Yeah, hell yeah. Shout out to Orlando. He was, Orlando was cool. I thought you were gonna say more. No, that's it. Just a shout out to him.

He was good. Hi Orlando. Hey, that was our review of Kroger as we close out grocery store month. It's time for a segment. What a fucking stinker. The last one was a stinker. A stinker grocery store.

Not the episode. The episode is great. The episode is great. Great egg, dough boys quality like always. The grocery store is kind of like, it's, you know what? It's like the rise of Skywalker. It's like that's the final entry.

It's just a real bummer, a real let down that even people who are on board are just abandon ship at that point. So yeah, you know what? It makes sense because when I was going down the freezer aisle there was a bunch of Snoke clones. Boy, that's a health hazard. Mitch, you have a beverage.

You can decide if it's worth pouring down your throat. It is another edition of Spoon Man's Drink or Stank. No one liked that. I'm sorry, Spoon Man's Sip or Ship. That's right, Nick. Hold on one sec. Okay, Mitch is stepping away to get a beverage. I know what Mitch has, but I'm curious.

Dave Esther, what do you think he's gonna pull out here? Just based on nothing. Yeah. I think it's like a flavored root beer, some kind. Good guess. Okay. Esther? It's like a scary Snapple.

All right, we have flavored root beer, scary Snapple. Mitch, what's the verdict? What do you have? Nick, I got myself an easy, teasing, low calorie green tea ale. Is that alcoholic? Yeah, it is. Wow.

From Lakefront Brewery. Wow. Which is how exciting. Given to us from someone who probably likes the show. So I hope I like it. We got this in Wisconsin, it looks like. This is from Milwaukee, the Milwaukee Brewery. Wow. But a green tea ale.

It's one of our last live shows ever. One of our last live shows ever. Or maybe possibly, did we play Milwaukee before that too? We did, didn't we? It was in, I mean, no, I think that was our first and only time in Milwaukee. I don't think we'd been back. This maybe was mailed to us too, who knows.

Anyways, I'm opening this bad boy up. Your shirt's not poison? Yeah. It's a possibility it's poison. I did, on that note, one time someone sent us a, like a sealed container in a brown wrapper and said we should drink it. And I told Mitch I didn't wanna drink it

and he got mad at me for not wanting to drink the mystery drink that was mailed by a stranger. Oh, now hold on a second, mad at you? Yeah. I was just like, come on, let's try it, it'll be fun and you're like, no way. So Nick, I opened this bad boy up, it's got quite the head. The head is spilling out here into the, out of the can.

The Mitch of beers. That frothy, you see that frothy head there, Nick. I'm not a huge green tea fan, but this is interesting because it's also 99 calories, it's like a low calorie beer or ale, I'm gonna take a sip right now. It's got a fun guy with, what should I call it, sign the, oh God. The yin-yang symbol.

The yin-yang, I was saying yin, I couldn't get yin out of my mouth. He's got what, Nick? He's got, he's making like the, you know that emoji that has the tongue out and then one eye open and one eye closed, which I like to use if I say something a little elawacky. It's got that emoji, but then superimposed over that face

is the yin-yang symbol. That's right, right? They give an idea of the vibe that they are trying to convey. I'm gonna take a sip right now, here we go. All right, Mitch is taking a sip right now. Esther, I know you're a tea-toller. Dave, do you, remind me, do you drink alcohol?

I'll drink a little bit. I'll have some red wine once in a while. Have you been consuming during quarantine at all? Yeah, intake is up mildly, but not crazy, but yeah, I've been drinking a little more. That's good. How about yourself? Yeah, it's, I mean, it's up.

I actually took 30 days off because I was like, I'm going overboard. So I like, I take 30 days off. That just flew by, by the way. I was like, fucking 30 days was done. I was like, it's like, that was it? Like that's what 30 days feels like, but it's fucking, it's just so weird.

I should have asked you if you remembered my dad's name during those 30 days. You probably got it right. I got news for you, for you guys. Not a huge green tea fan. This is a huge sip for me. This is delicious. Wow.

I loved, I was about to be like, I was ready to be like, look, we can't be nice to everyone who sends us stuff, but this is, this is truly great. It's like, it's lighter than like a, like a, like, you know, when you, whatever, like a pale ale or something or like an IPA, it's lighter than that.

And the green tea, you can't taste it too much, but it kind of like cuts it a little bit. It's great. Wow. It's really, really, really good. Wow. Shout out to the brand one more time, Mitch. Easy Teasy, Lakefront Brewery.

It's in Milwaukee, but damn, this is good. Why is that? Why is, you would love this. This is like, right up your alley. Easy Teasy. I bet I would. I got orders some. Easy Teasy from Lakefront Brewery in Wisconsin.

That is a Spoon Man endorsement, not a compensated endorsement that Doe Boys can't be bought. I'm shocked. He likes it. All right, hey, that was Spoon Man's sipper ship, just like a restaurant, we've got your feedback. Let's open up the feedback. Today we have an email from Katrina V.

Katrina writes, best slash worst online grocery shopping reward or mistake. My mistake was ordering 14 pounds of pork loin instead of four. Best reward was a free bag of skinny dipped almonds they didn't charge me for. And then there's a parenthetical that serves my question for the week.

It wouldn't allow me to post along with other questions most likely because the question is a piece of shit. Don't be so hard on yourself, self Katrina. I think the question is fine. And I actually have an answer for this. It is not online grocery related, but I did have an amazing reward once at a grocery store.

I clipped a physical coupon back to when I was coupon shopping, being frugal. And I clipped a physical coupon for Marie Callender's frozen meal that was $4 off if you buy two, but it was a double coupon. Like it was one of those days, one of those special days they used to have

where they'd honor a coupon for twice its value. So $4 off is a huge amount off of the top. And so I got two of these for $8 off and a paying $2 for two huge frozen meals that fed me for like four dinners. It was fantastic. That's amazing. Yeah, it was a huge win.

Really excited about that. Mitch, do you have anything that comes to mind as it was there ever an online grocery shopping reward or mistake? No, you know what? There is one right now. Can I, I can demonstrate for you. It's crazy that you asked this.

I, an online mistake that I just made shopping. It wasn't grocery shopping. I don't do much online grocery shopping, but I ordered some Bounty Paper Towels from Amazon. And it was a three pack, but let me just show you. Okay, Mitch is standing up. He's walking away for some reason. Do we think it's gonna be a lot more or okay?

No? Okay, he's brought his piling paper towels onto his table. I don't quite understand what's going on here. No, I can't figure this out. Okay, so it seems like you got a three pack of three packs maybe? I got fucking, I can't, I don't even know how many, I got like 14 giant fucking Bounty Paper Towel Rolls now.

So you ordered three and then somehow it miscalculated it as 12 or something? Yes, I don't know what happened. Nick, I have no space for these. They're in my living room. Here's my, here's my guess is what happened, Mitch. Is that it was already a three pack. You thought it was a three pack of individuals,

but it was a three pack of three packs. And so you ended up with an extra roll. That's my guess. Those are like two packs. Are they two packs? Yeah, they're two packs. Two packs. Got it.

I sound like my dad's saying two pack. Esther and Dave, you guys have been doing a lot of online shopping you were saying for your groceries. Any particular rewards or mistakes that stand out in your memory? I have a restaurant one where a couple weeks ago I ordered a taco plate and I noted that it was really expensive.

It was like $38. And I was like, this restaurant is so pricey, but like, I guess it's going to be really good. And then when I got it, it was legitimately like, like a catering tray of tacos, like so giant. And it was just like awkward sitting with Dave, like him eating his small salmon bowl. And I was just eating out of this truck.

Felt really stupid. Wow. Wow. I thought it was cool. I was impressed. I was like, all right, she's going for it. Why not? Dude, you're so cool.

My chick is so cool. She'll eat anything. Ew. I know, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. This came up on another podcast recently. No, I won't. She can hang with the guys.

She'll drink a beer. She's cool like that. She's not picky. Esther, this does sound cool. It does sound cool as hell. It's sober. Oh, so this is. Not the beer part, the tray and nachos part.

Oh yeah, no, it was fun. You're right. I feel like I've gotten stuff before, but I'm such a fucking glutton that I can't even remember like when I got an extra sandwich or something too. Yeah, but I just eat it and don't even care. Right. And then I order like two sandwiches anyways

when I'm getting food. So, ugh. I gotta get back to Quincy. I need my mom to yell at me. That'll fix your problems. If you have a question or comment about the word of the chain restaurant, you can email us at doboyspodcast.gmail.com

or leave us a voicemail at 830 Godot. That's 830-463-6844. And to get the Doughboys double our weekly bonus episode, join the Golden or Platinum Play Club at patreon.com slash Doughboys. Dave King, Esther Pavitsky. Thank you for helping us close out Grocery Store Month. Thank you so much for being here.

Thank you so much for returning to the podcast as a duo for the first time. Anything you would like to plug at this time? Dave, we can start with you. I'd like to plug Esther's coffee collaboration with Daiglo Coffee in Silver Lake. She has a, right? Is that what is, am I right that that's what it's called?

Yeah. It's called the hot for my name. What is iced hot for my name, which you can only get at Daiglo Coffee locations in Los Angeles. And it's a unauthorized sponsorship between Daiglo and her standup special on Comedy Central. It's true.

But it's real. If Comedy Central lawyers cannot know about it, but it is, it's a real drink. It's a half oat milk, half coconut milk latte iced with a little bit of a Marion Berry shrub. So it's really good. You should have tried it for the episode. Yeah, I want to try it.

Oh yeah, okay, yeah. And then I'm going to plug my standup special, the hot for my name, the drink is iced hot for my name, but my special is now streaming on Comedy Central. Check that out. Check it out. Thank you both for returning. And hey Mitch, as you bring up another of your cats,

is that also Wally? No. I can't see. Okay, well the cat, only the top of the cat's head was in frame, so I just took a guess. As you bring Irma into the frame, it's time to say goodbye to grocery store month. Friendly green groceries, Mitch's Spoon Man, fuck.

Friendly green grocery, Mitch's grocery store month, it's time to finally say goodbye to that. Friendly green grocery, Spoon Man's grocery store month, goodbye. Goodbye. We'll close the coffin lid on this month once and for all. Wow. And that'll do it for this episode of Doe Boys,

until next time for the Spoon Man, Mike Mitchell, I am Nick Weigher. Happy eating. What a success, see ya. Want more Doe Boys? Check us out on Patreon. Join the Golden Plate Club for an extra episode every Tuesday, The Doe Boys Double,

which you can listen to on your favorite podcast app. Or join the Platinum Plate Club and get access to our Discord server, TheDoeScore, to connect with fellow Doe fans and me and Mitch. Subscribe for the price of a combo meal only at Patreon.com slash Doe Boys. That's P-A-T-R-E-O-N dot com slash Doe Boys. Want to see the sources for this week's intro?

Check the episode description. That was a hate gun podcast.