Doughboys - Togo's with Matty Smith

Episode Date: February 5, 2016

The 'boys are joined by Funny or Die and Upright Citizens Brigade veteran Matty Smith, to discuss a franchise that left a mark on him in a big way: west coast sandwich chain Togo's. Plus, a big game edition of Flavor of the Week.Want more Doughboys? Check out our Patreon!: https://patreon.com/doughboysSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Quick, what's the 10th largest city in the United States? Did you guess San Jose, California? It's true. This so-called capital of Silicon Valley is an economic engine of the Sunshine State and one of the most prosperous metropolises in America. But back before the microchip launched a new type of gold rush in this former Spanish colony town, a student at San Jose State University opened a sandwich shop just off campus, with a tiny dining room that only seated four, the eatery focused on takeout, its sign boasting

�Sanwiches To Go�, the latter half of that phrase morphing into the restaurant�s unique name. A second location spawned in 1974 and the chain grew within California during the 70s and 80s, culminating in a purchase by Dunkin Donuts in 1997, which expanded operations across the American West. In 1978, the company became the first to institute a mystery shopper program, where an undercover operative would pose as a civilian to sample the restaurant�s wares. Each innovation helped the chain boast 350 franchises at its peak, though that number

contracted to 250 in the aftermath of the 2008 economic crisis. Now, under the corporate ownership of private equity firm Main Sale Partners, this West Coast sandwich shop continues to offer its menu of soups, salads, sammies, and wraps. This week on Doughboys, Togo�s. Welcome to Doughboys, the podcast about chain restaurants, I�m Nick Weigher alongside the Spoon Man. Mike Mitchell, how you doing Spoon Man? Pretty long intro for a chain that I don�t know if it deserves it, to be honest with

you, but. It�s about the same length as our normal � I mean, you could time it out if you wanted to, but I think it�s about the same length as a normal episode. Yeah, I guess it bored me more. Also, isn�t Florida the sunshine state? Wait, is it? I don�t know. I think it is, right?

What�s California? Golden State? Oh, it�s the Golden State. I fucked up. Wow, what a fucking dumbass. Well, I�m a Californian too, I should know that. Well, anyways. We�ll fix that later.

Oh, he�s going to edit this somehow. I just wanted to say a little something to Spoon Nation, all the Spoonheads, Spooniac, Spoonsters out there. That�s wonderful, Mitch. And actually, I too would like to take this opportunity to wish all of a burger brigade out there, all the burger boys and girls out there across the United States and across the world. I just wanted to say, oh, I hate you.

You know, Nick, you did this last week and I was pretty upset by it, so I took some steps to stop you, actually. Oh, really? I made some calls the day after we recorded, and well, I�ll just play this for you. Where is this going? Hold on. All right. Hey, Mitch.

It�s Lev Ginsburg here. Yeah, so I just got out of a meeting and received kind of a weird message from my assistant just now. I guess you called my assistant and asked him to ask me if I could file a restraining order against Nick Weiger, because you don�t like that Nick started doing audio drops at the top of your podcast, and I�m waiting for him to note here. Look, man, you know I love both you and Nick, but I have no idea what you guys are up to with this.

I�m an entertainment lawyer, so I obviously don�t get involved with restraining orders, but if you guys need me for something, just give me a link at the office and I�ll just figure it out. I hope you�re well. Well, Mitch, sounds like that plan is going off without a hitch. You know, Lev is a great lawyer. He�s my lawyer. He�s my real-life lawyer.

I love the guy. I love him a lot more than Nick Weiger, and, you know, Lev couldn�t really help me out on this one, but, you know, I was looking into it and I was thinking, should I get a cease and desist on Weiger for this, and then I thought, you know what, everyone should be able to do their own Spoon Man drops, so I decided to come up with this thing. It�s called Spoon Nation Global, and if you want to do your own drops at the beginning of an episode, that�s fine, and all the pros, you just have to pay a small fee for every drop you play.

It goes to Spoon Man himself, and, you know, I�ll put it towards merchandise, but if you play a drop, it�s about 25 cents per drop. I�m still working out the math. All right, so if someone else plays an audio drop, the rights to which you do not own, that then you�re going to be compensated, and what are you saying at the top of an episode? So you�re saying if they�re taking a podcast that we�ve recorded and then, like, remastering it on their own, is that what you�re suggesting? This podcast, or any podcast, if you�re going to do drops, you can do drops.

It�s not a big deal, but you just have to pay Spoon Nation Global, and then you can do your own drops. Everybody wants to do a Spoon Man drop, and now you have the opportunity to do it. I mean, this plan sounds foolproof. I�m sure in a few days you�re not going to be doing a tearful YouTube apology video, and retracting this completely. So yeah, I wish you best of luck with that. Your piece of shit, and you should� You don�t own the concept of drops.

It�s been a part of radio for years before podcasts were even a thing. Before podcasts were even a dream inside that big brain of that man we call Steve Jobs. Because that�s his legal name. We leave him out of this. All right. Let�s introduce our guest. He�s a writer and director from Funnier Die and the Upright Citizens Brigade, and a good friend of ours, Maddie Smith is here.

Hi, Maddie. Hey, guys. Welcome to the show. Thanks. What�s up, Maddie? Well, as I mentioned, I wrongly called California the Sunshine State, which is the golden state, right? Is that correct?

And then Florida is the Sunshine State. You're from a state that has some sunshine of its own, Arizona. Yes. The Grand Canyon State. The Grand Canyon, that makes sense. Just its biggest tourist attraction. That�s what we got. It�s called the Grand Canyon State.

It�s called the Grand Canyon State. That�s the thing we have. Yeah. That�s kind of a foreign name. Yeah. I mean, it is good. I have seen it. It is a nice big thing.

What�s the commonwealth of Massachusetts? What�s your motto or whatever it is? We�re the Spoon State. You're not the Alabama of the North? Well, you know what? Off in that Alabama of the North, we learned that Florida is the Sunshine State. You got me on geography. You got me dead rights there.

That�s right. I�m the smarter of the two Joe boys, guys. So talking Arizona, I�ve been out there. My parents used to live in Tucson. Where are you from precisely? Central Phoenix. Central Phoenix. Okay.

So what is that? Is that the biggest city in Arizona? Yeah. Oh, yeah. It�s, I think, now it�s about to pass Philadelphia, I think, for the fifth biggest city in the country. Wow. How about that?

It�s big. It�s just a, it�s sprawl. It�s a huge, it�s kind of like LA, but with less to do in that it�s like there�s a little downtown area and then just a spread out community is going in every direction and they just kind of keep on going and it�s just this big, massive space. And just hot as shit, right? Oh, very hot. It�s just so hot.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. They close the airport sometimes when it�s too hot. We�ve had, we had heat days in high school sometimes when the AC would break down in like August and we�d have to go home because it was too hot. Wow. Oh, yeah. Jesus. No one should be going to school in August anyways.

No, we shouldn�t. No. So did you get out much earlier? Is that kind of how they do it? Do you, do you get out like in, oh, you probably get out in like May-ish, right? Because we, we had to have snow days and then we get stuck at like, I remember like you, sometimes if you had too many snow days you go to like at the end of June. Yeah, they�d add a couple of days.

I forget, I don�t know exactly when, that was a while ago, I don�t know, I think it was like August to June or August to May or so, it�s like that. Heat days are so September. Yeah, we were, I kept moving, they kept on moving it, I forget. I just, you know, I just realized, bitch, you called a lawyer and recorded a call and then played back his voicemail without permission. I still don�t think so. Maybe that wasn�t the best idea.

Yeah, it was like kind of a slow burn as I was realizing that, but I think, I think California is a two-party consent state when it comes to using voice recording of a phone call. Uh, love will be fine. Okay. Oh, don�t worry, he�s making bank off Doughboy�s pot. So let�s, so it�s, it�s a desert state, super hot, is it a big ice cream state, is it a bit, are there a lot of, of frozen treats out there?

I don�t, I wouldn�t say a lot of frozen treats. Um, I do remember when Marble Slab came, do you guys know Marble Slab? As long as I�ve done it, it�s, it�s like Cold Stone. Oh, yes. Okay. I always felt like the ice cream was a little better, but I remember it was like a holiday when that came. It was like a big deal, like when a, when Krispy Kreme, when Krispy Kreme�s were coming

around. Yeah. It would be like a newspaper story that there was a new Krispy Kreme and they finally came. We had that with Marble Slab, um, and that sounds good, but I think just, Arizona is just a, it�s a real chain state. There�s a lot of chains of everything, I think movie theaters are like the main thing you do. There�s golf courses too, golf courses and movie theaters are like the two recreational

activities you do. Um, so I guess you go to the movie theaters a lot. The thing with ice cream is, ice cream is kind of more of a, I always read that it�s more of a cold weather food. I forget too, yeah. Like during the winter, people buy the most ice cream and then like the northeast is where like ice cream is most popular. Which is counterintuitive to me.

Yeah. Well, Weigar, I know we call him the burger boy, this guy loves his ice cream. I think we�ve talked about it a bit on the, on the podcast. Oh, I�m a real ice cream fanatic. How many, how many times a week do you hit ice cream with ice cream spots? Nellie and I, we will go, we go to, we have like a weekly ice cream date. So we�ll go at least once a week and sometimes we�ll hit it more than once. But I try to limit myself to one or two scoops a week.

But I�m a, I�m a big ice cream fanatic and you know, growing up, I mentioned last episode of the Krispy Kreme with Matt Besser, that I would have a bowl of ice cream like every night as a kid, like I had so much ice cream. Now my ice cream consumption is at a reasonable level where it will be a sweet treat I�ll have once or twice a week. But man, I, I do love ice cream. That is my favorite dessert. Wow.

That�s why you immediately asked if Arizona was an ice cream or something. Sorry to disappoint. Well, I don�t know. I feel like Arizona for Wager. Arizona is more known for Spade, David Spade. Oh, that�s right. Famous Arizona. Yeah.

You see him around? Not lately though. You never see him around in old Arizona? No, no. I think no. I�ve seen Alice Cooper. Oh, really? And I did, I did theater with her, he�s a daughter, Calico Cooper.

Oh, was she a freak too? No, she was very normal but also very adamant about her dad being a very normal guy. Sure. Like it was, it would be like we do like the, it was like the summer thespian side of camp or whatever and we go and we�d be like, oh, say something about yourself and I remember she like sort of was like, I�m Calico Cooper and no, my dad�s not like that weird. Oh, which makes her a weird guy. Why didn�t Alice do that?

Did Alice Cooper have a reality show like a meet the coopers or something like that? Yeah, they did. I think so. Okay. I think you had like a VH1 show that followed him or something. That feels very natural, like that would be a logical thing to do. The early aughts. When aging rockers all had their own like deep cable reality shows.

He does have a Cooper�s town, it�s like a sports bar in Arizona where they have the big unit hot dog, which I actually recommend if you�re ever in Phoenix and there�s not like a ton of places to eat in Phoenix. I guess there�s more now. I think you�ve listened to the podcast before, so you may be familiar with by far our most popular event, which was a Rocktoberfest, where we went to rock themed restaurants. Would you say for Rocktoberfest 2016 it would be worth us to take a trip to Cooper�s town? I�d say it�s worth it.

All right. Well, there�s also big sports. No. I think it should. You probably should. There�s no fucking way. Rocktoberfest this year is, I�m going to have an ice cold barrel in my mouth. Just waiting if I had the fucking balls to do it.

Rocktoberfest 2016 is pre-canceled, it�s not going to happen. What a waste. What a waste this podcast is, especially that month was a particular waste. So Betty, so you mentioned Very Chain Heavy, you mentioned Marvel Slab, but in terms of dining, what were the big chains you were into growing up? The big chains. Well, the one thing we have a lot of in Phoenix, I don�t think they really have an LA, they had a lot of these restaurants that ended in the name Bertos, and I don�t know if

they�re all related, but basically they all have cursive handwriting would be the name, and they�d be called things like Rollbertoes, Filibertoes, Allbertoes, Abalbertoes, there�s definitely some Albertos here, but I don�t know if they�re related. I don�t know, but they�re like these all, and I never found out if they were actually related to one another or if this was just kind of a weird trend, but there were a bunch of these restaurants, they all had the exact same sign with the same type of cursive, just a different name, and so those were kind of in my area, there�re a lot of those, but otherwise we had Baja Fresh was a big one, like near my high school that we go to a lot,

Taco Bell, Sonic was nearby, but really Phoenix just has, other than White Castle and the East Coasty places, it had basically all the places that Texas has, we even had a Taco Cabana. Okay. Well, you have a claim in Arizona that it has one of the country�s best pizzas. Yes, Bianco. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, here�s the thing, it�s kind of notable because I think a few years back the New York Times did a thing on the best pizzas in the country, and they picked Pianco as number one, and then everyone was really upset, the New York Times did a non-New York place. There�s a place in Connecticut that always gets� Yeah, New Haven. Yeah, that always gets the other number one, but it�s always like the white clam pizza, which you know� We mentioned that before, I think they call it a pizza, there�s like an A in front

of it. Yeah. And it�s weird, it�s like a white clam, which I think we, I don�t remember which episode we discussed it on, but for me it just like, it subverts the expectations of pizza so much, the idea of like a white clam pizza that I can�t see that putting that, like the best pizza, you know what I mean? It�s like if you had a hamburger that was made with like lamb meat, and you know, had some cucumber sauce on it, and like, you know what I mean, like once you change things up

so much. It doesn�t represent a pizza. Exactly, that may be very good, but that�s not like the best of the bunch. And I�ve said this before, to me, when I am judging a pizza, it�s a cheese pizza. That�s how I like to judge my, like I like a slice of cheese pizza, and I�ll tell you Pizza Rio Regina in Boston has one of the best slices of cheese pizza you can have, the original in the North End. But go on, tell us about this.

Because I�ll try to be brief about Bianco. Basically it was this very popular place, it�s still around. Don�t be brief, you can talk for an hour on this dump show. I could come to something interesting at some point. But basically it�s the sort of place that for a while when it was especially popular, you�d wait for three hours or so to get a table, they even had to have like a bar next door to go while you like wait, and there�s like a long line at like 3pm for when it opened at 5pm or whatever, and it was this guy, Chris Bianco, who still is like a few

places around Phoenix, and again, Pizza Rio Bianco, I�m talking about like it�s closed. And he�s just this New Yorker guy who came to Phoenix and he would, I think, grow all the ingredients, you know, like so that everything would be fresh and everything would be really good, and there�s like a wood fire oven that was in the restaurant, a very small space and a lot of tables, and the corner is like the wood fire oven, and it�s like this kind of New Yorker guy who talks to you, and then like they say that he would like remember people�s orders, like someone would go and then two years later would come back and he�d like remember the weird special requests they had on their dish and stuff like that.

And the pizza was as good as it was, it�s one of the few times in my life when I�ve like eaten a food and been like, �Oh, this is the best version of this food I�ve ever had in my life.� And so I do think that it was like a godfather pizza was it was called, and it was like salami and fennel and stuff. But I guess the story is that his doctor at some point said basically he was over this wood fire oven every night and breathing in like smoke, like wood smoke from the oven, and the doctor basically said you can�t do that anymore as much as you can�t be there every night. And I think kind of from people to talk to, and this was after I moved away from Phoenix, like it�s kind of went

down in quality after that, especially not having him there, and then he�s also opened up like he opened up like a pani bianco, which is like a sandwich shop, which is really good. And so it kind of went down in quality, and then I went there, I took my wife there actually I think Christmas, yeah. And yeah, Christmas time I think it was, and it just wasn�t the same. It was kind of, and also what was the telling thing was that it was like a Tuesday and we went at like seven o�clock and it was literally empty and we were seated immediately, whereas it used to again have like a line that would wrap around the block. So this guy was just punishing his lungs with like wood smoke, that was the issue? That�s

crazy. It seems similar to, I don�t know, punishing our bodies with fast food and Jane restaurant food, but at least he loves what he�s doing, gets paid a large sum. But Mitch, we are doing a mildly popular podcast for free, or at our own expense, and there�s some fun in that. That�s interesting to me. Is he an older guy? Or is he? No, I mean I think he�s probably 50, I don�t know, he didn�t look old. Yeah, just can�t be inhaling that smoke.

My dad�s friends. Okay. Yeah. Well, that�s too bad. I still want to try that, and we got to, I think we�ve talked about going over there in a� Yeah, going to a football game. Going to a football game, which would be fun. Speaking of which, I mean, Arizona is one of the, it�s one of the Super Bowl homes. Am I correct in saying that? I mean, the Super

Bowl is in Arizona occasionally, isn�t it? Yeah, they�ve had it a couple of times. Yeah, the year the Patriots were playing, were undefeated, and then not undefeated, was a notable one. Yeah, I think it was a great day. Oh, what a great day. Sorry. And then last year, yeah, it was in Arizona. I mean, it�s because it�s in the winter, it�s going to be, it�s not going to be crazy weather or anything. And also, it�s

just a really nice stadium that they built not long ago. So, did you go to a lot of Cardinals games? I did, yeah, growing up I did. It was kind of, it was fun to go. They were a terrible team growing up, but they were also, they would play, I mean, would kind of set it all about the team was that their, the games were at Sun Devil Stadium, which is the Arizona State Stadium. Oh, yeah. So, literally throughout the 90s, they were, it was like a college, like it was a kind

of a, not even a nice college stadium. It was like a crummy college stadium and you go � Spade, right? Spade running around. Spade was always there. Spade was there every day. Yeah, and it would, it would also be like, I don�t remember ever getting food at a, food like a, like at Staples, you go to like, there�s like Ludos and a Camacho�s Grill and a, you know, like an actual cashier. There�s always nice vendors, yeah.

In a section, they would just have like tables out with like cups of Diet Coke and cup, like paper plastic cups. That�s weird. It�s like high school football games. And I don�t know what that was about. And I asked my dad about it, and he, that later on, and he said, I was like, was that a nice section, like where you get free food or was it like, no, that wasn�t like, we were also like really high up and it wasn�t close. So yeah, it was just like, and it would have cups of popcorn and peanuts just in plastic

cups and you just would go up and take it, which was very strange. For Cardinals game? That�s crazy. At Arizona Cardinals. That�s crazy. At a professional football, yeah, game. And I don�t follow the NFL anymore, but was this like the Kurt Warner era? No, this is way before that.

This is like the 90s. Nick is very high and mighty about his non-NFL partner. Kurt Warner. Guys, I don�t watch the NFL because I�m just concerned about CTE as profiled by Will Smith at the movie Cushion. But I will say, now that the Rams are back in LA, I�m back in, baby. I�m going to start watching it again next season. And we�re going to be division rivals. We are division rivals.

There we go. There we go. You guys, so in a hypothetical third place match, each of your favorite teams will be playing opposite the Super Bowl this weekend. We�ve got the Arizona Cardinals are defeated in the NFC Championship, which we watched to know. Did we watch that together? No, no, no.

What game do we watch together? We saw the Green Bay Packers game. We saw the Green Bay Packers game. I don�t want that one. Guys, I don�t follow the NFL. Why the fuck doesn�t the NFL do this, actually? Is that a third place game? They should do a third place game.

They should do a runner-up for the Super Bowl. I think that would be great to see the Cardinals face off against your Patriots and just see who gets that third place trophy. Give it some sort of name. Call it the Bradshaw Cup or something like that. That�s fun. Yeah. Why not? Because professional football players don�t want to do that.

What if there�s some casual rounds? Let�s go play a game that�s not the championship game, but just play it to see who�s like the least worst. It�s good enough for the World Cup. I think it�s good enough for the NFL. It�s kind of like we�re creating like a worst pro bowl in a lot of ways. People already don�t want to play the pro bowl. Okay, so you�re saying if the Cardinals went up against the Patriots, is that your question?

Yeah, yeah. The Cardinals looked really, really good, and then they looked, and then they got beat really good. Yeah, I feel like the way I put it, I put it this way. Carson Palmer, the quarterback for the Cardinals, just seems to be terrible in the playoffs. Like he always was when you played for the Bengals, and we were hoping it wouldn�t be the case for them. So in the two playoff games they played, they didn�t look like they weren�t really playing the game that we got used to seeing.

Got you. Well, because that was their thing, was long passes. And so in the regular season I�d probably have taken the Cardinals, just given that they were more balanced on both sides of the ball. They had a good defense and just a really good offense. But if I was going to take Tom Brady, who�s probably the best NFL quarterback of all time� Hell yeah, man, you�re saying all the right things. So that�s probably true. Versus, you know, Dumpy Man, Carson Palmer, who, you know, just really shits the bed, I�d probably take Tom Brady. So if it was a playoff game, I�d

probably take the Patriots, unfortunately. I would probably take the Patriots too, but I think that it would be a really close game. I think it would be like, like, I think the spread would be like two and a half or something. I think it would be really, really close. I think a lot of it would be would the Cardinals� defense get to Tom Brady, if they could like get to him early and hit him hard from that over. They really could, from what I saw in that last game. So who do you got? I got a couple questions about football, going to football games, but who do you got in the big game?

I think the Panthers. I think the Panthers just look way better than anybody right now. Can we really say Super Bowl? Is Feral Audio going to get sued if we say that? Dustin? Yes? I play South Park�s Howdy Ho. Every single episode of Doe Boys, and you�re suddenly afraid of the word Super Bowl? The NFL is very litigious. I can see that being an issue. No, that�s insane. What was the Super Bowl? Wasn�t there an ice cream? I feel like you would be all about

that. Wasn�t there some sort of ice cream-based event that was the Super Bowl? I mean, I remember, I think that was a thing that you convened in the bedroom of your child at home. No, I remember the Bud Bowl. That was a big thing where they had the beers that would play football against each other in a commercial campaign every Super Bowl. Yeah, I was always Bud Light vs. Bud Heavy, right? Yes. I�m thinking the Panthers are going to win. I�m rooting for the Panthers, even though this is Peyton�s last stand or whatever it seems like.

I mean, the Broncos have been winning on defense, and I think, you know, like, I don�t know. I mean, I was shocked when they beat the Patriots. But I just think the Panthers also have a really good defense that�s probably better than their offense. I mean, maybe they also have a really good, you know, Camden�s a great quarterback. So, I feel like they got a win. If I�m going to pick someone, but then also, like, these weirdo Broncos could beat anybody, maybe. Who knows? We�re going to get some good eats, which maybe we�ll talk about a little bit later, and some good commercials, and I think they should bring back the Bud Bowl as well. I like the Bud Bowl, yeah.

I like the Bud Bowl, too. That was a lot of fun. What do you think the bet is between, like, the mayor of Denver, Colorado, and the governor of North Carolina for this Carolina? You know, there�s always that little gimmicky bet in terms of who wins, and they give them some sort of�a lot of times, it�s food-based. I think if the Broncos win, the governor of North Carolina has to, like, kiss a horse�s asshole, and then I�m not sure about what the�I don�t know about the other one. Someone else improvised some other shit. Kiss a panther�s asshole.

Yeah, there we go. Okay. All right. That tracks. Yeah. It was, yeah. It was very dirty this year. Now, I got a question for you. When you go to a game, when you go to a football game, a baseball game, you go to the Lakers a lot. I go to NBA games a fair amount. I went to a Clippers game with Maddy, Maddy has season tickets to the LA Clippers. I�ll accompany him sometimes. He�s kind enough to bring me along. What are you eating at a game? What�s your thing, what�s your go-to thing at a game?

Because I�ve got a couple of things off the top of my head, but when you�re at a game, what is it? I think for one, when you go to a game, when you go to a sports game, you just have to accept the fact that it�s not going to be great. Even the good places, I think, at an arena, you can kind of taste that it�s arena food. I think Nick might have even talked about this with the podcast before. At Staples Center, I think far and away, the best place is Ludo Bird. Oh, Ludo. Ludo, that�s great.

L'Fevre�s� Yeah, he�s like a celebrity chef. He�s a friendship. Yeah, like Tua Mech is his restaurant. He�s been on The Taste. Yeah. So, it�s like a good fried chicken restaurant. He�s like a hunky French dude, yeah, and that is very good, but it is definitely a notch down from what you get at an actual restaurant.

But like most stadiums, then, barring that place being there, most places, I just get a hot dog, because a hot dog is going to be a hot dog wherever you go, and it�s just pretty like reliable. Yeah. I feel like a hot dog is the gold standard, obviously. That�s one of the best ones. I feel like in message, there�s the Fenway Frank, which is great, boiled hot dog. I always love the popcorn at the games. I know they just said that, but it�s very buttery. They just do a good job with it. It�s not like, I wish movie theater popcorn was like the popcorn you got at Lakers game or something. They do a good job with it. It�s very buttery.

Do you know what I�m saying? I think I do, although I�m a nachos kid. I�ll go for the nachos. I would actually say that I actually really like shitty stadium nachos, meaning sometimes you�ll get those nice that they�ve got carne asada on it and some fresh vegetables and guacamole or whatever, but I�m a big fan of that cheese cup, that cappa cheese, or that the cheese sauce just poured over it. Maybe some fresh jalapenos or pickled jalapenos on top and just old tortilla chips. That�s like a very satisfying snack for me. This is shaking his head like he just said the most horrible thing he�s ever done.

Listen, I get the nachos, I get it, but those things are like, when you�re done with those things, they�re the biggest pains in the ass if you ever fucking kick or step on one of those things at games. That cheese cup is a little bomb. Well, you shove it underneath your fucking seat. You don�t use it as a foot bath. Yeah, but I�m telling you, a hot dog is just so much easier. I get to give a shout out to Puppa Genos if you go to a Red Sox game, they have a great little personal pizza. And also, when you go to Patriots games, because it gets cold, D'Angelo�s like you used to, I don�t know if you still can, I think you can, you can get a steak and cheese sub and

those are just great. I love having a steak and cheese sub at a Patriots game. Yeah, I mean like Mattie mentioned Ludo, most of my live sports attendance is at the Staple Center these days, so that�s where I�ll go to. You know, they�ve got some good vendors there, but I think I agree with the overall. I�ll take notches over popcorn any day of the week. I�m actually, I don�t like popcorn very much. I think popcorn is kind of whatever. I know it�s like a part of our culture, but I could take it or leave it. Hmm, that�s fucked up. But I mean, I think hot dogs are a very solid choice, and they just put a new�

What the fuck do you do in movies? Just stare at the ground, angry? No, I get myself a drink. I�ll get myself a fountain soda. What do you do for a snack at the movie? I don�t need a snack. You don�t eat popcorn when you go to the movie? I tell you what, if I get a snack, which is rare, I�ll get like a sweet treat. Like when I saw the butler, I got some peanut butter M&Ms, but even that I was like, I had some of those like, this is excessive. I don�t really need, I don�t need to be munching on

something while I�m watching the movie. I just need a little sip or a little thing to sip on. Wait, do you remember specifically what you got when you saw the butler in the movie? That�s what the fuck, when I saw the butler, I got peanut butter M&Ms. Here�s why, it�s because I rarely get a snack when I see a movie in a theater, and so it like stood out as a memory of like, I think that�s the last time I can remember doing it. Typically, I�ll get, if it�s like an arc light, which is a nice theater chain they have out here in Los Angeles, I think they have some more across California now, you can get yourself an alcoholic beverage, I�ll get myself a brew dog, I�ll bring

that into the theater, that�s wonderful, or a glass of wine sometimes, I want something lighter. Otherwise, I�ll get a soda, and I tell you if I�m feeling a little naughty, I�ll sneak in a little mini bottle and make myself a little rum and coke in my seat if I�m going to see a film like, you know, pixels or something. I think I did that for pixels. Whoa, what a fun guy. People want to be a part of the burger brigade. A man who doesn�t like popcorn, sneaks in booze to watch a children�s movie, and eats peanut M&Ms during the butler. What a life. That�s a fucking, you don�t know how to do the movies, right? You�ve got to get a popcorn with some butter on it. That makes, that�s a part of the movie going experience.

I�ll eat popcorn if it�s there, but whatever, I can take it or leave it. What do you think, Matty? What do you say on a popcorn? It�s good something. I don�t know. I feel like, as I�ve gotten older, I don�t like it as much. I don�t know. I don�t know if it�s just that it�s gotten worse. Well, because I�ve got, I�m sort of dating and then married someone who doesn�t really like popcorn, and so then I stopped getting it, and now, every now and now, I�ll go alone, and I�ll get it, and it doesn�t seem as satisfying. So, I don�t know if I just lost the taste for it, or it just, it�s kind of a salty paper. You know what, Matty? You married well. You married a woman with good taste.

Well, that brings me to the other thing, in a movie theater or at a game, a pretzel is also another nice thing. Oh, great. I do pretzel for snack. All right. You can only agree on that for God�s sake. Yeah, a soft pretzel with a lot of salt, and you know what, if they got some sort of butter, you know what, if they got a cheese dipping sauce, I�ll take that dipping sauce with that pretzel. Sometimes that can be satisfying. See, I think this is a very, I feel like this is a very West Coast, like the Spice,

like having like, like an Auntie Ann�s or whatever, or like a Wetzel, a Wetzel, sorry. Yeah, NTM is the one, though. That�s the right one. Okay. Yeah, there is no Auntie Ann�s, is there Auntie Ann? Or is it? No, I think it�s Auntie Ann. You�re right. Oh, all right. Yeah, I think so. Auntie Ann is from, I�m thinking from Wizard of Oz. Auntie Ann, that�s what it is. That to me feels like, I know that like at Foxboro, they have like a McDonald�s,

now, but I feel like for the most part, you�re getting dogs and sausages and stuff. Yeah, I mean like, we hit up California Pizza Kitchen in the Staples Center once, and that was pretty good. Oh, fun, yeah. You know, I will say, just speaking of pretzels, I get pretzels on the brain, because I just went to a Lakers game versus the Shard at Hornets with our good friend, David Phillips, DP, and we went in there and what we got is a halftime snack. I got myself a sweet pretzel, and let me tell you�

The cinnamon? The cinnamon pretzel, cinnamon whatsel pretzel, sinful cinnamon, yeah. Kind of a let down. You don�t like it. I like that. You see, that�s what I� I need some icing. Give me a Cinnabon or something. Just that sweet pretzel is just like� You are so wrong. Butter, like a buttery cinnamon and sugar thing beats out icing any day of the week. I don�t know. Give me that icing.

No, that�s incorrect. Again, you�re a fucking idiot. You really let me down this podcast. I remember why I want to quit all the time. Okay. Well, we�ve discussed concessions at length. Let�s talk about this week�s chain, Togo�s. Betty, why Togo�s? What is your connection to Togo�s? Well, let�s get� yeah, should I just get into the� my whole story? My tale of Wo�. Oh, boy. We can start that. Yeah, we�ll start from the bottom and then we�ll work our way up. So, basically, the reason why I chose this place was about a year and a half ago. It was October of 2014. I have a bunch of notes on it. Basically, I stopped in for a sandwich.

I got an egg salad sandwich. I�ve been to Togo�s before. I generally liked it. You know, it�s� I like just to get a simple sandwich or whatever. Are they in Arizona or are they just out of Arizona? They are in Arizona. Yeah. Yeah. They used to� I think a bunch of clothes, but they used to have in Arizona. Yeah. So, I grew up� I grew up. We got them when I was like a kid and stuff like that. And we got it a lot. For some reason, I remember with like my mom�s family, like when we had like� I had like 10 cousins that were all the same age. And so, we�d all go get a bunch of Togo�s sandwiches and cut them up. But anyway, so, I got in. I got an egg salad sandwich.

So, I�m sitting at Togo�s eating my egg salad sandwich and I bite into it and it hurts. And it was a weird crunch and something hard in the sandwich. And I initially thought it must have been like a� I don�t know, like a caper or something? I don�t know, something weird hard or like something got grilled in the bread or something like that. And I spit it out. And in the salad, it was a large screw, a metal screw. Like an actual screw? Like a metal, like a big, large metal screw. And I can show you guys the picture and you can tweet it or whatever. But it was just an actual metal screw like that would fasten like some metal, you know, like fall off a fridge or something like that. And it, you know, it didn�t, you know,

it wasn�t like it was very shocking and it was sudden confused. And so, I went and I, you know, I told them about that. I talked to the manager. Was he a robot? No, it was a woman. Fuck off. But basically, yeah, I told him, like, I want to complain, like, I want to complain about this giant screw I found in my sandwich, which wasn�t fun. And I didn�t even know. Give me the screw. I�ll eat the screw. And then, basically, they were like, oh, like, sorry about that. Let us know if you have any like dental bills or anything like that. And I was like, well, I just want to make sure that this is, like, recorded so that, you know, you guys did this and stuff like that. And I thought I did everything right. And so, then I went through the whole process of,

I, like, you know, wrote Togo�s headquarters. And they basically got back and said, like, actually, like, this is, this is a franchise. So, you deal with, like, the insurance company of the individual store location. Sure. And so, meanwhile, then I go to the dentist. And sure enough, my tooth is cracked. A large chunk of the tooth has been taken off. And there�s like a lot of like, fracture on it. Which tooth is this? It�s a molar, a back right. Okay. All right. Yeah. And so, it�s actually cracked. It didn�t, like, hurt a ton, like, because it wasn�t, like, huge amount of damage. But it was damaged. And there was, like, a fracture there that could become worse. So, I�m, like, supposed to watch it. So, then I end up dealing with this, like, insurance company,

like, Dongbu Insurance that does the Studio City Togo�s, right there in Ventura. Which Mitch asked me if I wanted to go to that one. And I was like, no. Like, I don�t, I honestly, like, feel weird about that place. Yeah, sure. And I don�t want to go back. And it gives me a weird feeling. Spoiler alert. I went into the belly of the beach. And so, basically, with this whole process where then they, like, have an insurance guy. And he�s just, like, kind of a slimy, weird guy who, like, when I met him, he told me that he�d be the, he�s, he�s, he was like, oh, we�ll meet in the courtyard. Like, I�ll be the guy who�s wearing a yellow shirt and his six feet, six foot two. I was like, oh, okay, that�s a weird, like, a really weird

guy. And a slug man. And then he just asked you a bunch of questions that are, like, insane that are, you know, are clearly, I think, meant to get you to slip up and say something wrong that, like, loses your, like, loses their liability. Sure. So, it�s something like, okay, how do, and he�s like, okay, do you remember how many, like, tomatoes were on the sandwich? Oh, okay. How do you, how do you, when you chew, how do you chew? Like, how do you, like, mouth out how I chew and stuff like that? Yeah. And for the most part, I was like, I was buying a sandwich and eating a sandwich. I don�t really think about it that much. Yeah. That�s why I�m at Togo�s. That�s like a, an interrogation technique. I actually heard about

this on a podcast that�s almost as relevant as our serial. They were talking about a Beau Bergdahl and how the Gitmo interrogators would be, they�ll just ask you, like, insane questions to just try and throw you off. So, like, you know, how many dogs do you have? Like, what�s your, you know, like, how many chickens do you own? How many eggs, eggs a day do they lay? You know, just like, just like, like, what, what are you talking about? Things that seem completely disconnected from what the issue at hand is. He had a little, he had a little gamesmanship he was doing with you. Yeah, season, season three of Serial is actually my Togo. But, yeah, and so eventually, yeah, he did this whole thing and it was really weird and kind of

creepy strange man. And then, uh, then, like, shortly after I found out that, like, Togo�s was denying responsibility for it. Wow. Even though I, like, went to the manager. And again, that individual franchise, not the corporation. That individual franchise, yeah. And I think, honestly, like, it makes me aware of, like, oh, like, when you do franchising like that, it makes it so you don�t have to worry about it. Yeah, it�s to, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And, like, because I do think if I�d gone to, if this happened, like, I�m McDonald�s or something, I feel like it�d been pretty much easier to take care of. But Togo�s is, like, the right combination of, like, small and franchise and stuff like that where it doesn�t

really matter to them. So basically, like, you know, I tried to, like, fight against it a little bit. And essentially it came to the fact where, like, they were denying reliability for it. I had to do a little bit of dental work, but it wasn�t a ton. I might have to do more. But really where it wound up was I really didn�t want to get into going to a lawyer. Yeah. And, like, it�s just a huge, like, hassle and process and stuff like that. Well, Mitch, do you want to place a call to Lev Ginsberg? See if you want to take this case? I don�t know if you can do that either. It sounds like you couldn�t do anything for me. Um, that�s horrible. Oh, it�s awful.

This is a situation where clearly they were responsible. You were giving a sandwich that had a metal screw in it, and you bit into it on the premises of the restaurant, correct? Yes. All of this, that�s so clearly their liability. Yes. I went straight from the counter to the table back to them, giving the show them the screw. Shameful. Yeah, it�s all, yeah, fuck Togo. Shame on you. By the way. To be fair, when I was there today, they asked if I wanted screws or no screws. And I said no screws. You probably just said yes to the screw. I got that question.

That�s particularly, I feel like anytime it�s like a tooth, the teeth stuff is, it never used to bother me, but now as I get older, teeth stuff really, like, biting down on something and fucking up your tooth is, it�s a really, it is a fear of mine. I had a similar situation when I was at the, in LAX, heading back, I think, I think back to Quincy, and I got a La Brea Bakery sandwich. I think you�ve told the story before, yeah. On the pog. I thought that I had, and I bit into what I think was a stone or something, and I didn�t look at it, and I just threw it in the trash, and it hurt because when you�re eating a sandwich, you don�t expect anything. You�re biting right in, yeah.

Yeah, you�re really going for it, yeah. Mitch in all fairness was the manager of this La Brea Bakery outlet, a rock monster. You know what, see, when you say that, I don�t go, what the fuck? I like rock monster jokes. Rock monsters are fun. I was in there today, this Togo�s I�ve known for what, right where the Ralphs is. This is right near Universal Studios, so one of the happiest places on earth. Yeah, not far from the Minion Mayhem ride. Springfield? Springfield, yeah, the recreation of Springfield, the soon-to-open Harry Potter land.

There�s a lot of great stuff up there. Minions is not one of them, but... Minion Mayhem is a fun ride. Have you been on it? It�s a lot of fun. I, when I wrote it, there was vomit in the compartment that I also sit into, and they made us move. That�s fucked up. That�s gross. So that was my experience. It�s probably better than the current Weigher gets out of. It�s a good ride. It�s a good line experience. They have some fun little holding areas, where they�ll show you little videos, and then you get in the ride, and it�s a lot of fun.

It may be sick. I mean, well, I thought it was great. Well, it�s 3D and those motions. I don�t like the 3D with the flight simulators. Well, what do you do? Do you have a problem with Star Tours? I think it�s a mix. Disneyland? I do kind of get a little bit sick at Star Tours. Oh, wow. Now that it�s 3D, I do think it makes it a little more intense, that it kind of makes

me a little queasy. All right. Okay. For the listeners out there, I was kind of referencing the fact that Weigher kind of gets off on the Minions. He loves the Minions more than anything else on Earth. I do love the Minions. I think they�re a lot of fun. I think they�re fun characters from the Despicable Wee franchise. I think their Minions movie stands on its own. I think they�re funny and cute and great for kids. So you went to the Minions movie?

Yeah, I did. I saw the Minion movie in theater with my wife. Cool. And you sat in this kid�s movie with no snacks and watched the Minion movie. Is that correct? Yeah. It was a lot of fun. It�s really great. Oh, boy. It�s good. It�s fun. Give it a chance. It doesn�t overstay. It�s welcome. It�s got lots of cartoon logic. The animation�s great. Voice work is fun. Every time you�re with Natalie, do you have a gun up against her backside?

So let�s talk about Togo�s a little bit more. You were talking about this Togo�s in the shadow of Universal Studios. Where were you going with that thread? That�s where I went today. Got you. So, the birthday boys, which is a sketch group, had a house right up the hill from there. So that was kind of a convenient place to go get sandwiches. But I never, ever, ever I went to the subway right down the street. Chris Van Artsdale, and a birthday boy, was a big fan of the Togo�s franchise. And the man who made our cover art. If you�ve seen the little drawings of

Portley Little Mitch and Portley Little Nick holding our fast food items, that�s the work of Chris Van Artsdale and a wonderful artist, great director, great editor, great guy. Also, I�m not Portley in real life. And Chris would go there a bunch. I honestly don�t even know if today was the first time I�ve ever gotten Togo�s. I can�t even tell you, which is not, it�s not saying good things for Togo�s, because I don�t remember, and I bet you a couple years from now, I still won�t remember if I went to Togo�s or not. Sure. My experience wasn�t bad, I will say. The woman who helped me was very friendly, super nice. Was it Julie?

No. Was it the manager Julie? It was not the manager Julie, no. Some words for her. She complimented this dorky Hulk shirt I have on, and then she kind of helped me with the recommendation. Here�s the thing I didn�t know about Togo�s. Is it known for pastrami? They are, they have, and I don�t know how much of this is, I think a lot of it is self-given, that they�re like kind of, they�re saying, just the same way as you gave yourself the nickname, the spoon man, and that just kind of caught on. I think it�s the same sort of thing,

they sort of started to say, we�re known for pastrami, and they became kind of a pastrami hut. You gave yourself the nickname, little white as a burger boy. I did, you gave me that nickname. Oh, you gave it to yourself. No, you specifically said it. I fought it for a little bit, and then I eventually accepted it. All right. Yes, they are kind of known for their pastrami. They actually, at the moment, I notice they have a pastrami challenge, which is the pound the pounder. As a two-foot-long pastrami sandwich, one pound of pastrami on it, $27.95, and if you finish it, you get a free Togo�s

hat. And that to me seems like a lot of money, and not a particularly exciting food challenge, for a ward that really is just like, you get a fucking hat, like who can�t pay less for the hat and not have to endure eating this giant, sickening sandwich. Yeah, that does not. Now, if it was a Spoon Nation hat, that would be worth the challenge. Someday we�ll not be so lazy that we are unable to make merch. Someday we�ll actually make that happen. Yeah, that�s a really shitty payoff for something that will just definitely get you sick. But on the pastrami front, and Maddie�s Tale of Woe outstrips mine, but I have one affiliated with Togo�s. Wow. They ran out of food when you were in there.

More sandwiches. This is what I was a kid. I was eight years old. I was at the Togo�s in Lakewood, right next to the Chuckie Cheese in the Mini Mall. And I don�t remember why my dad and I were there for lunch. I think it was a weekend. I don�t remember what we were running. Some errands or something. But I had ordered a pastrami sandwich. And I like the taste of pastrami a lot. And, you know, like I was just like, oh, this is fun. This will be a good place to get it. We had been to Togo�s a number of times. I�d usually, I think, go for a tuna or egg salad or something. Got the pastrami sandwich we were dining in. I remember we�re sitting right next to a table of what I thought at the time were much older men, probably two guys younger than us.

And we�re just like at a table right next to them. And my dad and I were sitting across from each other. I was eating this pastrami sandwich. And about three quarters to half the way in, I started choking on a piece of pastrami that got caught in my throat. Like I partially chewed a fatty piece. And it started to slide down my esophagus and got stuck there. And I couldn�t swallow it. And I couldn�t cough it up. And I was just choking. And I couldn�t breathe. And, you know, I�m an asthmatic. I had very bad asthma as a kid. So like a very sensitive to breathing issues. So I started like turning a collar, like started, you know, putting my hands around my neck, the universal symbol of choking. My dad like kicked down his chair, like ran around the other

side of the table, reached his hands around my chair, around my stomach and gave me the Heimlich Maneuver. And it just was like jam, just like hitting me so hard. And like after a couple thrusts, I like not quite vomited, but spit up the pastrami and was able to respirate again. And I remember like, like, like going, and like, like spitting up this big hunk of pastrami, like onto the table. And then looking up at this guy, again, this guy I thought was middle age, but was probably younger than the two of us. And looking in the eyes and him just having this look of horror and disgust, like, oh my God, like he was not going to eat that meal, probably not going to eat again that week. And it was harrowing. I was like, I felt like I was going to die. And

I felt like it was like, oh, my dad used the Heimlich Maneuver to save my life. And it happened in the Togo's. Did it affect me patronizing Togo's? No, I continue to go there for decades, but I for a long time shied away from pastrami. But yeah, I a similar experience. Now, I don't think we pursued any legal action with a manager and certainly no long term damage. Well, let me just say something that it's hard to take legal action when the cause of choking is the fat son ate pastrami too fast. I don't know if you really have a case. All right. Yeah, that's fine. It might not be actionable. Again, send a message to your friend Love Ginsburg. Let's find out. I'm sure of it. I'm sure that you can't do anything. But also,

people are going to hear your gagging noise and probably throw up. He got very into it here in the studio. Very visual. Should I not have sold it? Maybe, I don't know. I was trying to tell it was only for me, Maddie and Dustin. No one else could have seen it. Yeah, that was a traumatizing experience and I didn't have pastrami for probably a decade after that. Side question. On a scale of one to ten, how disappointed was your dad in you that day? I'm saying before even any of this show. Yeah, like relative to, I mean, just taking my entire life into account, I think he's been at a solid ten since I hit puberty. So he was probably at about an eight and a half then. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, like that said, I don't want to drill

you too much, bitch. Known for pastrami, I think at large. Known for pastrami to me for a different reason. But perhaps your first visit to Togo's, what was your assessment? Well, I got myself a nine inch boom boom spicy pastrami sandwich. And that comes, the sandwich comes with pepperonis, boom boom sauce, which is a creamy blend of fiery chili peppers, and a hint with a hint of garlic, melted pepper jack cheese, toasted on classic white bread. And I added to that because the one behind the corner told me, oh, you should add some stuff to it. I added lettuce, tomato, onion, and pickles. I just want to say first off, it's gross that the sandwich is named after what little kids say when they take shits in their

A boom boom is such a weird name for a sandwich. The sandwich wasn't too bad. I got a combo, which came with Kurancheritos, which is my favorite chip. Though I kind of got a bad batch of Kurancheritos. You know, sometimes you can get a bad batch. Yeah, it just didn't taste like a, they taste like a little bit older. And they just, they didn't have that great Kurancheritos taste because that's my favorite chip, but it wasn't a great one. And I had a diet Pepsi with that too, which of course is just diet Pepsi and fine. The sandwich is what it was all about for me there. I've never had, I never had a sandwich from there. I got to say, I like Togo's bread. I like the bread that it comes on more than Subway maybe. Oh my God, much more than

Subway. Okay, yeah. I think it's, I think that the bread is is pretty good for like a big fast food chain sort of place. The sandwich, I got to say, it seemed exciting, but it was just so perfectly boring that like, when I bit into it, I was like, it wasn't bad, but it wasn't great. And I was just eating it. It was in the pastrami was a little stringy. And when I ordered it, I saw her put like, cause it's like, oh, we cut pastrami fresh daily. I saw her put like a big, that big vat of pastrami in like the microwave, one of those like kind of slow cooker microwaves and like heated it up for like a minute and a half. And the pastrami was not bad for fast food place, but it didn't blow me away. It was just like, it was like whatever. It was definitely

nothing special. But I came away from it being like, huh, this bread isn't bad. And if Subway had bread like that, I think I would enjoy Subway more. Boy, bitch, we are so on the same page here. I think the bread is really where Togo shines. And I think that, you know, they offer wraps now. I think you can get stuff, but you might even be able to get things lettuce wrapped at this point. But they, but like, and they have salads there and their salads are fine. They're very serviceable, certainly better than Subway salads. But I think my overall assessment of Togo's is it's like a better Subway. It's like, you know, it's like a stair step up from Subway. It's a little bit more expensive and just a little bit better all around. But you're absolutely right

that bread is great. And especially my fast food sandwich standards. And I will say that it's even still good, even though they got rid of my favorite bread and my wife Daly's favorite bread, Dutch Crunch, which sounds like a, like one of those urban dictionary sex acts. Yeah, yeah, but they don't have Dutch Crunch anymore. And, but that was a really, really satisfying bread. And it just, you know, was like a like very, it was, it was light, but it had like a little bit of crispiness to it. Now they've got like more like these softer breads, but I think that sourdough is good, that Parmesan is good, that original white is good, lots of good options. And you can get it toasted now for what it's worth. I will say about the place I went to, besides it being the belly

of the beast, like I've said, the place where Maddie actually chipped his tooth in the place where Van Artsdale and frequented all the time, which I know I'm like, why the fuck did Chris go to this place so much? Because it's just very whatever. Yeah. It was also a combination of Baskin Robbins and Togo's, which is a funny, funny, strange little combo. Well, you know what it is, is that I read a little bit about this is, and I mentioned in my preamble, which you never listened to, that Dunkin Donuts at one point owned Togo's. Dunkin Donuts also owns Baskin Robbins, and so I think that's at what point the hybridization began. And I'm a Dunkin Donuts boy, I'm a Dunkin Donuts loyalist for sure. But I don't know about Togo, like it's hard for me, like you're saying,

like, oh, it's a better subway, but then I'm like, but I just don't even know, just because subway is just like, there's something easier about a subway, you can get like a... Certainly faster, yeah. It's faster, you can just get like a turkey and cheese and it's fine, you know what I mean, like, and it can feel kind of healthy. I don't know. I mean, I didn't go with a healthy option today, but I guess Togo kind of does have a bunch of wraps. I also think too, like Mitch, like, subway for a long time had the added benefit of you could funnel money to your friend Jared Fogle. No, that he was benefiting financially from your purchases. That's fucked up. You dress like Jared Fogle. I do kind of have his aesthetic.

A little bit nicer. I think I'm a little bit more put together. You're Jared Fogle, both in the Minions movie probably. At the same time, not eating snacks. I went to Togo's recently, and I went, Natalie and I went, and we went to the one at the Culver City location, and I'll put a picture of it online, but it was like really... Some Togo's have had some closures recently. There used to be one in Marina del Rey, which was not too far from where we live. This one was a little bit more of a drive from Santa Monica over to Culver City. Yeah, that Togo's closed. I believe the Togo's that was in Westwood that we used to go to also closed, so they've just been in some trouble. And I mentioned the storefront, and I'll

tweet out this picture, but I'll show it to you guys. This is what the exterior looked like. It was the Togo's, and as you can see, as I'm showing you guys, and I'll describe to you guys, most of the letters in the sign, the lit sign are out. It's Togo, the apostrophe aster not lit, and then from the word sandwiches, only the D is lit. So it just says Togo D, and it just looks so rundown. It looked closed. We went in there, and it was like two hours before closing, and there was no one in there. There were two employees. One of them was just mopping the floor. The other one was very helpful and very kind, but just clearly was not expecting anyone to come in there and wasn't particularly excited to be making sandwiches for us. That's kind of like a part of the Togo's

experience to me. I went to the website, and it just seems like a place that's about to close down or something. It's very strange. It has that vibe. It's not quite full caros, but it's approaching that threshold. It's almost at the caros event horizon where it's going to just start just contracting all the way. Maybe it's doing okay, but I don't know. It has a depressing feel. We ordered the nine-inch number 21, which is an avocado and cheese sandwich, which I think is actually a really good veggie sandwich. The avocado basically serves the protein. You have your choice of cheese. I went with provolone. A lot of times I'll go with American. It's a good sandwich. Got in the Parmesan bread, and then pretty much got the works, lettuce, tomato, onions,

pepperoncinis, olives, just laid on a bunch of different toppings, mayo and mustard. It's a very satisfying veggie sandwich. Now, we went with a six-inch number nine signature pastrami on sourdough. Now, I will say, speaking as a value proposition, and certainly it's a little bit more muddy at Togo's than you'd spend it a subway, but they right now have a $6 daily sandwich and drink deal, which I think is pretty good. I think comparable to the $5 foot long that you'll get not quite as much food, but certainly a little bit of a better quality food and for a dollar extra, and you're also getting a drink. If you're going to stretch your dollar a little bit and you want to mix up your sandwich routine, I think that Togo's $6 daily sandwich and drink

deal is pretty good. My combo today, I think it came out, it was kind of expensive. It came out to like $12. Yeah, it depends on what you order there. We were able to get away with two sandwiches, a cup of soup, a cookie, and a drink for $21.84, which I think is not bad for two people, but certainly a little bit more than you'd spend it subway. I got myself a cup of chili, which was fine. There's cheese and onions on it. A lot of starch in that chili, just a lot of kidney beans, and for me, I like a meatier chili, and this was one where they just filled it with so many kidney beans. I felt like I was eating more of a bean soup than a chili. Again, some people like that. For me, it was just kind of chalky, flour-heavy, overly starched, under-season, not the

best soup. I've had their broccoli cheese soup before, which I prefer, and also got myself a peanut butter cookie, which was actually pretty good for a pre-wrapped cookie. Certainly far and away better than a subway cookie, which I think a lot of times are crunchy and not satisfying. That peanut butter cookie had a nice soft texture. Peanut butter chips in it, which gave a little bit of an extra sweetness when you bit into them. That was a real highlight for me. Then as far as beverages go, I go, Trumpa canna light lemonade. I'm interested to hear your take on this, Maddie, because you certainly had that bad experience with the egg salad, but their veggie kind of sandwiches. I'm lumping tuna in this, which unfairly, because it doesn't really qualify,

but they're like salad sandwiches, like their tuna salad sandwich, their egg salad sandwich. I was at the vegetarian high school, and it was a good place to go, because they also had hummus. You could do an avocado hummus cheese sandwich, which was really, really good. Option for a vegetarian with a group of friends who wanted to be able to eat something that wasn't super weird. I think that's a liability of a subway, and what I haven't been in a quiz nose in years, but their vegetarian sandwich options at a lot of these places aren't very good. I think at Togo's, there's some of the better options there, period. That avocado cheese is really tasty. Maddie, you didn't go to that particular

franchise, but you took another trip to Togo's. First of all, let me just say, I feel like my feelings are generally the same as yours, and that I feel like Togo's is just a place that does not need to exist at all. It's just such a bland nothing of a place. I think Subway's a little cheaper and faster and a little more accessible, so that fulfills that little niche. But otherwise, a Togo is just, there's no style to it. The sign is like rounded aerial font or something. It's just so bland, and their slogan is great sandwiches, which is just about the most nothing thing you could eat fresh, at least has an idea behind it, but it's just great. I picture in the 70s or something, this place just existed off having

good sandwiches, and it was just a basic, hey, we're just a place, and we have good sandwiches, and now, once you become a big gigantic corporation, and time moves on, what is it anymore? They clearly overexpanded, and their quality went down. I mean, you can just tell by that they had so many locations, and now they have a lot fewer. They clearly overexpanded, and it seems like maybe quality took a hit as well. But who out there, whose favorite chain restaurant is Togo's? I don't believe anyone. If your favorite chain restaurant is Togo's, tweet at us. Hashtag, I'm a fucking freak. Because who likes that place the best? I don't know. Maybe Van Arsdale. Van Arsdale seems like it. I don't know if it has to be those

I don't think a place has to be someone's favorite to be worthwhile. It can just be solid and right in there. It's just like, that place just comes in in the clutch. I don't know if Togo's, it certainly used to be that for me. This last experience was pretty positive, but it does feel like there's a precipitous decline. It's a less pleasurable meal than it used to be, and a less pleasurable experience than it used to be. But go on, Matty. One thing I need to say, the menu is really weird. It's very confusing. They have numbers for the sandwiches, but there's also numbers missing, and they have like an extra, so they have like the up above, they have the board that has like eight sandwiches on it. Then in front of you on a counter, there's pieces of paper

that have some more sandwiches that are numbered, but there's also numbers missing from that. It's so confusing. And then also one thing that I used to have is like, especially when I would order like vegetarian, there'd be numbers that aren't on, like I memorized like what are like a 19 was the egg salad and stuff like that. And sometimes I would like tell them the number, and then they'd not know the number. And then they go like, what is that? And they go avocado, hummus, or whatever. It's a flat system. And so it's like kind of pointless. It doesn't seem like it needs to exist. So that's a really weird thing. I actually ended up ordering, I'd never had pastrami there because I had like a lot of turkey and salami there, and stuff like that. I got the boom,

boom pastrami, but I had a weird, like the employees don't seem to want to be there at all. It's kind of a joyous business, Togo. But I ordered, basically on the board, it said boom, boom pastrami, and they're pushing it. Then a little thing on the bottom was like, or try boom, boom chicken. I hate saying all these so many times, but I was like, oh, can I get the boom, boom chicken? And he's just like, boom, boom pastrami. And I'm like, no, boom, boom chicken. And this is a really weird conversation to have with an adult. But then like, he just didn't seem to get it. And I was like, oh, it's on the sign. This is boom, boom chicken. He's like, no, it's pastrami. And it said, and so I was like, all right,

forget it. I'll get the pastrami. So I ended up getting the boom, boom pastrami. And I'd say the pastrami was like better than I expected for that type of place. It wasn't as good as like a deli type of sandwich. And I'd say the bread, I liked it better. I never had toasted sandwich there before. I actually kind of am not as into the bread, not because I don't think the bread's good, but I feel like they give you a lot of it. It is a lot of bread. And I feel like usually I'd have to like rip off edges, even stuff like just so much bread. And then I also got a broccoli cheddar sandwich or broccoli cheddar soup. I'd never had their soup before. And it was just kind of very runny, just kind of a bland, cheddar-y taste. And they're like pieces of broccoli,

but you don't really taste broccoli. I'm a big broccoli fan, so it wasn't the best, but it was fine. I've had a good experience with that broccoli cheese soup before, but you know, again, it may just be inconsistent standards between individual franchises. It might be an overall decline. I went at like 4.30. I went at a weird time too, and I'm sure that was just sitting out since like... I went around 3. I went at a weird time. Yeah, that soup was probably sitting there for... People were coming in for Baskin Robbins, but not really for Togos. I had heard that you guys both got soups, and I brought it up to you, and Nick Weigher called me, and I quote him, a soupless bitch. That's what Nick called me, because I didn't get a soup.

That was a private text conversation that was before... Well, I just want to let the world know what a piece of shit you are. I stand by it, you fucking soupless bitch. Get some soup. Well, by the sounds of it, I made a good choice to not get soup. It sounds like both of your experiences with the soup were terrible, so you sound like soup-filled bitches to me. It's not a particularly satisfying soup. I think a lot of times, I don't know, it's a crap shoot unless it's a soup place, but if you're getting any sort of fast food soup, I just feel like it's not going to deliver. Also, their sandwiches are better, but also,

they're just what you're supposed to get there, and they're also... Sure. Their sandwiches in particular are big enough that you're full, and you don't need like an extra cup of soup on the side. They do have a really good chip selection, which is something to be... When we were there, they had rows of 16 different chips. They just had a huge variety, and they had those Mrs. Vickies, which people like. They have your standard Lays. They have your Doritos. It runs a gamut for a bunch of different options. But so does the Subway. I mean, you don't... Well, I know, but I mean, it's worth noting. I got to say...

Oh, shit. I forgot what I was going to say. It was really good, too. Oh, well. Have you guys ever debated... Have you guys ever discussed... This is how this podcast goes, by the way. Have you guys ever discussed Pepsi versus Coke on the podcast? Oh, boy, I know. Because I want to say they have Pepsi at Togo's, and Pepsi's awful. Pepsi sucks. Yeah. I don't... I really think it's bad. I like... Wow. I'm a Pepsi in particular. It's horrible. I'm a Coke brand guy as well. I thought there was going to be Coke...

I feel like you usually see Doritos and stuff with... But who knows? Maybe there's no correlation there. But I'm Coke brand. I'm with you 100%. Lays is Pepsi, right? Or isn't that Yum? Oh, okay. Yum brand. Yum brand. My understanding is that Yum brand, at some point, separated the snack and beverage divisions. So I'm not sure if there's as much of a link there anymore. Although at the Yum brand restaurants, you will still see your KFCs, your Taco Bells. You're... What am I missing?

Your Pizza Hut. You will still see those Pepsi products. We were raised... We grew up a Pepsi family. Oh my fucking god. But as an adult, I came around to Coke and I prefer Coke now. Wow. Good for you. I think Pepsi is fine. And I think it's... I think when they're like, Pepsi okay? Yes, it is okay. Pepsi is okay with me. I've said no to that question before.

Wow. I always feel like the biggest douchebag in the world after it. And sometimes the waiter's just like, really? Okay. But I just don't... I think it tastes much worse. It's like very... Pepsi itself is super sweet, I think. And then Diet Pepsi just has a very fake taste to me. It's not as refreshing as Coke is what I'd say. Weigar's gross ass fucking Pepsi family. Come on. Fucking nasty.

I remembered what I was going to say. Here's how I... When I get a sandwich, I mean usually it's going to be chips, but I like a little side salad in sandwich. I don't usually do the soup in sandwich combo. Oh boy, I'll take... With a sandwich, I like that soup. Give me a little soup. Give me a cup of soup if I can get a side. But I think I agree that chips or even fries I'll usually prefer as a side. I like a nice little green mixed salad. I don't know. It makes me feel alright about eating that sandwich.

I feel like if I'm in a mood where I'm eating a sandwich, I'm going full like, let's just get some unhealthy shit with it. And like, if I'm going to eat a salad, I'll just get an entree salad and have that be my meal. I also have a corollary to this. This is somewhat related. If I get a sandwich, I feel like I need to have a side. But if I have a salad, I don't feel like I need to have a side. I just eat a sandwich. I'm like, man, I need some chips or something. But if I just eat a salad, I'm like, oh, that was my meal,

even though they're roughly equivalent amounts of food. I agree on that. If you get a big salad for your lunch, the salad is your lunch. You don't need a side. But now that I'm thinking about it, a soup and a salad is a good combo. But if I'm going to do that, I'm going to go with like a half salad and a cup of soup. I'm not going to go with a full salad. Yeah, fuck that. I'll do full salad. Let's keep talking about your Togo's experience, Maddie. Oh, yeah. Okay. So I got the boom-boom pastrami.

I mean, that's really, there's not a lot to the Togo's experience. Yeah. I think the pastrami's kind of fine. The sauce, the boom-boom sauce was not great. I didn't even taste it. The boom-boom sauce, you can't even taste it. Yeah. Like, I tasted the pickles on the sandwich more than anything else. But again, like it was hot and like, I don't know, like, I think toasting a sandwich is kind of a cheat nowadays, but it makes a sandwich so much better, I think. The pastrami, even though it was a little stringy and like,

and there was heated up in a microwave, isn't bad. Yeah, but it had a little bit of the issue of that it's very thinly sliced and like, it's compacted together into like almost like a wad of like a, I don't know, like a hot doggy sausage sort of. Yeah, it almost feels like bacon. You're biting into, yeah, a piece of meat and it's kind of weird. But other than that, there's just a weird, I mean, it was completely empty other than these two kids that were like hanging out at the Togo's and they weren't eating or doing anything. I don't know if they knew the employees that were working there. It was very empty.

No one came in for the Baskin Robbins. That's also, there's Baskin Robbins there. It's the Gower Gulch Sunset and Gower location. Yeah, I got you. So it was just kind of a very quiet, like, sad, strange experience. There are signs up in this Togo's. I don't know if you guys saw this, but there are signs asking you not to talk on your, not to use your cell phone while you're at the ordering counter. And I get that that's, you know, I appreciate them not wanting us to slow up the process by talking on the cell phone, but I feel really weird when Togo's is telling me not to use a cell

phone. Yeah, fuck that. And they were also very slow. They were, for literally no one else in the restaurant, my sandwich took a really long time to get there. And I think part of that is because the employees don't, they just don't seem excited to be at Togo's. Also, another thing, is it pronounced Togo's? It is Togo's. Because I will say I've never seen anyone in any official position say the name of the restaurant. We always kind of said Togo's, but it could be Togo's. We said Togo's, we said Togo's growing up. Our Pepsi family said Togo's when we would go there. A friend of the podcast, Evan Susser, had the same question for me. He was like,

Hey, is it Togo's or is it Togo's? Is it like Pogo or is it like, you know, a Togo? And the etymology of it, it comes from Togo. But if you watch their commercials or listen to their radio ads, which you can find some of online, the corporate speak they use as Togo's. So I don't know at what point, I couldn't find the history of when it became Togo's. I was looking for it, and I was, and it led me to like ad week message boards where they were debating it. Like, I don't think there's, there's an affinity of history of what point it became Togo's. But I think the corporation itself identifies as Togo's. And I think we should respect that. Okay. Thank goodness we saw that. I mean, it's a good play on words. I got to give it to them. That's, that's one of

the best things about that. It's a good name. I think it's a good name. Yeah, I guess it's not a play on words, whatever. Let's get to our final thoughts on this chain. So Maddie, I believe you've listened to the podcast before, you know, this works. We will go around, give your closing argument and then give it a rating on a scale of one to five forks. Put yourself in the shoes of Lev Ginsburg and argue as an attorney and then issue your verdict in terms of forks and tines. So we'll start with you now. I feel like Lev is going to sue us. All right. Well, look, this is complicated for me because they put a metal screw in my sandwich, right, chip my tooth and then denied liability for it, even though they did it.

At the same time, though, I mean, Togo's was a place I've kind of been to all my life. Just when you need a sandwich and there's a Togo's nearby, sort of, I think is the only occasion to go to a Togo's. But I mean, really going, going to this Togo's, the experience was what I think it usually is, which is, it was fine. I wasn't psyched about the sandwich. I wasn't psyched about the soup. Just kind of ate it. They had Pepsi. The employees don't want to be there. I wasn't allowed to use a cell phone. They have a weird, the weird pastrami pound challenge. So it wasn't generally, it was generally not a very good experience and not great. So when I take that and add it to the fact that they put a metal screw in my sandwich.

Yeah. And even like going there today, even though it was a different location, like was weird. And I felt like, I don't know, I'd have a weird mental thing with Togo's now, which is really weird. And also I have the embarrassment of being a guy who chipped his tooth on a screw at Togo's, which is just like stupid. So really, I was kind of back and forth. I was like, oh, is it unfair to really dock them for that? But I don't think it is ultimately, because that's my experience with Togo's. So I would like to give them one fork, because fuck Togo's and their metal screw filled sandwiches. In the words of Ben Affleck, Togo, fuck yourself.

And I really feel strongly about that. And I wanted to use this opportunity to mobilize Spoon Nation against Togo's. So get out there, spread the word on this shitty sandwich chain that is endangering their customers through putting metal screws in their sandwiches. And, you know, endangering their health through eating a pound of fucking pastrami sandwiches. It's not a good pastrami. They clearly don't care about their customers' health, so they can go to hell. And those are my thoughts. Wow. Togo, fuck yourself. That was, which Ben Affleck movie is that in? Argo. Togo. Yeah, Togo, Togo. Well, well, you know what? It's hard. You know, I've had situations where I've had,

for instance, a bug in my food. I actually had a live bug that came maybe out of the container when I brought it back in. We haven't reviewed that restaurant. I won't reveal what it was. Was it the one I was there for? But it's a five fork restaurant. No. Because I was with you at a restaurant. I mean, it's not a chain, so it wouldn't be on this podcast. We were at a restaurant. I mean, it's a great restaurant, so I don't want to slay the name, but Night Market Song. Yes, there was a little bug in there. There was a little bug. And you just took it out. It was very obviously a fly had flown in like falling onto the thing, and it was not that big of a deal. But it was, I mean, it sucked.

And that sucks anytime something like that happens. But that's like a great restaurant. We were both like, yeah, this place is good enough. It is really good. And I've been back since. Sorry. And I would probably, you know what? That would maybe push that one down to four and a half forks from me, even though I love that place. But the place I went, five fork restaurant, I won't say what it was, because we'll review it at some point on the podcast. But that can be really tough, especially something like heart, you're biting into something hard. So I get it. And I am thinking about this too, when I when I review it, I wanted to like Togo's, I got to say that the woman working behind the counter, like I said, was very, very pleasant, friendly, and

helpful. And I liked the bread. Chris Van Artsdelen has always liked it. So I want to like it, because I hope that he's enjoying something good. But the sad fact is Chris is that you were not, you're eating a kind of a bland sandwich every single night. We the birthday boys have been wrote a sketch about Togo's at one point. And but it still is just a shitty kind of sandwich spot. The Dunkin Donuts loyalist in me wants to love it. But the East Coast sandwich guy, which I've talked a lot on this, on this podcast, where how the East Coast has a lot of great submarine sandwiches. And that's something I feel like on the West Coast, you can't just get out here as as much. And I still feel like

D'Angelo's sandwich shop on the East Coast reigns supreme over Togo's and Subway. Overall, I'm going with two forks for Togo's. For my boy, Maddie Smith, the sandwich itself wasn't too bad. It's just, who cares? I'm never going to go back to a Togo's, I don't think. Yeah, I think that's fair. And you know, for what it's worth, I know you're a Dunkin Donuts loyalist, they did divest their shares in the early 2000s and are now owned by, I think they're owned by some venture capital firm or whatever, private equity firm, whatever those fucking horrible things that are ruining our economy are. So Dunkin Donuts was invested before Maddie chipped his tooth, just to let the people know. They got, yeah, they got rid of their,

they got out, they got out at the peak and then it saw decline in the aftermath. I'm torn between two buddies here. I'm torn between my good friend, Maddie Smith, who I've known for years, a very talented man, a dear friend, a guy who takes me to his Clippers games, we have a great time, and Chris Van Arts-Delen, a lovely man, a talented director, a kind guy, the designer of the Doe Boys logo. You guys each have compelling cases against it. I don't care what Mitch had to say, but those two guys, you two guys are important to me. And you get, Maddie, you're pulling it for one fork. I feel like Chris is going to be a four or five forker. I, you know, I'll find out his verdict later, I'm sure, but I know both of you guys care about

this place in different levels and that has to factor into my review. I'm going to put my pastrami incident out of mind because that was me being a kid that was youthful in discretion. And your own fault. And my own fault. Yes, you're right. I'm fine with that. I will admit to that. I will cop to that. My dad saved my life for better or worse. But I will say, ToGos, it's not a pleasant experience. It feels dingy. It feels like a dive. It's not the best time. It's not the best time when you go there. And I feel like the service used to be better. Now it's maybe a little bit more, you know, apathetic, which I totally get. Apathy is how I'm a very apathetic man in my own employed life, but it's not a great customer

experience. And I feel like, you know, the sandwiches are just fine. Bread is great. Sandwiches are fine. There are a few standouts. I would say like, if you are going to go there, try that avocado and cheese. That's really fun. Anything with avocado. I think they have good avocado there, which, you know, avocado is kind of the bacon of the vegetarian world. It just enhances whatever you're eating. And I, but I do think they do that well there. I don't know. I think with my assessment of ToGos quality and their service, I feel like you'll get a solid fine sandwich there. And so between the one from Matty Smith and the five from Chris Van Arts-Delen, we get three forks from Nick Weiger for ToGos.

Wow. Kind of high. Higher than I thought you were going to. Next time you see Chris, you're going to be like, hey, you like ToGos? You're like, that's fine. He might be the biggest ToGos fan in the world. I don't really go there anymore. Yeah. He's kind of like, all right. I think he is. I think that is how he is. You know what? You should invite your two friends, Matty and Chris, over for a screening of the butler at your place with warm Pepsi and no snacks. I'm fucking hell, hell on earth. ToGos, if you're listening out there, make it right with Matty's tooth and also bring back Dutch crunch. That was your fucking,

that was your home run bread. Get that shit back in there. Wait, can I ask about that Dutch crunch? I mean, I know it because in Northern California, it's a big. Yeah. And so then I went to school up there and that's, like, at the sandwiches places nearby. Do you guys know Dutch crunch very well? I mean, I only know it from ToGos. I have no idea what the only know from ToGos. It's really good bread that feels like there's no reason why it wouldn't be elsewhere, but it basically is kind of like a whitish bread that just has like a weird hard crunchy stuff on top of it. Yeah, it's really good and really satisfying as a nice texture to it.

It's really good in a deli sandwich, but. And ToGos had a good execution of it. I didn't realize, I thought that was their brand name. I didn't realize that was a place that existed outside. Yeah, yeah. If you go to like, yeah, then like in near the San Francisco, the Bay Area, you'll find a lot of Dutch crunch. It's kind of interesting. All right, check it out. Before we move on, I want to quickly say that there's just some food news, some food buzz. Taco Bell is releasing a mystery item on Saturday. Oh, that's right. This coming Saturday. This coming Saturday, and they won't, they haven't told people what it is,

but you can pre-order it and pick it up. I did some snooping, and so if you guys don't want it spoiled, I just, you can turn off the podcast or mute it for a second. I think with my food detective work, I found out that it's the queso lupa, a chalupa that has cheese baked into the outer, the shell. Now Mitch, you also famously predicted on the podcast that Supreme Commander Snoke from the Force Awakens was an evil Yoda, and he turned out to be the exact opposite, instead of a hulking 20 foot tall figure. Well, we haven't seen Snoke close up or in person yet, so he could still be an evil Yoda. Regardless, he's a terrible character. No, Snoke rules. Yes. Yep, Snoke rules. You're right. But it's fun to talk about a little bit

of food news, and I think Taco Bell does that well. They have some fast food fun news. Have they not done a, like when you say queso lupa, I would have believed that would have been an item at Taco Bell for the past 15 years. It just sounds like something like I have had before, like they had to have done that before. I think they've tested it out in some markets, but it's not official, it's not a nationwide product yet. And so, yeah, they're making a big deal about it, I think because you know, the Superbowl's coming up. So the way I found out about this is I remember a few weeks ago reading about the queso lupa and that it was going to be coming out in the next couple weeks, I was excited because that gets me excited in my life. And then I read this news today about,

like, oh, it's this mystery item that's coming out on Saturday that you can pre-order. And then I was like, wait a minute, what about the queso lupa? And I looked back and they retracted, or was that redacted? What is the word? All right, retracted, good, I got it right. Pressure release on the queso lupa or whatever. So I'm like, oh, I think that's what it is. I feel like they do a good job with that sort of thing. They always kind of, they have some new food every month and that's a great thing. It's a thing to be excited about. It's going to make your Superbowl Sunday a little bit more fun. Well, we'll see if your prediction comes true. We'll find out just after this episode releases.

It's time now for a regular segment. We've got four of the same food stuff and we're going to crown a champion. With the big game upon us, it's time for a special Superbowl edition of Flavor of the Week. Now, Mitch, it looks like we have some tostitos dips that you acquired from us at a Ralph's supermarket. Go ahead and introduce our combatants for this Superbowl edition of Flavor of the Week. Okay, we got four different tostitos dips. And you know, tostitos is kind of, it's the number one, I feel like it's the easy number one salsa and chip combo. Not saying it's the best. It's just the thing that people grab and it's the easiest to get. It's one that people know. We got tostitos scoops. The first dip, which are not my favorite type of

tortilla chip, by the way, but they're very good for tasting different dips. And the first dip is a queso blanco dip. It says medium. The next dip is a creamy spinach dip. They're all balancing precariously on this music stand and they might all fall over. I'm going to get a shot of that while you do that real quick. And then we got a salsa con queso dip. Oh boy, that smell is just waftin' right in there. Yeah, that was the creamy spinach dip is really strong. That is very potent. And then the last dip we got, we're going with kind of a more classic one, a cantina chipotle restaurant style salsa. So that's a... So some various dips that you might see in

different chain restaurant configurations. I feel like creamy spinach dip is a pretty standard appetizer you can get at places. This queso blanco is kind of a new one. I don't feel like I've seen that one. I feel like I haven't seen that one in jar form before. I've certainly got familiar with the salsa con queso and of course their traditional salsa. All right, so we're going to dig in. So we got these scoops and these are the tostitos scoops, which I don't know, but this form factor I'm not crazy about. Like, I feel like I'd rather have a traditional chip. I get that it's a little easier for dippin'. I'm going into the salsa con queso right here. You guys can talk through what you're eating.

Mattie and I just, or both, just tried the queso blanco dip. It's my favorite party podcast. I know people hate this very much. Mattie, you're losing us subscribers right now. Looks like the Fine Brothers account. I'm having this tostitos cantina chipotle salsa right now. And I'm dipping into this creamy spinach dip. Yeah, I'm having spinach too. I can definitely taste the chipotle there. There's definitely a lot of chipotle character in that salsa. Maybe a little too, I'm officially a little artificially. It might be, they might be going a little too far with them. I'm having some of this creamy spinach over here.

All right, I'm going after the salsa con queso. I tell you, I have a negative sense memory with spinach dip in general. I got some very bad food poisoning from a chain restaurant, a creamy spinach dip. And, man, I just, it tastes like me throwing that up when I have it. Who's a T.J. at Fridays? Oh boy, I don't feel like, I don't want to defame another, I don't want to defame another chain restaurant on this podcast when we already have liability concerns with Mitch Secretly recording Love Ginsberg and you saying legally libelous things

against Togos. But yes, it was T.J. Fridays. So this is the episode we're going to get sued for. And I just finally had that candy. I kind of agree with you on that chipotle taste. It's a little spicy, a little bit artificial, but then also at the same time has that it's such a weird combo of the two. An authentic restaurant style quality salsa and then a very inauthentic chipotle spice taste. Did you just find it very watery too? Yeah, it's very water, very thin, which is the restaurant style that it is a little bit more watery, but yeah, I think it's a little over the top. Go for it, Matty. Oh no, I was just saying, I feel like when I have that in a restaurant salsa, it's because like the

fresh vegetable juice coming off the vegetables, it just feels like water that's been filtered in the jar. Now we talked about being at the game. When you guys are watching the game at home, what is it for you? For me, it's always kind of wings and pizzas, like the big having people over and watching a game thing. I feel like if I'm doing dips, if I'm really going out and doing dips, my favorite dips are a buffalo chicken dip or I will do like kind of the classic. It's cream cheese, salsa, and then cheddar cheese on top. Oh, that is good. That's one of my favorites. Yeah, you know what? Honestly, I'm a big guacamole guy. I mentioned avocado earlier,

big, big guacamole guy, so if I'm going to do a dip, I'll usually go for guacamole and tortilla chips. But man, for casual game watching, I'll usually just take a bag of ruffles straight out of the bag and a nice cold brew dog. I don't need anything complicated, just some greasy chips and a nice cold beer. Ruffles with ridges? Yeah, for sure. What about you, Matty? If I'm not feeling super, I mean, if you're lazy, pizza's super easy, go to to have delivered, you don't have to leave the house. But I like, I even told you guys, I like making my own nachos at home. Oh yeah, yeah, that's right. You know, I get a little bit of like a couple different kinds of cheeses, you grate it over there, you get some like black beans in there,

and then, you know, bake it basically in the oven for a while, put some guacamole and salsa on top of it, and I think that's really good and really satisfying. I really like nachos, the home baked nachos. Yeah, I'm a big fan of. You know what I've been doing lately, and this is, this is disconnected to this, like this maybe sounds like a very California thing to do, but I've been enjoying Thai food while I watch a ball game. I found like I put an NBA game, I put on it, turn on NBA league pass on the TV, and I watch an out of market NBA game, and I get myself a little bit of like a yellow curry with some rice, and that seems like a very satisfying pairing, especially if you're having a little nice cold brew dog with that. Strike three.

All right, let's get to our ratings. Also, yeah, you're calling them all brew dogs, I don't think I've ever heard you do that. Yeah, that's what I call beers, brew dogs. That's a wager signature. All right, let's get to our ratings of these various tostitos chips. So, we've got the two refresh ourselves, we've got the cantina chipotle salsa, we've got the salsa cone queso, we've got the creamy spinach dip with the queso blanco dip. First things first, as Mitch is taking another dip of this cantina chipotle salsa, let's go ahead and point at our fourth place finisher, fourth place. Wow, okay. Wager and I are in agreement for this. Mitch and I have both painted to the queso,

both pointed to the queso blanco medium tostitos dip. Maddie, it looks like you're pointing the cantina chipotle salsa. I am pointing at the salsa, yeah. Why do you say, why do you put that in the fourth position? It's just really running, I mean, when I'm eating a dip, especially I'm considering it for like watching a game at home with my chips and stuff like that. If I get a dip, it needs to be a little thicker because then it's less messy, like it, I literally like had to carefully put my hand under the little tostitos scoop to make sure no one like the water came out of the chip. It really does seem like it feels like you need a scoop to even have this be edible because it's so watery. And I would also say, you know, like

sometimes we know products can settle in transportation, but I'm moving this around a little bit. I'm shaking this around a little bit. I think it's just a lot of liquid. It's not, it's not particularly thick. It definitely is because you just spilled some of it. I would say though that that is kind of the rest, the charm of the restaurant style. I wish it was just some plain restaurantestito style salsa. I get it though. I mean, the Chipotle especially is, does not help it for me. Yeah, that's right. I didn't expect that. I actually thought that would be my favorite. It's kind of because you just don't like salsas, but yeah. Yeah. Okay, so Blanca, we both had that in fourth position, Mitch. For me, it's just very chalky and kind of flavorless

and it tasted kind of just artificial and I don't know, just a very unpleasant texture. Yeah, kind of boring. Yeah. Yeah, there was nothing about that that I enjoyed. I mean, it's just whatever. I thought that would maybe be my number one, but it's my least favorite. Kind of, yeah, it kind of tastes like flour and water. Okay, let's point it at our third place finisher. Okay, Mitch, you have pointed at the Chipotle salsa. Maddie, it looks like you're pointing over the queso Blanco dip. I am now going at that creamy spinach dip. I think my rationale is pretty simple, which is I like it better than queso Blanco, but I just have such a negative taste aversion to it. You know, it's like that guy who just drank a bunch of, got really fucked

up on tequila one night and can't take tequila anymore. I kind of have the same feeling about spinach dips. Maddie, queso Blanco dip, I assume your assessments are in line with ours? Yeah, similar, but I mean, I also think it's really unappealing looking. It looks like glue. It is. Like it... That's a good point. It does look a lot like glue. It looks like weird little chunks of things that I don't even know what those are. It's like colored paper and glue. Yeah, it looks like a little kid's glue. I'll be the one to say it. It looks like a big jar of cum. It looks like a big jar of cum that someone diced some carrots into.

Nick is now chugging it. All right. And then you had the salsa in third place. Yeah, and pretty much for what we just... For me, I like restaurant style. I like it sometimes a little bit more watery, but it tastes authentic. You get that authenticness, but authentic style a little bit, but then it's just that Chipotle doesn't help it out at all. It's not great. All right, let's go for second place. So I'm pointing at the salsa. Maddie and Mitch, it looks like you guys are in agreement on the salsa con queso medium. Why did you give it that verdict?

It's just a classic good dip in cheese sauce. It's good. Yeah. I spice to it. I agree. Yeah, it has a little... If it's too cheesy, I don't like it. It has a little bit of like a saucy flavor. I'm not a big queso fan in general. I'm not a Tex-Mex guy. Which is you're from a Tex-Mex area, so that... No. No? Oh, wait, really? Arizona isn't Tex-Mex?

It's not Texas, no. Oh, I thought that... I thought that Arizona had a lot of Tex-Mex. Not really. I mean, I think no, I think we get more of like just straight up Mexican influence. Well, who's the geography fool, Mitch? Yeah, I never... I don't... Mine was not nearly as bad as that. Oh, you did think Arizona was Texas? Yeah, well, I will say it's a... There's a clue in the title.

I thought that Arizona had Tex-Mex style Mexican food. Not really. I mean, I'm honestly... I can't think of a specific Tex-Mex restaurant. That goes to mine. Gotcha, all right. And that is very much a Tex-Mex sort of... Yeah, yeah, I definitely... Yeah, queso. Cantina Salsa, I agree with you guys. I probably would rank it lower, honestly.

It's a very unsatisfying dip, but I just had such a negative aversion to those other two. Yeah, to me, all the third, second, and fourth, whatever. I don't know why I said them in those order. They're all kind of various degrees unsatisfying for me. Okay, so let's go ahead and I'll point... I'll designate our winner. I'm pointing at the salsa con queso. Mitch and Maddie, it looks like you guys are in agreement on this creamy spinach dip. I will give you a second to say your piece. I'll just say that salsa con queso, which I've had before, that tostitos version,

it's solid. You warm it up a little bit. It's pretty satisfying. And I think that's also just a fine classic dip. You know, it's certainly better fresh, but as far as jar dips go, I feel like that salsa con queso is pretty good. And honestly, I'd put that near the top of those kind of jar dips that you get in general. I like that and a bean dip and maybe a ranch, I think, are all pretty good for ones that are pre-packaged. You guys like the spinach dip. Explain. The spinach dip kind of reminded me of a ranch a little bit.

It has kind of a garlicky, strong flavor to it. I just thought it was surprisingly tasty to me. And I'm still kind of eating it as we go along. And kind of like I thought the salsa would be my favorite and was my least favorite, I thought the spinach would be, it sounded like the worst idea to have like jarred spinach and cheese and goop. But I mean, I also, I really do like spinach a lot. And I think it tastes very flavorful and spinachy. Yeah. Also much thicker than any of these toasts.

Like when we opened it, I was like, oh, this thing is like, the other ones are way more liquid. Yeah, they're thinner. Thinner, much thinner in liquid form. And this one is, this one is, it's hardy. It's definitely a hardy dip. But I also love the, like the salsa con queso of the two. But I don't know, you know, toastitos are very much, this toastitos brand is very much, it's the McDonald's of chips and salsa. Man, I think that's, that's doing a disservice to McDonald's.

I feel like toastitos is kind of, You know, I mean, I love McDonald's. I know you love McDonald's too. I think you're right in terms of ubiquity and in terms of expansiveness, but I feel like it's just like, the Pepsi of, but it's bigger than, there isn't like a Coke to it. You know what it is? It's like the, it's like the Microsoft of dips. Oh, that's great. It's like, it's just like, it's a big company that's kind of everywhere

and no one's really, no one really loves it, but it'll do. And yeah, I mean, I don't know. I mean, these are all fine. I think you can probably do better than toastitos in general, but I think you, there are some winners and there are some losers. And you settled the Silicon Wars apparently. So that'll do it for our Super Bowl edition of flavor of the week. And hey, how are you snacking for the Super Bowl? If you've got any picks of your Super Bowl spread,

tweet them at the Doughboys. Use the hashtag, I'm a fucking freak. I'm a fucking Super Bowl freak. Yeah, I'm a fucking Super Bowl freak. I got a quick question for you guys, because what other dips, because the only ones that we didn't do were French onion, the ranch dip, and then love French onion dip and then hummus. And I like a nice hummus with some vegetables. If you, when you're doing the vegetables or our pita chip,

French onion for you is kind of the one that's missing. Guaca is number one, as I mentioned, but French onion dip, I mean, that was a staple of the Weiger household. We'd have that with some potato chips and I feel like that's really satisfied. And some Pepsi. It's a Pepsi. How about you? I do guac and then, but also, it's funny, you guys kind of mentioned earlier,

but the cream cheese mixed with like a hot sauce and salsa. That is good. That is really good. As long as you balance it right, it's really, really good. My mom used to make that a lot. Anything special for the Super Bowl? I remember like, you know, like I was saying wings and pizza for games usually, but on the Super Bowl, I remember like making ribs and maybe doing some baked beans.

Do you guys have anything special planned for the Super Bowl or no? I don't have any particular plans. I don't follow the NFL, but I'll probably tag along to some event or just eat some Thai food by myself in my home. Okay. And I think just like wings or picking up wings or something. I mean, it's for a bunch of people. So if you get like too specific, it gets weird and then no one eats whatever.

You know, if you make like empanadas, like no, like half the people are going to be like, what are these things doing on the table and no one's going to eat them? Hot burger's off the grill. I remember being a thing. Oh yeah. A burger off the grill. I might ask some people over, but you're not invited.

All right. Just like a restaurant, we value your feedback. Let's open up the feedback. Today's email comes to us from Daniel Tomerlin. Daniel writes, Hey, Burger Boy and Spoon Man. How goes it? I'm ready to share the unicorn of all fast food combination restaurants. For a while in the Bixby Knolls area of Long Beach,

I'm sure Weiger is familiar. I am. There was a combination Taco Bell and Arby's. I can't find any mention of it on the internet, but my girlfriend and I saw it with our own two eyes and still talk about it till this day. Could there be a stranger combination of fast food joints? What two places would you guys like to see team up? And what kind of crossbred items would they sell?

Love the show. You guys are truly doing God's work later. Thanks, Daniel. You know what? I'll chime in on this. I've mentioned this on the podcast before. I think I know the location you're referring to on Atlantic Avenue. I think you're thinking of a combination Arby's and Green Burrito.

I don't want to challenge you and your girlfriend's memory. Perhaps you did see this restaurant, but also perhaps you saw an Arby's and Green Burrito and then just mentally ascribed it and categorized it as an Arby's Taco Bell because that was your way to make sense of it. But I mean, I don't know. I want to believe. That's me.

Like the X-Files reboot is going right now. I want to believe, but I doubt the veracity of this claim. If you want to follow up on it, Daniel, I would happily pursue it. But to me, I think this might be you misremembering. Daniel, I like to believe in our viewers here on the show. So as a member of Spoo Nation, I believe in you. I believe that's what you saw. Maybe it happened at some point.

Maybe at some point, Yum Brands had a partnership with Arby's, which is a different... I think Arby's might have been owned by Wendy's at some point. I don't remember. Arby's, I think, has always been independent, actually. But I don't know. I mean, I think this is an Arby's and Green Burrito that you're thinking of, which I have eaten at before.

But your question, could there be a stranger combination of fast food joints? What two places would you guys like to see team up? What do you think, Mattie Smith? What would I like to see team up? Either one. You got a strange combo. You got a dream combo. Some sort of hybrid restaurant.

I feel like a Panda Express being around would be nice. I don't think you guys don't like Panda Express. Not a big Panda Express fan. I'm one of the windows who likes Panda Express. And it just feels like it'd be nice to have like Orange Chicken as an option to complement whatever the other restaurant has. Gotcha. Because the Orange Chicken is also...

I like Panda Express, but Orange Chicken is the only good thing they have. I don't know. What else would be good? What would be good? A good Taco Bell. Taco Bell Panda Express would be weird. And it just would be the perfect mix of like go there at 2 a.m. and just get the most fucked up people on earth.

Yeah, just you get whatever you feel like. It's just this weird combination. That's a funny combo. I was thinking like of a Panda Express and like a Long John Silvers or something. Like that combo would maybe be strange. Or like a Panda Express and like a Pizza Hut or something like that. It's funny because I remember there was a KFC Taco Bell and I like that combo. I actually do like that combo.

I feel like that's a pretty great combo because it's like... Yeah. It's two places. I love Taco Bell, but then I don't ever go to KFC. So it's always like, oh, nice. I can like get like a chicken strips or something while I get like a taco. So I really enjoy that combo. For me, it's hard to think of a place that would be because like,

you know, when you do have like a Pizza Hut or whatever, you don't really think of it as the same thing. Yeah. It kind of like lessens like the Pizza Hut in my mind or whatever. But I do think that is certainly we had a bad experience at the KFC slash Long John Silvers we went to, but I do think that KFC slash Taco Bell mostly delivers on both those fronts. Yeah. And I feel like it's just the mini Pizza Hut,

which has the individual size pizzas that's a little bit less satisfying. Here would be my answer. I know people like the KFC and Taco Bell, but as a loyalist of Del Taco, I'd like to see a Del Taco slash Popeyes Chicken. We got another competing hybrid Mexican hybrid fast food restaurant or hybrid fried chicken restaurant in the fast food sector. And I feel like that would really deliver a unique experience. And I like Popeyes more than KFC.

I like Del Taco more than Taco Bell. For me, that's just an upgrade. But my other answer is I would like to see somewhere on the shores of the Mississippi. I would like to see, I would like to see a hybrid Carl's Jr. slash Hardee's. There should just be one of them. That's the dumbest. There should be one of them. And then the geographic border should divide the two of them.

But we should have a Hardee's on one side and a Carl's Jr. on the other side. You have two different registers. You can order two different menus, and they're largely the same items, but you can get them in different packaging. I think that would be a marketing coup for the Hardee's slash Carl's Jr. corporation. I think that would be a tourist destination. I think we will take photos there. I feel like that is a, that would be a worthwhile marketing move for that company.

Hey, while we're at it, just throw a fucking wager in the Mississippi. Watch them sink. You know what would make a lot of money? Would be a combination Taco Bell, Del Taco. Oh my God. Think about it. You can get the case of deer from Del Taco. You can get the case of deer from Del Taco.

I love the case of deer. Maddie, that's a great, great, great answer. That is a great idea. That's a great, that's a great answer. But it's so unthinkable. That's as if, that's like, like expecting Ray to team up with Uncar Platt on some sort of business. I mean, they're rivals. Oh God, I thought we were going to get through without mentioning Uncar Platt.

For me, let me think. Now all I can think of is portions. If I were to split up a half portion with another half portion, it would probably be, how about this, Wendy's and Dunkin Donuts. You get the dinner and then you have the breakfast sandwiches. Because Wendy's doesn't really have a much of a breakfast menu. If any breakfast menu. They don't have a breakfast sandwich at all.

Besides that, I would be like, I mean, I would maybe like team up like Wendy's and McDonald's. And then I would get my favorite things. But then it's a lot of crossover. I love your idea of like a Wendy's and a Del Taco or something could be really great. Yeah, Del Taco, it feels like is crying out for some sort of co-lab. Del Taco Corporation, get on it. If you have a question. Yeah, very, very good question, Daniel.

And yeah, you know, again, if you have some work, I'm not trying to say anything negative to a fellow citizen or visitor of Long Beach. But, you know, I don't know. I have a hard time believing this. If you have any supporting evidence, I'd like to see it. Calling you out, Daniel. If you have a question or comment about the world of chain restaurants, you can email us at doboyspodcast at gmail.com.

And before we, oh, follow us on Twitter at doboyspod. Check out our Facebook page, which is just doboys. And before we wrap up, I just want to give a real quick plug. If you're in the Los Angeles area this weekend, starting this weekend and going into next week, there's a new Fox sketch show from the Lonely Island in Paul Shear that I'm writing for. It's called Party Over Here. And there are live tapings this Friday, February 5th and Saturday, February 6th, as well as next Tuesday the night through Friday the 12th.

We've got a really, really funny cast. Nicole Byer, Jessica McKenna, Allison Rich, great writing staff, including some past guests of the Do Boyz podcast. It tapes in downtown LA. I'll tweet out the link on my own personal Twitter at nickweiger. But if you go to oncamera audiences.com and look for Party Over Here tickets, you can also get them there. But yeah, like I said, I'll tweet out the link and look for that.

Should be a really fun show. Should be a fun event. And they're just going to be fun little tapings that are only like an hour long. Sometimes you go to TV tapings that are all day long. This should be a quick little thing. So another project I'm working on. Nick's Being Modesty is the head writer of that show. And it's going to be very funny.

And also, if you go just like Nick's movie going experiences, there will be no snacks. And maybe you can get a Pepsi in there too. And you'll be showing the butler at all or not? Yeah, that's all. This is just a scheme to get people to watch Lee Daniels, the butler in the Alexandria hotel. Mattie Smith, thank you so much for joining us. I just did a plug. Do you have anything you would like to plug?

Not at the moment. I'm with you. Good answer. Very solid answer. I admire that. That'll do it for this episode of Do Boyz. How about your Twitter handle? Yeah, how about your Twitter handle?

Oh, yeah. At Mattie Smith with two Fs. I got a common name. Yeah, you got a common name. So you got to pull a little English on it. I think that's a good, elegant solution. Me too. All right, check that out.

Follow Mattie, Mattie's great. And that'll do it for this episode of Do Boyz. Until next time, for The Swoon Man, Mike Mitchell, I'm Nick Weigar. Happy eating. See ya.