Doughboys - Steak 'n Shake with Evan Susser

Episode Date: September 10, 2015

Screenwriter and friend of the podcast Evan Susser (Sonic the Hedgehog, Fist Fight) joins in studio to convey his passion for Steak 'n Shake to neophytes Nick and Mitch. But do they really get the full experience? Plus: a jellybean edition of Snack or Wack.Want more Doughboys? Check out our Patreon!: https://patreon.com/doughboysSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Our tale begins in a town called Normal. Normal, Illinois, where in 1934, a retired marine named Gus Belt transformed his combination restaurant and gas station known as Shell's Chicken into a hamburger joint. Belt won over local skeptical of a still unfamiliar product known as ground beef by parading fresh steaks into the dining area and grinding them in full view of his customers, and so the restaurant's signature steak burger was born. After Belt's death in 1954, a series of owners expanded the chain across the Midwest, making the burger and milkshake outlet a staple of the heartland, until a downturn due to

the financial crisis of 2008. Enter Sardar Biglari, a San Antonio-based, Iranian-American investor and acolyte of Warren Buffett, who, at just 34 years old, seized his opportunity and wrangled a hostile takeover to become chairman. Biglari Holdings, his eponymous investment company, which also owns Maxim magazine and a substantial portion of Cracker Barrel, has put his stamp on the burger chain, literally, as many new locations are now branded as by Biglari, a partly egotistical, partly capitalist measure that ensures he'll collect substantial licensing fees should he ever be forced out.

Now with 500 locations, this Midwest institution is attempting to conquer the globe, including by opening its first California locations just this past year, making this very episode possible. This week on Doe Boys, Steak and Shake. Welcome to Doe Boys, the podcast about chain restaurants. I'm Nick Weiger, sitting alongside, as always, Mike Mitchell, the Spoon Man. How you doing, Spoon Man? Hey.

Good. How's everybody doing? Just so much. Spoon Nation, okay. Yeah, I just want to say a big, oh no. Oh, you fucked this up. I fucked this up. You had a cue on your phone and it just did not play or anything.

It did not play. God damn it. Do you want to just tell us what it would have been? Do you think you got it working now? No, it's not working. What was it? It was going to be Mr. Hankey saying howdy ho to Spoon Nation. Wait, the thing you did last episode?

Yeah. That's not your signature. That's not your signature. No, that's my thing now. No, your thing is not. It's a big howdy ho to Spoon Nation. It's not your catchphrase. It's not your intellectual property.

Hashtag howdy ho. No. You don't own, you don't own, Trey Parker, Matt Stone's creation, Mr. Hankey. You cannot say he has an affiliation with the Spoon Man. Oh, he certainly does. I think this is the part where maybe Spoon Man, which has been a sensation so far, Spoon Man has maybe been a breakout character in the Doe Boys verse, and I think this is maybe the part where you're fluent a little too close to the sun.

Hey, everybody, if you disagree with Weigher, tweet howdy ho, Spoon Man, right at me. Well, the thing is this will work because any time you tell Spoon Nation to tweet something, they will do it. Because they're a loyal army, Weigher, you don't understand. If you embraced Lil' Weig's The Burger Boy, they'd be knocking down your door. I don't, I kind of don't think so. Unlike you, I'm not charismatic. I'm kind of, I'm not someone who has a kind of personal magnet, magnetism.

Good point. I should fire you and get a better partner on Doe Boys. Better be someone who can schedule the show and make sure you show up. Book guess, outline what the episode is going to be. I'm sure someone else can do that. Yeah. I'm just kidding. I'm giving Weigher a hard time.

We have fun. He does a great job. We, we rib each other, but you know what? We're buddies. That's very true. This dynamic works for us. Yeah, I guess. I'm feeling sick today.

Yeah. Well, so we're recording this on a Monday and this past weekend, as of this recording, so this is, this is going to be released about a week and a half from now. But as of this recording, we just had this past weekend, you did your show, what's going on with Mike Mitchell. That's right. And then we subsequently, the next day we ate at our restaurant this week, Steak and Shake, alongside our guest, who we'll introduce in one second.

And you were, you were feeling pretty ragged then, one day later, you're still feeling pretty ragged. I felt terrible. Yesterday was one of the most hungover days I've ever had, it would, it would make my top 10 at least. Wow. Counting college days. Yeah.

It would, it would, it would, yeah, yeah, I would say it would be, I would say it would be, it would be way up there. Even on like my worst days of being hung, hungover, I would, would rarely, rarely throw up. And yesterday I was like dizzy and thought I was, I was going to throw up quite a few times. I was, it was, it was bad. You saw me.

Yeah. When I got to Steak and Shake and I looked green-ish. You looked, I mean like, you know, and I don't mean this to insult you, but you were, you were, you looked pretty rough. You look like you'd, you look like a, a cop who just like, you know, It's a murderer. Yeah. Yeah.

His, his wife left him and he'd just been in a grizzly crime scene and he was going to go eat his troubles away at the steak and shake. That was kind of what your visage was. But also we got to the register and you were recognized as a member of the birthday boys comedy troupe from your IFC TV show that the guy was like, Hey, you're from TV, aren't you? The birthday boys. Yeah.

That was, that was pretty, it didn't make me feel any better. I still felt terrible. A man noticed me when I looked at my most awful, but that was nice and it was nice for you guys for, for the guests who are guests who we'll introduce in a minute or so. But who, who, who told me one time that he thinks it never happens and he got to, he got to witness it, he got to witness it in person. You too. Yeah.

It was great. And then they gave, I believe they gave us our meal for free. No. That is not true. That is not true. Oh, that's right. You paid for it. I paid for it, yeah.

I actually jacked up the prices. Quiet you, you're not supposed to talk yet. He can talk. He can talk. He's our guest. Let's introduce him. He's a screenwriter whose credits include the upcoming film Fist Fight with Charlie Day and Ice Cube and Sonic the Hedgehog, something I'm a fan of.

Evan Susser is here. Hi Evan, friend of the podcast, Evan Susser finally joins us in studio. Hey guys, I'm thrilled to be here. Honestly, jokes aside, this has probably been the thing I've been looking forward to in my life the most for the past month or two. Wow, this is pathetic. And you're expecting a child? Yeah.

You have a baby on the way. To any family listening, no, that's not the case. That's just a joke. You should announce it on Doughboys if that is ever the case. I might need to talk about it with my wife, but nah, sure. Okay, yeah, I'll do that. Okay, yeah, that's a promise. I will say that Susser is a very anticipated guest for us, too, because we've talked about

him a lot on the podcast. He's given us a lot of thoughts and feelings about the show, and we like him. He's a funny, talented guy. I'd say he's a loyal listener and a good friend who chimes in a lot, gives us his feedback. I've asked. A little too much sometimes, honestly. Well, in all fairness, I usually check in with Evan before the show because I'm just sort of curious about his thoughts because I know he's a guy like the two of us who has

a great passion for food and has some very strong opinions on it, and he often gives me some insight that's kind of an interesting like, oh, I didn't think of it that way. I agree. You know, it's actually, guys, I don't know if you know this, a few people have come up to me kind of in the comedy community and be like, hey, I really liked your mentions on Doughboys. Is that real? Yeah, really.

It happened this time. Tim Secardo, mutual friend of ours, came over and said something to me this past weekend, and it feels great, and I listen every week, and anytime I mentioned I'm thrilled to be mentioned. I don't expect it, but I appreciate it, and I'm just so excited to be here. You know, yeah, it feels great. He brought a folder, which we're kind of questioning what it means. There's a folder with what looks like to be some sort of material in there.

Well, you know, I don't think it's, I just kind of consider myself. I think we kind of all do the third Doughboy, so I thought for when I came, I should be prepared. Okay, that's fair. That's very fair. Yeah, Susser is also the guy you may remember in the Chick-fil-A episode who called me out for the exclusion of Chick-fil-A into the, was it the Gold Plate Club? Oh, yeah.

Well, I mean, I don't know if we actually mentioned this on the air. We may have discussed it on an episode. Do you remember? No, I think I'm pretty sure. I'm pretty sure, yeah. We did discuss it. We did discuss it. Yeah, position was kind of misrepresented.

Misrepresented, okay. I thought I got it perfectly. Well, you're here. Then clear it up. Please go ahead and tell us what you were thinking. I think kind of, as I expressed to you kind of all personally, that it is just such a slippery slope with moral clauses with these fast food organizations. And real quick, we should clarify for anyone who didn't listen to the Chick-fil-A episode.

So what happened is that we have the Gold Plate Club, which is awarded to a chain that receives an average of four forks or greater from the hosts, me and Mitch, and our guest. And Chick-fil-A had technically reached that threshold, but Mitch decided to put a lock on the door of the Gold Plate Club and not allow Chick-fil-A in because of their intolerant politics. That's correct. And Evan- I was kind of a hero in a lot of ways that episode.

Well, you took a moral stand in a way, but also you contradicted the system that we'd established and Evan had some points of disagreement with that. Well, I just, you know, and then I think the next week you guys did Denny's and they famously had a very big discrimination kind of lawsuit against them. And it just kind of begs the question, where's the line with this kind of stuff? And especially if it's behavior in the past, certainly I accept, you know, if it's happening now, then you want to say, hey, not until you get the sorted out, but if it's in their past, you're going to, there are going to be a lot of chains that are going to be excluded

from the Golden Plate Club. Well, you know. And maybe that's okay. You know what? Yeah. I think it just needs to be some consistency. I'll be honest with you. Well, boy, when Evan said this to me, it gave me pause.

I really started to think about it and I agree with Susser, I think. And now we've come to say it on the show, but you can't judge a place based on that sort of thing because we're going to get a lot of one forkers around here because there's a lot of terrible people who are in charge of making the decisions at a lot of these companies. So, I think maybe. No, don't get me wrong. It makes me sick.

Yes. One of the biggest places could be in the Golden Plate Club. Because of their corporate ethics. Because of their corporate ethics. Sure. But, you know, that's kind of the price you have to pay for having a Golden Plate Club. Yeah. We're trying to evaluate it on the merits of the experience you will have as a diner.

That's kind of what we're trying to convey with our ratings. Now, I think Susser is trying to make himself look like a hero and rally against dough boys. Okay. Short thing. You know, we just had, our last episode was our Subway episode with Fran Gillespie. How'd that go? It was good. It was a very good episode.

It was. It was good. Fran was excellent. I thought we had a very fair discussion about the franchise, but we gave it, you know, it's moot because the fork score that it accumulated wouldn't have put it in the Gold Plate Club and certainly not in the Platinum Plate Club, but, you know, that's the kind of thing where when we were evaluating that place, I mean, they have the worst scandal of all going right now.

That's a great shame that is a dark cloud hovering over that franchise. Is that a thing we can take into account? I don't know. We kind of have to, but also how much of that really factors in when you're eating at a place. I don't know. I feel like it depends on how it affects your individual dining experience. Maybe you can't get over the politics of Chick-fil-A, and maybe that means that you're going to

dock at a few forks. I feel like that gets reflected in your fork score, I guess is what I'm trying to say in a very convoluted way. I get that. I think maybe there is a small influence in it, but we've really, because of the Susser Clause. Sure. Which is that if you kill Evan Susser, you must become Evan Susser.

Exactly. We've decided to kind of write them based solely on our experience and the restaurant and the food. Yeah. What an insane premise for a movie franchise, by the way. If you kill Santa. Yeah. If you kill Santa, you become Santa.

This was like, these were children's movies. They made three of them. That's true. If you kill Santa. You have to accept the idea that not only is Santa killed once, he's been killed many, many times. Many times. Yeah.

This is that he's a mortal being whose legacy is passed on to whoever killed them last. What happens to the old Mrs. Clause in the first one? Is there no Mrs. Clause? She stays. Wait. Oh, really? Oh, my God. The sequel is, these are movies I have seen like probably 40 minutes.

That's 50 times? Yeah. Yeah. You were watching it on your iPhone. I got here. I've got the criterion blue rays at home. No, I've seen probably 40 minutes total of all three Santa Clause movies and chunks on like TBS or whatever station they play them on.

But my understanding is the second entry in the franchise is the Mrs. Clause. And it's like, I had to become Santa in part one and part two is I have to get married. So he has to find a Mrs. Clause. But I don't know what happens to the widowed Mrs. Clause who the original Santa who Tim Allen killed was, what, she just, I guess she kills her. Yeah. There's a deleted scene where like she painfully melts into the ground. Jesus Christ.

And then there was also in later Santa Clauses, there was Martin Short was Jack Frost or something. Yeah. That was really, you could tell like they were already out of premises by the first sequel. But by the time they got the part three, they were like, I don't know. He's at war with Jack Frost. That's what, and then the plot of part three is very complicated where I think Jack Frost goes back in time, it's kind of a back to the future too. He goes back in time to the first movie, the inciting incident where Tim Allen kills Santa

Clause and somehow he ends up becoming Santa Clause. Oh my God. So then there's an alternate reality where Jack Frost is Santa and then Tim Allen is still a businessman. So sir, did you write any of these Santa Clause movies? Yeah, the second two. I feel like I would totally believe it if you'd done like a draft or some punch up on one of these Santa Clause movies.

I think I was like 18 when the last one came out. Are they that old? They're pretty old. I think they're pretty old. Okay. I got a question. Maybe the question for you. Yeah.

Go ahead. You're writing Sonic the Hedgehog movie. Yeah, that's correct. You're known as a man who doesn't move very fast. Is it freeing it all to... As opposed to you, you're fast moving, always on your feet, never on a couch. Call him lightning Mitchell. Is it freeing...

I can't believe this even worked when he said a screenwriting question. I like straightened up in my chair, had all my career pride. It was just a backhanded way to call me a lazy man. No, hold on a second. Okay. Is it freeing it all to write these scenes where Sonic is running really fast? Is that fun? I'll answer your question straight, even though I think it is an insult.

Yeah, it is kind of fun to write a character that can do things that you can't do, that can go really fast, and yeah, it's fun to do. Can you... You know you can't say much about the movie. I'll say the whole plot if you want. Are you that confident that we have very few listeners? Is Tails gonna make an appearance? I don't know.

Yes. Okay. Can you really say that? No, not really, but... So maybe not. Well maybe, yeah. That's a yes or a no. It's a cryptic yes.

It's a possible... Okay, you heard it here first, folks. Tails confirmed for the Sonic the Hedgehog movie. Can we back it up? Can you just ask me? And I'll just say yes, actually. Okay. Is Tails gonna be in the Sonic the Hedgehog movie?

Yes, he is. That's it, though. Really? Yeah. I think we might have just gotten sus or fired. Yeah. We're gonna read it. I think it'll be okay.

We're gonna read on Deadline that the Sonic scribe axed. Actually, Evan has, this is the truth, a fascinating story about going to Japan for the... I don't know if you can tell the story, but it involves eating like... You went to Japan and you got to eat in Japan and it was a really, really interesting cool story. Yeah. It was kind of a crazy story. It was when my writing partner, Van Robuchel and I, when we got the gig, kind of the final...

People who don't know the way you get one of these kind of jobs, you have to pitch and say, okay, this is what our version of Sonic the Hedgehog would be. And we pitched various executives in the US, but then we also had to pitch to the executives at Sega. It involved a 36-hour trip to Tokyo where we had to pitch to the Sega Board of Directors with a translator, our version of Sonic the Hedgehog. And it was obviously very intimidating. You're obviously...

There are some moments that are supposed to be funny and how's this gonna translate. And we did the whole thing and then afterwards, the CEO of Sega gave like a whole speech. He stood up and said, oh, this is very important to Sega. So many people's jobs depend on it. And this is... We have a lot to lose if this movie does not work well. And we're like... And this is all being translated.

And we're like, oh, okay, I don't know about that. And then the people we had been working with also worked at Sega come running over to us and I'm like, oh my God, he said yes! Wait, hold on. I think there was something in the translation that didn't come across. And then we went out to a crazy meal with the guy who owns the Sega Corporation, who is one of... And we had a great time and had all these Japanese delicacies, probably the most expensive

meal I'd ever had in my life, which I thought was crazy that they made us pay, but... Anything in particular, stand out? Any dishes you remember? I kind of want to call you out on it, but I know some people get upset by this, but listen, folks, he was visiting, he didn't want to be impolite, and you did partake in a shark fin soup, correct? I did, yes. And I did not, to be honest, and I apologize to any people who are sensitive about that.

I didn't know... You know, I was just served it and I guess, you know, that is some... It's kind of a hot button issue, but it was pretty good. I think actually, there's been controversy, I think, that kind of the unethical way that they used to do it is that they used to only kill a shark and only use a fin, and I think now they've kind of have laws, and you know, they have found other uses for shark meat, so now I think that it's kind of outlawed to do just the fin kind of. Yes, and you were a guest and you were being very polite.

Yeah. Well, don't put it on them, I knew what I was doing. And I also want to say to the head of SEGA, you hired the right guys for the job. Absolutely. Sus is an A-plus grade type of guy, so good work on SEGA. I'm afraid I got you fired, it's pretty much what I'm saying. As a fan of the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise, I feel like its film is in good hands. I agree.

And you know, perhaps I know the Sonic fans out there are a rabid bunch, they're a very, very fanatical bunch. Perhaps a few of them will listen to this podcast, who aren't a normal Doe Boyz listener, so hoping to glean some insights. And I will say, you know, I'm biased certainly because they are friends, but I feel like Evan and Van are going to deliver an outstanding script for the Sonic the Hedgehog film that will satisfy all of your desires. At least Evan will, Van might not, at this point.

We don't know. And you guys split the script in half, right, like you just sort of like, you take the first 60, you take the back end. That would have been a good way to do it. I do one, you do two, I do three, and then we'll just share at the end, which is a messy way to do it. Your way sounds good though. Let's talk about what's going on a little bit.

And for, you know, there are a lot of listeners who aren't local to Los Angeles and may not know about the show, but this is a fairly well-known show. I'd say a beloved, classic show at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater in Los Angeles. So talk a little, Evan and Mitch, you guys can speak about this a little bit more depth than me, because you're actually involved in the show. But talk a little bit about what the show was. And you recently had this 10th anniversary one, which we just did, which we can get into a little bit.

But how did the show come about, and what is the concept for someone who's never heard of it? Do you want to speak to this? You can probably speak to it better than I can, but I'll throw in my perspective. So about 2010 or 2009? Yeah, 2010, about five years ago, myself, Jack Allison and Van Robershow had started working on this show. And the idea for the show was it was a late night talk show where the host wouldn't know

anything that was going to happen. And we thought that Mike Mitchell would be a perfect man to not know what was going on. It would not be too much of a stretch for him. And I remember I messaged you on G-Chat asking if you do it at like two in the morning. And you said, yeah, sure, I'll do that, and not knowing kind of what you were getting into. We got a lot of other really great people involved along the way. I'm not going to be able to name all of them, but Michelle Mascarella, Megan Falcone, Mike

Cassidy, and then a million other people. Mike Cassidy was the announcer on the show. And we did the first show at the Upright Systems Brigade Theater, and it was that, and we had a whole set. And for the first show, we had guests. We had Jim Parsons from the Big Bang Theory. But Zynga. Yeah.

The man himself. Zynga himself, yeah. And Gillian Jacobs from Community. And I mean, I don't want to use any like false modesty here, like it went great. People really responded to it. It was really kind of felt like a lightning in the bottle kind of situation. And Mitch, maybe you want to talk about like kind of the reaction or your experience. It was a lot of fun.

And I think people really enjoyed it because it's an credit to those guys who created it. And Neil was artistic director at the time. Neil Campbell. Neil Campbell. And it was just a really well-developed idea. And the reason it was so fun for me and for everyone else is because no one really knew what was going to, no one knew what was going to happen. Yeah.

And I think even from our end, why I'm not ashamed to say it went great is because really it was all like Mitchell up there being funny, being in the moment, you know, kind of we had to, we did a lot of preparation in advance, but then it was kind of like, well, hopefully he does okay with this thing. And I flop around quite a bit. Yeah. But also it was very endearing, very charming. So anyway, we did the show then the theater for a year and it was a lot of fun.

We eventually got to do a pilot for FX, which was also a lot of fun. And we got Will Ferrell and Jennifer Lawrence and Jennifer Lawrence before she was blew up. Yeah. As guests and it was great. And they steamrolled my bed. We steamrolled his bed. Yeah.

With Will Ferrell, like trying to do a physical challenge with you to try and stop the bed from being steamrolled. And we did a lot of other fun things on the way we got it declared Mike Mitchell Day in your hometown of Quincy at one point. There was a lot of, and in that video, Nomar Garcia-Para was talking about how was Mike Mitchell Day and the mayor of Quincy was talking about him, Peter Gammons and all this kind of cool stuff. They had my high school cheerleading squad do a cheer for me, which is the funniest thing

on earth to me because no cheerleaders ever knew who I was. And it was, it was, it was, it was a really, really fun show. Jennifer Lawrence and I shared an experience over Watermelon Sour Patch Kids, which we mentioned on the last episode. We both like when they get a little bit hard. Yeah. The Watermelon Sour Patch Slurpee in the last episode. Exactly.

Yeah. And my mom to this day thinks that Jennifer Lawrence had a crush on me. My mom was very wrong, but it was, it was, it was nice. It was, it was, it was quite the experience for all of us. Yeah. It was great. And unfortunately the show didn't end up happening. Brand X got picked up though.

Yeah. So good. That was the right choice. But then we, so it's the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater's 10th year anniversary in LA. And we all got an email, Mitch included, from the current artistic director, Mike Still, asking if we would want to do kind of an anniversary show for the 10th anniversary. And what we did, we decided at that point is, hey, let's, let's do this. This is you and Jack Allison, right?

And we said, let's, let's do this, but let's not, let's kind of up it this time. And let's not even tell Mitch that we're doing the show. And there's something we kind of wanted to do for a long time. Yeah. Because, you know, the premise was he doesn't know anything that's going to happen in the show. He's not prepped at all, but he always knows that a show is coming. Right.

Exactly. So the natural progression seemed, could we do a show that he wouldn't even know was going to happen. So what we did was we wrote back to Mike Still privately and said, okay, we're going to do it. But we're going to tell Mitch no. So then we didn't include him in that email, but then we wrote back immediately after and included Mitch and we couldn't resist kind of putting it on a little bit.

And you know, Jack said, you know, look, I'm, you know, so busy, I'm writing for Kimmel five days a week, having a van there, you know, they're getting movies made, like we just don't have time to do this kind of thing. I mean, I know Mitch is down, but we're kind of too busy and successful. My reaction was kind of like, these fucking assholes, these Hollywood assholes have gone like, but at the same time, you know, I was like, it's true, Jack works at Kimmel, he's busy every night of the week and, and Evan and Van are writing this fist fight movie that I'm very happy for him.

And it's all great stuff. And I was like, okay, their response was probably the only thing that made me be like, I think they're going to do it. Did they just do this to me and like, they wrote a fake response and now it's going to happen. I think you're kind of, you did not know the show was going to happen. Well, let me, let me go on. Like that was the only time ever where my suspicion was raised, even just a little bit.

And then that was two months ago. And then we've, I've never thought about it since then. I went out to dinner on, on Saturday night and I had a couple glasses of wine. I came home and I was going to hang out at the house with just some friends. Mitch, don't leave us hanging. Where'd you, where'd you eat for dinner? I went to Bar Bricks. It was very good.

Okay. A local LA spot. And, and they didn't, and I, I never in a million years, I never, and I came home and there was a limo on the street, on my street, by the way. And Jack said, that limo driver just asked me for directions to the Hollywood sign. And I was like, weird. And I went inside my house, didn't think anything about it, laid down on the couch, Jack Allison came in my roommate as he's been on the podcast, the Taco Bell episode and said, Hey, you want

to do a shot? I said, sure. I did a shot with Jack of whiskey. And he said, you want to do another one? I said, sure. And I was like, okay, this is a little too much. I had two glasses of wine, two shots. So he was basically licking you up like you might do if you were going to Shanghai a sailor

back in the day. Pretty much, yes. Going to put him to work in a mercantile ship for no pay. A hundred percent. And then, and then I also made myself a whiskey and diet root beer. And I sat down on my couch and Jack said, I got to go. He disappeared. And then he came back in with a Team Mitch shirt on and said, Remember how we told you

we weren't going to do a reunion show? Well, we're doing it and it's happening right now and Van Evans writing partner came in behind him with a video camera that had a live feed to the audience at UCB. And I was in the theater. I was watching the show and it was like kind of remarkable to see your reaction in real time as this was happening. But it was like kind of crazy that like, oh, wow, we're we're live streaming this thing from your apartment, which is about five minutes from the venue where the show took place.

And we could just see that moment where you realize that this was actually happening just streamed live in front of an audience of, you know, a hundred plus people. It was pretty crazy. It was it was I still can't get over it. It was such a crazy thing. And yeah. So then the limo took you to the theater. You changed.

Yeah. You had to change into a suit. We had to rent a suit for you. And you arrived at the theater and all of a sudden had to do a monologue and you had celebrity guests. We got Wayne Brady, Martha Plimpton, Ariel Kable, Breckin Meyer and they were all there and you had to interview them on the spot with no preparation. And it was a great time.

It was really fun. It was a great show. It was a great time and it was terrifying. And then also afterwards we we really went at it and we went to the bar and I drank so much and Jack Allison said, put your stuff on my tab. Jack went home and then his car got declined and there was a five hundred dollar tab at the bar. I think everyone at that bar was drinking on the what's going and people were just handing

me shots. And then I ended up sleeping on the floor of my bathroom that night. Why did you sleep on the floor of your bathroom in your own apartment? Because I was going to vomit. Oh, okay. So you just so needed me. I drank so much. Yeah.

And that's why I've had one of the worst hangovers I had in a really long time. I cannot ever get myself to throw. I can't vomit. I can't do it. And it's a really hard thing for me to do. And my body so wanted that to happen and it was just a terrible. The rest of the night was was really terrible and I woke up and I did not think I was going to be able to go to our place this week, which was steak and chick.

But you powered through it. I've powered through it. You made the drive from Hollywood over to Santa Monica. I'm usually making that opposite commute myself. So I know that. Oh, good for Nick. Every episode. I know that's like a 40 minute drive.

It's a substantial little trek you had to make. You did it. You were hungover. And yeah, we were able to make this thing happen. Yeah, it was great to see all my buddies over there. I will say, having watched the show, it was a wonderful night. It was really quite a way to cap off the what's going on with Mike Mitchell. You can see the kidnap and video online and also you can hunt for the pilot online if

you search like Mike Mitchell and Jennifer Lawrence. They should. There's like 4,000 people who maybe who listen to this podcast. Let them watch the pilot online. I'm not sure why not. But no, those guys always do a great job. And I know that we just probably wasted a lot of time talking about that, but I tip my hat to those guys.

Thank you. Susser is the real deal. Susser is the real deal. We'll say, you know, we got the Spoon Man here and often times referred to by the Spoon Man as Burger Boy. And we'll call you the real deal. Oh, okay. I like that.

That'll be your name. I'm the third no-boy name. Yeah. The real deal, Big Daddy Suss. I don't think he needs Big Daddy. Big Daddy Suss. Okay, whatever. All right.

Well, whatever. You can take your pick. Fielder's Choice on that one. Let's get into our restaurant. So we're talking Steak and Shake. So Evan, we asked you to be on the podcast and you gave us a few options, but Steak and Shake was the one we settled on. What is it about Steak and Shake that put it into your top choices?

All right. Well, Steak and Shake for me, I grew up on the East Coast. I'd never been to a Steak and Shake until I went to college. I went to Washington University in St. Louis and Steak and Shake is kind of a Midwest institution. Sure. Is that when you started hitting it hard? Yeah, that's when I started hitting it hard.

And I was kind of curious by the name and I actually thought it was maybe, I'm like, oh, I got a Steakhouse that also has milkshakes. The Steak refers to the hamburgers, of course, and yeah, it was kind of a really fun place to go. Now, like I said, I was so excited to be here today and I was so excited to kind of do an interesting place. And I feel like I kind of blew it with our experience because the Steak and Shake that I know is kind of, it's a diner service.

They're waiters and waitresses. They have a drive-through. They have a very extensive menu and that's not what we encountered in Santa Monica. I feel like, so we went to the one in the Santa Monica promenade, which is kind of this outdoor mall. We went to the street with a bunch of shops alongside it and at the far south end on Broadway, the street called Broadway, I don't know if it's an avenue, Boulevard, doesn't matter. Why am I talking about this?

There's the streets. Can someone look it up? We really should dig into what the label of the street is. There's a Steak and Shake and it's kind of like this, again, I'm not knowing Steak and Shake. I just assumed that that was what it is. But your wife, Jamie, was with us and she pointed out that underneath the sign, it said Steak and Shake by Big Lari.

Susser is digging into his folder. The Manila folder has been opened up. So the Steak and Shake by Big Lari, I mentioned the, and I'm not sure if that's how you pronounce his name, but I mentioned that this investor who kind of engineered a hostile takeover of the chain in 2008 is the guy who's leading it. And so this isn't a proper Steak and Shake. This is like a basically a fancy airport kiosk version of a Steak and Shake. I feel like I wanted to review Chili's with you and we went to a Chili's too.

Yes. Or I wanted to review like five guys and we went to just like a place that had five guys. Yeah. Like it was not, so I brought with me actually. We went to a place that just had five men in the room. I brought with me the full Steak and Shake menu to give you guys kind of an example of like what it's like. I looked at this online a little bit in preparation for this podcast.

So we've got, yes. I can see why you impressed the Japanese men at the Sega corporation. So real quick, at the limited, and they called the limited menu online. It's called, at the Steak and Shake by, was it Burgani, I forgot his name, Big Lari, I'm sorry. At the Steak and Shake by Big Lari, they have what's called the limited menu, which is just basically a few hamburgers, a couple of hot dogs, some fries and shakes. It's like a very limited sort of compact, almost like in and out style, or five guys

style small menu, whereas the actual Steak and Shake has a bunch of breakfasts. It has a chili and a bunch of different ways you can get chili, like over noodles and such. It's a fun place to go and sit down. Actually another reason why Steak and Shake holds a dear place in my heart is my first job in the entertainment industry involved going to Steak and Shake. How is that possible? I interned in Los Angeles, and through a person that I met, met a casting person for a reality TV show, and they were casting the television show, One vs. 100, it was a game

show hosted by Bob Saget. I remember this. So this was, Ken Jennings was involved? Yes, I think he was. So it was kind of, you went against the mob, you were doing trivia, and there was 100 people that were also doing the trivia, and you were trying to outlast them and get all the money. So for a trivia show... Some very confusing concept.

Yeah, it was kind of confusing. It didn't last too long. But for a trivia show, as a part of the casting, they have to give people a quiz to see, can you do it? And for some reason, they wanted it to be administered in person, and it was arranged that I would go to a Steak and Shake, and I got paid $50, and I would administer the trivia to this woman who wanted to be on the show. And one of the funniest and saddest moments was, you know, there was a threshold of how

many questions she had to get right. We're sitting at the Steak and Shake, and here's the question I ask her. My blank brings all the boys to the yard. My blank is better than yours, and she's like, I got nothing. And I'm like, you sure? Think about it. She's like, it sounds so familiar. I'm looking at like something that says like, milkshakes, try our milkshakes.

I'm like trying to do it, because I felt bad. I don't know why I didn't just tell her, because who cares? Yeah, who cares? But she did not get it. The film quiz show really resonated with you. I think so, yeah. And you didn't give it to her? No, I didn't.

I said, well, too bad, you're not going to be on the show. And she was so nice. She was such a nice woman, but I don't know why it was. But I just was like, oh, we're here. My blank brings all the boys to the yard. And then she said, my steak brings all the boys to the yard. Susser, you come off as kind of a villain in that story. I think I am.

No, I, hey, I look back on it and I wish I just, you know, hey, this woman got a perfect score. Yeah. Because who cares? But, you know, I sympathize with your position. I think that was the right way to handle that. Oh my God. Jesus, he squares.

Just let her be on the show for Christ's sake. Nah, you got to earn your way on there. Also, did you, did you pick the location for what you guys did? Yeah, I probably did. But yeah, I mean, there's so, there's so much about steak and shake that we didn't get to experience. They have side-by-side milkshakes is a big part of steak and shake, where you get like kind of two flavors like chocolate and banana.

They didn't have that. Wait, what do you mean by, what is the side-by-side element? You get like. It's a milkshake, half of it, if you imagine somehow like a line drawn in between the milkshake, you know, in the middle of the milkshake and one half will be yellow and the other half will be chocolate or, you know, brown. I don't know why I went with one color, one flavor. And you know, you can kind of, you know, put your straw in one side, you can mix it up

a little bit. It's really great. Is there a physical divider within it? No, they may, I've looked into it and I think they make it with a divider. Oh, okay. And then they, yeah. Little magic trick. Wow.

But we didn't, you know, get that. And again, I mean, the guys were kind of making fun of me for my preparation, but I actually have something else I'd like to kind of share with you guys. Sure. I want to say this is, at the same time, this is both the most kind of formal and informal dough boys. There's beers. You guys both have beers.

Yeah. And then also, but then Susser had this little envelope with a billion things. And this, I got to say, the menu that he handed out, this is great, Susser, because it's very extensive. It's huge. Yeah, it's a huge menu. It's huge. And there was, and we had a choice of like six things.

Yeah. It is like that, knowing that there is such a difference between the limited menu and the full menu and the experience, because also here you're ordering at the counter. There's no, they're bringing you, they'll bring your meal up to the table, but there's no table service. There's no waiter. It is. Also, yeah, the waiters were, you know, they're very nice and friendly.

It's kind of part of what I liked about Steak and Shake. I kind of would have almost described it as kind of a low rent Johnny Rockets, but that makes me like it even more. Sure. It's not an arm. It's not kind of all of that, like, unnecessary polish of. Also too, Johnny Rockets, I think, was founded in the 80s. This was founded in the 30s.

This is basically an authentic, you know, this is what Johnny Rockets is doing an imitation of. This is the authentic thing. So I just wanted to read this quote, if that's okay. Yeah, get to your next exhibit. If I were on death row, my last meal would be from Steak and Shake. If I were to take President Obama and his family to dinner and the choice were up to me, it would be Steak and Shake and they would be delighted.

If the Pope were to ask me where he could get a good plate of spaghetti in America, I would reply, your holiness, have you tried the chili mac or the chili three ways? That's from beloved film critic Roger Ebert. Wow. Wow. Now, I don't think... I was like, why is Susser reading a quote from himself? Now, I don't think the experience we got even makes you think at all that anyone could

have that kind of feeling about this place. Should we talk about our experience? Well, yeah, we'll get into it, don't worry. The guy knows how this podcast works. I never had an experience with Steak and Shake, so yesterday was my first experience with him. Kind of a little bit robbed. When I drove cross-country with my friend Scott Keefe, also known as Keefa, we were

driving through the country and there was a Steak and Shake and I desperately wanted to try it and Keefa wouldn't let me... He really wanted to get iHop and it made me mad because I've had iHop everywhere and I really want to try Steak and Shake and I think it nearly ended our friendship. I love him now. He's a good man. He'll fuck you because that was a terrible experience. Yeah.

If he was here? No, if you would have been, it would have helped this episode. Yeah, for sure. I know. Now it's kind of bringing back some hard feelings. Well, you know, you can't really... The What If game is so hard to play because maybe that was your sliding doors moment. Maybe there's a Mike Mitchell who goes to that Steak and Shake instead of the iHop and

then goes on to have a successful career. I think any version. This is the bad sliding door. I'm the one who's too busy working in entertainment to actually have a dumb podcast about chain restaurants. Well, this is the good sliding door version, God. Well, yeah. Well, thank God, man.

But yeah, no, I really want... I don't know where we were in America. We were in the middle of the country, I feel like, at that point and I really wanted to try it and yesterday was my first experience with it and I'm... Well, we'll get into the review of the place, but I wasn't blown away, but seeing that there was an extensive menu and hearing all this stuff, I feel like I really haven't experienced the place. Well, yeah, and I mean, I think that's the thing is that we're going to be talking specifically

about the limited menu. If you want to reference this, if you look on the Steak and Shake website, there are two menus available. There's the full menu and the limited menu. If you refer to the limited menu, you can see just how limited it is versus this extensive, you know, 10-page volume of different options for breakfast, lunch, and dinner you have at the full version. So, Sesser, talk a little bit about...

Before we get into what we ate at the limited menu, talk a little bit about what you would get if you were going to a regular, authentic, old-fashioned Steak and Shake. Well, I think, you know, what I got was a burger and milkshake and that's probably more or less what I probably would have gotten, but just the amount of choices that you have, the amount of different types of burgers, the different types of milkshakes, the previously mentioned side-by-side shakes. The Mac Chili sounds... The Mac Chili also, yeah, or some of the sounds are also breakfast options is a big thing,

you know, a part of Steak and Shake. So, I think that, you know, I think I did kind of prefer, but, you know, they have, like, slider burgers is something you could get. So, you could have tried... I was thinking when we were going there, I'm like, oh, I'm going to get some of the slider burgers so I can try some of the different kind of burgers. Yeah, a little app, an appetizer. Yeah, exactly.

So, I think I probably... I would have ventured into some of those things. I mean, what they had at the limited menu was kind of the highlights, the steak burger, the Frisco melt and that kind of thing, but I would have really enjoyed perusing the menu. I also would have, you know, said, oh, you're going to get that, I'm going to get something different. We kind of all more or less got the same thing. Yes.

Yes. So, I would have really enjoyed, you know, taking some time, getting some appetizers, that kind of thing. I want to follow up on one thing you said real quick, which is just talking about, okay, you would have stuck to the burgers anyway, the burgers and shakes. You already mentioned the two-way shakes. I'm really kind of shocked by how many more burger options there are in the full menu. So the actual burger options available in the limited menu, I think was just the double

in cheese, the steak burger and the Frisco melt rather, right? I think it was just those three that you showed us. And here you have a Frisco melt, a patty melt, a pepper jack melt, a chicken melt, four melts alone, more melt options alone than burger options total at the limited. And then when you go to the actual burgers, I mean, you've got a Wisconsin buttery steak burger, a spicy Chipotle steak burger, a Western barbecue with bacon steak burger. Those all sound great. Yeah.

These all sound like things I would like to have. It's a culinary tour of the country. Yeah. And so, you know, I understand if you have that choice available to you and then you go to a place where that's just not an option, that even if you would have gotten the same thing, it feels like a deluded experience. I can't believe Ebert didn't like Tommy Boy, but he loves steak and shake so much that he'd take the pope to it.

Like is it really, now I really got to try a different steak and steak and shake. Yeah, you give one star to the usual suspects, but you're talking about the steak and shake like it's some sort of transcendent experience, you have two and a half stars to fight club. Yeah. Fuck you, Ebert. Guys. And also rest in peace. This kind of brings me to my next thing and I did not want to come in here and do this.

What the fuck? What's going to happen? I feel like I'm at a Senate hearing. I don't think the Dolboys can give steak and shake a fork rating. This is too early to make this decision, Susser. You can't say this now. Okay. You have to wait till later to drop this bomb.

We haven't even talked about what we've eaten yet. This just, to me, smells like a man who's inviting himself back to our podcast. You guys can't do it. You got to do it again and then I come back on. Fuck that. Now he's pulling out of the folder pages that just say, please bring me back to noble. He's over and over again. I do think we should, we can talk about that and I think it is a fair point, but I think

we should discuss the food that we actually ate. So let's talk about a recent experience. Also, I just want to quickly interject. We talked about this before the podcast started, but we got an email from a hip granny and I get afraid now that our show is too dirty. I don't think, let's just not call people hip grannies. She's all herself a hip granny. Oh, did she?

Was that the very thing? Yeah. I don't think so. Terrible job. But she said, I'm a hip, I'm your coolest granny listener. We'll give you a shout out on the next episode. We'll figure out what your name was. We have heard from some older listeners who chimed in and we appreciate that.

I don't know. I mean, I feel like we should just keep giving what we've been given. Okay. That's fair. I feel like you don't want to unnecessarily censor yourself. I'll use this as a point of reference to my own grandmother. She recently turned 90 and she saw the movie Kill Bill when that was in theaters and she loved it.

And we were all like, that's going to be too violent for grandma, too profane for grandma. Grandma liked Kill Bill volume one, she liked Kill Bill volume two, Josephine Weiger just has good taste in movies. That's a cool granny. That's a rockin' granny. That is right. Just take it easy. But I mean, let's not feel like we have to tone things down for any particular segment

of our audience. That's fair. You know what? Tweet at us or email us. Let us know what you think. I would like to hear how people feel. I guess we'll just keep doing what we're doing. But it put me a little bit in my own head.

I think the Armin episode a couple episodes back specifically. What specific comments that Armin made? Yeah, we don't have to talk about it. Which ones? Let's not talk about it. Okay, moving on. All right. So yes, let's talk about what we had at our steak and shake experience.

So the three of us, plus your lovely wife, were able to dine together. It was a nice experience. So we went up to the counter. We ordered. We got a table for four. So I got myself the Frisco Melt as my main. And I got myself a couple of beverage options. I first got myself a draft beer.

Do they have beer and wine at the normal steak and shakes? That did seem right. Okay. So I got myself a draft beer and SM Brew, which is a local Santa Monica micro brew. And I also got myself a large order of regular fries, cheese fries, expecting the cheese to come poured on top of it, but it actually came with two little cups of cheese like you might get if you get cheese fries at Arby's. And I also got myself, in addition to the Santa Monica brew, my second beverage, which

I referred to, was a Butterfinger shake. So very akin to a Dairy Queen blizzard sort of thing. I said some Butterfinger mix-ins, a little bit of whipped cream and a maraschino cherry on top. You know, I was overall pretty happy with the meal. I thought it was good. It was good quality. I thought the steak burger, the actual patty, had like a, like, oh, I get why they call

this a steak burger. This has an interesting good flavor to it. I thought there was a good crispness on that Frisco Melt, which is basically like a patty melt, but with a little bit of tang to it. Tangy Frisco Sauce, they call it, as I'm referring to this, a print-out. I wish I had tried a bite of your sandwich, actually. I didn't. It was pretty good.

I was kind of hungover, like I said. Yeah. I like that patty melt. You know, the fries are certainly good. I feel like I would have preferred if that cheese fries had come on top of it and I couldn't eat it with a fork. I feel like having to manually dip it, to me, that's just a little bit of a different cheese fries experience, but it was fine.

Shake, you know, steak and shake delivers on the shake, a very good quality shake. And I was quite impressed with that. I got the small portion, it was more than enough. How about you guys? I got the original, I'm going to let Susser close it out, because I think he's going to go on some big, long, weird ranches. We kind of got a preview of. I got myself the original steak burger that came with it.

There's cheese on it. And I think pickles, ketchup, if I remember correctly, lettuce, tomato. Was there onion on there? And cheese on the original steak burger. And I got myself a side of fries. I will say that the fries, to me, were the weakest point of the meal. Looking over this extensive menu, it looks like there's, it looks like there's a different style of fries at a regular full menu steak and shake.

Sorry, which fries did you get, Mitch? Just the regular season fries? Yeah, I got the regular season fries. Okay. And because they do have a few different seasoning options, which they have like a, they have a salt and vinegar, they have like a cracked pepper and sea salt, I think. They have a Cajun seasoning, so they have a Parmesan and garlic, so they have a few different options you can get on top of your, tossed in with your fries in addition to the

plane. Yep. And the fries are just kind of thin. They weren't my, they weren't my favorite. I got myself a large cherry Coke. They have one of those Coca-Cola machines where you can, you can make any sort of flavor combination you would like, which I, which is always, I do love those. I very much appreciate those.

Those touchscreen machines are really, real nice tech innovation. I went with a cherry Coke, but it tasted a little bit off. Could have been that I was completely dehydrated and it was one of the first things I drank that day, but that, that might have been it. But it comes with, I guess, fresh lettuce, vine, ripened tomato, onion, pickles, sliced the long way, mustard relish, and then Frisco sauce and classic yellow mustard mayo and ketchup. Wow, that's a ton of stuff, which I don't think that the simple one had.

I think it was just ketchup. Anyway, the burger, the, the toasted bun is really what got me when I was eating that burger, I was like, it tasted me of a burger. My grandma would make me back when I was younger. Another shout to the grandmas. I love the great, I love the grand, granny listeners that listen to the podcast and shout to my grandma, I love and miss you. And she used to make a great broiled hamburger for me with a nice toasted bun.

It felt really homey and delicious. And it was a nice, there was a nice crisp bite with every bite that you had. The fries weren't that good. The shake was good. And like you said, that's kind of how I feel too. Steak and shake, they kind of nailed the burger and the, and the, the shake, I got myself a cookie dough ice cream shake and it was really good. I had a sip of that.

It was quite tasty. It was good. And mine might have been the worst of all the shakes, which is saying something because I still thought it was really good. And I kind of, I went, I went spoon, the spoon man went with this, the spoon eating method on this one. I feel like that's the only way to go. I feel like if you try a straw with those, with the mixins, it's just going to be too

chunky. It's going to be too hard to drink. It was a little tough. I tried it though. I do appreciate a milkshake that can be, that you can drink through the straw. So not taking any points off because it was really tasty, but if not, then you're just eating ice cream. You know what I mean?

But, but I won't complain because, because it tasted, tasted really good. And I had some of the seasoned fries, which Evan got and I'll let him get into that. The entire fry experience overall, because Nick's cheesy fries too were, were not great. But Evan, let's hear your thoughts. Yeah. So, I mean, for the most of the time, I was just in shock. It was the equivalent of like coming back to your child at home and seeing you completely remodeled and not recognizing anyone.

I didn't also, I didn't understand what was happening at the time. I was like, is this just a Santa Monica location? Is this, because I hadn't been to Steak and Shake in a while. Has this change happened across the board is Steak and Shake gone as I remember forever? Thankfully that's not the case. I just want to say that that experience, like not everyone's had that experience of coming home to your childhood home. It's completely real.

I'll say it's a kind of trope. Look, I, I was so shaken up, I can't even think of the correct metaphor. And it was, so I was kind of very thrown by the whole thing, the ordering. And I also was kind of thinking the whole time, oh, is this like the Santa Monica location? So tourists are visiting, they're like, hey, they got Steak and Shake just like, well, we have like, oh, this is how they do it out in California. So I didn't know what was going on. The food itself, the Steak burger that I also got was very good.

You know, I don't think I really have much more to say other than you, that you didn't say the fries. I went with the Cajun fries, which I really did not like. Yeah, you can go into those a little bit because they were just. They were just very heavily seasoned. They were just too, too strong for me. Yeah, that seasoning was really aggressive. We actually did a fry swap at some point.

Yeah, we did. I tried your Cajun fries, and I was all right with them. But you know, I think also, too, the Cajun fries were more edible, numbing them with a little bit of that cheese sauce because that Cajun seasoning is very aggressive. It was a strong bite to that. It's kind of like a curly fry seasoning, I feel like, but just like really powerful. Yeah, it was, yeah, times 10, kind of curly fries seasoning. And the fries, yeah, they're not salted.

I think that's kind of the thing about their fries, which is kind of interesting. I kind of remember in the past not really objecting to their fries that much. But yeah, I would say it was definitely the low point. I mean, the milkshakes are amazing. They're kind of like, they're clearly like, well, we don't care. This is bad for you. Yeah, I got the cookie butter one, which besides having just cookie butter also had chunks of cookie mixed up in it.

And it was fantastic. I think we kind of all agreed it was the best. Really good. Stand out. It's also got the best shake for sure. Yeah. So, I mean, you know, it was great. And the burger was great.

But yeah, for me, the experience itself kind of is what kind of stuck out. You know, I keep looking over and I'm doing a bad job as host because my eyes keep wandering this whole menu. You're doing a great job, Nick. Thank you. Thank you for saying that, Evan. My eyes keep wandering over and over. How about me?

You're doing all right. Nick, you're doing great. But I saw, you've got the side by side shakes, which this picture of it makes it look delectable. You've got these two flavors that look awesome. But they also have a butter pecan shake. Butter pecan is one of my favorite ice cream flavors. And if they'd had that as an option at the Santa Monica location, I would have gotten it.

They didn't. You know, I wouldn't say settling it because I like a butter finger shake, but I got the butter finger shake and I don't know, I would have liked to have more options here. I'm also seeing the fries because we all talked about the sides. Yeah, they're different from what I see. Yeah. So, we talked about the fries and they look a little different here. They have bacon cheese fries.

They have onion rings, which I maybe would have liked to try. Baked beans, cottage cheese, which your wife mentioned is an option. They don't have it. The limited menu. They do have it on the full menu. Yeah. All of those would have been nice if they were available. You know what else would have been nice if Susser had expressed any of this to us at

the table. He was playing close to his, or is it close to the vest or chest? You know, I've been to, I've been to a decent amount of these Doughboy dinners before the episodes. Susser is definitely the guy who has been to the most Doughboy dinners without being on the podcast. I think that, I think he maybe has like a tally of like six. Well, it's very nice.

You guys always pay, even for me, which, you know, is not deserved. Yeah. Wait a minute. I wonder, I want to go back and do the math because it's possible that Susser has eaten more with you, with you and with me than the two of us have eaten together, just in terms of a Q&A. Sounds about right. Uh-huh.

Yeah, it's probably, he probably has. Yeah. Oftentimes I'll go from one to another. You'll say, hey, I need to do TGA Fridays for lunch and I'll say, great, I'll be there and then you say, I need to do TGA Fridays for an early dinner and I just drive right to it. You know what else is there? It's like, other times when we haven't invited them, we go to some of these restaurants,

he's just there. Yeah. Sure. Uh, no, we, we, we love having Malong, it's, it's, it's a, it's a great company. And his wife on the, uh, on, on this episode, uh, Jamie, who, uh, I got a big laugh out of it when I mentioned that you had a stain on your shirt. She loved that. Yeah, that's it.

It's a constant source of tension in our marriage. Um, but yeah, but anyway, I think that when you go with the guest, you don't want to talk about the restaurant too much when you're there, you want to save the good stuff. You did a great idea. For when we're in this beautiful recording studio. 100, and you brought a nice little misdirect. You had just been on the boardwalk. You want a Blake Griffin plush doll playing whack-a-mole.

Yeah. You had a, you were having a great day. We had that there. You had that as a conversation piece. So we, we got to talk about that a lot. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, I, I, well, so here, here's, I gotta say, before we go into the final review, Mike

kind of thought about this was like, oh, so this is another five guys. It's another clean burger place that has just a decent. I just hate hearing that. I know. Well, I'm going to tell you because you kind of, you turn my world upside down a little bit. I thought, here's, here's another clean burger place that has these nice burgers, but what makes this place stand out?

I don't get the difference. They do the steak well, they do the shake well, but is this place going to even last? This is what was going through my head and now hearing all this, it's a much bigger chain. It's definitely going to last. It seems like, but, uh, I, I just didn't get it. I was like, this is, this to me is, is like every other like in my, on the drive home, I was literally like, the burger craze is going to end. Why is this a phenomenon?

Why is this a phenomenon? Why is this steak and shake such a thing and experiencing this version? Why is this such a place that people, it's like going to a Wetzel's pretzels, you're like, okay, why is this a thing that people are crazy? I knew that's how you felt. So for my drive home, I was just like saying, fuck, I was just so angry with how this whole thing had gone down. I felt like, you know, not, hey, maybe this is all in my head, but I felt like my name

has been mentioned on this podcast a lot of times. I really wanted to come with a great place to really deliver that, you know, everyone will be excited about it and be talking about, and instead it was just a bust. Well, we're not evaluating the place in terms of you, we're evaluating the, well, I just feel like we would have been more successful if it wasn't for this kind of, I think this whole episode would have gone better if we didn't have this weird caveat, you know, hanging over it. Interesting.

This is, and you know what, I give you a credit, you know, you probably just put a few more butts in the seats for a fist fight when it eventually gets in the theater because you did a really good job, you presented us with some stuff here that I didn't really think about. There's nothing that really drives an audience to go to the box office quite like a screenwriter's podcast appearances. Sure. Hey, this could be the 5,000 theater seats that put you over the top, you never know.

Susser was doing the math there and he didn't seem impressed. Before we get into our final evaluations, Evan, do you have any more diagrams, blueprints, perhaps I... What do you think? A bloody handkerchief and a plastic bag, you'd like to present his evidence. You know, I have a Yelp review from someone telling me that, you know, this of our location saying this is not the real Steak and Shake. You know, we used to have a segment on the show which we aborted pretty early on for

time called an Unsatisfied Yelper. Give us a little taste. Unsatisfied Yelper Redux. Do anyone expecting this to be a real Steak and Shake? It's not. Wow. I'm not sure how they get away with using the same name and logo, but anyone who has experienced the real thing knows what I'm talking about.

There's no table surface, the buns are wrong, the meat is lower grade, shakes are a little off, the fries are floppier than the authentic ones, the menu is an abridged version. The only thing the same is the wait time. I tried to like it. Nope. Wow. How many forks or stars did that one get? Five stars.

Two stars. Two stars. Wow. Two stars. Stars are kind of weird to me. I go on the fork. Dash or I got it. Well, you know, maybe you should have read that fucking review before you took us to this

one. Again, I put it on me. Well, don't be so hard on yourself. This is really an eye-opening experience for me. Absolutely. I really, in my mind, ate at that restaurant and thought the burger craze is going to end because of that restaurant, not that I thought was, I actually enjoyed it, I enjoyed seeing my friends.

It was a delightful meal. They even have some, I mean, it's a nice looking area. They got little jars of peppers on your table. I just wasn't blown away by it all. And I might just give my final thoughts right here. Go for it. So we'll go ahead and we'll give our review and we'll sort of go ahead and give a rating from one to five forks.

Go ahead, Mitch. One of the things for me that was so great is a waiter dropped a burger on his way to a table and I made a joke and people laughed and that was one of the best parts of my day. That was pretty funny. I said that we were going to take the burger and like eat it and run or whatever. I don't think you sold that very well on the podcast. Not at all. It sounds like you were mean to a man doing his job.

Well, that's why I realized. Here's why it didn't come across as mean. The guy dropped it and was like, whoops. And then just kind of kept going with the rest of his order to the table. So he's out of earshot before Mitch made this comment. And then do you remember exactly how you phrased it? I said, let's grab that burger and get out of here. Yeah, you said it to me like as an aside.

And then the nearby table overheard it and busted up laughing. And I felt like a king for a few seconds in there. But that was maybe the highlight besides seeing my friend Evan and his great beautiful wife Jamie and my good friend Nick. Back off. You know, I should never have brought you on this podcast. Fucking the only point dexter who comes in the gigantic manila folder and printed everything out.

But here's my thought. They still did the steak well. They still did the shake well. But I didn't get the best version of that my my ranking. It's three and a half forks. But I'm going to put an asterisk next to it. I'm going to I'm going to put a big what is there? Do we have a thing for an undecided?

Let me make one up. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know food stuff that we're going to toss that. We're in the blender right now. Our thoughts are all over this place. I can't make a final reason. You can't.

You can't evaluate it. Look, I can't evaluate it. But right now my tentative review is going to be three and a half forks. Okay. Let me I'll go ahead. Okay. I'll go ahead now and I'll let Susser close things out because I know this is the thing you feel passionately about.

It's the thing he maybe feels most passionate about ever. Here's the thing. And I think a lot of this comes back to what I said in my preamble and to what Evan's wife brought my attention to, which is the branding of this particular location and a number of these locations as steak and shake by Big Lari. These are not real steak and shakes, but the branding is not distinct enough to make that clear. You look up and it says steak and shake and then an unreadable font underneath it.

It allegedly says in kind of a signature by Big Lari and you have no idea what that means. It's an uncommon name to Westerners, to Americans. So you're not even sure necessarily that it's a name. You might assume it's like, wait, or you might even think like, oh, is this an Italian fashion designer? I don't know. You know, is this the, I assume my, well, my assumption was that it was the architect who had designed this individual location.

I was like, oh, Big Lari kind of built this weird, like looking building, but the branding is so confusing that to novices like us, because you mentioned that was your first visit. It was my first visit to steak and shake too. We just think this is what steak and shake is. And our takeaway is what's the big deal. And that is a failure of the franchise. That is a failure of the restaurant. That's a failure of the company.

That's a big, that's on Big Lari. That is on Big Lari, but that is also on steak and shake the corporation. They have chosen him as their chairman. He continues to run the corporate, the board of directors. You know, that is, the company is accountable for that. The company chooses their leadership and the company is accountable for the decisions of the leadership. So I have to say that they have, they have failed, I feel like, in this limited concept.

I feel like it's just not reflective of what the company actually is, what its values is, what its menu is. If I was to evaluate this menu in and of itself, I think I would give it three forks. However, my rating for steak and shake, I'm going to hearken back to my college years, something I petitioned for often in the aftermath because I just stopped doing my work. I'm going to give this an I, an incomplete, because I don't think we have actually fairly evaluated steak and shake. We haven't been to an authentic location.

Or as I say, it's in the blender. It's in the blender. It's got an I for me, it's in the blender. Three forks for the limited, I for the overall company. We'll go to Evan Susser. Look, did I enjoy- It sounded like a final breath. Did I enjoy my meal?

Yes. You know, I think that as much as I want to, you know, as much as I love steak and shake, I would be dishonest. I would be a terrible person if I were to give it an inflated score based on my past experience. But I also feel like we didn't get the authentic experience. The burger was good. So I'll just say three and a half forks, but this is this incomplete or this is a much bigger issue.

I know Mitch. I know you're down my throat. It was never my intention. Look, I just thought I'd have my one episode and that would be it. Victorville is an hour and a half away. Is there a full, is there a full- Are you crying? In Victorville, an hour and a half away from this podcast studio, there was a full steak and shake.

I very, very, very much with every ounce of my being suggested there should be a follow-up episode that, you know, either I'm a part of or probably should be me a part of it. Yeah, I think I should be a part of it. But I really think that, you know, again, as I said at the beginning, it's like going to a Chili's 2 or some airport, you know, version, a photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy. It's not the real thing. I feel like you owe it to Spoon Nation. That's true.

To the Doughboy fans to give steak and shake its day in the sun, to really evaluate it fairly, because I, you know what I'm going to say, I think it has a chance for the Golden Plate Club. I think it has a chance for the Platinum Plate Club, but certainly not like this. Like this is a, you know, three and a half worker. No bones about it. Yeah. You know what?

As much as I wanted for Evan to be a one-and-done guest and never come back. He's right. We should revisit the show, revisit. We got to revisit steak and shake. You know what? Maybe we'll even record a little bit at that steak and shake. I'm not making any promises. Yeah, don't make me.

Dustin just quit in the other room, but we're going to do it. I think it's okay to make some promises. And we're going to bring back our guest, Jack Allison, to do that. No, of course, Susser, you made a case. You printed out way too many pieces of paper. But that was really inspiring. Yeah. I give Evan Susser five forks for his appearance on this episode.

First of all, we discussed previously on the AnyMab and Boston Market episode, please do not give fork ratings to the guests. Oh, yeah. No, Susser gets five forks. No, because it just creates this weird sort of thing. I feel like people are going to have these expectations coming up. Do I get a bigger gift certificate? Oh, boy.

Yeah, that was really quite an impressive display. I really was watching a defense attorney at work, a shark, if you will, like James Woods on shark. I felt like who? I showed that I was a post-PA in. Hey, how about that? Small world. I still am not sure if this is just a ploy by Susser to go get another free steak and

chicken meal. Look. I was happy with my one meal, and I did not want another free meal from you guys. I would have said, hey, I've had my time, let the next person come, but I'm as broken up about this as anyone, and I'm not suggesting this because I want to do it. I'm suggesting it because I feel like I have to do it. Even if this is a long con, I am on board, but we'll go to steak and shake in Victorville or whatever the nearest location happens to be next time we're going to record one.

You can come back on the podcast. You can do your fucking PowerPoint presentation and explain to us why we should rate it the way we end up rating it. We're coming for you, Victorville. We're coming for you. Maybe we had Mike Mitchell Day in Quincy, maybe it'll be Doughboys Day in Victorville. Yeah. Is there anything else going on in that town?

I don't know. I don't know. That'll do it for our evaluation of steak and shake limited, our full evaluation of steak and shake TBD in the future. It's time for a segment. We do regularly here on the podcast. We talked to Evan about this in advance. This was the one he specifically requested.

We're happy to do it with him. We're going to taste test the food stuff and determine if it's something you should put in your mouth. It's time for snack or whack. He actually got to request. What do you want him to do? I talked to him before. I was like, hey, what do you want him to do?

God, Susser. I feel like there's going to be a polarizing appearance for this whole body thing. What do you think? I don't know. I was being like, no, enough's enough. I feel like we talked about my stuff so much at the beginning. Oh, no. This is great.

Everything was fine. Everything was great. Don't be self-conscious about it. I like this. This is a... I did such a good job of putting up a front for the whole episode of not being self-conscious and now it's all falling apart. Well, I will say you jumped to the gun at minute 108.

The only thing I thought you did was you jumped to the gun on saying we can't give a fork rating. I was amped up. I think that this is a very controversial and interesting episode of Doughboys. All right. All right, Mitch, go ahead and tell our fans, tell our listeners what we're going to be tasting. After I told them that this has been a good podcast, what we got here is a bag of Jelly

Belly jelly beans, the original gourmet jelly bean, and the flavor, pancakes in maple syrup. Pancakes in maple syrup. Jelly beans. Wow. This is just called a pancake, so when you got the maple syrup taste, you would have been like, all right, I get it. Hey, you know, I don't know. This is a...

Let's go ahead and open this bad boy up. How do you guys feel about jelly beans in general? Because I'm going to say... Jelly beans? Jelly beans. I like them a lot. Not a fan, me. I'm a jelly bean skeptic.

In fact, I would say I hate jelly beans. Whoa. Whoa. Wow. It's kind of loaded going into it, Wiger. Is that because of your liberal politics and opposition to Round Right? Yeah. I know the Gipper like guzzling them beans and...

I will say... No, jelly bellies, jelly beans, plus a board. Jelly beans in general, I don't like. But, and you know, I should like them. I won a jelly beading counting contest in Cub Scouts. So that's not surprising, right, man? So that's all right, I think you can come back more often, actually. The guy with the disposition of an autistic robot was able to count a bunch of jelly beans

in a jar. You got, you had the most fun with the least fun part of jelly beans is the number and the high amount of them. I don't like to eat them. I just like to count how many there are. Everyone else is like 20, 1,000, little Wigers, like 792. Actually, I will say... You won these.

No, thank you. This was at the Pinewood Derby in Cub Scouts and my guess in my head was 2,500. But I didn't know how to write that, so I wrote 2,050, which I thought was 2,500. And it ended up being like... So you're like a dumb raiment. Yeah, yeah. I didn't quite get the numbers. But it was like, it was like, the number was like 2094, and I was the closest without

going over. So I won the big jar of jelly beans. Price is right rules. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then you threw them away, kept the jar, was that it? I think I gradually ate them over a period of months, but not really enjoying it. Jelly beans aren't my favorite. My dad loved black jelly beans.

And I... Oh, that is weird. Yeah, that's right. And he loved them. Was that the kind of era where he was like, oh, I don't want the black. He's like, I'll take one. Oh, he loved them. He would get bags of black jelly beans.

He liked like black licorice. He was an older man. You know, he was born in... Yeah, his whole life. His whole life he was an older man. He was born in 1942, he was an older guy. But also the beers are flowing in here. I think you two are getting a little...

I'm a little tossed. Yeah. I gotta say, I opened these up and I'd say Jelly Belly and the Starburst Jelly Beans are the things that make me like jelly beans more. I don't love like the harder, at least like the 80s versions of jelly beans, which are big and hard and kind of not that good. I like the ones that kind of melt in your mouth a little bit. Very strong maple syrup smell.

There's a very strong maple syrup smell like if you ate eggo waffles or something and you smelled them back in the day after you were done eating. It's strong. It's intense. I took a few... I took a little bit over to Evan over here. The Jelly Belly label on each of the beans, like always. Okay.

I'm gonna go ahead and taste first one. I like the packaging. Really Siba. I tell you, the color's really good. If you hate us chewing into the microphones, please fast forward. Wow. This is very Willy Wonka-ish. It really is.

It's like a... What part of Willy Wonka? You get hit with a taste of pancake and then eventually you get like a syrupy buttery taste that comes out. Yeah. It's really strange. The butter is like pretty forward actually, which makes it taste very pancake-y. I feel like I'm tasting honestly the three flavors and tasting the pancake, the butter

and the syrup. Yep. I am too. And in that weird Wonka kind of way, which a second ago you thought was insane, you get right? No, I understood. I was just... Yeah, really?

You do, right? Well, it's not as bad as it tastes like it's not as bad as it tastes, yeah, I understood. I got it. But don't you taste them like in order? Yeah. Yeah. It's crazy. Yeah, it really is.

It's quite a miracle of flavor engineering or whatever the specific school of using chemicals to simulate real flavors is. It's pretty impressive. In a correct order. That's really, really... It weirds me out and I'm also impressed, but that's crazy. They look, smell and taste like pancakes and maple syrup jelly beans if you would expect them to.

Like they deliver... The look? The look? I think the color is dead on. I think this is exactly what the color they should be for pancakes soaked with maple syrup. Look a little parallel. It looks like Susser's liking them. I like them a lot, yeah.

I'm glad to end on such a positive... It seems like everyone kind of likes them or maybe people are impressed by them. I'm definitely impressed. I'm impressed by them. Here's the thing. We've talked about this quite a bit on the show. We did the Lay's taste tests with all the new flavors that they had. Do I want to taste pancakes and maple syrup and butter in a jelly bean?

It's really strange. I mean like, I think I'd rather just have a big plate of pancakes with maple syrup and butter on them, but it really nails it and I kind of enjoy eating them. I wouldn't like to eat a ton of them, although I think Susser disagrees with me. But I got to go with a snack on this one. It is definitely not whack. I'm impressed, a little weirded out. I don't know if I would ever buy these as a snack, but if someone had them, I'd eat

a couple of them for sure. Yeah, I feel like that's the same sort of weird difficulty I'm falling into is that if we're valuing this as a snack, I wouldn't get these at the airport of like, oh, I need something to tide me over. I'm going to get these jelly belly flavored maple syrup and pancakes, but they are quite tasty and they really do deliver on what you expect from the product. That's like, oh, this tastes like what it should taste like. I can't call it whack.

Yeah, I think I'm with you. I'm a jelly bean skeptic. I don't like the texture of jelly beans. I don't like how they feel in your mouth, but the flavor is so dead on that even though this is a novelty, and I feel like this is maybe more of a party trick than an actual food stuff, I'm going with snack. Also, can you tell us how many jelly beans are in that bag, Nick? Yeah, I think these are home run.

I think that, you know, similar to kind of film, you kind of look at like, what's the intention of this movie? If it's a teen comedy, okay? It's supposed to appeal to teens and kind of be crude, and you can't kind of knock a teen comedy for being crude because it's like, well, that's what it's supposed to be. So for this kind of, it's pancake maple syrup jelly beans. So these are for people who like jelly beans and people who like pancakes, and I think you'd be hard pressed to find someone who likes jelly beans who would not like this.

I think you'd be hard pressed to find someone who likes pancakes and doesn't like this. So I think that for its intended audience, this is a home run. I think this is a definite snack. Wow. Wow. We're all in agreement. We're in agreement. What does that make it?

It makes it some sort of stupid thing. I don't think it makes it anything, no. Oh, okay. Some bullshit that you made up. It's an official snack. Official snack. You know what it is? I remember what it is, Mitch, it's that it's, this has nothing to do with whether or not

we agree, but you have decided, you can decide to give it the Spoon Man stamp of approval on top of what your rating is, which I guess is like a snack plus. I won't give it the Spoon Man stamp of approval though, I'm very impressed. They can also get the holding hands over Spachler. That is true. That's for the, that's for the, the restaurant itself. I think it's okay for Snackerel. Yeah, I think, I think we'll give it to them.

I don't think so. I don't, I don't agree with that. Uh-oh. Rain Man's going nutty. Uh, just like a restaurant, we value your feedback. Let's open up the feedback. Today's email comes to us from Zach. Zach writes, Hey Doe Boys, I've really been enjoying your podcast, so shouts out to you

too and Dirty Dustin at Ferrell, Dirty Dustin, our producer of that booth. I was wondering if there were any chain restaurant exclusive condiments or sauces that you would buy, like to buy if commercialized. Woo! For example, I would spend many hard earned dollars on KFC Gravy. I've also heard of people buying large amounts of Big Mac sauce, but have never done so myself. Hmm. Hmm.

That's a good question, Zach. That's a good question. Um, you know, KFC Gravy, I wasn't thinking of it, but now that you say it, I'm like, that KFC Gravy is really good, then again, I'm not sure if I would enjoy the KFC Gravy not paired with like the KFC Biscuits or the KFC Mashed Potatoes. That's a good point. That's a really good point. Like in and of itself, I'm not sure what I would put it on.

I guess I could dip some ruffles in it or something, yeah, yeah. You know, there was a time in my life when people would ask me what my favorite food was and I would say Gravy. I liked that. I liked that little wagger. Yeah. The real little wagger. Yeah.

Who drank Gravy. Who was probably a pretty big wagger. The favorite food was Gravy. Gravy. As a hefty little boy. Um, I, this, this, this is a, this is a tough one for me. The Big Mac sauce, but I don't know what I would put it on like, I'm not, I'm not gonna make a bit, I'm not gonna make a better Big Mac than, than McDonald's is gonna make for

me. Um, I think we talked about Chick-fil-A, they have a couple good sauces, um, but I don't, I always feel like what, what, you know what, you know what I do like, I like the green, uh, I like the green salsa from Chipotle. They're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're chili verde or whatever it is, the green chili verde salsa is good. Um, maybe, maybe I would, I would get a jar of that. Yeah.

The pico, you get a jar of the pico from Chipotle, the corn. Yeah. They, they, they got, they got some good stuff and also their sour cream is pretty tasty too. Well, I don't. Sour cream. Sour cream. I don't agree.

I think that their sour cream is almost like fluff. It's like a little thinner. All right. Another, another idea for my return episode. Uh, if you did, I do not think you could do a taste test with Chipotle sour cream and any other sour cream and be able to tell a difference. Bring it on, sis. Big daddy.

You're suggesting some sort of blind taste test where we, we test the spoon man. I'm on board with that. I think though I think the texture might give it away because I think it is a little thinner. It is a little fluffier like you were saying. Mike Weiger sent me texts of four different fries from fast food places and how did I score on that? I think it was 100%. Yeah.

You batted a thousand on that. Yeah. Anyways. Uh, yeah. Maybe that would be it or, uh, uh, you know what the, no, no, because I was going to say that in the cheese gore de creme sir used to be a little bit of sauce, but everything goes so well with, with the restaurant you go to. Yeah.

So I'm going to make a better version of it. So there's nothing that I like ever crave besides maybe salsa or salsa or something in that category that, that I would, that I want, would want on my own. It does make you wonder why Chipotle doesn't go kind of the Taco Bell or the Boston Market route and have some of its salsas available in stores because they think those would be best sellers. I think if they had their best, their, their salsas jarred at the grocery store, people would, would pick those up over a pace picante for sure.

I think that's, but you gotta be careful of the place like Chipotle, especially like me. I get like the brown rice bowl. Yeah. It feels like I could just make this. This is not that complicated. They start selling too many of the ingredients in stores. I wonder if it just becomes that, just make it at home.

That's a good point. They are a success. They know what they're doing. It's so quick and easy to go through there and get, get something made like that. I have an answer, uh, which is that I would go with, first of all, one thing I do stock pile is hot sauce packets from Del Taco. I do really like their, their hot sauces. Is that the black packet?

They had, well, the black packet is, um, uh, is the Del Scorcho. That one's good, but I also will go with the Del Inferno, which is their orange packet, which is a little hotter than that. Both of those, both of those are very tasty. I actually think the Del Scorcho has better flavor. The Del Inferno is a, is a little hotter. So it just depends on what you're craving, but I will take, use the, use either of those and put those on like scrambled eggs and have those at home.

Um, but my answer for a condiment that you would have, uh, available for consumer purchase, I think I would go with Arby's cheese sauce. Um, I really, really like the cheese sauce you can get at Arby's. And if they found a way where you could kind of get that in a whiz like container where it would maintain that texture and you can heat it up at home, use to make your own nachos or to dip some chips in it, I think that would actually be a very satisfying, um, thing that I would, that I would buy for myself. What about you, Cesar?

Oh, well, I kind of already talked about it already. Uh, I don't know if I would really want to buy any of the kind of sauces. I feel like kind of Mitch, you put it best. It's kind of, you know, the, you know, like TGTI Fridays and California pizza kitchens, they have all these versions where they have like a frozen version of their thing. And I don't really like it cause it's like, yeah, it's like an invitation. I know what the real thing tastes like and I'm not, I'm not enjoying it too much. It feels like a poor imitation.

So I think that, uh, if I want, you know, Taco Bell sauces, I'll just go to Taco Bell and get something with it. Yeah. I don't need to, uh, have it at home. I don't need a stockpile, have a whole room full of Del Taco sauce, like Nick Weigher. So no, I, I think, uh, you're driving to Victorville. I think I will leave all condiments at the respective restaurants the way God intended. Okay.

That's a good answer. I also stock up on Del Scorcho, but I do it because sometimes they give you a light number of packets and then when you get home and you're like, I need more, more packets, I go to the stockpile. So both, so both of us, both of us stockpiled Del Scorcho sauce. Do you live through the taco sauce depression? Yeah. He's, he's going in the trunk and we'll bury him.

Um, I was going to also say, this is, this is a great one. Tweet at us. I want to hear some answers on this one. I want to see if there's any, any, uh, sauces or condiments that people like from certain places that, uh, that, that we maybe have missed or that would be great to take home or have bottled up. Yeah. Maybe I'm, I'm bad with this social media stuff, but maybe hashtag feedback.

If you got an answer, use that, uh, use that, that does anything. Go ahead and do that. That would, that would be nice and chime in with your answers. If you've got any, uh, any recommendations for condiments that you would like available for purchase. And if you have a question or comment about the world of chain restaurants, you can email us at doboyspodcast at gmail.com. You can also follow us on Twitter at doboyspod, uh, check out our Facebook

fan page. Evan Susser, thank you so much for joining us. I think this was, this was, you made your case for steak and shake, uh, very, very, uh, profan, profoundly. And, um, thank you for your time. Is there anything you would like to plug or promote? Uh, no, not really. Um, let's see.

If you, uh, want to see Mitch being kidnapped, you can find that on YouTube. Uh, you can look for the pilot too. You can follow me on Twitter, uh, at Evan Susser for tweets every, uh, month and a half, uh, and then I guess the, uh, fist fight, if, when it comes out and a year or so, uh, I want to just say that you did a great job. One of my favorite apps, uh, and, uh, and also on Saturday night, they, for this, what's going on thing. It touched my heart.

It was a great night for me and a great night amongst friends. And then this was also a very nice time with, uh, with, uh, one of an early support, supporter of dough boys. So yeah, and, and to get sincere, uh, you guys, I really do, uh, enjoy the podcast a great deal. I'm very happy for you guys. I think that, uh, your dynamic, uh, is fantastic. I know some people may be think that you guys kind of needle each other a

little bit, but, uh, just to let the listeners know these guys love each other and it comes through, uh, in the podcast. We already gave you your second episode. How is this two and a half? How long is this episode? This episode is a good hour and a half. We're doing fine timelines. All right.

Well, cool. All right. Well, that'll, uh, that'll do it for this episode of dough boys. Until next time for the spoon man, Mike Mitchell. I'm Nick Weiger happy eating. See ya.