Doughboys - TGI Friday’s 2 with The Sklar Brothers

Episode Date: May 17, 2018

Randy and Jason Sklar (Sklars and Stripes, Hipster Ghosts) join Mitch and Wiger for trip down memory lane as they review a favorite chain from their youth and college days: sit down chain and Cocktail inspiration TGI Fridays. The quartet discusses sports, dining on the road, and taste test trial Oreo flavors in a new edition of Flavor of the Week.Want more Doughboys? Check out our Patreon!: https://patreon.com/doughboysSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In 1983, a new face was suddenly everywhere on the silver screen, as three films entered theaters starring Thomas Cruz and Mapo there the fourth, who went by the much-sleeker stage name Tom Cruise. The trio of flicks, the outsiders, all the right moves and most notably, Risky Business, which featured a still-frequently-referenced underwear dance number set to Bob Seeger's old-time rock and roll, catapulted the then-20-year-old Thespian into movie stardom. His films have since collectively brought in over 3.5 billion in box office receipts, roughly 100 million per year for the course of his 35-year reign as one of the most bankable

actors in the world. His staying power is testament to his talent and charisma, and some would speculate his connections to Scientology, and it's also a credit to his selectivity in choosing roles, as he rarely appears in Duds. Though one notable exception was the 1988 bartending film Cocktail, in which Cruz played his frequent early career type of a young hotshot feuding with a mentor. While the film performed acceptably financially, it was savaged by critics, and remains one of the most panned films of Cruz's career, one that knitted him a Razzie nomination

for Worst Actor. And the character Cruz portrayed that earned him this indignity, flare bartender Brian Flanagan, was reportedly based in part on Alan Stillman, a legend in the New York City's restaurant scene who, in 1965, opened the first-ever singles bar in then-CD Times Square. Stillman's mixology concept, named for a colloquialism that expresses gratitude of the Almighty for the end of the work week, shook up the city's bar scene like a martini shaker, pioneering now-standard concepts like the velvet rope and ladies' night. The restaurant's success was sustained over the decades, though, much like Times Square

itself, it gradually softened its rough edges, and evolved into a family-friendly chain that's an inarguably more generic version of its former self. Today, this once-hip hookup spot is as omnipresent in suburban shopping centers as the multiplexer's screening, the latest Tom Cruise blockbuster. This week on Doe Boys, we return to TGI Fridays. Welcome to Doe Boys, the podcast about chain restaurants. I'm Nick Weiger, alongside my co-host, Sad Stevens, Mitchie Two Spoons, Mike Mitchell. Sad Stevens.

Little Brad Stevens pun. Oh, Brad Stevens. The coach of the Your Celtics was surging in the playoffs unperforming expectations. That's the best. This is the best. This is the best. That's the best insult I've ever heard of my life. Sad Stevens.

You like that one? It's great. You think of your beloved team. That was courtesy of Andrew Rosen. If you have an insult you'd like to use, I'm Mitch at the top of the show. RoastSpoonMan at gmail.com is the address. They're doing great. I'm happy.

What can I say? I'm mad because you were, like, you were right about this series. I really... You really looked like an idiot. I picked the Sixers like everyone. The Consensus pick. I picked the Philadelphia 76ers as of this recording in the conference semifinals against the Boston Celtics.

I picked them. You said you picked the Boston Celtics. What I'm mad about is that your pick of the Boston Celtics was not like based on, like, you were analyzing the match-ups and you were like, you were like, oh, I think Horford could outplay M.B. in the post and I think, oh, I think a Marcus Smart can actually guard Ben Simmons. It was just like... So I have to have a breakdown of every player now to pick a team that wins?

Your pick was wholly based off of, like, Boston, baby, Celtics, number one. No, it totally, like, Philly sucks. That's you and your head of what you think it was. That's what's going on in your head, too. No, it wasn't. It just pisses me off that you're right. You were wrong. But for the wrong...

And I was right. Yes, it was wrong, but you were right for the wrong reasons. I thought that the Celtics would beat the Sixers not because I'm, like, Boston, baby. I thought they... You want me to be like, they matched up pretty well against them. Shut up. You're full of shit. You're full of shit, Weiger.

Anyways, you can just deal with me being right and you being wrong. I don't like it. I mean, they could come back and beat the Celtics. We'll look like fools. Yeah, we will. Anyways, here's a little drop. I'm embarrassed because we got good guests, usually crappy guests. Don't care about it.

I told stuff. Stop saying that. Stop perjuring our guests. All right, here we go. Welcome to Doughboys, the podcast about chain restaurants. I'm Nick Weiger, alongside Mike Mitchell. I have a listen to you. What the fuck?

Hey, you know what? I kind of like Soundgarden. Hey, you know, that was a trippy one. That was a fun. That was like I was losing my mind. Really? Yeah. All right.

I hope you're okay. That way. Wait a minute. Who was your? Who was your insult from Andrew Rosen? Okay. This is for Mitchell Rock. Sounds nothing alike.

Mitch at How Intensive. Thanks, Mitch. Good guy. Similar name. Anyway, let's move on with the podcast. Hey, you know what? We got some great guests here as you alluded to, Mitch. I like all of our guests, but these guests are great as well.

I don't like some of our guests. They're actors, stand-ups, and hosts of the podcast, Dumb People Town. Their new long-form audio documentary, Sklarz and Stripes, is available now on audible.com. Randy and Jason Sklar are here. Hi, guys. Hello, boys.

I thought you were going to go with Fat Stevens, as a Cat Stevens rep. Not you, but the person dropping the rate. Right. Also very insulting. Also very insulting. Also kind of a compliment. That would be another one.

P-H-A-T. You would like that one, because he's on the peace train. P-I-E-C-E. Another. Right on the peace train. Right on the peace train. Maybe that was as intentional with that song, and they just put it down wrong on the album.

If it was anti-Israel, I'm sure that's right. Oh, yes. The Youssef. I forgot about Youssef. Oh, right. You guys are big. I would also have done useless Islam. There we go.

Oh, boy. Wait. I'm getting in my mish. I'm not as big of a Youssef. I mean, I just don't, I didn't listen to as much Youssef as I did Cat Stevens. Nor do we. Or Youssef Islam.

That would add the Jews to his name, which he wouldn't like. She would hate it. That's more of a rip on him than anything else. Take that, Cat Stevens. Two Jews just tagged your name. I love that he went away from the Cat Stevens. That's not his regular name.

Is it? I can't imagine. No, his name is Stephen Katz. That's right. People don't know that. He's very Jewish. Wait, no. Now I'm curious what Cat Stevens is.

What is Cat Stevens' real name? His birth name. The name that was given to him. He just went back to his cat. Cat Stevens. Yeah. No one's ever named their child cat. Have they?

All right. He was born Steven Dimitri Giorgio. All right. I get why you want to change that. Yeah. It's a mouthful. Yikes. But I mean like he made such a big deal of like,

I'm changing my name from Cat Stevens to, I'm changing the name. You were never Cat Stevens. You know what I mean? Like that's. Sure. That's a good point. That's like Slim Shady changing it to.

I'm changing my name from Slim Shady to Eight Ball. Prince did a similar thing. I mean, Prince is not, that's not his real name. I don't know. Prince is not. No, of course it's not his real name. Gordon Sumner. No, that's Sting.

That's Sting? Sting's real name was Prince. Prince Naseem Ahmed. But Prince is not, that's not like his, just his first name or something, right? I don't know what his birth name was. I don't know if Prince's birth name either, but I feel like that was more.

Look at that. I feel like. We're just going to be Wikipedia thing, all podcasts. I feel like with Prince, he had to make a thing out of it, because what he changed it to was so confusing. The symbol that you can't. The symbol. Yes.

It was born Prince Rogers Nelson. So it was his actual first name. Wow. More of a connection to reality than Kat Stevens. Rogers. I called him Raj. I just would have loved one. Raj, how's that purple rain going?

It's very good. You coming through with that? I would love to have gotten just one of the checks he wrote and signed as the symbol. If you had like an expired check. I just imagine like Prince just writing tons of checks. He paid for groceries. For everything with a check.

It's like two dollars at Taco Bell. He's like, can I write a check? He was using someone else and then they would then just to write. I wonder if you think that they're like on his computer. Yeah, that there was a little. Do you think he got a little Prince key made? Or do you think there was a gift that he just posted? Seriously?

And that's like a stamp. Replace the tab key possible. I mean that seems like important. Imagine Prince emailing a lot. Yeah. That's not a good point. Did he email? He's probably one of those people like your parents who like yell into it

and like all right apps. He's all caps. I kind of, you know, I've thought about a no. Who is it? Who's like no? Is it like John Lasseter or someone who is a no email? He's in trouble too, by the way. But like a no email guy.

Well, I know Bill Clinton like would be like they would print out emails for him and he would like respond. That's just kind of embarrassing. Yeah, that's like just an old guy guy creating more work. Right. Yeah. I mean, but yeah, I don't know. I don't know.

They're no phone. No email thing. It seems nice. You mean like a one contemporary. It does seem like someone told me there is there are restaurants and I'm not trying to get us back on topic gentlemen. Wow, Jay. Let's get to business here.

They're looking around guys. Jay wants to talk about restaurants. There are. This is the dough boys. There are restaurants that will offer you a discount. If you check your phone, give them your phone at the door. Wow. Starting to happen.

And I think that's really interesting. And that would be a cool trend. There are county clubs that take them and zip them up. Right. To a Ziploc bag that like, yeah. Yeah. That's a great thing. Yeah.

It needs to happen. Yeah. For live shows. Come on. Yeah. No, for sure. Yeah. No.

And people put up. I mean, Nick, you've always been upset that people caught Kramer in his bad moment. I know you were really trying out some new stuff. Get him to experiment. Texas content. Right. By the way, that's going to be your next drop.

Yeah. Put him away for. I feel that way. You know what? You're saying put him away. You mean Michael Richards. Put him away. Put him away.

Zip him. Zip him up in a bag. Put away the phone at dinner. What do you need at dinner? You're with the people you need to be with. And we actually did use. We were both kind of tired last night and we both. Yeah.

We won't get into the restaurant too quick. No. We were kind of looking at our phone during dinner. And that wasn't. I didn't, I didn't like that. We shouldn't have. That's a different. I think that's a different energy though.

Cause like there are the time. Cause you and I know each other very well. And their time. We're their times when we're just like, we're just kind of maybe too exhausted to talk to each other. Right. But. I need a time away from you,

even though I'm standing right next to you. Boy, I don't know what that feels like. No. At all. It was with Randy. I'm, it's lonelier than being alone. Let me just say that. Yeah.

I mean, so you guys, you guys are big sportos. I know. Do you have any thoughts on the NBA playoffs, which are going right now? You were, you were, you were about to chime in when we were talking. No, no, no.

When we were talking Celtics up top. Yeah. We have a lot to say about. So I picked the Celtics to come out of the East. And I, and I still think there's a chance they can beat LeBron. Although there's a good chance. He is, he is,

he's really match up well with them. These, these Celtes are, I mean, what's insane about the Celtics is they're, they're, they're, they're,

they're, they're, they're, they're, I mean, what's insane about the Celtics is there are two best players are not on the floor and they won't be. And that's unbelievable.

Yeah. And the team has come of age. They're going to have a real problem next year, figuring out who's going to stay and who's going to go. Cause how do you deny Rosier minutes? He's shooting lights out from everywhere. Although I've heard people say, put him in another system and he'll suck.

But I really think it just shows you how good that coach is. Yeah. Great coach. Rosier and Tatum have been unbelievable. Yeah. And you can't end Jalen Brown. There's three guys who we never expected to contribute this much who are doing it on the highest level.

LeBron is unbelievable. Yes. LeBron is just, he is, and I feel like there is a, a gravitational pull for people to want LeBron. It's funny on our podcast, we talk about,

so we're 46 and we talk about LeBron's mom is Gloria James is 50 years old. So we are almost, we define anyone by how many LeBron's moms are you? So we are like almost one LeBron's mom. Someone's 25. You're like, you're half LeBron's mom. I don't expect you to know better. Yeah.

You're one half LeBron's mom. He's almost a LeBron's mom and a half. That guy is nearly dead and he should know better. That's how you can use that. LeBron is just, and I think there's a gravitational sort of pull towards wanting LeBron to be good because I think we all want the guy that's playing during this time to be the best ever. Right.

We all want to say we, we were in our TV watching prime when we saw the best ever. Right. Chronocentrism, I think it is. It's like everyone, Is that a thing? Yeah. There's like a,

there's an instinct to think that there's a natural human instinct to think that right now, the time we are currently alive is the most important time in human history. Yes. Yeah. And as Nick knows, I am not the biggest LeBron fan, but I will, because I'm a Celtics fan and because Yeah. He's in direct competition with your goals and now you're close enough ever to achieve

them. Right. And you weren't too crazy about the I can't breathe thing. You didn't like that he wore the I can't. No, he's, he's full of, he's trying to make me seem racist, which I'm 100% on board with the I can't. No, hold on. That sounds weird too.

You're 100% on board with the fact that he couldn't breathe. He was like, really? No. His breath off. No. No breathing off. Oh, dear God. Stop.

You happy what you've done, Wiger? You did. You helped us riff on something that made us into a hole that makes it terrible. And that's the next drop. All right. LeBron has, he's been undeniably good in these. I mean, it's, it's insane. Okay.

I love that you brought the I can't breathe me because it's, it's really important. Okay. That's how fucking great the NBA is right that like their players can put on. I can't breathe shirts and whether I mean, and they're allowed to do it. The all-star game was supposed to be in Charlotte last two years ago. Yes. But, and because of HP too, the bathroom laws, which they were like, Adam Silver's like, fuck that.

We're not bringing this there. Are you joking? Yeah. Why would we bring business to a city that is treating transgender people that way? We're the NBA. We can make these decisions. And so as a league, it's kind of nimble in that way. And so you kind of love the league because they take social stands that are right.

Which is, which is very funny. And I'm sure that you will remember this. David Stern had like the dress code stuff. Like, I remember just like, you know, whatever, how long ago this was now 10 or so years ago, 15 years ago, and I hated that and I thought that that was like, I'm like, what it's all about. He was a little bit more regressive than Adam Silver. Yeah.

Silver is definitely much better. Silver is like the younger rabbi who takes over. He's like, yeah, you guys can drink. You guys can drink a little bit. You kids want to drink on the Shabbaton. Enjoy it. He's the cool and the or the cool Pope, like the cool pop for my Quincy, my Quincy listeners. But, but I feel like the NFL is now.

Are you guys fans of the NFL or no? I mean, you know, we don't have a team. That's the thing. And so we grew up in St. Louis and and the Rams kind of came after we were there. I just felt bad for the city that they left. You know, it's so we don't have that one. We're more college football fans. So this is what we say about fandom.

Like it's like a male orgasm. You can't fake like, come on, Randy. It's just bad. It's like a male orgasm. You can't fake it. You can't fake caring about something. Sure. So there's like that moment where you're like, if you check the score and your team is losing

and you're not, if you aren't apoplectic and want to like, and it's not going to ruin your whole weekend, then you don't really care about that game. You don't really care about the team. That's a litmus test in your soul. Like we're Michigan football fans. And so like three days leading up, I'm listening to a podcast about what's happening to the team. And how's the thing going?

What is this sports writer writing about that? I'm like reading stuff up. Like I need to know stuff for this game. And then the game is like the guy who shows up at like professional NBA games who just wears the jersey and nothing underneath. So like, I'm just saying in this way that like, Jay thinks someone's going to be like, Hey, what does Jason Sklar think we should do on this next play? Let's call him over to Tampa.

I love the guy who just wears the jersey. Like if all the players on the court got injured in one free injury thing, like the coach would just look up Docker was to be like, All right, get that guy up in section a 39. It looks like he only works out his upper body. Get him down here. All right. That, uh, that, that Jersey only look for most men is not flat.

It does not look good. It does not work. And Jersey only looks says you don't support the me too movement. That's essentially what that says. Jersey only looks says that you have no woman in your life to tell you not to do that. Don't do that. Don't do it.

Or another man to tell you, stop it. I would, I would always wear a white T if I ever wore a Jersey. I don't wear jerseys as much. But then, you know, what's embarrassing is like, I would go to a pool party. I'm like, I'll just wear the jersey. And then that's when the photo gets taken of you. Sure. It lives online.

It lives online forever. That's why Patrick Ewing wore undershirts. He foretold the internet. It was coming. He's like, I'm wearing a grace undershirt. But I do believe that you only like, you care about what you care about. And, and there's no like, as they say in basketball, the ball don't lie. Like it is what you can't fake caring about.

So for us, you know, we're bigger into the college game because of Michigan. And we have deep ties to that team. I think if you're not a Patriots fan, you hate the Patriots. Yes. Like that's, it is, it's not people do not like the Patriots. They don't. If you're not a Patriots fan, you hate the Patriots. So if you weren't a Patriots fan, you were like rooting for Philly.

And then they win the, they win the Super Bowl. And then you're like, yay, Philly finally won. It's great. And then you see all the photos of like the Philly people like partying and like collapsing hotel balconies. And you're like, oh, these guys suck too. That's, that's what we rooting for. Yeah.

Guy is literally eating shit that fell out of a police horse. Shit that fell out of a police horse. Did just fall out. I mean, the horse went to the bathroom. The horse had to run. Don't get pedantic about the horses. It does kind of just fall out. I don't know if you've been a horse guy.

It does kind of just fall out. It fall. Have you ever seen a horse shit? There's always like a moment where you're like, are you digesting it? What's happening in your system as it's going down? I feel like it just like a full apple comes out in the back. We were in, when I, when I was younger, we were in the Grand Canyon. I was with my family and there was a mule walked by and it was like, there was like

a big tour group and this, this someone was riding a mule walk by and this mule just like farted for, it was like so long and so prolonged. And they're like 30 people there and like from all ages and all demographics and everyone just like laughed so hard. Yeah. They're like laughing now. That's the greatest thing. This is so fun.

Like there's nothing funnier than watching this animal fart. I would say maybe like one of the Wilinda brothers falling into the Grand Canyon. That would have been funnier. That would have been funnier, but still, I give this one. Yeah. And as he's falling, you just yell, you bro. Where's your god now, you Jesus freak? No, but that is so funny because the, I think about it.

The animal doesn't know you're laughing. Yeah. They have no idea. What if the animal is very embarrassed about that's like a nightmare. No, the animal doesn't know it's an appropriate. If you've ever seen a donkey embarrassed. What's it do just like lowers its head and doesn't tail between its legs. That's so sad to think about.

If it wasn't, I got a question for your follow up question. Did you ever look over at the Grand Canyon or was that enough? We went home after that. We saw what we needed to say. What we came to see. Like that should be, there's like a little movie theater at the Grand Canyon. I just went, there's little movie theater. Like what if it was just a 30 minute movie, just different angles of this mule,

just farting and a slow pushing every single person's face. If they showed that, I swear to God, and I took my kids to see that. I would be like, I love the Grand Canyon so much. This is the greatest national park. That was the video. I feel like this is the greatest national park I've ever been to. You guys have a fucking sense of humor. You're hilarious.

They don't have the shit at arches. I know. Literally, they don't have it. One time I went there. We were in flip-flop sandals coming from Vegas in April. Got their snow. There was like a foot of snow on the ground. That's crazy.

We went over, we went over like the winter break in like the first week. My kids have like an extra week in January that like we never had. So after New Year's and we're like, oh, let's drive over the Grand Canyon. It was freezing. Yeah. Yeah. In April, we had snow. Full winter coats on.

But isn't that better though, because like the waft of the, oh my God, I went one time in the, when it was hot and just the waft of all the mule shit that comes from there, it just, it gets up in you and you start to smell it. Oh my God. You start to taste it on everything. And it's just. I didn't realize that the mules, there was a mule problem. There's a lot of them.

I walk you down. If you saw that Brady Bunch. Yeah. Because you can't walk down the things. The mules are the ones that can navigate the. Right. Like you know how old, do you guys, do you remember the Brady Bunch? You're too young for it.

Oh, of course. Yeah. You know how old someone is if they, when they go down in the Grand Canyon, just for one second, they're like, Bobby, Cindy. If you make that joke, you know how old someone is and that's it. Because they did, because they didn't go up on both names. That's why it was so great. Right.

It wasn't Bobby. Cindy. It's Bobby. Cindy. I was like, that's what they were expecting. Such a weird acting choice. And they're like, no, she's not going to do it better than that. I was like, I said to Nick, the weird thing of, I was born in 82,

but then the weird thing of like reruns and repeats, I watched a lot of like Gilligan's, like these weird shows and green acres that younger kids now don't have to see. But when I was a kid, it was like, here, I'll put you in front of the TV. I'm like, be witched. So I watched be witched and I dream of Jeannie, these weird shows. And you, you, you agreed with me on this. Yeah.

We took in a lot of threes company, the point where me and my friends at elementary school had opinions on Mr. Furley versus Mr. Roper. Yeah. I mean, it's a big opinion. Who did you like more? Who wore the scarf better? I was a Furley guy. You were a Furley guy?

Yeah. Furley always had a nervous energy that, that made me like him even more. Yeah. But it's, it's just so weird to be, for us to be in watching TV shows from 20 to 30 years before when now, I don't think that kids watch like 1980s, right? Right. They're watching like PewDiePie on YouTube or they're watching like some, some crazy. Although, although, although if you go back 20 years, I mean, it's a 20 year going back.

My daughter's friends, she's almost 13. Her friends are starting to watch friends. Oh, interesting. So they're starting to walk 20 years back and watch episodes of friends. That's good. They get to, they get to learn about friends. I feel like it's a good show. So my daughter started binge watching The Office and she's like watching it on, you know,

on the iPad and she like wasn't getting her work done and not wasn't getting her work done, but didn't have her homework done over the weekend and then watched like three hours of the, I found out she watched three hours of The Office, but like, I can't punish her because I love that she's watching the Office. Right. What are you? All right. All right.

All right. Michael Scott. Michael Scott's doing an improv class. All right. I'll give it up. I'll let that slide. Can you see what, like what they've watched through? Is that possible?

Cause that seems like a tough kid thing to get over. I didn't even think about it. Yeah. I mean, I know she's not watching anything. Oh yeah. Yeah. No, just, just even the fact that like your TV hours are logged is scary to me. Well, it's, if it's on an iPad, you can take it and look kind of what she, you know,

she's viewed, but I mean, I was like excited. Part of me is like, yes. Yeah. Yeah. That's a great thing. You're doing the right thing. Yeah. You want your kid to have good taste.

And if they come, that happens organically. I mean, that's a great feeling. We watched TV, we watched so much TV when in like after school and everything we did. And that was like part of who we are. It's part of why we're in what we're doing right now. I feel like we were, we were drawn to it in some way in St. Louis. And it wasn't catered to us. Like we watch good times.

I don't know if you've ever watched that show. Oh yeah. Yeah. Good times in the Jeffersons were two shows that were not, could not be less. For two Jewish young kids in St. Louis. Right. I mean, one's about a family in the projects trying to make ends meet. And another is about an in is about a couple, a black couple who explained the

Jeffersons more to these guys. But I'm just saying how do we relate to that? Look, they're moving on up. You guys understand. Yeah. We've gone up to a deluxe apartment on this guy, which by the way, moving on up to an apartment. Okay.

Fine. But it's silly city dwelling. It's like an interracial couple. I mean, there's so much in that show. That was, that was not for us, but we had to rise up and meet it and understand what was going on. Now did just, this is the way it is with kids. They get sort of, they're so over programmed.

They have so much more homework than we had as kids that like, I want her to just kind of binge something and enjoy it, especially if it's good, like the office or I wanted to start watching 30 of my sons watching Simpsons. Oh hell yeah. You want them to kind of get into that stuff because we feel like that is as useful as a class. This is, you're watching something on the highest level be executed. It shapes.

What's funny? It shapes what's funny for you. It's so crazy to think of the Simpsons being old in the way like watching a seventies TV show would be old for us. Yeah. That's so, that's so, that's kind of old, but it still holds up in every way and, and you know, cause you watch it with your kids through their eyes and that's what it is. But like, I've gotten to the point now where I get so mad that when she gets homework on

the weekends that I've stopped caring about cursing in front of her, like I'll openly curse about stuff. Like she'll just be working so hard and really stressed out and you know, I just be like, you know what? Fuck your teacher. She's a fucking idiot. Why is she giving you all this shit? And she's like, whoa, dad, relax.

I'm not going to fucking relax. Just cursing for no reason. Yeah. Why wouldn't you give dad a timeout? I'd feel like if my parents did that, I feel like they were playing a trick like, oh, they're testing me somehow. They want to see how I'm going to react to this. They want me to defend the teacher and they're like, well, no, my son, my daughter will be

really mad until I'm like, I'm going to say something to her and she's like, no, no, no, don't, don't. Anytime I'm like, I'm going to say something. Like, no, no, no, you know what? I'm going to fucking say something. No, no, no. Did you guys go to school? Did you go to school in Michigan?

We went to college in Michigan. Okay. At the university. We're from St. Louis. We grew up in St. Louis. Right. And we just loved that school and for different reasons. Midwestern school.

We didn't want to go that far from home. We got into Penn. We were really going to go, maybe we're going to go to Philly and we checked it out and then we went to Michigan and we're like, yeah, people are having more fun here. Yeah. It's a great academic school, but you know, it's also like people realize, hey, we're in college. This is actually supposed to be fun.

Right. Yeah. Whereas at Penn, it was like, it's an Ivy school and people were very, there's just a lot of tension. Yeah. And we're like, I think life is going to probably be pretty tense. Yeah. Yeah.

Let's, let's enjoy ourselves a little bit. Yeah. Michigan seems like a fun, a fun place to go. I feel like that sort of tension has kind of reached the, it's gotten so widespread in the collegiate system. Cause I feel like I went to UCLA, which I think maybe was, is somewhat analogous to Michigan, but even there it was like the time I was there in the late nineties, early 2000s, it did feel like it was all like super tense.

Everyone is super tense. It felt like it was like a very like sort of like these were studious students who tried their best and we're, and we're trying to get into medical school or whatever. It was like very. You couldn't see. Not really party school at all. Yeah. Exactly.

There's bridges left. Gorgeous. Yeah. The gorgeous. Right. And Cordell. Yeah. Yeah.

It's, it can be, it can be pretty tense up there. That pressure, it's just, so again, you're like, all right, you gotta relax. Yeah. And I mean, so then you're like, yeah, watch the office. Yeah. Enjoy it. You know what I mean? Like blow off some steam.

As far as food stuff goes, is there any food in St. Louis that's like specific to St. Louis that you don't get out here that you miss? Let's hear, let's hear about it. There is a pizza and we, and so this is in our audio book, St. Louis was one of the studios that we did. Right. It's sort of what, it's cool. Your fans would dig it because we really dig into the food of each thing.

Explain what the audio book is. So the audio book, Sclares and Stripes, and then I'll give you the relevance of why it matters, is that when we, we did this anyway, but for this, we gave ourselves a challenge. When we go to do stand up on the road, we come in for a weekend, Plainlands Thursday, we're, we're leaving Sunday morning and we do shows all weekend. We said, I wonder if we could come up with 10 minutes of comedy over the course of three days, two, three days, however long we're there. By Saturday night, can we have 10 minutes of comedy about this town, about what they're

experiencing in the town, what's the, what are their blind spots, what are their highlights, what are the things that, what about their food? And we, food is like a thing that we touch on in every, restaurants, the types of food they love, all that stuff. And we were in Madison, we were in Wisconsin, we were talking about cheese curds. Uh, I don't know if you've had a cheese curds before, but I mean, it's like, there are two kinds. That's a perfect metaphor for Madison.

Madison is like the creamy communist center in an otherwise crusty state that is like trying to kill you. And we also said that we had one fried cheese curd and then I wanted every curd. I wanted to take down every curd. I was like, curds have not been targeted this much since Saddam was in power, but it is that. So St. Louis has a style of pizza that is to anyone from the outside, it is hideous, hateful and shameful.

It's called Emo's pizza, thin crust, like hyper thin, like catch up on a cracker, essentially what it is. Like we were like, you should never eat the pizza and then ask yourself, am I eating the box? What am I doing here? Or the pizza itself. And the pizza was so thin. Nobody, Scott was like, he's from New York and he was like, is this, is this gluten-free?

I was like, Scott, this is pizza-free pizza-free pizza, but it's insane. We love it. I don't, I can't explain why we as St. Louis is cause it's part of our past, but super thin. It's like, it's not that filling. It's like the kind of pizza you could slide under a door during a hostage negotiation. A locked door to it all. Just get it in there.

We're getting them out. If it was in LA, it would have a headshot. That's how thin it is. So they're just like hamburgers on, like there's hamburger on it that's really good. It's just Emo's pizza. And for us, they do Pro-Vel cheese, which no one knows what it is. It's provolone, it's, it's part provolone, it's part Clydesdale giz. Yeah.

I don't know what it is. So it's a binding agent or something. Yeah. He's in. He's in. He's like, hmm, hmm. Okay. Was the, was the Clydesdale fart?

So it just, it was really, really good and so whenever we go home, we definitely go get that. There's a toasted ravioli. Toasted ravioli is amazing in St. Louis again. Toasted raves. Toasted raves. It's like ravioli, meat ravioli inside of a, like toast fried outer shelf, breaded fried outer shelf.

And then you dip it in meat sauce with Parmesan in it. It's just fantastic. I've seen some of those in some places, but, but we, we got, we got kind of the, remember we got the, the just recently at Olive Garden, we got the, oh, we had the Olive Garden version of toasted ravioli. It was, it was, it's their bail. They're not even really toasted ravioli. It was actually, it wasn't bottomless.

It was topless. It was really interesting. Like why should the, no, but it's, it's, that's a St. Louis. Cause there were a lot of, there's a huge Italian community in St. Louis that, that came to St. Louis. It's a great, great restaurant. It's a great restaurant. An area called the Hill.

It's really, And then there is a frozen custard in St. Louis. Ted Drew's frozen custard. Oh yes. That is, you know, if you just get, it's called a concrete and you turn it upside down, you know who has it here in Shake Shack. Shake Shack. Oh yeah.

Danny Meyer has like sort of co-opted it a little bit. It's like when white people like start using like black people's terms and you're like, I see what you're going for. I know what you're doing. I see where it came from, but is that, but the concrete is you're supposed to try it and all the white people started dabbing and we're like, well, that's over. That's now no longer a thing. But you turn it upside down, spoon in and everything and nothing falls out unless you

have like a ton of toppings on it. I go home and I get, it is the best thing I've ever had. I've like sort of, it's taken me years. Like you can go after a Cardinals game. I mean, this is what I love about it. After a Cardinals game, it's warm out and dark. So there's this feeling of like warmth and it's dark. Cause in St. Louis, it would be like, never gets cold.

Never gets cold at night in, in the summertime, super humid. So warm out at night, lines to the street in this like shack of a place, but it moves so fast. And so over the years we've developed, it's just after a Cardinals game, everyone pours it into this place. And we would just, I would order, God, it was so good. I would order like a butterscotch or excuse me, caramel flavored concrete with Heath Bar mixed into an extra Heath Bar and blizzard and then extra butterscotch sauce on top of

it. And it just, that is like my, I would do a pistachio flavored concrete with Heath Bar in it, with hot fudge on the top, just unreal. And it is like, you taste, it's terrible for you and it's, but it's just the best. What I love about it is that also the guy who runs the place, Ted Drew, the older guy who did it, uh, would hire college kids. So the people are so smart who are working there and it was like, oh, a mixture of races and, you know, which for St. Louis is a big deal.

Pretty good. And, and, and then he would, for people who couldn't afford college who worked for him in the summertime, why not? He would pay for kids to go to college. It was an unbelievably nice thing. The thing about it that was awesome is like next to it, not next to it, but like on the next block over across a tiny little street was a velvet freeze, which was another ice cream ice cream place.

Okay. What is velvet freeze doing next to Ted Drew's is the dumbest thing. Occasionally people would see the lines and be like, this is too long, not understanding that it goes super fast. Right. They'd be like, well, we came out for ice cream. Well, there's an ice cream place and no one's go there. So occasionally you would get what we described as the velvet freeze runoff.

Ted Drew's runoff, which, or we call the velvet freeze runoff, you just would get it. We're like, that would be the equivalent of John Hamm, who, you know, we know from St. Louis, he's a St. Louis guy, grew up around the same time that we did. We'd be like, if you went out with John Hamm. You were all single. There's only one John Hamm. So I suppose he could get two women. If they're in a group, you could get the John Hamm runoff.

You could get the velvet freeze runoff from John Hamm. And stuff like that to us was always the metaphor, the velvet freeze runoff. I, I, I feel like you and I are John, we don't, we'll get the runoff of the runoff. We were a couple of steps or a cart like next to velvet freeze. Yeah, right. I'm getting just a regular ham runoff. Just a small, honey, I'll take the runoff of the ham itself. Are you guys big Michigan Pete, like Buddy's pizza?

Did you have Buddy's pizza at all when you were in Michigan? I know, we had no, cause we were poor college students. So we ate a lot of little Caesars cause that was inside the student union. We did that, but there are some great restaurants in Ann Arbor too. But we ate a friend of ours worked at this place called Back Room Pizza. It was at the back room of the Brown Jug, which was kind of an old restaurant right on South University there. And at the end of when the bar closed on Monday nights at a bar called Rick's

downstairs, there was, it was three dollars to get into the bar, dollar picture, dollar picture. And we didn't tip cause we were, cause we're assholes and like you get a picture, a beer for a dollar and everyone just pitched in and each gets a picture of the beer. So you get that for a dollar and then you come upstairs and you get a slice of pizza for a dollar at the end of the night. So it was a five dollar night and our buddy worked there. So the bar closes at two and then everyone would rush upstairs and there was,

they were kind of finishing up their pizza too. So he would save two slices and everyone got pissed at us, but it would come out of the oven and it was like the hottest thing on the plan. But Michigan was so freezing, we would carry it and call it one block pizza because if you carried it outside in the Michigan freezing winter by one block, it would be warm, but not cold, but not hot. You couldn't eat it. And then we'd come in and sit down. That's perfect. That sounds like an Ithaca thing too.

It was freezing cold and, and except I would just eat the pizza. I think before I got to my car. I don't care. Damn the roof of my mouth. Damn it. Damn you to hell. Yeah, that's good. And there's the best in Ann Arbor, the best, best deli in the nation, a Zingerman's deli is, it is for deli sandwiches. Is it, is Jewish deli or like a gourmet? Well, it is due because there are corn sandwiches, but it's like a gourmet shop that also, I mean, we've been to,

we lived in New York and it's cittarellas and valduchies and like these unbelievable, you know, Dean and DeLuca, I guess, if you want to talk one that kind of got sort of franchised a little bit, but you talk about like great, great places that had just unbelievable fish and, and great meats and great sandwiches and stuff. Zingerman's is Barna, I think it's the best in the country and it's sitting in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and they make great sandwiches and they just have, you know, like I tasted a 150 year old balsamic vinegar while I was there. I'm like, this is, am I going to turn into a vampire?

They're like a cheese guy who like walks you through the cheese. Oh, wow. I'm like, try this. What do you like? And then he'll take you through a whole set of stuff. It's awesome. Whenever we're back there, we always make a, to go there. If we ever go, we got to go, if we, if we leave, if we go on tour at some point, Nick doesn't like to leave. I know you don't like to leave LA.

Something of a home body, but you guys sell out. People love seeing you guys live. It's super fun. Yeah. You should do it. You should go to Ann Arbor. If you do, you don't want to do it. I don't know. Tour. Do you not like traveling or just, it's like, I don't like any of it. Right.

It's just, I like, you're talking about life in general. I just generally like it. No, I'm not, I'm not, yeah, I'm not, I don't, we went on the road a little bit. I'm not crazy about the travel. I'm not crazy. I want to get one block pizza. I want to go to this deli. I want to, let me ask you this. Do you enjoy interfacing with your rabid fan base who loves you guys and loves what you guys do?

I, I, I, we do the meet and greets and everyone is very nice. And I do like saying hello to everybody. And I do like Purell after every hand. No, I get it. I get it, Nick. This, he's like, where is it? He's, he's throwing up in the back, but he'll be right outside. Right back. He just has to throw up. So you like it?

Yeah. Yeah. No, I like meeting the people. Actually, it's actually very, is it me? Am I the issue? You don't like to spend time with me? I think that is a, I think that might be a part of it. You're fine. You're all right. You're all right. He's all right. So this week's chain TGI Friday.

Oh, you never answered quickly pivot from this discussion. That's making me a guy. I wonder what it is. I know I think that there's some sort of specific reason. No, I don't, I don't like, I like being, I don't like being away for my wife. I don't like being, I like being home and let's bring her on tour with us. I don't know if she'll want to go on a job. What is she doing? She's got a job. She's got a job. Yeah. A real, real, real deal.

Let me just throw this out as a possibility, because you don't have to go on a long extended tour. What we do, since we have families is pick a couple of dates once a month or so once in a couple of months and you pop out for a night or two and you come right back. Did our booking agent like send you to? No, this show is so good. And it's so good live that I think, and you guys,

and if you hit any places where we know, we can give you some great foodie. There you go. Great food tips. Thank you. We should, we should try it. It's inevitable. We'll do it. We'll do it. I got before, before you get into the restaurant, I got a, I got a very bad dorky question, but sure you guys are brothers. There's a lot of like about you. Is there any food things that you completely disagree with?

Yeah, yeah. That's a good question, man. Great. So we're brothers and twins. So I mean, like it's we're even, even closer, just share DNA in many ways. We're identical twins. Share it every day. We share that. I give him a little bit of mine, a little swab. I mean, it just, but I'm saying like the closeness, it's more than even it goes closer than regular siblings is what I'm saying.

And yet we have some divergent food. Yep. So I can't do a few of my food issues. I'm embarrassed about, I want, I'm embarrassed about, and I wish I could get over it, but almost like liking or not liking a sports team. I can't fake it. I can, I can only tell you what I feel in and I just can't get over it. So I can't eat cooked onions. I don't really do it because of a texture thing, by the way, stop. So like, how do you eat a hamburger?

How do you look in the mirror? And I don't because I don't have it so caramelized. I'm like, caramelized onions might be the best thing on the planet. Eat a few worms and as well. It's so good. It tastes like a slimy, I just love it. It's slimy and I get enough of it. I'll eat onions, red onion and a salad or in guacamole any day of the week. And I actually like onion powder, I had like a little broth thing that I had today

and I put a little onion powder. I love the taste of it. The actual cooked sliminess of an eye. I can't do the tail. So you can't eat an onion ring even? Nope. I don't like it. Oh, wow. I don't like it.

I can't do it. It's not crunchy enough for me. It's got to be. I just don't like it. So we'll blast for me. So wilted vegetables as well. So it's like a wilted spinach or a wilted charred like Swiss charred. I can't do any of those.

If there is a fresh sort of robust and crisp vegetable, I'll eat it all day. And I love it. And I love salads and I love even cooked vegetables that aren't so wilted. So that's that cilantro. Oh, I love it. I can't do it. It tastes like dishwashing detergent to me. OK, yeah, right.

Mexican culture has been wrong and you're right. They're the ones who don't know what they're doing by putting that. Maybe they don't. They don't know everything. I get mad at Randy for this one because I don't think this was an issue for him until his wife told him that she didn't like it. But I and then I mean, there's like survivors. No, it tastes like it's like you want to like the Stockholm syndrome.

It's like the Belgian syndrome. Yeah, like, but it is one of those things. I like the Oaxaca syndrome. I love it. I think it's I don't I don't necessarily love it. I hate it. Let me just say I don't necessarily love it. I just think that it's a necessary part of some dishes.

Right. And there's a reason why people put it in there. I like to a friend's place the other night and they were they had some people over and they had made a salad that I didn't realize was just loaded with it was a mixture of some green stuff loaded with cilantro. And I didn't realize I'm like, this looks really good. I'm going to start eating it. I could not. I had two bites of it. I'm like, I can't. I just can't do it.

Tastes like I'm eating so it's that. Well, this is funny because you're you're twins. Right. And then that is feel that way, too. He should or one of you should think it's don't. I think it should line up, right? Well, what I've heard about the cilantro thing is it is a genetic thing. So you have the expectation would be that you guys would be in in sync on that. But maybe that's the one thing where I got the correct gene in Jason.

Wow. Weird explanation I can come up with guys. That's all I can get here. Believe me. I would say my thing that I think that I don't like mushrooms. No, I do love mushrooms. I love mushrooms cooked and raw. The one thing I don't like is asparagus.

I don't like it. It's too strong of a grown to like it. So he's kind of like cooked broccoli and asparagus. I kind of put them in asparagus to me kind of straddles the line. The tips are fantastic, especially when they're when they're the the the bottoms get a little string. I agree with that. Yeah, but I'm also just like you're it's like you're a low rent green bean. Like green beans got it made.

They know what it is. There's a crunch to them. They got it. They figured it out. Now we're talking about the crunch. No, but you're just like this weird, like there's too much of a flavor that I don't like yet. I like Brussels sprouts. So I will do a Brussels sprout, which kind of is in the same family of taste. Yeah, I feel like they've done so many things with Brussels sprouts. Brussels sprouts had some good PR in the last 10 years.

They definitely flash fry them. They'll throw some bacon in there. They just do all the right pull it back. I feel like they can pull back Brussels sprouts. There's two sprouts in kale got like a major push for a while. Yeah, there was a go ahead. I was going to say kale hurts my stuff. I told you this kale will hurt my stuff. It's too harsh. It's too much.

Roughage is too much. A lot of roughage. Brussels sprouts, I feel like if you're if you're like around LeBron's mom's age, that was like one LeBron's mom. That was like they talked about Brussels sprouts is like kind of like, ooh, that's a gross thing. Like that was the part of a joke. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

And then now they're a big thing where they're like, like my mom, my mom and dad refused or older than LeBron's mom refused to eat but Brussels sprouts in any context. But now that's like a thing in every gastropub. My kids like yeah, it's interesting by even the shaved ones from Trader Joe's and throw them on top of a salad. Right. I mean, that just even raw in that way. And I'm like, this is great.

This makes just a simple basic thing even better. And but you do you do like mushrooms? I do. I don't understand because there is a sliminess to the slime. I was going to say the slime factor. I don't get it. But you know why? Because I think most times that I have mushrooms, if they're in like a marsala sauce or something like that,

the sauce and the way it's done. And I'm telling you to caramelize the caramelization. I'll tell you what, I just figured out mushrooms are spongy in a certain way. They're not slimy. They're spongy or there's like a bounce back to them that I actually I like all the food you mentioned except mushrooms are probably my least favorite of the bunch, but I'll eat all of them. Yeah. You're too Nick, right? Yeah. I'll eat everything. We're gross. Yeah. I have no real a version. No, by the way, at her, it's you're better, better people because I go to it

because I go to a restaurant, I order something and I'm like, I was at a thing last the worst is like he'll order and then it'll bring it out and he'll be like, I didn't realize you got, can you send it back? And I'm like, spit on it twice. I was at a party with my wife for something that she was doing last night. It was like a toyty, toyty little thing. And I came around with like smoked Gouda, smoked Gouda quesadilla with like a awesome drizzle on.

I'm like, yeah, I'll take four, which was really not the right way to do it at that moment. Bid into it, caramelized onions. I was like, yeah. Wow. I gave it to my wife. And I'm like, here, you want these? They're giving them with bites out of them. I'm just upset. Caramelized onions, it's it bums me out. Man, I wish you like, I feel like I've, yeah, I feel like they're a joy.

By the way, they're a reverse. I haven't got a people who don't like rinds, but caramelizes. You guys are right. I am wrong. I am like fully willing to admit that I am wrong on this subject. And I wish I was different, but like I can't physically move myself past it. One last question before we go on to the restaurant. So when you, when you're out on the street and there's like a guy with, you know,

the carts, the hot dog carts, you do not, you don't love the smell of that, that those onions. The smell is actually pretty good. Okay. The smell. And that's what I say. I like onion powder. I like onion flavor in things, but I like sour cream and onion chips. I like, you know, all that flavor stuff is great. All the processed, not human flavor.

Everything that isn't real, bacon and cheddar ruffles. No, but the idea that it just, again, it is literally the texture of that slimy onion that I just can't get over. And I wish I could and I just can't. Sliminess is, I think, as far as food texture, like oysters or whatever. Sure. They're Oli'd oysters. Bro, really? That is insane because I love oysters because the mixture of,

and there's an oyster place up in Tamales Bay called Hog Island Oyster, and I highly recommend it if you guys are ever, and he won't because he doesn't leave. Nick will never experience this, Mitch. If you go up like Pass Point Reyes, there's like kind of in the Tamales Bay there, it's just, it is so you shuck it yourself. You're sitting outside this minuet sauce and all the, the reds in the cocktail sauce, it is, you're sitting outside. There's the Bay right there.

It is just beautiful and it's hands on and it's just, I don't know. To me is like an experience. The whole oyster thing. We can do that together. You guys should do it together. The guy who worked there was like a fan of Don. The podcast fan. He's like, I love Don People Town.

And I was like, well, maybe he would love the Doe Boys. We can go up. That sounds like a great. It's a drive. It's a drive. Great afternoon. I'll do a drive. We'll drive up there.

It's far. It's a little farther than just an afternoon. But I mean, whatever, you can get up there. I'm out. We'll take a break. We'll be back with more Doe Boys. Welcome back to Doe Boys. We're with the Sklar Brothers talking TGI Fridays this week.

Why is this the chain you guys wanted to talk about? Well, there was a TGI Fridays. There's so many reasons why. Yeah. TGI Fridays near our house. So we lived in a subdivision in called West County in St. Louis about. Subdivision was Ladoo Heights. Ladoo Heights, whatever.

The county was West County. We lived like 12 miles from the river from the city. Like from where the arch and the stadium is downtown. 12 miles west. West. And so really, you take the main artery, Highway 40. Which cuts across the whole country. It just cut right out to like a mile and a half from where we lived.

And so we lived in this, it wasn't suburbs. Yeah, suburbs. It wasn't upscale. It was very like middle class. And then nearby us was like kind of the beginnings of, I remember when all started, the beginnings of like strip balls started kind of happening around this area. And we had a nice one called Westgate. It was like an apartment complex.

Westgate, you know it? You said Westgate. And I thought like, oh, there's like a chain of Westgate, right? Maybe. It's not a Westfield mall, but it's kind of like. Never had to think in a Westfield. So Westgate was like, it was kind of wooden. It almost.

They tried to make it look large. They've made it look nicer. And there were some nicer shops in there. I remember there's a great ice cream store in there. But we got our dog there. They had a bookstore and like their dogs had puppies and then we got our dog. When our dog died, we got another dog from the bookstore, the people who owned the bookstore. So this place holds a lot.

This little strip mall holds a lot of and in the strip mall, kind of one of the anchors of it just sitting off to the off to the side. There was TGI Fridays. And I just, first of all, it was when it came out, it was new. We would go there as like it was not that expensive. You went as the family. They gave you a lot of food and it was like we would first time every loaded potato skins, which are amazing.

I mean, yeah, real, yeah. Ridiculous. We knew it wasn't gourmet food. We loved it, but though a loaded potato skin, there might not be a better food when you think about it. Cause you think about, oh, let me ask you this question. Is there an Oscar, Mitch? Is there a better food than a loaded potato skin?

And I know that's a loaded question. So I asked you a loaded question. You know what's funny is that cause we'll get into what we got, but we got some of those potato skins last night. And when I ate them, I was like, Oh, these are people don't do these as much as it feels like a very like a 90s thing and they're in their cheese. So they're so you have to do some stuff. You have to cut open a thing and you put it.

And when you think about like, I don't know, someone's like, well, they're just chilly cheese fries or whatever they're just they're not though because each one is like its own contained universe with the cheese and the bacon and the what sour cream, whatever you put it. There was a bar there and so like we lived, you know, our parents weren't divorced. Our parents were together, but like you would see a collection of singles from the neighborhood like hanging out at the bar, getting a little too loud and a little too dry. Like it was an experience that in all the shit they put on the walls of the TGF, never

knew it was sort of like there was no rhyme or reason to it. A moose with sunglasses. Yeah, I guess that works with was this was this something that was was the TGI Friday is added when, when like as you were growing up or is it a thing that was always there added when we were growing up. So it wasn't there when we were like five, but they sort of, I guess when they franchised now, I don't know, like when they actually the year that they franchised out to specifically to us, but it came in there.

That's always an exciting thing too, to just have a new place, just had this place nearby. It was super close. We really liked it. It was always busy. You always thought we were very, very money conscious, like they didn't want to spend a lot of money and, and understand it. We didn't have it. We just, so there, there was a place we ate at in St. Louis called Mr. Stake and our

parents, when we were kids, Mr. Stake, which is just great, like didn't elevate the person. That could be someone's porn name. Like it wasn't a doctor, it wasn't an enemy, it's not master Stake. Right. It was a master chef. Mr. as common as could be Mr. Stake, they offered kids a drumstick of chicken and a peach wedge with a lettuce garnish. I want you guys, I want you guys to guess how much he already gave it away.

I'm going to say something in the $20 range. So no, never $20. That's a rip off. I thought he did. Oh wait. I think it was suggesting, I think they're saying it's a bargain. It's a bargain. Yeah.

So I'm going to say 20 cents. 29 cents. 29 cents. That's crazy. That was, and they fed both of us for like two quarters and 58 cents. So that was something we would do. There's a place called lion's choice, which is one of the best roast beef we've ever had. That's in St. Louis.

Still there today. We went back there when we went to St. Louis. It's amazing. They had five cent ice cream, soft serve ice cream cones. So our parents kind of knew the deal of where to go to get the cheap thing. This was like special occasion, a little bit nicer, you know, my mind was so I kept my poor name would be petite filet. I'm glad you said it.

You sat him up for a little bit. I'm glad you said. I was, I was, that's what I was concentrating on so much and then when I heard 20, I just thought 20 dollars. Solid, solid circle back. That was great. Circle back. Nice marbling.

So, so when is the light that this was a place you guys were frequenting as kids? When's the last time you've been to a TGI Fridays? So we went, well, so then it morphed. We should say that before we answer that, it morphed into a very different place for us and of meaning for us when we started to go to college. So we went to college and I remember the first time we came back for Thanksgiving, there was, let's go up to the TGI Fridays and the day of the Friday of Thanksgiving, it became a tradition.

You see all your old friends. So the Wednesday, the Wednesday before, because everyone came back in town Wednesday night or maybe it then it became the Friday, I think it was the Friday. To not ruin Thanksgiving, which I think it should be the Friday. It should be the Friday. What if we just had an argument now for an hour about Wednesday versus Friday, the rest of the podcast. It is TGI Fridays.

Yeah. Although I think it was Wednesday. It might have been Wednesday. The Wednesday before. I just, you know what? It was Friday. No, I think it was Wednesday. I think it was Friday.

It was Friday. Two hours of that. Usually what, I mean, why are we not have similar arguments? No one's adding any new information. You're just repeating. No, it's Wednesday. I think it's Friday. No, it's Friday.

So we would all gather together. And so they would push the tables out and it was like a de facto unofficial reunion of sorts. So it would come to Fridays and people would order food and some food and some, no one could really drink because we weren't old enough. But like as we started to get older and you get to that, but we kept coming back and for like a five year period of time. That's what we did on Thanksgiving on that Wednesday or Friday.

You take your pictures. We would come back. I think it was Wednesday. So you would come back and you would gather together. So Fridays then took on this like communal places like this is the place where everyone's going to get it. We are going to Fridays to catch up and we saw, I mean, the moment, the, this is a crazy moment where like, you know, we went to school in a, it was a public school.

There were a lot of burnouts, a lot of, there was a, we went back to our school recently and this is on the documentary. There was a smoking lounge at our school that district for the teachers, for the students. That's insane. These kids need to take the edge off after P kids out there like, what do we got? What do we got? We got a pea today. We got a crab soccer.

I'll tell you something, I'll tell you something, climb at the top of that rope today. Yeah, you are. Yeah, you are. Um, so there was like a smoking lounge, like our, I think our school colors were acid wash and jean jacket. Um, that's the type of school we went to. So a lot of kids with long mullets who played soccer and smoked and worked out a lot using like steroids and you know, drove like I rocks, two-toned I rocks and that sort of crew.

And so just, there was one guy there who was nicknamed, his name was Paul Safa, aka the sesh, aka the both. I don't understand any of these nicknames, but it sounds like one of my good friends for back home. So he was kind of a, he was like Samba Adidas wearing, and he was a bit of like a, he was a funny fuckup. You know what I mean? Like one of those guys who just was, he wasn't just dumb.

He kind of had a little bit of something, but certainly nothing like to the point of being a ridiculously creative human being, but he was amongst those guys, kind of the clown. He would be like the funniest guy at a like gathering of the jungles. You're like, could he do comedy? Probably not. But he's making that woman who fell asleep in her tits laugh. So, so that was Safa.

And he was, you know, ran with this crew of guys, Jeff Shockley and Willie Lemire guys who like Jake McWay. Jake McWay guys who played on the soccer team and they were all just kind of like meatheads. Yeah. They like had dirt bikes and their parents were all divorced and they lived in split level town homes and they smoked and they were just this sort of, that was the crew. And then in our school, they kind of were cool. We're cool.

There was just cool on that level. It was just, that was what our school was made of. So I think like four, what was it? Four years after school. Yeah. Willie Lemire, who was like, who had jacked out, jacked out, comes up to, I mean, we're talking to everybody. You just see people.

It's like you, comes up to two of us. He's like, you heard about Safa, right? Now when someone and you're in a reunion, they say, you heard about Safa, right? You're like, died in a car crash. That's a car accident drunk driver going the wrong way that killed himself. Like that's what we're thinking. He's about to lay some gruesome shit on us that we don't want to hear. Fridays at a reunion.

Okay. It's not thank God. It's, we weren't like not saying thank God, it's Fridays. And he was just looked at, kind of looked around and that was like, he's a f**king f**k. We were like, oh my God. That's worse. Expecting that we were going to laugh at that. We were like, great.

That's good. And so we, because we had gone to Michigan, which is like super progressive and super progressive. We're like, that's awesome. Who's he dating? And he's like, no man. I said, he's a f**k. And we're like, is he here?

Like all we wanted to do was hang out with him. He's like, wait, he's like woke now, fantastic. But it was so odd. So that, that was our only awkward moment at it. But usually it was a great time to kind of catch up and see people that we hadn't seen because most kids stayed and went to Missouri, University of Missouri. Some kids went to Kansas, a couple of kids went to Illinois, a couple of kids went to Indiana.

They were like, Nick, they want to stay close to home. So that's so funny that, I mean, I'm sure that that man tried that story on multiple and got like the reaction one and I just stood there and we're like, that's great for him. Amazing. Awesome. Way to go. So not the answer he wanted us to give him. And he had to like repeat it.

We're like, yeah, I know that's great. It's just angry. He's getting angry. Where is he? No, you guys didn't hear me. No, we heard him. Have you met his partner yet? And I have the most specific, positive, like we're so supportive of the guy.

So that was, you know, so, you know, it just took on this other thing. So yeah, to say we have been to a Fridays recently, we ate at a Fridays on the road recently and, you know, found the food to actually be like good bar food is really what it came down to. Like I know that you kind of thought there's like Jack Daniels on about 90% of the food. Yeah. Yeah. Jack Daniels smothered salad.

We're like, I don't think you should smother a salad and Jack, that's, that's literally what if you, in a metaphor, what happened to Paul Safa is smothered in Jack Daniels and then had a salad salad for Christ's sake, the one that he wanted to be. I feel like that is such a weird, like I'm not interested in putting Jack Daniels on that. Like why do you know what I mean? I like that tie in for a while. Yeah.

It's like, it's like, I feel like they're going on two decades of Jack Daniels. Was it like a 30 year deal or something in saying, like when they were, they tried that sauce 30 years ago and they're like, this is the best thing I've done it. It's so sweet to because like, like, and we can, Mitch, we can, we can get into our meal and speed through it real quick because we went last night to the Woodland Hills location. But we got the, one of the things I got was the Jack Daniels ribs and they give you a little dip in cup of that Jack Daniels sauce and it is just, it is like caramel sweet. Yeah.

It is so sugary. Molasses. Yeah. And I guess that's, that's a style of barbecue, although it feels like in the, in a chain restaurant context, they jacked up the sugar contact a little bit because it's sweet. If I'm ever, I never like having Jack Daniels in general, like a guy who's like, Hey, give me a Jack and Coke. I don't want to Jack Daniels in my Coke.

Yeah. Let them on, on my ribs. All my ribs. Were the ribs good? You know, I would say they were fine. Right. They were fine. And you know what, Mitch?

Let's just, let's just talk about our meal a little bit. So we went to the Woodland Hills location. This was on a Monday night, recording on a Tuesday and it was pretty deserted, I'd say. It was like, there were. There were not many people in Ryder. Yeah. It was not Friday. They don't call it TGIM.

And I like, you know, we started off with some cocktails, Mitch. I got the ultimate Hawaiian volcano, which by the way, in this right now, what's going on, right on the big island, that's a little insensitive. It was a little problematic. I don't want to say it was authentic, but I had the drink and I then had to displace 2000 people who live nearby. I don't know why you did. I don't know why.

What this was a celebration of the volcano. No, I wasn't celebrating. No, I just, I saw it, I guess it was in the zeitgeist and I kind of thought like, I'll give this a shot. A couple of round of Katrina shots over here for my friends from New Orleans. It is kind of, they didn't like, you would think they would put like a sticker over the menu or something for a couple of weeks. Lock it until we have a new name or just say we are out of that right now for sensitivity

reasons. Right. But yeah, it's, you know, it's a bunch of different cocktails, pineapple lime and orange juices and grenadine, sort of a ruby red slash Pepto Bismol color, a lot of garnishes with it. Very sweet, very refreshing, not particularly boozy. I felt like I drank the whole thing and I felt like I was like as drunk as if I drank in a slurpee.

It was like not. The alcohol content was not particularly high on these, but I think that's also like what some people are looking for with these, with these TGI Friday's drinks. They want something that's more like fruit. They want something that's exactly not as abrasive right of a drink. It's not like going to be a side car. Yeah. You know, and Mitch, you had a, you had a cocktail.

I had a cocktail, which I'm trying to look up, but unfortunately their men, their drink menu is insanely like a thousand, yeah, exactly 80 pages long. I got two. I got two drinks, Nick. You didn't put them in your notes app or something. No, I thought you, I thought you had written them down. I thought I was writing down what you were ordering. I love this moment so much.

I don't know if I have the drink. One was, one was the ultimate mango because I remember I was excited about doing a mango impression from Saturday Night Live, which I'm now going to opt out of when I, that I've thought it through more and and that was, that was great. It was, I thought that I took a picture of it. I did not Nick. Don't be mad at me. And you liked it.

You enjoyed it. I, I loved, I loved both of my drinks. That's great. The second one was a recommendation from our waitress and she, and she, and there's like actual mango puree in it. Yeah, I like that. And it was, and I, I, I'm not a, I, I don't like of the mango. It's coming out.

It's coming out. But, but I, but I, I, I loved, loved the drink was, it was delicious. And I was like, this is like the perfect drink that you would want at a place like this. One of, one of them was very slurpy. Like remember one taste exactly like an unfrozen, like exactly. I think that was maybe your second round, whichever one you do. You liked less, yeah, but I still, but I still loved one of them was like the

perfect amount of like there was crack, alcohol and sweetness. And then the other one was like an all out sweet one. Do you think it depends on the bartender in this, like, who are they I think so. I mean, like, like, there was a time when, and I remember hearing this from a bartender that was like a point of pride of they had the best bartenders there. Because at TGI Fridays, like they, they went out of their way to try to hire people like the high level.

They did have good ones. Yeah. We were, I remember that growing up that there were people who knew what they were doing. Right. Like cause they, they were kind of the progenitors of flare bartending. That was like an innovation of theirs. And so that they were like trying to, the people who were winning the flare

bartending competitions every year were always TGI Fridays employees. I don't tune in into that until the playoffs. Well, a couple of my fantasy bartenders made it through. So I felt really good this year. Mitch, we also got the app sampler. We got the garlic parmesan boneless wings, the loaded potato skins, which we were talking about earlier. Were they good?

I gotta say the garlic parmesan sauce I was a little skeptical of pretty good, not too aggressive. Yeah. They were, I love, I loved the, I love that. I thought the absolute great. They're a classic. That's what they're, I feel like they do. If you go into TGI Fridays saying, I'm going to play to their strengths.

Yeah. An app sampler, you are not going to go wrong. There will be stuff on there that you will like. For sure. And they have, they have a, a, you know, a pick three basically on their menu, which is like a really good value because you can get three of their apps and they're all, you know, you get four of each. So they're very shareable on the pot stickers.

I thought were the only low light of this one, Mitch. They're just kind of like, they weren't terrible. They weren't terrible. They were fine, but I just feel like pot stickers in general. I got an Asian, you can't go, where did that come from? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's, that's like the, the, you know, it, it's kind of the,

the Asian food for white people, sort of the way it's presented. Well, they were smothered in Jack Daniels. Uh, that is true. They might have actually had a jet. They have a dipping sauce that I wonder if that was like a soy Jack Daniels like Marinette Jack Daniel Hoisin. And then we got our mains Mitch. So I got the ribs as I mentioned.

I also kicked that up with some shrimp. I got some, some, some crispy shrimp on the side. And then that came with a side of coleslaw and a side of fries. The coleslaw was coleslaw. I mean, like what, you know, what, can't really mess that up. Yeah, exactly. Can't make it great unless you do something unique, right? Which they didn't.

I'm assuming. Um, but the, uh, but the ribs I thought were fine. You know, they were, they were like totally better than Chili's ribs. Yeah. Definitely better than Chili's ribs, which I, which I know Chili's like kind of has as a point of pride there. And I feel like they, they actually do a better version at the Fridays. Um, and I, uh, uh, I like the shrimp quite a bit.

Those popcorn shrimp were quite nice. Um, oh, and, and the fries were very solid. I think solid. I mean, like, like, like they weren't mind blowing, but they were solid, they were well seasoned, which I feel like a lot of times you'll. A big thing. A lot of times you'll get these fries and then they're just kind of just potatoes and then you need to add some salt at the table.

I hate a big gigantic home fry. You know what I mean? One of those things that's just plain and yellow and shitty. I can't handle that. I felt like the, the potato skins cause we touched on them earlier. That was the highlight. They, they were so good and it's that thing of I feel like so many places make them bad and they were not the potatoes and cooked all the way

through or whatever went a little crunch. It was, it was a little crunchy. They were, they were, they were, they were, they were great. They, they knocked all the apps out of the park and I liked my, my main dish. I got a Philly, a Philly's cheesesteak cheeseburger, which is, which is a new, which is a new menu item. So you're on a hamburger bun and you have shaved out. And you have, and you have a, you have a Philly, like a, like roast beef slices,

which I can, I can find the description. Philly, you know, we, there's a Philly accent. You know that. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Let me do the Philly accent. Swallow yells Philly. You got one of those Philly cheesesteaks, Philly accents.

Hey, go down to the wall. While I'm fifth. We're going to GGI Friday's. Go grab, do you sell word or I snag air? Tell them I order ahead and get me a Coke zero. Friday's out in Mount Laurel. Hey, they're playing C low down here. Playing C.

Well, yeah. I'll have a cake zero good. Grape day added a fridge. Sorry. That was you have to order at that. I'm sorry. I feel like the the water. Look, I'm a man who can barely say any word right, but the the the water worder

water is such a strange. That's the weird W. D. D. W. W. W. U. D. D. E. R. The Philly chase cheese. They burger while you had a bite of it. It was good. It was good.

I would just say the texture of is it gets a little mushy because like to what you were talking about earlier, and he just like it gets a little slimy and slime time cheese or the or the meat. I think the meat is kind of you get that that sort of that super one of that that super thin cut ribeye or whatever is on there. It's just like it gets kind of yeah. It's not standing up. It needs its own.

Yeah, I've been frantically. But flavor wise, it was good. I've been frantically trying to find the drinks and I've I've basically just cleared through a bunch of emails just now. He's just growing through. He's updating another email from in the company of dogs. Let me get rid of that right now. Move on dot org.

I'm about to move you on into the old, the old trash bin trash file. The the Philly cheese bait. Oh, by the way, I didn't get to say this. Yes, the Philly cheesesteak burger had two little. We were almost got the Philly cheesesteak egg rolls for an appetizer. There was two little Philly cheesesteak egg rolls on top of the burgers. This is like this is like mixing weights. This is like when like a dog has sex with a parrot.

We don't want to see what comes out of the other side. Yeah, it can repeat the things that I'm saying, but it's scaring the shit out of me beat patty topped with roast beef, peppers, onions, melted cheese, skewered cheese, steak, egg roll, wait, wait, wait, wait. So so you're saying the the Philly cheesesteak hamburger is not just a bunch of chopped up roast beef inside of a hamburger bun. There is a hamburger in there. Yes, there's a burger in there and topping the hamburger is more meat.

That's exactly roast beef and then little egg rolls on top of it. I mean, Donald Glover said it best. This is America and I actually I like that a lot. Reminding me of the burger I rave of the Carl's Jr. version of that, which I really like back in the day. It is soft. It is kind of a mushy thing. The fries were good.

We also had some salads, Nick. Oh, yeah, we get those. The sound. I mean, there's that romaine crisis right now. You're not supposed to eat it, but we both we both want to die. What's a little back to you friends? But yeah, and they come with the salmonella in the Romaine is just a as a promotion for while well country.

I'll have a man on Sheila side and he will have the one Roshney. I found the perfect community and it's called Quincy, Massachusetts. Fuck the bug once in a while. I don't know. One Roshney, one Roshney. She's they come with a little breadstick. That's actually pretty. Oh, yeah, that was a new surprise.

It's very Olive Garden of them. Yeah, it is. It was. It was a very in soft soft and garlicky. Chewy, garlicky. It was great. It was it was delicious. Everything you'd want in a breadstick.

It really was used to stop up that surplus dressing. It was great. Here's what I said to Nick that the two drinks, which I'll never find the name. Yeah, one was some sort of take on one was a take on a my tie. No, he's mad at me. I'm not mad at you. He's not mad.

He's not mad. He's people will be mad at you. You know that. Yeah, people. I think it was a mango my tie and it was also the ultimate home. No, the ultimate mango my time and other drink, but they were both. They were both great drinks and I was saying to Nick that that must have been when before it became the movie cocktail to be those guys at the bar

or just play patrons at the bar. Yeah, it must have been some of the most fun that's ever been had on this show because most bars for people, you think of like a traditional bar. It's like, I'm going to go get drunk and there's a fat guy at the end of the bar, like opening a month's worth of mail. I mean, this is a depressing place. Like there are songs on here that like just make me want to kill myself. Friday's it was open.

Yeah, it was kind of raised up a little bit. The bar had a bar was fully rectangle rectangle. Everybody's right. And I even a horseshoe. It's like a full rectangle. You can face guys are like doing their shit in the middle and they're like, it's a show. It's theater in the round.

Yeah, they're in the rectangle and they must. They must have had a blast back in the. They probably had a great time. Hold tail. They definitely they were. They were hooking up with the guy. We're going to get late and the women bartenders were trying not to get. It's probably very true.

But it but it seemed like it seemed like a fun time. The drinks were very good and tropical. It was it was I'll save my my final thoughts. But yeah, I had a I had a great time. Well, we'll touch on real quick. We got that toasted s'more brownie dessert, which I think we both agreed was the low light. That was like it was the low light.

You know, I cooked too hot. I think there was just an artificial character to the marshmallow cream. That's not just like you just kind of tasted like you were biting into chemical. Yeah, and that was not particularly pleasant. I mean, the crust on it was nice and then there was a little bit of a good chocolatey flavor. You know, it was the kind of thing Mitch where you and I the thing we like both. We like most about it was the ice cream.

It came with on the side, which is not a good, not a good. No, no, there was there was an ultimate peanut butter thing that we should have got, but the desserts altogether second guess or order now. We had some notes. I've had some decent desserts there. Yeah, I was going to say that, but it was the thing that seemed the most lacking and what otherwise was a pretty. I was kind of because we haven't been.

We we we reviewed this a long time. It was literally our seventh episode was episode seven G. I Friday. So it's been a while. Oh yeah, and what number are we on now? This is where we're. I think we're in the one fifties. Wow, episode seven. Long way back, right?

And in episode seven, you bad in most contexts, Star Wars, this one, this one. Rocky good, but I've forgotten how much I I forgot how much like the mango bed. So that was something you test, test it out in the restaurant on me. And also, by the way, Nick said gold. Knowing that he would roast the shit out of you for doing it here. Um, I was I'm kind of low. I think Fridays is I think I think Fridays is good. We were both, we were both, uh, I think Leslie surprised by this visit.

Well, let's get to our final evaluations on TGI Fridays. So here's how this will work. We'll kind of go around. We'll sort of give us some nation of our thoughts closing argument, if you will, and then a scribe at a rating from zero five forks. You guys want to do a joint rating? Well, what would you prefer to do? We can do each do a rating or whatever works easiest for you.

Yeah. You want to do that? What I let like, yeah, we'll, we'll, uh, yeah, let's do an individual rating. So Randy, we'll start with you. Um, I think your experience at Fridays kind of echoed the way I felt like I you're saying it and I'm like, this is the way I felt about a lot of it. And again, I think if you go to Fridays and play to the strengths, the app, you know, the round table, round thing of apps, like you choose a bunch of those

things, uh, I'm sure that like some of the salad stuff is, you know, occasionally that's the breadstick and the salad is going to be good. I'm surprised the dessert wasn't good. And I am actually happy that the, uh, the drinks are still good. This is the way I remembered this place is like, it's not the greatest food in the world, right? But if you are up for that experience, it's loud. It's a lively place.

People seem to be having fun there. I don't know if I love the fact that they bring God into it. Yeah. I don't think you need to thank God. What if you're an atheist? Can you still enjoy Fridays? I don't know, but I'm in goodness. Right?

Yeah. I would say I would give it a solid. Can you do partials in there? Oh, yeah. Of course. Solid 3.15. 3.15. Okay.

Out of a possible possible five, five, four. I mean, five forks. I wouldn't give five forks to just anyone. I mean, five forks to reserve for the best rest like the, the deli we talked about in an armor lies like that or, or moza here. Or like on, on our show, Taco Bell. Talk about, talk about, and that's it. But like islands would approach.

Oh, hell yeah. Oh, I like islands is like a, I would say like probably 4.8 on, in force. Oh, wow. You know what? I'm going to, I'm going to, I say 3.75 for five, seven, five for Fridays. Uh, I'm going to say, uh, one thing that I'm, I'm worried about for Fridays for the future is that now that a lot of people are working from home and having nontraditional work weeks, like are we thanking God

that it's Friday anymore? I mean, we work on the weekends. Yeah. So I don't know if Friday itself is a concept as a concept, uh, just make it to Friday might not be around from a, like NFL football might not be around much longer. So, so I wonder if they're going to need to go through some crazy rebranding where they like thank G or whatever, they'll call it something

else soon, right? Cause they did a whole thing where they revamped their outside. I, and they just call it TGA. Uh, I didn't just call Fridays. Yeah, Fridays. Yeah. So they just call it Fridays. They kind of toned God down.

Uh, but I, as far as the food goes, uh, the potato skins alone to me automatically put it up into the like three, five, three, six range. I would say that some of their other food are going to bump it up as well. Uh, what you guys described was what I remembered. So I'm going to give it a three, eight, five, three, eight, five, three, eight, five, three, seven, five. We have a lot of nostalgia wrapped up in this place and I'm happy to hear that it's not just a train wreck.

So maybe I'm looking at this through rose colored, like nostalgia glasses, sepia tone. What's going to be funny because I don't have a ton of nostalgia wrapped up with TGI Fridays. I used to get their apps when I was like the frozen appetizers. I thought they were good, but I don't have a ton of nostalgia wrapped up in it, but I will say this. I as eating at all these restaurants last night, the apps were good.

The main was good. The drinks were really, really good. We were in there and we were like, man, Buffalo Wild Wings is a place now that gets like all all this business to watch the like sports games or whatever right and we had a booth in there and it was like one of it would be one of the best setups to ever watch any sporting event ever. There were four i level like plasma TVs all showing different sporting amazing. It was it was great and it was at that point. It was not crowded.

There was so much space to fill up that place. It's like seating for like four thousand people insane. It's saying amount of real estate. It's it's it in the service was great, even though there were only two people working the entire restaurant. There were. I think there were two hostesses. They had a lot of ground. They had a lot of ground to cover and they still did a good job. They did a great job. They did a great job. I'm going to say four point five forks. It's good. When a place like this is it was good. Call it out, man. Call it out. It was good. Ultimate Mango Mytile. Never find the other one.

I've given up already fine, but but both it was a dream. They drug you. The ultimate mango. My tie is the one I didn't like as much and then the first one was was really like. I was so you call it the pen ultimate. It was the pen ultimate my tie, which is which probably would have the same sort of taste, but it was it was it was such a great drink that was just the right levels of flavor for a place that you think is going to be shitty right and the every everything. Everything was great. I thought it was great. I like it beats. It's great. Your description of it is fantastic. I'm on board with

you. I'm on board with it. I had a great time. Four point five forks coming in hot, Mitch. I actually had a great time. My expectations were surpassed. I like TGI Fridays. I used to go. This was a place I go to with my dad and you know, like get get a get something out their sandwich menu. I thought they they're apps are great. They're apps are stellar. They absolutely deliver in that regard. The cocktails I feel like are like among all the different chain restaurants that do cocktails. They do the best version of it. They do the thing that the you know, the those sugary cocktails, but they're not overwhelmingly

sweet and they actually generally have some booze to them, although my mind wasn't particularly boozy. And I thought the service was it was great last night. And I like, I, you know, the thesis of this podcast is how does this chain succeed at what's trying to do? And I think this place is trying to be accessible and it's trying to like give you a decent amount of value for your dollar. And I think it's trying to deliver on sort of that classic chain restaurant experience. And I think it absolutely does that. I'm going to not have a decibel point. I'm just going to say an even four forks. That's good.

That's amazing. And I'm enlightened by what you guys have said, because obviously you guys have tried so many chains. So you're actually viewing this in the context. I feel like I don't eat at chain restaurants. I just don't anymore. It's just not something that we do. There aren't a ton nearby where I am. Yeah. And we just don't do it. So for you guys to say that, it's, that's pretty awesome. I mean, I think you're, you're looking at it in the context of other chains that maybe have fallen short. And so, you know, I'd say yours. It probably lands somewhere in the middle of where we all at. I bet like amongst

all of us, the aggregate is it's probably a four. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's true because there's some. There's just so many places that that like we could going in there last night in the how it was deserted and not a lot of people working. I was like, we could get a terrible meal. Yeah. And the food was just good. And also it was a screaming, Tiki cocktail. I finally found it on my screaming taking. It was a screaming, Tiki, which had screaming me crack in crack and rum in it. And it was and there was mango puree and that went to 20 minutes of you frantically thumbing on your phone. It was worth it. Worth it. We'll edit

around that. No, that's just good podcasting. That was TGI Fridays. Hey, it's time for a regular segment. We got three flavor varietals, the same snack and we're going to rank them. It's flavor of the week. And this week we've got the new my Oreo creation. So this is much like the laze. Do us a flavor. These are some fans submitted. I believe creations and they want people to vote for their favorite. These look insane. Yeah. I am like an Oreo freak. Oh, great. I don't know about these. These look a little crazy. The second one is in particular, which we'll get to in a second. One of these is cilantro Oreo.

Strange. So the first one is actually Pina Colada Oreo. This is an Oreo thin and it's golden. I'm going to take one of these. Like a lot of Oreos. It's an Oreo. Is that they only come as Oreo Thins Nick? Yes. So each of these only comes as a very specific. I will be. I took three. I took three. Okay. Now the next one is I wonder if these will be. I don't know about these ones. The next one yet. Yeah. Go ahead and take a bite. And we've also got the kettle corn flavored golden Oreos. So that's the second one. And the last one is the cherry cola. And these are just regular Oreos. So these have the chocolate

shell. So I mean like a I'm a big classic Oreo guy. I'm a big golden Oreo guy. I like sometimes the birthday Oreo, but a lot of the more exotic ones I'm not as crazy about. Have you guys sampled many of the the crazier Oreos? I haven't. So weren't we at aren't there's a kosher situation. The kosher like when you can. Is there really. So Oreos use instead of using vegetable shortening, they use lard animal fat in them. Okay. Okay. I'm not making more appetizing for you. And so according to Jewish kosher laws, you can't have the animal fat. So high drops used vegetable shortening. And the high drops used

to make a mint cookie that was really good. I'm digging this peanut colada. I thought it was going to be a stronger taste. The kettle corn is better than the peanut colada. Yeah, the kettle corn. It smells strange. Let's melt it. But then it tastes it tastes better than you think it would. The thing was like quite good. The sort of corn ish after all these like tastes the same when you put them in your mouth. Right. It's the after taste. Yeah. The peanut colada almost has like kind of like a brown butter character to it. It's it's it's very nice. The the peanut colada or so the

kettle corn rather the the peanut colada has like a it's just the lime the lime element is very very subtle. I'm about to bite bite into this cherry cola one now. So my understanding to talking about the the kosher issue is that I think the Oreos are now vegan or at least the default ones are I think they no longer use the animal art. Yeah, there's a you with a circle around it which means it's all good kosher because he's vegetable shorting. Interesting. Cherry cola is weird. It's it's a little busy. It's a little intense. I'm going to have more of the other one. I'm not sure I feel about that one. I guess the

peanut colada one is I think I do the kettle corn one I do. I'm shocked that I like the kettle corn one the best. That is me. It's a it's a it's a blonde. Yeah. Yeah. I think I think I mean I like the golden Oreos more than regular Oreos in most cases and I think this kettle corn is the best of these these different flavors. Cherry cola one I think is honestly kind of whack. It's just so weird. It tastes very artificial. You know what it is? I figured it out and here's the difference. The kettle corn is even though kettle corn is supposed to be sweet. It is savory. Popcorn is savory. Right. The cold the cherry cola there's like a sweet on sweet but it's a fruit sweet.

You should not mix fruit with your Oreos. Same with the peanut colada. It's like mango and that sort of coconut and stuff. Coconut you could do but I'm saying it's just there are certain flavors that should go with it and certain flavors that shouldn't. I'm so on board with that because that do you agree with that assessment? Almost a hundred percent. I think a hundred percent because that cherry cola one is god awful. Awful. Yeah. I never like I never like a like a lemon Oreo. I don't want a lemon Oreo. Are you a popcorn guy? I'm a huge popcorn guy. I will say well go ahead. I should go to a movie and like that's my favorite food in the world is just get butter popcorn.

I got some news for you. Yeah. Nick is I'll put it in his words a popcorn skeptic. Yeah. I'm not I'm not a fan of popcorn. I don't other people eating it is fine but it's not my snack but you know how you can say that like I'm wrong. Nick can't say that. I mean take peanut M&M's and drop them into your popcorn and shake them up and then you get a surprise. That's magic. Is it just a teeth that gets stuck in your teeth and you're mad about that? It's just not your thing. Yeah. I don't know. I mean Leah the getting stuck in your teeth is not great but I think overall I'm just like I'd rather have chips or pretzels or something. Here's how much I love popcorn. Trader Joe's for a brief period of time and then I think there were lawsuits and they had

a bag of half pop or overblown popcorn kernels. So it was just like the best little half pop one the whole bag of them. Oh wow. That was my favorite snack in the world. Whole food used to have it. Whole food used to have it in the it was like kind of like blown out field corn sort of deal but it was just amazing. So I would say if I'm ranking these three yes we're all ranking them. I would go kettle corn one, peanut colado two and cherry. I'm the same way. Fully agree. Fully agree and I would give snacks. I would give a snack to the kettle corn half a snack to the peanut colado and then that's a whack. That's a whack. The cherry colas fucking suck right. It's really bad. I would give a snack to the kettle corn a fourth of a snack to the peanut

colado and whack to that. Yeah boy we could not all be more on the same page. I love it. We're at that 100% hand-holding club rankings among four men. I'm sorry we should be more in and have more conflict. No this is great. You can't you can't having never had any of this before you can only do what it tells you to do. It's like it's you can't lie about it. I'm just surprised by how stark and clear the difference is between like it's so obvious what the best and what the worst one is. I like choked down that cherry colo. It was bad. I didn't finish it. It's not good. You're sitting with it sitting right there. There's another one. I'm not gonna. I'm not gonna touch that. I will not touch it. That was my Oreo creation just like a restaurant value feedback.

Let's open up the feedback. Today's email comes to us from John Wynn. John writes, do you guys ever feel an uncanny valley effect when eating at certain chains? The uncanny valley is the idea in animation and robotics where if you make something look really close to human but not quite exact it actually seems really weird. For me that idea is your answer is to chains where some food tries to be too fancy ends up being worse than the worst food. For me that's evident in Taco Bell. I love their ground beef which is probably their worst quality meat but I can't eat their steak at all. Same thing with McDonald's. I'm completely finding their double cheese burgers but we'll probably never try those new higher-end burgers they have. Thanks for the question John.

Do you guys have any reaction to like when a fast food chain tries like a higher end version of what they got? Do you have any sort of thoughts on that? Yes. Even when McDonald's was trying to be like we got salads now. No you don't. No you don't. And that's just it. That's not what you do. It's not like you wouldn't want like a honey mustard chicken breast from Kentucky Fried Chicken. Like no one wants that. Like they make the fried chicken and that's what you want. You want the fried bad stuff from there because there's no way that they can that a lot of these places across a large chain can do the delicate work to make the big thing for the right people working this. They're not who they're gonna hire. They're not gonna not every person is going to be like

on their way to top chef. So like you look what you're working with. Yeah those guys can handle the basic thing but I agree with that. I think that's actually a very astute point is that you know you kind of it's what we were talking about with Fridays. Stay in the sort of be around the thing that they do really well. Right. I just I have one thing to say. Those I just just to go back to those things the Oreos they're popping and there's a thing there's like pop rocks. Yes. So it's gonna stay busy. I said busy. There's a busy thing is right. I'm feeling it in my mouth popping again and it was freaking me out. I didn't know what's going on. There's pop rocks in there. So anyways but I 100% agree with you guys on on that. I feel like when it's like say

like a turkey burger or something then okay sure like maybe a place can do a turkey burger. Okay Carl's Jr. did one or well you know what I like more of what you're saying is like when Taco Bell is like we're using like low fat sour cream and you can't taste the difference. So it's still this bad thing but it's slightly better for you and you can't tell the difference. You tell the difference. Great. Yeah sure. But like you go to I'm like all right I'll try a breakfast quesadilla. Yeah like that's not that's still you doing what you do. It's not you trying to make the gourmet thing. You know what I'm saying. Like it just you know what I mean. I would try that. But what was McDonald's failure like the failure. The Arch Deluxe. They had it and they didn't like the

Arch Deluxe briefly because that had mayonnaise on it. Sure. And I did like it that it came in a different box. I actually ate that a lot in New York City when I was working at Classic Sports which later became ESPN Classic which was later where we had our TV show. So I did like the Arch Deluxe briefly but that's some people some people are fans of the Arch Deluxe. I hated it. I was I was like I was I was pretty young when I tried it and I was like no I don't like it but I wonder how it feels they brought it back. But I don't know people have nostalgia for it because they don't have people like to try it as an as adults. I don't think you're going back for a calicorn. They're good as hell. By the way the the Pop Rocks in the Oreo that's a trick they tried

in the Oreo fireworks which we had before Mitch. Oh yeah you liked it. Yeah those fireworks are all right. I have a question or comment about the world of chain wrestling gmail us at dolboyspodcast at gmail.com or leave us a voicemail at 830 Godot that's 830 4636844 and to get the Dough Boys double our weekly bonus episode join the Golden Play Club on patreon.com slash Dough Boys Randy and Jason Sklar. Dudes. You guys are the best. How fun was this? This is ridiculous. Let's have you guys on our come to Dough People Town. We'd love to. It's like a buffet of stupidity. It's not out of state so Nick is in. We can make it nice and easy for you. Oh boy if I could take the choo choo that's an added bonus. This is a joy for these people. This is a joy for us to come do this because

we are fans of what you guys do. Thank you for. God bless you. Thank you for and thank you for promoting our stuff our Sklar's and Stripes on on Audible. Yes and audiobook and you guys have a new special. Correct. New special hipster ghosts on the Starz network. It's available on the Starz app and it's a special we shot a year ago and is supposed to go on CISO. CISO folded. It never premiered. We were kind of like oh my God where's it going to go and then Starz bought like four properties or five properties from CISO and ours was one of them. That's awesome. And we pushed them to air it on the network which they did this past week a few times like five or six times and so that was great that it got an official like premiere on the network but it's a most people

stream most of the stuff they do so it's available on demand if you just look up Sklar Brothers hipster ghosts. I think if even if you don't have the Starz app you can get it free for a week but it's just really cool. We're very proud of it. Yeah check it out guys check that stuff out. Thank you. You know what we were all on the same page this episode Nick a remarkably non hostile episode of Doughboys. Yeah. Fuck you. Hey guys you want more Doughboys to get the Doughboys double or weekly bonus episode join the Golden Plate Club. Sign up at patreon.com slash Doughboys. Do it.