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435 Podcast: Southern Utah
Explore the heartbeat of Southern Utah with the 435 Podcast, your go-to source for all things local in Washington County. Stay ahead of the curve with our in-depth coverage, expert analysis, and captivating interviews. Whether you're a resident or visitor, our podcast is your key to unlocking the latest happenings and trends in St. George and the surrounding areas. Tune in now to stay informed and connected with our thriving community!
435 Podcast: Southern Utah
Serving Up Dreams Leadership and Life Lessons from the Kitchen
Ever found yourself captivated by the raw, unfiltered tales behind a local business's rise to success? That's precisely what we got when Chris Connors, the culinary virtuoso behind Farmstead Bakery and FS Coffee Company, pulled up a chair and offered an unvarnished look at the peaks and valleys of entrepreneurial life. From the minutiae of managing a Michelin-starred restaurant to the heartwarming hustle of setting up a family-run eatery, this episode is an amalgam of grit, grind, and gastronomic glory. Chris, with his wealth of experience, doesn't just tell a story; he serves up a masterclass in the art of thriving amidst the vibrant yet demanding landscape of St. George's dining culture.
Closing the chat, we zoom out to the broader strokes of St. George's growth and the unique charm we're all striving to preserve. As we grapple with the complexities of smart housing and urban development, we stay rooted in the essence of what makes a community thrive. It's a reflection on the importance of hospitality in a city on the rise and a reminder that the heart of St. George is its people. This episode isn't just a lesson in the mechanics of business; it's a mosaic of insights on life, leadership, and the pursuit of a dream that's as much about the journey as it is the destination.
Find Wealth 435 Here:
https://realestate435.kw.com/
Find Farmstead here:
https://www.farmsteadbakery.com/
Find FS Coffee here:
https://fscoffeecompany.com/
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https://www.blueformmedia.com/
The first two years were such a grind. Such a grind. I learned so much about myself. I learned so much about my wife, um, who is like smartest, most calm person and practical person in the world.
Speaker 2:Um, you know I would get, had you guys ever worked together before that At the nightclub At the aside from that Kind of like Cause. That's kind of separate. You had separate roles that you were kind of passing.
Speaker 1:No we didn't of roles, you're kind of passing. No, we didn't interesting and we never, we never fought or anything like that. We never, we never. It wasn't even like. It was just like we all had the same goal in mind. So we were going, we were rowing the boat in the same direction. You know, no one was going off course and, uh, the first two years was just a grind. I mean, we just kept battling, battling and then after two years it, it just shot up, it just took off.
Speaker 2:Hey everybody, thanks for tuning in to another episode of the 435 Podcast. I'm your host, robert McFarland. In today's episode, we had a great conversation with Chris Connors, local restaurateur, owner of Farmstead Bakery and FS Coffee Company downtown our brand partners. We were excited to have him come on and chat about his story, his family, how he got here, what inspired him to start Farmstead and all those things. We hope you enjoy this episode of focusing on on local businesses here in St George. Um, make sure you like and subscribe, share to your friends and family. We're excited to continue to feature businesses here in Southern Utah as well as covering, uh, big, big, important topics, things that we need to discuss here in Southern Utah. So enjoy this episode. Um, we're grateful for all of our subscribers and our followers. We're growing so quickly and we're so grateful for the support that we have from the community we're building. Shout out to Blueform Media, our production company. You guys do an outstanding job, you guys rock and we'll see you guys out there. Enjoy this episode.
Speaker 1:We came through St George, yeah, and I mean we came through it. I was just like do you want chick-fil-a or do you want? Uh, we always made fun of and and we, we made fun of it because we didn't know it, but it was chukarama. We're like what is chukarama? I still have never been into chukarama I've never been.
Speaker 2:I'm sure it's great.
Speaker 1:Yeah, somebody was telling me the other day that they love it and I'm like I've legitimately had zero interest in going in there, but I just can't think of them coming from an outside perspective, I was, just, like you know, chick-fil-a, chikarama and, um, you know, just franchise I mean St George's is still very much a national franchise Haven and that's one of the things where, um, you know, I was a franchisee, I was a franchisor, so I've been both and I could definitely speak to. I mean, franchises are just different, they're run as a different business. It's just a different business model altogether.
Speaker 1:So nothing against franchises, it's a safer bet, if you're going to own a restaurant, you're going to open a restaurant. But now where I'm at in my life, it's like I want to go in and I want to change a community and that's why I'm here, that's what I want to do, that's my passion and that's why we decided to open Farmstead and FS Coffee and FS coffee Um, so, you know, it's like St George is very um, it's still. It reminds me growing up in Vegas. It reminds me of how Vegas was when I was probably in middle school or high school and probably like uh, you know, I graduated high school in 97. Okay, so Las Vegas was very different in the early nineties. It was franchise, franchise, franchise. There was no really unique, cool, funky restaurants. Now there are, because those chefs who worked on the strip have branched out and I think we're going to get that here in time. It's going to take some time but we'll get there.
Speaker 2:We'll get there. Going to take some time but we'll get there. We'll get there. Being a destination like a resort town, I think, is it's just delayed. You know you get certain services because, it be it being a vacation type town, you know you're we have. We don't have a lot of labor, we don't have a big labor workforce and we don't have any metropolitan area to draw from. There's no other populated area that's close by that we can, you know, draw from to help with. You know those, uh, entry-level positions, you know labor, you know start. I guess they're just job starters, right? So those first first time jobs and that lack of population seems like probably the biggest challenge with restaurants. Am I understanding? Do you think that's true?
Speaker 1:I don't know if it's a lack of population or a lack of talent. I mean the first. The first thing you need is is talent. You know you. You need talent to to run a popular and talent that's not retired talent that's not retired.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I got a lot of talent.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of people that have opinions, but and we actually have done really well with the retired population at Farmstead. I love hiring people who have a passion towards food and are retired, yeah, and we have one person who works two days a week and I love her. She's great, yeah, and she brings with her such great life experience too, um, and, and we definitely need, we definitely need talent when it comes, just like anything else. I mean, if you want to be great at something, you have to find a way to get talent, hire talented people and and try to find a way to how much. I mean, my biggest thing is how can I pay, pay them If I have to open up another establishment to bring in talented people? I am willing to do that. What do you mean by that?
Speaker 1:So a lot of my chef friends in Las Vegas uh, you know, some of them are looking to to move to St George. Some of them aren't right for St George, you know, um, but some of them are would be a great fit. So, you know, I'm always looking for a spot to where it's like hey, I have this Michelin star chef that wants to be here. By all means, I will try to go out of my way to find an establishment for him go in on an ownership interest with them. Um, and that's I mean, that's how we we found Chris Heron, our late, our late chef, that's how we have farmstead is. I talked to Chris and he said, uh, I don't want to do anything in Vegas, I wanted to leave Las Vegas. We wanted to leave, uh, we wanted to move somewhere else where we could raise our family, raise our two boys. And I said what about St George? I love St George and he's like cool, st George it is.
Speaker 1:And so I found him an apartment. That apartment was it was like behind the psychic on St George.
Speaker 2:Boulevard. Oh yeah, yeah, I know exactly that spot.
Speaker 1:So I was like, dude, I don't have any money. Yeah, this is all I can afford. Are you cool with that? And uh, he was like, whatever, I don't care. He's like let's just do something special, like we're just going to, we're just going to blow these people away with what we're going to do.
Speaker 1:And uh, chris just had an insane talent. Um, he was one of the best people I've ever seen in the hospitality industry, even outside the kitchen. Like he just knew how to speak to people. He knew how to feel, make people feel special. Um, and in in in the kitchen, he was just a different level. Um, and he made, he made a way of of of keeping things so simple, complex, complex things simple. And so, you know, he was living behind, he didn't have a car, so he would walk to work, you know, walk to farmstead.
Speaker 1:We chose farmstead because he's like, hey, this place has a lot of parking across the street. And uh, you know, I, I, I. This wasn't my first rodeo. I've done restaurants before, so I knew you know how to do a lease, how to do a build out, preopening, who to hire, what to hire, what to look for, all that kind of stuff. So I was fortunate in that realm and at the time we already had we had two operating restaurants in Las Vegas, um, and we we sold one of them, uh, since then, but, um, you know that one that one probably is is, uh, the reason why we sold it is so we can do future farmsteads.
Speaker 1:But, um, yeah, so, finding talented people. I said, do you have anyone you want to bring with you? And he said, yeah, I have someone that worked with me at Bouchon and he's phenomenal and his name's Ben, he's, he's our head baker, um, and uh, uh, he, he worked at, uh, bouchon, I think, for 10, 10, 11 years, so you know one michelin star restaurant and he knew about consistency and cleanliness and obviously putting out a great product. So, um, yeah, that's kind of like in a nutshell, how farmstead started uh, just finding a talented person. And and I said, screw it, like, let's do it, you know.
Speaker 2:I know, nothing about baking.
Speaker 1:I know nothing about baking. He got me a book. Chris got me a book flour, water, salt, yeast. It was by, uh, ken Forkish, who owns a restaurant in Portland, and he's like, read this book and follow some recipes and you know, do this. And at the time, uh, when Chris gave me that book, it was years before we opened farmstead and, um, I, I sold. I owned a restaurant called Rachel's kitchen in Las Vegas and, um I, I sold it back to the franchise. I was the first franchisee and I was director of franchise operations for them. We had seven locations. We opened six additional locations while I was there and I I trained the staff and all that kind of stuff, but I only owned one, one location. And, yeah, so he's like you know, I sold it. I moved to Springdale. My wife and I moved to Springdale right after we sold Rachel's kitchen. What year was this? This was 2015. Okay, so we moved to Springdale because my wife loved Southern Utah and that area.
Speaker 2:I mean talk about a place that, oh my God, every time I'm there I'm like oh my gosh, I wish.
Speaker 1:It's heaven, man.
Speaker 2:It's just beautiful. It's so amazing, so beautiful and we were doing a road trip.
Speaker 1:So our goal was to do a road trip around the country, and it was just the two of us. This was Our goal was to do a road trip around the country, and it was just the two of us. This is before kids.
Speaker 2:That's so funny. We moved here in 2015 before kids, and we were going to go travel and teach English. So we, we, we stopped here in St George, from California. We were both working in restaurants and we, my parents, had a house here as a second home. And a shout out to California, shout out to my mom and dad. We were living in Huntington beach, right on, right off, four, oh five, you know, just down from um, garden Grove and yeah, yeah, all all it. You know it's sounds nice, hunting to beach, but we weren't on the beach, it wasn't it. We were up the street, Um, but I was working at BJ's restaurants and brewery. I was a manager for them, and then, uh, had opened. I think it was the second lazy dog. I don't know if you're familiar with lazy dog cafe, mimi's cafe, the, the, the, what was the name of that family? She, she'd be like I can't remember.
Speaker 2:You can't believe you forgot them, um, but anyway, uh, lazy dog, she opened the one that was in Irvine, uh, as a bartender, and I was driving up to Downey, from Huntington beach up to Downey, and so it was like an hour and a half because it's always traffic right, depending on the shift that we're at and I did a lot of the closing shifts and she was working the night shifts in Irvine, so it would take like an hour for her to go that way, an hour and a half for me to go this way. And so in 2015, we just we quit the jobs and we moved into my parents' home that they were ultimately going to retire in, just while we saved up some money. We were going to go travel and just go figure it out. We were two months here and she got pregnant. Oh, man.
Speaker 2:And I was like well, I guess this is where we're going to land, yeah, yeah, so yeah, I mean it's.
Speaker 1:Southern.
Speaker 2:Utah, but we fell in love with it. We fell in love with it.
Speaker 1:Especially coming from Las Vegas or Southern California. I lived in North County, san Diego, for a while and you know, I mean it sounds great. Yeah, right, where do you live, san Diego? Oh, it must be nice. I'm like, have you ever been on the 5 at 4.15? It's not nice, it's not. I mean, you know there are, there are some obviously some great things of weathers. One of them, yeah, uh, the food and beverage that that side of it is great, um, but yeah, so we, we, we got in our car and we're like, yeah, we're gonna take a couple, couple months road trip around the country. Do national parks, all that kind of stuff, some great hiking, all that camping, and uh, we, our first night was in Springdale and my, my wife is an open house.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know you told me the word. Yeah, we'll, we'll bleep it out, but you told me what the word was last time she is crazy about.
Speaker 1:uh, stacy is my wife's name. Hi, stacy.
Speaker 2:Stacy is crazy about uh, stacy is is my wife's name.
Speaker 1:Hi, stacy. Stacy is crazy about open houses. If there is an open house and she's driving by it or I'm driving by it, it's, it's a stop, like. As soon as I see it, I'm like, but, um, you know, she's like honey, can we, can we go in? Like I mean, wow, that's nice front yard. And uh, and I'm like we aren't buying a house, I don't know why. Oh, I just want to get some ideas and, you know, whatever. So we go into this open house.
Speaker 1:It's behind soul foods and and um, and Springdale, and they're little like townhomes and um, the only time my wife has really acted, um, I mean very quick, with a big financial decision, yeah, and uh, she's like, hey, I think we should get this house. And I was like, are you kidding me? She's like, no, I think we should make an offer. And um, so we did, and um, you know, as that process was being done, we continued our road trip and it was a little town home, uh, right behind soul foods, and at the time it wasn't how it is. Today, I was Springdale is today. I mean, that was 2015. So I mean it was. It was getting very popular, you know.
Speaker 2:But um, but the average price point in Washington County was probably like two 60. Yeah, yeah, it wasn't two 60 or two 75.
Speaker 1:I think we bought that town home for two 50. Yeah, yeah, so, and it was a thousand square feet tiny, you know it was, but it was great for us Probably the most expensive townhome in all of Washington County at the time, Probably Um and it was a two bedroom, two and a half bath.
Speaker 1:We didn't have a TV. We didn't want a TV in there. We didn't even do like internet for like the first three or four months. It was just like, hey, we're going. We had my dog Kershaw, who we still have, and he's an old. He's an old boy now, but uh, you know, I went on a walk with him. I think I did maybe a thousand miles on my car in six months. Wow, I mean, I didn't go any, I walked everywhere and it was, it was, it was awesome. So we took a road trip around the country and you know, we went um to amazing cities and it was, it was a foodie trip and you know all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1:And then we we lived in Springdale and that's where we kind of fell in love with it and I wanted to do something. Talk about coming full circle. I wanted to do something in Springdale. I wanted do um a breakfast, lunch, dinner, cafe and um, we had a deal with with a, with a person, and it was kind of like a handshake deal. On the the day that we went to sign things, uh, she just said, hey, I'm having second thoughts, I think I'm gonna keep it. And I was. I was devastated because I put in so much money already to get it appraised.
Speaker 2:All the emotional energy, all that stuff, the menu.
Speaker 1:I mean just doing a menu. Oh my gosh, it's so time-consuming, yeah, and the recipes and the look and what we were going for. I still have the name and the name will be used in a future location and and future concept because I think it's an awesome name. But, um, yeah, so the day she let me know, you know, obviously devastated.
Speaker 1:And the day after my old landlord who we had the restaurant with in Las Vegas it was a, it was a mall called the district um in in green Valley and uh, he called me, and and he's the owner of the company, this company called Vestar, and uh, they own, um, the gateway also up North, okay, um, in Salt Lake city. And he said, hey, chris, uh, remember you and I were walking by, walking together, when I went to go visit. And you said, hey, that yogurt shop, if it ever goes out of business, I want to do something there. I said, yeah, he goes. Well, it went out of business and he goes. It went out of business, like you thought, cause they had 15 year olds running it. Yeah.
Speaker 1:It was a, it was yogurt, so they were giving it all to their friends and all that kind of stuff. Little little tiny place, so 770 square feet, and and I told him I wanted to do a taco shop there. Perfect, so and and that's, we moved back to las vegas reluctantly, like you know, my, my wife las vegas has been very good to us, it it was a very special place for us and I'm super thankful and happy that we lived there at the time. We lived there because I was, I was very fortunate to get the positions that I had working in the hospitality industry and Mirage and Wynn and the Palms at Rain Nightclub and all that kind of stuff, mandalay Bay, one Michelin Star restaurants and all that kind of stuff. So I'm super fortunate. And then we opened May Gusta and I just was at the point in my life where it's like, hey, I'm going to start a family here. And that's when I reached out to my business partner now business partner still uh, his name's Lee and I think you've met a couple of times.
Speaker 1:Um so I he was really good at things that I. I was terrible at fixing equipment, um fixing anything I'm terrible at Um I I always gave it a shot and then I'm like you know what?
Speaker 2:Some people just aren't good at this.
Speaker 3:I'm the exact same way I fixed my faucet the other day.
Speaker 2:I felt so great. I felt so great. Congratulations, jeff Watkins. He's the exact opposite, though, too, he wants to fix. Like the cars, if there's something broken, he's like let me see if I can fix it.
Speaker 1:No thanks.
Speaker 2:Yeah, me too. I'm like, can we just buy a new one? Yeah, I think we could just buy a new one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I'm, I'm the same exact way, and and Lee takes things apart. So Lee's in charge of all of our like build outs and he knows his construction stuff. You know, yeah, and and so that I need a partner like that. And I asked him, and at the time, how I got to know Lee is he worked with Stacy, my wife, at Mandalay Bay. They were cabana hosts and she's like Chris, this guy Lee, he's like exactly like you with restaurants. He goes into restaurants and sees how many. He'll see how many people are working, what the price point is, how many people are going in, how many square feet, what hood they have, all this kind of stuff.
Speaker 2:Once square feet. What hood they have all this kind of stuff Once you're doing it, that's. I was the exact same way Once. Once it's like it's a sickness.
Speaker 2:It's a sickness. It honestly it probably. It's probably cause I've been in real estate eight years now and then there was like one year. There was a one year gap. So I'm like almost 10 full years out of being in the restaurant and so I don't do it as much anymore. But I couldn't help. Like you'd walk into a restaurant, you'd know, you'd just be able to see everything from a manager owner's perspective.
Speaker 1:Is it clean. Am I being greeted? What's the what's the service like? How's the staff dressed? How, what? How's the kitchen look? Um, I, the first thing I still do when I go into a restaurant is I go into the restroom see how that's maintained.
Speaker 2:Yeah, um, you know and I I walk out I walk out if it's super dirty, I'm like nope yeah, if they can't take care of that one, I don't want to know what else they can't take exactly, just imagine what their kitchen's like.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, we, we opened up may goose the tacos in uh 2016, beginning of 2016, and uh70 square feet, little tiny taco shop and, um, you know, our goal was to um, just do you know, obviously one at a time, but our goal was to grow there. So we opened up another location a couple of years later across town and franchise that location out and, um, then, uh, sold that location right as like right before, kind of like, covid hit um and they sold that location. The, the franchisees sold it. Actually, it was right after covid. They sold it back. Uh, they sold the lease to another operator, um, and they moved back.
Speaker 1:They were, uh, from the philippines so they moved back to the ph Um and and we actually were running May Gusta for uh, what I mean? Up until last year. Uh, may of last year we sold it, um, and then in in between we opened up. Same thing. Landlord called me, said hey, this guy bailed on his lease. It's a thousand square feet. What would you do there? And I look at it and I'm like a wine and cocktail lounge would just crush it here. And he's like done so? It was my first time doing all that process, the liquor licensing and all that kind of stuff. I love wine, I'm a wine, I love tasting it. I'm Certific, I'm, I love tasting it. Um, I'm certificate one Psalm, um, or I I say I was certificate one Psalm because I, I really don't uh drink a whole lot of wine anymore.
Speaker 1:So, um, you know, that was uh, um, just being in the restaurant industry in Las Vegas. You kind of have to, you have to know your, your, your wine.
Speaker 2:I had my I had my Cicerone license cause I was BJ's restaurant brewery we were a brewery.
Speaker 2:So I had. I had my certificates as a Cicerone. So, yeah, like going through that process, you just kind of have to know, cause you can't, you can't be the lowest common denominator, you have to assume that the person sitting at the bar knows everything and to get them to come back, it's a, it's a combination of the the food and the beverage and the service. That goes into play, right, and that's that's something I think is super unique from a business perspective. Right, A retail store, you know, a shop that you just go in and buy something. You don't necessarily have to have the perfect combination of the two things, but restaurants, you have to have perfect combination of two things. And then you have to execute it, no doubt, Every single time, no doubt.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so we opened up, uh, the local and we. It was somewhat unique to Las Vegas at the time because Las Vegas, if you're in a bar in Las Vegas off the strip, it's all gaming. It's all gaming, that's all. They care about no comp your drinks and all that kind of stuff. And to me, those bars were the most depressing places on earth. Yeah.
Speaker 1:They were all dark, there were no windows and people would just gamble their lives away. And to me, I just wanted something that you would find in Huntington beach and Newport beach, a very Southern California vibe big, open windows. We did the garage door thing, you know um we, I mean, we did that windows. We did the garage door thing, you know um we, I mean, we did that. What was that seven years ago? So yeah, um, you know wine, a hundred hundred, uh choices of wine, um, old world and new world. Um, you know some beers on tap, good happy hour, uh, you know meat and cheese boards all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah, type stuff and then, uh, so we did that and, and when 2020 hit, you know, we uh, we still had our place in um in Springdale, but we were always rent, rented it out to park Rangers, but they would always leave in, uh, december and January, yeah, and I love that time of year in Springdale because you have the entire park to yourself. Yeah, and you could park down at Temple of Sinawava. There's no shuttle, so you could go down there by yourself and you know, just hang out and yeah. So that's what I did in December and January a lot of the time. And when 2020 hit, las Vegas shut down all the restaurants and we found ourselves going to what was it? The town place? On on in Washington. At the time it was new. It was right near the golf course, green Springs. Is it town place or is it a town? Suites?
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Town suites yeah. Yeah, town suites and at the time it was new and you and Utah was like there was no masks, it was open, yeah, it was like normal, it was great. So we had kids at the time and I'm like we could stay here for like three or four days and then go back, I could work, but they shut down the restaurant. So it's like, why not just stay here for a little bit?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and at that time we were, we just said I'm, I'm going to look for some some spaces, and that's when we found the farm farm, yeah, and then, uh, yeah, we, we lived up in that apartment and jewel apartments while we were getting that place going, and and then obviously the real estate craziness I couldn't find a home for life of us. Yeah, even my wife going to every hope open house, but there weren't even open houses cause they would just sell right away, there'd just be no open houses.
Speaker 1:So, um, we finally found a place uh, a dirt lot in downtown and we ended up building there. It was just such a blessing and super thankful for everything that's kind of happened, you know. Um and that's kind of like folded perfectly, a little bit huh, yeah, yeah and that's. That's kind of how we're here.
Speaker 2:Did you have any expectations, you know? You know now, kind of looking backwards, just expectations of what it would be, cause, I guess, you the decision to move here I didn't realize that it was back in, you know, 2015,. You were in Springdale, you kind of had already fallen in love with the place, and then, you know, life takes you away and then he brings you back, which kind of Jeff Watkins story is kind of the same way. Um, you know, thinking, thinking about what. Where did you grow up? Let me ask that question, that's, that's probably so.
Speaker 1:I was born in the high desert which is, uh, the high desert of california, which is apple valley, victorville okay, yeah yeah, I was born there, it's like where you stopped again, yeah yeah, right before you go down the hill, yeah, so, um, you know that's where you stop to get gas. Now you don't even stop to get gas because you're afraid of you know what?
Speaker 2:there's a lot more houses up there now, a lot more houses up there now because they're being priced out in the LA market. You know, it boomed up there.
Speaker 1:Rancho Cucamonga. I mean, even the people in Rancho Cucamonga, can't you know? They all go up to Hesperia and all that kind of stuff. So yeah, that's where my family, my mom's family's, from, and then my dad's they. They graduated from Apple valley high school.
Speaker 1:There oh wow and um, at a young age, at six years old I mean, my dad moved us. He was in the sports information industry. So funny story, I mean it's, it's kind of crazy, but we moved there. At six years old my dad did uh, sports talk radio, um, so he did uh. You know before, it obviously is what it is today. I mean, mean there's so many people out in that market. But he did it at a place called the Stardust. The Stardust was a hotel in Las Vegas. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So he was one of the first people to do. He was a college football consultant. Okay so he had clients throughout the nation that paid him for his advice on college football games.
Speaker 2:So they could kind of gamble on it. Is that kind of what the thought?
Speaker 1:was yeah yeah okay, um that's kind of interesting yeah, um, and he did some like horse racing as well and all that kind of stuff, sports information, yeah, um and uh yeah. So you know, at at I was, my dad never really concentrated too much on my schooling. For me I was taught at a young age. I think at eight or nine I knew how to read a racing form.
Speaker 1:And uh so like my education was like Santa Anita racetrack and uh, that's what I remember. Obviously, I had a good education. I went to a private Catholic grade school. We didn't grow up with money, but my dad and my mom, they always found a way to make it work. We never had. I mean, us going to a restaurant was like someone's graduating or it's someone's birthday and it's probably like someone that's not related to us, but we were invited to go and they were pitching in on the bill. You know what I mean my dad's like.
Speaker 1:Hey, you got, you get to go to Chili's tonight. I was like yeah, Chili's is the best. Yeah, yeah, yeah for sure.
Speaker 1:So, um, yeah, I mean, but now that handicapping a, a race, is so much like handicapping business, I mean you have horses when, when you look at the racing form, you, you know what type of horse it is, what it looks like, who the jockey is, who the trainer is, how much it was sold for their past experience, um, their past workouts, uh, their all, their all their times on. You know their fractions of what they ran, what track they ran out, what the weather condition was like, all the all these different variables and it. It kind of just gives you an idea of how business works as well. So when I look at a business as a whole, I look at all those things and you, you have to call the, the whole things, and you have to call the whole thing. Is you got to call it before it happens, right? Everyone's a Monday morning quarterback, you're right, A hundred percent of the time after the fact great, good, great job, like everyone is that way. But calling it before it happens is is really what makes um an entrepreneur special, yeah, right.
Speaker 1:So, like, how is the economy going to be the next year? What are people going to eat? What are the trends? What are the trends that are going to stay. You know, are people going back? You know, at times where the economy takes a dip, usually people go back to those classic Staples. You know sandwiches, burgers, things like that.
Speaker 1:And then they obviously watch what they're spending um, pastry, all that kind of stuff you know um. Those are the.
Speaker 1:Those are some of the things that people always go back to because they know it and they trust it and that's part of the brand is like with farmstead people know it and they trust it. And that's part of the brand is like with Farmstead people know it, they trust it. Um, they know that we're passionate about what we do, um all that kind of stuff. So like handicapping those things. Um, you know, on on Saturdays my dad was would sit there with three TVs in in his room and we had a big, huge, gigantic satellite, not like like-.
Speaker 2:I had one of those too.
Speaker 1:That's crazy yeah yeah, that's so funny, yeah, maybe like you'd watch it move. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Had the bar and you could see it like moving. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I remember that.
Speaker 1:So like I mean he would be watching coaches, shows and all that kind of stuff College football primarily and me getting that side. Now that I look at it, it gave me an opportunity to really see how to run a business and how to run a staff. I was always in sports, so in high school I played soccer and baseball and in college I played baseball and I always try to run my companies almost like a sports team. On the different personalities that you have, I mean I have my GM as my head coach. I'm probably the owner, but I'm also the general manager. I have to assign different things to different people and see personalities and who works with what.
Speaker 1:I play to everyone's strengths as opposed who's. You know I play to everyone's strengths as opposed to their weaknesses. But then I hired to other people's weaknesses. You know, Um, for example, myself and Lee, um, my business partner. I mean Lee is a very technical um, a lot of people, a lot of employees go to leave for like professional things Like I need this microphone fixed, they're not going to go to me, they go to lean. They professional things Like I need this microphone fixed, they're not going to go to me, right, they go to Lee and they're like Lee, can you fix this? If they want someone to talk to, or they need someone to talk to more often than not, they go to me because I have a little bit more warmth Right. Lee, lee's and I do the interviews and I do the people side of things. Yeah, lee's, like I said, he's more of a technical type of side, so I mean together. I think that's why we make a good Balanced team.
Speaker 2:Good crew, yeah, yeah. And so going back to yeah, because I know you like baseball, I like those key performing indicators, right, those KPIs, like what are those key indicators? So when you were a kid, did you, what did you want to do? Like going back as early as you can think, like was there a job that you wanted to do?
Speaker 1:Okay, so here's, here's my. I was the first person in my family to graduate college, Nice, okay, so I went and I think what what drove me is so in high school I had to. I went to a private Catholic high school in Las Vegas Okay, it's well known for football now and all that kind of stuff. I never got good grades. I never paid attention to it. I didn't care. Go out and get good grades. By the way, don't take that message Kids listening. Go out and get good grades. By the way, don't take that. Kids are listening. Go out and get good grades. I'm really proud of my son, my oldest, because he's getting good grades and you know, um, obviously that's super important. But my, my sophomore year, I was a class clown. I was just I was a clown. I wasn't, I was just stupid. Nothing serious. You're taking things seriously.
Speaker 2:I didn't care. Nothing serious. You're taking things seriously.
Speaker 1:I didn't care and I didn't think it was serious at all. I played. My life was soccer and baseball. Yeah, and my sophomore year, my dad, you know I got hurt and they came up to my parents and they're like, hey, you got to pay tuition now. And my dad's like you're going to public school. So I ended up going to public school and I transfer and I make, I make the varsity squad and all this kind of stuff and baseball. And coach comes up to me and he goes, hey, uh, do you know what a GPA is? And I was like, uh, uh, grade point average. He's like, yeah, and I was like grade point average. He's like yeah, and he goes you have a 1.5 GPA. And I was like I didn't even know that I never got a grade where I went to school. It was just like, yeah, you're good, you're fine, you played.
Speaker 2:You play sports, you're good.
Speaker 1:You're good and so that I learned a hard lesson. I couldn't play baseball that year, my junior year obviously I'm playing varsity and all this kind of stuff and I didn't really get along with the coaches my dad, who was influential in my sports, he didn't get along with them as well. So my senior year rolls around for baseball, my soccer season's over in the fall and so I play baseball. They had tryouts and tryouts were like a technicality. It was just like everyone knew who was going to make the team and the tryout uh, the varsity thing comes out and my name's not on it and I was like what, what's going on? And they're like, yeah, we don't, we don't want you on the team this year. And I was like what, but why? Yeah, but why? And? Um, that was looking back on it. That was one of the best things that ever happened in my life. Um, and they had their reasons. They didn't. They didn't really like you know personality fits not not me.
Speaker 1:I was a quiet kid. I was really. You wouldn't know that now, but I'm S I was super shy and I I didn't speak unless I was spoken to, and I was. I was really socially awkward. Um and in many ways probably I still am.
Speaker 2:But um, it's funny restaurants with my, my wife. She's an introvert, naturally, but we would put her on the bar top because when we started dating we were, we were both bartenders at a steakhouse and on Friday, saturday nights we'd put Katie on the bar top Cause she'd she'd just get people talking. Yeah, and her mechanism was he's like I don't have to talk, I just have to ask questions and then he'll just do all the talking, I don't have to do anything. So we just put her on the bar top and then they we'd make great tips from her and then we just worked. Well, yeah, and uh, you, you get this. You learn social. You know there's a lot of social cues that you can learn from a restaurant, cause you're just, you know, one person right after another, right Customer after customer. You learn, you know how to deal with different personality profiles. But, yeah, you can. There's been education in, uh, in social socialization in restaurants.
Speaker 1:So and and, and so I, I didn't know what to do. That was my life, Baseball was my life as at at that point. And uh, you know, I, I got on the summer team, a Legion baseball team, after my senior year and, um, we were good and we won a tournament in Las Vegas and then we went down to mammoth my senior year and, um, you know, they saw a coach, saw me play, and he goes hey, I, I like you, I'd like to bring you up to Northern California and you could play college baseball for us. And I was like, yeah, this is great, I didn't want to be in Las Vegas. I was an 18 year old kid. I wanted to do something outside of Las Vegas, I wanted to travel, I wanted to see something else. So I, I went to a school, a really small school in Northern California.
Speaker 1:It was called Feather River Community College and it was in Plumas County. It's in between Reno and Chico. I went up there and, um, you know, I, my, I remember my dad driving me up and he gave me a hundred bucks and he's like, hey, this is all we got. You got to make this work. Obviously, I took out student loans and stuff like that, but they put me on like a little bit of a uh what, what was technically a scholarship, but it was like the uh, it was like a good neighbor policy type of thing, cause I was in Nevada and this was a California school, so like I got some breaks there and some grant money because my parents didn't make much, so I played.
Speaker 1:I went to college there for three years in community college.
Speaker 1:I was really smart, nice as you can. As you could see, I went to community college for three years. I needed to go for two. I actually graduated after two but, um, I got hurt my sophomore year and I wanted to stick around because I was growing as a person. I was still growing, I was adding weight and I was adding muscle and I wanted to stick around for my second athletic year. Yeah, so that and that was like the best thing that happened to me. I mean, I did well on the team and I actually accepted a scholarship to a division two school in Miami to play baseball, which was called Barry university, okay, and I was an education major at feather river.
Speaker 1:I was a history major. I fell in love with history, loved it, and I wanted to be a, a high school history coach and coach baseball. Yeah, and I found out in college once I had a really great coach that invested in his people, yeah, in his team, in his players, in more than just baseball right In life. Yeah, oh yeah, absolutely. I learned so many things. To this day I still write down goals on my mirror, on my bathroom mirror, and I write down personal goals, financial goals, professional goals, family goals, and I change. You know I do that all the time.
Speaker 1:I write it in my phone, you know whenever. And the art of visualization is really what I learned there. Yeah, I visualize every day. Uh, we did a catering today with the chamber of commerce, you know. I woke up at I don't I don't know what time. I woke three, 30 in the morning, right, so I woke up at a pretty. I woke up early and I mean, the first thing I do is do my. I do yoga, I do stretching, I do is do my, I do yoga, I do stretching, I do a little workout and then I sit and visualize for a second.
Speaker 1:And today I visualize like how well that is that catering is going to go, and I open, you know, I, I picture myself and I open up the, the uh box and I, I see ham and cheese croissants, like beautiful, perfect ham and cheese croissants, and guess what happened? Yeah, and today I open up and that box of croissants, and I was like man, that's just how I visualized it, that's awesome. And, um, I learned the art of visualization and it and it worked for me as an athlete going through innings, visualizing innings, me pitching as, as as a pitcher, and me, me hitting on you know how I would take a strike, how I would, you know, swing, swing and miss, but obviously get over that obstacle and hit a base, hit through the middle or something like that. Yeah, um, so I went to graduated there, um, at feather river, went to Barry university in North Miami, Miami shores, and I absolutely hated it.
Speaker 1:Um, I, I, the program was okay and I was doing really well at the program, um, and I, I just did not like Miami. Um, I, I, at the time I had a girlfriend and all this kind of stuff and it was a really hard school and, uh, I, I, I was like you know what I want to be? Um, a physical therapy major now and I I changed. So I changed my major like an idiot and um and and I didn't. No one told me that you got to pass like these classes. I mean, kinesiology was like the tip. I was just like, okay, I got kinesiology and then all these other science and I'm like my.
Speaker 1:My strength is not science and I loved anatomy, because I use anatomy still every day, on how I stretch and what feels good and all this kind of stuff. So, you know, I I left, I left Barry, went back home and, keep in mind, in the summertime I was working at the Mirage as a lifeguard. I was working at the Mirage as a lifeguard, so, and I was promoted at the Mirage and you know, I kind of had that in the back of my head. I was like you know, I mean my playing days like they made me an offer on a team in Australia and I was like man, that sounds pretty cool. But at the time I was just like you know, I need to start making money.
Speaker 1:And I never grew up with money and it was so nice to like have a checking account with money in it and stuff like that, and I was like this is so cool, like I'm actually out on my own and all this kind of stuff. So when I came back from Barry, I still didn't have a car or anything like that and I was taking the bus to work and in Las Vegas and the bus system sucks in Las Vegas, so I'm taking two buses. I was taking the one 33 to the two, oh one, and it would take me three hours to get to the Mirage, but um you had to do what you had to do.
Speaker 1:Oh, I didn't mind it. I didn't mind it, um, you know. And so I would go to, I would go to the Mirage and I thought my playing days were over. I'm like I'm going to go to UNLV and just graduate. So I changed my major back to history and I was like, yeah, I'm taking history classes now and it was great, it was fine, I was doing well.
Speaker 1:And that summer, in late July or early August, I get a call from this university in Kansas and they're like hey, we saw your tape and this is like a VHS tape, right, this was in, uh, early 2000, 2000, 2000 actually. And uh, we saw your tape and we called the you know the uh, feather River community college. Your coach said you're done playing. You, you went University and you're done, but you have one year of eligibility. We have a full scholarship. Do you want to come out here? And I said, well, whatever, I don't know, what kind of money do you have? Do you have a full scholarship? Because some of them say they have a full scholarship and it's just partial.
Speaker 1:And you're like great, I'm in debt.
Speaker 2:You're like you don't have to pay school, but you have to pay for books. Yeah, yeah, and a lot of it is like we have a full scholarship.
Speaker 1:And guess what the full scholarship is? Books, yeah, great Thanks, um, even though books are expensive, but school's more. So they said, hey, school starts in like four days, we have a full scholarship. Said, hey, school starts in like four days, we have a full scholarship. We'd love for you to come out and play for the year. And it was like the next day I packed my bags and I was. I was gone within not even 24 hours. Where in Kansas? Uh, Wichita. It was in Wichita, yeah. So it was Newman University, newman, newman, yeah. And it was an NAIA school, so it wasn't NCAA.
Speaker 1:So they didn't have the same regulations and stuff. So I didn't need to sit out a year and I played there and Wichita was awesome. I loved it. I had a great time there, continued with my history degree. I was smart enough.
Speaker 1:At that point I learned from me being an idiot that I I needed to get this degree. Um, and then uh, yeah, so um played there, finally got my degree and uh went back to the Mirage and started as a um pool supervisor. They promoted me. Um, then they wanted to promote me before, so I was in charge of like, yeah, I was a 21 year old kid in charge of like 50 lifeguards and pull attendants and all this kind of stuff. Yeah, so that was a cool learning experience and that's how I got into hospitality and that and and working for one of the best hospitality driven minds, um, you know, we've seen in the in the hotel industry, um, in Las Vegas.
Speaker 1:So I was, I all of a sudden, they, they, this one girl kind of like uh, she was a supervisor and she took a liking to me and she said, hey, I want to use you as a cabana host. And I was like, yeah, that's cool. You know, whatever that sounds fun. Can I make tips? Yeah, and, and you know I knew how to hustle tips, um, because during slow times I would be a pool attendant. So I'd pull, I'd pull all the chairs for people coming out to the pool and I put towels on them and I said hey, my name's Chris. If you need anything, let me know. I'll get your cocktail server and they give me five bucks. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And if you really hustle, you can make 100 bucks a day. And that was like the bar, yeah, right, like if you can make 100 bucks a day, you were good man, right when you woke up. You're like 100 bucks.
Speaker 2:I'm going to make 100 bucks.
Speaker 1:No doubt.
Speaker 2:No, doubt no doubt.
Speaker 1:And so she said I want to put you as a cabana host. And so the cabanas at the Mirage were. You took care of what you would refer to as the whales, so the casino people who would usually have a credit line of like $50,000 or more it would probably be more now. Yeah Right, but they, you had to be an invited guest. So they, they trusted you with these people who could literally change a quarter and their quarterly earnings report, Um, and they were out at the pool and they had these nice cabanas with refrigerators and drinks and you know, lobster tails and crab legs and all this kind of stuff. So I would take care of those guys and it was a life-changing experience. I mean talk about money at a young age. It was great. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And so they, they noticed you know my work ethic and stuff like that. And that's when I really got into like the wine side and liquor and all that kind of stuff, because I had to, um, you know, I had to know what I was talking about. So, um, and then, and then they, they said we have this job opening that, uh, we think you'd be good at, and it's uh, and a man manager at the spa and salon, and I'm like I have no idea.
Speaker 2:You're like looking around.
Speaker 1:You're like me yeah, yeah, and they're like we think that this would be a good spot for you, for your future with our company.
Speaker 2:Based on your skills. We have this hole we need to plug. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And if you do us this, solid over here and we need to find a sucker to do it and you're the sucker. We need a guy to do it.
Speaker 2:And we need a guy to do it, and you're the sucker.
Speaker 1:We need a guy to do it.
Speaker 2:And if you agree to do this, there'll be another opportunity for you kid. Yeah, it's like the mob, it's like the mob.
Speaker 1:No doubt. So I met a couple of those guys, I'm sure. So I ended up running the spa and salon and a friend of mine, who who opened this new nightclub in Las Vegas. It was called rain, the real world was there, mtv was at the palms.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I remember all that, yeah.
Speaker 1:It was. It was rated the best nightclub in the world for like three years in a row by E entertainment. You remember yeah?
Speaker 2:Brooke. Burke wild on the or something that's so funny.
Speaker 1:So they said, well, we need someone to work Thursday, friday, saturdays and at the time at the Mirage I was working Sunday through Thursday at the spa, so I'd work four tens at the spa and at rain I would work 9 pm to like 4 am. So I would work Thursday, Friday, saturday and that was just such an awesome, amazing job, um, and I would take care of what were you doing there, so I was a.
Speaker 1:VIP host, so I'd bring, so I'd bring people in. You know, I'd be in a three-piece suit and stuff. That's where actually I met my wife. She was a cocktail server there and, um, the first time I met my wife, um, you know, we started talking and we started talking about books and I was like whoa, this girl's like way smarter than me. Um, so I need to like read up on some like books. So I actually seem smart.
Speaker 2:And so, you know, I I tried to like fake it and all this and I said, hey, you know, uh, you want to like you want to go out sometime and I I was pretty shy and you worked seven days a week, so you're like, I mean I know there's not a lot of time so much.
Speaker 1:And my buddy uh, at the time jay, who has actually come full circle, he works for us now at farmstead, that's awesome. He moved out and he said, dude, I, I love what you're doing and I want to move out of Vegas. I want to move to St George and can I come work for you? I was like dude, I wouldn't be where I am today if it wasn't for Jay. Jay's like, just come on, get some guts and go ask her out. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So you're right, man. So I asked her out and I say hey, you know you want to go out. Sometimes she just looks me dead in the eye and says nah walks away and I was like man. That's tough.
Speaker 1:Dang yeah, yeah yeah, and she was like I just wanted to see if you'd ask me out again and I did so we went out on the first day of the arrest, as they say is history, but, um, yeah. So I mean I was in charge of uh bottle, basically in anyone who got a bottle bottle service at the nightclub, um, and they went in this one area. I was the. We were pretty much the first people to do this type of service in Las Vegas. Now you see it everywhere, right, but we did bottle service with your mixers and all that kind of stuff and there were three levels. There was a skybox where it was really high-end customers, a lot of celebrities would go up there because it was kind of private. And then we did these.
Speaker 1:Oddly enough, it was called the cabana section and I did all the cabana section. It was a little bit larger groups, kind of like a younger demographic section. It was a little bit larger groups, um, kind of like a younger demographic. And then uh, jay would do uh, the water booth, the common folk, yeah, yeah, kind of they. Those, those, those tables were like right in the action. So if you wanted to be in the action, you wanted to be over there. You want a little bit removed from like the mayhem and like the sea of people. Yeah, I mean there were people just when we first opened. The line would go to the other side of the casino. You would wait in line for three hours Now. Everyone was trying to throw night at the Roxbury.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah but everyone everyone who wanted to get in everyone who wanted to get in would be flashing a hundred dollar bills to our front door guys and they would just kind of pick and choose. But they had to pick and choose correctly on who they wanted. And, uh, that's how you would get into the club is, when you did bottle service so I was in charge of those groups I'd introduce them to the cocktail server. I I, you know walk them down to the um, uh, like the dance floor and all this kind of stuff. I mean, dealing with celebrities was really cool. Um, you know the who's who at that time would be in there all the time.
Speaker 2:It's a pseudo like security role too. Right Like you're, you're there to make sure everybody's having a good time, and if somebody is not having a good time, they need to be shown the door.
Speaker 1:Is that a little bit of a two, but we had so much security.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:All of them were like Division I football players.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was going to say typically it's bottle girls, not guys. So I was like I wonder what Chris's role here is. A blend of the two?
Speaker 1:So my job was to make sure that their night went great from the first time our first handshake or greeting to the second they left. Um, my job was to make sure they had a great time there. You know, the drinks were always, always there. If they needed a cocktail server, get the cocktail server. If they needed something special, we you know someone's birthday. Um, that happened a lot, all that kind of stuff. If they ever wanted to go out to a dinner prior to I would set that up.
Speaker 2:Oh cool.
Speaker 1:If they wanted to go to a nightclub afterwards Like a real concierge-like type setup. Cool yeah. So I'd work Sunday through Wednesday at the Mirage and then Thursday, friday, saturday I work at the nightclub, and Saturday nights I'd get off at around 4. And my shift on Sunday was 6 AM to 4 PM at the Mirage. So I'd sleep uh like an hour in my car and then in my break I'd find a massage room and grab a quick nap, and at that time I was just driven because I wanted to get ahead financially.
Speaker 1:I just wanted I, just I, and that's kind of like where my work ethic I was. I didn't care. I didn't care about work. I found it to be fun. It was fascinating meeting new people. And. I met so many different people and then, um, when I when I decided like hey, this is a little bit too much. I'm on year two of this Right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was going to say that there seems to be like a time limit, is you could do that kind of a thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it was. It was getting unhealthy for me. To where my sleep deprivation. I was just like I need sleep and even Stacy, who was my girlfriend at the time, was like, uh, you need to like sleep for maybe eight hours. That might be healthy for you. And so, um, I decided to leave the nightclub, um, and at the Mirage I was promoted to cabana manager. They brought me back out to the pool and so I had a whole crew. They redid the entire cabanas at the Mirage and through there I got introduced to the restaurant industry.
Speaker 1:So I took care of a person who owned restaurants in San Diego, la Jolla North County, san Diego, la Jolla, encinitas. It was a sushi restaurant. I knew nothing about sushi, but she came up to me and she's like look, you've taken care of us for like five years in a row. You've been great. We have a general manager opening our place and we just can't get this place straight. It's busy, busy, busy, but I don't know why we keep losing money. So we, you know, I tell my, my fiance at the time, who was Stacy I was like, um, I had this opportunity to go to San Diego and she was all all about it. She's like, yeah, let like let's go, let's leave tomorrow. That's awesome. So we lived in a place called Cardiff Cardiff by the sea. We lived west of the five, it was so cool. We lived in a little tiny surfer shack it was total garbage In La Jolla In Cardiff.
Speaker 2:Oh, in Cardiff, In Cardiff, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Cardiff by the sea. So it's in between, like Solano Beach, like Del Okay, and Encinitas, okay, just south of like Carlsbad Okay. And yeah, I ran two sushi restaurants and one was in La Jolla, one was like on the street called Girard and super obviously high end, learning a lot about the fish, yeah, the Japanese names and all that kind of stuff. And we had a place in Encinitas and the place was just an absolute mess, you know, employees or servers were transferring like they had, they could transfer whatever they wanted. So, so get this. We had this. They had this one role. It's called the dawn rolls 20 dollars. So they would find, they would find whoever would pay cash with this 20, 20 dollar dawn roll and they would keep the cash and then transfer it to another server and they would keep the extra 20 bucks, yeah, and that thing would be transferred. That thing would be transferred 100 times a night. Yeah, and I'm like I don't understand. We never have tickets for these Don rolls.
Speaker 1:It was like my second or third week there and I'm like why are you guys making so many Don rolls? You don't have the ticket, you know, for to to the, to the sushi chefs. They're like, yeah, it must be. So I'm looking into it. I'm like man, this, this thing. So we had one server and he was like a surfer. He was a surfer, dude, total surfer, like stoner guy Right, and he, he was like I go up to him and I noticed you transferred this, this role, like 47 times last week and he's like bro, like I don't really, I don't really know, like what I did. I'm like okay, man, well, first of all, you're fired. I think you know what you did. And he's like that impression was spot on so. I can?
Speaker 2:I can imagine who he is.
Speaker 1:And and and he was, he was like you caught me, you got me. And I was like, thanks, man, he goes. You're not gonna like press charges or anything, are you? I was like no, but you, you, you're fired. He's like yeah, it's cool. He's like is everyone else gonna get fired? And I was like, well, we're gonna get down to the bottom of it. He's like, okay, um, and he, he ratted out his buddy?
Speaker 2:No, he didn't.
Speaker 1:And he goes. My buddy transferred it more times than I did and I go. Why?
Speaker 2:did you do that? He had already been fired. He had already been fired, yeah.
Speaker 1:And I go, why did you do that? And he's like dude that guy could shred and I need him on, all right yeah. I guess you're right and and uh so he's like yeah, I want them to go out with me and uh, I was like okay, cool, I guess you guys are both fired. Spicoli, dude.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Some tasty waves man. So, um, yeah, I did that and I learned so much, and some of the things that I learned were the most valuable or what not to do. Yeah, you know, um, they, the, the ownership group kind of spent a little bit too much money and they were like for for show they really were.
Speaker 1:They wanted people to be impressed by them and that was one of the things that, um, you know, when I first started making money in as a host and all that kind of stuff, um, I remember the dumbest purchase of my life not to say that people who who make this purchase are dumb, but it was dumb for me and I got a cool like tag watch and the thing cost me like two 3000 bucks and I wore it like maybe five times and I'm not and I'm like what am I doing? This is just the dumbest thing that ever bought my life. It was like you know so much money and I could have just put that money away and you know done that. So, um, you know, I'm just not. I've never been that type of I. I drive a Toyota. I don't care Like I love you know I'm not a car guy, I'm not a show, but I don't care Like I love you know I'm not a car guy, I'm not a show, but they were those owners, were they wanted to drive.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of that in California man.
Speaker 1:A lot of that. It was a lot of show me, show me, show me. And they couldn't write checks. I mean, a lot of times they're like, chris, do you mind if we pay you in, like a week? And I was like, no, you have to pay me now. You know, it's kind of the law, um and uh.
Speaker 1:So they ended up selling those, those restaurants, and it was, uh, they sold it to like a group of Japanese businessmen and they're like, hey, like uh, no offense, but it's a family run business. Now. So you know, and they, what was cool is I signed a two year contract and they gave me the owners, the old owners, who are nice people. They gave me a six months severance. You know, they bought out the rest of my contract. So I was, like, at the time, technically unemployed in San Diego and so I was riding my beach cruiser everywhere I ate at this place called Juanita's every day as taco shop, and you know, like Stacy was okay, honey, you can't go to juanita's every day, you know, and that was in lucadia, that was my jam. So, like you know, we moved back um to las vegas because california was just so expensive.
Speaker 2:It was a great were you renting out there?
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah, yeah, um, now we bought uh. When we had those jobs in Las Vegas, we bought in Las Vegas. So we bought, um like I bought a uh town home in 2002, sold it in 2006. Nice, she bought a um little like one of those little one car garage homes in 2003, sold in 2007. Good timing, good timing, yeah, super fortunate for that. Move back to uh Las Vegas bought a little little town home together. We at the time we were married. We got married in San Diego, um in 2007,. We're about to uh have our 17th wedding anniversary on the 20th Congrats man, thank you, man, thank you.
Speaker 1:Um, yeah, so that. And then I I got a job, um, at Mandalay Bay. I applied for a job at Mandalay Bay for this one Michelin star. Someone told me I needed to go apply for it a friend of mine and it was a one Michelin star restaurant by the name of Mix and it was a chef named Alon Ducasse. Alon Ducasse at the time was the youngest chef with the most Michelin stars, and Michelin stars are obviously a nice guide to like a fine dining, right? So if you're one Michelin, do you know how that works? Roughly.
Speaker 2:But let's, yeah, let's explore that. So there's, it's a rating system, right so?
Speaker 1:it's a rating system and michelin was a tire, is a tire company, and so when in france, when you bought a new set of michelin tires, they gave you a michelin guide and as part of the michelin guide, they gave out stars to restaurants. One star was if you're in the area, go see it. If Michelin two stars was worth the trip, right. So like one or two hours out of your way, go see a two Michelin star. And three Michelin star was definitely go out of your way to see this restaurant in your new Michelin tires with your car.
Speaker 2:That's funny. I didn't know how they didn't know how they they started this. But that's that's actually fascinating.
Speaker 1:So this was a one Michelin star restaurant. It was French. Um, I I'm not, as you could probably tell, I'm not a fine dining guy, you're you're Michelin, but the tire version, I'm a tire really the I'm the back left tire of a Michelin set you know, and uh, so I interview and I interview with a super interesting guy and he's still of to this day.
Speaker 1:He's a great friend of mine, Um, and he became a great, great friend of mine, uh, because of this, and his name was Tex. He was he's English this and his name was Tex. He was in he's English, Um, and he and he, uh, he was actually in a English rock band, uh, and, and they had a number two hit on the billboard top, whatever. But he became, um, his band broke up and all this kind of stuff, and he got into the food and beverage industry and he was the uh assistant general manager of this establishment and he and so I have an interview with him and he's an English guy. So he's like, um, yes, Chris corners, Um, so what do you know about Michelin stars? And I was like, um, nothing, I have no idea what a Michelin star. I have no clue. I was like I, I don't have any idea.
Speaker 1:He explained it to me and then he's like's like, uh, tell me what you know about, uh, the preparation of, uh, you know our barramundi? And I was like what the hell is barramundi? And it's a fish, you know. So I'm like, uh, I don't even know what that is and I'm like I'm so far. And I told him I'm like I'm so far out of my element. I don't know, but I'm willing to learn. Yeah, and he's like I like your nightclub experience because we have a lounge on this side. So you know the nightclub industry and you know management and he's like, judging by your resume, I think you have the ability to do this Right. And um, he goes. You know, I don't have too many people who are honest in interviews and they all try to BS their way through.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I was like man. I don't have the ability to do that and but I'll learn Like. Can I work in the kitchen to learn? He's like people fly from all over the world to work here. You know, and like his English and he's like no, you cannot.
Speaker 2:Not a chance. You come to the kitchen. If I catch you in the kitchen, I'm going to kick you out myself.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, good English accent. I can't do that.
Speaker 2:No, you were doing great.
Speaker 1:And yeah, so I started there as a manager and I kind of had to fake my knowledge for the time being and then I just kept working and working and I'm like I'm going to go in before anyone gets here and go into the kitchen and see him prep and all that kind of stuff. And that's kind of how I um brought um our, our dessert, our pastry chef, marie, to St George, who makes all of our tarts, cakes, um, all that kind of stuff. So she runs our department there. I worked with her at mix. She was the pastry chef there. Um, and you know, just these relationships coming, you know, and that's that's how it works, right, I mean.
Speaker 1:So I called Marie, uh, years ago what, three years ago? And I I just said, hey, we have this. And I know that you kind of weren't in love with Las Vegas, did you come out here? And she was a hiker, avid hiker. She loves running and all this super outdoorsy. She's like, oh yeah, sounds great. So that's how we got Marie is through, you know, my four. I was at mix for four years and that was during the economic downturn.
Speaker 1:I was at mix for four years and that was during the economic downturn. So you know, I was just our biggest thing. There was like and I never want my employees to feel this way but our biggest thing was just be lucky, you have a job. Yeah, and I think that's just the worst thing to ever tell an employee, but that's what I was told every day Just be lucky, you have a job. I mean, our MGM stock went to do $2 and 13 cents.
Speaker 1:Yeah Vegas got beat up, Terrible, Real bad. It's funny because I mean talking about real estate. You know it was all this hype, right? So this city center project, city center, city center, so it was. It was Aria, where.
Speaker 1:Aria is now, and my, my friends and I I, um, there were seven of us we formed an llc. That was the first time I formed an llc and we each put in which was is it still a ton of money? Right, but we ton of money. To me back then that was like everything. Uh, we put in twenty thousand dollars each to buy this condo, uh, at the veer towers, if you you look at city center, they're the towers, that kind of go like um, and that was in 2007.
Speaker 1:So, needless to say, that wasn't a very savvy investment, but, you know, obviously I did. I did well with the, the, the condo that I bought. I bought it with my own money and, um, I was super proud of that and you know, that changed my life, uh, forever financially. So, um, you know, I took a we actually uh, mgm or or some someone with MGM, a different company, I don't know what it was. They came up to us and said, look, we know you're going to foreclose on this thing, we're going up to everyone's gonna, you know, lose out.
Speaker 1:And it was at that point. It was everyone who was just like, why am I going to stick around with something at 1.4 million dollar valuation? Now the things were 600 000, yeah, so they offered for the 20 000 I put in. They offered me 5 000 back and I couldn't give it. But I was like, yes, absolutely like no poker face whatsoever. I was like, yep, no negotiation, yep. So, um, you know, that was my, my time where I was like, okay, from now on I need to invest in things that I know.
Speaker 1:I mean, I'm not a real estate investor, right, I know what to look for when it comes to a certain demographic and a certain location, with restaurants and things like that, what I'm looking for and what's specific to Farmstead. But I don't have the talent that you have. You know, looking in, looking at the numbers and and all that kind of stuff Learned a valuable lesson there. It cost me fifteen thousand bucks, but I know that I'm not a real estate mogul. Yeah, you know. You know things now have changed for me a little bit to where I could look at a vacant piece of land and be like you know what. I'm pretty confident that this would work here and here and this is what it would cost and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2:But it's funny because the principles are all the same, right. The principles you learned young with the horses are the same principles in making those decisions, kind of as you've gone along, even that gamble with the Aria at the time. You know, from a real estate perspective, there there's a reason. There's a reason the whole thing collapsed. But there's also a reason why there was so much money in that.
Speaker 2:That pillar of the economy in real estate is in general anyway, right, and even today the Aria still got built and whoever bought that from you for five grand made a killing off of that, right? So, like you know, looking, looking over over time, there's things that you knew and you were willing to learn the Michelin star restaurant, but from the pool to the bar, to the sushi right. Each time it's like, okay, I can I understand. What are the most important factors, what are the key levers in each one of these businesses? And if you don't know right away, over time you'll figure out where the levers are and you know it's. It's like solving a puzzle in a, in a way.
Speaker 1:No doubt so, um, I mean after after Mandalay Bay it was, it was getting like I was never at the Mirage. I loved working at the Mirage, um, at Mandalay Bay it was a little bit more corporate and I hated it, um, and at that time I was like you know what? I want to own my own business. I didn't realize how little I knew and how dumb of a idea that was, but I was ignorant enough to understand, um, that, you know, I I guess I was smart enough to understand that I had to work hard enough because I wasn't smart enough. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Right. So um, I um In 2009,. I said I'm going to open up a restaurant and not knowing how much little things like a hood would be grease trap, all these things and I said I just got to get out of this corporate thing but I need more money to do a restaurant. No one was loaning, lending money in 2009. No, no one. I went in. I remember going into a bank and they were like it doesn't matter how much money you have down, like we're, we're not loaning anything. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Um. So I was like, okay, I'm just going to use my own money. And my wife Stacy was just like I believe in you. And here it is. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And we went all in and and I remember the six months prior to um, I said, okay, well, I'm willing to work. So I got a job as a cabana host at when they hired me. So, uh, you know, I was a manager at Mandalay band. I'm like, I'm only doing this, I'm a little bit older, now is 29. And so I, I, I got a job as a cabana host. That went for six months in order to raise a little in Summerlin, little tiny hole in the wall, but I really liked the menu. I thought, uh, it would be good.
Speaker 1:On the other side of town, where I lived, in green Valley in Las Vegas. So I talked to her and uh, her name was Debbie, super nice, very knowledgeable. And uh, I said, hey, would you be willing to franchise this? And I didn't even really know how our franchise worked, like I, I, you know maybe some searches on the internet and all this kind of stuff, but not she's like, oddly enough, we're doing a franchise, we're doing our franchise disclosure documents right now, cause I want to franchise this. So I was her first franchisee and we opened up in a green Valley.
Speaker 1:I would have fallen flat on my face if I didn't have, if I didn't do a franchise first, which goes back to like what I was saying at the very beginning is you know, franchises are attractive for some people and they were super attractive for me because I didn't know what I was doing and I opened up, we spent, we put all of our life savings into it. I opened the door and I had $500 to my name and my checking account. That's all. That's all we had. My wife and I worked nonstop. Um, I didn't care, I, that came back to my high school days, someone telling me I couldn't do it in my senior year in high school with the baseball team and I was like I'm going to show you. And that drove me. Um, I'm, uh, I, I would say I'm extremely competitive. Um, I, I just I'm going to win, yeah and um, that's that was. That was my thing. It was just I.
Speaker 1:I worked my butt off, stacy worked her butt off and we made it work. And it was like the first two years were such a grind, such a grind. I learned so much about myself. I learned so much about my wife, um, who is like smartest, most calm person and practical person in the world. Um, you know, I would get.
Speaker 2:Had you guys ever worked?
Speaker 1:together before that At the nightclub aside from that kind of like cause.
Speaker 2:That's kind of separate. You're kind of passing. No, we didn't.
Speaker 1:Interesting and we never, we never fought or anything like that. We never, we never. It wasn't even like, it was just like we all had the same goal in mind. So we were going, we were rowing the boat in the same direction. You know, no one was going off course, and the first two years was just a grind. I mean, we just kept battling, battling, battling. And then after two years it just shot up, it just took off. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean 2010,. I opened February 5th 2010. I opened Rachel's kitchen the worst time in the history of modern society.
Speaker 2:I I mean, I think it could have been the best. Yeah, I mean thinking, thinking of if you would have started two years earlier right, you get into, you get into habits, you get into process, you learn to do more with less because of the financial situation and the economic situation right.
Speaker 1:And also here's the thing we opened in the district in Green Valley. The district had Pottery Barn, rei, william, sonoma these big names. They would have never, never, taken a person like me, with no experience owning a restaurant, if it wasn't for 2010, when they were absolutely desperate to fill vacancies, vacancies, yeah. And we took over a failed restaurant and after two years, we expanded, we knocked down a wall and made it bigger and it's still there today. I sold it in at the end of two, very end of 2014.
Speaker 1:And you know that that was like the biggest life-changing thing for me and I didn't know if I wanted to be in restaurants after that. I was just like God, it's just such a grind. It's like people you know calling in and I didn't have enough money to pay a general manager. I didn't. You know, I wanted to expand but I didn't have the means to do that. I wanted to expand but I didn't have the means to to do that. And, um, you know, that money that came in was so important and I was like, yeah, I just I don't, I'm not going to do a restaurant. And then I'm just looking at restaurants and I'm just like.
Speaker 1:I'm, and it was. It was so interesting with who I met along the way. Funny story I met someone, yet I saw someone yesterday. I heard a voice at farmstead and I'm like man, that voice sounds familiar and I I wait for him to turn around and I was like hey, and he's like where do I know you? And I was like you did a magazine in in green Valley and you did a a a thing on me in the magazine.
Speaker 1:He's like Chris, he's from from, from Rachel's kitchen and make goose, the tacos and the local. I was like yeah, he's like oh, my God, it's been five, six, seven years. Yeah, and uh, he's doing a magazine here in town. That's funny. And he's like I need to feature you. He's like this is so crazy. He's like this is so crazy that this happened Just randomly grabbing pastries at Farmstead. He's like are you living here? So I kind of told him a quick story and he was like this is insane that you know and it's just people that you meet along the way. It's pretty cool, the. It's pretty cool the restaurant.
Speaker 2:I got into real estate initially because I wanted to build up some money to open a restaurant. And then you have kids. Yeah, and that was one of the questions I wanted to ask you too, is running a restaurant now with a family Now? Granted, you picked the right layout in my opinion, because when I left BJ's because I was, I think, the last shift I had it was like two 30 in the morning and this is a, this is a restaurant. We closed at midnight, but it was two, 30 in the in the morning. When I'm like leaving and you know the, the, you know they're just finished mopping Right.
Speaker 1:And it's.
Speaker 2:I just, I just remember leaving, being like I just don't want to do this anymore. It's just so late. And like you're having to kick out drunk people at 12 o'clock on a Friday or one o'clock on a Friday, cause we were open till one on Fridays. But yeah, I just uh, I was like, if I'm going to do a restaurant again, I'm going to do early, you know early dinner or just lunch and breakfast, like that's well, that was one of the things for the local.
Speaker 1:The local was different for May Goose. So right, May Goose opened at 11, closed at eight. The local stayed open till 11. And I, less food at the local, though. Less food but more, you know, drunk. Yeah, right. And I now I'm at the point in my life where I don't. I don't want that. Yeah, you know, it just wasn't.
Speaker 1:It's not attractive to me, um, and so that's one of the reasons we closed Kairos, we made the decision to close Kairos is because it was 11 to seven or 11 to eight and I said, you know, coffee, just this space just kind of speaks coffee coffee shop to me and we could roast at FS Coffee Company. We could roast all the beans for future farmsteads. Farmsteads are flagship, farmsteads are big and you know that's seven to three, even though sometimes I get wake-up calls at 3 am or 4 am, whatever. That's part of the business.
Speaker 1:I'm usually home by five or six you know we're doing I mean crazy hours right now, especially my business partner, lee. I mean he's, he's, he's, he's just the most insane worker I've ever seen in my life. He does not stop. I mean, even when I'm with him I'm like dude, you are crazy, you're crazy. So he's in charge of you. Know, he's in leads, right now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and he's getting that, doing that warehouse, getting that warehouse open with our construction team and making sure people are there and making sure crews arrive and all that kind of stuff. And you know, he's putting up like the TVs and stuff doing the security cameras and all that. And that's where we're at right now. I mean we're at that warehouse in Leeds, signed a lease in Springville.
Speaker 2:And the purpose of that warehouse is for what?
Speaker 1:So, getting back to the horse racing, right, I need to call the shot before it happens. Yeah, and I really think our, our industry, our, our restaurant industry is going to change. You need to be really good at production, especially when you're doing pastry and stuff like that. So a typical restaurant with a bakery that we have at Farmstead is going to cost a million dollars to open. Hmm, at farmstead is going to cost a million dollars to open. I want to do a manufacturing facility. That's. That's pretty much going to cost us about two and a half million dollars with the real estate. So we bought the real estate with it. So I I felt like that was a good move, and then that manufacturing facility will provide pastry and bread and sandwiches to every retail location of farmstead.
Speaker 1:So we don't number one, we don't need a huge build out, which is how we got into Springdale. Springdale space is just a front of house space. We're going to have display cases. We don't have a back kitchen. We don't have any of that. So you're eliminating staff. You're eliminating really costly equipment ovens, convection ovens, deck ovens, burners, you know all these proofers and giant ovens. Yeah, walk-ins, all this kind of stuff. You're eliminating that for future builds. Yeah, all this kind of stuff. You're eliminating that for future builds. Now, when I go into Farmstead, when I go into a quick service restaurant, it seems really slow to me. When you go to the counter, you order and then they bring out your food. It's just me right.
Speaker 1:But I'm used to Farmstead where your only wait is in line yeah, you get your food right away. Yeah, right, so now we've eliminated. When we added a fourth point of sale machine, we used, we started with two and we noticed farmstead, right, yeah, farmstead. So we started with two point of sales and we noticed early on, like this is just a bottleneck right here.
Speaker 1:So we added a third and the third helped. We're like, yeah, and the third helped. We're like, yeah, we're just going to do primarily coffee out of that register. And we added a fourth six months ago and that's just helped tremendously. So when the line goes to the door, as it often does and I'm super fortunate for that your wait's about 10 minutes. Yeah, so it's the same as a quick service restaurant, but you aren't waiting in line to order at a. You know, you're waiting in line to order at a quick service restaurant. At Farmstead, you're waiting in line just to get your food. So it's like it's a very it's. When we were doing research on this, on this uh concept, what I had trouble with at Rachel's kitchen was people would order at the front counter. They would wait in line, then order at the front counter and they'd always change their order. Right, I want a Turkey Turkey avocado sandwich. Uh, with double avocado with uh yeah.
Speaker 1:Can you add bacon? So you're having these cooks who are in underpaid, right, let's. Let's be honest, they're making 12 bucks an hour, right, and then they're reading these tickets and they're making everything. It's almost like a brand new item, right? People are making up their own sandwiches and things like that, and I'm like the turnover here is just going to be incredible. They're going to be stressed, they're going to quit and there's really nothing that you could do, training wise, to train them for that. Right, because people are just going to make up stuff. Yeah, you know, and the beauty behind Farmstead is it is what it is. Yeah, we know.
Speaker 2:It's already prepped.
Speaker 1:It's already prepped, it's already done and we know it's great, like this recipe has been. We just put a pastrami sandwich on there and that pastrami sandwich is in absolutely insane. But we played with that pastrami sandwich, we played with those flavors for four months, five months, you know, and we, we perfected it the way we want to serve it to you. Yeah, you know it's not the way that. Uh, johnny wants it because, uh, he wants extra bacon on everything, and then he gives us a one-star Yelp review because the sandwich is bad. Yeah Well, you're the one who's, you know, wanted this random sandwich. You know nothing about flavors and how they react and you know how, how this is blanched and how. Why is this grown this way and this is done this way, you know. So it's like this is the absolute best thing that we can prepare for you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and here it is, and you could point to it and get it. I think it was soup Nazi. I'm going back to Seinfeld. I didn't get my bread. I think it snatches out of his hand. No soup for you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah I mean, we've had people who come in and, um, you know, chef Chris, before he passed away, was infamous for taking things to the back and doing some special stuff and you know he can never say no to a person. But when Chris left when when Chris left us, you know, when he passed away, it was I I was like, look, I'm not that talented to do that and I need to streamline things. I need to keep things super efficient and functional. And Ben, the reason why he, he came to St George and he moved to St George, uh, was for a better way of life for his, for his family and, uh, you know, to be with Chris, to work with Chris again.
Speaker 1:And I remember meeting with Ben and I'm like, hey, man, we don't have the talent that he had. We can't go back and make something random for someone. We have to be efficient and functional on what we do and we need to be cohesive. We need to be a team together and you know, we we can no longer make an egg salad sandwich because some person wanted an egg salad sandwich. We just, unfortunately, we have to tell them no. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And in a nice way. Yeah, um, you know, there I I had the staff read uh, unreasonable hospitality by Will Gadara.
Speaker 1:Um I gotta read that one. It's a, it's a fantastic book and it's um. You know, what we need to do a lot more in this city is teach, uh, the hospitality side and how to make really someone's someone's stay, um, whether it's three minutes or three days in in St George, special, something that they remember. And for us at Farmstead, people are greeted as soon as they come in. They're greeted Hello, A simple hello, or a simple welcome.
Speaker 1:It's not a cheesy, you know, welcome to Farmstead, where we could make your day or whatever. It's just a simple hello. We want to acknowledge them, we want to thank them for coming in, um, establish eye contact, smile, you know, um, and if we have an extra pastry, I mean, break off a cookie and give it to a kid, um, you know, things like that, I mean those, those are what make make us so, so unique and so special, and I hope we never I don't think we ever will lose that, you know, and I I hope we get better as a city with that, you know, as, as far as hospitality goes, Well, I mean, you bring up a good point and another a conversation for a whole nother hour.
Speaker 2:Dude, we could talk for a while on this specifically, but one of the one of the things that I loved about St George in 2015 was man, everybody's, everybody was nice, everybody's nice. You go into stores it's in California, it was not that way, yeah. And you get into cities where everybody's just another number right, you're just another, uh, you know, human everybody's in their own world, which is so funny. You get bigger and people get more narrow, focused into their own little self-absorbed world.
Speaker 2:No doubt, and when you know the people, when, like you see the mayor at the store that everybody shops at right, and when you, when you see city council members or you, you know, uh, business owners are there at, they actually own and work at that location, right when you get to, you get to meet these people. That was so unique, you know, for me coming from California, but, um, especially for my wife, it just jumped out and it seems like there's, there's been some times where we've lost that in some ways and St George, st George word of mouth on Facebook isn't, isn't the best like sample to draw from, but you can, you can tell that there's, there's animosity, you know, kind of from, uh, you know, the born and raised here to a lot of the people that have come from elsewhere. And we've grown a lot in the last really, probably seven to eight years, probably more so than we have, you know, historically, and so I'm hope, I'm hoping that it's not a trend where we, we, we start to lose some of that hospitality piece to it.
Speaker 1:I mean, I lived in. I lived in six, six homes, yeah, all over the place too. Right, um, I knew one neighbor, wow, and I live here in St George. I know the person who lives across the street from me, first name basis. I know my two neighbors. I know the person who lives on the corner. I know the person who lives kitty corner to me. I know the people on my walk because I try to walk to work almost every day and it's so. You know so many places LA, las Vegas, you know so many are commuter.
Speaker 1:There's usually what happens is everyone is from somewhere else, right, and I think we're getting some of that in St George. It's hard If you're a local you lived here all your life and you see some people coming in from out of town, you know, and they're bringing in things that maybe you don't like. It's hard, I, I, I get it, you know. I mean I, I want to, I want to come in and say, look, I'm, I'm a visitor here right now. You know, like I'm, I, this is going to be my future home, I love it here. St.
Speaker 1:George is amazing. I want to be here for the rest of my life. I love it Um and my, I want to raise my kids here and the education is great and the people are great and they're super friendly and they're super. They're super, uh, enthusiastic and positive. And when you open a restaurant in Las Vegas, people go there to critique it and give you one star Yelp reviews. I mean it's like everyone is a critic there and they'll go in and just blast you, they don't care because they don't care about you.
Speaker 1:Necessarily they care. It's a very sometimes it's a very self-serving big city type of feel. Yeah, don't get me wrong, there's great things about Las Vegas. I love the food and beverage side of it, I love the hospitality side of it.
Speaker 1:But when I go to, when I go and visit Las Vegas, I can't wait to get back now. Like I go through the gorge and I'm just like, ah, I'm home, you know, and with with St George it's, it's just a very special, unique place to me and I I hope we never lose that. You know, it's like I'm never at a four-way stop. Do you remember any time when you lived in California where people would be like, oh no, you go, you go and I'm like what is going on? I mean, people aren't trying to hit me.
Speaker 2:I ever went to a four-way stop. It was a light or you're on the freeway right. Yeah. Yeah, there was, there was. No, you couldn't even slow down long enough for a four-way stop. But yeah, to your point, like you know, and people are saying thank you People say hello. Yeah.
Speaker 1:People establish eye contact, like they look you in the eye and they just say hello, and they're super welcoming.
Speaker 2:It's so funny that these are things that we're like valuing it's we've digressed so far, you know, as a culture across the country, right, and these different areas, to where we value this here in St George, and I don't I don't want to lose it either. And this goes back to something you're on the St George chamber of commerce, right? You're on the board for the chamber of commerce and you know one of the conversations you and I are having, and also other business owners, like hey, we're going to grow no matter what we do, right, the growth is going to continue to happen, but how should we grow? What are the principles? What are these fundamental principle principles on? Hey, what are the things that we for sure want to keep and how do we do that? And and keeping the conversation alive, for you know, what are these things? Let's not forget these things.
Speaker 2:And, and most of the most of the people that were born and raised here, they call it the Dixie spirit, right, they call it, um, it's a, it's a cultural thing that they all believe in as well. And so, the better, the better option is not letting somebody come in here and change, necessarily, um, who we are. But how do? How do we, how do they add to it? Right, how, how can we add to that that kind of a culture of neighborhood friendly? We want to grow an environment where there's solid relationships. We don't want to the self-absorbed big city thing. I think is what most people are afraid of.
Speaker 1:Do you think that's true? Kind of, I think it starts with respect and communication, and I think we could respect each other enough to communicate freely and openly and not be afraid of a backlash. You know what I mean. If I believe in something different than you, let's talk about it. I think we've lost that in our society as a whole. I mean our country. Can you imagine if you were a whole? I mean our country. Can you imagine if you were a Democrat and I'm a Republican and we're sitting here talking politics right now? We'd be at each other's throats.
Speaker 1:But you know the thing with growth in the city. You know there's things that I'm passionate about. I love parks, I love recreation, I love, you know, getting to know your neighbor. I love the walkability. I think it could be more walkable. I think it could be safer. In that aspect, um, I proposed on a Facebook post, uh, maybe six, seven months ago, um, about, um, uh, pedestrian scramble on on St George Boulevard and main street, because to me that is is the most used pedestrian walkway in the County. Um, it's the epicenter of where our tourism is, as, as a city, and to make it easier for tourists which I think we should do and locals alike. I was there today on that walkway.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I walked, I walked, uh, yeah, cause I? My office is on uh 100 South. Yeah. And I just walked up the street to the title company, instead of, like scanning it and sending an email, I was like oh, I'm going to go over there and talk to him it was a beautiful morning and I wanted to go walk up the street and people everywhere walking their dogs, riding their bikes. It's great to see.
Speaker 1:It's great to see, and you know, doing something like that, or, um, you know, I, I'm okay with shutting down a road, you know, like, as many people hate Ironman, right, I mean, I'm willing to take one on the chin. My sales are down, right, um, but for someone to come in to see how special our city is, they all don't need to move here, they all won't move here, right, but it's for us to show off our city too, yeah, and it's, let's, let's not forget, it's great tax revenue for the city, right, um, you know, and those things might change in time, and that's fine. You know, we could, we could change that. I think people should be heard, right, the, the community should be heard. If you have an issue with it. No one should be shut down. People should be listened to. But it starts with communicating and respect. Um, you know, so, uh, I, I, I really think there's some some great things that we can do.
Speaker 1:Um, and judging, you know, I've been, I've lived in Miami, I've lived in Wichita, I've lived in Northern California, and that was a conservative part of Northern California, you know. So that was, that was a very outdoorsy, um, you know, fishing game type of area. I lived in San Diego. Um, I've traveled all around the country. I've been to every state except for Alaska, and not just like in a, in an airport you know what I mean but like really getting to know, uh, or trying to get to know the culture and communities and the community and the you don't know. You don't find a, a true culture until you're in a restaurant too. You get to see everyone in that restaurant. There's every walk walk of life in a restaurant, and working in a restaurant.
Speaker 1:You have a GM, you have the server, you have a cook you have a dishwasher, you have all these types of people, delivery people, all this kind of stuff and that's one of the reasons I love restaurants is because you meet everyone in society and you, you, you get that. And when, when you, when you frequent establishments that like like restaurants, um, you know, and, and just traveling and getting to know people in different areas of the world, st George's, I mean, it's a special place. A lot of people want to come here, but you know what? What are some things that we could do that will improve. It's not a huge change. Sometimes people see it as just this huge, huge change, like it's just going to change overnight. Well, what are some steps that we could do as a city, especially in the downtown area that I'm familiar with, that will improve life for a lot of people, a lot of locals? Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know what do you think. What do you think if you could uh, if you could impact, you know something that would have the largest impact, right Like the biggest domino that you could push over. What do you think is the most important one?
Speaker 1:Okay, I think it'd be smart housing. Okay, okay, okay, we're going to run into a problem with black desert opening. This place is going to explode over here on in Ivan's right. It's going to explode. They're going to need we're going to need 3000, probably in the city and at some point, quickly. 3000 employees, yeah Right.
Speaker 2:I had. I had this conversation with Patrickrick. I was like how are you, how are you gonna have people working these things? Like where are you, where are they gonna live?
Speaker 1:uh, where are they gonna live? Do you have, do you know? He said jewel jewel apartments downtown. Great, there's 200 apartments I know we need, we need studio apartments, we need um, you know? I know some people have said St George Boulevard, there's height requirements, right, restrictions, restrictions.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's also parking restrictions, I think we could, meaning we need more park Like they. They require that there's a significant amount of parking.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:An insane amount of parking. Like I've said, this before.
Speaker 2:But there's more parking spaces. There's more. There's more space dedicated to housing our garages across the country than there is dedicated to housing humans. Yep, we have more space to hold cars than humans. It's the craziest thing.
Speaker 1:Our cars are third place yeah, you know it's home work car. Yeah, and it's sad that it comes down to that. I think we can make as a society, we can make a change to that. I don't like being in my car, I like walking to work. I meet all my neighbors by walking to work. You have lower crime rates. Yeah, the residual impacts are amazing.
Speaker 1:It's amazing and I think on St George Boulevard, where a lot of people are concerned about views, how it, how it's going to block views, how it's going to affect traffic, right, all those things are, I mean, I get it, I understand, but I can't tell you how many employees I lose because they leave St George and go somewhere else like Las Vegas, because they could find housing. They could find a studio apartment for a thousand bucks a month.
Speaker 2:And they make more money.
Speaker 1:And they make more money, Yep and so and and no state income tax right too.
Speaker 1:So it's like a that part's a win. So it's like we need smarter housing. We need, we need. We need to think about ADUs, accessory dwelling units, how we could utilize those. Are there incentives that we could offer homeowners? You know how about? You know, the first thing I'd look at, if I'm looking at a piece of property now and it's a brand new piece of properties, what are the parking restrictions here? And it's it's ridiculous. It's ridiculous the parking restrictions that are. That's why I like going into places that already exist is because I don't need to deal with these parking restrictions downtown and most of the time. You know how many employees I have that work at jewel apartments that walk right downstairs. Yeah, I have seven of them. You know six of them, something like that, you know. So it's like a lot of them just live right above and they, they love that, right, they, they walk to Smith's right down the street, all that kind of stuff, and people got a 15 minute city without having a 15 minute city.
Speaker 1:Everybody's worried about the 15 minute cities.
Speaker 2:We already got one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you can just go downtown. You got a 15 minute bike ride today. I go on the virgin virgin river trail almost probably like three or three times a week, you know. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I go down main streets, relatively safe there's a bike lane, you know and then I go on a trail where there's no cars. I mean it's, it's amazing, it's beautiful, you know, and and I think we could really get together as a city and say what are the smart solutions that we? It's not a, it's not a liberal conservative argument, it's not a a Dixie versus uh, I don't know no Dixie type of argument. I don't know no Dixie type of argument.
Speaker 1:I don't even know Like you do you go ahead, but let's be smart about our, our, our growth. That is going to happen and needs to happen. I mean there's not a lot of you know, there's I. I posted a report today, um that I that I read, um that I that I read, and it was about the atomic family and how many. It was a map of the United States.
Speaker 2:You're talking nuclear family. The nuclear family atomic. Has, like his radioactive yeah, atomic habits, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and so the nuclear family in Utah is the best with the nuclear family. Yeah, it's, it's first, utah's first, colorado's second. You know where I'm from, in Las Vegas, you could see. Now. I've lived there almost all my life. Right, I moved there when I was six. You can see how many people have been raised without the nuclear family. There's more crime now. I mean there there's, there's everything. The education system is an absolute mess. No one's being held accountable. None of those kids are being held accountable by their parents. You know my mom's a third grade school teacher. So I mean, I know at first.
Speaker 3:Bless her heart. Yeah, and public school, right so Clark County.
Speaker 1:School District. It's one of the reasons we left. It's the worst in the country, Literally the worst in the country. Nevada's usually 49th or 50th and it switches spots every year with Mississippi. It's terrible. How can you be that bad? But the issue is you know there's no leadership in the home.
Speaker 1:There's no leadership in the home, and you know there's no leadership in the home. There's no leadership in the home, and you know it comes down to what are we going to value? We're going to value family safety, you know, and here religion is obviously huge and that's great, you know I.
Speaker 2:But even if you just break down religion and you say, ok, what are some of the fundamental parts with religion? Yeah, break down religion and you say, okay, what are some of the fundamental parts with religion? And it's structure and organization and clear, defined rules of operation, and the community buys into that thing, right, Like there's a collective agreement as to how things are going to be operated in an optimal way, right, it's a lot like a business, a well-working business, you know, and I can't help but think, um, that, that leadership in the family. You only have a few short years to be able to teach that to a kid, and then they got to kind of figure it out, but the world doesn't care, like the world isn't interested in use being successful but look what we're doing right now in our country.
Speaker 1:I mean, we're, we're, we uh idolize Kim Kardashian, you know, like that, yeah.
Speaker 2:We bought it away on that.
Speaker 1:I mean, there's no morality anymore, you know, but you get, you know who, who I I've never seen this in Las Vegas where a neighbor has helped another neighbor do something. Well, I could tell you right now I helped my neighbor do something the other day and he helped me do something the other day. My boys go play next door and the kid who's next door to us is our babysitter now. Yeah, you know, it's like we know him on a first name basis. I bring him donuts all the time. You know all that kind of stuff, because to me that's special, to me that's important.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I want to know my neighbors and that the issue that we're having right now is like we have the opportunity to say we could build these things right now and we could build in a responsible way. I don't think we need a ton of 3,800 square foot homes. I think we need some smart, smart solutions to how can we get 3000 employees housed responsibly. Not cheap housing, you know, but some people want to live in an apartment, some people want to live in a small condo. They don't need much stuff.
Speaker 2:And they're willing to live in that situation for a short amount of time in order to achieve that next step or that next goal or a long amount of time. It's like Chris living in that spot behind the psychic shop, right, it's like I'm willing to concede on this thing in order to see a future down the road and so having that, that missing middle. But we're also just the entry level stuff. We just don't, it doesn't exist.
Speaker 1:I lived in the dual apartments for three years, you know, with a family for them to pass.
Speaker 2:That was like pulling teeth Right, and that same group that wants to do one that's on the boulevard right. They got turned down from the city council multiple times over. Four feet of height. Four feet, Four feet of height. Well, think of if that didn't get think of if Juul didn't get approved?
Speaker 1:Yeah, there would be no farmstead right. There wouldn't be a cool little community bakery, which I think it's cool, there wouldn't be. Uh, you know, the problem that we're having right now in in St George is and I I know this for a fact because I employ them Utah tech graduates. Yeah, the main thing that I get for Utah tech graduates is, as soon as they graduate, they leave because there's nothing cool here or there's nothing to do now. Yeah, that that's always been said throughout. You know, I said the same thing yeah, right, there's nothing cool in Las Vegas. And my dad's like what are you talking about? It depends on what you want to, right? So should we have more restaurants? Yeah, I mean, I think we should need, we should have, we should put an incentive for, or or put a priority for, individually owned restaurants.
Speaker 1:You know, like mom and pop places, places with personality. Um, I, you know, I'm uh, even though I was a franchisee like franchisees just don't have a ton of personality, right. It's like the same thing at city after city after city, Um, you know. So I think we need to probably concentrate on that a little bit more. I think we need more housing, because that's where those Utah Tech students they leave. Yeah, Because you know there's more options elsewhere, and we're going to run into a big problem here when those Utah Tech students just leave and leave and leave and leave, just leave and leave and leave and leave. When are they going to? Are they ever going to come back? You know we want people to begin their careers here and start a family here and, you know, continue with this great economy that we have, and that that's if.
Speaker 1:If you were to ask me what keeps me up at night, it's that. You know it's. It's that because I can't tell you how many people come up to me, employees, and say, Chris, I need a better place to live, Like I need a less expensive place. And they're responsible people, I mean, they've been with me, for you know, they aren't just jumping job to job, they just want a nice, consistent place to live. Yeah Right, it's not like oh yeah, we raised the rent this month, Okay, Can. Most of the most of the employees I have are single. They're between the ages of 20 to 27. And they're cool with, like, as I was at that age, I was cool with an, a studio apartment or a one bedroom apartment. I was fine with it. You know, I didn't need much stuff and they don't need much stuff. I mean, studies have shown now that that generation doesn't want a lot of stuff, you know. So we need to think about a smart way to do this, and there are solutions.
Speaker 2:If we don't, this is what. If we don't, this is this is what I see and this is what happened in Orange County. It happened in in a lot of suburban sprawled areas. You end up saying, okay, well, if you won't make more individual, small units, then you're going to get 10 families living in one house and everybody's sleeping everywhere. And then you know, the city tries to enforce, like, oh, occupancy on individual houses and then all of a sudden they can't enforce it anymore and then it just overwhelms, it overwhelms communities and you end up that's how you end up with slums. That's how the sub suburbs, right the, the homes out there in the fields that are, uh, 7 000 square feet. You're gonna end up with 10 families in there and the neighborhoods will get run down. And and because you know the wealthy are like I'm going to sprawl out over here, I'm going to go over here, I'm going to upgrade over here.
Speaker 1:Well, what's going to happen is, if you're an investor, right, and you're like I just need cheap land, because now I have to build something cheap, right.
Speaker 1:So, you're going to have cheap land and you need a quicker return on investment and ROI, and you're going to say, ok, I'm going to go get land outside the city. Ok, so you can get land outside the city. Then you're going to build an apartment complex. Right, all those people will be car dependent Car dependent Exactly. What is that going to do Then? Udot is going to go through and they're going to say, ok, we got to expand this lane.
Speaker 1:Now we're going to have from two lanes we're going to do four lanes, and now we're going to do four lanes, and now we're going to just have more cars right. And you like traffic? I don't. It's one of the reasons I left Las Vegas. Traffic was terrible. Traffic in St George is minimal. You know, a couple weekends out of the year it's busy. You're waiting at stoplights. You aren't in bumper-to-bumper traffic on the 405. We both know how that is yeah exactly.
Speaker 1:It's terrible. So why not build, have a walkable? Walkable downtown, a great downtown that's. And when it's walkable, there's a ton of energy around. People are walking. They're paying attention to great downtown that's. And when it's walkable, there's a ton of energy around. People are walking there. They're paying attention to. You know, cars are going slower because there's pedestrians. Then we're getting used to, we're slowly getting used to people walking on the sidewalks, going across crosswalks. You know, right now we aren't in that society because it's just like, dude, we're on a freeway and we're going, you know, and we aren't. We aren't visual on people. Walking around our downtown could be awesome by being walkable.
Speaker 1:Yeah Right, good sidewalks, a good bike lane, safe bike lanes. It doesn't need to be a six lane, you know, a road, it can be a two lane road, a one lane road. People can go slow, you know, but encourage people from an apartment complex to walk and they will, they will, they love it. There's new studies that have come out that people like walking. Yeah Right, and it's, it's healthy, you're outside, there's lower crime. We've talked about all all these things. I mean the traffic. The impact on traffic is less, you know, um, and people now can't afford cars. They're expensive. You're paying for cars, you're paying for insurance, registration, registration. So what are you going to do? They're going to come up to me and they're going to say hey, uh, can I get a raise? And guess what, if I give all these people raises and another business gives all these people raises, we have to raise our price. And it's, it's a, it's cyclical and it's and it becomes like just this terrible cycle ever consuming cycle.
Speaker 1:And we, we should stop it.
Speaker 2:I think housing. I think housing is a priority too. There's, I think there's a lot of different ways to slice that up, but, um, we should. I can't wait to talk to you again more about this. Yeah, uh, we're. We're almost a an hour and a half or we're probably right around an hour and a half. Before we get into any more details of stuff, I want to say thanks. Thanks for coming on. Oh yeah, man, I appreciate this. It was cool to learn. Like your history in the backstory, farmstead and FS coffee company. So farmstead downtown FS coffee company just opened the.
Speaker 1:You could do pre-ordering on the website, our website, for both Yep, yep, fs, coffee companycom, farmstead, bakerycom. You could skip the line right On Friday, saturday, sunday, at both places they're they're busy closed.
Speaker 2:Monday, tuesday at farmstead closed.
Speaker 1:Monday tuesday, at farmstead I always forget that fs. But fs is a good solution because we have farmstead pastry over there, there you go. So, um, and then coffee, but smoothies. So if you don't drink caffeine, smoothies, um, lemonades, iced teas, which is what I'm drinking right here, um, you know, and and FS, we're roasting all the beans for future farmsteads. We're roasting all the coffee for future farmsteads. So that's why we, why we closed Kairos and opened, opened FS.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that's good. That was a good move. It's definitely it was needed downtown too, just for that. Going back to that walkability, right, it's like just being able to grab a drink, walk into work. You know my GM.
Speaker 1:Tim. Now he lives downtown. He's like this is so amazing, I walk to work and he walks a mile each way to work and he's like I, I'm happier. Yeah, you know, he's like I'm saying hi to people and all this kind of stuff.
Speaker 2:We could triple. This is my thought. We could probably triple the downtown population and reduce the cars down there.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:I agree with that Easy, easy, easy. And we'd have a a a tighter knit community, because everybody would still know everybody. Right, it's not like you're a book, is there's more people, there's less connections?
Speaker 2:No, it's it's multiplying, it's multiplying and so I I think, uh, yeah, I'm right there with you. I'm excited to see the growth of the downtown, but I think you got an office, an awesome company, down there for for coffee the pastries man, the best in town. I still run into people that are locals here that are like oh, farmstead, I don't know it's crazy, Cause they don't they don't, they don't, they won't come downtown. They don't come downtown.
Speaker 2:They won't come downtown. So, uh, you end up getting a lot of the tourists and stuff in there. But if you're a local, you're listening to this. You got to check them out. If you haven't. Farmstead for sure. Evas coffee company we love some coffee and uh, yeah, we'll keep this going, man, thanks. Thanks for being a brand partner for us too, man we're looking to sponsor local businesses. We want to uh focus and promote local businesses on the podcast. It's like a radio show.
Speaker 1:So if you're a local business. My boys wanted me to mention them Cameron and Preston. Oh boys. Cameron has a baseball practice today. He just got done with soccer, oh nice, yeah. So they're doing baseball and Cameron's going into football. So, hi boys, beautiful wife Stacy too.
Speaker 2:Hey, be nice to mom.
Speaker 1:Be nice to mom. Be nice to mom. Yeah, they be nice to each other. Yeah, if, uh, they've gotten into some good ones, yeah, I got three, the three boys too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they, they're, yeah.
Speaker 1:And then, if you're competitive, see, with my boys, but I can imagine two competitive boys. Preston uh, my oldest is very, very competitive, and Cameron is a uh, sometimes a little bit better than him, and so Preston yeah he, he's, he and he practices a lot.
Speaker 1:So I'll see him outside in our backyard and I'm like what does Preston doing? And he's practicing moves on the, on the, in the, in the grass, soccer moves and stuff so he could deke his brother and all this kind of stuff. So, yeah, he's competitive, good luck boys, Keep it, keep it up.
Speaker 2:That competition's good It'll. It'll serve you well. Just like, like, like get good grades. Get good grades.
Speaker 1:Nice.
Speaker 2:All right man, Thanks for having me.