71dine
71dine, the podcast that invites you on an immersive journey through the heart and soul of southern Colorado. Whether you're a seasoned local or a first-time explorer, join us as we savor the rich flavors and craft lasting memories together. Welcome to where southern Colorado's captivating narrative unfurls through its vibrant people, rich culture, and delectable cuisine. Join us as we delve into the tapestry of this extraordinary region, one episode at a time, celebrating the people, the culture, and the food that make it truly exceptional.
71dine
Firebird: Big Tasty & Captain Bungee
As "Big Tasty," his personal escapades in the realm of flavor have allowed him to craft a narrative that extends far beyond the plate. His adventure, complemented by "Captain Bungee's" own spirited journey, is where marketing meets memory. The result? A podcast episode that's seasoned with stories, and drizzled with the dedication behind their unique personas. From the origins of these engaging nicknames to the heartfelt recount of Big Tasty’s childhood culinary spark, this installment is a full-course meal of inspiration.
Step into the world of gastronomic delight, and listen to how one taste can convert a meal into something truly extraordinary. One bite of a Firebird chicken sandwich and your tastebuds will sing. But it's not all tasting notes! We’re also sharing the inception of 'Return of the Mac,' where a love for '70s nostalgia meets Mac ‘n Cheese.
Wrapping up with a side of solidarity, we explore the world of food trucks where the usual cut-throat competition gives way to a community bound by shared dreams and stainless-steel counters. We invite you into the lives of passionate foodies like Nick, Brie, and Eli who transform their culinary visions into rolling realities. Tune in and taste the commitment that drives local food truck entrepreneurs to dish out success, laughter, and mouthwatering bites, one parking spot at a time.
Ugly people. Put your hands down. You wanna throw down? Go and put your hands up. Start the party now. Go and put your hands up. One listen up loud and clear Because we got a little something to put in your ear. Step two raise those arms off your side. I have a feeling we should be dealing.
Speaker 2:With the facts. What's dripping from the ceiling.
Speaker 1:In fact, step three is so whack. You're listening to Joe and the 719 podcast.
Speaker 4:Yes, this is Joe. This is the 719 podcast. This is an episode that should have been released at least a month ago or so. Some things came up, some stuff and some things, and plus, I had to go to Waukegan Illinois. Why would I have to go to Waukegan Illinois? Well, I'll let you know that the Naval Recruit Training Center is located in Waukegan Illinois and I am not in the Navy, so in context, you should be able to figure out why I was there Without a long-winded introduction, without further ado, this episode. I met with Chef Joe at Firebird, located at Avenue 19.
Speaker 5:We were able to achieve that goal in two and a half years and we thought it was going to take five. So that was really cool for us. That was really cool right on, right on. Yeah, we've been very fortunate. But, like my mentor says, uh, you know hard. Uh, good luck comes to those that work hard yeah and we work our tails off.
Speaker 4:Man, it's really paid off yeah, someone once told me labor under correct knowledge is luck, so definitely with you there. So first thing I'll ask is uh, because I always like to know a little bit. I talk to people around town, you know, hey, you got to check this out, and Christina Go Fish was like hey, go make sure you talk to Big Tasty. I have to ask where does that come from?
Speaker 5:I started before Jesse and I became partners. I started my own cafe right after we got done working with each other at PF Jenks.
Speaker 4:Okay.
Speaker 5:And I fell into this little cafe inside of a dealership and next to me was the parts department and I became friends with this guy named Brad and he just started calling me Big Tasty and it just kind of stuck. I've had so many nicknames over my life like at least 20 or 30 nicknames Anywhere I go I get a new nickname. But the Big Tasty just stuck and he made me this badge and Big Tasty on there, so I just kind of rolled with it and it's really parlayed into this Big Tasty character that we do with our commercials. We released our first commercial about three months ago, right on. It was a minute and a half just filmed there.
Speaker 5:oh, yeah, yeah yeah, we just filmed our second commercial. Now this one's going to be a lot, uh, quicker. We took our first commercial and condensed it down into a 15-second montage to just introduce the cast of characters. Big tasty jesse is captain bungee.
Speaker 1:Bungee come on.
Speaker 5:Captain Bungee. Captain Bungee is his nickname. That's because he solves everything with a bungee cord. And this was before we were doing the commercial. We just started calling him Captain Bungee. He goes I got it and he'll just, he'll fix everything with a bungee cord and it just stuck and that's become his character. That's really good for marketing, don't you think he's Captain Bun character? That's really good for marketing, don't you think he's Captain Bungie? I'm Big Tasty, I'm an undercover, we're partners, but I'm undercover and he's not undercover, gotcha.
Speaker 4:It's just stupid man, Sure, no, but it makes it fun. We're just having fun.
Speaker 5:It is, and no one else is doing what we're doing. As far as promoting the place this way, it was social media. We're going to have a series. This one is called Good Cop, bad Cop, the Rise of Captain Bungie.
Speaker 4:That is awesome.
Speaker 5:We're going to do more. There'll be about 30. We kind of want to do what Geico and Liberty Mutual is doing with the fun, quick, funny, just stupid commercials. Mainly, it's just fun, man, we have such a good time doing it. We have a really good production team. They've been with us since the beginning. They do a good time doing it. We have a really good production team. They've been with us since the beginning. They do all our logos, um, they run our social media. They just they've been with us for the beginning, so they have as much. You know, when your production crew comes up like man, this most fun I've ever had, oh yeah, yeah, it feels really good because it it's just an absolute blast so what?
Speaker 4:what got you started into food?
Speaker 5:That's actually a really cool story too.
Speaker 3:Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Well, you're about to find out.
Speaker 5:I have a sister that's 10 years older than me. We weren't too close when I was a kid. We happened to be up at the same time and I caught her when she got done making scrambled eggs and I was like, can I have some? She's like here, let me show you how to make them. Oh, and so she taught me how to make scrambled eggs and I mean, that's literally all it took. Man, I was off to the races. You just hooked. I was totally hooked. My eighth grade year I took home back and all we did was cook. We made pizza from scratch, we made cinnamon rolls from scratch, we made all this food. She taught us so much stuff. Like I feel sorry for kids. Nowadays I don't get to have those experiences.
Speaker 5:That whole net class I was in the eighth grade. I went home that night, had my mom take me to the store. I grabbed all the ingredients, read my recipe, made pizza for my family and I told my family hey, this is what I want to do for the rest of my life.
Speaker 4:Wow, and nobody ate the pizza going oh man. And nobody ate the pizza going, oh man.
Speaker 5:Remember it was so long ago. My folks are so supportive. They were just like you know. That's great son. But you know you might change your mind. You're still young. You might change your mind when you get older, and I never did. My 11th grade year there was this cooking class offered and I jumped all over it, loved it. They taught us about safety and sanitation, and not just cooking. It taught us the other aspects of cooking and as soon as I graduated high school I went right off to a junior college and took an associate's degree program there Like a culinary program.
Speaker 5:Yeah, it was a culinary program and it was a quarter of the price than what all the top cooking schools were. And I got the same education, sure. And then what really changed for me was when I moved to Hawaii when I was 21, and I worked for a real famous chef out there called Peter Merriman.
Speaker 6:Good evening. I'm Catherine Drury Wagner. I'm the executive editor at Honolulu Magazine. We are here this evening for the 26th Annual Holly Aina Awards and I'm here with award-winning chef Peter Merriman of Merriman's Restaurant. Chef, it's a pleasure because I heard that tonight you won the 14th consecutive year for best big island restaurant.
Speaker 2:14 consecutive years. I I can't even believe that that's fantastic how do you feel about? That it's an honor to win it and I'm really proud that we're able to keep doing that year after year. And, uh, it's really great that it's a reader's choice. That really makes it extra special, so it's a really fantastic feeling great well congratulations and that's really where my, my culinary I mean I
Speaker 5:just really exploded. From there I moved to san francisco, lived there for 10 years and, uh, just that. That. I went from here to here in like five years living in san francisco. I mean it's so cutting edge, yeah and um, you know, all my friends were chefs. I always surrounded myself with people better than me because I wanted to learn and I saw someone that was doing something better than me. I'm like I want to be like you man and I got just watching my last questions and you know, you gotta, tired as it is back then, when you're young and being a chef, you gotta try to stay as humble as you can. Sure I wasn't the most humblest guy at times. It's funny the older you get, the more humble you seem to become. Look back on what you did in the past. That's really, I think, the other reason of our success. The guy who runs this place, the director of operations, has had really great….
Speaker 4:Of Avenue 19.
Speaker 5:Of Avenue 19, yeah, his name is Phil Duhon. He's just come up and like, hey, man, what do you guys think about this? Or what do you think about that? Or hey, I got this idea and most people, hey, leave us alone. His ideas have all panned out for us and we love it. We love it when people come up with an idea.
Speaker 4:We may not use it, we may not like it, but still you never know, maybe it'll lead to a different like hey, I understand what you're saying, but maybe we could do this.
Speaker 5:And then when we told him we wanted to take over this spot, he was like he went through the roof. He loves us. We've really made this place our home. We're here to stay. We signed a lease here. We're going to get this place up and running for two months and we're going to sign a lease here. We know we're going to kill it. We know we're going to have a great year. Um, we're just. This place gets busier and busier every week. Oh yeah, and I just I stay on here.
Speaker 4:I got a friend who's part of a an imp. I have a friend who's part of an improv comedy group and they come here and the place is packed. And I came here one night. Oh, when I went down to go fish to talk to Christina, there was a DJ. I've seen a gentleman with a guitar.
Speaker 5:They always have got blues and jazz on Sundays at 2 30 to 5 30 and that's become super popular. They have finally got all this up here for the fine dining place seal off so we can start having music here at normal times, because live music really brings people in here. For us, I mean, it makes a huge difference.
Speaker 5:He's got fine dining up there, so he doesn't necessarily want to listen to rock and roll sure well, people are trying to have a nice dining experience and listen to the music he has up there. So, um yeah, it's all coming together.
Speaker 4:I mean we just I met him as well, yeah f Fernando.
Speaker 5:Yeah, Fernando seems like a pretty just down-to-earth kind of guy he's a really cool guy For someone who didn't come up in the industry as a chef. He was more front of the house. He's really stepped into the back of the house and the guy is very talented. I mean it's impressive.
Speaker 4:I mean he's a level two sommelier level two sommelier and he's a hell of a. He's a talented cook. He's a talented yeah, I am a. My wife loves wine, knows a bunch about it. Uh, whenever I have wine, it could be white or red. She'll say what is this? How do you like it? I'm like it's very fruit forward. But I say that about every single glass of wine. It's very fruit forward. She's like oh my gosh. But we were at a party one time and I was. I had a cigar and a glass of red that she was enjoying and she said here's what I want you to do take a bite of that chocolate, I sip your wine now pull on the cigar. And I go oh my gosh, you can say that. And uh, I was like how do you know that? And she's like I'm your wife, I know things and it was just magical.
Speaker 5:I was with some friends not too long ago. We were drinking this nice Pinot and she made some chocolate chip cookies and I'm like, oh perfect, I'm like take a bite of that cookie and then drink the wine, and they're like really, and I'm like, trust me, but it's a cookie. I'm like it doesn't matter, it's got chocolate in it, trust me. They're like, oh my.
Speaker 1:God, it really enhances the chocolate.
Speaker 5:I'm like yeah hello. I've only been doing this 32 years.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, we were at a party one time and we were having Cayman and I'm like all right.
Speaker 5:Oh, alligator, yeah, Love it, love it.
Speaker 4:Hey, this is Joe. Let's all go to the lobby. Let's all go to the lobby.
Speaker 1:Let's all go to the lobby to get ourselves a treat.
Speaker 4:So before we get to Firebird, tell me about Return of the Map.
Speaker 5:Just like Firebird, I had an epiphany Instead of 3 in the morning, it was 3 in the afternoon. It's so weird how things happen. We were all in this place just bashing our heads trying to figure out. This kiosk has been empty for the whole time. Sure, what to do with this thing? What to do with this thing? Well, we start doing mac and cheese next door and then we're still like you know what? You know what should happen with this place? Well, a series of events happened us. We got a grant from the state and we also got a small business loan from the state and we sold our food truck. All in about a week, gotcha. So we went from thinking we were going to lose everything to living high on the hog within a couple of days. Right, for lack of a better term, no.
Speaker 4:I understand.
Speaker 5:So you know, we're sitting there working and I finally I called up Jesse and I'm like, dude, let's do a Mac and cheese joint. I'm like it just makes sense. Yeah, and I called the owner or the director of operations and he flipped out and Return of the Mac was the first name that I came up with and we all the other names just sounded so cheesy and we stuck with the turn of the Mac and our theme with Firebird has been the 70s, parlayed that right in.
Speaker 4:I mean, that's a 70s.
Speaker 5:It just screams a 70s and we'll have shirts. They're going to be really cool. These are our new shirts for Firebird. We just haven't hung them up yet. We also have ringer shirts. They're white with orange rings.
Speaker 2:Oh nice, and it has the Firebird logo in the middle.
Speaker 5:They're really cool and we have some nice polos. We're going to start merchandise for this. We're also going to be carrying dazed and infused ice creams. They're a new local ice cream place that's really killing it and their ice cream is amazing. They also do what's it called Dazed and infused.
Speaker 4:Dazed and infused. What better place than a 70s retro?
Speaker 5:And we're also going to be carrying boozy ice cream. We're going to carry probably three boozy ice creams and then five or six of their normal flavors that they have, oh wow. So boozy is boozy, boozy. You're going to taste the liquor and they're delicious. They're on the expensive side that people aren't here to have a good time they're drinking anyway and it's going to be hot outside. Why not have some boozy ice cream instead of a cocktail?
Speaker 4:You know, and that's what I try to tell people. If you're looking for somewhere to go and your goal is to eat something so you can stay alive, that's great, but sometimes it's worth a little more because you're going to generate that experience Absolutely. What will your grand opening date be for? Return of the Mac.
Speaker 5:Today was really it man, oh really yeah we're not.
Speaker 5:I mean it was a soft opening but our commercial hopefully drops this week and then that's when we can really start hitting social media hard and all that Gotcha After today. I'm glad we were going to open last Friday and I'm so glad we did. I would have been pulling my hair out. It's just new. So getting your I like to call it the choreography of working a kitchen, you've got to get your movement down. You've got to get all that down.
Speaker 5:We've been doing Firebird so long. When we came in and opened up Firebird, this place was running itself within two days. So long when we came in and opened up Firebird, this place is running itself within two days. This is going to take a little more work just because it's new, but we're off to a really good start. We had a great day.
Speaker 5:The mac and cheese we didn't think was going to sell at all was the number one seller today. It's just so funny how this industry works, but we're just so. I just can't stop looking at it. I mean I love the neon cheese sign and we're not even done yet. There's going to be melting cheese hanging from the rails here and lit up with yellow light. So this place is really. It's going to be popping so much that we're going to have to do stuff for Firebird so it doesn't outshine Firebird. I think we're going to put a metal sign that's carved out Firebird with flames lit up behind it on the wood here, so like a piece of sheet metal, and cut out the words Firebird in there and light it from behind so it really pops.
Speaker 4:I saw you have caps on that, so are you making mac and cheese to order?
Speaker 5:To order. Yeah, we don't hold it, no way.
Speaker 4:That's awesome.
Speaker 5:We also don't put roux in our mac and cheese. We don't hold it no way. That's awesome. We also don't put roux in our mac and cheese. We don't make a bechamel, which is typically what you do. We don't do that at all. We make a reduced. We basically make a roasted garlic Alfredo sauce. So we reduce cream by half and finish it with our roasted garlic puree. So then when we get an order, we do a scoop into the pan. It comes up, we throw the noodles in there. We actually toss the noodles in the cream sauce for a while so it starts absorbing that cream, and then we finish it with a handful of our five cheese uh blend and then we sit there and emulsify it and then pour it into and hit it with all the toppings and everything else so, so just watching you with your movements and your hands and how you're talking, all I can picture is you're talking about mac and cheese, and all I can picture is this young man who, whose sister taught him how to make scrambled eggs.
Speaker 4:And now look at you.
Speaker 5:You know it's like if you don't like mac and cheese I mean well, and I mean I guess I guess we're technically not making a traditional mac and cheese, but it tastes just like mac and cheese. I mean it's just good. And that's where the you know, 32 years of experience have really all culminated with, especially, me and my business partner. You know we do everything together. We come up with all this stuff together. Um, we come from different backgrounds. He had more of a corporate, you know background where I was more of um.
Speaker 5:I worked for places that encourage you to be creative. He got in with pf chang's in the beginning where they were like that, and then after a while they went, you know, kind of cookie cutter and at that point he was with them so long and so comfortable and was making really good money. You know, he just stayed with them for a long time and now that he's been out he's actually getting back into being creative and I mean it's just been a huge part of um some of the things we've done, like our buffalo wing sauce. We just made this one adjustment to our buffalo and sauce and it was his idea and it's phenomenal and it's the same color as our logo and that's really cool because we're all about.
Speaker 5:We're all about orange and we're basically just emulsifying our buffalo wing sauce with garlic oil, and that's just, oh my God.
Speaker 4:Yeah, when. I went up to Firebird at first, I introduced myself and he introduced himself and I said, yeah, here 7-1-9, et cetera, et cetera. And he just started pointing yeah, that's the outgoing guy over there, yeah, that's the outgoing guy over there.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I'm a little more of an extrovert than he is, believe it or not. I'm an introvert as well. I'm an extrovert-introvert when I'm here. I'm on point. When I go home.
Speaker 5:I don't talk to anybody. I turn off all my lights, turn on the TV and veg out. I don't want to talk to anybody, man, I need my time to myself. I'm definitely an extrovert, introvert, but I'm getting him out of his shell. Especially with our last commercial he did. I really got him to come out of his shell and really start embracing his character Right on, because even though we're having fun, I still take it really seriously. Well, sure, thanks again, ladies, thank you for coming in. Have a great day.
Speaker 4:Mac and cheese. Yeah, oh, right on.
Speaker 5:Oh yeah, oh yeah. As much as I can when people come in to eat, I always come out to the tables make sure everything's okay. We just made a huge pivot in Firebird, where we switched. Our menu is 95% gluten-free now. Oh wow, our business has gone up by 35% during the week and 50% on the weekends. Really, I mean it has been a game changer.
Speaker 5:Like we had no idea how huge the gluten-free community is, so much we're on this gluten-free. I guess it's a website or something. The guy emailed me, but I've got people calling me from North Dakota, from Florida. Hey, we're going through Colorado Springs. We just want to double check that your fried chicken is gluten-free, because we want to eat from you. And I'm like, really, they're, like we can't get gluten-free fried chicken where we're at. And I'm like, do you guys not know how to Google? Because that's what I did. I'm like, all right, let's switch to gluten-free. So I googled a gluten-free dredge. First recipe that came up. I'm like it looks really good.
Speaker 5:Of course, we threw our twist on it. We added stuff that we wanted in there to match our flavor. As far as cornmeal masa, we used tapioca starch, rice flour, baking soda, baking powder. It's light, it's crispier and our chicken's actually better. We didn't think we could make our chicken better. Switching our dredge to gluten-free has made our chicken better. It's just crazy, man.
Speaker 5:Our gluten-free bun is good. We get it from a strictly gluten-free vegan bakery on the west side called Outside of the Bread Box, freaking huge. They've got like 20 ovens in there and everything they make is vegan and gluten-free. The buns we get from them are delicious, is vegan and gluten-free, and the buns we get from them are delicious and everybody sees we got their sticker on here. People see that outside the bread box sticker puts them at ease. When they come in we tell them exactly how the kitchen's divided with our small amount of gluten that we still have because we don't want to stay loyal or customers that have been with us, we don't want to change that bun. And then everything else is gluten free and they just I, I, it still just blows me away.
Speaker 5:It's been I can't imagine anybody's ever come up to you and said, uh, it doesn't taste like there's gluten in this um no, the only thing you would hear from a gluten-free person is the next day like hey, you know, my stomach was kind of messed up. Oh, I mean oh yeah, yeah, like the people who no, it's funny. The uh like a come out, she'll be gluten free and the husband's like give me all her gluten. He's like I'm not gluten free, I'll take all the gluten, you know we get that a lot.
Speaker 5:It's really funny. So, yeah, that has been a huge, huge pivot for us. Man, like we had no idea, we had no idea the gluten-free community, like we didn't realize how big it is. We make our vegan cheese sauce from white beans and sunflower seeds. That's the base. You've got to do it in a Vitamix. You've got to do it in a Vitamix to get that consistency and get that creaminess. But our vegan gluten-free pasta we were eating it last night. I mean it's not like real Mac and cheese. I mean keep that in mind.
Speaker 5:But still it's not like real mac and cheese. I mean, you know, keep that in mind, yeah, but still you're like man for something that we're faking here that's not real dairy and real cheese. It was really good, really good. It was really good. We were really impressed. So we still need to tweak our uh vegan cheese sauce a little bit, but I'm really happy with it so tell me, tell me about firebird.
Speaker 4:How did that all come about? I?
Speaker 5:um ate at popeye's. When their chicken sandwich first came out, this was about three and a half years ago. I remember people were killing each over the sandwich. I waited a while and I finally go because I've always loved Popeye's. It's actually one of my favorite fried chicken joints. I got their chicken sandwich and I'm driving back to my cafe and I'm eating the sandwich and I'm like this is really freaking good. How can I improve upon this? You know how can I like not make it better, but how can I make this into my own sandwich and sell it out of my cafe just for fun?
Speaker 5:I had no intention of starting a food truck, like it was the last thing on my mind. I was just trying to make a fun chicken sandwich. So I came up with the Firebird and about a month went by and one of the sales guys was like man, you really should start a food truck around this sandwich. And it got me to thinking and I went to bed that night and I woke up at 3 in the morning and just had this ball of fire, this vision of a ball of fire and the word Firebird, and I'm like, oh shit, I'm like maybe this is what I should call the sandwich yeah I got up at three in the morning, got on the computer and worked for five hours and wrote out the business plan, wrote out the menu, found my logo, found the guy to make the logo that I wanted and it was just.
Speaker 5:It was just one of those kind of aha, you know, higher power, sure. Uh, yeah, just my higher power, um intervention, just giving me this, this gift man, um yeah, I hear you sorry.
Speaker 5:Um, that's all right, I'm just so blessed man, I'm just really grateful. Uh, it just, it just all came together. So so I was fast forward. Six months later, I was getting ready to give up on the concept and I was getting a massage at Massage Envy and I was canceling my subscription.
Speaker 5:It was my last massage and the gal you know she, started doing her thing and she looked at my tattoo. Oh no, she asked me when my birthday was. We're just, we're getting to know each other, just being friendly. And I found out we're both Sagittarians. She saw my tattoo with Buddha on there, found out I was a chef and she's like so why don't you have a food truck? And I'm like I don't have 40 grand to spend on a food truck, I just don't have that kind of money. And she's like well, her and her husband had bought a food truck a year and a half prior and, um, they thought it would be fun to have a food truck, right, right, got about two months into it and realized how hard it was, how much work it was, what a pain in the butt it is and um.
Speaker 5:So they just gave up on it and sat in storage for a year and a half. So five days later I went and looked at it that her and her husband, um, made them an offer. They countered with which I thought they were going to counter with. So I was able, I had enough money to give them a uh, a down payment and we worked out a five-year lease. We paid them off in two and a half. Wow and um, like I said, we sold our food truck. Well, we saw the food truck when we came in here. We found this place on accident. Um, phil, the guy that runs this place, uh, posted something on facebook. Hey, we still got two spots open in this place. You know, if anybody's interested and I saw that go fish was in here. She's really successful and a really smart business person.
Speaker 4:I'm like man if she's in here maybe we should get a shot fish sandwich sliders.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I was like yeah, okay, uh, yeah they're good, they're really good, and uh, so we're like shit. So I called up jesse and I'm like hey, man, I applied for this place just for the fun of it. Sorry, you know, I didn't talk to him about it first. The guy immediately got back to us just like we want a fried chicken join in here.
Speaker 5:Yeah, just hearing your story um, the guy's like we want a fried chicken place in here. We got a place set up already for you. So I came in and looked at it. We signed the lease in a half an hour and it was a month to month until the end of the month to see if we were going to survive, and it was a gamble that really paid off, man, it really paid off. We're doing really well in here and it's just getting better and better every week, and so we sold our food truck, like I said, and we were able to parlay that into opening up the turn of the mac.
Speaker 5:But yeah, it's all been very organic, um, very spiritual. You know, my, my favorite buddha is called manjushri and he's the orange budd and that's a big part of our orange. Orange became my favorite color 10 years ago when I went to a. I went, it was called an empowerment and it was led by a Buddhist monk and it was an all day meditation and it's very intense and I just had a. I had an experience that changed my life and I saw the color. Sorry.
Speaker 4:No, it's okay the color, sorry man. No, it's okay, but this is why I want to share these stories.
Speaker 5:You know, and and I have nothing against chain restaurants, but man, independent, local, the stories behind it yeah it's just like I said uh, it's just, you know, uh, everything in the last 32 years has finally come together. Yeah, you know, I blew a lot of good jobs when I was younger from being the rock star chef and, you know, moved away from that, got into my spirituality and it's just, it's all come together and it's just. I still got to pinch myself, man.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 5:Still got to pinch myself, man yeah, still gotta pinch myself.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I, I tried to do a fantasy football podcast but I stopped fantasy football and I was just. You know, I wrote some articles and then I tried to do just a general podcast. So 719 has been a thought in the back of my head for almost seven years.
Speaker 5:It's a great name and right some people go 719.
Speaker 4:I don't. What does that mean? I'm like, well, Southern Colorado is the 719 area code Absolutely. Most people go okay, yeah, I get it.
Speaker 5:I don't know how you get that right off the bat. It's great.
Speaker 4:But I finally started doing this and someone asked me, said okay, what's your short-term goal? And I said it's really simple. I want one restaurant, one food truck, whatever it might be, to reach out to me by finding me and asking hey, how do I get, how can I get you to come out here? And it took two and a half weeks. It's just because I have a passion for the industry. I fell in love with Kevin and his wife, bambinos, spurred Heifer, and then I met Ricky at Rock City Cafe and he was a 16-year-old dishwasher at Bambinos.
Speaker 5:Well, that's the other thing we like about being here, besides the fact that we've been fairly successful, is we're all friends in here. We all get along All these kiosks we all get along, we talk to each other. I mean we basically work with each other. Yeah, and so for the most part, I mean we all get along.
Speaker 5:I mean, of course, every family fights You're going to have minor things here and there that annoy you that someone's doing, but for the most part, like the joint and the pizza place team up every Tuesday and with vegan cheese, and he did this carrot pepperoni it's just Carrot pepperoni. Yeah, wow. He's my favorite chef in town Because his food's phenomenal. I ate off his food truck. When we first met a couple years ago and his food was just insane and his Cuban is delicious. His Reuben is amazing. His patty melt like he's really talented.
Speaker 5:And vegan cuisine has been a hobby of mine. The last two years actually went completely vegan right before I started my food truck, just as a personal challenge, and I I learned a lot and I, you know, after getting over the first couple weeks weeks which was really hard, I actually really enjoyed it. But my job, I just can't be vegan. Not all the time. I eat vegan at home, but when I go out. You know I still love my meat. I'm not giving up meat, but vegan is just to me. It's just so fun and it's really challenging and it's really good for you, you know. I mean it just tastes good. You know you're putting something so good in your body when you eat his Cuban. You're like I can't believe this is healthy and good for me.
Speaker 4:It's so cool. I remember being at the warehouse and I want to see Keith, Chef, Keith, but don't quote me on that.
Speaker 1:Nope Chef.
Speaker 4:Chip. I said this is a really good dessert you made. It's my second favorite dessert I've ever had at a restaurant here in southern Colorado, in Colorado Springs. And he just said what's your first? I said at the Cliff House they had this white chocolate jalapeno mousse. And he goes that's my recipe Because he used to work there. His face lit up and I was like I waited tables there.
Speaker 5:This is when I was still, when I first moved here. I was. I quit cooking for about four years and was waiting tables when I lived in Maui. And then a friend of mine convinced me to start a private chef business with him out there in Maui and I got my passion back into cooking. Oh nice, started a private chef business with them out there in Maui and it got my passion back into cooking. Oh nice, and we had a. We had a pretty good private chef business going. We're really doing. It was so much fun. But I was ready to leave Hawaii and come here to be closer to my family and then got the job at PF Chang's working under Jesse and then from there I left and went to the dealership to sell cars, hated it and ended up taking over the cafe at the dealership Right on.
Speaker 5:That's been my journey when, I first got here. I had to jump through a lot of hoops to finally find my niche.
Speaker 4:You worked under Jesse at PF Chang's Right.
Speaker 5:We're definitely equal partners 50-50 all the way down Sure sure.
Speaker 5:No, we talk about everything together. We do everything as a team. We figured out our strengths and weaknesses and it's just we actually in the last six weeks our partnership has really gelled Like. We're in a really good spot right now. We finally figured it's like being married and I've never been married. This is the closest thing I'll probably ever to be to be getting married and we just had to figure out each other's. You know personalities and you know I'm an extrovert. He's a little more reserved. I'm a total spaz. He's way more mellow. You know we're both forgetful. We both got to write shit down, you know we. But we have found our strengths and weaknesses and we're working on that.
Speaker 5:We're working with that now and we're talking on a daily basis and and being more communicative, and that just it makes all the difference. So we're just like our company as a whole and our, our relation. I mean, he's my best friend, he's my brother and he's my business partner yeah so, and my business part.
Speaker 5:We handle a lot of stuff together. He handles mainly the finances and all that stuff, make sure we pay all our bills, does the shopping, we create everything together. We come up with everything together. We come up with all these dishes together. I actually wrote out the mac and cheese menu in 10 minutes. I had a spare 10 minutes. I just kind of wrote it out. I showed it to him.
Speaker 5:He's like dude how long did you spend on this? I'm like this is just a base. He's like it's really good man. We made a few adjustments to it, but yeah, I wrote it out in 10 minutes. Man, I just was blessed with that. I just love being creative. I love being creative, I'm an this, but this job has forced me to become a businessman and I don't really like it. But you know, you got to do what you got to do, so it has been fun learning the business aspect of this and we're still learning.
Speaker 5:We're always going to be students of the game you play to win the game. That's never going to change.
Speaker 4:Yeah, same thing. I mean, I love coming out and recording folks and a lot of my first episodes were me and whoever I was talking to recorded and I posted. So same thing. I've had to learn how to teach myself editing and make it sounding better.
Speaker 5:Absolutely.
Speaker 4:So what is the specialty over there at Firebird? I mean, obviously it's going to be chicken of some sort.
Speaker 5:Well, I mean, our specialty is southern-style crispy chicken sandwiches with an Asian twist.
Speaker 4:Oh nice.
Speaker 5:So our Firebird is just a straightforward Southern crispy. So we do a bread and butter pickle slaw, our crispy chicken that gets brined and marinated, and then we do a smoked paprika mayo and it goes on a pan sabal bun A what? Pan sabal? Okay, smoked paprika mayo. And it goes on a Ponsabao bun A what which is Ponsabao? Okay, and I'm probably not saying that right. That's okay.
Speaker 5:It's a Puerto Rican sweet bun, very similar to a Hawaiian sweet roll. Gotcha, now, where we throw in our Asian twist is when we move down to the Phoenix, and that's our spicy, crispy chicken sandwich, and that gets a kimchi slaw. Yes, so we take a kimchi slaw. Yes, so we take a southern slaw and add the kimchi flavors to it, minus the fermentation. Oh so we don't sit there and ferment it for three months, like right, like buried in the ground.
Speaker 5:No, we actually use fish, yeah, we actually use fish sauce to give it, to give it that bit of that fermentation flavor, without being too pungent. So we put that on there and we take our uh, we take our paprika mayo and we add Korean capsaicin to it to make it spicy, nice, and it goes on the sweet bun. And then we have our dragon bowl, which is a Korean stir fry, and that gets white rice, our kimchi slaw and our honey sesame ginger chicken over the top of it. Really great dish. And then, moving in here, we added our tenders and tots and, with ranch dressing, we make our ranch from scratch so it tastes a lot different than a ranch that you're used to, because it's actually a real ranch.
Speaker 5:Thank you for doing that, bro. Thank you for doing that. And then we just recently added buffalo wings as well.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I saw the sign there and and we, man, we just kill it on the wings, um, and we're trying to do all these different sauces and do our own thing. And people just wanted buffalo wings, they wanted traditional blow. So that's what we do. We do a mild, medium and hot. The only thing we do different is we get the extra thick buffalo sauce and we emulsify it with garlic oil to put our twist on it, and we also throw roasted garlic puree in there to kind of mellow things out and not make it as tangy, as we don't like the tang so much in that buffalo wing sauce. So this kind of mellows it out a little bit, makes a little more balance. That kind of just puts our wings over the edge, I think. But yeah, basically chickens are specialty there and um, yeah, I mean, that's it.
Speaker 4:The menu looks great. You were talking. I want to go back to one thing before we, before we sign up, but I went to the best of the west wings fest and you were talking about you know the camaraderie you know here at avenue 19, with the folks. I was blown away where someone would try like a food truck, would try another food trucks, um, wing, and they're like how did you make this? Or how did you do this, and they're so willing to say, oh, you know how you cook it. No, do it this way the food trucking community here.
Speaker 5:It's really like a hippie commune.
Speaker 5:I mean like we just we have each other's backs and I was really blown away with that. When we first started I thought it was going to be very cutthroat. I thought people were going to be mean and I mean nothing could be kind of. Our catchphrase in the food trucking venue is community, not competition. We're all doing something different. We're all in it for the greater good. We're all doing it because we're tired of working for somebody else and we want to work for ourselves and have fun. And when we get together at a food truck rally, I mean we're all hopping in each other's trucks and trailers hanging out. What a shock. I know Every single one of them, I swear. And that was the other thing.
Speaker 2:I was shocked. I'm like I found my people.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I found my tribe, yeah. So yeah, food trucking was a an amazing experience. We were just ready when we got into here. It's so much easier than trucking. We were oh yeah we were ready to to, to move on from trucking.
Speaker 4:So I was supposed to meet earlier today. Soul sage, oh yeah, yeah. Yeah, he's a good friend of mine, nick.
Speaker 5:He's what nick is his name? Yeah, nick, and his wife brie. They've had their commissary for about a year and they're really uh doing well and they're teaching sausage classes now.
Speaker 4:So they have. We have a cool story trying to get together, but yeah, they're, they're good people.
Speaker 5:He's the one that first approached me with the community not competition thing. He was one of the first truckers that I met and I was just like, wow, this guy's really cool. And we became friends right away.
Speaker 4:I met Eli with Flighty Fowl Eli and his wife Great guy. Yeah, fantastic, great story. He's got his popular wings, but he's always trying something new and putting it out there.
Speaker 5:He does a really great job. I haven't had his food, um, because we're never at the same event together because we do the same thing, so I've never. Now that I'm, now that I'm not in, if I can go check out some of these foods, I haven't had a chance so last thing for me give me the, the elevator pitch, the 60s.
Speaker 4:Why should? Should someone come to Firebird and to Return of the Mac.
Speaker 5:Good food, good times. I mean seriously, it's as simple as that. You're going to come here and you're going to have a delicious meal. I mean there's just no question between Firebird or Return of the Mac, or if you get from both, you're just going to have killer tasty, fun food and you're going to get it from a couple of fun guys that just like to have a good time. Yeah, that's what.
Speaker 1:I do. We're just a couple of knuckleheads that like to cook good food.
Speaker 5:And it shows in our food, it shows in our personality, it shows in the things we you know the commercials that we're doing and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, but you know we also take it very seriously. But nonetheless we like to have a good time while we're doing it.
Speaker 4:That's why I did this is I don't want to say, hey, this is the best pizza in town, or this is the best Chinese, or this is the best. I want people to try it for themselves, based on the story.
Speaker 5:Well, and I think saying that like the best is it really depends on the person. Like we never say we have the best fried chicken in town, we say we got really good fried chicken, but we don't say we have the best because it might might not be. It might not be your cup of tea, right, you know? And you can go to another place and be like, oh, this is the best chicken sounds it's the best to you.
Speaker 4:So that's why we don't ever say we're the best at anything, because it all depends on your palate and everybody's palate, and if I can get someone to visit a location based on the story, and then I want them to make up their mind. Right, I went to the owl in Canyon city. A place has been there 90 years. What star rating can I give it? That's going to say anything better than it's been there for 90 years. You know, that's funny. Well, man, I appreciate you.
Speaker 4:I'm sorry to get you emotional, but it's great to hear that story.
Speaker 5:I actually it's funny really quick I did a class with a couple food truckers at a school and they were doing they do these food trucking things now and the whole net class is whatever it is. It's a project. They've got to write a menu. They've got to do all this stuff, like it's become a thing and on the back was a screen of me and my business partner and my best friend, danny, and just our food truck and all that and I looked up at it.
Speaker 4:Sorry to do it again no dude, I'm just so exhausted.
Speaker 5:I looked up at it and I looked at the class and I realized where I started and where I came from. I got to say something to these kids about hey, this is where it started for me in this whole night class. This is where I'm at now and we just worked so damn hard, man, that I forget to step back and smell the coffee and realize you know how lucky we are to run our own business. Yeah, and that's.
Speaker 5:I just it hit me Like it hit me out of nowhere. I was not even expecting it. I sat there and cried in front of these high school kids. It didn't bother me, they all had smiles on their faces. They thought it was cool, they could just see how.
Speaker 1:how you know how serious I take everything.
Speaker 4:As I sit here with you today, just meeting you, I can't even picture you as that young asshole, you know, chef, who wants to take on the world. I don't see it. I'm sure it's there, you know in the past, but I get it.
Speaker 5:I mean, it goes through their times, you know when you're young. That's why you're young and you make mistakes and hopefully, when you get older, you learn from that mature from it. I feel like I have. I'll still always be a big kid. That's all in a fun, loving way.
Speaker 4:Obviously, you could hear the passion, the dedication and the emotion that Chef Joe has for what he's doing now and the journey from where he started. It was just a blessing to sit down with him and just have this conversation. I am truly blessed for what episode.
Speaker 4:is this going to be Dude? I'm in the middle of a thing here. I'm truly blessed for what I'm able to do and the people that I meet, and I hope you enjoy listening to this as much as I enjoy bringing it to you. Again, thank you for your patience. Next Thursday next episode releases.
Speaker 3:So be on the listen out for that and until next time, where can you find the 7-1-Dine podcast? Well, you can find the 7-1-Dine podcast wherever you look for and find podcasts.
Speaker 1:Don't forget to visit us online at Go and put your hands up. One Listen up loud and clear, because we got a little something to put in your ear. Step two Raise those arms off your side. I have a feeling we should be dealing with the facts what's dripping from the ceiling. In fact, step three is so whack Psych.