Doughboys - The Coffee Bean with Hannah Kasulka

Episode Date: June 1, 2017

Actress Hannah Kasulka (The Exorcist, Comedy Bang! Bang!) is in studio to discuss her former employer and current coffee shop of choice: The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, the SoCal based java chain that’s the worldwide runner up to Starbucks. Hannah, Mitch, and Wiger taste test a new Hershey’s treat in another edition of Snack or Wack.Want more Doughboys? Check out our Patreon!: https://patreon.com/doughboysSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Brentwood, California. Situated in the northwest corner of Los Angeles, its array of white tablecloth restaurants and high-end boutiques speaks to its position as one of the city's wealthiest neighborhoods. But this Tory enclave of mansions for celebrities and entertainment executives, as well as luxury apartments for status seekers, became best known as the site of the O.J. Simpson murders, in which the football and movie star would stand accused of murdering his ex-wife and her waiter friend. In the double homicide and subsequent trials that would dominate the national news during the mid-90s, Simpson would be acquitted criminally but found liable civilly, a verdict that bankrupted him and forced him to sell his beloved Brentwood

estate on Rockingham Avenue. The house was bulldozed and a new mansion built in its place, the land too valuable to be left unoccupied by some LA millionaire. But three decades prior to O.J.'s murder case, ignobly elevating a neighborhood that formerly boasted privacy for its elite residents, Herbert Hyman chose Brentwood as the site of his first gourmet coffee shop. While Americans were avid coffee consumers, it was mostly of a low-end drip or diner variety, and Hyman's gourmet roasted premium blends were hit with the upper class eager for an outlet for their disposable income. By the 70s, Hyman had coffee shops throughout the Southland, so successful was his business in California that, in 1991, another coffee

chain attempted to purchase it, Starbucks. For better or worse, Hyman declined and the brand continues to operate and expand worldwide, though relegated to the runner-up role, the Burger King to Starbucks McDonald's. Still, as the once fashionable store has been supplanted in its hometown by increasingly snobby artists and coffee shops, Hyman's chain is no doubt one of Brentwood's great success stories. This week on Doughboys, The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf. Welcome to Doughboys, the podcast about chain restaurants' reproduction of FeralAudio.com. I'm Nick Weiger, alongside my co-host, Uncar Plutt Without the Portion Control, the Spoonman

Mike Mitchell. It's been a while since we've shouted out Uncar Plutt on the podcast. He kind of faded from once Rogue One came out, we were talking about The Force Awakens. He's such a memorable character. He really is. He put an indelible stamp on the Star Wars universe. A Chewbacca, for instance, or Yoda. Uncar is on the same level as those. If you're making that Mount Rushmore of Star Wars aliens, Yoda's going to be there, Chewbacca's going to be there, Uncar Plutt, and then probably what, the Lizard Bounty Hunter? What is the Lizard Bounty Hunter? I know IG88. Is it Bosk? Oh, it is Bosk with 2Ks. Not to be confused with Amazon's Bosch. Wait, Amazon's Bosch? It's not Amazon's Bosch?

No, it's not Amazon's. You might think that because you're like, oh, Lizard, he's from the Amazon. It must be Amazon's Bosch. It must be the show about this guy's like a prequel sort of thing. Can we name all those bounty hunters? We can't. I mean, I'm sure that I could at some point. Yeah, IG88, Bosk, and then after that, I'm like tapped out. IG88, who you fight in Shadows of the Empire. That's a great boss fight. It is. It's a great boss fight. He's tough. Whatever happened to Kyle Katarn? Was that him, Kyle Katarn? Are you talking about Dash Rendar? Oh, Dash Rendar. I'm sorry. You fool. Kyle Katarn is the guy from a different Star Wars game. Which one is he from? What the fuck? Is he from Dark

Forces? Which one is he from? This isn't canon to me. Look, Kyle Katarn was an important character in my youth. One thing's for sure. We're looking pretty cool in front of our guests. He was from, wait, he was in from five games. Star Wars Lethal Alliance, Star Wars Dark Forces. That was his first one. And then he was in Dark Forces 2 where you get to turn into a Jedi. Whoa. Pretty sweet. That's, that's what everyone wants to do is they want to become a Jedi in the game. Well, because that's kind of the thing, because like he's kind of the Kyle Katarn is like kind of the stand in for Han Solo. But then it's like, oh, but you also want to be a Jedi is like, well, best of both worlds. You get to be a cool scoundrel

bounty, a scoundrel smuggler like Han Solo, but you also get to be a force master with a lightsaber. That feels not fair. Like Han isn't, you know what I mean? Like, you're not supposed to, you're not supposed to get the best of both worlds. Yeah, you don't get to do both. Jedi's are like more nerdy. Right. You know what I mean? And then Han Solo is kind of the cooler one. It's like you're Jedi-ish and I'm Han Solo-ish. Hey, you know what? I'll take it. And I'll take it as well. Real quick, that roast before you do your drop, that roast was courtesy of Matt Elliott. If you've got a roast you'd like me to use on the show, roastspoonman at gmail.com. Or don't

submit. Howdy, howdy. To Spoon Nation, my throat is a little not great, so I apologize for that. And here's a little drop. Mitch, how's your penis doing? What? Mitch, you really look like you're, I'm legitimately getting worried. There's a peanut in it. I don't like this. Yeah, I like a little sweet with a little bit of, with a lot of salty. I think that's a good combo. No! What the fuck is wrong with

you? I'm a Caucasian man. God damn it, Weiger. My old saying goes, I don't make them, I just play them. That's a WikiLeaks defense. You're like, I just put it out there. I don't know. I'm not saying anything. There we go. I had to unplug my phone there. That was a drop courtesy of, one second, of Jonathan Schwartz. And it says, I have a drop, my man. You didn't give me your, your Twitter or anything like that. There's no information just besides Jonathan Schwartz.

Well, you know what? Hey, may the Schwartz be with you. Yeah, may the Schwartz be with you. Good job, buddy. There's two other drops in here, but they're both a minute long. Well, you already played one. That's fine. I know, I don't have to play all of them. I'm just saying that I, you don't want me to play ones that are a minute, a minute long, right? It's fine if it's a minute long. I'm just saying you already played one for this episode. I'm not going to play another one.

Okay. But I just use your judge, use your discretion. There's no hard time limit. You had a point where you played one where I think you said it was literally five minutes and that was excessive. So the 60 minute deadline, think of that as arbitrary, use your best judgment, but don't push it. Fine. You know what? Fine. Mitch, we have a great guest here today.

We do. Very excited to have her. You know, guests on this show usually trash. Jesus Christ. I'm saying our guests are trash every single one of them until today. Mitch, you know, it's true. You're causing trouble, but everyone knows you're having a laugh. They'll love you anyway. No, it's the truth trash.

Mitch. From the exorcist, filthy prep routines, comedy, bang, bang. Hattie Kosolka is here. Hi, Hannah. Hi. Thank you for coming on. Thank you for starting beef with me and every other one of your guests. No, I said you were, oh, I guess yes, all of them are going to be against you. Yeah, I'm going to have to like arm wrestle some people.

That's how it's going to be settled. Yeah. You can take Cessar. Easily take Cessar. You were, I were, you and I were on filthy, filthy. Wait, what did it turn out being? I think the title ultimately was filthy preppy teens. Filthy preppy teens.

Yes, filthy, sexy teens was too. Risky, sexy. Oh, wow. OK. I don't know. I have no idea. You, you had a, you were very funny in that, in that show and you had a great role and I played like a doofy security man where the joke was, right? Was that like a filthy, sexy preppy teens were like two of them like fucked me. Like, like I was like trying to be like a security guard and they would like

jump on me. The joke was like how outlandish that this would ever happen. It's also because like you guys aren't too, too far away from each other in age. The idea was that like Hannah would be a student and you would be like this worker at the school. An old man worker. That's also, that was also like part of the joke. I think because, uh, yeah, Casey Wilson played my mom and the pilot. And like there's no way she could be my, my mom, um, she had me at like 12. So that was like part of the joke that I'm older, playing younger.

But I sort of do that now, too. It's weird. I don't know. You got to make out with my friend. That's right. Yes. Chaley. Hell yeah, those stage cases. Sexy. No one, no one can pretend to be excited. I mean, of course I didn't. I was like, I'm sorry. Like I'm sorry. I always just say, I'm sorry. You have to do this to every off camera, too.

That's just part of your dating life. Oh, yes. I'm on a date to notice your bedroom has a sign above it that just says, I'm sorry. Hannah, what in the fuck? You were friends. Now I'm the worst guest. You know what, I take it back to all those guests. Hannah, so you were, I get a question for you.

Uh huh. You were on the Exorcist. Yes. Uh, a very scary show. Mm hmm. Now I am afraid of the devil. Nick knows this. This is a real fear of mine. Yeah.

He's really afraid he's going to get to hell. The devil will be there with his hooch feet and his pitchfork and his pointy tail and start poking him in the butt. Yes. Actually, yes, 100%. He can do anything he wants. If you've seen little Nicky, he can put boobs on your head if you misbehave. And little Nicky is canonical.

Right. That's like, that's the, it's a bit of a sanctioned it. Yeah. Yeah. Well, a little boy died and then he saw hell and then he wrote a book about it and then it turned into little Nicky. Did you, so the movie is terrifying? Have you seen the movie before you got the part to, to? No, no, because I'm also, well, I was raised to be afraid of the devil. I don't think I'm afraid of the devil anymore, but.

Right, because you're an adult. An adult. Yes, sorry. Yeah, we'll see about that. We'll see. We'll see. No, but my, I was raised in Georgia where. Oh, that's where the devil goes down. Yes, he's down there.

So we've, we're all like fairly warned growing up and I like grew up Christian and we didn't even, I didn't even get to trick or treat because it was like, it's the devil. Yeah. Oh, yeah. And yeah, I'm from SoCal and I had friends like that, too. I went to a no, like a Halloween was banned Halloween party once. There was like a witch in the in the Ghostbusters symbol. It was like there was a witch in the Ghostbusters.

Yeah, that was like the logo for the party. And then you go in there and there was like, no, it was just like a fair with no, like Halloween stuff at all. It was like meant to suppress it. The only thing that was at all supernatural was this was with my buddy, Dane and his family was super Christian. Yeah, my childhood friend, Dane Cook, his family was super Christian.

And so like the only thing is that all supernatural besides the no witches logo was there was a booth with the devil where you could trade in tickets, fair tickets to get sponges to throw at him. And it was easy. It was just some some some guys, some kids dad like painted as the devil. And then you would throw sponges at him and he'd be like very afraid. Like, no, no, I don't like it. Like you like the devil was a little scared.

I'm talking like a little baby boy. I don't know. It was a weird choice. Yeah. By the way, you gave me a witchbusters is a great idea. Yeah. Like a witch with the thing. Right. No, I'm saying right. Wait, is that already a thing? Is there like a witch hunting movie? Oh, Hansel and Gretel Witch Hunters.

Yeah, there was also two. There was wasn't he wasn't there a witch hunter and it wasn't Vin Diesel, a witch hunter went after witches, right? They've hunted witches already, I guess. Sorry, I took out a tangent there. You know, yeah, Santa was also an issue. Santa was an issue like any holiday that was like, well, I was just told very I think I never like believed.

I think my mom tried to make me believe in Santa or did the thing. And I was just always kind of cynical. I don't know what my deal was. And I was just like, yeah, I know you did this. Nice try. I've I've said on this podcast before that I think I said this, but I my mom sat me down on the couch when I was like way too old, like probably like 13.

Yeah. And was like, Santa, you know, doesn't exist. Oh, no. And I was like, but like the spirit of Christmas does and she is like, you're a fucking. That's the last time you spoke to your mom. No, but anything. And I think my Nana was very relieved that I did not believe in Santa because she was like, yes, it's about Jesus. And and then she told me I was like, what did like,

where did Santa even come from? Like, why do we do this? Why are people tricking kids? This is weird. And she told me this story like, no, I'm on a tangent. She told me this story that Santa was a nice man who lived a really long time ago and he would give presents to kids at an orphanage. And he lived a really long time ago.

It was the thing that I took from that story. So to school the next day, I was like, Santa's dead and gotten big trouble. Like with the way with other students or the teachers. I told like I told all the kids and the kids kind of had a meltdown at school. And that's it. It's like a little Bart Simpson life. Santa's dead, man.

Yeah, I'm an asshole. I guess it's the takeaway. Yeah, so yeah, I was like going to Sunday school and doing the whole thing, not trigger treating. We've got to later, but it was always kind of like cautioned. And I never got to be scary and I never got to watch scary movies. Oh, wow. So yeah, I never saw I never saw the exercises. I like watch part of the ring in high school

with like a group of people in a scary movie. It's very scary. I think that I think the remake, the American remake of the ring is is good. Yeah, Gore Verbinski. He did a good job. That's a scary. Gore Verbinski is a good director. He's made some good films. First, you love the Pirates movies.

I don't love the Pirates movies, but Rango. He's the Rango guy. That's right. Rango guy. Well, I forgot about time. Forgot about Rango. Everyone loves Rango for a time. Yeah, we're after Shrek. Everyone is Rango crazy.

There was Rango fever. I remember Rango fever and then it faded. That would whatever happened to Rango. Where was Rango to feels like you should green light that yesterday. There was a stretch of I'd say for speaking of Halloween's. I think there was a stretch of like what seven, eight Halloween's where everyone was dressed as Rango. Right. It was you would see people either as Rango

or as BOSC and you'd be like, OK, there's some lizard thing going on the zeitgeist right now. I think Rango took over for. Yeah, was the big was was what happened. The tortures had a Rango birthday party three years in a row. I speaking of of of see, I never you guys are weirdos and I never had this this weird anti Halloween thing. I would go we would go on haunted hair rides for my birthday to scary.

We would do we would do scary stuff like that. But I had to say the Exorcist is truly it's maybe the scariest movie of all time. I think I think right. I think I think I think it's it's it's way up there. If not number one and it's definitely the top three most, I think, because it's like, yeah, people are scared of the devil. I think, yeah, right.

Even if even if people are like, no, the devil's not real. I think there's still a part of people that think it might think it might be real. Yeah, just in case I'm not going to touch that. Yeah, right. It's a basis in Christian theology as part of for for an audience that's largely Christian is part of what makes it so terrifying. Yeah, I mean, like that spider walk,

which was not even in the original, right? It was added later as a special edition, a special edition thing. But like I almost called it a goof. And it was it wasn't a it was not it was definitely not a goof. No, but it's like she accidentally walked backwards down the stairs. It was a blooper. The fact a lot of that a lot of the bloopers made it into the. The cross thing.

Right. Oh, my God. The cross gag. I mean, no one's puking, obviously. No, she didn't mean to be right. Repossessed, a funny, a fun version of Exorcist. Have you seen that before? No, wait, what is it? Leslie Nielsen's is in repossessed.

Do you ever see repossessed? No, I've never seen it. But Linda Blair was in that. Yes, she is in it, which is so sad. Yeah. And is that it's like doesn't feel. I guess it is like an 80s movie. Yeah, it's it's around the time of of airplane. Nick is looking.

Wait, so this was pre naked gun. Is it is it pre? Oh, you know what? Maybe it is pre naked gun because I mean, that I'm just trying to think of the timeline. I remember they did it. No, 1990. Wait, repossessed is 1990.

Yeah. So that was. Oh, wow. That's probably just after Ned Beatty's in it. You got to watch it, Weiger. Oh, man, I got to check this out. Put it on your list. OK, there's a song that's like repossessed. It's like a like a 90s rap song that starts it.

I feel like. So I have some exciting news that I'm going to be in repossessed, too. Yeah, I would be there. I would be the first in line. So I get sucked in. This is I shouldn't open this tab. I get sucked in. Oh, Nick is now watching repossessed.

It's scary. You're scared of it. No, Leslie Nielsen's IMDB. It was it was hot on the heels of naked gun of naked gun, naked gun 88. And then he went right into he went right into the sequel. And then this was then he had like this big spoof

to run later in his career. Dracula dead loving it. Spidey hard, wrongfully accused. He was the spoof. He was he was a serious actor at one point. And then it was funny to put the the the the Zuckers. Right. Or like, oh, they cast their movies with like very serious actors.

Yeah, which was good. It was a good movie. It's very funny. He's super funny. You know, he's great. I love Leslie Nielsen. May he rest in peace. So my question is sorry, I'd never seen it before.

You never. Yes, you've never seen it. Yeah. And then I got the pilot and was like, well, well. OK, first of all, I got the pilot. I've been in LA for years trying to do this. Trying to get a pilot. That's the goal. Of course, yes. And your family knows like or my family like is supportive and knows how hard I've worked and like wanted to do this for a long time.

So you always want to like make the call to your mom and whoever to be like, I did it, you know. And I called my mom like really excited. I was like, I booked it. I booked the exercise. She goes, oh, no. Why did it have to be this? That was her immediate reaction.

And so, yeah. So that was that was funny, though, because I feel like it should like like something like that is like, oh, it's kind of saying that there is a God. And you know what I mean? Like the existence of a devil means that there's a God. But that's that the heroes are the people of faith, the faith. Yeah, I was like, yeah, we're not rooting for the devil. The show is not like Hail Satan.

And yeah, and I had to call my Nana and be like, yeah. So I booked the show and it's, you know, it's about spiritual warfare. It's good versus evil. We're rooting for the good guys. Right. And they they kind of came around. But yeah, they were always very like mellow about how excited it was. It sort of put a damper on it.

Yeah, that's something. That's I mean, so thanks. That's supposed to be that's a big moment. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Can I can ask a quick Christian upbringing question? Oh, yeah. How was the communion wine and wafers at your church? Oh, we didn't super do that. I went to like a kind of weird.

I mean, OK, oops. Non-traditional church in Georgia, which is good, I think, and bad. I don't know, or not bad, just like different. Like I tell people about my experience now and they're like, wait, what? But it was one of those you weren't handling snakes or anything. Borderline. Wow. Wow. Like nobody had snakes, but it was that kind of vibe, like raising hands, people fainting or we it was called slain in the spirit.

Oh, wow. Yeah. It was I did not know about tambourines, ribbon dancing flags. It was like the whole night. A big band. Was it was it in a tent? No, it was it was in a in a church, but almost like one of those like mega church type, like it didn't look like a church.

There wasn't really a steeple or anything. I mean, there was a cross out front, but it was kind of it was more modern. Yeah, we had a the children's church had there was this place called Discovery Zone in Macon, which was kind of like a shitty, Chuck E. Cheese. Oh, I know. Discovery. That's like a chain, right? Yeah. Well, when they went bankrupt, we got the Discovery Zone like thing in our children's church.

Like it was. Oh, yeah. So you had like a ball pit and yeah, we had like a ball pit and like big slides and like whatever. And and our church was like pretty, especially for a small tent in Georgia. It was like very, I don't know. It was interracial and which is, I think, rare sadly. And people were pretty lax. Like you got to wear jeans.

There was like gay couples at our church. And like it was pretty. That's pretty progressive. Pretty progressive for for for Georgia. That's what we did do. Communion, sometimes like on Easter. OK. And it was always just like grape juice and the traditional like little crackers, right?

Yeah, because that's what I like, because I was raised Episcopalian and it's it's very much like cat. Like it's just it's an Anglican church in America. So it's essentially Catholicism, the same amount of pageantry. Not it's not the Catholic Church, but it's the same sort of ceremony. Yeah. And the communion. I like I remember I hated communion because the wine like tasted like wine and I didn't want anything to do with it.

But then I went to my friend's church where we would have our Boy Scout troop meetings and they just had straight up grape juice for the communion. And I was like, this is fucking great. No, I dated a guy. My boyfriend in high school was Episcopalian. And really up until that point, I had never been to another church. So I didn't know that mine was unusual.

Right. And then and so I went from like that. People like losing their minds in the aisles with Tamarines and flags and wearing jeans to an Episcopalian church, which is very much like Catholic Church. Very stuffy. Yeah. And it was insane. And then they were like communion comes. You have to like get out of your seat and like go to the front, which was horrifying to me.

I was like, you got to stand up in front of everybody. Yeah, like, I didn't know what I was doing. And then they're saying they're like repeating stuff back. And I was just like, oh, say yes. The body of Christ. And then you have to say amen. Yeah, you got to put your hands in a certain way. Cross your hands like a weirdo.

If that's if you just want to take, which I always thought was weird. If you don't want to use your hands, you can just the priest will put the wave right into your mouth. But you can put it in. They can be put into your hand. Yeah, I had. Are we going to rate the body of Christ on Doe Boys at some point? We should.

I give it five fours. I give it five forks to hell. Yeah, I mean, God, yeah. Hail Satan. Hey, when you when you gave confession at your church, we didn't do that at my church, though, either. All right, just for the sake of this. Okay, when you gave confession to your church and the priest

forgave you did a panel open up and you fall into a ball pit. Yes, I got perfect. Fun fact, I got baptized in a ball pit. Oh, I should have said that. It's OK. I they did. We also did baptisms like in a lake in Macon. Oh, that's bad ass.

There it was like very, I don't know. It's so it's funny. I got we also had one of those like baptismal like tubs above the church. It was just like kind of a bathtub, basically, and they did that, which and they dunk you. Yeah, I'm into that. I'm into the foot like I like just like the full body immersion just like straight up dunking off.

I'll dunk you in a leg if you want me. Let's all go right now. Rebaptized. So I wanted to say that that the Exorcist is a very there's something about that movie that's like there's something about the 70s and also like the way films were made and film stock and the way it looks. That is makes those movies insanely creepy to me and in so many different ways and realistic and especially about that like before, you know,

I feel like with technology, it I feel like technology kind of takes like the fear out of that sort of thing more or whatever. But like in like in the Exorcist, that movie is horrifying. It's a very, very scary movie, but it's also known to have a lot of creepy things happening on set. Yes. So did anything creepy happen with you? No.

Well, OK, I will I think part of the reason why so many creepy things happened on set was because it was the 70s and there were no laws to protect people. There was no unions. So I think a lot of people are just like tired and dropped lights and shit caught on fire. That's my sort of rationale for like why so much stuff went wrong. But there was a weird thing where like the set burnt down and everywhere except for her room.

So there was some kind of things you can explain. I don't know. But did you hear all like, did they tell you all about this stuff? Yeah, of course, yeah. And then on the first week of shoot and my my family is horrified for me and my soul and my safety troops. Also, they're just like, I mean, very like I wasn't nervous, of course, like doing this and then they kind of scared me.

I mean, it's in a way like not not that I thought like, oh, I don't know. I just was it was weird. It was just like a weird. Did they have you? Did they have you listen to any Exorcist tapes? Exorcism tapes? No, but I did on my own just to kind of seek because I don't know. I wanted I don't know.

I want to do my research. Of course, yeah. Good actor. I don't know. It's just like pretending to be Meryl Streep for a minute and was like, I'm going to do this. Even nobody asked me to. I don't even know if it helped.

But I was just like, I'm going to look up some videos. And and those were horrifying. The one the one that's like I'm pretty sure she was just like schizophrenic and then they starved her. But I forget the case. But it's like the most famous one is like, what's Emily Rose is based on? OK, and they have video of it and photos of her. And and it's horrifying.

Yeah, it's truly like that that freaked me out. So I think I was just like watching stuff like that and more like, am I going to go crazy? Then like, is the devil going to mess with me? Yeah. And also, there was like rational people being like, I saw I'm going to call him out on this podcast. I don't listen to it, but I saw Ryan Gaul right before I left. And he apparently studied demonology in school.

Like that was like his major. I know, I know. And he was like, they allow that. What what what school did he go to? Don't know. I majored in in troll studies. I think a lot of our listeners major in troll study, they give you a hard time in my Twitter mentions. Yeah.

No, but I saw him like and also this I don't know him well enough to know if he was he could have told this all can be a joke. But he was like right before I left, he was like, get a crystal. Get a crystal. I'm like, OK, like, I don't know. Four years of demonology and his advice is get a crystal. I feel yeah, I feel like you can pick that up in a one day seminar. That's just a catch all solution.

I mean, he failed. Right. No, but I was a weird thing. We were staying in a new hotel and you were hotel in Chicago when we were shooting. This is literally the only like kind of weird story. And so it didn't have creepy vibes. There were people staying in like an older hotel and they were scared, I think. And the hotel took me to the 13th floor one time without pressing it.

Yeah. And I was just like, oh, I must have maybe I drank too many Sazarex and I pushed it and I forgot. So I like went to my regular floor. I pushed like Sazarex. Yeah, that sounds like devil juice. That was devil juice. No, that was weirdly like the drink in Chicago. Everybody was drinking those.

I don't know. It's a great cocktail. Yeah, I've never had I've not only have I not had a Sazarex. I've never heard of a Sazarex. This is either I hadn't either until then. And then I pretended like I knew what it was and and it's a booze drink. Yeah, it's very boozy. Natalie loves a Sazarex. She'll have a Sazarex all the time.

It feels like she'll fix herself a Sazarex. She probably drinks a lot of them. This podcast is sponsored by Sazarex. No, but I, yeah, so that happened. And then like it I was on set like a couple of days later and the girl who played my sister Brianne on the show, she was like a weird thing happened last night. Like the elevator took me to the 13th floor and I was like,

well, that happened to me. Scary. And yeah. So it happened. It happened to her. And then I was like, weird. And then it happened like several times after that. And then was like some guy at the hotel like, sorry, there's no function. But that guy was the devil.

Yeah. I mean, I have a photo on my phone. I it took me to the 13th floor one night and I took a photo and the devil is there and the devil is in the photo. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, it's weird about because I think a lot of hotels don't even have a 13th floor. Yeah. That in of itself is a little spooky. There's an old movie called I think the 13th floor where it's like a satanic cult.

Oh, right. Lives on the 13th floor. But like the 13th floor is like boarded up. They like it. No one is supposed to live on that floor. I don't know. I love all those 70s horror devil movies. I love the admission of 13 from things like in Santa Monica, there's no 13th Street, there's 14th Street, then there's Euclid, then there's 12th Street. I think they are that's great.

That just everyone's just like a little scary. I like that. I'm not afraid of 30. I mean, either 666 the number that number, though, that's spooky to me. No, thank you. No. I'll skip right over that. I just got recently got a new phone number and there was like they generate it randomly. And the first one that was generated was like 310 666. Oh, no. Yeah.

No, no, no. And I was like, no, that's two on the nose and one time, you know, you know how many people probably incorrectly call up the devil? Yeah, I'd get a lot of requests like wrong numbers asking for hexes. Yeah. Hello. Is this Marilyn Manson's house? Can you connect me to Twiggy Ramirez? God damn it. What else do you have?

Just those two. Now, now watch this segue. Nick, OK, now you had to have. Did you have to have a lot of makeup on at some point? I did. Those are early call times. Oh, yeah. I was what time? What was your earliest call time?

I don't even know. But I was definitely the first one there in the last one to leave. I mean, me and my makeup artist. When it's really that early. How do you deal with things? Say a cup of coffee. God damn it. Whoa. Wow, that's good.

I honestly didn't see that coming. It was like, here's the thing. Yeah, I get the spirit of what you were doing. It was a fair transition. You took about like five more sentences than it required. It also required I was not helping you at all because I didn't know that that's what you were going for. Yeah, you had to keep bulldozing over our guest.

Well, that's I do that anyway. And that's my bad. No, not at all. I need to finish the rest of my ice blended. That's right. So hold on. Now you're you're where did you shoot? When? Where?

Oh, Chicago. Chicago. OK. Yeah. Are there coffee beans up in Chicago or no? There's not. I think there's there's starting. There's some that are popping up in airports around. Like, I think there's one in the Atlanta Airport now,

but it used to be just Starbucks. Like, I didn't even know what coffee bean was until I moved to LA. So why coffee bean? Like, why is that a place you wanted to discuss as opposed to say a Starbucks? Well, I like it better than Starbucks. Whoa, OK. Yep. I'll go on the record.

Guess what? I'll go on the record, too. I also like it better than Starbucks. Yeah. Well, before I was like, Starbucks is it. When I was in Georgia, I was like, oh, yeah, this is the fanciest drink. And I felt I would there was one in my town

that got there like the last year that I was in high school. We got a Starbucks in that we thought like, oh, yeah, we're cool now and we'd like go there to study and stuff. And I thought like the sign of being cool. Yes, I was going to Starbucks to study. Let's go hit the books. Yeah, I was very cool. This is a fun side story.

One time my parents were out of town. My mom, my stepdad, were out of town and they came home early and there was a bunch of cars in the driveway and they were like, she's having a party and they were like going to bust me and they came in and my chemistry class was over and we were all studying and my mom and stepdad were just like, oh, oh, hey guys. And then they said they had to run to their bedroom

so they could burst out laughing. Yeah, so I was pretty cool. That's great. Yeah, by the way, I want to just say that you and I went on the record as having a coffee bean that we like better than Starbucks. Nick moved his head towards the mic. I saw that in the moment his past and opened his mouth and then shut his mouth.

I held my fire because the moment had passed. What is this fire? Give me fuel. Give me fire. Yeah, it's Metallica song. I know we've established that that is the one band you seem to like. Do you know Trigger Amirah's audition for Metallica? I mean, in some kind of kind of monster, they have like all the other

bassists who are going to replace Jason Newstead and he's one of them. Oh, no way. Oh, that's cool. That's an interesting what if. What if that had happened? That is that is that is interesting. Anyway, he's stalling. OK, so here's the thing.

I was like, should I say this now or should I save it for my evaluation? Oh, what do you think? I also think coffee bean is better than Starbucks. Whoa, they are basically the same thing. But if you ask me to make a decision, I will go coffee bean. Can I say something? Yeah, you should have saved it for your final evaluation. Now, I'm on the record is not loving coffee.

I, you know, like we were talking about set, we made that segway, which is a very good segue about how you need coffee on set when you're getting the makeup. I that is like the one time when I'm extremely tired and I have to be awake. I'll chug coffee, but I don't love it too much. I've said this before that the the when I'm tired and I like try to like wake myself up unnaturally. I get like a rush and I get anxiety.

It doesn't work well for me. Yeah. So I don't drink coffee too, too often. I do drink it. I don't not drink it. But if I do, I want like a small black coffee, usually from Dunkin Donuts. Something that doesn't get me too wired. Yeah.

I mean, for me, since I moved basically from the point where I moved from the dorms to an apartment through the point in my life. I am now I've been in a coffee every morning, man. Like I wake up and I have coffee like either either Bruce. I usually just brew something or I go out and get something and like every day, even if I'm like out of town, I'm like, I'm going down to that hotel lobby or I'm going to the nearby Starbucks. I need to start by day with a cup of coffee.

What about you, Hannah? Are you a frequent coffee morning drinker? What's your routine? Yes, I am. I am not a morning person at all. That's and that's a huge understatement. Also, why is that? What are we talking here?

I'm just perpetually lazy. I mean, I could sleep. I could sleep till noon every day and no problem. I mean, no problem. Hannah, hell yeah. Oh, yeah. No, I it's weird. I don't know.

I just I stay up late and I can sleep late and it's kind of embarrassing. As an adult, it's not okay to like let me tell you, I know that day late. I know that very well. I know that feeling very well. And you know, I've read into it and some people just have different clocks. And people do have different intro. Actually, I have in an internal clock, which is more calibrated towards a 2 a.m. to 10 10 a.m. sleep cycle.

But I just sort of like gradually forced yourself and gradually forced myself to now I'm a guy who like wakes up on his own at like 6 30 or 7. I think 2 a.m. to 10 a.m. is by 11. I may even be 3 a.m. to 11 a.m. Yeah, you might be. That's me. I think I'm 3 a.m. to 11 a.m. Which is is I don't know, maybe bad, but maybe also fine.

Yeah, it does run to a problem when I'm like making appointments for stuff or like trying to get meetings with people and they're like, could you do like 9 30 and I'm like, ah, shoot. I've got you know what? I have something else at that time. But you know, it's it's good to do that. Like I like that as opposed to being unrealistic and being like, yeah, I could make this 8 a.m. thing.

Yeah, I don't even try. And if it's my friend, I'm like, I've had friends who are like, let's get coffee or let's get breakfast or come to this class or workout thing. And I'm just like, to be honest, I am not going to make it. You know, even if I say I'm going to do it now, I'm not. I'm going to fall asleep. Yeah, there's no way.

I'm going to take a bite out of schedule making because in this city, Nick, yes, I've talked to you about this before. Meetings are always scheduled for like 10 30 or 10. And then also on the other end, like 3 30 or 4 or 5. Right. These are intense, insane traffic hours in the city. And that's also like to LA, just like the rush hour lasts so long. It lasts so fucking scheduled meetings at 1 p.m.

For God's sake. Then that that falls into the lunch gap, which is like 12 to 2. Don't take a fucking hour lunch. I agree with you. I think that's I think they should do more things around that time because that makes everyone's life easier, but that's just not how things are scheduled. You know how my dad got lunch?

He went and walked and got a fucking the same turkey sandwich. It was uphill. Right. It was Boston, not Bunker Hill, but he was in the Boston Commons and he would walk and get a turkey sandwich for himself every fucking day. Right. God damn it. We got to relax with these lunch or cabinet.

You know what schedule it at two right after lunch. Right. Why not? That's great. Hey, how about hey, you're an agent at UTA. How about brown bagging it is taking your 90 minute sojourn to the Ivy buddy? Yeah.

No shit. Pieces of shit. Also. Hey, sign us. Yeah, please represent me. We take it all back. But yeah, no, I get what you're saying. It's very frustrating.

That is frustrating. That's a thing unique to LA, but but it does that does tend to happen. And I think I like that you're realistic about what your sleep schedule is because that's a problem I have. Sometimes I'm too ambitious. I'll be like, oh, I'll go to the dentist at 7 30 or 8 AM on a day when I'm not working because I just like, I'll get it done first thing. And then you bring it over to Doe Boys.

You know that? What's that? Me being late all the time is your fault. That's not my fault. Wait a minute. Uh-huh. It's the truth. You're a man who we're recording this on May 20, May 22nd, May 23rd, May

23rd recording this May 23rd. You just did your taxes today. Okay. I also did my taxes for the previous year and last year, uh, recently. So hell yeah. We, you know, what the hell? Why are you? Why are we alike?

I never heard. I mean, this is strange. You guys are fashionably late. Yeah. Yes. Yes. It's a good way. It's look.

I don't have to rush and get them in in April. Right. Give me that October deadline. Yes. Am I the deadline? Give me the, you could, you can do it. You can push the October. I heard that you're less likely to get audited if you do that.

If you push it October. Yeah. I don't want to be audited. Yeah. This is great. Yeah. But then again, October is a spooky month. Ugh.

You know, out there, if you have a, if you're someone who's late all the time, hashtag fashionably late. And if you're someone who's early all the time, hashtag early nerd. Loser nerd. Yeah. Hashtag early nerd, loser nerd. Early nerd, loser nerd. I become something of an early nerd.

I used to be, I used to be a late comer. I would be late to a lot of things. You would be late to stuff? Yeah. I was like chronically late to things for a long time. When I knew you even. Yeah. How did you fix it?

I grew up. No, I mean, I, I sort of realized that I just sort of, I actually have a lot of sleep issues. And so I've seen a number of neurologists and sleep specialists for and worked on that. And so I've gotten to a point where I can sleep consistently. So that actually, that's actually the biggest thing. I can fall asleep consistently when I need to sleep.

So that means that I, cause my body just needs seven or eight hours of sleep. If I try to wake up after four hours, I just sleep. My trainer was talking about this the other day, how he gets five or six. I'm like, no, no, no. I cannot function. Five, I can, I can function for the day, but I'm like, this sucks.

Yeah. And six. Okay. But give me, I want eight full hours of sleep. Yes. I feel like I need like nine. I feel like even with eight, it's like not quite enough. Yeah.

Like when I sleep in, I'll do nine or 10. Damn. Yeah. Yeah. I could sleep for 10 hours. Easy. Yes. I mean, in college and stuff, I would,

I feel like I would do 10 to 12. Every day. Yeah. All of my classes, I never scheduled, scheduled a morning class in college. It was always afternoon. Yeah. And it's very smart.

Yeah. My friends were like, well, I'm like, what are you doing? Taking the A.M. lecture. You're never going to make that. Yeah. Yeah. No way.

You fall asleep. I can't, I just can't function in the morning. My stomach will grumble. I'll be hungry. That's why I need to eat or have, you know what? A cup of coffee. I had to. So you asked earlier.

Mm hmm. Why I picked coffee bean and I'll get to that now. Finally. I've been trying to get at it. No. But I, I, when I moved to LA from Georgia, coffee bean was my first job. Oh, wow.

Yeah. So I worked there and it, my, I had to be there sometimes. I had to be at work at 430 because we opened at five and it was bad. I remember how we said all that stuff about me not being a morning person and not being able to get up early. Yeah. It was the, probably the worst job I could have had.

It sounds brutal. And I was bad at it. Were you ever like a, oh, I'll just try to stay up all night and come in and then just change my sleep schedule. I did that one time. Yes. I like, I had first, I had moved here and like was hanging out with some people that I, I can't remember.

It was like family, friends were in town or something or like there were people in town and they were like, we're going out and like come out, meet with us. And I did and had the idea of like, yeah, I'm just going to stay up. I think I slept for like an hour, maybe 30 minutes, went to work and it was, it was rough. Yeah.

That's rough. I made a lot of wrong drinks that day. Oh, right. And like, yeah, you got to kind of be, you got to be with it when you're, when you got that job, you got to, you got to be, yeah, you got to be on top of that. No, I was, it was really bad. I like burned my hands a lot.

Jesus Christ. One time you which can't see, but there, she basically has skeleton hands. Yeah. There's no flesh or blood on her hands. That's why I got the exercises. This is my hands. That's why they do that.

And when they ask you to slate and auditions, they should show us your hands and I did that and they're like, that's our girl. That's our girl. That's it. They were like, stop right there. We don't even need to see anything else. You've got the part.

I've had, I've had both ends of the spectrum with job jobs where I've had a, when I was a garbage man, I mean, in some ways I'm still a garbage man, but I got a rubbish collector, I guess you could say. When I, when I, when I worked that job, it was, we changed to be the, to five a.m. It started and we were collecting garbage at five a.m. And that was bad, bad news.

And then I, then I worked, go ahead, Nick. No, no, no, go for it. And then when I worked at the snake pit here on Melrose as a doorman. You're a bar bouncer. I was a bar bouncer and I did that for a very, it was literally one day. This is like one of my first jobs in LA when I was just like

trying to get any work that I could. And then like, I would be home at like three and be like wired and stay up to like four or five in the morning, like in the morning. Yeah. And then I turned into kind of like, like a vampire. You know what I mean? Right, right, right.

Then I would sleep till like past noon or something. Yeah. Your body just adapts to that and you just end up being completely off the, off everyone's schedule. Yeah. Mitch, knowing you were a bar bouncer at one point makes me want to challenge bar bouncers. Because you're such a, you're a physically imposing man.

And if I didn't know you, I'd be afraid of you, but knowing who you are, I, I realized I could just like tickle your sides and you'd like shrink, shrink like a violet. No, I, I, I get what you're saying. And those early morning jobs are hard. And that's my, my mindset is cause I, you'll, I'll sometimes like, oh, I got to be at work by six AM. I'll stop at a Starbucks.

I'll stop at a coffee place on the way. And I've always tried to be conscious of like, okay, this barista who is serving me had to get up earlier than me and they have to work right now. So like, Well, you're nice because most people did not think that it were very mean to me. Yeah.

Cause I imagine cause a lot of people are cranky in the morning and then so you're, you're super tired and someone's cranky cause they're up early. So they're mad at this person who's trying to help them. I'm trying to think of like the, the jobs where, where people are the meanest to people. And even though there's been a lot of issues with airlines lately, I feel like flight attendants get a ton of shit.

Right. Uh, like, like, I just, I flew to New York this past week. People are rude. Yeah. And I just witnessed, you know, like on that flight alone. I flew first class, which I never fly not to brag. I never, ever, ever fly it. But I was shocked by some of the people in first class being like

so, the guy in front of me was so insanely rude. Right. That I was just like, I couldn't believe a human being was talking to someone else that way. It's crazy. And, and I feel like, I feel like probably baristas are, are probably maybe, maybe below flight attendants as far as how much rudeness they get, but it's, it's close.

Yeah. Cause the volume of customers you're dealing with and you're dealing with people who are maybe sleepy or cranky. They want their coffee and then if you get it wrong, they're pissed off. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.

I feel like that's got to be a highly abused profession. I want to go. What else? What other service? Waiters. Yeah. Waiters. Certainly.

Yeah. Waiter. Yeah. Bus drivers, I feel like probably have to. I mean, when I've been on the bus, I've definitely encountered some bus drivers have to deal with some unruly passengers. Yeah. It can't be fun.

Podcast host. Podcast host. Yeah. Um, yeah, but I, I, uh, I don't function in the morning. Before I'm not, I'm not a fully formed human being past or before 11 a.m. Yeah. And even like 11 to 12, it's iffy. Okay.

Right. I get that. Yeah. I don't know. And also like being an actor, that's bad because I have to be up early. You got to be up on at five, six a.m. You might be have to have to be acting and yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And I don't, I mean, I'm, I can't be good. Right. I can't be doing a good job. I'm, uh, I'm just like pounding coffee and, uh, yeah. Cause I made drinks wrong. Yeah.

Right. Exactly. I, I, my brain was just like, nope. Yeah. And if you're in a situation where you, you know, you had to be up for like, for like a 430 makeup call or whatever. And then you have to get to be on set at six a.m. And you have these lines you're supposed to memorize and you work the 13 hour day,

the previous day, like your brain just going to be shot. Yeah. I was, I was, uh, I was dead, mostly dead. Yeah. I get that. Nick, what, what were you going to say to me? What were you going to say? We should start recording this podcast at six a.m.

God damn it. You say that as a joke, but then also I could see you off air being like, and actually logically back. It's not about it. We can go to the restaurant at 430. Yeah. We can go to your house. It's kicks.

We'll take a quick break. We'll be right back with more dough boys. Welcome back to dough boys. I'm here with Hanna Kisselka talking about the coffee bean and tea leaf. So you, you used to work at coffee bean while you were there. Did you develop an affection or an affection for the drinks? Or was it as a, as a later as a patron at what point were you like, this is better than star, this is better than Starbucks to me.

Well, so when I, when I got the job, they, you have to like learn the menu one and learn all this stuff about the beans and the coffee. And then they do all these tests like you're supposed to do a bean test. Are you kidding me? Yes. They give you a bean test? Yeah. I had to get like certified and stuff.

Wow. Yes. That is crazy. Crazy. But they all said they made you try it was very like our, the manager at this coffee bean was very intense and it was like, he treated it like we were working at the finest coffee shop, which I guess is like kind of how you have to, I don't know, he took job very seriously.

Yeah. I mean, at one point it was kind of like, you know, it started off as like this kind of like gourmet artisan like, oh wow, a place that serves gourmet coffee, that thing I get at the diner, you know, it was a curiosity at one point. Yeah. It was the start of like, yeah, kind of like a higher end thing. Right. Which is now there's been, there has been like a coffee house explosion.

What in the last seven years or so? It's been a while now, but, but like they're like these little coffee shops around LA, which what was, what's the one around sunset bend there? Intelligencia. Intelligencia kind of was, I feel like the start. I don't even know how old Intelligencia is, it might be even like be as old as coffee or bean or whatever. Yeah.

But it's those sorts of places that's like, oh, high end super fancy coffees that make coffee beans seem like trash. Yeah, exactly. Kind of. Yes. I mean, yes. Yeah. I mean, that's kind of how I feel now because I've, I've graduated.

I've like moved from, I've really learned a lot in the, in over the years. No, but like now I would, I would take a like blue bottle or go get them tiger over. Of course. Yeah. Blue bottle is great. Yeah. Hannah, we know that you learned a lot of things about beans, but guess what? We have a surprise bean test for you.

Okay. Okay. Uh-oh. My manager's here. I got fired also from coffee beans. Did you really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Did you, did you, was there a pop, pop quiz bean test?

Pop quiz. No, I, uh, well, when I first got the job, I didn't have an agent. I didn't even have a car when I first got the job. I literally had like a suitcase with t-shirts and pants in it. In a home, hopefully. And no. No, literally at the time I was sleeping on someone's couch. Wow.

Wow. So that's the start of a movie. Yes. Did you, did you move here with all the Muppets? Yes. You packed a suitcase with t-shirts? I was like, it's LA. I just need sunglasses and t-shirts.

You're right. You're right. Um, no, I, I, I mean, I truly had nothing. Yeah. I didn't know anybody besides these people. I knew the people who sleep on their couch. Um, but they were, they were, uh, they were like family friends. So it wasn't, it wasn't even like they were, we were that close or whatever.

I mean, I had known them for years. They've been friends with our family, but they were like a little bit older than me. And so I had no like, no friends, no car, no home, uh, and, and yeah. And so I didn't, I definitely didn't have an agent at the time. So when I started wearing coffee bean, I told them like, yeah, I moved here to be an actor. And they were like, okay. Um, and I was like, but I don't have an agent, but you know, I want to, I want to be able to go on auditions like when I get one.

So if you guys could schedule me either the 430 to 1030 shift or the like seven to 10 shift or PM. Yeah. Oh, seven to 10 PM. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. So that was, I was like that, but in the meantime, I can work anytime. So, and that was for like a few months, but I think they kind of thought like, she's not going to get an agent or she's not going to do like everybody. Right. Yeah. I'm sure. She's not going to do the same thing.

Yes. Yeah. Um, and I was just like very naive and, and I, well, I thought I would get one like way sooner, which that didn't happen. But anyways, I finally got an agent and then started auditioning and they kept scheduling me during the middle of the day. And so a couple of times I was late, um, and got written up like twice. And then I knew I had like one more strike basically and I, and I didn't have an offense

in like months. Yeah. And then I was at a callback for a commercial, which at the time would have been huge. Uh-huh. It was for clean and clear. Mmm. And. It's a skin product?

What is that? Yeah, it's like. Clean and clear and under control. Yeah. Okay. It's like young girls face wash. And boys. And boys.

But the commercials are always like teenage girls. Yes. Basically. Yeah. Let's just say sometimes I used my sister's acne products. Fine. And that's totally. Yeah.

It's gender neutral for sure, but, uh, they always feature girls in the commercial. That is true. And it's always like the infamous like that you splash your face with the water. Okay. You've seen. So, and we had to do that in the commercial that was like part of the audition was like a fake splash. Really?

A live splash. No water. No water. But as if there were water. And that's. Oh. Weirder. Exactly.

And to this day that might be the most humiliating thing I've done in an audition. Is a fake, a fake water splash? A fake water splash to like a refresh smile. Wow. Yeah. But so I was at this audition and it was also a weird audition because it started off with like tons and tons of girls. It was a callback, but there was still a bunch of us and you'd see like the types.

So it'd be like a bunch of like, like 10 Asian girls, 10 blonde girls, 10 red heads, 10 black girls. Like it was all the, you know, stereotypes and then they were like matching us up and you would go into it at a time. And then the girls would come out and the casting director in front of everyone, we were all in the waiting room would say like, thank you, you can, you can go or you stay. Wow. Ruthless.

Yeah. So as the day was getting going on longer, the less and less girls were there. The waiting room's dwindling down. It's me and one other blonde girl. Wow. And like one red head and I'm like, I got this. Right. Or I can't leave.

Yeah. Basically. Yeah. You can't go. That's crazy. I got a little bit of a fever, told them the deal. And at the time too, I was like, I may be going to be an hour late, which is bad, but also the time that I was working was like, not a rush.

It's not like a morning thing. They could have handled one Bernie still being on. Yeah. So I thought they'd be a little more like understanding. They weren't. And you got, they just, they fired you out. Right? Yeah.

So I was, I was the last girl there. I was the last blonde girl. And I was like, I'm getting this. Commercials pay the big bucks. Then I get to quit this job. And I show up maybe like 20 minutes late. I wasn't even like as late as I thought I was going to be. And I got fired.

Wow. Did they just say like go home? They were. Yeah. Basically. Oh wow. And they were like, yeah, they told me to go home. And then I didn't get the commercial.

So. Oh no. Wow. A double whammy. A Hollywood double whammy. Hollywood double whammy. Classic double whammy. And I have a question for you.

How much did you get for selling your life rights to La La Land? Honestly, I'm very mad at Damien Chazelle. I'm furious. And we're going to go to court any day now. Yeah. Truly. I mean, it's so cliche. Right.

And I don't know how, telling that story now, it's insane that one, I'm still here. And also too that it conforms to everyone's like preconceptions about what LA is. It's just like, yeah. Exactly that. There's a reason those preconceptions exist. Yeah. You know, as far as, I don't know if a lot of people know, but they, like these cattle call auditions, when I worked at the Fox lot, I would look, look up my window when I was

working at the Simpsons. Yeah. And I would see just like a sea of like sometimes like a sea of men who looked like me, right? Like waddling into the studio and walking to like, and there'll be like thousands. There'll be so many of these guys who look like, who would look like me or look like any, like there, it would be all sorts of different people, but like, especially a couple of times I saw guys like me and they look so much alike. It's really, really, there's just like the guys you would pick for a police line up.

Yeah. Exactly. Figure out the suspect, but like 200 of them, right? Yeah. It's crazy to see. Yeah. And I just, I'd waddle right in with them and walk to wherever they were going, follow them to a big food trough.

It was a trap. I'm really surprised as someone who was fired left on bad terms that you don't harbor any ill will towards the coffee beans. Yes. You seem to almost like it. You still kind of like it. Well, it made me who I am today. So I appreciate it.

Also, I mean, I'm, I, everybody, coffee bean is kind of my Kevin Bacon. Like everybody I know in LA can be traced back to a person that I met at that coffee bean. Oh, okay. Weirdly. What about Weigur and I? Not us. Yeah.

You want to know how? You mean coffee bean, Kevin Bacon, you guys? Sure. Please do. Are you going to be like, I met you in coffee bean early? Okay. And yes. And that's, yeah, exactly.

Earlier today, coffee bean. No. I just met like, I, I met, uh, this guy used to come in who was like, I don't know, affording with me and like wanting to take me out on a date and I was like, no thanks, but I also knew no one. I literally didn't know a soul and the family friends were like gone. They'd gone back to Georgia for work because they were here like part time. So I literally knew no one and my ex and Georgia, the Episcopalian had changed his Netflix

password. So I didn't even have that. And I was like, truly like eating old bagels from coffee bean and like bringing tea home. That was like, it was sad. It's sad. It's very sad. Um, but like whatever, I was like, I'm in LA, I'm doing it. And also I was very sad.

Make no mistake. I was sad. Right. Um, so I'd come to work and this guy came in a bunch and was like, uh, like we should hang out. Like blah, blah, blah. I was talking to me and I was like, um, no thanks. Like, I don't know.

And then one day. And that man was Matt Besser. No, but Matt does go to coffee bean too. Weirdly. I don't know. Long story short, he was like, you got to meet this girl from Georgia. You guys would get along great. And I was like, oh, cool.

And so he introduced me to her and then I hung out with like them as a group once and then he invited me to their birthday party. And I, that's where I met a friend of mine, Drew, who told me about UCB and then that's how I got in. I started in classes. All right. We, we were successful. Kevin.

I think that is. Yeah. Gotcha. That's fair. And you know what? That's good to hear because when I moved to California, uh, I had a car. And also when I got here, I made a bunch of friends like instant. Oh yeah.

I was like one of the coolest guys there was. Isn't that right, Nick? Yeah. I had a reputation as soon as like, no, I knew no, I didn't know anybody. Yeah. I knew nobody knows anybody. I guess, but, but I guess it feels, I don't know, I was, no, I, that, that first year is very desperate.

Awful. And like, it feels like a wasted year in my head a lot of the time because I, I didn't know anybody. I, I hung out with my roommate. Who I, I, it was Craigslist that I met him and we would like on Saturday nights, we'd like go to the bar and then go to 7-Eleven. Right. Come home.

Yeah. It was very, it was, it was a depressing time. Yeah. I was like eating like, uh, Del Taco, like whenever they have like Taco Tuesdays, it's like three for a dollar. Like that was like a fun treat. Yeah. This is not, this is not depressing for Weiger anymore.

This is. Right. What's the problem? This is your best Saturday night. I did get Del Taco the other day. I was like, oh man, this is, this is sad. Come on now. Now I like Del Taco.

Don't listen to the rest of this podcast. No, but it's not like, like in my mind now, I was like, that was like eating out. Right. Yeah. That was like. That was your fancy. Yeah. Your restaurant.

That was eating fancy. No, definitely. Um, let's, let's talk about coffee being a little bit. Let's dig in a little bit. Um, and let's start, I guess maybe, you know, they're, they're a beverage place. They're a coffee shop, but they do have some food options there. So I guess let's start with the food we had on this latest experience. Sure.

I got the jalapeno cheese croissant. I got that a little warmed up. And I also got myself a chocolate chip cookie. Now here's the thing. I got my stuff to stay at the one on Hillers Avenue, the, the coffee beans. That's right. Right near, right? Right near Mitch's place.

Pretty close to where I am. It's like 0.6 miles away. Nick, you don't have to tell them. I'm just saying, if you want to find where Mitch lives, just a 0.6 mile radius of the coffee bean. Yeah. And also if you've listened to previous episodes, you know, across street, I mean, they almost know where I, I, I, every day I come home, there's a new dough boys fan on the doorstep.

But yeah, I got the jalapeno cheese croissant and I got the chocolate chip cookie. Here's the thing. We get it to stay. They serve it to you on a real plate. Did they do that when you work there? Yes. I like that a lot. That makes me feel like a, I don't know, it just makes me feel great that I'm just

getting my food on it. Like not, you know, not in a little sleeve, like a little paper sleeve, but getting on an actual plate. It gives it a little bit of dignity. Sure. I think that's kind of a, a quick bite. They'll do that with a drink too. They'll put it in a mug.

I have not experienced that. I've only gotten to the to-go contenders. And they had these little fancy clear, well, in my, at the time I thought, wow, this is fancy and still do like a, a tall, clear glass with a handle that said coffee bean like on the side, but it looks very cute and fancy. Almost like a mug. Yeah. Like a tall curvy mug.

That sounds great. Yeah. Yeah. The croissant I thought was pretty good. I mean, I used to have the jalapeno cheese bagel from coffee bean with cream cheese, like basically every day that was my, my, You said this. Yeah.

It kind of grossed me out a little bit. It was kind of my, it was my everyday breakfast when I worked at, at this video game company that was right across the street from a coffee bean. I would just get in every day, get myself a, a jalapeno cream cheese bagel. This is the heavy-wiger years. It was a little heavier. Yeah. This was, this was, this was in my chubby phase.

Yeah. One of my chubby phases. But anyway, so I used to have that every morning and the jalapeno cheese croissant by contrast, I think it was a little better. I like it better because their, their bagels sometimes can get a little chewy. I, I imagine they've just been sitting there for a while. They're dense looking. They're very dense.

And that croissant I thought was like a little better. And I think it was a better, better pairing for that cheese. And I liked the jalapeno had a little bit of heat to it, not a ton, but just like a little bit of heat. The chocolate chip cookie was pretty stale. I was, I was pretty disappointed by it. And I, I kind of wish they didn't offer to warm that one up, which I thought was weird. I feel like they should have warmed up that cookie.

The best bites of that I had is when I dipped it in my cup of joe, but just having it on its own, I was like, I don't really want to eat this. I heard that there was an issue. You went up and you requested your cookie to be okay. No Mitch did not happen. Are you sure? Yes. That's no, that's not true.

All right. Well, that's what you told me before. Um, Mitch, you, did you also get a jalapeno cheese croissant? We were in the handle of the club because I got a jalapeno and cheese croissant. I got a few different things. I, I, uh, Hannah was offering to go and buy me to buy us coffee bean. And I said, no, no, that's not how it works here in dough boys. We're going to pick this up for you, right, Nick?

Right. We're a full service enterprise. We're delivery men basically. I'm impressed. Um, and, and, uh, that's more, that's most of our, where most of our income comes from delivering food to people, delivering food to people. And you, Hannah, you requested something that was kind of funny to me. You requested, uh, a white chocolate ice blended.

Uh, now for people that don't know the coffee bean, I think is famous for their ice blended. They supposedly had the ice blended before Starbucks did. That's right. Starbucks kind of swooped in and ripped them off. And we can talk about them a little bit more, but you ordered that and I had never heard of anyone ordering one of those before. The white chocolate? The white chocolate?

The white chocolate ice blended. Okay. Okay. And, uh, and I, and I, so I just grabbed a few different pastries. I, I got in the hand holding club with Nick, I got a jalapeno and cheese Danish. He lit it up as well. Croissant. Oh, I'm sorry.

I'm sorry. Croissant. He did that up a little bit as well. Then I got, I'm sorry. I just a regular plain cheese Danish. And then I got a chocolate twist stick or something like that, a bakery chocolate twist stick. It looked like a double helix.

I didn't know what exactly it was. It was, it's basically was just like a long bread stick with that. It was different from the chocolate croissant. Right. Um, and finally I got a tuna sandwich, which Nick, you almost got. Yeah. I was up there at the counter and I don't know if it was just this, I don't want to impugn this particular coffee bean cause it might have just been that some of their other merchandise

was sold out, but the sandwiches that they had there on the shelf look like they'd been there a while. And I was like a little skittish about like, I don't know if I want to eat one of these because that was my lunch. I didn't eat lunch before this. So I had a jalapeno cheese croissant and half of a chocolate chip cookie for lunch today. So I, I, I want to brag about being an adult. I know.

I want to have something a little bit more substantial. I wanted to have like a sandwich, but I was just like, I think these sandwiches, they might not settle with my tummy. Uh, yeah, the, the, the, let's break it down. I guess the, the tuna sandwich was actually not bad at all. There's a little bit of kale and it's not heavy mayo. There's like a multi-grain, uh, it's almost like sandwich, like sandwich thins. Like they're like a, like a, like a kind of like a thin bun, like a very, very flat bread

almost. Yeah. Like a pseudo, yeah. Great. Great way to put it. A pseudo flat bread. Uh, but it was, it was actually good. I ate half of that and it was, it was, it was good.

It wasn't bad for a pre-packed sandwich. We didn't have sandwiches when I worked there. Okay. Yeah. That's a new thing. Yeah. And, and it is, it was the, it was the coffee bean brand, but then as far as all the other stuff goes, Nick, we can break it down and Hannah, you tried a bite of every one of these

things. Yes, I did. Um, without asking. In fact, you came in the door, didn't say anything to us and just grabbed them and started tasting. Out of Mitch's hand. Yeah. It was very aggressive.

And I said, I'll, if I remember correctly, just yelling, I'll over and over again as you ate these. What did you guys think? Cause I have to say, I, I, I think Dunkin Donuts is king and I know that it's like a different, it's almost a different quality level in terms of pastries or coffee. In terms of everything. Or everything. I love Dunkin Donuts.

Yeah, I know. But, but it's too much, but, but, but, but I feel like this place is better than what you're going to find at Starbucks as far as food goes. Uh, I don't know about food. I think overall, I think food, I feel like it's kind of, it's kind of, it's kind of, but aren't all these places hit or hit and miss like, I feel like anytime you get something from that little deli section or whatever, the little freezer section there, fridge section, it can be bad and it can be good in anything in the case, the, the bakery case, what, what's

the word I'm looking for? Pastry case. Pastry case. Yeah. Whatever. Like any, I think those are toss up too. Yeah. I don't feel like they're like, I don't feel like you're ever going to get anything that's

super satisfying when these places, usually if you're eating at a coffee bean or a Starbucks, it's because you just need, it's your option. It's your only option to eat something. Yeah. I could dunk it. Donuts is a little bit different. I definitely take a Dunkin Donuts way above it for food because I think Dunkin Donuts actually has food that I want sometimes.

But I'm saying this, it's this, oh yeah, I think Dunkin Donuts is way above all of them, but I'm saying coffee bean for me is better than Starbucks. Yeah. I can buy that. I'd like a, like a, that, that, that chocolate twist stick was very satisfying and I thought the jalapeno, even though the jalapeno was very spicy, I thought that, that croissant was really good and the cheese danish was also all, all three of them pretty good and that tuna sandwich, not bad, like exactly kind of the level I expected.

Yeah. I was surprised to hear that that, that that was pretty good. You can try some of it afterwards. I, I feel like it's like, uh, Oh, I can have some of this tuna sandwich that's been sitting on your table for an hour. It's in the fridge. Oh, okay. Oh, I saw one sitting outside on the side while you were flaring in the hot sun.

That's the one I wanted to try. That was, that was Nick's. I bought that one for Nick. Um, it's, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, it like, I would say better, maybe better than the 7-Eleven tuna sandwich I would have to guess. Yeah. And that's a high bar to clear.

They can do some stuff all right over there. I like some of 7-Eleven's food. Yeah. For sure. Um, so wait, so let's, Hannah, what were your thoughts on the food that you tasted? Um, I'm, I'm a fan of the pastries. Um, I, I mean, like I mentioned earlier, I like lived off of bagels for a bit, um, when I first moved here and they have a thing that I like that they might not have had at this

one, um, was a fruit parfait that's pretty good. And it, it's one of those things where you don't feel, it can feel like bad to eat like a croissant or a chocolatey thing, a half of a chocolate chip cookie. And I would eat that sometimes just to, uh, to be like, this is kind of more substantial and it's, and it's good. Um, but yeah, the croissants are good. The bagels are pretty good and they'll toast them. I guess everybody does that every, that is kind of standard now.

I think that you have to, in this day and age, you got to toast thing, heat them up if you want to. You got to do it. But anyways, I think that the food there is not bad. I think, I think it, like you're saying, I get that that tuna sandwich did not look good. I think it is a toss up a lot of the time, but I think they do all right, Nick. But the draw is the coffee and the tea.

So let's move on to beverage country. When either of us got any of the tea leaf portion of coffee bean, right? Uh, which is how can you even rank tea? I mean, you can rank tea and we'll probably do it in some future dumb, double episode. Sure. But like, we're almost out of ideas for those. That's like two episodes away. We're going to be drinking, we're going to do the, yeah, the great tea challenge or

something stupid. Um, we'll call it like the Mr. T experience. Yeah. And, uh, I feel like you can't like whatever, some, I think for me, even more so iced tea is like a thing to Dr. T and the women, maybe we can call it, isn't it earth? I'm trying to think of something, what we call the tea episode. Don't worry about that right now for God's sakes. It hopefully will never happen.

Um, so I just think it's hard to judge off God, um, I think it's hard to judge hot tea from, right? Yeah. Starbucks coffee beans. Well, they do iced tea. Yeah. And the thing that I like about coffee beans is that they have what we call in the South chewy ice.

Oh, yes. That pellet ice. Yeah. Yeah. It's um. That's a great point. Yes. Good point.

Yeah. And so, and also from the South, I was like coming off of a sweet tea bender for 20 plus years. Yeah. And coming to LA where that's not a thing, uh, coffee bean was the nice, was a nice like segue from, I started drinking unsweet tea. And now that I think about it, they, like their tea bags are different. I think they actually may have decent tea there.

Yeah. They do. Yeah. I think they have better, they're certainly like more, they emphasize tea more than Starbucks. I think if you're a tea freak, that's probably a better destination. Yeah. Now Nick, what did, what coffee did you get? I got a, okay.

Here are the drinks I got. Drinks multiple. Beverages. I got two beverages. I got a cookies and cream ice blended. Oh, that's good. I would not typically go for an ice blended drink. I'm not someone who's just going to get something that's equivalent of a shake as my beverage

to coffee place. This one was 520 calories and then had whipped, whipped cream on top of it and that was the small size. Oh shit. Yeah. So here's the thing. It was good. I got what they were going for.

However, the specific cookies and cream cookies mixed with kind of the mocha coffee flavor made it to have kind of this weird burned character. Like it was just like those two elements working together. It just like it, it like it cut the sweetness so much to the point where it kind of tasted almost charcoal-y and I found it pretty unappealing. I think that you, I think you make a good point because I think mixing those flavors there, you have to take into consideration that coffee flavor that you're going to get to.

Right. I almost feel like if I'd gotten, because they have a pure version, which has no, no coffee in it. I almost feel like that version probably would have worked better. They also have an extreme version, which is just all. I think it's half milk, half coffee normally for all the ice blended, but you can say extreme and then it'll be all coffee. Oh wow.

So if you wanted, yeah. No thank you. Yeah. I don't think I can handle that. A little secret, secret menu tip. Yeah. You're welcome. I think not many people would want.

Yeah. No, I normally get that because sometimes they're too sweet. Right. They are very, very sweet. And it's like, I think less calories because it's not milk. Yeah. No milk in there. And you feel like for me, it's that thing where, oh, I'm just drinking a milkshake.

Right. And that's the main thing about these places is they've kind of made it okay for adults to drink milkshakes in the afternoon. For sure. I mean, they, but they're, these things on a hot and sunny day in Los Angeles. Oh yeah. It's 80 degrees outside. It's 80 degrees.

These ice blended are fun. Yeah. It's fun. I agree. It's good to have one. I think this particular one didn't work. I think I would have liked something a little bit more refreshing. And then I also just got a straight up coffee, a regular today's brew.

Just a classic coffee. Hey, no wonder why, hey, no wonder why you're so wired on today's episode. My energy level is sky high. It's a six of 10. What was the blend? House blend? Yeah. It was just a house blend.

Whatever the today's, whatever you get when you say today's brew, that's what it was. Is that what you said? I said, give me a regular today's brew. Jesus. And then he said, I want my cookie. Look, they have good coffee there. It was super hot. It was like hype and hot.

It was like, like I just like the steam was just rising off of it, like too, too, too hot for my tongue. I had to let that sit for a little bit. I mean, I don't want to bring them back up again, but it sounds like the devil got a whole deal of coffee. Yeah, it was, it was so hot that I had to let it sit for a second, but it's a good cup of coffee. And I think that I prefer it to Starbucks coffee for sure.

Like you were saying, you made this point on our Starbucks episode, bitch, that sometimes the Starbucks coffee has a little bit of a burnt character. Too burnt. It's too roasted. They burn their beans. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They burn the beans. Which is what they teach us at Coffee Bean.

Oh, really? Yes. That was on my quiz. So there's some anti Starbucks propaganda within their corporate training. They don't. Yeah, definitely. They don't teach us to say that. And also people, they get very offended when people come in and say, I'll have a grand

day. Oh, right. People would be like, I, what? Yeah. It's like, you know what they mean. The grand day shit. Look, can I just, can I just say that the grand day shit is fucking stupid? Stupid.

Yeah. It is stupid. I mean, it's been 20 years. It's just sort of established, but I get, I, I agree with it. But come on. Yeah. It's part of their marketing. Yeah.

It's part of their marketing when I go into, fuck that shit. You can. They don't know what to do. They're not going to crack stupid. Yeah. But some might, because Coffee Bean, they would, I would see other baristas like passive aggressively, they know what a grand day is. Yeah.

And they'd be like, hey, what? We don't have that size here. But Venti is large, right? Yeah. Venti, Venti, or is Venti small? Venti is large. And then what's small? Small is tall.

Oh, yeah. That's fucking stupid. Yeah. It's bad. It is a bad start. I agree. But this is like a standup bit from like 1999. You know what I mean?

It's just like tall. Hold on a second. I got the Starbucks sizes. That's a thing. I can get passionate about that. I'm not trying to do a standup bit. I'm just plainly saying that it's fucking stupid and it's bad. That's fine.

And that's, you prefer Coffee Bean over that? I mean, I prefer Coffee Bean for multiple reasons. Nick is saying that I'm a standup bit from when? 1999. 1999. Well, guess what? What? Dave Chappelle was on the scene back in 1999.

Are you trying to say that he's a hack? No. I'm not saying that. Okay. All right. You turned the tables on. Yeah, I did. I did turn the table on you, you fuck.

No. I'm not impugning. Oh, and they're wrestling. They're currently on wrestling. No. I mean, like, I get what you're saying. That's a little obnoxious. That Starbucks is.

Starbucks is obnoxious. It is obnoxious. And Coffee Bean is a little bit more approachable. I feel like that's part of there. And I guess all these places have a level of obnoxiousness. They have an era of elitism too. And like the places like Intelligencia, like you were saying, or the these indie coffee places or small chains that have been worked as a response to the omnipresence of Starbucks,

those places are even more obnoxious. Yeah. Hey, you want me to give you some stand up from 2007? Please. These guys with their glasses and they look like train engineers, man. Yeah. Right. Yeah.

The old, the, what do you say, alchemists? They look like, do you say that they look like? Wait, what is the word I'm looking for? Alchemist is a word. No, I'm saying, is that what you, didn't you just say that or no? No, I didn't. I said obnoxious. Oh, I thought you said they look like alchemists.

No. I mean, I could have said that. All right. I'm wrong, possibly. But they, I mean. Maybe I did say, I don't think so. Did I say alchemist? I think you said obnoxious.

I think I was trying to say obnoxious when they came across as alchemist. But I think alchemists are cool. God damn it. I'm glad that this led this down this road. This game, Wizardry 7, Crusaders of the Dark Savan. Oh my God. So there were two games of the Wizardry series where this new designer took over and he added a bunch of classes that were previously not present in the game and one of them was an

alchemist, which is not something you usually see in RPGs, but it was pretty cool because it was like a mage, but he couldn't be silenced because he mixed potions. Oh God. And we know we, we both thought about how much we like potions. We do both like, we do like potions. But I think that would be like. You like potions? Yeah.

Potions are cool. Yes. You like potions? You, you worked at copy me and you should love potions. It's very close. Also, the devil loves potions probably because witchcraft. Yeah. But you know what?

You could fuck him up with the ultimate potion. Holy water. You know online, uh, people were, uh, I told you, we talked about this. People were talking about how you're a comic genius. No one said that. This is true. No one said that. It was true.

It was there. We got like, cause, cause, uh, uh, there's a new thing complicated on view, on view boo. Right. We're both in complicated. We're both in complicated. And then, and that same threat on that same thread above it, there was someone, uh, talking about how you're the next comic genius. And I think it's for reasons like that where you talk, what was that game again?

What wizardry seven? Right. References are what you put you in that category, like deep cup PC gaming references from the mid nineties. No, just wait till I start talking about wing commander, baby. Oh God. Who, who gets these? I mean, I guess some people must get some people do.

I referenced dark side of zine here one time and there were a couple of dark side of zine. Are you making these up? No. Those are two in the might magic series. Might magic. I think I saw he has a paper bag down by his legs and there's just random adjectives in here. It's cool.

So wait, let's, let's get back to the drinks. So I like their coffee a lot. Hannah, you, do you like the, the coffee being coffee? We were talking tea a little bit. Where were we exactly in the, the, the drink discussion? You talk through your drinks. Yeah. I, you, you would finish your talk.

I finished my drinks. Maybe you had it, but I'm saying you had finished yours anyways. Yes. I got a mocha ice blended, which is just basically chocolate added to it. And I felt like, cause I do the vanilla ice blended on, and I liked the vanilla ice blended a lot, but I feel like, I feel like it's sometimes you get that coffee and I was like, I don't, I don't not in the mood for, I don't want to get that coffee taste. So the mocha just kind of destroys it.

It is a shake. This was a shake. I got a little bit of whipped cream on top of it and it was good. I mean, it was very good. And I'm a little bit wired cause I, I can sense that I am, I, I, I, I, I, I, I can feel my heart racing. If you don't normally have coffee and then you have something that potent, your body's definitely going to respond.

My heart is going at about three beats per minute. So it was, it was good. It was nice. It was refreshing. It was very much like an ice creamy shake, like you were saying, right? But those are fun sometimes. I like, I like having a thing like that and they do a good job with it. And like a, I feel like something like that is, is hard to get.

If I get this sort of thing at Starbucks, it's does not taste good. And I can't get this sort of thing with a, you know, with, at all these fancy coffee shops, they want to, they won't give you a nice blended, they'll laugh me out of there. They really will. They'll put their thumbs beneath their suspenders and start laughing, laughing at me. I'll leave, I'll run out of that place and I'll, and I'll, and I'll feel like a fool. I appreciate coffee being for, for kind of having something like that. You know what I mean?

Like a, that it, it scratches that itch and I can't think of it other places that really scratch that itch. So like that. Besides, Dunkin Donuts. Yeah. Absolutely. What, like a cool lot of? Like a cool lot or something like that.

Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Ducachino. Or Ducachino. Sometimes, I mean, and sometimes you can get, this is, I think that the ice wanted is a very, it tastes very good for, for, for what it is. And sometimes you can get some, there are some whack versions of the, of the, of the Dunkin

Donuts. Like some of those aren't great, but if you get the right one over there, you can, you can, you can have a version that's close to this. Right. Hannah, talk us through your beverages today. Okay. Apparently I got a thing that's very stupid, according to. No, I just never heard any, I've never heard anyone order that before.

I'd never heard anyone order that before in my life. Well, I got a white chocolate ice blinted with no whip because I don't really like with cream. Hmm. I like cool whip, but I don't love whip cream. Hmm. So it wasn't like a calorie thing because you're already drinking a shake. It's like, yeah, just go for it.

But I just, I just like truly don't, don't love whip cream. Hashtag whip it good or hashtag whip it bad. Nick, you just nodded. I approve. Yeah. But where do you fall, Nick? Oh man, a whip it good. Whip it good.

Whip it good for me too. Okay. I like, I used to like, we were a cool whip family. Growing up. So that would be hashtag cool whip it good. Cool whip it bad. But I'm saying like, as I grew up, yeah, cool whip it good, cool whip it bad. But as I grew up, I became more of a traditional whip man.

And I went out on my own and that was the one that is like, I, I enjoyed the dairy delight a little bit more. I told you that I would do actual whippets from whip cream bottles. Yeah. But I also at the same time enjoyed whip cream. So it was a win-win. So it was a win-win. It was.

It really was. Man, if you could get high off of inhaling a bag of Doritos, you'd be in Hog Heaven. Be in trouble. You'd be in rehab. I'd be. So how'd that white chocolate drink treat you? So this is, I mean, like Mitch said, it's hot day. It's a fun little treat.

I don't remember the last time I've had one of these. You don't let, I mean, I don't, I have to police myself a little bit or parent myself. I don't, I don't just let myself get a nice blended every day. I would totally drink one. But I make myself go to these other places or I brew something at home. I don't make myself go. That's bad. But I'll go to a blue bottle and go to go get them.

And I would get laughed at if I, if I asked for a blended thing. But I try, I drink like lattes without sweetener normally. I try to do that. I've just started doing that. I used to drink just strictly like white chocolate ice blend. It's when I first moved here, like sugary stuff to the max or an iced white chocolate latte. That was my thing.

And they put chocolate on the side of the cup. Oh yeah. Which is too much. Which is too much. They did, they did with this one too. And they did with this one too. It kind of melted into it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's okay in the ice blend when it's insane in the iced one. Because you're like, if you're drinking the ice when you can kind of trick yourself into thinking like, it's just a coffee or whatever. But with the chocolate in there, you're like, no, no, no, no, no, no, this is a full blown dessert. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, I like it as a treat. It's good.

Hits a spot when it's, when it's hot outside. 100%. You need it. Yeah. And I am a big fan of the tea. Like, well, I'm working on love a little bit right now. Hey, they keep on, they keep on matching us up. Yeah.

Yeah. Filty sexy teens and then love. Where you play a normal person most of the time and I play a blubbering fool. No, I always play like monsters and just like mean jerks. Which is very opposite of what you are. Oh, thank you. Man, I play like this foolish guy who's like lazy. Yeah.

No. Randy is like the opposite of what I am. But we shoot at Paramount and there's a coffee bean on the lot. And I've been getting tea there while we're shooting just because during the day, I don't want to drink coffee and like get a big, big caffeine boost. I have a bit of a sugar rush going right now, actually. Yeah. From the, yep.

You get those sweet drinks with a bunch of caffeine, you can just get real jittery. All right, let's get to our final thoughts. So Hannah, here's how this works. We'll each sort of give our closing argument, if you will, on our lifetime of experiences at this particular chain and then give us a rating on the order of one to five forks. We'll start with you. Oh, start with me. So much pressure.

Okay. I mean, overall, I just sum it up. I mean, it's not the best coffee in LA for sure. You bottle or go get my or my picks for like, what's a good coffee, quote unquote. But if I'm at the airport, I'm choosing coffee bean over Starbucks any day, if that's a choice. And when it's hot as hell outside, Hail Satan, I'm getting nice blended. This has turned to where I legitimately think maybe you do worship the devil. Oh, no, no.

Did it slip out again? God, it keeps happening. Yeah. But yeah, so I guess I'll give it, oof, I don't know, I'm bad at rating stuff. Four forks. Wow. That's good. That's great.

Are we supposed to do spoons in this? Sure. We can do spoons. Sure. Okay. All right. So four spoons. One to one conversion ratio forks to spoons because they're utensils.

Go ahead, Mitch. You know, when I first moved here, in my head, my impression was that Dung and Donuts rules the land. Starbucks sucks. So trying coffee bean and having an ice blended or having a vanilla latte with the, as you call it, chewy ice, the little, the little, little tiny ice cubes, which are great. It was great that you pointed that out because those are great, great ice. That's some great ice.

The ice is nice. Right, Nick? Ice is very nice. I was like, okay, I can enjoy like other coffee places because I wasn't a big coffee drinker to begin with. I've gone to the fancy coffee places. They're good, but if you're going to go to a place that's like, uh, that's, that's, you know, like what's, what is the, what's like a fast food level or, or, or, or mainstream

chain is like something that's going to be readily available wherever you are probably. Yeah. Then I feel like you can't go wrong with coffee bean. I think it's, I think it's a step above, uh, Starbucks and I am going to give it in honor of our guests, 3.666 spoons. Oh boy. Now, is that 3.6 repeating or is that 3.666 exactly? Let's just say 3.6 repeating because the alternate is too scary.

Yeah. All right. Three and two thirds forks for the spoon man, spoons for the spoon man. Um, I didn't know we could do partial so, well, oh well, do you want to change your score? I won't take now. I'm okay. Okay.

I like coffee bean. I think Hannah nailed it with her evaluation pointing out that it, as far as comparing it to Starbucks and Mitch, Mitch touched on this as well, it's just a better Starbucks and that's the only fair place to compare it to because it's just, yeah, you compare it to some Indian coffee houses that can charge you, you know, $6 for a pour over or a cold brew. That's just a completely different thing. That's like comparing, that's like comparing a Denny's to, you know, a fine dining restaurant.

It's just, it's a different thing. It's apples and oranges. Not quite apples and oranges. It's apples. It's Fuji apples and Gala apples. They're like two different things that they're just a little bit apart from each other. It's the apple comparison is confusing too because they're both, I think they are apples and oranges.

I'll go back. It is apples and oranges because they're both fruit, but they're a little different. Anyway, here's what I was going to say. I like it better than Starbucks and I gave Starbucks four forks, I believe. Whoa. It's pretty high because, and part of the reason I rated Starbucks so high is because I feel like it's changed kind of the culture. It's had such an impact in terms of like, oh, it's a place they can hang out that's not

a bar. It's a place they can just like- These are some fucking bizarre metrics you put on this. It's a place they can hang out that's not a bar. It's a place like, oh, if I have to use the bathroom, I know I can go to a Starbucks, whereas previously you had to like walk through the back of a grocery store or something, you know what I mean? Like things were different.

Or, you know, just go at home. But I'm just saying like that's not always an option. Because you're out and about on the town and you need to rest up. So they're kind of this de facto- Hashtag, where do you rest up? They're kind of this de facto like public restroom chain, right? They're kind of like public rest areas, a privatized version of it. Disgusting.

But I mean, so that's part of Starbucks' cultural impact. I like coffee beans stuff better and I feel like either have to downgrade Starbucks or upgrade coffee bean to make them sync up. And I think to be honest with myself in terms of evaluating this stuff and evaluating these chains in terms of how I really feel, I'm bumping Starbucks canonically down to three forks. Wow. And I'm going to slot in coffee bean, which like me is a Southern California original.

Oh my God. People couldn't see how he put his hands up. He put his hands up. What is even that pose? It's like that emoji that's like, I don't know. I don't know emoji. I was trying to sell like, can you blame me? That's what I was trying to do.

But I just didn't come across like that. Oh, maybe that emoji means can you blame me. That's what I always thought. For that reason, I'm bumping Starbucks down to three spoons and I'm giving coffee bean and tea leaf four spoons. Wow. So it's near, it's Golden Plate Club adjacent. I fucked up.

You didn't fuck up. You said what was in your heart, which was six, six, six, the number of the beast. That was Starbucks. That was a boy. I almost just said that was Starbucks. So what a faux pas. You did. Dustin, we'll edit that out.

Oh boy. I think it's fine. It was coffee bean and tea leaf. It's time for a regular segment. We've got a food stuff. We're going to decide if it's worth putting in your mouth. It's snack or whack. Now, Hannah, I don't know if you have any food allergies or not.

Do you have any food allergies? No. Okay. Great. So this will work out great. Yeah. Natalie, pick these up. We would have made you eat it.

He would be willing to die for this shitty podcast. I was wondering why there was a doctor here. Right. He's standing quietly. Mitch just has them on standby. So you're saying for my life? Right. Sick fuck.

So we've got these for assisted suicide. Just say the word, man. So we've got these Hershey's cookies. So there's a few different varieties of these, and I'll pass these around. This first one is caramel. What does it say? Hershey's layer crunch cookies. Okay.

And I don't know. This is Hershey's first foray into baked goods. We've also got a vanilla cream version. I'll pass this bad boy around. They come in like little bags like almost like Hershey bars. Oh, they're individually sealed as well. That's a little strange. Okay.

And then we've also got the... Kind of a waste of... It is. This packaging is very wasteful. That'll factor into my evaluation. Oh, wow. There's also these mint ones over here. It looks like a Hershey's bar.

Wait, so they don't even look like cookies. They don't really look like cookies. Hey, Nick, will you throw me one of the... No, not that one, but the other one. All right. The vanilla cream. Here you go. Vanilla cream.

Great. I did a bad job. You threw it at the top of my head. Here's the thing. I tried to throw it with my left hand. I'm right handed. Here I go. I'm gonna throw it.

You love basketball? Hit me. I'm not a southpaw. I'm not Kobe. I'm not ambidextrous. Okay. With my right hand, I'll nail this one. Jesus Christ.

That was a connection. Pretty hard throw. Okay. It was a little bit of a hard throw. Look, so I got the... What the wait? Which one? I got the mint in front of me.

Talk me through what you guys are chomping into. I'm about to chomp into the caramel. I just took a bite of the caramel. It has kind of the texture of a... Not quite, but kind of the texture of a crunch bar. It's got a little bit of ricey sort of texture to it. I think they're trying to take over the crunch bar. That's what it seemed like.

The cookie part is too... Why is that in there? It's so big. It's not even a really cookie. Right, I totally agree. Eating these, these are not cookies. They're not cookies. Look how big the font is for cookie.

Cookie is like in 72 point font. And layer crunch is like in 24. But Nick, hold on. That doesn't mean they are bad. We have to judge these as they are. Well, the name is bad. The name is bad. The name is bad.

Very deceptive. Wasteful packaging. I don't like that they're trying to trick us. Deceptive name. Right. Okay. I'm having the vanilla cream one right now. The mint one is the most like a cookie.

Okay. It's kind of like a thin mint. I don't love the creaminess of the vanilla cream one. It's a lot of pudding. I'm only eating half of these and throwing the rest away. Yeah, that's what I'm doing. I need a bite too. I'm just having a bite.

Well, this packaging is wasteful and we're being wasteful. We're going to share each of these. Oh. Whatever. Yeah, there's three pieces on each one. Whatever. Well, we didn't know at the time. That's what they were going to be.

That's true. That's true. All right. I'm having this caramel one now too as well. Yeah. Now I'm going to go digging into my final one, the vanilla cream. A lot of caramel. Pretty gooey.

Pretty chewy gooey. So soft and chewy. I don't know. I think I agree with you, Mitch. The mint is the closest to a cookie. And in terms of these other ones, I feel like you're just subverting my expectations of what this thing was going to be. Yeah.

What do you think, Hannah? Yeah, I agree. I think. Well, I just made a gross mouth noise by the mic. Sorry, everyone. That's all right. Go ahead. Or those who love it.

Congratulations to those who like it. Yeah, I don't like, I don't want a crunchy piece of a short red cookie in my candy bar. And this is essentially a candy bar. It's a candy bar first in a cookie tenth. I don't know. I agree with that. Maybe tenth on the list of what this is, is a cookie. What are they doing with these?

What is their thought process? These are off. These are off. Something went wrong. It's so weird. Even if they put just kind of like a cookie texture on top, it would have been okay. Or shape of or anything. I think that they were like, the Hershey's bars are classic.

They're world renowned. There's a museum. There's a museum. I've been to that museum. I rode that Hershey ride. My parents went to that museum. They said it was kind of whack. Is it all right?

As a child, I liked it. We also went to Amish country. So overall, I guess that's probably a shitty trip. We can insult Amish people because they don't listen, right? Right. Fuck the Amish. Nick, do you have anything to say about the Amish? Yeah, you guys are right.

Everyone knows you're right. That's why they make fun of you. Because they're afraid to abandon our sinful ways and join you and guarantee entry into the kingdom of heaven. There might be some Amish people. Do you think if there's any Amish people who on their rump springa listen to, they say, I can't wait to listen to Doe Boys on my rump springa. That's like, if you and I were Amish, that's what we'd do. We'd like play Mario Kart and listen to Indie comedy podcast.

This is living. And then they wouldn't let us back into the Amish village because we're too late. You guys weren't bad enough. I between the, I mean, it's funny to try to rank these. Yeah. Because they're all kind of close. I actually thought at one point maybe vanilla cream was even my favorite. Me too.

But yeah, maybe vanilla cream, the caramel and then mint, even though mint is maybe the best version of what this thing is supposed to be. They were trying to do. Yeah, what they're trying to do. Man, I got to go whack. Yeah. The only thing I'd do is I'd flip vanilla cream and mint. I'd put mint number one in my rankings, but I pretty much agree with you. These are pretty whack.

What do you think, Anna? I think pretty whack. Boy, what a disappointment. So deceptive. I know. They looked kind of good. That art kind of looks like a cookie. Like the picture of it is like, oh, that's a weird looking cookie.

Yeah. It looks like it's going to be round. I do have to say the green in the. Ew. It looks like mutagen. Yeah, it does. It's very, it's got a mutagen level of green coming out of the cookie. Keep your turtles away from that.

Is it that green in real life? No. Wait, keep your turtles away from it because you don't want them to turn into ninja turtles? Yeah. If you keep a turtle as a pet, you don't want it to turn into a ninja turtle. Why? That seems like the coolest thing that could happen. But then what do you do?

Are you respond? Are you its legal guardian? I guess if you don't want like a kid. Right. Because wait, are they babies first? No, they're like teenagers. Wait, do they immediately become teenagers? That is kind of, I forget.

I haven't watched the Ninja Turtles. It used to be one of my favorite shows as a child. I had all the Ninja Turtles figures. Right. But were they children? I don't know the lore. I think they were kids and I think Shredder raised them. No.

Shredder raised them? The evil Shredder? Splinter, I'm sorry. Splinter. But Splinter was also a rat. Yeah. So that's confusing too because Splinter, I know in the movie that it shows like a young Splinter as a rat in a cage.

He had like a Ninja Master owner. Yes. So he learned the ways of Ninjutsu from his owner. From his owner. As a domesticated rat. Yeah. And then when he was affected by the Butagen, he imparted that knowledge onto the Turtles. But it's kind of weird because like he, yeah, I guess the Turtles were babies and he was

like a middle-aged rat, I guess. I guess so, yeah. Is what it was. He was a dad rat. It was a grandpa rat. Yes. He was an older rat and then became like a rat man. But I feel like, yeah, I guess you wouldn't want a little child, a little turtle baby

child, right? So it doesn't matter how old your turtle is. That's true. Yeah, if you got a teenage turtle, maybe you do want it to go near the cookies. Yeah. What if you got like an old turtle and turns into an old man to deal with this old fuck? Just like a restaurant. We buy your feedback.

Let's open up the feedback. Today's email comes from Harry Nelson. Harry writes, as a Midwester who moved to New York, I was excited to explore the increased pizza presence of the East Coast. Imagine my surprise when I visited a local pizza establishment only to be mocked for asking for a cheese pizza. It turns out that the common term here is plain pizza because the cheese is implied. I was dismayed at this information not only because of everyone's insistence that it was

wrong despite several successful cheese pizza ordering years, but also because I feel cheese pizzas like vanilla milkshakes aren't plain but their own unique flavor. What do the Doughboys think of this term and have there been any other food colloquialisms that have thrown you for a loop? Hannah, you're from Georgia. Were they saying plain slice, cheese slice? What would they call a cheese pizza down there? I think we would call it a cheese pizza.

Okay. I think that would be plain. That feels weird, right? Yeah, definitely. I've heard it on stuff about mob movies and stuff set in New York City. I've definitely heard the plain slice thing. Mitch, is that a bowtown thing? You guys say plain slice up there, cheese slice?

Yeah, we say plain or cheese pizza. My question is when he went to New York City and was walking around, was everybody's talking and playing as he was walking around? His name is Harry Nielsen, right? Harry Nielsen. Oh. But yeah, that's adjacent to Harry Nielsen. That's fine.

I spent all this time looking up to make sure I was right. So that's why you were staring at your phone. Yeah. Not listening to this guy's email, just trying to nail a reference. You loved the nail references all the time. No, it was great. It was a lot of fun. It was a lot of fun?

You did it. I'm glad you did it. It was fun that you did that. What's his question? Do they call it a plain pizza or a cheese pizza where you're from? And then also, are there any food colloquialisms that you've heard either in your hometown or somewhere else that have thrown you for a loop? I feel like the plain and cheese thing has always kind of been a battle since the beginning

of time. Right. Because we would sometimes we'll say plain cheese pizza or a cheese pizza. Like cheese pizzas is what you get to say now. But you know what? I think it's gone. I think it's changed. I think early on you could say plain pizza like way back in the day and people would

just know that's a cheese pizza. And then now you get to say cheese pizza. Does that seem right to you? I think it just I think it really depends on where you come because I weren't where you're from. Because I think that the I think if you say plain slice in New York, I think that's just still what people say. I could be wrong.

Yeah. Right. So but but yeah, I think cheese pizza is the most clear. Slice of cheese. I think that's the most universal. I think that's understood anywhere. You wouldn't say slice of plain. Right.

Slice of plain is very strange to say. Yes. Give me a slice of plain. Yeah. Plain slice sounds OK. But slice of plain sounds. Why is why is Harry Nielsen upset about this? Harry Nelson.

He's not upset. He said he was just thrown for a loop. He just wasn't used to it. He's he's a midwesterner. He's from the heartland. Yeah. He gets to the big city. They got a different kind of salsa there.

And then also. Oh, wow. Now you get your references in. But also but also that people are saying plain slice instead of cheese slice. He's not used to it. I think that's a that's a common experience. Right. You're not from one of the big cities.

And you get. Yeah. You know what, Harry? I don't think you can fucking hack it in the big city. Move back home. Get back home. Get back home. Give up on your dreams, Harry.

I mean, in Georgia, everything is coke. Like any kind of drink is I'll have now that bothers me. Yeah. That is insane. It's insane. That is very truly insane. It's got to drive the coke people crazy. And they're based in Atlanta.

No, that's why I think that's why the thing is because it's like there's a word for it. And I can't remember now, but there's a term that marketers use that if you're Kleenex, like we call Kleenex any kind of tissue a Kleenex, but that's a brand or like lip balm chapstick. Mm hmm. It's that kind of same thing. When you do an internet search, you Google something. Yeah.

Yeah. Brand has been adopted as like the work. The thing. Yeah. With coke. I think that's OK for like, like if you want some sort of like cola based drink, I think that's OK. Except, you know, I obviously like Coca Cola better than Pepsi or whatever, but I especially

just think of like my grandma or somebody who's like, I'll have a Coke, but they just want like a cola. Right. Yeah. But like, if you want like a sprite and you're like, I'll take a Coke, then that's that's insane. It doesn't make any sense. Yeah.

But what is what is Harry's issue though, like that he like ordered a plane? He read he said he just said that he was thrown for a loop by it. It's it's not a big issue. He's not like he's not throwing a fit. He just said that he was a little confused. He's he's not alone. Yeah. He wants it.

I was disoriented when I experienced this. I want to see if that was just me or if that's universal and it's apparently pretty universal. Yeah. It is universal. And I think that it is just you go with cheese. Yeah. You got to go just with cheese to make it clear, I guess.

And also Harry can't hack it in the big city. He definitely can't hack it in the big city. Go home, Nelson. If you have a question or comment about the world of chain restaurants, you can email us at doughboyspodcast at gmail.com to get the doughboys double our weekly bonus episode. Subscribe at patreon.com slash doughboys. Hannah Kosolka, thank you so much for joining us. Thanks for having me.

What a treat. What a delight. Do you have anything that you would like to plug and don't plug the goddamn devil? Well, he makes me. I don't have a choice. No, I don't know. I don't know. That's a fine answer.

You can watch the exercises. Yeah, sure. Watch the exercises if you want. We got a season two so you can catch up. There you go. Hell yeah. Yeah. I don't know.

Congrats on that. Thanks. And check out coffee bean. And check out. Yeah. Check out the white chocolate ice blended. I don't know. Yes.

Yeah, it looks good. Nick, you got anything you want to plug? Yeah. Check out coffee bean. What about like moon citizens for what was the game that you loved? Moon citizens. I don't know what it was called. Wizardry 7.

Wizardry 7. Check out Wizardry 7. Hold on a second. Wizardry 7. Moon citizens. It's Wizardry 7. Get it right, dipshit. That'll do it for this episode of Doe Boys.

Until next time, for the Spoonman, Mike Mitchell, I'm Nick Weiger. Happy eating. See ya.