Good Food Isn’t Enough. Here’s Why Some Restaurants Win

Getting fired from your own company can break you. For Sam Fox, it lit the fuse.

In this episode, Sam shares how he bet on himself and went on to build 150 plus restaurants and a flagship hotel, including True Food, Flower Child, The Henry, and The Global Ambassador. We talk early hustle in Tucson, opening a restaurant at 21, counting every dollar, and why food has to taste great before it can be healthy.

Sam breaks down what actually scales, how to choose partners, when to say no, and why hype driven ideas like ghost kitchens miss the soul of hospitality. He also opens up about a health wake up call that changed how he eats, moves, sleeps, and leads.

If you love founder stories, restaurants, hotels, or building big without losing the human touch, this one is for you. 

Follow the show, share it with a builder friend, and leave a review if it sparks something.

Transcript

Meet Sam Fox: From Tucson Roots

SPEAKER_01 0:05

Okay, so welcome to our podcast. This is a little bit different today because this podcast is a spin-off of our radio show. Welcome to our podcast again. So we've got uh it's the Doctor and the DJ working title right now, but our guest today is Sam Fox, entrepreneur, restaurateur, businessman. What do we call you, Sam? Sam. Sam? Yeah. But you've like changed the hotelier now. Hotelier, that's right. I love that name. It's very fancy. You've got the global ambassador that opened up about a year ago, almost a year ago. Yeah. But I mean, you changed the landscape of food in Arizona.

SPEAKER_00 0:50

Oh, thank you.

SPEAKER_01 0:51

Right? I mean, you really have to.

SPEAKER_03 0:52

Much broader than Arizona. California, Arizona.

SPEAKER_01 0:55

California, uh, Nashville, right?

SPEAKER_00 0:56

Did it be 23 states?

SPEAKER_01 0:58

Are you in 23 states?

SPEAKER_03 0:59

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:01

Wow.

unknown 1:02

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 1:03

Big portfolio.

SPEAKER_01 1:04

Are there any restaurants in other states outside of this that aren't here? Because I know you got the one with Justin Timberlake in National.

SPEAKER_00 1:09

Yeah, the only other one it would be the 1230 Club in Nashville. That's just a unique one-off. And uh I've never really done a one-off outside of Arizona. All the original brands and restaurants have all started in Arizona. That's the first one we did uh in Nashville, and the only one we've done so far.

SPEAKER_03 1:26

So we're like the food proving ground.

SPEAKER_00 1:28

So just you know, you have to these restaurants are like children. You have to nurture them and grow them and develop them. They don't just happen. And so I've always wanted to be close so I could be there every day, especially in the beginning when you're doing all that. So that was reasoning for that.

SPEAKER_01 1:43

So how did it start? You grew up in Tucson? Yeah. Working for your parents?

SPEAKER_00 1:46

Yeah. My parents were in the restaurant business.

SPEAKER_01 1:48

Which restaurant?

SPEAKER_00 1:48

Uh Hungry Fox on Broadway, and they're still there. Uh a little breakfast place that my dad had a Mexican restaurant and um a couple other places. And you know, the whole time when I was going to school and growing up, it was a hard restaurant career. My parents did not want me to go in the restaurant business. They were mom and pop restaurants. They worked opening the clothes. It wasn't some big fancy payroll. They, you know, they cooked and cleaned and swept and did everything and um you know, just made enough to make a living, but it was not uh some sort of fancy job that I might have today.

SPEAKER_01 2:23

So what happened? How did it start? How did you go?

First Restaurant And Hard Lessons

SPEAKER_00 2:25

I know I was going to school at the University of Arizona as a sophomore, and I was in real estate finance. My parents moved away to Florida to take care of my grandfather. They insisted that I did not go into the restaurant business. I was interning at a real estate firm. Um that guy I was interning for told me to go to his wife's house in Tucson Country Club, and she had something that she wanted me to do. As an intern in college, you ran errands and picked up lunch and you made copies. And so I was going over there. I thought I was picking up some dry cleaning, and she knocked, she opened the door and said, Hey, uh, I have a flat tire. I need you to change my flat tire. It's July in the summer. I'm this little preppy intern. I got my khaki pants on and my white shirt. And she goes, Can you change the tire? I said, Uh yeah, and I'm not really mechanically inclined. So it took me about an hour to change the tire, about 150 degrees on the asphalt. My clothes are ruined. I get in the car, she barely says thank you. I drive back to the real estate firm, which is at Williams Center, walked in and to my boss and said, I quit. And walked out of the door and I said, I'm never gonna work for anyone ever again. I dropped out of school, did not tell my parents, took my tuition money, and then raised some money from some friends and family and took over the old Casmelina space on Campbell and opened Gilligan's Bar and Grill in 1992. That's how I got into the restaurant business. I was 20 years old when I signed the lease. But I couldn't open the restaurant until I was 21 because I had to get a liquor license. I thought I was the smartest 21-year-old in the world, which I wasn't. And um, I'd say that was my three, I had the business for almost four years. That was my business sort of crash course on sort of I call it the restaurant business. I was always good at the restaurant side of things. My parents had restaurants and hospitality became natural and easy to me. The business side, which my parents weren't great at either, was something that I had to work at. And then having that restaurant with really not a lot of money. I kind of shoestring it together and running a business for three years with no money. You learn a lot about business and you learn a lot by yourself, and you know what works and what doesn't work, and you got to make sure you know where every penny is. And so, really, a foundation for who I am, sold that business, cost$45,000 to open. I sold that business four years, three and a half, four years later, and for$500,000. It's kind of crazy. And then uh got into some other restaurants in Tucson, had a restaurant called City Grill, uh merged with the people that owned Buddies, and we had five restaurants together. And uh I was partners in that, owned a third of that. My partners owned two-thirds of it. They were late 50s, early 60s. I was 26, 27 at the time. And um, we worked together, learned a lot from them, and learned a lot of things that I didn't like about how they ran their business. And we kind of became oil and water. They were, like I said, we were two different places in our life. They were playing golf, and I was working, they'd come in and tell me what to do. And I was offended by that. They probably were right, but I was offended by it. And after three or four years of business together, we had five restaurants. Um, they basically came to me and said, We're firing you. And I said, Well, I didn't know I could get fired from my own company. I'm the owner. And realized that I could. Big business lesson for me there. And um was embarrassed. I was kind of this guy in Tucson, had all these restaurants, and um, was gonna move out of Tucson to New York. A friend of mine just bought um uh um a business in New York called Dina DeLuca that was already there and he acquired it. He was a mentor of mine. In fact, they owned radio stations in Tucson, and that's how I got to know a guy named Bill Phalan. Did you know Bill at all? Boy, that name sounds familiar. Yeah, Bill, they owned a whole bunch of radio stations around the country. I can't remember the company, but Bill would come into my first restaurant and he would mentor me. And and then over the years I got to know him, and then when my partners fired me from that, he goes, Oh, you should go talk to a guy named Leslie Rudd, who was uh living in Napa at the time. Leslie had bought this uh Dina DeLuca brand. And at the same time, while all this was going on, I started to date a girl that was seven years younger than me, and she was a senior in college at the University of Arizona. We came serious. I went to New York, I got offered the job. I knew if I took the job that my wife or that girl, my girlfriend at that time would be over, and I knew I was gonna want him to marry her. And here I have 26 years later, I've married that girl.

SPEAKER_03 6:42

Good choice.

SPEAKER_00 6:43

Uh, got fired from my company, it was the best thing that happened to me, and um sort of was gonna move out of Tucson, but decided to stay, get engaged, and open Wildflower in Tucson in 1998, still in our portfolio. 150 restaurants later, we're up here in Phoenix and had about 16, 17 different brands. We've grown the company, we've grown brands, we've had one-offs, we have 40 and 50 of other units. We've sold true food, we've sold sauce, and then almost four years ago, a little over four years ago, I sold my whole company to the Cheesecake Factory. And I'm still there today running the business, and they're in amazing partners, and we have a really good thing going.

SPEAKER_03 7:23

So I want to ask you to me, Sam, you're kind of like the pioneer of concepts, though. Because everybody now wants to do concepts in the restaurant business. But you started it. Yeah. You were the first guy who said there's a trend here that we can we can you know play off of. So how did you come up with the idea?

Partnerships, Setbacks, And A Pivotal Exit

SPEAKER_00 7:42

Well, all ideas are different, but all the ideas came from as far as true food goes, if you're referring to true food, um Andy Weil, who was our partner in it, his business people reached out to me and said, Hey, um, you want to come, Andy wants to talk to you about doing a Russian. I said, I don't want to do a restaurant with Andy. And Andy used to come to my restaurants and eat all the time. And you know, Andy was this sort of early to sort of healthy eating. I said early adopter. Early adopter. And I was like, you know, I don't need that. I don't want to have a partner who's a doctor and have these crazy things. And so Andy invited me down to his house down in Tucson, and I took my wife and we had dinner and cooked a whole bunch of food that I would never eat. I would never eat it, and it was all good. I went down there just as sort of as a courtesy to somebody, the business people. And now I left her going, shit, we should do this. And so um we worked on sort of putting our deal together and sort of what we thought it should be, and then um we found a location and we opened the original one almost 15, 16 years ago at the Biltmore, True Food, and uh the day we opened, it was been successful ever since. We uh got approached in sort of the third month by a guy named Rick Federico, who's uh chairman of the board and CEO of PF Jenks. And they said um I was having lunch with them at True Food to talk to him about trying to hire somebody that had worked for him to be my president. And kind of early in my career, I've always wanted to sell a few things. You know, I saw my parents how hard they worked, and these, you know, when I didn't have a lot of restaurants, you know, you have restaurants and you have cash flow and it's great, but you really are not really creating any sort of um wealth or any sort of long-term capital. It's always these are somewhat depreciating assets as you open these buildings. And so uh so Rick and I had a great relationship, and I was interviewing this guy named Russell Owens, who has become my president, has been with me since that lunch that day. And at the end of it, he said, What are you doing with true food? Because he knew I was always trying to sell himself. Hey, you want to buy sauce? You want to buy this? And uh I said, I don't know, we just open, we're figuring out he goes, Well, we want to buy it. I go, What? You want to buy it? I said, Well, we only have one. And uh, we made a deal, but they would give me some growth capital, grow it to five. Um, it was in the middle of 2000 sort of seven, two thousand and eight. There's really no capital out there, sort of in the early stages of the financial crisis. So Rick gave me$10 million almost on a handshake, a little more than a handshake, but it was a very loose terms. And the deal was we'd go and open, we'd get to five units. And once we did, they would either make me pay them back the$10 million or they'd be my partner. And so they became my partner. They were publicly traded. They in turn got bought by a big private equity company and they took them private. And so my partners wound up becoming a private equity firm out of New York. And um, it's a little interesting ride, a lot of learning experiences through that for sure. Um, and our our structure was grow up to 20 and then we would exit. So we grew up to 20, we exited, we wound up staying on for a little bit. Um, Oprah bought in at the same time when we were exiting. She was on the board. I got to meet Oprah and be on the board a little bit, and then sort of completely divested our interest uh about a year and a half later, and we've been out for almost eight years. So true food has nothing to do with nothing to do with anything that we have nothing to do with true food for the last seven or eight years. Wow. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:05

Neither does Andy.

SPEAKER_00 11:06

Yeah, and he does. He kept his money in the deal. Oh, he did. I took my money out.

SPEAKER_01 11:10

Oh wow. So if a new new a new true food pops up somewhere, you have nothing to do with it. Correct.

SPEAKER_00 11:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:15

So um I grew up in the restaurant business, my dad in Tucson. Yeah. Uh in fact, he had a Taco Bell that he sold to Greasy Tony. Do you remember Greasy Tony's? Yeah, sure. Yeah, that was my dad's.

SPEAKER_03 11:27

Oh god.

SPEAKER_00 11:28

I used to go there uh like late night drunk all the time and eat.

SPEAKER_01 11:30

Yeah, you want to hear about this is a horrible story. My dad owned the rights to the Taco Bell in all of Arizona and sold it in 1977 to go open at Sambo's.

SPEAKER_00 11:40

Yeah, that they worked. That didn't work out. Yeah, it's okay, right? That didn't work out. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:44

But I remember him coming home after 18, 19 hours. I remember him taking off his shoes and he'd go and he would massage his feet and he'd tell me about the appreciating the little things in life, right? He's because he worked his ass off.

SPEAKER_00 11:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:55

Um and it makes me think about health and fitness and how he never had time to exercise until much later. So here you are running these restaurants. Are you exercising? Are you eating right? Are you your worst customer?

SPEAKER_00 12:07

You know, we um, yeah, you know, true food was not how I ate. I was a Zin burger guy, right? And you know Zimburger's not bad. But yeah, but I'm up fries. There's a burger there called the sandburger. Oh it's bacon, it's Thousand Island, it's cheese. And so um, that was me. I was the sandburger. And then we opened up true food and I'm like, okay, this isn't, you know, so I was when we developed the whole brand, the whole brand was developed about food that I liked, not what Andy liked. I knew you know Andy's audience was 10% of the world at that time, right? Right. And I figured if we can make it that I liked it, I was the other 90%. And so that was really I'm we worked on the food in my test kitchen and it was healthy. And if I liked it, we would we would make it as a menu item. And you know, Andy would share ingredients and ideas, and you know, we were really, really, really early to kale, really early. And um drinking, you know, and just like see buckthorn and just some things that I never heard of at the moment in time, but you know, I just dove into it and you know, it turned out to be, you know, great. And so that was sort of the first time where I started to say, okay, maybe I need to take care of myself a little bit better. Oh, really?

SPEAKER_01 13:20

So did you do blood work? Did you do stuff like that? And you're like, I gotta eat better. Um did you feel better?

Creating True Food And Scaling Concepts

SPEAKER_00 13:25

Well, I I don't want to tell you what happened, but I had a minor heart attack and from eating all the red, and I had a stent put in my heart uh 16, 15, like right after True Food opened. And so that was sort of a wake-up call. And so then I started to get on a program. And did you know you were having a heart attack? I knew I was having a heart attack. It was the craziest thing. I was um that day, I was actually at Zinberger and I was talking to someone, and my breath got sort of I was like, oh my god, what's happening? I sat down, caught my breath. I thought I was a little bit dizzy and um didn't really think that much of it. And I was living at the waterfront at the time, uh above sauce there, and we have Olive and Ivy and Culinary dropouts there as well. And um I was sleeping and I took an ambient that night. And literally, when I take an ambient, I'd never never wake up. I'd wake up in the morning. Literally at 2 30 in the morning, I woke up and I'm like, my chest was I was like, oh my God, something is wrong. And I couldn't really tell. It wasn't like a serious, I just couldn't tell what was going on. And so I literally I get out of bed and I put on my clothes, and my wife goes, What are you doing? I go, I'm going to the hospital. I think I have a heart attack. She goes, Well, let me call an ambush. I go, No, I live in a high-rise with 90 other people. I go, I'm not getting carted out here. I'm not getting carted out of here now. You know, I drove myself to Osborne and um told him I was having a heart attack. The the doctor there um kind of looked me over, did some things, thought I was having some sort of like angina or something, and was there for two hours and he goes, I can't find anything that's wrong. And he goes, I said, Well, I I'm telling you, there's something wrong. And I said, I'm not leaving here until I see the cardiologist. Because, well, he's not gonna be in until six in the morning. This is like four or four thirty. I said, I'll wait. Waited in the emergency room. Cardiologist came in and uh hour later, I'm in the stent lab having a stent put in. They did some sort of test and my blood, everything was elevated, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And so, yeah, it's kind of actually um somewhat of you know, I kind of changed my whole lifestyle after that. And it was kind of good that was so minor and just, you know, so um it was just a great wake-up call early in my life that I needed to do something. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:43

You were way young.

SPEAKER_00 15:44

So yeah, I was uh 39.

SPEAKER_01 15:47

Did your dad have any kind of thing like that? Is it her?

SPEAKER_00 15:49

You know, my dad had a stem put in, but he was in his sort of 70s by the time he had that.

SPEAKER_01 15:54

So since then you've completely changed. Like you don't know if I completely change. You know, you feel different. Let's not. No, let's not. Well, you know, she's my doctor. I know. And she knows and she's told me about you don't want, you know, do this, do this because you don't want to get a stent. And I've talked to a couple people that have it. Like, so now that you've had it for so long, is your life normal?

unknown 16:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:12

Like you don't go, God, I can't go climb camel back because I have a stent.

SPEAKER_00 16:14

No, I'm in the best shape I've ever been in. Okay, that's what I love. Yeah, I mean, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I did the keto diet for about three years, um, lost a lot of weight, and then uh, you know, I've been really getting in the last five to seven years, I just became more active, just really watched what I eat and when it was more importantly when I ate. You know, I'd eat, you know, when you're in the restaurant business and you're working in the restaurants, you kind of eat at the end of the night every night. And you have sort of this access to all of this food, right? And so um it was uh uh I had just to change when and what I ate. And so I tried and eat as early as possible. No, I see you, you're an early eater. And uh yeah, and so that's right. So I actually 5 30 or looks like 5 30. You know, so like for eating, I'll eat at 5 30, 6 o'clock. For dining, that's a whole nother stuff. You know, going out to dinner, having a drink, that's a whole other experience. Yeah, you know.

SPEAKER_01 17:11

So well, so then you went we when you open a flower child, I have to tell you about a stamp moment, I'll never forget this, because it sticks with me every time I go to Flower Child. I remember I see their eating, and you were at another table and you came over and you go, I you gotta try this. You go, it's this new thing we're gonna put on the menu. And I it was the the corn that the quinoa corn corn corn with yogurt. Yeah, you're like, you gotta try this. And I remember it was freaking phenomenal. Oh, good. Every time I go, that's the thing I get, and I just remember that moment that's when you sat down. Yeah, right? It's it's fantastic.

SPEAKER_00 17:40

We have 36 flower children now. What? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:44

That was the first one though, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_00 17:45

That was the first one, yeah. Yeah. 36. Yeah, 36.

SPEAKER_01 17:49

What's the next thing? Actually, I also remember when you told me you were gonna open Doughird. You go, got this concept. Yeah, check this out. It's called Doughird. Yeah, nobody knows what it is yet, but here's where we're going.

SPEAKER_03 17:57

Nobody knows why it's called Doughird.

SPEAKER_01 17:59

Why is it called Doughird? Well, because it's pizza chicken. Yeah. Is there a is there something in the works or are you working on just on the hotel?

SPEAKER_00 18:06

You know, well, we did the hotel, but I mean, we're opening a Henry tomorrow in Nashville. So that's Will you be there? Yeah, I'm going out tomorrow. Yeah. So I'm going now.

SPEAKER_01 18:16

The Henry's blown up too, right? LA?

SPEAKER_00 18:18

Yeah, so we have one in LA.

SPEAKER_03 18:19

Coronado.

SPEAKER_00 18:20

Coronado, which is by far pound for pound, our best one. It's crazy how busy a Coronado is. And we just opened a Blanco in Coronado as well over the summer. So that's great. Um, and you know, we're opening a whole bunch of Blancos here in town. We have one opening at PV Mall. We have one opening out in Peoria, we have one opening in Tempe. And so we're really going to grow. I mean, we're growing our growth brands. Our growth brands are uh in my portfolio. North is in the Cheesecake portfolio now. Flower Child is in our portfolio somewhat, but the goal there is really is we scale these restaurants up and they get to a certain scale of size. Um, then our partners that have really great expertise of growing two and three hundred restaurants kind of step in and help us grow the rest of those brands.

SPEAKER_01 19:09

But the hotel, just you.

SPEAKER_00 19:10

The hotel is one of one.

SPEAKER_01 19:11

One of one.

SPEAKER_00 19:11

One of one is there going to be another one?

SPEAKER_03 19:13

One of two maybe coming. We want to be the first to say that.

SPEAKER_00 19:17

Yeah, I don't know yet. We'll see. You know, we're we'll we'll be a year in December. I think it's a little too early for us to sort of get into it. But we, you know, we think about it.

SPEAKER_01 19:27

Well, you know what's funny? Sometimes I drive by places that are being torn down and they look bad. I'm like, I bet you a global ambassador would be great right here. Like that one place, it's on Indian school, and it's just it's it's all nothing now. It's just old buildings. And I go, is that too close for a global ambassador, or do you only want to have one in the city?

SPEAKER_00 19:44

Yeah, there's only one in the city.

SPEAKER_01 19:46

Yeah, okay. Yeah. And what's the concept of global ambassador? Is it a is it a place like you you is is the pitch like, hey, it's a place where you want to come for three or four days if the super rules here, or is it it's not like a resort where you go for two weeks? I how how do you what do you call it? Boutiquey.

SPEAKER_00 20:02

What do you think it is?

SPEAKER_01 20:03

I forgot. I don't know what I it was still util I it was a utility hotel.

SPEAKER_00 20:06

You lived there for 10 days.

SPEAKER_01 20:08

Yeah, right. You know what? I was blown away by something. I was blown away by the staff. Yeah, the friendliness of the staff. And I said to Blake, my wife, I was like, how does he hire these people? Like, how do you because I mean I have eight people on my show, and hiring them was a pain in the ass.

SPEAKER_00 20:24

We only have 9,000 employees.

SPEAKER_01 20:25

That's what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_00 20:26

Like, I mean, you know, it's just training, giving everyone the tools to be successful, hire the right people that you know maybe um just have the right hospitality mindset and then set the example, lead by example. And like I said, making sure that they have all the tools to be successful at their job and take away the excuses and uh just sort of live up to a certain standard every single day and never take passes.

SPEAKER_01 20:49

Well, I gotta tell you, PJ. Yeah, first class, that guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. First class. Um, so when you say it's one of one, you hit you mentioned Andrew Weill and a couple other partners. Who are your partners in the hotel and how does that come about?

SPEAKER_00 21:02

Yeah, my partners in the hotel. Um, well, Brian Frakes, who's my development partner. Yeah, you know, Brian. Um, and we have an investment from Devin Booker, we have an investment from Dirk Spentley, and we have an investment from Larry Fitzgerald. And so I asked those guys to join us at the hotel as far as being investors. You know, I really wanted this, these Arizona icons, people who I look up to in Arizona who I think are doing great things uh in their field, but also great people. That was even more important. You know, obviously they're great at their sports, but they're all great humans and very uh giving to the community. And I thought they would represent and sort of uh align ourselves with them. And so uh those guys were quick yeses, and um, it's been great. They've been uh nothing but supportive. Uh we don't sort of play that up, it's just sort of some known, some not known.

SPEAKER_01 21:52

And it's great the way it started organically. I mean, just like the you know, Kendall Jenner posting that she was having dinner the other night.

SPEAKER_00 21:58

Yeah, she was there with that whole bunch of room. And they were doing some stuff for their tequila and just yeah. So she went to Tucson.

SPEAKER_01 22:04

Yeah. She was in Tucson too. But it was like, I saw you repost her thing, and I was like, what? And I was like, I was just there two months ago. Yeah. No, but actually I was there a couple weeks ago.

SPEAKER_00 22:13

But so that's yeah, it was fun to have her in. She's been in a few times.

SPEAKER_01 22:17

Yeah, I've seen uh I remember one time she came out of Pilates class and somebody posted it. Like she's just like hanging out there. Yeah. But you get it because she was, you know, also dating what's his face? Booker. I don't want to say what's his face, but you know, uh I mean, but anyway. And then you got Justin Timberlake, the thing with Justin Timberlake. So are you starting to branch into the celebrity world?

SPEAKER_00 22:35

You know, it's not by design. Uh you know, the Justin thing happened very organically, accidentally, and it's turned out to be great. Um, and you know, it's not something that we seek out. It's not something like we're not out there trying to, you know, partner up with celebrities.

SPEAKER_01 22:51

Does he approach you? Or some or something like that.

Health Scare, Lifestyle Shift, And Eating Habits

SPEAKER_00 22:53

The Timberlake people's his team kind of asked that, let's do something together. And that was very vague. And you know, I'm really good at sort of putting things together. Like Andy's got an idea. Somebody like I'm the guy that like actually can do the work and do the heavy lifting and put it together. So I think um we get a lot of calls from a lot of people asking us to help them put things together, and we only have so much time and energy, and you know, it's not always um, you know, you have to be careful when you're when your partners are with celebrities, and sometimes your places can be busy for the wrong reason or be busy for the right reason, or a lot of things can go sort of sideways, but we've had nothing but success with all of our partners.

SPEAKER_01 23:39

Are there any companies or restaurants or concepts that you said no to and then you see later that it's taken off?

SPEAKER_00 23:45

Um not that I recall, but we say no a lot. Okay, is there so we say no a lot? We say no a lot.

SPEAKER_01 23:53

Is there anything you said no to that was just so ridiculous? Like what's a ridiculous concept somebody pitched you?

SPEAKER_00 23:58

Um Justin Bieber's people wanted to do Drew House as a fast food, fast casual restaurant in the in V in the valley. And I don't know if that would have been ridiculous just because um his popularity, but just uh the food idea and what they wanted to do is just a little wasn't really something that I would like to do.

SPEAKER_01 24:21

What's your take on that stuff, like uh with Mr. Beast doing the Mr. Beast burger and these ghost kitchens and stuff? And I think that came and went, right?

SPEAKER_00 24:26

Yeah, you know, a lot of that. I mean, Kevin Hart just opened a whole bunch of restaurants and closed them. Closed them, right? Yeah, you know, it's if you're you know, you gotta have to build the business on the business. And oh, by the way, it just so happens to be a celebrity. So-and-so is an investor. Right. But when sometimes people take celebrities and they make it more about the celebrity than what the restaurant wants to be, how long is that shelf life? You know, how long is that gonna last? And so that's never our approach.

SPEAKER_01 24:53

You know, I got a uh on my birthday, I had dinner at Thea at the Global Ambassador, and they brought out this new cake for my birthday. Yeah. And you know, I had been texting you a lot the last couple days before then. So I didn't want I felt like I didn't want to overdo my texting to you, but it was phenomenal. This birthday. And they said they just put it on me.

SPEAKER_00 25:10

Sabrina, our new pastry chef who came from Atlanta, did that. So you know what I'm talking about? Yeah, we used to give uh they came to be like, you know, if it was your birthday, we'd give you like uh this little um um uh like this little Greek uh uh dessert. And it was kind of small. And the team were like, you know, we have all these people up here celebrating, enjoying themselves, spending a lot of money. We gotta do something better. So they came up with this cake and Sabrina Dardel, and it's great.

SPEAKER_01 25:35

So it's phenomenal like I was like, I was like, I think I texted Sam like 10 times the last two days. I go, Do I want to text him and tell him how great this cake is? Hey, we can allow it.

SPEAKER_00 25:44

We always love hearing positive stuff. Yeah, but you never hear that enough.

SPEAKER_01 25:49

I didn't want to overdo my texting to you, especially after you help me in my crisis.

SPEAKER_03 25:53

Sam, do you have final say? Do you test everything? Every single item. Okay. And you say, I like it, tweak it.

SPEAKER_00 25:59

This isn't really we're yeah, we have a big chef team, we have a big culinary operation, we have a test kitchen in the Henry that the gentlemen are and the ladies are in there cooking all the time. And we're just always working on food. And I'll come up with a lot of ideas and I'll say, Okay, uh, let's do this and this, and then the team will sort of run with it, you know, just like how I can put deals together. The chef team can put the menus and the food together for me, and then we have a great working relationship. Uh uh, my my culinary partner Clint's been with me 18 years, 19 years, and so um, you know, it's uh we have a pretty good routine, pretty good idea, what we like and what we don't like. And what I'm doing it is um the difference is I don't let the chefs cook for what they want. I want the chefs to cook what we think the guest wants. And so we really take that approach of, you know, what do the guests want? Not what Sam Fox wants, or not what um, you know, some chef that might want, you know, 32 ingredients and stack up something or whatever. And so we're you know, we we try and take an approach of what is what does our guests are walking through the door want to eat?

SPEAKER_01 27:02

But are you doing focus groups on who your guest is? No, no, so you come up with Doughbird and you're like, who's gonna go to Doughird? Yeah, you don't you don't do that. You don't try to figure out here's who we're gonna do.

SPEAKER_00 27:10

I mean, I always try and do that, but I don't I don't, you know, it's not like 35-year-old females can eat this restaurant.

SPEAKER_01 27:15

You don't do that kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_00 27:16

I mean, they might need that restaurant, but I'm not doing a focus group on that. Wow, you know, so you know, I I you know you can identify what trends are and where things are going and you know how people like to eat. I got a lot of data by having all the restaurants. So I see what sells and what doesn't sell. And when we were doing uh we had Olive and Ivy, um, you know, it's on its 19th year, and I was working in the restaurants all the time, and people would be like, Do you have any gluten-free items? I'm like, What's gluten-free? And then I kept hearing it. And then Andy called and said, Oh, we need to do something around to healthy eating. And so all those things just kind of click. So when you see trends or you're in the restaurants, you can kind of see what works and doesn't work. And sometimes you can also put items on menus. Let's say we wanted to do, you know, the pizza at Doughird. We can put that on a menu item somewhere and see if it gets sort of any traction. Sometimes you get to be led into false sort of success when you special something and you verbal it. Like all the chefs go, oh, it's sold like crazy and do a verbal special. I go, it's sold like crazy because Bobby the server is saying, Oh, this is a great special, and blah, blah, blah. Then you put it on the menu and it never sells. And so there's the art and science to everything that we do.

SPEAKER_01 28:27

What about advice for anybody? Because I've heard people say, don't get in the restaurant business. Don't start the restaurant business. It's very difficult. And I did it and failed. Yeah. Bought two pizza places and it was terrible.

SPEAKER_00 28:38

Are you what happened to your pizza places?

SPEAKER_01 28:40

Uh, I I kind of went in as an investor. Yeah. And I didn't want to be part of the day-to-day. And then the people I went in with decided they didn't want to do it anymore. And I was stuck with these two restaurants. And what did you do with them? I I gave one away and sold the other one. Yeah. Yeah, I lost my ass. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:55

Yeah. So I mean, this is not a hobby. Right. Right? Right. And so I always tell people being a minority investor as a passive investor in the restaurant business. And by the way, I had plenty of people who really trusted me and give me money, but it's probably not a great investment. Yeah, you know? Yeah. And so what you see is a lot of people, oh, I want to be an investor, I want to go to the restaurant, I want to be the owner, right?

SPEAKER_03 29:18

And so they have to show up and work at like be their investment. Yeah, and that's not as glamorous as it seems, right?

SPEAKER_00 29:22

And so I, you know, my advice would be that if you want to be in the restaurant business, that it's you're you're in it, that you've worked in a restaurant, that you understand it, that you're well capitalized, more money than you think you need. And just because you can bake a great cake at home or you can make a great cheeseburger, doesn't mean that that can be a great restaurant. Now, a lot of people have had those items and have turned them into great restaurants, but the odds of that are really, really low. By the way, I've been meaning to tell you this. Oh, you got a restaurant idea? No, but I have a menu idea for you, or something you could sell.

SPEAKER_01 29:58

Right. Those protein balls at the gym at the Global Ambassador, those need to be for sale somewhere. Okay. Are they or not?

SPEAKER_00 30:03

No, we should we can sell them at the market at Lay Market.

SPEAKER_01 30:06

They're freaking fantastic. You know what I'm talking about, right? Yeah, yeah. We made them, yeah. You just have them there as you work out. They have these little protein balls that are so addicting. And it's to me, I was I was talking to my wife about she goes, they should sell these, they should make these. I'm like, totally.

SPEAKER_02 30:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:18

I mean, did you eat? Oh, I would eat them all day. I gained 19 pounds staying at your hotel. No, you didn't. I did. I did. Did you actually use the gym? I used the hotel. Or did you just eat the protein balls now? It's a great gym. It's a fantastic hotel. It's one of my favorite places here.

SPEAKER_03 30:34

Well, let's pivot on that because you we talk about him opening up the hotel, but not everybody has a membership. They don't have like you have you obviously have a gym for hotel guests, but you did something very unique and you opened up this experience for locals. Correct. Or I'm sure people who don't even live in Europe.

SPEAKER_00 30:50

We have some out of town members. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 30:52

To have an exclusive membership, to have a different experience. Where did that come from?

Flower Child, Doughbird, And Brand Growth

SPEAKER_00 30:56

You know, it just came from having um, you know, we knew when we were doing the hotel that we wanted to build out incredible gyms, incredible spas, incredible, you know, the wellness area of that. And typically a hotel on its own probably has a hard time making an ROI on that, investing in all of that stuff and being able to give that to their hotel guests. And so we wanted to do a members club, and the members club typically would have a hard time getting all that stuff on its own. So we took the members idea and we took the hotel idea and we put them together so we could have a great experience and invest enough into the facility and the capabilities of what we are doing there. And so that's how that's so special. I mean, it's a nice gym. We got incredible amenities. We have Cold Plunge and Steam and Sauna and you know, cryo, and now the infrared saunas are working finally, and all these amazing things that if they were on its own, it would be really, really hard. But together it really, really works. That's beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 32:00

Yeah, so and there's so many people. Well, I was gonna say on my street, we both live on the same street. There's a handful of people on our street that go there and I'll you should be a member. I should.

SPEAKER_00 32:09

Or there's a wait list. Well, you might know someone. There you go.

SPEAKER_01 32:12

It's uh it's uh it's such a great place to unwind and chill. Yes. Like I'd freaking love that place, man. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:20

Did you spend any time in the locker room? Yeah, yeah, the locker room's a great act.

SPEAKER_01 32:24

But here's the thing, you got these great protein bars in the gym, then you go down to the locker room and there's Reese's peanut butter cups there, stickers bars.

SPEAKER_00 32:30

Yeah, maybe you shouldn't have joined.

SPEAKER_01 32:33

But I like just sitting there and like I was doing all I was on my phone, I was doing a little bit of work, I was prepping some stuff. Like it was just peaceful. Yeah, you know, because at my house I got six dogs, three kids, it's kids.

SPEAKER_00 32:43

There's a calm there during the day. Yeah. Very lively at night. Very lively. Oh my god, at night is a sh it's a show. Yeah, yeah. A lot going on.

SPEAKER_03 32:50

What's your max membership for there?

SPEAKER_00 32:52

Uh we don't discuss that max number. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We don't talk a lot about the membership. Um, but you know, it's something we have, and uh, we're fortunate we have a lot of great people that believed in us. And so, yeah, kind of keep it a little on the a little on the down low.

SPEAKER_01 33:10

Let me ask you something controversial.

SPEAKER_00 33:13

Okay. Okay. All right.

SPEAKER_01 33:14

Let's say fast casual restaurants, you have a couple of those.

SPEAKER_00 33:17

A few.

SPEAKER_01 33:17

Okay. What's the tipping? What's your take on the whole tipping thing? That like it's so frustrating as a customer when you walk up to a place and you order your food.

SPEAKER_00 33:25

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 33:26

And then they give you a number, and then they turn the thing around and ask you for a tip.

SPEAKER_00 33:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:31

And they don't do anything.

SPEAKER_00 33:32

Yeah, we don't have that system which which turns around. We there's a tip line on your credit card. Right. But there's we don't have a tip um prompt. So my take on it is do whatever you feel comfortable.

SPEAKER_01 33:47

Yeah, but then you always feel like I get so I would get irritated. You get tip shamed.

SPEAKER_00 33:51

Do you tip on to go food?

SPEAKER_01 33:53

To go food, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:53

Yeah, but you go to full four, I don't know. Do you go to a full service restaurant? Do you tip on to go food? A full service restaurant?

SPEAKER_03 33:59

Yeah, I don't know if I can do it. If I was picking up if I was picking up, I mean, hey, we have incredible employees that are working hard.

SPEAKER_00 34:04

Right. They get paid. Um, you know, tips are always appreciative. Um, it's not uh required, but you know, it's a nice gesture if you think that someone is going above and beyond, or at least doing sort of, you know, getting you through your experience in an efficient way.

SPEAKER_01 34:20

Okay, if they're going above and beyond, but like if you go up and you order food and say, hey, I want to, I want to get the the the flying avocado turkey, the flying turkey thing or whatever, and then they give you a number, they they turn around, you tip, then you sit down and they bring you your food, and then they go, Do you need anything else? They go, huh? Yeah, can I get a fork and knife? Well, they're up there. Oh, one of my you know what I mean.

SPEAKER_00 34:41

Well, they shouldn't say that. They should say, I should get that for you.

SPEAKER_01 34:43

And then maybe if they say that, then I'm not that I'm just yeah pointing things to sell it because it is it is kind of turning into a big thing. Yeah. If you get on social media, there's jokes. 100% pulls you over, and then the cop goes, one more thing. Right, yeah, yeah. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 34:55

Right, sure. The dry cleaners. I was at a liquor store in uh San Diego this summer, and uh um I was buying a whole bunch of beer and whatever for 4th of July. The bill is$600, the guy flips it over, and the minimum, you know, sometimes that's like a dollar, five dollars, ten dollars. The minimum was ten percent. Yeah, so I'm not taking sixty dollars, and but I had to carry it all out to my car.

SPEAKER_01 35:19

Right. So that's what I mean. Yeah, I mean you know, I like your answer. You're like, do you tip to go if I get I really get it?

SPEAKER_03 35:25

Well, I think it's I think it's the percentage. Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

The Global Ambassador Vision

SPEAKER_00 35:29

Usually all the friend-of-house employees are working for tips, right? And they all share and pull in the tips most of most of the places. So, you know, if you give a a girl a dollar, two, five dollars at their cash register or or somebody else, and you know, it goes to everybody in the in the building and they're all working hard. That's good to know. You know, they don't want to call you cheap, do they? No, I always the cheap guy. No, I've got to do that. Guess what? Guess what? Because people know you. Right. So I always overdo it. You know, what always happens is um, you know, when I go out to the restaurant, I'll put my credit card down. And I'm already a generous tipper. I appreciate everyone's hard work. And uh a lot of times they'll be like, oh, here's your card, uh, Sam Fox. And oh, I used to work for you. And and then they sort of give you like they know you at the end. Yes, and so now that costs you an extra instead instead of a 30% tip, that costs me a 50% tip.

SPEAKER_01 36:14

If I tell if he'll come and I'm like, it's 2025, I'm gonna give 20, 25%, then they'll say, We gotta listen to your show every day. Yeah. And then it's all yeah, yeah, yeah. It's exactly what you mean. Yes, yeah, yeah. So crazy, man. Hey, are there any stories you could tell us about the global ambassador? Has there been anything that's just a fun story to tell about chaos? Or I remember what when I was living there, I remember I was going, you know, I would get up really early. I was like 4 a.m. going to get my car, and the valet guy goes, Um, hey, I'm really sorry about the noise last night.

SPEAKER_02 36:45

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01 36:46

I'm like, Noise? Right. I didn't hear anything. He goes, Oh, well, there was a concert last night at Footprint Center. Uh, it was a Mexican band, and they rented out the whole fifth floor, and they had a party up until five minutes ago. And I'm like, I didn't hear a thing. Yeah. Like, what a night that might have been. Yeah. Right? Yeah. So is that have you heard other things like that?

SPEAKER_00 37:04

Or I mean, there's a lot of stories that happen in a hotel that I'm learning about. Yeah, like probably nothing that I really want to get into. Oh, okay. But there's, I mean, hey, you have 150 rooms, you have a thousand people coming through the door. You know, there's good, bad, and all the other stuff in between. So um, yeah, it's amazing how comfortable people can feel in outside of their home. Right? Okay, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:30

Is being in the hotel business way different than being in the restaurant business?

SPEAKER_00 37:34

You know, it's 24-7. You know, the concert was in the middle of the night, and you didn't hear about it, but probably a whole bunch of other guests heard that concert and probably complained. And, you know, so you're always you're always on, you're never closed. A lot of hotels before COVID, it's kind of a fun fact, never had uh doors that locked because hotels are always open. COVID, it's like a lot of these places had to close for COVID, had to put locks on doors. And so we're always open, we're always there 24 hours, seven days a week, you know, Christmas, 4th of July. And so there's a lot of things that a lot of people are coming through the building. A lot of, you know, it's life.

SPEAKER_01 38:08

Okay, so can you, as the owner, the CEO, the president, can you get sleep? Like, or do is your phone always on and it's calling people calling, texting?

SPEAKER_00 38:15

You know, I we have an amazing team that sort of insulates me from most of that, from most of that.

SPEAKER_02 38:21

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 38:21

And uh, you know, depends on sort of what could happen. You know, if like a water main broke, or if something, you know, truly bad happened with it, I needed to be alerted, the team would get a hold of me. But we have an amazing team there that she keeps me out of it.

SPEAKER_01 38:38

But what about just generally speaking about sleep? Do you focus on that at all? Yeah, that's my new thing right now.

SPEAKER_00 38:42

Yeah, yeah. The sleep thing is something that I um somewhat struggled with as far as you know, I never have a problem falling asleep. I can fall asleep as quickly as anybody. Um I have a weird thing. I actually do need to fall asleep with a TV on. So I have a timer on my TV. I put on the 30-minute or 15-minute timer, and I just kind of close my eyes, and it's sort of my calm app, basically, which I also have. And um, you know, I fall asleep, and then sometimes I have a hard time staying asleep. Three or four in the morning, I wake up, my mind's racing. And so I struggle a little bit with managing through that. And um you, you know, we get up early to begin with. Our kids, you know, when they were living there before they go off to college, you know, we get up early. We also have a dog. Dogs don't always make you know my dog's sleeping on my head, moving around all the time. Hey, I'm also not getting any younger. Sometimes I gotta go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. So my problem is if I wake up, I have a hard time falling back to sleep. So if I go to the bathroom, the dog hear a weird noise or something like that, I'll wake up and then I struggle. And what always happens is if I, let's say I have my alarm set for 5 45 a.m., um, I'll wake up sometimes at 3 and I'll fall back asleep at 5 15, and I'll wake up at 5 45 and I'm like, oh my god, I feel like a training.

SPEAKER_01 40:05

So you don't monitor your sleep, you don't wear an O ring or a whoop or any of that stuff?

SPEAKER_00 40:09

But I used to, and then what did I do? I mean, okay, good sleep score, bad sleep score. I don't change my and I you know I never changed anything about it. You change it? We have a guest that would help him.

SPEAKER_01 40:21

Yeah, the sleep doctor?

SPEAKER_03 40:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:22

Yeah, we actually had this the sleep doctor on our podcast, and you know he sleeps with the TV on.

unknown 40:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 40:28

And he's worked with Oprah.

SPEAKER_00 40:29

Wow. Now, would you ever believe that would be healthy to do to sleep with the TV on? What did he say about that?

SPEAKER_03 40:34

Actually, so I I mean I just did a podcast with him on another podcast, and he actually said, I'm the only sleep professional in the U.S. that says you can go to sleep with the TV on. It doesn't matter, it doesn't change the okay.

SPEAKER_00 40:46

Good. I feel better about that.

SPEAKER_03 40:47

So maybe, yeah, so I'll tell you how to listen to that podcast and you might actually get something out of it.

SPEAKER_01 40:53

Yeah, I think that's different. The phone is a blue light. That's a different that's bad for you.

SPEAKER_03 40:57

Well, yeah, and you need to listen to my new podcast.

SPEAKER_01 40:59

I'd love to. Yeah, we all know that.

SPEAKER_03 41:03

Um, but uh yeah, blue light. Um it's really more about the activity of the brain when you have your phone on. You're actually processing information, you're telling the brain, wake up, I need to respond, I need to be appropriate, and that's a bigger issue than just the lighting. But there's there's there's help for you, Sam. There's ways around your problem.

SPEAKER_01 41:19

But you know, you brought up a while ago that you were taking ambient to go to sleep.

SPEAKER_00 41:22

This was a while back.

SPEAKER_01 41:24

Right. So you you don't take that anymore. No.

Hiring, Culture, And Investor Partners

SPEAKER_00 41:26

I take a melatonin once in a while, but uh you know, I'll never do anything more than like three nights in a row. So if I have a hard night to sleep, I'll maybe take melatonin. I travel a lot. So if I travel, I usually take a melatonin. So if I I'm going to Nashville for the next couple of days, two-hour time change. I'm working all day, working all day. I get back to the hotel room at 10, 11 o'clock at night. And you know, it's just sort of I'm wound up. And um, you know, so it kind of takes me a minute to sort of settle in and I'll take a melatonin. And so if I do that for a couple, three days, but I never do more than three days. Do you drink coffee? I do drink coffee in the morning, um, neither during the day. And I usually have like I always pour a full cup, but I never drink the whole cup. I'm a big Iced T guy, so kind of like the coffee is a means to get me to my ICT. Well, thanks. Off the charts.

SPEAKER_01 42:15

What time do you go to bed?

SPEAKER_00 42:16

Uh it kind of depends. It could be anywhere from 9 30 to 11 30.

SPEAKER_03 42:23

Oh, that's late for us.

SPEAKER_00 42:24

Yeah. So I yeah, I mean, you get up early. You get up early. I was at the at your clinic. You're there early. And um I would say, you know, I like to be in bed by 10 o'clock.

SPEAKER_01 42:37

What about working out now?

SPEAKER_00 42:38

Yeah, so uh global? Uh you know, I have a gym at my house. I don't really like to work out. I do go, I do when I want to do like weights and heavy things like that. Brian, who's the trainer there. Oh, that guy's great. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And he's he's worked, I've worked with him. He used to work in one of my restaurants 12, 13 years ago. And so he's got great hospitality for a trainer. And so um I'll go with him one or two days a week in the afternoon. It's hard. I don't like to be in there when there's a lot of people because then it's like I don't get nothing done. Right. And I'm talking to, you know, talking to people, and then it's like next thing you know. So I'll um I'll work out at home. I play a lot of pickleball. I do the loop, you know, on our street. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:19

So I do that the castle loop or just the loop loop?

SPEAKER_00 43:22

The loop loop, but I'll start at my house, go all the way down, and then go all the way up. Okay. It's three hours. It's what I love about it, it's one hour. If I go fast, I can do it in like 53 minutes. And so I'll do that maybe twice a week. Now that it's getting nice, I'll pick that up for sure. I don't have to do it so early in the morning. And um, and then you know, I just try and stay active. I just try not to sit. I'm not a desk sitter, right? You know, um, where was I? I was uh um we oh I did the loop and we were um we're doing something out of the Cardinals called the Morgan's Athletic Club. Uh they built a New facility, and we're uh managing the hospitality in there. And so Sunday, there's our first game. I did the loop before I went out there, and the loop is 8,000, 9,000 steps for me, maybe somewhere right around there. And I looked at my steps at the end of the day, and I had 21,000 steps. So I just try and keep active. Right. Yeah, right, right.

SPEAKER_01 44:25

So well, you say you're opening this thing at the Cardinal Stadium. Is it uh it it's called what's it?

SPEAKER_00 44:29

It's called the Morgan's Athletic Club. It's they created a new 350 new seats in the end zone. Oh, I saw that. Yes, and so those seats come with hospitality. It's almost like courtside at the Suns game.

SPEAKER_01 44:40

But is it called it's not hey, Sam Fox is doing this?

SPEAKER_00 44:43

It's called the Morgan's Athletic Club, uh, hosted by the Global Ambassador. Oh and the Morgan's Athletic Club, Morgan's was the first name of the Cardinals in the 1800s, late 1800s, before they came the Cardinals. And so um, they came to us and asked us to help put the package together. Like I said, people want us to help put things together, and that's what we do. And that one, um, you know, Michael and Bidwell and the team were uh had some great vision, and we kind of just took their vision and ran with it. God, that's fantastic, man.

SPEAKER_01 45:10

So dude, you're like a genius. It's it's unbelievable, man. I don't know about that. Yeah, you know what's funny you brought up COVID. I remember when when COVID shut everything down, I was like concerned that my favorite restaurants would have got out of business. Uh-huh. So I would call all the owners of the restaurants on my show. Remember, I put you on, I was like, Yeah, yeah, what's going on? Yes. Yeah. Keep this place bumping up. Yeah, they were great.

SPEAKER_00 45:33

It was scary times for a lot of people. It was, right? Restaurants were closed like crazy. Yeah. Just, you know, the unknown is never a great feeling. You can't say that. You can't see it happen again, can you? I mean, who knew that was happening?

SPEAKER_01 45:45

I just can't. I can't.

SPEAKER_00 45:46

I don't think like that. Do you think like that?

SPEAKER_01 45:48

What? No.

SPEAKER_03 45:49

I'm I'm reading somebody else in the room here.

SPEAKER_01 45:51

Oh, behind the scenes, yeah. We got a CIA guy. What? Can it happen again? Come on.

SPEAKER_03 45:57

He's not talking. I can't. I don't let my wife.

SPEAKER_01 45:59

I know, neither.

SPEAKER_03 46:00

I want to ask him one more thing because I know we're running out of time. Please. So, Sam, you're also into philanthropy. Yeah. And you've done a lot to give back to the community. Sure. So I just want to touch on that. Um, the one project that I saw was, I think it was Feed the Soul.

SPEAKER_00 46:13

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 46:13

Is that right? Yeah. Is that still an active?

SPEAKER_00 46:15

Yeah, that's you know, we have um in our organization and in our personal household, we sort of have a mission of we want to feed people and we want to do a lot of things for children. So we're big in panda, big the title sponsor of the panda fashion show every year. Um we've got a big commitment to them. We do a lot of things with Feed the Soul. We raise money for the food bank. We do a lot of things for you know, you mom, all the all the all the ones that everyone knows. And um, we're really uh you just stuff with us with our Love Up Foundation.

SPEAKER_01 46:48

Remember, we started uh for foster kids a program where um after they graduate high school, they could get a job working for Fox Concepts somewhere and get them.

SPEAKER_00 46:57

We also try and come up with fun creative stuff. Like we'll do something for uh an auction item. Hey, come get an internship for two weeks and spend a day with me. You know, just kind of like fun stuff that makes it more interesting. But, you know, we're very fortunate the community has been incredibly supportive of us, and um, it's our obligation and it's sort of it's our mission. We want to do right by the people that take care of us. And so uh children, people that need uh a meal, all of that. That's something that we work on and talk about all the time to try and make this community a little bit better.

SPEAKER_01 47:32

That's nice. Thanks, man. Hey, so what do you think so far of the podcast? Was good? Good.

SPEAKER_00 47:36

I mean, I was on as is it good? I don't know. I thought it was good. It was a good podcast.

SPEAKER_01 47:40

The crowd likes it. I have a question for Carrie real quick, because I'm noticing your legs right here. Oh is that weights?

SPEAKER_03 47:45

No, what is that? It's not weights. I was a guinea pig for a new project.

SPEAKER_01 47:50

Oh, wow, wow, right? All the weight.

SPEAKER_03 47:53

Okay, so it's actually it's a cool story. So there, you know, we all know that there's all kinds of lasers and different treatments that people will use for different things. So for skin tightening. Oh uh one of those things. There is a product out that actually cores your skin out.

SPEAKER_00 48:07

Cores.

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SPEAKER_03 48:08

Core. So it takes chunks of your skin out to create holes, and then those holes grow back together tighter. So instead of so it's a way of avoiding a tuck or a lift. So you're removing skin in these little micro cores, uh-huh, and then those micro cores fill back in with collagen and they get tighter and it tucks everything up. So normally this is done around necks, like you for you, John Jay. We can talk about your neck. I got everything. I do everything here. But I volunteered to do it on my knees. You're like an infomercial for all this stuff. Yeah, I volunteered to do it on my knees, but this is why I volunteered. Because they said normally the recovery time is three weeks. And I said, I doubt that to be true if you use hyperbaric. So what do you think I did? Yes. So I postulated out that I if someone did this instead of being down for three weeks with the visible remnants of this, that you could fix it in a week. So I am two days out from this procedure.

SPEAKER_00 49:02

A hyperbolic chamber. Have you been? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, all the time. Yeah, I broke my ribs and they took care of me over that. I went there seven, eight days in a row and tried to speed up my recovery. I had to travel to Europe and so I literally do whatever I can to try and heal.

SPEAKER_03 49:19

And rib rib fractures are like four to six weeks to repair.

SPEAKER_00 49:22

It's kind of a crazy story. I got a little vertigo and I fell. I was actually in my gym stretching in the morning, and uh I fell into a wooden sort of chair armrail and crashed, like violently through my body into it and broke three ribs. I thought I was this is the most pain I've ever had in my life.

SPEAKER_01 49:41

And so you went to hyperbaric. I was so and then.

SPEAKER_00 49:43

So I went and then I was like into it for four or five days. I'm like, oh my god, this is the most pain I've ever had. And uh some friends of ours recommended going to the hyperbaric chamber, and uh it was great. What a great setup you have there. It's amazing.

SPEAKER_03 49:58

So, bottom line, that's why, that's why it's this. But it is like the first day there was blood oozing down my legs, it looked horrific. And this is day two, and yes, it's noticeable, but it's about 80% better. So I think about day seven.

SPEAKER_00 50:11

How long do you go in the hyperbaric chamber for?

SPEAKER_03 50:13

I usually go in for 90 minutes because I'm kind of an efficiency person. So if I'm gonna stop my life and turn off my phone and get in, I gotta get some serious concentration out of it.

SPEAKER_01 50:22

Yeah, yeah. Well, thank you, Sam. Thanks for having me. The website, boxconcepts.com.

SPEAKER_00 50:29

See how it's on concepts.com. Globalambassador. Globalambassador, yeah. You know, Fall 30 Club. All different. Oh, yeah, that's true. Yeah, we got it all.

SPEAKER_01 50:43

Okay, so welcome to our podcast. This is a little bit different today because this podcast is a spin-off of our radio show.