From Food Truck To Food Network: A Veteran On The Battlefield Of War, Life & Business I AO 17 Artwork

American Operator

Hosted by Joseph Cabrera, American Operator dives into the world of business ownership through conversations with entrepreneurs, operators, and leaders who have built and sustained successful businesses. This podcast offers real talk on the challenges, rewards, and lessons learned from the frontlines of entrepreneurship. Whether you're considering buying a business, running one, or looking for inspiration, you'll find valuable insights and advice here. We're unapologetically pro-American and pro small business, celebrating the people who keep our communities thriving. Join us to learn, grow and take control of your entrepreneurial journey.

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American Operator

From Food Truck To Food Network: A Veteran On The Battlefield Of War, Life & Business I AO 17

May 15, 2025 • Joseph Cabrera

What does it really take to build a business in the trenches — one plate at a time?

In this episode of American Operator, JC sits down with Robert Strong, Iraq veteran, chef and founder of Pretty Thai in Austin, TX. From late nights in a food truck to scaling a sauce brand through big name retailers, Robert breaks down the grit, risk, and resilience behind building something through his grief.

This isn't just another founder story. Robert shares the personal trials his family endured that kept them from being able to enjoy the success (at first) and how that launched his drive to create the Palmer Strong Foundation. He now focuses on making a difference for families in their most desperate times.

You’ll hear:
→ Why “don’t do it” might be the best advice for entrepreneurs
→ What most people misunderstand about the food business
→ The difference between being a great cook and being a great operator
→ How culture, authenticity, and obsession with quality helped Pretty Thai grow

Whether you’re dreaming of your first storefront or in the thick of scaling, this episode is for the ones doing the work.

🎧 Hit play. Get inspired. Keep building.

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Follow us onInstagram: @TheAmericanOperator 📸

Follow Joseph Cabrera on LinkedIn 🔗

Subscribe to AO's Newsletter 🗞️

Find BTS with more Owners on Youtube 🎥

Follow us on Instagram: @TheAmericanOperator 📸

Follow Joseph Cabrera on LinkedIn 🔗

00:00:00:00 - 00:00:08:01
Speaker 2
what's your advice when you want to talk to, people want to do their own business. I'm like, don't do it. That's my first advice. I'm like, if you really thought about it,

00:00:08:01 - 00:00:10:08
Speaker 3
You don't feel it. It's helpful if you're just like, oh.

00:00:10:08 - 00:00:11:20
Speaker 1
Yeah, anybody can do this.

00:00:11:20 - 00:00:12:21
Speaker 2
Yeah. No, not at all. No.

00:00:12:21 - 00:00:13:19
Speaker 1
You're like, I'm somebody who.

00:00:13:20 - 00:00:15:08
Speaker 3
I'm going to do this and I'm going to give.

00:00:15:08 - 00:00:18:17
Speaker 2
You the I'm going to go up here. I'm going to play devil's advocate with that.

00:00:18:17 - 00:00:28:02
Speaker 1
Hard work. Real talk. No shortcuts. I'm Joseph Cabrera. This is American operator.

00:00:28:02 - 00:00:49:08
Speaker 1
All right, team, welcome back. I'm here with Robert Strong. Pretty tie founder guy. Kind of runs the day to day head chef. All the things that come in. I think it's really cool to have someone on the show today that, not only is a different kind of business, and we've talked to him before where you have, if you're watching it right now, you see the ingredients here.

00:00:49:10 - 00:01:03:14
Speaker 1
We'll talk about the sauces and kind of the product, so to speak, but also veteran. So I think we're going to dive into some of those things that maybe were unique tools or experiences. And maybe you leverage every day here. But good to have you and brother.

00:01:03:17 - 00:01:05:12
Speaker 2
Well I appreciate it. Good to be here.

00:01:05:15 - 00:01:17:04
Speaker 1
Yeah. Well hey, let's do this. Let's start off with like, a little bit of, like who Robert was before. I mean, talk about, like, where you grew up. And then why did you decide to join the service?

00:01:17:06 - 00:01:33:17
Speaker 2
Yeah. So I grew up in a very small I joke around a lot. I was actually in the kitchen yesterday, and I brought in a woman. She was a temp to help me fill, and she like, where are you from? She's like, I'm from Cuba. I was like, me too. I'm from Cuba. Also. She's like, can is we're inside.

00:01:33:17 - 00:01:48:15
Speaker 2
I look, we talk. And I was like, this is actually my my pickup line in college. This is what I would do. I would say, I'm from where are you from? Right. Whenever they ask what you majoring where you from? Let's say Cuban New York. Nice question. I'm sorry I messed it up. I would say Cuba and they would say no, you're not.

00:01:48:19 - 00:01:53:01
Speaker 2
And I was like, yeah, I am. And they show my license Cuban New York.

00:01:53:01 - 00:01:53:15
Speaker 3
Yeah.

00:01:53:16 - 00:01:54:20
Speaker 2
I mean those are given New York.

00:01:54:20 - 00:01:55:13
Speaker 3
Is where it is.

00:01:55:15 - 00:02:01:19
Speaker 2
It's about I use Buffalo as a reference point. It's about an hour and 15 minutes southwest of Buffalo.

00:02:01:19 - 00:02:02:09
Speaker 3
Oh, okay.

00:02:02:14 - 00:02:06:04
Speaker 2
So that's the big night. And then about hour and a half from Rochester, an hour and a half from Niagara.

00:02:06:04 - 00:02:09:12
Speaker 3
Falls is a good place. Grow it.

00:02:09:14 - 00:02:30:10
Speaker 2
Yes and no. I mean, it was small, quiet, you know, no trouble, no crime. I couldn't wait to get out of there. I don't think there was a ton of opportunity in that area. I think it's, fact checked me on this, but I know in the past, you know, Allegheny County is one of the poorest counties in all the state of New York.

00:02:30:12 - 00:02:32:04
Speaker 3
Oh, really? Yeah.

00:02:32:05 - 00:02:36:01
Speaker 1
So what do people do there for a living? Like boat? Like, what do you folks do instead?

00:02:36:02 - 00:02:55:20
Speaker 2
Yeah, I mean, a lot of small. It means small. But my mom was a small town waitress in our small town diner. That's where I was really first introduced to food. Yeah. I mean, my entire life, she grew up waiting tables and cooking in the back when my town's, like, 2000 people. So the cheese factory was one of the big businesses in our town.

00:02:55:20 - 00:02:56:06
Speaker 2
There's a lot of.

00:02:56:06 - 00:02:57:21
Speaker 1
Farms, like the restaurant cheese or.

00:02:57:21 - 00:02:59:04
Speaker 3
Like, no, she's.

00:02:59:06 - 00:03:16:18
Speaker 2
Cheese factory, Great Lakes. We used to produce a lot different cheese. Yeah, but. And I worked there for the first two years of college. When I came back home for the summer, I'd worked through the cheese factory. But, yeah, just a lot of small town, small business stuff, which I didn't really ever think about. I never thought about being an entrepreneur growing up.

00:03:16:19 - 00:03:30:03
Speaker 2
And we know that was the. Yeah, no, new York is where I grew up and got out of there. I can say I graduated year early from high school. I doubled up my last year and graduated year early to get out.

00:03:30:03 - 00:03:31:22
Speaker 3
Why do you do that?

00:03:32:00 - 00:03:35:15
Speaker 2
Well, honestly, I was actually held back when I was younger. When I was in kindergarten, I was really quiet.

00:03:35:18 - 00:03:36:11
Speaker 3
Trying to catch up.

00:03:36:14 - 00:03:38:20
Speaker 2
I so I failed kindergarten.

00:03:38:22 - 00:03:42:01
Speaker 3
So I'm like, no, you're good. It just sounds ridiculous.

00:03:42:01 - 00:03:44:17
Speaker 2
I failed kindergarten five what subject?

00:03:44:18 - 00:03:45:15
Speaker 3
There's not even subjects.

00:03:45:20 - 00:04:04:03
Speaker 2
Kindergarten. Just being a kid, I think. I don't know, no. I was really quiet and so I failed kindergarten, so I was put into prefer. So I was basically year behind. So I grew up my entire life with one group of people even know where everyone knows everybody in this town is really small. Yeah, but I don't know.

00:04:04:03 - 00:04:08:19
Speaker 2
I just got into my going into my junior year, I was like, I just, I need to get out of here.

00:04:08:21 - 00:04:09:03
Speaker 3
Well, let.

00:04:09:03 - 00:04:16:21
Speaker 1
Me give you some street cred, man. It's better to, like, go through it and fail it. There's some parents that'll fail their kid before getting in kindergarten. They're like, we're just going to hold you back.

00:04:16:23 - 00:04:17:07
Speaker 3
No.

00:04:17:07 - 00:04:37:15
Speaker 2
In in this last year, because of the experience I had this last year when my my oldest now she's in first grade, but she was in kindergarten and again similar things. And they're like, maybe we should hold her back. I was like, no, we're not holding her back at school. She's a kid. Like let her develop. And we just she's doing great in first grade.

00:04:37:15 - 00:04:38:01
Speaker 3
She's.

00:04:38:01 - 00:04:51:06
Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah. So it's, you know, just growing up being, you know, learning the ways of the world. But yeah. No. So I ended up saying let's get out of here. And I ended up going to Ithaca College in New York.

00:04:51:08 - 00:04:52:01
Speaker 3
I think again.

00:04:52:02 - 00:05:14:00
Speaker 2
In Central New York. Yeah. So just two hours away from home, but far enough that I couldn't go back all the time. And yeah, just, you know, for years and I think I studied history and politics, it's going to be a social studies education major and, you know, great, great experience there. I loved it, had great professors, really great history professors.

00:05:14:00 - 00:05:33:06
Speaker 2
And I was a member. I was going into a New York City as a program we did with the inner city school in Harlem, where we would go in and teach, Frederick Douglass Academy. And I'd come out there like, oh my God, this is amazing. I do want, I want to do this. And then I go back and I do like a program with my school in Ithaca with some high schoolers.

00:05:33:08 - 00:05:57:05
Speaker 2
And I was like, I cannot do this. I can't teach these kids. They don't want to. I don't want to learn. I don't have the patience for this. I just realized it right away. I don't have the patience for this. So it was it was, you know, I was 99 to 2003 is when I was in college. So of course, 911 and I remember exactly where I was sitting on my pleather couch in my apartment in Ithaca and eating cereal.

00:05:57:07 - 00:05:59:09
Speaker 1
Innumerable canisters.

00:05:59:11 - 00:06:03:04
Speaker 2
I don't remember any kind of zero. I think you're going to ask me that. I don't remember the kind of cereal.

00:06:03:04 - 00:06:03:12
Speaker 3
What kind it.

00:06:03:12 - 00:06:06:17
Speaker 1
Was, and what were you like for sure? It was not this kind of cereal.

00:06:06:19 - 00:06:14:00
Speaker 2
Oh, man. Those probably wasn't like, Chex or something like that. Yeah, it wasn't Cheerios, heart healthy or anything like that.

00:06:14:00 - 00:06:17:16
Speaker 3
Oh, was it was the good. It was like, yeah, go, sugar. Yeah.

00:06:17:20 - 00:06:35:06
Speaker 2
Something like that. But I remember looking at the TV and seeing what was happening with the towers, you know, I thought it was. I started changing channels. I'm like, this is like some weird movie. And I kept seeing it, and I was like, what is going on? And of course, we're 3.5 hours in New York City.

00:06:35:08 - 00:06:53:05
Speaker 2
So I go to campus and everybody's freaking out because so many people, they go to the school, have family. They are in the towers that work in New York City. The girlfriend at the time, and I was the girl. I was dating her. She had family that were in the city. A lot of people we knew had family there.

00:06:53:07 - 00:07:26:15
Speaker 2
And I didn't lose anybody specifically myself, and just something like flipped. And I was like, you take for granted what you have here in this country. I think so often people do. And I still see this today. And for me, something just flipped and I was like, wow, military. Like, you know, it just kind of was there. And I remember being on the elevator the next day and this kid that I was in classes with, he's like, I just joined ROTC at Cornell, and I was already too far along, and I think I want to try to do it, and I was too far along to do it.

00:07:26:15 - 00:07:50:07
Speaker 2
So like, well, I can't do that so. Well, let me try to go, you know, officer, I want to go Air Force. And they weren't accepting. They weren't let anybody in at all. And I'm like, well, I really want to do this. So I ended up graduating in May have oh three, stayed home for a few months, and I said, okay, I'm just going to pack my Jeep up and I'm going to drive to Daytona Beach, Florida.

00:07:50:09 - 00:07:54:03
Speaker 2
I'm going to wait tables and bartend, and I'm just going to do that.

00:07:54:05 - 00:07:58:12
Speaker 3
And that lasted for four months. But just to kind of reset, just reset and just. Yeah.

00:07:58:12 - 00:08:14:12
Speaker 2
And I was going to be like student teach. And some of them were getting calls for student teaching like third graders. I'm like, I'm not doing that. I'm not going to go in third, you know, do that with third graders. And I was gonna teach high school not doing that. And, you know, it came to a point where I'm like, I'm about to go broke.

00:08:14:16 - 00:08:27:06
Speaker 2
Like I'm not making any money. I'm going to be in debt because I was still paying off some loans from college. So I walked into the recruiter's office in Daytona Beach, Florida, and said, I want to be James Bond.

00:08:27:07 - 00:08:28:11
Speaker 3
He said, yeah.

00:08:28:13 - 00:08:38:18
Speaker 2
And he's like, okay, well, let's let's get you signed up and take this test first. And I was like, okay, so I took the Asvab and I scored somewhere in like the mid 90s. Overall I didn't really.

00:08:38:18 - 00:08:39:22
Speaker 3
Well yeah that's a good score.

00:08:39:23 - 00:08:56:01
Speaker 2
Yeah. And I put down all my jobs were all Intel. And then EOD was like the last job. And you put it in there and he's like, well you can get whatever job anywhere you want. You know, I was like, okay. So I picked, 1 in 4, which was a signals intelligence analyst.

00:08:56:02 - 00:08:57:06
Speaker 3
Okay.

00:08:57:08 - 00:08:58:21
Speaker 2
Didn't know anything else and just knew why.

00:08:58:21 - 00:09:01:05
Speaker 3
He was that sounded good or I guess. Yeah, yeah.

00:09:01:08 - 00:09:03:23
Speaker 2
Yeah, it was just signals intelligence or signals intelligence.

00:09:03:23 - 00:09:05:05
Speaker 3
Sounds great. Yeah.

00:09:05:07 - 00:09:09:13
Speaker 2
So I end up going back through maps in Buffalo.

00:09:09:15 - 00:09:10:21
Speaker 3
This is like before you can.

00:09:11:01 - 00:09:22:19
Speaker 1
I was just in my my man. I just thinking like this is like before the days where you could just like Google something, right? You like, you aren't going to like let me put my phone out and see if this job actually is cool or not. Yeah, you're not doing that. You're like, it feels right.

00:09:22:20 - 00:09:26:21
Speaker 2
Yeah, cause cell phones existed, but I still didn't have a cell phone. And back then cell phones. You couldn't do that.

00:09:26:21 - 00:09:28:00
Speaker 3
Yeah. So.

00:09:28:01 - 00:09:48:19
Speaker 2
Yeah. So I went through maps, got in, did the basic training thing. And then that's where you find out, you know, well, you find out where you're going for your tech school, which was in San Angelo, Goodfellow Air Force Base. And then from there you put it in and then you pick your duty stations or your dream list, and then you get your dream list and you get whatever you get there.

00:09:48:19 - 00:09:59:18
Speaker 2
Like, this is what you get. Well, he has some pretty cool options for my career field, but the number one option I put in was Hawaii. I was like, I want to go to Hawaii and I got Hawaii.

00:09:59:18 - 00:10:00:07
Speaker 3
Oh you did?

00:10:00:07 - 00:10:02:17
Speaker 2
Yes, I got Hawaii. It was awesome.

00:10:02:19 - 00:10:06:05
Speaker 1
The Air Force at Hawaii, like, this is good job.

00:10:06:07 - 00:10:07:14
Speaker 3
Yeah. Well.

00:10:07:16 - 00:10:32:10
Speaker 2
Yeah, I mean, it was so I enjoyed my time. Active duty, Air Force, like, I really do. Like I would do it again. I would say anybody who's thinking about joining the military in general, the Air Force, I would definitely recommend it. Like, it can really take you to the next level. Well, saying that my my job, I didn't enjoy my job when I was in the Air Force and probably because I had a really terrible E-7, master sergeant.

00:10:32:10 - 00:10:47:10
Speaker 2
I mean, there was just some horrendous things that he would say and do to all of us. I remember just walking up, I could be were working on the ground and it was a quarter mile tunnel. You had to walk up. If you know the movie Snowden, that's where he worked after me. I was there before him.

00:10:47:10 - 00:10:48:11
Speaker 3
Okay.

00:10:48:13 - 00:10:54:00
Speaker 2
So all of that Hollywood stuff was made up. There wasn't a lot of stuff in there unless they changed it. But I don't think that was the case.

00:10:54:00 - 00:10:54:19
Speaker 3
Like, man, I remember.

00:10:55:00 - 00:11:01:12
Speaker 2
Yeah, I remember I lived there for three years. I was walking up the tunnel. I remember just seeing his truck. And I would just.

00:11:01:14 - 00:11:03:22
Speaker 3
Just like squeeze and tighten.

00:11:03:22 - 00:11:29:05
Speaker 2
And I was like, God, but I was excelling. I was getting, early, early promotion below the zone cone and, you know, pinning on E4 six months early. And then I tested for Staff Sergeant E-5 and the whole goal was to go, officer. So I was just going to go over to OTS and I got E-5 within two and a half years, I this thing was graduate school, this distinguished graduate union leadership school nominated for leadership.

00:11:29:05 - 00:11:35:03
Speaker 2
I'm like, I'm excelling. This guy didn't care. And he would just treat you like crap

00:11:35:03 - 00:11:37:13
Speaker 3
this is just not a good view.

00:11:37:13 - 00:11:55:00
Speaker 2
Try to ask to go to the bathroom. He'd sit there and make you wait for five minutes to stand there and embarrass you. I mean, the things he would do is not. So I'm like, tell the Air Force I'm like, hey, I'm excelling. I want to get a job as a as an instructor at Goodfellow. Well, you don't give their ultimatums like we'll give you that job or not.

00:11:55:00 - 00:12:10:00
Speaker 2
I'm like, well, then I've got a job offer making three times. What I was going to make if I was going to be teaching, was what I thought I was gonna be doing when I was going to college, using my top secret security clearance. And they're like, well, we can't guarantee you instructor job. I said, well, then I'm going to be getting out.

00:12:10:02 - 00:12:36:13
Speaker 2
So I did four years active duty, and then I took a job working for the National Ground Intelligence Center in Charlottesville, Virginia. He was working for the, counter ID targeting program. And basically, you know, I found out really quickly our job was basically we were embedded, you know, Iraq and Afghanistan. I went to Iraq. And the first three months that I was there, I was supposed to go like in 6 or 9 months, but there was a emergency with the guy that I was replacing.

00:12:36:13 - 00:12:42:08
Speaker 2
He had to come home early. So in the first three months they're like, Robert, you're going to Fallujah. You're going in working with the Marines. I was like.

00:12:42:09 - 00:12:45:12
Speaker 3
Okay, put me. Did you go over there at.

00:12:45:12 - 00:12:47:00
Speaker 1
All while you were in?

00:12:47:02 - 00:12:48:17
Speaker 2
No, not active duty? No. That's the thing is.

00:12:48:20 - 00:12:49:10
Speaker 3
Like, who.

00:12:49:16 - 00:13:09:09
Speaker 2
Has your security clearance? I wanted to go over there. Sure. Really did I want to go over and support and do the real Intel, and they're like, well, if you go over because you're considered for deployed in Hawaii. So if you go over there, all you can do is go basically follow around third party nationals when they're cleaning porta johns, that'll be your job.

00:13:09:11 - 00:13:16:00
Speaker 2
And I'm like, I'm not going to Iraq to follow around 30 party nationals who are cleaning the toilets. Like I'm not doing that.

00:13:17:02 - 00:13:19:16
Speaker 2
So I had to get out to deploy.

00:13:19:18 - 00:13:23:04
Speaker 3
But so seems like I mean you still made it. You still made it there. Yeah.

00:13:23:06 - 00:13:42:14
Speaker 2
Yeah. No. So yeah within the first three months so zero eight went to Fallujah. I mean it's funny, first time I ever had a, ear infection. I fly in, we get into Kuwait, stay in Kuwait, take the flight into Baghdad, buy up first, first ten minutes. I'm there, about to go to the defect, and we get bombed.

00:13:42:14 - 00:13:53:12
Speaker 2
I'm in Saddam's palace. We get hit with a mortar, the defect got hit and the whole house is shaking. And I'm like, what was that like? That's just a mortar attack. The defect were where we were just going there. Like, yeah, yeah. I'm like.

00:13:53:14 - 00:14:00:02
Speaker 3
Cool, welcome to Iraq. Any memories today, boys? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:14:00:02 - 00:14:12:10
Speaker 2
So we get in a in the only way to really get the flu shot at that point was to get on helo. So I get out of 22 Osprey Marines, and they fly me in at night. You know, I'm flying in the daytime, you know, too much risk.

00:14:12:11 - 00:14:12:20
Speaker 3
Yeah.

00:14:12:20 - 00:14:28:23
Speaker 2
So I get in and I'm like, oh, my ears. I thought they my ears just popped from the flight. It wasn't. I get in and it turns out I had an ear infection. So the first day I'm in the infirmary, but so I walk into my job the first time, and the guy that I was replacing was a big jokester.

00:14:29:04 - 00:14:43:16
Speaker 2
He'd been telling me for the first two weeks, like, hey, they got this. I think I got a death here where they basically do fight and I got you signed up. So you're on the list. And I was like, okay, Brian. Cool. I walk in and he's like, come in, let me show you the Octagon and you walk out.

00:14:43:16 - 00:14:53:22
Speaker 2
It's just a bunch of sandbags outside in the sand. And he's like, cool. You see? You're in the list. You're like, you're up here in like an hour. I was like, know, I'm starting to like, get a little scared. I'm like, dude.

00:14:54:03 - 00:14:55:12
Speaker 3
I'm just here for this kid.

00:14:55:14 - 00:15:07:17
Speaker 2
You got me in the Marines out here, and I'm watching him fight and he thinks I'm about to go in. I'm like, he's like, oh, I'm just fucking with you, man. I was like, dude, seriously. But that was my introduction to to Fallujah.

00:15:07:19 - 00:15:09:06
Speaker 3
How long you stay over there?

00:15:09:08 - 00:15:33:08
Speaker 2
The first deployment was nine months. We we closed down Camp Fallujah away, pushed out to our side, and then I went back stateside for about a year, year and a half. And then my second deployment was in ten, 11. That was a year. And that was with the Navy Seals, teams three and five. So I did same area camp Fallujah, but it was camp by area because Fallujah confusion was controlled by the Iraqis at that point.

00:15:33:10 - 00:15:43:22
Speaker 2
And I was just I was the lead targeting analyst for the Navy Seals. And I was at that point, I was a subject matter expert for the whole Fallujah Bell, because I've been studying. Yeah, for the last three years.

00:15:44:03 - 00:15:52:12
Speaker 1
I mean, give people some insight, like, what is that job? I know what that job is. But like, if you were going to describe to somebody in civilian life.

00:15:52:12 - 00:16:21:04
Speaker 2
Yeah. So again, the kind of targeting program, you know, the initial requirement was that you're supposed to basically determine who the bad guys were and who were putting out these roadside bombs that were killing American allied forces, you know, and but it became more than that. It was it was any kind of terrorist or insurgent activity going on within, you know, that region, Al Anbar province, specifically the Fallujah belt.

00:16:21:06 - 00:16:47:15
Speaker 2
Just, what east of it, karma, you know, Abu Ghraib, it goes into Baghdad and then west, controlling that area and determining who the bad operators were. And I would be the one to do that. And then we put together reports and not so much for the first deployment with the Marines, but the second deployment with the Seals, I was their lead civilian targeted analyst, and I was the one that had the most information about the whole area.

00:16:47:15 - 00:17:01:19
Speaker 2
So they were the they lean on me the most. So I knew all the players. So if anything popped up, I'm like, you need to get this guy. Yeah. And I put that report. They go at nighttime and they would they really did not hear you guys in there. Yeah. They would knock down the door.

00:17:01:22 - 00:17:02:21
Speaker 1
It's amazing. Yes.

00:17:02:21 - 00:17:04:02
Speaker 3
Yeah yeah.

00:17:04:04 - 00:17:30:17
Speaker 1
Yeah. I mean, it's, it's a job that I think a lot of folks, in who are unaware super important, putting these packages together. You're really putting this puzzle together in order for, the guys who operate in the evening to kind of go do their work, but without all that background and understanding where folks live and their signatures and all that other kind of stuff, you really just kind of pull in a needle in a haystack.

00:17:30:17 - 00:17:34:13
Speaker 1
So it's quite a bit of work to be able to target those folks in the right way.

00:17:34:15 - 00:17:57:06
Speaker 2
Yeah. And and of course, I came in from a signals analyst standpoint. And then I did mostly comment human, and it was really cool because I didn't have any interrogation training. But my second deployment with the Seals, one of the operators came in and he's like, listen, you know, everything about these people. You know everybody. He's like, well, you come in and work with me and help.

00:17:57:08 - 00:17:59:16
Speaker 2
So he started letting me come in and actually help interrogate.

00:17:59:21 - 00:18:00:09
Speaker 3
Yeah.

00:18:00:10 - 00:18:03:03
Speaker 2
And that that was like, that's that was fun.

00:18:03:05 - 00:18:10:17
Speaker 1
Was something in the movies they get wrong and with something that you're like, they get right to the extent you can talk about it.

00:18:10:19 - 00:18:27:02
Speaker 2
I don't know, I don't know. I know a funny story where one time I was sitting in front of a pretty he was a few rungs below one of the really high up at the time we call them, a kind of in Iraq. We didn't call ISIS. That was the name that they were given. Later, when they rebranded.

00:18:27:04 - 00:18:29:17
Speaker 3
Yeah, we did a little rebrand.

00:18:29:19 - 00:18:35:09
Speaker 2
Yeah, I got in. Iraq wasn't good enough. We're going to go with ISIS. We all know who they were. There were the same players.

00:18:35:09 - 00:18:39:10
Speaker 1
I don't know what agency they hired to help them with the rebrand. Yeah I don't know. Yeah. It's interesting me.

00:18:39:10 - 00:18:40:02
Speaker 3
Anyway getting.

00:18:40:03 - 00:18:41:14
Speaker 2
Dig down into that.

00:18:41:15 - 00:18:44:18
Speaker 3
But he looked at me.

00:18:44:20 - 00:19:00:20
Speaker 2
And we were talking about a certain individual. He looked at me in talking to the turban. He said something terrible to me. I was like, what do you say? He's like, he said, you look a lot like so-and-so. So if you had a beard and I was like, you say, I look like one of the higher ups in al al-Qaida.

00:19:00:22 - 00:19:05:08
Speaker 2
He's like, yeah. He said, you look really close to him. I like him. I, I'm like, okay.

00:19:05:10 - 00:19:07:00
Speaker 3
Cool. I.

00:19:07:02 - 00:19:08:21
Speaker 2
I the I guess it's a compliment coming from you.

00:19:08:21 - 00:19:14:12
Speaker 3
Yeah. Maybe, maybe. Did you play in you like, well maybe I am, you know. So you better just know I didn't play into it.

00:19:14:14 - 00:19:16:19
Speaker 2
I just looked at it. I said, let's get on the point.

00:19:16:21 - 00:19:17:14
Speaker 3
Yeah.

00:19:17:16 - 00:19:19:11
Speaker 2
Let's get back to the subject.

00:19:19:11 - 00:19:22:08
Speaker 3
Is it? So how did you spend.

00:19:22:08 - 00:19:30:06
Speaker 1
This time in the service, man, it's some deep, intense stuff. Like, at this point, are you thinking at all like, I'm eventually going to start this business one day? No.

00:19:30:08 - 00:19:48:12
Speaker 2
No, I actually, but I did want to do something different. I enjoyed the hell out of it. It was so much fun. And I looked back to this day and like, I take great sense of pride in what I was able to accomplish and do with some of the most elite forces in this entire world, like I really did enjoy it, and I would probably do it again if my wife would let me.

00:19:48:14 - 00:20:01:06
Speaker 2
I don't think she will. And we have three kids, but yeah, no, I was thinking about what I want to do next, what I want to do when I grow up and I, I eventually settled on, journalism.

00:20:01:08 - 00:20:01:23
Speaker 3
Okay.

00:20:02:01 - 00:20:20:06
Speaker 2
And I looked between, two schools. It was gonna be USC or is going to be UT because I wanted to be, like a sports broadcast journalist. I wanted to be like an NFL sideline reporter or work for the Golf Channel. So I started studying in schools, and they both had really good emphasis on sports broadcast.

00:20:20:06 - 00:20:22:04
Speaker 3
UT it is

00:20:22:04 - 00:20:23:03
Speaker 3
that way. Then y'all.

00:20:23:03 - 00:20:25:08
Speaker 1
Eventually met here and then is that ultimately, I.

00:20:25:08 - 00:20:30:17
Speaker 2
Eventually met my wife here in UT at one, not UT in Corning School, but I met here in Austin.

00:20:31:00 - 00:20:37:01
Speaker 3
Did you, UT what school was it on? The, no communications.

00:20:37:01 - 00:20:47:23
Speaker 2
It was UT was journal, I mean journalism on the School of Communications. Yeah. So I had to apply and I got accepted and I just had let's go. So I packed up.

00:20:48:01 - 00:20:50:20
Speaker 3
I was like, grad school now or is is just another.

00:20:50:20 - 00:20:54:22
Speaker 2
Degree, you know, undergrad. Yeah. Yeah, I already had an undergrad. But I to do another undergrad I kind.

00:20:54:22 - 00:20:55:18
Speaker 1
Of have to redevelop.

00:20:55:18 - 00:20:56:23
Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah I said let's build.

00:20:56:23 - 00:20:57:09
Speaker 3
It.

00:20:57:10 - 00:21:15:12
Speaker 2
From the ground up and I'll work my way. I've got a lot of good life lessons now and everything I've learned. I think I can make it pretty quick. So I moved to Austin and a roll, you know, in my first semester and this was 2011. And I remember just being in the class with all these 18 year old kids.

00:21:15:14 - 00:21:36:06
Speaker 2
And I'm just like, God, these guys have no perspective. Like, they just don't know what's going on. And I just they had no patience. After working where I worked with who I'd worked with for the last really seven years. Yeah, I was like, I just can't do this. So I ended up, I was watching it was Top Chef Texas at that time, and it was here.

00:21:36:06 - 00:21:50:11
Speaker 2
And Paul Key and that winning that season remember watching it. And they're going all around Texas and Top Chef. And I remember seeing the food trucks eating I'm like this is really cool. I never even thought about I didn't know what an entrepreneur was. Honestly, I didn't know what it was.

00:21:50:16 - 00:21:51:18
Speaker 3
You were just trying to get out there.

00:21:51:18 - 00:21:54:18
Speaker 1
And until like broadcast, tell stories. That's the whole thing.

00:21:54:18 - 00:22:08:08
Speaker 2
I just want to have fun. After you spend that much time over, you know, in a, you know, hellhole like Iraq for so long, you know, you want a piece of that American dream. So I'm like, I want to go back and just have fun and do what I love, which was sports. I want to be involved in that.

00:22:08:10 - 00:22:25:18
Speaker 2
But I saw the food scene and I was like, this is, this is amazing. So I literally went up to, look caught on blue like the after I saw the commercial, you know, checked it out and I called a buddy of mine that I met who also love food. He was a nurse, but he also love food was like, Sergio, I'm doing it.

00:22:25:20 - 00:22:28:18
Speaker 2
I'm going to look when I'm blue is like, I'll do it with you, man. I'll do.

00:22:28:19 - 00:22:29:03
Speaker 3
Really?

00:22:29:06 - 00:22:34:06
Speaker 2
So he he's never used his corner. One day he just goes and does it.

00:22:34:08 - 00:22:34:20
Speaker 3
He's got all this.

00:22:34:20 - 00:22:37:16
Speaker 2
Nursing nursing stuff. He's a nurse now and he's an amazing nurse.

00:22:37:19 - 00:22:40:23
Speaker 3
You just have to leave school then. Yeah. You drop out and I.

00:22:40:23 - 00:22:45:08
Speaker 2
Do a semester, and then I went to, Look where I'm blue.

00:22:45:10 - 00:22:46:08
Speaker 3
Where's that at? Center.

00:22:46:08 - 00:22:47:17
Speaker 2
Well, no, it was in North Austin.

00:22:47:20 - 00:22:48:15
Speaker 3
Okay.

00:22:48:16 - 00:22:56:08
Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah, it's no longer exist. A I don't know who was it like 7 or 8 years ago? They closed down all their technical schools and all North America.

00:22:56:09 - 00:22:56:22
Speaker 3
Yeah.

00:22:57:00 - 00:23:20:12
Speaker 2
But yeah, so that was my decision. Let's go to Portugal. I remember I was actually at the job fair way and meeting Kristin off of. And I was talking to different people, and I was talking to, Eric from Peace Tortilla and Paul, he was there. And I remember, I think Paul Key, because I was going to to start a new and I did and I remember going to doing like, Mr. Key, like I've to, you know, pick your brain, blah, blah, blah.

00:23:20:14 - 00:23:30:12
Speaker 2
And I was like, I just dropped out of UT and they come here. He's like, should have stayed in school, man. I was like, why don't you have a degree? I don't have a degree. So he's like, okay, but hey.

00:23:30:14 - 00:23:37:19
Speaker 3
You paying? I'll make it say, yeah. He's like, my buddy. You know what? Sam voted. Gavin's there. Yeah.

00:23:37:22 - 00:23:40:12
Speaker 1
So how long is this program when you into Columbia?

00:23:40:14 - 00:23:41:18
Speaker 3
Just a year. Okay. Yeah.

00:23:41:18 - 00:23:54:19
Speaker 2
So it was a year or so. It was a year. And then I did three months. I did three months at Uchi. I worked at P store and the food truck to get a little experience, because I'd had the idea during all this for pretty tie for a white guy.

00:23:54:21 - 00:23:56:22
Speaker 3
That's the name of your first food truck? Yeah.

00:23:56:22 - 00:24:13:12
Speaker 2
So I was sitting in my my place in these riverside, first apartment I had, and I was cooking. I was even listening to that song. I was listening music, I started cooking, I'm cooking Thai food because I fall in love with Thai food. When I was over in Iraq, one of the seals, it came to me and said, hey man, you want to go to Thailand?

00:24:13:12 - 00:24:26:11
Speaker 2
And I was like, I was gonna go to Australia because they were going to see me anywhere in the world, my company. So I went to Thailand and was just I mean, it was, you know, six months of being in Iraq. Yeah. Any place look amazing, but it was the.

00:24:26:11 - 00:24:27:13
Speaker 3
Food is that food is.

00:24:27:13 - 00:24:28:20
Speaker 2
Just insane.

00:24:28:23 - 00:24:29:09
Speaker 3
Yeah.

00:24:29:09 - 00:24:43:10
Speaker 2
And I never had anything like that. So I came back and I was just, like, cooking Thai food all the time and just studying and looking at things and recipes. And I was just cooking. I was like, pretty Thai for a white guy. And I was like, Holy shit. So I was walking around and I was on the food truck working for tortilla.

00:24:43:10 - 00:25:01:20
Speaker 2
So I was down the night. I was telling all the bartenders, everybody him to do a feature called Pretty Thai for white Guy like do. That's awesome. Yeah. When you're when you have let me know. And long story short, I, I did it, I actually did it. And we opened up in January of 2013. But the Curry school and this was right literally as I graduated from high school.

00:25:02:00 - 00:25:02:14
Speaker 3
Yeah.

00:25:02:16 - 00:25:16:03
Speaker 2
So I worked at Thai Fresh for three months. My externship from school, can I learn a bunch of technique? And then we had the food truck going, and I remember I was invited to be the valedictorian to speak at all the classes. And I was like, sorry, I can't. I'm literally opened.

00:25:16:03 - 00:25:17:10
Speaker 3
Up. I'm, can I go run this business?

00:25:17:10 - 00:25:22:04
Speaker 2
Yeah, I run the business. So I didn't even go to my graduation. I was running the business entrepreneur.

00:25:22:06 - 00:25:27:11
Speaker 3
It's such a a grind memory, man. Yeah. So you opened this,

00:25:27:13 - 00:25:31:10
Speaker 1
Did you was it elaborate? Menu. Like, what was the what was the whole menu?

00:25:31:12 - 00:25:45:14
Speaker 2
Yeah. It's interesting. So when we first opened up, you know, just come out of the corn school, I wanted to be all fancy. So we were doing, you know, I had a signature dish, which was a, steak sale of meat and cilantro that I learned. And I used to make it when I was for all my people I used to work for.

00:25:45:14 - 00:26:05:13
Speaker 2
I bring the potlucks like, we want this recipe. So that's my signature dish. Yeah. And that's what we led with me, love with a bunch of fancy stuff. And we quickly realized this isn't going to work in a bar. We opened up a moon tower saloon in Manhattan. Slaughter first four months, then they were open and it was busy and people were coming up and we had burger places or anything else.

00:26:05:13 - 00:26:20:08
Speaker 2
They're coming up and they're like, do you have one night we were there. It was a weekend night and we're making what we got. It's like two in the morning and this drunk guy comes. I was like, you guys have nachos and we're like, looked each other and we're like, we could. We made the nachos.

00:26:20:10 - 00:26:20:16
Speaker 3
Right.

00:26:20:16 - 00:26:35:21
Speaker 2
There, right there on the spot. Gave it to him. And then two weeks later, we get a guy who's like, hey, I'm from the Thrillist. I just drove up. I drove down from North Austin. He's like, I heard you have the best nachos in Austin. And I was like, okay. Those nachos were eventually featured on the Cooking Channel.

00:26:35:21 - 00:26:40:01
Speaker 2
We were featured on E Street Season 12, really, and those were one of the dishes that were featured.

00:26:40:04 - 00:26:41:19
Speaker 1
Break down the nachos. What makes this.

00:26:41:21 - 00:26:42:22
Speaker 3
Was a Thai nachos?

00:26:42:22 - 00:27:01:05
Speaker 2
Yeah, we did a slow, slow pull pork Thai nachos. So we would we would we would raise the pork. We didn't smoke. We never smoker. We would we would marinate it for like a day and we would raise it for like, you know, eight, ten hours in the oven with a bunch of different spices and everything. And then we would do we did beginning, we did smoked Gouda and we did.

00:27:02:08 - 00:27:20:20
Speaker 2
Griller and griller was because I remember the way I think about food is like from like senses and smell and then thinking about it. So I remember we were cooking French onion soup and cooking school one day and I remember we put the grilled cheese on top of the soup in the, in the salamander to melt it. I remember smelling it.

00:27:20:20 - 00:27:21:08
Speaker 2
I was like.

00:27:21:10 - 00:27:26:04
Speaker 3
Smell was that smelly, smelly fish sauce? It smells like fish sauce.

00:27:26:07 - 00:27:28:06
Speaker 2
Like that could go well with Thai food.

00:27:28:08 - 00:27:28:19
Speaker 3
Yeah.

00:27:28:19 - 00:27:51:10
Speaker 2
So when we were doing the nachos, we were doing with smoked Gouda and grilled cheese, and then we were putting a bunch of peppers and onions and we were throwing on top of a flat top or deep fryer on chips, and we had our own seasoning blend, and then we would make our own. One of the recipes that I learned from Uchi that I've used we make I use a kosher, sour cream and put it on top of there, and we finish it off with Sarraj.

00:27:51:11 - 00:28:09:13
Speaker 2
At the time, I'm very much against the you now how about the time it was like this? What we got in Thai basil and green onion and it would come out and we just it was phenomenal. Wow. Really big flavors. And so that's what we did. And we started creating these recipes. We started creating stuff. Green curry burger.

00:28:09:15 - 00:28:13:12
Speaker 2
All of a sudden we're getting chefs coming up like this is amazing.

00:28:13:14 - 00:28:13:22
Speaker 3
So you all.

00:28:13:22 - 00:28:15:08
Speaker 1
Started kind of humbling the menu.

00:28:15:12 - 00:28:32:06
Speaker 2
Yeah we humble the menu big time burgers nachos KD was still doing things like we brought Pad Thai and we didn't have Pad Thai in the menu. You know, I didn't I didn't like Pad Thai and I didn't want to do it. And then that's when the 50th person asked you for pad Thai. You're like, okay, so I might as well make.

00:28:32:07 - 00:28:35:20
Speaker 3
Because, I mean, as for Freebird at a at a thing, you eventually just got to pay for.

00:28:35:20 - 00:28:52:08
Speaker 2
It. You spent two weeks coming up with a recipe. Because I worked at Thai Fresh, I was on the walk. I didn't deal with recipes. They gave me everything made, like sausage or anything. And they're like, you know, I learned the dishes and learned how to make the package and the pad Thai and all the noodle dishes and the curries, but I didn't make anything.

00:28:52:08 - 00:29:11:16
Speaker 2
I didn't prep anything, so I had no recipes. So I'm having to develop all this from memory and what I remember and the smells and everything. So I create the pad Thai and I started testing it with people at the bar. And then you're like, this is really good. And so we started making the pad Thai, and we would literally have to sell out Pad Thai at 8:00 every night because that's all anybody would order.

00:29:11:18 - 00:29:21:04
Speaker 2
And it takes so much time because you're stuck on the walk for 8 to 10 minutes, especially if we didn't have enough BTUs. I didn't have a Walkman. We just had a stove top.

00:29:21:04 - 00:29:21:16
Speaker 3
Yeah.

00:29:21:18 - 00:29:31:06
Speaker 2
So I'm like, guys, we're 86 and Pad Thai at 8:00 at night. We're saying we sold out. You know, we had the ingredients because we can't do that and get this bar for.

00:29:31:06 - 00:29:31:19
Speaker 3
The rest of it.

00:29:31:19 - 00:29:35:04
Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah. Because it just became insane. Like it was so busy.

00:29:35:06 - 00:29:35:22
Speaker 3
Yeah.

00:29:35:23 - 00:29:54:01
Speaker 2
But yeah, we we humble the menu. We did, but we did it in a fun way. And that's what we try to do with our products now is give you a unique, versatile way of using them that you would never think about. Combining those Thai flavors with everyday foods that you're used to eating and really having fun with it and making it less boring, you know?

00:29:54:04 - 00:29:56:04
Speaker 2
There we go. You know? So yeah, that's.

00:29:56:04 - 00:30:02:11
Speaker 1
The the sauce is I mean, I imagine sauces came out of the truck, but when did you how long did the truck go for.

00:30:02:14 - 00:30:24:00
Speaker 2
Yeah. So not as long as it probably should have let me honest. Like, it was the first six months or somebody come up to me and they're like, I'm in culinary school right now, and this sweet chili sauce is amazing. Like, you sell it. And I was like, no, I didn't think about selling it. And I remember, you know, that was when the first six months.

00:30:24:03 - 00:30:24:12
Speaker 3
Yeah.

00:30:24:18 - 00:30:44:00
Speaker 2
And the first six months are the hardest. Were the hardest for us there. Really. The first two months were just a nightmare. Nobody would come to our truck. We had to do all kinds of stuff. But I was like, no, I never thought about selling it. And I remember looking, Christine, we were coming back from burning where her family lives, and I was like, maybe we should try to sell it.

00:30:44:02 - 00:31:13:07
Speaker 2
And we started looking around H-e-b, whole food. Nobody was doing it. It was all full of crap, you know, like there's nobody doing it like we do it thinking it was me. So easy to do. But yeah, we lasted nine months to ten months in Austin. We moved the food truck at the end of 2013 to Bernie, and we were serving in a really upscale bar burning at another bar outside of Bernie and the food truck for about a year.

00:31:13:09 - 00:31:28:02
Speaker 2
And then because we know we want to do and grow up. And Christine, before coming to Austin after going to A&M for a nutrition degree, she's like, I always want to go to California. So we're like, I'm like, well, I wanted to go to golf school. That's what I was going to do. It was either journalism or golf.

00:31:28:02 - 00:31:30:12
Speaker 3
School, but to become a pro.

00:31:30:14 - 00:31:31:23
Speaker 2
Up to see how good I could get.

00:31:31:23 - 00:31:32:14
Speaker 3
Yeah.

00:31:32:16 - 00:31:49:21
Speaker 2
But then nothing else to teach golf. So we chose to go to Temecula, California, and I was going to golf school. She got a job working at an Italian restaurant, and we started pretty tight. We we started bottling in the Hill Country here, but we really started selling in the farmers markets in Southern California.

00:31:49:23 - 00:31:57:21
Speaker 1
Because you can't let's say you decided, hey, okay, let's sunset this pretty town for a white guy food truck. Let's move out here to Cali. Yeah. But then it's like, well, we know.

00:31:58:02 - 00:31:59:03
Speaker 3
There's food, though.

00:31:59:05 - 00:32:14:04
Speaker 2
Yeah. I mean, I love the name and I always want to do, but I knew that for the product line you couldn't do that. Like it had to be some shorter and pretty tight. Always had a lot of meaning to me for a lot of different ties. A tonal language say it's pretty tie. It's pretty tie. You know, depending on how you do it.

00:32:14:04 - 00:32:19:19
Speaker 2
You know, everything we do has authentic Thai ingredients, Thai flavors. But we do a different twist on it.

00:32:19:23 - 00:32:21:01
Speaker 3
Yeah, typically.

00:32:21:03 - 00:32:43:15
Speaker 2
So yeah, it was it was shortened to pretty time. We were out in California and we were creating the products and the labels and they were terrible and our packaging was horrendous. Then we were just stumbling along, going at it, and I was still going to golf school, but we were missing Austin, we were missing Texas, we missed H-e-b, like our grocery stores out there were terrible compared to H-e-b.

00:32:43:15 - 00:32:44:20
Speaker 2
We're like, we miss H-e-b.

00:32:44:20 - 00:32:45:11
Speaker 3
Yeah.

00:32:45:13 - 00:33:05:07
Speaker 2
So we're like, let's go back into the food truck because we were just renting it to another food truck operator here, and let's sell the sauces at the same time and see what we can do. So we spent nine months in California, moved back the end of 2015 to Austin, got a food truck, spot right down behind the old the old Toms market.

00:33:05:09 - 00:33:13:08
Speaker 2
And now nine. I'm Barton Springs right there. Before it was a condo. It was a food truck park. And we were serving there.

00:33:13:10 - 00:33:13:17
Speaker 3
You made it.

00:33:13:17 - 00:33:15:12
Speaker 1
You did pretty. I came back every time.

00:33:15:12 - 00:33:15:21
Speaker 2
For, like.

00:33:15:21 - 00:33:16:08
Speaker 1
I came.

00:33:16:08 - 00:33:36:18
Speaker 2
Back again. We were selling pretty tiny out of the food trucks. We were battling it on the food truck and selling it to customers. And we got back into the farmers markets and we were doing brunch at the Lake Line Farmers Market. It was January of 2016, and I remember we were serving our brunch, and a woman comes up and she's like, you guys have sauces.

00:33:36:23 - 00:34:05:05
Speaker 2
And I was like, yeah, we have sauces. So they were my husband's. The grocery manager at North Lamar Central Market. I was like, cool. She's like, you want to talk to them? I was like 100% and give me his information. She gave it. I called him, he's like, yeah, come in and you can do a presentation. So I went in and met with the whole foodie team, represented the whole line and time and time we had our sweet chili sauce or lemongrass line dressing, which was the signature dish, the steak salad dish sauce that I created, which was very authentic and was amazing.

00:34:05:07 - 00:34:09:10
Speaker 2
Too authentic for the average consumer. That's what I've learned.

00:34:09:10 - 00:34:12:01
Speaker 3
But I was like too garlicky, you know, it.

00:34:12:01 - 00:34:16:02
Speaker 2
Was, it was like straight line fish sauce with Thai chili.

00:34:16:03 - 00:34:16:10
Speaker 3
Yeah.

00:34:16:11 - 00:34:35:21
Speaker 2
Super simple but just super authentic Thai like I remember an old woman one time called me, she's like, can I answer my calls? If you call me on Sunday? But I answered the phone to this day, like, I love talking to you about the food, but she's like this. This tastes like battery acid. And the first my first question was, ma'am, how do you know a battery acid technology?

00:34:35:23 - 00:34:39:14
Speaker 3
How do you know what that tastes like? Well, it just does. It tastes.

00:34:39:14 - 00:34:43:18
Speaker 2
Good. And I was like, well, how'd you use it? She's like, well, I just drank and like, don't drink it straight.

00:34:43:18 - 00:34:44:23
Speaker 3
Yeah. Use it, I use it.

00:34:44:23 - 00:34:47:10
Speaker 2
So I start getting all these ideas and she's like, oh that sounds good.

00:34:47:14 - 00:34:48:08
Speaker 3
Yeah.

00:34:48:10 - 00:35:02:23
Speaker 2
And she got back. She's like, I used it was really good. And I was like, yes. But it was so hard to educate. Yeah. So we went in, they said, oh, this is the most amazing wine we've seen in the last decade. We want you. So they got corporate to green light us. So the green light is at the one store.

00:35:03:03 - 00:35:19:22
Speaker 2
They're like, well you're in the system now. You can just go down to, the Westgate store and you can go get in. So I walked down there, I'm like, hey, I'm in the system to, like, bring us two cases of each. Wow. Cool. But you got to stock it. So I'm going in the back learning how to stock it, running the system with everybody in the back stock in my own product.

00:35:20:02 - 00:35:21:20
Speaker 1
Oh, I didn't know. That's how that works.

00:35:21:22 - 00:35:23:10
Speaker 2
Yeah. You're doing DSD.

00:35:23:12 - 00:35:24:03
Speaker 3
Yeah. Yeah.

00:35:24:05 - 00:35:33:16
Speaker 2
You can go I mean I'm not sure how it goes now. I'm assuming it's very similar because I still do the same thing and we fill and everything else. I go in and stock my own product to this day, and I've been in there for nine years as well.

00:35:33:22 - 00:35:34:06
Speaker 3
Wow.

00:35:34:09 - 00:35:45:07
Speaker 2
So but yeah. Yeah, that's that's how the whole transition went from the food truck to the product company to how we first got into retail.

00:35:45:09 - 00:35:46:02
Speaker 3
Is the food.

00:35:46:02 - 00:35:52:19
Speaker 1
Truck still around? No. Well, when was the idea to go, you know what we need to follow? It sounds like you're like we got to focus on this essential market.

00:35:52:22 - 00:36:09:03
Speaker 2
Said January of 2016. Said, hey, we'd like to bring you in. So the end of that month, we sold the food truck. It wasn't it wasn't. I mean, I look back now and I'm like, I don't regret the food truck, which is a tough business. I do feel like we left a lot of meat in the bone.

00:36:09:04 - 00:36:28:10
Speaker 2
I think in prison knows this, but I think, you know, it was stressful for both of us. I think it was really stressful for her. And, you know, there's you're married, right? When your wife stressed, you're stressed, and it just rolled downhill and just, you know, more stress she got, the more stressed I got. And I was like, you need to get out of this.

00:36:28:12 - 00:36:40:13
Speaker 2
And so we did. But I was like, man, we had so much potential and we were doing so good. We were getting so much recognition. We were getting, you know, the Cooking Channel and we were getting all this stuff. We were doing all these features on Fox and and like, we were just scratching the surface.

00:36:40:13 - 00:36:41:08
Speaker 3
Yeah.

00:36:41:10 - 00:36:49:05
Speaker 2
But that's what I'm trying to do with this, with the product line saying, go home, create the same recipes we were creating. We give you recipes on our website and cook at home.

00:36:49:10 - 00:36:50:15
Speaker 3
Yeah.

00:36:50:17 - 00:36:56:00
Speaker 1
Was the stress part primarily from just like the hours of like the food business?

00:36:56:00 - 00:36:56:19
Speaker 3
Yeah.

00:36:56:21 - 00:37:02:11
Speaker 2
It was yeah, it's a lot. It's just a lot. I mean, it's so hard to go into all the nitty gritty. It's just there's so much involved.

00:37:02:13 - 00:37:02:17
Speaker 3
In the.

00:37:02:17 - 00:37:03:23
Speaker 1
Labor. I mean it's like.

00:37:04:03 - 00:37:26:06
Speaker 2
I mean, just the horror stories of the gray water and all the things. Now that I have, you know, a shared kitchen business and we work with operators and trying to help them out as much as we can, and with the gray water, having to dump the gray water, like when I was down behind Toms Market, you know, I rigged up a 100 gallon gray water tank myself, put it all together, built it from Tank Depot, and I taught the.

00:37:26:08 - 00:37:31:08
Speaker 2
I'm not sure what the. Is it? The bacon grove? RV park right there.

00:37:31:09 - 00:37:33:00
Speaker 3
Oh, you just got Juliette. Yeah, I.

00:37:33:00 - 00:37:41:11
Speaker 2
Talked the guy in 20 bucks a month under the table, and I'm going to dump my gray water and dump it. So I'm on a Saturday morning.

00:37:41:13 - 00:37:44:18
Speaker 3
I'll get out there for anybody else. Is the street. I'm like, pulling is.

00:37:44:20 - 00:37:52:07
Speaker 2
Must weigh like 500 pounds at that point in time. Like, you know, 100 yards to get to the pecan grove target and dump the great water.

00:37:52:08 - 00:37:53:10
Speaker 3
Wow, man. Yeah.

00:37:53:16 - 00:38:08:11
Speaker 2
Like the things like we would sit there on our food truck is when they build our food truck. I don't know what they were thinking, but when the gray water tank filled up, it didn't just come up to sink, it started going out the bottom. So we're sitting there serving a moon tower and a Saturday night slam that I'm in.

00:38:08:13 - 00:38:24:09
Speaker 2
The owner comes up, you're gray, water's leaking. I'm out there in the ground underneath the truck with a line of 20 people watching me trying to stop this from going all over the place. And I'm like, that's really appetizing, right? Like just the little tiny, like, they're just so much.

00:38:24:09 - 00:38:26:07
Speaker 3
Yeah, all the little things, all the little things.

00:38:26:07 - 00:38:40:20
Speaker 2
And we're out till three, four in the morning every night. We have two dogs at the time. We have no kids. The dogs are at home all day. We brought the dogs a few times with us, and one time the guy comes up behind me. So we had him and the think anything about this? We have a cage in front and the guy goes out to own the place.

00:38:40:20 - 00:38:47:03
Speaker 2
He's like, yeah, it looks good. Probably me. It's like you're doing Asian food. You got two dogs in a cage in front of your food.

00:38:47:03 - 00:38:48:09
Speaker 3
You know, I was like.

00:38:48:11 - 00:38:49:12
Speaker 2
Yeah, good point.

00:38:49:14 - 00:38:53:01
Speaker 3
Cause he's like, have you thought about the optics?

00:38:53:03 - 00:38:58:18
Speaker 2
I was like, I know you think about it. People love dogs here. I just thought they'd be like, oh, you bring your dogs with you to work.

00:38:58:20 - 00:39:03:04
Speaker 3
So yeah, don't put any specials on the menu. People go like, I know where that's coming from.

00:39:03:06 - 00:39:04:06
Speaker 2
Yeah. What is.

00:39:04:08 - 00:39:05:21
Speaker 3
Oh. So okay, you go.

00:39:05:21 - 00:39:12:03
Speaker 1
And you say, all right, let's focus on the sauce thing. So it must be just like you guys be cruising. I mean, it's easy there.

00:39:12:03 - 00:39:28:11
Speaker 2
So simple. Yeah. So naive, so naive. Thinking this. It's a completely different people all the time now that are in the restaurant business. Because I got a ton of people that are doing it in our kitchens. They come up, they're like, hey, I've got this sauce. And I'm like, just so you know, it's a completely different business.

00:39:28:13 - 00:39:29:03
Speaker 3
Yeah, it's.

00:39:29:03 - 00:39:30:14
Speaker 2
Completely different.

00:39:30:15 - 00:39:40:09
Speaker 1
Actually. Before shifting to sausage, because I want to talk about that, what do you tell folks who are looking to get into the small business about the restaurant business? Like, what are the things you'd be like?

00:39:40:11 - 00:39:44:11
Speaker 2
Beware extremely small margins like talk.

00:39:44:12 - 00:39:47:00
Speaker 1
I mean, what does that mean, like under 10%?

00:39:47:02 - 00:40:10:05
Speaker 2
Yeah. I mean, it could be depending on, you know, things you're doing. Obviously you have to make sure you are really real dialed into your costs, especially food cost. Food costs are one of the number one things that you will go under for if you don't get your food cost in. And then obviously labor. Yeah, I will say, I mean, I'm assuming it works everywhere, but if you're coming into business for the first time, you've probably only been an employee, you've never had to have employees.

00:40:10:07 - 00:40:26:08
Speaker 2
And that's one of, I think, one of our weaknesses is I have very little patience. So what you do in the food truck? We had a few employees when we first started, and it turned out to be just me and Kristen, because she was the only person I could trust. You know, she make Pat Ty took her one time.

00:40:26:08 - 00:40:42:18
Speaker 2
She can do it quite right. She did it again. She nailed it. I'm like, awesome. Another guy would make Pat. I couldn't get it. We would go lead the food truck, like, let's take a night off. It's a Wednesday. Let's take on let's take a night off. It's hard for me to do, you know, it's hard for me to pull away.

00:40:43:00 - 00:40:47:03
Speaker 2
I do, and then that's the day that the person drives 45 minutes to get the pad Thai.

00:40:47:09 - 00:40:48:11
Speaker 3
That they've been talking to, and there's.

00:40:48:11 - 00:41:00:21
Speaker 2
A helper and leaves a 2 to 3 star review. I'm like, this Pad Thai isn't worth the trip. Well, that's because Joel was making the Pad Thai that night. It's not Robert, right. And those are the things you got to think about.

00:41:00:23 - 00:41:02:06
Speaker 3
Yeah, it's a lot of things.

00:41:02:06 - 00:41:04:14
Speaker 2
And it's just a really tough you got to be in it.

00:41:04:20 - 00:41:05:20
Speaker 3
Yeah.

00:41:05:22 - 00:41:20:08
Speaker 2
Unless you're just amazing as a restaurant tour, which I still don't even know what that all entails. I never done that. You've got to be in it. You've got to be committed to being there. You know, ten, 12 hours a day, 6 or 7 days a week.

00:41:20:12 - 00:41:21:01
Speaker 3
Yeah.

00:41:21:03 - 00:41:24:19
Speaker 2
And when you're not in there, you're still doing stuff for the business.

00:41:24:21 - 00:41:43:00
Speaker 1
It's like the two things that I remember helping my mother with the restaurants that she was. She had some cafes and restaurants growing up. And the two things that always struck me is as I was like, I wonder if people even know this is going on. She would have, the amount of hours she would work. And it's not like, oh, okay.

00:41:43:01 - 00:42:04:09
Speaker 1
Even if you're, let's say, even if you're like a lunch place. Which I would argue that's maybe not even necessarily the best economic model. You have to have a really kind of dialed in menu and a really ravenous following. But like, as soon as the door closed, it's like the next shift starts. They're prepping their cleaning. It's still wee hours of the night, then they're in early in the morning to do receiving goods.

00:42:04:11 - 00:42:22:18
Speaker 1
It's just not that place you live there. It's like your life. And then the second thing I think that I learned because a lot of people would see her run it and they would immediately be kind of mesmerized. And I think they don't realize that. Maybe an easier analogy is you like drinking wine, but I don't think you like making wine.

00:42:22:18 - 00:42:26:10
Speaker 1
It's like a very those are two different things.

00:42:26:12 - 00:42:48:00
Speaker 2
I would say to that. And I 100%. And that's the issue that I've found. We've I still haven't scratch that itch when it comes to a restaurant. Like I've got a restaurant concept that I've had in my head for a very long time that I love to do, love to do. I'm not going to do it if it's our sole means of income, if we need it to live off of.

00:42:48:02 - 00:43:01:20
Speaker 2
I want to be there. I want my kids because I grew up around the restaurant, right? I mean, I literally lived for a year and a half. I lived above our restaurant and in the morning when I get up for school and I wake me up by banging a broom on the floor, come on downstairs. Your eggs are ready.

00:43:01:20 - 00:43:02:08
Speaker 3
Yeah.

00:43:02:12 - 00:43:20:06
Speaker 2
And I go down to the diner and I get I get breakfast. I remember those things. I would I would love to have my kids come to the restaurant during the day after school, have cool things for them to do, bring their friends and be involved in it, but be able to pick up and go away for two weeks or going to vacation or do something and not be like, are going to make it home.

00:43:20:07 - 00:43:34:12
Speaker 2
We're going to make our rent this month. And that's what you know, I would never do it only as a passion project, because if you want to do it, you, you, you can lose the love really quickly. If it's your soul means of income in the way of survival.

00:43:34:16 - 00:43:37:23
Speaker 3
Yeah. So so you go and you.

00:43:37:23 - 00:43:46:10
Speaker 1
So now you move to sauces and you say, okay, this is going what's, what was the after Central market. What was kind of the next big waypoint for y'all?

00:43:46:12 - 00:44:10:22
Speaker 2
So life, life smack this in the face big time. So Central Market, we started stocking the shelves in July of 2016, both Austin stores. I'm stocking the shelves, so I'm doing my second stock. It's July 26th of 2016. It's my 35th birthday. I get home like 730 in the morning. Kristen's like, hey, I got some news for you.

00:44:11:00 - 00:44:19:04
Speaker 2
Like, I'm pregnant. I was like, oh, okay. That's interesting. Well, I'm glad we're in stores now.

00:44:19:06 - 00:44:22:11
Speaker 3
Not jumping for joy, but, like, usually going out of your mouth.

00:44:22:12 - 00:44:44:16
Speaker 2
No, I was happy. I was very happy. I was very happy. And, you know, I'm. Two months later, I was in September, and I remember I was at home and we were living in an apartment, Ladera Apartments, off of I-35. And I remember I was probably bottling or probably labeling bottles and a little label or I had or something in front of the TV, I think watch TV, you know, like label and do stuff.

00:44:44:18 - 00:45:00:09
Speaker 2
And she comes home, she had a doctor's appointment. I didn't think about going. I didn't think about going. She walks in and she's bawling and I'm like, what is going on? And she couldn't get it out. She was like, they say, there's something wrong with our child. And I was like, what do you mean? They say something's wrong with our child?

00:45:00:09 - 00:45:29:13
Speaker 2
She's like, they said something about hetero taxi and like, the heart being backwards. And I was like, what? Well, we have to go see a pediatric cardiologist. I was like, okay, so we go and we see a pediatric cardiologist every month for the next six months until our son is supposed to be born. And they're telling us now, mind you, we're trying to grow a business and we're just getting a central market.

00:45:29:15 - 00:45:49:03
Speaker 2
January of 17, we just got greenlit into every central market. So we're like, wow, that's awesome. Like our products are selling. They want to expand us great. But we're worried like our son's about to be born in April. Like, what's going to happen? Like, can we handle this? Like, there's going to be a lot of responsibility. Like he's going to have a lot of attention needed.

00:45:49:05 - 00:46:17:18
Speaker 2
Because that when the doctors are telling us he's going to be okay, but there's gonna be a lot of responsibility above and beyond what you're used to as a, as a parent. But we're okay. So we April 1st, we at Seton Hall in Maine, in O.R., our son is born Palmer and immediately, immediately the cardiologist, because they could only do so many things in utero.

00:46:17:20 - 00:46:35:06
Speaker 2
Immediately cardiologist comes in, he's like, hey, I'm bad news for you. I'm like, oh, you have more bad news for me? He's like, yeah, we found two more conditions that we couldn't see in utero, and one of them is really bad. So we need to get him over to the to the PCU at Dell immediately. So we okay.

00:46:35:06 - 00:46:55:14
Speaker 2
Well Kristen's there. She's had an 8 pound, 13 ounce baby. She can't go anywhere. Yeah, they get him in an ambulance, I follow along, I get over to PGU, I'm there for like an hour and a half, and all of a sudden the monitors start going everywhere. He's coding, he's dying. It looks like some of the ERP are always running.

00:46:55:14 - 00:47:15:07
Speaker 2
Doctors are running into stuff. They're coming through two minutes. He wasn't breathing. They got him back. And then he's like, yeah, he did. He did an ambulance too. I'm like, what? He's coded twice in the last he's like, yeah, he could go in the ambulance too. So yeah, we spent this is a whole other discussion or a podcast.

00:47:15:09 - 00:47:17:02
Speaker 2
It's a book if I can never write it.

00:47:17:07 - 00:47:17:13
Speaker 3
Yeah.

00:47:17:13 - 00:47:38:09
Speaker 2
He spent the next 47 days trying to fight for his life, trying to grow his business in time. So I was we ended up getting medevac day six of his life to Texas Children's Hospital. They 90 had a 2520 four hour hope in our surgery. He spent 37 days and open chest VVA chemo where the blood was just keeping his heart going.

00:47:38:10 - 00:48:03:00
Speaker 2
All the while I'm being there 16 hours a day trying to get some sleep whenever I get a little break and Kristen was in the room, I run out of my computer by the elevators. Could be the best signal there, and I'd start trying to do some work. I'd try to do something, get something done. I was getting stuff into stores where I could, my friend was back here making product for us when we could, and we were at the Ronald McDonald House.

00:48:03:02 - 00:48:18:19
Speaker 2
My mother in law would drive the product up in her car, put it in the back of our Rav4, and then the distributor would come to the parking lot at 8:00 in the morning, and we load the load the pallet up in the back of the truck, and then we'd go to the morning rounds, and then you get to the hospital and the doctors are like, so what do you think we should do today?

00:48:18:19 - 00:48:33:13
Speaker 2
I'm like, save my son's life. What do you mean? Like, they wanted me to tell them what to do. And I was like, I'm not a doctor, guys. I mean, I became I mean, I didn't stay the Halloween Express, but I became a pretty damn good doctor pretty quick. Like you, you learn when you have to, you learn.

00:48:33:15 - 00:48:56:13
Speaker 2
So, yeah, I mean, that put a pretty big dent in our excitement. I mean, Kristen was done, as you can imagine. Yeah. You know, she was, you know, a lot of depression. I had a lot of depression. I know how am I going to how mom feels because, you know, being so connected with a child, I do know how connected I was.

00:48:56:15 - 00:49:17:02
Speaker 2
It was extremely connected. I that first night when he died twice. And I was by myself, we bonded pretty strong. So I was very connected to him. And it was a, It was a hellish experience I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy, but we had to figure something out. And, you know, it was during those times that I said, what are we going to give up?

00:49:17:04 - 00:49:37:10
Speaker 2
We're going to quit. I'm going to go back to doing what I was doing previously, deploying for six months at a time. Where are we going to see this through? And I was like, I don't want to quit. Like, sure, the passion was gone because of what we were dealing with. But I want to see this through and I want to see what we started because I knew we had something good and I was like, I want to make my son proud.

00:49:37:12 - 00:49:59:10
Speaker 2
I want to to show them that we're not going to give up and that we're going to take this tragedy because he passed away. I did that, 47 days, May 17th, 2017, he passed away. We had to choose to let him go. And doctors on the ground crying, begging me to let him go. And I remember turning to my he started getting sepsis.

00:49:59:10 - 00:50:16:19
Speaker 2
So his feet started turning purple. And there was a first sign that maybe he was starting to get into some kind of pain. And I was like, I, I can't, I can't go anymore. So I turned to Chris. I'm like, you need an you need me stop. You need to stop me because I can't give up. I can't quit, can I?

00:50:16:21 - 00:50:37:11
Speaker 2
We we chose to let him go. Doctors convinced us to hold him and we watched. We watched them pass away. He winked at us. He did his out of his. Remember his right eye? I sat on my side for just a split second. Gives a little wink. Just like it's okay, but do what you got to do. Get the shit done.

00:50:37:13 - 00:51:05:15
Speaker 2
And that's the way I take it. So when people are like, it's just business, it's not personal. I'm like, no, it's very fucking personal to me. It's very personal. And that's also been a burden, I think, because I take everything way more personal than probably I should. Yeah, but it's because of where it comes from. So we yeah, for that year we were just Central Market and then I applied again.

00:51:05:15 - 00:51:27:05
Speaker 2
So I applied in 2017 for the H-e-b quest for Texas best. They didn't accept me. I literally applied for it outside of the 18th floor of the ICU. And they denied me. And then I applied for it again the next year, and they accepted us as a finalist, top 25 finalist in the whole state of Texas, his best products in the state of Texas in the.

00:51:27:08 - 00:51:43:22
Speaker 2
When we did our presentation, we probably leaned a little too hard on that our story because all the advice we got from people was like, listen, your products are great, just tell your story. And that was our story. We tell our story leading up. We this was our story. This is what happened to us. This is what we're trying to do with it.

00:51:44:00 - 00:51:50:06
Speaker 2
And I'm one of the judges after was telling me, she's like you, you talked a little too much about Palmer, and I'm like.

00:51:50:08 - 00:51:52:13
Speaker 3
Cool, okay. Yeah.

00:51:52:13 - 00:51:53:12
Speaker 2
You still don't get it.

00:51:53:14 - 00:51:54:19
Speaker 3
What else am I going to talk about? What am.

00:51:54:19 - 00:51:55:07
Speaker 2
I going to talk.

00:51:55:07 - 00:51:58:08
Speaker 3
About? Yeah.

00:51:58:10 - 00:52:17:06
Speaker 2
Resources are great, but what am I going to talk about? Like this is what I want to do with it is what I want to do with it. And we've slowly started doing that. We started the foundation on our bottle performance Foundation. You know, every bottle we try to donate, we've donated to several causes that drink causes as well as families we've donated to the Uvalde.

00:52:17:08 - 00:52:31:07
Speaker 2
You know, when that happened, I was I don't watch news when I saw that for like a week straight, I was just like, because now you can imagine, like, we've had this one loss ever to happen again. Like, it's just.

00:52:31:09 - 00:52:31:22
Speaker 3
It's just.

00:52:31:22 - 00:52:52:16
Speaker 2
Soul crushing. It's almost impossible to come back from that. So yeah, HEB brought us and they've been great. But it just is a reframe, my way of thinking about things. And I and I struggle with. So that's where I say, you know, I need because it's really been just me doing this now. Kristen, back to away for a while.

00:52:52:16 - 00:53:10:16
Speaker 2
She came back in for a little bit. And now we've we keep having kids. I took care of that. And we no longer have kids, but we have three young kids now, six, almost three and 18 months old. So she's got her hands full and she realized pretty quickly, I think on the food truck day that she didn't really want to be an entrepreneur.

00:53:10:17 - 00:53:32:13
Speaker 2
She didn't really have the stomach to do what it takes to be an entrepreneur and to go through the mud and the muck in the mire and everything that it takes, right? So it's been me helping me doing it. And I sometimes I feel like I get frustrated. I talk to other venture entrepreneurs, other entrepreneurs, and they're like, and I'll say it.

00:53:32:13 - 00:53:53:10
Speaker 2
And then they're like afterwards, like, yeah, man, that pissed me off too. Like, I feel like other people have gotten so much further along with not as good of products and like, how are they so much further along? And I'm like, yeah, I don't know. I think a lot of it's my bedside manner sometimes. And I tell people that I'm like, I need somebody that can do this side of it.

00:53:53:16 - 00:53:58:03
Speaker 2
Yeah, because I don't do that so well because I just say what I'm thinking.

00:53:58:04 - 00:54:02:19
Speaker 1
What do you mean by that? You think it's like even from a sales perspective or just. Yeah.

00:54:02:21 - 00:54:07:09
Speaker 2
Yeah, I mean, I literally they don't tell me because most people don't tell you that stuff.

00:54:07:10 - 00:54:07:18
Speaker 3
Yeah.

00:54:07:20 - 00:54:27:18
Speaker 2
But I think I piss people off when I'm so forward and so blunt about things. I mean, I had one of my retailers recently, new buyer, we were hit with a bunch of issues with our distributor. Nobody likes our distributor, bunch of issues. And I'm just trying to get answers. I'm sending emails and not responding for three years now.

00:54:27:18 - 00:54:46:13
Speaker 2
Like, we're going to get you off the shelf. And she's like, Will you send a lot of emails? She's like really passive aggressive about this. I mean, you send a lady emails and I'm like, yeah, she's like, I get it can be frustrating. And I'm like, yeah, when nobody responds to me and tells me anything, it's frustrating. I just I'll be honest with you, I'll be transparent with you.

00:54:46:13 - 00:54:48:22
Speaker 2
I just got the same return.

00:54:49:00 - 00:54:53:17
Speaker 1
That's. No. Yeah. You'd rather them say, hey, sorry, not a fit man than not hear from anybody.

00:54:53:17 - 00:55:13:06
Speaker 2
And give me a reason. Give me something Intel. Because that's the other thing. We've got rejected by so many retailers over the last 3 or 4 years. So many justifiable. I don't know, because you won't tell me why. You won't tell me why. You won't give me any Intel till I can prove. You better come back again in a year and be ready.

00:55:13:08 - 00:55:24:12
Speaker 2
And to me, that's insulting. It's insulting. It's saying you don't. You don't care about what I've done, where I've been, what I went through. You're just saying no.

00:55:24:14 - 00:55:25:06
Speaker 3
Yeah.

00:55:25:07 - 00:55:37:18
Speaker 1
Figure it out on your own. And maybe next time. Do you think, looking back. On it now.

00:55:37:20 - 00:55:48:20
Speaker 1
Let me ask you this way. Do you think that at this point you have any other choice but to continue figuring this out?

00:55:48:22 - 00:56:04:16
Speaker 2
That's a good question. That's a topic in our house every single night. Yeah. My wife is sick of hearing it because she's like, you guys got to sell this. You got to get to that. Next thing I've got, I've got a great business partner with Wingman Kitchens. I've got a great pickle company that I could get going.

00:56:04:18 - 00:56:30:16
Speaker 2
I've got the foundation. The foundation is something I really want to do. I really want, you know, we would feed families at the Ronald McDonald House when we could. But I've got this idea about feeding the families and developing these programs within the hospitals with real food, like restaurants where families can come down and they can actually cook and, like, learn how to cook and, like, get away for a few hours from what they're dealing with because you don't want to leave the hospital, but you want to be there, but you gotta leave a little bit.

00:56:30:20 - 00:56:32:21
Speaker 3
And then leave. And do not just leave it.

00:56:32:21 - 00:56:50:04
Speaker 2
Do you go insane if you sit there and listen to the beeping and all that stuff for, and listen to the doctors coming in and saying what they're saying, like, what are they saying? What does that mean? What does that mean? Using you, you just go someone saying so yeah, trying to bring something good. I mean, when I went in the hospital, I went in like 185 pounds.

00:56:50:04 - 00:57:12:07
Speaker 2
I left like 210, 220 because they just feed. You mean bless their heart, they feed you Pop Tarts and Papa John's and just junk. You know, I'm like, develop these programs. So there's a lot of things that I want to do. I always wanted to make pretty with the vehicle because I knew we had great products, and I knew we had a great mission to bring people together through food and give them better food and better options.

00:57:12:09 - 00:57:37:04
Speaker 2
But it's such a such a slog. It's the market is so hard. You got so many big boys you're going against in these retailers. As much as H-e-b wants to do these, these retailers are just like so powerful companies are these these brands, Kraft Heinz, all these brands that are so big, it's so hard to get any kind of preferential treatment to get an advantage to.

00:57:37:04 - 00:57:51:04
Speaker 2
The consumer knows who you are because consumers are creatures of habit. They're just going in and being like this one. I grab all the time. They the raised. It's got one ingredient, it's actual food. It's 212 a bottle. Man, I can't pass that up.

00:57:51:06 - 00:57:54:04
Speaker 3
Yeah. You know what are these bottles run well.

00:57:54:06 - 00:58:00:02
Speaker 2
Good story. Now now it's 598 H-e-b just raised in Niners without telling me I don't know.

00:58:00:05 - 00:58:01:02
Speaker 3
Is that a good thing though to.

00:58:01:02 - 00:58:02:01
Speaker 2
Raise I don't know if.

00:58:02:01 - 00:58:02:14
Speaker 3
They can sell it.

00:58:02:14 - 00:58:13:06
Speaker 2
I have a new buyer. We can't talk to her yet. Okay. As soon as I can talk to the buyer, we'll figure out what her logic was behind that, but I hope. I hope we're not out pricing our market.

00:58:13:10 - 00:58:14:03
Speaker 3
Yeah.

00:58:14:05 - 00:58:25:06
Speaker 2
But it's 598 a bottle at H-e-b. We sell for almost double on Amazon because we have to because of all the other fees and costs involved in that. We don't make hardly anything on Amazon right now.

00:58:25:07 - 00:58:26:08
Speaker 3
It's just awareness or.

00:58:26:12 - 00:58:28:21
Speaker 2
Awareness and economies of scale.

00:58:29:02 - 00:58:29:21
Speaker 3
Yeah.

00:58:29:23 - 00:58:45:04
Speaker 2
I mean, we are we are really growing fast on Amazon. We just hired a new agency this year. We've already over 100% growth this quarter from last year. But it's just it's just the awareness and getting the cost where they need to be in scaling it properly.

00:58:45:04 - 00:59:13:14
Speaker 1
So if you were going to like tell anybody right now who might be pursuing some kind of product, whether it's especially in the food industry, like there's gotta be examples. I mean, y'all are one to, you know, that has the potential to grow into something that can be sustainable. What is the one thing is you look back and all this experience building it that you're kind of thinking might have been even in margin unlocked, just something that just wouldn't give you all some breathing room.

00:59:13:16 - 00:59:28:01
Speaker 1
Because I look at these ingredients, I'm like, I may have the benefit right now. I've been able to stare at this literally as you've been talking on and off. I mean, this is about as peers get me, and I don't see anything in here. I don't recognize cane sugar water. The a.

00:59:28:02 - 00:59:33:17
Speaker 2
You know, people demonize cane sugar, but we use a less refined and unbleached. The more raw.

00:59:33:19 - 00:59:35:05
Speaker 3
Sugar well, mean. It's like normal.

00:59:35:05 - 00:59:45:17
Speaker 1
Stuff. I mean, you know, like, so I guess my point is, is like, I think folks intuitively know this is better for themselves. Is it is it more expensive to do it this way? Is that why.

00:59:45:19 - 01:00:01:02
Speaker 2
It's more expensive? 100%? When we first started, I've learned a lot about how I make products from when I'm beginning to do it. Now, the sweet chili sauce is the perfect example. You know, when we first made that sauce, we would have to cook it for hours and hours and hours. We couldn't get a co-packer manufacturer to make it properly.

01:00:01:02 - 01:00:04:00
Speaker 2
Yeah, took too long. Which time in the kettle means time?

01:00:04:02 - 01:00:06:05
Speaker 3
Yeah, cost more money.

01:00:06:07 - 01:00:28:16
Speaker 2
It just was so hard to do. Taking on our own production, having to do it. Still spending six hours cooking it in 50 gallon badges. I reformulated it recently. For the most part, it's kind of good reception. I think it's better. It's closer to what it was in the food truck, but it's different because we added bell pepper to thicken it naturally, which helps slow down the cook process.

01:00:28:17 - 01:00:45:19
Speaker 2
But it thickened it without using xanthan gum or cornstarch or all these other things. It gives it a better mouthfeel. It's again, a more real mouthfeel. Yeah. Viscosity, texture. We've had a few people come back. I had one today. Email me. Do you have any more of the old. I'm like, no, we're all out. Like we're all out.

01:00:45:19 - 01:01:07:04
Speaker 2
I'm sorry. It was getting to in already cooking me the cookie. It was getting a little too caramelized, a little almost on the bitter side. And I was like, I, I can't get it where it needs to be. I need to find a way to do it naturally. And that's where we found the bell pepper. I think it's great, but I start creating products now from reverse beginning.

01:01:07:04 - 01:01:30:06
Speaker 2
You just go in and you're just all like, this is amazing. Like, I've got a product I wanted everyone to do for the last six, seven years. There's usually Coco Mayo. It's so hard because the ingredients they're required that I'm like, I can't do it. Yeah, I've got to get to the scale with the brand where I could potentially figure out a way to get these ingredients done at scale to do it, but once I do it, it'll be gangbusters.

01:01:30:06 - 01:01:36:18
Speaker 2
But then I think we'll be getting the most. I mean, I hope at that point in time people know about us. Not that they'll just trust us and say, well, pretty time's good.

01:01:36:20 - 01:01:38:13
Speaker 1
Is this it or what? Yeah, yeah.

01:01:38:13 - 01:01:55:00
Speaker 2
Let's grab that. But I'm thinking in my head, like I launched a new title is Saroja Zero Sugar thickening sweetened with red bell pepper. I love it. I use it every day. Not just me saying because I made it, but I love it. I think it's phenomenal. It's unique. It's not the same as Saroja. We we we're not trying to be Saroja.

01:01:55:02 - 01:02:07:10
Speaker 2
Saroja isn't really the original Saroja, but that's for another time. But sir, I have half instructions. Ingredients aren't really real ingredients either. In a lot of the flavor you're getting is coming from some of those chemicals they put in there unnecessarily.

01:02:07:11 - 01:02:11:00
Speaker 3
So when you get, the customer gets used to it. Yeah. And they get used to it. It is. Yeah.

01:02:11:00 - 01:02:25:06
Speaker 2
And then when you stop and you purge your body from it, which is what I did, I never really ate it a lot. We start on the food truck every now and then. I never really eat a lot. But when you start eating really healthy, because Kristen comes from that nutrition background, she loves to eat healthy. So she got me eating more healthy.

01:02:25:08 - 01:02:44:03
Speaker 2
And when I tried something like that filled with all those chemicals and stuff, I could literally taste Roger and get a stomach ache in five minutes. It's almost instantaneous because of what's in there. And but when you eat our product, you don't get that. So I'm not a doctor, just a chef. But I think you also feel better after you use our products.

01:02:44:03 - 01:03:03:19
Speaker 2
But the Saroja that you get off on a tangent, which I usually do, the ingredients are unique. Yuzu, galangal, Holy basil. You're not going to get the same flavor experience from the regular saroja. If you want to just go for the regular saroja, you want something that's elevated, that's more unique, that will work in the same way as Saroja, but in other ways as well.

01:03:03:22 - 01:03:16:02
Speaker 2
Then go for our title Saroja. But I've learned we can't get the traction on it the same way as we can. There's other too because people are so used to gram the other saroja. So it's like we've got to find a way to get them to give us a shot.

01:03:16:02 - 01:03:17:07
Speaker 3
Yeah.

01:03:17:09 - 01:03:25:05
Speaker 2
So I worry if I have a brand new practice mark, even though it's amazing. Is it going to work now? Because it's not great, but because we just can't get the.

01:03:25:10 - 01:03:26:22
Speaker 3
Traction traction to get moved.

01:03:27:02 - 01:03:57:18
Speaker 2
So I would say I thought you were going with the question. I would say, what is the one thing you would think you would need? I wish that either Kristen and I had a marketing degree background, or we had someone on our team that had a marketing background because I see so many companies and it's infuriating to people that do food for a living that don't know how to do food, but they know how to market the hell out of stuff, and they can go out and create an inferior product and get traction way faster than you, because they know how to market it.

01:03:57:20 - 01:04:17:22
Speaker 1
Yeah, it's, it's kind of like the, the spirits industry where it's a little bit it's kind of all of the same vodka produced at the same place. Yeah. It's all about who's the name on it, who's doing it, tequila, whatever it might be. And and off you go. And, and the average human's palate is and refined enough that, you know, can kind of determine, oh, yeah, this is different or whatever.

01:04:17:22 - 01:04:38:12
Speaker 1
To your point, that kind of a creature habit or what they're used to. Yeah. No, I think that's that's the thing that all those systems kind of have to work in place, otherwise it doesn't. It's not an automatic. I think that's my takeaway from what you're saying too, which is you can do something right and still miss the ingredient.

01:04:38:12 - 01:05:01:12
Speaker 1
Pun intended. This critical ingredient that ultimately make something sell, you know? And I imagine from your perspective, you also probably have to be as a classically trained chef, you kind of have to come out of your body sometimes and go, what is Jim who generally eats Jack in the box going to think about, well, he buy this product or won't he buy this product?

01:05:01:12 - 01:05:14:00
Speaker 2
Well, then there's the alternative that which is what I've always been told, especially in the food truck days all way to now, because I used to get off the food truck at two in the morning and I'd be on Yelp till 4 or 5 in the morning looking at reviews and things like stop looking at reviews. And that's what I do now on Amazon.

01:05:14:02 - 01:05:32:08
Speaker 2
And my team knows don't look at reviews. Robert is pissed off really quick. And reviews. Can you please everybody? No, no, I want to I genuinely want to. I genuinely give a damn. I get it when people call me and ask me questions, I answer the phone, I answer emails, they're like you. You actually answer the phone.

01:05:32:08 - 01:05:38:02
Speaker 2
It's Saturday. I'm like, yeah, I'll have conversations for an hour and a half with customers. Like, I genuinely enjoy that.

01:05:38:04 - 01:05:38:11
Speaker 3
Yeah.

01:05:38:11 - 01:05:57:10
Speaker 2
If you're coming at me from a place of like, hey, I want to learn. I want to know what's going on here, but can you please everybody know? But it's so tough not to want to not to try to, But I use it use my palette as a reference point. I remember when I was in high school when my chefs was like, he just told me, you need a lot of confidence as an entrepreneur, right?

01:05:57:10 - 01:06:15:01
Speaker 2
You need a lot of confidence to be able to do anything successful. And he's like, you probably have top three palates I've ever taught. And I took that to heart. I was like, okay, and when I quit my products, I'm like, wow, they love this, I love this. I just took that to heart. I've had to change kind of the way I think about that now.

01:06:15:03 - 01:06:15:10
Speaker 3
Yeah.

01:06:15:12 - 01:06:35:20
Speaker 2
Still not compromising on the quality and the principles going more towards. And I want to pigeonhole myself here, but going more towards like what he did with the strategy, with pulling the sugar out and doing it in a natural way with like the red bell pepper, but still not compromising on the overall quality in the in the versatility and like, like like Central Market versus Whole Foods central market.

01:06:35:22 - 01:06:39:04
Speaker 2
They want good products but they better taste good.

01:06:39:17 - 01:06:42:09
Speaker 2
Whole foods is like it is like cardboard.

01:06:42:11 - 01:06:44:15
Speaker 3
As long as it is always the pure ingredients.

01:06:44:15 - 01:06:50:12
Speaker 2
Are really good. Good tastes like shit. And we'll bring it in the store. Then we'll bring our products in the store for some reason. But they'll bring other products in the store.

01:06:50:12 - 01:06:52:16
Speaker 3
It tastes like shit.

01:06:52:18 - 01:06:54:08
Speaker 2
Central market's like, no, God, it tastes great.

01:06:54:08 - 01:06:54:18
Speaker 3
Yeah.

01:06:54:18 - 01:07:21:09
Speaker 2
And then if it's also got good ingredients, well, that's just an A-plus plus. So that's the way I look at it now. Like we still kind of quality flavor, versatility. Those were always the core three principles. Quality of ingredients that leads to the quality of the flavor and superior flavor than what you're used to. And then the versatility because of the way we make them, the viscosities and so forth, you can do more with them across all kinds of different cooking methods and options.

01:07:21:11 - 01:07:23:04
Speaker 2
Yeah. In the kitchen.

01:07:23:06 - 01:07:38:04
Speaker 1
I they it me man Robert. Like we're coming up on the in here. But I do have one thing that's burning on my mind. So maybe a good way to close out like if you had to daydream five years from now a heck man whatever you pick. What do you want this to like? What do you what is your ultimate goal?

01:07:38:04 - 01:07:56:20
Speaker 1
Because you're kind of on a unique side. We get a lot of folks on this show who bought a company who run a quote unquote boring business, whatever, you know, we want to talk about in that regard. But you're kind of the, the, the story of a pure founder who's grown something out of a deep passion. And obviously, I really appreciate you sharing me.

01:07:56:20 - 01:08:09:22
Speaker 1
And just like the deep connectivity with the family and the hardships and all the stuff that come along with it, if you could go like this in a minute, what would that be like? What would happen with this business? You keep it, you leave it, you'd like what would happen?

01:08:09:22 - 01:08:30:10
Speaker 2
I could do both because I could. I could keep it or I could leave it, to be honest. Like, I could sell this tomorrow. And as long as we got what we needed from it, I could be happy with that. But it's always like as soon as you get a little more traction, she was one other person or somebody big comes in and says, hey, we want to be on board with this.

01:08:30:12 - 01:08:31:09
Speaker 3
This game on again.

01:08:31:09 - 01:08:34:07
Speaker 2
It's game on again. It gets me excited. It rejuvenates me. I need that.

01:08:34:07 - 01:08:35:07
Speaker 3
Team. It's how you build.

01:08:35:08 - 01:08:52:10
Speaker 2
It's like I'm by myself. It's so like, but if I can get. And that's what I need. I need a team. I need more people that know that are smarter than me in area that I know I'm not smart in, or have the bedside manner where I don't have it. You can go to the retailers and say, I can get it in.

01:08:52:15 - 01:09:09:11
Speaker 2
Yeah, and help push it. Get the brand awareness there if I can get that. I've had ideas for a thousand products and this line, we could be a catalyst for this. Like that's what I always saw ourselves as when we were starting. Sometime I see a day or even earlier and, how much they sell forever.

01:09:09:12 - 01:09:09:17
Speaker 3
Yeah.

01:09:09:23 - 01:09:11:06
Speaker 2
So yeah, there you go.

01:09:11:08 - 01:09:11:21
Speaker 1
We get some of the.

01:09:11:21 - 01:09:12:12
Speaker 3
Chips right here.

01:09:12:12 - 01:09:20:04
Speaker 2
Yeah, exactly. Amazing products. We could do the same thing with high food, but I need a team.

01:09:20:09 - 01:09:20:22
Speaker 3
Yeah.

01:09:21:00 - 01:09:29:07
Speaker 2
They had a team. Yeah, I don't really have a team. I have a few people. I don't have enough. And so that's what I need. Otherwise sell. Move on.

01:09:29:09 - 01:09:31:07
Speaker 1
Probably in the food. No staying somewhere in food.

01:09:31:07 - 01:09:33:03
Speaker 2
Always going to be somewhere in food. Some aspect.

01:09:33:03 - 01:09:35:01
Speaker 3
Of food.

01:09:35:03 - 01:10:00:16
Speaker 1
Rather. Thanks for coming in, man. Really in chat with us I mean, I could you're right, it's probably worth having you back in to do a full episode on a lot of these other, important topics that we can go through. But I think the main thing, what I genuinely appreciate is kind of the testament of, like, how hard it is to get something from zero to where it is to like where it got has even remote survival traction.

01:10:00:18 - 01:10:20:01
Speaker 1
Then to just be able to put yourself and kind of back on the hamster wheel for it to keep going. So I'll tell you, man, I've had this stuff before. And I know that you guys will continue pushing this thing, but I genuinely appreciate the background, the story there, man, and kind of just being an example of what it takes to move something like this.

01:10:20:03 - 01:10:26:10
Speaker 2
Now, I appreciate that. I appreciate you having me. And, Yeah, trust me, there's a lot more. So we can always do this again.

01:10:26:14 - 01:10:28:02
Speaker 3
Yeah. Thank you man.

01:10:28:04 - 01:10:30:21
Speaker 2
I appreciate it.

01:10:30:23 - 01:10:31:17
Speaker 1
That's it man.

01:10:31:18 - 01:10:38:22
Speaker 3
That's great. Now, as a bonus. Oh, you wanted to taste it. I want you to taste it. Okay?

01:10:39:00 - 01:10:41:17
Speaker 2
You're going to have to. I mean, this would be the best one that tastes well.

01:10:41:17 - 01:10:42:04
Speaker 3
Let's do it.

01:10:42:06 - 01:10:43:08
Speaker 2
They're all. I mean.

01:10:43:10 - 01:10:44:07
Speaker 3
Okay. Yeah.

01:10:44:07 - 01:10:45:19
Speaker 2
Usually I like to taste those things.

01:10:45:19 - 01:10:52:14
Speaker 3
Okay, well, tell me, what do we when they're light, all chilled. Oh, okay. So, you know, just quickly explain.

01:10:52:16 - 01:10:54:21
Speaker 1
Yeah. Just quickly explain the sauces to me.

01:10:54:21 - 01:11:09:05
Speaker 2
Yeah. So sweet chili. That was our flagship. That's the one that got us started. That's the one that I reformatted recently to get it closer to where it was in the food truck. Yeah, I think it's amazing. Hopefully most people do. Still typing it. That one I actually. Funny story. I created that one because Central Market wanted it.

01:11:09:08 - 01:11:23:09
Speaker 2
Okay. I didn't have a typing it. I was in Central Market and foodies like Robert, we have zero typing sauces that we can recommend. Yeah, you want to make one. And they were bothering me for a year. I'm like, I was R&D. It took me a year to launch that. That's now the number one typing out on Amazon.

01:11:23:11 - 01:11:23:22
Speaker 3
Oh really?

01:11:23:22 - 01:11:24:16
Speaker 2
It's overtaking.

01:11:24:16 - 01:11:25:20
Speaker 3
What's the weirdest thing to put.

01:11:25:20 - 01:11:30:16
Speaker 1
This on the taste good. What's the most odd combo that's delicious.

01:11:30:18 - 01:11:32:19
Speaker 2
I had combo. I think because.

01:11:32:19 - 01:11:34:16
Speaker 3
There's obvious combos.

01:11:34:18 - 01:11:39:08
Speaker 2
Chicken salad is an amazing way to using it. Yeah, it makes a great chicken salad sandwich.

01:11:39:09 - 01:11:41:07
Speaker 3
It tastes good. No ice cream.

01:11:41:09 - 01:11:43:16
Speaker 2
Oh, there you go. Yes, you can taste good on ice cream.

01:11:43:17 - 01:11:45:01
Speaker 1
I have a feeling it would. That's why I was.

01:11:45:01 - 01:11:53:13
Speaker 2
Wearing no ice cream. We actually did that one for an ice cream sundae at Central Market for cooking. Cooking thing one time. And it was a favorite thing they did all night. Yeah. They said.

01:11:53:15 - 01:11:54:06
Speaker 3
And then this game.

01:11:54:06 - 01:12:02:04
Speaker 2
And this is a new one. The title is Saroja. So I didn't create this because there was a scratcher shortage. I've been think about this before that, I just.

01:12:02:04 - 01:12:03:13
Speaker 3
Knew the Queen, the palette.

01:12:03:13 - 01:12:17:21
Speaker 2
Yeah. The reason why I did this is because we created two sources that are gonna go by three sources. Our Tiger spring source is going by by our, It's a little thicker than normal, but it's still got a good.

01:12:17:21 - 01:12:20:14
Speaker 3
Kind of, like, a catch up vibe. Yeah, a little bit like that.

01:12:20:14 - 01:12:21:22
Speaker 2
Good texture on it.

01:12:22:00 - 01:12:23:09
Speaker 1
Am I screwing it up by eating like this?

01:12:23:13 - 01:12:27:21
Speaker 2
Okay. Let me. Good. And then my Muay Thai sauce, which I didn't bring those. I wanted to bring the big three.

01:12:27:21 - 01:12:31:02
Speaker 3
Oh, again man that's delicious. Dude. Yeah.

01:12:32:01 - 01:12:33:02
Speaker 1
Ian my hand.

01:12:33:07 - 01:12:34:01
Speaker 2
It's got big like a.

01:12:34:01 - 01:12:34:11
Speaker 1
Freaking.

01:12:34:17 - 01:12:35:18
Speaker 2
You're afraid of flavor.

01:12:35:23 - 01:12:40:04
Speaker 3
Like I say, like you go, oh, man. Oh, my gosh, this is delicious, man.

01:12:40:06 - 01:12:46:18
Speaker 2
If you don't like flavor, you don't like pretty Thai is what we like to say. But we're on unapologetic when it comes to flavor.

01:12:46:18 - 01:12:48:12
Speaker 3
But oh my gosh, I'm trying to chase this thing.

01:12:48:17 - 01:12:54:23
Speaker 2
The Hui Thai sauce was my original. Hot sauce is fish sauce. It's always big flavors, but nobody knew what it was. It was more like.

01:12:55:01 - 01:12:57:15
Speaker 1
You better like hot man. It's not hot in a bad way. It's got.

01:12:57:16 - 01:12:58:13
Speaker 3
Like, it's got a bigger.

01:12:58:13 - 01:13:01:01
Speaker 2
Kick, then it's got to be your kicked in regular strategy. I think.

01:13:01:03 - 01:13:05:03
Speaker 3
Yeah, bro. I mean, what am I putting that on?

01:13:05:03 - 01:13:05:15
Speaker 2
Everything.

01:13:05:21 - 01:13:07:12
Speaker 3
Well anything you want to do breakfast.

01:13:07:14 - 01:13:19:16
Speaker 2
We do that now. Now I will. Game changer for you anything like Italian do little Thai, Italian night, little little marinara and Thai meatballs. Chicken parm. Just throwing your spaghetti. Oh my.

01:13:19:18 - 01:13:20:08
Speaker 3
Gosh man.

01:13:20:11 - 01:13:24:16
Speaker 2
He's going to make that you little spicy you little spicy sauce.

01:13:24:18 - 01:13:28:16
Speaker 3
We're not a like this. This is just delicious. Yeah.

01:13:28:18 - 01:13:51:01
Speaker 2
So yeah. Anything Italian I've recently doing it. Oh. So we recently did a cooking demonstration at Central Market. Beginning of this month, and I. And I'm doing this marinade with summer squash. So you have a really good recipe. Super simple I just did you can play around the ratio you do about a three part ratchet to about a one part honey and then half of that of rice wine vinegar.

01:13:51:06 - 01:13:58:02
Speaker 2
Mix it, marinate the squash in it, and then I'll either grill the squash, smoke it. My Traeger and let that thicken up naturally.

01:13:58:06 - 01:13:58:19
Speaker 3
Yeah.

01:13:58:21 - 01:14:09:13
Speaker 2
Or take that marinade, dump it off. Put it in the pot. Reduce it down. It thickens up. We took that thickened up reduction. And I was I was working with one of the people at Central Marketing where all my food were like.

01:14:09:15 - 01:14:10:11
Speaker 3
I'm doing what.

01:14:10:13 - 01:14:14:09
Speaker 2
I'm going to do with this. So we're like, well, let's do it. Let's do big beans with it. Okay, big.

01:14:14:09 - 01:14:16:02
Speaker 3
Oh yeah, let's do a.

01:14:16:04 - 01:14:33:02
Speaker 2
Let's do a, bloody Mary with it. Okay, great. Let's do shallot is with it. So I went home that night and I did a lobster avocado enchilada with that thickened up reduction sauce made out of the Saroja rice wine vinegar and honey. So it's just got again the.

01:14:33:02 - 01:14:34:23
Speaker 3
First packet on Brussels sprouts, Yeah.

01:14:34:23 - 01:14:36:15
Speaker 2
Well the sweet chili was our original with the Brussels.

01:14:36:15 - 01:14:38:03
Speaker 1
I imagine that's a common. But this.

01:14:38:03 - 01:14:38:21
Speaker 3
Is guy right here.

01:14:39:02 - 01:14:58:09
Speaker 2
Do that with it. Makes it a little bit of a sweet chili. Add a little bit of sweet with the spicy savory. It's just a lot of things you can do with it. Like you have so many options. And again, because they're clean, because the viscosity is a real you can play around with it more and you, if you eat more of it, you would realize like you don't feel that heavy, lethargic.

01:14:58:13 - 01:15:08:12
Speaker 2
Yeah. Kind of gross. Do you eat a lot of Asian food because of what's not in there? It's just as important what's not in there. Then what is? So yeah, I mean, this one definitely is.

01:15:08:14 - 01:15:11:22
Speaker 3
I'm going to I screenshot so my take and the pizza.

01:15:12:00 - 01:15:12:13
Speaker 2
So we do.

01:15:12:13 - 01:15:13:07
Speaker 3
A this goes with.

01:15:13:13 - 01:15:25:00
Speaker 2
So we do a we had an influencer that did one for us. We got for free. She did a pizza with it with our seasonings on that. And then Christine started playing around with it. So she do just either go get the flour tortillas from H-e-b or non bread.

01:15:25:02 - 01:15:25:10
Speaker 3
Yeah.

01:15:25:10 - 01:15:38:10
Speaker 2
And that's the base. And then you do mozzarella I like the smoked chicken thigh on my Traeger. Super simple. It comes out so good. And then pickle some red onion really quick pickle and the red onion.

01:15:38:14 - 01:15:39:15
Speaker 3
We you a quick pickle.

01:15:39:15 - 01:15:57:12
Speaker 2
Yeah. You just throw a little bit of just the vinegar and lime juice in with the red onion. I mean it would take a few hours a pickle. But you do a quick pickle on the ready or let it sit overnight in advance and then fresh dill and Filipino. And that's the I did it for an event with the Business Hall of Fame.

01:15:57:12 - 01:15:59:03
Speaker 2
Were you at that cooking demonstration event?

01:15:59:05 - 01:15:59:17
Speaker 3
Torches.

01:15:59:22 - 01:16:01:00
Speaker 2
No no no no no.

01:16:01:02 - 01:16:01:21
Speaker 3
No I didn't make that.

01:16:01:21 - 01:16:18:06
Speaker 2
One. I did it at the, Frost Bank and I did it hit. Yeah, it was a hit. So Patrice wants the recipe for the deviled eggs. I did, I did, I did the use a kosher mayo with the deviled egg. And then we did a sirocco relish on top. And she's like, I need the recipe. I'll give it to you.

01:16:18:06 - 01:16:38:19
Speaker 2
It's just a little complicated to make the use of kosher, but the rest of it is super simple. But we did that, and then I. Yeah, I made the, pizza. Yeah, it's just super simple. It literally, besides smoking the chicken and doing the and doing the, pickled red onion. I mean, that's a quick, quick thing. I mean, that's going to cook in five minutes.

01:16:38:21 - 01:16:40:13
Speaker 3
Yeah, man. This is no Calvin this thing.

01:16:40:13 - 01:16:42:20
Speaker 2
Yeah. No, it's good.

01:16:42:22 - 01:16:50:12
Speaker 1
Yeah I mean I just go put it on a fat burger now and then just get all the calories in the world. I mean, Robert, you made. We should have started with this.

01:16:50:14 - 01:16:54:19
Speaker 3
Yeah. Appreciate you man. You know.

01:16:54:21 - 01:17:00:09
Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah. But the thing about the Pina is, is becoming really thankful right off.

01:17:00:11 - 01:17:03:00
Speaker 3
That's right. I don't care about that.

01:17:03:02 - 01:17:04:11
Speaker 2
My sealer person didn't do their job.

01:17:04:16 - 01:17:07:02
Speaker 1
They not just shade it here.

01:17:07:05 - 01:17:12:16
Speaker 2
We switch to that seal because of issues with the,

01:17:12:18 - 01:17:18:01
Speaker 3
Oh yeah. That's good. Hold on. What I just tasted. There's a base on here. No.

01:17:18:03 - 01:17:18:16
Speaker 2
There's tamarind.

01:17:18:21 - 01:17:23:04
Speaker 3
There's, I would be in, I would be in, I would be a little chef's three long is.

01:17:23:04 - 01:17:25:08
Speaker 2
Going to give you a little like.

01:17:25:10 - 01:17:29:06
Speaker 3
Like I'm. A little floral.

01:17:29:06 - 01:17:33:07
Speaker 2
Notes in there. Get getting this one the galangal, which is phenomenal.

01:17:33:09 - 01:17:40:19
Speaker 3
Oh, yeah. Man. Super simple. Yeah. Just do this. I have a super awesome vanilla ice cream. Yeah. Oh, be nuts man.

01:17:40:21 - 01:17:45:00
Speaker 2
Yeah. No, it would be. It would be fire. Especially with some mint little basil.

01:17:45:00 - 01:17:48:01
Speaker 3
I want all my pad Thai num.

01:17:48:01 - 01:18:08:13
Speaker 2
Yeah, man. And because we have an authentic pad Thai sauce that we're discontinuing because nobody knows how to use it or won't look at the recipe, some people get it. I'm going to recreate another version that's not exactly the same, but it's an authentic Pad Thai. It is amazing. But then in the bottle, it's got to be cooking to the noodles.

01:18:08:13 - 01:18:10:01
Speaker 1
Oh, you got it. There's a way this way.

01:18:10:01 - 01:18:15:00
Speaker 2
But with the pad Thai and that peanut together makes drunken noodles pad come out.

01:18:15:01 - 01:18:18:17
Speaker 3
Well, I'll take some fucking. Wow, ma'am. So.

01:18:18:23 - 01:18:20:23
Speaker 1
And I see there's Palmer Nicholas on here.

01:18:21:00 - 01:18:22:07
Speaker 3
Yeah, that's cool man.

01:18:22:08 - 01:18:27:08
Speaker 2
Yeah. So I mean, the goal was to grow pretty tight to the point where we can really use that to grow.

01:18:27:10 - 01:18:29:01
Speaker 3
The foundation and then to be the founder. Yeah.

01:18:29:02 - 01:18:29:22
Speaker 2
Yeah.

01:18:30:00 - 01:18:34:04
Speaker 1
Well who knows, man, timing is an interesting thing sometimes.

01:18:34:06 - 01:18:37:05
Speaker 2
I know we just keep waiting for the timing to work out for us.

01:18:37:06 - 01:18:39:15
Speaker 3
We just keep waiting. Well, I'll tell you, you.

01:18:39:15 - 01:18:54:04
Speaker 1
Get the the way you're built, man, is like, I think, I didn't feel it that way, but it's like the way you're building. It's kind of. It's kind of how you have to naturally be programed. Otherwise, I feel like it's just. It's too dang hard.

01:18:54:06 - 01:18:55:00
Speaker 2
Yeah.

01:18:55:02 - 01:19:07:07
Speaker 1
You know, heck, I mean, some people don't even what, have any other day. You can't get some people to stay outside without a jacket for like a minute, you know, and you're like, how long has this been going? 20 years.

01:19:07:09 - 01:19:08:04
Speaker 3
No, this is going, man.

01:19:08:05 - 01:19:13:11
Speaker 2
It feels like it. It's been going 12 years with the food truck. Yeah. Now that that's like my like

01:19:13:11 - 01:19:21:12
Speaker 2
what's your advice when you want to talk to, people want to do their own business. I'm like, don't do it. That's my first advice. I'm like, if you really thought about it,

01:19:21:12 - 01:19:22:20
Speaker 2
he thought it through is the same thing.

01:19:22:20 - 01:19:40:10
Speaker 2
Like when like I would think about how I'm going to approach, like when we start doing family advocacy stuff with with parents because what we went through with that and it's like there's a system that's in this, a whole other conversation too. There's a system that's like terrible, it's bad. And I'm like, I'm going to be honest, blunt.

01:19:40:10 - 01:19:54:16
Speaker 2
I be like the basic training, like the the drill instructor, like I'm somebody else can sugarcoat it for you. I'm going to give you the worst, worst, like, really, truly. You're going to do this. You serious? You can't get this done if they still want to do it. Okay, maybe they have a shot.

01:19:54:18 - 01:19:55:00
Speaker 3
But.

01:19:55:05 - 01:20:02:10
Speaker 2
Don't go in there and, like, sugarcoat it, pussyfoot around it, and and then expect that you gave them what they needed to actually go.

01:20:02:10 - 01:20:04:17
Speaker 3
You don't feel it. It's helpful if you're just like, oh.

01:20:04:17 - 01:20:06:05
Speaker 1
Yeah, anybody can do this.

01:20:06:05 - 01:20:07:06
Speaker 2
Yeah. No, not at all. No.

01:20:07:06 - 01:20:08:04
Speaker 1
You're like, I'm somebody who.

01:20:08:05 - 01:20:09:17
Speaker 3
I'm going to do this and I'm going to give.

01:20:09:17 - 01:20:13:02
Speaker 2
You the I'm going to go up here. I'm going to play devil's advocate with that.

01:20:13:02 - 01:20:16:09
Speaker 3
Yeah. Yeah. That's helpful. Probably not. If you're.

01:20:16:09 - 01:20:18:16
Speaker 1
From a very you save some folks from grief.

01:20:18:18 - 01:20:24:05
Speaker 2
Maybe I don't know. No. Come back to me in 20 years and say thank you I don't know but we'll see. That's it. Yeah.

01:20:24:07 - 01:20:25:02
Speaker 3
I mean, well, thanks for bringing.

01:20:25:02 - 01:20:27:21
Speaker 1
These sources in this I know what to do with. Should I you.

01:20:27:23 - 01:20:34:03
Speaker 2
Yeah. Yeah. It's just I like the peanut in the sweet chili when they're little chilled, like, you put it in the freezer, the fridge. And then you can use them, as, you.

01:20:34:04 - 01:20:35:13
Speaker 1
Know, on a like this.

01:20:36:07 - 01:20:51:14
Speaker 1
I mean, this is why it's very it's so funny. I mean, this how like, this has become, a lot more popular. Okay. Stand by. Just everybody knows that's righteousness. I basically can't stop eating.

01:20:51:14 - 01:20:52:04
Speaker 3
You will go through.

01:20:52:04 - 01:20:55:09
Speaker 2
I go to a bottle that in, like, 3 or 4 days.

01:20:55:11 - 01:20:56:01
Speaker 3
I don't know.

01:20:56:03 - 01:21:02:12
Speaker 2
I'm using on everything. Then you start doing the combinations like you try to combination with the three Juliana's Roja, you put it together.

01:21:02:14 - 01:21:04:09
Speaker 3
Oh if I at home. Yeah.

01:21:04:11 - 01:21:18:04
Speaker 2
That's how I would do the Muay Thai in there. We do a lot of stir fries because I like that more like I don't go to that all, all day, every day. I go to that more often than that. Like we'll do that with just just like, you know, help them plug somebody who doesn't need plugging. But Momofuku.

01:21:18:04 - 01:21:18:12
Speaker 3
Here.

01:21:18:14 - 01:21:31:01
Speaker 2
And David Chang like just his noodles with the soy scallion noodles with our peanut sauce and put some, like, chicken thighs on there. It's a super simple dinner with the peanut. But yeah, the combination of the sweet chili and the, they're.

01:21:31:01 - 01:21:32:09
Speaker 3
All good, man. Damn good.

01:21:32:10 - 01:21:34:10
Speaker 2
And this right together as we're, like.

01:21:34:12 - 01:21:37:07
Speaker 3
Really goes up. These are great.

01:21:37:09 - 01:21:41:23
Speaker 2
The same reaction we get from customers. I know you're not faking right now, because these are the same reactions we get from customers.

01:21:41:23 - 01:21:42:09
Speaker 3
We're hanging out.

01:21:42:09 - 01:21:46:19
Speaker 1
Here long because we're like, hey, yeah, this is why we do it. Like, this is delicious, man.

01:21:46:23 - 01:21:48:12
Speaker 3
This is killer.

01:21:48:14 - 01:21:57:06
Speaker 1
Just for folks like Sriracha here. Obviously. Is this like a is this like a baseline word for something? It's like a style of sauce is why it's called back. And it was it was.

01:21:57:06 - 01:22:13:01
Speaker 2
Originated from, I think it was in eastern Thailand. Yeah. And then I think I don't know the exact origin of the other Saroja, the rooster. I think he brought over and did a different variation of it. So there's a original variation. Thailand that's different from what you're thinking of as Saroja.

01:22:13:03 - 01:22:14:00
Speaker 3
Yeah.

01:22:14:02 - 01:22:37:12
Speaker 2
Yeah, it's a style of style I mean chili we don't use the red jalapeno. We use Thai chili. Okay. So we're going with the Thai chili which is a spicier chili. But unfortunately all not all of them, but most there are healthier sriracha, as I say, healthy, meaning it's still flavorful. That do it in a clean way that are unique.

01:22:37:14 - 01:23:02:20
Speaker 2
But all those other ones are out there just trying to basically do the exact same thing is what Sriracha, the rooster sauce was doing with all the ingredients and all the stuff like that was something that came from like, you know, post-World War two baby boomers needing to put a bunch of food out there, creating all these preservatives and stuff that like, I mean, this is a 2.5, a 3.3.6, you get 4.01 to 4 point or below, you're good.

01:23:02:22 - 01:23:10:22
Speaker 2
4.71 and I'm not right now. 4.71 botulism starts growing. You don't need all those preservatives and stuff to keep these sauces.

01:23:11:00 - 01:23:14:22
Speaker 3
Yeah, I just look at the expiration date on the rumors aren't used to when is this go bad?

01:23:14:22 - 01:23:21:23
Speaker 2
I'm like, it doesn't really go bad. If you hold in the fridge, it'll last forever. I got a I got one of these from like ten years ago that I'm still waiting to, like, open up like a.

01:23:21:23 - 01:23:23:21
Speaker 3
Bottle of wine. Yeah.

01:23:23:23 - 01:23:31:14
Speaker 2
It doesn't go bad, really. It just would change. This one changes in the bottle, it develops, it gets more. You mommy starts out, and it's very much more citrus forward.

01:23:31:14 - 01:23:32:16
Speaker 3
Yeah, it's kind of vinegar.

01:23:32:18 - 01:23:39:18
Speaker 2
It's tangy citrus. And as it sits, it gets more umami. Vinegar is always there. I love vinegar, but it just develops.

01:23:39:18 - 01:23:43:01
Speaker 1
It's like a private like a reserve, right? You kind of keep it reserve.

01:23:43:01 - 01:23:44:18
Speaker 3
Like a shell. Exactly. You could get it forever.

01:23:44:18 - 01:23:49:20
Speaker 2
So unless you do something weird with it and leave it open to the air and you need to see.

01:23:49:20 - 01:23:52:11
Speaker 3
Or buy in there or something, yeah.

01:23:52:13 - 01:23:56:15
Speaker 2
It's not going to really go bad, bro.

01:23:56:17 - 01:23:57:23
Speaker 3
I mean, I've had I've you know, what's.

01:23:57:23 - 01:24:02:04
Speaker 1
Funny is that I've had all your, most all your sauces.

01:24:02:06 - 01:24:04:07
Speaker 3
On food though. Yeah.

01:24:04:09 - 01:24:07:21
Speaker 1
I guess I never really just sit here and just frickin rip them straight from the bottle.

01:24:08:01 - 01:24:17:03
Speaker 2
Which is what I do like whenever you see increase in heat to two because, like, I always think you're trying to, like, kind of want to do. But in the kitchen is where I love it because everyone in the kitchen, they're chefs.

01:24:17:05 - 01:24:17:17
Speaker 3
Yeah.

01:24:17:19 - 01:24:18:16
Speaker 2
So like, oh yeah man this.

01:24:18:16 - 01:24:19:09
Speaker 3
Goes yeah, yeah.

01:24:19:09 - 01:24:25:02
Speaker 2
It's right at home in her. She's like, I just haven't had my coffee. I don't want to right now. And I'm like, try it.

01:24:25:06 - 01:24:27:01
Speaker 3
Yeah. Put it like your shortbread.

01:24:27:03 - 01:24:30:13
Speaker 2
In the morning. I don't care what time of day it is. You're trying this new sauce.

01:24:30:15 - 01:24:32:16
Speaker 3
Yeah. It's straight up. You made my.

01:24:32:16 - 01:24:34:19
Speaker 1
Day. I'm taking this for an ice cream tonight.

01:24:35:00 - 01:24:36:19
Speaker 3
Yeah, I do it. I'll try it. I don't throw.

01:24:36:19 - 01:24:41:20
Speaker 2
Little herbs on there like I said, a little mint. Will basil be really good with that?

01:24:41:22 - 01:24:49:14
Speaker 1
I like, you know, I this is not even a public service man. Just go get you some pretty time. I can get it Amazon online Amazon Amazon.

01:24:49:14 - 01:25:06:18
Speaker 2
If you're in Texas you go to H-e-b. We're in the kind denial of H-e-b. Okay. Yeah. If you're in Austin H-e-b is obviously great. We spill here's our products. Central market amazing carries our products. If you're in the Midwest you go to Myer. Yeah, our is in there. Peanut and sweet chili are in the world food set.

01:25:06:18 - 01:25:07:17
Speaker 2
No, just those.

01:25:07:17 - 01:25:09:14
Speaker 3
Two young Buckeyes. Yeah.

01:25:09:16 - 01:25:15:05
Speaker 2
No, I haven't really tried buckets with that. I tried buckets with the pickles really quick and that was like come back when H-e-b and.

01:25:15:07 - 01:25:15:20
Speaker 3
Yeah, cool food.

01:25:15:20 - 01:25:16:11
Speaker 2
System.

01:25:16:15 - 01:25:17:08
Speaker 3
It will get you on.

01:25:17:13 - 01:25:21:11
Speaker 2
But I could I mean I could put them in the bucket at some point. I really haven't tried.

01:25:21:17 - 01:25:24:06
Speaker 3
Yeah. Come. Thank you man.

01:25:24:08 - 01:25:25:21
Speaker 2
Well thank you

01:25:25:21 - 01:25:52:03
Speaker 1
Thanks for tuning in to the American Operator Podcast, where we celebrate the backbone of America small business owners and operators like you. If you've enjoyed today's episode, be sure to subscribe so you'll never miss out on more of these stories and insights from people who keep our community strong. Until next time, keep building, keep operating and keep America moving forward.