Robots Can Shake A Margarita, But Can They Roll Their Eyes At You?

The best nights don’t just happen—they’re designed. We’re making Bar Pod a weekly ritual and opening the doors with a crisp NA beer taste test, a splash of top-shelf tequila, and a real look at how guests’ habits are shifting after dry months. We talk about why even sober streaks still bring people to the bar, where NA options make sense for business, and how to keep the vibe without tanking margins.

From there we pull back the curtain on tools that actually help. AI isn’t replacing bartenders here; it’s shaving hours off the thankless work. Cooler photos matched to deliveries, receipt parsing, and simple forecasting can tame inventory without killing the craft. We even map out an easy way to automate your home grocery list with a camera and a chat assistant. But when the “AI barman” shows up at CES, we draw a line: a kiosk can sling slushies at a satellite station, but it can’t read a room. Hospitality is human.

Tech takes a darker turn with Ring’s facial recognition. Security matters, but guests deserve boundaries. We weigh the trade-offs and why local, closed-loop cameras beat cloud surveillance for bars that value trust. Then we hit the heart of the room: music. The right soundtrack invites conversation, smooths the rush, and sets identity. The wrong track empties seats. We explain why we skip the jukebox, how licensing gets messy, and where live music shines—especially on summer decks when a single chord can pull walkers inside.

We share updates on Tique's and Cedar, field a fishbowl question on the best and hardest parts of owning a bar, and wrap with bar-movie canon—from Waiting’s server truths to Cocktail’s Coghlan’s Law. If you care about hospitality, culture, and the tools nudging both, this one’s a pour worth finishing. Subscribe, share with a friend who loves a good neighborhood spot, and drop your take: which bar tech helps—and which crosses the line?

Transcript

Welcome To Barpod And Weekly Plan

unknown 0:00

We're recording.

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Crabs. It doesn't matter. This is not the crabs. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:06

The arsonist had oddly shaped feet.

SPEAKER_01 0:11

I'm Ryan, my brother's Chad. We own bars in Sindusky, Ohio on the shores of Lake Erie. Welcome to Barpod, recorded right here at Paddle Bar, where we talk about the businesses of running bars, what's going on in otherwise, and whatever else we find interesting. The good, bad, and the sticky floor. Here we are, bud. Here we are, back at uh Barpod episode six. No way. Yeah. Six? And I just forgot it. I've been getting a lot of good feedback from folks of like what I should do, look at the camera more, look at you more, look up, look down. I forgot all of it. You forgot all of it? I don't remember if that happens. You're 40 some years ago. Forgot everything. I don't know what the hell's going on anymore. Uh but the big news right off the top, we're gonna do this weekly. Oh my what? We're gonna do it on Wednesdays, and which means I will try to edit it on Wednesday night and release it on Thursday. Love it. Don't hold me to that, but it'll at least be up by the weekend every time. So Thursday or Friday, you'll get a new drop of barpod. I think that's how we're gonna do it.

SPEAKER_00 1:10

Barpod episode.

SPEAKER_01 1:10

Weekly barpod. That's a big shift. And yeah, it's a big shift. The reason we're doing it is because uh we're here every Wednesday anyway. We just finished uh unloading beer and and doing all that. Yeah, and it's a good excuse between how busy everybody's lives is. Chad's with the kids and and here, and then I'm here, and then the new bar. Um, this is a good time for us to catch up. So we might as well do it with an audience.

SPEAKER_00 1:32

Yeah, it is cool, right? We I feel like we enjoy this so far. I it sounds like everybody's enjoying it as well. We enjoy it, if not more, than everyone else. Oh, we're having a blast.

SPEAKER_01 1:40

Yeah. Check back with us at episode 12, which is the battle royale, where Chad and I start throwing things at each other. Take the shot glass and shove it up your nose. Oh boy. Oh boy. Uh hey, what's going on with you? Uh, we got uh anything happening, you know?

SPEAKER_00 1:55

Uh Amber started uh she got on the workout train lately, so I decided to hop in on that. Yeah, how's that going?

SPEAKER_01 2:04

This is a February mid-winter thing. People get in on this.

SPEAKER_00 2:07

I'm about two weeks in. It's mostly uh, you know, some light cardio, mostly upper body stuff. My shoulder is killing me right now. Light cardio. And uh I'm basically getting my ass kicked by a little 35-year-old Danish woman on on YouTube quite a bit. So there's that.

Fitness Kicks And NA Beer Taste Test

SPEAKER_01 2:22

That's nice. Good for you. Well, it's funny. Mackenzie uh has been working out like every day as well. She's kicking about, she's going down to uh Tim Dorsey Fitness around the corner. Yeah. Uh she sees Aaron there, our buddy Aaron, all the time. Apparently he does some weird long jump thing. I don't know what it is. But um, so I'm glad that everybody's been working out. You know what I've been doing? What you got? Playing with AI. That's basically been building websites, just being a real dork. Thank God it's not playing with me back yet, because that might be coming in AI soon, huh? Nobody? Yeah, that's all right. You're gonna be ahead of the curve. I'm trying to be. I'm trying to be. You talked about that article this morning. Um we can we can talk about that. We can talk about that soon. But first, uh, so weekly podcast coming. Uh this is the first one, episode six. What are we drinking on?

SPEAKER_00 3:02

Uh, are you ready for this? I brought these from my house because I thought.

SPEAKER_01 3:06

Yeah, we don't have them in stock here yet, but we can get this brand.

SPEAKER_00 3:09

So you're ready for this? This is a little bit of a shift. And the reason I did this is because one of our uh one of our our friends slash um incredible bar patrons bought that bottle of tequila that we'll be doing a shout of later. So I thought we could try to. Oh yeah, Todd and Lisa brought that in. Todd and Lisa brought that in stuff. So I figured we could try a little NA beer that we might want to carry later, and it's Elvis Juice from Brew Dog. It's their Elvis as F. And it's an NA. It's an N A.

SPEAKER_01 3:32

It's pretty good. What do you think about it? It's pretty good. Well, and we'll discuss that a little bit. I mean, NA, I think it's uh it's I think it's time to broaden the selection a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 3:42

Listen, and it's not, don't get me wrong, this it does not taste exactly like beer, but it's pretty cold.

SPEAKER_01 3:46

It's pretty good. It's pretty juicy, pretty juicy, pretty juicy. But I am looking forward to a little tequila in a little bit. Yeah, same. Uh now that being said, it is 10 45 in the morning, so you know. Yeah, I don't think we should.

SPEAKER_00 3:56

What's it? Breakfast for beer, beer for breakfast? Beer for breakfast, if you don't like that, get out or something like that. Oh, you're talking about from cockroaches. From the movie Cocktail, we'll get to that too. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:06

Um, all right. Anything else that uh with your kind of life updates? What's going on? I don't have much. I uh I've just kind of been working the last week. We had a great opening week. It was awesome. Uh had just a lot, saw all the regulars. Yeah. It's been so much fun. It was awesome. We're getting right back into it. Uh I I think so too. So that means that dry January is over with. Yeah. Um but some folks are extending it, so maybe we can uh entice them with an A beer.

SPEAKER_00 4:32

I saw somebody the other day that had a run of uh, I believe it was they were on day 178 of uh their cleanse. That's a little hot. 178? 178. Well, at that point, maybe you're just maybe you're just done. Maybe you're just done. Yeah. Yeah. I if I went 178 days, I'm sure I'm sure.

SPEAKER_01 4:48

Let's be honest, I'm sure you'd feel pretty phenomenal. But at the same time, then you'd be bored. That kind of brings that kind of goes into our next uh our next word we're talking about, you know. Jane draw January is over with. Yeah. Um and you know, I noticed at Volstead as well, because of course Volsteads was still open in January, that even the folks that weren't drinking still were out a bit. The the the really a lot of the regulars, not everybody, but you saw a lot of people that were like having the cocktails, mocktails. Sure. I'm sorry, having mocktails, uh club soda and stuff, because they still want to be around people. So if you're gonna go 180 days without a beer, that's fine. Yeah. Still get out and be around people, because otherwise you're gonna get really weird with AI in your basement. You're gonna I'll tell you what, you're you're thinking about all this this AI stuff quite a bit, aren't you? Well, it's just it's what's happening. Uh you know, there's a there's it's it's what's happening. We're not AI, it's what's happening. That's the that's Claude's new logo.

SPEAKER_00 5:43

What if you built like what if you built like you've you should you're you're basically build websites now? I don't basically build websites.

SPEAKER_01 5:49

I hate of them, haven't you? Yeah, yeah, because I can because of AI. It's been good. You know, you don't need this skill, unfortunately. I got some good friends of mine are web designers, and they're I don't know what they're gonna do.

SPEAKER_00 5:59

Can I so now in in my house, grocery shopping is a whole thing, right? With kids and blah, blah, blah. Yeah. Can I uh get Claude to automate my grocery shopping? Oh, absolutely. What I think I'm gonna do that. Here's how you would do it. Here's how you would do it. Can I take a picture of what's in my fridge and it'll analyze it and then tell me what I need if I give it if I give it some information?

SPEAKER_01 6:17

We're moving right on to AI then to our next uh segment. Because I was gonna talk about just one bar. Well, let's move to AI, but I was talking about one bar.

SPEAKER_02 6:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:25

Um there's a bar in Austin, Texas that launched a full AI or AI C uh NA menu and saw an 80% boost in mock mocktail sales.

SPEAKER_00 6:34

Full full NA menu.

Dry January, Community, And Mocktails

SPEAKER_01 6:36

Like a full menu of all NA, like a separate menu NA. I had that idea a couple weeks ago. Yeah, but you know, problem is the margins isn't as good. So oh boy. Well, I mean, it's a business. I don't, I'm not trying like there's a reason we don't serve, you know water, you know, steak here either, because the margins are horrible on it, right?

SPEAKER_00 6:55

Well, we don't want to do a deal with food, but yes, I get what you're saying.

SPEAKER_01 6:58

Yeah, so I mean we're not just gonna have so I mean offer it, but I don't know. But that anyway, it's just an interesting thing. Like, you know, there's also that's what juice bars are for.

SPEAKER_00 7:07

That's a good point.

SPEAKER_01 7:08

That's a good point.

SPEAKER_00 7:08

There's a coffee shop across the street.

SPEAKER_01 7:09

Yeah, go to that. I mean you can't do everything.

SPEAKER_00 7:12

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:12

Um so anyway, back to the AI thing. Uh so if you were gonna, if you wanted to uh figure out your grocery list, just quickly be go to your go go to do your first list, go do your grocery shopping as normal.

SPEAKER_00 7:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:25

Take your receipt, take a photo receipt, update it to Claude or Chat TBT or whatever, tell it what you want to do, that you want to simplify your grocery list, it'll create, you could literally create a uh an your own app, essentially, sure. Um, that would be able to keep track of those items in your fridge by taking photos and stuff, and then and then trigger what you need to buy. And then the longer you do it, the more it will get used to the consumption of how much your family eats.

SPEAKER_00 7:49

When you it's it's crazy. And then can I can I basically can I tell it to do the ordering through the Kroger app too? Can I have that set up like that?

SPEAKER_01 7:56

I I don't know if it if it if it would be able to directly talk to the Kroger app yet, unless they have that, like Kroger, but they could certainly it would certainly print you out the list. You just copy and paste.

SPEAKER_00 8:06

That's gonna be my next project at home.

SPEAKER_01 8:08

That's what you're gonna do. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:09

Are you kidding me? Because it's shopping. I I watch, you know, Amber does most of it, but I watch her, and it takes you know half an hour, 45 minutes to to go through the list and see exactly what you need. But anyway, enough about shopping.

SPEAKER_01 8:19

So at CES this year, which is the consumer electronics showing in Vegas, they unleashed what was called the AI bar man. Nope, can't do my job.

SPEAKER_00 8:30

Can't do it.

SPEAKER_01 8:32

And they're they're manufacturing 90 units, they're targeting bars, hotels, and restaurants. Oh boy. Would you ever put one in? So what we we saw it on video, and basically what it was, it's not like a guy behind the a robot behind the bar, it was a screen where you put in your information and ask and tell them tell the screen basically what you like, and then AI comes up with a cocktail, and then it makes the there's a machine that makes the cocktail for you.

SPEAKER_00 8:53

Okay, two things. Okay, two things. Uh, would I use it in a bar? Yes, with some conditions. Okay. So if you remember, just quickly, have you remember that move that that show on Netflix? Fantastic show, by the way, called Altered Carbon. Yeah, that was really good. Oh, I have to revisit that. That freaked you out a little bit. Oh my yeah, it was an incredible show. But they were the the whole premise was uh you had uh you basically really never died. Your consciousness got uploaded into other bodies. Anyway, they had a bar they went to. I don't remember the name of the bar, but it was an AI bar. Do you remember that was part of the movie? Yeah. It was part of the show. Oh, yeah. And the guy, I forgot he was he was like an English guy, the little AI guy running around. He's basically a hologram. Right, he wasn't real. But he was an awesome bar, too. But he was pretty sweet. We get to that point. Then we'll talk about it. But right now, having to touch a screen and basically say, I like sour drinks. I like uh, you know, this and that.

SPEAKER_01 9:42

You know, it kind of hards back to those wine, those bars that did the self-tap for beer and self-wine pour, it doesn't feel like it went too well.

SPEAKER_00 9:49

Well, and it's like I I don't I don't go to McDonald's very often, but a lot of people despise the new McDonald's screen thing.

SPEAKER_01 9:56

The way the way you have to tap a screen, it's harder than it's sad because that that move is just because they're saving a bunch of money with labor and like you know, where do you draw the line? Like people have to have jobs.

SPEAKER_00 10:05

So in your place back to the original question, in my our place of business, would I consider it? Maybe if it was going to be used at the secondary bar, not the main bar. If there was like a smaller bar you had uh in the building that didn't receive a lot of attention, but you wanted to put it there for daiquiries or something that could be easily done, then yes. But main bar, no.

AI For Home And Bar Ops

SPEAKER_01 10:25

Aaron Powell I I think I'm more where I'm at right now is like what can we use AI for that makes our jobs easier? And by that I mean like scheduling, inventory management, you know, those sort of that's what I'm trying to, that's what actually I've been trying to work to. Like, can I go and so we're doing that with some of our inventory now where uh I'm at you know the bartender's sending me photos of the coolers every night? Yeah. And I can use that data from seeing what's empty in the coolers and then comparing it to what our delivery driver brought and our receipts there, and then go, okay, we're all what's that where there's a couple beers missing, or we have too much inventory. And that's that's where I think it can be uh good. When we use it for the show.

SPEAKER_00 11:02

You brought up the best point. You brought up the best point in this whole situation, this whole AI situation. And uh you hear it a lot um of talk in every in every business right now about how people are scared about AI is gonna take jobs, right? I think the goal here is that we the the more preferable route would be AI helps us, helps our jobs, not takes it away. Correct? Right. Right. So you don't want I I don't necessarily want the bartender replaced. I want AI to make the bartender's job easier, make our job easier. Yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_01 11:31

That's what and I got a great example as we uh go pivot to our next next point here about uh where AI can kind of mess you up a little bit. What do you got? So I uh was kind of you know, one of the things that you're always b you know waiting for um at in the bar is you're waiting for delivery drivers. Like what time are they gonna get here? You know, sometimes they're consistent, sometimes they're not. And like we've said before, it's not the delivery driver's fault, it's just the name of the game. But it sucks because the minute you, you know, this morning, grab some coffee or whatever, I'll be there in five minutes. I mean, it never happens. So I plugged that into AI for kind of writing our script, and it said, here's what it put delivery drivers, the wild west. A woman in Toledo, not far from us, caught her door driver on her ring cam with her hand down their pants before handling the food. The video went viral.

SPEAKER_00 12:17

Little a little Fromunda cheat.

SPEAKER_01 12:20

Not the same type of delivery drivers, but I gotta tell you, nobody wants that. Did she order a hot dog? Oh boy. That's yeah. Well, maybe, maybe she did. You know, it brings up a good point, and uh in the we all sometimes owners of uh bars and stuff bitch about like things like health departments and regulation, because I generally think there's too much and we got too much pressure, but there are reasons for certain ones, and certainly if you think about the health department, right? We have to be trained, restaurants have to be trained, certain health department standards, like we let's keep it clean, right? Yeah, the guy who picks up your food at Chipotle. Oh, did I bring up Chipotle again? Oh no, stop it. Them beans. Uh when you're ordering They have no training standards, so if they want to wipe their ass between now, here and there, they can. There's no that's not good.

SPEAKER_00 13:12

I wanted a fish sandwich from Arthur Treatures, not crabs.

SPEAKER_01 13:16

No, I'm not that's a good one. Oh I feel that let's go ahead and bring this out after that because I feel like we're Arthur Treatures.

SPEAKER_00 13:24

I don't know where that came from. What is this, tequila? You can you pronounce it? Yeah, so that's I believe it's I believe it's pronounced Fortalesa. Oh Todd and Lisa brought it in for us, some fantastic uh friends and patrons of the bar. Um, and from what I've heard about this, tequila, is that it's one of the best. Let's give a little whirl. Yeah. I don't know if we can get it in in town in here. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 13:45

Yeah, it's a good reason to after that joke. Oh, that's good. I don't think I'm gonna sit that. It's pretty dang good. That's that's tasty. Well, I just ripped the whole thing. You just ripped the whole thing. Yeah. All right, I'm behind you.

SPEAKER_00 13:55

Okay. Well, I'm drinking NA beer. I gotta balance things out here.

SPEAKER_01 13:58

Reposado. That's what?

SPEAKER_00 14:00

Yeah, that's got a nice aftertaste on it.

SPEAKER_01 14:02

There's no uh some smoke in there. What is going on? That is good stuff. Florida laser.

SPEAKER_00 14:06

Okay. It's got a little agave a little agave thing on top. I like that.

SPEAKER_01 14:10

Anyway, that just goes to show you what what AI can do, and you know, it get you going in the wrong direction, but hell, that turned into a good joke because you gotta get the From Munda cheese jokes and got Chipotle back in there having a good time.

SPEAKER_00 14:22

Uh uh, you know, crabs, I I I think crabs have been largely um obliterated, though. I don't think those exist anymore, do they?

SPEAKER_01 14:30

You are you talking about are we talking about STD crabs?

SPEAKER_00 14:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:34

Those are gone.

SPEAKER_00 14:35

No. Have you? I think they're gone. When's the last time you heard about that uh specific voice? Well, I'm not in college anymore.

SPEAKER_01 14:43

I'm not in college anymore.

Robot Bartenders And Labor Ethics

SPEAKER_00 14:44

That's for I've been married for ten minutes.

SPEAKER_01 14:46

There's nothing to clap about, Chad. Oh boy. You knew that was okay, okay. Well, maybe it went away when the Red Lobster had such a downsizing.

unknown 14:54

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 14:55

That wasn't that wasn't fell on down. Get yourself a get yourself a butter roll and move along.

SPEAKER_00 15:02

Back back to you know, oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_01 15:05

Bringing up crabs in this episode.

SPEAKER_00 15:07

I'm not sure. I'm not sure. This went, we went from clean to real serious AI talk and we just brought it up. Well, that's good because it was kidding.

SPEAKER_01 15:13

I felt like we were a little too serious there, but it felt like a freaking frickin' news story or something. Yeah, nothing like uh okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:20

All right, hey, you brought up ring cameras, unredacted news stories. Oh god, no, don't nope, nope, okay. You bring you brought up ring cameras. Um, did anybody I'm sure most people caught this at the Super Bowl. This is one thing. You mean the bad buddy caught it? It was fantastic concert.

SPEAKER_01 15:36

Don't tap it. It makes the mic thinks.

SPEAKER_00 15:38

Fantastic concert.

SPEAKER_01 15:39

Yeah, producer, you should have been on that. You gotta read it. I saw him look at me. I saw him look at it. I tried I tapped my feet last week and I could hear it. Oh, I just did it. I had too much coffee and not enough water this morning. Anyway, and you're drinking any beer, nothing to slow you down.

SPEAKER_00 15:50

I know what's happening. Uh the ring commercial was a bit unsettling, was it not?

SPEAKER_01 15:53

Yeah, and it's funny. I I missed that commercial um because what was I doing? I was working on a website while Super Bowl was going. Uh, but then all of a sudden in my threads feed, everybody's like, delete ring, turn off this.

SPEAKER_00 16:04

So, which which, you know, like you said, Jeff Bezos owns Ring now, so that's probably he's trying to he's feeding everything to entities that we don't want to talk about. Right, right. But um it was basically uh a ring commercial that was under the guise of something good because it was used to find your lost dog. That was the whole commercial. Right. But then uh some people did some more research, and apparently the newer rings now have facial recognition. So that means you're telling me that everybody that has a ring camera in their neighborhood is just recogn it has facial recognition.

SPEAKER_01 16:33

I turned it off on our rings because we have rings at all the bars and everywhere. And I don't I like I think we're gonna have to be switching brands there. I think so too. That seems to be I mean everybody has a ring. Think about how many rings walk around your neighborhood and think about how many ring devices are on the doors all over the place. And they're just tracking your face from if you're I'm gonna circle back to my dog.

SPEAKER_00 16:50

Um I think about every time I walk in. He loves uh Luca loves to poop in other people's yards. Uh we brought this up before, remember I had the full handful. He loves to poop in other people's yards, and every time he does it, uh now I said I always pick it up anyway, but every time he does it, I do it, and I'm like looking up at the door, I'm like, oh, you gotta wave and be like, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, but yeah. I I hate it when it does.

SPEAKER_01 17:08

You know, dogs love to poop in other places that you don't want them to.

SPEAKER_00 17:10

But the ring thing is a little uh dystopian, a little unsettling. Uh privacy is kind of going away. You know, our phones are listening to us, not privacy is now everybody's scary. Doorbells are listening to us and seeing our faces.

SPEAKER_01 17:20

I think we might have to go to an internal loop system of three cameras, so we just have uh go that way instead of the cloud. Agreed. Um, you know. Uh one thing, a little comment when we talk about ring, we talked about Jeff Bezos. Yeah, it's a kid was good. What now, what a douche that guy is. And here's why I say this, Jeff Bezos. I don't say it because of his politics or anything. I'm not getting to that. But like all these tech wieners that were like nerdy little nerd guys, ten years later they're but they're billionaires and they're all like jacked up and and you know, got looks more Botox in them than a stop it, you dork. By the way, we will no longer be on Amazon Prime.

SPEAKER_00 17:53

It reminds me of that old joke. Have you ever seen the pictures of Elon Musk when he was like younger? Yeah. He was just this.

SPEAKER_01 18:00

Oh, he was balding. Yeah. Now he's got a full head of hair, you know?

SPEAKER_00 18:03

And everybody said, What's the old joke? It said, You're not, you're not, uh, you're not ugly, you're just poor.

SPEAKER_01 18:08

Yeah, that's all. That's true. I mean, all the so many of these tech bros think they're so cool now. And like, because you're you're you created this nor dorky thing, and congratulations, you're a good business person. Doesn't mean you have to be Mr. Hardcore, you know, you're not playing football for the fucking NFL. Chill out.

SPEAKER_00 18:23

I just hate when ethics and morals go out the window. Yeah, you know, in in pursuit of money.

SPEAKER_01 18:27

In pursuit of money, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:29

Be nice. Hey, hey, that's what hey, bad bunny. That's what his slogan was. Be nice, it's peace and love. Be nice, peace and love.

SPEAKER_01 18:36

You know who said that? One of the Beatles. Yeah. Bob Marley. Bob Marley also said that. Yeah. Peace and love, man.

SPEAKER_00 18:44

That's what we're all about.

SPEAKER_01 18:44

Come on.

unknown 18:46

Ringo Star.

Tequila Break And Delivery Driver Tales

SPEAKER_01 18:47

It was Ringo Star. Uh Peace and Love, man. Peace and love. Wasn't it Stanis? Didn't want to talk to anybody. Would you say we're 10 minutes in?

unknown 18:55

No, other way around. Ten minutes left.

SPEAKER_01 18:57

Ten minutes left? Jeez, we got some cover. I might this one might go a little long.

SPEAKER_00 19:00

It might be a good time to uh take our tiny little break. Take a little break here. We'll reset, come back with what we want to talk about, and uh hit the next 10 minutes. Yeah, sounds good. All right.

SPEAKER_01 19:09

Hey, we're back from a break, and of course, in uh as usual, uh we had to do the timing worked. We're taking a little break and had to unload some beer. The last fortuitous break. The last beer driver showed up. So we're done with that for the day. Love that. Now we have to unload it all that.

SPEAKER_00 19:23

You see, I did a liquor order too. Yeah, for sure. We got some stuff to do. Uh before we get into some some other stuff, I didn't tap a rub that time. You see that? That was a rub. It's a nice little rub.

SPEAKER_01 19:33

That's a name of never mind.

SPEAKER_00 19:37

Anyway, your new project. Yeah. Uh I saw the other day, uh, randomly saw the Facebook post you put up about breaking ground and some exciting things. Yeah, the building. I was like, all right, I know that. I know that. I know whose bar that is.

SPEAKER_01 19:49

It's gonna be cool. Uh a lot of good feedback already uh with Teaks Bar and uh the remodel of the cedar over Bayview. Um it's it's fun, it's it's been interesting, uh, it's expensive, but that's the way it goes. Uh I I'm excited. I always like to, you know, it's it's it's such a cool area, the North Coast in general, and uh just add more cool shit to it is is awesome. So uh more updates on that to come uh as it warms up, but but I will uh kind of keep if you follow that uh Facebook page, it's uh just uh look uh Cedars Cedar uh and Teeks Bar on uh Facebook and you'll find it. And we have a website to stay at the cedar.com where you can get some info over. I love that.

SPEAKER_00 20:28

I know you were back and forth about what name to use, you know. Yeah, and uh I I saw for the first time I saw Teeks in in a text form.

SPEAKER_01 20:34

Yeah, it looks good. It looks good. We we can figure out a fun logo and stuff, so I think we're we're going the right direction there. Um so something that uh McKenzie recommended, uh my wife, and I think we should do it. And she she gave us some starter a starter question to work with, but we'd love to get feedback from uh the audience on uh the feedback uh you can email us, do it in the comments. Um we will uh basically put some questions and we'll put it in a little little tip jar here or something. A little fishbowl or a little tip jar, and then we'll just randomly take them out and then we won't really know what's coming. And we'll have to answer on the fly. Make it more spontaneity. Spontaneous? Spontaneous. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:16

I love you know what you know what's good. You know, I have a perfect fishbowl for it uh back in the day. Oh bring it around. I ha I have the old aquarium from a bar in Athens, Ohio called the pub. Oh, that well, that place is still around. That's a great place. But now it now now you have to I don't know. I don't know. Do they not do it anymore? Well, they I think they still do it, but now if you want one of those aquarium, it's a big frosty mug. Yeah. Um you need like a goblet style. Yeah. You gotta give them your ID again.

SPEAKER_01 21:41

Oh, back in the day. People were stealing them. I mean, I think I mean there was a bar in BG called the fishbowl where they actually gave you a plastic fishbowl full of beer in it. I'll bring that in for our first trade. Uh and then real quick, uh one thing about that bar. The pub? The pub. Yeah. That was one of those bars that you go in, I gotta visit you guys. Lose track of time. And you go in at like eleven. And then you come out at like three o'clock. Yeah. And you, because it's so dark in there, you just think the sun's gonna be gone. Yeah. But it is up. Dude. And you're like been drinking for four hours. Next, it's like God's flashlight.

SPEAKER_00 22:12

Next thing you know, yeah, you've had next thing you know, you've had four aquariums and a bowl of beer cheese soup. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, the Athens, Ohio. Athens Ohio.

Ring Cameras, Privacy, And Tech Bros

SPEAKER_01 22:20

The CI college. Yeah, I can see that. A lot of bars in Athens. A lot of bars in Athens are like that. Uh the question that Mackenzie had for us. First fishbowl question. What do you like the most and the least about owning a bar?

SPEAKER_00 22:35

Let's split this up. How about how about You want to split it up? Yeah, I'll do the best. I'm kidding. See?

SPEAKER_01 22:42

Make me the asshole right out of the box. No, you gotta comment back. You gotta do your best, your worst, and then I'll do my best and worst, and then we'll move on.

SPEAKER_00 22:49

Okay. Uh let's I'll start with worst. Worst for me would have to be that the the interruptions during regular day daytime. Yeah. That would be the worst. Which isn't saying a whole lot because that's not that bad, but that's what it is. Like today. Um I planned to be here at 9.15 for deliveries, but what happened? I called you at 8.30. At 8:30. Yeah. Like can I'm I'm there in five minutes. Yeah. And now I felt bad because I wasn't gonna be there on time and you're gonna be there. So interruptions in your daily life is probably number one worst for me. The best part about it is it's basically the the flip side plus one of the other of that token is is your schedule. Yep. You kind of make your own schedule, sort of and the people. Yeah. I love um to this day, I still love being behind the bar and just getting to talk to people and and bullshit with them and uh make relationships. It's it's the best part of the job for me. Cool. Ditto. Right there.

SPEAKER_01 23:45

But no, I I totally agree. I mean, mine's pretty much the same. Yeah. Uh you know, the disruptions and I you know, obviously, I'm a little bit ADHD, so I like consistency in some ways. And so the fact that it's all over the place, it can be a challenge. But then again, sometimes I think it's a good thing because like you're not having the same like nine to five sort of situation. I don't think I could do that again. I've done that in life. But yeah, I think the the the the coolest part about uh bar ownership is definitely your customers, your regulars, your guests, and like legititely making not only just making a cool place for people to hang out, but like legitly making an impact in the community. Yeah, like people are coming to Sandusky to come to Paddle Bar. Yeah. And that resonates because not only are they just coming here, then they're walking across the street to Clubhouse and having a beer. Yeah. They're going down to you know Shorehouse for uh one of those great uh black and grouper sandwiches they have. You know, so that's the thing that you want. One of the daily some pot roasts on Thursday. So those are the things that I think are awesome about it. So what's next? But I think we should go right to music in a bar.

SPEAKER_00 24:43

So we we touched on music, I believe, last episode or episode four. Um but I don't think we really got into we were talking about live music, right? This touches everything that we wanted to talk about. How important just music is in general in a bar. Yeah. It doesn't matter if it's live or just music being piped in over your Spotify or Pandora account, whatever it is, but how important music is in a bar. It's it's it I don't think it can be stated enough. Yeah. Because I've walked into bars before, you go to have a beer, and then the music you're hearing is uh, you know, I don't know. Not that I don't like some death metal, but something like that once in a while.

SPEAKER_01 25:22

You know, and it all goes with with what kind of bar it is too. Like I it it can work, like for you know, like we're pretty like reggae kind of jammy style music mostly. Yeah. Um, as far as just the the music that's piped through. But there's a bar in uh Lakewood called LBM. Yeah. It is a craft cocktail bar with also wonderful food, and they just play death metal all the time. Listen, I just but it just shows you for some reason it works there.

SPEAKER_00 25:45

Like I dig go into that place. Like I said, I'm not against death metal. I sometimes I'll throw it in my car and just go nuts. Right. Throw some rage against the machine in there. Well, that's a hell I can listen to rage all the time. Um but so yeah, like it's it's crazy because it does music sets the tone for the for the evening. And it and it isn't you can you'll notice this when you hang out or work at a bar or you're in a bar a lot. Um music changes it changes people's attitudes sometimes. Right. The the thing I like about here and the reggae music, everybody always comments about how chill it is here. And that's kind of by design.

SPEAKER_01 26:17

Yeah. Oh yeah, we keep it like it's loud enough where you can hear it, but try to, yeah, we want the music, we want you to mellow out and relax. So that's why I'm a stickler on what's played. We don't have a uh jukebox because it could go the wrong direction and change the mood for somebody. That's just how I feel about music. Uh the one thing I will say I hate about music is the fucking licensing. Ho! Oh these assholes are it's ridiculous. Yeah, it's like the you got all these CSAC, ball sack, and just all these, and you know, ASCAP and butt. It's just ridiculous. There's like five of them. There's like five of them, and they just create new ones and all of a sudden you owe them money. Well, they email you and then extort you for money. Oh, they extort you for money. They got like college interns calling you and harassing you if they get your number. And I guess I grant, and the thing is you don't want to pay the artist. I'd rather just pay the artist directly. By the way, you can so we're we with our streaming service that covers all the streaming stuff we use. Sure. But that doesn't cover the live music guys that want to play here.

SPEAKER_00 27:11

Yeah, can't we just stop paying all the streams? Can we just have a whole places and give give our give our performers a little more money?

New Bar Project: Teeks And Cedar

SPEAKER_01 27:15

Yeah, uh, yeah, it's just it's just it's it's clearly a corrupt industry. Yeah, um, you know, I don't think the artists get paid what they deserve. I think it's just basically a bunch of assholes with fucking corporate suits and and uh you know I don't know. It pisses me off. Obviously. I don't like it. I'm the one who gets the bills for this. Grinds your gears. Grinds my gears. Yeah, the mobs at your front door now. They probably are the music mob. They're based in Nashville. You know what? Come to my front door. Trench coat mother. Um little we definitely hit the uh F-bomb limit for this episode.

SPEAKER_00 27:47

Yeah, we did. I capped it off though. You see, you hear that. I like doing that.

SPEAKER_01 27:50

But then what about the last thing? Live music. So we've got great bands that play here. Well, bands, we got you know sometimes it's you know, three people and one guy, yeah. Uh, but they're all pretty good. Um we do a lot in the summertime. It works great in summertime. Yeah. People are outside on the deck, it's beautiful, you're walking by, you hear, you know, Paul jamming or acoustic scotty out there, yeah. And you're like, oh, I should stop for a beer. It's just so inviting. Um wintertime, it's a little harder because of space. Uh I think we're kind of keeping it to weekends in the wintertime. Yeah. And kind of playing with a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 28:25

I think a lot of it has to do with the design of the bar.

SPEAKER_01 28:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:27

Uh yeah, that's true. You know, uh a place like this, like you said, it's it's uh everything is better when the doors are open, the garage doors open. You're using the outside, and that goes, and that's the same with music. Right. Inside we just when we have a lot of room, but we don't have a dedicated space for for music here in in the when it's closed. Yeah, you know, when it's closed up. So yeah, yeah, I think there's there's a lot of there's a lot of variables, but I mean generally live music's probably pretty much always a good idea.

SPEAKER_01 28:54

Yep. Yep, that's pretty much my take on it. Yeah, I think so too. I think so too. Yeah. Uh so moving on to the next thing. Uh Steve was in the other day, other Saturday. Steve, it was his cool stuff. Is there any behind you, Dad? Are there a little little black black box there? Toss me one of those bad boys. Oh, yeah, I like catch it. Chuck it, toss it. So he brought he he brings stuff in, and if you show up at the bar when he does it, as a matter of fact, we got these are cocaine things. No, they're not catching. Whoa. What? So Eve thinks he needs cool little things. It's little, so this is just a little bar pod, little shot glass. For those who can't see it, it's like a little mini coffee mug that you can put your little Tagoi hot nut in. Yeah, a little mini hot nut. So yeah, there's uh some of the stuff left. So if you're around the next couple days, come and ask for it. We'll give you something for free, courtesy of Steve. Hey. Pretty cool stuff. Nice. Thanks, Steve. Anyway, Steve came up with the idea, and I like this. What do you got? It's having a quick set talking about best bar movies, best bar TV shows.

SPEAKER_00 29:51

I automatically think about it.

SPEAKER_01 29:52

I could go, we could talk about this for three hours, so I think we should just pick one each of the movie and talk about why you like it, and then we'll and then we'll move on from that.

SPEAKER_00 30:01

You started talking about you first.

SPEAKER_01 30:03

I'm gonna go with probably one of my favorites that I've watched the most. I mean, there's some more iconic, but I think the movie Waiting just nails. If you haven't seen the movie Waiting, it's got uh early Ryan Reynolds in it, right? I think it's right around the uh Van Wilder phase. Yeah, Justin Long. Justin Long is in it. Um who else is in it? There's a few other people. But um oh, that one guy. I forgot it. Oh, the guy who plays uh the dishwasher.

SPEAKER_00 30:28

Oh, oh, uh what's his name?

SPEAKER_01 30:30

Did he No, he's around He was in Gone in 60s.

SPEAKER_00 30:33

No, no, he wasn't no he wasn't. No, that's a different guy. Oh no, yeah, he was uh Chi McBride. Chee McBride, well great actor.

Fishbowl Q&A: Best And Worst Of Ownership

SPEAKER_01 30:39

That guy's awesome. He is awesome. Anyway, the movie is it's like at Applebee's or something. I don't know which chain restaurant they use, but it is like the trials and tribulations of being being weight staff, kitchen staff, and a bartender. And they nail it. Whoever wrote that movie clearly worked in a restaurant.

SPEAKER_00 30:54

Chi McBride is in the back, you know? He's in the back. He's the philosopher. He's the philosopher, and he says. So, in regards to your penis problem, you know what I mean? Oh, that's a great movie. It's such a good movie. They've got so they've got all the they've got all the um the uh the characters in that movie nailed from restaurants. The girl, the girl who's like been there forever, who's mad at everybody. She's mad at everybody. But when she goes up, when she walks up to uh when she angry august, when she walks up to a table, and what a lovely day. What can I get you? And she takes the order and she rolls back, give me that brother! Fuck those people.

unknown 31:26

It's great.

SPEAKER_01 31:27

Oh, it's so good. And then like the two the two little stoner uh kids. Yeah. That's uh Annie Milanakis. Is that the Milan? He was in it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:33

Any funny show. What is your movie? What do you got? Uh it's it's it's impossible for me to bring up for us to talk about this and not bring up the movie Cocktail with Tom Cruise. Coghlan's Law. Coghlan's Law. Coglin's Law. What was his um his Coglins Law had five different uh five different parts of the law, but I believe one of them was get the debt out of your bar, they stink up the joint. Right? That's real. Yeah, you don't want to keep those around. He had a whole bunch, but you know, that was this whole thing, Coglins Law.

SPEAKER_01 32:04

Great movie. When was that done? Cocktail '88. Yeah. That late 80s, early 90s vibe, you know what I mean? Tom Cruise wanted to be a Wall Street guy, but really he just wanted he just ended up on a bar.

SPEAKER_00 32:13

Yeah, and oh God, what's such a good movie. Elizabeth Hurley was in there. She was in it. She was in it. You remember his whole thing was uh um I would no, I always thought Coglins Law would be a great name for a bar.

SPEAKER_01 32:23

Of course, Tom Cruise named his bar at the end again Cocktails and Dreams. Cocktails and dreams, yeah. I got a I got actually a little neon cocktails and dreams sign in. But I always thought Coglins Law would be a great name for a bar. I think you're right.

SPEAKER_00 32:34

If anybody takes that.

SPEAKER_01 32:35

Question about that. Uh, is that the original flare bartending, or did it happen before? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:40

Oh man, flare bartending.

SPEAKER_01 32:43

What do we think about flare bartending? Thumbs down. Thumbs down.

SPEAKER_00 32:48

Listen, clearly there's like there was like a time for it. I don't, I don't, you don't really see it anymore, but I think it's like a hibachi grill for bars. Everybody's everybody when they saw it was just like you you watch them for like a minute and you're like, can I just have my drink now?

SPEAKER_01 33:00

Yeah. Stop flipping my tequila above me. I just wanted my glass.

SPEAKER_00 33:03

Yeah, and if you're a bar owner, you I was like, I just saw four dollars of vodka go out the door of the air.

SPEAKER_01 33:08

Why? So this is once again on the movie referenced the Beach Boys song. What was it?

SPEAKER_00 33:12

In In Cocktails? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:14

Uh it was uh it was uh um, you know, what part?

SPEAKER_00 33:19

Aruba, Jamaica, oh uh, well, Coco Mo.

SPEAKER_01 33:24

Very nice. Uh another movie that I just want to bring up because it's hilarious. And it came while I was talking about this was Best and Show because I just watched it the other day.

SPEAKER_00 33:32

No, so not a bar movie at all.

SPEAKER_01 33:33

Not a bar movie at all. Um that was a Christopher Guest movie, and Fred Willard is the announcer. And like the stuff he's saying at as the announcer of the show is kind of like what we the way we talk on here. So just go watch Best and Show. Fred Willard was. And of course, um, who was that that just died uh from Shits Creek? What's her name? Uh Catherine O'Hara.

SPEAKER_00 33:53

Oh, yeah, the red red, she was in Home Alone.

SPEAKER_01 33:54

Yeah, she was she Katherine O'Hara, right? Is that was that her name? And she, of course, is in that movie. She was in a bunch of Christopher Gus movies, and she's a fantastic R.I.P.

SPEAKER_00 34:01

cool person. Seriously, seriously, R.I.P. Who's the other girl, the blonde girl that's in it that cracks me up? She was in like role models.

Music Strategy, Vibe, And Licensing Rant

SPEAKER_01 34:07

Oh, yeah, she's uh with a short spiky hair. She's uh oh, what's her I'm blanking on her name. Put in the comments, I'm forgetting her name right now, but she is also hilarious. Yeah, she was in Glee. Role models. And oh, role models. I used to have sick, sick thoughts. We could talk about BS, a BS er. We could talk about uh we could talk about uh about movies for maybe that's another podcast. Chad and Ryan talk about stupid films.

SPEAKER_00 34:32

What is it? I've had this discussion with Aaron for what is it about the fact that um men, guys, can recite uh movie movie quotes movies, music, TV without any, it's just kind of you just boom. There was a part of the if you ask me what I had for dinner last night, I can't tell you.

SPEAKER_01 34:49

I had to uh d turn around on my way here today because I first thought I forgot to close the garage door.

SPEAKER_00 34:53

Oh, did you close it?

SPEAKER_01 34:54

I did. This happens to me at least twice a week. It happens to me when I leave here after on Friday night.

SPEAKER_00 34:59

Oh, here all the time? Oh, it doesn't matter if I know that I did it, I'll turn back to make sure I'm gonna do it. I don't know. Just to make a drive by, you can yep. But you asked me for a you know a quote from uh you know Tin Cup, I'll tell you. Yep. You know, without with the drop of what is it? Drop of a hat. What's the tin cup? Oh what's a quote from Tin Cup? Oh, uh if you two want to sit here and get what's he say, guys, folks, and place bets on which fly which crow is gonna fly off the fence next. That's an that's just a that's just one.

SPEAKER_01 35:24

Well, actually, you can do that now. It's called poly market. It is poly market. Uh I just bungled that. All right, we're that's it. Hey, it happens. Uh, we are getting the fishbowl. Like, it's funny, dad is giving us the the you gotta wrap it up. We don't have to wrap up anything. It's our frickin' podcast. I'll talk for the next three hours if I want to. Oh man. What do you think of that? I'm leaving.

SPEAKER_00 35:42

Dad, you know what, you know what you should do, is like the old uh comedians, you should hold up the candle in the back. Isn't that that's what they used to do? You've ever seen that? They did it for Mitch Hedberg all the time. Yeah, hold the candle to tell you where it's old school, old school uh way of the tele thing.

SPEAKER_01 35:55

All right, that's possible. Uh so we'll try to bring the fishbowl next time. If we can get some questions to put in there, that'd be awesome. Uh barpod.net is where you can follow everything. We're on the socials. Chad does the Instagram for us. Uh yeah, talk to some. We're gonna hopefully you know expand a little bit, get some interviews, but we are once a week now. Next week, maybe we'll talk a little bit about how Ozempic is impacting dining and drinking habits. What? What? Yeah, that's a thing. Ozempic? Ozempic, because it's people are changing their diets and stuff. It's they're it's changing their cravings for things, so it's really impacting restaurants and bars. Jeez. You wouldn't think that, would you see? Fun stuff to talk about. Pill form. Ozempic. No. What are we doing? Anyway, I don't know. It's time to get out of here. We're getting loose. Okay, weekly barpod. Uh next uh week we'll uh record it again on Wednesday. And uh hey, paddle bar is open now Wednesday through Sunday. Yeah. Come by, check it out, say hi to everybody. We'll see you. We'll see you here. All right. Barpod is hosted by Ryan Whaley and Chad Whaley, produced, recorded, and occasionally rescued from bad audio decisions by our dad, Tom Whaley. Mostly a paddle bar on some dusky bays, sometimes at other taverns, backrooms, and wherever a microphone and a cold beer could coexist. Recorded primarily at paddle bars in Dusky Ohio, where the drinks are cold, the stories are warmer, and the Wi-Fi is surprisingly reliable. Music, editing, and general figuring out is done in-house. Mistakes are ours, opinions are ours, hangovers vary. Questions, feedback, bar stories or mild complaints? Mild complaints. Barpod at paddle barsindusky.com.