Doughboys - Panera Bread 2 with Monica Ruiz and Chris O'Malley

Episode Date: January 7, 2021

Monica Ruiz (The Bold and the Beautiful, The Rookie) and Chris O'Malley (Watermans) join the 'boys for a revisit of Panera Bread. Plus, another edition of Can I Take Your Order?Sources for this week's intro:https://www.anheuser-busch.com/about/heritage.htmlhttps://www.panerabread.com/en-us/company/our-history.htmlhttps://www.thrillist.com/eat/nation/panera-bread-history-storyhttps://www.forbes.com/sites/maggiemcgrath/2017/11/08/18-years-after-separating-panera-bread-and-au-bon-pain-reunite-in-merger/?sh=16daa2f31497https://www.ab-inbev.com/our-brands.htmlAdvertise on Doughboys via Gumball.fmWant more Doughboys? Check out our Patreon!: https://patreon.com/doughboysSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In 1867 in St. Louis, Missouri, William Dench, the business partner of Eberhard Anhauser, sold his stake in their brewery to Anhauser's son-in-law, Adolphus Busch. And so Anhauser Busch was born and the two German Americans collaborated to build the St. Louis original into the dominant American macro brewery on the backs of its Budweiser brands. But there's another international institution that was founded in the city famous for its arch and transatlantic flight, a purveyor of not liquid but solid yeast byproduct. A bakery founded in 1987 is St. Louis Bread, though its official corporate history has

been oddly retconned to place its founding in Boston. But true breadheads know what's up, and in 1993 the prosperous STL Baker was purchased by French-American pastry chain Albonne Pan, who took the concept national. The new ownership renamed the company the Spanish word for bread box or bread basket, and that branding extended to newly opened outpost, though the Missouri location still retained the gateway to the West's name. Oddly, the new company sold off its Albonne Pan holdings in the late 90s to focus on its new Midwest cash cow, though in something of a storybook ending, the company's reconnected

and re-merged in 2017. This time, one must hope for good. And while through a series of mergers Anheuser-Busch may have grown into with the almost indecipherable sounding multinational conglomerate Anheuser-Busch InBevSA-NV, which manages international brands like Corona, Stéla Artois, and Foster's, and is headquartered in the Belgian city of Le Bonne, the St. Louis Bread company sticks to its roots by focusing on its sweet and savory baked goods and keeping its corporate offices at home in the show-me state. This week on Doughboys, we return to Panera Bread.

Welcome to Doughboys, the podcast about chain restaurants. I'm Nick Weiger, along with my co-host, Red Velvet, directed by David Lunch, the Spoonman and Mike Mitchell. Wow. Kind of a hat on a hat there, but I liked it. Instead of Blue Velvet, instead of David Lynch. Red Velvet instead of Blue Velvet, instead of Lynch, it was Lunch. You got it, Mitch.

Wow. What a way to kick off the show. What a way to kick off 2021. We are banking this episode. We're recording this in November, but it's actually... We're in 2021? We are. We are enough ahead recording-wise.

This is our first episode of the Year of Our Lord 2021, and speaking of Our Lord, that roast was sent in by His Holiness, Josh Pope. So thank you, Josh, roastspoonman at gmail.com. The Cool Pope. Of the two popes, he's the cool one. How is the pope doing? Is he all right? Anything happening on the old Catholicism front?

On Pope Front 2021? You know, who knows? Who knows what's up with Pope Watch? Maybe there's a new pope in town. I believe it's still Pope Francis, at least as of this recording. Yes, God, I'd hope so. People like Francis. People like Francis.

Yeah, I mean, certainly, like, I think, and I don't know how much of it is just the optics of it and how much of it is that his actual policy, but certainly Francis versus Ratsenberger. People thought Ratsenberger, I think, was just kind of like, you know... John Ratsenberger? Pope John Ratsenberger, giving out too many fun facts from the end of the bar, and people were just like, we don't need to know this. I think you got... Oh, yeah, I guess no.

He was... John Ratsenberger was... That's what Cliff did, right? He was... That was Cliff Clavin's thing. Yeah, yeah. You're right. Cliff was annoying with facts.

I forgot for a moment. Yeah. That was his character game, if you will. Oh, God, here we go. I taught UCB classes. What's UCB? You mean University of California, Berkeley? No.

No, not that. No, it's kind of like a little bit like a... What would be the equivalent of UCB if you're trying to explain it to people? What's like a scam? It's like, yeah, it's like a mix of nexium and then playing D&D on your feet. Oh, boy. If you could somehow compose the humiliation of lARPing with also a pyramid scheme. I never got to that level of the nexium cult where I ever got to have sex with anyone,

apparently. You don't have your Matt Besser brand? Had it out to Spoon Nation, wigs. Not embarrassed because I know our guests. That's right. That's right. Not embarrassed at all, but here comes a little drop. Well, Drop King picks out the drops now, by the way.

Our associate producer, Robert Persinger. Nice work, Drop King. Hey, Spoon Man and Burger Boy. I made and submitted this drop before COVID hit. Hopefully resending it in for the seventh time will get you to play it. Love the show, John, aka Million Town on the Dose Court in Twitter. Oh, okay. He's getting a fucking band hammer.

I really fucked up whatever that was in the, in the, in the sound like a live show. I thought it was pretty good. I mean, you could hear the, the tepid laughter from the audience, typical for us. People laughing at me, just fucking up a sentence. Yeah. Oh, pathetic. Oh, you just froze on me, Weiger. You just froze on me.

Really? Yeah. Maybe it was a, maybe it was a four-way freeze. You think that's what happened? But Emma didn't freeze and our guests didn't freeze. Our guests are shaking their heads, no. No, I think it was just you and me. Did we just Freaky Friday?

Oh my God, I can suck my own hug. All right. What would you, if we Freaky Friday, do you think we automatically like immediately would just slice our throats? I'd apologize to your mom for everything, not explaining that we had switched bodies and then I'd just jump off the, jump into the largest ravine in Quincy. You jump into the quarries. I jump into the one of the quarries.

The full quarries. Oof. That would hurt. Yeah. I'd probably say, like Aladdin, Natalie, you're free. Mitch, we have a couple of very fun guests here today. We have a lot to discuss. Before we get into that, I do want to say, I have an announcement because this is the

first episode of 2021 and it ties in with the chain that we are reviewing and with one of our guests today. Oh my God. 2021. No, this is such bullshit. I can't believe you're pulling this. 2021. No.

For the podcast and in my real life. No, this is, fuck you. I am going vegetarian. You such an asshole. This is the year. Our guests, jaws are dropping. They know that this is the beginning of the end. This is the, I will, I am going to see what it is like as both an individual, my real

life, I've had vegetarian stretches in the past, but also as someone who has a chain restaurant podcast and there, a lot of these chains are not accommodating to someone who does not eat meat. I am going to see what it is like. If no meat, shall I eat? I am going to see what it's like if I, if without, with my protein sources are veggie for the source, for the course of this year. And I'm going to see how the podcast changes and how my life changes.

And that will meet by 2021. And will it be continue for the indefinite future? We're going to find out. God, you are going to be intolerable. It's going to be fucking awful. Why is that? I generally don't get insufferable about things. Who insufferable?

Does intolerable work? Was that the wrong word? No, both are fine. OK, fuck you then. I think it'll be a bold experiment and we are going to see, we're going to see exactly what transpires. Will our listenership decline? Who knows?

I don't think so because I think we have a lot of vegetarians who listen to the show and either live vicariously through it or themselves want to know how they can eat at these chains with their own dietary restrictions. Not to one up you, but I am going vegan for 2021. God. That's not true. But I can't believe you're I can't believe you're going through this. I wish you had talked.

We had talked this over. We did talk this over. I know what I was saying. What are you doing? And then and then you went quiet about it. So I didn't think that I thought that you just got over it. You thought you squashed it. I thought I squashed it.

Yeah. Well, I can always walk it back. I hope you get fatter. I honestly, the last time I went vegetarian, I actually did gain weight because it's harder to or one of our guests is nodding along because I had I found it's harder to eat. Let you like just naturally, there's more carbs in your diet. Like you can eat mac and cheese and that's like vegetarian, technically.

But that's just like an extraordinarily unhealthy meal. Well, why don't you go vegan then? You should do what my joke, you should do it. Go vegan. I can't. I think that would be a bridge too far. A fridge too far, if you will, for me. Because I think I'm so reliant on cheese and eggs for protein. And I think it would be just really tough for me to go completely vegan.

Maybe eventually. But I think for this year, we're going vegetarian only. Wow. Well, I'm mad, but let's keep. I mean, you know what? Anything to prolong this show, we know it's. We're in a death rattle. Exactly, Death's Spiral.

How many times are we going to review fucking Burger King? And maybe let's try. Let's see what it's like if we can't eat meat from there. You know, cool. I don't know. So you're going to get a bun with lettuce and mayo on it. They have veggie burgers there now. That's the whole thing. A lot of these chains are introducing plant proteins.

I told you that you should do this like one, like the first episode of the month. Oh, whatever. It's fine. It's good. It's good. I like it. I like it. Don't lie. It's good. I like it. You're such a transparent liar. Just say how you feel. Oh, we're going to try it out.

We're going to see. And we're going to if there's a backlash. Hey, if people are upset about it, they will let us know. You've seen our mentions. No, they're going to love it. They're not necessarily going to love it. No, people are going to hail you as like a hero for not eating meat. It's going to be suck. It's going to suck for me, but I'm not doing it.

But I'm not doing it for any sort of high and mighty sorts of reasons. Yeah. You're going to you're going to you also told me that you're going to hunt for fun. Purely for sport, just big game. All right. Well, good for you, Wags. Thank you, Mitch. And hey, we should introduce our guests. They've been waiting very patiently through all this nonsense.

Very, very excited to have them. An actor from the Bold and the Beautiful and the rookie Monica Ruiz and a restaurateur from Waterman's in Hermosa Beach, California. Chris O'Malley, Monica, Chris. Thank you guys so much for being here. Oh, thank you for having us. Thanks for having us. Of course.

Welcome to the show. Thanks. Hey, did somebody say Monica? Oh, God, Bill Clinton. It's a different Monica. I'm like Beetlejuice. But if you just say Monica once, I appear. OK, well, maybe I can dispel you by saying Monica a couple more times.

Monica, Monica. Wow, he's gone. He finished into a big cloud of cum disappeared. Oh, God. That's a pretty good Clinton. That was him. That was here. That's Cannon.

He popped in the Zoom call. Welcome to the show, guys. I'm going to put it all out there. I know these two Wags. That's right. I know our guests. You have some history. I have some history.

Chris and I have known each other, God, now for when we first hung out probably 15 years ago. 15 years. 15 years. And Chris and I were both new out here in California, trying to figure things out. Wags, my first year. I didn't know anyone. I truly did not know anyone.

Yes. Out here. And Hanford eventually came out here. But Chris was probably the only person I really knew at all. And we would go to a bar right where you used to live, Nick. We used to go to Sonny McClain's all the time. Sonny McClain's at the time, and we did not know each other, ships passing in the night. That's right.

But this was a bar that I, at the time, my apartment was on walking distance to in Santa Monica, California, Sonny McClain's Irish bar, a Boston bar. And actually one of the places, my lovely wife Natalie and I went to on, not before we were dating, but it was just like a birthday hang. We were there together and we just hung out for a bit. Wow. And so like I also have some history, some personal history with this particular establishment. Wow.

Well, Chris, we can talk about it a little more. We would go there at like, I'd say like, even at like 1pm on a Saturday and then stay there till like, and stay till like, it closed basically, I would say. Wow. That's right. Yeah. So you guys didn't have to pay the cover or like try to wait in line to get in? We befriended those staff.

I don't know if there was ever, I don't know, besides like St. Patrick's Day, if there was ever a line to get in Sonny's, I mean, during Red Sox games and stuff like that, it would be crowded. But there was no, I don't think there's ever been a cover. Sonny's is not that type of bar. We would just, we would sit there and drink all day and eat. You know what? They had good food at that bar.

We would sit and eat there and it was great. They were like, it's kind of divey in there. It's homey, but it's divey. But they did, at least for a time, they had like a really, really good menu, like surprisingly good food. Oh yeah. What's the beef with mashed potatoes on top of it? What's it?

I just... Oh, shepherd's pie? Shepherd's pie. The shepherd's pie was great. Oh yeah. There's a lot of good things there. Clam chowder was great. Try clams.

We get sloppy and we'd sometimes, we slept over the manager's house. Kind of strange in hindsight. I was wondering if you were going to taste it around that one or that. I like how Monica is learning this right now in real time. I think, didn't we try to like work it off? Like, wasn't there like one time where he wanted help on like moving the case or something and I think we flaked or something. Yeah, we drank too much the day before.

We drank too much at his bar the day before. I would sleep in my car at that, like on the sidewalk, parked on the sidewalk by that bar. It was pretty pathetic. It was, it was, I'm sure Chris doesn't like reliving these moments, but... I just haven't thought about it well. For me, it was the happiest days of my life probably. It's a different time and I certainly can't tie one on like I used to in my 20s and it's the kind of thing you look back and reflect on and it's just like, man, that's wild.

But Chris and Monica, your life very different now. You have two kids. Here's a question I'd like to ask where COVID eats obviously their own, you're eating habits in this current situation obviously affected, but then you also have a couple of kids. How have things been like on the home front from a food perspective? So bad. It's so bad. I mean, it used to be like, like honestly, like it used to be like we all had like our

stuff that we had to do like, you know, drop them off at school or Mikey was in daycare. And so we had to pack them lunches that other people were feeding to them. So I would make like such, I would make like so much more of an effort because I was like, oh, they're like watching what I'm feeding my kid to make sure there was like healthy, all these different like healthy items in every single meal. And now it's like, you guys want mac and cheese and hot dogs for dinner or pizza? Yeah. And there's like, the pantry is just so much junk.

It's crazy. And I'm eating all of it with them so. Those are usually my options here too. Mac and cheese are hot dogs. But I buy like the organic, the organic hot dogs. So I think like it's healthy. I actually asked the pediatrician, I'm like, I think this is just like pressed meat because it's just, it's chicken.

They're like chicken hot dogs. And he like looked at the label. He goes, yeah, it's just watering like seasoning and chicken that's just like pressed into like the shape of a hot dog. Wow. Is that all hot dogs? No. The other ones have like nitrates and stuff.

Right? I don't know much about hot dogs. But it's the only way I can justify like the hot dogs. I feel like most people who are eating hot dogs constantly are not looking at the package or what's inside of them. You know, I think about too hard. We've said this, but Dano, and you know, Chris, you know Dano, right? Yeah.

Dano Connell, he's a. Yeah. I know pretty much all of your buddies. So we knew each other through a friend, Scott Keefe, Keefe, if you want a nickname for him. Liger. What's up, Keefe? He'll probably be angry.

You said that or something. He's an angry one. We love him though. He's waiting to hear his voice, hear his name mentioned himself. He was waiting to hear his name mentioned, but our Dano, who you know as well, Chris, got a bone in a hot dog recently. He got it. There was a bone in his hot dog.

Yes. He got a bone in his hot dog. Can you say where? In my mind, it's like the length of the hot dog was a big bone. That's what I was thinking too. A femur. Yeah. That's disgusting.

That's disgusting. Chicken bone or something? Did he just bit into it or? Yeah, he bit into it and I think he probably still ate around it, if I had to guess. I mean, what would you do? Because I think you know that it's just a bunch of ground up leftovers or what goes into a hot dog, right? So if there was a little bit of bone, I'd just be like, oh, well, this was just a chunk

that didn't get processed correctly, but I think I'd probably eat the rest of it. I don't think I'd bail on that hot dog unless I like chip the tail. Bail on it. Yeah. Now, I'm not one to give up on a hot dog. Yeah, of course. We know you're not. You take hot dogs down in one gulp.

I know you. Chris, I remember when you moved down to, is it Hermosa Beach? Hermosa Beach, yeah. When you moved down to Hermosa Beach, I remember at one point you told me, and Scott had told me to move down there with you. I didn't go with you. But since then, you got a beautiful wife, Monica, there with you, and you got kids. And now you own a restaurant, a restaurant and bar down there.

How has it been in these awful, terrible times? I mean, it's not great, to be honest. It's a lot of work because we can only do outdoor dining. The city gave us an extended patio that we can use. So our patio normally has six tables, now we have 12. So I mean, our capacity before was like 240, and now it's like 36. Damn, Jesus. And they have to break down the extended patio every night.

So you can't do anything. You can't put anything there that's even semi-permanent because it all has to be brought in every night. Yeah. So it's like to try to block the wind off the ocean and make it structurally sound. You know what I mean? It's pretty much impossible. Yeah.

Yeah. Especially right now, it's going to start getting cold down there in a little bit. Yeah. This is going to be the test here the next few months, so we'll see. But yeah, it's going good. We're just one foot in front of the other and going to hope to get to next summer. And I mean, there's some good news on the vaccine front. So hopefully we have a little light at the end of the tunnel, so we're looking forward

to it. Yeah. I'm hoping that vaccine works, Wags. Yeah. For now, we're just adding hot drinks to the menu. Pretty much. Hot drinks. Yeah.

Want some booze in that coffee? We'll help you. Heat lamps go... I just went... I ate at the fours the other day, Wags, and I ate outside with the heat lamp. It worked out. It worked great. What's the fours?

The one in Quincy? The one in Quincy. Yeah. There was one in Boston. The one in Boston actually just closed, but it was like... Oh, no. There was like a Larry Bird sandwich and the Yaz sandwich. It's the place where it has a bunch of sports heroes have sandwich names.

That's always a lot of fun. Is that all you have to say on that? Yeah, that's my comment. End of thought. And grumpy whites. Grumpy whites in Quincy just closed for good, just the other way. We discussed this, yeah. We discussed this on a Patreon episode.

Chris, I'm inferring you have some sort of connection to Boston? Oh, yeah. You're not knowing Keefa? Yeah. Yeah, I grew up the town over from Quincy. Oh, okay. So same stomping grounds, same restaurants, pretty much everything that you mentioned on the podcast is places that I used to go to, too.

Wow. And so we met up in New York. Chris, can I tell them what you did early on? Are you going to hate this? Sure. No, whatever. Yeah. Chris was...

Is this going to make me walk out? No, no, no. No. You know this as well. Chris was on a reality show very early on. That's right. He was on the Real Gilligan's Island. Wow.

He played Gilligan on the Real Gilligan's Island. He played Gilligan on the Real Gilligan's Island. I played it on a reality show. Yeah. Wow. Yep. Yeah, it wasn't great, but it was a fun experience. Did you watch that?

I watched it, yeah. I mean, I knew you because I was in... I think it was my senior year of college, and I think Scott told me. And then we started hanging out that next year in California. That's right. Yeah. And I think I had met you at that point. Wait.

Can we get some context? Because I remember the show vaguely. But the Real Gilligan's Island is like, were you... How semi-scripted was it? And did you know going in you were going to be Gilligan? Were you cast as Gilligan? Yeah, they did a big casting call. Actually, in Quincy, that's where I got it.

But they... Wow. Discovered. Discovered, yeah. Wow. Quincy. It was because I worked at... There's a place in Quincy called Marina Bay.

It's obviously Marina. And I worked on boats, so it was pretty much... That's the connection right there. I was kind of klutzy when I was younger. So it was kind of the combination of those two things. But it was basically... They sold it to us as like survivor with costumes. Because at the time, it was just like Bachelor.

You're like, I'm in. Wow. They ended up with a ton of reality shows back then. So it was... Yeah, it was basically like The Bachelor and Survivor. And yeah. It was on TBS, right? TBS, yeah, very funny.

Very funny. Wow. Very funny. Chris, you and the Craigslist killer both discovered in Quincy. I think that's... Oh, man. That's where the list begins and ends. Oh, no.

You got caught there, right? I am not the Craigslist killer for everyone else's name. I was going to say, the sentencing must be very lenient. Massachusetts. You've been recording this podcast with me for years. You can bring it up on your podcast. But Mike, you're honestly probably the most famous Quincy person. I can think of.

Do you feel the pressure of representing all of us? 100%. I mean, it's tough. The Quincy... I've looked at the Quincy... Look, John Adams and John Quincy Adams. John Adams is number one. Mike Mitchell number two.

John Quincy Adams third. Quincy Adams is third? I think so. I think you're past him. I think those progressive ads bumped you past President John Quincy Adams. Wow. Besides that, I've looked at the list. I think one of the pilots who dropped the bomb is on the list.

It's not like... Oh, no. It's not a great... Yes, and that's who we claim as some of our famous people. So I think it's like... That's grim. Yeah, so I think it's not a... I think the list is not great.

I don't think it's anything to really be proud of that I'm on there. But hey, John Adams and John Quincy Adams. That's good company. No slouches. You know, you got to go back a couple of centuries, but those are both two of the early... I guess you could call... John Adams was a founding father.

Was Quincy Adams, I don't know if he was quite a founding father? No, he was his son. He was his son, so he wasn't quite... He was a founding toddler, maybe. Founding toddler, but both in that era where those... Their reputations have kind of aged better than some of the other guys. I think for sure. You're saying that they...

Yes, they were better than a lot of the shitheads back then, you're saying. 100%. Yeah, I think so. Monica, I wanted to ask you as an actor, and this is a question I'm always curious about, and especially you recently on a soap opera, which I know that the production schedule is very compressed and compact and you don't have a lot of time for everything. What is your on-set eating regimen when you are working?

Usually, I don't know what the situation is going to be with food, so I always bring stuff that keeps, I guess, in my own bag, and then I kind of just like every time I have breaks, I just like graze craft services or whatever, and then if it's a place where I don't really know where the food is for the actors, I don't say anything and I just wait until I'm done working to eat, because I'm too embarrassed to be like, is there food somewhere?

You know what I mean? I feel rude when I was at the Bull and the Beautiful. I never knew where the cafeteria was because most of the people that worked there, they're there four days a week, all day long, and so they just would walk over to the Grove and get something from something there. So I don't know where the muffins and stuff were. I never even asked. Wow.

I think I did like 20 episodes. I never asked once. I just ate in my dressing room, like bars or whatever. It's hard to eat on set anyways. I've said this to Wikes before, but as an actor specifically, you get cattled around and then you're hurted into where you have to go, and then they'll let you go sit in a green room or a trailer or whatever, and then you've got to be ready, by the way.

You might be up soon or whatever, so you're always kind of just on the edge of when you've got to work anyways. But I've never, I've never, I've never once, this shows the difference between you and I, Monica, is just that I've never once ever brought lunch or anything. I've always ordered some insanely heavy meal and then fall asleep in my trailer or... Yeah, exactly.

It makes you super tired. If you eat some of those foods and it's exciting because it's like, oh, a free meal or just out there offering us like whatever we want. So you want to go crazy sometimes, but it's not a good idea. Totally, it totally makes you tired. I feel like there's been like moments on camera where I'm like, I feel like people at home can watch me and see that I'm like, filled up with shit.

Jesus Christ. Can you just see the constipation in my eyes? You can just tell that I'm nervous. I'm nervous, like you can see the sweat coming out of my forehead. Glenn's going. It's a natural thing, but it just happens. I understand. No, it happens.

I imagine when you're... Because I'm rarely on camera in any capacity, but it's very different when you have to be conscious of your image and also this is how I'm going to be... If this is on camera, this will be me on camera for... That'll just be it. I ultimately don't have that much control over what's done with this. You're on TV occasionally, Wags?

It's a rare thing, but I'm mostly a... What are you going to say? The wrongs of you on the nightly news. All right. Sketches, sir. Your sketches. But also on the food front, you are... Monica, you're a vegetarian, yes?

Right, yeah. And Chris, you still eat everything? I do, yes. So what is that? I do, yes. I eat everything. So how do you decide on dinner in your family? And it sounds like your kids are eating meat, but how does that calculation factor in

when you got one of you eats meat and one of you does it? Usually we'll try to think of something that we both really want and we'll try to do two versions of it or we'll try to keep the meat separate from the other stuff usually, something like that. Right. But I'm always really insecure about cooking meat because I can't taste it. And so I always just think that Chris is being polite and being like, no, it's good and it's dry or terrible or whatever, so I don't know.

And to be honest, I just usually will eat vegetarian when we all eat together, so it's not that big of a deal. I don't eat bacon not everything. And I feel like a lot of times if we go out places, he ends up liking my meal more, because I feel like they have to work a little bit more on the vegetarian meals. There's just more flavor a lot of the time, just depending, not everywhere. No, I agree with that.

Yeah. Interesting. How long have you been vegetarian at this point? I was pescetarian, still sort of eating fish and stuff for a couple of years. I think maybe since 15 years maybe. Wow. Yeah. So I ate fish here and there.

I didn't really grow up eating fish, so I've never loved it. But here and there, I would have something with fish in it, or I would try fish or whatever, but it's never been like a big... That was something that wasn't hard for me to give up, because I don't really care about it that much. Me, I tried giving up a couple of times, I can college, but you go out and you drink and you want Jack in a Box when you're on your way home, and so it's like, yeah, I'll try next week.

Yeah, 100%. Yeah, it wasn't until after college that I was like, kind of just didn't want it anymore. So I wouldn't say it's hard for me. I miss certain things, like I miss bacon, like how salty it is. Certain things like that, but not enough to want to eat it again. Yeah. Jack in the Box bacon, you're really making me regret this decision immediately.

No, you're going to be so bummed about Taco Bell, man. I'm so mad at them. The potato thing is terrible. They have so much stuff for vegetarians. It's like such a bummer. Yeah. They're like re-vamping it. And weren't they adding more things?

I don't know. They offer like black beans instead. Or they say, you know, you can just add beans to whatever. But I'm like, I don't know. And the tostada was the thing that I got since I was like, I don't even know, five. Like I used to eat that when I was like a little kid and they don't have it on me anymore.

It's crazy. They fucked up so bad. I'm still mad about it because there was a yesterday they, Nick and a text chain were on there. There was they, someone posted the new, the new vegetarian deal and it, it fucking, it's bad. It sucks. It's a bummer.

Yeah. They don't have a fucking plan. I'm so pissed. No, they didn't. They didn't as mad. I'm as mad as you are. This is fucked up to say, but it's the worst thing about 2020. What a take.

I thought it was a rumor. My sisters were texting me in a group like, Taco Bell got rid of all of these items. And I'm like, not every Taco Bell, it's probably just select stores. And it's like, no, all of them. Wow. They retired a bunch of them inexplicable to me. I, you know, who knows?

Cause young brands, they, they, we talked about, we, we revisited Pizza Hut under, under quarantine with our, wait, who did we do? It was our buddy, Jen D'Angelo, right? That's who we did Pizza Hut with. Yes. Yeah. They similarly are kind of in, I mean,

Pizza Hut was never up to the, the, the same standard as Taco Bell, but they've, they've, they've similarly are, are in kind of dire straits right now. Pizza Hut introduced the beyond meat pizza. They've introduced that as of this recording. So I'm guessing that's the, the plant protein they're going with, when we're going to, when Taco Bell eventually introduces it. But getting rid of the potato stuff makes no sense.

I fully agree with you. Getting rid of all those, those veggie options is just, that was one of the best things about Taco Bell. Monica, you, you, you have been vegetarian for as long as I've known Chris. I know I was thinking that when you guys said we've been together 15 years, I was like, there was something in the air. I decided to do it. Well, actually speaking of Jack and the,

the Jack in the box, the last time I've had Jack in the box was with you about 15 years ago. Yeah, that sounds about right. I got so sick the next day I could not, I think that was from the drinking, but, but still, I have not revisited it. I think we're also sleeping in cars. I think I slept in my car that night too.

It was funny because you're, you're, you're a very handsome man. And, and I would always be like, man, I, I'm, I'm terrible with women. You'd be like, me too. And I'd be like, what the fuck. It's gilligan. Come on. I guess the other gilligan thing really rubbed off on you.

But, but, but, but, if I had started being a vegetarian 15 years ago when we met you, you'd probably be able to see my jaw outline today as my guess. And it's true about when you first start becoming vegetarian, like a lot of people getting weight because you feel like, you feel like you can't get full without the meat, without the protein. So you like over,

overcompensate with a lot of the like heavy stuff, like potatoes and bread and stuff like that. But you eventually balance out and eat more like, you know, legumes and all that stuff. Wow. Why it sounds like a blast. Enjoy your legumes.

I don't even like telling people that I'm vegetarian because immediately it's like, it makes people feel like defensive. So I usually don't even say anything. I don't like tell people. I don't mention it unless I feel like I have to. People feel judged by it a lot. But I also say, like, but I also, I think,

part of the reason I think people say they're vegetarian and vegan, people say like, oh, you're vegan. Oh, well, that's, you know, that's whatever you say that. Vegans say that all the time. Vegetarians say that all the time. But it's like, we talk, how many times a day do you talk about food? Like food comes up so often because we have to eat multiple meals a day.

And if you're in a workplace or a family situation, naturally what you can or can't eat is going to be a topic of conversation at some point. So maybe it's, maybe it's not that vegetarians and vegans are insufferable about it. But maybe it's just, God, you are already. People talking about food. Hasn't even fucking started yet. Also, Mitch, I don't watch the NFL.

Yeah. Let me just watch wrestling instead. No union wigs. They don't, they, the WWE has no union. Well, maybe by this, maybe by this point, Andrew Yang will be making some progress with it. Wow. Talking about, they've been talking about,

maybe some sag after a movement there. We'll see. We'll see. Hopefully those wrestlers get to unionize. Chris, I got to ask you, and I don't think I've ever asked you this, even just in our friendship when we were hanging out, but was it, did they, did you eat weird when you were on that island?

Was it like, or did they just feed you food? Like, It was, it was like army rations. Cause I think the whole thing is, yeah, they, they made us like quarantine for two weeks before. And then they gave us not a lot of food. So I think the whole thing is to get, that's like the producer trick to get the drama going.

Edgy and tired, edgy, hungry. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, otherwise, if everyone's just getting along laughing and eating this, like it's not really, there's not really much content there. So,

that's, that sounds, that sounds about how Hollywood treats people. That's terrible. That's insane. Yeah. Yeah. So you weren't,

so you were the, you did have to like find food and stuff like that. That's kind of, that's fun. See, I thought it was going to be like fishing and stuff, but it was more like, solve this puzzle and find a basket of bananas. That's how it can work in the wild sometimes.

Obstacle forces are on a lot of deserted islands. Yeah. That was the disappointing part. Cause I really thought it was going to be like a survival thing, but it wasn't, it wasn't even close to that. It was more, they were trying to get people like,

argue and date and stuff like that. Yeah. Yeah. I think, I think, I mean, I remember before sir, being old enough to remember before survivor premiered season one,

the hype going into that, people were like, Oh my God, it's going to be like Lord of the Flies. Like people are going to kill each other. They didn't realize how scripted it was going to be. And they didn't realize how much it isn't, it isn't people just like foraging and hunting and trying their best to

stay alive. It's all pretty, you know, it's pretty controlled. And as you guys know now, there are rules with dough boys where you got a quarantine for a couple of weeks and we send you army rations before you come on the show. That's right.

We like drama, Wags. We want people to be exhausted and angry when they guest on the show. It's been exactly like naked and afraid for us. We're more like TNT. We know drama over here at dough boys. Right? That's right.

Yeah. We're certainly not very funny like TBS. While we're talking about Real Gilligan's Island and while we're talking about people's credits, Monica, I do have to ask, your many credits, including in addition to the birthday boys and the shows that I mentioned.

Hell yeah. You were also, you were also the star of a viral Peloton ad. That's crazy. That was, yeah, it was, but those were wild times. I think that was last year,

or two years ago as of this episode's release is roughly when that was going around. Yeah. We, we shot it like, um, what was it? And like in September or something, and then it came out in November. It had been out for like a few weeks. And it was just people that I knew like, oh my God, because it was literally on every commercial break of like every show. And so everyone had seen it. Like no matter what you watched, everyone had seen it.

So by the time people started. Making fun of it or like having taking issue with it, everyone could join in on the conversation because everyone had been forced to see it at some point. So I think that's why it was like such a big deal because it was like, Oh yeah, I know what they're talking about pretty much. Like, cause it played during every commercial break during sports.

Yeah. Is that working at Waterman's at that time? Was I bartending still? No. I feel like it would be like playing behind me and stuff. Like it was. Oh, maybe we're. Wow.

Like shit. Yeah. I saw it in my initial reaction was like, Hey Monica, good. That's great. Good for her. I was excited. I was, I was excited for you. And then it turned into a, it turned into a crazy, a crazy storm quickly,

quickly after that, but I did not at first, at first I had, I had not forced to work out by our husband. And also here's, here's, here's, I want to say this too is like Peloton is like, every, I know a bunch of like a few Quincy guys who have Pelotons now and like a, like they're so insanely popular. Right. Like that controversy and quotes probably helped that company on top of all of it is like they, they had helped them sell more bikes probably on top of.

Sure. In terms of visibility. On top of everything. But how, how was it for you as when, when, when that all came out and, and, and were people, were people unkind about it to you? How, how, how was it? You know, I honestly was like, if I don't read the comments or read all of the like articles that are coming my way, then I'm okay.

It's like, I, we have like two little kids that are constantly like slapping my phone out of my hand if I'm on it. So if I wasn't looking at my phone, everything was normal. It was weird. It was like, we were at Denny's at like this Denny's that was going under. Like it was bad. Like we walked in and it was one ranger since she was like, it's cash only. We were like, okay.

Wow. Like sat down and like we're eating with our kids. And I noticed that she's the only one. Quickly, quickly. Yeah. Wiger, was this the Denny's that you put an order into that disappeared? It could have been. Was it the Denny's and, was it the Culver City Denny's?

No, it wasn't. It wasn't. Okay. Now hold on. I'll follow up question. Wiger, have you gotten a refund from that Denny's visit? As of this episode's release in 2021, I probably will have. That's fucking bullshit.

I'll take care of it. I keep forgetting. That's fucking bullshit. But sorry, Monica, you were talking about your Denny's, your Denny's surveils. You're there with your family. It's cash only. No. So we're, so we're there and it's just like, it's a sad scene.

Like it was, it was, wouldn't you agree? It was a pretty sad scene. We just went there because it's like, oh, there's a huge menu. The kids can like have something off the easily. We can easily get something that they'll eat. Yeah. And I remember I was like, oh, I'm going to have a dinner salad to start as I love like ranch from restaurants.

And she's like, we're out of lettuce. It got recalled. And I was like, okay. So it was just like a, it was like a, it was like a bad situation. And I was like, the kids were throwing food on the floor and making a mess. And I realized that she was there by herself. And I'm like, I'm not going to make her clean up this mess. Like she's going to have to like bust this table and clean up the floor.

So I'm like cleaning up the floor. Meanwhile, I'm getting messages from my agent like, oh, uh, you know, Ryan Reynolds wants to know if you want to go on the today's show. And I'm like literally on the floor at a Denny's like Denny's. And I'm like, this is so funny that like this is going on on my phone basically. And like this is like the what's really real life. Not a lot of people approached me.

Like not a lot of people recognize me. Well, TMZ was following you. TMZ followed me when I was walking my dog. And the guy like, I saw the guy across the street. And he had this huge camera and I looked at him and I did a double take. And then all of a sudden he was like in my face. He must have just sprinted over so fast because I turned again and he was

next to me. And it was funny cause she, she came in from walking our dog. And she was like, some guy was falling with the camera and my natural instinct was to confront him. So I was like putting on shoes and they want you to go out there and be like the crazy husband. She stopped me from doing it. I would have gone back for a completely different reason.

You would have been, you would, you would just been branded the guy from the commercial. They would have like connected you as the man who bought the bike for his wife, which, which, which, which, which was, which was, and it's, it's so hard to book anything as an actor. And so that is, that's such a crazy thing for, for people to, to be so crazy about it. But in the long run, a good, a good thing, right?

Not, not, you don't look back on it as a bad thing. Do you? No, I mean, I think that I, the way I kind of played it was I sort of just was like, I'm just going to wait for it to go away. I'm going to wait for it to blow over because every single news outlet that you can imagine and every show contacted me to come do an interview. And I was like, no, like, I don't want to. And the guy that played the husband did a bunch and he had a lot of fun with it, but I didn't really feel like I was a part of that conversation

that was happening because I wasn't reading anything. I was like, I got to protect myself and not read any of this stuff. So I felt like if I would have chimed in after really serious conversations had taken place about, you know, everywhere that some people took that, then I would have seemed like I was like maybe being too lighthearted about it or even joke or dismissing people that, you know, were triggered by that idea. So I was like, I'm just not going to say anything. And then finally a bunch of random interviews or like articles came out

where they like acted like they asked me questions. They were like made up responses that I was like, who wrote this? And so finally I was like, it was weird, but it was really weird. That's insane. Like you should see some of the funny like, like fun facts about Monica Ruiz and like none of them are true. My sisters and I were like, doubled over laughing. But I fed the press some of those fun facts.

I apologize. There were some that were kind of flattering and I was like, ooh, I'll keep those. You can do those. But yes, the only reason I did that today show was because Ryan Reynolds was going to be there and I'm like, they're going to be more focused on him and more interested in talking to him. So don't keep my interview brief and it'll just be my opportunity to kind

of just be like, I'm fine. That was the follow up commercial. That's right. Yeah. Well, after his after his commercial. Yeah. Yeah. The aviation gen ad that was like the that you like the implication

was it was the same character in like a bar setting. And you had divorced the husband, it seemed like, right? Was that the was that was implying? I like that. I just want to tell you that you will get similar backlash from being on the dough boys. That's okay. That's all right.

Don't read the ear wolf subreddit. That's also just general advice for anyone. Well, this is something I'm more familiar with. Like I didn't really know much about Peloton. I've never like actually even seen one of those bikes in person. Yeah. When I did the commercial, like I'd been on spin bikes obviously, but never on a Peloton.

So when people were messaging me and being like, this is exactly my story. I realized that like the concept of the commercial appealed more to people that already owned bikes. Wow. Like they, they were like, this is so like this really resonates with me. But it was like, if you're trying to get people to buy bikes, they're not really getting the whole idea of tracking the whole year of being consistent and being excited about it kind of thing.

But you know, people that had bikes were like, this is exactly my story. I love it so much. I'm like, oh, I don't know either way. Cause I don't have one. I think the price of them was part of it. Oh yeah. The price is high. Yeah.

Yeah. But then they sent me one. They sent me one after I did the today show and bled it on my face. So that was good. Now we have one. You know, we almost went on a morning show, Nick and I as well. We don't need to bring this up again. I remember this.

Well, we don't have to get into it. Um, but you know, we do have to get into this week's chain. Panera. Fuck you. That's not fair. We first, we can't use my anger as a segue. We first, of course, again, we first reviewed Panera bread with our buddy Bill Oakley back in the day.

Founded in Missouri in 1987 as St. Louis bread and still operates as St. Louis bread in the show me state. As far as I know, now owned by all band pan, which I did, which I was not aware of. So how about that? And over 2000 locations in North America. Here's this. How about this for a little, a little fun fact that, that just talks about how decayed our infrastructure is.

Once the largest provider of free wifi in the US. Wow. Panera bread, a chain restaurant. Wow. Could it be, could it be libraries? Could it be, you know, public parks? Could it be municipal governments? It could be not in our country.

Um, there you go. The place to tell, to, to, to tell someone bad news is the place that has the best wifi. That's what, that's what we notice about, about Panera bread is that it's a, it's a place where you, where you tell someone something bad is what Nick and I. Yes. Yeah. We talked, Bill Oakley, we talked about this as well. It's just like, yeah, it's a, a lot of breakups happening at, at, at Panera bread for whatever

reason. Um, but let's a diagnosis being shared. It's, it's, it's grim times. Um, and as of right now, there's nothing going on. Cause the Panera bread I went to, it was. Hey Nick, you know who's being there right now? The orange buffoon. Hmm.

Yes. The former president, Donald Trump, the man I refer to as the orange buffoon should be in there. Getting the bad news that it's over. Yeah. He should be. Hopefully as of this record, I don't think he's accepted it yet, but maybe. He gives their autumn squash soup to die in his face and he can't afford the spray cans

in order for this. Hey, speaking of autumn squash soup, that was one of the things I got. Oh Jesus. I did. I got a cup of the vegetarian. Now I ordered, they have a, they have a solid app from at Panera. I will say I use the app to order and I ordered as I'm doing this vegetarian thing, I ordered all from the, they have a plant based section of the menu, which also includes dairy and

eggs. It's not just, it's not purely vegan. You know, they're being fast and loose with the term plant base. Um, but the app is very solid and I like that they have that section of the menu. Oh my God. I'll say that. Sounds like a true vegetarian already. The vegetarian autumn squash soup.

Vegetarian part. That's soup. I wrote, I wrote down in my notes as I was eating it. Now we're talking cause it's, it's, it's damn good. This, it was rich in flavorful. It has some Pepita garnish on top, which was a really nice touch. You are a freak. I immediately, very quickly I was like, I'm going to eat all this cause a lot of times

that these chains were like, okay, I'm going to take a few bites and then maybe I'll save this or maybe I'll toss this if it's bad. Uh, cause we're usually ordering more food than one person would have in a normal sitting. But I had, I had the whole thing. I was like, I'm eating this whole thing cause it's delicious. I thought it was great. Um, did, uh, uh, no, Monica and Chris, uh, uh, did you guys get anything from the soup side of the menu?

We did. We tried the autumn squash soup and did you get another soup? Uh, yeah. I got a French onion attached, uh, when it came with the sandwich kind of deal. Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. Let's talk soups.

How are them soups? I liked it. I thought, I thought the autumn squash soup was really good. It was sweet. Yeah. It was kind of sweet. I'm not sure if, if, if it would be good with something like salty. I don't think I had any like bread or anything to do with like a grilled cheese.

I'd say. I feel like we got another one too. We got two trips. So yeah. Wow. We wanted to try the breakfast, but we also wanted to try like the lunch. And I think Chris was like near one at like later in the day. So I think we had it like two or three times in one day.

Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. The French onion soup was pretty good. It was, um, are we getting into it or just kind of doing it? Oh, okay. Um, I thought it was, I thought it was really good flavor.

It just didn't have like the bread or the cheese on top. And I don't know if that's just dining in only has that or what, but, uh, but it was, that was my only critique. Wow. That is, that's, that's me. That takes away a lot of the fun of French onion soup though. I need that. For sure.

Yeah. That's more than half of it. I'd say. Yeah. I think you're, you're sound. It's, you're being too nice to it. I feel like Chris. I was, it wasn't, it was still had a good taste to it.

The flavor was good. I agree. I was a fan of it. I was a fan of it. I was a fan of it. I was a fan of it. I was a fan of it. I was a fan of it.

I was a fan of it. I was a fan of it. The flavor was good. I agree. I was offended for him. I'm like, what is that? Like, is there another container with the rest of it? Like I get like mad about the things that you see.

Like, oh, look at stuff and be like, that's not how it's supposed to be. It's like, shut up. Was there any cheese in it at all or no? No, no cheese. It was literally just the onions and the broth. Wow. Damn. Well, like I said, the flavor was good.

I can't, I can't really bash the flavor. Well, I got to tell you, and also I'm going to say this right off the top. Nick, it was a surprise, but I also ate vegetarian from this restaurant. I got no meat. Wow. What? I didn't get a single piece of meat at Panera grad. Wow.

And I did it for, Monica, I did it because I knew you were the guest and Nick mentioned maybe eating vegetarian and he said that he was going to go all from the green menu. And so I did not get a single piece of meat in this order. I don't know if I, I mean, I think I ate vegetarian. I definitely did not eat vegan because I got, I got some cheese, but if I'm going to start off with the soup I got, I got a creamy tomato soup, a cup of it, because I did a half and half with a half classic grilled cheese. And that came with a French baguette, which also I put a French baguette in my order,

which is 99 cents. Yes. But then I didn't, I didn't realize that so many of these things just also just come with a French like come with a side. And so I had like four or five pieces of French baguette in my, in my bag at the end of the night. So I am, I am envious of you, Mitch, because I had, and, and, you know, when we say French baguette, it's like a mini baguette.

It's like a little guy, but it's like a pretzel stick, not quite pretzel sticks, like a bread stick sized baguette. And I lost my baguette in the car and I couldn't find it. This is insane. How do you, how do you lose a baguette? There's a stray baguette somewhere in my Chevy Bolt. I have no idea where it is. I checked the center console.

I checked under the seats. I don't know what happened to it. It's probably near the, um, the, um, seat belt, like, thing. Yes. I've lost a lot of stuff in there. Yeah. That's probably it by the driver's side door. Almost like a little half circle, like.

You're being too nice to him. Where the fuck is the baguette? It's insane. I don't know. I'm like, I know where it is. Let me tell you. The baguette is gone. I somehow lost a mini baguette somewhere in the car.

Hold on. Are you eating it? Are you eating it in the car? Yeah. What were you doing with it? I wasn't even eating it. So I took out all the items one by one, just to sort of inventory everything. Cause I was, I was eating in the car.

Yes, I was eating in the car, but I hadn't bitten into the baguette yet. I was putting things aside. It must have just like gotten lost in the shuffle. Yeah. It's very odd. You lost it in the car, in the front seat of your car? I don't know. I don't know.

I would not have thought a man could lose a baguette until it happened to me. I misplaced it. I don't know where it is. It's not like a grape that like rolled or something. No. Yeah. It literally like a stiff piece of bread. Yeah.

Yeah. When you find it, it'll be real stiff. Crouton. Crouton. Yeah. It's like a French onion soup and put that on top and it'll have something. Yeah. Right.

There you go. Were you accidentally sitting on it? That is a possibility. No. I mean, I would, I think I would have seen it when I stood up. I think I would have seen a smush baguette at that point. Well, I don't know what to tell you. I don't know how you lose a baguette in the front seat of your car.

I don't know. I don't know either. Hopefully I'll find it at some point in the future, but I'm sorry. You were talking about your soups and you got some baguettes on the side. Yes. And I did not lose a single baguette just to let everyone know. Wait, so wait. When you were taking the inventory, you already, you already were sitting down.

Yes. Okay. And you just don't know where it went. I think Monica is probably onto something. It's probably between the seat and either the center console or the seat in the door and it's just kind of wedged down there where I can't see it. What? I can understand like losing a French fry in a car, but a baguette?

Well, like I've dropped my phone before in the car and not been able to find it. And that's a bigger. You know, and then bought a new phone. You never found the phone again. But it's a phone is obvious. I mean, a baguette is disposable. I'm like, all right. Well, you know, whatever this thing's not worst case, it's going to get like they were

like, uh, uh, like Monica Chris were saying, it's going to get a little stale. It's not like it's going to, it's like a piece of meat that's going to rot. All right. It's not going to stink. Like, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So there's going to be an old baguette rolling around in your car somewhere.

All right. You'll find it. I'm sure at some point. I hope so. I got the creamy tomato soup. That's what I got. Yes. And, uh, also didn't lose that.

And, uh, I'm going to say this, it was my bite of the night. Wow. Bite of the night doesn't work with soup though, huh? My slurp of the session. It says slurp. It's too hard to wrap slurp. Sip of the trip. Sip of the trip.

Sip, sip is, you don't sip soups. Hmm. Um, You can. If you don't have a spoon. What rhymes with slurp? I mean, not, not few things rhyme with slurp. Hmm.

Slurp of the, Slurp of the slurp. Slurp of the slurp. It's vile. Hmm. All right. We'll figure this out. We'll, we'll put a rain check on this.

But that was my favorite thing. I loved the tomato soup. The creamy tomato soup. Wow. It was fantastic. My, uh, My mom and I put in a big order to Panera and, uh, and,

and she, she suggested the tomato soup and to have some sort of sandwich with it. Here's the, I'm going to get into it right now. The downside is, is that the classic grilled cheese and it was just like a half grilled cheese was maybe one of the most disappointing things of the night. That was one of the,

That did not really, that it just was like, it just wasn't that hot. It was, it was too cold. It just, it was a little bit too cold, but the bread tastes good and the cheese was just very like, kind of plasticky.

It just, it just didn't, it didn't, it didn't work. It didn't, like, you want like a hot, hot fresh grilled cheese to dip in the soup. And it just wasn't, that's not what it was. It was, it was, it was, it was a bummer.

But the soup was fantastic. And it comes with croutons, like these kind of crusty croutons that we threw in there. But I'll tell you what I like to do, toss those croutons away, get that baguette, flags for you, it's not possible,

it's lost somewhere in your car. But if you have that baguette, you're ripping off pieces of the baguette and you dip it in the creamy tomato soup. It's fantastic. Oh, that's great. Yeah, that's delightful. Yeah, I've,

I'll say as the size, this was touched on earlier, but you get sides with basically everything. And so you can get that mini baguette. The other sides are the chips, which I think are just solid. They're crunchy, not too oily kettle chips.

You can get an apple and I like that you can just get an apple. It's great. How many chain restaurants can you get an apple as a side? And then the other one, and this I think is a sneaky good side option here, the tomato basil cucumber salad.

I got as one of my sides. It's very simple, but it's just naturally flavorful and acidic, very light. I ate about half of it and then I took about half of it the next day and tossed it in a salad I made at home. And it was great.

So I think there's, there's lots of good side options here. And they're generous because you pretty much, even if you get a cup of soup, you still get a side tossed in for free, which a lot of places won't do. Wow.

Did we get that? I don't remember that being an option. No, we didn't. No. Oh, interesting. Maybe just a lunch order though, so maybe. Sure, try.

That's a panic order. I also got a small broccoli cheddar mac and cheese, which basically almost belongs with the soups because it pretty much was just a broccoli cheddar soup with some mushy overcooked pasta in it, but it was oddly delicious. I mean, lots of cheddar. It had carrots in it,

which I don't think it needed, but it was, it was oddly very, very tasty. And this was another one where I just decided, I'm eating all of this. Like two bites in, I was like going to eat this whole thing. Wow. And so the soup and the mac and cheese,

I think were really the highlights for me. Let's talk about more. Yes. I too got that broccoli cheddar mac and cheese. Wow. What'd you think, Spoon Man? I got a small broccoli cheddar mac and cheese. My mom was mad when I pulled it out of the bag

because I had not told her I was getting it in the order and she's afraid that I am overweight and going to die. But I pulled it out of the bag and she was unhappy. And then she tried it and she was even more unhappy because she didn't like the way it tasted. I thought, she thought that it just tasted kind of like watery, not good.

She'd rather have a box of Kraft mac and cheese. And I, and I thought that the, I thought that there were bites where it tasted like that, and I got a bite of like broccoli and mac and cheese. And I thought it was good. Yeah. I like the cheddar flavor.

I thought it was better than a box mac and cheese, which is maybe damning with faint praise, but I do like a box mac and cheese. We did not eat the whole thing, but we took a few bites of it and I thought it was fine. It was not one of the standouts. And I do have a couple standouts. So that tomato soup being one of them,

but the mac and cheese and the grilled cheese were, the two cheeses were not the, did not show up. Hmm. That's a bummer. Well, let's, Monica and Chris, let's hear more of your order. What else did you guys get?

Oh, okay. So in the morning we got, so what did we get that day? And I got an egg and cheese sandwich on brioche bread, which I thought was delicious. It didn't need salt. I always think of like breakfast sandwiches from places like this as like a place you'd grab something like in the airport

when you're traveling and they never have any flavor. I feel like they always need salt and they always need something and you kind of just eat it anyway. But I feel like this one, I would not have been disappointed and felt like I needed to like go find like a packet of something to season it with or hot sauce or anything like that. It was really good.

But I chose the scrambled egg. Most of their eggs said that they came over easy automatically. And I wasn't sure if I could say, can you do it over medium? So instead of being like difficult, I just got it scrambled and I thought, thought it was really, really good. I think that sandwich comes with bacon, but I just said I wanted just egg and cheese.

They do make an egg and cheese on a ciabatta. Yeah, that's what I had. But yours had bacon? And bacon, yeah. Yeah. That was pretty good. I probably, I was a little disappointed in that actually because it looked good

in the picture, but I guess the combination of ciabatta, it just doesn't, I don't think that's the best bread for breakfast sandwich. It's such a dense bread. Yeah, it's pretty dense. Totally agree. And the brioche,

I should, I should want brioche, but I figured Monica was going to get, I had a bite of hers, which is really good. But yeah, I definitely would recommend the brioche over the ciabatta. Wow. I actually went in and picked it up. So I don't know if,

if some things are available when you go in based on what they have available in the like bakery section, but there was some souffles. There was a four cheese souffle that we got. Was there a different one baked egg souffle? Yeah. Yeah. Anyways,

we didn't, we didn't see them as an option to like order them. Like if we wanted to like door dash or anything like that, it wasn't even on the menu. It wasn't an option. It was an option when we looked at postmates, but then when we tried to order it, they said it was unavailable.

So anyways, maybe it's when you go in the store, but they had a lot of like bakery items that were really good. We grabbed an orange stone, a cinnamon roll, hot chocolate. That's not a bakery yet. Everything was really good.

The orange stone was really good. Cause normally I'm not crazy about scones. I think you said the same thing. Cause they're kind of dense and kind of dry. Yeah. I mean, I think if there's, if I had the option, pretty much I'll take anything else over a scone.

Yeah. There was like a, there was like an orange glaze on the scone that, that had like orange zest in it. So it tasted really good. It didn't taste like, like super artificial. Wow.

It wasn't that dense. It was kind of soft. So yeah. That was really, that was really good too. Wow. You guys, you guys, you guys are being kind of nice,

but I'm just going to go out and say it. Scones are bad. Scones, scones, scones, scones kind of suck. I would never usually order one. I just, I like orange flavored baked items, usually for some reason. And, and I just thought like, I'll just try it.

And plus we were bringing it all home and the boys will automatically eat anything that's like sweet or that looks like it might be sweet. So I just figured like, let's just grab it. And I was surprised. It was really good. I think I would order it again. Yeah.

Wow. I'm generally a scone skeptic, but I will say that I've had some, I think there's a maple scone. They have it. Like a maple glazed scone they have at Panera that is pretty darn good. I will say though,

the sweet treat I did get, which was the pecan braid. Wow. Which was free with the app. I didn't love it. I thought this was very much not worth the calories. It was, it was unfortunately super dry and kind of like arugula, you know,

it was just like it, which isn't my favorite kind of dessert. It's just too, I like a little bit of, you know, moistness with a, with a sweet pastry. And this was just, it was just too dry and starchy.

It was unfortunately did not deliver. I would have rather had just like a, a maple bar donut. Yeah. I wonder if it's time of day too, because we went, it said that they only serve breakfast until 10 30. And so I was there after I dropped miles off at school.

So it was like eight 30. And then I looked, they opened at like six 30 in the morning. So I imagine they're probably making most of those baked goods and like three in the morning or something. Right. So if you're, if you're not getting them in the morning,

they're probably not going to taste that great for the end of the day. Right. I mean, I don't know how it works. I don't know if they're baking all day there. Do you guys know, are they made in store or is it delivered?

Like, that's like, I'm not, that's a great question. I'm honestly not clear on this. I've heard last time we did this, last time we did a Panera bread, someone who'd worked there informed me that they were still baking

there. They're still doing their baked goods in house. Wow. Yeah. So like, like cookies and stuff were, that's why that was like a good bet to get there because it was something that was baked at that store.

But I don't know if that's still the case here in the year of our Lord 2021. It sounds like a, Nick, you and Chris both had a little bit of a breakfast catfish going on. Catfish? The picture looked good,

but then you got the, the, you got the pastry and it was in it. It wasn't what the picture was. Oh, it's like me on, on, on,

on Tinder, I use a picture from 2009 when I, a hundred pounds less. Um, but a classic case of a, of breakfast catfish for you both. Yeah. Yeah.

I definitely felt taking advantage of it for sure. But I agree with the calorie thing. Um, if I'm going to have 600 calories, but I would so much rather not have a scone, like that's probably my least, my least favorite option. Right. 100%

For a scone, if we're, if we're judging it compared to all other scones, I would say it's, it's pretty, pretty good compared to, yeah, every scone that I've had, which I actually avoid,

but very good. Scones tastes like they shouldn't be that many calories. They, they feel like they should be more healthy than, than they are. Yeah. All the kinds of like, um,

brand and a bunch of, it feels like all that's in there and you're like, Oh, this is, there's a lot of fiber now. Was it English or French? I think it's English. English. Okay.

Either answer. I hate it. Who do you want to blame? It's the English. Now, Wags is responsible for this. Wags, I was just thinking,

like the baguette getting in your car and then going missing. That's not the first time something's happened where it's gotten in your car and gone missing. Right. All right. We'll be back with more dough boys. Welcome back to dough boys. We are here with Monica Ruiz and Chris O'Malley.

We're discussing Panera. And hey, let's get into the rest of our order. I will say, as I've stuck with the vegetarian side of things, I had two items that were, that would be called mains. And one was disappointing that we'll start with.

And the other one was surprisingly good. The Baja bowl is the first one. This is already the description. Cilantro, reline, brown rice and quinoa, black bean and corn salsa, salsa verde,

red grape tomatoes, avocado, feta crumbles, and Greek yogurt. And my thought with this many components, especially this many wet components, I expected it to be less dry, but it was still surprisingly dry.

And I think also because of the feta and the Greek yogurt, it was more Mediterranean than Mexican for something called a Baja bowl. But it just... Are you sure you didn't get the Mediterranean bowl? Sorry. No, I mean, I got this, it has...

He's barking at Nick, like how the dog barks at the Terminator. You ordered the wrong thing. Yeah. Terminator. No, this actually has... I mean, this is the description of the Baja bowl,

verbatim from the menu, and it had, you know, it had some components. It had the black bean and corn salsa and the salsa verde. You know, it was... Nick, admit that you're a T-800.

I'm not a T-800. He's just mad that... He's just mad that they're doing Doughboys. The podcast sucks. But I just, I felt like this, it had too much going on. Oonga Pachka, I would say.

Just a few too many components didn't seem healthy for something that was trying to be healthy. This was like a bad Kava bowl. We've reviewed Kava a few times. Do you think like... Or it's the one time. Do you think like there's some nerds

that cheer when you say Oonga Pachka? They pump their fists, yes. 100%. Wags, I also had the Baja bowl. What did you think? Wags, we're really lining up here. Wow, we're in sync. I didn't hate it.

I didn't even realize, I thought it was sour cream. I didn't realize that that was Greek yogurt in there. It has both. That's what's weird. That's why I'm partly like it's got... Oh wait, no, it doesn't have both.

No, it doesn't have both. It is just the Greek yogurt. It is just Greek yogurt, but my issue with it is that that bowl is 680 calories without any protein in it. Right. Why is it that...

Is it the avocado? What's going on there? And also, this is one where I was like, I wish that there was chicken in it. I mean, like, and that would put it, you know, would probably add two to 300 more calories or whatever. But that was one where I was like,

this needs some sort of protein in it, just by itself. It's just kind of like a mush bowl. But I didn't think that... I didn't think... I thought the flavors of it weren't bad. I didn't think it was horrible. Yes.

But I have had the Mediterranean bowl before. In Atlanta, there was a Panera across the street from the hotel I was staying in. And I would go over and frequent that Panera pretty often. And I would usually do a Greek salad with chicken or the Mediterranean bowl, I think with chicken sometimes.

But I enjoy the Mediterranean bowl and then the Baja bowl just is not as good. It's not as good. Okay. I got the Mediterranean bowl too. And I thought... When I ate it, I wasn't crazy about it. And I put it in the fridge

because I just took a couple bites. And I'm like, I don't know, it feels a little wet, which is weird because you said yours was dry. Mine felt a little wet, weirdly. Mine was just right. It felt like it was almost overcooked. I don't know, what was the base of that one?

I don't know. I Goldilocksed the both of you. I got the just right. But no, but I had it the next day because it was in the fridge and it has everything that I like. And it was good. So I don't know if it was just because

I had had so many... I had had the soup already and I really liked that. And then when I took a bite of that, I was sort of like, maybe it was just like the flavors that kind of clashed or something. But I enjoyed it the next day

and it kept... The way that it was when it came fresh was very similar to the way that it was like out of the fridge. So it wasn't like something that you couldn't eat the next day. I thought it was good. Right.

Now, I just looked... I looked online, the Baja bowl with chicken, only 70 calories more. It's 750 calories. Oh, interesting. And then the Mediterranean bowl is a little less, but still kind of high,

630 calories, then 700 with chicken, which is kind of higher than you think when you were thinking of like, oh, this is kind of like a healthy little bowl meal. Not crazy, I'm sure. Yes. The yogurt? You think?

The yogurt? It's confusing. I don't really understand why. It could be the feta in there. I mean, avocado I think could be pretty caloric. But yeah, it's... I will say,

because this is a work lunch sort of meal. This is not a thing you get for fun. This is like, this is my work lunch. This is the team order, or this is... I'm getting this on my lunch break. And from that standpoint,

I'm like, I'd rather have a bowl from Chipotle or a bowl from Kava, you know, versus what this offering is. The one that I thought was surprisingly good of my entrees was the cheese flatbread, which is their pizzas... Their flatbread pizzas are new offerings. They've been running these ads a lot.

And I thought this was a pretty darn good thin crust pizza. I was like, this is better than I expected. It's just a simple tomato sauce, lots of cheese, the crust had a good crunch to it. I wrote down in my notes, I was surprised,

should I be? Because it's Panera bread. Bread is what they do. You go along with your notes lately. What the hell? I'm just like, that was just my... I'm like, I'm trying to write down my gut reaction so I can remember it,

you know, a few days later when we actually record. And that was my thought. I have a quick question for you. Yes. Why are your notes boring? So no one will plagiarize. Yeah, exactly.

I thought that had some insight to it. Because Panera bread, of course they should do a flatbread pizza while bread is their business. And I thought this was a pretty good flatbread pizza. I don't know, our guests are nodding along.

Did you similarly get this? We got the margarita. Yeah, I agree. I thought it was great. Yeah. Great. I mean, it was good. Really good.

Yeah. Every bite was good. It seemed like consistent all the way across, which is, I like that. So... And another thing that I mentioned that I had written down about it too is that a lot of times with margarita pizzas,

because it's the fresh mozzarella and the basil, everything will slide off in the first bite. It seems like... Right. A lot of times with a margarita pizza that seems to happen to me. This one, it didn't do that. It was like the ingredients

were kind of like chopped up smaller. Like the basil wasn't like big leafs. It was like all like, what is that called? I don't know. It was just... You could bite into it and not all of it would come off together,

which is, I think... Yeah. Yeah, that's good. Yeah. That's huge. I'm nodding along too, because I also got the margarita pizza. Wow.

All three of us got the pizza. And guess what? My mom and I, we both thought it was good. It was good. After the tomato soup, this was our favorite thing. I went light on the basil.

And also just to comparatively, for that whole pizza, if you ate that whole pizza, it would be just as much as a Baja bowl with chicken. I mean, it's 760 calories. Really? Which is crazy, right? That is the confusing thing about that,

those bowls. I don't get it. Wait, what was the base of that bowl again? Did you say it was... Was it rice or was it... I think it was like brown rice or... Yeah, brown rice and quinoa. And quinoa.

It's probably the rice and the quinoa. I think quinoa is like surprisingly high in calories. Yeah, interesting. Which I remember correctly. I don't know. Sure. But hey, if I got to choose between the two,

that margarita pizza, it was really, really good. As far as like even chain pizzas or whatever, you can get it. It's ready in 10 minutes. And it was impressive. And my mom, my mom loved it.

And I was shocked. You're right, Nick. Maybe you're right. Maybe that dull note is right. Did I be shocked? I don't know if I should be shocked, but I was shocked at how good it was. It was really surprising.

Yeah. I 100% agree with you, Mitch. And that's the rundown of all the food I got. Is there anything that we haven't touched on, Monica and Chris, and the two of you? Yeah. We got the... Well, we talked about the souffles, right?

Yeah. We already talked about all that at breakfast time, but you've got a couple... You've got a different thing, right? Yeah. At lunch? At lunch. Oh, yeah.

I got the Frantega chicken sandwich, which I used to get back when I lived in Boston, or Massachusetts. I used to go to the one in Quincy. And I remember loving that sandwich, because the one on Hancock Street, that was... I remember it was kind of new when I was younger,

when I was like 15 or 16. It was like a brand new place. Remember that? Is that the one you went to today? That's the one I went to last night. Yeah. Wow. And you know what, Chris?

I don't know if I've ever stepped foot in there. That's because when I started... I think that was... I think it came around when I was in college, or when I started going to college. So probably it's 20 years old, maybe? Okay, yeah. Because I remember being in high school still,

and I worked at Marina Bay, which is right around the corner. And I remember feeling like it was really good, because that was the first time I was like earning money. And I felt maybe feel like an adult kind of. You'd go and sit in like a sandwich. And I remember liking that sandwich.

Is that this upscale restaurant? That's not what I like at the time. So it's been around a little bit. But I have like a... I'm always battling with nostalgia versus quality going down over the years. And so I got the same sandwich that I used to get when I worked at the Marina.

And I would say it held up. It held up pretty good. The flavor was good. Yeah. Because you know, I mean, places like... You ever go to D'Angelo's, Mike? Of course. And there's a D'Angelo's right next to this Panera.

And I love D'Angelo's. Didn't you ever review D'Angelo's once? We've yet to review it, but what Chris said is basically kind of what the whole podcast is, is the nostalgia of going to a place and whether it actually is good when you eat it now. The first like 10 times we went to Boston, he was like, we have to go here.

This is my favorite place. And then it was sort of like a... Oh. A shithole? I remember. Yeah. Except for Regina Pizzeria in North End. That is delicious.

Yeah, that's good. That lives up to the hype. Yeah. Weiger's been there now. But were you about to speak... I've been there twice. I had a great time. Were you about to speak ill of D'Angelo's, Chris?

No, I was wondering, because that's the one place I haven't been... to recently and I had such a fond memories of. So I was kind of... I was wondering if you've been recently... I haven't been since I've been back, but they are also one that I feel like I should go to soon, because them and Puppagenos are borderline.

I said this before on the show, but now I have to be protective of like regional chains, because they're going to go out of business. It sucks, why? Yeah. Well, they're either going to go out of business, or they'll go nationwide, and then kind of like lose their charm.

Yeah, the quality goes down. I mean, we're kind of seeing this with Duncan to some degree. They've kind of overexpanded a little bit. But yeah, who knows? Chris, you bring up a good point in that. The Panera was hopping as far as COVID times go. There were people inside. There were a few people inside seating in there,

which I guess is allowed. But then next door, that D'Angelo's maybe was just... The lights were out, it seemed like. I don't know if it was closed, or if it just was... Nothing was going on in there. The lights were out. I mean, it did not look good.

It was grim looking. So Panera has definitely won the battle on Hancock Street there, but there's also an Applebee's right next to that, which I also have never been in, Nick. The Applebee's in North Quincy, I've also never been in. And another chain we have yet to review. That is right.

But maybe the biggest one we have not yet reviewed, Applebee's. I got a couple more things. Yes, please. That pizza, though, being the big one. And then I also, we got a couple drinks, Nick. My mom got the Plum Ginger Hibiscus Tea, and then I got the Blood Orange Lemonade, which I got a large on that,

and then she got a regular, but they just gave us two larges, and they're huge. The drinks are huge. And then when I tasted them, I regretted getting a large, because the Hibiscus Tea, I took a sip of my mom's, was too watery.

It's zero calories, but just like it was too watered down. It tasted like nothing. And then the Blood Orange Lemonade, like they say all the ingredients it's made from on the fountain, like they have like the lemonade fountain, which is our nice and they're fun to look at, Nick. We've talked about this before, but... Yes.

My mom was like, this tastes like a tang, like an orange powder drink. And I agreed with her. It was not very good. So I got to give a thumbs up to that Blood Orange Lemonade. I don't know if it can have ups and downs, depending on the batch or whatever, you know what I mean? Yeah.

But it needed a new batch. It needed a new batch. It needed gremlins too. It needed a gremlins too. It did. It did need a gremlins too. And then I also got a Greek salad, no meat, but I usually, when I go to Panera,

I'll usually do the Greek salad with chicken, with grilled chicken. And I think they do a pretty good Greek salad and last night was the same. The dressing is good. And if you've got a piece of French bread, you can dip your French bread in the leftover dressing. And there's a good amount of feta in there and onions.

And I honestly, I think as far as chain restaurants go, it's one of the best Greek salads you can get. Wow. I mean, can you think of anything that's better? I can't. I mean, maybe if you go to a specific Greek place like a Daphne's, maybe, but you know, I mean, that's it. Yeah, as far as nationwide chains,

yeah, it may be hard to do better than Panera. D'Angelo's also had one, but they're getting destroyed by Panera, I guess. And then finally for dessert, because we had the Baja bowl as well. And then for dessert, we got a candy cookie, which is an M&M's cookie, but it's just not M&M's. It's just called a candy cookie.

And it was a little bit undercooked, I would say, like the center of it was a little battery, which is okay. I like to have a softer cookie, so I don't mind, but it was not great. And the candies were not M&M's. So a disappointment. But the pizza was great and that soup was great.

And then this morning, I kept it till the morning. I ordered an everything bagel sliced. I got a sesame bagel unsliced. And I used the app, and I just want to say, the app works great. It's a good app. The app works great. That was the only mistake of the whole thing,

is that they gave me a sesame bagel instead of an everything bagel and it wasn't sliced. But I'm sure that they were just out of everything bagels. I bet you that's what it was. And then I got a chive and onion cream cheese with that. And I thought it was, once it was toasted up, I thought it was okay. I think Dunkin's is still better,

but I feel like all bagels now are just like, if you get a bagel from, they're all like hard. They're all like... You have to go to a bagel place. You have to go to a bagel place now. It sucks though. Going to a chain, it just never works. It was hard last night too.

I put it in a plastic bag till this morning. But it was hard last night when I got it. So a little disappointed. But overall, the highs were pretty high with Panera this time around. I was surprised. I agree. And one of our guests is nodding along.

Is there any more food to cover before we get to our final thoughts? So you guys get through all of it. I think we went through all of it. I wrote down all of the stuff that I could eat. So that's what that list is. There was so much stuff that I could eat there. I was really surprised.

Yeah, definitely to its credit. And we'll see if that factors into our final thoughts here. So we'll each go around, give a closing argument, if you will, about Panera bread and then end by giving it a rating from zero to five forks. Monica, we'll begin with you. Okay.

I kind of expected it to be like just sort of standard, but I would have to like add to it. But I was like, I don't want to have to add to it because I obviously want to want to rate it on like exactly as it comes. I didn't feel like I needed to do anything to it or that I would if I wasn't being asked about it. I thought everything that I tried pretty much,

I would order again. I don't think there was anything, I might not get that Mediterranean bowl. I might try the Greek salad instead if I want those flavors because I just wasn't crazy about the way that the quinoa was cooked. It just felt really, like I said, like kind of watery or a little wet. But everything else I thought was so good. And our kids took bites of like everything,

which is kind of unusual because they don't really like to take bites of things that they don't recognize or like, they'll smell it and be like, no. So that was interesting that they wanted to take multiple bites of all of them, the stuff. So that's always a plus if your kids will like eat something that you're eating. And I thought their baked goods were really good too.

And there was a lot of baked goods. And I want to go back and try some of the other ones because, you know, the ones that we did get the cinnamon roll and the orange scone, I thought were really good. So I don't know. Like based on like what we had and maybe it was the time of day, like early in the early in the day, like I would have to say like four and a half.

Wow. Honestly, as a vegetarian and you're going to know this next year, like you settle, you settle in all these places. You're just sort of like, man, you never expect your food to taste that good. It's just because you're omitting something usually or they're making something to you. They almost fell over backwards, Monica, in his chair.

Me too. I was shocked, man. No, but honestly, like I was like, this is like a place I would actually go back to with other options, like locally. Do you know what I mean? I thought everything was so good and I was surprised that the flavors were so good and it tasted really fresh as far as the baked items. So yeah.

Wow. Four and a half forks. High praise for Monica. Chris, your final thoughts and your fork score. See, I thought everything was really good too. I thought the bacon, egg and cheese on a chipotle was good. Simple flavor with the scrambled eggs was good. Good texture, not enough bacon,

but the ciabatta was probably not the best call. That's on me. So I really won't put that on them. French onion soup was missing the key elements. And then the frontega chicken was good. It held up, but it also made me kind of, it wasn't quite as good as I remember.

And I think that kind of made me a little sad that my 16 year old 16 year old self was not, my taste buds weren't quite mature enough to, to carry me through life. But overall, I thought it was good. I wasn't disappointed because I hadn't been and probably, probably over 10 years. Wow.

You think Quincy's last time you went. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Absolutely. I've been, I've been quite a few times since in the last 10 years. So maybe it's when you're going to like a job or something that's

pretty. Yeah. Yeah. Right. I would say three and a half forks. Wow. Three and a half forks. Still a very good score.

Spoon man. Spoon man. What do you think? Well, Nick, like we said before, this is the, it's a place that you,

you see a lot of people giving other people bad news or it's, it's like, it feels very much like a, like the hospital cafeteria, cafeteria or something where there's, there's a sadness to it. I'm going to say this, the Quincy Panera and look,

people got mad at me because I said the 7-Eleven and that Quincy had the one of the nicest 7-Eleven I've ever, I've ever seen. It was the, the 7-Eleven that took over to Deskies. Chris, I don't know if you've ever been in there. Beals.

It's on Beals, on, on, on Adam street, but right, but right. Yeah. Yeah.

It's, it's super, super nice. And I'm sure there's better 7-Elevens. It's just the nicest one I had ever been in. It is, it's crazy. And it's,

it's because it was a former, like I used to be like a supermarket basically. When was it to Deskies? It was, it was, it was, it was used to be this place called Curtis farms, which a few of my,

which a few of my friends worked at. And then it, and then it became a to Deskies. And then now it's a 7-Eleven with a to Deskies deli. And it was just the nicest son of 7-Eleven I've ever been in, but I got to say this too about the Quincy Panera, Wags, look,

there's a bunch of windows. There's light in there. Every, every Panera I've been into doesn't, there's just big open windows, which they, every other Panera I've been into just feels like a waiting room. And it was,

and so it was, the colors, they choose a really somber. Yes. Right. There's something about it, but, but this being in this one,

it wasn't, it wasn't that depressing when it should be the most depressing because it's a depressing time. But the food also was, the food kind of, it surprised me. I had, I enjoyed my dinner last night,

which, which, to me, I always am just going to Panera to get that Greek salad with chicken in it because I'm like, this is healthy enough. This is a healthy enough option for a fast food place when you're working

or you're in some city that you don't know or whatever. Right. It's, it's a, it's a fine healthy meal. And last night I was eating that pizza with my mom and I was, and I was having a good time. It was,

it was, it was great. I, I really, in that tomato soup, I would go back on a winter's day, get a big bowl of that tomato soup and dip some bread in it.

Yeah. That's the other thing I was thinking that it's, I think it's weather. Like on a cold day, I would think I would enjoy it more. I'd give it a probably higher score, but. Yeah. Yeah.

No. And well, my score is slightly higher than yours, but also not in the golden play club. I, I, I mean, if anything,

this is the time that it should get in. And I'm like, I'm, I'm waffling on whether I should waffling. I'm waffling on whether I should give it four or like 3.75 forks, Nick. I don't,

this, this was its best outing though. And this is like very close to a golden play club to me on this, on this one. It sounds like your gut is telling you three forks three times. Three forks three times. Yeah.

It doesn't, it doesn't quite. You feel like it's cause you did all vegetarian? No. Honestly, I'm going to say that too. I don't think that that took anything away from it. If anything,

and maybe it helped it. The only thing was the Baja bowl. And then the Greek chat, the Greek salad could have had chicken in there, but I ate the Greek salad like after I ate pizza. So it felt kind of more like, Oh, this is just like a pizza and a salad. And it was,

and it was nice. I didn't need any meat in there. So overall, especially for a vegetarian, a no meat meal, Nick, it is close to four forks, 3.9 forks, Nick. Wow.

A hypothetical 10 tined fork. That's right. 9 of them in action. All right. I can't forget the downs. There were also some downsides. There were some stuff that just did not work, but it was close, man.

It was very, very, very close. Yeah. I mean, I will, I think I'm going to land between everybody with my, with my fork score. Ultimately, you know,

we talked about it's soups. And I think just as a supery, it's just as a soup shop. It's, it's got great soups. And I think that speaks a lot to, you know, like, like,

like what you were saying, Mitch, I thought was really, was really good about just like that baguette and, and a bowl of soup is just so satisfying. And there aren't a lot of to-go chains where you could get something like that, you know, and, and I like that.

And I think they do their soups well. The bowl underwhelmed the flatbread pizza, I would 100% get again. And, and Monica was talking about the, you know, a lot of the pastries. And I think a lot of them are quite good, although the ones I had,

or the one I had was not particularly good, but the, the, you know, like their cookies, I think their cookies are very, very solid. I didn't mention my cold brew, which I got, which was the Madagascar vanilla almond cold brew. And I wrote in my notes, hey, okay.

Because it was just like, like, hey, okay. You know, that was basically my reaction. A nice cold brew, not overly sweet. The vanilla was subtle. And it felt like a flavored coffee, not a dessert,

which for a cold brew, I don't want it to be just like too sweet. I don't want it to be a milkshake. I want it to be like a little bit, a little bit of a pick me up. And this was that. So I think I'm, I think I'm going to say this one,

especially eating it from a vegetarian perspective, which I am as of 2021. This is taking place in 2020. You're still going to have, you're going to have meat tonight. I'm sure. Yeah. I'm going to have meat tonight.

But as of this episode's release, the year of Lord, our Lord, 2021, I am not eating any meat. And I am going to say, ordering from a vegetarian perspective, this chain absolutely has a lot of great options.

And I thought a lot of things that I would get again. And for that reason, I'm going to say this is four forks. This is a four fork Panera. I was impressed. Wow. Me and Chris really missing baguette when it was over. Maybe,

maybe we've got to have gotten five forks, Nick, with that. I know. Yeah. I think so. I think so. Yeah. The chicken kind of had that.

And Chris, you should be ashamed. How dare you, sir? It was a, the chicken was like, kind of like sub weight. Like it felt like it was like a portioned out, like pre portioned chopped up boiled chicken kind of thing.

Yeah. The flavors were there. That kind of messed it up. Yeah. Yeah. It was like, it was like, it was like,

you know, the flavors were there. That kind of messed it a little bit, but I did notice that, I mean, the chicken wasn't great. So you didn't miss anything. And then actually on the,

on the bacon, I can cheese the, they didn't put enough bacon on it. And it was a little, yeah, it was just not enough bacon and probably not enough chicken. And then the quality wasn't great. So,

Hey, Chris and I are back to our old ways. We're, we didn't get out in it. We didn't let it in the golden play club, Nick. We're little weasels. It's just like,

we used to be back at Sonny McClain's. Well, there we go. It didn't, it doesn't, it doesn't, it's, I mean,

it's, it was good. It just, it hasn't, it hasn't gone over to four for me yet. But I'm happy, I'm happy it did for you, Nick.

I'm surprised. Hey, you know what, I will at least say it was better than our previous outing. And, you know, I think that's, and I think it absolutely has its place in the chain game.

But that was our review, review of Panera Brad. It's time for a segment. I've selected a chain and Mitch and Monica and Chris have 60 seconds to craft an order under an array of restrictions. It's the return of can I take your order?

Oh my God. Can I take your order? You can't hear his music. From a place that is a chain. So this is a cappella to us. Can I take your order? There are rules that I'll explain. So I'll learn when this episode is released

if Emma decided, or not decided to add the backing track behind my vocals, which I was listening to, but it was not in the, it was not in the audio for our guests. That's right. I'm in Mitch. That'll be a fun treat for me.

But your chain is KFC for this issue, this edition of can I take your order? You sounded like Nervous Hootie. That's not Hootie in the Blowfish. That's not a Darius Rucker song. No, I know, but I'm just saying you sounded like Nervous Hootie.

Oh, okay. I sounded like Darius Rucker with a little bit of the shakes. But the chain for this, the chain for this edition is KFC. Your budget is $10 including tax. So tack on an additional 10%. Oh my God.

Your debit card, your debit card has been, has a fraud alert on it, and you have a $10 bill on you. So that's all you have to work with. And you have to order vegetarian. Fuck you already. So before we begin the clock,

before Emma starts the clock, you may ask me any questions. Any questions from the floor? Can we just stick to sides, or do we have to pick something from like the main, like the combos or the meals? You don't have to pick anything from the mains. You can order strictly sides if you like.

Okay. Is there like a winner? Is it closest to 10 without going over, or is it just, or just kind of... Emma, do you remember, did we do a winner last time? Well, last time,

I think it was mentioned Leslie both lost. So there was no winner. Oh, that's right. Because I think you both went over and you weren't allowed to use pasta. It was a whole mess. Yeah. Well...

No one's ever won. So you might have the chance to win for the first time. But there is a winner. There should be. Yeah, there's a winner. Okay. Monica, you asked if you could only do sides, and the answer is you have to only do sides.

It's the stupid fucking vegetarian bullshit. I mean, I already skimmed the mains. I'm like, uh... Do I spend my whole 60 seconds asking what's in the bowl or whatever that I have to omit? This sucks. All right.

But you can make substitutions if you do an order for the mains. So that maybe gives you some options. A chicken pot pie with no chicken? Well, they probably can't make that substitution, but they can probably take off the chicken in a bowl. Okay. They would never make you a vegetarian pot pie.

I forget it. No, I don't think they're going to do that. No way. Monica and Chris, do you guys want to work together as a team, or would you like to work independently? Sure. Sure, we'll work together.

All right. You guys will be a team. It'll be two-on-one versus the Spoon Man Mike Mitchell, but Mitch is an expert in the chain restaurant sector. That's true. So you may have your hands full in this matchup. That's true. Emma, please start the clock.

Let us know when the 60 seconds begin. Go. Is this Sonic music? As we're hearing the very loud audio of the Smash Brothers Smash the Targets break the Targets theme. I can tell looking through the monitor that our guests are hard at work. Wait, Emma, do you have a clock, or was I supposed to be timing it?

I got it. I'll just stop the music at 60 seconds. Thank you, Emma. Mitch is not really moved. Yeah, 20 seconds left. His eyes just transfixed on his monitor. He's using the calculator at his problem. Jesus.

Man, I love this synth solo. That's it. Wow. Peckles down. We're not going to win. He's going to win this. I don't know about that. We're going to find out.

All right. I'll go with the prices on menuwithprice.com. We'll use that as the price gauge here. So, Monica and Chris, let's begin with you. What did you assemble for your order? Potato wedges. Potato wedges. These are all sides.

Potato wedges, side of coleslaw, side of mac and cheese, to the two biscuit snack and lemonade. Wow. Wow. $3.79 items, $1.49 item for the two biscuits, and then the lemonade, I was looking at the half-gallon price,

but that's not right, is a regular lemonade, $1.99. I told lemonade and I was like, you missed us out. It's $3.49, but that's a half-gallon. All right. Let me do the math real quick. Are you going to play the sonic music again for your math?

It's not sonic music. This is Smash Brothers music. What are you doing? Wow. I think you just snuck under with 10% tax. You're about $9.60 here by my contributions. Wow. I might be a little bit off.

Wow. So you're sitting pretty. All right, Spoon Man, what do you got? All right. Wags? Yes. I did mashed potatoes with gravy. I don't think the gravy's vegetarian.

So you lost. Disqualified. The gravy's not vegetarian? No, I don't think so. How good would it be? I think you have to find vegetarian gravy whenever you want gravy. You have to go to Whole Foods. Well, look, it doesn't even say gravy on the menu.

All right. So I'll just give you just mashed potatoes. A single serving of mashed potatoes. Uh-huh. A single serving of mac and cheese. Both $1.79 options. A single serving of sweet kernel corn. A single serving of baked beans.

Wow. Loading up on sides. A strawberry lemonade. Strawberry lemonade, I believe, is actually an extra $0.30 versus the regular lemonade. And two biscuits. That brings you. Wait, that brings me to what? You're at $9.45 without tax before you even add the biscuits.

You add the biscuits. You're at $10.94 before tax. Oh, fuck off. You're good at arithmetic. You completely busted your budget here. I shouldn't have got the beans, huh? Yeah, the beans were too much. I don't even know if they're baked beans or vegetarian.

Are they? They probably aren't. I feel like a lot of times baked beans have ham in them. Yeah, they cook with lighter. Yeah. They usually ham something in them. Well, there is a winner here today. It is Monica and Chris.

Congratulations. Vegetarian at fucking KFC. No one wants that. But sometimes that, I think, is the situation you end up in. Is that correct, Monica? Yeah, yeah. We've never been to KFC together. I used to eat there like all the time.

I worked at Jamba Juice in high school and I would eat there all the time. Because it was one right nearby. But I ate it back then. So I have no idea what it's like to eat there as a vegetarian. You dropped this Jamba Juice bomb on us right towards the end of the episode? We could have done 40 minutes on this earlier. You're going to have to have me back. Have you done Jamba Juice?

You have, right? We have done Jamba Juice, yes. I actually had a decent experience with Jamba Juice. I was doing a lot of Jamba for a time in quarantine because I was just like, I need something to get me out of the house. I'll go get a Jamba Juice. And then I was like, I'm just having like 500 calories of liquid sugar every other day. I can't do this to myself.

Oh, my manager there gained so much weight. Yeah. I could imagine. She was getting the peanut butter mood every day at a 32 ounce. Well, they had kind of, they really tried to do like the health, like kind of a healthy option angle early, but it kind of later on revealed that it's really not healthy at all, right? No, I don't think so.

I mean, it's fruit, it's sugar fruit. Yeah, but I mean, it's not exactly like the healthiest thing in the world, but it's better. They tried to go, they tried to go like a little, like now, when we went there last, why? It was like a health, there was like green, there was like, like Jamba Juice, like greener shakes or whatever. Yeah, they're going in the direction of more juices,

not just things that are just desserts, but like things that actually have, you know, like kale and spinach in them or something that have, have some nutritional value. But, but for the most part, I think a lot of people just go there to indulge. I mean, that's certainly what I was doing. I was going and getting like an orange and vanilla, you know, shake functionally.

Yeah. But hey, there we go. Hey, that was, can I take your order? It's just like a restaurant value or feedback. Let's open up the feedback. Oh man, Mitch, you're going to be so mad about this one. Why, did you ever get Jamba Juice and then it disappeared in your car? No, I never had a whole juice mysteriously vanish inside my car,

never to be found. What's going on in there? A big layer of moss on the top of it. Today's email is from Lisha. Lisha writes, Lisha also included a phonetic pronunciation of their name and some very nice compliments. So thank you for that, Lisha. Hi from Ireland and hello to everyone on the spectacular Doe team.

Wow. When you talk Taco Bell with Betsy and Mono, it fills me with a longing to try it, followed by anxiety that I will order badly. Can you pick a Taco Bell meal for a first time, first timer, complete with exact ordering instructions, including how many packets of sauce, et cetera, please? Mitch, I started to get worried that this one was going to also irritate you

because it's, you know, we talked about Taco Bell and I know it's a sore subject recently and you seem like you're in a pretty cranky mood right now. But that said, if you were, and I want our guests to weigh in on this as well, but I know you're something of an expert. I mean, do you want a second to think through exactly what someone's first timer order should be from Taco Bell? Or do you have it like queued up?

Can you play that Smash Brothers theme again? Emma, do we have the break the targets theme ready to go? I could play it again. No, no, no. I can handle a first order from Taco Bell. Wow. I mean, a cheesy gordita crunch, Nick, for me is what you have to get. Yeah.

Yes. And then now, because they've done so much stupid shit that I don't even know what is available anymore and it has caused me not to go back to Taco Bell in a while, I would say the five layer burrito is another thing you should get. I think you should get a cheesy gordita crunch, a five layer burrito, and... Do you know offhand the five layers of the five layer burrito? I mean, it's all like, it's like what Gabriel says. It's like all the sauces that it was like sour cream, beans, meat, cheese,

and I don't know what the other one is. Have you looked at it? That's a seven layer. Why did I think it was seven? There is a seven layer. That's the one that got rid of. That's one of the ones they discontinued. That's one of the ones they discontinued.

Yeah. Yeah. It's a bummer. And so, and I don't know what the last... I'm missing something else in that five layer burrito, but I would say five layer burrito, the cheese gordita crunch is a must. And then what do they... What else do they have?

Because the loaded grillers and all those things are gone. Yes. And the Fritos burrito is now gone. Like, almost gone. Mitch, I think that, again, we're thinking of it like first time order. I've never been a Taco Bell, and I'm curious. I think for me, a Doritos Locos Taco's got to be there. Nick, that's what I was just about to say.

Because you could get a Chalupa or something like that too, and that would be fun. But I think a Doritos Locos Taco would be the way to go. Yes. So a Doritos Locos... Well, now they even got rid of the Cool Ranch Doritos Locos Taco. It sucks. But still get the Nacho Cheese when I think we'll still get the point across. The Nacho Cheese...

Yes. The Nacho Cheese Doritos Locos Taco, and I think I would get that Supreme. And then five layer burrito, cheese gordita crunch. Nick, as a drink, a Baja Blast Freeze. That's what I'd do. Yeah, the Baja Blast is what it's called. Did I ever tell you that my brother's college roommate was... His mom was a Frito Lay executive who came up with the term...

Not the flavor, but came up with the term Cool Ranch. Cool Ranch, yes. Yeah. What? Yeah, how about that? Wow. Didn't use to be Cool Ranch? It was a Cool Ranch for a time.

It became Cool Ranch, and now I think... Is it back to Cool Ranch? It's back to Cool Ranch now. And then also, apparently in Europe, they don't know... They don't have a concept of ranch as a flavor, so it's called Cool American, which is great. Wow. Chips around the world are bizarre. There's a ham sandwich, Lay's chip insane.

Ooh, I'm into that. Wait, where is it called Cool American? I mean, I've just heard in Europe generally. That's why... Has Frito Lay's paying you to not go overseas, Wags? Is that why you've never been overseas? Cool American won't work anymore? Monica, because you guys touched on Taco Bell earlier, and obviously you're upset about

the menu contractions, but are you still Taco Bell? Is that still a place you'll patronize? Yeah, I went there on Saturday. Wow. When I was pregnant with Miles, there was not a Taco Bell that I could not pull into. Wow. If I knew what was coming up, it was like a magnet, like my car would just go. So I love Taco Bell.

I still love it, and I'm mad, but I feel like they're going to realize they made a big mistake and bring some stuff back, so I'm going to hang in there while they find themselves. I'm going to just let them go. Anyway. I think that you forgot to mention how many sauce packets that she needs, because that's a big one. I've actually grub-hubbed before Taco Bell, and they brought me no sauces. That's fucked up.

That's so fucked up. It's not Taco Bell if you don't have sauce packets. I always call the guy and be like, are you mad at me? What happened? I chose the sauces. You have to choose them on those. But yeah, you got to do the sauces. How many do you think?

Three per item or two per item? I go three per item. I would definitely do at least three per item, and even with cheesy gritty to crunch, I do four. But I'm now a Miles guy. I go with the Miles. I love the Miles. The Miles is good.

I really love spicy, spicy stuff, but with Taco Bell, I always like the Miles-flavored one. Yep. Yeah. I like spicy foods. As I said in the show, I'm something of a heat seeker, but I usually go with not their hottest sauce, because I just feel like there's better flavor in the year in a couple of notches below.

Yeah. Well, because fire is not below. Or is it triple X or whatever? It's like Diablo or something, right? Yeah. Fire is the second hottest, and I think the fire has better flavor than the Diablo sauce. The Diablo is, I think, it's just heat. It doesn't have much to it, but the mild sauce is pretty good.

I've gotten mild sauce by mistake before, and I'm just like, I still like this. It's still like the flavor of this. Yeah. We have extras. I leave them in the fridge, because I feel like you can use them with other stuff. Oh, yeah. 100%. I got a bowl of, I have a paper bowl with Taco Bell sauce and Del Taco sauce squags.

Hell yeah. Monica, what would be your first time order to a vegetarian? Ooh, good question. I would definitely go with the bean burrito, just because it's so, it's just like the most classic basic, and it's not like overwhelming with like a bunch of different ingredients. My sister always adds extra onion, extra like onion. It just depends, I guess, on where you go, who makes it. Sometimes they don't hardly put any in there.

Sometimes it's like the right amount. So I would definitely do that. And then it's hard to say, because I was even like stumped at the drive-through when I went there on Saturday, because I was just like, I don't even know what to get. I think I got a black bean crunch wrap that was okay. I never really go there for black beans. But the girl, the drive-through was just sort of like black bean crunch wrap. And then I got the boys quesadillas.

They don't normally ever want any fast food, but I just thought maybe they'll like them. But I didn't realize that they put like a little bit of sauce inside of it. Have you guys had a quesadilla? They're just like a plain, they had like a little bit of flavor and neither one of them would eat it. But I was like, oh, this is actually pretty good. It's not bad. There's like an, is it like an orange saucer?

It's like, it's like a weird- Yeah, it feels like it's almost like a cheese that might be blended with like a spice. And it didn't feel like there was like a sauce on it. It felt like it was just like seasoned. Yeah, I feel like they have some, they have some hatch chilies in there or maybe just like a little bit of a salsa verde. I get their quesadilla on occasion. They actually didn't used to offer quesadillas.

Like that was like a relatively, I mean, we're talking like 15 years at this point, but a relatively recent menu offering of theirs. You're talking about when Chris and I first started hanging out. Wow. There is something in the air back then. I, Monica, you saying that made me think of the cheesy roll up, but cheese, there's like a cheesy roll up, which is pretty great. That's just like a little tortilla.

Did they get rid of those though? Those are still there. Those I think are still there. They're still there. I think so. Those are, and those are like a buck and those are great. I'd never even had one of those until like a year or so ago. And I love it.

The spicy potato soft taco that they had was so good and they got rid of that. And I'm like, that's super annoying. It was really good. Chris, you have a baffling. Chris, do you have a first time order for Taco Bell? Um, no, I'm not, I'm not a, I was kind of new to the whole Taco Bell thing. Monica put me on it. Yeah. He's come around though.

He used to be like no way. And now he'll like put on it probably cause you guys listening to you guys reviewing it. He's like, they made it sound so much better. So I'll try it. I'm like, Oh, okay. Now they, they say something positive. It's actually crazy.

Every time you guys review something, whether it's like McDonald's, I have to, like, I have to get whatever you guys are talking about. Cause we created it. So our podcast gets loving couples to fight with each other. That's basically the ticker. And encourages people to eat fast food. We're doing a lot of good Mitch. Wow.

You know what, Nick? I will say this. Yeah. Taco Bell is no longer my favorite restaurant. Wow. They fucked up too much. That's the real, that's the real bombshell of 2021 so far. Taco Bell is no longer my favorite restaurant.

Wow. Well, there you go. Well, hey, on that note, if you have a question or comment about the world of chain restaurants. Are you going to ask what it is now? Oh yeah. All right. What is, what is your favorite restaurant now?

It'll be funny to say like a really snooty expensive place in Los Angeles, but instead it's now Wendy's. Wow. Breaking chews. Taco Bell out. Wendy's in. I'm going veg for 2021. And if you have a question or comment about the world of chain restaurants,

you can email us at dobeyspodcastgmail.com. Or leave us a voicemail at 830 Godot. That's 830 4636 844. And to get the No Boys Double, our weekly bonus episode, join the Golden or Platinum Play Club at patreon.com slash dobeys. Monica Ruiz. Chris O'Malley. Thank you guys so much for being here.

How fun. Thank you for joining us. What a great chat. Anything either of you or both of you would like to plug or promote at this time? No. Any listener wants to come check out the restaurant. I'll buy him a beer.

Yeah. There you go. There's a lot of listeners. Chris. 12 tables. How many 12 people at a time at least. Definitely. Definitely go support the restaurant.

Chris, tell them tell them the name of it and where it is. It's Waterman's. Waterman's in Hermosa Beach on Hermosa Pier. Hell yeah. Check that out. You got anything to plug? No. No.

No. No. No. No. No. Not at the moment. No. Hell yeah.

Hopefully by the time this airs, I will have been like, man, I couldn't, but you never have. No. We like it. It's good to have people believe that people come on the podcast just to come on it. Yeah, I know. When the whole Peloton thing happened and everyone wanted interviews, I was like,

the only people I would talk to probably are like the dough boys. Wow. I swear to God. I was like, that's like the only place I would feel like safe discussing this right now. And it took us two years to make that happen. We are losing this. We really struck why the iron was hot with that one.

Guys, thank you so much for being here. Yeah, you both rule. I love you and be safe and best of luck in this crazy year. And I hope a bunch of freaks from the podcast come out to the restaurant, Chris. I'll do it for this episode of Dough Boys. Until next time, for the Spoonman, Mike Mitchell, I'm Nick Weigher. Happy eating.

See ya. On the next Dough Boys Double. So it's come to this, the drop off. 10 competitors enter the ring to see which drop will come out on top and be played on next week's main feed episode. Judge by me, Mitch, Emma, and the Drop King himself. Wow. Get the Dough Boys Double every Tuesday only at patreon.com.

Want to see the sources for this week's intro? Check the episode description.