The Restaurant Guys ON The Wine Makers Pod

From The Wine Makers Podcast:

This week, Sam hits the road with MJ Towler—The Black Wine Guy—for a special crossover episode recorded live in New Brunswick, New Jersey. They sit down with legendary restaurateurs and OG podcasters Francis Schott and Mark Pascal, the co-owners of Stage Left Steak and Catherine Lombardi, and hosts of The Restaurant Guys podcast.

Long before podcasts went mainstream, Francis and Mark were pioneering thoughtful, unpretentious conversations in food, wine, and hospitality, straight from their corner of the Garden State. Sam and MJ dive deep into Francis and Mark’s early days in the restaurant industry, the dramatic evolution of hospitality, and how New Brunswick emerged as an unexpected—and underrated—food and wine hotspot.

The conversation also revisits the wild, early days of podcasting, raising a glass to names like DiSpirito, Trotter, and Bourdain. With behind-the-scenes restaurant stories, old-school podcast wisdom, and heartfelt reminders about the timeless power of passion and hospitality, this is an episode you won’t want to miss.

Guests Francis Schott and Mark Pascal join co-hosts Sam Coturri and MJ Towler (The Black Wine Guy, Beats Vines & Life) for this special collaboration.

Hosts

Sam Coturri of The Wine Makers podcast and Sixteen 600 Wine

https://radiomisfits.com/twm369/

MJ Towler of Beats, Vine and Life podcast and The Black Wine Guy Experience

https://blackwineguy.com/

On Friday, June 27 Come see The Restaurant Guys LIVE with Chef Andrew Zimmern at the New Brunswick Performing Arts Center in New Brunswick, NJ. VIP tickets include a Meet & Greet After-Party with Andrew. Restaurant Guys Regulars get a discount so subscribe https://www.buzzsprout.com/2401692/subscribe Tickets https://www.restaurantguyspodcast.com/

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Our Places

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https://www.stageleft.com/

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Transcript

MJ: 0:50

Yo, everybody, what's up? It's your boy mj. Welcome to Beats Vines in life. Wait, no, wait, wait. No, no, no, no.

Sam: 0:55

Hey, everybody. Welcome to the winemakers. We're here on assignment in New Brunswick, New Jersey. I'm, I'm in the motherland, mj, you aren't, I mean, how far did my mom grow up? From where? Where? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. You're mom is from silver? Yeah, a little silver Rumson. And then she lived in Rumson. Yeah. Yeah. So that's 45 miles. 45 miles. 40, 40 minutes away. It should be 38, but

Mark: 1:15

you're

MJ: 1:15

right now it's about 70. Yeah. Yeah. Because of Route 18.

1:19

Right.

MJ: 1:19

But, um, yeah guys, so you know, I've done a lot of shit with Sam in the winemakers pod and, uh, we have some very special guests. I'm, Sam introduced a guest, Uh, new old friends, the restaurant guys, OGs. Oh yeah. Go ahead. Podcast to podcast. Podcast to pod. You guys been podcasting since

Mark: 1:39

oh five was our first podcast. Five. Did anybody know what

MJ: 1:42

a

Francis: 1:42

podcast was? In 2005? We didn't know what a podcast was. In 2005, we had a, so podcasts were born in May of oh five when Steve Jobs allowed non-native content onto the iTunes store.

1:56

Okay. At the

Francis: 1:56

time, right.

1:57

iTunes store.

Francis: 1:58

And, but before that it was only Apple content that was on there. We had started a radio show at a local station, W-C-T-C-M, in February of oh five, and we had a young. Person who worked for us, who was smarter than we were, and he said, Hey, you got all this content. Why don't you just let us put, put your show up as a podcast? And we said, what's a podcast? Podcast? And so literally within 10 days, we still say that sometimes, but within 10 days of podcasts existing, we had a dozen that we had there were five and we were them with one. Yeah. Was that was it?

MJ: 2:32

But, um, can we introduce them? Yeah, I was gonna say, okay. Why don't you guys introduce yourselves for all, all of our listeners. Uh,

Mark: 2:38

mark Pascal I, uh, owns with this guy stage left since 1992. Stage left Steak Now and Kale Lombardi since 2005. Kale Lombardi is my mother's mother, my grandmother, and food styled after her Brooklyn Italian. Cool.

Francis: 2:54

Kitchen and I, I'm Francis shot. We have been friends since college and we bartended together at the same place. And then we got the restaurant bug and we decided if we were gonna do the restaurant business, we were gonna own our own. And so we, we, we started our, our stage left in 1992. Uh, we also have a wine shop, don't forget stage left wine shop.com. And we have always been about state bottled wine from Smalls Pro. Well, yeah, yeah. You gotta get fucking pro. You, you gotta get the plug in. This is

MJ: 3:22

where did that actually put this one out? We're just here. This is a a, a university class at how to put Yeah, this some master class for Well where did, where did, were you at school in, in New Jersey. Right? Right here in the middle of New Brunswick. We're like, that's where we are. And spring break though, all the restaurants are closing down all the like little casual walk around. Oh yes, yes. You get off the airplane. Kids are not around. Kids are gone. Uh, that's awesome. So. what was the radio show? It was just, it was the restaurant. It's called The Restaurant Guys. It was this

Mark: 3:48

every day, same, same

MJ: 3:49

form of interview. So we, we,

Mark: 3:51

we'd starve five days a week. Yeah, five days a week. So we do a little, you know, before the first commercial, 10 minutes, it was just me and him and we tell some story about what's going on in a restaurant. Right. What, what's happening. Then we spend about 40 minutes with the guests and then we do the last five minutes of the show and close it out. And so we've kind of kept that format now.

Francis: 4:11

Yeah. We were, we were gluttons for punishment because we were building Cafe Novar, our second restaurant stage left was one of the top rated restaurants in the state. It was great, but we overloaded in management because we wanted to be able to migrate, people we're training people to migrate to the second restaurant. So we were working, you know, basically a part-time job, 40 hours a week for the first time in our lives. Right. So we said, well, let's do something that takes 20 hours a week to, to do. So we get up to our 60 and. We thought we would do the radio show while we were building Captain Lomb Marty And Stop. We wound up doing the radio show, which became a podcast and radio show, and then stopped being a radio show. Was only a podcast. Stop listening to it for the radio. Well, and we had already stopped, to be fair. I know. Po We were pretty much done. But the radio show was, we were at the radio station five days a week from 11 to noon every day. And radio is was that was like real time live. Yeah. And uh, it just was unsustainable after a while. What's podcast? Yeah, that's a, that's a crazy schedule podcast. It was crazy. And then go to the

Mark: 5:07

restaurants, work until midnight, then go home, read a book for the show the next morning. Yeah. So it was, it was, it was unsustainable. I mean, we did it for years, so I guess it was sustainable for three years. But it was that, that part of it was,

Francis: 5:22

but, but you know what was interesting when, when we took on this radio show, they were like, ah, it won't be much prep at all.'cause what you do is you're gonna have a call in show. And what a call-in show is. I respect it a lot. For radio, you would say, listen, come up with 10 questions, 10 random questions, and then just open the phones. So you don't really do any prep. You're like, uh, mark, what do you think about the constitution? He is like, I'm against it. I'm for it. Okay. Call in, you know, and then you spend an hour totally just answering. And that if that runs outta gas, you ask another question. Right. And, and you know,

Mark: 5:54

and you let people call in and ask questions and, but when you have a guest every day, like, we, like we did, or do still, uh, the, the call in would derail whatever conversation. Right. So Thomas Keller's on the phone and somebody's asking, you know, how many bottles of champagne should I have for my party on Friday? Yeah, yeah.

6:11

Right.

Mark: 6:12

And like, they're like, I don't know who this Thomas Cutler guy.

Francis: 6:15

I'm a party Friday. Well, and so what we did, we, what we, we decided to do long form interviews. I. So that's creating 40 minutes of original content every day, five days a week. I mean, it was a full-time job, but it was also, it's awesome because back then nobody else had a podcast. Yeah. So you could call Thomas Kel. We, we had Thomas Keller in the show. We had, everybody who was a cord on the show,

MJ: 6:40

like big name guests from

Mark: 6:41

the beginning. Well, you know, it was a different world back then. And I was just talking to somebody about this, this afternoon in 2005, when you wanted to get in touch with Thomas Keller. I. Or some other famous chef who would still, Charlie Trotter was a working, was a working chef. You called the restaurant and you said, Hey, is Thomas LER there? And they said, well, you could let me switch you to the kitchen phone. And you go to the kitchen phone. And then somebody would say, okay, uh, what's your name and number? Okay. Uh, chef Ler will call you back when he has a chance. And then the next day, two days later, hi, this is Thomas Keller. Did I hear you guys have a podcast? Uh, uh, I'm interested in being on it. Great. Okay. And it was a very different thing now than going through a publicist and a manager because everyone's through life can be on a podcast.

Francis: 7:26

Exactly. There's, you know, there's a million opportunities, right? Well, and we did. So yes. That, that's all true. But let's not sell ourselves too short because what we did was. We're, we've been, we had been running restaurants for 10, for 10 years at that point. We had the top restaurant in New Jersey. We're opening another great restaurant in New Jersey, and people kind of knew us because we're all about a state bottled wine from small producers. We were the first restaurant in New Jersey and one of the first restaurants in America to have craft cocktails with Dale DeGraff. Right. So like two first shows were people we knew. So Dale DeGraff came on to talk about cocktails. Hall Hobbs came on to talk about wine. Um, you know, somehow we got Charlie Trotter.

MJ: 8:02

There's a little wine maker's podcast thing and it's hard'cause those was a handled mic. Yeah. When you drop big names, we,

8:10

I'm have a story, a name, so I figured it was gonna be so by the end of the,

Francis: 8:14

but, but here was the strategy, right? So we get, we somehow, we got Charlie Trotter on the show'cause we knew somebody. The, uh, we got those, some other big names on the show. Then the one question they did ask you was when you called, gimme another big name you have in the show when you called BRD Day bde. Brd. That's the one thing Want

8:33

hang that one on the desk, but,

Francis: 8:35

but here's what happens. You call Bordain people, so it's 2005. They don't know you, but they don't know. Nobody knows anybody. There's no Instagram. There's no way to check rec. And, uh, they're like, well, who else has been on the show? You're like, oh, Charlie Trotter's been on the show. Like, oh, okay, well then Anthony Bra come on the show. So, so

Mark: 8:48

truthfully, Charlie Trotter was kind of the first big name guy to come on the show. And so having that in your arsenal of, well, Charlie Trotter was on the show. Don't you want to be on a show that Charlie Trotter was on? Right, right. Trotter and Danny Meyer. Danny Meyer was early on, so, and that's just like 2005

MJ: 9:06

six. That was was Danny Meyer. I'm in college in, in Reno. So, so I realized

Mark: 9:11

Gramercy Tavern at that time is number and used Square Cafe and you are the, are literally one and two restaurants in Manhattan at that time. Yeah. So, so he was, so they were. They were doing okay. I I read something that, that Danny said something like, I will never open another fine dining restaurant again because of the amount of work it is to run a fine dining restaurant compared to running a Shake Shack and Well, and, and, and how repeatable something like Shake Shack is and 11 Madison Park just simply isn't repeatable.

Francis: 9:41

Right. Well, even if 11 Madison Park makes you millions, shake Shack makes you billions. Billions. You know?

MJ: 9:46

Right.

Francis: 9:47

God bless them.

MJ: 9:47

There's not an 11 Madison Park in every airport. Exactly. So let's talk about that sort of like evolution of the restaurant business a little bit. Sure. And first of all, like, you know, you were bartending in college. What made you crazy enough to go, let's, instead of like working at a somebody else's restaurant and having a normal life, what, like go all in from, from the get? Well,

Mark: 10:10

first of all, that's total crap.'cause working in somebody else's restaurant is still not a normal life.

10:15

Yeah, yeah. Okay. So just, I just need to clarify.

Mark: 10:18

So for me the, the story is like a lot of restaurant people, I graduate college, I have a, a, a multiple degrees. I'm a statistic economic psychology triple major. I'm ready to take on the world. I get a job, I'm working out as a statistician for an insurance company. And I'm at that desk for three days and I'm like, what am I doing here? And literally, if you include Labor Day weekend, I worked the, my eighth day I said. I'm sorry, I can't do this for a living. And I turned in my resignation and I went back to the restaurant I was still working in on, in weekends. And so can I have my shifts back? Said say, can I please work more? And I said, yes, absolutely.

Sam: 11:03

Never said no restaurateur ever said no to that. Exactly.

Francis: 11:07

Well, it was, it was a similar thing for me. It was I was gonna law school. I actually got into Seton Hall Law School where both of my sisters graduated but I was just like, I, it's not for me. I, I like bartending. I like, and I still hadn't decided what I wanted to do and I went and I traveled around Europe for a while and I came back and then we were both working at the same place and. We, there was a little deal where we kind of tried to buy that place a management buyout with the chef and the general manager and the two of us. And that didn't quite work out, but it made us think, you know what, I planted the seed. Yeah. Mm-hmm. And we we're gonna do this for ourselves. And so it took us about two years until we found a little spot and, uh, we opened a little. 50 seat restaurant. Uh, and um, and it became the hottest ticket in New Jersey, and now it's 225 seat restaurants and a wine shop with a sidewalk cafe. It's bigger now. It's, it's, uh, you know, it's good. And it's been 32 years. 32

12:01

years.

MJ: 12:01

Yeah. How does your family, how does your, your parents feel about this? Not gonna law school? Because I, my dumb ass, I did go to law school. Oh. I went to Rutgers and have never practiced law a day in my life. Um, and you obviously could have had, you know, you could have been CCFO of Johnson and Johnson right here in town, you know, and you, I'm, I'm CFO of Mark and Francis.

12:25

That's

MJ: 12:26

significant. But what was, what was like the apparent reaction, you know, like. To like, you're gonna do what, right? You have three degrees. Yeah. And you're gonna law school and the two of, you're gonna open a 50 C restaurant. All

Mark: 12:37

right. So how, yeah,

MJ: 12:38

how did that, how

Mark: 12:38

did those decisions? This, I, I think this should say everything about that. So within the last month. Okay. Now remember Kale Lombardi is, is named after my mother's mother. Yeah. Okay. So I, I have named a restaurant after my mom. My mom says to me, you know, I bought you those five suits and you never used them. That's so, so, so that's that. I think that expresses the, the emotion of our parents as made

MJ: 13:08

this Yeah.

Sam: 13:09

I have both a Jewish and Italian grandmother. Uh, and if I had worn one of the suits, they'd gone, you didn't like the other ones?

Francis: 13:18

I had a, I had a similar thing, Mike. Uh, I remember I, I dropped the bomb at the, now I had already declined law school and said I was gonna go find myself in Europe. I found myself, turns out I was a jerk. I came back home, so we wanted to send him away. Oh, look at me. So, uh, anyway, so I, I'm working as a bartender and I, I dropped the bomb. I said, uh, it's a Easter dinner, and I said, mark and I are gonna try and open a restaurant. Dead silence. I mean, silence. And my family is never silent table, but they didn't say anything negative. And my dad was like, well, if you wanna give this a try, give us a try. We owned the restaurant.

Mark: 13:54

Hold on. True, true story. Yeah. There's no one who didn't think we were gonna fail. Oh yeah. Okay. So they were like, yeah, yeah. Okay. Open your restaurant. You don't have any money to lose. It's okay. Yeah.

Francis: 14:04

Well that was great. So, so I, I, yikes. And my dad's like, okay, try this for a couple years, then you'll go to law school. And, um, I, I had three stars in the New York Times. We were rated like the top American restaurant in Central Jersey. And my, and I was 36 and my dad was like. So when are you gonna go to law school? When is he? And I think

14:27

I

Francis: 14:28

was like, I don't, I don't think I'm going that, I don't think I'm going

MJ: 14:30

like that. That ship is sailing.

Francis: 14:32

Yeah. Yeah. Sailing

MJ: 14:33

out of the New York Harbor should go. Honestly,

Francis: 14:35

I think you should go. It's not two limitations, one on. I would say though our families both love our restaurants and it really, and our restaurants have provided a real way to come together and a place to come together for both our immediate and our extended families. And, and our families know and like each other, you know, more than we like each other.

14:54

Yeah. In fact,

MJ: 14:55

and I wouldn't wanna ask because I like to go back, but, um, where, where, where each you, where are each of you from and what, in your childhood, where, where did you develop a, a love of food, of wine in your childhood that kind of stayed with you and led to going into bars

Mark: 15:10

I'll, I'll go first'cause I'm probably more traditional this way. Mm-hmm. Uh, so. My mother's family is Italian American. Been here since the 1880s, lived in Brooklyn her whole life. Grew up in Brooklyn. Mm-hmm. That food, that culture, Sundays in Brooklyn, hospitality ingrained that my father was born in France, French mom. Uh, so that French grandmother on that side, variant to food, variant to cheese. He owned an import export company. Lots of travel. Um, my father was cheap except for travel, experience and food. He spent money on those two things, basically on those two things only. But it was always culinary experience. As, as a 10-year-old, the, my mother said, what do you want me to make you for your birthday? And I said, duck la. So I was, I was into the food thing from early on. Got it. Uh, loved it. I did a lot of traveling. I was very fortunate.

Francis: 16:08

I grew up in an Irish family and I, the, the joke that if you've been to the restaurant you've probably heard me say is that Mark is three quarters Italian and a quarter French. She had an Italian grandmother and a French grandmother. Both were excellent cooks. I had two Irish grandmothers. One of them didn't cook and the other one shouldn't have. So it did not, it was not, now my mom made a good wholesome, you know, Chuck steak dinner once a week. I mean, she made it. It, it was good food. We had decent, wholesome food, but it with the, my father loved good food and we'd go out for really great ice cream, or really great pizza, I grew up in Orange, New Jersey, which was about a third Irish, a third Italian, a third black, all working class. Everybody was a truck driver, a cop, a fireman, whatever. And there were good Italian restaurants in, in the town, and I mean cheap, you know, working man's restaurants. I didn't grow up with really great food in my household, but I always loved great food and I picked up a love of cooking in high school. And then I came to college and I just, it was always something I was interested. I worked in supermarkets and Mark and I became friends When I transferred directors. We, we lived on the same floor Okay. Sophomore year, uh, second semester, sophomore year. So I'm like halfway through the year, nobody knows me. And, uh, mark, of course is the, is the big fraternity guy. Everybody loves him. He's, you know, he's the center of

17:21

I love, he's the John, he's the,

Francis: 17:23

he's the John Mahi character out here. But I would come home for my night supermarket job and they would give us the bread that was gonna expire that day and the last day of his specialty cheeses. So I'd come home with like a hunk of really good cheese and a loaf of bread under my arm at like one o'clock in the morning. And you were French. And I've been drinking and I've been drinking for five hours. And he'd be like, Hey, new kid. And, uh, so that's, that's, that's how we, I was accepted immediately, you know? Uh, anyway, so. So, so I had that and then I started working in restaurants and I just, I loved it. I mean, I loved, um, David Drake was the chef at Frog Peach, which was a restaurant, was a pioneering restaurant, opened in 83 here in New Brunswick. Jim Black and Betsy Alger a bit. We both wound up working there eventually, but David Drake was the chef to cuisine at the time. He allowed me to stand in the kitchen. Iica hires a bartender, and I was like, what is this? We've never seen anything like this before. And I totally got the, but I totally got the of.

MJ: 18:22

Basic breakdown that you guys in the restaurant is your front of house and your back house? We're both front.

Mark: 18:26

We're both front of house. Both front of house. We're both trained front of house. We, we've always had chefs now very fortunate for us. You know, the, the chef of stage left has been with us now for 17, 18 years, and the chef at Catholic party has been close to 20. So, so we're, we're fortunate that we've had that kind of stability.

MJ: 18:44

How did, how did, how did you do that? Because that's, that's about, that's not really common for this industry. It's it's turnover, turnover, turnover, and people seeking new opportunities. How did you able to cultivate that culture? Well,

Mark: 18:55

to be fair, the first 10 years it, what? We had 12 different chefs. Wow, okay. So you, you're just. You, you get that right and you get people turn and turn and turn. And uh, then we had a guy by the name of Patrick Eve, Pierre Jerome, and he owned a restaurant called Eve, originally in Montclair. And he came and he kind of stabilized that position. He was there for about four years. He stabilized that position. Then another guy by the name of Anthony Buco was there for, again, for about four years. And those two guys really helped us, like I said, stabilize that position. so, I mean, Fernando's been with us for 20, 28 now years. He's our 28 years. He's, so if you've had. A grilled steak or burger at stage left for the last 28 years, chances are Fernando cooked it. Uh, you know, so they, they really stabilized the rest of the kitchen guys. And honestly, for a chef, the job gets a lot easier when all the guys around you are staying. Mm-hmm. So that was the first part of it. The first part of it was that the, the second and third level guys were rock solid and then. There's more, you know, reason to stay.

Francis: 20:07

And, you know, mark and I, we have these two restaurants that are in the same building and the wine shop that's in the same building. We're really dedicated.

MJ: 20:12

It's a really cool looking building, by the

Francis: 20:13

way, it is a hundred years old this year.

MJ: 20:15

Oh wow. 1 25 just turned

Francis: 20:16

a hundred. We had a birthday party for it. It stands out.

MJ: 20:18

Sure. It's cool.

Francis: 20:19

And, uh, you see it tonight when we light it up. It's gorgeous. You'll see it, you will see it at night. But here's a, just a couple hours

20:25

here,

Francis: 20:25

Katie, here's the plug. We're doing this from the re hotel, which is the hotel right across the street. New Brunswick is a wonderful town. We're talking about New Brunswick at some point because Yes. Yeah,

20:32

yeah. We,

Francis: 20:33

I hopefully we've helped make New Brunswick a better place, but because of New Brunswick, it has helped us to become what we are. But you know, it's all about long-term relationships. And probably what would've been made more economic sense, even in the restaurant business was for us to open four or five places. You know, take a place, open it, run it, sell it for

Mark: 20:50

sure. Financially. Open, open eight or 10 capital Lombardi's especially'cause Yeah, more repeatable. I think that stage left. Sure. And,

Francis: 20:57

and we may open some other capital Lombardi in the future, but we decided to make a career here and we provided this stable platform. And the most valuable relations ships to us are long-term relationships, whether that's regular customers, whether that's our, our front of house people like or my wife.

21:13

but really she's sitting in the corner.

MJ: 21:16

You're wondering, I know but she's taking notes though. She's got a list

Francis: 21:19

all, always taking notes. But the, but the two things that happen aren't, you find people who value long-term relationships as well and then over time. Everybody knows that we've got their back. We're, it is very high standards. you can't come in and screw up my business and you have to contribute something. But if you, if you fall on our times and you're a long harm employee of ours, we have your back. If you get sick, if you, we've bailed people out of jail. We'll share some funny stories behind that. Um, we've never, I've brought people getting arrested. We've, we've never had to be bailed out of jail ourselves. But we have, uh, you know, and people see how you treat other people. And, The more long-term relationships like that you can get the, the better it can be. I mean, FRA frankly,

Mark: 21:59

Francis and I have, I have, I have the same, a lot of the same friends that I had when I was 10 years old. Okay. Mm-hmm. Francis is still considered the new guy in, in our friend group because he came on at 19, right? So, so almost 40 years ago he came onto the scene and if there's an event going on, I'm like, sorry, you're the new guy. If one of us has to work and one of us has to stay, I'm going, you're staying

MJ: 22:23

well, let's, uh, big up new Brun a little bit. Yeah, sure. This is my first time here. Tell me, you know, tell me what I should be looking for when I'm walking around tomorrow. You know, down the, is like the river's over there or that a

Francis: 22:34

we have a little park on the river front. Okay. It was one of the oldest cities in the country. George Washington had his army here. The first 4th of July celebration in the country was in New Brunswick, New Jersey, in the 4th of July, 1777. Wow. Um, Queens

MJ: 22:47

College, Queens First Charter College by Green England, 1766

Francis: 22:51

New Brunswick. And that became, became, okay. So New Brunswick. By the time the 19 in the 1960s into the seventies, new Brunswick suffered the same. Malaise is every northeastern, uh, post-industrial regional capital, the industry had left. Crime was on the rise, housing stock was tired and, and the infrastructure was falling apart. And, um, there was, in the late seventies into the early eighties, there was a real concerted effort. Johnson and Johnson was the financial anchor. That's a Fortune 50 company where their world headquarters and they basically delivered New Brunswick and ultimatum. We are either gonna. Move to Virginia, and we'll be the last, you know, we'll close the door on the way out and we'll turn the lights off. Or you clean up your politics and figure out a way to, and work and we'll, we'll dump a ton of money and time and resources into this town. Uh, but, but it can't be corrupt and you gotta figure out how to

MJ: 23:42

Same doesn't understand New Jersey politics.

Francis: 23:45

you've seen this around, that's all true by the way, high school does Ishish, but based on

MJ: 23:54

it was

Francis: 23:54

allegedly true. That's our favorite word in New Jersey, allegedly. It really is. No, no. The state

MJ: 23:59

New Jersey knew perfect together.

Francis: 24:01

Allegedly, but here's what happened in New Brunswick. So you had a, a number of different corporations from, one of them is a corporation called devco, which was a first of its kind public private partnership to redevelop New Brunswick. We've done over$4 billion worth of building in this city of 60,000 over the last 20 years with of B. Um, and we've had the same mayor for 35 plus years. Mayor Jim Kale's. Amazing, amazing. And, uh, you

Mark: 24:26

know, great leadership, good for

Francis: 24:27

business.

Mark: 24:28

You know, that's, that's been the key, honestly. Clean, honest leadership of the, of the town.

Francis: 24:32

And you've seen this hotel it get built where there once was a, an abandoned old hotel. You, you see all sorts of new building. And the interesting thing about New Brunswick was it was redeveloped in a way that, like I saw a lot, I studied politics in urban politics in school, and you see a lot of cities that redeveloped. Basically kicking all the people who live there out poor and working class, long branch, New Jersey, where I'm from. Okay. And I'm making no comment on that, but yeah. But kicking out all the poor people, bringing in new people, building new buildings and saying, Hey, we redeveloped the city. Yeah. Right. Here's$2 million condo for you. Yeah, exactly. You didn't, you didn't, you, you tore the old one down and built a new one. You didn't redevelop the city. Right, right, right. What we did in New Brunswick was when they tore down the housing projects, which I remember the day, they dynamite of them. They spent the 10 years prior making sure that in every new development had under. Secretly, one for one housing, one for one replacement reserve. Every single person in that project secretly was the key, because people come

MJ: 25:31

outta fucking world. Oh yeah. They, if you say affordable housing, yeah. It's like, well, New Jersey, I mean, that, that lawsuit, that's Mount Laurel. They, they still don't comply with that shit. But what

Francis: 25:42

we did, what they did in New Brunswick was they was, they had this plan for scattered site housing. They told every developer, if you wanna build something new in New Brunswick, you have to set aside this amount for low. So for low income housing. Affordable housing. And what they did was they took the old projects, which weren't working. They were architecturally terrible. They were, and they were replaced one for one, each of those units. And the, the redevelopment, and we've been happy to be a part of it, was finding jobs for the people who live here. Keeping the people who live here empowered, staying in touch with the communities that live here. And because of that, we have a strong social fabric. Throughout New Brunswick. It's not just the business community and one that's been here for a long time. The

Mark: 26:20

Hungarian community has been here a long time. It's still here. It's still thriving.

Francis: 26:24

The Mexican community, we embraced the immigrants who came in the seventies and eighties to the point where the, we have a Mexican consulate in New Brunswick. The cons on the Mexico is here in New Brunswick. That was in the last couple of years because there's such a strong, important Mexican community that is first generation and Mexican immigrants here, second generation and second. So this

Sam: 26:44

is a place on the East coast where I can get a decent taco. Oh, it's when I come out, you know, I love New York. I, it's been better lately, but in beginning of my like selling wine on the road life, like the first thing I'd have to do when I get back to California is have like a real time,

Mark: 26:58

you know, Tuesday. Well, well, the only thing I'm gonna say to that is realize you have a 12 month growing season that

MJ: 28:46

we have.

Francis: 28:49

So yeah, so the sound is great and the thing about this town is we, they did their redevelopment based very heavily on, uh, the arts and education and hospitals, and then the private businesses grew up around that, we're happy to be a part of it. Yeah,

MJ: 29:02

happy to be part of it seems like a sustainable way of doing it

Francis: 29:05

seems to be working out for New

Mark: 29:07

Brunswick. Yeah. They worked on Center City and they've kind of built their way out.

MJ: 29:12

So, let's pivot back to your podcast. You guys come out the gate and you, you're able to score a great guest. how long did you do, because I know there was a, you had went on hiatus for a while. How long did you go and then what prompted you to come back?

Mark: 29:26

So did live radio. 2005 to 2008. Okay. During that time, three

MJ: 29:32

years of five day a week.

Mark: 29:33

Five day a week. Well, by the end we're doing a one, a rerun or something once a week. But yeah, four days a week, certainly. so three years of that and just simply, you know, we talk about sustainability, not, not sustainable to, to continue to do that. So in oh eight we went to a once a week podcast. We did that through 13. and then we just said, you know what, it wasn't, you know, there was no way to make money on it in 2013, right? it was not a sustainable part. No. Yeah, yeah. Uh, mark had four kids and they were tv. Yeah. I have four kids that were growing up, you know, I wanna coach football, I wanna, do those kinds of things. so we just stopped. And then kind of during covid. We started having, we had more time, more time to talk about things. And I would say that's where it was born. Again, the idea of it was born again, and then this past July we, we rebooted it and said, let's go. Uh, we had a couple of nice corporate sponsors that came aboard. And what,

MJ: 30:30

see that's what happens when you are in the community and you build up and, I mean, yeah, like, like I was gonna say, as an independent podcaster, it's still hard to make money. Yeah, of course. It's not,

Francis: 30:40

you know. Well, and here's a plea, everyone, if you wanna come to our, our show, we have. We have paid subscribers, so you can always follow, see most of our content for free, but we have paid subscribers who get additional content, who get invited to special things. Um, but our corporate sponsors sponsored us enough that we could pay the bills of doing the podcast. Exactly. Well, the work that goes into the podcast, well, Mark's wife is basically full-time on the podcast and she works 40 hours a week editing, you know, setting up guests. And we have other employees, Julie, who operates our restaurants also helps us. We have paid researchers who make sure that we're prepared when we go in and our corporate sponsors basically cover those costs and then our paid subscribers, you know, kind of make it worthwhile to do and that we're kind of growing as we grow. And, you know, that's an interesting way to, to, to make things happen.

Mark: 31:25

And we've just added. Just in the last couple months. So New Brunswick Performing Arts Center is right next door to us. Mm-hmm. Uh, and they've invited us to do four a, a series, a culinary series with four live shows, which Awesome. Yeah. We've, we've just,

MJ: 31:40

they're promoting the heck out of all over town. It's hard to avoid the little rep guys. Excellent.

Mark: 31:45

I mean,

MJ: 31:45

these guys are, they're like, they're like, max, we walked into the hub like, Hey, like a whole staff and there's a freaking poster. I didn't even notice what the poster you guys when

Francis: 31:53

I came in the first. I'm like, damn man. Well, it's, you know, I, I will say that the, uh, the hotel we're sitting in is one of the sponsors of the restaurant guys podcast. So it's immediately a hedrick trying.

MJ: 32:05

So

Francis: 32:05

if you're looking

MJ: 32:05

us

Francis: 32:06

while, is there any other podcasts? On a second. I need to take a small break. So when coming to New Re Hotel? So, the other thing that we discovered, which was pretty first of all, the live shows. Have you heard of a podcast that's basically six months old for the new one Four Live shows, a 400 seat theater in, in a paid ticketed event with Rocco DiSpirito. Alex won Shelly, um, Andrew Zimmer. Andrew Zimmer and Scott Kona. And Scott Kona. I mean, that's crazy, right? And we, and we just got an inquiry from, I can't give you the details. We're probably gonna do a live show or two in Belfast, in Ireland. Oh wow. So we'll be international soon. It'll be amazing. But the live shows are amazing. One of the things that's really different about our podcast, just listening to it though, we said, okay, let's resurrect the podcast. Let's listen to the old podcast and see how we are. We realized we had almost 500 shows of old shows. Wow. And 350 of them were evergreen. They're like this. Cool. Mm-hmm. So every Tuesday is a new show and every Thursday is one of the shows from our Archives. Archives. And then every other Saturday is a bonus show for, for the, uh, so you guys about three episodes a week? Two,

Mark: 33:11

two and a half.

Francis: 33:12

Two and a half.

MJ: 33:12

Two

Mark: 33:12

and half.

MJ: 33:13

that does sound like a full-time job.

Mark: 33:14

One full-time job. One of the things that happened was the guests that were on our show. Okay. Frankly, some of them are dead. Right? Yeah. Okay. You know, you got Charlie Trotter, Anthony Bourdain, you know, there's some of'em just simply passed away, but most of the rest of them. We're successful then. So 20 years later, they're still successful. Right. There's their stories. So we interviewed a woman today about caviar. Well, it's a woman. We talked to Deborah Keen. Deborah Keen talked to her about caviar 20 years ago and when she had the first farmed mm-hmm. Caviar in California. So today we talked about the evolution of it. That was certain company. So we did, we talked about the evolution of, of American caviar over the last 20 years was, was the subject of today's show. So now you can listen to the old show with Deborah Keen from 20 years ago, which is fascinating. It's, and she start, begins the whole farmed, United States, California, caviar revolution. And now 20 years later with where it's gone to and, and now, fascinating. She

Francis: 34:16

has the first patent on No Kill Caviar, which will be released in the fall. Yeah. Yeah. So that's ever, and on the show today, we're like. she agreed that she's gonna do the launch, the East Coast launch. Gonna be at stage left in September.

MJ: 34:30

September. Wasn't so

Francis: 34:31

busy

MJ: 34:31

for me. Yeah, it might be a little bit, whatcha you doing in September? I don't know. What do you got to do? Like Thanksgiving? And actually, I was gonna ask you about this just sort of in general, like from when you opened stage left to now, sort of like the evolution of, of food culture, both, you know, across the country, but, but locally, there's so much more emphasis now. On, on far a table and, and locally produced and, and watching that, you know, sort of transform in your dining room must have been great. Yeah.

Mark: 35:05

Francis Francis, uh, is, is gonna talk a little bit about, you know, our, our philosophies in 1992. Were forward thinking, I consider them forward thinking because here we are in the forward.

Francis: 35:19

Right.

Mark: 35:19

And everybody's thinking the way we were in 1992.

Francis: 35:21

We, we opened in 92 and we said we were gonna be seasonal. We were gonna be driven by local farms. We were the first people to put the names of farms on the restaurant to have relationships with local farmers. we were estate bottled wines from small producers. I used to say that no one knew what the hell I was talking about. We were the only ones. We were the only ones. Right.

Mark: 35:39

Nobody knew what an estate bottled wine from a

Francis: 35:40

small, they never knew why it mattered or

Mark: 35:42

any

Francis: 35:42

of that.

MJ: 35:42

And was that both domestic and, and Oh yeah. No, it's'cause it's New Jersey. No, no, but in the, I'm kidding. I'm kidding.

Francis: 35:49

so we dealt early with, you know, Jake, our mutual friend Jake, was working for Michael Sterk at the time. So we were buying wines from, and if people outside the business might not know these names, but back in 92 we were buying wines or Okay.

MJ: 36:01

Yeah.

Francis: 36:02

Believe bought wines primarily from shout

MJ: 36:04

out Harmon, Harmon Harmon's, my guy,

Francis: 36:07

his Harmon. So Nik Wines back at night too. We were the first New Jersey restaurant com customer of Ker Wine. Yes, you were. We were the first New Jersey restaurant customer of Rosenthal Wines. Oh wow. Um, we bought from Bobby Catcher who, uh, all a lot of clinging,

36:22

a lot clinging, but, um, big cling episode.

Francis: 36:24

But the thing is, it was a real challenge back then because people would walk in and say, where's the vis one? I was like, I don't like, ah, restaurant must I. Oh, you can't

Mark: 36:35

get

Francis: 36:35

Mondavi reserved. You can't, oh, is that, is that why you don't have it? And, and, and they're like, well, this doesn't, you don't have any of the steakhouse wines. I'm like, I, why do you want me to have the same wines as everyone else? Now people understand that, right? People understand that you go to a restaurant. Because that restaurant has a point of view and has made a selection. And, and there are plenty of restaurants that have this standard wine, and that's good too. But back then we had people who said, we, I'm sorry. We had a lot of people who were open to education and New Brunswick deserves a lot of credit for all the people who kept us alive and supported us. But there was a lot of pushback. So, what do you mean? I, I don't wanna see any names that I don't recognize when I look at a wine list and we were all, oh, you want Alban Vier? Who's Alban and what's Vier? You know, and Shut, thank God Alban's bringing it out. But you know that, and, but it worked solely to our advantage because we were so, there'd be all of those importers that I talked about. They got an allocation for New York and they get 10 cases for all of New York, and they get one case for New Jersey. Difference was you had 25 of the coolest sommelier in, in America fighting for those 10 cases in New York. Yeah. Yeah,

37:42

yeah.

Francis: 37:43

Nobody in New Jersey gave a shit but us. And so we got everything. We got Turley, we got Marcuson, we got and, and then people caught on later, but we,

37:51

sorry, But it wasn't about

Francis: 37:52

scores. It was about, but then as everybody came in later, we had established those relationships. Right. Kathy Goon was a friend. Paul Hobbes was a friend. No digging. Okay. No,

MJ: 38:01

no, no, no. We actually, we just had Kathy on our show. We'd be out on Friday of Van. Crazy.

Francis: 38:05

but the thing, it wasn't score hunting. it was, these were individuals who were farming land and making wine with a point of view. And that's what we cared about. And

Mark: 38:15

we had, and also we also had a point of view. Right. Right. And it was different than other, some other restaurants and some other restaurants were looking for. Big juicy berry fruit forward wines and that high score, that famous high score. And that's the only things you would see on their list. And our point of view was a little different. Yeah. Okay. And we wanted our wines to speak of where they came from. We wanted our wines to, it was just a, a at that time, a different philosophy. Like I said, why? I know it was forward thinking.'cause here we are and everybody's saying all those things. Right. That we were saying 30 years ago.

MJ: 38:49

How long did it take for that tide to sort of shift?

Mark: 38:52

Uh, it's past 2000, certainly. Mm-hmm. Uh,'cause I, 2000, yeah. I would say, I would say oh five. now listen, our customers caught on pretty quickly.

39:02

Right.

Mark: 39:03

They, they're like, wow, this is great. And I can spend 60 cents on the dollar and get these cool wines that I love. That, that sold for us. So that, that helped us build our own reputation with our clients. Help

Francis: 39:15

do, do you know who was a great guy? Uh, who helped us build our reputation? Which was an interesting story is when All Hobbs first came out, we were the first restaurant outside of California to sell all Hobbs wines. Wow. He happened to be at the wine boat tasting at the pup building in New York City, and a friend of mine brought me over and said, try these wines you're gonna need like wind chimes or something.

MJ: 39:35

Who's gonna be background music, blood pipe? Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.

Francis: 39:40

Yeah. Ard a pinot and a cat. No. Sard and cab. Only at that. Oh, char and cab only at that. And they were in Shiners. They were not even labeled. So it was the 90 ones that he was showing. And I remember I put my nose in the glass and I was like, who are you? You know what I mean? I was like, this is, that's not for shut. Say, you said, who the fuck, fuck

40:00

are,

Francis: 40:02

And he was like, oh, I'm Paul. I'm super nice guy. Right. Originally to the East coast, but California. Nice. And uh, I was like, I, I gotta, I gotta, I gotta have these wines and I'm a, I'm a pushy 27-year-old. And I was like, uh, I, I got up, I got these wines. He's like, well, I wasn't gonna release him until the spring. I'm like, please send five cases of each to me. He iss like, well, they're not ready. I'm like, I'll explain to everybody that they're not ready while I, so we sent them, we sold a Tom package'cause we have a special license. Our license in New Jersey allows us to sell in the restaurant as well. It's called a Broad Sea, allowed us to sell package as well. And so we did the first Paul Hobbs dinner in, uh, 1993. Yeah. And, uh, we became fast friends ever since, but. The critics initially, Parker initially did not take to Paul Hops. He was giving him wines that were not as highly rated, rated as they eventually became. And we were like, he was talking lots of 80 sevens, 88 to 89.

MJ: 40:56

Well, and those, I mean, in those days, uh, well

Francis: 40:58

those were real, real scores.

MJ: 40:59

Well, a and they were real scores, but in the, but it was Parker or nothing.

Francis: 41:02

Exactly. Right. And we was That's exactly right. We were literally telling, we're in our little 50 seat restaurant and we were the bartender in the, in the major. We were like, Parker's wrong on this one. He's wrong, he's wrong, he's wrong, he's wrong. Right. And we, so we did a couple of dinners over a couple of years. We sold a lot of people, had a lot of Paul Hobbes in their cellar, and then Parker started rating them better. And then he went back and rerated the early ones. He said, I was wrong. These wines are great.

Mark: 41:23

When Parker said he was wrong, he was basically saying Mark and Francis were right. Yeah.

41:28

And,

Francis: 41:29

and a lot of our guests who were into that, who were like, alright, it's not a high scorer. We'll buy from you anyway. All of a sudden they're like,

41:36

you were right. I'm a genius like that. You're

Francis: 41:39

genius.

41:40

Got.

Francis: 41:42

So for sure he was important to us.

Mark: 41:44

we've had that dinner for 33 years in a row. Wow. We've done 30 it, it is the longest, running wine dinner with, uh, the same wine maker, same restaurant in the country.

MJ: 41:54

That doesn't surprise me. I mean, the fact that that's also, that, that Paul Hobbes has been the owner and winemaker Yeah. Exactly. Is 33 years and hasn't, you know Yeah. Sold out or, you know, it's, it's, it's an impressive run that

Francis: 42:06

the owner of the winery is the same. Is is special. The owner, the restaurant totally is special. And we've been doing this since 93. Yeah. That's a, it's a, that's

MJ: 42:14

a Venn diagram that doesn't usually

Francis: 42:16

intersect.

MJ: 42:17

Yeah. Well, I know, you know, we, we, we've been talking a little bit before, and when I, when I tasted with you Francis, uh, a couple months ago, but you know, this, it's, it's not necessarily the Cheeriest wine and restaurant marketplace out in the world right now. Um, but what are the, it's not necessarily the cheeriest marketplace, right? Period, but, but are you seeing bright spots? Are you seeing, like, interesting things and trends with wines that are selling that, that are sort of surprising you? Or, or going back to things that, you know, weren't popular and coming back? What's, what's, let's, let's, let's mind for the good news.

Mark: 42:52

All right, let's, let's go to the bad news first.

MJ: 42:53

Okay.

Mark: 42:54

Chardonnay is gone. Yeah. I can't sell, I don't sell. I sell some Chardonnay by the glass. I would say I sell. One or two bottles of Chardonnay a week in the restaurants. In the

Francis: 43:08

two

Mark: 43:08

restaurants. In the two restaurants, right.

MJ: 43:10

Total 250 seats total. Two bottles of Chardonnay a week, two bottles

Mark: 43:13

of Chardonnay. I mean, that's, like I said, I sell by the glass. I sell more now, now

Francis: 43:16

since we've become a steakhouse. Right.

Mark: 43:18

That's, that's you just a little bit.

Francis: 43:19

That's part of it in one of the restaurants, part of it.

Mark: 43:21

And chardonnay and Italian food is not exactly, you know, made in heaven either. But tell the Anton NOI family,

MJ: 43:26

they make the Batard Matrice in Italy, according to James Suck.

Francis: 43:32

Can't argue with that.

Mark: 43:33

Sorry James. But that's just, that's just that It's gone. It is. It is gone. People are drinking other, frankly, I think usually more interesting. Not always, you know, there's some very chart days in the world. Some, uh, but. People are going and venturing into different parts of the world for, for different types of grapes. So you said look for a bright spot. People are looking for the interesting, they're looking for the off, the beaten path they're looking for. Show me something that maybe has a little more, uh, value that I've never heard of before. And it doesn't have to be inexpensive, but a little more value for per dollar and something i I, I haven't seen before.

MJ: 44:15

it's like spurring some more exploration. Sure. Yeah.

Francis: 44:19

well, look, it's a, it's an economic downturn. Uh, there's no question that the legalization of pot throughout the country in New Jersey has,

MJ: 44:25

there's like three dispensaries that I walked across down the street. Yeah. I somehow didn't go into any of them, which is really the miracle for any listeners at home

Mark: 44:33

since we're doing a wine tasting that are a little bit grateful. But the thing about it is, I

MJ: 44:37

have to be on Brilliant though. Mark. You have, I'm there. You guys are shirts and jackets. I'm gonna wearing a tie dye for the TA seat, just so

Francis: 44:43

you know. Dude, you're a winemaker. You're allowed to do that anyway. That's right. First of all, that's right. I hope. I'm hoping there's dirt on your boots. Exactly. I

MJ: 44:50

left the dirty boots at home. I packed, packed clean shoes in my back.

Francis: 44:52

Here. Here, here's the hierarchy, right? The banker has to wear a blue suit to work. I can wear crazy colors and we can wear crazy colors in our jacket and tie, and you can whatever the hell you want. You're a farmer. And that's what people want. Remember, this is the

MJ: 45:04

only job I can

Francis: 45:05

do. I remember one ti I, I got, I got a side story. I remember one Italian importer, and you know who I'm talking about, who used to have a slight Italian accent, though he spent a lot of time growing up in Europe. But he would, his, he affected his Italian accent even more and he would always wear like a bandana tied around his, his neck as if he had just come off the field. I'm like, you're staying at the Ritz, you know? Oh, but they, it is so important to have there. I'm like, and you were at high school long. You had eggs benedict, you had eggs benedict, and you went to high school in Long Island and you went to high school on the Long Island. Uh, you know, anyway, marijuana is eating our lunch to a, some of an extent, right? And I know Ozempic is eating our lunch to another extent,

45:47

right?

Francis: 45:48

Both of those things are new and fads and, and people are embracing them right now. And it's like when a new restaurant opens in town, new restaurant opens in town next to us. We're always happy to see. It always hurts our business a little bit for a couple weeks. Everybody's gonna check it out for whole period. And then, but, but then there. But then we're better for there being another great restaurant in town if it's great. And if it sucks, it goes away in, who cares? We've been selling wine. Okay? It's in the Bible, right? Jesus was a wine maker. Okay, so we're gonna be fine.

46:13

I guess we need ding Jesus too, acting, you know, food. So, alright.

Francis: 46:19

Um, so we're gonna be fine. The wine, the wine industry's gonna be fine. Uh, there is an interest in wine. marijuana pot, THC, it's a way to go home and you have a gummy and you, and you play video games and that's fine. And you don't go out for two or three drinks in a happy hour and, and meet other people. But after a certain period of time. THC is a solitary thing that makes you temporarily content to be alone, but your social network's gonna fall apart. Okay. Wine is convivial and communal. Okay. And eventually I think that that's gonna swing back the other way because, because part of wine is coming together. Part of wine is sharing a bottle of wine, having some drinks with friends, and they're saying that young people, they're finding out more and more. I tried to study recently, it says that people who use pot now, instead of going to happy hour, they're using pot Monday through Thursday. They're using it wrong, is what said. Yeah. Yeah.

47:14

It's Sam sinking. I'm with you. You're doing it round.

Francis: 47:17

Yeah, but they, but people, you're supposed to pass it around, but especially, especially with specialized marijuana, people using it to sleep, people are using it to calm and you're like. it, that can only last so long. People need each other and when they need each other, the bar are gonna be here. Wine's gonna be here, cocktails are gonna be here because we're convivial. And they're saying already that people are tending not to use it on Friday and Saturday nights. Young people are not using it on Friday and Saturday nights because it makes them less social. And that's a last thing we need. So I, I, I have hope It's, everyone's fascinated with pot. Everyone's fascinated with the GLP ones. And that will balance out in the end. And, and I've been selling mine for 3000 years. It's not, it's not, it's not doom. Well, we may

Mark: 48:01

look at, we haven't been selling mine.

Francis: 48:04

We as a human race have been selling mine for

MJ: 48:06

our genealogy is bad. Do you think that, part of that, you know, it was just, that perfect storm of We had covid, you had legalization was falling all around the country, so people were home anyway. Yeah. Um, and, and restaurant, you know, obviously a restaurants took a hit. How are you seeing people coming back? Like what was it like coming back out of Covid for you guys? Like how I think and how did you storm

Mark: 48:28

Covid? So, so what's interesting there is, so 2023 was our best year ever. By far. It was this big blowout, spectacular year, and then 24 kind of went back to a normal year. But all of our, all the expenses were higher. Right. So everything costs more labor, costs more, uh, uh, products cost more everything costs more, you know, even gas and electric costs more. So

MJ: 48:54

lemme just say your wine producers were feeling the exact same thing in 23 point. For sure. Your

Mark: 48:58

models cost more. Your labels cost more. We, we get it. Um, your people to cost more oil.

MJ: 49:06

There's more reasons than that, but yeah, I know you're eco-conscious,

Mark: 49:10

but it's expensive. But so, so 2024 was kind of this weird, not great year, and then 2025, everything kind of came back in January, February, and then somebody uttered the word tariff the first week of March. And you can see somebody, and you can see business is, it's it, we're going, we're sailing along, we're getting back up to those 2023 levels. And you just see it go like that.

Francis: 49:35

Literally somebody turned off

Mark: 49:36

a spigot in a, in a, in a minute.

Sam: 49:38

I have a friend who works in a winery. They, they pressed go on their wine club the day that the April 7th, the liberation, whatever the fuck that means. Liberation Day. Liberation liberating us from our 4 0 1 Ks. Uh, they, they pressed go on their like giant wine club mm-hmm. On April 7th, and it was just like, it was a bloodbath. Yeah. Everybody was calling and canceling and just like, you know, freaking out. Well,

Francis: 50:00

no, the thing about restaurant look restaurants, they, I think it was toasted that published some figures that said that restaurant reviews went down. don't quote me on the numbers, 20% or something in, in a one month year over year in March. Um, I, I believe that happened. Here's what didn't happen. Okay. It's not like all of a sudden everybody got fired and nobody had enough money to go out to dinner. Okay. That didn't happen. Right. What happened was people panicked and they said, hold on a second. I'm paralyzed. I don't look at what happened to my 4 0 1 KI, let's, let's not go out to dinner and. That is a psychological effect at this point. Totally. So I don't know what's gonna happen to the economy going forward, but nobody does. And that's why they're scary. Well, but it's not that people don't have enough money to go out to dinner, that the fundamentals of the market haven't changed. It's a panic. And that can be very temporary and people are trying to find a rebalance and I think. One of the things that happened was people drank their faces off during covid, what the hell else was there to do? And then they were thrilled to be back out in public, and maybe they went a little too and travel and do all those things. There was natural pullback and the economy tracked and there's tariffs. And so we're in a bit of a, a, a valley, but I, I, I don't think the fundamentals have changed that here's,

Mark: 51:14

here's what I'll say as too, as, as the guy who really studies the numbers of our business. Mm-hmm.

Francis: 51:19

Uh, so you see

MJ: 51:20

Francis doesn't do any of

Francis: 51:21

that.

Mark: 51:21

I was the English major. Okay. I studied, I'm saying Francis doesn't do any of that shit. Yes. That's exactly what I, I knew. I say, mark, what's going on? Tell me about the, he quotes the magazines and then I tell you what's what. The actual, uh, that is a hundred percent true. So, even as early as. Next week. So because we we're kind of a fine dining restaurant that that does a lot of advanced booking, does a lot of, uh, things where we can kind of see in the future the advanced bookings for may look more like February Yeah. Than they do March and April. So I, I think you're already seeing people tire of bad news. Yeah. Bad, bad news. Uh, lack of participation.

Francis: 52:03

What, what everybody wants to know is how is this gonna affect me? Am I gonna lose my job? Is my 401k gonna go to 20% of its value? And so people hit the pause button, but two things happen. One is you start to get more confident when you see the world hasn't totally exploded and you get thirsty. Right. You know what I mean? Hit the pause button. Like, I need to go out for a drink.

Sam: 52:21

You know, and there's something to be said about just like in the first administration of this guy who did the tariffs, whatever his name is, uh. I think people drink a lot, drank more. That was what we saw in, I think it was like, what? You get home, there's terrible news. You're gonna, you know, now maybe it's a gummy, but I think it's a gummy and a glass of wine. Yeah. That's all I'm dealing with.

Mark: 52:40

You know, I like, I like Francis was talking about, so 2023 being the anomalous year, let's look at that as the anomalous year. he got a lot of people addicted to their phones. I mean, there's this faction of people who really don't, are antisocial, don't want to be social human beings. They, they, it became okay, became accepted for them to do that. They didn't have to go to work. You didn't have to do, you don't have to do a lot of things. So there's a, a cadre of the, the population that I think is embracing not going out. Mm-hmm. But most of the people that we know and we talk about are on out at the very worst, on the fringe of that. Most of them are outside of that and do want to go back out and do, and will wanna be with other people and will wanna be, be sharing cocktails at the bar. The, the other thing we've noticed, uh, is people prefer it. Like if we're gonna have a slow night, if we close one of the rooms and. Put people closer together mm-hmm. Than if we spread everybody out over the, over the, the giant dining room. Yeah. Course people wanna together. Yeah. People wanna be in a room. People wanna be, feel the e in a, in an energetic place.

Francis: 53:55

Yeah. And tonight we're gonna have the wine tasting we're doing with you,

MJ: 53:57

which I'm

Francis: 53:58

stoked about with your wonderful wines. Yeah. Thank you. Um, that, and this is bringing new things to people.

MJ: 54:07

We gotta, we gotta ding, we gotta ding your dad, man. We dinging them all around. D ding, dinging. These are nice glasses you guys have in

Francis: 54:17

chances. Robinson Glasses,

MJ: 54:19

So tell people about what, what we are drinking here. Yeah. Tell us think. This might be one of the first in the wild. Placements of this wine. Uh, this is the, this is a new label from us. I haven't even talked about it on the show much. Uh, Enrico Valenti, that's my show. I I, you know, too, love it too busy selling other people's shit. I, um, so this is, this is our like, you know, 16, 600 was always the single vineyard wines things that we've farmed, you know, trying to focus on that sense of place. And the same sort of like weirdness of the world. 23 and 24. We had lots of extra grapes, you know, some stuff that wasn't sold and we didn't want it to hit the floor, you know, rod on the vine. So we, we brought it in. We brought in a ton of Zinfandel, a ton of Grenache, and prior to that, every vintage, uh, Isabel Gosier, we ding that one. Uh, Isabel Gosier from Domain Gosier, he was worked with my dad for, in the vineyards for a few years, is our consulting wine maker. Every time she would come and do a blending session, you know, we'd put her in the lab, she'd come out like three days later, her hair's all over the place, and, and she would present something to me that was a Grenache Zinfandel blend. And every time I'd be like, I love this, but it doesn't, I don't have a place for it. It doesn't fit in any of the, you know, sort of like, you know, 16, 600 brand. So when she did it this year, or you know, that not fit your brand, Sam, it just, well'cause we didn't, it just like, I couldn't wrap my head around it. I couldn't wrap my head around like how we're gonna sell a zin grenache blend. Um, but thank you for the ding. Yeah, there we go. You know Isabel's also hanging out with she, that project she was hanging out with Philippe right In the downstream and Philipp that I saw magma, that shit. You're talking

Francis: 56:00

to Philipp Melka.

MJ: 56:01

No. Come beat Comb beat. Come be okay. Come beat. And he did the downstream project with, um, Justin Smith. Justin Smith, Saxo, and, and, uh, Sasha Ang and, uh, he won me studio.

Mark: 56:12

Yeah. Yeah. You've been digging me all day.

MJ: 56:18

Four guys with podcasts get together in the hotel room and this, and interrupt each other the entire time. Perfect. I think it's been actually very good. Yeah, I think so too. But, um, I can't believe you said you couldn't wrap your head around, that's all. No, I just, I didn't, I couldn't figure out where I went and, uh, but in this world of like, people being afraid of buying expensive things or, and wanting to reach younger, more diverse, uh, customers, we, you know. Built this new brand, Enrico Valentine. It's my middle name, my brother's middle name. It is also ev, which is our vineyard management company, enterprise Vineyards. And it's ecological viticulture, which is what we've an electric vehicle. Electric vehicle.

Francis: 56:57

we love the wine. Thank you. And by the way, you said this is the first time around the wild. We first, uh, had this, you came to my apartment. Yeah. Showing me these one. But

MJ: 57:03

I love that experience of going to taste at your, you know, you like go up the elevator, you walk into this guy's apartment and it's like 10 in the morning. You're like, all right, what's going

Mark: 57:12

happen? And it, I don't think it, yeah, no. It's says the way Francis lives his

MJ: 57:15

life. No, it's a, it's a beautiful, beautiful flat in Jersey City.

Francis: 57:19

Yeah. Yeah. Well, the thing is just for your listeners, I, I live in Jersey City, which is in North Jersey and it mass transit connected to New York. So if someone's out in New York, it's super easy to say, Hey, swing by my, my place in the morning. Totally. You do it by mass transit. Then in the afternoon, right? It's five blocks

Mark: 57:35

from

Francis: 57:35

the Pat

Mark: 57:36

station. Yeah.

Francis: 57:37

So I'm in New Brunswick in the afternoon, which is the middle of New Jersey. So if people wanna meet with me, I give'em the option of saying, you meet me at my house in the morning or at the restaurant in the afternoon. So you came to my home. Yeah. And you poured this for me

MJ: 57:48

and been bottled for like two weeks by the, by the

Francis: 57:50

way. And I was blown away by it. I was blown away by all your wines, which is why we asked you to do this tasting. But, uh, the wine's outrageous en Rico Valentine, it's tremendous, uh, stays off wine shop.com. If you're a New Jersey, you find this wine, there is a place to buy it.

MJ: 58:04

We actually, we, and you can buy it from you. You can't buy it from me right now. Even. I gotta get this shit on the website.

Francis: 58:08

I told to stay off Turner. Catherine, the party, have dinner. Get a nice bottle at Rico Valentine. But no, but it, it really is wonderful. But you have something on your label here that I, we think is, we, we spend a lot of time in the restaurant guys talking about, and in our lives, livings. You talk about it being regenerative. Talk to us about regenerative agriculture in this won

MJ: 58:25

Well baseline is, sustainable is not right. You know, if you're calling, what you're doing is sustainable. What we're doing as a. Planet is not sustainable. Right? That's right. Sustainable now is just, it's staining downward. You're going down, down, we're going, we're going up or down. So, and this is, um, it comes from this basic philosophy that, um, if you're putting more back into the soil than you're taking out, what ends up in the bottle and in the glass is, is gonna taste better. Yeah, no, I see. And it's just, I mean, it's, it's as simple as that. And then, you know, you also realize that like as farmers. We have the power and the responsibility to farm regeneratively to, to take more carbon out of the air and put it into the ground than we're put going the other direction, which

Mark: 59:11

good farming does. Uh, you know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna plug our show just for a minute. Yes.

MJ: 59:14

We just posted, we're, we're in the plug section of that epi episode Relief,

Mark: 59:17

which we posted a show with a guy by the name of Peter Bick who did, uh, documentary called Roots So Deep about regenerative cattle farming. His, his YouTube channel is, uh, carbon Cowboys. Oh,

MJ: 59:26

yeah, I've been to a talk that he did. Super, super

Francis: 59:29

interesting guy. Well, he's talking about it with cattle farming. Yeah, you're talking about it with viticulture. And we interviewed him on our show and we're like, you know, there are, there are winemakers that do this with viticulture as well. And it's, it's, it's basically, not only is it good to take carbon out of the atmosphere, but the soil needs that carbon. Right. So it's good to put it back into the soil. It makes

MJ: 59:47

the machine you're growing better.

Mark: 59:48

Well, you're, you're actually growing top soil, which, for farming in the United States for the last 50 years. We've been pulling out of the top soil, we've been reducing the amount, blowing it

Francis: 59:58

away, washing it away.

Mark: 1:00:00

S

MJ: 1:00:00

bowl, the Central Valley has sunk like 18 inches in the last 50 years. Really?

Francis: 1:00:04

The Central Valley,

MJ: 1:00:05

central Valley, California is 18 inches lower in elevation. 18 inches of top soil let's 18. And, and also, aquifer collapsed. Oh, yeah. Peeling water out and yeah.

Mark: 1:00:14

Wow. We're doing it wrong.

MJ: 1:00:15

We're doing it wrong. We're doing it wrong. Well, most of them, some of us are doing it right. And you know, as

Mark: 1:00:21

a

MJ: 1:00:21

planet

Mark: 1:00:21

on the whole,

Francis: 1:00:22

as a planet.

Mark: 1:00:22

Yeah, exactly.

Francis: 1:00:23

Well, I want, I want to give you kudos for doing this and for putting the word regenerative on your label to kind of raise awareness about this. I think grape farmers, quality grape farmers are, are the most important, farmers in the world. Here's why. There's a lot of reasons why people, I'll go ahead and ding now. Do it real quick. Well ding. Ready? All right, so, but here's, but here's, here's what I mean. You're, you're not feeding the planet. Look, it's important to people who have vegetables and the wheat and everything. but. Grape farmers are on the cutting edge and have always been on the cutting edge of sustainable agriculture. because grape vines don't move number one, right? So your vine is there for a hundred years. So if you make choices today,

1:01:01

right,

Francis: 1:01:01

that benefit you for two or three years, but that cost you four or five years from now, you'll get the benefit, but you'll also pay the price where the soybean farmer will just go plant someplace else. Right? And the other thing is, there is no agricultural product in the world as closely examined as wine grapes, right? Nobody has. You know, banana juice that costs a hundred dollars a bottle. Nobody ages their banana juice from this different vineyard. By the way, have you have a carrot O beef? Oh, rise. So like we're gonna, but nobody, nobody a little qualitative. Uh, but, but nobody auctions banana juice or looks at how the banana juice ages over time or sees how the banana juice in this vineyard is changing relative to that vineyard and then says, wait a second. Let's, let's figure out what we're doing agriculturally wrong'cause we're gonna fuck up Napa Valley. Um, and so. It's an economic incentive. I'm not saying you guys are the most noble people in the world, but there's an economic incentive to look at more closely at fine wine viticulture than any other aspect of farming.

Mark: 1:02:02

So basically what're Francis is saying, you guys are just selfish.

Francis: 1:02:06

That's, yeah, well, but that's,

Mark: 1:02:06

We're in it for the wine. Let's, the fact he hasn't told you is Steve's left is actually an inch higher than it was when it, when we,

Francis: 1:02:15

but like this, I'm gonna, I'm gonna make a huge analogy, but like the space program. You guys figure out shit to how to make more wonderful, expensive wine that then potato farmers use. how to make their land better and not poison the soil, and not have to have farmers wear space suits when a guy's working the field of your food wearing a space suit, don't eat that food. Yeah. You know, figure something out, other way out. You're a

1:02:37

wine astronaut. I think you're, oh,

MJ: 1:02:40

I've been to space that's for sure. Longer than Ka Perry. Definitely.

Francis: 1:02:45

We're back to the marijuana. We,

MJ: 1:02:48

marijuana plus, uh, no, but I, to your point, I think that, um. What I've seen from both my dad and my uncle with Curi winery and, and then, you know, the shift to biodynamics 25 years ago and, and now into regenerative is, is wine because of its cultural prominence, because of that spotlight on it. And, and, you know, these treasured bottles has the opportunity to take these farming methods and, and put'em on a p and put a, a spotlight on'em. Yeah. So that, you know. You know, when my dad and my uncle launched Cherry Winery in 1979, nobody knew what, what organic meant. Right. And, and you know, and when the Benziger converted everything to deter certified biodynamics in 99, nobody knew what biodynamic meant. And now you can go to Walmart and buy biodynamic lettuce.

Francis: 1:03:34

Yeah. But, and, and one of the reasons is because the guy who's growing lettuce doesn't have the margin right. To be able to say, let's experiment with this other kind of agriculture. And if you're selling$20 bottle of wine or a hundred dollars bottle of wine, you're, you have the, the wherewithal to make agricultural experiments. So finds a better way the guy growing potatoes to go for a better way. The guy growing potatoes on Long Island simply doesn't have that ability. But if, if wine makers and, and, and viticulturists come up with new ways of doing things, the potato farmer, we, you know, you don't patent that thing. Farmers share their information and, and that's why I think that there's a great social utility to even expensive wine that benefits everybody.

Sam: 1:04:15

Well, I'm gonna take this moment to plug an event that we're doing in August. Yeah. Uh, Morgan Peterson and I, and, and Katie Buno and I have teamed up and we're doing a tasting in San Francisco, uh, August 17th. We're calling it Sorbet Sonoma Organic, regenerative, biodynamic educational tasting. We had to come up with something. and it is only wines from Sonoma Valley and only from vineyards that are farmed, you know, organic, regenerative or biodynamic. And what we've found in doing this, there's, there's about 13,000 acres of planted vineyard in Sonoma Valley, and I. Probably 2,500 or more acres of Sonoma Valley qualify for this tasting, putting this at like 20% of the Appalachian, which if you look across the planet, hard to press to find an Appalachian that has 20% of that kind of, you know, that that level of farming. So I'm sure he can tell you that if you understand economics, that falls right into PATOS principle 80 20. So that actually, yeah, 80 20, it actually, it actually makes sense. I'm gonna have to

Francis: 1:05:10

go back to econ one. Oh, whatever. 20% of the people doing almost all the work. Exactly. 80% of the people, you know? Yep. Totally. Yep. That totally tracks the, the totally tracks.

MJ: 1:05:20

But, and, and the point is so that we can.

Francis: 1:05:22

This gonna be lectures, this gonna be discussion. This is just,

Sam: 1:05:24

just walk around tasting first, you know, first time out of the gate. You know, the goal is to, to bro it and no, no, PA I I and I love a panel, you know, I love a panel. I love talk on a panel, moderate a panel. I love a panel. I push, you can't take 45 minutes panel. I push for panel, moderate it. I push for a panel. You know, you got, you got M-T-P-M-W there. You, you defer When, when he says defer. Love you Morgan. Uh, hey Morgan. I've known Morgan since I was Morgan. And, and I and, uh, dinging David and Joel bring back Ravenswood. So much good stuff. I mean, how did, I mean, how do you guys feel about that? I mean, Ravenswood was the shit in the nineties, right? Okay.

Francis: 1:06:02

I gotta tell you. Couldn't gut, I gotta tell you a story about Ravenswood. I was, Kevin Zare was my mentor in, in the wine world.

1:06:11

That's

MJ: 1:06:11

just obviously gotta break shit. But I mean, because it,

Francis: 1:06:13

so

MJ: 1:06:14

we're all here because it's Kevin's rally

Francis: 1:06:15

pretty. We're all right. Exactly. He, so Kevin was selling master at Windows in the World. I was working at a restaurant called The Frying Peach, where he eventually worked, worked for the last three years before 19 seven. I took this class with a mutual friend of ours, a guy named Scott for our big shout out to Scott in South Carolina. Um, he was the manager of the place and he said, you gotta take Kevin's Israeli's course if you wanna learn about wine. And I'm, you know, it's a new field then the, the, the world of wine was one third as big as it is today. And, uh, I took Kevin's class and I went up to him in my one suit and I was like, oh, Fred to Scott Aurora then Whoa, whoa, whoa. And I was 24, 23, 24 years old. Yeah, probably 23 years. And, uh, Kevin was like, oh, well you're a Fred of Scott's, you must be an asshole. You, it was, it was, we were friends immediately. Right. And so he would always call me a class of 300 people at Windows in the world. And I spoke to him after every class and I said, well, and he, he took me under his wing and he, um. He, where we, where did I start with this discussion? Where did I come from with this? Where were we? Raymond. Oh, Ravenwood. Yeah. So Kevin sent me with letters of introduction to California. He said, you gotta go there now. If you wanna learn about one, you gotta go. And then I eventually did the same thing in Europe, but I go to California and I've got, uh, uh, uh, introduction to,

MJ: 1:07:31

and this is not J seven, there's no email. No.

Francis: 1:07:33

Right. There's no email. There's fax

MJ: 1:07:34

receipts, but they're expensive. Yeah. Right. So he, he's got a letter.

Francis: 1:07:38

So he, so he goes and he sends, he sends Peter to Ravenswood and it's, it's a small wire. Back then it was before they sold, it was time. And they're, was

MJ: 1:07:46

it up on Rey though, or Yeah.

Francis: 1:07:47

Yeah. And it get the bend in the road. And then, and so I go in and I go in and I, I, I meet Joel and, and he's like, oh, you're a friend of Kevin's. Okay, whatever. And he is, and he doesn't stop for a moment. He is working in the winery or whatever, and he says, um, you wanna punch down the cap? And I'm like, hu down. I'm like, sure. He is like, okay. So you go up and I'm on top of this open, top thing, right? Like redwood fermentor, open wood, top wood fermentor, open top wood fermentor. And he's like, here's the ladder. I'm like, ladder, okay, ladder, right. I go open the ladder. He's like, now crawl out on the, between these two planks, he hast crawl and he is got, he gives me two by four and he's like, so you punch down in the cap and I'm punched. So the cap is the crest that forms on the top of the, of the winery and you basically punch it down to break it so it doesn't form. No, no. They may not. I'm

1:08:32

telling.

Francis: 1:08:34

Yeah, we appreciate that. So, so going. I figure that, you know, but that be, I mean this big open top wood fermentor and I got a two way four and I'm punching down the cap and um, I'm sure he doesn't remember. I saw him years later, remember? And I'm punching down the cap and he says, um. So a crust of the, uh, skins and soft forms on the top that if you leave it, it'll form a hard crust and then it will seal in all the heat and all the CO2 and ruin the wine. So you gotta punch it down and break it up and macerate that stuff back in. I, I punch it down and he says. Francis, he's known me for 15 minutes. He's like, just be careful up there because you know, the number one source of fatalities in wineries is when people are overwhelmed by CO2 when they're punching down the tap. So if you begin to feel lightheaded, let me know. I'm like, okay.

MJ: 1:09:23

I was laid that about, I got here.

Francis: 1:09:26

Anyway, that was a formative. I didn't know it was so dangerous to make wine, but it was, uh, no. We've

MJ: 1:09:31

mixed many of those, uh, dangers. Yeah. Fred Plunged in the last 40 years. Not all of them, but with some of them.

Mark: 1:09:38

About a minute later, Francis is like, I'm done. Where's

1:09:41

the tasting wine part that's you came for? That was amazing.

MJ: 1:09:45

shout out to Joel. Shout out. Shout out to Joel. Um, we're, it's like 5 55, I remember which time. Yeah. We gotta go do a, we do wine take. So, um, let's do some quick wrap up real quick. I'll ask both of you, what are you most excited about for the future?

1:10:02

Wow. Jet packs.

MJ: 1:10:05

We should have had those sins already. Man.

Francis: 1:10:09

Oh, you go first, mark. I did. He wants jet packs. Jet pack.

MJ: 1:10:12

Fair enough.

Francis: 1:10:13

I don't know. I, I'm excited for when the dust settles. I really am. You know, we, we've been around for almost 33 years. Another two months will be 33 years. Uh, the crash of oh eight, uh, September 11th. COVID and, um, those are things we built the thanks and we have 225 seat restaurants, but we're part of this community and there's huge shoutouts in New Brunswick and New Brunswick's, kind of the downtown of all the surrounding towns as well. Uh. It's, it's a little rough right now, but we're here and, and our friends still come to the restaurant. We're still an important part of people's lives. And, uh, I'm looking forward to everybody, to, to us getting to a point where it's a little calm again and people have less stress. But you know what we're here for when you have stress. We're here for when you don't our stress. I'm, I'm looking forward to continuing to see the rise of New Brunswick and the restaurants that we at. Oh, and the restaurant guys. I'm, I'm, we're super excited at the how quickly the restaurant guys are, are growing, and that's amazing to

Mark: 1:11:15

us. So, so real answer to your question, uh, I don't spend a ton of time thinking about. When will my life be great again?

1:11:26

Okay. That was great. Yeah,

Mark: 1:11:27

I'm, I'm super fortunate guy. He's a super fortunate guy. I do a job that I love. I go to work every day in a, in a place that I love. We, I just did the math'cause like it's already told your stats major. We have each spent over a hundred thousand hours in that building across the street.

MJ: 1:11:43

Wow.

Mark: 1:11:44

I still love going to work every day. I still, when I'm driving to work, I'm thinking about, oh, I'm gonna, what am I doing today? What fun thing is on my and because that's our spot, right? When we're planning wine tastings and things like that, we plan things to be honest, that are fun for us. Yeah. Right. the mind space is. It's something we want to do. It's something they'll want to do. Yeah. And so that's, so that's the beginning of it. But listen, I could have, he could have made more money. We could have owned 25 restaurants around the state or around the country. I love being in my space. Yeah. Knowing the names of 80% of the people who walk in the door, introducing new people to what we do and how we do it. I love it. It's, I have a great life. I don't need to look forward. I get to enjoy what I'm doing right now.

Francis: 1:12:37

Well, and to be honest, we, we get to be in so many different communities. You

Mark: 1:12:40

know what? I'm looking forward to having the last word Never gonna, sometimes

Francis: 1:12:44

never gonna happen. What was it? You called me that one time. Is it Yon? Is that what you on? That's, I'm a

1:12:53

That's Italian. I know,

Francis: 1:12:56

but honestly, I just wanna, I'm wanna filter this back on you guys. We, the podcast is really important to us. Yeah. We want to have it be successful. We love that we're on stage in front of hundreds of people on the pay to come see us and, and how the two, the businesses interact. But honestly. We get to have conversations like this with people like you. And this is your podcast and thanks for having us on it. And, but because of the restaurant business, we got to meet you because of time. We get to do this together because we got invited on your podcast. This is awesome. This is our life. This is the life we were meant to. I And food people are fun. Yeah, we're fun.

MJ: 1:13:28

Yeah. Yeah. I've, I've been saying this thing lately since, um, we were at the DTC conference. Yep. And, and it occurred to be, you know, d TC is obviously our business as much as we love doing wholesale and working with dtc director, director, consumer. Oh

1:13:41

yeah. Which is, you know, I'm against that. Yeah, of course. Okay. And, and just, just in Thank you, Tony.

MJ: 1:13:47

But it, it's occurred to me lately, and I think this is the business that you guys are in too. It's not direct to consumer. It's direct to community. Yeah. And, and being a part of something that helps. Build a community and is a part of the community like, like your restaurants are, and, and like the podcast is that, and there becomes a community that's, that's nationwide and, and global. Um, so that's, that's, if I'm thinking about it, it's, it's how we continue to, to do that, you know, DT to community.

Francis: 1:14:14

I think that's a great thing nationwide. And I think you also, and I know you are supporting us in getting to consumers as well, and, and we talk about this a lot with people like George Henry and all these other folks that we deal with.

MJ: 1:14:26

I know George Henry on a sweet tip,

Francis: 1:14:28

but what, what do we bring as retailers and restaurateurs to, we have George Henry come in for dinner, we have you come in for dinner. Obviously what I want, I don't wanna do this dinner, so people buy direct from you for the next 10 years. I wanna introduce people to you. So they buy through me. And what generally winds up happening is we, I. Are able to deliver something without it being sent in the mail that are for basically the same prices that they bought from you. Right? So when you have somebody like us in, in the community, that's an advocate, I just wanna be part of that community. I wanna add to that community. And I think that, you know, when you're in the middle of Minnesota and there's nobody around you that can represent your wines, you don't have the benefit of us. But I hope that we have a value add to the people who wanna buy wines directly from you if they're in New Jersey, you know, if they're around us. it all can work together. It's,

MJ: 1:15:18

it's definitely a, a symbiotic thing. A hundred percent. Yeah. You know, that's why, you know, we could, we could survive only doing DTC. Right? But it's not as, it's not as. Exciting. It's not as fun. Sure. It's not as interesting to, you know, you get out here and come and I'm so, and meet new people and you're deadheads you need people. Right. We need people. And, but that's the, the original DTC band. Yeah. Right. It was, it was direct to the community. It was, it was not about, it was not about, selling records and it was about getting the people together. Um, so anytime that I can do, that's what, you know, I love to come out and do a tasting like that anytime you get the community together. Yep. Great. Um, you're doing the job. Yeah. So we've been doing some plugs, but guys, one more time before we go. Tell people where they can find you, how they can be a part of what you're doing.

Francis: 1:16:00

Restaurants in New Brunswick, New Jersey. If you're gonna be in town, stage left.com or Catherine Lombardi with a c.com, the podcast. Please check us out at restaurant guys podcast.com. You can find us at any pod catch or thereabouts. Come, come visit us anytime. Ask for Mark and Francis. We're really on the floor of our restaurants most nights, and if we're. Not on the floor. We might be in the other restaurant or down the office or in the shop, but we're usually around. And if you've heard of us from this podcast, we'd actually love to speak to you in person.

MJ: 1:16:27

Sam, what do you wanna say? I, I wanna give Mark the last word and have that great intro that he said before we started recording the, the restaurant guys intro as the closer for this. Okay. So then I'll do drama, do my thing to Mark. So for all the listeners, make sure you check out the show notes for this episode. I'll put links to their podcast and links to 16 600 and links to, the winemakers pod as I always do. But we're gonna let this one in with some real podcasters. Oh, not some amateurs go, geez. He gonna mark bring his home.

Mark: 1:16:55

Gotcha. He got

MJ: 1:16:55

his own mic.

Mark: 1:16:56

Well, hello everybody and thank you. We are the restaurant guys. I'm Mark Pascal, and this is Francis Shot. together we own Stage Left and Capital Lombardi restaurants in New Brunswick, New Jersey. We're here to bring you the inside track on food, wine, and the finer things in life.

1:17:12

That's great. We're up. That we're out.