EP 68: Dive Deep into Bar Harbor: A Seafood Odyssey with Owner Ben Hodgetts

**Introduction:** 

In this episode of the Voice4Chefs Podcast, we sit down with Ben Hodgetts, the mastermind behind Bar Harbor, a seafood hotspot in downtown Seattle. Ben shares his journey from the East Coast to the West Coast, his love for seafood, and the story behind Bar Harbor's success.

**Background:**

- Ben Hodgetts opened Bar Harbor in downtown Seattle in 2016, drawing seafood lovers from around the world.

- Growing up on the East Coast, Ben developed a deep appreciation for the region's culinary traditions and sense of humor.

- Despite not coming from a restaurant family, Ben was drawn to the hospitality industry from a young age and has worked in every role imaginable in a restaurant.

**East Coast Roots:**

- Ben's upbringing on the East Coast instilled in him a love for seafood, particularly lobster and Dungeness crab.

- He recalls fond memories of clamming, crabbing, and lobstering with family and friends along the Jersey Shore and in Portland, Maine.

**Transition to the West Coast:**

- After culinary school and a stint in Europe, Ben found himself in Seattle, where his father lived.

- Inspired by the lack of Dungeness crab rolls on the West Coast, Ben set out to introduce this East Coast favorite to Seattle diners.

**The Birth of Bar Harbor:**

- Initially conceived as a wine shop with a focus on Dungeness crab rolls, Bar Harbor evolved into a full-fledged seafood restaurant.

- Ben's commitment to quality ingredients, including fresh Dungeness Crab and Maine Lobster, set Bar Harbor apart from the competition.

**Navigating the Pandemic:**

- Like many restaurants, Bar Harbor faced unprecedented challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic.

- With creativity and resilience, Ben and his team adapted to the changing landscape, offering takeout and utilizing their outdoor space to ensure guest safety.

**Memorable Moments and Lessons Learned:**

- Ben reflects on the highs and lows of restaurant ownership, from the excitement of opening day to the challenges of managing a business.

- He emphasizes the importance of perseverance and humility, acknowledging that success in the restaurant industry requires hard work and a willingness to learn from others.

**Looking Ahead:**

- As Bar Harbor prepares to reopen its deck for the season, Ben looks forward to welcoming guests back and creating memorable dining experiences.

- He invites listeners to visit Bar Harbor and experience the joy of high-end picnic food in the heart of Seattle.

**Connect with Bar Harbor:**

- Website: www.barharborbar.com

- Instagram: @barharborseattle

Season2

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Transcript

Michael Dugan: 0:52

Ben Hodgetts in 2016 opened up a restaurant in downtown Seattle called Bar Harbor. It brought people from all over Seattle and all over the world who crave seafood. I'm one of those. I love seafood. And he serves up lobster rolls. He has a famous dungeon crab roll, New England style clam chowder. And we're here today to talk about this experience and what it's like to own a seafood restaurant. Ben, welcome

Ben Hodgetts: 1:24

to the show. Hi, Michael. Thank you. It's good to be here.

Michael Dugan: 1:26

So let's start with a little bit about your background. What was it like growing up for you on the East Coast? I

Ben Hodgetts: 1:33

loved growing up on the East Coast, really. I get asked this question a lot to compare East and West, right? And I've always come to this. It's something about the people, about the sense of humor, is the only thing I really miss about the East. Okay. There's great food, everything's a little older. I wouldn't say that those are things that I really miss about, about back there, about New England a, a sense of humor, just a, I don't know, there's a little bit of a know it all personality trait that kind of threads through all the people there that I love. I'm really drawn to it. A little sarcasm, a little bit of, oh yeah, it's just. Playful and fun. And sometimes doesn't do that well for me out here. Oh, gotcha. Gotcha. Oh, I was big into pot pies. Oh, awesome. Okay. I think that idea of digging through the fridge and trying to come up with something a lot of bad. Ideas were in the fourth and fifth grade. Those hours after school, my mom got home sometime around six. And so I had those hours to, I don't know, experiment with what we had, but my family back there, they were not restaurant people. And so I just, I was drawn to it. I have. been drawn to all the aspects. I've literally done every job in a restaurant. Oh, really? Oh, wow. I did go to culinary school, but I have, I've been a server, a bartender, a sommelier, manager, dishwasher, line cook, sous chef, all literally all of it. Wow.

Michael Dugan: 3:07

Is this some of this on the East coast or most of this on the West coast?

Ben Hodgetts: 3:12

Most on the West coast but definitely some on the East coast. My first job was at an all girls. College in the cafeteria when I was a junior in high school. I remember

Michael Dugan: 3:22

junior in high school. I was a janitor at an all girls private school. That was not glamorous. I would have traded you in a heartbeat.

Ben Hodgetts: 3:32

It wasn't glamorous. You got to meet. Nice girls all the time. Yeah, that was cool.

Michael Dugan: 3:37

Yeah, that is cool. Did you do like on the East Coast? Did you do any fishing or crabbing or

Ben Hodgetts: 3:42

anything like that? Never crabbing. Did lots of lobstering. Oh my God. What is that like? It is hard as work. I've heard that it is. I never really advanced far enough. You had to get up really early. My uncles, I had a couple uncles who were, up at three on the water at four and wow. I would meet him at the dock at seven. Yeah, I got to pull traps and throw the bugs back. And yeah, I was a low man on the totem pole. But did

Michael Dugan: 4:08

you like lobster or did you just, you're working doing that? So it's like, I don't

Ben Hodgetts: 4:12

really care about lobster. I did not like lobster growing up. Wow. I wasn't exposed to too many things. And I associated that lack of exposure with not liking. The things and I almost made a conscious decision in my early twenties that I was going to stop not liking things because there was a long list back then. And I was, and I just decided to either suffer through and pretend I liked it until I did and worked for me. Now I'm in love with Dungeness crab. I'm in love with clams, oysters, all of it. I,

Michael Dugan: 4:42

Oh my God. Yeah. I grew up a little bit on the East coast and we were clamming. I was crapping for blue crab and I love to fish, live down the lake. And so for me, it just became an obsession at a young age for me. Seafood was like one of my obsessions. And my dad would bring lobster home. He was in the Coast Guard. So he'd bring it home from the boat. And you'd put them on the ground and we'd play with them. And then we'd cook them and eat them. And it was just, oh,

Ben Hodgetts: 5:06

it's amazing. I always loved catching more than I liked eating. We did a lot of Jersey Shore family and the blue crabs down there were big. We'd just tie chicken legs to a string and throw it off the dock and pull it up real slow. You could spend the whole day. My grandmother would come home from work and there'd be 30 blue crabs in a bucket waiting for her to do something with them. Yeah,

Michael Dugan: 5:26

I loved crabbing. Blue crabbing was a lot of fun because they swim. Dungeness don't swim. You just put a trap down and you pick them up.

Ben Hodgetts: 5:32

Yeah, and it always seems like it's So deep. We were in the shallows, right? And so you could see them or

Michael Dugan: 5:37

you can see like for people that are listening, when you crab for blue crab, you tie a string, you tie a chicken leg to a string and you throw it out in a couple of feet of water and the string starts moving around. You've got to get a net and the crab is like swimming. These blue crabs swim and it's really exciting, but they're also fast and I almost lost a finger. They're a lot of fun, but you just have to be very careful. So you were in Portland, right? Is that where you grew

Ben Hodgetts: 6:04

up? Yep. Grew up in

Michael Dugan: 6:05

Portland, Maine. And then what happened from there? How did you get from Portland to

Ben Hodgetts: 6:10

the West Coast? My dad lives here still. I took off and went to Europe for a couple of years after culinary school. And when I came back, I was penniless. Portland, Maine, Seemed a little small to me after living in kind of big cities in Europe for a couple of years and mostly in Prague. I lived in Prague. Oh wow. Seattle honestly was the only place I could go with no money and have a place to stay for a little while till I got on my feet. That was a long time

Michael Dugan: 6:35

ago. Yeah. Not anymore. Oh my God.

Ben Hodgetts: 6:38

He was, he's up in Snohomish, but okay. But yeah, so I came out, stayed with him and started hunting for jobs and stuff. But, and then he lives on some great property and this actually ties into my story. But my uncles put together this box and they figured out a way to ship 50 lobsters. Oh, wow. Okay, cool. Live lobsters. They were basically like a six pack of beer where, except it had 48 slot. Oh my God. That's awesome. Put all these pound and a half lobsters tail down claws up. Oh, and then cover it with seaweed and mail it out. And we would throw a huge lobster boil up on my dad's property. Wow. We did that every year for a few years. And that turned into a catering business, which turned into some other things. And it just grew from there.

Michael Dugan: 7:21

Wow. My brother tried to ship. Live lobster from Boston. He didn't quite have it figured out. They showed up dead and it was, Oh, he tried to pack it himself.

Ben Hodgetts: 7:30

Oh, hell yeah. Cause most of those seafood shops will pack it for you. And again, my uncle was a, he's a professional. He knew what he was doing.

Michael Dugan: 7:40

I think he got them off the boat cause he has a cottage in Maine. So he would buy them from the local lobstermen. And I don't think they had any packing stuff, figured it out, but didn't quite work.

Ben Hodgetts: 7:49

Wet newspaper and seaweed.

Michael Dugan: 7:51

But he'd bring them on the plane. He'd bring them on the plane that day. And Oh my God, it was so great when he came to visit with lobster. Oh,

Ben Hodgetts: 7:58

when it did work. Yeah, we would do that. We'd bring Dungeness crab from here when I'd go back to visit my family and then bring lobsters back home, back to here.

Michael Dugan: 8:05

Oh my gosh. Honestly, I think you're like me. I can't decide whether I love Dungeness crab or lobster more. My wife would roll her eyes because she knows how much I love lobster.

Ben Hodgetts: 8:15

Well, I've decided. Yeah,

Michael Dugan: 8:16

I know you have.

Ben Hodgetts: 8:18

I know I'm not supposed to, I'm not

Michael Dugan: 8:19

supposed to say it. And which is it. All right. You don't have to, we'll just leave them in suspense. But I've also tried like stone crab and that is amazing out of Florida. Yeah.

Ben Hodgetts: 8:29

We, my in laws are in the keys and we go down and pull stones all the time. They're great. Yeah, that.

Michael Dugan: 8:38

That is incredible. I could not . Seems like a

Ben Hodgetts: 8:40

lot of waste is the only thing, because they are just claws.

Michael Dugan: 8:45

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Ben Hodgetts: 8:50

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Michael Dugan: 9:47

And it seemed like really expensive until I understood that it was just the claw and

Ben Hodgetts: 9:52

Yeah, because there's not a lot of extra weight 'cause you're just buying the claws. Right? Which is really good

Michael Dugan: 9:57

meat. And I love king crab too, so I love all crab and lobster. I'm not a big fan of Caribbean. I'm American Lobster all the way. Most people

Ben Hodgetts: 10:04

are no, I can't even

Michael Dugan: 10:06

different flavor anyway, as you're moving on. So you moved to the West coast and then you got your hands into the restaurant business. So how did bar Harbor evolve?

Ben Hodgetts: 10:19

So I had this almost a business plan. Now that I know what a business plan is, I don't think it actually, it wasn't one, but I, at the time thought it was, and I had this business plan. It was supposed to be in a little corner shop in Pike place market where we Treated Dungeness crab, the way lobsters treated in Maine, where it is not fancy. It's almost picnic food. It's just, it's expensive because it is what it is and the market determines the price, but it isn't gold leaf kind of food. It's a, it's put into a white bread split top bun, but I always wondered why was there not a Dungeness crab roll out here? So honestly, Bar Harbor started because of. Wanting to introduce in a dungeon as crab roll. Oh,

Michael Dugan: 11:02

wow. I didn't know that's amazing

Ben Hodgetts: 11:05

and do it You know the bread is the I think the most important. Oh my god I'm getting the bread right and the you know Toasting it the right way and because I think there were some places that sold things called crab rolls but I've had

Michael Dugan: 11:19

soggy ones and I'm telling you, it's just, it's the

Ben Hodgetts: 11:22

worst. Yeah. And in my snobby opinion, they're not crab. That's what I wanted to do. That was the impetus. And then, yeah, this company came along, I was building this building and they actually wanted me to open a wine shop in the space where Bar Harbor is now. Based on the wine list at the restaurant where I was the sommelier, Matt's in the market. I learned a ton about wine there and got really into it and they thought that I'd be a good wine shop owner and I looked into it and started developing a business plan and the more I thought it was like, let's Have just a little bit of food. Maybe I'll sell Dungeness crab rolls at this wine shop. It just kept going and then the wine kept getting pushed back and the food kept getting pushed forward. It became a lot more of a bar and restaurant than a wine shop. Love

Michael Dugan: 12:05

Bar Harbor. I work in the building. I come from work on my way home and I'm just craving your food. It's so hard for me to get in the elevator and go home. I'm like, I want a lobster roll tonight. I want a crab roll tonight. And I get home, my wife's like, did you bring it? Really? That's great. Oh yeah. Sometimes I do. And sometimes I don't. It's every once in a while I'm like, Oh my God, I'm just craving it. I love your crab rolls and your lobster rolls. Your lobster just seems like it's so fresh. And I have no idea what the secret is. I've had lobster where it just, it's okay. It feels

Ben Hodgetts: 13:32

fresh. Literally the same product. That I worked with in restaurants in Portland, Maine, it absolutely becomes in these two pound packs. We can't boil lobster. We get lobster meat. Sure. The same two pound packs that we got at every restaurant I worked in Portland, we have them shipped and we bring it in at least three days a week. And yeah, I certainly challenging at the beginning, but it's pretty dialed in obviously after this many years. But yeah, at the beginning it was hard to find a place to hold it for me. And the same thing with the bread, it was hard to find a baker and I wasn't sure we could do it on our, we could make our own bread at the restaurant. I wasn't sure if we could keep up or if it has to be you every day, then you're getting there at the end. Three in the morning to make bread. And I don't know how you do the rest of owning a restaurant. If you're right, if you're there that early, yeah, we got turned down everywhere we went except for one, one place. And then, and they were amazing. They kept making sample after sample. And wow.

Michael Dugan: 14:28

Do you want to give a shout

Ben Hodgetts: 14:29

out to them? They are no longer around. It was a very, yeah, it was a. It's a great story at the beginning and then a horrible story later on. The owner passed away. They were down in Kent and they were fantastic. You call it in the night before and they would make as much or as little as you want. Different sizes if you needed sliders or half rolls and things like that. Down to the wire. It was probably six days before we opened that we finally got the recipe down and signed a contract with them. But. So what do you do now? Now I'm sure you're familiar with, yeah, the bakery, they provide most restaurants in Seattle with, they're fantastic, but it was an item that they didn't have in their inventory when we opened, but since we proved that we were going to stick around, order enough, I guess is the, that we would, we were good for buying enough rolls every week. We're able to work with them and have it daily and we just trim them up a little bit cause they have different pans than the ones that we were working with before.

Michael Dugan: 15:25

I've had them and they're just delicious. I had, I think I had two last week.

Ben Hodgetts: 15:30

Yeah. I've seen you in there a couple of times recently. Yeah.

Michael Dugan: 15:34

Twice. I had two. Both Dungeness Crab because you recommended it and I was like, Oh my God, I love Dungeness Crab. I'm just, I'm

Ben Hodgetts: 15:42

obsessed with it. I think that's the only thing my wife has ever had there is crab roll every time.

Michael Dugan: 15:47

I've had the crab sandwich too, and that's really good. And the

Ben Hodgetts: 15:50

chowder. Oh, that crab

Michael Dugan: 15:51

cake. Mm hmm. The crab cake sandwich is

Ben Hodgetts: 15:54

delicious. Chowder's a little bit of a thing. It's different style. Yeah, it's not

Michael Dugan: 15:58

very thick, which is better, which is New England style more, I think.

Ben Hodgetts: 16:03

No roux. It's just that we don't start with a roux.

Michael Dugan: 16:05

Right. Potato thickened. Yeah, that's a key, I think. And the flavor profile is really good. I can taste saltiness of it. So it really, it feels very fresh to me. And I appreciate that as a chowder lover, but I So tell me a little bit about Brian because he's the one that really connected us and I've talked to Brian so many times and I love Brian. And who is

Ben Hodgetts: 16:27

Brian? Brian is, he's the manager. He runs everything day to day at Bar Harbor. I have become more of a shopper and Brian Handles staff and all of that kind of stuff. And he carried the restaurant through all of the pandemic time. I owe a debt of gratitude to Brian. Like you wouldn't believe. He's going to hear this.

Michael Dugan: 16:51

I'm sure

Ben Hodgetts: 16:53

he will now. I

Michael Dugan: 16:54

love Brian. I come there

Ben Hodgetts: 16:55

for him. I really enjoy him. Literally. Sometimes you read reviews, every review, whether they talk about the food or not says something about the staff and it's really good. And how good it is and it's such a source of pride for me. It's that's awesome Yeah, a lot of that stuff is going In a different direction at a lot of places, you know what I mean? Right. And yeah, he's just the right amount of kind of he's super charming and funny professional when he needs to be. And we've talked about it a lot and make sure you let him know he's not ever allowed to leave. Yeah.

Michael Dugan: 17:25

All right. I will tell him that I'll harass him a little bit. He introduced me to Sarah Monson and she had an amazing story. Oh my God. About creating a cookbook. When Governor James Lee shut everything down, all these cooks and chefs got together and she collaborated with them. I remember. It was amazing. Just amazing. He connected me with her. We had a great time. As we move on, what was it like for you during the pandemic? What, how did your staff react? That must have been just, what the hell happened? All restaurants in Washington shut down for weeks. All restaurants around the world, all of hospitality just closed except for takeout.

Ben Hodgetts: 18:04

Even takeout for a little while. Yeah, that's nuts. There was nothing for at least a month, but yeah, March 12th, March 11th or March 12th, that year was, you're just standing in there and then all of a sudden everybody's on a schedule for the next day to time it, to come in alone and just take all the food home. I go in and pack it all up and everybody takes the food home. It was, Just as awful for me as it was for everybody when it was time to start thinking about coming back we came back a little early because we have that huge outside space and We were able to put that to use where nobody came into the kitchen The kitchen was basically closed just the two chefs who were working on opposite sides. We were able to pump food out Let people sit out on that deck or take it to go or just pull up on Fairview Avenue and we'd bring it to the car, that kind of thing. Brian really spearheaded that whole thing. It was great. I had four or five people who All wanted to work as much as they could. We were real adamant about keeping it masked up, even on the deck and trying to make everybody feel as secure as possible. I don't tell a lot of people this. We went on a vacation at Christmas time. My family, my son and my wife and I, and we went to Maui and we had gotten really close with this family that we've stayed with some, a couple of times. They decided they weren't going to, weren't going to, or couldn't place anymore. So they, Oh. Decided to just stay and we ended up staying four months as a family bonding thing. It was amazing. My son was going to school online. My wife was working from home. The restaurant was closed and with the time difference, it was pretty amazing. I know this isn't about my trip to Maui by 10 AM. His school day was already over because of the three hour time difference. During that time, Brian and Leroy, who was the chef at the time, those two Just put it all back on the tracks and yeah, they were stayed in touch and had Zoom meetings like everybody else but that was basically my input was to have zoom meetings with those two and they and I Just followed their lead and you know I gave them the run of the restaurant and they just took it and ran with it and turned it into something Awesome. It was great story. We you know, we killed it for a little while in that because we had enough space where people could come and Brian's You know, knowledge of local beer and stuff like that. We have just a killer beer list there. Oh, wow. It was just a kind of an amazing time for me to watch those guys get to work, continue to work. And I don't know, it's a hard thing, I think, for a restaurant owner to just let somebody else do it. Take the reins. Yeah. That sounds easy, but it really, honestly, it's not. And it was very rewarding. Very rewarding.

Michael Dugan: 20:45

It's good that you got to take some time because I remember in the restaurant business, I barely took vacation and I always felt still like I was working. So you got time to decompress. That's incredible.

Ben Hodgetts: 20:57

It was still a very stressful time, even on Maui, right? It's, Oh yeah, I'm sure you couldn't really go anywhere. You were still keeping distance, but the Island was at 20 percent tourist capacity. And so a lot of have your own section of the beach. You could still be outside when it was winter in Seattle. And I feel as elite to be able to say that I did that. What

Michael Dugan: 21:20

would you say is It's been the most memorable experience being a restaurant owner. Oh,

Ben Hodgetts: 21:26

I think the opening of the restaurant, those three months leading up to opening the door of your first restaurant are good and bad, but certainly memorable. Certainly just like everything is Ratcheted up to 10. It was just diving into projects that I never thought I'd know how to do and taking things apart and building things that weren't necessarily my forte before. And then you see it come together with branding and all of a sudden you have this new, this logo that is, You through and through like it's wow. It's a really intense time. That's pretty cool I think I could I if I did it again, I don't think it would be nearly as intense I can answer questions that I had no idea how to answer For there's a lot of just throwing caution to the wind and hoping that one is maybe the right answer or my family didn't see Me for weeks at a time. They weren't used to that either

Michael Dugan: 22:23

as you're going along now. You're making me think of this What, when did you feel like you were successful? Was there a time with Bar Harbor where you felt like, okay, I made it, I actually made it. I don't have to think about all these things that are going on, but I've actually become successful. I'm, I've done it

Ben Hodgetts: 22:40

because you have, I think there were two and one is It's just, I don't know if it, are we even post COVID, but some, it's somehow like whenever somebody mentions that you made it through to the other side of that, that was such a terrifying big deal for businesses and restaurants on the news constantly. That was definitely one of them feeling successful again, was cool to have a second time. I think the first time was at the end of our, or in the middle of our first. Summer when we finally hit like a target number of guests served. I don't know why this is triggering this memory, but on the day that we had our friends and family, this is really pretty funny short story, friends and family, couple of people walked in off the street. That were not invited and they sat at the oyster bar over the kitchen. We served him. He wrote a review. This guy wrote a review. Oh. At 5 30 p. m. On the first day we even let family into the restaurant. And it's, it said watered down chowder and prison style bowls. I give this place six

Michael Dugan: 23:43

months.

Ben Hodgetts: 23:44

Oh my gosh. At that time you would read, on day one, day three or whatever. You're reading every review to see what. What anybody would say that was a pretty intense feeling. So I guess when we made it six months, that was a little bit of a feeling of success

Michael Dugan: 23:57

as well. Got it. You have great reviews. I'm in Seattle, Rudy's and people rave about this

Ben Hodgetts: 24:02

bar Harbor. They're very good. And like I said, they all mentioned the staff. Okay.

Michael Dugan: 24:07

So the last thing is if you could impart wisdom on your younger self, what would you tell yourself about owning a restaurant

Ben Hodgetts: 24:16

that everybody is right. As hard as. Everybody tells you it's going to be, or everybody said it would be, stop acting like, so much. And that, I think people are right. Yeah. These people just didn't know what they were doing. And I know better. Oh, gotcha. Yeah. It doesn't matter what, you know, it's going to be hard and it's going to be super rewarding later on. You really have to put. Time in, it doesn't ever just click for somebody. It doesn't just work for somebody. I have

Michael Dugan: 24:42

to agree. I spent 10 years in the restaurant business and there were a lot of times where I thought I knew more than somebody else, but I challenged him a few times, a few chefs, but I would always listen and be open

Ben Hodgetts: 24:54

minded about it. I had many days in that first year and a half that I came home to my wife and said, I just want to go work for somebody else. I missed that. Being able to just turn it clock out, people push you to keep going. There's a lot of good things and it doesn't ever seem glamorous or glorious. It's so rewarding now having your own schedule and being able to have a good enough staff in place where you can just come in and put the details together. Whether it's putting out little fires or fixing things and just making things just a tiny bit. Better and easier as opposed to yeah, having to

Michael Dugan: 25:33

know I get it do it all So the last thing is how do we find you if I'm coming from out of town? How do I find you and where do I find you? We

Ben Hodgetts: 25:41

are Bar Harbor Bar Bar Harbor, Seattle on Instagram Bar Harbor Bar is the website closed on Sundays right now, but we're open every day 1130 to 9 p. m. We got happy hour every day from 3 to 6. That's awesome 2 oysters. It's always something. You get these 5 crab cake sliders that are killer.

Michael Dugan: 26:03

They're really good. I'll have to come down after work. I love crab

Ben Hodgetts: 26:08

sliders. Yeah. Don't get in the elevator. Yeah, I know.

Michael Dugan: 26:11

Oh man. It's so tempting every day, but I can't do

Ben Hodgetts: 26:14

it every day. Any other announcement type of thing? I feel like we sometime in April. The deck opens and that's a major time for us. All of a sudden we have to hire four new people and it more than, it's probably three times our capacity with the same size. Oh, the regular. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The regular restaurant, same size kitchen, same kitchen staff. And all of a sudden we have three times the amount of chairs. So that's always a exciting transitional. Couple of weeks for us till we get our feet underneath this. Yeah. And from

Michael Dugan: 26:42

the customer side, the deck is great. It's a real communal thing. You meet people from Seattle and everybody just sits down. It's almost like picnic table style. I love it.

Ben Hodgetts: 26:52

Yeah. It's picnic food. I mean, that my, I really feel like my restaurant is picnic food. It's high end picnic food. Well, Ben,

Michael Dugan: 26:58

thank you so much for coming on the

Ben Hodgetts: 27:00

show. Oh, my pleasure. This is great.