The Bossticks - #39: Brad Evarts - Daddy's In The House, Psychos, Branding, Relationship Advice

Episode Date: November 29, 2016

Entrepreneur, businessman, branding expert, and restaurateur Brad Evarts - who also happens to be Lauryn's father, joins Michael & Lauryn to discuss psychos, branding, building a business in 2016, and the importance of acting "child-like" in a relationship. To connect with Lauryn click HERE To connect with Michael click HERE This episode is brought to you by The Skinny Confidential Bombshell Body Guide and Meal plan.  tired of combating inflammation & bloat? Want to feel lighter and sexier? Check out lauryn's latest 7 day meal plan. In this simple & super effective plan you'll find: + tsc grocery list with every ingredient you need for the 7 days. + what the f*ck to do when you love carbs guide. + quick and delicious recipes: breakfast, snacks, lunch, dinner and dessert. You will also find 28 weeks worth of fat burning, muscle toning, 27 minute long, effective workouts you can do at home with no equipment. USE PROMO CODE: HIMANDHER at Checkout for 20% Off

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The following program is a podcast.1.com presentation. She's a lifestyle blogger extraordinaire. Fantastic. And he's a serial entrepreneur. A very smart cooking. And now Lauren Everts and Michael Bostic are bringing you alone for the ride. Get ready for some meat. Realness.

Welcome to the skinny confidential, him and her. Snicker. You have that sinister. It's like that dog. Oggie dog. You have my dog. You know my dog that used to float up. Ah, and then you go down.

You have a sinister snicker. You have it all that? There it is. And we're back again. Oh. Yeah, we were recording that. So you guys were having a heartfelt moment. Yeah, a heartfelt moment about my snicker.

It's evil. Hey, guys, it's Lauren from the Skinny Confidential and my lovely new husband. Michael Bostic here, back again, podcasting. We have a very special guest today. We're going to introduce you to them. You guys kind of already heard him. But first, I want to take a second to thank you guys for subscribing, listening, and rating our podcast.

Honestly, we really, really appreciate the reviews and the messages on social media, especially Snapchat. I love a good Snapchat message. It feels like I'm texting you guys. If you haven't rated or reviewed the show, please do so. Give us five stars. Michael says you can give us one star if you want, but I like five. And let us know what you want to see.

You can always email ask, what is it? Podcasts at the skinny confidential.com. Yes. If you guys like the show, let your friends, boyfriends, dogs, sisters know so we can continue to grow this amazing community. Do we're going to take dog listeners now? Yeah, of course. We have dogs in our lap. All right.

So we're here. We have a very special guest. Long time coming. Long time. New father-in-law, I guess. Can I call you dad? Oh, my God. You don't want to do that, do you?

I don't know. I'd love it. I'd be honored. That's great. All right. All right. He's honored. All right.

So we're here with Lauren's dad, entrepreneur, businessman, restaurateur, branding expert. The Nanz's son. Yep. Brad Everts? That's a proud moment. Yeah. It's the Nans' son.

If you guys have listened to the Nans, go listen to her on our podcast. I don't know which episode it is. I think it's seven. But yeah, my dad's her son. And we're going to talk about a lot of different things today because I feel like we have a scroll of things to go over. I feel like you're the only other man on the planet that's been able to deal with Lauren like I have. Well, she's special. She's special.

I've had to deal with both of you for a long time. That's true. I mean, ever since the closet. Yeah, we're going to, the closet. Let's talk about the closet. Well, for those, for those of you who listened a few weeks back, we told a story about how when Lauren and I were younger,

we got caught. Younger, we were 12. 12, yeah, 12, 13. 10. No, we're 10. That's creepy, Daddy. I'll take the credit, but no, not that early. I saw my life flash before my eyes,

and it was your face that did it. So, yeah, Brad caught us in the closet when we were fooling around. We're kids. Luckily, now you can't complain too much because. Wait, tell us about how you found us in the closet. I just came home, spontaneous from work one day. And I heard noise upstairs. I went into your room and looked around and sort of ruffling in the closet.

And Michael's eyes were about the size of basketballs and no shirts on either one of you. Even though you were flat as a board at 11, Michael still looked like your babysitter. You still looked like his babysitter. So I thought you might be babysitting because Michael was so much. shorter you at the time. But Michael quickly got out of there and I being, I've known his parents, I knew Michael's parents prior to knowing Michael. So I've known him a long time. I knew that we'd work it out and we did. And look at where you are now. Yeah. It was a, it was interesting introduction. I wish during that time when that was all going down that while it was happening,

you said, don't worry, we'll work it out. Because I think the conversation was a little bit different. I don't think it was, don't worry, we'll work it out. I think it was, what the fuck are you doing? Yeah, but my dad really did start to fall in love with Michael as the years went on because I dated this one guy that was like a bad boy, and then I dated another guy that was, you know, meh. And years later, Michael came into my dad's restaurant, Yellow Coyote and Encinitas, and you said, oh, there's Michael.

And you said, that's one of the smartest things you could ever do is date Michael. It'll interesting enough that you both were one year, two years old in the restaurant, and you would play hostess and be on the phone and Michael would be at a table touching cactus and we're all over the place in the restaurant. So you both were destined. It's destiny and you have fantastic family and I'm thrilled to have you as a family.

Brad was always in my corner. I know, my dad was in your corner. Well, I mean, how could you not be in your corner when I was dating like literally like the guy was dating? I just played it cool. You guys, I, this is a whole other podcast, but I totally have been there where you dated like the bad boy that is like living out of his car.

He wasn't really a bad man. Literally, Michael's family was some of my best guests at the restaurants, at our restaurant. They were there almost as much as I was. My dad owned a restaurant called cilantro's in Delmar, and that's the restaurant he's referring to, that Michael and I would see each other when we were one and two years old. So basically, Michael's been chasing me since he was in the womb. Yep, gotcha. Gotcha.

And now Destiny is, you guys are. full steam ahead. Doing a lot of good stuff. All right, you guys, let's talk about one of my favorite watch companies. But let's also talk about not breaking the bank during the holidays. I feel like an ideal gift is a watch. It's cute.

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primarily off their Instagram. You'll be obsessed. I may or may not have screenshoted a bunch of the ones I want, and I will be texting them to Michael today. Anyway, with movement, you can skip the annoying crowds and standing in a crazy boring line at the mall to find the gift that's chic and perfect. The watches start at $95. At a department store, you're looking at $400,500. Classic design, quality construction, and styled minimalistic. Over 500,000 watches sold and $160,000. countries. Get 15% off today with free shipping and free returns by going to movementwashes.com slash skinny. Now it's time to step up your watch game. Go to movement watches.com slash skinny. So we celebrated our first Thanksgiving's husband and mine. We did. That turned out to be interesting.

Interesting. Well, you know, what's funny, my family and your family, the alcohol does flow during the holidays. People. I mean, I feel like it flows for everyone's family, though, on the holidays. There's so much dynamic, you're, especially if you have to go to two houses. Not when you're breaking records down at the one and only Paul May have for the tequila consumption of Don Julio. That was our family. That was our family. That's what we're referring to the wedding, you guys. When the, when the three-month-old remembers more about those four days over everybody, we have to go to him to figure out what happened in those four days. Yeah, we have to go back to the tapes.

Yeah, we had to go back to the tapes. It's all videoed, but the problem is the video guy was drunk, too. I hit my head during the wedding night. I don't remember how. And it still hurts today. So, Lawrence did I have to go to the doctor if it still bothers me to come tomorrow. After Thanksgiving with your squirt guns that we got from the wedding, Julie and I were playing with them on Thanksgiving, and she hit me in the face with it.

I had a big bruise on the side of my face. So we have some fun with tequila, no doubt. It's all about tequila. So everything's fine, having a good Thanksgiving. I would call, yeah, it was just like normal eating cranberry sauce, little stuffing. Somebody. I brought an intruder. Yeah.

I brought an outsider and into our family function. And I think she might have had an alcohol problem. So we're the wrong. Wait, wait. Well, back up though for a second. Because we get there, you know. Wait, wait, wait. Wait, wait.

First, he has to say how he meets. Wait, you guys. Okay. So my dad meets this woman at a bar down the street from his house. He tells me that she walks in and orders a version Bloody Mary before yoga. Okay, that's interesting. Who orders a version Bloody Mary at a bar before yoga? There's a couple different things going on with that.

So she orders that and my dad starts talking to her. And his friend starts talking to her and they take up this whole conversation. And my dad is so nice and so is my stepmom, Julie. And they decide to invite her for Thanksgiving. Great idea. Thanksgiving. It's all about family and gathering and being thankful and grateful and people that maybe don't have families. You know, and we look like a tar.

I think we might have been targeted. You don't say. I totally agree with you. I think it's amazing that you guys invited someone in that maybe didn't have a family. But let's try not to invite like a stage five psycho into our house. Well, I don't think that was the case. Well, she got a little bit unruly. Let's just say that.

I noticed something was wrong when I looked over and her eyes were going in two different directions. At that point, I figured, hmm, this one's drinking a little bit. You know what? I don't mind that she was drinking a lot. Here's what I mind it. She came in, and the second she came in,

she had it out for me. The second she sat down. She proceeded to ask me where I went to college. then she asked me what my degree was in if I got a BA or a BS. I told her I got a BS for bullshit because it was a waste of time. Then she asked me if I voted,

who I voted for, why I voted for that person, if my dad paid for my college and then started asking me just like really weird questions and that's when I was kind of like, okay, you're making me uncomfortable. This is uncomfortable.

She was really nice to me. Of course she was. Asked me to dance. We did a couple dances. Lauren almost ripped my head off. Yes, if I pulled a dance, I can't. So what made her different than the barrenaked cucumber at your wedding? She was the bar naked.

We should set her up with the barra naked cucumber. Well, I was thinking. That's what I was kind of the... That's on brand. The bare naked cucumber at our wedding was just as bad as this woman. Actually, who do you think was ours? Well, we had to yank him away, the baronaky cucumber away from you. Well, see, this girl lasted, you know, 30 minutes.

He lasted for four days. Yeah, he best. That's a plus. Yeah. Yeah, so this girl ended up having to be kind of just told, like, okay, it's time to go. So she left, and I'll let you kind of take it. Well, it took me forever to get her out, and I finally got her outside and got her in the Uber. And actually, I called her an Uber, and she was freaking out screaming about me about how Donald Trump was going to save her or something.

I didn't really understand what she meant. but I finally got an Uber there and I was trying to be a nice guy and say okay where can I Miles was helping you myself I said where can this Uber take you she wouldn't tell me so me and Miles said

you know just take her to the holiday in up the street she wouldn't she wouldn't get in and so I told her I lied to her and I felt like she was flirting a little bit so I said if you get in the Uber I'll get in with you and go home with you and so she looked at me with big eyes and she said okay

she got in and I slammed the door and I said, drive, drive, and send her on her way. And then, you know, I thought everything was fine. We're at Thanksgiving. We're all having fun. We're singing. We're dancing. My cousins are there.

And I am my Art Griswold fashion. Everything's fine. There's no problem. The ship's sailing. Okay. The whole house is burning down my dogs because everything's fine. The turkey's walking out the back door. Every time I see the vacation, the Christmas movie,

and I see the family walking out to saw the tree down, and the girl, the daughter's freezing to death. and the dad's saying everything's okay and then they get to the tree and he forgets the saw. I think of you every time. It cracks me up. That's a good thing. But anyway, so we're sitting there. Everything's fine.

And we look up and she's back. She's at the window. She's like Michael Myers and Halloween. I heard the music going off. She's standing at the door. Breathing heavily. Long story short, Mimi called the police. Police got there and...

We literally had to call the police on Thanksgiving, you guys, because this woman came back and was standing at the door breathing. And we were having so much fun. We were. We were having fun. And we would have totally had fun. Nana would have, I don't know what Nana would have. Nana would have literally like chopped that woman's hair off.

And your sister would have too. Yeah, my sister wasn't there. My grandma obviously wasn't there. But both of them would have been like Jordan would have. She came back for me. She came back. She came back for you. She came back for me.

Wow. The Uber brought her back. He didn't know what to do with her. He was stuck with her. Yeah, the Uber driver was over her, brought her back. Then, Thanksgiving was great, awesome. My dad forgot to give me leftovers, which was kind of a bummer. I love Thanksgiving.

I love Thanksgiving. It's my favorite holiday. I love cooking for the family. That is my pride and joy. And then she called my dad and Julie the next day to thank them for a wonderful time. So that's an example, guys, of not being self-aware. We always talk about self-awareness. Right, Michael?

We have to vet people with tequila when we're. first meet them to make sure. Well, I'm never sure. Keep up with four bottles. I can't wait to see who you. I can't wait to see who you invite over for Thanksgiving. All Christmas. I mean, for Christmas.

I mean, yeah. Yeah. Guess who's coming to Christmas? Yeah. I can only imagine. Well, I'm going to do a vetting process. Okay. Well, let's not do a version, Bloody Mary, before yoga at a random bar down the street type of moment.

Getting ready for Christmas. What are we doing for Christmas? Christmas this year, I, I, and we haven't talked about this, but I think that we should do Secret Santa because, I, I think that everyone has everything they need, and it's just, I think it's too much to give everyone a gift. Well, today's Cyber Monday, right? Today's Cyber Monday. So it's kicking in.

It's a good sale today. If you guys, I guess they want to hear this to go to the blog, but go check the Skinny Confidential because the sales will still be up. Also, it's Black Friday. I have sales on there, too. So. With the Secret Santa, Christmas shopping, makes good sense. Yeah, don't you think? I think we should 100% do it.

Should I get a Hanukkah bush this year? or a Christmas drink. I feel like you should get every kind because you never know who's going to show up on Christmas. Okay. You know. One of your favorite things to do

is hand out cards for every holiday. Oh, my dad hands out cards for every single holiday. So literally on Flag Day, my dad gives us cards. Like Columbus Day. Magic cany. Yeah, every day.

Easter cards. Easter cards. Birthday cards. Every holiday you can never think of any card. Wait, it's fun being a father. That's good. But let's do virtual cards, virtual cards from now on.

All right, we're going to take a quick break. I'm going to read my Thanksgiving holiday card from Brad, and I'll be right back. My name is Anthony Ponce, and I used to be a reporter on NBC, but I got tired of being part of traditional news media. So I quit that job and became a lift driver. And now I interview whatever passengers end up in my backseat. So if you want to hear the best stories that real people tell me when we're driving around the city, check out my podcast. It's called Backseat Rider on podcast. Podcast1.com, the Podcast One app, and iTunes.

This is the skinny confidential, him and her. All right, we're back from the Thanksgiving card readings. I got my cinnamon coffee. Yep. And we're here with Brad, Lawrence Father, my new father-in-law. And we're just going to have kind of a free-flowing conversation. I wanted to first, you know, there's a lot of people that, you know, I don't know how exposed you have been on Lauren's blog or not been. And you haven't really showed your dad too much.

I have. My dad, if you guys have my book, he did a recipe in my book, a chili rano recipe. It's one of my favorite recipes. He's also been like on the blog and pictures and stuff. But I'm very protective of my family and I try not to like over expose them because they didn't sign up for what I do. But at the same time, a lot of people are interested in meeting them. Speaking of that, so what have you thought throughout this whole process, Braddock?

I mean, obviously nobody could have anticipated. the line of work that Lauren would be in. I know you didn't. Well, you maybe thought of some kind of version, but this is, this is not. Let's just say my dad's not surprised at what I do, because. So I feel that three years old, Lauren was, you know, parents would come over to our home looking for their kids. Lauren was literally doing seminars in our garage with all the kids, and parents would come looking for their kids that were gone for hours. while Lauren stood up and was literally giving seminars.

So I love telling people what to do. She used to intermaid, interview our housekeeper. Elva? Alba. And so it doesn't come as a surprise that she's comfortable doing what she does. And I'm very proud of her. And really, with social media, both Michael and her have captivated such an audience, both through Snapchat and Instagram and utilize.

all the different facets and learned how to monetize. And none of it is surprising to me for either one of these two. And they've really captured something that, I mean, both you two have really captured something that to me is masterful. And you continue to grow. And you never, ever will stop growing. No, we're going to be comfortable. The people in my age demographic can't keep up with.

it. I've tried and it's it's it requires you you all when you were born there were no computers when you were born I was putting on my lap and we're playing games on computers. I was blogging through scrapbooks well I want to kind of you were blogging through scrapbooks I kind of want to touch on the little why do you feel like people your age can't keep up with it like what do you what what specifically can't you keep up with I think that in life you other things become important you know like families and and all of that's important to you all but you You just have a, you're faster-paced. It requires like almost attention deficit disorder in a way because you're multitask to the maxims.

And so when you're middle age and having family and other things become important, that's not so important. But you still can have vigor and zest and want to do stuff. And that's where I'm at with my own business. I looked at social media. I looked at podcasting. I thought, how am I going to do this? Recognizing that my expertise is in the food industry. And what I enjoy doing is dealing with food and building.

Building. Building and creating brands. And what's happened is back when I opened up, it was a hands-on deal. You had to be hands-on. You had to be there. It was all about the person being there serving. their goods. When you open your first restaurant. When I open my first restaurant, when I opened my restaurant, when I opened all my restaurants, I was a very hands-on operator. And then with social

media, what happened is everyone kind of got away from that. And now I believe that, and that's why I'm jumping back in again, that social media doesn't work so much. It works with marketing and branding your restaurant, but you still have to go back to the old methods. And it's hotter than ever. brick and mortar to me is on a surge again with businesses like restaurants. Restaurants right now, it's kind of like going back to the 1985 when I opened cilantro and Epizote, to now you can do that again and you're kind of like the guy behind the deli case with your meats and the guy, the owner's back there showing his goods and what he has. He's there on premise and if you can learn how to do that, in my opinion, with social media too

and be hands-on like you two are completely and treat it like a brick and mortar within social media. I can see it all my age demographic, the people that in my age, it's not over. I mean, I want to be working all the way through this life. I don't want to ever retire. Retire is not in my vocabulary. Here's the thing that you touched on a little bit and I want to kind of like elaborate on it. Social media with brick and mortar is to be used as a tool. And if you can figure that out, then you can have a successful brick and mortar place also factoring.

And you've got to have good food. You've got to have good service. You've got to have a good atmosphere. But people, when they're using social media, they want cool, hit places to do it. And so where a lot of people in the brick and mortar space, a lot of restaurants have been successful is they've used these tools to entice people like Lauren, to entice people, everyday people, everyday consumers, to come in, to Instagram, to Snapchat, to showcase the brick and mortar space that they're in. So where I think you're doing a good job is you understand that. You know, we've talked a little bit. Lauren and I've consulted with you a little bit on the restaurant.

And you're putting a strong emphasis on, you know, having things Instagramable, having things so that people want to Snapchat, having experiences and unique things so that people want to come in and showcase that they're in the spot. And I think that's where people can really excel in the restaurant space, can really excel in the brick and mortar space. When they come in and they recognize social media can be a tool to entice people to come in. And then, yes, of course, you do the good food, the good atmosphere, the good service. But you can't just get by on that anymore. So my advice here with brick and mortar would be that if you want to be in the now and in the times and evolved to where we are, it would be to really think about social media with everything you do. So the light needs to be natural light.

No one wants to shoot in some dark, like underground place, right? You don't want to shoot really against like a wood. You see a lot of people shooting against white. So you think of your tables as white. You even think like down to like the linens on the napkins. Like I would think too, and we've talked about this, my dad's going to do a lot of fresh juices with tequila. Like you want colorful juices.

Like maybe we do a flight that's like different colored juices for like brunch. And it's like a brunch where you get a tequila flight with fresh juices. Or you do like pomegranate seeds and beautiful herbs. Everything needs to be. like photographic. So anyone that's just a normal person on the street wants to come in and take pictures of it. So when you look at that geotag, you want to go there too. There's a place in London that we're dying to go. It's called Sketch and the whole restaurant's pink. And what they've done is they've branded their restaurant in all pink. So guess what happens? Every girl on the planet

wants to go in there and take a picture of it. So it's all over social media. There's another restaurant called Gracious Madre. It's in West Hollywood and everything's white and bright and light and It looks beautiful on an Instagram feed. Everyone goes in there and basically the advertising is done with the way the place looks because everyone wants to photograph it. And you're literally utilizing like the kids today to do your advertising as opposed to a magazine. People need to understand that, you know, you can have your consumers and your customers also be your marketers with social media.

That's the beauty of it. And so whenever you're, you know, whether you're doing a clothing store, it's brick and mortar or you're doing a restaurant or, I don't know, any kind of store, juice stop, whatever, coffee shop, when you keep that in mind and realize, okay, every customer that comes in here, not only can they be a customer, they can be a marketer for me. And you should design your space around that thought, then you exponentially can grow because you're going to have multiple eyes on your brand at all times and you're not going to be the only one telling people. You know, word of mouth is the best form of marketing out there. There's nothing more powerful than word of mouth. Now you can do it to the world with the internet.

And that never has changed. That never has changed. That's one of the old ads. It's like the grass is not greener type thing. So the good news is in a five-year hiatus from the restaurants and trying to do the social media game and watching you two do the social media game, I know this about restaurateurs, they get buried in the business of it all and in the minutia of it all

and aren't able to pay attention to social media. It doesn't see how it really affects them. And so they end up with the wrong types of people marketing their product on Facebook with likes and stuff like that, which really doesn't drive traffic. It all does come down to word of mouth, but your word of mouth can be through Snapchat and Instagram and all the things that you've touched on

with table color and bar color, bringing guests in. But my competition, the guys that have been around a long time, still don't get social media. So us coming in now, after that five-year hiatus, and thank God for you two, I'm able to see that I need to back off, take the reins away from my hands

because I have to, I recognize, where my strengths lie, which is opening up and serving really great farm-to-table southwestern food in an environment that's becoming to, I mean, the age demographic has changed. I don't want to bring people from my age up to 100. I want to bring people in from 20 all the way to 90 years old. I want to serve all the masses. Well, 90% of the people that I consult with and that we work with, we tell them, you know, do what you're good at. in this case, you know, focus on the restaurant.

And you hire someone like me or a different agency that specializes in social media marketing or branding, influencer marketing. You don't want to do what people have done the old way, do some SEO and likes and stuff. I mean, that's all great and good, but that's not going to drive customers now into your restaurant. And so, you know, a lot of what we do is coming in and show people, hey, look, you focus on this, let us focus on that and really come up with a strategic plan that works for the space. Ride your strengths. I think people get into trouble when they start to do everything.

I feel like these guys, a lot of them have been burned by the smaller guys. And when you see what can be done with the right team, they've spent a lot of money trying to chase Facebook likes instead of doing what you're suggesting. I think if we take this a step further than just restaurants and we talk about product, this can also be applied to product. So let me give you guys an example. There is a company called White Girl Rose. White Girl Rosey is Rosey.

There's nothing special about it. It's like $10, maybe $15. But what's happened is that they don't have to do any advertising because every girl on the planet wants to Instagram white girl rosé. And that's because they have a really cheeky name with a cute label that's white. So everyone wants to Instagram it. They just came out with a Pinotrigio. What's it called?

I think it's called like Family Time is Hard. Family time is hard. So guess what? I want to Instagram that it's funny as shit. Right. So what happens is that they don't need to do anything. They literally just came out with a bomb product that's funny and cheeky and everyone wants to put it on their social media. So I think if you're thinking like that whenever you're opening a business or doing a product and you're constantly thinking, what do people want to talk about?

That's the way to do it. No, I agree. We've touched on this for the last five, ten minutes. If you can get other people to do your marketing for you and have those other people be your word of mouth, spread your message. Not even your soldiers, but just your messengers. Your messengers. Just people that are advocates of the brand and want to be part of the brand, then one, you're going to save so much money on traditional advertising. And two, it's going to be much more effective.

Yeah, at each one of the restaurants, I always wanted to have a theme. I always wanted to have something to carry my brand. I mean, I was brand thinking, and didn't even realize that back when I opened up. And just to give you guys a background on my dad, he opened salontros, which was a huge restaurant in San Diego by the Polo Fields when I was three to one. And how old were you? I was 28. 28. 28.

Okay. So my dad was 28. He opened salantros. And from there, he opened Episodes. And then he opened Chesapeake's House of Rapp, Della Coyote, all these restaurants. So each one of them, salantros had a shaker margarita that became famous. We ended up being the number one Soussa cellar. A big surprise for this family.

Sousa tequila. Sousa tequila in Southern California, which is a big honor. I mean, that's a lot of Sousa Tijuana. Because they came up with a shaker. Can you imagine the shaker on Instagram right now? It would be insane. My dad had this thing that was called the shaker and you basically got a margarita and shook your own margarita and then poured it in a cup with salt around the room.

It was a tableside margarita basically. Then at Epizote, we did tableside guacamole where we took a barquele. where we took the theme of a Caesar salad and turned it into, took guacamole like a Caesar salad is done, performed table side. House of Raps, we had to have the best wraps, and they were the best. They were fantastic. House of Raps was a fast food wraps and smoothie place. And then Chesapeake, its theme was the artichoke.

I had to have the right almond wood and had to do it just perfect. A restaurant called Houston's, which is one of my favorites. does that artichoke, we had to do it as well, and we did. And so our artichoke and our seafood, they're just specific things and niches that we tried to build our brand. And I wish I had the two of you then to understand how, you know, I was building a brand and didn't really realize it. Well, the tools were different back then.

Going back in hindsight, I would have been smarter. And I think you two, if you had been where you are right now, would have told me not to do Epizote, not to do House of Ref. Stick with one theme, stick with one brand, and grow that brand. That's what I've learned from both of you. All right, you guys, if you read The Skinny Confidential, you already know about Soul Society. So it's spelled soul, S-O-L-E, like the soul of the shoe. And the company is based in L.A.

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Free shipping on all orders, $50 or more at sole society.com. Make sure you guys use the promo code Skinny for 15% off your first purchase only at soulsociety.com. You can use that code on everything except sale and egg products. Happy shopping. That's skinny for 15% off. So what do you think the major? differences are now starting a restaurant in 2016, 2017, compared to, you know, 1987, 1986.

Well, obviously, I think the social media is, first and foremost, we do have some special features at our restaurant, which the two of you helped name. We are Alse, which means moose in Spanish, and we have a giant moose head that's going to be hanging in by the bar, but it's going to be quite the Instagram and Snapchat piece, I believe, and kind of an icon of the restaurant for people who identify us by on social media. And the outside's all white, like a stucco white, and it's going to have a huge moose head, blog due design it. We are going to raise a bar in North County, in Salana Beach,

and bring back service with the old style methods, really. Honestly, what's different is because of social media and the intention deficit thing, service has gone by the wayside, and everyone's on their telephones, of servers and not paying attention to business a lot of the time when you're going out to dime. So we're really going to emphasize on farmed table, southwestern style food, which is coming back again.

A lot of fresh. A lot of fresh. All the bounty of New Mexico. So touching back on, you know, the major differences now, somebody starting out in this space, in the brick and mortar space, restaurant space, 2016, 2017, what advice would you give them? The most important thing that I learned, and I learned it through tough experience is the lease. The lease that I negotiated on this deal is better than the one I negotiated in 1986.

It's small space. Keep it small. Keep it small. Keep it consolidated. Easy to manage less employees. Keep that rent factor down because the margins have changed. Yeah. No, we talk about this a lot. I think people sometimes get in trouble when they launch something new and they go really, really big and have huge, huge expectations. You can always grow into that. So I've seen a lot of of people have success starting small and kind of growing outward. Lauren did the same thing with their blog. I've done it with some of my businesses. We call it the upside down triangle. You start really, really, really small and really, really, really, really niche. And you slowly expand out as the business grows, as opposed to starting huge with big starry eyes and then having to go downward. Well, not to mention when

you do a really, really big restaurant space, in order to make it look not empty, you have to fill it almost every night because the worst thing is when you walk into a place and it feel like, dead. Maybe there's a lot of people in there, but because the space is so big, it feels like it's empty. I would rather go to a smaller space and have it feel packed. 100% than, and the same thing with, you know, from that mindset of a guy that's been doing it for so long, my tendency was cilantro's was 3,500 square feet, Epizote was 6,000 square feet, that each time I got bigger. I mean, at the end of the day, the last restaurant was 7,700 square feet. So I continued to get bigger rather than going back to the basics.

taking a space that was already in business that maybe hadn't been doing so well and got negotiated phenomenal ease. I think that that's, we should take that kind of like from somewhere like Paris. Like Paris, like the cafes are so tiny and they're always packed and everyone's dying to get in everywhere because everything feels so full. People want to go where where there's life. It feels dead when it's empty. So I think with any brick and mortar space, even if it's like you're opening a little boutique, I think the smaller that you can go almost, the better because when it feels more charming, more intimate, and you want to be there.

They create a need. And the French laundry is famous for doing that up in Napa or Sonoma. The French laundry is small. The food's fantastic, but they've created a six-month waiting list to get in. And so it creates this need to have to get in there any way you can, almost like Hamilton to play in New York. Here's why I don't like the French laundry, though. I've never been.

But here's why. We've been to per se though. Yeah, I've been doing that. Okay, so I think that those really high-in hoity-to-dy kind of places are going out. I think that people just want a good meal. If you look at somewhere like floral farms, which is what your restaurant's going to be like, very similar. In Cabo, it's like the best pizza you've ever had, the best carrot, ginger margarita you've ever had. It's almost taking like really good, normal food and just making it the best, as opposed to like having, like,

having like a side of foie gras with like a tiny piece of filet. Like I just, I'm more about like really good food and a charming atmosphere. A bad service can destroy a phenomenal meal. So the service standards have got to be there. And the expectation level of the owner, it's up to the owner really to make sure that they're trained properly and there's no gray. It's black and white. And that's something that takes years of learning too.

We've been going for the ups and downs of management. Well, say this, bad customer service in any business will destroy that business. It's a matter of time. It can be, it doesn't even know, it could be any business. It can be an online business. Could be a restaurant. Could be consumer goods. Can be clothing.

Shoot, whatever it is. Bad customer service will sink you eventually. Yeah, I think it's important as an owner to always be engaging too with the customers. And that goes, whether you're a blogger or whether you're a restaurant owner or, you know, brick and mortar, whatever it is. It's really important to constantly engage with the customer because I like the customer to tell me where to go. So I'm constantly always.

like snapping with my readers and seeing what they like and what they don't like. One of the things I admire most about both of you too is that you both come to work. I mean, I came here today. You're with your briefcase. You come to work with your briefcase. You leave with your briefcase. You take it serious, but you also still are able to be normal. You know, love your family and do normal things.

Have fun. Try to do normal things. Until I bring my guest list. Now, I do have a guest list for Christmas. Great. Not with that version-blooded marriage now. All right. Let's talk about bio-clarity.

So, as you guys know, I have used bio-clarity for Zitz. It's definitely great for acne. I like to use it a lot when I'm in L.A. Because I feel like there's a lot of pollution. Going to New York soon, definitely going to be bringing it in my travel bag. Why I like it because it's created by nature and powered by science. So it's a totally new acne tree. designed specifically for young adult skin that's naturally better. And it's clinically proven

to clear up acne blemishes and help maintain clear, confident skin. Just how we all like it. 90% of clinical study patients report a reduced number of blemishes and would recommend it to friends. Quick, simple, easy, three steps. You cleanse, you treat, you restore. I really like the restore gel because it's made with the green stuff that's in plants. And it kind of makes the product unique. It's patented with ingredients to help redness the size of pores and soothe the skin. Just how I like it. So what are you waiting for? I get clearer skin today.

Just go to bioclarity.com. The skinny confidential him and her listeners will get their first month for only $9.95. That's a $20 savings and it comes with a 100% risk-free money-back guarantee. But you guys have to enter my code skinny. That's bioclarity.com and enter my code skinny. All right, before we go, though, I want to ask you about something that you've really been helpful for me in, and that's relationship advice. And one of the things that you told me was to remain childlike. And I've talked about this on the blog a little bit. Can you elaborate on

what that means? I just believe childlike. Do you have childlike behavior all the way through life? Childlike behavior all the way through life is really important. You don't focus on age. You just focus on each day and be childlike. It's worked. So what does that mean? Is like, what? Be playful. you keep child when you're a child you have no inhibition you don't worry about anything you just go out and you just

appreciate everything that's given to you you're not worried about who's texting you or who's coming over for Thanksgiving dinner you're a childlike just like you go out and play with army soldiers or you go race slot cars me and Michael do this thing where we have this fake

piece of shit it's actually a fake piece of shit like a fake piece of dog shit and we hide it around the house and whoever. That's childlike. Yeah, so I'll hide it like in his dop kit and then he'll hide it like in the shower when I'm taking a shower behind my shoes.

I put in your shoe the other day. You put in my shoe. And you and Julie do that too. You guys have like games that you play. Right. And I always say this and Nana said it. I mean, Nana's words of wisdom. One of the key ones was never,

and she's got many. Someday we should go over that list that I read at her service because a lot of her big things that she lived by were so important. And one of was never going to bed angry at one another. I mean, it's just not, you know, figure it out and go to bed on the same note with a hug and a kiss. Yeah. What about if she's blogging till three in the

morning when you're trying to sleep next to your head? You still get the briefcase. You've got to put the briefcase down at some point. I also think another tip that my grandma said that was great was she said that get outside yourself. Right. So if you're in your relationship or you're in yourself and you're constantly thinking about me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me. get outside yourself. And how you can do that is you can go take a walk or you can go to a yoga class or or go go talk to other people and ask them about them. I think that that's really important to in a relationship to not just be like inside the

relationship, but like actually go out and get outside of it. Never make money the main object as to why you're working either. I mean money obviously is important. Money comes from hard work. You two are examples of that. You're not, you know, the money is not your driving force. Money comes from hard work. We talked about that with Steve on the podcast.

We talked about that. You have to have a larger purpose. The other big thing, and this is something that I had to learn, and I think that you two really need to pay attention to, and anybody out there listening, is to read the friggin small print in every contract that you signed. That's great. Read the small print.

Yeah, I've gotten trouble. Don't take it for granted. Yeah, babe, can you be my small print reader? I will. I'll have my bag of glass. You have got to learn how to read. your own small print. You cannot read.

I have a new marriage contract. There's a, because there's a couple of small prints in there. Yeah, I have my own. I'm just kidding. And I don't. The last but not least is that love your family is what it would be what Nana would say. Love your family. In the end and in her end, she didn't talk about all of the many accomplishments that she had.

She ran my restaurants for 25 years with me by my side. I mean, I'm honored. I get chills thinking about it because that was, I mean, I'm so thrilled. about that. You worked there as well. But Lauren. Kind of. Yeah, she was a, yeah.

Well, that's another episode. She was a full-time, part-time employee. But in the end, my mom's legacy is the way that she treated her family and her friends. She had, I have a huge friend base like you guys do. You guys have a friend base like your mother and I had. But only one person had a large one, and that was Nana. Nana had a large, large, large. friend base. I would love to love my family if they wouldn't invite random people that drink

Virgin Bloody Marys that lose their shit and hang out at the window. As long as you're not inviting the female version of Michael Myers to Christmas. That was the female version of Slipper. You literally invited swim fan to Thanksgiving. Like fucking swim fan was that my Thanksgiving. Right. Well, how do you think I had to stay at that house? Well, I mean, who would have... I know my address. I'm peeking around windows. Well, who would have thought. I mean, she seemed normal when we found her on a Tuesday drinking a virgin Bloody When virtually you're married doesn't drink alcohol We're the wrong group to be around All right, you guys, that is it

My dad will come back and we can talk about what a horrible employee I was That does need to be discussed I mean, I like to help my business I've got to get some retribution on that one Well, you know, I can't help it I wasn't on brand my perfect daughter You had a halo on your head Except for that lawsuit you almost got me in there

All right you guys, before we go I just wanted to take a minute to thank all of our amazing sponsors and the listeners and the readers for supporting our podcast and the Skinny Confidential. You guys are always what keeps the show growing and you give Michael and I the confidence to keep going and podcasting. We appreciate you and we will be back to continue to bring you entertainment value on a weekly basis for free. Remember to send in your questions to Twitter or Instagram using the hashtag Ask Him

and Her send us questions over our snaps, Lauren Everts and of course Michael Bostic, two S's. Use one. Or email us at Podcast at the skinny confidential.com. All right, you guys, we will see you next week. Thanks for listening to The Skinny Confidential, him and her, with Lauren Everts and Michael Bostic.

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