The Skinny Confidential Him & Her Podcast - #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

This episode is brought to you by Kopari. Okay, you guys, if you follow me on Snapchat, you know we just got married. Super exciting. And as a welcome gift, we gave everyone at the wedding my favorite beauty product, Kopari's Coconut Body Glow. That's right. I lugged it down to Cabo. I'm not obsessed. So I just hope that my dad's not using it. I hope my stepmom's using it.

I totally could see my dad using the coconut body glow. Anyway, every one of my friends was rocking the glow poolside and loving it. I was using it specifically on my neck and chest. So basically their products get the job done. They moisturize the skin and the hair and they smell all island fresh. Very on brand too because their products contain no sulfites, silicones, GMOs, or parabens. And they're made with 100% organic coconut oil. Nothing fake.

Just how I like it. The best part about their beauty products is their multi-purpose. I don't want to lug around 100 products, and this one just does everything. I'm not one of those people that has like a zillion beauty products in their cabinet. I just like real simple ingredient-filled stuff. Is everyone with me on this? I feel like everyone is. Another staple in the house is Kopari Coconut Melt.

It's organic, and I feel like the Victoria's Secret Angels use it on the runway because it gives my legs that perfect shine. It's kind of not too oily. It's organic and I feel like the Victoria's Secret angels use it on the runway because it gives my legs that perfect shine. It's kind of not too oily. It's just right. Okay, so go to koparibeauty.com slash skinny now and get 20% off your order. That's Kopari, K-O-P-A-R-I, beauty.com slash skinny for 20% off. The following program is a podcastone.com presentation. She's a lifestyle blogger extraordinaire. Fantastic. And he's a serial entrepreneur. A very smart cookie.

And now Lauren Everts and Michael Bostic are bringing you along for the ride. Get ready for some major realness. Welcome to the Skinny Confidential. Him and her. Aha. It's on. You have that sinister, it's like that dog. Oggy doggy.

You might not be comparing my laughter to a dog. No, you know the dog that used to float up? Ha ha. And then he'd go down? No, I don't. You have a sinister snicker. You have it all the, there it is. And we're back again.

Oh. Yeah, we were recording that, so. Okay. You guys 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 him. 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? Podcast 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. So 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. Father-in-law. 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. I'd be honored. All right. Well, he's? I love it. I'd be honored. That's great. I'd be honored. All right. Well, he's honored.

All right. So we're here with Lauren's dad, entrepreneur, businessman, restaurateur, branding expert. The Nans' 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 gonna the closet let's talk about the closet well for those quick thing 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 no that's 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 were kids. Luckily, now you can't complain too much. 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 opened, looked around and heard ruffling in the closet and Michael's eyes were about the size of a basketball and no shirts on either one of you.

Even though you were flat as a board at 11, Michael still looked like you were a babysitter. You still looked like his babysitter. So I thought you might be babysitting because Michael was so much shorter than you at the time. But Michael quickly got out of there. And 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. It was an 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. Well, interestingly enough, 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 a fantastic family. And I'm thrilled to have you as a family. Brad was always in my corner. I know.

But 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 I 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, like, wasn't really a

bad boy. I mean, 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 Del Mar, 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. 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. It's on trend. But I don't like the ones that are a million dollars, which is why I like Movement Watches, pronounced movement and spelled M V M T. It's a way to change the way consumers think about fashion by offering high quality, minimalistic products at insane prices. I mean, I feel like we all get it. Holiday shopping can be tough, but thanks to movement watches, all of that severe anxiety can disappear with the press of a button.

These watches are the perfect purchase for just about anyone in your life. Guy, girl, sister, mom, dad. Remember, they start at only $95. Before you get one, though, scope their Instagram because there's so much major watch info, and I feel like you can just choose one primarily off their Instagram. You'll be obsessed. I may or may not have screenshotted 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 to $500. Classic design, quality construction and styled minimalistic over 500,000 watches sold in 160 countries. Get 15% off today with free shipping and free returns by going to movementwatches.com slash skinny. Now it's

time to step up your watch game. Go to movementwatches.com slash skinny. So we celebrated our first Thanksgiving as husband and wife. We did. That turned out to be interesting. Interesting. Well, you know, it's funny. My family and your family, the alcohol does flow during the holidays.

People get out there. I mean, I feel like it flows for everyone's family, though, on the holidays. There's so much dynamic. Especially if you have to go to two houses. Not when you're breaking records down at the one and only Palmea for the tequila consumption of Don Julio. That was our family. That was our family.

We're referring to the wedding, you guys. 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 have 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 Lauren said I have to go to the doctor if it still bothers me. 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, yeah, we have some fun with tequila, no doubt. It's all about the tequila. So everything's fine, having a good Thanksgiving. Yeah, it was just like normal, eating cranberry sauce, a little stuffing. Somebody. I brought an intruder. Yeah.

I brought an outsider into our family function and I think she might have had an alcohol problem, so we're the wrong people. Well, back up there for a second because we get there. 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 virgin Bloody Mary before yoga.

Okay. That's interesting. Who orders a virgin 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 is 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 target. 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 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 minded. 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 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 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 lo and almost ripped my head off yes i hold a dance i can't um and what made her different than the bare naked cucumber at your wedding she was the bare naked we should set her up with the bare naked i was thinking that's what i was kind of that's on brand the bare naked cucumber at our wedding was just as bad as this woman actually who do you think was worse well we had to yank him away the bare naked cucumber at our wedding was just as bad as this woman. Actually, who do you think was worse? Well, we had to yank him away. The bare naked cucumber away from you on your wedding day. This girl lasted, you know, 30 minutes. He lasted for four days.

Yeah, that's a plus. 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 just told like okay it's time to go so she left and i'll let you kind of take 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, you know, I paid for the Uber. 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 Inn up the street. 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

sent her on her way and then um 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 uh fashion everything's fine there's no. The ship's sailing okay. The whole house is burning down right now because everything's fine. The house is on fire and 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 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 in Halloween. I heard the music going off.

She's standing at the door. Breathing heavily. Long story short,imi 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 was standing at the door breathing like and we were having so much fun we were having fun and we would have nana would have nana 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 driver 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.. 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 first meet them to make sure they can keep up with four bottles of tequila. I can't wait to see who you invite over for Thanksgiving. Or Christmas. I mean, for Christmas. Guess who's coming to Christmas? 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, we haven't talked about this, but I think that we should do Secret Santa. Because I think that everyone has everything they need, and 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. 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. 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 push this year or a Christmas tree? I feel like you should get every kind because you never know who's going to show up on Christmas. Okay. 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, every day. Yeah, my dad gives us cards. Like Columbus Day. Magical Canyons.

Yeah, every day. Easter cards. Easter cards. Birthday cards. Every holiday you can ever think of, I get a card. Yeah, it's fun being a father. That's good, but let's do 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 Lyft 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 podcastone.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, Lauren's 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. 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 relleno 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 overexpose 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. And speaking of that, so what have you thought throughout this whole process, Brad? Like, 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. Let's just say my dad's not surprised at what I do because. So I feel that three years old, Lauren was, 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.

I love telling people what to do. She used to intermate, interview our housekeeper, Elva. Elva. Elva. 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 utilizing 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 of 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 want to be comfortable. The people in my age demographic can't keep up with it. We've tried, and it requires, when you were born, there were no computers. When you were born, I was putting you on my lap

and we were playing games on computers. I was blogging through scrapbooks. Right, you were blogging through scrapbooks. I kind of want to touch on that a little. Why do you feel like people your age can't keep up with it? What specifically can't you keep up with? I think that in life, other things become important, like families, and all of that's important to you all. But you just have a, you're faster paced. It requires like almost attention deficit disorder in a way because you 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 i am i love my what i enjoy doing is is is dealing with food and building building building and creating brands and what's happened uh 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 opened your first restaurant. When I opened my first restaurant, when I opened my second 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's when I opened Cilantro and Episodi, 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 in. 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, hip places to do it in. 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.

We've talked a little bit. Lauren and I have consulted with you a little bit on the, on the restaurant and you're, you're putting a strong emphasis on, you know, having things Instagram, 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, with brick and mortar is, 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 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 um 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 that's the beauty of it yeah 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, a juice stop, whatever, 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 adages. 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, many, 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 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 90 percent of the people that i consult with and that we and that, 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 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. Yeah, 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 Rosé. White Girl Rosé is rosé. 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 white girl Rose. 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 Pinot Grigio. 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. 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, 10 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, you're going to be much more effective. Yeah. 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 it back when I opened up Cilantro's. And just to give you guys a background on my dad, he opened Cilantro's, which was a huge restaurant in San Diego by the Polo Fields when I was 3?

1. 1. And how old were you? I was 28. 28. Okay okay so my dad was 28 he opened cilantro's and um from there he opened epizotis and then he opened chesapeake's house of wraps yellow coyote all these restaurants so each one of them cilantro's had a shaker margarita that became famous we ended up being the number one salsa seller big surprise for the salsa tequila seller in southern california which is a big honor i mean that's a lot of salsa because they came once i had a shaker can you imagine the shaker on instagram right now it would be insane

right my dad had this thing that was called the shaker and you basically got a margarita and shake shook your own margarita and then poured it in a cup with salt around the rim? It was a table-side margarita, basically. Then at Epizodi, we did table-side guacamole where we took the theme of a Caesar salad and turned it into guacamole like a Caesar salad is done performed table-side. House of Wraps, we had to have the best wraps, and they were the best. They were fantastic. House of Wraps 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 you know 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 how you know i was building a brand i didn't really realize that well the tools were different going back in hindsight 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 Epizodi, not to do House of Riff.

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 S-O-L-E, like the sole of the shoe. And the company is based in LA. So soulsociety.com, it's a shopping destination for head to toe looks that are trendy, but not tragically trendy. I love them because they carry their own brand of shoes, handbags, and accessories, as well as shoes and apparel by brands such as Vince, Lucky Brand, and Dolce Vita. All brands we all love. They're quality

pieces made to last more than one season at prices that won't break the bank. I feel like these are great Christmas gifts too. A lot of their shoes are on the collages on the Skinny Confidential because I just feel like they're perfect for the girl who wants some hot shoes but doesn't want to spend a million dollars. I just snagged some knee high boots that I'm kind of obsessed with. I feel like every girl needs to go on there immediately and check out their boot selection, free shipping on all orders, $50 or more at soul 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 UGG 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 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 Alce, which means moose in Spanish. And we have a giant moose head that's going to be hanging by the bar. It's going to be quite the Instagram and Snapchat piece, I believe, and kind of an icon of the restaurant for people to identify as buying social media.

And the outside's all white, like a stucco white, and it's going to have a huge moose head. Blog do designed it. We are going to raise a bar in North County, in Solana Beach, and bring back service with the old-style methods. Really, honestly, what's different is because of social media and the attention deficit thing, service has gone by the wayside and everyone's on their telephones, servers, and not paying attention to business a lot of the time when you're going out to dine.

So we're really going to emphasize on farm-to-table, southwestern-style food, which is coming back again. A lot of fresh herbs. A lot of fresh herbs. A lot of fresh, all the bounty of New Mexico. So touching back on 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 people have success starting small and kind of growing outward. Lauren did the same thing with her blog. I've done it with some of my businesses. We call it the upside down triangle. You start really, really small and 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 feels 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. A hundred percent. And the same thing with, you know. And 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. Epizodi was 6,000 square feet. Each time I got bigger, at the end of the day, the last restaurant was 7,500 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 negotiated a phenomenal lease. I think that we should take that from somewhere like Paris. Paris, 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 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 one, 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. You've been to Per Se, though. Yeah, I've been there. Okay, so I think that those really high-end, hoity-toity 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 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 a side of foie gras with like a tiny piece of filet. I'm more about 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 that there's no gray. It's black and white.

And that's something that takes years of learning, too, and going through the ups and downs of management. Well, I'll say this. Bad customer service in any business will destroy that business. It's a matter of time. It can be any business. It can be an online business. It could be a restaurant.

It could be consumer goods. It 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 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 two 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, try to do normal things until I bring my guest list. Now I do have a guest list for Christmas dinner. Not with that virgin bloody. All right. Let's talk about bio clarity. So as you guys know, I have used bio clarity for zits. It's definitely great for acne. I like to use it a

lot when I'm in LA 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 treatment 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? 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 disbelieve childlike. Do you have childlike behavior all the way through life? Childlike behavior all the way through life is, is really important. You don't focus on age. You just focus on each day and be childlike. It worked so what does that mean it's like 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 good texting you or who's coming over for thanksgiving dinner you're you're a childlike just like you were 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 shoe. 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 is 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 them was never go 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 just 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, get outside yourself. And how you can do that is you can go take a walk or you can go to yoga class or go talk to other people and ask them about them. I think that that's really important, too, 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, money is not your driving force. Money comes from hard work. We talked about that with Steve on the podcast. We talked 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 frickin' small print in every contract that you sign. That's great advice. Read the small print. Yeah, I've gotten in trouble. Don't take it for granted. Yeah.

Babe, can you be my small print reader? I will. I'll have my magnifying glass. You have got to learn how to read your own small print. You cannot read it yourself. I have a new marriage contract you signed because there's a couple small prints in there. Yeah, I have my own. I'm just kidding.

I don't. The last but not least is love your family is 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. Uh, as you worked there as well, but Lauren, but

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, 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 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 Swimfan to Thanksgiving.

Like, fucking Swimfan was at my Thanksgiving. Right, well, how do you think I had to stay at that house and email my address on peeking around windows? Well, who would have thought? I mean, she seemed normal

when we found her on a Tuesday drinking a Virgin Bloody Mary. A Virgin Bloody Mary 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. Yeah, that does need to be discussed. Yeah, I mean, I like to help my business. Somewhere 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. No, you had a halo on your head.

No. Except for that lawsuit you almost got me in. 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 in 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 with our snaps, Lauren Evertson, of course, Michael Bostic, two S's. Use one. Or email us at podcast at the skinny confidential dot 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. Download new episodes every Tuesday at podcast one.com or subscribe now on the podcast one app.