This Podcast Is... Uncalled For - Jon King (Snowed In 26)

Episode Date: August 21, 2026

In this Snowed In episode of the podcast, we're joined by military veteran and entrepreneur Jon King. Jon's ventures include: Goose's Bar and Grill in Papillon, Nebraska https://goosesneb.com Veteran Reach Back Group https://vrbginc.com Eagle Rising Foundation https://eaglerisingfoundation.com 

Check the mic will go live Stories told their eyes and dive Topics fresh with every spin You won't guess what's coming in Meek a new surprise Mind's away, never lies Conversations bold and free Tune in now just wait and see this pie

Just press play we're on our way Voices sharp opinions bright Hi everybody, welcome to the podcast. Another great guest with me today in this snowed-in version of Uncall Force. Go ahead and introduce yourself, please. Hey, make sure you can hear me. I'm John King. I'm a 20-year service veteran, 10-year-year Air Force, and then transferred over to the Army.

I like the joke and say they pay me more. Let me fly helicopters. I got picked up, spent three tours in Afghanistan as a medevac pilot, and retired out in the and worked in the corporate world for about eight years and now I'm what people would probably call a entrepreneur or entrepreneur slash business owner and a nonprofit founder. Yeah. Okay. So first things first, thank you for your service.

I myself was Navy for all of two weeks. Didn't make it at basic. But before that, I did Navy Junior RRTCL four years of high school. and fair nice yeah yeah I started to go to the Navy

until under their nuclear sub-engineer program but then I realized you had to spend six months under the polar ice caps and I was like yeah

I'm out yeah you're not doing that fair enough fair enough ironically had I stayed in the Navy I would have done you know

exactly what I'm doing right now with podcasting and making videos and all that sort of thing I would have been

an ice man got you Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. So you mentioned being an entrepreneur. Yeah, go and tell us a little bit about your business? Well, I've actually got a few at this point. The biggest ones are brick and mortar. We got Goose's Bar and Grill and Papua, Nebraska. Just got a new general manager in place there and rock and roll. And got a lot of good fun collabs happening in 2026 with the indoor football team, the pro team,

We've got collabs coming up with the local Harley-Davidson dealership, which is pretty fun. And then for more online and that, have what I call veteran reachback group. And it's basically a grouping of different, it didn't start out this way, but it's ultimately a grouping of small businesses that I do, which is one real apparel company and short for rack. And the tagline is because who doesn't love a nice rack? And the great thing about that is it plays well for all the different racks that are out there. Ironically enough, I was designing a deer shirt whenever I came up with it because my neighbor had just showed me his new tattoo and he had a pool rack on his arm. There you go. So I was like, if it's clothing racks, if it's deer racks, if it's pool racks, if it's the beautiful racks.

So it just kind of tied it all together and allows me to be creative again. And then what I learned doing that, I started P&P design. So under that, I work with small businesses, boosters, nonprofits, and one-offs to, I like to say do three things. Save them money, make them money, and give them some time back. Because as a small business owner, a nonprofit founder, you know, you're always looking for that next set of funds to bring your stuff to the next level or make it that much better and things like that. So it's a hard struggle. So what I do under P&P design is essentially build them in an e-commerce. store under our collections. So if you can imagine going to one website and seeing roughly 15

different businesses and organizations that all have an e-commerce store under that, I build it all out, I write them a custom story, write up for their particular page, you know, do graphic design if they need it, or if they have their own logos, even better, you know, we do all that and it's done through drop shipping. So gone are the days of gathering up a bunch of people's money to put in a big order to hopefully flip it for a profit and do all that, you literally give your customers, your guests, a QR code. They go shop like they're on Amazon. And the reason I say that I save them money, make money,

and favorite time is give them time back is because at the end of they don't charge for anything you just heard. How I make money is when they do. So I build them a collection, give them the QR codes, the URL link. And then at that point, say you make $100 in profit that month after everything's processed and whatnot. I send you a check for 85. I keep 15 back to keep the lights on for me for some passive income.

And then we also have a local water slide bounce house business that I acquired last year. Nothing huge, just 15, 20 different bounce houses and water slides. And then I found that Eagle Rising Foundation a few years ago, same time as the Reachback Group. And that's where I do a lot of community events as well as. shifting and adding to my mentorship programs in the online space. And so I've done a haunted trail on my property for less seven or eight years, raising money for the baseball team. We're right around $20,000 raised over the time period that we've done it through

donation and matching. And then I sponsored a three-quarter-sized Vietnam Memorial Wall to Tallade International Motors Hall of Fame, put it right outside of the track, represented 70,000 plus falling with that. Some of the best moments for me out of that, though, is when I've been able to take the video that I did while there, freeze frame it and find somebody's loved one to name on the wall to represent and show them that, yes, they're gone, but they're truly never forgotten. And I've been able to do that a few times, and it's a great feeling, you know, as part of that. And then ultimately, the mentorship programs. I've got 10 listed right now.

the ultimate goal is to basically take, if you could imagine, you love Kansas City style ribs, and I'm a Texas guy. I live in Kansas City, so yeah, that's a given. Well, there you go, right? So say I'm a Texas guy, and I want to learn about Kansas City ribs and doing that. So now you as a mentor would come sign up for the program, sign up for what you wanted to specifically mentor on, and then basically have access to the calendar. You'll select the 15-minute blocks that work for you for an initial meeting. greet with any mentees that come along. And at that point, you're done. Now, mentee comes along and wants to learn about your stuff. So I get access to that calendar based on wanting to learn about

Kansas City ribs. All right. Now, here are all the people that know Kansas City ribs. This one happens to fit to my time frame. Cool. We do a quick virtual meet and greet if we vibe and you all decide to move forward. Then you'll reach back out as a mentor to us at Eagle Rising. We'll send you a small package. In this case, think half a rack of ribs split. between the two of you, you know, the spices are full of gloves to be able to do that mentorship. And the concept is, doesn't cost you a dime. I want the mentors to understand that we recognize it spent a lifetime to get that knowledge and experience.

And I don't want to put a financial burden on them to give it back. And for the mentees, I don't want to put a financial burden on them to come in and try something. You know, life's too expensive as is. So being able to give them a sampling with something. And if they love it, they're going to put their money and time into it. but if they don't, move on to the next thing and find that faster kind of thought process. And so how plan on funding that is through partnerships with small businesses and things like that. So when you think of rubs and spices, there's a guy out of Vegas Blazing Star Barbecue that I'm collaborating with that ultimately I'm going to buy his stuff to put in our sample packs and other ones like that.

that the thought is people use their samplings when people are creatures of habit. So if they find they like it, they're going to go buy it. And so now we give them direct access through our website to that product. So now it's a full circle cycle that all the money stays within the group that supports the growth and that knowledge share, if you will. Oh, sure, sure. That's the down and dirty of it all. That's great that you have a. a bunch of businesses and

you cater to your fellow veterans and everything help them out and all that so that's great. In case anyone wants to check out your restaurant that's in Nebraska, right? Yep.

Yeah, it's right outside of Omaha in Papillion, Nebraska. 129 North Washington Street, right downtown. The one thing I love about that area too, and people raise an eyebrow when they hear that I live in Alabama, but I have a bar in Nebraska is the community that's there and the fact that we're in the old downtown area that has been revamped and revived and so many different businesses are right around there that we're all

collaborating with. Like today, we got a what I call a mini market going on from two to five inside of our bar and grill. And I've got 12 plus local small businesses that are all part of it. And so they have a table each that they're going to be able to set up and showcase their business, just like they would at an outdoor market. But we're doing it inside because it's cold in Nebraska. So doing fun stuff like that with the community and really understanding that, I mean, I carry it on my arm. I got a tattoo that says we all do a little bit lightens the load for all. And I truly believe that.

Life's hard enough. We kick ourselves enough. We don't need to add to it. I agree. I agree. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I know we have some small business in the big city even.

We have small business resources available to us. But, yeah, they make it, I don't know. It's been a while since I tried to start a small business and everything. But I do recall having to do a lot of the dirty stuff, saying up a business. And yeah, you mentioned a baseball team earlier. Could you tell me a little more about that? Is it a youth team or is it some of amateur? Yeah, so my son played high school ball.

So whenever he started there at the school, whenever I retired from the military, I just reached out to them as a way for them to be able to fundraise was through the Hunter Trail. So I've done that. I've done barbecue cooks for them. One year I did 2200 pounds of meat. And I promised I would never do that one again without volunteers.

I had family and friends that circled the wagons to get it done. But that was a long week of three huge smokers out in front of my shop for 18 hours a day to get it all done. But we got it done. Nice. Yeah, so high school baseball, that's pretty cool. I have a nephew, 10 years old right now. He's playing baseball down in Balsville, Oklahoma. He's one of the best players on their little team,

and he loves baseball. So that's awesome that anything that help contributes to the youth teams and everything. Yeah. Support your youth baseball. Support youth sports period. High school or otherwise. Yeah.

Yeah. I agree. Yeah. I understand it's a game. Yeah. It's just a game. I've seen too many parents get so bad out on the, like, in the stands yelling and all that. I'm like, it's a game, first off, and, too, they're kids.

They're learning the game. Yeah. Calm down. You're not getting the scouting for the pros at seven. Oh, heck no. If you are, you got a big name behind you if you're at that level. Heck no. I am a big fan since we're now talking about the pros.

I'm a big fan of Dionne Sanders. And, yeah, they didn't have a great season this year. But I like what he's been doing at Colorado. And I remember seeing a video where he's chastised in his players for not turning in good grades. And after afterwards, he's on that video saying, you know, 90% of these kids are playing college now, they're not going to go pro. So we got to make sure they get their degree and are set for life. And that there's absolute truth to that.

Yeah. You know, because I myself, when I was in high school, I played football a couple of years, I didn't. I didn't make it. The colleges I went to after my two weeks in the Navy, neither of them had football programs, so I couldn't play on the football team that way. But that said, yeah, yeah, most kids are playing youth sports. Good luck trying to find a way to the pros.

Some of them will make it, of course. We have a... One of my... One of my... One of my... I found that we're in the baseball program. Oops, sorry, go ahead. Yeah, one of my day jobs, I do DoorDash

and happens to stop by Latham North High School. They're a... They're like a big football school in my area. And in there, in the lobby, they have a... Darren Sparles. signed Philadelphia Eagles jersey because he went to high school there, right? He's one of the lucky ones, you know, Darren Sprouls and the Arlen Bruce, they had his jersey

there from San Francisco, I believe. He's another guy that I recall when I started playing football, we played against Aletha North and Arlen Bruce. So those are, so that's a good example of what I'm talking about, you know, just because you play youth sports, you got to be extremely lucky to play pro. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. It's got to line up with being good and being lucky and right place, right time for sure.

We, uh, there's actually been surprisingly from the school that my son played at. I think they're up to four or five pro baseball players that come out of the program. over the last, I don't know, probably 10, 20 years. Yeah, that's awesome. That's awesome. Yeah. And, of course, you mentioned barbecue, and I guess we got to talk about barbecues.

So I guess you're a competition, barbecue or something on the way you were talking about taking your smoke. I just love to cook. That said, I've... Go ahead. Go ahead. So you have competed is what you're telling me, right? I've got a bit of a delay on my side. Okay. All right, that's fine. That's fine.

Let me jump out and jump right back in if I can. Okay, yeah, yeah. Yeah, not problem. So I'll let you back in. Can you hear me better now? Yeah, it just locked up for a minute. We got a little bit of ice down this way. so internet's not the best.

But no, I'm saying I've done both. I love to cook, but I've done some competitions with my brother. He's won quite a few different competitions over the years, the Florida State Championship, the Georgia State Championship one year. He won the Hawaii State Championship, I'm pretty sure. And then last year I actually put on my first competition where up in Nebraska at Warner Park right down the road from our bar, first one I put on, but I ended up having 24 pro teams, eight backyarders, two food trucks, a snow cone truck, our beer garden, and some live music over a two-day event.

So had a hell of a turnout. Everybody had a great time. All the feedback I got from the judges were all positive. You know, a few critiques here and there on things that I could do better, which I appreciated, you know, being my first event. being able to put something on that they all enjoyed and agreed that they'd be back for was pretty awesome. So looking forward to doing it again this July. Oh, excellent. Excellent. Am I correct in assuming that these are KC. Barbecue Society judges? Because that is a thing. That is a thing. The KCBS, they do. Yeah. Yeah. Yes, sir. I got it sanctioned through the KCBS.

Nice. Yeah. Yeah. On my, on the first podcast I ever did, and I recycled it for this podcast, we did, we had a couple of KCBS judges taking us through the process, the judging process. And that was just a real cool experience going through the chicken, the ribs, the brisketes and the bull pork. All that. There's a lot that goes on. goes into that.

Yeah. Yep. Now, do you experiments with different styles of barbecue? Yeah. Do you experiment with different styles of barbecue when you do? I don't really. I'd like to venture out into it. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. As I stick to what I know. I'd like to, you know, as time goes on, I'd like to get more into the others and and have some fun with it. We've got, like I mentioned, I think earlier, Blazing Star Barbecue, Mike Starr coming out of Vegas this year to support us. And I know he's big in the open fire pit barbecue and things. So Mike see about getting him to teach me a thing or two.

We'll see. Cool, cool. Yeah. Yeah, because, yeah, I'm of course talking about regional differences here because I understand the Carolinas and, Memphis and everything. That's all pork. You know, that's Texas.

We're really getting to beef there, and they don't like the sauce with the Texas barbecue. That's like a more recent thing for it. Whereas here in KC, we do both. We do both and everything else. So if it's meat, we'll barbecue it. Yeah. Right.

Yeah. Definitely love KC Barbecue for sure. Yeah. Do you have a favorite? Have you been to KC a few times, I'm guessing, right? I've been through there a few times. One of my first experiences was when I was 18 years old coming up from tech school, my truck broke down, which was a 78 Chevy pickup,

and this was 97. So I had two gentlemen walk up and say if I had a wrench, they would fix anything wrong with my truck. And if I didn't, they would recommend I not have my stuff in there. there after dark because it wouldn't be there in the morning. So that was my first experience with Kansas City. But that said, I've been back a couple of times. But usually it's just passing through.

And I'm heading from Omaha to Arkansas or Omaha to here in Alabama. Oh, cool. Cool. So do you have a favorite restaurants in KC for barbecue? No, but I'm hoping for recommendations. Okay. I'm up that passing through that way. All right. So definitely anybody that wants to show throws them away.

Yeah. So the big four that we constantly hear about, especially if you're a fan of Ted Lasso, he has a shirt that references it. Gates, barbecue. That's the big one I would recommend is Gates. Right. Then the other big ones are Jackstack. That's more higher-end, classy stuff. I do highly recommend them for catering.

Joe's, formerly Oklahoma Joe's, they are very popular. Their original locations have a gas station right on the Wyandotte Johnson County line in Kansas City, Kansas. But I will put caveats with them. You will be standing in line for an hour. That's before you can order. Yeah. And then the last of the big four, they talk about it is Arthur Bryant's. I do not recommend Arthur Bryant's.

I personally find it greasy and disgusting. But there are other smaller barbecue places as well. The one I'm going to recommend to you and to my listeners is Rosdale Barbecue. It's in KCK on Southwest Boulevard. Not too far from KU Med, actually. And how I found out about this place was I did a TV internship at our local PBS station, and we went there a couple times for lunch. And just before I started my internship there, my internship supervisor did a local restaurant review show.

It was called Check Please, KC. He was a guest on this show. And he recommended, excuse me, he recommended it. Rosedale barbecue. Yeah. Rosedale, the thing I would suggest getting there would be their sandwiches. And they do a lot of different sandwiches. Like they do, they do beef, they do pork, they do chicken.

And I highly recommend for that. I also recommend getting their mac and cheese bites. So they take mac and cheese fried into wedges and serve it to you that way. We do a pool pork mac and cheese. Nice. Call it the pork mac attack. Pork mac. Nice.

Nice. Yeah. So, yeah, those are my Kansas City barbecue recommendations for you and for anyone listening. Nice. I like it. I like the fact that you threw in one that wasn't like the big names that you'll hear everybody else talk about. I'm the guy that wants to find the hole in the wall that looks like complete garbage. But when you go in it, some of the best food that I have.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. They're not concerned about the appearance. Like, it's a place. You can be good food, man. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. You know, quality food.

So, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it's not barbecue, but I will also recommend another localish restaurants called Peter May's House of Calbasi. That's on Kansas City's east side. They just, yeah, they, It's just a good Polish sausage.

And you could probably tell from my last name that I am Polish. Right. Right. Oh, here you'll appreciate this, maybe. It's ironic that it kind of lives that way, but... Nice. Nice. Polish Eagle. So then I'll show you a few, and then I'll open that case back up and show you.

Oh, that's a nice. So these are the little ones I'm showing here are coins that. I received from the Polish Special Forces and some of the other guys while I was over there supporting as a MEDAVAC pilot. Excellent. Wow. Ultimately, we had a mission that we were on a Polish bob and Fort operating base for those that don't know. And as a MEDAVAC unit, you know, we're supporting them. So generally, if we get called everybody having the worst day of their life kind of deal or potentially the worst day of their life.

and so we end up hanging out waiting, wait and wait and waiting. We finally get approval to fly in. We fly in, do a circle around. If you've seen out west where you've got the big flat ground and then the big ground peninsula is just out of nowhere kind of deals. Well, we were flying up on one of those, but there's trees and all sorts of stuff down and around the bottoms and across the top.

There's houses like mud huts. So we go land in the middle of it. Well, we end up having to do a go-around because we don't see anybody in the backs, one of the backseaters calls for what's called a goal round, so we do a loop and come back around and try again. Well, when we come back around, we see the patient right beside one of the buildings,

so we come in and I'm on the right side, and we end up putting it right beside the building. You know, the rotor disc is a foot, foot and a half off the side of the house there. We're putting two wheels on the ground, and the way that the ground slope, we can't put the tail down, so we end up just doing a hover.

So they come bring these guys in over, their head and load him into the back of the aircraft and we do our thing get out. And now fast forward a few hours. And I'm sitting back to back watching movies or whatever, waiting on the next chaos to start. And they come back and get me in and they call me up front. So I walk up front. And there's three guys down there. And one of them looks like he's teeny tiny, the guy in the middle, because these other two guys on his left and right are huge.

Like, they're just massive guys. And in reality, he's probably my height, about 510, 511. the guy in the middle is. So I'm looking at him. He's like, you fly? And he like shows like motions. And I said,

yes, sir, he's like, you big balls. And I was like, okay, where's this going? You know, he snaps and

these two big guys bring around two bottles of alcohol. One's a bottle of bias in vodka and one's a bottle of Jack Daniels. And I'm thinking, man, I'm not trying to like not take this and offend this guy,

but in the same. same hand. I'm like, I don't even know what to do with this if I got it. Like, right. I can't, I can't drink over here and whatever. So a quick decision, go ahead and take it except, you know, and hand it off, cut a deal to the Air Force guy and let him, let him have his fun. And I think he went over to the Polish fire department and they're allowed to drink. So I think they had a great time all and all. But, you know, as a benefit of that guys, we just sit over and watch, like, hey guys. Yeah. It looks like fun. We'll see you. But anyways, I flash back to now back in the United States and get called and handed this.

And it's actually the Polish Army Medal. And it's the highest award that the Polish can award a, as I understand it, one of the highest awards that the Polish can award a former, what do they call it, different military service member. Oh, excellent. That's part of that. So they come to find out it was their small operational team that happened to be out.

We got them. When we were flying in and around, the enemy basically tucked their head and they were able to get out. So it ended up saving more than just one life out of that, which was pretty cool to find out later when it was all said done. But yeah, just starting to you were talking about it. Excellent. Excellent.

Yeah. Pretty cool. That is pretty cool. Yeah, to see that and everything. But yeah, yeah, that's a, yeah, back to Pereme's. Yeah, that's a nice little sausage you has to do the sausage, to do sandwiches and all that. And they were really under the radar for the longest time.

And then this past summer, some dude named Jason Kelsey stops by and does video about it. Yeah, Travis lives not too far from me, actually. Nice. You familiar with West Berkman? West Burm. I think that name sounds a little familiar, yeah. So he's been on Road Rules and Challenge back in the day. red-headed beard and real smart-ass kind of guy.

That's his persona on TV. And so he won the challenge, and he used some of his money off that to start his own reality slash entrepreneurial workshop called The Blocks. And so I was on season 16 or 18, I forget now, but I think they're up to 22 or 23 at this point. Oh, wow. But he's out of Kansas City, is the reason I ask when you're talking about that. But, yeah, they do a lot together as far as I know right around that area. Cool.

In Barbecue and other things. But when you mentioned about Kelsey going into this Polish house and doing the thing there, so my cousin actually owns a couple of places in Little Rock, Arkansas, one just hit their 20-year mark, 20-year mark, sticky fingers. And it's right down in the river market area and artist, the one you're probably most famously familiar with recently. and is Jelly Roll. Started playing there when he was first coming through.

And then my cousin has another place that holds, I want to say it's like 2,000 people, but I'm not 100% sure, but it's more music focused. So when artists were coming through that weren't quite to that arena level, they would play at a, I was calling a starter bar like mine and my cousins,

and then, you know, now they've got this place that's in between that and at an actual small arena. So Jellyroll played there, 10, 20 times, but there's a little chicken place right beside the venue. And so as soon as they would get done with their set, they would go in at the chicken place and get chicken at 2 a.m. or whatever. So when Jelly Row came back to do his arena tour, he went in and started a tab that morning

at the chicken place and then put it out over his social media and said, hey, anybody that wants to come out, come out. And the tabs on me. And they had a line around the door all day long, like down. the block kind of deal. Nice. And he covered it all. And I was like, that's, that's cool shit right there.

Like, you go back and support the people that were there for you and you didn't have it all, you know, or perceived to have it all. Absolutely. But, yeah. Good deal. Well, I'm going to wrap this up here. But, hey, thank you for coming on the podcast. And once again, thank you for your service to our country.

Thank you, too. And enjoy it. Yeah. Everyone listening at home, thank you for listening, and we'll talk again soon. This podcast is Uncalled for the Snowed In edition. It's hosted, produced and edited by myself, Mike Cherniewski. Both our opening music and our closing music for these episodes were created at suno.com, sUNO.com. great AI music resource so check it out.

Please support the podcast and purchase our exclusive Uncalled for Merchandise, T-shirts, sweatshirts, mugs, stickers, and so much more. Go to www.comfacepress.com slash Uncalled for Pod. Thank you so much for listening. We will see you next time.