Jamie Munoz

From bar-back to restaurant management to leading VIP experiences at the Masters to hospitality entrepreneur, this conversation is packed with insight, leadership, and career wisdom.  In this podcast, Jamie shares his journey of working hard and achieving career successes with the right mindset, patience and focus.  

Transcript

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SPEAKER_01 0:09

Hi, it's Griffin Anna. Thanks for joining Droppin' Knowledge again. Uh today we have uh Jamie Munoz of Octo Hospitality who is gonna talk to us today about hospitality and his journey. Thanks for coming today. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 0:24

Thank you. Good to see both of y'all, obviously. Um happy to be here, having fun. Been a long weekend in New Orleans already. You did the Baton Rouge, you did Baton Rouge Saturday. Did Baton Rouge Saturday night. We did Baton Rouge. We did Baton Rouge Saturday night, uh, which was the finale to Brian Kelly's tenure at LSU. Uh then Saints game yesterday, and then horrible football weekend. Yeah, so I'm really scared to go to the Pells game tonight because I just can't. I don't know if I can take it. You know, maybe it's you. It could be, and that's why I'm not going. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:02

I doubt it.

SPEAKER_00 1:03

Yeah, I doubt it too.

SPEAKER_01 1:05

We tried blame that would say otherwise, but okay. Saturday night we were trying to pass a lot of the blame on to Jamie, and he just kept saying this is not just about me. Which was true, which was probably very accurate. Um Well, um, you know, we've known each other a long time, and so I'm pretty well versed in your path and in hospitality. Um, and it really sales before that, and then hospitality and kind of blends. And so as Ann and I were thinking about guests to come on and share their stories, your name came up. And um so we're just gonna jump in here and you know, if you want to give us an idea of maybe what you're doing now, or if you want to start with how did you land in hospitality, however direction you want to go.

SPEAKER_00 1:54

I you know, the landing of it is interesting because I never left it once I got into it. But I was playing high school football and at Archbishop Bonable.

SPEAKER_03 2:06

And you went to Bonnerble? I did. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:11

So I was dating a girl whose older sister was running City Lights. And they were like, hey, can you come be a busboy on Saturday nights because we played ball on Friday? And so that's how it started. I was I was a bus boy for like two weeks.

SPEAKER_01 2:27

You think it's because you were what do they say, fleet of foot? You were you were pretty quick, and they thought maybe a bus boy could be good. Light on the toes, tall hands, tall hands, yeah. Just trying to see why they picked that position. Sure. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 2:45

So I started bar backing there, and it was crazy. I mean, the amount of money at 15, 16 years old was ridiculous at City Lights at that time.

SPEAKER_01 2:58

Um which funny is so to put things in perspective for those who don't know, City Lights was a nightclub in New Orleans.

SPEAKER_00 3:03

Yeah, probably I would say the biggest nightclub. And now it's Metro. I mean, you talk about a success. Yeah, it's been a good thing.

SPEAKER_01 3:09

That place has been around for But I was going to, you were 15 years old bar backing at a nightclub, which was interesting in itself, too.

SPEAKER_00 3:19

Yeah, I remember I couldn't get so I bar backed for let's see the next five years or so because I kept wanting a bartend. And Chip About, who was the owner, was like, I legally, you know, you gotta be no, it was 18.

SPEAKER_04 3:36

I was back. That's right, it was 18.

SPEAKER_00 3:39

That's right. So it was 18, and I'll never forget I bar backed for three years, was doing great every Saturday night. That's all I did. And then I wanted the bartend, and he goes, You have no bartending experience. Not a problem. Olive Garden opened up down the street. I went in, told him I've been at City Lights for the last three years. They hired me as the bar supervisor. Never made a drink in my life. Oh boy. But I took it, read up a lot, learned how to skate my way through that part of it. It was, you know, it's not real big bartending over at the Olive Garden, you know. Back then it was Esplanade mall was right by Esplanade.

SPEAKER_01 4:18

It was either the the the uh Chianti wine on the table or Kendall Jackson at that point, yeah. White or red. I mean, that was pretty much where things were, right?

SPEAKER_00 4:28

We might have had an Italian. Um but so I did that, and then I literally went back the next day, saw Chip, and I said, Hey, I'm the bar supervisor over it. He's like, You asshole. And he made me a bartender that week. Um, so I bartender, I was with Chip for or City Lights uh 10 years. Damn. Wow. One day a week. Um, ironically, I was running Olive Garden here and moved, they offered me a general manager position. I think I was 20 years, 19 years old, something like that. Something crazy. And uh if I would go to Houston and I moved out to Houston and worked for about a year out there, but I would fly back every weekend just to bartend at City Lights. To go to City Lights, that because if flights were 150 bucks round trip, 200 bucks, and I'd make a thousand dollars, so it was silly not to do it, right?

SPEAKER_01 5:30

So there's lots of jobs like that where people fly for one or two nights in the United States, make a bunch of money, and then fly home. Bartending at Olive Garden was not an actual thing, but it probably didn't come to mind. Right. But now I'll log that.

SPEAKER_04 5:46

But that's interesting because it sounds like to me, one was for money and the other one was almost a career path that you were slowly taking and building your resume.

SPEAKER_00 5:54

I was definitely it, I didn't think I wanted to be in restaurants. Like I just enjoyed that. And I was, you know, just enjoying life at a young age, you know, playing flag football, we're traveling all over the place doing silly shit. So it was it was definitely a start. Then I kind of completely got away from it. Um I'd moved back to New Orleans and started going to uh sales. So I worked for Sunglass Hut for probably a year. I went and took a job, and I think I was running like four or five stores pretty quickly. And that's when we met. That's probably when we met. That is definitely when we met. And but it wasn't, you know, I mean, it was fun, it was it was very easy for me. Sales was easy because I learned the consistency of what sales is. Just you're not selling a product to me in my mind, you're selling yourself, you know, and I was always confident in being able to say, hey, you know, whatever it is, a pair of glasses, a water bottle, whatever. As long as you're believing in me and what I'm telling you is going to be beneficial for you, it helps. So that was pretty easy for me. And then I ran into uh a guy on Bourbon Street, because I had one of the stores on Bourbon Street, and he wanted me to get back in the nightclub business, and I'd been out of it for a while, and I was like, man, I don't know. The hours were a little different, yeah, way different. Um, so brought me in as a manager, and I was at BBC, Bourbon Street Blues Company, Razoo, Famous Store, all that stuff. And that was a wild ride. I mean, it's just uh what you're in charge of throwing a party every night. Every night.

SPEAKER_01 7:50

Literally. Yeah. That's your job. You know, one of the things we're finding interesting in having conversations, well, two things. One is we've been talking to people that either Anne or I know, and in each one of these conversations, we learned things that we didn't know. I've known you for a long time. I never heard the Olive Garden story. Really? Ever.

SPEAKER_04 8:10

Um Well, and I thought you guys went to Broad Martin together. I had no clue you went to Bonnewell.

SPEAKER_01 8:15

Yeah. Um, we met on a guy's trip um to Shreveport um through some mutual friends. And um, and now I lost my train of thought. It's okay. What was the other thing?

SPEAKER_04 8:25

We learned things that we didn't know about our guests all the time.

SPEAKER_01 8:29

Yeah, I still lost my train of thought. We'll come back to it. It didn't help. It didn't help.

SPEAKER_04 8:36

So so then you get into BBC Famous Store, Rise News, I got it.

SPEAKER_01 8:42

And Chris. I'm back on it. Welcome to Need It Anna. Thank you. You're welcome. Okay. So the other thing that's interesting is hearing the behind the scenes, so to speak, to use that kind of cliche, but of of what it's like for people when they're doing certain things. Because of course, we only see a half hour in the bar with someone, or we interviewed somebody in the grocery business and we just see their commercial. And we're like, oh, look how nice that is. And but understanding kind of behind the scenes, we both find that interesting. And so give us like a day in the life of you're you're at you're on bourbon street now. And you want this story, huh? I want to know like because there's a lot of people who are down there doing this, sure. And and make careers out of it.

SPEAKER_04 9:28

And um and for for someone like me who was never in that type of industry, I just I look at it and I go, God, this is brutal. This is brutal. From the moment you drive into the French quarter and you have to look for parking, and you got to go walk to where you work, and then you still have to walk.

SPEAKER_01 9:44

So take us in a day in a life. So you you you had already been down in the French quarter, obviously it's in glass hut, but now you're leaving that, you're going into the first box bar. Right. Yeah. So now what's that look like on a daily basis?

SPEAKER_00 9:56

So you you don't go to work when I was, you know, for the most part, you had kind of some day managers that dealt with those parties, but I I don't think I went into work till five, six o'clock at night. Right. That was the start of it. And you go in, get your world set up, kind of understanding, depending on events, which we all know, New Orleans is you know, full of those things. So you're watching what's going on, but it could be an any day Tuesday, and you have to throw a party. And that was one of the things I learned a lot from because it wasn't just Tuesday, it was somebody's bachelorette party, someone's bachelor party, someone's only weekend they've ever been in New Orleans, and they're looking for what that is. It's like Vegas, this different thing. So you have to provide that. So the energy to be able to get up every night to be able to execute a party is not easy. I mean, the people had, you know, it's yeah, there's bartenders, there's this, but there's also MCs and DJs and all this that have to recreate this feeling of it's a one night in someone's lifetime.

SPEAKER_04 11:09

And you're doing three of these a night.

SPEAKER_00 11:11

And you're doing, well, yeah, bouncing all over the place. So it was, it's interesting, you know, from you learning when you're cutting live music, when you go to a DJ, when do you take breaks? How do you coordinate all these people? Because you have, I mean, from bartenders to barbacks and shot girls and guys and all of this stuff, and you're just like, it's a lot going on, but it becomes the norm.

SPEAKER_01 11:34

And are you are were you also involved in because someone's involved in selecting the the band, the musicians that are in there? They're not traditionally, they're not bands, they're musicians and they sit in lots of different places.

SPEAKER_00 11:49

Cover bands and stuff like that. I fortunately at that point was not. Um, we had someone hired that kind of took care of talent and all that.

SPEAKER_01 11:57

But these groups that can be game changing. It's like when you're, you know, you're day drinking on Bourbon Street, or or I was just in Nashville, it's mostly it's all live music there, obviously. But or maybe it's Austin in these, you know, Sixth Street, I think it is. It's like you're attracted to the places, and it's very interesting to hear you say you have to throw a party every day, or really in three-hour blocks in blocks. Yeah. Because it's like people are fickle, and if the band is so-so, or the lead singer just doesn't have the energy um of the next bar, everyone's moving to the next bar for the next two hours.

SPEAKER_00 12:34

Those bands dictated that street. Yeah. I mean, think about, you know, because they they worked, you know, most of them six nights a week, you know, and they would go to different bars and pop around and stuff. So when you found somebody that was great and had energy and they could bring it all the time, you lock them in. And they they might play for you four nights a week for years, you know, down there. Uh, but they get comfortable and they understand what it is, and you're all on the same page, and it starts to work together. So DJs, MCs, MCs are like it was they were rock stars on Bourbon Street. You know, they're the ones who are up there with a mic in their hand and creating that party every night. How did how do they get paid? Uh use a cash.

SPEAKER_01 13:20

No, but I mean the like the uh like they are they paid like they're paid by the hour.

SPEAKER_00 13:24

And do they get and then some of them, like a lot of ones that I worked with, would get kickers. So the night is this number, right? Well, they're throwing this party and it's staying later and later, and everybody's drinking and spending more and more money. Well, the club starts to, you know, hit their level. Now it's spiked money. And if they have good weeks and they're killing it, then they get a little Benny. Gotcha, okay. So it's nice for them, you know. So they have to work hard to make sure they that's an incentive for them to get extra money. You know, they're gonna get a base pay out by the hour, right? Um, but then to be able to get into that extra money is where it was. But yeah, that was an interesting business, I'll never forget. Um so I had just gotten or about to get married as I was going into that business, and I was living on the North Shore, and she was like, you know, because I was kind of having conversations with her about taking this job, right? And she's like, Why would you do this? Why do you want to get back into this? I'm like, Well, we're starting a life, you know, got a new house, all these things. It's a good way to go make some cash, and I know I can do that, right? So she's like, Well, how much are you making? So I kind of went back to Harry, and I'm like, dude, what are you paying me? I I know we're gonna be fine, right? But I kind of need to get an answer here, right? And he looked me dead in the eye and he goes, If you ever ask me that question again, we're just not gonna work together because you're not the right person.

SPEAKER_02 15:07

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_00 15:08

So I was like, Okay, kind of gut check moment, going into a new, you know, marriage, whole lot deal. And I remember driving across the causeway, as I did this morning, and I was like, She's gonna call me. And that was the beginning of being scared. So she called. This is where the sales comes in. This is where the sales comes in. She called, and she's like, Did you talk to Harry? I'm like, Yeah, I did. She goes, All right, well, what's it gonna be? And I was like, 65,000, start base pay, then we'll see what happens from there. I was lying my ass all the time. So now I'm just like, okay, let's go in this. So week one goes by, we have a meeting, and in this meeting, you sit there with all the managers of the different clubs and everything, and that we had in our group, start talking, going through things, and then you get paid. And you got paid with an envelope that's thrown in front of you, and I was like, I took that envelope, put it in my bag, and I left. And I remember driving on the causeway again that afternoon, and I opened an envelope, and I'm like, we're gonna be fine. Everything's gonna be okay. And then it just kept coming. And you learn, you learn how to make money in the club business, you know? Um silly things, man. It just you learned how to feed people to keep them sober, which is crazy, right? That that's a real thing out there, yeah, you know, because your bartenders, your you know, shot girls and all this are just drinking, throwing a party with you for a living. Right, right? Well, if they're drunk and passed out, guess what they're not doing? Making the club any money. So you'd learn how to feed them, you know. You see somebody, hey, yay, let me go grab you a pizza. And then you get another two hours of work. It's horrible. It's definitely horrible. That's insane.

SPEAKER_04 17:21

It's the background stuff that you never think of when you're inside of those places, right?

SPEAKER_00 17:25

Yeah. So you would go in at five or six o'clock. Five or six o'clock. You go in, you check in music, you're going through the run, you're going through all your registers, making sure everything's locked in and loaded. You're doing inventories all the time, you know. So you're running numbers every hour to kind of see where you are because you got to gauge labor and everything else that goes through it. So you go and so you throw a party. Let's just kind of fast forward to you throw this party, then you wrap up, get the place, you know. I say cleaned up, you're always cleaning, you know. So there's never this time where you know, you just this cleaning crew comes in because you get finished at four or five in the morning. Well, it's back open by 10. So there's not a lot in between.

SPEAKER_01 18:14

And then you gotta take deliveries in a meeting.

SPEAKER_00 18:16

You gotta take deliveries and you know, do all your paperwork and everything else in between. And then you get on a bridge and you drive home at six, seven, and eight o'clock in the morning. It's not a fun one. It's a hard life. It's a hard life. And I'll um, you know, look, I benefited so much from it over time, with you know, not just financially, but just meeting a lot of people and different things. And I'll never forget the day I left. As I was watching, you know, shit on Bourbon Street, and it's just shit, right? Things that are going on. And I remember walking past, I was walking into work, and I remember walking past something that it didn't bother me what I was looking at.

SPEAKER_04 19:05

You were numb.

SPEAKER_00 19:06

I was numb. And I said, I went home, told my wife, I'm out, can't do it.

SPEAKER_04 19:12

So it was that quick, it was from one day to the day.

SPEAKER_00 19:14

One day, yeah. I was just like, I I just this is and I'm going nuts. I had had the twins at that point.

SPEAKER_02 19:21

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_00 19:22

The twins were a year old, and I just felt like I was missing all of it. You know, you're just a zombie because you know, when the rest of the world is going on, you're sleeping.

SPEAKER_04 19:33

You're sleeping.

SPEAKER_00 19:34

Because you just got off of work.

SPEAKER_04 19:36

And when most people are off on the weekends, that's your biggest day.

SPEAKER_00 19:40

I I in my career, you know, for the first 20 years of my career, I would be willing to bet I didn't take off a handful of Saturdays in my life. It's just what you do. Yeah. That's the norm. That's you gotta be there when the money's there.

SPEAKER_01 19:57

And that's in that business, that's what you are, that's what you're doing. It's the push-pull between, and I think this applies across the board, between the reward, the economic reward, and or just the the reward for you being successful at something versus what you might thought was successful. Well, right, for you. And then but what are you giving up? Yeah. What's the balance? Yeah, are there are there other options, right? I mean, there's some people who maybe maybe that's where they're supposed to be. Yeah. So they look around, they're like, this is my spot.

SPEAKER_04 20:36

It seemed like it had a level of difficulty.

SPEAKER_00 20:39

Yeah. I mean, the financial part of it was great, you know. So I remember when I went and asked to leave, you know, that group. And they're like, you're not leaving.

SPEAKER_04 20:51

Here's more money.

SPEAKER_00 20:52

They're like, you can't. That's just and I'm like, I'm leaving.

SPEAKER_04 20:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:57

I can't. They're like, you're gonna make a quarter of what you're doing. I'm like, yeah, I know, but I can't do this.

SPEAKER_04 21:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:02

Just wasn't me.

SPEAKER_04 21:03

I couldn't so interesting enough. I mean, you know, when we talk about defining success or whatever, at one point it was, okay, this is I'm doing good. Right. I'm making great money, but then you realize, like, you know what, I don't really want all that money. I want to be home with my kids. I want to see them grow up, right? So your definition of success was was changing.

SPEAKER_00 21:25

Yeah, it definitely was at that time because I mean, you know, you're watching your babies, you know, not be babies, right? And you're missing it. It just, I was like, this is this is crazy. I can't do this. I'm gonna lose everything I worked so hard to have in my life over this, and it's not worth it. So made the change. Got lucky. Um, and that's how I got back into the restaurant business. I was like, what can I do? What am I gonna go do? I gotta do that. That that was able to really help you. I was really gonna be doing well there.

SPEAKER_04 22:00

Olive Garden is still around. He's still here. I'm being serious. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:03

All of a sudden, welcome everyone. Right. Yeah. Um, no, it's not at all. Um, but I got a phone call, and it was uh from a friend of ours and said, Hey, I need a manager if you want to get back in the restaurant world um at Rooscrace.

SPEAKER_04 22:24

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 22:25

And I was like, hmm, if I'm gonna make a move, this is the time and place to do it. And so I got an offer to either go to Broad Street or Medary to be one of the managers.

SPEAKER_01 22:38

And Broad Street is the original. I say it's the original, but it's what everyone knows is the original. Correct. Um and Ruth Fertell lived on top of it.

SPEAKER_00 22:47

She did for a long time, yeah. Uh so I remember the offer was look, it's real simple. If you go to Broad Street and can be successful, you can go do whatever you want in life. You'll if you can crack that code there, you'll be fine. Or you can go to Metary and you could probably be a GM within a year or so and be there for the next 30 years as a GM there. I don't want that. So I asked for Broad Street. Nice, got it, and learned a ton. Like it's just you talk about hospitality and that restaurant in particular, the history, everything behind it, what was going on was pretty wild. You know, I mean, it was standing room only. I'd watch attorneys take clients there three times in a day.

SPEAKER_04 23:45

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_00 23:46

I mean, literally hold a lunch on a Friday early, do a walk that customer client out, bring in another one, eat again, they leave, they're right back with their family for dinner. Like it's it was wild. Um, a lot of a lot of things. I like steak.

SPEAKER_01 24:05

I don't know if I could eat three steaks a day. I probably have to go chicken in the middle.

SPEAKER_00 24:09

They would, they would eat salads and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_04 24:11

But it's like, my gosh, it's just brutal.

SPEAKER_00 24:15

I mean, it was Fridays were fun. Fridays were the day, you know, that every judge, everybody was in the room. You had to be seen place to be. Yeah, it was fun for like 20 plus years, or maybe longer. Oh, yeah, maybe 40. Maybe longer. They close down after Katrina, Broad Street, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so I was at I was there when that happened. Oh, we're okay. Yeah. So we had just gone public, and which was a wild ride because Ruth had passed away, and they were like, she's rolling, like, this is just not gonna be great. So go public. It had a good little start, everything we were all kind of thriving at that time, and Katrina hits, and we all know what that was, right? So you're like, oh shit, here we go. So our regional called up and goes, All right, you gotta go to work. Like, where are we going to work? It was like your choice, literally anywhere in the country. You tell me where you want to go. So it was like California, New York, like what have I got babies? The boys are like three, four years old at this point. So I'm like, what are we gonna do? Well, they had made the decision that corporate, the corporate store that was in Medri at the time, on top of that, Ruth, uh, was gonna move to Heathrow, uh, Florida, which is Orlando. Okay. And I'm like, okay, I'll go do that. Because it's Disney and I got babies, and why wouldn't I do that? Right. I'm right there by corporate, you know, so I still, the family's still together of work and everything. So I did. We were traveling out there, looking for a house. Another storm comes in and gets Orlando in trouble. Well, I had to come, I had literally had to rent a car and drive because we couldn't get a flight out of there. The boys were here and I think they were in Baton Rouge. And so I'm like hustling to get back to them while we were looking for a house. And in the meantime, they called and asked if I would take over the uh Boca Raton store. So I was like, okay, uh good opportunity. Still right down the road from corporate and everything. So we did that. So moved family, everything. We had no choice, uh, and went out to Boca Raton, Florida, which is a spot, bro. Very special piece right there. It's beautiful, it's gorgeous. Um, it's different, it's a different group of people, but now how long were you out there for? Two years. Okay. I think about two years. Um we were out there and it created my next journey. What I was learning about, you know, as incredible as you felt about Rus Chris as in a you know, a New Orleans icon she was and everything. When I got out there, I was like, something's wrong. These people don't even know who Ruth is. You know what I mean? It's just a steakhouse to everyone else. It's a good steakhouse, a great steakhouse, but it's just a steakhouse. Whereas when you grow up in New Orleans at that restaurant on Broad Street, it was very different. So it was hard. I wasn't, I wasn't loving it because I was just, you're just doing this routine over and over again. And what and the one thing I learned was it taught me a whole heck of a lot about who I was, meaning I knew I didn't like that. You know, just the repetition every day. It's that state, that menu hadn't changed in you know, 40 years, right? So and very, very corporate, very, very corporate. Well, it was getting that way, right? It was getting that way, yeah. So I was just like, man, this is just not great, but it was fine. We're working. Um didn't have a choice because it was my job, so you did your job. And I'll never forget, I was sitting at Roos in Boca, it's a great story, and this this lady calls me up and she's like, Hey, um Dickie Brennan would like to meet with you. I'm like, what? Why? You know, I know didn't even. Had you ever met him? I didn't even know Dickie at the time.

SPEAKER_02 28:45

Okay, okay. Wow.

SPEAKER_00 28:47

It's like he really wants to meet you. And I'm like, well, I'm really happy. You know, I thought I was gonna be with Roos forever, and you know, just kind of I was going through the motion, so it was kind of tempting to just to hear. So he flew me into town, and I went sat top floor of Palace Cafe, and just fell in love with the guy, you know. Just what we we were sitting there and he looked at me, he goes, I feel like we've been together for 20 years, just in a conversation like this, just talking and talking about food and talking about hospitality and people and everything that was going on. And he was like, I don't have a job for you. I'm like, awesome. Not really sure why you brought me here.

SPEAKER_04 29:35

Why did you find me?

SPEAKER_00 29:36

Um, but he goes, he goes, but we're gonna figure it out. I just want you to join the team. I'm like, well, where? What? I mean, I'm assuming you want me for your steakhouse because that's what I was you know doing and successful at.

SPEAKER_04 29:50

You sold yourself. It was a sales.

SPEAKER_00 29:53

I guess. I don't know, but it just he's like, I'm gonna figure it out. We'll we'll make it work. So I did. And all in the background, my wife is just giggling and giggling, little kid. I'm like, What's what's your deal? She's like, he didn't tell you. Like, tell me what? So behind the scenes, you like behind the scenes? She wrote Dickie Brennan a letter and said, I want to introduce myself. This is who my husband is. We want to come home. You need him.

SPEAKER_04 30:28

Stop it.

SPEAKER_00 30:29

Another story I didn't tell. And I had no idea that this happened. And that's how the introduction all came around.

SPEAKER_04 30:37

So a letter.

SPEAKER_00 30:38

A letter written to Dickie. So fast forward.

SPEAKER_04 30:42

I love that he didn't tell you about it.

SPEAKER_00 30:44

Didn't even tell me. I had no idea. Didn't find out for a long time.

SPEAKER_04 30:47

So maybe it wasn't the sales skill, sorry.

SPEAKER_00 30:48

No, I don't know. I don't know. I'm not sure if that letter actually exists. It could have gone.

SPEAKER_04 30:54

It could have gone off, but he talked to you.

SPEAKER_00 30:56

Um but no, it was great. So uh yeah, 10 years got to spend with the Dickie Vernon and Company family.

SPEAKER_04 31:05

So when you come back to New Orleans, which one of the restaurants do you give?

SPEAKER_00 31:08

So I started, I was at Bourbon House.

SPEAKER_04 31:10

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 31:11

Okay, because they had a group over at uh George had been at Steakhouse forever and all. They were talking about moving some things around and what have you. So I go in, there was a general manager already there at Bourbon House at all the restaurants. And I was there, I don't know, not even three months, four months. And Dickie's like, you gotta run this. This is what you need to do. Can you do the fish? I'm like, it's different, but yeah, we can make this work. And we grew a monster, absolute monster, you know, with the success of New Orleans and all the things that were going on, we had a huge restaurant, it was massive. So we were doing five, six, seven hundred covers a day on a fine fine dining side of it. And I found out a lot about myself, like in the industry. I wanted to be at the top, I wanted to grow, I wanted to see what we could do with a restaurant. And Dickie gave me that avenue because he threw the keys to me, and that was it. He had, you know, we'd talk about things in meetings and stuff like that, but it was my restaurant.

SPEAKER_04 32:28

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 32:29

I don't think there's a person in New Orleans that didn't think that was, you know, it's Dickie's place, but that's Jamie's restaurant. Right. You know, and he allowed you to do that, which was really nice, you know. So you treated it that way. I had respect for it, and we grew. Million dollars a year. Boom, boom, boom, just kept growing, growing, growing. So we created this big crazy monster.

SPEAKER_01 32:52

So when you think about the desig the the the promotion to the GM to through your tenure, let's focus on the building part of it. When you think back, what were some of the key key decision points? What are the things that you felt like made y'all successful? What were some of the things that you did in those early years that really were the building blocks for what was to come?

SPEAKER_00 33:19

You know, it's funny because I think about it today. So much of the nightclub bar business was helpful because you were versatile. You were changing every day. What crowd came in? What was this? So being in a restaurant of that size, you're always on your feet, you're always moving, you're always creating. And, you know, I'm not just sitting there waiting on a reservation to come in at 7:30. I got, you know, because we were the happening place all the time, you had the live oyster shuckers going on, you know, the bar, the cafe was great. Um, you had this big, gorgeous dining room.

SPEAKER_01 34:00

Also at a time where bourbon was really making a move.

SPEAKER_00 34:05

Big move, yeah. We were the largest carrier when we when I left, we had uh created the bourbon society, and we were the largest carrier of bourbon in the United States outside of Kentucky. Oh wow, which was pretty crazy. We were we were running over 400 different brands of bourbon in the place. So it was it was a lot, but it was cool. I mean, it was just and it was kind of one of those things that was hitting the mark. Dickie foresaw that, and it was it worked, you know. So we had a lot of fun on a lot of trips to Kentucky.

SPEAKER_04 34:40

How um how long were you there for?

SPEAKER_00 34:43

Almost 10 years. Almost 10 years, yeah. Okay, yeah, it was great. Um, we had a lot of fun, you know. We just kept growing that monster, and that's what I learned is uh it gave me flexibility to do other things, like I could change things, and Dickie believed in us, and you know, Steve had us part of that group, uh, just let us kind of handle things and kind of watch, and it wasn't it didn't hurt that we were making a lot of money, right? You know what I mean? I mean, you're growing at that rate, it was pretty wild, you know. So we had Kentucky, Final Four. They were staying at the hotel. We got to feed all of the players, Anthony Davis, you know, guys come in. I mean, the amount of celebrities and stuff that were at your fingertips, you know. And how many employees were there? So probably 135 to 150 got changed.

SPEAKER_02 35:41

That's a good bit.

SPEAKER_00 35:42

It was a monster. So you had an A, B, and a C server. Um, so your A was your captain of the team, B being a beverage person, and then you had somebody that took care of your you know, waters, resets, bread service, all those kind of things that helped reset for you. So it was a machine that you're running all of these different little things at one time. And I think we just did a really good job of we had the standard of never saying no to a guest when they came in the door. You know what I mean? That was just something I believed in, how Ruth did things. So it was very normal to come into that environment and have access to be able to do for people. You know, hey, it's Saturday night, I got 40 people that walk in the door with no reservation. We're gonna figure it out. It may not be right this second, but come on, let's go to the bar, let's go in the back, let's have a drink. I'm gonna get you going out here and I'll start working things out on the front. So you're always moving the chess pieces to make it work.

SPEAKER_01 36:46

So when you see things like, I mean, that's not the example I thought you were gonna give about you know, always giving the customer what they want. That was actually a pretty extreme one. Hey, I got 40 people, can you get me in? Um, I I was thinking it more about almost in the ordering process.

SPEAKER_00 37:02

But um But it's funny though, like I say that there's minor things that to this day, everybody on my team and what we've created right now, it's that same philosophy. Right. We don't carry Red Bull because you're fine dining, right? So at the time, you never put Red Bull in a fine dining restaurant, it's an energy drink, right? But somebody comes in and a guest goes, Hey, can I get that Tito's and Red Bull? Right? What am I gonna do? I'm not saying no. I'm gonna go tell that beverage server, hey, here's 10 bucks, go run down the street to Walgreens and grab me a Red Bull to take care of this guy, you know, and that's just And that's kind of where my question was gonna go.

SPEAKER_01 37:48

In you know, what are your thoughts on now it feels like there's this movement towards this is the menu and there are no substitutions? You know, this is it. Now obviously they'll do the allergies are more significant in our day than ever before. So they have to do those things. But you know, I mean I've been places where it's like, can I sub out the whatever for rice or something? That to me is like a simple sub, not something monumental. Um and the answer is no. And so, you know, do you you see this in hospitality, right? I mean you see it in the restaurant business.

SPEAKER_00 38:30

Not in hospitality. In the restaurant business. I see it in the restaurant business. Right. Because there's a big difference. There's service and then there's hospitality, you know, and I don't believe in that. If I can make something happen, I'm gonna make it happen. And I think that's what has helped me in my career, is it's that anything that comes up, any problem per se, I just want to figure out the solution. Like what what do I need to do? You got 40 people that walk in on a Saturday night. It's easy to say no, right? We're packed, I got a hundred people at the door. Right. I don't, that's but I don't think like that. I think of, yeah, they should have made a reservation. They got 40 people, but at so for whatever reason, they're at our door at that moment. How do I tell somebody no? If I can't, you know, I may not be able to do it right then. I may not all sit together, but we're gonna figure something out for you, right? You know, so I think that's more of the hospitality line is if you have a mentality that we're gonna make this work and we'll figure it out.

SPEAKER_01 39:40

So all right, so staying on the journey, so you're there for 10 years, and then what happens?

SPEAKER_00 39:48

So kind of got in this mode where we weren't growing, and I kept learning more about myself and what I wanted to do. And at this point, I think I kind of wanted to do something on my own. I was like, man, I'm doing very well, very successful. At, you know, what you would consider some of the top tiers of the restaurant industry in New Orleans for a vulnerable kid, you know, it wasn't bad. So but I was starting to get bored. My last name never has, never will be Brennan. And the kids were growing up, kids were getting more involved in the restaurants, and it's like, man, I see a path here that ain't good for me, you know. So I was starting to get antsy. So we started as we were growing, getting to take more things on, you know, so I could run Bourbon House and Steakhouse, and all this stuff was happening. And I remember sitting down with Steve Pettis, and I'm like, hey, like, I need more. I want to do something else. What can we figure out? And he was like, Jamie, you're doing great, everything's perfect. I I, you know, my vision of you is kind of like Randy over at Mr. B's. You know, he's been the GM there, he's a staple in New Orleans, blah, blah, blah. He's been there for 30 years. I think I put my resignation in next week. I was like, Yep, that's not me. You got the wrong guy. That's not what I'm working with.

SPEAKER_01 41:23

Do you think that's just because just part of your personality and who you are is that um you're always interested in the next challenge. You know what I mean? Like there's got to be something in you that because for a lot of people, that's that's like the ultimate goal, right? Like you find a job with a good company that's stable, that can be in New Orleans. We think of the Brennan family, obviously been through Katrina and all these crises, but still make their way through and are loyal to the people who work there and honest a great company. And every most people, that's what they're seeking. And then there's this percentage of people who are like, Well, I'm thank you. I'm very appreciative. Unfortunately, I think I'm on to the next whatever it is.

SPEAKER_00 42:06

Yeah, I mean, I'm definitely, you know, it's it's it's interesting because you know, 10 years is a long time to say what what took you so long to figure that out. But we were growing at such a big pace. It was exciting, you know, and then we kind of got to this big, big number and was like, man, I almost don't know where we can go from here. Right. Because we're not opening new restaurants, we're not doing different things. So you start to get kind of encapsulated. And it was like that's when I started to feel it. You move to a maintenance mode. Yeah. What am I gonna go do next? What is what is out there and what can I do? If I'm not gonna be a Brennan, I need to start building something for my kids, you know, in my mind for my family. What else is out there? What can I go start doing that gives me even more flexibility, more opportunity to spread my wings and take all the great things I learned from Roos Gris, from Dickie and the family and everything? And what's next? What can I go take that and go do? So we had, I guess the next chapter is uh got an opportunity with a guy, entrepreneur in New Orleans, who had wanted to spread his wings into the restaurant business. Okay. So went into some meetings, I pitched him a concept, and he was like, I love it, let's do it. So went to go work for that group or person and was gonna run it. And big hit on Brennan's at the time, George, who was running Steakhouse and Palace and all the different things, uh, had left to go work for this guy.

SPEAKER_02 43:51

Oh.

SPEAKER_00 43:51

So he called me and was like, hey, you might want to come over here. We got some cool things going on. So I did. And talk to him, pitch the concept. He's like, let's do it. And then at the time, he was like, Look, as we are looking for a location for your concept, would you help me out with this bar I just bought? And I'm like, Yeah. Well, it was Lucy's. Right. Little bar, you know, sitting on that corner.

SPEAKER_04 44:23

Great one, though. I mean, girl, I mean great bar.

SPEAKER_00 44:26

And so and decent food.

SPEAKER_04 44:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:30

Surprisingly. Yeah. For those people know there's food there.

SPEAKER_04 44:33

Well, and it remember, it Lucy's was like the spot. If you went out and you were in the warehouse district, Lucy was your number one, your number two spot.

SPEAKER_00 44:42

No doubt. Always. Always. Always. Um. So it was fun. We kind of jumped full on into it and created these great, you know, Sunday parties for the Saints games. And we opened up the upstairs that was never opened before. Because it was like, to me, my mind, how are you going to grow? Always look into what's how do I make new money from what's already going on there? Which, you know, for me, little kid from Archbishop Bonnable, I'm always scared somebody else is going to be able to come in and take what I've done. So you have to go make sure that you put yourself in a position that they can't even think about somebody else coming in. You're the value of what it is. So uh the guy I was working with was like, Jamie, what do you think about Lucy's like big? Like, go and open another one. Now I'm like, you're my guy, let's go do this. It's like, where would you go? Well, I had just come back from a bachelor party trip in Key West. And I was like, man, this would be a great brand in Key West. We literally the next week jumped on a plane, flew down to Key West, found a location that weekend that we were all there, and opened up Lucy's and on Grenado Street in Key West. That starts going. He's like, hey, we're working this other group. What do you think about Costa Rica? I was like, I like Costa Rica. Jump in a plane, fly to Costa Rica, go find a location. Hey, we're gonna open up this thing in Foley, Alabama. Okay. There's a new uh thing called Oa. It's a big district, multi, you know, units out there. They got food, they built a water park, you know, small amusement park, whole thing. So while that's being developed, the guys that had that had a property in Aruba. And they're like, hey, what do you think about Aruba?

unknown 46:58

Boom.

SPEAKER_00 46:59

Now I'm opening Aruba.

SPEAKER_04 47:00

What is the time frame of all of this?

SPEAKER_00 47:02

This is fast. This is like we opened five stores in four years. Oh, wow. And all over the country, you know, right, you know, the Caribbean and everything. So it was boom, boom, boom. You were just going, going, going. New Orleans was strong, everything's we moved Key West from Grinnell out to the main street out there, and it was just going, going, going. Not without its challenges, not without its challenges, you know, personally traveling 300 days a year, damn near. You know, you're literally living in these spots because I took Lucy. Lucy's very personal for me. It was New Orleans. It was like Ruth's. I wasn't gonna let what happened to Ruth's in Boca Ratone happen to Lucy's.

SPEAKER_04 47:54

Right.

SPEAKER_00 47:55

So, how do you do that? You go build community, you go build family, you go build these things that made it what it is today. So we were out, we did that, we did Biloxi and all of this stuff, and John came in and he was like, all right, I want to go do 20 of them in like a five-year run. We're gonna spec out the buildings, we're gonna get funding, we're gonna do all this. It's one of those moments. You go, it's not me. I'm not your guy. It's a horrible decision. I don't want to do it. So we were working with to kind of fast forward, because there was a lot in that time period, but it was great. We would just, I was getting to do everything because it was all mine. There was nobody else. Right. It just whatever we wanted to do. It was trusted. So it was really great. But I knew I wasn't gonna go do boxes of Lucy's, right? Just wasn't not not one ounce of that ever felt right, you know. So kind of, you know, some things had happened and we were not on the same page and kind of fighting about that with it, and he's like dead set, you know, brought in another guy. He's like, he's gonna fundraise, you're gonna go open them all. And I'm like, this is not going bad, guys. Well, the guy who was designing um the locations for me was living in, he lives in Orlando, and he called me up and he's like, What are you doing? I'm like, I don't know, man, gotta figure something out. I was like, Do you have anybody? Because he just fell in love with what we were doing, and he was a big he did marketing and uh design work for the Dallas Cowboys, Hershey's, like all these major, major brands. And he was like, he's like, Are you asking me to find somebody for a job for you? And I'm like, Yeah, I need to work, I gotta figure something out. He's like, absolutely not. No shot. And I'm like, I don't want to be here, I'm not gonna go do this. And he's like, I didn't say anything about that. You need to leave. He goes, but you're starting your own damn company. This is bullshit. It's time to go. And I'll remember how scary that was. Because I was like, uh oh, can I do this? You know, because it's great to run other people's stuff, you know what I mean? And you don't have this massive financial burden. It's just you're making money. You have to go get a job, you have to go live life and all, but it's not solely on you. But made the jump, and that created octo hospitality to where we are today, which is a whole nother story.

SPEAKER_01 50:51

Well, and I want to get in a little bit of that, and then we're gonna shift gears. So today, um tell us a little bit about what octo hospitality, like you know, what it does and and what you're involved in.

SPEAKER_00 51:03

So we started as a consulting company, you know, we had a lot of cred, street cred, for all the stuff we were doing and everything. So we had business immediately, you know. So getting picking up clients, everything was going well. And but it was a weird model. I don't know. For the restaurant world, for me, it was really hard because you would go in, and I kept thinking about it. I'm like, man, consulting with a restaurant. Number one, they're hiring you because they're not doing well. Probably, right? They need somebody to come in and fix these things. They probably don't have money because they've been losing it all the way through this. And if I work really, really hard, get them back to where they need to be, they're gonna fire me. Because what do they need you for?

SPEAKER_04 51:58

You know, if you do your job well, you're fixing it and use time to go.

SPEAKER_00 52:02

Now I gotta go find another client. Now I gotta go do this. So that same guy who talked me into getting this business going, um, me and my partner called me up and goes, Hey, can you go out to Huntsville, Alabama? He goes, I've got a developer out there who's got an AC hotel. Really long story to tell you about this one, but it's fun. There's a rooftop bar. He wants you to come, I want you to go look at it because I think you could go take that. I'm like, dude, why am I not going to Huntsville? Like, what that's too much travel. It's six hours away for me to go consult on this project. Right. But at the time, I was like, man, maybe that would be a cool thing to do, you know, whatever. And so I call my partner. I'm like, hey, I need you to meet me. We can go to Huntsville, Alabama. We've been working, trying to get time with this developer, and it just wasn't working out. So he's like, so we finally go up there. I was like, I told, I think I lied. I don't know. I told him I was, hey, I'm in town because he couldn't meet with us. Um, meet with him, hit it off. Just felt like Dickie all over again. Like it was just me and him clicked, my partner and his, you know, partner clicked. Everything was just rolling. And he's like, I just signed the deal for somebody else to operate that spot. I'm like, no big deal. I get it. I go back to New Orleans, we'll keep working, right? And about a month later, he called and was like, hey, I know it's Mardi Gras, but would you come throw an event here in the district? And I'm like, during Mardi Gras? You want to throw a whole like, what are we talking? What's your budget? What's your what's your plan? How real Mardi Gras do you want to be? Now him and his partner went to Loyola, lived in New Orleans, so they know.

SPEAKER_02 54:06

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 54:06

I'm like, so you really want Mardi Gras? He goes, Yeah, it'll liven up the district, it'll be something that's our core, it's who our we are, blah, blah, blah. He goes, if we can get a couple thousand people out here, that would be awesome. Because it's a big thing of red dirt at this time. It was a million square foot mall that went under and they bought the land.

SPEAKER_04 54:29

Like a shopping mall.

SPEAKER_00 54:30

Like a shopping center. Literally a mall. So I got it. It was on deadmalls.com.

SPEAKER_04 54:33

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00 54:34

Like it was, you know, malls are dying, you know, it's just not easy with the online surge and everything. So we kind of sat in a bunch of meetings, kept flying up to Huntsville, back and forth, back and forth. I'm like, what's the budget on this thing? Like, what do you really want to do? Because he's incredibly passionate, you know, just wants to do things the right in the best way that you can. So he said, There's no budget. I just want you to throw me a party. Perfect. I'm your guy. Right. So my partner and I, you know, we're just collaborating and doing this. So we go for this Mardigar event. We bring in all the music from New Orleans. We uh bring in Mardi Gar Indians, Jambalaya, Crawford, like we do everything, right? Get it all set up. We got props from Blaine Kern that we're bringing out there, you know, the whole gig. And we throw this event, and it's like, man, I don't know about you, but remember when you were like in junior high or high school and you throw your first party and you're like, man, I don't hope somebody comes. Right. You know what I mean? Like you have this anticipation. We had just spent all this money in a city that we didn't know, right? If I do it in New Orleans, I know who's showing up. Right. I got a clientele and I got friends and family, and everybody's gonna be there. That's easy. When you go do it in a city you've never been to before, so you're sitting there and I'm like, it's a beautiful day, it's gorgeous. A couple of cars start pulling up. Well, about 6,000 people later. Stop massive party. Like it was, and so their eyes are like this. My eyes were like this, right? And they're like, this is incredible.

SPEAKER_03 56:28

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 56:29

So we just kept building that relationship and kind of helping them. And then they had this thing called the camp that they had started right at the front of the property, as kind of a place, a gathering place to do these events and stuff like that, and kind of teach people habits to going there to watch the development, you know, come alive and be built. They were working on an amphitheater, they had already had top golf, they recruited to come in. So there's a massive vision of this whole development that's really neat. And I fell in love with the whole project. And so we did another event with them, and then they asked us to take the camp over. And this was a property that was losing. I say I hate using that word, losing money. It was investing because that's what it was. It was literally an investment to teach the community what to do, right? And I came in and kept talking to him about money and this. And he's like, Stop talking to me about money. I don't care. This project is a two billion dollar project. We're not worried about this. This is important for you to make it special, make it awesome. So we did. And we went from investing all this money into it to it being a massive profit center now. And it is a it is the most diverse place I've ever had the opportunity to run in my life. I mean, it changes every single year. It goes back to all this being versatile and changing and what Bourbon Street taught me many years ago. But, you know, we could have rock and roll band on Friday night, drag show Saturday morning, a you know, RB live night going on after that. It doesn't matter. We do all kind of stuff. So we turn into Family Night with Bingo. Family night with bingo. I mean, we do everything right now. We have Halloween going on, and we take the whole place and we've invested money for years, and we turn it into a haunted house. So it's a pop-up Halloween bar. So all of our drinks have the different, you know, little uh whether it's fingers in them as a garnish or you know, eyeballs are popping up and all this funny stuff. Uh, but it's been great. I mean, it just everybody's kids come in just to see. We have 20-foot animatronics all over the place. We hire characters to come in, like the little ring girl creeping up on people and Freddie Krueger and all that. But it's awesome. It's just it's been so well received by the community. We do all these different events. Um, Cody, my partner, came up with this idea this year of we were gonna get the community singles and get them booed up, right? So she did this pitch night, right? So we've been talking about it. So you literally take your best friend that's single, uh-huh, and you're gonna go put a PowerPoint together, and you're gonna get in front of all these people and pitch her. Oh, that's awesome, right? So you could see when we do stuff through social media, like what kind of traction it's getting. And I'm like, hmm, this thing's and Cody was excited. She's like, this is gonna be big. Like be she'd already like within days got like 10 pitch decks for other people, you know. So it's just going and going and going. So this happened last Tuesday, Tuesday night. There were almost a thousand people there. Singles running around. So she gave wristbands. You wore a wristband if you were single. It's complicated or taken. So everybody had these wristbands. And we ran out of wristbands. Like people are freaking out. We're having to write on people what they are because we couldn't hold it. I mean, the lines were 40 deep at the bar, you know, music going. I'm up there and seeing it, what's going on, and all this, and I have a hundred-inch screen in front, and we're pitching these people and how great they are, what their red flags are.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:00

I almost feel like we need a podcast on this whole pitching thing.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:03

It was wild.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:04

After you pitch a front, what happens?

SPEAKER_00 1:01:06

So they will bid on. So what I did, one of the, you know, my little bit of contribution, I was like, hey, let's set up a date table. So we put by a fire pit, we dress up this date table, put flowers on it, and it we the uh team there put this little sign together and it said two-minute date table. So you could go walk up to anybody you wanted and go have a two-minute date with them at this table in front of the fire, you know. So the whole night, I mean, there are lines, people waiting to get to this table.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:39

Just gonna ask that, along with your line for the table.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:41

Yeah, it was wild. And so, like the one little girl, the first girl I got pitched, so sweet. She got up there with the person pitching her and was just energetic, and this is who I am, and like just put herself out there. I was like, this is amazing. Four hours into this thing, I see her, and I'm like, hey, how are you? She's like, I'm exhausted.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:02

I've been on 10.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:03

She's like, I can't leave. Everybody keeps wanting to talk to me. I was like, well, this is what you want. So she's been updating Cody that she's had like three dates last week and all this stuff. So it's just been fun. So the community's just was like, we gotta do it.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:20

As far as the development goes, is that it's completed, it's done. Like even close. Not even close.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:26

We are 35% in right now. So we have an 8,000-seat amphitheater that's going into it'll be going into its fourth year. Okay. Um, top golf. By the end of this month or next month at the latest, uh, we'll finish our residential, which will be 2,000 units on property. Okay. So um two of them just opened up, so they should be full here in the next six to eight months. So that's 2,000 people, you know, units living on your property. Cody was really close friends with the guys who had Blue Oak Barbecue here in New Orleans. They went to grammar school together. And one of our first things when we kind of finally moved out there and settled in was like, we got to open one. So we partnered with them, opened a blue oak barbecue out there. And so you have restaurants, living, retail all starting to go, but you're still so far. I mean, it takes, I've learned so this has been the best move of my life doing this job, doing what I'm doing, because it changes all the time. I'm learning so much. I had to learn real estate, you know, and how it works and what you do. And you go work really hard designing a building, and then you don't see it for two years, literally. And that's really hard for me because I was used to instant gratification of let's go take this location, change it to ours. We can do that in three months, 90 days, turn this thing around and let's go. And so it's like you do all this work for three, four months, and then you don't see it for two years, and then you got to pick it up, and now you're operating it. So we turned from consulting to operating. Got it. So we partnered with the developer. We got so close with them, they're like, okay, we want y'all to do all the hospitality here because there's no hospitality. I say none. It's not like New Orleans where it's known for hospitality, or these tourist places that are known for hospitality. So he wanted to create that culture in Huntsville in his development. So if he said, if I start with one development and we create hospitality in this development, it'll grow. You but you got to start somewhere. It's a long-term deal, but you got to start somewhere. Yeah, the place is awesome. Who better to do it than a couple of people from New Orleans? Yeah. Right? That's just you don't teach, it's not easy to just teach hospitality if it's just in your blood. It's what you've done your whole career. So it's kind of what happened.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:16

Such a cool concept. I feel like you hear a lot, especially living in this in New Orleans or near New Orleans, where these properties that are no longer being used, and then they talk about you know the residential commercial, and it's gonna have that, but it never comes to fruition.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:34

It's hard. Ever. It's so hard. I'll watch the grind and how much you have to change, and like what you think is today the perfect solution, right? It takes 10 years to build it. You know, a project of this scale, it takes 10 years. Well, guess what? Everything you thought has changed, right? Times have changed, you know, the economy. Everything changes. So you're constantly, excuse me, moving at all times. And they've done a great, great job of it. And we've done a great job, I think, of adjusting with that and creating our own brand out there. And what kind of events we throw. We throw a crawfish festival where we do almost 10,000 pounds of crawfish. People come in from all over the place for our events. And it's just very blessed. Bad. Very, very blessed.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:28

Yeah, it's a cool spot. Come to a show. The Orion Amphitheater is special. Like it really is. It just looks like the old Roman Coliseum. And it's just not a bad seat in the place. And you go in there and just rule.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:43

Well, and you know, something I didn't know about Huntsville until he moved out there, and we started, I started thinking about it. You know, you say, well, we see all these places around here, and people are like, oh, we're going to take this and convert it to this. And then it doesn't ever seem to work out the way they say. Well, part of it is a demographic. And Huntville has been one of the top growing cities and voted one of the best cities to move to. It's been in the it's been number one, but it's also been in that mix now for probably five years. Five years.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:13

It's yeah, we won best place to live. Um I think it was four years ago. Then we dropped to like number three, and then kind of it was like five, and then back up to three.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:26

So it just helps, right? And then you have NASA there, and you have the FBI has a massive presence. They're talking about moving the headquartersquarters there. Um, you know, so you have this infusion of uh people and people who are earning. So with really good jobs, and they're all the not all, but the majority are probably in their late 20s to you know mid-50s in that range. And so they're making money and they want to go do things. And to me, you know, as I was able to, I heard the stories from Jamie, and then I got out there, and another buddy and I went out, and we were both like, this is not exactly what we were thinking he was working on. Like, I mean, I envisioned like a strip ball, maybe two or three strip balls or some stuff. We got out there and we were like, what the hell? Like this thing is it is amazing. Um and it needs to be in a 17 blocks all the way around that we've created.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:19

And and that's the hard like you're talking about who's moving there. Well, Huntsville was having a major problem with retaining people. They would come work for a couple years and leave. Because why? I mean, it's Huntsville. What's in Huntsville? If you're not from then there's really no connection, there's not, it's beautiful. You have gorgeous scenery for complete seasons, like it's there's a lot to love about it. But these young kids who are graduating and filling these jobs, engineer jobs, what are they doing? There's nothing to do. There's not a food scene, there's not a bar scene, there's not, it's just Huntsville, right? Well, the developer that uh, you know, we got to partner with, their vision was to they have to fix that, right? How do we do it? Well, he went to the city and said, we're gonna build this behind music out of muscle shoals that's got a great background. If you ever see the pot the uh show muscle shoals, it's incredible, it'll tell you a lot about what's what goes on musically in the background of the soul that comes from the south and all this stuff, it's really neat. But their idea was let's go create ways to keep these people here. Well, did a music study, open up an 8,000 seat amphitheater, have done a ton of back and forth music, back and forth from Nashville, and Max has just got an incredible vision of what he wants all this to be. And so we've taken our time, it's been hard sometimes because we could have probably finished the development two years ago if we wanted no knock on Olive Garden, but Olive Garden, Outback Steakhouse, and all these other, you know, chains to come in. It's the literal opposite of what he believes in. So and there's already a heavy mix of that in Huntsville. It's everywhere because Huntsville is a very good thing. It's growing, it's got like it's got every box in the world. So it is so easy to say, I'm gonna go throw a box in there and it's gonna make money. And it does. But you're the Huntsville is full of them. Right. And there's just not a lot of restaurateurs, that you know, chefs-driven restaurants there that can make a difference. These people are just coming in and opening up a box. Right. Well, what also doesn't come with that hospitality. So we came in and just being who we are, training, hiring the right people that cared about that as much as we did, is what has worked out there in the development. So it's been, you know, everything from the guys that are cutting grass, you know, car comes by, they look up and wave. You know, it's just it doesn't seem like a lot, but you're welcoming somebody into your community, you know. Dickie always said that. He's like, you know, we used to do little small gifts for every person that came in. We also bought desserts for any single diner that ever walked in our restaurant because they're by themselves. Right. But they chose to be with you, you know, there's 1,500 restaurants in New Orleans. They came to see us. We better make that special every time.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:45

That's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:46

So I want to I want to shift gears a little bit because the whole foundation of our podcast is based on the concept of, you know, it takes a village to manage life. And um, you know, as I've been listening, you have had one hell of a hospitality and business um group of coaches, mentors, whatever, whatever you want to say, name you want to give them. Sure. But I'd like to do a rapid fire with you. Okay. Okay. So one, two, three, four. I got five names. Okay. So I'm just gonna run down and I'm gonna say, um what's the what's the when I say the name in your experience of working for them, what's the one thing that comes to mind that you learned from them that you know there's the maybe that you're still using today or the you know, the most influential thing you learned from them. Okay. And I'm gonna go in order. Let's start with Mr. Abud.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:47

Oh man. Um changed my life. He was a father figure. I'd probably get emotional talking about that guy today. Um, he taught me how to be a man growing up as a young guy, just trying to figure it out. Um, he was metulous in execution. I mean, City Lights was a bar, nightclub. Bartenders wore tuxedos. Like it was class. It wasn't just this craziness, it was class, and he was that rock behind everybody there, and it always made an impression that he was in the building, always there, always there for his team. Um, and he led everybody. So just great leader. All right. Uh, did you work with Ruth Fertell?

SPEAKER_01 1:13:43

I did not, no, she was passing at the time. Okay. But what did you learn from her organization and being at the home base? So a lot.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:53

And, you know, she again, guest first, always. It's not about you. Don't ever put yourself in front of it. It's all about the guests and their experience. I could give you 50 stories of her, you know, putting her desk in the middle of the restaurant because she was having to do paperwork and didn't want somebody not to see her. She'd cut beef in the back with the back door open so nobody saw that she wasn't working. Wow. She was the person who's going to make everything right and uh loved bourbon. God, that woman could drink. All right, Dickie Brennan. Um legacy. He came from a family of restaurants, and he wanted to carve out his own legacy within the Brennan family. You know, the cousins, everybody was splitting apart. He wanted to carve that out. And he wanted to do it with great food vision, mostly hospitality. And he was incredible at it. I've I've been I remember one great story about Dickie was I remember we were looking, we're talking about the steakhouse, and it's hard to you know show on a podcast, but he walked into a garage that was for sale, and it was an under parking garage, and he bought that garage to be able to build steakhouse because he had a vision of putting a steakhouse in this din feeling where you step down off of Bourbon Street into that. And he taught me how to not allow a wall to be a reason to not do the vision you wanted to do, which was amazing for me because that opened my eyes to because I would always try to build things or create things based on what was there. Okay, and he taught me to never worry about that. You can always move walls. Kirkendahl. Um good heart, good passion, interesting, diverse guy. I mean, Kirkendahl was a finance guy that grew money and worked for these big companies and found this little small strip club called the Gold Club and bought it and invested money with some guys and built an empire of strip clubs. Now owns Penthouse Worldwide, you know, everything else. It just was a crazy environment, but he's not. If there's such a thing as a strip club guy, that's not who that is. He's a family man, he's got a successful business, he's diverse in doing restaurants and all these other things. Um scalability. Yeah, I mean, pretty crazy what he's done. Max Visionary, um, passionate. Blows my mind every day that he sees and his relentless effort to work on what's new and be able to change. He will, you know, go years spending money on a project and without hesitation flip tomorrow. Doesn't matter. It's not the right thing. Gotta move on. Gotta go. So just really, really great guy. We don't get to spend as much time as we used to, you know, because you're in the midst of this development. We're running the development. He trusts and loves what we do. So it's just you just kind of go, you know. But really good guy.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:38

So when you look at these notes, meticulous execution, like always present, guest first. Make your own legacy. Solutions to your vision, not uh adjusting your vision. Um scalability and diversity. Passionate and knowing when to cut bait. I mean, those are pretty solid. Those are pretty solid. And that that was those were my takeaways of listening to what you were saying. I mean, that's a that's a pretty good group of takeaways.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:15

You've been really lucky. And and you did not go to college for any of this. I mean, you learned you straight out of high school.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:23

Just in the business.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:24

Just in the business, worked hard.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:25

And I've looked again, you I think you say I've been lucky, you're right. I don't like the word lucky personally. Well, but I've I've been blessed to work with some incredible people. All right. You know, I got to do the masters. Like, yeah, that's pretty wild that I had that opportunity and get to do stuff like that. It's been it's been a ride, but it's all goes back to just, you know, the list you said, which, you know, I love hearing that. I just I never think of it like that. But it's like good exercise. It's just being able to be you and just want to take care of people and do things the right way.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:05

And I know you don't like the word lucky. I know you don't, but when when I think of his career and I say lucky, really that pivotal moment when Dick when you met Dickie Brunnan and he just basically gave you the keys. I mean, that, you know, see I said basically do it, do what you want to.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:24

Here you go. But I go in Colin, I think it's a Colin Powell quote um about luck, and he said he doesn't believe in luck. He said it luck is defined, he defines luck as preparation crossing opportunity. And and when I heard that, that really did strike me years ago, and that's probably why I've talked to Anna about it over the years too, because um I think the only luck we have is the parents we're born to. Um and outside of that, I think life is about preparation and opportunity. And I think now when I think about, now I know about Olive Garden. And as funny as it is, as how that came about in the weird set of circumstances, but you did it. And then when you think about to your point, then you're gonna fast forward. Many, many years go by. And now here you are having this conversation with Dickie Brennan, this like hospitality entrepreneur and you know, part of a legacy family. And here you are, to the guy that was, you know, far back in that, you know, at the nightclub as a teenager, and you know, fibbing a little bit to get the job at Olive Garden, and all these things culminate into a scenario where um all of that was your preparation. And then these opportunities, whether it is the Dickie Brennan or whether it's Kirkendall or whether it's Max, they're they're they're crossing, they're intersecting, and it all comes together in those moments. And then you have to have the ability and the willingness to take risk and better yourself, right? Because if you've not done that in each one of these, the easier path for you may have been at Dickey Brennan's like, man, I can make great money. I see, I can be the GM of this place for 30 years. I'll have this thing on autopilot, and I'll have flexibility in my life, all those things that were important to you. Unfortunately, you're too entrepreneurial for that to be the end for you. It just couldn't. Yeah. It can't be for you. It could be for thousands of people.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:22

Um I think it's opportunity. You take you take advantage of them. You know, I don't I always try to preach this to my kids. Like whether you're ready or not, you go, if you get yourself lucky or whatever, you know, at that path, make the decision, go for it every time. We're gonna fail in life, things are gonna happen, but if you don't take the opportunity, I agree. I'm just gonna what are you doing? You know.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:49

Okay, so now I got another one for you. Okay. Because with this this level of career and nightlife, and um what is the most interesting customer interaction or the funniest interaction that you've had? I feel like you're you know exactly what you're gonna do. Well, I know one, I know to tell everyone. I know what my favorite one is, but I don't know where you're gonna go. Um and this is this is your this is your interview. So um I definitely know what my favorite one is. But anyway.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:21

Which one? Just cause I can. Huh? Cause I can. Oh, yeah, that was a good one. Um should I tell that one? You would have to. It was a funny one. It's quick. I was at Roos and server comes running out, says, Hey, bar needs you, bad. What's I'm like, what's going on? So they're like, Guy just ordered a Louis and Diet Coke. Well, what is Louie? Louis Martin is a cognac. Okay. But it's probably at the time a $200 shot of cognac that he was mixing with a Diet Coke. And the bartender just wouldn't pour it. They're like, I don't know if I'm hearing him wrong, whatever it is. So I casually walk up, talk to the guy and hanging out for a second. And I see him looking behind the bar and I know what he's doing. He's waiting on his drink. Yeah, right? I know what it is, but I don't want them to pour a $200 shot. Guy's like, I can't get any service in this place. I order the most expensive drink. I mean, I see him, I said, Can I get you anything? He goes, Yeah, I'm just waiting on my drink. I'm like, oh, it's your and he goes, Louis and Diet Coke.

unknown 1:23:24

I'm like, oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:25

So I look at the bartender, I give her the eyes, make the drink. It's confirmed. We know what he wants. So we're talking. I'm like, so why Louis and Diet? Because I can. Make the man a drink. Let's go.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:41

Good enough. Let's move on. Because I can. So we talked about making shirts years ago. Because I can. Because I can is great. Um all right. Well, we only have about three or four minutes before we have a very uh general wrap-up question for you.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:56

But before we get there, this is so silly for him though.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:59

No, but before we get there, I want you to take just the last couple of minutes here. And uh you've talked about hospitality and the difference between service and hospitality. Um for people who are listening, when you think about hospitality and then you think about life, right? Draw draw some connections for us. What are some things that you see, have learned, execute with you and your team in the hospitality realm that actually does bleed over into life? So if someone's listening to this and they're not in the hospitality business, but they're in, you know, some other some other line of work, what are some things that you've learned that you think are crossovers that could help people?

SPEAKER_00 1:24:41

You know, to me, it's caring about someone. And that's a crossover for all of us every day in our lives. If you just genuinely can care for someone, even if they're a stranger or your family, you know, execute that. Show you care about someone. Take the time to answer the phone, take the time to wish to call somebody and wish them a happy birthday, not just a quick email or text or something like that. Answer the phone, talk to them, be there for somebody because I will say this the people that we've described that have been a part of my life made a difference in my life. I was, I my mom did an incredible job, I believe, and give all credit in the world to her. I didn't have a father, though, in my life. There was never a man in my life. So these coaches, bosses, owners were my dad's all the way through. And they taught me everything, and that's where I'm at today is I have to give that back. I have to help young people navigate life. And that's still hospitality to me. You know, taking a young person who has no idea who was what I was years ago and trying to help guide them as people help guide me. It's a good answer.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:01

There was no wrong answer. And then you do it because you can. Because I can. Um, all right. Well, we wrap up with a generic question, so Anna will hit you with it.

SPEAKER_04 1:26:13

So if you could have dinner with anyone, who would it be? And where would you go?

SPEAKER_01 1:26:20

I'm writing down who I think you're gonna say. That's probably um it would be Michael Jordan.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:26

Boom. I'm a winner right here. I have it. I just went to a show. That's Michael Jordan. That's an easy. Um blessed to have met him a couple of times, but not have dinner. Um at one of your restaurants. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Well, that's at City Lights at the club. Oh, really? Yeah, yeah. And a restaurant, but yeah. Um where would I go? Gosh, I'm such a foodie. Um with him. That's the big thing, right? You gotta decide who you're gonna go with. If I was gonna go with him, it's really hard. Can I take him the roots on broad? Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:27:06

Yeah, why not?

SPEAKER_01 1:27:08

There you go. Yeah, with Chris on broad. Well, what a way to bring it full circle. Yeah. Well, thank you. I know you're busy, and uh, we appreciate your time while you're in town. Yeah, thank y'all. Thank you. Thank y'all for making it easy. Yeah, and uh here's to your future hospitality journey.