Doughboys - Starbucks with Joe Saunders

Episode Date: September 24, 2015

The 'boys evaluate the most powerful, most influential coffee chain in the world with the aid of Comedy Bang! Bang! and Emmys writer Joe Saunders -- and play a special home baked edition of Snack or Wack.Want more Doughboys? Check out our Patreon!: https://patreon.com/doughboysSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On September 22, 1994, David Crane and Martikoffman sitcom Friends premiered on NBC. The multi-cam show, originally titled Insomnia Cafe, featured six West Village 20-somethings and had it as its primary setting, a fictional Manhattan coffee house named Central Perk, predicting and perhaps amplifying the caffeinated culture that took root with Generation X and continued with millennials. The main cause and beneficiary of the hot brown craze, a Seattle-based coffee roasting chain founded by college classmates Jerry Baldwin, Zev Siegel, and Gordon Bowker in 1971 and sold to current CEO Howard Schultz in 1987.

Schultz aggressively expanded the business, purchasing rivals and bullying out local competitors to become as ubiquitous as any chain in American life. When Friends aired its pilot in 1994, Schultz's coffee house had 425 locations. Within seasons later, when Chandler, Joey, Monica, Ross, Rachel, and Phoebe took their final boughs, there were 8,569 locations. Today, there are over 22,000 stores worldwide, and with 190,000 employees, its workforce is larger than the population of Little Rock, Arkansas. It's become the most influential eatery of the past two decades, even forcing the once-invincible

McDonald's to add the McCafé. This week's Doe Boys is trend-to-sized because we're talking Starbucks. Welcome to Doe Boys, the podcast about chain restaurants. I'm Nick Weiger alongside my co-host, Mike Mitchell, the Spoon Man. How you doing, Spoon Man? Bigger than Little Rock, Arkansas? That was my Bill Clinton. I know what it was.

That's why I was staring at you blankly. I give it a thumbs up. Okay, alright. You give it a thumbs up because it's bigger than Little Rock, Arkansas. Yeah. Famous Arkansas, Bill Clinton approves of Starbucks being larger than the capital of his home state. That's right. I want it to be bigger than Little Rock every franchise.

You want every franchise, Steve? That's right. That's good for American capitalism and you're an American world leader. Mm-hmm. Okay, alright. I guess that logically follows. Are you going to stop doing this, Mitch? No.

This is me for the whole podcast. Oh, okay. Oh, boy. No, I'm just kidding. It's me, Spoon Man. Oh, the Spoon Man's here. I just want to say, uh... How to hoe.

Spoon Nation. So you've gone from playing Howdy Ho, the clip of Mr. Hankey from South Park off of your phone to now just doing an impression of, you've just got a character reel you're going through here. Well, I also want to say Howdy Doodly because of our Selman-inspired episode last week, too. Oh, last week we had Matt Selman at The Simpsons so that means that you're doing Ned Flammer. And also, yeah, you'll find out in a little bit why, yeah, The Simpsons is kind of stuck

in me right now because our guest, there's a little connection there. Yeah, yeah. We'll get to that in one second. Mm-hmm. You know, one thing I want to talk about real quick. First off, shout out to a friend of the podcast, Evan Susser, for giving me that Friends Intel. I didn't quite realize that the growth of Starbucks quite paralleled the Friends' run, but it's funny and crazy.

Oh, really? Yeah, yeah. Okay. I was kind of confused by that. Oh, really? Was that too much of a stretch? No, no, no. Not at all.

Well, you know what? I was confused. Because it used to be called something else. It wasn't Starbucks, right? It was... Well, back in the day, but it became Starbucks pretty early. Oh, okay. Yeah.

Okay. Yeah. The run of Friends pretty closely, and I think it just was kind of coincidental that that happened. It was just something that was kind of in the zeitgeist, the idea of everyone going to a coffee house and it happened to coincide with Starbucks becoming this huge, huge brand. It should have ended when Friends ended, too. That would have been actually really something if they just shut it all down.

Yeah. You know, that's the thing that a chain has never done is gone out on top. If Starbucks was just like, we're... You know what, guys? We did it. And then they had a final day where all the stores were open and everyone was lining up around the block for their final Starbucks purchases, and they just closed them all. That would really be an event.

Yeah. You know what? It's not a traditional move in a franchise, you know, with a franchise. You don't usually shut it down when it's on top, but I think it might be worthwhile for some people. Yeah. I mean, from a business standpoint, it would be disastrous, but it would be like really just a really entertaining thing to witness.

So yeah, I hope it happens. If you're out there, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, consider just closing up shop next year. Just make 2016 the end of your run. We should. You're going on top. 35 years in the business, and then you're smooth sailing. And then the nation goes into a deep slumber because there's no coffee.

I wanted to bring something up real quick, and Mitch, we discussed this on the podcast before, but Mitch the Spoon Man, we've discussed on the podcast before how you have probably the worst email address of anyone that I know. Well, I'm a loyal guy, so I stuck with my first email address. It's the first email address you got as a teenager, I assume. Yeah, almost a preteen, actually, I guess. You've had it, and you've just been running with it for like 20 years. Oh yeah.

I used to get pictures of Mario Kart 64 emailed to me. I used to, you mean like 24 hours ago, someone was sending you a speed run. So we had an idea here on the Doughboys podcast for a contest, and this is a contest where the goal is to guess the Spoon Man's email address. So here's how this works. If you listen to the Subway episode with Fran Gillespie, you can find out the domain of what Mitch's email is. SNL's own Fran.

SNL's own Fran Gillespie. Yes. Congratulations. Recently hired as a writer. We're very, very happy for her. She's hilarious. But beyond that, the only hint we'll give you is that it's impenetrable. You would never normally guess it.

It's not like Mike Mitchell at gmail.com. It's not that at all. No, it's not that easy. It's a fucking riddle to try and figure out what this thing is. So if you can guess Mitch's email address, we're going to do this contest via Twitter. So one entry per Twitter account, but you can put as many guesses as you want into a single tweet. So as many guesses as you can fit into 140 characters and use the hashtag Spoon Mail.

That's the word Spoon followed by mail, hashtag Spoon Mail, portmanteau Spoon and email. And the winner will receive a $25 gift card to Darden restaurants. This is redeemable at such eateries as Red Lobster, Olive Garden and Longhorn Steakhouse and many, many more. Something that fits under that umbrella of the Darden restaurants. So you choose the shitty restaurant and you can eat at one of those five shitty restaurants. We haven't reviewed any of the Darden restaurants yet, Mitch, so. But yeah, if you get at that, no one is going to get it on the dot.

Let's just say this, like, if you get it on the dot, we know you've cheated because the only people who could get that are people who already have his email. So if you know Mitch's email, don't just self-select out of the contest. We'll leave this to people who aren't sure what it is. I mean, do you really want this gift card anyway? I think, of course, you do. It's a $25 value redeemable at many restaurants. It's like sending in, like, what'd you call it, like one of those proof-of-purchase sort

of deals where it's like mail in for this like $50 back or something. No one does that. Well, we'll see. I'm guessing we'll get upwards of two entries and the better of those two who uses the hashtag spoon whale will receive this $25 gift card. No cheating. If you know it, don't cheat it out. Don't ruin it for the rest of it.

Don't ruin it for everyone. Don't clog the spoon male hashtag with your trolling, guys. Just get honest entries. Micah's frail bot, Jack Allison, all those guys. Don't ruin it for everybody. Hey, do you think former President Clinton has Mitch's email? I most certainly do. Oh, God.

Why did I say that up? There's more characters in it than there are people in Little Rock. Okay. All right. Oh, boy. On that note, let's introduce this week's guest. You seem disappointed, okay? He's a writer for Comedy Bang Bang and fresh off his stint writing for the Emmy Awards.

We're thrilled to have him. Joe Saunders. Hi, Joe. Hey, guys. Joe, welcome to the show. Welcome to Doughboys. Oh, thanks for having me. I'm so excited to be here.

We're excited to have you. We're excited to have you. So, I just got to ask because it was the first thing I was thinking when you were going to come on. The Emmys were last night recording this on a Monday. This episode will be out on Thursday. What was the food like at the Emmys, man? The food?

Well, do you mean like the food at the actual ceremony? Give me all of it. I want to know all the intel. Well, you know, like that is, it was such like, it was easily the most decadent kind of Hollywood job I've ever had. Sure. Where everywhere was either, I think there was one day we ate steak three times. Wow.

Where we went to two different restaurants where they brought, where we ordered steaks. And then we were walking around one day and we found like a steak. A steak. A steak. A steak. A steak. A steak. A steak.

A steak. So, that counts. But then we found like a catering thing that it was just, they were, they were serving to the steak there. It was really good. It seems like these are kind of your decisions. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

There was lots of other options and you could order anything you want. We went to the governor's ball, which was right after, which is this big dinner they have right after the ceremony. We all got to go, we were really surprised to get tickets to that because we got to write on the Primetime Emmy Awards show. And then there's this kind of like for all the nominees, this fancy dinner in the building next door. And we walked in that and that was unbelievable.

Like that was, we walked in and there was lights hang from the ceiling in the middle of this huge room in the Los Angeles Convention Center was a platform with a band playing and Andrea Bocelli was singing. Wow. Yeah. It was nuts. Just like a theater in the round sort of thing. Yes.

Wow. But surrounded by like tables where people were having dinner or, yeah. And as soon as you walked in, there was like these beautiful women handing you champagne. It was crazy. And we sat down and we had steak there too. How many times do your voice crack during that event? Oh, thank you. He kept cracking and then like uncracking and then it would crack.

So Andrea Bocelli, time to say goodbye. Great song. He sang it. Yeah. Did he? Wow. He sang three songs and it was like the three signature ones that you, the ones that I knew.

What do you think it costs to get Andrea Bocelli to do a three song set in a private party? I mean, I can't remember. Quarter of a million dollars? I would have guessed that that it's probably around there. Jesus Christ. I'm going to go lower, uh, $660, $660, $660, $660 bucks. I don't, I feel like for something like that, don't wouldn't, oh, maybe he would just like have a gigantically huge price tag, huh?

Yeah, because it's not like he's performing at the ceremony and he's getting all the publicity out of it. This is a private event where really, you know, the, the only thing he's getting out of it is money. I guess the connection of being around all these celebrities, but he's already in that world. I was going to say under a hundred that I was thinking like 60, but I guess you're a quarter of a million dollars.

It seems crazy though. It seemed like such a specific thing for him to only sing, for him to only sing three songs. Sure. And then to like, he can't, they announced him. It was a big thing. I remember I did the three songs on left and I was like, oh, this is like his three song rate is, you know, $250,000 or $60.

Somewhere between those two, perhaps. We could have gotten him for today. He has an interesting backstory too. It wasn't he like not an opera singer for like a really long time and then. This is not opera cast. I don't know. I don't know. Well, listen, Weigar, I'm a little, I'm cultured.

Okay. I like opera. I like good food and fine wine, but I think that he was in your favorite restaurant, Carl's Junior. Yeah, but that's fine food. I think he, I think he wasn't an opera singer for like a really long time. And then I think someone like, I don't know, something weird happened. I think someone stepped on his foot and he was like, oh, like he did.

Like I think there was a weird thing where someone saw him perform and he, and he became like a bigger deal. I don't know. He was there, Andrea Bicelli, Andrea Bicelli, email us or something, let us know. And if you want to enter the guestmitches email contest, use the hashtag spoon mail and get yourself a $25 dart and a gift card. I hope he doesn't forget to use the hashtag. Yeah.

If you don't use the hashtag Andrea Bicelli, you're ineligible. So make sure you type in that pound sign in the word spoon and mail. You know, just to touch on that really quick, I also have an email address that's very bad that I signed up for as soon as I got into college and has followed me my entire life. And I constantly having to explain why my email address is only part of my last name. It like kind of stops like a weird part. Oh, that's right. And then I have like a middle initial in there.

Yes. Yours is kind of similar to mine, but still better, I would say, in a lot of ways. I don't remember. I'm not off the top of my head remembering what your email is. I'll have to look it up. We'll check it out. I mean, if people want to guess online, they can tweet in me and if you get it right, I will tell you Mitch's email address.

Don't do that. God damn it, Joe. You can't sabotage our conscience. I will, you know, just adding another element to it. This is bullshit. Joe and I have a history. We should get this out of the way. Yeah, we should.

Well, last week we had on Matt Selman from The Simpsons where Mitch used to work. And you guys have a similar connection in that Joe, you and Mitch work together at The Simpsons. Is that correct? That is correct. Me and, yeah, we work together. The Simpsons was probably was my first like PA job when I moved to Los Angeles. I worked on the movie originally and then I worked on the show after that and that's

when we met. Yes. And I think we started within a week of each other or something like that. Yeah, we did. It was right where... See, we were trying to figure this out. Do we start before the writer's strike, like right before it started or something? No, it's after because I remember I worked on that.

I was a post-PA on that show Caveman. That was about the Geico Caveman during the writer's strike. But see, you know what? I think you started after I did at Simpsons. I think I was there just a very short period before you were there. I remember... I distinctly remember getting there and meeting you and you telling me about your UCB sketch group and me rolling my eyes.

What the fuck? Well, I was like, who is this guy? You just wrote with half those idiots on the fucking Emmys. Yeah, I know. I love them. But at the time I was like, well, I had taken UCB classes but I didn't know anything. I didn't know anyone at the theater. But then I think it was right when you did Hot Dogging for the first time, which was

your first show you guys did there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then who would have thought that I'd become your idol? That's true. I picked up the slack for Joe around the office. Did you guys have the same job or were you just working in similar sort of fields? No, actually, this is kind of bullshit. Joe worked on the movie and then I came in and I had a...

By the way, it wasn't my first fucking job in the industry. But it wasn't my first. I have another one before that, but... Yeah, well, I had a lot of them before that. I did a lot of stuff. Yeah, you were working out here a few years trying to crack and get in. Yeah, I don't think... Bitch, I don't think you're bragging about taking longer to get an entry-level job.

You should hang your hat on that. Was one of the best damn PAs that Joe's ever seen, first of all. Second of all, Joe fucking struts in, gets the easiest job on Earth. The job he had was the easiest job on Earth. Then he stays there for fucking three years. I wasn't... I don't know. Yeah.

Wait, excuse me. What did you say? Okay. Keep going. And then he didn't leave that job, so I had nowhere else to go and I was stuck in this awful... Not awful. I mean, I was happy to work there, but it was a fucking tough job, especially after a

few years. It was tough. My coworker and I did not get along. Joe knew this. Yeah. She was kind of crazy. And Joe just stayed at that little job. Wait, so I'm not understanding, not coming from this world.

What was the difference between the post-PA and basically, and you were the writer's PA, but since the Simpsons Animation, the post-production office is essentially the production office. Gotcha. So, like, all the producers are there, or all the non-writing producers, and it's just basically working on the records and picking up tapes and boring stuff like that. Yeah. It's very, very easy.

Yeah. Because I eventually did get Joe's job and I realized how little he did over time and I was slaving away at the other job. It was not good. I say good on you, Saunders. Good for having that hustle and getting that easy job. It's nice when you have a nice, easy, brainless job. It was kind of nice for...

Yeah. Yeah. I was probably there, like you too long. Yeah, we were both there for far too long, but Joe and I had a nice relationship. A lot of food, a lot of our relationship was food or getting food and Joe helping me get food or something like that. Oh, those old days, me helping you get food. I wonder how many times, how many episodes of this show people are going to listen to

when you just describe getting food for the Simpsons writers? Yeah, I should stop doing it. I also shouldn't say I slaved away. It was not that bad of a job. It was very easy to handle. All I had to do was drive and get food too, but it just gets to you. It's kind of more of a mental game than anything else. And Joe and I were good buddies over there, even though I give him a hard time a lot of

the time because he's a soft little pushover boy. Hey! A little fire in your belly. Yeah, I'm not going to sit here and take this. All right, I'd like to see. Ruff for the Emmys got himself a little backbump. Yeah, I met John Ham last night. He told me I need to stand up for myself.

You were crying. I'm so happy for you. You just stayed up for yourself. One of the seed fillers was pushing me around. I love Joe Saunders. He's a good guy. Joe, you're from Georgia. And you have a famous affinity for peaches.

I know you're a peach fan. I don't know if I have affinity. I have a lot of people telling me. When me and Nick worked on Comedy Bang Bang together, I got labeled as the peach guy. And so... I feel like... Now I think the listeners are starting to get what I'm getting at. But okay, so like...

They're turning up the radio. So coming from Georgia though. But I think that assumption became because you're a Georgia boy. You're a proud Atlantan, correct? Yeah. And so, like, is there a peach culture there? Is there a lot of peach-based food and drink? No, I don't think so.

I mean, the peach is like a big symbol. There's like a big famous... You know, on one of the highways, there's a big famous landmark peach gatching that people drive by and it's on license plates and things like that. But I don't think I've ever... I can't think of any typical Southern foods that are peach-based. Maybe like a peach pie or something like that. You have tried peaches before.

I won't... Yes, I ate a peach once. The same day friends premiered. Oh, what an exciting day for you. Well, that was pretty good. So outside of peaches, then, what in the South, like, growing up in Georgia, what were the restaurants you would go to? What were, like, kind of the chains that you would frequent?

Well, I grew up in Atlanta, which is like a big city, so obviously. So growing up, we had Chick-fil-A is obviously really big there. Then the other ones were just like... I feel like there was like the trifecta of like McDonald's and Wendy's and Burger King. Sure. There's in Waffle House, one of them, too. Yeah, in Waffle House. Waffle House was the kind of thing, though, that I didn't even kind of eat out a lot until

I was older and going out late at night and then eating there after a night of driving. What? After a night of driving around? Yeah, you know, just driving around. Are you trying to say that you were maybe out drinking and then you went to Waffle House and you're afraid to say it? No, I'm not afraid to say it. You were drinking and then you went to Waffle House.

Yeah, that would happen. I also have to say that Joe was our first guy ever when Dustin, our producer, was adjusting his microphone. He whimpered. I was just getting comfortable in the chair. So you didn't go to those till... So when? 21 is?

22 or something? Yeah, probably younger than that, though. Probably like 18 or 19. Oh, they're underage drinking, huh? Hmm. See the wild side of Sundry. Yeah. I got loose.

Oh, man. The wild side of Saunders. Good thing I drank a ton of Starbucks. Stay awake for the wild tales of Joe Saunders. So what about like Cracker Barrel and other places like that where those big? Those are big. I feel like I didn't eat at them a lot. I didn't eat at Cracker Barrel a lot.

So it sounds like you kind of growing up in a big city, kind of an urban environment. It sounds like there isn't a lot from there that you really miss being out here in LA. Am I wrong about that? Do you mean food wise? Food wise, yeah. Or just anything. I mean, I do... Like southern food, I do like a lot, like southern and comfort food.

Sweet tea or something? Sweet tea. I do like sweet tea a lot. It's very bad for you, but it's really delicious. And it's really... It's strange how it's hard to get here in Los Angeles. It's so hard to get, but there it's ubiquitous. It's every restaurant serves it, and it's almost like I think the de facto tea, if you

ask for it. Oh, okay. Don't give you sweet tea. Sweet tea is just... Interesting. Is it sugar, basically? Am I wrong? Yeah, but it's like in the brewing of it, so it's not just adding...

Oh, okay. It's not just dumping, but you can't take like an unsweetened tea and dump a bunch of sugar into it. That's not a sweet tea. That's not... Yeah, it's in the brewing. Interesting. And you went to school at UNC, correct?

Yeah, North Carolina, University of North Carolina. There had to be a lot of good food up there, right? Yeah, that was great. Did you do some of your classic driving around? Yeah, there was a lot of good places to drive there, and you could eat late, and it was... I just picture you driving alone around UNC's campus and then going to a Waffle House. I don't think there were... There's not...

Waffle House was definitely... There was a ton in Georgia. I feel like there's not that many in North Carolina. But there's plenty of good food in that area, right? Yeah, of course. Barbecue's really big up there, fried chicken, and all those things. Dang. I wish we could do a little trip episode over to that side of that part of the country.

Let's go over to Sander's country. Yeah. Yeah, one of your previous guests, Ben Axelrad, and I were recently in North Carolina. We were both going to a wedding out there, and we got to eat pretty good Southern fried chicken food. That's a nice... That destination wedding, we got more and more of an affinity to. I'm just like, oh, this is a place I wouldn't otherwise go to, and I've got an excuse to

go here, and yeah, maybe I'll sample some of the local culture and cuisine. Yeah, it was great. I have no excuse to ever go back to North Carolina because none of my family lives there, and most of my friends have moved away, but to have an excuse like that to just go and kind of go to the same old place and drive around again. Drive around late at night and try to find a waffle house. Well, when they dedicate the library at the UNC campus in your name, I'm sure you'll be there for that ribbon-cutting ceremony.

Maybe. You might blow that off. We'll see what's going on. So let's get into this week's chain. So we're talking Starbucks, and one reason... When I brought this idea to you, Saunders, about covering this on the chain, or covering this chain rather, on the podcast, what do you want? Easy there.

What do you want? What is the easy there? Weigar and I and Joe... I've flipped a couple words around. I was trying to say, we covered the chain. But now I feel like you already have let the cat out of the bag. Let's put cat out of the bag. What are you talking about?

There's no cat out of the bag. So you started calling it out. There's a little... Let's just say that the three of us are on a text chain. Let's... Okay, let's say that. Let's disclose this huge fucking A-bomb that the three of us sometimes text message each other on a fucking i-message chain.

There's a megaton announcement, everyone. I think the people will be interested. Wait till Spoon Nation hears about that. Don't mock Spoon Nation. You're in trouble. But one thing we talked about, Saunders, is that you guys used to, in your job duties at Simpsons, which we talked about a little bit, you guys would have to retrieve Starbucks orders at times.

Is that correct? Oh yeah. 100% true. Coffee was a part of it. Joe for Joe, not as much, because like I said, he didn't really do too much of anything. Sure. But Joe, you know what? Well, that wasn't one of my job responsibilities.

That was your job. You were hired and told that that was your job. That wasn't ever... They were never like, you have to go do this. I would only go do it because you would come to me and be really upset about how the other PA yelled at you and you'd want someone to go ride with you. I gotta say, this is like, I've known Joe for a while. This is like the most riled up I've ever seen him.

This is like Joe at like an 11 out of 10. I just drink a tall black tea. Well, you know what? Joe had so little to do that I'd go over and be like, hey, you're bored, come with me and go get coffees. But we would go and get on the Fox lot their version of like a Starbucks. And I think I said it on the someone episode, but I can still remember Al Jean's coffee order to this day.

Yeah, I think I do too actually. Large decaf, non-fat, sugar-free, iced vanilla latte. Still get... It's still in my brain. It's crazy. I haven't worked there for three or so years. That's become like such a part of corporate culture is the idea of like a Starbucks run, you know?

Like a lot of companies I've worked at, a lot of jobs I work at, it's like, oh, someone will go get Starbucks. Or if not an individual is tasked with retrieving Starbucks for everybody, let's go take a little walk over to the Starbucks. It's like such a big part of working any sort of office job or production job or what have you. I don't think I go there very much on my... I almost never go there on my own, but I go there for work constantly.

I'll go there for work constantly too. One, it breaks up like the monotony of a day, which is helpful, and also it wakes you up, which is good. And also, it's just a good excuse to leave the office if you want to go for a walk, if you're staring at the computer screen for four hours and not writing anything down. I get so... Yeah. I in fact get so accustomed to it that I've had some...

When I've had jobs that isn't like in walking distance of a Starbucks or a comparable coffee chain, it's disorienting to me because I'm just so used to kind of that ritual. And it is kind of amazing of like they found a way to... Starbucks in particular has found a way to monetize the coffee break, which used to be just like, oh, we'll go to the office break room and we got some coffee there and we'll have a little sip while we're sitting here for 15 minutes. Now there's a thing where people will take a trip and spend money to do this thing that used to be just a thing you do at work.

Yeah. Yeah. And I just want to get into this a little bit because people's coffee histories, because I haven't always been a coffee guy. I experimented with coffee a little bit in college and that's kind of the... A couple late nights driving around. Yes. My college experience was as lame as Joe's and I dabbled in coffee.

But maybe even like towards the end of high school, I kind of did it, but I don't love coffee. I'm a sleepy person, a big fat lazy slob. So I don't like being unnaturally... When I'm wired but I'm actually tired is one of the worst times for me. If I just have caffeine running through my body but I'm exhausted, I don't feel good, I get anxiety and I get almost shaky. So I've never really done coffee.

I do better with it now. But yeah, for the longest time, it was a little bit in college and a little bit maybe at the end of high school. And then I kind of stopped. I didn't even drink it that much out here until just recently when someone was like, you need to drink coffee. You're asleep for like 22 hours out of the day. So I kind of...

I've gotten back into it. And it's good. A cup of like a nice cup of black coffee in the morning is... I enjoy that. Yeah. I love coffee. Every morning. Two cups.

Yeah, me too, actually. I'll have two cups of first thing. Like I'll get up, I'll get up and while I'm still sleepy, I'm having a couple of cups of hot joe to wake up. It's pathetic that I can't even do the tamest drug without like being shaky and anxiety. But I will say Starbucks coffee is a little strong to me. Like not to jump in and reveal but just in a general sense, Starbucks coffee is just... Even if I get like a small black cup of coffee at Starbucks, I'll like drink that and kind

of be a little wired after I'm done. Like in the next hour, I'll be a little bit jittery. I'm sorry, Mitch. What size cup of coffee did you say? Oh, I think you mean a tall cup of coffee, bitch. God, a tall fucking, the dumbest thing on earth. Another reason why. That's such an interesting thing that Starbucks created.

They put that out there and they insisted on it and everyone was like, this is so stupid and they just kept like being like, no, this is where you've got tall Grande Inventi and now Trenta, like this is like, these are our sizes and they just like kept insisting on it and eventually everyone was like, fine. And now people don't even complain about it anymore. Just like, yeah, tall Grande Inventi, you just think of those as small, medium and large. It's like. I don't know.

I think it's fucking dumb. I think it's fucking stupid too. I think their sizes are really stupid and I think it's dumb that we had to learn this, adopt this language. I think it's dumb that it's part of their like marketing and identity. It makes them feel like all kind of fancy and highfalutin when it's really not. It's just, you know, it's the most middle of the road place in the world. And yeah, that's definitely a thing that annoys me.

Kind of their whole Starbucks-y kind of culture kind of, I feel like annoys me like this kind of like oak paneled, you know, this is a really like kind of like sleek and cool place to hang out except it's really not anymore, you know, I don't know. All that shit kind of bothers me. I got to stick up for Central Perk because I know we were comparing the two, but Central Perk has a fun laid-back vibe. You got Chandler in there, he's funny and you know, it's a fun time. Starbucks is not like that.

Do you think people in the Friends universe would think like, oh, I'm going to go to Central Perk, I'll run an old Chandler over there? Yeah, you know what? If I was in this Friends universe, I would, if I ran into Chandler, I'd say, this guy's fun. I like him. He's funny. He's funny.

He's a happy chain, this particular restaurant on the off chance that this stranger will be there cracking jokes and I can overhear them. You know what? Every time I went in there and I saw that guy there, I'd smile and say, I'm going to hear some, I'm going to overhear some funny stuff today. Maybe I'll put it in my script. Well, what if Phoebe was playing one of her acoustic guitar sets? Oh, I tell her to shut the fuck up.

Oh no. Too much smelly cat. It is though like, like, because Central Perk was, they were, they, it's kind of like an old school place. It's like a single location and then they've got like, you know, they're using real mugs. They're, everything's a little bit more upscale and a little bit more, it's less generic than it is at Starbucks where everything's disposable and all the kind of the furniture is kind of uniform within an individual store, you know.

Well, I got a couple of questions for you. Don't worry. This just brings, so what I quickly want to know from both of you is when you first started drinking coffee kind of regularly, how many cups a day you have, and do you like to sit in coffee shops and do work? Those are my big three questions when it comes to coffee. I'll go first and I'll let, I'll let Joe feel this. I don't remember when I initially started drinking coffee, but I think it was after

I was out of college. I think after I dropped out of college and I started having regular jobs that started become a morning ritual for me. I think when I was in college, I was still kind of living like a child and like drinking a glass of milk or a glass of OJ in the morning. I don't think I really got, and the caffeine I'd get would come from soda. And then as far as, because there was a time, and I may have mentioned this on podcast before, but when I worked for Activision, my first video game job, my morning routine is I would

get into work and I would have a cup of black coffee, a Mountain Dew Code Red, and a Snickers bar. And that would be like kind of, because like we started so early in the morning, I'm so not a morning person that I would just have that to just be jacked up on sugar and caffeine. And I just did that like every day for like this job for like months. It seems like a healthy breakfast. And sorry, I rambled so much that I forgot the second part of your question. What was your second question?

It was, so... Do you write? Do you write? You've answered when you first kind of started. Yes, yes. How many cups do you have a day and do you write in working coffee shops? Writing and working in coffee shops, I hate doing it because I get so self-conscious. I, even taking out a laptop, even if I'm not writing at all, I just get so self-conscious

about it that I'm like an LA stereotype. Yeah, okay, that's fair. Go ahead, Saunders. How many cups of coffee do you have now a day? Now I have two in the morning. If I'm tired, I'll have an afternoon pick me up like an espresso or something. Got it. I also have two every morning and I sometimes have it in the afternoon, but not usually.

I don't remember either when I started drinking coffee. I feel like I did do it in college, but it became a more regular thing after college. But yeah, now it's like two and if I do less than two, it feels weird. If I only have one, I feel like I haven't had enough. What's the weirdest thing, talking about people working in Starbucks, because I've definitely seen a guy with a desktop computer in a Starbucks before. Yeah, I've seen that too. What's the weirdest work environment that you've seen set up, either like a conversation

or a piece of equipment? I think I've also definitely seen someone with a printer set up, which was like, what the fuck are you doing? Yeah, I've seen people really be loud with their work and feel like they're playing stuff or something within coffee houses. I've seen people go all out. I get annoyed when people go to a coffee house or go to a restaurant. There's a place in Los Feliz, what's it called?

Village Bakery. Oh yeah. It's kind of a good, I like it. Some people don't like it. Yeah, I like that place. It's like salads and sandwiches and stuff, and then you'll go in there, and then there'll be a ton of people working on stuff, and they'll be there forever, and they won't be eating anything, and that drives me nutty, because I'm like, you got to get up and go.

You shouldn't, you're taking, people are trying to eat lunch here, and you're kind of just taking up a spot at a table. Tonight when I picked up a iced tea before I came here, and when I went into the Starbucks, I noticed this, there were three people that had either laptops or iPads, and were watching movies on them as they were sitting at the table. Oh yeah, that's too much. It was very strange. I will say I watched the entirety of the Jeff Daniels film, Starman, wait no, it was Jeff

Bridges in Starman, right? Jeff Bridges film, Jeff Bridges and Karen Allen, is that the female lead? I don't remember. I think that sounds right. Jeff Bridges, Karen Allen, John Carpenter movie from the 80s, Starman holds up well. I watched it all on my phone, like sitting in a coffee shop, and I kind of felt like an idiot. Wasn't that a Starbucks exclusive movie like the CDs?

Because it had Star in it? You know, Starbucks actually, I think people probably know this a little bit of information, but it's named after the first mate on Moby Dick, I believe, Starbuck, that's the guy. Oh yeah, that's right, yeah. Yeah, I find that interesting. Also, Battlestar Galactica character, Starbuck is one of my favorites. Oh, is that the Battlestar Galactica reference must be a Moby Dick reference? Yeah, probably.

I like how the guy that just sighed is wearing a Star Wars t-shirt right now. Yeah, Star Wars. It was like, ugh. Battlestar Galactica is nerder than Star Wars. Joe taking shots. Big swings. You're a fucking dead man. Watch Out Spoon, man.

So Joe, how many, so now you say two cups in the morning, no afternoon pick me up? Sometimes on the afternoon, but usually not. And do you work at coffee shops? I sometimes do. I'm like Nick where I feel like weird about it and it's super self-conscious because you go in, you immediately see other people that have like their laptops open and they have like final draft and it's like really eye-rolling. Yeah, and Starbuck's are always crowded.

I went tonight, I went at about 8 p.m. and there were two chairs that weren't taken and I took one of them and it was packed and it was just with people with their laptops, almost everybody, I'd say the majority of people. So crazy how many people would be like, oh this is where I want to work, like a super crowded environment where I'm not guaranteed a seat and this is where I feel like I'll be productive. Yeah. Just bring a coffee to a library or something, I feel like it's a better choice.

I don't get how you work in a coffee shop because if you have to go to the bathroom, do you like pack up all your stuff and take it into the bathroom? Do you just leave your laptop out there? Yeah, I guess you got to take it into the bathroom with you. I usually, I am paranoid about my stuff so I will take all of it with me into the bathroom and risk losing my seat but I've definitely been on the receiving end of like, hey, can you watch my stuff for a second while someone hops into the restroom? I'd probably just take it to the bathroom and work from the bathroom the rest of the

time I was there. Yeah, that sounds pretty good. Another question. Yeah. Sorry, I'm just interested. Man, just your podcast as much as mine. That's true, actually, so I will do this. And also to answer, I do now a cup of coffee in the morning and one in the afternoon and

I started late, like I said. That's interesting. I wonder, do you have any idea what President Clinton's coffee or coffee routine might be? Let's just say I like cream in it. Oh, gosh, wait, like, calm. Thank you. So, what was you saying, that William Jefferson Clinton likes drinking calm? I take coffee the way Monica takes her dresses.

Oh, god damn it. With a little bit of cream on them. Okay. What? What's wrong? You guys can't handle it? No, this is fine. Sorry, I'm embarrassed.

I also don't work from coffee shops just to make that clear. I do. Anyways. What does the President work on in coffee shops? I work, oh, god, I'm done doing that. I'm losing millions of members of Spoon Nation. How do you take your coffee is what I wanted to ask. Oh, gotcha.

How do you take your, yeah, how do you take your coffee? Right now, I'm doing no sugar and no carbs with this diet that I'm doing, so even though tonight I broke that for Starbucks, like usual. But I usually like a little cream and a little sugar or I just go straight black coffee. I'll just do a black cup of coffee. My dad used to do just one black cup of coffee in the morning that was it and I like a black cup of coffee now as I've aged. Yeah, my introduction to coffee was a very sweet version where my mom, when I was a

kid, she would give me a glass of milk with some sugar in it and a little splash of coffee. So I just get a little bit of that coffee. It was kind of like drinking a liquefied coffee ice cream to give you a flavor profile. And so I used that with a lot of other drugs and alcohol and stuff too, right? What are you saying about my mom? Did she give me drugs and alcohol? Oh, it kind of like sweetened it up, so you like it. I liked it.

This is fucked up talking about Jesus. So anyway, but yeah, no, so I used to like cream and sugar in my coffee. But then I sort of had a life philosophy moment where I decided to like like things simpler because it just makes your life easier. So I was like, I'm just going to start drinking black coffee because then I never have to worry about having cream or sugar. I never have to worry about someone getting my order wrong and just get it black and then it's fine.

And I just sort of conditioned myself and now I prefer it. I like a black cup of coffee. That's my favorite. I'm like President Clinton. I like it with a little bit of cream in it. Oh, God. Dirty joke. Specifically, I love the French vanilla coffee mate, which I think I will, if I wake up and

I don't have it, I will drive to the store and buy it before I make a coffee. I had an old girlfriend who was definitely, who was even worse than me and refused to like even drink coffee unless we had it. The French vanilla coffee? Yeah. Yeah. That like blue bottle with the red top that's at like every... And to clear up what Joe said when he said old girlfriend, he meant like a very old aged

woman that he dated. Yeah. Yeah. She was in her... You get together. She was 87. Yeah. You drive her around town.

It was sort of a driving Miss Daisy scenario. It was an awful house. After a while of driving myself around, I was like, I can make a little money this way. Oh, my God. As I'm driving an elderly lady around. Hustle this old broad. Yeah. Drink some French vanilla coffee made together.

So all right, so let's talk specifically about Starbucks a little bit. Okay. Because the French vanilla coffee made that, so that adds like a little bit of sweetness to it, right? Yeah. Okay. So, and I feel like that's a big thing of like what Starbucks did. I remember reading an article, this may have been a business week thing a few years ago

of how, yes Starbucks is like the biggest seller of coffee, but it's also the biggest seller of milk. And I think the, a lot of the Starbucks drinks are basically they're like milk delivery systems. They're ways for adults to drink milk in a way that's more socially acceptable. Like, oh, this is a, this is a grown up version of a, of a milkshake, basically. That's like a lot of their stuff are basically shakes and, and, you know, dessert drinks that are presented as like a, you know, like a frappuccino, something that sounds a little bit more adult and esteemed, so an adult can get away with it, whereas they wouldn't go

in the middle of the day to Burger King and order a vanilla shake, but they might get a vanilla frappuccino from Starbucks. Yes. I guess it's the fast food version of that because, because I, I got one of the, one of those types of drinks tonight, but I like getting a milkshake or a malt or like in the summertime, a frappe, you know, in Boston, Brigham's Fraps, some of the best there ever were. And, and so I don't, I don't love a coffee frappe.

I don't, I feel like it's kind of like, it's kind of cheating a little bit. It's like, here's like a, like a thing that doesn't taste as good as like a, as a, as a regular, like milkshake or frappe would. Right. And I agree with you, but I think from a marketing standpoint, like kind of the genius of Starbucks is they've kind of been like, Hey, there are a lot of people who wouldn't, who don't feel that way, who feel like, Oh, I feel some guilt over getting like just something that's like a kid's drink where I'll feel like a little self conscious getting it.

But if this is like dressed up in the framing of being like a fancy coffee drink, then I'm okay to, to, I feel like a grownup consuming this. Yes. I agree with that. I have a very distinct memory of when I first moved to Los Angeles right out of college when I was 22 and I was working, I had this office job right away, a shirt and tie every day. And I remember going, there was one time where I was like, I'm going to go to Starbucks

before work because that's what a professional person does is they get a coffee and they walk in with a coffee and a nice office. And I went to Starbucks and I was an idiot and I was like, hmm, this Frappuccino's look good. And I got a venti green tea Frappuccino with, I was like, with whipped cream on top of it. And basically a giant milkshake in the morning. And then like walked into the office, which was like this talent agency that I worked at for a little bit.

So there's all these like kind of Hollywood people and I'm come walking in thinking that I'm looking very professional with my morning milks, morning green milkshake. Yeah, that's pathetic, Joe. Are you going to take that shit, Joe? Stand up for yourself. No, I told the story. It was very sad and it was embarrassing and everyone, yeah, everyone just stared. Yeah, I feel like, yeah, milk, milk is such a funny thing to drink as an adult.

And I love chocolate milk still. I used to call Bubba Juice chop chip with milk. What? What? I used to call chocolate milk, Bubba Juice, chop chip with milk. Why would you call it that? That's kind of a Clinton thing. Someone say Bubba Juice.

Oh, no. Yeah, I used to call Bubba Juice, chop chip with milk. All right, just keep saying it and don't explain it, Mitch. I was a little boy, Bubba Juice, chop chip was chocolate. OK. Bubba Juice is my bottle, so Bubba Juice, chop chip with milk. I got you. You know what, maybe I shouldn't have even brought up Bubba Juice, chop chip with milk.

No, you guys seem to don't even see. I think I'm going to start calling it that. Yeah, Bubba Juice, chop chip with milk. Yeah, I mean, like, see adults can't really drink Bubba Juice, chop chip with milk. But like, you know, like this, you trick people into drinking these little mochi, mocha drinks and stuff. And I guess you're right. There is a...

Wait, you were being bottle fed chocolate milk? Calling my mom's parents into question. Yeah, you guys both had a couple of weird moms eating you chocolate. Hey, wait a minute, Joe, what are you talking about? You guys are a couple of weirdoes. You can't give them any confidence. Well, let me say this about Starbucks. I'm a Dunkin' Donuts loyalist, OK?

I'm from the city where Dunkin' Donuts was invented. The first Dunkin' Donuts was in Quincy, Massachusetts. And I got a little bit of a beef with people saying that they're like, oh, Dunkins, they'll try Dunkin' Donuts. They're like, it isn't that big of a deal, just because, you know, like, they've never had it or whatever. And then I'm like, well, Starbucks isn't that big of a deal. Like, that's a good point.

I don't know what the big deal is about Starbucks. Besides, like I said, their coffee getting me jittery and I can't really... I get too jittery, I get anxiety just from a small cup of coffee there. And on top of that, it tastes burnt. I always feel like Starbucks coffee tastes kind of burnt. No one else agrees with that. I think that... I mean, I think that I've heard this, that people experience this sensation

and apparently it has to do with their dark roasting process. That kind of like they have this... I don't know anything about coffee roasting, but apparently dark roasting sometimes makes people have this sort of burnt sensation. Because it is just such a strong cup of joe. And yeah, I can get that criticism if you're getting it black and it just doesn't quite fit your flavor, the flavors you're looking for. I will say Starbucks has expanded the kind of coffees they have now.

If you just want a cup of coffee, you can also get like a medium roast or a blonde roast. Sometimes it's a little bit lighter and that might be more what your taste is. But I think your point about Dunkin... Yes, if people are mentally comparing Dunkin Donuts to Starbucks, then they have to see the other side of that. And they have to be like, well, this is no big deal. Well, yes, you're right. Starbucks is kind of on the same. It's just a very middle-of-the-road sort of coffee option.

Yeah. Listen, like we were talking about, they're always crowded. I'll never want to sit in there. And I just don't get why people are so crazy about the place. It just confuses me why people love it so, so much. And I'll save my Dunkin Donuts stuff or the Dunkin Donuts episode, but my feelings on that change. Wow. You have an issue here?

No, no, no. You like Starbucks more? No, I like Dunkin Donuts a lot. They have those in Georgia. I also want to go into how... If you order at Dunkin Donuts a regular coffee, at least in Massachusetts area, it'll be with cream and sugar. But if you say like a coffee with milk, they'll just put milk in it. If they won't put sugar, they'll ask if you want sugar.

At work, I'll get like a iced... Or what's it called? The cold brew coffee? Like iced cold brew coffee? Yeah. And I'll get it with whole milk. And a bunch of times, they'll sweeten it. And I don't like how they'll sweeten it. It's like a weird thing that Starbucks does now.

They'll just sweeten it without asking you. You have to specify unsweetened on the ice drinks. Yes, which is kind of weird and crazy to me. And also, I don't think it's just sugar. It's like the actual sweetener, right? Like it's like a liquid sweetener. I think it's like a simple syrup. Yeah.

I agree that it is weird that the default there is sweetness. That they're adding sweetness to both the iced tea and the iced coffee. And you have to specify unsweetened. Because I do like an iced drink, an iced tea and iced coffee, but I just want that kind of like neutral coffee or tea flavor. And yeah, if they mess that up at Starbucks, for me, it's just ruined. It's just untrinkable. Yeah.

I guess that just comes down to, again, just it's such like a... So many people are going there for sweetness and for sugar. And you know, for caffeine as well. But like an adult way to get sweetness is a big part of what they're able to deliver. Let's talk a little bit about what we got specifically on our recent visit. Fair enough. So we all went to Starbucks in the past week. I actually went on Sunday and I went today not for the podcast,

but just because like, oh, I can use a little espresso. I got myself a little double espresso, which is a pretty common order for Nick over at the Starbucks. I don't know why I went into third person there. So I went on Sunday and I got a... I went early in the morning and I got myself a tall pumpkin spice latte with whip. It's pumpkin spice latte season. They have a very aggressive marketing campaign about that.

I also got a tall vanilla bean cream frappuccino, no whip. A tall, very, very hibiscus refresher. I think it's called a refresher. It might be called a refreshio or some bullshit. I actually ordered an orange cream soda physio, but their physio soda machine was broken. So Santa Monica location, I had to get a second choice there in terms of my sort of a sweet soda-like drink.

And then I got a venti pike place, which is the only thing I actually wanted to drink, just a regular black coffee, bacon egg and gouda ciabatta, and a salted caramel square for a little bit of a dessert. Let me just say... And you haven't slept since then. Have you guys had the pumpkin spice latte? Because this was my first Starbucks pumpkin spice latte experience.

I got a very similar order to you, Nick. I got the pumpkin spice latte and that's the same sandwich. You got the same one, the bacon gouda ciabatta. I also got a pumpkin spice latte, which I think there should be some sort of award for this, a hand-holding friends club for the order. Well, we all got the same order. Yeah, we got the same order.

That's interesting. As long as it's not... I think if we go on independent trips, because I think if you go on the same trip, you could coordinate it and sort of force the... And then you're just eluding the value of the award if you can anticipate it and make it happen. Oh, man.

It was fun until all this explaining. Like anything. Well, great. We got a new club. So the pumpkin spice... It's a big deal, right? I don't know. It's a big deal. There's so much... There's so many ads for it.

They call it the PSL. That's the abbreviation that they have. If you go on the website, too, it's right there. That's stupid. Yeah, that's... You know, I've heard about pumpkin spice for so long, and I've seen like a thousand jokes and sketches about pumpkin spice.

Yeah. And this was my first time trying it. And... Yeah, it was a... You know, I got it hot, and it was a... It was all right, but why do people love those? I don't understand why people love them. It just, you know, like...

You get more of the smell, I feel like. You smell that it's pumpkin spice. It does taste like it a little bit, but it was more of just like the smell. And then actually, you know what? As it went on, it kind of did grow on me. Like, I was like... Ugh, this sucks.

And then I was drinking. I was like, this isn't too bad. I kind of like this. And then I was like still kind of drinking it much longer than I thought I was going to. I definitely got it. Even at smaller size, the tall, it felt like too much. I was like, this is so much sweetness I'm getting

with every sip. And, you know, it was a lot drinking it... Drinking that hot cup of just, like, sugar, basically, with the whipped cream on top. But yeah, I got it. I was like, oh, I understand why people like these. Yeah. But I don't quite understand, like, the level of obsession.

I guess it's just kind of like they've kind of cribbed the marketing of the McRib of making it a time limit. Making it a time limited menu item. So people think it's like, oh, shit, we got to get this while this is still here. And they build some anticipation for it all year. I don't know. What'd you think, Joe?

Yeah. I mean, I thought it was really... It was the kind of thing where I was like, oh, I don't know if I've ever... I guess I've had one of these before, but I couldn't remember what they were like. And I tried and it was really good. But I got a grande size and I finished it.

Just like I sat down and finished it there in the Starbucks. But it didn't like... It definitely didn't feel like coffee to me. It didn't feel like... It didn't check that box in my brain that I'd be like, oh, that's my morning cup of coffee. If I had that, I would feel like I had had like a weird breakfast or something.

Agree. I mean, it's way too sugary and candy. Like even though I love Dunkin' Donuts, candy-like coffee. Right. This is just... It's a different thing where it's like, oh, I'm eating... Like it's like a pumpkin pie sort of thing

has been mashed into my milk drink. It's so far removed from like the idea of a cup of coffee at this point. They've just added so much shit that it just kind of overwhelms it. I would also say too, like, for whatever reason, there's some kind of pumpkin as having its day in the sun, you know, that's been a thing in the past few years.

I think probably derivative of the pumpkin spice latte, now there's like a pumpkin IPAs and, you know, pumpkin cookies and they're like... I'm just like, back off. A pumpkin pie is all we need. I'll take some pumpkin pie around Thanksgiving. The rest of that, I don't need it. It's just too much.

Do you know who's loving it? Who? Billy Corgan. Billy Corgan, the front man for smashing pumpkins. I was so convinced that President Clinton was about to come back. I was like, yeah. Oh, god damn it.

Yeah, Billy Corgan must be loving it. You think he's psyched because his band... Yeah, it gets the name out there. I would think that he doesn't like pumpkins. Yeah, and wants to smash them. You guys make a good counterpoint. You know what I thought it tasted like a little bit? Sometimes it tasted like when you were smoking weed

and inhale the ash through the pipe. I can't relate to this at all what this is. Oh my god. Oh god, both of you just stared at me blankly. No, I don't know what you're talking about. You smoked weed at one point in your life. I've smoked weed, yeah. I don't smoke weed anymore,

but I don't remember the sensation. I certainly remember that flavor. It had like a weird burnt, weird taste that was kind of like inhaling ash through a marijuana pipe. Oh boy. Oh god. I thought someone would relate to this.

Yeah, I mean, well, you are asking the two coolest dudes in Hollywood, me and Joe Sanders. Joe turned pale when I mentioned weed. Joe and I who have conversations about J-Crew coupons. Hey, I knew what you were talking about. Oh, wait. I got it. I thought you didn't inhale.

I didn't, but sometimes I did have the same experience where the ash would go in your throat. Oh, I can see that. It didn't work. I said I didn't inhale. I never said I didn't ingest. Okay. You ate it.

Oh, I ate lots of weed. Oh, anyway. This is my turn to a character podcast. Yeah, yeah. More of this. Can I give a fun Bill Clinton detail that I learned recently? I would love to hear it.

I recently read a book about the Lewinsky whole thing that happens. And a thing that I learned, you know, talking about the dress, the DNA tested that dress. That was kind of still in the early days of DNA testing. And the person who told, it wasn't like one of the Justice Department lawyers,

but it was someone involved in one of the lawsuits. The person that told them they're like, oh, you can DNA test it and trace it back to the president was Mark Furman. Whoa. That son of a bitch. Yeah, it's crazy. Yeah, because he,

I think it was around the same time as the OJ trial. So he became kind of more familiar with DNA testing as a thing and then became someone that people would talk to about it for a little bit. Man, that's, he ruined Clinton's life for a little while there. That's true. We haven't heard from Bill Clinton since.

Furman's due for a comeback, right? I don't know. When's Furman gonna show up on celebrity games? He should be around. Oh, he'd be the most fun guest, I'm sure. Yeah, let's see Mark Furman, guest judge, a top chef episode. You can get on that midnight.

Oh, yeah, you should, yeah. But I wanted to say, I also, I ordered my pumpkin spice latte small. I said small, he didn't correct me. Yeah, I don't think they'll correct you. I think if you say small, medium, and large, I think they won't make a stink out of it, which I guess is a small check bar in their favor.

My server, Victor, great guy, he was really great and yeah, he didn't correct me. He could tell that I wasn't a regular at Starbucks. Yeah, I do really like the service at Starbucks. I think the breezes are generally very friendly and they generally do a good job. People make a big deal about misspelling your names on the cops or whatever, that's fine, whatever.

Names are spelled weird ways, it's hard to know. Who cares? Do you even look at your cup? I don't look at my cup and be like, my name, your names get spelled wrong sometimes, who cares? I think they manage their lines pretty well, even when they're busy, it's a little chaotic, but I think the service at Starbucks is generally pretty good. Is that a commonly known rumor that they misspell your name on purpose?

Oh, is it, is it a thing people say? Because people will Instagram photos of their coffee and they'll be like, look, I have this weird name and then so there's these photos of Starbucks cups like all over Twitter and Instagram all the time. Joe, that is genius, I hope that's true. Yeah, I'm gonna choose to believe that one. It's interesting, today when I went and they asked me my name,

I said, Joe and she goes, Jerry? And I was like, no, Joe, J-O-E and she was like, okay. She's disappointed. You were Seinfeld. Did everyone got their spice latte, pumping spice latte hot? Yeah, I got mine hot. I got whipped cream as well. I got whipped cream as well.

So the cool drink I got that I mentioned, the Tall Vanilla Bean Cream Frappuccino No Whip. So this is a Frappuccino, so this is purportedly a coffee-based drink. Let me tell you, this was just a vanilla milkshake. It was just like, and I love a vanilla milkshake and I was like, this is a pretty good vanilla milkshake but drinking this at like 7.45 in the morning. This is, I guess there are people who do this as their morning routine

but maybe this is more of like an afternoon or evening indulgence that people will have, like a little bit of dessert after lunch. But I was just like, really, it's just crazy how it just is like, oh, if you gave me this in a Wendy's Cup and said this was a frosty, I'd just be like, oh yeah, this is a milkshake, you know? But it's not as good, still. Not as good, I'd rather have a milkshake. And this is more expensive.

Like, you know, this is like 4.95 versus 2.50 or whatever. Yeah, and then that tall, very, very hibiscus drink. So, I don't know, I mean, it was fine. It had some fresh blackberries in it, I think. What is that? Is that like a juice or a tea? It was like the refresher, which is like a, it's sort of a, I read on the website that apparently has like some hints of coffee or caffeine in it but it's basically like kind of like a flavored water.

It's just sort of like a, yeah, it doesn't quite have the viscosity of juice. It's kind of got a water sort of texture to it and then kind of like a cloudy, juice-colored consistency to it. And then it had some fresh fruit in there with the ice. Oh, interesting. That sounds nice. It was definitely, it was refreshing. It delivered on the refreshing aspect. It wasn't something I would normally get.

It wasn't overpoweringly sweet, which was nice. It was just sort of like something with like a little bit of, you know, it's kind of like if you go to, sometimes there's a restaurant and they've got a, their water bin has, that you fill a little cup with, has like some cucumbers or some lime sporting in or something. It kind of was that. It was kind of something with it that had a little bit of fruit character to it but wasn't, you know, just like a pure juice.

Okay. Yeah, I thought that was pretty good. What about the rest of you guys, what you guys got? I got that same sandwich, the Gouda and Bacon breakfast sandwich. I saw that one. What'd you think? I thought it was good, but it did, it kind of felt, it felt very fast food-y.

Yeah. It felt like a very like McDonald's, like an oddly kind of McDonald's item in the middle of Starbucks. Again, it's like kind of where they're, that's I think where you see through the facade a little bit of like, oh, this is just a, this is just a McMuffin basically but they've got this flowery language. It's a bacon, egg and Gouda ciabatta, you know,

as opposed to a bacon, egg and cheese biscuit. And yeah, like the little bit of specificity seems to add a little bit of class to it but at the end of the day, that product is not too distinguishable from something you get from Dunkin Donuts. I will say to me, I feel like it was like maybe like a notch or two classier than something I might get from McDonald's, but I'd also say that I'd rather get the McMuffin from McDonald's. I'd rather get that McDonald's breakfast sandwich if I was going to have that.

I'd agree with that 100%. I would rather get McDonald's coffee and breakfast over Starbucks any day of the week. I would too, yeah. But I guess I don't want to eat McDonald's breakfast every day because I'd be sick. I just don't get why the sandwiches and wraps and stuff, you pick them out from the little shelf and then you give them to the guy and then he keeps it up. You know, I like that Dunkin Donuts, they slice your bagel

and they take eggs that are already pre-prepared and they put it in there in microwave. It just feels more like they're making something to me. It feels a little bit more like, it even just gives you the impression that it's fresher or something. The Starbucks method reminds me of 7-Eleven where it's this wrapped stuff. I'm like, I don't know how old that is. I know that it doesn't matter because I know there's probably no real difference

between Dunkin Donuts and that besides the taste, which I prefer Dunkin Donuts. But I feel like it's a mind game. This is like me getting one of those sandwiches at 7-Eleven and putting it in their microwave. It feels cheap for whatever reason. For a place that's supposed to be kind of, I think of Starbucks as kind of hoity-toity compared to Dunkin Donuts. Why don't they do that? Why don't they just pretend that they're all behind the counter

and they may come back there? You know, this is a tangent, but I agree with you. Why do people give a pass to the pizzeria that has a made pizza under glass where they take that pizza slice out and put it in the oven and serve it to you? Like, why is that like a thing where like, oh yeah, but that's like a New York style pizza. They got the pizza that they made four hours ago and then they're going to stick it in an oven and then you're going to eat it? Because that was made that day, I think.

I guess, but I don't know. I mean, to me it's like the same sort of thing where like, I get that and I like that when I go to a pizzeria that has pizza by the slice. Like, I'm fine with that, but also... Are you going to get it heated up a little bit? Yeah, get it heated up a little bit, but also too, it's just like, it's basically the same principle. The idea of something that's been sitting out that's pre-made

that they're just going to warm up for you. How good is it when you're at a pizzeria place? This is one of the little pleasures in life in this crazy world. When you're at a pizzeria place and the last slice is taken and then out comes a fresh hot pie. That is pretty sweet. You slice it up and you get a big nice slice of the hot fresh pie. You can't beat it.

That's really good. It's crazy. Yeah, that moment when you get that fresh out of the oven slice from a new pie, that is pretty sweet. I mean, that's a rare, rare treat. You're having a good day if that happens to you. Yeah. So, Mitch, did you have any food there?

I did. So, I went at 8 p.m. so I got dinner, which is a rare choice, I know. Insane. Really, really weird, but you know what? We do different things on this podcast. We got to try out different things. We got to do a couple things differently. There was an egg sandwich that was like double smoked bacon, egg and cheddar

or something on like a croissant or biscuit or something. It was fucking delicious. And I went with a chicken Santa Fe panini. My boy, Victor, he recommended the chicken Santa Fe. It comes with sour cream, green chili spread, bell peppers and pepper jack. Cheese on ancient grain flat bread, which I don't think you should call any bread ancient. That's bizarre.

Yeah. The panini was bad. It tastes like shit. It was a bad. Oh, the whole sandwich. So, this was not a thing that was in the front, in that front little... It was in the front, yes. And so, then you give it to them and they heat it up?

I give it to them. They heat it up. There were parts of the sandwich that tasted okay. Like, we'll get a cheesy section and it would be okay. But the meat wasn't great and it kind of tasted like... I've mentioned this on the show before but it kind of tasted like gay meat chicken and I just... I didn't love it.

It wasn't my favorite. It wasn't good. It just wasn't good. And also, Victor, who had a lot of good recommendations and was very nice, he said that was one of the better paninis and it must not be saying much for the other paninis because it was not that good. But then Victor recommended to me... I also got...

How do you know Victor just didn't give you a bad recommendation? Like, you're... Excuse me, Joe? I'm getting a question, Joe. Victor is a much better friend to me than you'll ever be. Victor was a great, great server. He recommended the chocolate croissant and I was trying to decide between that and the cheese danish.

He said, you know, I sell more cheese danishes on a daily basis but the chocolate croissant is really good. It has some really good chocolate. I got it. He heated it up a little bit. It was really good. It was maybe the highlight of my entire Starbucks experience. Yeah, I've had some good croissants from Starbucks.

I would say from a... If you end up in a situation where you're trying to put together a meal at a Starbucks for me, I'd go with a pastry. I think I'd go with a croissant or I've had some success with the bagels. They're not the best bagels but they're fine. And I think you get a bagel with some cream cheese. You can do all right. I've had Starbucks bagels and they're not that good.

But I should have gone with a breakfast sandwich. I messed up. He recommended the chicken sandwich as far as paninis went. So, you know, what could I do? Mitch, I applaud you because you kind of went through and you did this exercise. You live like a divorced man for a little bit. Eating Starbucks for dinner at 8 p.m. Like I said, it's not a place I want to sit.

I don't want to sit in Starbucks. It's not a place I want to be. And yeah, I sat there. There was another kind of sad looking guy like me and we nodded at each other. Yeah, so the chocolate croissant was good. It being heated was a nice little touch. But I got to say a lot of calories for such small stuff. After I was done eating it, I was still hungry and I still am now.

Especially with those drinks is really crazy. And Dunkin Donuts I know is bad too. But Starbucks is just fucking nutty. I haven't compared the calories but I was just looking at them today and I was like, that's so many calories for such a small thing. Because I got the... This is 8 p.m. and I got a venti, what's it called? Pumpkin spice latte.

And then I got a medium salted caramel mocha frappuccino. And both of them were crazy sugary. I'm going to be up all night tonight, I feel like. But they both just tasted so bad for you. But they were weirdly... Like I said, my initial thoughts with both of them, they were not good. And then they were weirdly addicting. And then I came around on the medium salted caramel mocha frappuccino

because like you said, it was like getting a milkshake or something. When I got to the caramel or caramel and the salt, it was a nice little goo on the bottom that was really tasty. Yeah, I mean it's a... I don't know, he had an odd pause there. There's something about you saying an odd little goo at the end. I know what he's saying. Oh no.

It just really tasted like candy. Almost like burnt caramel. I don't know how the fuck to say that. I actually don't know either, how do you say it, Joe? I say caramel. I think I say caramel, Joe. That's what I want to say. But it was such a strange taste but with all the sugar and calories,

it still came around and I still got addicted to it. I understand why people get addicted to these things. I couldn't drink these on a daily basis. I don't even want one again for a long time. Yeah. But it wasn't... I didn't hate it. It tasted like caramel and salt kind of at one point.

It wasn't a coffee, like you guys were saying. It was so far removed from what coffee is. It was a whole other world. Drinking one of the pumpkin spice latte I had today, I feel like threw off my eating all day long. Sure. I didn't eat lunch till... I think I had that at 10 or 10.30 and then I didn't eat lunch till 2.

And then my dinner was still like... I still wasn't weirdly not hungry at dinner. And I was like, I don't like this. There's such sugary drinks. And both of those are really kind of like... It does kind of make me feel like, adult world is kind of like a little baby world when you look at it. These are such little kind of baby drinks.

I think there is a lot of... Again, it's a facade. It's like you're playing make-believe. You're playing grown-up. You're the kid trying on your dad's sport coat. And I feel like that's kind of what the genius of Starbucks is, I guess, is that again, this is a socially acceptable way for people to consume dessert at 2 p.m. on a weekday when you would never have a banana split.

Yes. I also just want to say that that burnt taste kind of still came through in both of those drinks. That weird Starbucks burnt taste deal kind of came through. I wonder if you have a sensitivity to it because you just don't drink much coffee or haven't drunk much over the years. Yeah, that could be true too. I feel like I'm kind of a numb to the potency of caffeine a little bit.

Go ahead, Joe. Yeah, this also could just be Victor was serving you bad drinks. You better back the fuck off of Victor. He's a much better man than you'll ever, ever wish to be. How much time did you spend with Victor at 8 o'clock? Just you and that other guy alone. I had more memorable moments in those minutes I was talking with Victor than you and I have ever had together.

This whole episode has been like me waiting for Joe to have his moment, like Spider and Goodfellas when he finally stands up to Joe Pesci. Oh, yeah. And you want to go fuck yourself. And then I murder Joe? Yeah, it doesn't involve Spider. That's what I mean. That's what I was expecting to happen though.

Yeah, you go get Victor and you're like, Victor, you have to help me get to this point. By the way, what's the good sandwich you have here? Let's get to our final thoughts on Starbucks. So Joe, here's what we'll do. We'll go around. We'll each sort of say our piece, give our assessment based on the lifetime of consuming this chain restaurant's food and drink, and then give a rating on the order of one to five forks. So Joe, we'll start with you.

Well, I agree that Starbucks, the quality of the drinks and the quality of the food is not really that high in my opinion. I like it as a place to go when you're working and you just need to walk somewhere and get out of the office. Another interesting thing, or I don't know if this is interesting, but when I took a trip to England last year by myself, and there were Starbucks all over the place when I was in London. And it was like kind of fun to see, well, I definitely went in them a lot because they always had Wi-Fi. And it was also like kind of like a weird, I was by myself, so it was like a little slice of home. And like these places they have all over the world that are similar, which I guess is kind of a thing they say about McDonald's too. So separate from the food, the food and the drinks are okay.

But then I do kind of like, I think they keep it reasonably clean and I like that they're kind of, you always know what you're going to get. There's never going to be like a dirty Starbucks, I feel like, at least I haven't seen one. Should I say my rating right now? Yeah, go for it. All right. I would give it three forks. Okay. Three forks for just on yours.

Go ahead, Mitch. Joe, I like to hear that you did the college equivalent of driving around by yourself you did in England too. Yeah, I don't love Starbucks. I think it's a little overrated. The coffee gets me to jittery. Some of the drinks are addicting and can taste good. The food is not nothing. I feel like Starbucks has kind of been like in a weird in between place and it's so weird for like we said like kind of like this.

Like you were saying it kind of is snooty like this, the wood panels and kind of it feels like it's like, ooh, this is a classy coffee place. And I'm like, well, if you're going to do that, like, don't go in between on the food. You know what I mean? Like either go in or go out. Either make it all about coffee and drinks and no food or make your food better because I don't think the food is good. And I don't even think the bagels are good. Yeah. And I would rather have McDonald's breakfast sandwiches over all those.

I don't like to sit in there. It's not a place I want to stay. The service is good. I like my server, Victor, like I said, is great and a better man than Joe. And it's just, it's too snooty and overrated. They sell CDs? I mean, come on. What's going on?

I'm a Dunkin' Donuts man, all right? It's in my blood. I'm a Quincy guy. Oh boy. Dunkin' Donuts forever. And I just, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't love that place. I don't love Starbucks. So I'm going to give it two and a half forks.

The mermaid is kind of cool. The little mermaid mascot. It is. I do like the logo. You know what? Originally, I was reading today that originally it was topless. Like there you could see like her titties and then they. You said everything so elegantly until then you could see her titties.

Yeah. I'll throw out one, one bit of just very, very raunchy slang every episode. Look for it. It's a little Easter egg. At some point I'll say just a hoo-ha or something. Cranking off my big old dick. Oh my God. Oh, I apologize to Spoon Nation.

That thing's not too big. Yeah. All right. Somebody have me understand this. So, yeah, I mean, so yeah, the logo I like, I do kind of like the aesthetic of it even though I feel like it is a little snooty, a little highfalutin. But I kind of, I do like that it's kind of got this cleanliness that Joe touched on. I think that's nice.

That is. The attribute that I give, and here's where I really give points for Starbucks, even though I would say living in a city like Los Angeles, there are many places I could get a better cup of coffee and there are also many, many places I would rather eat. It's desperation time if I'm eating some food from a Starbucks. That's like, oh fuck, that's like in an airport or like I'm late for work and I can only make one stop. It's desperation time if I'm getting any sort of food stuff and whatever I'm getting

is a compromise. It's not something I'm excited about. I touched on it briefly when I was talking earlier, but this salted caramel bar that I got there was just, salted caramel square was just so sweet and so just not satisfying at all. It was just like getting sugar but not the satisfaction of eating like a donut or something. It was very, very disappointing. So food quality I'd say of Starbucks is poor, presented in this wrapper of elegance.

The drink quality I'd say is fine to good. I don't mind their coffee. I know some people have some problems with it. I don't mind. But here's where I give Starbucks credit is that they've kind of established this culture of like social non-alcoholic drink consumption, which I think is a good thing. I think it's good that you have a place where adults can gather of like, oh, let's go get a cup of coffee.

And that wasn't always a thing. Like we think of it, it's so ingrained in our heads, but like that was a thing you used to have to go to a restaurant or a diner for. It wasn't a thing where there's like a dedicated coffee house where this thing would happen and these are in every town. This is this sort of meeting place. This is the equivalent of an old school pub. This is where the communities can get together.

This is a place where you can use the bathroom. I don't remember where I used to go to use the bathroom in public before Starbucks were everywhere, but there was a time when like you'd have to like go into like a Walgreens or something and ask to use the restroom in the back. And I think that it counts for a lot that all these services are available. I'd say Starbucks on balance is a public good for communities. Wow. Yeah, this is kind of crazy.

You got to learn to use the bathroom at home, my man. No way. I don't shit where I sleep. That's Weiger's rule. You remove the toilet? Yeah, you don't have to do it in your bathroom. Yeah, he put the toilet in his bedroom or Natalie. I would say that I think that Starbucks is a public service and thinking of it from

that standpoint, thinking of it, I feel like it makes kind of the world better in general that these are everywhere. I'm giving it four forks for that reason. Wow. Weiger's off his fucking rocker. I agree with all of those. I agree with all of those. I think it is.

Yeah, good. And it's like, like I was saying, like you can go anywhere and it's the same and you know what you're going to get when you go in and you'll be able to use the bathroom. Wi-Fi is a big deal. Like you can go in there and log in without doing anything. Yeah, also you have a cell phone that can do the same thing anywhere. You don't need Wi-Fi unless you have your laptop. There are areas you don't have reception, there are times you have to get some work done.

I think it's a fair point that sometimes you still need Wi-Fi. I like diners. When you're talking about diners, like what a world that is. We are going to go into a diner and get a cup of coffee and not this giant corporation that makes millions of money. I don't know. Maybe Starbucks is one of the good ones that gives like a lot of money to charities. I actually don't know what their business is actually, but you're right.

It's definitely cooler. It's definitely like still if you'll see a movie scene where two people are having a cup of coffee, they're going to do it, set it in like a diner or something. It's a little bit of a cooler environment versus this corporate. I like what you were saying that there's a place that it doesn't have to be a bar where people who may not drink can meet up and kind of chat and talk. I guess that is the one plus side. But also I think that they should bring back that, to quote you, that tiddied mermaid.

They seem a little less snooty, I feel like. It could only help their image. For me. Blue collar everyman. Yeah. They should have a thing at like around like 9 p.m. at night. They like pull down the mermaids like top a little bit and you see the tiddies. That's kind of like after hours.

After hour Starbucks, you know what, one of my problems tonight was that I went to a lot of different ones closed at different times and I ran into one that was closing and I didn't even think it was supposed to close at that time. And the other one I went to's bathroom was out of order, the men's bathroom. So I just want to give those counterpoints to you guys. Did Victor help you with your bathroom problem at all? What the fuck? You're going to go after Victor too?

That's it for our review of Starbucks. It's time for a segment we do regularly on the show. We're going to taste test the food stuff and decide if it's something you should put in your mouth. It's snack or whack. And for this week's snack or whack. Now Mitch, you weren't aware of this. This is something I arranged with our wonderful guest.

Oh my God. You know what? I knew what was in his bag. I knew what was in his bag. But go ahead. There's something interesting. So Joe, I've worked with before, is something I'd say quite the office baker. I am a little bit of an office baker.

You're an amateur baker. You'll bring in some sweet treats to work. You'll share it with your fellow employees. Everyone has a great time. It's a nice thing that you do. And so I asked for Joe to prepare some fresh baked good of his choice, bring it into the studio and we're going to taste test it for a snack or whack and get our assessments. Mitch, I want to put any sort of personal animosity aside and just sort of go purely

on your taste buds here. You actually have never had. Mike has never had. Wow. You're in for a treat. Well, this has come from the time on Doe Boys where I made fun of you for making these treats for the entire comedy thing. Well, yeah.

It has been referenced on Doe Boys before and that was really upsetting the way that went down. Oh my God, relax, Joe. You're going to faint. Is this the same treat that you brought into the office? Well, this is... So I got into baking because I was trying to learn how to do more cooking stuff, but I live alone in a small apartment and I eat out a lot.

So I was trying to think of something simple I could bake in an hour and I ended up making these quick breads. Oh boy, okay. And so I made the most boring quick bread, but it's the most successful one I make. Okay. So I made a banana quick bread. Oh, exciting. A banana quick bread.

Banana bread. Oh, okay, so banana bread. Yeah. Okay, so this is the thing you brought into the office. What makes a quick bread a quick bread? I think it's that it's basically like a cake, it's like a dessert and it takes about an hour to cook. Gotcha.

And you take it out, you flip off that pan and it comes out and it's ready to go. So this was freshly baked today then? Yeah. Banana bread, you have to let it sit overnight. But I was hanging with lots of Hollywood celebrities last night and I couldn't. Did you tell John Hamm about your quick bread? Yeah, he thought it was really cool. Mr. Hamm, nice win.

I'm going to make a quick bread tomorrow. Yeah, he was like, tell me more and I was like, you should go, you should go accept your warm. All right, let's get this bread out. Okay. My mouth is watering. Mine is as dry as the desert. Joe brought his own Trader Joe's bag.

Oh, Trader Joe's, that's funny if you shop there. Yeah, this was a joke. How to show you how to do this. All right, yeah, let's go ahead and we can go, you know what you can do? Can you just go ahead and sort of bring it to the center here? Do you need a surface? Do you need a surface? We can grab you one of those music stands.

All right, Joe is awkwardly getting a music stand. You got that all right. And he can barely lift it. Mitch, why don't you fill this silence with a little bit of your trademark? Bill Clinton character work. Here it comes. And it's a big loaf. A big loaf?

Yeah. You know what that reminds me of? What? What? What, Mr. President? Uh, this Monica, Monica, it reminds you of Monica, a big loaf of bread reminds me of Monica. Yeah.

Okay. There you go. All right. So Joe is a, Joe has a knife. Yeah, he's cutting us a slice here. I'll go ahead and hold this for stability. We don't have the, this isn't, this is supposed to stay, you're supposed to put this in the fridge overnight.

Okay. So Joe, you're off mic right now. So we're not picking it up. We're going to, we're going to excuse this from Joe about how you're supposed to keep this bread in the fridge overnight. Okay. Well, I'm sure we'll still get, well, we'll have that, we have that caveat in mind. Okay.

So Joe is handing us some paper towels. Joe is handing us each. He gets the end piece. Looks like I'll, I'll take that end piece. Send this, send this one. Are you, are you not supposed to want the end piece? No, I kind of like the middle piece a little bit more. All right.

I'm taking the end piece here. I'm about to take a bite. Favorite slice. Um, I'm going to take a little picture of this. This is a, uh, this is a lovely, now are there some sort of, uh, walnuts in this or is this just purely banana bread? No, there's no nuts in it. There's no nuts.

Okay. So this is a, if you have some sort of nut allergy, Joe's bread is still an okay choice for you. I've made breads with nuts in them. Gotcha. Very cool. I, uh, I kind of don't like nuts. I like it with nuts.

Okay. What are you going to bite? Mmm, tastes like monica too. Mmm. This is very good. This is the standard, this is the always the ones that's successful when I have bread. I think this is really, I get why it is. This is a very, this is very much a winner.

Um, this is just a very, very solid, tasty, very fresh, you can tell it's homemade bread. Sorry, we're chewing right now, people like that. Yeah, some people are all right with it. Oh, you can make this and you can have it and you can eat off of it. If you're like me and you live alone, you can eat off of it for a week. Did you just eat this bread by yourself? Yeah, pretty much. Um, I don't know.

That can't be true. No. Um, do you have, so normally you would, you would just eat this like as it is, right? Because I remember my family, my family had very poor eating habits. And so we would do things like we would get, if we got banana bread, we would put like butter on it. That's like, but that's like a little over the top, right? Or do people do that?

I think you can do that. You can do that? I think this one is so sweet, you don't need to kind of do that. It's really, all right, don't suck your own dick over there. It's like a dick, you don't need to put like sauce on it. All right. Um, this is, I'm really, this is. Cream cheese is also a thing that people put on.

Oh yeah, a little cream cheese. How, do you use old bananas? Um, what do you mean old banana? Like, people sometimes like to use old mushy bananas. Um, I. I went to the sort of day and bought big ripe bananas. I think the thing, like, I think that can more be a way to salvage old bananas. Yeah.

It's not necessarily that, necessarily that you, I mean, I'm not an amateur baker, like Joe over here, but I think it's less a thing of like. I don't know if we have to keep hitting amateur. Okay. Well, you're not a professional. You're not making a living at this. Yeah. We're at the Emmys.

You weren't over with Paula Deen. Guy Carey wasn't coming to your bachelor apartment and asking you to prepare him. He's not going to bachelor. All right. Are you going to go on. Your junior studio. Yeah, thank you. Are you going to go on MasterChef and blow everyone away with your turnover banana bread?

I don't know. Um, this is really good. If my options are snack or whack, Joe, I think you did a fantastic job. It reminds me of the wonderful peach breads you would bring into the office. I did make a peach bread, yeah. And, uh, I am going to go ahead and give this a snack. Well, thank you. There's no, like, you're not going to hurt my feelings if you don't like it.

Okay, whack. Now, Mitch, is that honestly how you feel? You honestly think this is whack? Tell the truth, Mitch. Tell what you really think. You're being prodded by President Clinton. I told you it reminded me of Monica. I love Monica.

You know you love that bread. No, wait a minute. You were famously impeached for perjury. You're a famous liar. But now you're saying that he should not follow your example and tell the truth? He should tell the truth, yeah. Although he loves Monica. I love Monica.

I'm coming clean tonight. Okay. And I'll come clean too, Mr. President. Thank you. Um, impeached. That's kind of like a peach bread. Anyways, uh... I thought that was funny.

Thank you. Um... I will say this tears me apart because I love to give Joe a hard time. But I love Joe. And the bread's good. It's a snack. Definitely a snack. What do you think, Joe?

Joe, let me guess what Joe's gonna say. Um, I wish this had been in the fridge overnight. Gotcha. Because that really does make it a lot better. Please vote whack. Um, I vote snack. Good call. Yeah, very, very tasty.

My own thing that I made. I think, uh, I think a really, really good job here, Joe. Thank you. Um, very impressed with what you put together. Uh, like a restaurant, we value your feedback. Let's open up the feedback. So, um, give me one second here while I get this up. This might be one of our longest episodes that I got to share with Joe Saunders.

I think they're all... Dirty Joe Saunders. They're all roughly getting to be around the same length. So, I don't know, this is a particularly long one. I wonder how much, how long this would be if you removed all my Clinton impressions, which we probably will do. Oh, I think it's gonna be a running thing. Judging by your behavior on this podcast, every time you add a new thing,

that just becomes a running joke throughout the whole series. Well, if it infuriates you, I'm down for it. All right. Uh, just like a restaurant, we value your feedback. Let's open up the feedback. I already gave that little preface, but now that I've got my email open, let's get into it. Um, today's email comes to us from Jack Souter. Jack writes,

On the Steak and Shake episode, Mitch alluded to the idea that the burger may not be the dominant fast food in the future, or that the number of burger chains has reached its critical mass. This got me thinking about what other types of fast food might become dominant in the near future. For one thing, Mexican-type chains seem to be getting increasingly popular to the point where there's a Chipotle in my middle of nowhere hometown. Also, as an American who lives in the UK, Indian food is absolutely omnipresent here, and it's really your best bet for a quick and satisfying meal for vegetarians and omnivores alike. Could you imagine something more left field like this becoming popular in America, or you think a more traditional item will challenge the burger's dominance?

Uh, really, really good email there, Jack. That's a great question. Yeah, we had a similar territory yesterday with an expat who was, or last week rather, with an expat who was living in the Czech Republic, I believe. And, um, yeah, I don't know. I mean, Joe, what do you think? Do you think the burger is going to be unseated? We're going to see the emergence of the burrito?

Perhaps something else is the dominant American fast food? Uh, I mean, the burger's been around a long time. Chill. Ooh, defensive. I don't know. Uh, so I don't see... I think that, um, banana turnover cake will be the new burger. It's banana quick bread.

Oh my god. Well, I actually am kind of scared. Um, I think the burger is probably going to be around at least as long as we're alive is the dominant thing. Um... How about after we die? I don't know. It's probably sushi. We'll become that.

Sushi would be easy to make. No, no. That's it. You know what? Joe brings up kind of an interesting thing. In your toss-off joke, that sushi could be a fast food phenomenon at some point, right? It's crazy how much it's more available it was than when I was a kid. Yes.

It was a rare, and even living in Southern California where there's a large, you know, Japanese population, it was still like a very rare sort of thing, I think, in the 80s. And it was kind of like a thing they would make jokes of in movies about being like a weird thing. And then it became a little bit more... No, it's just kind of everywhere. You can get it at Walgreens or at the supermarket. Um, yeah. I don't know.

I feel like the burger is distinctly American, and that's kind of like the American national food. But I feel like we're still have kind of that ethnocentric point of view where we're viewing things through the prism of anticipating future American dominance. And you know, I think there's something that maybe this is China's century, maybe this is India's century, and that becomes kind of like they're the big cultural exporters. And what ends up happening is just the way is the American fast food spread all over everywhere in the 21st century, or the 20th century, rather. Maybe the 21st century is when we start seeing some foreign chains start to take hold over here. Got a little banana bread in my throat. So I could see the possibility of something like... Change to wack.

More like hack. I could see... You mean you as a joker? Yes, yes. I absolutely mean that. I could see the emergence of something perhaps from Latin America, perhaps a burrito, or perhaps something from Asia, you know, taking over. But I don't know, like within America's cultural identity, I think the burger will reign supreme, but I could see another chain taking hold here perhaps from a foreign land. What do you think, Mitch?

I think you're a traitor to America, and Bill Clinton would agree with me. But I think a cheeseburger is almost one of the most perfect sandwiches. I hate to call it a sandwich, because a cheeseburger is a cheeseburger. It is a sandwich, though. Fine, yes, I guess it is a sandwich, but I don't even know. It is a weird sandwich. I want to see what Spoon Nation thinks. I don't even know.

I don't think I'd call a cheeseburger a sandwich. I don't want to get into it here, because it'll be a whole thing, and it's also not our argument. It's a thing that I've seen on Twitter and covered on a lot of websites. But there is an ongoing Twitter debate between a lot of people about whether a hot dog qualifies as a sandwich. No way. I don't want to talk. That's so crazy. We're not going to touch it here.

This topic is too hot for dough boys, especially the tail end of this episode, so we're not going to touch it. But I'm just saying that's the thing that's out there. We can't even speak of it. No, it's not. You're a communist, just like the countries you worship. The countries you worship. I'm wrong, too. I don't know anything about the world.

I'm dumb, and I'm not funny. Anyway, the bottom line is, no, nothing is going to take over the burger. It's just not while we're alive. Right? While we're alive, the thing that's closest to me is burrito. A burrito is close. Yeah. But I don't think a burrito is going to over.

I love burritos, and I probably eat burritos more than I eat burgers. I just don't think anything's going to take, because everyone loves cheeseburgers. It's just not going to, like, even if it's a thing. You think you eat more burritos than cheeseburgers? Yeah, probably. I don't know. I could see it happening. Also, too, I can burrito.

I eat more than cheeseburgers. I guess I do, too, probably. I'd say the other thing just maybe consider as a possibility is, let's say there becomes some sort of public health crisis involving carbohydrates, and bread is treated how cigarettes are today, where it's like, oh, people, like, people, you just don't smoke. Smoking is bad. Like, oh, that person's a smoker. They're bad.

And I could see something like that. Not saying it's going to happen, but I could see something like that potentially happen if someone decides that these things just actually do have the damaging health effects that some people claim they do. Joe will be crushed. Is banana, what is it called again? Turn bread? You're going to be thrown in the goulag for this contraband here.

Yeah. I mean, that was the thing with Matt Cowell. That people were paranoid that there was going to be a big outbreak. Yes, yeah. Matt Cowell didn't even bring down burgers. That's true. You know, it never kind of blew up into the thing that it could. People were afraid of it.

If that was an epidemic, it really could have taken burgers down, I think, even as beloved as they are in America. It's just not like, you know, Chick-fil-A is trying to be like, oh, like, eat more chicken. It's not going to happen. It's not enough time. A cheeseburger is so good. You know, like, I agree. I said those words.

I don't even remember saying that. I agree that maybe we've gotten burgered out, but I still think it's going to be the number one option. And it's just, it's like you can, you know, like McDonald's cheeseburgers are done great. That's a low quality, and I put that in the quotations, burger and it's still pretty good. A low quality burrito, I don't really want. You know what I mean? I guess that's a Taco Bell burrito, which I guess, but see, there's a difference.

You can have a really bad burrito. It gets so tricky. You can get a really bad burrito that's, and I don't even, but I don't even consider like Taco Bell burrito a burrito. Anyway, Chinese fast food is kind of, has a bad rap right now. It's not at the level, like maybe Panda Express is like one of the best Chinese fast food restaurants. Well, that's like your only, that's the only, I think, national fast food Chinese chain. Yeah.

And that's just not at the level to overtake anything. I'm sure it's popular. Indian food is almost non-existent as far as fast food goes out here. Yeah. I mean, there are a few like very small places, but I don't know if there's any, there's any, even any local chains. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, I, what I would say is like something like Panda Express, you know, that's an American interpretation. Someone say corruption of Chinese food. Yeah. So like, you know, again, like maybe there's some authentic chain that comes over here that has its own, you know, more, I'm repeating myself, but more authentic take that ends up taking hold for whatever reason. See, pizza isn't in there.

That's the tricky thing. Pizza isn't fast food really. I mean, I guess we could classify it for this argument's sake. Oh boy. And that's where it gets a little bit tricky because America loves pizza. Pizza and burgers, I feel like are the two top dogs, right? I classify pizza as pizza, not fast food. What do you think, Tom?

Yeah. You can't eat pizza in your car. Burger is a sandwich guy over here. Pizza is a sandwich. Pizza is an open-faced sandwich. Yeah, you can't eat in your car. That's a good point. But I would say those, as far as takeout food goes, burger and pizza, they're the king

and queen of that world. And I don't seem getting knocked off anytime soon. I'm sorry, even though I did talk about how we kind of were over-saturated with kind of burgers and specialty burger places, I think some of those places will die off. And I think that they will scale back on the crazy burger craze. But I just don't see it getting overtaken. How about you? Yeah, I think it's unlikely, like I was saying.

I agree with you guys that the safe money is on the burger staying dominant. But I see a few scenarios. Imagine a few situations where something else ends up winning. I don't know. It'll be interesting to see, Jack. Thanks so much for the email. If you're out there and you have a question or comment about the world of chain restaurants, you can email us at DoeBoysPodGuess at gmail.com.

As always, follow us on Twitter at DoeBoysPod. Check out our Facebook fan page, just DoeBoys. And remember, enter the contest to guess Mitch's email address using hashtag spoon mail. You can win a $25 Darden gift card. I think I know one president who's going to be entering this contest. That's right, me. Ronald Reagan. Who are you?

Oh, Reagan, okay. Was that who that was? That's who it is, yeah. Get out of here, Reagan. Okay, that's about enough. He's wearing... He's wearing Monica's dress. Oh, no.

What are you doing? Come here, Ronald. I know. I like how Bill Clinton's the only one they can see, Ronald Reagan. Yeah, who's he describing that to? Hold on a second. I was pimped into doing President Clinton a bunch of times. What will President Clinton think of this?

I don't know. It's a fucking loaf of bread. I didn't know what to say. I didn't have any fun. I was just trying to have a little bit of fun at the end of this podcast. But like always, Joe Saunders sucks the fucking fun out of a room. I was just trying to... I just wanted to hear what he said.

You were very game-mitch and I'll refute what you said earlier. You are a very funny man. I think everyone out there listen to this podcast agrees. So yeah, enter the contest using hashtag spoon mail. Joe Saunders, thank you so much for joining us, for giving us some of your valuable time, for giving us a delicious banana loaf that we all agreed was a snack. Do you have anything you would like to plug or promote at the end of the podcast?

Oh, I don't think so. The Emmys? Yeah, the Emmy, you can watch the... If you DVR'd the Emmys, watch them last night. Comedy Bang Bang is on for another year, at least. So that would be good to watch. I'm on Twitter at Saunders Joe. So you said I don't think so and then you promoted two things?

Well, you know, you get... Andy's got this banana bread. Yeah, this banana bread actually might be the thing that's probably happening for me in the next year or so. I wonder if there's a way for... I could see... If there is any sort of demand for it, is there a way you could engineer some sort of shipping to the situation?

I don't know. I don't want to put into... Well, I'd probably have to come up with a recipe that I didn't just get off MarthaStuart.com. Something a little bit more unique. Well, you executed it well and that's a big part of it. That'll do it for this episode of Doe Boys. Until next time, for The Spoon Man, Mike Mitchell, I'm Nick Weiger.

Happy eating. See ya.