Episode 14: Travis Kukull; What If A Restaurant Could Feed A Town’s Soul?

A slice of fresh bread on a Sunday night can shape a life. Travis joins us to share how those early kitchen memories, a scientist father’s quiet example, and a teenage “pop-up” at home set him on a winding path from Shoreline to Maui, New York, and finally Haines, Alaska—where Deer Heart now serves as both restaurant and community anchor.

We dig into the reality of restaurants after the pandemic—rents, payrolls, composting bills—and why so many spots shutter despite packed dining rooms. Travis doesn’t sugarcoat the math, but he also shows how a different model can work: staff-first training, scratch cooking, menu pivots that follow the season instead of a spreadsheet, and deep ties to local producers. From foraged mushrooms and high-tunnel gardens to buying whole birds through Alaska’s poultry exemption, he explains how to build a resilient, hyper-local supply chain that keeps money (and meaning) in town. The result is food that tastes like place—chicken liver mousse from yesterday’s harvest, prawn-stock paella crowned with cured salmon roe, and pizzas that turn backyard produce into main events.

Beyond the plate, we talk sustainable food systems with teeth. Travis earned a master’s from the Culinary Institute of America and brought it home, designing a small but mighty ecosystem where growers can sell a harvest in one day, kitchens waste almost nothing, and diners learn to trust change. He also shares why he helped launch community potlucks through the chamber and how a hot meal can cut winter’s isolation, spark new business connections, and improve real health outcomes. It’s an honest, hopeful conversation about craft, leadership, and the magic that happens when a restaurant decides to feed more than hunger.

Subscribe, share, and leave a review to help more curious listeners find the show. Then tell us: what local ingredient or tradition would you love to see on your neighborhood menu?

Transcript

Welcome And Guest Intro

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hi, thanks for joining us for this episode of Doug Hat's Questions. If you enjoyed today's conversation, please like, subscribe. We're available if you want to watch us on uh YouTube or if you just want to listen to the podcast version on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, and each episode goes live on Thursday morning. So I hope you enjoy this episode and we're happy to have you listening. Welcome to this episode of Doug Hask Questions. Today my guest is my friend and the chef and owner of Deerheart, Travis Google. Welcome to the show, Travis.

SPEAKER_04 0:34

Thanks for having me, Doug.

SPEAKER_01 0:35

Thanks for showing up on this blustery day.

SPEAKER_04 0:37

Yeah, it's better than being outside on the beach. So yes. Yes.

Childhood Roots And Family Influence

SPEAKER_01 0:43

A little nippy out there today. Let's get into the the Travis story that has led you to Haynes, Alaska, and running Deer Heart. So let's go back to childhood. Where did you grow up? Oh, the other thing, besides being an amazing chef, one of the best things I like about Travis is he's also a Husky fan and a Seahawk fan.

SPEAKER_04 1:06

Yeah, we both went to the University of Washington.

SPEAKER_01 1:08

Both went to UW, loyal Seahawk fans coming off the Super Bowl win. Times are good right now.

SPEAKER_06 1:13

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 1:14

We just need to pony up, uh we need to fuck up more investors to get about eight, nine billion dollars. We can own the suckers. Yeah, I'm just gonna ride this wave until the next season and see.

SPEAKER_03 1:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:26

Yeah. So anyhow, back now that we've got uh everybody knows where our allegiances lie in football, which is usually the most important basis of any kind of relationship, friendship.

SPEAKER_04 1:37

Agreed. Did you grow up?

SPEAKER_01 1:38

Did you grow up in the Seattle area then?

SPEAKER_04 1:40

I did in Shoreline, Washington. It's about 15 minutes north of Seattle. So it used to be part of the greater Seattle area, but then became its own city when I was about 13 or so. And uh it's just like a suburb. Went to Shorewood High School. Um that high school had a culinary arts program in it. It was one of the only ones in the state of Washington. And uh I just had a strong interest in in cooking when I was in high school. I had other interests too, but I didn't really know.

SPEAKER_01 2:13

W was there anything at home or what can you place kind of what drove that interest in cooking?

SPEAKER_04 2:18

Was it a a restaurant experience or um my my brother and sister and I spent a lot of time cooking together. My parents both worked, so they weren't always home. But even growing up, my dad made sure that uh he made homemade bread every Sunday. So there was always really home like a home cooking approach to to everything. Um, I think you know, I mostly did it because they had three kids and not a lot of money, but um those are indelible uh to me, you know, those those memories of Sunday night and being in bed and that smell of bread coming out of the oven, and you just like wake up and without saying a word, walk into the kitchen, and your dad cuts you a slice of bread, puts some butter on it, you sit on the stairs, eat it, and then go back to bed. So those memories mean everything to me.

Finding Cooking And Early High School Turns

SPEAKER_01 3:17

So what what did your mom and dad do?

SPEAKER_04 3:20

My uh mom had a lot of different jobs growing up. So she worked uh at the library for a long time, the Shoreline Library, and she worked uh uh at a frames framing store. She later, like when we were in high school, went back to school and got uh an interior design degree and ended up working for Home Depot for a long time. And then my dad is an Alzheimer's Parkinson's research researcher. Okay. So he's an epidemiologist. He ran the Alzheimer's and Parkinson's Research Center at the University of Washington for over 30 years. Wow. So um yeah, he used to be pretty proud of him just uh just uh just to say that he's still not retired. I can't go into too much of this, but he's working for Washiu now out in St. Louis. So he still lives in the Seattle area, but he travels back and forth to St. Louis right now. He's over 80 years old now, so he's um instilled a work ethic in me that uh uh I don't know if a lot of people get exposure to, you know, like not that like he was there for us, like he he was there for every moment of our of our lives, right? But he still worked his ass off at the same time. Like it was like And every weekend he's making coming from work to make sure he could get me to play catch with, you know, just so I could have someone to practice baseball with, uh or making it to all my games and all the sports and all the activities and everything.

SPEAKER_01 5:06

So So he didn't sacrifice any of that st stuff of take being with his kids on behalf of the job.

SPEAKER_04 5:14

No, he just worked harder, yeah. Yeah. So and um he still works very, very hard. And yeah, yeah, I don't know. We actually went that's a part of the part of the part of the reason I went down to Seattle to go to the NFC Championship game is like, well, stumbled upon the tickets, but uh I could take my dad, you know. He told me he hadn't been to a Seahawks game since the first year at the Kingdom. What? Seriously?

SPEAKER_00 5:41

So I'm so glad you got to take him.

SPEAKER_04 5:44

Yeah, he's he's a very reserved per person. He's a scientist, you know. So he's uh What did he think? Oh yeah, I mean at the end of the game he was screaming and high-fiving people left and right, and yeah, he had a blast. So uh they weren't the best seats in the world either, but it was still it was a great game. To me, that was the Super Bowl that game.

SPEAKER_01 6:07

You're you're you're in the building sharing a memory with your dad that both of you will have for the rest of your lives.

SPEAKER_04 6:13

Yeah, uh I'm just re realizing now I do speak with my hands.

SPEAKER_02 6:18

That was a question Sam asked ahead of time. Like, we're gonna find out shortly.

Culinary School, UW, And A New Direction

SPEAKER_04 6:23

Now you know. Yeah, so pretty proud of my dad, and I have a great relationship with him and still talk once a week or so. And yeah, so um uh he's trying to take his grant over to Washington University now and then pass it on to the people that he would prefer take over that research. But he told me a little bit ago that uh within the next five years, because of this research hub that they've done um and created over the last 30, that um there'll be um uh not necessarily a cure but a treatment for Alzheimer's disease in the next in the next five years.

SPEAKER_01 7:06

That's gotta be huge. It's gotta be huge. Especially knowing your dad was a part of that. Yeah, yeah. So changed a lot of people's lives.

SPEAKER_04 7:13

Absolutely. Uh how many people do you know that have everybody knows somebody through extension that has had um a hard time with that disease. So yeah, I think that's pretty amazing. And he's he's instilled that in me too. Like life's more about than what you can gain financially, but what are you gonna give back to the world? So and that's how I view my restaurant and my cooking and my interactions with people.

SPEAKER_01 7:45

Great role model to have.

SPEAKER_04 7:47

I say I'd say so.

SPEAKER_01 7:48

And it's cool when the role models are in the house. Yeah. Right? You're not looking outward for it, but you have them in the house that you're interacting with on a day-to-day basis. Yeah. Uh you're lucky. Thanks. Yeah. So with your dad, kind of you and your you said you got a brother and a sister. So you guys are kind of doing some home cooking yourself. You get into high school, Shorewood High School, and they've got a a cooking program. Is that just like one class a day? Was it a a a basic program to kind of push you towards the culinary arts, or how was that set up?

SPEAKER_04 8:19

Well, I I think I had some confusion about what I wanted to do through high school, like a lot of kids do. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:26

Just about everybody?

SPEAKER_04 8:27

Yeah, but um I didn't know which direction I was going in. I didn't know where my interests lied really. I started to become a little bit more academic through the second half of high school. The first half felt uh pretty overwhelming to me, and I felt dumb and things were over my head, and I I think I convinced myself that I wasn't smart, you know. So I um I don't know, tried to find places I'd thrive in, and then all of a sudden I started picking things up faster, and uh I had uh other interests like I thought maybe I might become a lawyer. I thought maybe I might um do a bunch of different things. Like a writer. Uh I became very interested in the English English language and um and literature, and then I just kept cooking. I kept cooking at home and I kept cooking with my brother. My brother got a job at a restaurant, my sister got a job at a restaurant. We had all worked in restaurants at one at one point in time. My brother and I started, like when my parents went out of town for something, or we had an opportunity to have like a party at the house for friends. We would actually just uh make food and then charge people at the door to come to come to come inside. And we were basically running an illegal restaurant in my parents' parents' house when they're out of town when they're out of town. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:56

Uh I'd I just Most people raid the parents' liquor store, and here you go, you and your brother and sister running a restaurant instead.

SPEAKER_04 10:04

Yeah, and I I needed to focus on um different ways to hang out with people. Like I I I definitely had in the early part of my high school career hung out with uh a bit of a party crowd, and I ended up getting in a really bad car accident, and a friend of mine was in the hospital for over a month.

SPEAKER_02 10:25

Wow.

Hawaii Kitchens And Growing Confidence

SPEAKER_04 10:26

And so I cleaned up, right? Yes, um, but I still wanted to hang out with people and find a new approach to it, and uh so this was kind of my way of like being a part of a social engagement and still being able to um uh concentrate on something positive throughout it all that wasn't destructive. So um yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:51

That's that's something a lot of people are trying to figure out.

SPEAKER_04 10:56

But for you to be doing that in high school, I was also very concerned that a lot of my friends were going to hurt themselves in some way.

SPEAKER_01 11:06

But still, there's a there's a lot of us, I think, growing up that you can see that happening with different friends and everything, but don't make that effort to create a different environment. And so at that age, go having that being involved in that accident, but then trying to turn that into something good going forward and and helping not only yourself but your friends, that's a level of self-awareness and change that you don't often see in people that young, Travis.

SPEAKER_04 11:35

Well, I I don't know if I would have even seen that and or uh had that enlightenment, you know, if I hadn't been in that car accident. You know?

SPEAKER_01 11:44

But e even then, not everybody that goes through that has that same well comes back comes back to my dad again.

SPEAKER_04 11:50

He didn't like come down on me like your life's gonna change now. This he's like, You have some decisions to make. That's the way he approached things like your life is your own. Um if you want to go in this direction, you can. If you want to go in a different direction, you can do that as well.

SPEAKER_00 12:09

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 12:09

Uh he used to kind of joke when I would be like, Dad, how did you respond to peer pressure? And he was like, Oh, I don't have any peers. But what he meant by that is that you know, your your life's decisions are your own. Don't fall into those pressures of from peers to be a certain way. Try to look for those answers with people, and um, you know, make the best decisions that you can. So I didn't always make the best decisions, but uh, you know, that's part of it. You know, you move on, you learn from them, and try not to beat yourself up for a decade because you did something wrong.

SPEAKER_01 12:52

Yeah, sometimes the only way you learn it's a bad decision is by making the decision and finding out later that that wasn't the right one.

SPEAKER_04 12:59

Yeah, and that's life, you know. I I felt pretty comfortable with that. And uh any kind of self-loathing period I went through is I've left behind me a while ago. So yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:11

But so when you were in you're doing these cooking classes, was there a teacher, anybody that were like, hey, you need to expand on this? Was this pretty self-motivated?

New York Hustle And Mentors

SPEAKER_04 13:22

How did that grow throughout high school, besides doing it at home, through the the school experience that I honestly didn't even uh have an idea of what culinary school was or what you were supposed to do, but uh a guy from that had graduated from a local culinary school came and visited the culinary class, you know, that we had in high school and just talked about it. And I was like, that's something I could do. I don't know. I just it's just something I could latch on to. And I often joke with like uh other cooks and people that are you know entering the industry that that um the the service industry is not something you choose, it's something that chooses you, right? It's all of a sudden you just kind of fit in and you didn't fit in anywhere else, right? So that's the way that it felt for me. Like whatever anxieties I grew up with, like um if um you know overthinking situations for some reason, like the chaos of a kitchen and being able to organize that gave me a great sense of control. Okay, it it made me feel calm. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:30

So the chaos made you feel calm?

SPEAKER_04 14:32

Yeah, because it can be controlled. Yeah, it can you can figure it out, you can you can uh not let it overtake you, right? So it gives you this this outlet to to control the surroundings around you through organization and through communication, which so is there a reason you didn't go to culinary school right out of high school? I did go to culinary school right out of high school.

SPEAKER_01 14:55

You did go to high school, okay. Yeah, but then you still went to the UW. So was that later then?

SPEAKER_04 14:59

I dropped out of culinary school inside the first year. I didn't necessarily like it all that much. And um I also the culinary school I started to go to, I don't know if that was the right decision for the type of school that I wanted to go to. It felt like they were training me more to cook at a hotel or like a banquet situation or something. It was very slow, and I just ended up getting a restaurant job, and I was like, I'm learning a lot more in a restaurant, and then I feel like I still have this desire to uh get a different degree too. My dad was a is an academic, so he was always pushing to uh for us to use our minds more than our our our brawn, you know. His dad was a lumberjack, and he watched his dad retire at 65 and then uh die five years later. So uh he was you know pretty adamant that we should be using our brains to so I uh transferred to the University of Washington, um, even transferred to Reed College down in Portland for a little while because that's where my brother was going, and I I missed my brother and um uh decided to go down there for half a year and uh then transferred back to the University of Washington once I uh discovered that Reed College was way too expensive. In state tuition has its benefits, doesn't it? So I finished up at the at the UW. The time at Reed was really great though, too, because the the professors down there treated you like colleagues. So there was uh yeah, you you had to show up every single day prepared and you had to visit them in their office hours and you know, really discuss. So I really enjoyed that part. And there was part of me after college that thought I might go on to get my PhD and just become a teacher.

SPEAKER_01 17:01

What what were you studying? What was your undergrad?

SPEAKER_04 17:04

Uh comparative literature um and um creative writing. Okay. So yeah, and um I really enjoyed it, yeah. And I still I still read comparative lit and um try to stay on top of things every every once in a while, but uh for the most part I just read a lot of cookbooks these days.

SPEAKER_01 17:25

Are you doing any writing?

SPEAKER_04 17:27

Um occasionally, yeah. Um but nothing I want to share. Yeah, it's a the writing situation for me now, it used to be something I want I wanted to share with people, and now it's just kind of like something I do for myself. It's like playing guitar. I'm like, mm-hmm. Am I really any good at this? I don't know. But I enjoy it.

SPEAKER_01 17:50

Well, I think that's the that's the that's the key part that you if you find something that you enjoy and brings you whatever fulfillment with it, yeah. You don't have to share it with other people. No keep that to yourself.

SPEAKER_04 18:05

And and that was another lesson from my dad. He really likes playing the guitar and stuff too. And um, but he doesn't he never plays in front of anybody. He's just in in his guitar room playing guitar. And do you play with your dad? I don't know. No, he doesn't he doesn't even get a big thing. He won't even doesn't not even his son, huh? No. Okay. So uh but it wasn't that wasn't something I got in until into until later. So he'd give me tips and stuff like that. But yeah, uh, we've never never played together. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:40

So four year four years at the UW, part of that at Reed.

The Economics Of Restaurants Today

SPEAKER_04 18:44

And I was cooking in restaurants in the evening time the the whole time. So uh and by the time I graduated from the University of Washington, I kind of wanted to leave Seattle. And I was working as a sous chef at a place called Mona's Beast Row on Lounge in Green Lake, and uh really, really liked it. I don't know. I just felt like that's that was my community, that was my friends, and and um I wanted to travel a little bit, so I ended up moving to uh Maui and uh not a bla bad place to travel to, yeah. And uh starting work at this place called Pacifico that was in Lahaina, and it's just beautiful restaurant right on the beach and lots of fresh seafood. So it'd just be local fishermen coming in with giant ahi tuna and mahi-mahi, and the whole walk-in refrigerators just filled with all these fresh fish and you're just cutting big loins off of them, and yeah, it was really fun. So I I enjoyed it quite a bit, and um I had worked at another place called Mandalay Cafe in Seattle, so some of these like Southeast Asian flavors really were uh easily applied to the menu there. And I just started moving up real fast in in that restaurant, and uh they're I was like doing specials and they were like, whoa, like this is good. And uh and you start to believe in yourself, you know, when everybody around you starts saying you should do something with this, and uh yeah, I think that was one of the first jobs I had where I was like, because that was a serious restaurant, it was like they're they were pulling in like ten to fifteen million dollars a year or something. So that's busy all the time. Uh famous people eating there was like Carlos Santana and Prince, and like all it was a nice place, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:41

Yeah, and uh that's gotta be huge for for your, like you said, your self-confidence when you're coming up with dishes at a restaurant of that style and magnitude, and everybody around you is enjoying it.

SPEAKER_04 20:54

Uh, really, I was just applying these things I had learned from this uh Burmese Indian family in Seattle, and um the chef Eric that worked there, and uh he kind of married into that family. And then I just was like, you know, that that restaurant never really got all that much attention in Seattle, but it was around for about I guess 15 years or so, but had a good solid base, and and but they they they had a special approach to things and the what the way that Eric taught me and the how calm he was and his approach to cooking, it was it was like not just like throw these ingredients together. He was like, wait, stop, smell the cinnamon. You know, uh you're like embracing every single little moment that you're interacting with the food. So I kind of took that and started applying it to those things out there in Hawaii and and it went it went over pretty well there. And um actually met a good buddy out there too who uh his name's Adam. He's in New York now, but he uh was um an on an externship from the culinary institute of america so and um no one wanted to deal with him or teach him to just like he just showed up and he's like I'm here for my externship and they're like uh give them to Travis so but we became really good buds and we're still good buddies to say he's visited up here a few times so and he showed up to my recent graduation out in uh out in New York too so uh but yeah all these uh interactions these like uh connections that you make throughout the years I think that they mean a lot when you're going through intense situations right so and who's gonna be there who's gonna be supportive who's going to have your back and uh who you want to look out for too so uh Adam's definitely one of those people.

SPEAKER_01 22:57

How long how long were you in Hawaii?

SPEAKER_04 22:59

I was there for a year and then I came back to Seattle and then I came to Haynes Alaska because I was what brought you to Haynes?

SPEAKER_01 23:07

How did that come about?

Returning North And Choosing Community

SPEAKER_04 23:08

When I went back to Seattle I wanted to keep traveling and I you know old school saw an ad in the Seattle Times for a job at the Hotel Halls England. So in what year was that? I guess it was about 2003 something like that. Yeah 2004 maybe so uh it was a while ago uh I guess probably over 20 years so uh or about 20 years ago and um yeah I just uh wanted to save some money or have an opportunity to save some money so I could move to New York and that's where I wanted to cook. And I came up here and just showed up and started cooking at the hotel and I think I met my um then girlfriend now wife Rachel uh probably three weeks into the trip here I wasn't really looking for a wife at that time but found one anyway and she she has she has a different approach to to life she has did she just come into for dinner or something or oh no did you didn't meet her at the restaurant you met around town um I think Shannon or Jeff at the hotel had said um good place to get breakfast is the Mountain Market. Okay. So Rachel was working down there as a barista. She was up here visiting her great aunt uh Joan Snyder who was um a Red Cross nurse and a nurse for the state of Alaska for years. So and she retired here in Haynes and um yeah so Rachel was living with her for the summer taking a break from nursing school herself and uh she had been coming up here to visit since she was 12 or 13 so she was familiar and just like being up here. And uh yeah I just started chatting with her. I've always felt I don't know um not always felt I guess I was probably a little scared of girls in in high school and stuff but uh I don't know felt comfortable enough just going up to people and chatting with them and she's pretty and just wanted to say hello and asked her if she wanted to go fishing so we did. We went out to the river and she caught um a dolly and um reeled it in and we took it back to the hotel kitchen and she cut it open gutted the whole thing and she just held its beating heart in her hand and she's just like cool she's kind of a scientist in that way in some ways she kind of reminds me of my dad's but uh yeah and uh we just kept hanging out and by the time the summer was over she had taken off to go back to nursing school I still had a little bit of time here but I had saved enough money and uh I moved to New York she was in Pennsylvania and uh it's about an hour and a half away and we just kept seeing each other while I lived in New York for a year and then yeah we I asked her if she wanted to move back to the Seattle area with me.

SPEAKER_01 26:29

Yeah I thought it was time to go back so your year in New York then so you you just had the one summer at the Hall Singling and then you're back to New York. Correct so New York for a year what was your what was it like working in New York living in New York? That's a big change. Not just from Haynes but even from Seattle to New York is a big change.

Foraging, Fishing, And Food Independence

SPEAKER_04 26:51

It is yeah and um you only hear things about places like that growing up you know so it's hard to fully understand a city that beats like New York does so um my experience in New York was good. Um it was I struggled financially of course as a fine cook making ten dollars an hour so not a lot of money. There's so yeah and uh just kind of trying to make ends meet and sleeping on a mattress on the floor in an empty apartment so not not a lot uh to really rely on except going to work and then on the week on my weekends that I'd have I'd go and take a bus out to Rachel out in Pennsylvania eastern Pennsylvania and yeah I mean I don't know I just I took a lot from my chef out there um Josh Grinker he was um just very very hardworking uh his work ethic was insane so like if it we had a snow day or something and there was like three feet of snow outside and I'm supposed to be there for brunch and like trying to get there at like four in the morning or something for to start prep for brunch and he's already there he's shoveled out all the sidewalk and you know getting everything set up and you know he's he's an amazing guy and he actually even invested in one of my restaurants in Seattle years later. Okay. Yeah I was just telling him what I was doing and he was just like yeah I'll throw some money at that and I was like what that was pretty fun. Yeah and uh I'm still in decent contact with him and stuff and he actually runs these he left the Stone Park Cafe and uh and he had even told me about this back then he was like what do you think about the idea of me opening a Chinese restaurant and I was like what do you mean like you're a white Jewish guy from Brooklyn and he was like but I Jews love Chinese food and I was like sure so he's he spent a lot of years just going to China and okay and uh trying to discover the the cuisine that he wanted to to make he even like rode a m motorcycle across the country and was meeting soy sauce farmers and uh like it yeah just the whole the whole shit he immersed himself in it 100% and now he has three Chinese restaurants in in New York um called Kings County Imperial. Kings County Imperial yeah so that it's fun watching that happen uh you know unfold after so many years right so yeah that's uh he taught me that lesson too is like you have an idea just keep with it keep talking about it don't let the idea die just kind of stay on top of it you know you don't know when it's going to happen but as long as you just don't give up on the idea eventually it'll happen. It's like I love stories like that. Like I the first summer I was here right that um I could envision that restaurant that I wanted to have here right I remember us talking about that when you got here and I asked you if you were going to open a restaurant and you're like well I've got an idea but the place right and you just see you you listen off this long thing and they're like all right it's it starts with little things right I mean just that the the absolute first summer in my early 20s coming up here and like going out on the boat with um with Jeff at the at the hotel and just like doing you know uh some long lining getting halibut and and crab and starting to interact with the environment around here and um starting to understand it just a little bit and you just get these little glimpses of a dream right yeah yeah and be like is that a dream that I want maybe you know so I just started applying that that vision something to work towards over the years right yep so and I kept that in the back of my mind as I owned restaurants in Seattle I still had a plan to eventually get up here.

SPEAKER_01 31:16

The plan didn't work out the way I thought it would but that's the way life is right yeah and you just gotta stay you know keep a little hitch in your step and jump over the bump and and uh keep it keep it moving so one one thing I've been thinking about is you're in New York as a line chef New York's is an expensive city you said you're living on a mattress in an empty apartment making 10 bucks an hour yeah and at that time is that is that still going through your head I'm gonna open my own restaurant?

SPEAKER_04 31:48

100% 100% yeah I I never gave up on that I always thought I was um I was a good teacher right I always thought that my interaction and my approach in a restaurant with staff and um maybe I'm not like the most talented cook that knows the most about every cuisine there is in the world but um holy crap I can pick out that talent right like I I can I notice that and I can see how to nurture that. So um and that's what I really enjoy about being a chef and owning a restaurant is like giving people an opportunity to see that that glow inside themselves right that that it's like that first time I was out in Hawaii and people started to believe in me right yeah there's nothing more motivating than noticing people starting to believe in you. So I I enjoy doing that for people and uh yeah I I think I'm a pretty okay cook at this point in my career but I like to see how that can blossom for other people as well.

SPEAKER_01 33:05

So yeah and I just think that is is that are how long does it take you from going from a line cook to the next where is it that you're making a decent wage at one of these big restaurants?

SPEAKER_04 33:20

Um well I think that's a misconception too there are opportunities to make a a lot of money but I I if you want to it kind of depends on where where you're working. I'd say my my buddy Adam who I talked about earlier he works for a private club in New York City now and he's probably making three hundred thousand dollars a year as a chef that's you know Rachel actually told me not to talk any money on this show.

SPEAKER_01 33:52

Sorry Rachel but it's somebody else's money somebody else's money I'm not gonna tell you about my money but but um yeah that's that becomes an issue sometimes right you need um you need a lot of support in in your life and the the reason I'm asking that is over the last several years since COVID that's kind of been front and center with a lot of these cities and and the service industry restaurant industry trying to maintain staff going forward rising prices in restaurants extra gratuities and extra surcharges and stuff on there and so you're seeing a lot of restaurants shut down because they haven't been able to be profitable um and so just trying to whoever's listening to this give them a better awareness kind of on the inside of that how some of these are working.

Building Local Food Systems In Haynes

SPEAKER_04 34:39

Yeah everything you said is correct and I think there was a uh article in the New York Times this last year about just um the cot costing for a restaurant and what it is these days and the price increases that you're seeing with restaurants and people haven't wanted to pay more for food when they go out to eat that has been a real issue. At the same time like uh like the rest the restaurant that was in this article their rent for uh a 60 seat restaurant maybe it was like a little under that was twenty thousand dollars a month totally so what are you supposed to do? What are you supposed to do with that you know this is that cities aren't protecting any of these uh amenities right the amenities that make up a culture of a city like this is where people are showcasing who they are uh defining a city's culture right and creating excitement to live there that that is what restaurants do that's and if you take all of that away it becomes really bland place to live food is exciting you know going out to eat having someone wait on you is exciting all of that makes you feel important and if you take the that culture out of a city there's not much there's not much reason to stay right so I think cities don't do anything to protect those those people like they like historical landmarks right like these things should exist there should be a cap on this rent there should be you know some kind of a alleviation from um just basic bills like I I was spending just on composting garbage at my last restaurant two thousand dollars a month composting two thousand dollars a month rent ten thousand dollars a month you know like it's uh my every payroll fifty thousand dollars so I mean there wasn't anything left over for for me or anything and I it was it was rough yeah it was really rough and I I could see it coming I was like this is only gonna get worse right yeah so it really did motivate motivate me to take a step back from it right I I just was like I I've always been able to see those breaking points and be like nope that's there's no you can't fight this this is a monster that is out of my control right so that last restaurant I owned in Seattle I just stepped back I was like okay um I told my business partner I was like I'm not in this kitchen anymore you know you want to run it this other way and you want to see what happens with that then you go and try that and we'll see what happens. So he tried about three different models inside that restaurant and none of them worked out so it just kind of dissolved after years and uh that was it. And I think they had reinvested close to three hundred thousand dollars something like that after spending 2.2 million on the first place. Here I go talking numbers again.

SPEAKER_01 38:04

So when Rachel hears this you're gonna be in so that's trouble that's a ton of money right like it to just for something to just dissolve into nothing right so I think and I think that's when people haven't been involved with a business on putting their own money into starting it up and seeing all the behind the scenes they think that somebody that has a business is just oh you got a ton of money you got this you got this but not knowing the debt load on a lot of startups and how much it costs and the$50,000 for your payroll your$2,000 for composting and then factoring that into how many meals you need to serve and then you've got the cost of you didn't talk about your cost of electricity cost of your food you cost there's so many costs going into that and when you look at your margin on that at the end off of all of those expenses a lot of times there's not a whole lot left.

SPEAKER_04 39:02

There isn't yeah so and you know I think after um you know some time at that second restaurant at least at the first restaurant we were small the rent wasn't that bad and and um I I could pay myself something right but how long can you really survive without a paycheck living in a city like it's it's an expensive place to live so I I had to figure out something else to do. So I it was like uh at that time it was like you know coming up on the summertime again and I decided to take a step back after coming up here and uh catering the beer fest dinner.

SPEAKER_01 39:43

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 39:44

And um then Shannon and Jeff asked me if I wanted to come back and work at the hotel for again for summer and it sounded really nice. Yeah and like I needed time to think so I went back home and told my business partner and uh came back up here and um yeah. What year was that? I guess I was 36 so it was almost it was nine years ago. Nine years ago. So and that's when I started to really formulate my plan to make Haynes my home. And uh yeah I think it took another couple years uh but um Rachel ended up uh taking a job at the clinic and I was still working uh an executive chef role in Seattle at um uh seafood restaurant and uh we're kind of waiting to see how both things worked out see if she liked her job well enough and see if of course my job fell apart and then I couldn't wait to come back up here.

SPEAKER_01 40:49

So I think I just did uh once that job kind of fell apart I took a one more job at this restaurant Terra Plata in Seattle and I was just running their line and but very busy restaurant and but um yeah and uh just kind of working towards that goal of making it until the close to the end of the summer like August and then I just packed up my car uh with my dog and and uh sold my house and just left it all behind and um yeah and tried to work towards something else that only seemed uh infathomable to everybody else but me well I remember because I never I don't think I knew you and Rachel when you guys had come up here before but when Rachel first moved up here she was in that spring and she she was looking to go hooligan fishing. She wanted some hooligan for a saw fish saucer she was going to render down she's like my husband we're gonna do this I was like I tried to explain to Rachel you can't go fishing for them because you're not a resident yeah she's like well I need these hooligan I was like I'll go out there we'll get you swig I think it was two five gallon buckets or something like that. Yeah and then later that summer or the next fall or whatever at some point I was over at your guys's house and you had some of that actually wasn't bad.

From Catering To Opening Deerheart

SPEAKER_04 42:19

It was a lot better than I thought it was I've gotten better at the sus over the years too it it really has like almost like it's aged in bourbon barrels flavor to it. Yeah it's it's quite good. So um I'll make like a five yon bucket of it like every year and stuff and uh yeah it's great but I was in the back of my head I was like this this lady's crazy I don't know I like finding different things to do with stuff like that too and and just sharing it with people right so I can't sell that stuff but um I I used to like um there's uh an Italian condiment called uh bangna cauta that's made with anchovies right so I would salt pack all the oolican and and then uh rehydrate them a little bit and then uh fillet them all and then um slow cook the fillets with um roasted garlic and uh Calabrian chilies until it kind of cooks down into like an oily mess and uh yeah I just started uh taking making bread and putting that in in the bread like it was like this uh salty fish garlic chili bread and taking it down to the brewery and just giving it away to people and they're like whoa what is this and I was like you're eating ooligan they're like I hate ooligan why it tastes so good. I don't think there's a better thrill than like changing somebody's mind about a food, right? When they say they hate something and uh being able to cook it for them in a way that they can understand that they like and they would ask for seconds for. So I I mean yeah Rachel loves it up here. We both love it up here um I I mean we met up here. So and she had been coming up here for years before I even knew this was a place. I think my last experience with Alaska before coming to Haynes was working at a fish cannery in Port Graham. So I was like one day off the whole summer and worked 20 hours a day. And you know, like I think Alaska sucks. Yeah, yeah. So yeah. Um but uh yeah, we just kind of I think and when you move up to a place like this, your approach changes every year, right? Alaska changes you in ways that you never expected. It humiliates you, it lets you know you cannot have everything that you think that you want, you know, and uh that you have to make adjustments and that you have are accountable to community members around you. So um I like that. Uh I like all of that. I like that interaction. I think when we lived in Seattle, I don't even know if we even spoke to our neighbors once, you know, and they didn't speak to us except for when I put a for sale sign up and they're like, How much are you selling the house for? So yeah. Um there's and and a lot of that, like we're to just to speak about subsistence practices and stuff, that's become a big part of Rachel and I's lives. And up here, um, we're not hunters, but she fishes with Al. And um, so she's Al's deckhand. She calls Al her captain. Yep. Yeah. And uh she takes it very seriously. So she works a week on, week off at the at the clinic, and on her week off in the summertime, it is a full week. She is like just getting after it.

SPEAKER_01 45:50

Like so I know her schedule in the summer because she's in on it. Just it's always constant what days we go and fish and what days we're going fishing. And yeah, she packs a lot into that week off trying to get it. But then the other part of it is the foraging that you guys do. Because first getting to know you guys when you got here, you know, either talking to you or Rachel, oh, we went out and got this, or we went out and got this. I'm like, people eat that? There's there's things that I I mean, the things that you guys are going out and getting and making it, and then I'll I'll have dinner at your house, and you're like, oh, that's something that is freaking delicious.

Training, Workload, And Team Culture

SPEAKER_04 46:25

I've gotten really good at over harvesting and being able to preserve lots of food, so and being able to eat it throughout the year. So um, and yeah, mushroom foraging was kind of my thing that I also kind of shared with Rachel, and so it's a pastime that we do together. We love going into the woods and going mushroom foraging, and um, yeah, you can get stuck out there, you can just be like the whole day goes by and the sun's going down, and you're just like loading up as much as you can possibly carry, filling your backpack and trying to get as much as possible. So I use the mushrooms at the restaurant now too. But I used to use them in the catering business when I was running a catering business here, and uh uh I guess the restaurant still is a catering business too, but just solely the catering business. And um yeah, um these are you know traditional foods that are abundant here, and to utilize them um makes a statement about interaction with where food comes from um in in our community. So I think too often, and I know you're a grocery store owner, but we think that food is just um it shows up at the grocery store, right? And um then we don't think about where it started. Um but I would say at the in the peak of summertime, um with our garden going and foraging and fishing, um I think we're probably eating somewhere close to like 85% local foods here throughout the summer, which is entirely possible. And uh I think it can be possible for more people. There are certain things getting in the way of that, like cold storage and you know um processing facilities and stuff like that. But um it it can it could get expanded a little bit more here for people, I think. And and uh I I want to encourage people to go do stuff like that. So if people someone wants to go out mushroom foraging and they ask me I take them, yeah. Uh I don't they they may only do it that one time, right? Or they might just start making it a regular practice. So kind of depends how much you like mushrooms, I guess, but I like them quite a bit.

SPEAKER_01 48:51

And what you're talking about though, with uh um trying to understanding where the food comes from. That was something that my dad was very intentional when we were kids. Yeah, yeah, we were going out fishing, he was harvesting moose in the fall, he was we had a garden, we had chickens that we were raising, and understand and having that knowledge of where it comes from, how you grow it, that it's not just something you pick up off the shelf. I think for both him and my mom, that was something really important to teach us at that level.

SPEAKER_04 49:22

Well, yeah, I mean, if you think about the time when the barge started showing up and started dropping things off, right? Um that was a severance, right? It just kind of stopped. Yep. And all of a sudden all these people were like, oh, I guess I don't have to do this anymore, right? Maybe some people made that conscious decision to interact with the the food system around them still, and I think there's still quite a few people that do that around here, but if you solely rely on just going to the grocery store for your food, it's gonna be it might not be cost effective. Yeah. There's little things that you have to supplement with here in order. Like I could get like I'm not making a ton of money as a restaurant owner right now, but I know I have food and I know where to get it, and I know where to get it for free, and I know I'm never gonna starve. So, because of that knowledge that I have. So I I thought about that pretty heavily as soon as I could up here and how I was formulating my catering business and my restaurant and my approach to that. I spoke to my dad a lot about his family and growing up in northeastern Washington in a town called Melo, and uh they're Croatian they were Croatian family that just kind of came across and um settled out there in northeastern Washington, and they just they lived off the land, they lived subsistence, and um uh they jokingly called the area Melo Nishta, it means little nothing, but that's what they did for every day uh of their lives, is they they worked the land in order to live, right? And they tried to find jobs other places, but that didn't always work out. And they made it through the Great Depression, they made it through the Spanish flu because of their isolation and where they were located, and um that they had the knowledge to be able to feed themselves. And if we're not teaching people that, you know, we're denying them uh one of the world's greatest privileges is that um we can take care of ourselves, right? And if we're relying on other people to do that for us all the time, then we're gonna be pretty helpless when times get rough. So I think that the people that live in this area in particular are stronger than most, uh more resilient. And um I think that and this is just a statistic someone had told me that Alaskans in general interact with nature more than any other resident in in the union. It's like I believe 50% of our time is spent interacting with nature in some kind of way. It could be going out on a boat, but especially in the summertime, we are we're outside a lot. So and um yeah, that creates a dialogue with the natural world around you, and that dialogue helps you understand and causes you to not fear it, and um yeah, it makes you feel kind of like oh, I can take this and nature will give me that, and I can give this back to nature, and uh yeah, it makes you feel at peace with a lot of things. I think it's it's a calming feeling for me.

SPEAKER_01 52:58

Yeah, so besides just the foraging, so if obviously people know now that if you want to go learn how to forage mushrooms with Travis, he'd be he'd be willing to take you. But on other things with setting up a garden, is there for somebody that might just have a little small yard or doesn't have real arable soil, you know, there's the community garden, or what what kind of tips do you have for somebody just starting off that wants to grow more of their own food in Haynes?

Mindset Shifts, Resilience, And Growth

SPEAKER_04 53:28

Just do it, yeah. I mean, it it it doesn't take much. I think Rachel built like uh like eight or nine raised beds just out of random wood pieces that she found lying around. So there's all just go down to AML, get some pallets, and build a little raised bed if you don't have a bunch of good soil and try to locate some soil in town. There's lots of people selling it. Um so Haynes Holmes sells soil too. Uh but there's also some piles, I think, down on like Allen Road or Sawmill or something. Um, but you can fill a box, and there's so many good books out there about uh healthy uh practices for growing food. Um there's one I recently read called What's Your Food Ate that talks a lot about like some more um say practices before the barge started coming up here, less industrial type practices that can be applied really well to uh to this this area. So uh we don't face a lot of the same uh threats as um people down south do as far as gardening goes. We don't have a lot of pests, um, but you know, occasionally we do, but a lot of that has to do with um our long winters here. So um for the most part, everything that we've tried to grow here has done really well. Um there's a lot of opportunity to invest in USDA high tunnel grants. So uh apply for a high tunnel grant if you feel like you have enough property to be able to do that. And uh Rachel and I put one up and uh it's just changed our lives. It's like extends the growing season like you wouldn't believe. And um, yeah, uh we produce so much food now, we're just giving it away to other people. So and that's the nice thing about that too, is that when you do start to take on one of those high tunnel greenhouses that you're uh you're not just growing for yourself, you're growing for your neighbors, uh, other people around you. Uh if you if you can grow, if you have an apple tree on your property, you can invite people over to come pick apples because you you can't process all those apples all your by yourself or all those cherries, right? So it creates opportunity for for other people to to find um uh a leverage point in their lives where they can just be like, oh, this is a interesting fulcrum where I can take in this stuff and uh be able to spend less. And you know, I can't necessarily make more at my job, so how am I going to cut into this inflation or whatever the case, you know? If if everything gets more expensive all the time, but nobody gets paid anymore, what what leverage points do we have? And that's the way I I think about my approach to to food is like I can I can even out my year just by spending the time to do subsistence stuff. So we say that and our house of subsistence comes first. So it's okay. So if I had worked 18 hours in a day and Rachel's like, there's 65 sockee in the fridge, I don't complain, I don't say anything. I come home and I clean all those fish and I chamber sealed them all, split them up between uh it's me, Julie, and Al. But that's our like part of the reason Rachel got on that boat was that uh she told Al that Travis will uh clean all the fish.

SPEAKER_01 57:11

I was nice heard of a volunteer for that. But yeah, but that that is one of those ways that that works with diving that up. One person's got the boat, somebody helps with gas, somebody helps clean it and patrick's it. You trade you trade the skills that you have with somebody that has a boat or has a net, whatever, yeah, and you make it work.

Master’s In Sustainable Food Systems

SPEAKER_04 57:32

It doesn't exist hardly anywhere these days to be able to do that except for, I mean, I can't even imagine trying to trade skills for something else like a down in in Seattle. So um, you know, it's always uh you know uh has to do with money, right? So that but up here there's um a different commerce, right? So what you can what you can do for people means a lot. So and if you show up for them, if you become reliable, then um, you know, word's gonna spread. Uh this person can do this, and I would be interested in trading for for something like that. So um, yeah, and all of these are you know deeply rooted in this area of like clinkit people, indigenous populations, and how that kind of you know transfers into the modern era and how we can take those lessons and make them contemporary and expand on them still to this day. So I I think it's it's a pretty I don't know, it's a unique opportunity, uh a different way to live. And um yeah. I used to say this thing all the time, uh it was just like being a chef thing that just made me sound uh brooding and but I used to say suffer, contend, endure. Uh and uh and um over the years I've kind of let that go. It's like too much. Too much. So I'm tired of suffering. Yeah. So I don't want to endure anymore. Uh Rachel and I went to Mexico and we ate at this restaurant, and they gave us this this uh uh this little card and it said that uh the um the the magic of uh um connection and the luck of coincidence and I've tried to take that you know the that connection and coincidence, those things that happen all the time that make you feel kind of alive. Um this has kind of happened over the summer, but with um uh one of my cooks, Bob, he he just I I didn't know he wanted to work in a restaurant or anything, but he just came and sought a job, right? And I was like, I need somebody in the kitchen. And he's like, I don't have any experience working in a kitchen. I was like, it's okay, I'll train you. And you kind of see how people start kind of start to unfold like that, right? And um and he did great. And um after a while, I was just like, you're the lead, you're in the kitchen, you're running the line, you're doing all this stuff, right? And um it's like towards the end of the summer, my GM Garrett decided to move to New York, and uh Bob uh bought him um a gift certificate to a restaurant there. And Garrett messaged me, he's like, Oh, I'm gonna eat at this restaurant in New York tonight. Um, and uh Bob got me a gift certificate and I was like, Oh, what restaurant? And he's like, Stone Park Cafe, and I was like, that's where I worked seriously in New York, yeah. Did Bob know that when he got the guts? Just total coincidence, and then Bob lived in New York for a few years, okay, and I guess he ate at Stone Park Cafe like once a week. That was that was his neighborhood restaurant.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:59

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:59

So um little things like that, you know, like what draws people together, those that that kind of luck of coincidence and magic of the connection that you have with people, even if you don't know it, right? But there's something about that, right? Bob might have been more drawn to my food, right? And my approach because of the things that I had learned at that restaurant in New York. So um, but yeah, it's that stuff's magical to me. And uh I don't I haven't experienced those types of connections except for in the intensity of working in a restaurant with people or other restaurant people.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:37

Yeah, yeah. So back backing up a little bit, you you moved up here and didn't have didn't have a restaurant that you're running. Rachel is working as a nurse, you're looking for an opportunity, but in the meantime, you wanted to keep doing something. So you started catering and classes, correct? You did a few classes?

Community Potlucks And Local Health

SPEAKER_04 1:01:58

Yeah, catering just I don't know. Um, I think I um somebody else was running a catering business here for a little bit, and she told me she was gonna stop. And I was like, and she was like, There's an opportunity for you to do some of these things. And I was like, okay, I mean, I'm looking for some kind of opportunity. I can't open a restaurant right now, but or I was kind of looking at restaurants and seeing how it was possible. Uh, but um mostly just like trying to negotiate spaces that were too expensive. I'm really glad I didn't do that at the time because it was like less than a year later that, or I guess it was just about a year later than it was COVID. COVID hit. Yeah. So um, yeah, but I think that that first summer I I did my first wedding for um Rose and Cosmo, and uh it was really good and uh everybody's very happy. And I remember my friend Melina even came up with to me and she was like, she was like, holy crap, dude, I had no idea. She's like yeah, I think this one over but it was just me, right? I was I didn't have any employees scrambling around serving like I don't know, 120 people and like you know, just sweating and yeah, I have like open fires everywhere, you know. So and yeah, it was fun, but I've gotten better at it over over the years too, and it's not like that one was perfect, but you know, it was it was pretty good for a guy that was just doing it all by himself. And uh I've gotten employees and start to build a following, and it's not unlike how I started my my first restaurant. I just kinda started doing something, doing pop-ups or um anything I could do publicly that allowed people to hire me for something, you know. And then once after a while you just kinda have a decent following, people start to trust you, they start to look at you like a professional, like they're like this is where you go. If you want this, you go to this guy. And I think I've done that. I think I've done that in this community.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:10

And I would agree with that, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:13

Yeah, and um it takes a lot of work, but man, do I like working? I like working quite a bit. So I like staying busy, I like being involved with people and I like feeding them. So I don't know, I I kind of love my job. It might not pay the most, but um I don't know, it's giving me everything that I have in my life.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:38

So when when the old fireweed place came available, were you because I think you had looked when we first talked when you first moved here, that was for sale, and you had looked at it, but you're like, eh, maybe not.

Season Plans, Menus, And What’s Next

SPEAKER_04 1:04:52

Well, I looked at everything, yeah, yeah. And you know, it was pretty expensive back then, and you know, I was just like, I don't I I don't know. I think there's plenty of moments in my life where I didn't listen to my gut, and my gut said no at that point, and I maybe had even more money from like fresh off my house sale in Seattle and stuff at that point, but I just decided no, I don't need to be jumping into another restaurant right now. I don't need to, I mean, the the stress that that those two restaurants in Seattle that put on uh my family, my wife, like everything, like it's it just becomes all-encompassing. Everything's about the restaurant every single day to everybody, you know. Like it's all I could talk about ever. I just needed a break. And I was like, I'm just gonna keep doing this catering thing. And I don't even know if I wanna open a restaurant again and even convince myself at one point that I w never would, right? So I was just like my small catering business is how I'm I'm gonna survive up here and maybe I'll go back to school at some point and get some kind of desk job or I don't know. I I couldn't even imagine what my other career was, but maybe there's something out there in the in the distance. So I yeah, I just kept doing it. And before I knew it, it was I don't know. It just kind of defined me. So and uh I ended up liking it more and more and more, and especially here, and I started to formulate these ideas that I felt connected to the community, and I was cooking for people who are real people right in front of me that I interact with every single day. And it's like cooking for friends every day. So when I'm at my restaurant and people come in, it's like I get to see everybody that I know, I get to chat with them, and I mean it it was it could kind of be like that in restaurants in Seattle when you had regulars, right? But uh, you know, the next hip thing happens and then poof, you know, they're they're gone. So and uh it's different here. Uh you know, it it's not based on a a demographic of a clientele, right? And that's in the sense where I'm gonna open a if I'm in the city, I'm gonna open a restaurant in this neighborhood because these Amazon employees are there and this there's this percentage of money, and I can charge this much money to make this, you know. That's a lot how a lot of restaurants get opened, right? And here it's just like here's everybody I know, right? Uh here's I know what they do for a living. I know uh that this the price point on these on this stuff is going to always be in their wheelhouse. So this is going to be an approachable situation for anybody. I'm not trying to make insanely fancy food. I'm just trying to make things from scratch. That's it. Uh that's all all we're doing. We're just baking our own bread, making beans from scratch instead of from a can, right? Um doing anything that possibly that we can to aggregate uh local produce, uh, including growing it ourselves at at uh on our property, getting it from Sally, getting it from the Hansons, you know, uh any anybody, any subsistence grower that calls me up and says, I have 20 pounds of garlic scapes. I don't know what to do with. It's more than I can process. I'll buy it off you. Bring them down. That money goes to your garden, right? Yeah. So trying to make those connections. I have so many producers I work with here locally. There's just like duck eggs and anything growing in their garden and any, you know, making your own goat cheese, like anything that I can possibly buy locally, I never say no to. And I put it on the menu a almost immediately, and I go through it. It helped me just that idea helped me like do more research and especially going back to school, but the uh and what I could do very legally up here as far as uh different avenues for for food in Alaska, besides, you know, I obviously can't go out and shoot a moose and serve it on my menu, right? So what can we do for meat up here, right? Besides fish and buying the f fish from the fishermen. Well, apparently there's this US USDA exemption for for poultry in Alaska. So um as long as the poultry stays in state, I can purchase up to 22,000 birds. 22 that are not USDA inspected.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:52

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:53

So I started um uh chatting with uh the seldom seen farms, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Richard, uh the Goonics. Yeah. And uh I was like, I'm gonna give you a deposit and I want you to raise 50 chickens for me. And and then they're all gonna be ready all at once, right? And we're gonna we're gonna put those on the menu for a week. And I it just like happened all of a sudden. He was like, okay, we're processing the chickens today. He was like, come meet me down here at this time, freshly killed chickens all cleaned, you know, plucked, and you know, all the livers, all the everything. Yeah, everything. Yeah, feet, everything all separated, and uh go down there with a bunch of coolers, load them all up, take them down to the restaurant. Like, okay, here's the wings, all the wings, right? Uh, here's the breast, take all the breasts, here's the thigh, right? Uh here's all the bones for stock, here's the livers for chicken liver moose, you know, here's the the hearts and the gizzards for uh uh for heart and gizzard confit. Like, and you take something like that, it seems expensive at first, right? Because it's gonna cost more, but as a restaurant, you can take something in like that and spread it all over the menu, right? Yeah, and then all of a sudden you're selling all of these things, and the profit margin increases quite a bit on on those chickens. So um, yeah, hopefully that continues again this this next season. It was the um the impact that it had and the feedback that I got was extremely positive. And I went through 50 whole chickens in the span of a week.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:40

Wow.

Closing Thanks And Subscribe

SPEAKER_04 1:11:40

And I I just called it I made a special menu for for that week and called it the Seldom Seen Farms Chicken Menu. Yeah, and there's just about chicken on every aspect of the menu. So and um yeah, it was it was super fun. Uh and but you know, also giving a producer like that another avenue to make money, right? Like that's the interaction that we need locally as business owners to to be able to say, hey, I'm a business owner, I'm looking to do something that's more low local centric, like locally focused, and and um you you're I see you struggling this way, right? Like the Goonics were like raising chickens, uh, you know, breaking them all down, wrapping them in plastic, freezing them, they don't have enough freezer space, then they're going to the farmers market, trying to sell them individually to people. Yeah. This way they just sell them all to me at once. They don't have to worry about sticking them in their freezer, wrapping them or anything. And it's just a loadoff, right? It's a it's a loadoff for them. They get all the money at once. They don't have to worry at the end of the season what are we gonna do with all these chickens? Or I'm sick of chicken, you know, like so. But and I had so many people just tell me it was the best chicken they ever had in their lives, you know. So, and um, you know, I think that that creates a connection too about like showing what the difference is between like the chickens that come from wherever and then the chickens that you know we can raise here locally, and that could go further too, you know. We could change that into geese and ducks and turkeys, like it's poultry, right? So there's a lot that that could be done here locally with that. We could have like a little farming situation going on. So uh, and if someone can I mean 22,000 birds is a lot of birds. It's a lot of birds. Yeah, it's a lot of birds.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:36

You got 50 of them, so you know you can you gotta build up your business so you can take another 21,000 and fifty.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:43

Yeah, doing the math on it, you know, if a single place tried to raise that many or something like that, it's like$200,000 in sales, something like that. So it's that's a lot. That's a that's a business right there. I mean, that's uh I mean if you're if you're ha if you have a small farm or a subsistence thing going on, like even raising that many birds, there's fertilizer, you know, there's all those things that that have uh like a regenerative aspect to them where they're interacting with the biodiversity of the farm.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:17

The question that comes up for me on that is would if somebody started raising some, had the way to raise them earlier, because those came in, you had one week, if you had the capability to do that like once a month over the season you're open with, do you think you'd still have the success and be able to go through 50 a week each time? Or was it because it was kind of the first time, it was just one week out of the whole season, did that lead to some of the success?

SPEAKER_04 1:14:45

Um I don't know. Like but I would say that people's eating habits tend to repeat themselves quite a bit. So if there's someone that I always have the brisket when I go to your place.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:57

I love I love your brisket every time.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:01

But like also, I used to work at this place Tillicum Place Cafe in Seattle, and uh there's chicken set on the menu all the time. Most popular dish. I can't every night I'd make like 30 whole chickens, like a ridiculous amount of chicken. And um it's just what people want to eat, like and and it just becomes this this wholesome feeling. I I'm I very much encourage people to to eat diversely. I think it's better for your health to eat diversely. So but and I try not to get stuck in in those those habits too. But um, yeah, I think it's chicken, right? And I think it would always sell, yeah, uh if it came down to it. Maybe not in the amount that I sold that that week.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:50

I'm just trying to figure out for somebody to have chickens available for you, like if you're gonna have chicken on your menu throughout the season, to be able to have enough chickens that are coming of age for harvesting at the time that you were gonna need them going forward. Just trying to, I'm just trying to do the thought process in my mind on the work.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:13

It could just be like a once-a-month thing, right? Where you don't always have chicken. And I think that's something that people need to get used to with restaurants too, for them to be able to make ends meet and to work their costing out, is that stuff is gonna change sometimes, right? If I wanna if I wanna interact with my local economy here, right, and uh see that money goes straight into the pockets of other people living here, then um I'm gonna have to change the menu up quite a bit. And maybe that's just like on a slight pivot from something that's already on the menu, right? Maybe I'm making the kimchi different because the di it's different vegetables that are available, but it's overall still mostly going to taste the same. And what what I what I'm doing over a long period of time is establishing trust, right? So these people are constantly coming into the restaurant and then seeing slight pivots on some of the things, and uh, you know, they're like, oh, it's changed, but then they eat it and they're like, so it's very good. Yeah, that that that's uh that's trust gained, right? And then they start to just a lot they stop thinking about it as the dish that they want, and they start thinking about it as I trust this guy. I trust that whatever I eat here is going to taste good. I trust that uh this person knows what they're doing. So I I think you know that takes a lot of a lot of work, a lot of effort, but um I I'm not sure if all everybody wants to go through that struggle, but it's it's worth it if you do. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:47

That was last year when people had asked me, it was like, well, what's on the menu? I said, well, it's changed every time I've gone in there because it's based on what he's able to do with trying to maximize. And that's the other thing that I don't know if a lot of people understand is the amount of pretty much everything there is from scratch, right? Is there anything that's store other than I mean you're obviously buying the beef somewhere, you're buying some of these ingredients, but any sauces, you know, your ice cream, your bread, all of that you guys are making there at the restaurant. Am I wrong on that?

SPEAKER_04 1:18:18

Uh you're not wrong. Okay, we we make everything from scratch. The only thing I don't make from the scratch is cupie mayonnaise. Just uh and I not that I don't know how to make mayonnaise, but like there's something about this mayonnaise in particular that's just like has a soft spot for me. Okay, you just like leave that alone, yeah. So um, and um but yeah, we make everything from scratch. So um I try to not, you know, that was also a hard training process at the beginning of opening is just like a lot of people without very much experience, and all of a sudden you gotta teach them all this stuff, and it has to be good, it can't be terrible. So maybe you know, right when we opened, it took a there was a learning curve period of time, but uh um I was also putting in way too many hours, and um but it it worked out and so did Rachel let you are are you allowed to talk about the hours that you put in in the beginning?

SPEAKER_01 1:19:13

Because we talked about that before we started before I guess I can I can yeah you said 120 hours a week that you were starting off with this, and that's the other thing I don't think a lot of people appreciate. When you and I were talking throughout the summer, I was asking you how we were going. You're telling me how much I'm like, oh my god, is this guy gonna live through the summer?

SPEAKER_06 1:19:30

I thought I might die.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:31

Um I thought I was I was praying you wouldn't. But the the amount of time that you put into that over this year with the training and everything like that, for me was it's necessary.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:45

It's personal sacrifice that it takes to be a small business owner. That's just what it comes down to, and there's no way around it. There's nobody you complain complain to that's going to fix it for you. That's what you have to do, and if you don't do it, then it's never gonna get better. Like the I've seen too many chefs get frustrated, get overwhelmed, and they stop training and they start screaming. Yep. Right? And then everybody quits, and then you don't have anybody supporting you. So uh doing it that way has never worked out for anybody that I've seen. And the people that even end up having successes while treating their employees poorly, uh, I feel that they get found out later down the line. And they end up holding their successes over their employees and promising giving them empty promises, you know, and trying to get them to stay through like some potential that might happen for them. And I I heard it all from all different types of people. You you know, I know this is tough, I know that you're getting treated like crap, but if you stay here for two years, then you're gonna get a sous chef sous chef job in New York, and you know, anywhere you want, I'll make sure that you get there. And then I talk to another sous chef. I'm like, what's your life like? Oh, I work about 90 hours a week, I make thirty thousand dollars a year, you know, and I'm like, I don't know if I want that.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:10

I gotta go through all this crap for two years to get the whole lot. I don't know what I'm doing now. In New York City, get that. No, no, this is the greatest deal ever.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:21

So I I mean I I made very conscious decisions about how I wanted to treat people, the opportunities that I wanted to give them. If anybody ever wanted to move on, I always thought about the moment when I moved on from Mandalay Cafe in Seattle, and uh uh I I was very nervous, and I told I was telling my boss that I was gonna move to uh Hawaii, and and he was just like, Oh, that's amazing for you. Yeah, you know, and he's like supportive, like lifting you up, like you know, but even though I didn't even want to leave that restaurant, like I just was I don't know why I was just like you know it's trying to extend my reach, you know, a little bit and uh get more experiences. So but uh yeah, uh I so I've always wanted people to feel like that. Like if you you come work for me and I'm not gonna make you stay here. You stay here if you want to stay here, and I'll teach you everything no matter what. I'm gonna have the same approach every single day. I'm not gonna get jaded, I'm not gonna get like, oh, this person quit. I'm not gonna teach this next person this thing because that was a waste of my time. It's my my my approach is to show up as the same person every single day for you. It's like Sam Darnold. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:44

Love it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:46

But there's a lot of that that like goes into you know service work. It's it's like a managing a sports team, right? When it clicks, it clicks. When it when it doesn't, it's usually bad attitudes, um you know, um letting the day get to you in a way there where you're doing some from something harmful and degrading to the interactions that you're having in your life. So I think that you know, uh and this is going back to overworking, right? So I knew there was a limit, right, to where that had had to end. And luckily it started to click, right? All that stuff, all the time and energy that I started to put in to all of that, uh started to work. You know, all my employees were doing amazing. I also had Garrett, who was working for me, who for some reason uh there was no amount of work that was too much for him. So and if he saw me struggling, he wanted to lift me up. And uh he wanted to help in any single way. So if I needed I didn't have a line cook to work in the evening, Garrett was like, I'll work the line. I was like, You think you can work the line? He's just like, Yeah, let's just go over the stuff, do it, just does it perfectly, right? So smart, right? He's just like making it happen every single day, doing the same approach, yeah. And uh yeah, um I I don't know what I'm gonna do without it in this summer, but but you know, he spent a lot of time with Stephanie, who's gonna be taking over as the GM and you know, teaching her the standards, right? Yeah, and hopefully all that stuff, you know, the promotion that she's getting this summer will lead to you know her having a similar approach to it. I also have the realization too that I can't ask that much from everybody, right? Uh so I'm trying to re-evaluate that position and see what's sustainable, right? And it'll be easier this year because there's so many, there's so much trained staff. I'm not gonna be wearing so many hats where and I'm stretched so thin trying to answer everybody's questions all at once. I actually have people that can teach now, and uh which is something I I tell them, and I was like, you've learned this, right? Well, here's this employee, they want to learn that too. Go teach it to them. Go teach it, yeah. So and um yeah, because that's that's the thing that can really stretch you thin, is if you're the the one that ever everybody's looking the answers for, then yeah, it means you didn't communicate the answers very well to the other people around you. So yeah, and uh it got a little bit better as the summer went on. I th I did a like a a wedding uh for uh Rebecca and Beardsley out in Skagway.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:25:35

And of course, you know, there's like you know, 50,000 tourists there or whatever, and they one of one of them coughs in my face and gives me the flu. So I think that was kind of a a breaking point in the in the summer when I came back and I had the flu, and I was like, I I can't even I can't go into work, and like Garrett's trying to do everything for me. And um I was you know, I thought I was still like struggling with the beer and wine license, trying to get that all transferred over. And there was that one point where I think I was kind of going around and saying to people, this isn't gonna work. I I wouldn't say it to my employees because I didn't want them to pay. I was doing another wedding and I think uh Greg Schlachter came up to me and said something, and he was like, How's it going? And I was just like, not good, not good. But uh it might be a one summer type of thing. But once the license got transferred over and um everything started to flow really nice there. So and uh yeah, I I don't think there's a better feeling in the world than uh like envisioning something, right? Putting in the work to make that vision come true, and then there's this one moment, right, when you see it all kind of functioning at a high level, everything kind of slows down, and you're like, oh my god. I still remember that from my first restaurant because that was such a such a bizarre place, but it yeah, I just all of a sudden had these employees, and I was like doing I was just like floating, right? So I was helping the line cook and uh helping the servers and washing dishes, and I just like kind of squatted down to start the dishwasher, and I just kind of stayed in that squat and looked up at everything just working, just everything all these people getting food, all these people having a great time, all my employees like you know, functioning in unison like a ballet, you know. So it's I mean, man, it's it's a really good feeling. So yeah, it's super addictive too. So it's that's like those moments where you're uh it makes you feel powerful, it makes you feel like you can accomplish things that um I I don't know that just ideas, right? Yeah. So and you know, I'm not trying to save the world or anything. I just want to feed people and give them gathering spaces, but for a lot of people that means the world to them. So um I think that that's that's what I have to offer. That's my purpose and that's what I want to give my community. And I want it to mean more than just being a business that's open and operating and and uh trying to establish a retirement fund for me or whatever. You know like I I want it to to impact people's lives let them see their own power inside those situations give them the opportunity to speak to somebody else that they sat down for dinner with and you know share something that creates a connection creates that magic you know that's what I like the most about being alive is the my interactions with other people and um and how I can expand on that and help them and or they help me and there's a lot that can be grown from that. So it's yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:16

I like when you're getting into a business and you're having that attitude first a lot of people go into it with the profit as their main objective. Anytime you're putting the money first yeah I mean you're more likely to fail than if you're putting the people and the the ideas behind it that's going to come out and if you do that aspect well the profits will follow off of that.

SPEAKER_04 1:29:42

You have to create an environment for people that is going it's it's going to be beneficial for them. You can't it it's hard enough trying to convince people to do this job these days, right? Especially in a small like neighborhood restaurant uh way up here, you know so um but I tried to hire locally grown people right because I I saw you know other places ship people in every single year and what they struggled with was that it's new people every year, right? And you gotta retrain them, retrain them, retrain them and then uh you know it could becomes exhausting. And um you also don't know who you're gonna get when they show up. So um again accountability with local people see them face to face they can't necessarily get away with you know handling their job poorly in that respect. Especially if you show up for them and you're doing things for them then they they really want to give that back to I think I think that's you know mostly true. You know I don't know there's a few people that always just like approach work in a way that I I disagree with but then it just doesn't work out. You know that's fine too you know gave it a try.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:59

Thanks for coming but um yeah I mean I don't know I'm I kind of trailing off right now it's it it's it is it's that idea of the atmosphere that you're creating for your employees is going to blend into what the customer experience. If you've got employees that love their job, love being there, they know they're treated well they know they're making a good meal that's it and that so that aspect carries over to the customers because they're also going to hear the message about the ways that you're giving back the way you're using things locally the way you're supporting all these different local vendors and each one of those local vendors that you're dealing with that's going to give them more of a reason to go and tell their friends to come and and eat at your restaurant and it it all works in a small town you've got to build those relationships or it's not going to work.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:52

It's good outreach to and you know that like you said like there might be some people unsure about whether they would like to keep come and eat at my restaurant right but then they hear like oh their friends uh the the friends the Goonics right are putting chickens on their menu and I want to go support those people so I'll go try this out and yeah it creates a whole new customer base and that's the old point. I just want people to feel comfortable with me and my space and stuff and I know it's different. I know that it's unlike a any restaurant that has existed here but I I I think once people come in and sit down there there's not going to be much they can argue with about like tasty food. I think it's it's all it's all good. So and I'll make sure that you have a good night and that there's something on the menu for everybody. So I think like there is an old like a younger version of myself too like part of the reason like this happened when it was supposed to happen right yeah some maturing that I needed to do like maybe some decisions I had made as a younger person about hardlining like what I wanted to do to be innovative and to be on the cutting edge and um how that would never would have flown up here like in a hundred years.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:25

And yeah and go through some failures and and uh but it's all good it all leads you to the spot that you're supposed to be in yeah we all go through those it just depends on whether we want to take the lessons that are offered to us to heart or not or if we want to kind of because there's a lot of stubborn people out there that keep trying to do the same thing over and over even though it's not working.

SPEAKER_04 1:33:47

It's an opportunity it's an opportunity for to grow and change change your approach and it's easier than you think to it could just be like a a word or a sentence that you tell yourself any day every day. I mean this sounds so dumb but I just if you're just saying something like today's gonna be terrible right yeah yeah if you come up with that approach in your head which is I I used to do this thing in the morning where I make myself over easy eggs and if the the yolk broke I would be like today's gonna be terrible I I actually told my sister that and she was like I do the same thing. Might as well go back to bed just you know and I don't do that every day I don't even eat I eat eggs in the morning anymore. I just have yogurt and granola instead so I don't have to do that.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:37

But so all your days are better now.

SPEAKER_04 1:34:41

Just changing the dialogue with yourself a little bit you know and see if that impacts your day any differently.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:47

Speaking that I I just finished reading a book a couple weeks ago I actually picked it up when I was back at Vortex around the facility to have these small bookcases and they've got several titles each book and all the guys like what's what's the deal with these bookcases he goes well the leadership they want the employees to know that if you want to know what leadership is thinking these are the books they're reading so if you want to take some of the books have at it. Yeah and he goes if you want to if there's any of those that look interesting to you there you go take some and so I grabbed a couple and the one that I read is 10x is easier than 2x yeah and I want to get I want to talk to the author eventually do you want more water? No I'm not we've got more thanks Neil for uh uh suggesting I have water and and tissues here that was Neil's but um but anyhow one of the things that he talked about was the and they him and his co-author talk I can't remember the author's name I apologize but the book's 10x is easier than 2x uh was the idea of gap and gain if you're the and their thought is if you're in the gap mindset you're looking that I have this goal of getting to here but I only got halfway there. Yeah and so you're always looking at how you're falling short yeah rather than looking at the game well I got halfway there. So I'm I'm a lot further than I was before and so it's kind of what you're talking about. It's that that mindset you have and most of my life looking back at it I've been stuck in the gap mindset. Yeah that it's like I should have done this well I should have done this well I should have done this and so since reading that book the last few weeks I've tried to do more of that when things like that come up it's like okay is this a gap or gain instance am I look how am I looking at this is and it does make a difference having that perspective on how you're viewing things.

SPEAKER_04 1:36:40

I think people get shooken up pretty hard when they start to hit brick walls and in their goals and they they panic a little bit andor uh scream for help andor um want something to change so badly but they don't know how to change themselves or change the scenario in front of them um and this is another lesson from my father but it's like you should always just keep going and uh you're going to hit these things all the time and it's it's about the long game right it's about being in it the way you want to be in it not make not making the sacrifices that put who you are in jeopardy and the person that you want to be in jeopardy right and instead like finding the pathway through it all s calmly and collectively and gaining support in the same same way. So yeah is that kind of similar to what you're talking about yeah there's a way to get through it. Uh yeah I remember uh also just like when my dad was having like problems with his work or something or maybe a grant wouldn't get funded or somebody else was taking credit for some other you know uh piece of academia he had uh produced uh never never saw him panic you know I would get so upset for him I'd be like I'm gonna beat him up dad you know what do you want me to do I got your back I'm like 12 but uh you know it it it's just like it'll be fun you know yeah yeah figure it out so uh and all those things are opportunities for something else um I think he's he's shown me that and I've had to learn a lot of those things the hard way but I think that's how you're supposed to learn sometimes too so um yeah especially if you're just running into brick walls and uh over and over and over again and you're not changing something you're not changing.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:45

At some point you need to look to see if you can walk around it or get a ladder to get over the top of it.

SPEAKER_04 1:38:49

You can't force you can't force life sometimes I think that you know we're just watching that um Alyssa Liu the gold medalist figure skater right she took a step back right trying to reevaluate how she wanted to be happy in her life and her approach uh in figure skating and stop giving up control to other people about the direction she she should head in I was like I that resonated with me pretty pretty heavily I think it's resonate it's gonna resonate with a lot of people you can still be a professional you can still work hard right she even said she was like I enjoy the suffering right but on her terms right so and that's the way that it has to be for people that want to work hard that want to work towards a a major goal that seems uh unfathomable to to a lot of people so you you have to do it on your terms you have to make sure that you're making the right sacrifices that you're not sacrificing your uh loved ones along the process you're not sacrificing your integrity you're not sacrificing um the the person that you always knew you wanted to be right and you don't want that to dissolve right you don't want that to be something that just ends up ruining your approach and makes you an unhappy person. Uh like I mean what's the point if we can't just find a little happiness on the on the in this world right may not may not be rich riches or anything like that but I think I get a lot of happiness out of my interactions with people. And um yeah every day I wake up and uh happy with where I'm at and the partner I've chosen and uh yeah and the community I have. So I don't I mean there's a lot to be thankful for. So instead of instead of waking up every day and thinking about all the things I deserve or I'm entitled to or anything like that. Just know that whatever doesn't work out I've achieved enough and I also am very happy with what I currently have. Yeah and I think that Alyssa Liu said something like that too. Yeah it's just like showed up I'm here at the Olympics why shouldn't I be happy yeah and then she saw her and her freestyle skate right she was just like crushed it yeah crushed it carefree yeah absolutely happy to be there and and um yeah I feel that way in my restaurant yeah so getting away from the restaurant a little bit you've alluded to it a couple times graduation from your degree and going back to school and so before you opened the restaurant for a while there you were doing some other studies what was that uh correct yeah I I actually so that that's another thing that added on this summer as I graduated from school in the midst of it and did uh did my uh capstone or thesis and then had to go back to New York and present it and uh I graduated from the Culinary Institute of America with a master's degree in sustainable food systems and um yeah as something my dad kept pushing for me to do was go back to school. I didn't quite know what I wanted to do. I thought about completely changing my career like becoming a therapist. It's like maybe I can do that and then be able to help people through difficult times it felt like a strong suit for me. So but um I saw this program I did some research on it and um uh the application of my where I'm at and um what it could do for me here uh it really just changed my world and I all of a sudden could see like I went into the program thinking I would do I would get a job in food systems somewhere in Alaska either working remotely or as some kind of catalyst or um something like that, you know and just completely change my career. And then a year into it I was like I can apply this to my business and this to my business and this to my business and this to my business and then all of a sudden it I was like whoa this stuff really works here. All I have to do is say it. You know all I have to do is make that connection with this producer and then I can create my own food system here, right? And um there's all these opportunities here that are just going underutilized and I I don't know it just started to click and I think my parents came up for the beer fest dinner um that year and so so it was I guess 2024 or something like that. And it was I was just about finishing my second semester in school. And you know they they they don't come up here that often so they and they got to see me kind of apply this some of these things to this big dinner and and then you know see how people were reacting to it. And you know I had owned two restaurants before that you know so and my dad and my mom were like what what's it gonna take for you to open another restaurant and I was like you want me to open another restaurant? I was like what you saw how that went before yeah I was like uh I don't know I mean I at that point it wasn't even something I was necessarily thinking of but you know and at that dinner too I was working with a couple employees and uh you know that were just kind of helping me with catering gigs for the summer and stuff and it's like Matilda and Melina and um I really enjoyed that the dynamics something I missed quite a bit and um mentoring and you know learning from them as I as they learn from me. And um I was just missing a lot of aspects of being a small business owner and having a restaurant and kind of expanding on that and when the right time for it is but when the right time for it is is when people start to encourage you to do it. So I um I mean I you know I I think I felt like my parents had been discouraging me from the cooking lifestyle for since I was in my early 20s right okay you're going to New York but if that doesn't work out you know like do anything go to Europe and backpack don't do this you know but you know it's they're they're happy with the way things have worked out for me for the most part except for the distance between us but I go home quite a bit too so anyway but um yeah so if you anybody wants to thank anybody for me opening a restaurant here in Haynes Alaska it's uh your mom and dad yeah my mom and dad they um funded the whole damn thing so yeah I had to use every cent I had to but you know uh it's uh it wouldn't uh wouldn't happen without them so and uh that's cool to have support like that isn't it oh it's amazing that's yeah cool feeling put me in a good position to to make sure that it is successful and like you know minimal debt and all that kind of stuff so and uh yeah um Rachel was on board too did it take her any uh I think she made a lot of those noises but yeah she's the most supportive partner in the world so I I mean you know she definitely had you know apprehensions of like you know uh this decisions I had made in the past you know not wanting to repeat those types of things and or but I but I think that's also part of a good partnership is you have somebody that's gonna have those conversations about well this happened this happened and it allows you to have more introspection that you're covering those things that happened in the past right totally I mean just because someone's questioning you doesn't mean that they don't support you. So just going through the thought process. It's just somebody that knows you better than anybody else that uh can keep you accountable. So and you know that's if you can't handle that then you can't handle being committed to somebody. So um you gotta have thick skin being in a partnership and I I Rachel is a blunt person. She's always been that way and she's changed my idea of how to approach conflict more than any other person I've ever met in my entire life. Like especially as a young person I was like so scared of like the conflict at work it builds up right so thinking about the thing the person did the day before and how you're gonna redo that you know situation the next day and then either chickening out or blowing up at that person or whatever. You know I think everybody goes through that creates anxiety creates you know um bad dynamics between people so I think if you can approach it fearless every single day and realize that everything that you had created in your head is just only in your head and you have to go through it in order to understand what it's going to be. So she's um yeah never feared conflict I I don't think in her entire life but I think she she she had a job in high school uh working for a repo agency that might have had something to do that might have had something to do with it had to call it in high school in high school she was working for repo she she was an adult at like 13 years old have not heard that story from her yeah I'm gonna have to hit her up to get more details on that all in all AP classes and yeah she like paid her way through college and you know working all these different jobs anything she could do but yeah she's she hustles man so I don't think there's a more attractive quality in anybody than their work ethic and how they approach life that way so one of the things that they need to do in order to to make sure that their life works so she 100% has created her life right yeah she's a very inspiring person to me so and um yeah uh but her approach changed how I interacted with people motivated uh me to to have good interactions with people and in conflict so um I think that you know in a small town a lot of people fear that right so if they have a bad interaction with somebody they may never even want to see them again or they try to avoid them right you gotta you gotta show up. You gotta get not get in their face but smile. Yeah let let them know it's okay. It doesn't bother you it's all good. Yeah and it's time to move on. So Think there's a lot that that can be said for how that benefits your your life and uh it can create less stressful environments. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:50:11

So the big question here is we're getting down towards the end of this. First of all, what haven't I asked you about? What should I be talking about with Travis that we haven't covered?

SPEAKER_04 1:50:19

Um I've been doing these things through the Chamber of Commerce. Yes, I'm also the president of the Chamber of Commerce. That's right.

SPEAKER_01 1:50:25

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 1:50:26

The community community potlucks. Yeah, the community potlucks, and they're great. Yeah. Um it's something so simple, right?

SPEAKER_03 1:50:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:50:35

Just kind of uh sat around with Amanda and Jim Lampkins in the office one day, and uh we were just kind of you know chatting about like Snap benefits getting cut and things that we could possibly do to extend. And you know, I just had this um this this idea of an ad that I saw and maybe just glimpsed at that was in Sitka that was like a uh local foods community potluck and just something like that. And I was like, you know, I don't know if we could necessarily make it like a theme like that, but we could just try to run a potluck and see what happens and see how that could benefit people. And um yeah, I mean, uh we did the first one just like a couple days after that big storm. Uh so right as the the roads had gotten cleared, and I was ever like, should we cancel this? And I was like, no, we're just you know, you gotta show up for people. You stick to the thing you stick to the things that you say you're gonna do, then it creates you know, people rely on you. So and yeah, we had over a hundred people show up and you could see it like in people's faces, what that was doing for them, right? So uh how exhausted people are from shoveling their roofs and their driveways, and you know, uh maybe like a garage collapsed or something, or they lost a bunch of stuff, or you know, this is a major, major event that happened, and what a meal can do for somebody like that in that situation, and then sitting down with somebody who went through something similar and and understanding how you can help each other. I think that there's this idea that the chamber of commerce has to be doing these things that make money, right? Those situations created in between those people that they're sitting down, right? Those are all how many small business owners do you know in this town? Pretty much everybody is. Everybody is a small business owner. They don't always know how to connect with each other, right? So if you can sit them down across from each other and they can start talking about their problems, things that they're going through, that person might have a solution. That person might uh know another person who has the solution. And so that's you know, kind of like uh um the the the shadow workings of the chamber of commerce right now and the approach that we're trying to take is that these this does promote commerce in this way. It also don't ever say that the Chamber of Commerce didn't d do anything for you, we fed you. But uh, you know, and we're trying to give some exposure to local businesses. So by sponsoring the event, it doesn't take much, it's all volunteer work for me. So it's just like five hundred dollars and it covers the food and the rental, right? And I create like a large amount of one dish, right? And then other people bring other dishes that they want to share, and that's special too, right? Something there are plenty of people that are great home cooks in this town and they love to cook for other people, and yeah, and j just every opportunity that that has presented, like people coming over from uh uh HAL or uh coming over from the senior center, right? Or senior living, right? And people coming up to me and be like, God, I haven't interacted with anybody in a month, you know. I haven't spoken to anybody. I mean this is part of our mental health, right? If it's like food is medicine, food is food is medicine, right? So uh I'm just trying, I'm not trying to say that I'm gonna cook all local foods and do all this like special stuff. I just want to I just want to make a home cook meal for people, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:54:24

And uh provide an opportunity for connection and and just feeling part of something.

SPEAKER_04 1:54:30

It's it's mental, physical health, and everything else that comes along with it. It's a it it's part of what's great about living in a community like this, right? And you know, it doesn't cost that much to do it. So I we ran another one the other week and we had an even bigger turnout and just the right amount of food again, which was amazing. That's never happened to me two times in a row in my entire life. So there must be something magical happening with this, and I feel very uh motivated by it. So we'll hold another one. The it's like two days after the free ride uh tour thing, so which I'm actually catering that event to, so try to incorporate some of the stuff I'm doing for that event into the potlook dinner. But um, yeah, I I there was also um um I don't know if you're familiar with this this grant that's uh available, there's funds for it. It's like$273 million for rural health initiative. Okay. Yeah, so I just applied for that grant and uh through the Chamber of Commerce as a nonprofit to be able to get these potluck dinners funded every single week for six months for the next five years.

SPEAKER_01 1:55:48

Wow.

SPEAKER_04 1:55:48

So it'd be roughly ninety thousand dollars a year for five years.

SPEAKER_01 1:55:54

Yep.

SPEAKER_04 1:55:55

And uh just cited a bunch of articles and like this is what community gathering does for local health, this is what you know uh eating uh whole foods does uh for local health and how that can be so we'll see.

SPEAKER_01 1:56:10

But I you asked the uh borough assembly or the mayor to write a letter of support for that?

SPEAKER_04 1:56:15

No, yeah, this is just the POI. So yeah, um and um yeah, so just or so L O I uh letter of interest. And um yeah, we're just uh kind of seeing where it goes goes from that uh from there, and if uh they say yes, this could be something that we could do, then um I think the you know that money could really help the Chamber of Commerce and its approach and how it interacts with the community, but also um basically like during a time when things get really dark in this town and not very much is open, shouldn't we just have a place that we can gather and go get some food? You know, like yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:56:53

Well that's it's I I like the way you're thinking about it because just especially in the winter months when you're talking the the in the summer it seems like everybody's got an opportunity, they're always tweeting around with people and everything. But during the winter time, just having that opportunity to be it's it's why for me I like going to the basketball games. Yeah, I don't talk to a lot of people at the basketball games, but just being in a a room with all these people and you're you're there for the same thing and you just feel that energy, uh it it's kind of sustains you through those darker months when it can be low daylight, kind of bleak.

SPEAKER_04 1:57:29

I mean, I think about like when the old field kitchen was open and I was, you know, if you know Rachel's on call and it's winter time and they just have those big communal tables, right? And I could just go there by myself, sit down with anybody, yep, and uh have a great conversation. So I never tried to just go sit there by myself. I went there with the intention of talking to somebody, and it wasn't always somebody that I knew that well.

SPEAKER_01 1:57:55

So that's where you and I differ.

SPEAKER_04 1:57:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:57:59

I don't want to go talk to people.

SPEAKER_04 1:58:04

I like talking, I like chatting with people, I like asking questions. You like asking questions. You have a whole show about asking questions.

SPEAKER_05 1:58:10

I do, but I you don't like talking with people. What am I doing?

SPEAKER_02 1:58:14

I prefer on my terms. Yeah, it's it's and it is interesting because people told me that they're like I always feel like I I suck at just conversation.

SPEAKER_01 1:58:25

You should change that dialogue behind behind this behind the counter at the store, it's one thing. Yeah, right? In a setup situation like this where I know the people, I kind of know the background, I know what we're gonna talk about, but in just general situation situations like that, I am so anxious and at not at ease at all. It's just really uncomfortable when you go to things like that by myself, and and it's something I'm working on, but sure, it is something that just I walk in because I went to the first one that you had. Yeah, um, and man, when I walked in, it was just like I was almost just like shaking. Yeah, Amanda.

SPEAKER_04 1:59:07

Amanda, Amanda came up to me and she was like, Go talk to Doctor, make him feel comfortable. So I was like, Yeah, no problem. I'm gonna go grab a plate and I'm heading home. But you know, it especially like for you, uh you're a very public figure in this town. You've been the mayor of this town, you know, worked in politics, and uh you have a business here, and you have an a family with that has been here for generations. So um chances are at some point it's maybe something you did someone disagreed with, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:59:40

And I'm sure that that well I've done that numerous times.

SPEAKER_04 1:59:43

There's a long list, and sometimes that can just be like exhausting, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:59:47

I mean, I've I've been the other thing too is though when I when I have kind of pushed through that, it's been a great experience. Totally it's usually there's never a it's never a bad experience, like you were talking about earlier. The mindset you have is worse than what it's actually what it actually is. Yeah, but it is getting over that mental block that I have in my head that it's like, yeah, because there's at that first one I went to, there's a number of people that I could have talked to, yeah, that I know well enough we could have had a great conversation, but it's never been in that situation before. Yeah, and it was more an uneasiness by myself. It's like they're not gonna want me to sit down next to them.

SPEAKER_04 2:00:25

Yeah, and it's up to you if you want to do that, you know what I mean? If you want to pressure yourself to get over that or not, you know, or if you just wouldn't have to be a good thing.

SPEAKER_01 2:00:31

Like at my age, I probably should work on doing that eventually.

SPEAKER_04 2:00:35

It depends, you know. Like I'm as this uh my my brother and I went on a trip to Mexico City, right? And um, we went to this bakery in the morning that was around the the corner um from us, and uh go in there and there's uh this this lady sitting at a table, right? And I remembered her from uh a bar in uh Oaxaca City from four years prior. She's the owner of this place. It's like one of the top 50 uh bars in the world, yeah, right. And she's the owner, and she's just and here she is in Mexico City, just sitting down, right?

SPEAKER_01 2:01:12

So you'd met her four years before. Never never talked to her. Oh, you never talked to her. Never talked to her.

SPEAKER_04 2:01:16

I know who she is, like uh like I know famous people, you know. Like I don't I don't know her. And my brother, uh we get some pastries and some coffee, and I just kind of like take a step back and I'm like, oh just go talk to her. I just go up to her and chat with her and stuff, and she's asking me like where I'm from, and I I told her I remembered her from all those years ago and stuff, and this is nice conversation. But then I go sit back with my brother uh and his partner, and uh they they're like, What are you doing? Why are you talking to that person? And I was like, What? And they're like, and my brother's like, I would never do that. And I was like, Well, what what did you what would you think that would happen? He's just like, I'd just be so embarrassed. And I was like, She loved that. She she loved that, and I know that as a business owner, right? When someone comes up to me, tells me that uh an experience they had at my place was life-changing for them, and it was at her place for me, right? Okay, so at her as a business owner, she wants she wants to hear that, you know, she wants to know that there's a purpose behind all of this and that she is having impact on people's lives. So and there's no I'm not, you know, I'm not hitting on her, I'm not asking weird questions or making assumptions about the way that she lives or anything like that, right? I'm just saying your place is great. And I love what you do, and good for you, you know. That's that's about it. And um I think if you start those conversations with people with compliments, uh generally the they go pretty pretty smoothly. So um yeah, and I don't know. I'm I'm very used to talking with people at this point, and it's part of my job, right? I worked at this place in Seattle called Elemental, and it was an open re open kitchen, right? And uh people sat at the chef's counter.

SPEAKER_00 2:03:16

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 2:03:16

And I was petrified chatting with them about food and like while I'm cooking and trying to stay on task. It just seemed like an annoyance, right? And um after some time went by, I just noticed I was good at it. Uh I could if I tried, I could chat with people, I could be charming, I could um share with them something about food that made their experience a little more enlightened during that evening or heightened and yeah. All of that just I don't know, it it's a realization, right? Like a moment that like we talked about, like when things start to click and things start to go well, but it's always it's uncomfortable when you're learning and and um uh pushing past that to try to get better at it because you see it as a necessary thing that can also serve you very well in your life. So and um yeah, I was able able to get pretty good at it. And I love chatting with people. I love chatting with that stranger and getting to meet her. It was like, you know, it's totally fangirling. I was like, I get to meet this person that I look up to, right? Yeah, just sitting at you know, a a place in a completely different place than where I had seen her last time.

SPEAKER_01 2:04:33

So the only time I think I've done something like that was 2015. I was going when the Seahawks were playing the Vikings in Minneapolis. I went to visit family, went to the Seahawks game, and on the flight over, I'm standing in the line, and like six people in front of me.

SPEAKER_00 2:04:56

That guy looks familiar.

SPEAKER_01 2:04:57

Yeah, and it was Sonny Six Killer.

SPEAKER_05 2:04:59

Oh, I have actually met Sonny. Yeah, so he was at all right, all right. You go first.

SPEAKER_01 2:05:04

So we I'm I'm just stacked, I'm just Jack, because he's like two roads behind me on the other side of the plane, him and his wife. And so we get to Minneapolis, yeah, and down at the baggage claim, I went over and I was just like, hey, as a U double um, I just appreciate the way you handled yourself. Just you've been an amazing ambassador for the University of Washington, and him and his wife were just the nicest people. And it was like you said, you you start off with a compliment, you tell them you appreciate. I wasn't looking for a photo, wasn't looking for an autograph. For me, it was just the being able to thank somebody that's representative of a university and a football team that I love dearly and have a huge commitment to. He he's just a class act, and I that's all I want to tell him. Yeah, and it was a cool. So, what what's your sunny six killer?

SPEAKER_04 2:05:51

Well, I used to walk my old dog Daria uh in the arboretum, so on the trail through there, and you know, you kind of go across the the floating bridge uh path, and then there's that like grass area out there that kind of comes to a point, right? And I taught my dog how to run football roots like a wide receiver, and she would run them, and I'd call plays, and she would she would follow direction with my hands too if I was changing the play, and he he was there and he saw me, and he just comes up behind me, taps me on the shoulder, and I turn around and I was like, Whoa!

SPEAKER_05 2:06:32

Like immediately, you know, as like uh my dad had been a seasoned ticket holder since he was like 18.

SPEAKER_04 2:06:39

So I'd I'd spent all my youth like going to husky football games, learning husky football lore, like everything. So um, and he was like, What are you doing with your dog? And I was like, Oh she plays football. And uh he was like, What do you mean? And I was like, Well, she runs, she runs roots and uh like a wide receiver, and uh and I throw the ball and she catches it. And I was like, um, do you want to see one?

SPEAKER_05 2:07:13

And he was like, Absolutely. So I I call the go route and just like straight out and I just threw this dime and she was like catches in her mouth on the run, and he goes, Holy shit.

SPEAKER_04 2:07:31

And then she ran back to me, and I got so embarrassed and like didn't know what to do, and I ran. I ran away from him.

SPEAKER_05 2:07:41

I was like, let's go.

SPEAKER_04 2:07:43

Like I was getting away with the crime before he asked me to do it again, or became like another big thing, you know what I mean? But yeah, he was always hanging out in that area. I think there was like a bistro nearby that my uncle used to go to that he was always at too. So he really, you know, represented the University of Washington well, and you know, especially as like a Native American quarterback, you know, like uh, you know, the things that he was able to achieve at that university is pretty pretty fantastic. So um, yeah, amazing guy. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:08:15

And you ran away from him.

SPEAKER_04 2:08:17

I ran away from, I got scared. I don't know what I was why I was scared, but I was like, I I just like felt like so happy in that moment. I wanted to just end. I can't say anymore. I don't want to remember. But it was just like perfect, yeah. So yeah, great, great story. I think that that was enough. I didn't need to hang out anymore. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:08:38

You never know. You could have had it, he might have been throwing routes to Doria.

SPEAKER_04 2:08:41

That was my my my my fear that my my passes were gonna be better than his. It takes a while to develop the relationship with the receiver.

SPEAKER_01 2:08:54

The receiver he played enough football, he'd understand that the relationship with the receiver.

SPEAKER_04 2:08:59

After the fact, definitely. I was like, I could have gotten a video of Sonny Sixkiller throwing a pass to my dog. Yeah, and as speaking as a person who was taking videos of my dog catching passes and sending them to the Seahawks every single week. That was a really missed opportunity. I was like, I was totally trying to get my dog a commercial spot, like anything I could I could possibly do. I was so like proud, obviously, of what I was able to teach my dog.

SPEAKER_01 2:09:31

Tori was the wrong breed, so it wouldn't work for a husky mascot.

SPEAKER_04 2:09:35

No, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:09:36

But they might have got you in their training dubs to be.

SPEAKER_04 2:09:39

Yeah, she could have put on a Seahawks jersey or something like that. Yeah. I was like adamant that Russell Wilson needed to throw her some moon balls.

SPEAKER_01 2:09:49

Might have worked if you if you would have stuck around and didn't go sunny.

SPEAKER_04 2:09:54

Yeah, so missed opportunities. Uh life's life's lessons.

SPEAKER_01 2:09:59

So what one last question before we wrap this up. When's uh Deerheart opening for the season?

SPEAKER_04 2:10:05

Uh first week of April. First week of April. My employees are super stoked and uh can't wait to start it all back up again. And that makes me feel good too. So um I think we'll just open three days a week through the month of April, excluding uh one week we'll do four days because of um Easter brunch. But um be Thursday, Friday, Saturday then? Yeah, and then uh once the uh full summer hits, um I'm gonna try to go to five days this year. So we'll do five or four dinner shifts and one brunch shift. Okay. And uh one of those dinner shifts is going to be on a Wednesday night where we do uh the pizza paella, uh, which I did a couple of times this last season and got a very good response from. So it's another, you know, uh I like to take sample sizes and things like that and see what kind of response I get from people. But my employees like doing it, and um um everybody showed up and honestly it was just like short menu, easy money, and uh high quality product and uh people get it. Yeah, the pae is great, and we're using like most you know, uh I think it was just like stripe prawns and stuff and a stripe prawn stock, and uh that's what we had been doing this last season, and then uh cured salmon roe over you know, not gonna be able to find this for under$65 anywhere else in the world. Like it's something like that looks like that at a city in Madrid or something will end up costing$300, you know. So I I think the that's the the opportunity I'm able to create here too, is like there's here's all these like super precious products, right? That would if you put on a menu at a restaurant in a city somewhere or got shipped into Vegas or anything like that, is it just out of people's price range, right? Most people's price range. Here we are. Haynes, Alaska, making these connections, right? Going down to Haynes packing, and they're selling me a bag of salmon row for twenty dollars, right? Just cure it myself, and you know, it's uh it's a lot less expensive that way. So um, yeah, and uh the pizzas are really fun, and I've been able to source some fun meats and other things and other local products for vegetarian ones, and yeah, it's all it's all gonna be fun this summer. Uh you gonna carry cater the beer fest again? I'm catering the beer fest, yeah. I got I found out that just a little bit ago, so that'll be good. It's always a good way to start off the summer and get people excited about what I'm doing. Last summer um it was really fun. Lisa Murkowski showed up and I was serving gooseneck barnacles. I don't know if you're familiar with that. Heard of them, never had them. Quite good, it just tastes like a clam, but uh a little messy while you're eating it. But so I was like showing people how you twist the head off, right? And then pull the thing out of the sheath. It's just like the meat that you eat. And uh you know, I'm in front of all these people, like over 200 people, giving them an example before the next course comes out. Of course, I spray myself with juice all in the face, and then the the dish comes out, right? And uh I just the the chaos that ensued afterwards.

SPEAKER_05 2:13:21

So primal about it ripping the food apart with your hands. And I guess Lisa Murkowski got sprayed in the face with the stuff.

SPEAKER_04 2:13:32

But I actually didn't get to chat with her this time because I was running back and forth after the dinner was over, like taking stuff out of the kitchen, trying to clean up and going back to the restaurant and stuff. But she talked with Rachel and came into the kitchen and said, that was the most interesting and delicious meal I've ever had. Uh so those things mean a lot from from uh especially you know, kind of national figures like that. I've seen a lot, and uh, I I always want those things to be impactful for for people that attend them. And food doesn't always have to be like right up your alley, right? It doesn't have to be, but I think for an event like that, the goal is you at least want to try a couple of things that you've never tried before.

SPEAKER_03 2:14:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:14:18

Yeah, and have that opportunity. It's all inclusive, you don't get to choose, right? Yeah, I I already chose for you. You already paid your money. Food's coming out, whether you like it or not. Yeah, and uh it's okay if you don't if it's not your thing and you're not going to want to eat goosemate neck barn barnacles again. I think that most of the people that experienced it, and even if they didn't like it all that much, they love the experience. So food can be an experience, and um yeah, yeah. I think there's something so beautiful too about just like you know, taking it back a millennia and uh I found barnacles on the beach now. I'm eating them my bare hands, uh yeah, it's uh all that stuff is really fun. So food is fun, and we don't need to take it super duper seriously that way, you know. Like it's um some it's an exploration, so uh we plan to do quite a bit more exploring this this summer.

SPEAKER_01 2:15:21

So all right, yeah. Anything else you want to add? That's it. I appreciate you joining us, Travis. This has been awesome. Yeah, look forward to the deer heart being open so I can come in for some food.

SPEAKER_04 2:15:33

Absolutely. April. Look forward to serving you. All right, thanks.

SPEAKER_01 2:15:37

Thanks for watching this episode of Doug Hat's Questions. Just a reminder: if you've enjoyed the conversation today, please like, subscribe. We're available on YouTube if you want to watch us, if you just want to listen. Uh, it's on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, and you have new uh episodes being launched every Thursday. So thanks again for watching or listening and following us. We appreciate your support.