Doughboys - Steak 'n Shake 5 with Evan Susser

Episode Date: December 17, 2020

Evan Susser (Fist Fight, Brooklyn Nine-Nine) returns to review steaks and shakes with the 'boys in this very special episode. Plus, another edition of Season's Eatings.Sources for this week's intro:https://www.mysanantonio.com/sa-inc/article/Has-San-Antonio-s-Sardar-Biglari-lost-his-touch-15393824.phphttps://www.restaurantbusinessonline.com/financing/steak-n-shakes-owner-compares-himself-andrew-carnegiehttps://will.illinois.edu/news/story/85-years-after-founding-in-normal-challenges-put-steak-n-shake-on-the-brinkhttps://www.stltoday.com/business/local/steak-n-shake-gets-7-7-million-tab-for-st-louis-area-manager-overtime-in/article_4dd9146a-10c5-54ac-b026-670e8c03193a.htmlhttps://www.qsrmagazine.com/exclusives/burger-gold-rush-steak-n-shakehttps://www.restaurantbusinessonline.com/financing/steak-n-shake-has-permanently-closed-51-locationsAdvertise on Doughboys via Gumball.fmWant more Doughboys? Check out our Patreon!: https://patreon.com/doughboysSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We are old-fashioned. Our whole modus operandi is old-fashioned. Can you imagine an Andrew Carnegie or a Cornelius Vanderbilt seeking a cadre of consultants on whether they should buy a steel mill or buy a railroad? This was Sardar Baglari, owner of investment company Baglari Holdings at his 2020 investors meeting, which, despite the pandemic, was held in-person at his insistence. The ill-advised IRL meetup was emblematic of Baglari's stewardship of his chief holding. A Midwest Berger and milkshake diner he acquired in 2008. One headstrong man making a dangerous decision that sandbag countless others. Like the restaurant industry at large, Baglari's restaurant chain is cratered in 2020, but the company's problems predate the pandemic.

His quick sodic expansion across the US and internationally seems to have resulted in as many closures as openings. His massive reduction of the menu and removal of table service has been a peric victory, cutting costs by removing two of the hooks its loyal customers counted on since 1934, and the company has fought multiple lawsuits from hundreds of managers alleging unpaid wages. And while the pandemic has certainly worsened its financial state, the company defaulting on its debt on April 1st of this year, barely weeks into lockdown, can hardly be accounted for solely by depressed sales due to COVID. So will Baglari's restaurant survive the battering of 2020 in good enough shape to

make a resurgence? If so, it will be against the odds as dozens of locations have closed, and the chain is resorted to converting company-owned stores to franchises for quick cash infusions via franchise fees. In fact, the company was prominently featured in a Washington Post piece ominously titled, The Iconic Brands That Could Disappear Because of Coronavirus. One anecdotal sign of the restaurant's woes, of the three California locations reviewed on previous episodes of this podcast, Santa Monica, Victorville, and Burbank, all three have now closed. This week, on the final new Doe Boys of 2020, we return, once again, to stake and shake.

Welcome to Doe Boys, the podcast about chain restaurants. I'm Nick Weigher, along with my co-host, Cremaster and Commander, the Spoon Man, Mike Mitchell. The Night Spoon? The Night Spoon, I apologize. Cremaster and Commander was the roast from Patrick Celli, roastspoonman at gmail.com. I hope he makes like a sully and goes down on a plane. Well, it's Celli, and also Celli famously survived and was a hero. I don't want that for him. Like saved hundreds of lives. To be clear, I don't want that for him. So you want the alternate reality, you want to step through the Doctor Strange portal and go to the world where Celli crashed into the

Potomac and killed hundreds of people. Now let's just say I wanted to be one of the birds, babe. Was it the Potomac? I don't know which river it was. The Hudson. The Hudson, the miracle on the Hudson, that's what it was. You fucking dumbass. You know something in a subtitle that was like miracle on the Hudson, sully colon miracle on the Hudson, maybe I would have remembered it. I heard that before each of the passengers got off the plane, Celli made love to him.

I mean, if he deserves it, that's the price for survival. I'm just trying to grow the legend to sully. The men, the women, and the children made love to all of them. Jesus Christ. All right, I didn't think this through. Why is what, what were you going to say? He had what? I was going to say he had no refractory period. Just one after the other.

That's like, I feel like if there's going to be someone who's going to succeed the, you know, the Chuck Norris jokes, which got played out like 10 years ago, then maybe it could be sully. Sully could be the guy with the Bill Braskey legend. Why not sully? I say sully. Yeah, why not? I think we've kind of already passed sully, you know. He had his big cameo in daddy's home too.

I feel like that was kind of a cap on sully. He recently came out and said no to Trump. Also, you have not been introduced yet. Well, introduce me. How the hell to Spoon Nation. Sully said no to Trump, which honestly, as far as like old white guys, he passed a pretty big test. I mean, I guess. I mean, the pretty low, it's like a pretty low bar to clear.

It's like a limbo bar to clear, but sure. But yes, I think that sully has sent a lot of positive things. He also, I think, has said some things about like, you know, labor issues in the airline industry, which I think are very positive. If I have memory serves, I think he's been like, you know, pilots are overworked and underpaid, and that's definitely true for flight attendants as well. I mean, you know, it's been kind of fucked up with sully, is how he wants to eradicate every bird on the planet after what happened.

Well, yeah, I mean, he's seen firsthand what birds can do. Yeah. And, you know, he's like everyone. He's seen a bunch of birds and gone, birds, birds. I don't know, Spoon Nation. Here's a little drop, folks. Here's a little drop from July 2019. Wow.

That's what sully wishes he'd landed. If he had any regrets, wishes he'd landed in the summer. Ha, Nick, I call that before times, right? Fair, fair enough. All right. Here's a little drop. Wow. You know, a lot of people say they listen to the podcast to help them sleep.

That definitely feels like a drop that would help you just drift off new gentle night slumber. Is that vapor wave? Is that what you call that? I have no idea. It seems to me like those like nirvana for kids or whatever, you know what I mean? How they do like kids bop. Yeah, it seems like a kids bop, a dope boys kids bop. It was very nice.

Maybe that's the sound. Maybe that's like the sound we'll hear when we go to heaven wigs. Yeah, right. Heaven. Our guest, by the way, gave that drop a big thumbs down. Wow. We'll have to hear his take. I thought it was a great end of the year drop.

I thought it was nice. Yeah, it was very tranquil. Here's my take on your theme song. Perhaps it'll be good for your inevitable joint funeral. And then he had his fingers crossed. So never mind. Fuck this guy. Love you guys.

Derek, I won't say his last name. It's a city in Texas. Could it be San Antonio? Could be Austin. Could be Houston. Derek, Dallas would be a pretty cool name. Yeah, Dallas would be pretty cool. So wait, Austin, Houston, Dallas.

Those are like the three ones that make sense. San Antonio isn't kind of crazy, right? Would be a little, yeah. That'd be a little bit of a wackadoodle last name, but possible. I think Derek Dallas. That sounds too much like a porn. Derek Dallas. It does.

It sounds like a porno actor. Derek Dallas famous for his heroically large loads. Didn't have the biggest tool, but he had the biggest loads. Dear God, my loads match my size. Mitch, I have, you know, I meant to get to this before you played your drop, but I have a supplemental roast. This is a second roast that got sent in that I wanted to read because of context. This is from Jay Logston of Des Moines.

And Jay writes, whenever one of Mitch's progressive commercials comes on, my daughter will excitedly point at the screen and be like, daddy, look, it's Spoon Boy. So that was sent into the roast email, but daddy, it's the Spoon Boy. How about that? It's Night Spoon. Get it right, you dipshit. Should we introduce our guests? These already come in.

He's a writer whose credits include Fist Fight and Brooklyn Nine-Nine, but you probably know him best as the commissioner of the Doughboys Tournament of Chompians. Evan Susser is back. Hi, Suss. Happy to be here, guys. December 15th, 2016. Stake and shake three. The blow up.

Wow. God, I thought you were going to at least say stake and shake one. It's stake and shake three was four years ago. Yeah, no, this is five. Trump had just been elected president. We waxed about what an awful year 2016 had been. How we couldn't imagine a worse year than 2016. And we talked stake and shake and things got a little testy and people got a little mad

so much so that the episode, some call it the best episode of Doughboys ever. Some called the best episode of any podcast ever, but it was known as the blow up. Well, today is going to be something a little different. This is going to be a glow up because we've had, you know, we've had quite a year. This is going to be about positivity. Glow up is a piece of slang that I think I'm using incorrectly. I think it usually refers to like a makeover, but here we're using it to mean positivity. This is going to be all about how grateful and appreciative we are for the good things

on the podcast in our lives. And I am so happy to be here for it. A glow up, a glow up is like when like a model or something will post a picture of herself at like, uh, as like a, like, look at me. I'm like a pudgy teen or whatever. I looked like a dork, right? Whatever. That's, that's what a glow up usually is, I think, which I look, I don't like glow ups

because I think that the one they're like, I'm better now. And also I've never blown up. Let's get all our takes on glow ups. I've made posters and t-shirts already that say glow up. So we're sticking with glow up. This is the glow up. Okay. So this is the glow up.

Why? Definitely this trio of middle aged men are the ones to decide what a glow up is and how we feel about it. I don't like them. All right, Wigs, it's a glow up. It's a glow up. I love it. I will say in this year, there has not been a lot of things to look forward to.

And doing this episode and being here with you guys is something I've been genuinely looking forward to for the past few weeks. And I'm very happy to be here. We love to have you, Susser. The hell is this shit? This is for your, you're already abandoning the glow up thing. This is supposed to be a positivity. I don't trust them.

I don't trust them. Some little faith in your fellow man. No, he's not. I don't think there's a twist coming. I don't think this is- There is a twist coming. There is a twist coming. You see, in order to get the glow up going right, Emma and I and Drop King reached out

to some friends of the Doughboys. And we, we have a little, we have a little clip we want to play. So we're going to do that now if that's okay. I give you my permission. Okay, here we go. Okay. The weather outside is frightful. It's side is so delightful.

High midge, high wiger. Hi, Doughboys. It's me, Doughman, John Gabriel. Hi, this message is just for the Doughboys. It's your boy, C.T., the Don of Dough. The seventh Doughboy, as I'm known in the streets. I don't need to be the third, fourth, fifth or sixth because seven is the number of completeness and perfection,

both physical and spiritual. So after me, there are no other Doughboys. Hi, Doughboys. This is Rachel Weary in Milwaukee. This is David and I'm messaging you from Tokyo. This is Ian Culling from Western Massachusetts. Hey, guys, it's The Knife. Greetings, Double Reed.

Greetings, Mrs. Mitchell's boy, Michael Mitchell. It is I, John Hodgman. Merry Christmas, Doughboys. It's Trevor and Amanda. Hey, Mitch and Nick. It's Eva Anderson. I miss you guys. Happy holidays.

Hey, Nick and Mitch. This is Christine Engel. Hey, this is Betsy Sadaro. Nick, Mitch, I love you so much. I hope you have the best holidays. I just wanted to call and wish you guys a Merry Christmas, a Happy New Year, a Happy Holidays. I just want to say Happy Holidays

to my best good friends, Mitch, Wigs, Emma, Susser, and you, song, because I wouldn't be where I am today if it wasn't for y'all. Since y'all discovered me yelling at that server and awards restaurant at Long Beach, Mississippi and gave me a shot, I've done nothing but thrive. I'm currently outside the Toronto movies pop-up waiting in line to get a coxmover chicken sandwich,

and then I'm going to go to Minneapolis to the movies pop-up there, and then I think I'm just going to keep following them around the country like the Grateful Dead for the rest of 2021. Thanks for making the show, guys. It's our go-to podcast whenever we're in the car together, and it's brought us a lot of joy over the last few years.

There wasn't a lot to celebrate this year, but at least you gave us grocery store month. Looking forward to listening to you in the new year. Merry and happy and everything to you guys. I love it when I get to listen to you in my ears, but I prefer it when we can be in the same room together, and I hope that that happens again soon. I'm calling to say thank you because last year,

I was really sick with cancer, and my friend, Kourt, hi Kourt, and my wife, Julie, got in touch with you to let you know I'm a big fan of the show, and you guys sent me a message. It really cheered me up. It was like a big surprise, and I just think it was so nice of you guys

to go that extra mile for someone you haven't met. Appreciate it, guys. Really, love you. It's been an incredibly tough year for everyone. Your podcast has been such a source of joy for me. It reminds me that despite all the bad news coming from the States, there's always a new fast food chain for me to try

whenever I'm able to go back home. Thank you so much for keeping the podcast going through this crazy year. It's meant so much to me and other fans that need it at this point, so thank you again. Just wanted to say congratulations on making it official. It's about time. I'm sure Natalie's not that excited about it,

but, hey, love is love is love is love is love. Am I right? Have a great 2021. I love you guys. I hope 2021 is a little bit better than 2020. I know you're both expecting me to come on here and, you know, knife you both, but the bottom line is I'm not going to do that, okay?

Because this is a time of love and joy, and my gift to you this holiday season is my undeniable love, much like Mitch's undeniable love for me. I think we can all agree on that. We've listened to the episodes. You can hear it there, the tension naturally. I hope you guys get to have all your wonderful holiday

traditions, like Nick sitting in silence as you eat the seven fishes with your family, or Mitch kissing your mom on the lips for way too long underneath the mistletoes that you have set up all around your house. Happy holidays, and I love you. I can't wait for all of us to share a vaccine needle and get back on the road together.

I love you. I hope you have a wonderful new year. I love you. Goodbye. Oh, love you. Anyway, love you guys. Love you all. Thanks for the podcast.

Miss you guys. Actually, truly love you guys, which I'm embarrassed to say, but that's true. Anyways, I adore you both, and happy holiday. Merry Christmas, happy new year. I'm on a little bit of pain medication, so I'm loopy. Oh, no, I got to start over.

The glow up. Wow. Wow. How do you guys like that? He got, Suss got me teary eyed. That was wonderful. What a nice piece of audio. What a nice to hear from all our friends

and all in a bunch of listeners. Suss, that was very, very beautiful. That was very beautiful and sweet. And what a lovely gesture from the both of you, and Robert Persinger. I really can't take too much of the credit. Emma obviously is the one who made the magic happen. And the listeners and the people who wrote in,

I just wrote an email. But guys, I just thought that was some positivity that we could start this off. And that I also thought it would make you guys kind of uncomfortable to listen to four minutes of people saying nice things about you. Yeah, no, yeah, everyone's wrong. I got a little teary eyed,

but you also could have just eaten a Big Mac on camera. I probably would have gotten the same amount of teary eyed. That was very, very, very nice. It was nice to hear all that. Thank you, Suss. That was lovely. That was, and thank you, Emma. Of course.

And thank you to everyone who listens to the show and says nice things to us. And thanks to all our haters too, because you fuel my fire. You keep me going. Yeah, you know what? Thank you to the haters the most, actually. Why?

My whole drive is to prove you wrong. And also, Suss, good job making all these people that we have on the Christmas special do something a couple days before it too, on top of it. They did it a few weeks ago. It's okay. They did it a few weeks ago. All right, all right, all right.

But it did occur to me when you were emailing everyone that they would be like, are you fucking kidding me? Another thing I have to do for this dumb podcast. But you know what? It's the spirit of the holidays. And I told them they were going to be paid for the messages. Happy to do it.

Guess what? Surprise, you're not. Right, Wags? That's right. New policy. No pay. Suss is gone. Susser just disappeared.

Was Susser ever alive in the first place? He was just a helpful ghost this whole time. I saw Mitch, I'm looking at you guys on your phone because of my phone because it's too complicated to figure this whole Zoom thing out. And I saw Mitch on his phone and I thought maybe he texted me and said, I actually didn't like that montage

or something like that. So I had to check to see if I had a text from him on my phone. But that was not what the text was about. I like how we're nine months into this. This is how everyone's been working, who has any sort of office job, which you have. And your position is this whole Zoom thing's too complicated. It doesn't work.

Still not figured it out. You work on Zoom daily. No, not anymore. But yes, I did for many months. And well, you know what? Here's my feeling about Zoom. When the pandemic started and all of a sudden it was like, oh, download this thing called Zoom.

I was like, this is pretty good for a piece of technology that they weren't expecting everyone to need all the time. But then it kind of felt like 10 months in, there'd be something like way better. That would just be super smooth. And you would think that you were there and you wouldn't have any glitches or problems. And it basically just stayed the same for 10 months.

Yeah, how is Zoom not, how have they not iterated on Zoom? How do we not have a new Zoom client that's got all these fancy features and is more stable? Someone else made this observation of just like, I had never heard of Zoom. Until like week two of lockdown. And they were like, hey, get Zoom. And we're like, okay, we're suddenly using Zoom

multiple times per week. I was like, what the fuck is Zoom? Where did Zoom come from? How did this become the fucking de facto standard that everyone's using? What happened to fucking Skype? What happened to Skype? What happened to Skype?

That's the question of 2020 is what happened to Skype? Can we get a Malcolm Gladwell podcast about what happened to Skype? Can we get a six-part series? We should also get one about what happened to Spike. Spike TV. Became the Paramount Network, right? I think it is.

I think Spike is now the Paramount. I think that is what has evolved. Like a Pokemon, it was Spike and then some other. And then there was a middle one. And now it is Paramount Network. It was back in the day, it was the Nashville channel or the Nashville Network. So Nashville Network is its first form

and then Spike is its middle form. It was TNN, then it turned into Spike, everyone was mad, then it turned into Paramount Network. Hey, this is almost as good as five minutes on Glow Up. I think the Glow Up stuff people are going to like. I think so too. I think people like the Glow Up. Yeah, that was lovely.

I was saying why our riffs on Glow Up. The actual audio was good, so I liked it. It was very nice. I thought it was beautiful. Nicole did that while on Mids. I feel bad. Yes. Yeah, God bless her.

I'm saying the riffing on Glow Up was also good. Yeah, it was also good, I agree. I was unsure how to transition out of that because literally the first bullet point I have in my notes was that I had a two hot dog lunch and I was going to ask you guys, what's the right number of hot dogs to have for lunch? I think it's two.

I think two is good. Yeah. If I'm at a barbecue, I've told you this before, Wags, I do two dogs and a cheeseburger. That's my BBQ. But that's a BBQ, you're cutting loose. Yeah. I mean, I'm talking about you're having a not necessarily,

maybe it's not even a work day, but you're just having a lunch, like a normal lunch. To me, that's two hot dogs. Maybe it's one if it's like a big hot dog. Well, yeah. I think you could go two Costco dogs and they're pretty big and that would be a lunch. Those are big boys.

Yeah, but I still think that that would be a lunch. Well, considering we just listened to a man, thank you guys for helping get him through his cancer. I would say too hot. Yes, we should have touched on this. I would say too hot. That was very, very sweet. That was keeping all of that in mind.

No, you're quick. You guys are clearly too. You guys are clearly too uncomfortable. We're just going to go past it. No, it was the moment that made me tear up. It was too nice. It was it meant a lot to us. And hey, Wiger.

Yes. Let's just end the show in two years, right? Like the plan, your piece of shit. You mad at me. It's supposed to be the blow up too. It's not supposed to be the blow up. It's a glow up. But back to the hot dogs.

I would say my real preference is a hot dog and a hamburger. I mean, I feel like this is crazy. I'm never really satisfied with hot dogs. I have a quick question. Wow, that is crazy. How many times has Sus used that segue before? Anyways, back to the hot dogs. How many times do you think he said that before?

I think it's once a day. Let's see, hot dog and hamburger or two hot dogs? It just depends on my mood. There are days when I would go two hot dogs, but I get what you're saying. If I could only choose one of the two meals, obviously I want burger plus hot dog. Like that's a great combo.

Mitch, what say you? A cheeseburger and a hot dog. Of course, you want that variety. Here's how I've been, every now and then, with my daughter, we'll do hot dogs as a treat. I will make a hot dog for myself, and then I'll cut up pieces of hot dog for her to eat. But guess what?

Sometimes she's not that hungry, and that just becomes two hot dogs, which is pretty good. But other times, I'm like, okay, I'm pretty hungry. And I'm like, well, she's probably gonna eat like a sliver of the hot dog, and then it'll all be mine. And that's like the one day that she's going to town. And then what do you do? Yeah.

You grab it out of her hands and say, that's that one's for daddy. You're also bragging about how you're bragging about how you trick your daughter out of hot dog. Out of hot dog meat. She doesn't need a hot dog, it's not good for her. It's true. What type of hot dog do you...

My mom, because we got the beef hot dogs from Costco, when we went to Costco recently. Those are good ones, those Kirkland dogs, yeah. My mom says that she likes the pork hot dogs more. Interesting. I actually, so coincidentally, the hot dogs that I had for lunch were some beef hot dogs I bought from Costco, the Kirkland hot dogs that I grilled up.

I got some of those in my fridge, Wags. They're great dogs. You grilled them. I mean, I fried them in a pan. I didn't grill them outside. That's pretty good. They're functionally like a grilled dog. It's, I had the little grill lines in them.

And it was, so the casing's crisped up a little bit. They're great dogs. Pork dogs, I don't know. I feel like I like the all beef ones. If I have my, if I can have the pick. Maybe, I mean, there's some that are mixed, right? That are a mix of pork and beef? So the ones I know is there's like a frank

that's just kind of all meats. You'll have some beef and pork, and sometimes some chicken in there, just kind of everything. And then the all beef ones. Those are the ones I do. At all pork hot dog, I don't know if I've encountered, although all pork sausages you'll obviously encounter.

Yeah. I think my mom likes, she was saying that she likes a more, I think more pork heavy. But I really love that Costco hot dog. I'm a fan. Great hot dog. You know what I'll do sometimes, Wags? I'll boil.

I'll boil my hot dogs in beer sometimes. Oh boy, that's fun. A beer boiled hot dog. I used to do that all the time back in the day. What do you do with a leftover beer then? You fucking chug that hot shit down. All the alcohols burned off. Yeah.

Just chugging hot bread water. That also tastes like hot dog at that point too. But a beer boiled dog can be really, really tasty. I mean, I come from the boiled hot dog land, by the way. Right. We boil dogs a lot over here. We grill them up too. A lot of good ways to do hot dog.

Well, we've exhausted this. We've exhausted hot dog talk. What else is on the sheet? Yeah. Okay, here's the next one. You're in Maryland right now. Yes. Jesus Christ.

You talked about your life as a stay-at-home dad a little bit, but I wanted to ask, since you're in Maryland, and this is where you're from, any hometown eats you've been able to get during this bizarre sort of lockdown period? Well, one of them we'll get to later today. Wow. A little teaser. Wow.

And then beyond that, there's a place, Moby Dick, which is a kebab place, which we have a lot of kebab places in Los Angeles, but there's something about this place that I'm a big fan of. And so that's a place that we've gotten pretty regularly. And there are a few other kind of local spots that we've gotten. But it's not Los Angeles, it's not as good of a food city as Los Angeles. Wow. Right.

When I was there, you told me to go to a Greek restaurant. Do you remember this? Oh, yes, I did. Zorba's Cafe. Zorba's Cafe. And I went. Zorba's Cafe. Sounds like a hut.

Yes. It was good. Is there a Zorba the hut? There might be. There should be. I'm going to consult Wikipedia. There probably isn't in Mandalorian. Is there a Zorba the hut?

There's a Zorba the Greek. I don't know if there's a Zorba the hut. You know what? I do confuse Greeks and huts a lot of the time. I have Wikipedia open. Yeah. Zorba has been a shameful, puss-filled boil on the glorious hut business community.

And this sentencing is a heated lancing long overdue. His selfish antics have been given an unwarranted criminal taint to the hut reputation that can now begin to rebuild with his absence. Nick, what? This is Arukh Besadi Iora as quoted in, boy, some attack of the clones fucking spinoff. Can I ask you a question? Mm-hmm.

Is he a big purple hut? He looks more of a, you know, there's not a lot of canonical art of him. He looks a little bit more just conventionally hut. He's got the conventional, you know, Jabba hut coloration, but he looks like he's got some like a braid, like braids, like a braided beard, like he's got some sort of hair coming off of him. That's cool. Yeah, it is kind of cool.

Except kind of gross to picture a hut with hair. Guys, this, is this also the first end of year episode that there's not a Star Wars coming out? Wow. Wow. A very long time. How are you guys doing? Yeah, year one we had Force Awakens, then we had, was it Rogue One?

Rogue One, that was, Rogue One was just coming out when the blow up happened. Right. And then we had in 2017, wow, was 2017 last Jedi? I believe so. And then 2019 would have been, well, 2018, I'm skipping, 2018 would have been solo and 2019 was, this, that recently was, 2019 was Rise of Skywalker. Wow, you're right.

It is a glow up. It is a glow up. No more of these shitty movies. I was going to say no more, not another source of arguments for the two of us, another source of disagreement. I liked the one, the year we had the blow up is the Star Wars movie I liked the most. Rogue One. Maybe that's what we need.

We need a Star Wars we disagree about so that we can use that as the release of the tension that exists between the two of us. It's funny that 2016 was bad and this year is so bad that I don't even care. Yeah, 2016 seems like nothing. It seems like Trump won? Yeah, all right, whatever. I don't even care. At 2020, I'm numb.

It doesn't matter anymore. Right, no, I get that. Yes, that it almost seems like silly to complain about this year. Yeah, I mean, of course it's terrible. Yeah, yes. What happened in 2016? What, like probably like Prince died or something, right? I mean, that's bad.

Probably. Or David Bowie, some big celebrity died. That's bad. 2016 was a cakewalk by comparison. It was for sure, yeah. But I do think that maybe the world, there's no new Star Wars to be bad. Maybe the world will get better the next few years. I mean, the last four years have been really bad.

Maybe the world is getting progressively worse since we started the podcast. I mean, I think that's totally possible. I think that's light. I think that's just been our lived experiences, right? Now, the second question, yeah. Is it because of the podcast? Can't rule it out. I wonder.

I just, I truly wonder. I don't know. You know, my mom is saying no peeking a lot for real. Like she knows that it's a thing that happens on the podcast. That's great. So like she comes, like I'll go, I'll walk into her room or whatever. And she's like, ah, the Christmas presents are out. You're always trying to peek.

No peeking, so she'll do that now. She's leaning into it. She's like, how many Christmas presents do you get from your mother at this point? Good question. First of all, I don't try to peek on the Christmas gifts. That's insane. Okay, but to my question, my mom still, my mom still gives me quite a few Christmas gifts.

She spoils me every Christmas. It's embarrassing. That's great. I love it. It's nice. It's nice. She has no, she doesn't have grandchildren to give them to. I've, I've, I've failed her.

Yeah, you've seen to that. Look, it's part of the reason why I haven't had kids, because I want more presents at Christmas. Yeah. All right. She gives me too many presents. What do you want from me? Why?

Cause you get some presents from your mom, right? Um, I'm, I, we, it's like usually like one thing, maybe a couple of things. You also seem like a guy though who made an agreement when you were like 13 to have no more presents. We kind of reached, I mean, you know, that, that was like a, Mrs. Weiger. Can I have a word with you for a moment?

I do call my mom, Mrs. Weiger. She calls me Weiger. What's next on the list? A next on the list. I was going to ask you this. We all, as of this recording, we recently watched a dynamite episode of AEW dynamite, all elite wrestling. I just, I think universally this was the, the Kenny Omega,

John Moxley title match episode that was just a regular, it was just like a regular Wednesday night show that was like PPV level good. It was like a fucking amazing show. I just want to get your take on AEW and perhaps you're in wrestling 2020 because, because you are a huge wrestling fan. Jesus Christ. I like wrestling too. We love AEW.

We've had guests on the show. We love it. People are going to be tuning out of the podcast. Wrestling, you know, it was a fun, well, it was a weird year, like all sports, because it had to deal with the pandemic. But I don't want to talk about it. What's next on the list? I don't want to talk about it.

It was really good show. What's next on the list? Kenny Omega was a champion. That was great. That was very exciting. He ran away to another promotion, which we're going to see how that happens. That was a fun thing that happened. That would be like, if that would be like, if if McDonald's won the tournament of

champions and they're like, hey, like, you know, you'll find out how we won on how did this get made? And it'll be like, what? It's how did this get made with like Paul Sheeran and Zukis? Like they're talking about the tournament to champions. That was a fun thing that happened. They're trying to kill their own podcast. But most in that reality.

Most people listening to this are. But you know what? Actually, maybe I should dig in because, you know, like you said, you've had A.W. guests on the show, right? And and I think you have some listeners who are involved in A.W. And my dream for when this pandemic is over is that we all go to a big A.W. like pay-per-view show together and then like we get like the star treatment. And, you know, they're like, oh, come back here.

Like you guys are cool. Wow. So so you didn't want to talk about this until you could angle Russ to get a star treatment. Exactly. Always working. He's always working. I was first I was thinking about the listener.

And then I said, you idiot, who gives a shit about the listener? Let's think about Sus. And so I love A.W. Everybody, even if you, you know, watch wrestling when you were a kid and you thought, oh, it's not really for me, do yourself a favor, watch A.W. Go to live shows when they return. Say that Sus sent you and it's a great time. Yeah. Along with PWG, which is a local show in LA, it got me back into wrestling,

a lapsed wrestling fan with almost two decades of just, you know, not paying attention to what was going on and then coming back to it. And I fucking love it. I agree with you. I've been to a couple of A.W. PPVs. I went to we went to Double or Nothing in Vegas and then we I was also I was at, oh man, I don't remember if it was all in or all out, but it was one of the shows they ran in Chicago and this year during I'll bring this up because it was one

of those things where I was like, what the fuck were like this year? Our mutual friend, Matt Misani, who was at this show with texted me a photo and of us at that pay-per-view with like a full crowd. Like we're just the two of us there. And he was like, how long ago do you think this was? I was like, Jesus Christ, that's got to be like 2017. He was like, that was like eight months ago. I was like, that was like from August.

He texted me towards the start of his pandemic. And I was like, what the hell? How was the earth that different so recently? How was our society completely changed and so rapid? I was my mind was blown. Anyway, I'm sorry, Mitch. You were going to say something. I look.

Yeah. Some A.E.W. people listen and shout out to Excalibur. I know Excalibur listens. When we met Wags and Colt when we were a thrill, it was a good time. And we were in Salt Lake City when we hung with them. We were in Salt Lake City. Yes. We talked about this before.

Susser's also given a shout out to Colt and Excalibur too, just to be clear. And Joey, we had on the show as well. But yeah, my boy Joey, we were in a car ride together, me and Joey, and cramped into a backseat with me. With Mitch yet going to a UCB show after PWG one time. And I asked him if he gets hurt a lot and if he doesn't like being hurt because of wrestling.

And yeah, it was a great convo. Anyway, I'm also chatting everyone out. He really drew the short straw there, being in a backseat of a sedan with Mitch and Susser. Well, you got Donaldson in the front seat. So, you know, it was going to be. Look, I got to hold the Flags list. Here's his next question, Wags.

Yes. No. It's pretty cloudy outside, huh? What are your thoughts on that? Yeah, I mean, it's amazing. There were clouds yesterday, clouds today. What's next on the list? Okay, here is the next one.

And this is before we, this is my last bullet point before we transition into this week's restaurant, which we have a little bit of an angle on. I'm finishing off my thing from the restaurant if you hear some sipping sounds. You are the commissioner of the Doughboys Tournament of Chompians. That's right. We do feel like this last year's just past tournament,

the Munch Madness Tournament of Chompians Mac Attack, where we went through every single item that they serve at McDonald's, felt like a success. And I feel like everyone's wondering, what's next? Maybe you thought about it, maybe you haven't, but do you have any sort of tease for the next Tournament of Chompians coming up in March of 2021? Well, Nick, I'm so glad you asked.

I don't have an answer yet. We've, I'm going to just be completely frank and honest with the listeners. We've talked about some things. We thought that it was a huge success doing Mac Attack. And we thought maybe there's another chain that we could do basically in every item at. I think we were talking about and leaning towards

doing that with Taco Bell. But then Taco Bell, they kind of fucked up. They kind of fucked themselves. And they got, they took a lot of the items that we would have been looking forward to doing off the menu. So I don't know how exciting that is. The Taco Bell also just had a commercial

that pissed me off, which had voiceover by Ben Schwartz that we know from the UCB community. But they were like, kind of making fun of the fact that they were like, we won't take this one away. Kind of rubbing it in our face. That's not really cool. Hey, we fucking did it. We're sorry.

But we're not going to be cute about it. Yeah, I agree. So I don't know about Taco Bell anymore. Maybe there's another chain. I think that when we were so naive, we were hoping that we would be able to do a bunch of sit-down restaurants. Yes.

When we were talking about it in June, a welcome back. I think that might have to wait. Yeah, we went buffet brawl. Yeah, we were overly optimistic. But you know, give us a break. That was like in October. No.

So I don't really know. I think we've also, we've always talked about doing like a healthy tournament. That's true. Which I think the listeners would think is like a good positive thing. Mitch wouldn't, you know, complain about how the tournament is so bad for him

and that this was the month he was going to start dieting. If not for this tournament. Shut the fuck up both. But are you ready for the blow-up part too? This episode sucks. It hasn't been great from the beginning. I'll say that. It has not been great,

but I think we're getting into a groove now. You know what? Glow-up wasn't funny. We got to go back to blow-up. But, uh, Wags just wants to leave the entertainment industry in two years. He's done with everything.

It's true. It's hard to get and respond to anything. No, you got to keep living your life, you idiot. You're useless anyways. Sorry. So what else are you going to do? Well, you've said your dream. Can you say it or?

I think I've said it on the podcast. I would love to get a job at Costco. And my concern is I don't have a lot of retail experience. And so I think I don't know if the move is to, you know, start getting some retail experience now. And so I have that on my resume. So I can ultimately, you know, get that Costco job because the openings are few and far between

and they've got a lot of great candidates. It's a very good job. Or if I should, or if I should wait till later and then, and then start to get my work my way in there and burn through my savings. When you say, when, when you say a job at Costco, do you mean like a job like on the floor, like stocking things? Do you mean like a job in like product selection?

What exactly does a job at Costco mean? I just want to work in one of the stores. One of the stores. So not the corporate like offices. No, I've worked, you know, I've worked corporate jobs before. I mean, that was, that was a lot of, that was most of my 20s. And I guess if you want to count, I mean, if you want to count video, working in video games

is kind of a corporate job because it very much is or working in TV writers rooms is a corporate job. I mean, that's like been the most of my adult life. I, you know, I don't love that life. Right. And I want to clarify for both the listeners and myself, this is not a joke that you want to just work at a Costco. I would love to have a job at a Costco.

I feel like. And so this, so you're happy to give up this podcast where you make, I mean, we don't have to get into the numbers, but maybe some people would like to hear that ourselves. We're very, very lucky. You do very well for yourselves and you set your own schedule and it's your thing that you created. And at this point, you feel like you'd like to be done with that

and just work at a Costco in a relatively near future. Why don't you do both? Yes. Go work at a Costco. You can still do this. You dumb fuck. I guess that's true. Also, here's the second question.

If you're working at this Costco and then someone's, you know, Brian Henson's like, I want you to work on some new fucking stupid puppet show. All right. Look, Earth to Net, the show I worked on was on LA Times, top 10 TV shows of the year. So the few things I've worked on that's ever been critically lauded. I wasn't making fun of Earth to Net.

I just said some new stupid puppet show. So it's an emergency broadcast system. No, it's not me. Somebody else is getting, it's my watch. It's my fucking Apple watch. Lovely chorus of 2020 when you just get emergency alerts on your phone about God turns off. Wow.

I saw the message. It said, it said COVID is in the house swags. Oh no. Um, oh man, that was so fucking funny. Brian Henson. No, hold on a second. I wasn't making fun of that show, but so if, I know, if he tells you to come work on some show,

if he asks you to come work on some show, you're going to say no. I mean, like right now, I'm not doing anything. So yeah, but I would not say no. I would take it. I would take a job opportunity if it was offered to me, but I think if I'm looking at this, hold on, but if I'm looking at the future and I'm saying like, hey, I've moved to a different line of work

and I am now doing this other thing, I actually don't think that this is, I don't think this is crazy. I think that this year has kind of made a lot of people reevaluate their life priorities. And I think there is something too. I would like to have a job that pays well that doesn't is not all consuming that I don't have to stress out about when I'm not working at, which I don't know if Costco is.

I don't want to endorse that. I really don't know. But I, I understand people like working there. Hey, I, I get, I don't either. I get why you're wanting to work at Costco. I get it. But I just want to say that I don't know if it will sit well if you're like, hey, I'm going to take a few weeks off

to go work at this stupid Henson show. But if I was in this world where I have a job at Costco, I'm just not looking for, I'm not, I'm like, no, thanks. I have a job. Like right now, yes, I would take that job. But, but in the future, then no, I gotta, but, but I'm saying, I'm saying you should, those jobs should be open to people who want them

and aren't going to leave to go work on like some. Alien Kermit. Not about that specific show. We have a lot of friends who also worked on that show. I think it's a really good show. I watched it with, I tried to watch it with my daughter. It's a little not really appropriate for a two and a half year old, but you know, look, it's more for like, yeah,

it's more for, you know, tweens, like young boys, I think is the target. I showed it to my tween nephew. He didn't care for it either. But anyway, um, the point is, uh, no, I, look, not really, everyone, every, everything is, is good. But we're just having fun guys. We love all the shows, don't we folks?

We love everything that's streaming out there. Yeah, I just, I go through every streaming service and I'm just like, hit, good, great. I just scrolling and I don't know what to watch cause everything's so good. Yeah, it's too much. Have you streamed anything good? That's on my list.

Have you streamed anything good during us? Yes. So, so I have a question. You said something yesterday that was true and I thought it was depressing and I want to say it because I think it was a nice thing you said. We were putting together a list for the Christmas special. And what'd you say, Sus? I said, oh, you know, this is a good cast in like another

lifetime. You could like make a movie or TV show with these people, but it's just not how the way it works anymore, right? Which is fucked up. It's true. So many funny people don't work. It's so fucked up. I don't know what has happened in Hollywood,

but it is fucked up and bad where I see so many people who are genuinely, truly funny. And there's just, just this weird barrier of fucking people who make decisions and shitty fucking producers and show runners and people in charge. It's the truth, though. It's not going to blow up. It's turning into a blow up.

Wager, it's true. You know this is true. It's a downward spiral. I'm seeing the Reddit comments already being like, they're very successful. They shouldn't be complaining. I know. I would love to be in their position.

This is because I care about this industry, you dumb fucks on Reddit. Shut the fuck up. I care about this shit. I dedicated my whole fucking life to it. And I want it to be good. And Wags, I know you think that's true too. I know you think it's true.

I know you want shows and television and movies to be good. And there's a lot of funny, talented people out there. And they should get work. And they should be working. Like you, I share your frustration that a lot of extremely talented people are underemployed in a way that seems like it would not have happened in prior generations of the entertainment industry.

Not only unemployed, but they should be making decisions. It's fucked up. It makes me so angry. And what Sus said about the Doughboy special. And I'm not even going to include myself in it. Even though I should be included, but I'm not even going to include myself in that TV show or movie thing.

All the cast of that Doughboy's- Aren't you in a movie? Yes, I am. And I'm still mad. You're still in a movie. It's coming up. That's good. That's a good thing.

I know. I'm happy about it. But I'm mad about the state of the industry and all those people who were in the Doughboy's- I can't wait to watch it on my phone. God damn it. Sorry. It's a glow up.

It's a glow up. Do we need to take a few minutes to like go outside feel some cold, fresh air, come back? Emma! Don't yell at Emma for trying to calm things down. Emma, you're fired. I don't think so. You can't fire Emma.

Emma just vetoed it. Wait. I think that's the first time I've been fired. Three years. That's pretty good. And also, please edit this and find us a new editor on your way out. I'm going to release all of the dirt I've ever edited

out of an episode. Oh no. I'm kidding. Jesus Christ. I would never. Also, by the way, it's not that bad for God's sakes. It's probably a lot of this rant unedited. It's the same passion you just name names.

That's the unedited version. Which granted, for some reason, Brian Henson was in that one name you decided to name. I'm taking shots at Brian Henson. I loved Brian Henson. Muppet Treasure Island. What are your favorite movies? Muppet Christmas Carol is my favorite holiday movie.

I love Muppet Christmas Carol and I love Brian Henson. I was just saying that if he decided to put you on some shitty, out of space puppet show in the future, what would be your response? Here's the scenario. The scenario is Brian Henson dispatches one of the Henson company producers to track me down. He finds me at a Costco in Sioux City, Iowa where I'm

loading Kirkland signature taquitos into the freezer. Into his pocket. He's smoking a cigarette and he's like, I got Susser. I got Morris. I got Skinner. Yeah, he's only one last piece of the puzzle. I'm looking for Weiger. That's right.

He's listened and he's treating me as part of the crew. And you know what I would do? Why was he taking a haul between every name? We got Mitch as Fat Oscar. I'm not a grouch. People didn't think I was a grouchy man before this show. What do you say, Weiger? You can be a little grouchy.

I think what I do, here's what I do. You're hard to work with too. You know you're hard to work with, you piece of shit. This is not supposed to be the blow up. We're supposed to be the blow up. I'm the good guy. I do everything right. That's me, Weiger.

I didn't say I was the good guy. In fact, I'm such a good guy. I'm going to go work at Costco. Well, good. Get locked in a fucking fridge in Costco and fucking die, you piece of shit. And Noah, it'll be a fridge as opposed to a freezer. I'm just going to end the Zoom meeting.

I'm just going to end it. A fridge as opposed to a freezer. It's so much longer of a death. Yeah, good. I want it to be longer. Slow chill. I want it to be a slow chill, man. This is supposed to be the blow up.

I would turn to this cigarette smoking producer who'd tracked me down and I would say, I'm out of the game. And then I'd continue with my tasks. Wow. That's the hypothetical future. This is the idea is that I would transition away from this industry and do something else with my life, which I think is a thing people do.

God, I'm sure all your Costco coworkers would be like, Nick, please take it. This fucking weirdo has been working with us for eight months. And then he says, maybe I can change your mind. And he opens his briefcase to some warm iceberg lettuce and tosses it to you. We'll take a break. We'll be back with more Toe Boys.

Welcome back to Doe Boys. We are here with Evan Susser for not the blow up, for the glow up as we return to Steak and Shake. Here's my person of why I grew after a full year of working at Costco. Hey, fellow Costco employees. Anyone want to go grab a chicken bake after work? He wants to eat the food that they had back at Costco?

We don't want the chicken bake. We work here. We don't want to go get the chicken bake with you after work. That's just going to happen. No one wants to hang out in the food court after hours? No, they're not going to. Look, you have something to contribute to the world. It's me being nice to you.

You think so? You have a gift. I mean, you have one great gift that we don't talk about too much on the podcast. And that's a gift for yourself, really. But you have another gift for the world. You're a weirdo genius and you're very hard to work with. I'm not the only one who's hard to work with,

but you're a weirdo genius and you're a very funny person. And people need that in their lives. They need it. Why is they need? Why is they need you? They need you to be. They need. They look.

It makes you miserable, but your suffering is worth it because it brings some enjoyment to some people. Okay, you're saying I'm some sort of messianic figure. You're a Christ, if you will. You're Christ-like. Wow. Well, I can't. I can't say.

That's a lovely, lovely thing to say that's very, very nice. You can't say it's us? Well, I can't say that he's a Christ-like figure because of my heritage, but oh, you'll get in trouble. Yeah, I'll get in trouble. Now, now, now, why are you saying something nice about Mitch? I'm happy to say something nice about Mitch. I love Mitch.

Mitch, you're a great guy. You are a truly talented man. I'm constantly astonished by your comedic gifts and by your natural charisma, which I have compared to the force of gravity, that people just like you and want to be around you. They want to orbit around you like satellites. All right. The glow up.

No, but I mean that you have like a pole. You have a charismatic pole because of and that is a huge part of your appeal. And I am so, you know, it's funny because sometimes people will, we talked about Reddit and sometimes people will have like a thing that's just like, like, oh, Betmitch, Betweiger must hate that Mitch is blowing up. Like it's like there's some sort of actual resentment between the two of us. That's a good point. Yes, that's not true.

And I'm just like, no, I'm happy for Mitch because he's an extremely talented man. And I love that you got cast in a movie because you're the kind of guy who should be in a movie. You're the kind of guy who should be in series. And I think you're extremely talented and I love working with you. I love working with you too. Despite the difficulty of working with you. Yes, we're both difficult to work with in many different ways. And I am outwardly annoying and difficult.

I will say that that's how I feel about everyone else in our group of people that we love. And that's how I feel about you too. Ma, are you down here, Ma? All right. Now she's down. Now say something nice about your mother. She's down there.

I love my mom. It's been a pleasure being here with my mom the last couple of months, Ma. Ma. Is she down there? I said, I love my mom and it's been a pleasure being home with her and spending time with her the last couple of months. And especially using your car. And especially using your car.

Look, we'll get into it. I got into a little fender bender today. OK, let's go. So Steak and Shake was founded in normal Illinois by Gus Belt in 1934. Yes. Can I just say that, Ma? Ever since I said you were Christ, like I pictured you up on the cross, sucking yourself off.

Steak and Shake a Midwest staple with a full menu and table service for decades as I mentioned in the intro. Did you just boo me? I didn't boo you. Susser did. I think I made a noise. I think it was revolving. He wasn't.

It wasn't the auto fallatio. It was the Christian imagery that repulsed him. I just pictured you going down on yourself on the cross. And it was. In 2008, Steak and Shake was acquired by Sarda Biglari in a hostile takeover. It was beautiful. Took the chain nationwide. Drop table service and streamlined the menu

and the company is now in dire financial shape. Can I read you guys? Because Susser, I know that this was a favorite of yours and that's the reason we covered it initially. That's the reason Steak and Shake has been a fixture at the end of the year when you're available. Here are some restaurant business online headlines I collected. These are mostly by journalist Jonathan Maze

who covers the chain restaurant industry. These are all these headlines are from 2020. And these are in chronological order. I'm just going to read them. Can I quickly just say though? Yeah. No, my mom's coming back downstairs. I can't do it.

Okay. Mom, is it about? Maybe tell like a PG version while she's there. Yeah, tell a PG version. You're sucking his dick on the cross. I can't. Why is she down here? She's got stuff to do.

It's fucking bullshit. Mitch, you're at her home. You don't have like your own designated workspace. I think she's got stuff to do. It's fine. Is it about, can I guess, and you can nod? Is it about what happens when- Wait, your mom is peeking at you?

I think she is. Yes. She's turned the tables? Uh-huh. What's the comment about when he finished and how that would go? Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ, no.

Exactly. You just got yourself in trouble, Sus. I was going to say that my mom and I have been, you asked earlier, my mom and I have been binging madmen. And we also, we started Sopranos. Why? Because we're on season two of Sopranos. We've almost through season two of Sopranos.

And it's been great. Richie April comes into the scene. Richie April, Janus, what a great character Janus is. Janus, great character. My mom doesn't believe that AJ is the same actor. She thinks it's not the same actor because he was, he lost some weight in between seasons. And she doesn't-

Well, he's 100% is. She doesn't believe that's possible for her son to do. These are the restaurant business online headlines from 2020 regarding this week's chain. Steak and Shake turns to counter services, losses mount. Steak and Shake gets credit downgrades after a distressed debt repurchase. Why Steak and Shake's service model change is a big risk.

Steak and Shake has permanently closed 51 locations. Steak and Shake closes another 13 locations. It's like what you would see in like a montage, you know, like, like in 30 days later, it's like, like he would wake up and then just find scattered newspapers around. And that's what we would learn what was going on. Oh, 28 days later?

Is that what it was? 28 days later. In 28 days later. 30 days later was part three. So it's 28 days later than 28 weeks later. And then the third one is 30 days later? 30 days later, yeah. So a month after 28 weeks.

It's one month after that. Okay. Yes. You know who that was? A young Hawkeye is in that. Is in 28 weeks later. Wow, how about that? Jeremy Renner.

Jeremy Renner. He's a sacrifices himself in 28 weeks later. Wow. So let's let's talk about what we actually did for Steak and Shake, because there is not a Steak and Shake near Mitch. And the Steak and Shakes, as I mentioned in the intro,

in near LA, in the LA area have all closed. They have all, you know, again, just just Sardar Baglaria overexpanded and lost what was special about Steak and Shake. And so there aren't any available. Susser, are there any Steak and Shakes at all near you? There is one that was 40 minutes away

that I was prepared to go to. But what happened was there was not one in Massachusetts, and also it was pretty disappointing the last time we went to Steak and Shake a year ago. It was, yeah. So we decided that we would not be going to Steak and Shake. And in fact, I'm here to say on this podcast, we're never going back to Steak and Shake.

Wow. Wow. Holy shit. It's over. So Nick, do you want to talk about what we did do? What we did is we each got ourselves a Steak and a Shake from places of our own choice. And maybe more than one, we're going to find out.

That's right. I guess, I guess all, let's start with the first half. Let's start with the Steaks. And I will say that for my Steak from a fast food chain, I went to my beloved Del Taco. Wow. And I was up early. I've been an early riser lately, even more so than usual.

And I got myself the Epic Scrambler burrito with carne asada. Here's the description. Scrambled eggs, pico de gallo salsa, grated cheddar cheese, red sauce, hash brown sticks, and carne asada. So it's got the hash brown sticks inside the burrito, which I always like. You know, the issue with breakfast burritos, they can sometimes be a little bit dry,

but this one had a lot of salsa and red sauce in there. And I'm supplementing it with the Del Inferno sauce, because as I mentioned on the podcast, I am something of a heat seeker. Even in the early morning hours, I like to get my food pretty spicy. This is a very good burrito. And I think the steak in particular is fine fast food steak. I feel like in most fast food Mexican chains,

it's like the steak is not going to be high quality meat. It's going to be the lowest quality meat they can get away with. But this one, at least they season pretty decently, and it had a nice texture to it. I would get this burrito again. I think if I wanted a breakfast burrito and Del Taco was the closest option, I would 100% get this and be satisfied with it.

I think this one was a win. Mitch, how about you? What did you do steak wise? Wags, I got steak two ways. Wow. I'm just going to say that every place I went to for my steak and shake were restaurants that are important to me.

Which I did something similar, but keep going. So places that I wanted to support during the pandemic. Also look, I apologize to any Christian or Catholic listeners out there, but it wasn't supposed to be Jesus going down himself on the cross. And the idea of a guy sucking himself off on the cross is funny. It's a funny image, Wags. I think the Pope would agree. The cool Pope would definitely agree.

The cool Pope would Pope Francis is on board. He's laughing right now. Listen to Doe Boys. Yeah. I went to Fat Cat, Nick. Wow. In Quincy, owned by my- Quincy's own Fat Cat.

Owned by my Godfather's son, Neil Kiley. And I got myself the hanger steak. And I got that medium rare. My mom also got a hanger steak, medium rare. That came with red bliss potatoes. Not mashed, but red bliss potatoes. Seasonal vegetables. The vegetables were, it was asparagus.

So it was nice and grilled up. And it comes with the Bordelaise sauce. Is that how you say Bordelaise sauce? I believe so. Bordelaise sauce. I think that's how you say it. Bordelaise? Bordelaise.

What's it? There's another sauce, like a Hollandaise sauce. Yeah, it was not Hollandaise. It's like the other A's sauce. So Bordelaise, I think, would probably be the pronunciation. It was kind of like a great, it was almost like Aju. It was kind of like a gravy-ish looking sauce. Right?

It was really fantastic. The steak was cooked really well. My mom and I were both having a good time. We also got the side of fries. It was, these last few meals, we're ending our Doughboy meals for the year. So we kind of went out and had a delicious steak. Nick, I mean, we're going to rank this out of forks later, right?

We're going to do a breakdown in a little bit. So I'll wait. I think that's up to the commission. I think we're going to figure out how we're going to rank these exactly. But we got this to go. Obviously, we ate at the house and the steak was just perfect. I like a nice hanger steak. Wags, I think that it's known to be a little bit tougher to cut through.

This one was nice and moist and juicy and tasty. It just had such good flavor to it. It was really, really, really fantastic. The potatoes and asparagus were really well done. But the asparagus, it gets your pee to smell a little strange. You know how it is. You know what? That's true.

Your pee tastes weird. Your pee smells a little bit strange. These were big, thick asparagus, too. So it really affected the scent. Anyways. So were you just like, were you tasting it? Were you like just angling the nozzle up and drinking your piss that way? Or did you like go into a glass and like take a sip?

Do you think I'm a type of man who can angle his nozzle up and just take a sip? Anyways, the steak was fantastic. This is a place that I love and I've now surrounded it with things about drinking my own piss. But it was really fantastic. And then Wags, I went in to get surgery in town yesterday. And I was supposed to have these two lumps in my abdomen removed. And I went there and the doctor looked at them. They're benign, which is good news.

And he said that I don't have to get them removed until they're the size of tangerines. Interesting metric. Yeah, breaking shoes. And he said like someone in your family, it's a genetic thing, I guess, apparently, or hereditary. But you just get some sort of benign lumps in your, what is it, in the fat tissue, in the muscle? What's it in? In the fat tissue.

Yeah, there was some talk about how, if they open me up, it would be hard to find the lumps. Yeah, there was some talk about that. I think he did. That's great news. I think he did tell me one thing and started off with not to be insulting. I think that's the way that he started some news. Anyways, it was good. And then the second thing he said was, but I listened to your podcast.

But he, all right, now back to the hot dogs. He was a very nice guy, but it was kind of confusing about what is wrong. Like there are some issues that I didn't figure out what that were wrong. So that's, but whatever, it's going to be good. Wags, I'm working on myself, you know, this, and so this was a scare and the scare is gone. And then in one of our, just our last meals, because it's one of our last Doughboys meals, I don't have to eat Doughboys meals for about a month now, which is great. Yes.

And so we went and got a steak and cheese from DeAngelo's as a little celebration. I got myself a large steak and cheese. And Wags, let me tell you, I love the DeAngelo steak and cheese. The bread is just fantastic. It's on like this, this very soft kind of like almost French bread, but it has like a, like it has like a nice crisp, not crisp outside, but just kind of like tough enough where it's, but it's also the bread is very soft, but the outside is just tough enough that it gives a good bite.

And then the steak and cheese has just done really well. So it's basically like a lot of people just are like, oh, it's steak. But they fry it up on a flat top and it tastes really fantastic. And they crisp it up and then they got some delicious cheese in there. And I just put salt and pepper on that bad boy. I also got myself a bag of cool ranch Doritos and a cherry Pepsi, which I never had before. Wow. And my mom got herself a pastrami.

A wild cherry Pepsi or? Yeah. Not wild. I think wild cherry Pepsi. Yeah. And my mom got herself a medium pastrami and Swiss cheese and we had some mustard with that. And I had a bite of that. And that was also fantastic.

And that's a, and so as far as like kind of like local change, D'Angelo is one that I just really like. And I ate a lot growing up and I know that they've been in a kind of a tough spot recently. Them and Papagenos, I think they, they, they went, I think they would have filed for bankruptcy last year or whatever a year or two ago. So still holding on, but it was real. I was really, really, really, really satisfied with both of my steak options. Wow.

I also got a second steak, but I'll get to that in a second. Susser, what did you do steak wise? I also did two steaks. Wow. I went to the Silver Diner, which is a restaurant started in my hometown of Rockville, Maryland. And I can't believe when you guys went to the East Coast, I didn't even think to recommend this place because it's now become a chain and they are in Maryland, Virginia, DC and New Jersey. And it's a great diner chain.

It's actually pretty similar kind of to the vibe of a steak and shake, but a little bit, I would say the price point's slightly higher, but mostly because of the kind of the like, I don't think you can't get an actual steak and steak and shake. So I got, they had a local flat iron steak, which was topped with blue cheese, butter, crispy onions, draws, mashed potatoes, scallions and sauteed garlic spinach. And that ran me $20. So again, not like crazy, but you know, just putting some context. And I also like had to get it to go and my parents keep kosher.

So I had to eat it outside of the house. Really? Yes. Wait, is that what I'm just curious, is that like a rule that can't even be in their house? Or is that just you're just trying to stay out of their sight? No, that's right. Um, so, so I ate it on the porch, um, which was not the ideal way to eat it, but I was also concerned, especially with like steak temperature.

Right. I was like, you know, how is that going to be? And you know what? It was fantastic. I got a medium rare. It was cooked medium rare, which I wasn't so sure of that. And the, you know, the blue cheese on top was delicious. And the mashed potatoes, you know, it just all went, it was so good.

Um, wow. So I was very impressed with that. And then for good measure, I, they also have, um, they also have breakfast options, obviously. And they had, I saw they had a steak and cheese omelet. So this morning I went ahead and got that. Wow. Which was also fantastic.

And that, uh, that came with, uh, you know, it was like steak and provolone and with like some like pepper kind of a spread thing. I don't know exactly how they describe it. Let me look it up. Uh, but that was also very good. Like, like some sort of pepper relish, like a red pepper, sort of. Yes, exactly. Got it.

Okay. Interesting. So, so, so Sus, because. Philly steak omelet, Philly steak omelet. So that was Philly steak omelet. Caramelized onions, white American cheese, American cheese, sorry. Oh, Jack, cheddar, scallions served with biscuit and home fries. And then yeah, like a roasted red pepper relish kind of thing.

Now, Sus, because you, because you knew that we were covering any steaks you got in this last week or so, did you try to add steaks to a lot of your meals in the past week? Like it sounds like you added steak to this omelet. Yeah. So I also, just in the interest, I, uh, I had a steak salad, uh, for lunch. Uh, uh, I'll also be sending you guys the bill. And I'm also planning on having a steak tonight for dinner.

Wow. So all of that, all of that gets factored in strange because the podcast will be, I mean, we'd have it recorded at that point. So it just seems strange. Right. Well, yeah, you know, tweet about it or, you know, I'll text you guys what I think of it. Okay. But, uh, but yeah, these, these, these are all pretty solid.

I think I liked the actual steak more than the omelet. You know, it felt that omelet felt a little bit more like a novelty than actually what I would want for an omelet, but, uh, but the steak was really good. And you know what? I liked that the novelty existed with the omelet. Wow. Well, for my second steak and my second shake, actually, I went to a chain that we reviewed for the first time this year,

a place that I've been to frequently during quarantine. I am referring to grocery store months own Trader Joe's. And I got myself a boneless ribeye, just a piece of meat. This was a, this was an $11 steak. So, you know, a nice kind of meat. And, uh, I, uh, you know, I dry rubbed it with Sure you did. a red lobster seasoning salt.

Wait, what did you say? I'm sorry, I'm sure you did. Yeah. What, what I understand is dry rubbing is not your preferred method. Okay. I dry rubbed with a, You like to jack off. It's funny.

With a red lobster seasoning salt, which I have, and the red lobster seasoning salt, it's basically like red lobster's version of Old Bay. So, you know, obviously they call it their seafood seasoning. It's obviously intended not for, uh, not for land fare. Yeah, kind of strange. Anyway, kind of strange. You did this, I think, but well, I was like,

Oh, I have something that's connected to a chain restaurant, and that's the theme of the podcast. I think that would be, let's, let's see how this works. And honestly, I'd say if you have some Old Bay and you want to, you want to experiment with a steak, you just want to try a different steak rub, it worked pretty darn well. I added a little extra, you know, just, uh, just kosher salt,

just to, because I feel like it's hard to over. Okay, okay. I feel like it's hard to over salt a steak. So I just wanted to like a little bit more of that. But, but the seasoning salt, which is mostly like paprika, onion powder, garlic powder, it's, uh, it works well for a, it works well for this, this kind of meat. I reverse seared it in a cast iron skillet.

So, you know, put it in the oven at a low temperature for a while. I have this kind of wonky meat thermometer, but I still got it, you know, I'd say, I was aiming for medium rare. I'd say get a medium rare plus. It was just on the cusp of medium, uh, temperature. So you put it in the, you put in the oven at like 260, 275 for a long time. Take it out and then you just throw it on a, on a pipe and a hot cast iron skillet for like a minute a side,

just get a good sear on it. And let me tell you, you know, I'm not trying to talk up my own kitchen proficiency. I'm sure I'll post some pictures online and people will tell me everything I did wrong. But as someone who is an amateur home cook, I think this was a pretty darn good steak. And the, the, the issue with buying a piece of steak and then cooking it yourself is, I never want to spend too much money on that steak because I'm always afraid I'm going to ruin it.

And then I've got this like, you know, this fucking expensive piece of meat that I just like fucking wasted. But this was just at the price point where I'm like, you know what, I can take a little bit of a, I can, I can do my best to try and cook this bad boy. And hopefully it'll come out okay. And I thought it came out pretty darn good. I think I did get some good flavor to it. And I think this method of cooking the reverse sear,

if you haven't tried it and you are a home, home steak cook, give it a, give it an attempt. It's a, it's a, it's a, it's a fun way to mix it up steak wise. Do you think that I could take my own temperature if I put a meat thermometer in my belly button? You, you know what, Mitch, you can, because we didn't have a thermometer in the early days of the pandemic. And we're like, well, you're supposed to be taking, and like people didn't know fucking anything.

So it was like, oh, you're supposed to take your temperature to know. So we had a meat thermometer. You can just use a meat thermometer as a regular thermometer. Really? Yeah. You can just put it under your tongue. It kind of works. God.

I can just picture Natalie seeing you with a meat thermometer in your mouth, but she gets some. Being so confused. I'm already to eat. God damn it. Unfortunately, my second item from Trader Joe's, the shake side, was a vanilla protein shake. And. Unfortunately. Ugh, you thick fuck.

I know. That's such bullshit. Was not great. I know. That's such bullshit. I know. I know. I know.

I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know.

I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know.

I know. I know. Was not great. Yeah. Was not great. Well, you know, I was looking for something shake like from Trader Joe's and I was like, I'll get the, I'll get this protein shake in a can. I just, it just tasted chalky and formula like a thick in the wrong way.

It was like, you know, not thick in the, it's just that, that, that weird like midpoint. Be like a kind of melted ice cream, but you know, not sort of viscosity. It was, it was pretty unpleasant to drink. And I thought the vanilla flavor and I love vanilla. But I thought the vanilla flavor was pretty off. I thought that was pretty artificial. So unfortunately, my Trader Joe's shake was pretty poor. You got another shake though, it sounds like.

But I got another shake. That's right Mitch. Wow. Wow. And let me tell you, the second shake I got was the shake of the century. I legitimately have not had a better shake. Of the century? Since the year tooth, I, since the towers fell, I have not had a better shake.

Oh my God. No shake. Then what I got, which was the Baskin Robbins Jamoka ice cream milkshake. This is something I got a Natalie's recommendation. Jamoka is their coffee flavor. If you're not familiar, it's fucking great. Just to clarify, you said, you said when the towers fell, because when you heard 9-11 happened, you did go out and get a milkshake.

You drank it, but it had the tower hadn't fallen yet by the time you finished it. Okay. Hold on, why did one, didn't you have them? Well, it's still burning. Didn't you have Carl's Jr. or something on the? I did have Carl's Jr. on 9-11, yeah. And did you have a milkshake or no? Maybe, honestly, probably.

Anyway, we all deal with grief in our own ways. You know what I eat? We eat. That's very true. It seems like not a good way to deal with it. No, no, definitely not. But let me tell you, this milkshake was perfectly made. It was just like the person serving me.

She eyeballed the amount of ice cream and milk, but was such a pro that got the proportions 100% right. And it was just like a perfectly made craft cocktail from someone who's just done it like a thousand times. You're just like, holy shit, this is fucking perfect. The coffee flavor was just perfectly balanced with the milk. The texture was great. I got it on kind of a hot day and it was so perfectly refreshing.

I brought this bad boy home. I drank most of it on the car ride home. It was so fucking good. And I gave it to Natalie. And this is an indictment of me. But when she took a sip of that Jamaica ice cream milkshake, I have never seen such just pure pleasure on her face. Like her eyes closed and she leaned back in her chair.

It was just so satisfying. It was a fucking amazing milkshake. Wow. And by the way, people often ask me, hey, where's the best fast food shake? Weigher, where do I go? People forget about Baskin Robbins. It's an ice cream parlor.

It's what they do. You want a great shake? Go to Baskin Robbins. That's my take. What about your shake smidge, rather? I only got one shake, Weig. You only got one shake, okay. Because I'm not a little piggy.

My mom actually told me I was eating like a pig today at one point, which we'll get into later. She said, you're acting like, I think she did say piggy, possibly. Piggy, another great character from the Henson Company. Oh, I thought you were going to say from Lord of the Flies. Oh, you know, he's getting Lord of the Flies. So they kill him.

Yeah. Yeah, I do. First instances of size is him. Yeah, that's pretty grim. Did they throw rock on Piggy? Is that how they kill him? Yeah, they, the first they like, I think they break his glasses and then they throw a bunch of rocks at him,

and then they ultimately, I think, push a big boulder onto him and it kills him. Damn. Yeah, it's gnarly. I mean, I can relate. That shit's happened to me so many times. Wise. I've told this before that I had a,

that there was a Boy Scout, like when I was in Boy Scouts, there was like a Boy Scout like leadership camp out we did, where they took all the patrol leaders up to like a cabin and one of the things they did, one of the exercises they had us do is they showed us Lord of the Flies to be like, this is like what not to do.

Like this is like a, you know, I guess like a scared straight thing. And we watched Lord of the Flies in this cabin and one of the other patrol leaders was this heavier kid. And after the movie was over, just all the Boy Scout leaders, all the, all the kids, all the patrol leaders just started chasing this big kid around.

And we're like Piggy, Piggy, Piggy. We took the complete wrong lesson. Kids are fucking monsters. We just were like, we're just like, oh, we found a new way to bully this kid. And that's what everyone did. You joined them? You chased after the sports child?

Well, yeah. Cause I knew I was next. Him or me. Wow. That is, that's, can I just tell you that every Boy Scout, every Boy Scout story you tell is extremely grim. I'm always, I'm always afraid that it's,

I just am always afraid it's going to be the one. Yeah, but a bad organization. I'm glad that you got out of there unscathed. I think I honestly can't tell. Um, my, I'm also offended because you said since the towers, I'm not offended about that. I'm offended because I took you to the ice cream pile

or AKA the last known Brigham's and you had a crap there. It was a wonderful frappe. And you're, it's not as good as this fucking frappe you're saying? No. I think that's bullshit. Do they eventually in Sopranos, do they get, do they, do they keep the Twin Towers into the whole series?

Because in the opening, in the opening credits, or do they, or do they remove them? I think they kept them in, but they took out the scene where Spiderman caught a helicopter between them in a big web. That was in Sopranos originally? Yeah. That was in Sopranos. I forgot that there was a Peter Parker, Tony Soprano crossover.

Yeah. My mom really likes, uh, Olivia Soprano, the mom, as she, uh, I think she gets along. I think she relates to Olivia Soprano in many ways. Uh, great show. Nick, I think it's still one of the, I loved Mad Men because we just watched that, but I think Sopranos is maybe the best show of all time.

Is that, is that, is that crazy to say? It's not crazy at all. A lot of people feel that way. I, I went to the ice cream parlor once again, Nick, a place that I've gone before the towers, and I've been there my entire life. I've been there since I was a child. Yes.

And I, and I love, I love ice cream parlor once known as Brigham's. Now the ice cream parlor here in Quincy. I got myself a mocha frappe. Wow. Which a frappe is a shake basically, right? It counts, right? Yeah. 100%. And my mom got a mocha ice cream soda,

which is basically soda water and, and, and chocolate syrup and a big hunk of ice cream in the soda water. And you kind of, it's great. It's fantastic. I think you would, you would love it. I'm sure it would. Beat this fucking stupid Baskin Robbins shake, whatever the hell it was.

And Nick, I went down there. I saw Dieter, Dieter who runs the ice cream parlor. Dieter Lombauer. He's a German man. Yes. And, and I, I got myself this mocha frappe. I, I said, he told me that it's been tough in there. And, and I, and I said, and I said, hey, I'm going to try to,

I'm trying to eat healthy, but I'll try to get back here as much as I can. And I went home and I drank this frappe and it was fantastic. As good as it's always been. And Brigham's ice cream doesn't even exist anymore besides in pints at, at the grocery store. So he had to change up his supplier. But it's still as good as it was when I was a child. It's still really, really fantastic.

I mean, look, I'll give you, I'll give you a sneak peek. Five forks on this one. I mean, there's, there are five straws. But, but this was, this, this, this, this, it's, it brings me back to childhood wigs. Put a big smile on my face on this shitty year. And, and I was, I was very happy. This was much better than any shake I'd get at steak and shake.

Wow. And yeah, and that's, that's definitely an indictment of steak and shake. Susser, how about you? What, what did you do shake wise? I, again, you see, I was, this was great about the silver diners. I was able to get everything same place. Wow. So I got the campfire shake, which something was the menu that I was looking at didn't,

for some reason, didn't have descriptions of the milkshakes. So it just said campfire shake. And I said, I'm getting that. Didn't even know what it would be. Wow. Can we guess what was in it? And I got it. Yes.

I'm going to guess it's like a s'mores concept. It's got like graham crackers. That's right. Yes. Yes. Graham crackers. What else? I guess.

Yeah. What kind of ice cream? I was, I was going to guess like vanilla, like vanilla ice cream, but it's got marshmallows and chocolate in it. Marshmallow ice cream is my guess. It's vanilla ice cream, graham crackers, marshmallows, and chocolate pearls, which was, that was what was really nice. You know, they kind of, you'd suck them up in the straw.

So you get like a little bit of crunch of chocolate. And it was just a home run. It was like a really, it was like a really fun shake, especially with the pearls, like the flavor was good, but also like, you know, and it, you know, it did invoke being around a campfire, even though you really wouldn't have a milkshake at a campfire. Because how would, you know, I guess you could bring a blender and some sort of, you know, adapter to your car or something, but a freezer.

And it seems very cumbersome to have a milkshake. It's possible. Well, but it is possible. So it was great. And I actually did have it with my steak, which is funny and not really something that I would normally ever do. But, you know, I just had to get this fucking eating out of the way for the Stump podcast. So, but, but it was, it was a real treat and it was all really good.

And it was like, did it was saying or go ahead. Did the guy at the diner? Did he, did he dial every number except the last one of the corner? Just wait until you finish. Yeah, but it was really good. And like you said, it was a little bit of like just the concept of like steak and shakes. I was like, man, like this is both of these are great things. You know, the concept, it's like amazing that the restaurant

that has that name has lost its way. Because who doesn't like both of those things? They're both good things. 100%. So yeah, my shake was great. Wow. Well, I guess, I guess that gets us to our final thoughts here. And let me just real quick defend the premise of this episode.

No one, you don't need to, people are on board. But I'm just going to say this. I just want to say this. There are any skeptics out there. Susser's connection to steak and shake, which he introduced to me and Mitch. And the reason we went to it in the first place was nostalgia. It was like the memory of going to this place and it having some meaning to you. And I believe we lived up to the spirit of that.

I agree. All going to places that we like and getting different executions, different versions of steaks and shakes that had some significance to us. And I think that for that reason, I think this lives up to the steak and shake heritage here at the Doughboys podcast. You know what, Weiger? I think some people are still not completely convinced. Can you go on a little bit longer about why it was okay?

Sure. Sure. You know what, Nick? I got to say that I 100% disagree with you. I think that this should not be counted as a review of a restaurant. I think this is a non-cannon episode. Wow.

I think it's, I think it's definitely non-cannon because what is it? This is not going to be the fork rating of DeAngelo's or like Trader Joe's steak or the silver diner. I mean, it's a, so I guess we're just, are we rating the concept? I'll tell you what this episode is. Yeah. It's an insta skip. People are going to fucking skip this one.

Even with that montage, that Emma worked so hard on. It was a great montage. Emma's gone out. I mean, I thought Emma left. Emma, Emma's gone out. She couldn't even stand listening to this. She's sick of this bullshit, just like all of us. So no, so no verdict.

I feel like we need some, we need some sort of closure. I know, we gotta give a fork score. I'm joking. I would, I will say this. Getting to our final thoughts here. Maybe this isn't canon. Maybe this is, goes in the Doughboys legends section of the Doughboys Wikipedia. Right next to Zorba.

Right next to Zorba. But it is, but I still think that, that we should have some sort of take here. So let's get to our final thoughts. So Susser, we'll begin with you, your closing argument, if you will, on your steak. Your shake. Yeah, someone's going to do a glow-up of me to Zorba or something, or Zorba to me. I guess I'm still unclear on what a glow-up is. No, they're going to do one of them.

I get it. Okay. I thought the silver diner, I thought it was great. I loved having a steak. I loved having a shake. I loved this way of interpreting it. I think that you're right. It lives up to the spirit of nostalgia and something that we like.

So I give it five forks, and I hope that I will one day be able to share this place with you guys when the world returns to normal, and you guys are back touring, and you're back bringing me. Yeah. Yeah. That would be a dream to go to the silver diner with you, Suss. I hope that happens to you. No, I would like to do that, Suss, as well.

For me, the three restaurants that I chose are, yes, there's some nostalgia factors in it. Fat Cat's been open for a while. I don't even know how long now, for probably 12 to 15 years. I think when I headed out to California, it was open not too soon after that. So maybe 2007, I don't know, I'm doing a bad job. But the other two places that I've eaten since childhood, the other two places that I've eaten since childhood. And Nick, I also got to say that I got a wedge salad.

And me and my mom both got a wedge salad from Fat Cat when we got our steaks. And that came with blue cheese, and it had onions, bacon, and tomatoes on it. And then also, we got a side of blue cheese also for the fries, because it came with a dipping sauce. And Fat Cat has great blue cheese. Look, I'm going five forks all around for all three of these spots. And I'm just going to quickly give a shout out to the ice cream parlor that was formerly Brigham's. Give me ice cream treats since I was a boy.

And I still enjoy it there. There's things there that I find there that I can't find anywhere else in the world. And look, more and more places like this are starting to disappear. And you got to support local businesses, Nick. You got to do it. I know that this podcast is about fast food restaurants and chains and these kind of giant corporations. But it's good, again, around the holidays, and especially because it's 2020.

If you have a place that you love that makes something special, go out and support them. Put money behind them. These people are heroes who are still working through all of this. And you know what? Leave some tips, too. Leave tips for people who are working these jobs because they need it and they're risking their lives and putting their lives in the line. So five forks for that.

Five forks for D'Angelo's, which is a local chain that I've loved. And it's funny to support something that is a chain restaurant. But it is kind of a regional chain restaurant and something that I really love. And it is just specific to the area and I really enjoy it. And so if you're in the New England area, go support D'Angelo's. I really had a fantastic sandwich there. I think it's great. And then Fat Cat, of course, is close to my heart and that's family, basically.

That works there. And so five forks. It's my favorite restaurant in Quincy. Go support it and go support your local restaurants. It's been a tough year, but we talked about, you know, we got this beautiful message of this beautiful glow-up message, which brought a tear to my eye. But just think about the restaurants and the food and the special treats and the special sandwiches and snacks that bring you joy similar to what people were saying with the

podcast, which was really touching. But think about all those things and go and support them with some dollars and help people get through this hard year. That's all I got to say. A lovely sentiment there, Mitch. And yeah, I'll just add, you know, if you are fortunate enough like we are to still be, you know, having a little bit of money in the midst of all this economic peril, if you are someone in that situation and you can support a local business, a local restaurant, that's

wonderful. One way you can do that beyond just patronizing, it is if you just buy a gift card from one of these places. Again, if you have the means, if you can buy a gift card and then just, you know, either give that as a gift to somebody or, you know, just hold on to it for a bit, then that just kind of puts some money in their pockets and helps them sustain. I fully agree with Mitch, tip as well as you can wherever you go. And to all the food service workers and grocery workers out there,

thank you for your service as always. God bless you for everything you do. I love Del Taco and it's a five fork chain for me. I think that burrito was absolutely, you know, in that in that range, not the best item I've ever had from there, but definitely delivered on what I wanted from Del Taco. I love Baskin Robbins, childhood favorite of mine. I thought it was great when we reviewed it on the podcast with her buddy Dave King. And this milkshake was unbelievable.

It was like one of the best things I had all year. Bar none. This is, this is a five fork milkshake for sure. Trader Joe's, you know, the only item that under delivered was that vanilla protein shake, but I love Trader Joe's as a place to shop. And I think the workers there are great. And I think they, you know, absolute, they just carry exactly what I need for the most part. And everything is, it feels like reasonably priced.

You can get good proteins there. And that ribeye was a great piece of meat that I did my best to cook to live up to live up to what I was given. So I'm going to give Trader Joe's five forks as well, five forks all around. This was a five forks experience for me. And I think a five forks kind of experience an episode, a five forks episode. We're rating Doughboy's episodes now. Wow.

Hey, that was our review of steak and shake. It's time for a segment. We've got a seasonal food stuff. We're going to give our takes. It's another edition of Seasons Eatings. The official theme song of Seasons Eatings, Guster's cover of Donde esta Santa Claus. This is not one. I was waiting for you to sing something, but this is just the one where we play it.

No, yeah. No, there's there's no lyrics to this one. So, Susser, as you know, better than anyone. Mm hmm. And as I mentioned earlier, we had the Doughboy's Tournament of Chompions, Munch Madness, this year, Mac Attack. We went through the entire McDonald's menu and had a number of rules there. One of the rules was if it's seasonal, it's reasonable.

But one item was not seasonal at the time of the tournament. It wasn't reasonable. It was not reasonable. But now the McRib is back once again. And it's time for us to cover it. We're closing out the year by covering the McRib. Wow. So the McRib sandwich, if you're unfamiliar with it,

is a seasoned boneless pork patty dipped in a tangy barbecue sauce topped with slivered onions and dill pickles on a toasted homestyle bun. Mitch, your friend, Micas. I hope people leave me a McRib under the tree. It's Santa. Santa? Wow. That's right.

I think Santa would love that. After all the cookies? No more cookies. Give me a McRib, Nick. Nick. Yes. I'm also Nick, Saint Nick. How about that?

You know, I love, I actually like that about Christmas. There's a jolly old Saint Nick that makes me think of me. That's what you like about Christmas? It's one of the things. Okay. Well, I don't know. Imagine if Santa was named Saint Mike or Saint Mitch. Wouldn't you be like, Hey, it's cool.

It's like Santa has the same name as me. You're talking to me now instead of Santa? Yeah. I don't know if that would make me like the season anymore. Yes. I'm with Mitch. It's a weird reason to like Christmas. I don't know.

I kind of always have a little bit of an allegiance towards anyone who's got the same name as me. Well, I was going to stick around a little longer, but after talking to Nick, I'm going to take off everyone. Bye, Santa. Bye. Santa, do you still give a little lead express? Mitch's mom.

Good question. Two jobs come from me and Mitch. Mitch is a good. Mitch is a good boy. So he gets gifts from mother and from me. Wow. And all right. Back to the little express.

Yes, it is. Goodbye, everyone. Wow. There we go. So wow. A visit from Santa Nick. It was really worth it. All the celebs stopped by the dough boys.

Hey, you know what? That's part of the glow up. That's right. Who better to hear from during the glow up than Santa himself? Yeah, that's right. All the celebs are stopping by for the final. Oh my. Wow.

Bill Clinton, former president. Hey, how about you leave me and McCrib under the tree? Famously a fan of McDonald's. Bill Clinton. People have maybe forgotten about that because he's a vegan now. That's right. Well, time for me to take off too.

Got Santa's sleigh. Weird. So hold on. Do you think that Bill Clinton is helping Santa on Christmas? I mean, he might be now. It's a possibility. It's like his habitat for humanity. He's helping out Santa.

So Mitch, I wanted to talk to you about something which I did not do. I did not follow Micas' advice. Your friend and mine, Micas, said to add cheese to the McCrib. I found this bizarre. You add cheese to the McCrib. This is the Micas way, the Micas order. The Micas specialty is adding cheese to the McCrib. I did this, but I also got one McCrib as is.

I did both. Wow. Wow. It's been a while, obviously, since it's been gone for how long? Didn't we have one on Doe Boys, no? We had one on the Doe Boys double, our Patreon episodes. We had one with Aaron McGathey. We did a McCrib with McGathey.

That's right. That's just the level of booking we get. We have a guest whose name starts with Mick, and we're like, sure, we'll have a McCrib with this person. Yes. I mean, I think it's preachy. That's the level of thought we put into our podcast. Bill Clinton came by.

He didn't even do anything. No, he just got the fuck out of here. As quickly as possible. I'm so surprised my fingers didn't know why he was here exactly, and didn't really have a plan. What am I supposed to write out my Bill Clinton bit? No, I liked it. Guess who else is here?

It's me, George W. I forgot my middle one for a second. You thought you were your own dad for a second? Yeah, I thought I was my dad for a second. Oh boy. Do you have a reason for being here? No, but I just want to say, strategic. Goodbye, everyone.

Bye, George W. Bush. He's also got into the sleigh. Yeah. Nick. Yes. And hey, it's me, Obama. I'm going to get on the sleigh, too. Nick, they're, they're getting, they're going out to give out the,

the vaccine to everyone. Wow. The three is about Obama, W, and Clinton. The three presidents, we, I guess everyone likes now. We're just saying all three of them are good now. We like them all. Sure, because they're not Trump. They're all, they're all, they're not the vaccine.

The other living president. Jimmy Carter. Jimmy Carter. Well, you know what? I think you're actually your post-president. Yeah, I know. But you, you sound closer to Ross Perot. I would say.

Are you Ross Perot? That's right. It's me, Ross Perot. You got me. Get out of here. Oh, yeah. I'm going to go help give out the, the vaccine. Bye, everyone.

All right, he's going to. Wow. The, all the presidents are going with Santa to give out the vaccine at the end of the year. It's beautiful. It's the only thing would be more beautiful is if Sully himself. Was flying the, it was flying the sleigh. Was flying the sleigh. But that's impossible.

I mean, that's crazy. So anyway, let's back to the McRib. So you got one with cheese and one without. Did somebody say impossible? What? Who are you? It's me, Jimmy Carter. Oh, okay.

That's pretty good. Yeah, I'm getting on the sleigh. Okay. Do you know Sully? Can you get Sully to drive it? I'm here. She, it's me. Shelly.

That's what you sound like. All right. And we're Robinson. Yeah. I was trying to think of a new, I was trying to think of a New York accent. This is what came in my head. She. Why don't you do the fucking Sully?

I never had the McRib either. Shut up, Susser. Shut the fuck up. Don't yell at Susser. Why not? I don't know. I don't know why you're low up. This is a lovely gesture.

Why are you do the Sully? Okay. Let's, I don't remember. I can't, I don't remember what Sully sounds like, what Tom Hanks says Sully sounds like, but I remember what his Captain Phillip sounded like. I'll do, I'll do Captain Phillips. Where Mr. Rogers?

Okay. Okay. Hey, it's me. It's me, Captain Phillips. There's pirates coming. I'm scared. I'm no longer the captain. Jesus Christ.

They told me that he would, they were the captain now. Oh, Emma. Just edit everything out. Just edit it all out. Especially, actually only keep Wiger's Captain Philip's impression in and everything else just take out. Okay. Birds.

Birds. Jesus Christ. So the McRib, I never had it before. Fuck you, Suss. Are you just, you want to be done with the show? You said to do the cheese. Okay. Yeah.

Go ahead. No. Okay. So you had also said to do the cheese, which I was like driving through the driving. I'm like, don't forget to ask with cheese. It's because it's not an option. And I was in my head.

I'm going to like have to order it. And then I'm like, okay. So you'll just say like, oh, and is it, I'll be like, is it possible to do cheese? And I'll figure it out. Got up to the drive through. I'm like, a one McRib combo. And they're like, okay, it'll be that.

I'm like, great. And there's, no, fine. I forgot the cheese. And then I thought about like driving back and be like, hey, it's me again. Can you throw some cheese on there? But then another car was coming. And I'm like, I can't get into a car accident.

Over trying to get cheese on the McRib. I thought, you know, I could have done an up and back and like, just went, you know, all the way back through and got in the normal one and then got in one with cheese. But I just said, enough's enough. And I never had a normal McRib anyway. Wow. So I said, yeah, I was kind of scared of it as a young Jewish boy.

Because it was like the pork sandwich. And I was like, oh, and then when I heard that they like made something that tasted like bone, that it was like you're eating bone. And I wasn't sure about it. But my big takeaway is they should call it the mixed sauce. A bunch of sauce. I mean, that was the overwhelming thing is just like so much barbecue sauce. Yes.

Like I couldn't even like really, it's just like an insane amount of barbecue sauce. But the sandwich itself, it was fine. But just really overwhelming amount of sauce. I agree with you. And I think that's to cover up the low quality of the pork patty, which doesn't necessarily have a bone flavor, but has a bone form factor. It's all just like ground pork, but it's shaped into kind of like resembling a small, you know, baby back ribs rack.

I think this is semi unfair because I'm pretty sure that Suss's hands were covered in barbecue sauce when he got the McRib. Yes, but it was a different flavor. It's a different color. So I was able to distinguish between the two barbecue sauces. I will say the things that I think helps the McRib, which is not a regular thing I get, but I've had a number of McRibs over the years. I think the presence of the pickles and the raw onions help cut all the sweetness

because Suss's right, it's a lot of sauce. But when you get those bites with the pickles and with a bit of the onion, that kind of gives you some sourness to counter that, I think that's actually pretty good. And I think it's just on the cusp of being too bunny, but I think it's the right amount of bun for this sandwich. I don't know. I think the McRib has its place. And I think it's a decent seasonal offering for McDonald's.

What do you think, Mitch? I think the McRib is good. I got a McRib meal, a large fries and a large Coke. I got the meal. Yeah, I also got the meal I should mention. And I got a black coffee for my drink. And boy, man, I miss McDonald's coffee. It's been a long time since I had one.

Wow. McDonald's coffee is great. Sorry, go on, Mitch. I, uh, McRib and a coffee feels like a, feels like a blowout. A blowout situation, no? And it feels like a, it feels like there's a glow up. I feel like this might, this episode might be the brown out. Christ.

Speaking of brown out, Suss, you're right. There is a lot of sauce on these things. That's right. Maybe it should be called the McSauce. As you said, it's a, it's sauce crazy. I got, so I got, I got the Mike is special. I got the McRib with cheese on it. But then I also got the meal, just a plain McRib with the fries and the Coke.

And I got my mama McRib, so three McRibs total. I drive around. I was talking to the, the lady at the window when I was paying. We had a nice conversation and she gave me some gift certificates. I think because I was a, wow. Because I think just because I was being friendly, then I go to move forward. I hear a crunch. I've hit the pole.

Oh no. Just a little bit in my mom's car and she's like, oh, that's what she made. That's what she was saying. And she said, you're the fifth person to do that today. The lady at the window. And I pulled up. I barely did anything. There was already a crack in the bumper where I hit it.

It was fine. I thought your mom said that. I'm like, your mom's letting five people drive her car during Corona. No, just me. I hit the front bumper and I felt bad. I told the lady at the window, my mom's going to kill me. She was probably like, you're 40 years old. What's wrong with you?

Why is your mom going to kill you? And then I got to the pickup window and I asked for ketchup. The woman told me that this is a new lady. This is a different, this is a different lady. She said, there's ketchup inside the bag. I get home. There's no ketchup inside the bag. I got fooled.

But you know, whatever, that's not a big deal. I ate the McRib with cheese first, the one that Mike likes. I think it does add something to it, but it's so saucy that you can barely even taste the cheese, but I did think it was a nice addition. I liked it. Overall, I think the sandwich is good for an item that's like, it would be nice to go and get that for lunch one day and then one day only, you know, every couple of years.

I think I'm fine with the way that the McRib comes back. I'll tell you this. My mom took a bite of it and she said, Michael, I really like this. My mom loved the McRib. Wow. My mom really loved the McRib. She loves barbecue ribs and she was enjoying this McRib and she'd probably give it five forks, but I think as a specialty item, it's good.

It's a fun specialty item, Wigs. Yeah. That makes me, my mother-in-law also loves the McRib. Wow. And I wonder, is it a mom's thing? Do moms love the McRib? Do moms love them? They moms might love the McRib.

They might. Could just be a thing. I think, here's how I would want to evaluate this one, if you'll indulge me. Imagine this was available in March and this was in the Doughboys Tournament of Chompions. Rate the McRib by saying how far you think it gets in the tournament. Knocked out in the first or second round. I am going to say, I think the McRib has a little bit of a run in it and wins two rounds and gets knocked out in the sweet and sour 16.

Yeah. I think depending on the matchups, it maybe makes it to the sweet 16. I think it would be like, I think it beats like the McFish or whatever, or the fish filet. Yeah. Yes, 100%. And then it beats all the salads, of course. Sure. And then besides.

I don't think it beats a McChicken though. It doesn't beat a McChicken, but it beats other chicken sandwiches for sure. Yeah. I can imagine a setup where it wiggles its way into the round of 16. And then I can't imagine it going any further than that. But that's where I think it's kind of its peak. I agree with that. It's silly, if you will.

All right. That was Season's Eatings. Just like a restaurant, evaluate your feedback. Let's open up the feedback. And today we have an email from atroversuade who writes, As we all know, vanilla is a flavor, but which flavor of vanilla is best? Every time I'm at the grocery store, I see French vanilla, vanilla bean, old fashioned vanilla, extra creamy vanilla, malted vanilla, classic vanilla,

and just plain adjective free vanilla. We're getting the fucking bubblegump of vanilla over here. Listing every fucking vanilla. His friend died in his arms in Vietnam. If you're at the store picking out a vanilla, what type are you most likely to purchase? Which vanilla varietal do you vote victorious? Well, not a lot of alliteration there at the end. A lot of options here.

Susser, when you think of vanilla, which type of vanilla do you like? I like vanilla bean. I'll say that right off the top. And then I like French vanilla. And some sort of creamy vanilla could be okay. But I think vanilla bean can be really good. Susser, I fully agree with you. Vanilla bean is my top pick.

I think you get those little bits of bean in there. I think that's just, you know, you know, that's a quality product, and you know that's going to have some strong vanilla flavor to it. It's an exotic bean. Give me that bean. I've never heard of malted vanilla. That's a new one for me. I'm curious to try it.

I've had vanilla malts, but malted vanilla flavor. I think he maybe, I think he made it up. I think he made it up. Yeah, that could be a at Rover Suede invention. Mitch, what's your favorite vanilla varietal? I too like vanilla bean, but my number one is just straight up vanilla wigs. I'm going to go straight vanilla. Wow, just regular vanilla.

Vanilla ice cream, that's what I want. But I like the vanilla bean. I think it's good, but give me just straight up vanilla. Vanilla vanilla is how you roll. It's nice and smooth. It's nice and smooth ice cream. Fully, I mean, that's an absolutely valid pick. Emma, what about you?

Ed, do you get a favorite kind of vanilla? Oh, definitely vanilla bean. I completely agree. I like those little flexi vanilla. Perfect. Wow. Wow. Emma did an actual chef's kit we saw on the Zoom.

So there you go. We're ending the year on a vanilla question wigs. Hey, you know what? We talked vanilla a lot on the show. And this was the steak and shake episode. We got a little vanilla talk at the end of our shake talk. I think it's fine. But let us know your favorite for a vanilla varietal.

Hashtag Thrilla Vanilla. And if you have a question or comment about the world of chain restaurants, you can email us at doughboyspodcasts at gmail.com. Or leave us a voicemail at 830 Godot. That's 830-463-6844. And to get the Dough Boys Double or Weekly Bonus Episode, join the Golden or Platinum Play Club at patreon.com slash Dough Boys.

Evan Susser. Suss. I think the one thing we have missed in this glow-up episode, Mitch, you and I have not given Susser his own glow-up. Susser, you're a huge part of the show. People don't know how much you do behind the scenes. People don't know how much you consult on what we should do on the show, who we should have on the show.

And how much you just also just are like an emotional support person for Mitch and I, who are both mercurial, weird men. And we honestly, we've said this before, it's not hyperbole. We could not do Dough Boys without you. Thank you for doing that lovely compilation of audio clips. But we love having you on the show. We love you, Suss.

You are definitely the, you're the third Dough Boy. Thank you. And well, and also M-I-U as well. There's a whole Dough Boys family. Okay. Well, you know, I think that you said this before, so. It's okay, Suss. You're the third Dough Boy, but I'm the only Dough Girl. That is true.

There's a Dough Boys family in Suss. We, it wouldn't work without you. So thank you, Suss. Wait, we got seven Dough Boys and one Dough Girl? We got to do better. This is 2020. It's like, you should be fucking do better. It's like the Bill Maher Writers Room.

Thank you, Suss. It's been a tough year. Thank you, Susser. But we love you. We love you. Yeah. And one thing to kind of plug and one final glow up. So we are not announcing the exact date, but there is a Dough Boy's Telethon coming.

That's right. And also it's called the 25 hour Doughathon. That's right. We're going for 25 hours. You guys can also cut this out if you want. But I just want the listeners to know that you guys are really great guys and this year has been a very hard year. And right when the pandemic started,

I thought the first thing to do is make sure everyone knows that they can't get any refunds from the Patreon. But instead what you guys did is you made a very large donation. I'm going to say the amount. Again, you can cut this all out. $25,000 to restaurant workers, to food banks, and continue throughout the year to give to large amounts of money to charities, which a lot of people who make a lot more give a lot less.

And I want to say I'm very proud to know you guys and proud of this work that you do and that you don't take credit for or don't even let people know. And I just think the listeners should know about that. And hopefully when we do this telethon, that spirit moves people to, if they're able to, to also donate to charity. So I just wanted to say that last thing.

That makes very nice sense, sir. Very nice thing to say. You got material out again. Thank you. All right. That's it for me. What did you have something else, Nick? Are you calling your own shot?

Getting out of here? Like it's the end of your set? Sus, you know what? I give you five forks as a guy. You're a five-fourth guy. A five-fourth man. And that's just when he's eating lunch. More like a five napkin man.

Five forks is a lot of courses, Jesus. Like he'll build the elegy. Not sure what to do with all the forks. Well, that'll do it for this episode of Doe Boys. Until next time, until next year, for the Night Spoon Mike Mitchell, I'm Nick Weiger. Happy eating.

See you, everyone. Merry Christmas. It was Santa. On the next Doe Boys Double, it's the 2020 Doe Boys Christmas Special, Wyghard. An all-star cast of Doe Boys fan favorites joined for a loving tribute to Die Hard,

which is actually a Christmas movie, if you think about it. Give yourself a gift. Get the Doe Boys Double every Tuesday only at Patreon.com slash Doe Boys.