Doughboys - Pinkberry with Lauren Lapkus

Episode Date: June 23, 2016

The one and only Lauren Lapkus (Jurassic World, Comedy Bang! Bang!) spends some time with the 'boys to talk being a picky eater and to review frozen yogurt hotspot Pinkberry. Plus, Mitch attempts to improve on his winless record in another edition of Pie in this Guy.Want more Doughboys? Check out our Patreon!: https://patreon.com/doughboysSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

7 Years Without Parole That sentence, the maximum allowable by law, was handed down to young Lee, a Korean-American businessman convicted of assault with a deadly weapon, for the brutal tire-iron beating of a homeless man in June 2011. According to LAPD reports, Lee was angered after the transient showed his fiance a sexually explicit tattoo, so he chased the victim down, ordered him to kneel and apologize, then proceeded to beat him mercilessly anyway. About a half decade prior to this savage crime, Lee and partner Shelly Hwang opened a frozen

yogurt shop on a trendy block in West Hollywood. The concept, cribbed from South Korean chain Red Mango, was a stripped-down menu of just two flavors and a topping selection dominated by fresh fruit. As a single location it became a phenomenon and expanded nationwide and internationally within its first five years of operation. Its imprint on LA food culture was apparent in an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm, where Larry is tasked with retrieving the chain's yogurt as a dog's last meal, a minor scandal relative to its now-departed co-founder's indefensible assault.

The chain faced charges in 2008 that it didn't technically offer real yogurt, and was forced to alter its recipe to receive the National Yogurt Association's live and active culture seal. Now with 260 locations in 20 countries, does this modern re-inventor of Froyo remain a must-go, or has it become a new no-no? This week on Doughboys, Pinkberry. Welcome to Doughboys, the podcast about chain restaurants. We're a part of Ferrellaudio.com.

The best way to support ours and other shows in the network is to use their referral link on our website any time you shop at Amazon. I'm Nick Weigar, alongside my co-host. The star of Honey I Shrunk My Face, Mike Mitchell the Spoon Man. Motherfuckers. That's so mean. That was courtesy of Adam Rost, aka At Sad Pizza Party. If you've got a roast you'd like me to use on Mitch at the top of the show, email roastspoonman

at gmail.com. How you doing, Mike? I get it. I get it. I got a huge head, small eyes. I got to kick this shit out of these guys. I hate these people. Man, that's a loaded info drop on us on the top there.

Crazy, right? Yeah. They get to get that culture seal, too, is really funny. At least it was lighthearted in the end, as opposed to the hard beating and everything. Is he in jail? He's still in prison. He went to jail, I think, in 2014, so he won't be out this decade. There will be two years into the term of the next president when he gets out.

All the new Star Wars have been released. Yeah, we'll see episode eight and nine. You'll have spent roughly 60 hours of your life complaining about both of them. Anyways, howdy-how to Spoon Nation. Here we go. This one's kind of gross. I woke up and just had, like, just the hardest erection, and I was disappointed. I fucking came on my pants.

I had, like, a very voluminous wet dream. The orgasmed human came. Yeah, I've definitely made a mess. You know what? I would try it. It's really good. Oh, alright. Uh, it looks like cheese.

Oh, boy. That is super salty. Did you shower? No. It's a little bit, um, harder and waxier than you'd expect. And let me tell the viewers that, uh, this happens every night. Uh, I love you, Mitch. Let's just say I like cream in it.

Hi-yo! What's that? That was disturbing, but very well done. Yeah, that was well done. Nice audio editing job. Well, that was from, uh, uh-oh. Hold on a second. That was from, uh, oh, what the fuck?

Who is this guy? Oh, I forwarded it. Thomas something. Thomas. Thomas. Hold on. Hold on. This is exciting.

Thomas Tissot? Thomas Tissot. I don't know what you're saying. T-I-S-S-O-T. Look at him off. Thomas. Good job. Good job, Thomas.

You know what? This whole, this drops thing, it's become a mess. I fucked up really bad. So next week, when we record next week, I should have planned it for this week. Yeah. I'm going to get an email for drops specifically. That's a good idea. And then if I haven't, if you sent me a drop and I haven't played it, just say, in the

title, just say, you haven't, you haven't played my drop, but don't cheat, if you're submitting a drop after that, don't cheat and put that as your, as your subject line. And any of those that were before, they don't have to adhere to the, the Weiger mandate. They can be longer than a minute, but everything after that has to be a minute or under, which is your rule. Yeah. That was my rule. Okay.

And you know how, you know, this is a big deal for me to make an email. Yeah. That's like crazy. Think about that. 10 years, 10 or 15 years ago, making an email is a big deal. Well, that's the one time you made an email with America online and you've continued to use it. Your primary email address continues to be an AOL email address.

You know what? Yeah. It's a reliable service. And people don't, people don't bug me too much. It's great. Plus they got instant messenger and everything else. Let's introduce our guests. All right.

You know her from Jurassic World, the essential podcast with special guest Lauren Lapkis, as well as she's, as well as one quarter of the best improv group in LA, Wild Horses, Lauren Lapkis. Hi, Lauren. Hi. Thank you for saying that. Oh my God. Thanks for being here.

I'm so excited to be here. That was so fun to watch the drop. And I knew a lot of those clips, so I'm excited. Super fan. That's, thank you for listening to this nonsense. We appreciate it. Someone as funny and as busy as you are listening to this, to the, I guess everyone has a ride. Okay.

Yeah. Thank you. I do love it on the plane. I'll just laugh and laugh by myself. Oh man. That's very nice. It's a great day here. Yeah.

I always feel when I hear that someone that I know and respect listens to the show, I always feel bad. I get shocked when people listen to my, I'm like amazed when people listen to my show. I'm like, really? I can't, I'm surprised, but that's wonderful. It's cool. So I get what you mean. Well, you're very, you're very talented.

You have good taste. Well, thank you. So, I don't know what you're doing. It's a mistake, but thank you. You guys are funny. God bless you. Yeah. All right.

So, I tried to say God bless you. Oh, okay. You shouldn't have done it with a big mouthful of water. Yeah, I know. We're not professionals. Again, like another reason why no one would listen to this show. We don't know what we're doing as broadcasters. So Chicago, is that where you're from originally?

Yeah. I grew up in Evanston. Gotcha. Right outside of Chicago. So the food thing that comes up with, because like a lot of Chicago food, I feel like is, it has a reputation of being over the top. Someone say kind of like fucked up. It's like kind of like, it's like a weird version of everything.

But what is your level of fandom for like Chicago deep dish pizza, Chicago hot dogs? Well, I'm really kind of a picky eater. Gotcha. So as far as hot dogs go, I always haven't played. Oh, wow. So I'm really not going to get into any style of hot dog. Not even mustard? No.

Just plain? Yeah, I know. Just a bun and dog? Yeah. You know what? I like a plain hot dog every so often. It's a nice change of pace. It's good.

Yeah. Well, I've never changed that pace, but it is good. It's good. Do you have an aversion to ketchup mustard? Is that? I don't want anything to do with mustard. Okay. Ketchup I like, but I like to dip.

No mustard at all? I don't think I've ever had it. You've never had mustard. What? You've never had mustard ever? Oh my God. This is mind blowing to me. Yeah.

I know a lot of people, my buddy Mike has grown up, he had an aversion to mustard and then like one night I made him a turkey sandwich with mustard and I was like, just try it. You're going to like it. And then he loved mustard. I might like it. You might. I mean, it's a seed. Mustard is weird.

Must the mustard seed comes. I don't really understand mustard, but I like the taste of it. Like a mustard pretzel, like, you know, like those like Snyder's like mustard pretzels. Yeah. Those are good. I mean, I like the idea of it, I guess. So you like mustard and dust from them? I like mustard, dust, dusted.

That's fair. I feel like that's probably a much different taste than actual mustard. What do you, when you do, are you a spicy mustard guy or are you like the classic yellow mustard? Well, here's the thing. I'll take any kind of mustard that you got, but I have in my fridge at home, in my fridge at home, in our fridge at home, we have three varieties. We got your standard, we got your standard yellow.

You've got your deli mustard, which is kind of like that whole grain mustard. And then we've got a horseradish spicy mustard. Oh, all right. So kind of like, like more of a kind of a Dijon spicy. So I'll usually have roll with those three and then vary with them depending on what the item I'm putting it on is. Is there anything else in that fridge? There's a lot in that fridge.

Yes. There's quite a bit, actually. What do you, what happens when you open up the wagon, what do you, what are we seeing in there usually? Well, you may see some of, some leftovers of some lovely dish that my wife has prepared. Okay. So we also see some, you'll see a lot of string cheeses. I stock up on string cheeses at Costco when I go through them.

I love string cheese. Oh my God, it's great. You stock up. Yeah, I stock up. Cause you'll go through, like string cheeses last, they're, they're a little processed. Yeah. And they're also like, I can eat one string cheese a day easily. That's just like a pace I can maintain.

I'll maintain that pace as long as I can eat solid food. I'll have one string cheese every day. Oh, all right. One string cheese a day. Yeah. So at this point during the day, I'm going to eat a string cheese. I like that. I got really into them like last year or two years ago and then I started eating them

all the time. Here's a great snack. Here's a question for you. Do you peel or do you bite into that sucker? I peel the string, baby. Yeah. You gotta peel the string, baby. Do you bite it?

I bite it. Oh my God. You're just too lazy. Yeah. I don't, I don't. Have some fucking self-control, God. No, I just bite into that whole. It's fun.

It's fun to peel. The whole part of it is you peel off a little string, you get different, you know, you get like different kind of textures, you get a nice little thin one that's almost melts in your mouth. I had fun doing that as a boy and as an adult, I'll just chomp it. Well, I've never tried to chomp it. Jesus. Yeah.

It's fine. It's, it's, it's more efficient. You get that food in your mouth quicker. That's how you think about it. It's more efficient. It is slightly more efficient. God damn it. You're not going to.

God damn it. Just have some fucking fun and just peel the string cheese. Here, here's the thing. The issue is that you will sometimes get string cheese residue under your fingernails. Yeah. Oh my God. And that's a little inconvenient. Like a snack on the go, I don't want to have to wash my hands afterward and that will sometimes

result from peeling. That's true. Well, if you're, if you're driving, I guess you're not going to be sitting there and peeling your string cheese as you drive. You know, if you out there have a preference in terms of how you eat your string cheese, let us know if you like to peel, use the string cheese or if you like to peel your string cheese, use the hashtag, uh, peeling out and, and if you, uh, if you like to eat that sucker hole, use the hashtag, uh, stick it in.

What the fuck? And if you don't like string cheese at all, hashtag string cheese incident. Yeah, that's good. We'll get them some. We'll get them some treats. I was just talking about them today because I went to a concert, a string cheese concert when I was in high school because I think this guy wanted to go out with my friend, but she didn't really want to like date him.

So she made me go to the concert with them. Oh, that's a classic kind of high school. Yeah. We jammed out. I went to the 1998 Dave Matthews Band Concert at Foxborough Stadium. It was a great time. Fun. I saw Dave three times on, I never wanted to, like I was always like getting free tickets

or something. Music enough, but like I wasn't like a big fan or anything, but I've seen three concerts. That I, uh, I've been, I've been to quite a few. I won't even admit it because I'll be embarrassed, but you know what? I'm proud of it. And he's not that bad. He's one of those guys where, well, don't roll your eyes. No, I don't.

Hey, you know what? It's better than listening to no music, which he do. List having a silent car ride. I like silence, but here's the thing. I have no, I have nothing against a DMB as the kids call it. I think Dave, Dave. Okay. Well, I'm nothing against Dave Matthews, man.

It seems fine when I've heard his music. I think it's pleasant, but I just feel like you, you're offering as a, as I think something of a super fan, you're offering kind of a tepid defense by saying, there's nothing wrong with that. I was, I was, I was, I was a real big fan of them. I was, I was, I was, I was a fan of them for a long time. And I really like Pink Floyd. There's a few bands I really like.

And Dave Matthews band though, like has genuinely bad fans. Like really? Yeah. They're, they're really like. Like douchebag people. Douche, douchey, like, like real college guy, like in the, in the sense of that, like the bad college guys. Like frat assholes.

Oh, interesting. Yeah. Like that's Stanford asshole. I fucking hate that story. That's a terrible story. And also. He loves Dave Matthews. He doesn't love Dave Matthews.

And I shouldn't compare Dave Matthews fans to that awful rapist man, but they're like kind of like, like, what's it called, pukashell, like necklace. Sure. Kind of like J.Cruie and like a very white collery kind of like assholes. But it's not that band's fault that they're really shitty fans, right? Like I can't blame the, the, the band for that. There was a guy like this. Okay.

So, so my friend, my first year in college, I was in my friend, my friends Gabe and Mike's room and they were on the ground floor and just outside there was like kind of like a dirt patch there where they were doing construction and people would sometimes go there to like smoke weed and thought they were out of sight, but we could see them because they were ground level. Thought they were out of sight. Like as in like, like, yeah, we're out of sight. But there was like one day there was like some, some like Freddy guys like hanging out

there like smoking weed and like they didn't, you know, one guy like looked in the window and realized like, oh, shit, some guys were looking at us. Some guys are looking at us. So I gave like a really like, like, like funny, silly wave, like a, like a, like a, like a low boy, like one of those. And then he was like, fucking dork, like all mean. And I was like, I was so frustrated because I was like, no, that's not like, that wasn't me being me.

I was like doing like a silly thing to try to like be dorky. So you saying fucking dork, you're like labeling a bit that I was doing. And then I never, I like, I would not able to convey that, of course, guys, guys, I swear to God, I'm cool. Get out of here, loser. Well, I think all the kids at college thought I was a loser. So don't worry about it. Uh, except I was also really cool and, uh, they just didn't understand that they were

too young. Those guys gave and Mike, they did something in their room, which I thought was really cool is that they took their two desks and then put them facing each other in the send of the room, like detectives. Wow. They're walking there. It's like, oh, it looks like a detective agency. That's neat.

You went to police academy. Your roommate was high tower. Oh boy. What? When's that movie from 1982? I do not get that reference. You know, high tower and Mahoney and all the rest. Oh yeah.

No, I think people, I think some people will know it, but I think you are, that is an aging reference. Michael Winslow. What's the, what was his character's name? I don't know what his character's name was. It was a great, it was a good time. All right. We talked about hot dogs.

Okay. All right. Great. We'll move on from police academy, I guess. Do you have it, like again, you're a picky eater, but what do you think about that? I like deep dish. Okay. I don't necessarily seek it out, but we usually get it when I go home, like my family

ends up ordering it at some point. Gotcha. So we get a deep dish. And I like it. It's different. And since I rarely have it, I enjoy it. What are we talking here? Pequads.

We're talking Giordano's. Giordano's. Okay. They're alumol naddies. Okay. Also good. Yeah. Yeah.

Real good. It's Pequads. I've heard of that, but I've never. Left town possibly. Yeah. But I think those other two are like the top three, I think Pequads has moved up, but I'm sure some Chicago natives are getting increasingly angry with me right now as I say this. Because they take it very seriously.

I went on a Chicago pizza tour when I was there. Oh, wow. Yeah. And I was like, man, this is like pathetic fat guy going on a Chicago pizza tour. And it was like the most fun I've ever had in my entire life. We went to five different pizza spots. And we, I think it ended at, it is a Geno's Easter. Yeah.

I think it ended at Geno's. That's fun. And did you, would you like the best? I liked all of them. I mean, like I love pizza, but I mean, I think I did like, maybe it was Pequads that had like a kind of like a thinner crust pizza. And they're like, that was the thing about the tour. They're like, we're going to start off with like a thin crust pizza.

All right. And it was, it was, it was really, really great. All the food in Chicago is insanely good. And then at the same time, I'm happy. I don't live there cause I should die. Well, it's crazy cause like I, I never really cared about being healthy that much when I was growing up, but then moving here, it's like much easier to be healthy. Like there's a lot more options.

And I feel like this year I've been trying to like make better choices, but going back home or like just traveling, I was just doing that tour and like, we're in these different cities. I thought, oh, I'll be, it'll be easy. I'll just like get my meal. Like I'll get a salad or whatever. Everywhere I went, it was like really hard for me to get a regular healthy meal. Right.

And like Chicago is one of the worst in terms of just like your average place your family is going to go. Like it's not going to be that easy. Yeah. I feel like LA has the best, the best like fat. I'm not, I want to classify it as fast food, but best like to go salad places that you can. Yeah.

New York has more. Oh really? I have so many like chopped type places where you can go get a chopped salad to go that I do feel like LA needs a lot more. Yeah. That's like my biggest cause I'm not eating carbs, even though I just ate a big thing of pinkberry before I came here. But that is like, I just get bored of like the four or five places I go to get salads.

And it's like, you got your tender greens and you got your sweet greens, which was new to me. But then like, there's like a few more kind of local places, but besides that, I don't have many options, which has made me, I mean way more options than I have in back in Quincy Massachusetts, but it's still not enough. I crave more healthy fast food. I know my dream would be to have like a drive through where I could get a tender green salad or something late at night.

You're really fucked. If you want, if you end up going, I mean, like I've eaten McDonald's when I don't even want it because I'm like, I just, I'm starving. I know I have nothing at home. Like this is like the only thing that's going to be easy when it's like after, I think 10 or 11 basically, it's, it's hard to get a salad anywhere. Like your best bet is to go to the grocery store and then get some ingredients to make something yourself, which is a totally different thing versus getting a to-go meal.

Yeah. I would like to hear from people some of their late night healthy food options. Hashtag fit Dracula. I think you just, you just wrote a season five mad TV sketch. Dracula? Yeah. So we're talking dip old Colton Dunn when they were there? Is this the other thing?

Dip old and Colton Dunn were closer to season 11, season, they're, they're, they're towards the end. Season five was early on. How many seasons were there? Yeah, it's crazy. Oh, there were a lot of seasons. And there's a new one. It's coming back.

It's coming back. Oh, I didn't know that. Wow. Nick Deadlineweiger. Wasn't that on? That was like, oh, was it already on? Yeah. I think they got, that's not insider info.

Oh, I thought that was insider info. Maybe it is. Oh, I thought it was like a special or something. I think they're making a new mad, they're like rebooting mad TV for like CW. Oh, okay. I hear about it every, like it's like the new in living color and the new mad, it's all, they're all coming back and then you never. It never happened.

It never happens. Yeah. Or it did and it was like, it just went away quietly. Yeah. Or it didn't, it's huge and we, and we're the only people I know about it. Those are your options. Yeah, I, I, I, I, Boston is kind of, I think Boston's similar to Chicago and some of like, like a, if you're ordering out, you get like a sub, like a, like a submarine sandwiches

or hoagies or whatever. And it's, it's, it's tough for the, especially on the road, but I feel like on the road, you're just like, do you even want to eat? Like you're just like, fuck it. I know. I wanted like fast food so much more actually, just got out of like being tired and just like wanting to shove it in my face. It's crazy what a, what a, like how comforting it is to eat something shitty when you're

just exhausted. I know. It's like, it just sends you into like a spiral. If I feel like really gross and bad, like I'll want really nasty food and I'll just like send like how it should be gross and eat it. Like I, I feel worse, but like in the moment it feels amazing. I will. No, I, I, I have those every month.

I, I, I'll, I'll have those moments and it feels, it feels great. But now as I get older, and I don't know if this is the case with you, why are I guessing since you're much, much older than both of us? Two years older. I get like food hangovers now where like a, before I like started eating healthy again, I, I like was like, I'm going to eat, I like, I got Domino's, yeah, and cheesy bread and a pizza. I was just eating all of it.

And then like it was like three days until I felt normal, like, like it was two, at least two days, two and a half days before I was like, oh, I finally feel back to normal. Yeah. Yeah. Is that an age thing? Cause I mean, I, I've noticed this too. Like I used to eat so much fast food growing up and I would never feel sick. And then like when I got into college, I started like just immediately having to shit if I

had fast food. You can't like eat it anymore. I don't know. I think it, I think it is definitely, I mean, I haven't, I've been eating salad and then just eating pinkberry today. Like I'm like wired. Yeah. Like I never had that issue before, but yeah, I know it, to, to gross all those young kid

listeners out there, it really goes through you really quick. You know, you don't, you don't have more hands. Sorry, I went straight to my personal issues. They go hand in hand. It makes sense. I more, I let's have an immediate, like I more have an immediate tummy trouble. Like I more have like, like, like, like a pain and then like the next day I'm like paying for it.

Yeah. Like it's less, it's less like shoots right through me. But like yesterday I had, I may be needing like extra healthy lately because I've gotten fat as shit. And so I'm just, I'm just trying to like, like slim down a little bit. But yesterday I had physical therapy for my, my back and then that was like annoying and I had to be at the, like the doctors and there's that whole thing and then it's right by a Del Taco.

So we went and got Del Taco afterwards and I treated myself and I had like two burritos a quesadilla and chili cheese fries. Jesus. And I was like, I was like so happy for like 20 minutes for like 20 minutes. It was like the best part of my, of this year. And then like just, just suffered the rest of the day in this morning. Rough 2016. Oh yeah.

I'm gonna have it. I was also going to say that you put it in the, the friendliest Disney version, tummy trouble. That's such a bullshit. You ate like six pounds of fucking Del Taco and you had tummy trouble. You made me immediately wish I had said tummy trouble so I shit myself immediately. That was real. Why you're as fucking full as shit?

Yeah, that's true. Question. Evanston, the home of Bill Murray, right? Yeah. Yeah. I think he grew up maybe also in Momet, which is right there. But yeah. Oh, okay.

Yeah. And then in the young Q-Sack, those are our like claim to fame. Some real celebs. Yeah. We've got a few celebs from, from my high school, Cameron Diaz. Nice. And Snoop Dogg. Whoa.

Those are very good. And also Major League Hall of Famer, Tony Quinn. Were Cameron Diaz and Snoop Dogg around the same time? I think they were around the same era. Yeah. That would be so weird. It would be, right? John Quincy Adams.

John Adams. So going back to the 18th century. Yeah, I don't know how many, I don't know if there was too many successful people coming out of, I mean, there's definitely successful people, but I don't know about famous. Maybe some infamous, the Craigslist killer. Oh my God, really? He lived in Quincy at one point while he was doing his Craigslist killings. But I don't know what else, I don't know who else is coming out there.

We also have Zach Guilford, who's on Friday Night Lights, and Jesse Nealer, who's currently on Broadway and starring in The Waitress. A lot of threads. And she's a Carol, the Carol King musical as well. So when did you move to LA? I mean, I remember when you came, and everyone was like, she's great. This girl, Lauren, is amazing. Oh, that's nice.

And you were, I feel like a Chicago gem came to us, but when was this? I moved in January of 2010. Okay. So yeah, I've been here like a little over six years. Oh, all right. Yeah. Was it, is it hard being outside of Chicago? Or was it the right, I mean, obviously it's worked out great for you, but was it tough

to make that move to LA since there is so much stuff to do in Chicago? Yeah. I mean, Chicago has a great comedy scene, so it was really great to be there. And then I moved to New York for like a little over a year. And so I think from that, it was easier to move here because I'd already moved somewhere. Yeah. But moving to New York was hard. Like leaving home is, I think, really hard.

I stayed there for college and everything too, so it was like bigger deal to move away and then kind of start figuring out how to like make your own way. But moving here was good because I already had a lot of friends who had moved here, so it wasn't as like scary. I had more friends here than I did in New York. Okay, yeah. Yeah, my first year out here, I knew no one and it's kind of like a way, like I just remember like being like, I might go outside today.

It was like a challenge to like walk outside and be like, nothing here for me, I'm back inside. How would you compare the, so you've lived in like the three food giants. Yeah, I mean, but I also like don't eat anything interesting, so it's probably like such a waste. How would you compare the plain hot dogs between Chicago, New York and Los Angeles? Chicago has the best ones. But I prefer like to grill my own type deal more than like, I've had like the street hot dogs in New York and I ate those like a lot when I lived there because it was like $2,

but I would never do it again, so it would make me sick. Like I just can't eat it anymore. Are they, are New York hot dogs seen as like, are they seen as kind of like gross or what? The LA hot street dogs, we have bacon wrapped hot dogs that they put mayo and like a ketchup and mustard on. And jalapeno. Yeah, they get a south of the border influence. Yeah, south of the border influence.

Yeah. Those are, those are super good. Yeah. I think in, I don't know. I mean, those aren't like super necessarily super hygienic either though. I think like some of those, some of those places are in violation of health codes. And I think the New York ones, yeah, for me, they, I feel like they have a reputation meal on grimy, right?

Yeah. I mean, it seems like it, because it's all they have is that little cart and they're just like, where are the hot dogs coming from? Like, there's no information that weirds me out. Not to mention that Slimer mentioned to get into one of them back in 1984, I think, or six. Sounds right. Yeah.

Slimer. He's probably back in there now for the new film. He's front. Oh, don't get Mitch started on this. Oh, Jesus. You hate women. Goddammit. Last week was all about me being a racist.

Oh, no. And someone is just going to kill me off, off air. They think that I'm a woman heading racist, and it's not true, Goddammit. God, fuck this podcast. Let's talk about Pinkberry a little bit. Yeah. No. Say I'm not fucking racist.

Whatever. Let's talk about Pinkberry. So I'm surprised you're, I guess I'm surprised to hear you're a picky eater and then having Pinkberry being a place that you wanted to discuss, because maybe it is, maybe it does make sense because you have some control over what you have on your menu, right? Oh, yeah. I love places where I can pick exact, I never thought about it this way, but I do love places where I can pick exactly what goes on.

Gotcha. And they don't have like a standard, like this is what you get, and you have to make modifications and hope they listen to your modifications and do it right. Your eyes lit up when he said that, like, you're like, I love that, that aspect of it. I do love that, because my whole life I spent being like, I hope they remember not to put cheese on it. Sure. Yeah, I don't want.

That's a sentence Mitch has never uttered, but I don't want to. Yeah, you know what? You're fucking right about that. Give me, this comes from a string cheese, a lot of cheese. Yeah. But yeah, I love sweets, so I'm really not that picky when it comes to desserts. Gotcha. And I love like ice cream, but I can't eat it as much, because I'm like, I developed

like being lactose intolerant, like as I got older, and so I try not to eat ice cream even though I love it. So, pinkberry is kind of a good medium for me. Like, I'll still take a lactate pill, but it usually sits pretty well. Gotcha. Yeah. Is that a thing? Like, because I honestly, I love ice cream, I have ice cream every week, and it's my

ice cream so much. Yeah. It's one of my favorite foods. Didn't you say you had it after dinner every night when you were growing up? When I'm growing up, I had it after dinner every night. I had it for dessert every night. I love ice cream, but I don't notice too much of an intestinal distress difference between frozen yogurt and ice cream, but you're saying for you, frozen yogurt, you had a little

better. I feel like I do, but I don't know because certain chains don't work for me, like yogurt land. I usually feel sick after, and like, I'm trying to think of a bunch of, but like the ones that are more like tart based, like I think the like red mango and pinkberry and trying to think if there's another one. I can't really do Menchies anymore. Menchies?

Menchies is like yogurt land. Oh, is it really? Yeah. There's so many of these fucking places. I know, but I can get all the little nuances. I'm like, I can't do Menchies. I can't do pinkberry. Is it just too strong of a...

I guess. I don't know. I don't know what it is exactly, but I'm just like, I just like hope for the best and go to pinkberry. Pinkberry, so I had never had pinkberry. Oh, really? Yeah. Today was the first time I had it, but it was such, you know, like I had heard so much

about this place, and then it was funny to go in and be like, oh yeah, it's just like all these other frozen yogurt places. I know. Well, they all popped up like a few years ago. It feels like it was all about other desserts before, then suddenly it was like, we're all about yogurt now everywhere. There was a trend, because I remember, I'm not sure if it was the case where you guys were, but I remember in the late 80s, early 90s, when I was a kid, there was like a big

fro-yo trend, and a penguin frozen yogurt was a big place out here. Penguin and TCBY. TCBY, yeah. Oh, yeah. That was a big thing. I remember having frozen yogurt for the first time as a kid, and it being like a novelty. Yeah. Oh, what is this?

I remember having frozen yogurt for the first, and it was that funny thing where it was like, healthy ice cream. Yeah. Like, that's kind of what it felt like, this weird new healthier version of ice cream. Well, it corresponded with the low-fat, non-fat craze, right, when everyone was saying fat was bad. Now everyone's like, fat is good, carbs are bad, but back then it was like, carbs are fine, fat is bad.

Yeah. Yeah, we used to get all the time the ice cream from McDonald's when I was growing up, which I guess is fro-yo. Oh, is it? It was like a swirl cone. Oh, so good. Oh, yes. Yeah.

I don't know what that is. Actually, I don't even know what that is. I don't know what it is. Actually, I remember, I think I read something recently where it was like, you have to call it a cone because they can't call it ice cream because it's not, but they have like a rule where it's like, you get a vanilla cone. Yeah. Oh, gosh.

You can't say, can I have vanilla ice cream? It's some like frozen gummy product. Yeah. It's something really, really bizarre, but you brought up a point. You say that you would like tart, right? Yeah. Tart. So, do you go into like the tart kind of fruity frozen yogurt, or are you more of a devilishly

chocolate sort of? Well, I had it today, and I got, I load up on the chocolate. I got chocolate hazelnut base, and then I put Oreos and the chocolate balls, and usually I would also add the waffle cookie, and sometimes if I'm feeling healthy, I'll put almonds. On top of all that? Yeah. That's like putting a leaf of lettuce on top of a meat lover's pizza. But yeah, the original flavor I was really into for a while, when I first had it though,

I was like really disgusted by it. I don't know how I kept going and getting it again, because I eventually liked it, but like the first time I had it, I was like, this tastes like shit. The plain flavor. Yeah. It really is just a frozen, lightly sweetened yogurt, and it's like, it's so, I reckon, because I tried it when we did the, I've had it before, and then when we went today, they have these little cups that you can taste test with, so I had a taste test of the original

and some other flavors, and it gave me a sense memory of my youth the first time I had frozen yogurt. It was at a place, and I got like, I went with my weird friend and his weird mom. We were like eight, and they went to this frozen yogurt, this independent frozen yogurt place. Why were these people weird? I don't know. I'm sure that their mom and son thought you were strange.

I just remember, I don't even remember who it was, I just remember it was a weird kid, and his weird, like, just weird gnarled mom, and it was just like, she wasn't, I don't mean that unattractive, like she was unattractive, but she's just like a weird lady, you know what I mean? Yeah. I don't think I do know. I feel like I do. I feel like I have so many memories of going to people's houses when I was little and being

like, just uncomfortable with how they do everything. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What are they? And they're weird. It's just like not what you're used to, and something's just a little strange about it. There's like, there's like, there's so much of that when you're a kid where like, when you're like a, like elementary school kid where I feel like a lot of friendships end because you're like, they're weird.

Yeah, their house smells weird. Yeah, their house is weird, or they're weird, and then you just don't see them anymore. There was this kid who, who lived on my block, and one day I saw him pick up a worm, and I just decided like, I didn't like him anymore. And so, like, he'd come over to play, and I made my dad post up outside and tell the kid like, I was taking a nap, and then I couldn't play, like, I made him do that for like a couple of weeks. You made your dad do your fucking dirty work.

Jesus. Like, you know, like when someone does the, like when someone talks about like the bro code or being a wingman, like I've never had that experience, but I've had my dad telling a shitty kid that I didn't want to play with him, and like, he did that for like, he kept this kid from playing for me for a couple of weeks, but yeah, it was just that. It was like, he did one weird thing, I didn't like him anymore. But anyway, I think you told me the story before, and then you looked out the window and your dad was playing with all the kids.

That's not true. But anyway, yeah, I went with this, this weird kid and his weird mom. I think, you know, I mean, again, I think I'm just picturing them, like from like a child's memory, I'm kind of picturing them as like mystical creatures, because I just, I don't remember exactly what they were, but I remember they were weird and unsettling. They're probably perfectly normal people, but like you were saying, they just do things differently. Yeah.

But we went and I got an unf, the unflavored frozen yogurt with chocolate chips on it, and I was expecting like, oh, this will be like chocolate chip ice cream. And it was a super tart thing with like, again, regular chocolate chips, which I'd rarely have as a kid. So like those were like, they tasted different than the chocolate I was familiar with. It was just like such like, this is not, this is like, you describe the idea of dessert to somebody, and then they wrote it down and then tried to like, like it was so far removed from what I knew as a dessert.

Yeah. The actual frozen yogurt, it tastes like yogurt. Like yogurt, yeah. It's really weird. I never tried, I had a little tasting cup of it today too, and I was like, shocked, because I've had frozen yogurt before, and it tastes like vanilla, like they try to get as close to vanilla ice cream as they can. Yeah.

And this is just like legit, like, and I think of yogurt as like a breakfast, food more so, or snack or whatever, but like, I'm thinking of yogurt in the morning, right? Yeah. Well, yeah, I think morning or afternoon snack, it's usually not a, it's not, the frozen yogurt is a dessert thing is like a new thing within our lifetimes, I feel like. Yeah. An initial big thing, and then it had a resurgence around the time when Pinkberry came out in the 2000s.

Do you, Lauren, do you remember Pinkberry prior to the self-serve days when they have everything behind the counter? Yes. And not all of them are self-serve yet. Oh, really? I think they're slowly doing that. Which one did you go to? We went to the Burbank one.

Yeah. Yeah. The ones in Studio City and Silverlake, I've been to a lot of them, and don't have the self-serve yet. And then there was another, I went to, I think I went to the Burbank one or somewhere once and I was like, what the hell are you doing? Like, I have to do this myself? Like, it was like really weird.

Like, I felt like kind of mad about it. It's like, it's part of the reasons why I liked it. Like, I don't like to have all the control, like when, like, like somebody's like, yogurt land, I'll go and I'll just fill my whole fucking huge cup, and then I'll fill it with like all this weight, and it's so gross, and I have way too much, and then I feel like I have to finish it. And it's like, I like the portions. I agree with you.

Yes. So, similar, we've talked about it a bit on this podcast, even, of that thing of, I would like to get something prepared for me, like the most prepared it can get. Like, I don't want to, because I just feel like I'm going to get the levels wrong. I'm going to do something wrong, and I kind of ran into that a little bit, a little bit tonight. But... It's so hard to get your swirl right.

Oh, yeah. Like, that is like, you see someone who can do a good swirl, like they're a pro and they know how to move the cup just right, and when I'm doing it, it's such an, like it's just like, it's just like logs, they're stacked on top of each other. It doesn't look like that good swirl, it's just like lumpy and gross. Oh, I know, it just looks like a big curling queue, and then it's like... Yeah. Like, I really, like, it's, it's, it's weird that I'm able to fuck it up so much, drawing

my own self, my own soft serve, but I can't do it right. Yeah, it's, it's, it's tricky. For me, I'm not an idiot like you, I can get this, I can get this swirl out. For me, it's more the topping ratio. Yeah. I don't know how much topping I'm supposed to put on. Am I supposed to layer the topping? I don't know, you know what I mean?

Like, I feel like I, I could have, and that's the thing too, like, with, with any of these places, it's that thing of like, I'm going to put these toppings on and now I just feel like I'm eating candy. Yeah. I'm not like eating the, like, I don't taste any of the yogurt. And then I'm like, oh, I, so I ate this layer of candy and now I'm eating a layer of frozen yogurt. And I don't want to mix up because I tried to get two different flavors.

Oh, did you a side by side or a swirl? I did a side by side. Nice. Yeah, I did a side by side because the swirl, yeah, the swirl mixes them and I wanted two flavors that weren't, that weren't in the same machine. Yeah. Oh. So my question about this place is, is that this frozen yogurt is already supposed to

be like the healthy ice cream, but I had heard so much about Pinkberry, I'd never heard about it until I moved out here and it was that thing where it's like, it's like frozen yogurt, but it's like, like a healthy food sort of thing, like it's like, it's supposed to be really different. Trying that frozen yogurt version of it, I was like, oh, I get that, but it's not that anymore, right? It's just like an ice cream place pretty much. Yeah.

I don't feel like I use it healthfully. Like, I mean, I just like put a bunch of candy on it and like, I like it, but it's not like, I don't consider it healthy. I just don't understand what, I'm just confused by, and maybe it's because Pinkberry was the first version of it, but what was the big deal about this place? Why did everyone go crazy? I know. I don't know.

I remember, so because I grew up in Southern California and I've lived in LA for a long time and I remember when it first was becoming a big thing and the, it was very different from the experience we had today, which today it feels like it's a reverse engineered response to yogurt land where it's like, oh, people want customizability, they want to be able to put their own toppings on and put as much as they want and get large portions, but back then it was very precise. You know, like I mentioned that the founders were Korean American and that it was based on the South Korean concept and it kind of had, it very much had kind of like the, that

Asian restaurant feeling where sometimes you'll get like a very precise presentation. And I felt like you'd get that there where, you know, you had, you had smaller portions and then they'd vary. I remember my first time going there and they got, I got like the green tea ice cream with like mango and I remember the guy like very like carefully putting the mango around the edges and like a very, a very beautiful berry or reef of mango. So you're getting like a cold stone creamery sort of. It was, it was kind of that experience.

It was like, it was like very, it was like a little bit more upscale, a little bit nicer and the lines were there because they took a little bit of, like not an inordinate amount of time, but a little bit of time to give you something that was maybe a little bit more high class than what you might expect at a frozen yogurt place. And I think that was what it was originally the driving force and it being coming trendy in LA because that's a very LA sort of thing, you know, it's like, oh, it's this posh yogurt experience. Yeah.

And now it's, it feels, now it just feels kind of generic to me. Like, like, I feel like the, the, they've gotten away from having a very limited menu of a few toppings and just like a handful of flavors and now they've got like a shitload of flavors and a fucking giant wild buffet of toppings. I know. I see Pinkberry as the original like place like that, even though I don't, I don't know, I guess there were already a few chains when I moved here, but I only had it for the first time when I moved here, but it felt like very clean and cool and like a cool ice cream experience.

Like I, even if it wasn't like as beautiful as what you're talking about, it still was like, they had, there's still, some locations are still very precise with like the, you can get four toppings or whatever and they'll put them in very like specific sections around the thing and it was nice. It felt like a fun place to go at night, like a nice like thing to do besides going to a bar, but I mean, I'm cool, but, but yeah, I don't know, like I feel like, I don't know why I saw it as better than the other ones. Like it seemed cleaner and better, like prettier and I liked the style of it.

It is a very pretty logo and a cool interior design. Yeah. We'll say that. Yeah. Yeah. No, I think so. After 10 years, it's like, oh, this design, it seems old, like 10 years old. Yeah.

Yeah. And there was also weird like EDM dance music when we were there tonight. Yeah. That was very, that was very strange. I didn't know what was going on with their playlist. It may have been the guy working there who was a very nice gentleman who just had his own playlist on, but. He was really nice.

I, you know, he did, he offered us a lot of sample cups, which we made use of and you know, was a self-serve place, so he didn't have a lot to do, but I feel like he was helpful and gave us some guidance. I got, he got me a cup of water, which he didn't have to do. That's true. He was very confused by that almost. I feel like every frozen dessert place should have water available. I know.

They don't all have that. Yeah. My guide today was new and I knew more about how the place worked than he did. And that was kind of stressful to me. Like they didn't have the toppings labeled, but I knew all the real names of them. So I was like, I'll have the dark chocolate crisps. And then he was like, you mean these? And I was like, yeah.

And then like I have my, I have like a rewards thing on my phone for Pinkberry. That is so funny because he was like, you ever wrote rewards card? I was like, what the fuck? Oh yeah, my guy didn't know what it was and I had to tell him and he was like using, he was like, kept pointing like the machine where you could tap your credit card, like a new thing. I was like, no, it's not that. It's this one.

I like swiped my card open. It's like this whole like app and you'd like scan it and everything. And he like didn't understand. It took like five minutes and it was like kind of, I almost, I almost wanted to say forget about it, but I want to earn my, you know, free. Pinkberry points. Yeah. Yeah.

So Pinkberry to you, it is a, it's a, it's a cut above the rest, right? Like it's a more than red mango, more than yogurt. Red mango, I actually might think is better, but I don't see it often here. We have it in Evanston, so that's what I'll get if I'm home. Yeah. I think Pinkberry is my favorite that I've seen out here. Is there red mango here? There is.

There are some red mangoes in LA and I, because I remember when those opened and I thought it was just like, oh my God, that's such a rip off of Pinkberry. Just Pinkberry. Now you got red mango, but then to find out that that was the original and that Pinkberry was a rip off. It's a real Hydrox Oreo situation or Hydrox the original Hydrox are the original and Oreos are the copy, which is crazy. Is that true?

It's absolutely true. Were they pissed? I mean, if you were James Hydrox and your legacy was the Hydrox Cookie and then Oreo got all the press and all the praise, I think you'd be pretty upset. Is his name James Hydrox? No. Yes, Mitch. Yes.

That's true. Oh no. I can't believe Hydrox are the original. Yeah, it's not crazy. That's kind of mind blowing. Yeah. I love how dark all the information was about Pinkberry, though, that the guy like beat someone to death.

Well, I'm going to be honest. For someone who tried it for the first time, I've got to say, and we try not to take it because every person who owns a chain turns out to be some fucking monster who fucking kills people or eats someone or who fucking knows. I don't think anyone ate anybody. They're just rich with power. They're freaks. Yeah, there are a lot of guys who are just like asshole capitalists or treat their employees

like shit or donate to horrific political causes. There's a lot of that in the industry, unfortunately. There's a lot of it. The guy went, had a man apologize, and then still beat him to death. It's he didn't beat him to death. He beat him within an inch of his life. What a psycho. Oh, he lived.

Yeah, the guy lived. Oh, that's actually, that's a game changer for me. If you live, that's big for me. Well, yeah, he was in charge of assault with a deadly weapon. He got seven. He didn't get seven years in prison for murder. That would be a pretty late sentence. I thought it was like a crime of passion or something.

I don't know what's going on. Jesus. The guy showed his wife. It's so weird. It's a weird story. It's so weird. What the hell was his tattoo? It was sexually explicit?

I tried to find out, and I couldn't find out. That's amazing. Yeah, that's crazy. I'd love to know. I would love to know what his tattoo is. Someone please find out what that man's tattoo was. How many people have tattoos that are that offensive? I know.

Yeah. To the point where you beat the guy, I mean, Jesus Christ, you don't beat a guy. He beat him with a tie. A tie ride. Jesus Christ. It's horrific. It's, if you saw that in Sopranos, you'd be like, I don't know if I can watch this show anymore.

This is really grim. He runs out of the beautiful pink berry to beat the shit out of me. By the way, that sounds exactly like a Sopranos moment. Yeah. I mean, I think it would make you want to keep watching this show. Some people I feel like are so turned off by, I've heard of this phenomenon where people are so turned off by violent or just really depraved things on shows, they're just like, I can't watch this anymore.

I think it's kind of like the Doughboy's Bobby Bacala, because I tell you, you tell her, you love trains. I do love trains. Nick loves, it turns out Nick Figer loves choo-choo trains. But like, what do you mean? I love to take the train. I love to ride the train. What did you have to do with what you just said?

Oh, well, are you familiar with the Sopranos at all? Not really. So there's this character, Bobby Bacala, and Bobby Bacala is a model train enthusiast. She's more of a, it's a little different from someone who likes riding the train. That means if you mixed me with you, we'd make Bobby Bacala. I'm like the body type of Bobby Bacala. I bet, yeah, I bet if you did like one of those composite sketches where you tried those computer imaging things where you merged the two of us, we'd just look exactly like actor

Steven Sharipa. But Figer, just like Bobby Bacala, loves trains, he's a train enthusiast. Do you take the train in LA? Yeah, well, so here's the thing, the Expo line. This is the most excited he's been to talk on the podcast. So fucked up. The Expo line opened up. He sat up straighter.

By our place. And you know, I will drive in LA by necessity, but I prefer not to drive. I prefer to take the bus or to take the train when I can. And so there's a new rail stop that's a five minute walk from our apartment. And so I will walk to it and I will take the, recently took the train to the cinema to watch a film. I will, I love it. We'll take the train to downtown Santa Monica or downtown LA to dine it at one of the many

fine restaurants there. It's just a, it's just a real hoot. How long would it take you to get to Santa Monica? Where do you live? So we live in Santa Monica. So it would take us, but, but you know, we can go to downtown for me, let that downtown out. That's like 40 minutes.

Let me just say that this train is only helpful to Nick. So you can go from Santa Monica downtown, no one else cares about this train. It doesn't matter for anyone else. It's very heavily used. There's a lot of, it's getting a lot of positive press. I've heard the trains here are like really nice. They're really nice. No one rides them.

Well, I, there, there, there's a good number of passengers on the new expo line. It might be people just, just taking it in for the novelty of it. But I think it runs, it runs a, well, a route that'll does a lot of people's commute. I think it makes a lot of, there are a lot of people who do that. What year did you warp from? I took the train to the cinema. What the fuck is wrong with you? If like my grandma overheard you say that, she'd be like, what a fucking pussy.

Helen Dunovan would think you're a fucking pussy. No, I'm a train fan. I, Bobby Bacchola likes model trains like Reverend Lovejoy. It's a little different, but yeah, I guess there's a, there's a. Are you also a train fan, to go back to music, a train fan? With drops of Jupiter trains? I mean, I gotta admit, I like drops of Jupiter. It's a fun song.

What was the other song they had? Hey Soul Sister? Yeah, that's the one everyone's mad about. People got very upset about that one. Was that right after drops of Jupiter or was that? It was a bit later, I think. It was more recent. It was like a big gap, I think.

Drops of Jupiter was 90s and like Hey Soul Sister, I think was like pretty, maybe even 2010. It was like really recent. Literally yesterday. How does that go? Hey Soul. Hey Soul Sister. It's a mister on the radio, the stereo, the way you move ain't fair, you know.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. That's a huge gap between singles. Yeah, it was like a surprise that people were like, oh train's still around? People were like, oh, it's a hit song. Yeah.

That's crazy. I also have a great voice, but I didn't use it there. You have a lovely singing voice. Hey Soul. No. I'm not singing. So anyway, here's my thing. I'm a chocolate guy.

Me too. When it comes to desserts, which also before we get into final thoughts and what we did, where are you ranking your desserts? Because you got the big ones. You got cake. You got pie. You got ice cream. And you got cupcakes which is under pie.

Cupcakes are not pie. They can be classified under pie. Cupcakes are not pie. They're not pie. We'll classify them under pie. They're not pie. All right, pie. We'll put them under cakes.

You got cake. You got pie. And you got ice cream. And then I don't even know what, because obviously there's more. There's brownies. There's brownies. There's brownies. There's bread pudding.

I feel like you get to classify that as a whole other category. And if you have that category, you can just be specific. But what is it for you? What's like your number one? What's in your number one spot? Well, like I eat cookies daily. Really? Cookies.

Yeah. But I love cookies. But if I'm having like a dessert at a restaurant, I'd like a piece of chocolate cake. That would be great. I am 100 percent. We're in the same club. I'm a chocolate cake guy. And it's so hard for me when I'm at a restaurant and there's a chocolate cake in the dessert

menu. It's so hard for me to not get it, because I love chocolate cake. I'm not even a huge sweets guy. Surprisingly, I'm not. I'm like a savory guy. And I don't like snack on sweets, but I love a dessert. I love a good dessert. And it's almost always some sort of chocolate-based thing.

And chocolate cake is maybe my number one of any dessert. Here's what's tricky. Do you classify chocolate as a dessert? Or do you classify cake as a dessert? I'd say 100 percent cake. Okay. So chocolate, like, but chocolate candy is like its own thing. It's not like, oh, chocolate's my favorite dessert is not an okay answer.

I mean, that's tough because it's like, there's different, there's like, actual chocolate cake with like, kind of like breading, and then there's like the dark chocolate cake. What would that be called? Like where it's like, kind of like a thicker, like, flowerless chocolate cake or whatever. And then there's like, a chocolate lava cake. I kind of put them, I'm going after whatever, whichever one it is, but it's usually one of, one of those three or something. I think chocolate cake is a specific enough thing where I feel like that counts, right?

Yeah. Yeah. For me, ice cream number one. Ice cream. Right? The flavor. Oh boy, that's tough. I feel like I need to, it's tough for me to say, in the same way that you say chocolate

cake is my number one dessert, it's tough for me to say blank ice cream is my number one dessert. I get that. I'm boxing myself in. I don't know if you feel the same way, Lauren, but it's that sort of thing of like, for me, if it's a different kind of cake, then it probably moves down a notch or two. I don't want it. Yeah.

Yeah. I'm kind of the same way. I don't want it. I don't want to go into like a bread pudding or something. Yeah. But. Yeah, I'd go maybe towards an ice cream if I'm not, if that's going to be, I wouldn't do a bread pudding or a pie in general, like a chocolate pie, like a French silk, but

that's pretty much it. Oh, all right. I feel like I would like, there are like at least 12 flavors of ice cream that I would take above all other desserts. Wow. Like I feel like that was, that's why I feel like ice cream as a classification is enough for me to say like number one. 12 flavors.

Yeah. I don't even like 12 flavors of ice cream. I think, no, I think there are enough ice creams that I would, there's definitely some shitty ice cream in your 12 flavors now. Vanilla chocolate. There's two. I would, I don't know if I'd put chocolate in my top 12. What?

I would put chocolate, I would put chocolate chip. What the fuck? Chocolate's not in your top 12 ice creams? No, I think I'd go, I'd go vanilla, chocolate chip, mint chocolate chip. I love mint chocolate chip. Me too. That's a great one. Cookies and cream.

Yeah. Okay. Mmm. Mmm. Okay. You're stuck at four. I'm running out. Strawberry, coconut.

Wow. Coconut over chocolate. Oh my God. You're insane. I definitely take coconut over chocolate. Salted caramel. No. Okay.

Let's see. Pistachio or something. Oh, you know what? Actually, I would say a, I would say a butter, what's the one I'm looking for? Butter pecan. Butter pecan. Yeah. This is bullshit.

Get chocolate up in there. You're crazy. All right. Fine. It's cute. It doesn't want to be number nine. Let it out. Are you not a, are you just not a chocolate fan?

I love chocolate, but just plain chocolate ice cream, I don't think that's a top ice cream. Oh my God. Oh man. Plain chocolate ice cream. Have you been to the Jennies or something? Yeah. Like you...

Although their logo looks like it says penis and everyone has to admit that. Their logo 100% looks like it says penis and on top of that they had a salmonella scare. I know. Oh my God. It was horrible. It was horrible for me. And as like a thank you for staying at my place, he had put like six pints of Jennies ice cream in my freezer, which was so exciting.

It was like all these fun flavors. And then the salmonella thing happened that week and so I had to throw them all in the trash. Oh my God. What a disaster. I was so sad. That fucking sucks. It really sucks.

I would have rolled the dice, honestly. I felt like I could, but I was like, who am I going to be like sitting here dying from this ice cream? You can just buy it in like a month. That's a Alanis Morissette would like that scenario. Yeah, that was actually ironic. So if you're at Jennies, you can get like four different chocolate flavors that are all delicious, like a milk chocolate and a dark chocolate.

None of those are doing it for you just like just because they're plain chocolate. I just feel like when I think of a plain chocolate, I think of like an ice cream that's good but is fundamentally uninteresting. And so I would even say I would say chocolate varietals. I would take chocolate chocolate chip and Rocky Road over chocolate. Oh wow. Okay. And if I have chocolate chocolate chip, Rocky Road chocolate, those are three chocolate

ones if you're not counting chocolate chip and mint chocolate chip. And then I think if I was going to fill it out, I'm going to throw in pistachio. Crazy. Pistachio is such an old person's ice cream. Do you get a good pistachio ice cream? It's real treat. No, peppermint stick. Peppermint stick should be one of my favorites when I was young.

What about orange sherbet? Sherbet. Oh, sherbet is great. Sherbet? Sherbet? Really lost confidence as I was saying it. It was one of my favorite when I was little, which just feels random to me. Sherbet's are good.

They're not, I don't know if I classify them as ice creams. Oh boy. Like I feel like you've got sherbet's and sorbets or like their own. Yeah, I like a sorbet. I do like a sorbet. Sherbet though, isn't sherbet closer to ice cream than, I feel like it's there, right? Yeah, it's closer to ice. It's like the midpoint between, in the same way that you, that Steven and our sherrippa

is the midpoint between you and me, sherbet is the midpoint between ice cream and sorbet. Orange sherbet used to be one of my favorites. It is really good. Mint chocolate chip with jimmies. I used to get it with jimmies, which is... Oh, your east coast. Yeah, that's an east coast. Sprinkles.

Sprinkles. Yeah. Sprinkles to us would be different color sprinkles and jimmies would be like black jimmies. Brown. Gotcha. Yeah, brown chocolate. Like chocolate. Yeah.

Mint chocolate chip with jimmies. Always, I would always do cone. If I'm doing ice cream, I'll go on cone. I would do like cones. Love a cone. Yeah. Are you a cone? Do you do cones?

I feel like, oh yeah, I guess I always do see when you send your weekly ice cream picture that I see. Which I truly do see. You always, you do always have a cone. Well, not always, but I will generally, you know, I think I'm 50-50 cup and cone, but a lot of times when I go for the cup, it's because I'm trying to reign in excess. It's not because I actually want the cup, it's because I'm like, ah, that's like 150 extra calories of just pure sugar and carbs that I don't need, so I'll just have the cup

and enjoy it 80% as much. So ice cream, ice cream is your number one. Yeah. And see, you know what? I would even do like milkshake or frappe before ice cream, even though I love ice cream. Really? Yeah. Yeah.

Do you agree with that? No. Yeah. I like ice cream more. But wait, do you have like a certain place you go every week or do you go to different places? Well, we love Sweet Rose Creamery. Oh, I wanted to try that place.

It's great. There's a couple in Santa Monica and there's a few more mid-city now. It's really, really good quality ice cream. But you know, also, I'm not above a Ben and Jerry's, I'm not even above a Thrifty ice cream from Rite Aid. New England used to have Brigham's ice cream and I swore by it. And they also did stuff like Raspberry Lime Rickies. Oh yeah.

I had one of those, it's like a float kind of? Or no? Am I wrong? I can't remember what it is. In New England, there's like a lot of weird different, a Raspberry Lime Ricky is like soda water and then like a lot of raspberry syrup and then limes are squished up into it. It's great.

But they don't put the cream on the top? What did I, maybe it's something else that I had. It might have been something else that you had. Yeah. Like Italian soda or something where they put the cream or something. Yeah. I don't know. That's like a little bit south of us.

They do all that weird shit. Oh, okay. Yeah. Like in like Philadelphia and New Jersey, they do like all sorts of weird stuff. I don't understand. But like for me, if I was getting like a Raspberry Lime Ricky, like that was like kind of the only tart ones I would get. Like I'm always going chocolate even with like a milkshake or frappe or ice cream.

I'm going chocolate now as an adult. I've changed over to chocolate. So like with cakes, it's all chocolate. Yeah. I really, I may draw the ire of the online bullies, but I think I prefer vanilla to chocolate. Wow. I think like I'd rather have vanilla cake or I'd rather have vanilla cake you're just wrong on.

Like vanilla cupcake. Yeah. Vanilla ice cream or vanilla shake. I definitely rather have than a chocolate shake. You can get some people with like a vanilla malt or vanilla shake, but you're not going to win me over on those. I mean, like, and that's the only thing that you could like, I'm like, okay, I'll understand you arguing for like a vanilla malt or a vanilla milkshake, but like nothing, nothing else

vanilla. It's a good flavor. So many people think of it as plain, but it's a good distinct flavor. I feel like vanilla is for people who don't really like sweets, but maybe I'm wrong. I do. You know what? I don't know. Maybe I don't like things super sweet.

Maybe I like it a little, a little milder. I think vanilla is a great flavor for a guy to like who also doesn't like listening to music. We'll sit in a music list car. Keep harping on that. I don't think it's that weird. It's very strange to enjoy silence in a little time with my male, the old coconut. Let's zero in on Pinkberry a little bit more before we get to our final thoughts.

So Pinkberry, Mitch and I went together. We met there. Like we mentioned, the service was very nice. The self-serve is a loft pudding for me. This is kind of our starting to become our little place too, because we got the Steak and Shake right there. Right next door to the Steak and Shake. I love Steak and Shake.

Not even a big Lori Steak and Shake. This is a real legit Steak and Shake. No, wait, I don't even think I know about this Steak and Shake in Burbank. In Burbank. Yes, the Burbank town center. You mean that's the name of that mall? Oh, in the mall? Yeah, it's in that mall.

It's right across from the movie theater. It just changes everything. I love Steak and Shake. And it's like a real, because we wasted four hours of our lives and we drove to a Steak and Shake. It was a huge mistake with Evan Susser. In Victorville, California. In Victorville, California, which was so dumb and there was one either opening or already

open right under our noses. This was before. We couldn't have done the episode in 2015 because this chain wasn't opened until 2016. Okay. And so there's that up there and then there's the Buffalo Wild Wings, there's quite a few spots up there. It's a big chain restaurant, Mecca, there's the Fudruckers, a lot of good stuff. So we went, we met there, I got the Strawberry Banana Yogurt, which was a good flavor.

I think, have you had that one before? No. It's pretty good. I think Strawberry, but not Strawberry Banana. It's weird because they've got the swirl. So like you can swirl two flavors together, but Banana Yogurt, or I'm sorry, Strawberry Banana is like one flavor, which you would think like, oh, make those two flavors and I can swirl them together.

But that said, it is a good Strawberry Banana flavor. It's very tasty. Yeah. And then the toppings I threw on my fresh strawberries, Cap'n Crunch, a favorite childhood cereal, and chocolate chips. And you know, it's tough to get those ratios exactly right with when you're making your own toppings. I always feel like I'm gonna forget it, but I think, I think we didn't, I didn't okay

job. No, it was pretty tasty. You did a much better job than I did. Also you're the only person who I think says Cap'n Crunch. I know that it's, it's spelled Cap'n. Cap'n Crunch. I guess I say Cap'n. I guess I say Cap'n as well.

It's, I guess spelled Cap'n Crunch, right? CAP'n, Cap'n Crunch. Jesus. All right. You're by the book. Respect you. All right. I, mine was a mess, a big chocolatey mess.

Yeah. I got the chocolate hazelnut and I got the cookies and cream, which is, I always thought cookies and cream base was like more vanilla-y or like kind of like a white ice cream. This is, is chocolate. Yeah, theirs is chocolatey. This is chocolatey and like. Which is surprising. Yeah.

It's surprising and it's, it's a lot too. It's kind of like, it's like I feel wired after eating it and it was, it was, it was good. What'd you put on it? I put, so I did that weird thing of where I was like, oh, I'll put the cookies and cream topping on it, which is like mushed up Oreos. Yeah. Because I'm like, they go well together.

And then on the other side, I had the chocolate hazelnut and I put a cookie dough and some of the Snickers topping on top of it. I like this. And that for me was very much like a, like eating candy. It was, it was, it was like, there was, and especially the Snickers, like the ground up Snickers dust. It's really, the ground up Snickers dust is, is strange, right? Not all of those candy bars work as topping.

Yeah. 100%. Yeah. Into some of the ground up Snickers, whatever it is, the Snickers topping and like some of like the caramel, like caramel had, had like hardened or something. Yeah. It was really strange. Yeah.

They'll put like Heath bars or whatever. And it's like, that's just straight up like toffee chunks are gonna stick in my teeth. Yes. Yeah. No, it, it, it, it didn't, it didn't work well. Like I wish I had just done the cookie dough or something. You know what it reminds me of? They ever go to like a salad bar and they've got like the hard boiled eggs in there.

And then it's kind of like, if, if, if people have been picking at it, it's kind of a mess and there's just like yolks and, and, and white parts just separated, just in, it looks kind of gross. And I feel like that's how some of these candies are just, I don't know, they need a better way of, of chopping these up into the right, the right size, because like if it gets too crumbly, just, it's just a mess. I know. Well, in the place I went there, the guy was serving it to me, but it gets, the way they

have them set, it's very messy and like all the like extras run all over the counter. Yeah. It's teeny little broom to sweep them into a teeny little trash. It's just kind of fun to watch, but they should get a little mouse to do that. That'd be better. You think they should get a mouse? If they could train a Stuart little-esque mouse to come in there with like a little chimney sweep suit and sweep things with a tiny broom, it'd be adorable.

I would accept that. And they will also like, apparently they'll toilet train this mouse as well. This is a fantasy world at this point. But yeah, so yes, they would do that. Lauren, you told us about your order a little earlier, but what did you think of your visit today, like the food overall? I thought it was good. I thought the guy overloaded mine a bit, so it was kind of like falling out as I was

getting ready to eat it, which I don't like. I also feel like it was just too much. I think I went through a phase where I was eating it all the time and I would get a lot and like sometimes I'd save it for the next day, which doesn't really work that well, but you can. Oh, that's funny. It doesn't have a good next day kind of, oh really? Yeah.

It's hard. It kind of becomes like scrappy. Like I don't know how, you know what I mean? Like it doesn't have that fluffy kind of vibe. It's kind of similar to like if you get a frosty at Wendy's and you put it in the freezer overnight. It's not going to be as good. Yeah.

Yeah. I overall felt like it was too sugary. Like I was, I guess because I haven't had it in a while, my body wasn't ready for it as much. I felt, I did feel kind of like, like. When you came into the studio, you were going, I was like, I was like, I was looking I decided to go with my regular order today, but I was thinking, oh, I should try sometime to do like a fruit based one.

I've never really done that and it looks like it might make me feel better if I do like the plain tart with like some strawberries and raspberries. It might be good for me. So maybe I'll try that next time. I do think if you're craving chocolate and you get like the fruit based dessert, it's just not going to scratch it. Yeah. Yeah.

So, but yeah, I think their fruit based toppings are pretty good. They're high, they're still high quality. They're not bad. All right. So final thoughts. So, Lauren, you've listened to the podcast before, you know how this works, but we'll give sort of like a closing argument and then your rating of the chain from one to five forks.

So we'll start with you. All right. Well, I think that it's one of the most beautiful frozen yogurt chain, most aesthetically pleasing to me. And I really like the flavor options. I like that they rotate seasonally. I don't know if you're aware of this, but there will be different options available at different times.

But not that they're going all yogurt-landy. I don't know if that's true, but like the other places, they'll have like four available and you'll have like then they'll rotate one of them or whatever. I have to give Pinkberry, I'm going to say it's out of five, I'm going to give three forks. Wow. Okay. Very solid.

Yes. Yeah. It's a solid rating. So I didn't know what the deal was with this place before I went to it. And when I saw it, I'm like, oh, this is just a yogurt place or whatever, which maybe isn't fair because I didn't get to, I didn't get to experience, especially the place, the Pinkberry where they serve you your food and they kind of have a more hands-on process with it.

I did everything myself and I did a bad job of it. And you know, I wish I kind of, I wish I went out more on a limb. I wish I kind of got the original flavor and just gave that a shot and had some fruit in there because that seems more of like what Pinkberry is all about. The service was nice. I like the aesthetics as well. The music wasn't my favorite, but I kind of wish that, and we talk about this quite a bit and it sounds like they kind of do have it and I just kind of avoided it, but I wish

that there was like the Pinkberry and this is what it is. It's the original with some strawberry and some banana or whatever it is all mixed up or shared. However, however they want to make it and I kind of wish I experienced something like that. That being said, it's frozen yogurt and it's good, you know, like I can't dislike the food here because it is good and it's just very basic to me now and maybe that's something that's changed now that there's more and more places popping up, even though it did kind

of steal Red Mango's idea for a franchise. You know, I'd maybe give it three and a half forks, but the story, the horrid story you told us being in the podcast, I'm going to give it three forks as well. It doesn't deserve to be two and a half. It doesn't deserve to be three and a half. Yeah, I feel right there. I think we're on the same page here. I mean, this is an acceptable frozen yogurt chain.

I'm not sure if I go any further than that. I feel like frozen yogurt has a ceiling. In fact, I don't think even the best frozen yogurt place you could possibly conceive could go higher than four forks. I feel like that's just the best that you couldn't go higher than that. I feel like it'd be insane if I said it was five forks. What is it then? I'm laying down and they bring it to me and put it in my mouth.

I feel like it has to be really amazing. It is. It's frozen yogurt. It's a fine dessert, but it's never going to be the best dessert. If you think frozen yogurt's your favorite dessert, you're a weird person. I think that, like that said, it's a good execution of it. I see parallels between Pinkberry in 2016 versus Yogurtland and Baja Fresh, which we reviewed a few weeks ago, in 2016 versus Chipotle.

We have a pioneer that was usurped by an upstart and now is trying to rejigger its concept to compete with this newer concept that's doing better. They've gone from their behind-the-counter pristine presentation to this jumbled mess where you've got a shitload of choice and you've got to roll your own. That's just a lot of work on the consumer. For that reason, I'm just less excited to go there. This isn't a place that I'd ever go out of my way to go to, but if we were there and someone was like, hey, let's get Pinkberry, I'd be fine and I'd find something that I'd

like. For me, that, again, gives it a three-fork threshold. Three-forks for me, and that means that Pinkberry's in the hand-holding club. Oh, how cute! It's our cutest little award that we give out. We all agree it's mediocre. I'm kind of with Weigerts. I don't know what you ... Is there a version of a five-fork yogurt place?

I don't know. Unless it was a place where they fed you, but then also, I don't know if I'd like to see that. Maybe that would be lower than three-forks. Maybe if it got to a gourmet level or something where there was something really special about the flavors or ingredients, like all fresh or something, I don't know. The ingredients do seem fresh, besides that snickers topping, but it is that weird thing of maybe that is close to the best frozen yogurt place can do.

And also, I think not that we will go there when we will rank it, but I feel like my yogurt lane ranking is going to be three-forks too. I agree. You might be going lower, man. Possibly. I mean, what does that have over Pinkberry? It's the same. It's all the same.

I got you blind taste test me. I would be like, I don't know, DCBY have no idea. It's all the same to me. All right. All right. That was Pinkberry. It's time for a regular segment. I've got a pie, and Mitch and Lauren must divine a series of clues to guess what it is.

Oh, my God. The winner gets the pie. The loser goes home empty stomached. This is pie in the sky. Oh, my God. A little taste of warrants hit Cherry Pie with the song for pie in the sky. All right. So here's how this will work.

You barely, they barely got the words out she's by Cherry Pie before you pulled the phone away. Here's the thing. I didn't want to drag on too long. You were dancing to the intro. Yeah. No, I like that. I like the song, but I didn't want to drag on too long.

I don't want to sound like a, be like a Mike Mitchell top of show drop. So I just want to give people a little taste of it. And then let's just get into this thing. All right. So here's how this will work. Two people who ate, who ate pinkberry and are wired and don't want any more like sweets. You don't have to eat the pie now. You get the pie, it's yours to take home and do what you will with.

I'm going to fuck it like an American pie. Me too. I'm going to, I'm going to turn on the American pie and then watch how Jim fucked in. Copy Jim. All right. So whoever this pie is going home with, it's, it's going to get, it's going to get fucked. Which it's coming from you. So I'm pretty sure it's already bent.

All right. So I'll, I'll give you some clues and you have two lifelines, which either of you can use at any time. Once a lifeline is used, it's off the table. So if one person uses it, the other person cannot, those lifelines are, you can phone a friend, you can phone anyone and ask for their help with a clue. Which makes no sense. Okay.

And you have the smell test. You can take a blind, a blind smell test of the pie to try and clean what it is. Okay. So if you want to invoke those at any time, let me know. Lauren, you're our guest. You can choose whether to go first or second. Oh, and, and let me, let me add this too. The clues get progressively easier.

So the first clue is the most opaque. The last clue is the most obvious. And so, and after we hear a clue, either of us can guess. After you hear a clue, the person who's turned it is can guess. Okay. So would you like to go first or second? I'll go second. Okay.

Oh, wow. I've never gone first. Oh, cool. All right, Mitch, here you go. Mitch, you made a mistake. Mitch, you were, you were, you were 0 and 2 in pie in the sky. The thing is, that's why by the third clue, he's like, it rhymes with bearing. Oh, okay.

I thought I was making a wise choice by giving the hardest clue to you and then it would get easier and I might get it. We'll see. And mind you, we do have lifelines, so. Yeah, call someone. So we'll print a book of those. All right. First clue.

Hey, this is like that show Millionaire. It is exactly like the show Millionaire. The stakes are similar too. All right, here we go. First clue. Where I come from, the beaches are sandy. And this pie's key ingredient is used in sandies. What?

This pie's main ingredient is used in sandies. As in like sandwiches? That was a shit. That's clues insane. Again, the clues get progressively easier. The first one is most opaque. When does he give up? Well, I can, I can guess.

You can guess. There's no consequences to a wrong guess. Hmm. Do I want to do the smell test? The weird thing is, though, the pie never smells like anything. Because it's cold? It's like some weird store-bought pie that smells like nothing. I'll open it up and you can, hopefully you can get a good whiff.

If you want to do it. Can I take the smell test? Yeah. Okay, Mitch is invoking the smell test. Oh my gosh, I'm so excited. Okay, here we go. Oh, it's been here the whole time? You shouldn't let me do the smell test.

I've been sitting here the whole time. Okay. We could have known. All right, Mitch, I'm going to trust you on this. I'm going to open this up. I'm going to hold this up and close your eyes and take a whiff of this bad boy. This is hilarious. I won't look either, so that's fair.

It comes in a plastic container. Lapkus isn't looking. Everyone's averting their eyes. Can you get close? Do you need me to get closer for you? I smelled it. You smelled it? Yeah, no, it doesn't help at all.

Okay. It smells like pie crust. It doesn't smell like anything. Okay. What's your guess? I'm going to go key lime pie. Key lime pie is not correct. Okay.

Lauren. I know what it is. First clue, where I come from. Do you really? These are sanding the pie's ingredients using Sandy's second clue. We may not agree how to pronounce this southern pie, but we do agree it is delightful. Pecan pie. Lapkus, you have one pie in this guy.

What? Oh, my God. You get the pie. Give me that. Thank you. This is more like game show because this thing is fucking rigged. Oh, my God. I'm excited.

You mean quiz show? Quiz show. Fuck. God damn it. Pecan Sandies. Pecan Sandies. What? What's happening?

That's a popular cookie. Pecan Sandies? It's a real cookie. I'm surprised you don't know it. I don't know that at all. Well, I'm really excited because I've never had pecan pie, and I'm going to try it tonight. Oh, shit. Some say pecan.

Yes. Pecan. That one's from Ralph, so it's not going to be the highest quality pecan pie. That's okay. You say pecan? I say pecan, but a lot of people say pecan. That's a pecan. I don't think there's no agreement in American English.

You know, my idea of when Harry met Sally. Pecan pie. He was like doing the whole thing with her. Is that when she has the word? I'm just fucking kidding. Oh, man. Who cares? I cared.

These are him. Is that the orgasm scene? No, I think it's like they're in like a sharper image or something. Or no, they're in a bookstore, I think. Pecan pie. Pecan. Was that orgasm scene like world changing? I feel like people love that scene so much.

Oh, I just learned that they, that was their idea. Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan. That wasn't what was written initially. And they both came up with that. Billy Crystal came up with the line, I'll have what she's having in the moment. That is quick. I'm gonna hit it to them.

I know, I feel like they should get like a lot more money for that because they basically wrote the most important part of the whole thing. Yeah, it's whatever they wanna remember. But you know what? I'm gonna say they're full of shit. I think there was a hard working, I think there was a hard working non-telegenic writer who came up with that in his little dink den

and they were trying to take credit. I was like, oh yeah, we riffed it out. It was just like, come on. No way, it was the actors, baby, right, Lime? Yeah, it was the actors. You and your troll writers could fuck off. Give him a chance. I think it was the troll monsters who wrote up the line.

I also don't, I don't know if I try, was Billy Crystal like the handsome lead man or is that like a, I just don't buy him and her together. That's a part of the movie, baby. He's charming. But was he ever like, in his younger days, Lauren, was he ever someone that women found attractive? I don't, no, I can't speak for all.

You think she's 50 years old? Well, no, I mean like, but like, I know you're younger than I am. He's cute in those movies, but because he's so funny. But I actually met him recently and I thought he was very handsome. Okay, okay. Yeah. I'm sorry, I mean, okay. He's a nice looking guy.

Like, and he's very charming. He really does like a lot for a person. I think that straight men oftentimes struggle to evaluate the actual attractiveness of men. I feel like a lot of times men, like the straight guys I feel like I talked to about which guys are handsome, think of guys as, like they have like kind of a porn slash wrestler like idea of what a good looking guy is.

Like, oh, that guy's got big muscles. Like John Cena. Yeah, John Cena, that guy's fucking, that guy's looks good, you know, but like a lot of times I feel like, I think John Cena is a hunk, but I think there are, like I hear from, I think if you talk to people who are attracted to men, you'll just get different answers. You know what I mean?

Yeah, I think it's the same probably for women. I mean, I feel like for guys with women where it's like, you'll like varying shades and styles and types of women. Sure. You know, it's not all going to be one thing. I feel like on The Bachelor, they'd like you to believe that there's one type of guy that's hot or whatever I'm like Bachelor.

I have been watching it right now. It's killing me because all the guys are like ripped, but like idiots and their heads are nothing. Like, I just feel like... And like I'm just like, there's, you're not, I hate the idea that they have to be perfectly fit because I feel like they're not getting the person she could actually fall in love with.

Like it's like, you're already limiting what type of person is going to be there by saying they have to be someone who works out all day. So then like automatically they're not, probably not creative, probably not. Like there's just like, you kind of are cutting out like a lot of personality traits that a person might want. I like a beautiful Billy Crystal type.

That's my favorite gal. With tits. With Billy Crystal with tits. That was pie in this guy. Just like a restaurant. We bow your feedback. Let's open up the feedback. Today's email comes to us from Jarrett Nathan.

Jarrett writes, I play drums in a touring punk band and I'm constantly traveling around in the van, binging the Dubois podcast has really made this, the cross country drives a lot more enjoyable, being in a different city every day. Also let's me spread the gospel, the spoon nation all over the country. Thanks for being a part,

thanks for being a part of my tours and giving me primo entertainment out on the road. That's very nice of you to say, Jarrett. My question is, when you two go out to review a restaurant together, who pays for the meal? Do you just split it evenly or actually calculate what you each owe?

Or does one pick it up and expect the other to get it next time? There are endless possibilities. Thanks guys. Jarrett Nathan and Jarrett is also from, at pairs the band. Oh pairs, yeah. I follow those guys saying that's cool. So Lapkus, splitting the check,

how do you feel about that? Like how do you do that in a, I guess a one on one, like a two person scenario versus like a group scenario? Do you have any preference or strategy with that? I find it to be more complicated as time goes on. I feel like when I was younger and like it was understood that everyone like needed their money.

Yeah. It was like, we'll just split it, take care of yourself. And then like now as people get jobs and stuff, it like becomes like a more gray area where it's like, I'll get it. And then someone's like, I'll get it. But then you feel like, oh,

I wonder if like they've gotten in a bunch and I like didn't realize it or something. Like I get more paranoid about that. And I don't like the unevenness of that. Yeah. So I don't know. It does stress me out sometimes. I like being given giving,

but a lot of the times you can get taken advantage of and then other times I like, I fear taking advantage of anyone. Yeah, same. So I would always want it to be, I always kind of want it to be equal, but there are definitely times where I'll throw, be like, oh, I'll pay for this.

And we can even just talk about with you and I when we, because like there'll be some meals where I'm like, oh, I'll pay for this. And then you'll get the snacks for the segments or something like that. It's even out. I think it's pretty equitable. I would say, Mitch, you're very like,

you're actually a great dining companion. I give you a hard time sometimes, but you're a great guy to get a meal with. A lot of fun to hang out with. And you're very amenable to splitting the check in just the easiest way possible. That actually makes dining very nice. Or sometimes just the easiest way is just for one person

to be like, yeah, I got this. And just know that the other person will get you back later. A friend of the podcast, Evan Sesser, we eat out with a lot. I think he's also very great about that. He's very gracious in terms of, even if one person ordered a little bit extra, still do that three-way split. I think if you make that clear up front,

you're like, hey, we're going to feast. Get whatever you want. And we're just going to split it. I feel like if there's that kind of attitude going into it, there is that weird thing where it's like, a couple of people go wild. And then you're like, oh, I got like a $9 thing. I hate that.

I'd like to be able to treat. Once I was able to feel like I could treat a friend a lunch, I felt very happy about that. I like doing that. But I do hate when I go out with people and I'll have a drink and they all got meals. And I'm like paying $60 to split it. I'm like, I think that's bullshit.

I think people need to pay attention. Oh, you just had a drink. You shouldn't have to pay for everything. No, it's not bullshit. I don't think it should even happen. I think that you can be like, hey, I only got one. Like even in those situations, I don't like it because I'm always going to pay.

You're always going to pay more no matter what. But I think you can immediately be like, hey, I didn't really get like a big meal. Here's some cash or whatever. Having cash, I feel like is the easiest way to get out of. People throw down. I feel like people throw out cash and get out and they like still owe more money.

Yes, because it kind of looks like you're done. Yeah. Well, my strategy is like all, if I have cash, I'll just overpay by a little bit and just knowing it'll make my life easier because it'll be like, you know, whatever I owe like 14, I'll throw in a 20 and just be like, I'm done with it. Whatever you guys figure the rest of it out.

But Lauren is right that the social pressure of being the one to be like, oh, well, I just, I actually didn't get, I didn't get alcohol. So like, you know, like, like you seem, that seems weird to bring that up. So I think it falls on your dining companions to be conscious of someone who just got a soup or a side salad and everyone else

got apps and entrees and drinks, you know what I mean? It's not a weird tube, but then it's like you're, what's the lady from The Matrix that sees everything? Well, you're just too aware of what everyone's doing. Yeah, you're kind of just like, you're like, oh, he only got like, you're like, oh, you're really keeping track of everyone's soup and salads. Yeah, I guess that's weird, but like,

the times where I've been like screwed over by it, I wish someone had just been like, wait, you didn't even have a meal. Like, you know what I mean? I'll always, I always kind of keep my eye out for someone like that. I'm like, oh, they didn't get anything. We should toss in or you got to speak up

for your members of your table. Yeah, because it is awkward to have to be like, I'd like to pay less, please. Yeah, yeah, yeah, very weird. I feel like I've been on the other end of it too, though, where like we've all like, I always pay with a card. And that's why I think if you're, if you are at all like kind of like,

oh man, I'm going out to eat and you have issues with this, I think you should just have cash. Yeah. Because it's so much more helpful. But I've been on that other end of it where I'm like, oh, I'm in charge of the bill or whatever. And oh, we got all, and it's like, okay, and my bill is like $90 or like, I'm like,

like there's still $90 owed. And that, that is the work. Oh yeah, when like everyone's put in and then like, we didn't even come close to paying for this. Oh, yeah, that drives me crazy. That's why I'm almost like, if it's a big group like that, like it's almost just worth it to be like, hey, we're all going all in,

just throw your cards in and split it up. Yeah. I'm remembering now, because I was a, I was a math major in college before I dropped out initially. And I remember that when I worked in video games, when we'd go out to lunch, people, like they're like a guy once brought up like, oh, Nick's a math, math major, let him figure it out.

And then I became just the guy who would do the bill. And they'd be like, oh, here you go, math major. And like kind of a funny way. And I just had to be like, this fucking sucks that I got to add these. And this was like before phones had calculators and like a flip phone. So I was like doing actual math, trying to, you got the caprese salad and iced tea, you owe this much with an adding up tap.

It fucking sucked. Yeah, that sucks. That was a burden. And I feel like- Is this, and they made a movie called Beautiful Mind? No, but that's, that's annoying. Yeah. I don't know, I get-

I'm the bill guy. I always end up the bill guy. I'm like, because I'm trying to help out. And then I'm like, it's stuck with me and I'm the bill guy. And it sucks. I don't like being the bill guy. Your work lunches are their own thing because that's a situation where you're almost always lying items, like splitting.

I don't know, I guess I'm glad we live in like the age of like, like smartphone calculators and Venmo, which I think Venmo has made a lot of things easier of like, you know what, I'll get this. Do you guys just want to Venmo me what you owe me? Yeah. That usually works out. Yeah, I don't know.

Because then sometimes people can screw you. Yeah, you got to add it again. It's fucking whatever. Go with someone who's cool and just, just have an understanding and why don't you pick it up or you just split it. Separate checks that big of a pain in the ass. It depends on how big your party is. I think if you've got like an, I've never worked as a server,

but I feel like if you've got like an eight person party, eight separate checks is a pain in the ass. Yeah. For the establishment. Yeah, because they have to, then they have to divide it afterwards, right? Yeah. Uh, Doe Boy's Babies is a nice little animated spinoff. I think we should do it.

Oh my Doe Boy's Babies. He wrote, he wrote Spoon Babies, but yeah, Doe Boy's Babies is made. Oh yeah. Oh, Spoon Babies. I like it. Um, I mean, there's not even, you know, that much interest in this podcast alone. You don't think we should have a full-fledged animated spinoff? Yeah.

So going the length of animating something with you and I as grotesque children will be the nothing but trouble babies. Oh my God, nothing but trouble. Police Academy. You're going all in with the old comedy references. If you have a question or comment about the world of chain restaurants, you can email us at doeboyspodguests at gmail.com. Check out our Facebook page, Doe Boys, follow us on Twitter at Doe Boys Pod

and rate and review us on iTunes if you have a second. Lauren Lapkus. Thank you so much for coming here. Thank you. This was so fun. We got to have you back. I didn't even get to talk dinosaurs with you. Oh man.

Which is, I'm sure, what you wanted to talk about. Um, but, uh, we'll have to have you back at some point. Maybe we'll get you off for a yogurt life. Yeah. I would love you to come back and do more fro-yo. I have another place I would do that's not fro-yo. What is it? What is it?

Jimmy John's. Oh, Jimmy John's. Oh, Jimmy John's. Also, isn't there a controversial owner at Jimmy John's, too? Probably. A pervert freak. Well, we'd love to have you back. You're great and thank you for doing it.

Thank you. Jimmy, anything you'd like to plug? I can listen to my podcast called With Special Guest Lauren Lapkus on Ear Wolf. One of the best podcasts out there. Thanks. That'll do it for this episode of Doe Boys. Yeah, let's do a real podcast. For someone's favor.

That'll do it for this episode of Doe Boys. Not next time for the Spoon Man, Mike Mitchell. I'm Nick Weigher. Happy eating. See ya. Feral audio.