#85 - (TLC) The Lunch Counter

A middle school crush rekindled.  A chance conversation in a golf cart.  A reigning champ in 'Best of Georgia'.  Beginning with parents who immigrated to the US to give their kids a better life (all 13 of them!!!), this is no exception to the pursuit of the American Dream and all the good that flows from the refusal to quit on your dreams.  

Oh, and your taste buds. -- it's gonna be lights-out!  

But to top it all off... this is the story of real perseverance with the timely kindness of a stranger; it's a "tastes-great-with-all-the-feels" episode of episodes.  There's nothing complicated about this order; just a smiley and good-for-the-soul food.  Welcome to TLC in Gainesville, GA. 

Transcript

[00:00:00] Welcome back to the North Georgia Life Podcast. It's Jake, your host today. It's very humbling to me. I don't even know how to say this. We are at the the lunch counter in Gainesville, Georgia. It is the two, probably three, probably gonna be coming up on three years in the running best of Georgia.

So, the, I mentioned on the podcast, so you know, the Chamber of Commerce they do like, you know, best. You know, pest control best, you know, bakery or whatever. And honestly, I, I see people that treat this like they're running for class office in high school. And it just, it makes me a little bit nauseous.

That, that, that's that. Well, I'm like, we're, we're adults. Come on. Like, come on. And I didn't say this on the podcast. This is why I've, I've never, and I will never ask for that, for our clients in our, in our real estate space. Because I, I'm not gonna tell you who it is, I. Have confirmed [00:01:00] from multiple sources that I don't think they still do it, but someone in our North Georgia community who is in the real estate space, literally paid their clients.

To get them on that list. And so I'm just like, if, if you get, you know, best in, you know, whatever county, like congratulations, there may or may not have been some Tom Foolery going on there. However, if you get best in Georgia, you are doing something really well and. This is no exception. The other thing with this episode, as you listen to this story and the whole reason we do this episode, is there is a line going through the lunch counter on a regular basis with people that you know live in this area and know that they're getting good food and they don't know the story.

They don't know the struggle, and they don't know that everything can hinge. And everything can change on one [00:02:00] conversation one day, had the right way. And I used to in, in a, a training environment, I used to tell the people I was, I was training your entire, your entire business. Can change with one conversation on one day.

Most people, they give up, they never get to that conversation. They get 99 nos and they give up. And that 100th person was the yes that's gonna change their business and change their family tree and, and all of that. And people just quit. Just a little bit too early. And that's, you know, the disappointment in life.

The, like, the universal qualifier is people that just, that you just quit. And, and, and, and I understand that because discouragement iss a real thing. But when you listen to this story, one, you're going to hear about a, a person who didn't have to. That did in, in ways that he couldn't have imagined. Totally changed the, the course of a [00:03:00] business changed, the course of, of a family, changed the course of people's lunch breaks.

And, and Tom Smiley in Gainesville, Georgia would never tell you this story. So we're going to, to tell you and for all of the people who go through the, the lunch counter and, and. Whether you're a regular or you're a one-timer man, just to know and to have a different level of appreciation and understanding of the, the people behind the counter be behind that lunch counter, what they went through, and how they got there to fulfill one of their dreams in life.

That can be you, it, you can be a different county, you can be a different operator, you can be a different, you know, location or store or, or story. But as you, as you'll hear throughout the course of this, you know, the podcast is, I don't know what episode this will, will, will be, but it'll be 80 something.

You hear that theme across these people like these are not. [00:04:00] Trust fund babies. These are not you know, just overly gifted individuals. These are just people who made a way to follow their dreams. And you see the, the joy that they have in doing what they're doing, the people that they serve. So they, they cook some food for us.

When we are doing the podcast. And I, I say in the podcast, I'm like, I. I totally like when I was eating, I blacked out. I had y'all, I had no idea that Nina was still talking. I, I'm not even kidding. I. I did had zero idea that she said words. I was eating this and I'm like, oh my gosh. I'm like, I should pay attention to the person that I'm sitting here talking with.

'cause I don't know what she just said. The food was, it was, the presentation was really good. The flavor was amazing, and it's all made fresh. It's not sitting under a heat lamp. [00:05:00] Just, you're welcome. You're welcome. You're welcome. Really good food, really great story, and in everybody's great story there, there's, there's a conversation or two, there's a person or two that helped them where they didn't need to.

And man, just the power of just doing what you say you're gonna do and helping somebody out just because helping somebody out is kind of a thing that we all kind of need. It's just a great story. It's great food. It's super easy to get to. And you're gonna love it. North Georgia Life Podcast. Facebook, Instagram, north Georgia Life podcast@gmail.com.

If you have suggestions on future episodes, if you go there, when you go there, not if you go there. If you don't go there like. Lord help you when you go there, take a picture of your food, leave them a Google Review. If you're going there because you found out about it on the podcast, if you can mention the podcast in it, that would be awesome.

If you love it so much that you wanna leave the podcast a good review on whatever platform you're listening to [00:06:00] that would be great. And this year, this calendar year, 2026. We are I'm like dialed into. We have great places to to do stuff with your family and some really great food. This is your year, baby.

Welcome back to the North Georgia Life Podcast. We are at a location that is just, I mean, like when I started the podcast in 2019, this is one of the locations that was the whole reason for it. Not this specific one, but the idea of. These hole in the wall places that are so good and so many people just like me, drive by 'em, or they live close by 'em or they want to go find places like this.

And the best thing you have as of right now for a resource is maybe diners Driving and Dives. We've Guy fii and, you know, reruns or TripAdvisor. And so we we started the podcast with the idea of. Bringing you places like that, but then having the story behind those the people [00:07:00] that started the places and just put really putting 'em on the map, putting 'em on your radar and making them a, a destination that whether you're anywhere in or around the Atlanta Metro, north Georgia area or you're coming to visit that it's a place that you kind of get to know before you get here.

So, we are with Nina Brando. Brando. Okay, I'm gonna go. At the lunch counter, and we are in Gainesville, Georgia, and this is, I, I'm embarrassed to say how many thousands of times I've driven past your location, had no idea you were here until one of our kids told us about you and how good this was. And then it was like, oh, they're the best of Georgia and whatever.

And, you know, I, the, the, the whole, the whole Chamber of Commerce thing with, you know, the best of whatever county. I feel like is just a popularity contest akin to high school. But when you're the best of Georgia, when you go outside of that [00:08:00] umbrella and you receive that kind of accolade, then you're really doing something.

Y'all have accomplished that. And you have a, I think, unique story that we're gonna get into. But tell us a little bit about you and how you got. To Georgia to begin with. 'cause you were just telling me you're not a Georgia native. I am not. So I was born and raised in Boston. I moved to Georgia about 10 years ago and I came to Georgia to pursue love.

And so when my now husband and I, we actually went to middle school together, I'm sorry. And he had a crush on me in middle school. And so, we've known each other for a very long time. Lost touch after middle school became adults and reconnected on social media. Once we reconnected on social media, started talking and once things got a little bit more serious, it was like, okay, do I come back to Boston or would you like to relocate here?

'cause he was already living in Georgia. So when I started traveling, coming back and forth, I'm like, this seems like a place that I really wanna set some seeds. You know, I've been a city girl. [00:09:00] I kind of wanna go slow things down. This is the perfect place to raise a family. I really could see myself living in Georgia.

I come from a huge family and we are really tight knit, so it was really, really tough to kind of, dislocate from that. What's a huge family to you? I am one of 13. Okay. That's a big Yes. That's just siblings. Okay. That is big. That is huge. And that's, again, that's just, and then my dad got a host of, of siblings and a lot of cousins, so, so we're a really, really big family and we were raised, family's really extremely important.

We were raised growing up together and so. To disconnect from that, that was really, really tough. And so I reconnected, moved here. Were you the first one to disband to, to move out of the area? From my siblings, yes. I'm the first one and then my younger brother moved to California and then my older sister actually just moved to North Carolina.

So slowly people are kind of moving and it's nice 'cause my sister's only like a four hour drive, so it's nice to have someone at least close [00:10:00] that we can kind of drive back and forth and see one another. So that's been extremely nice. But the family's also been extreme, made it easier as well because they've been real supportive in the sense of coming to visit and going back and forth to see them.

So once I first came, it seemed tough, but once I got that through that first year, everything just felt like, okay, I can really, really see myself living here and raising a family. So that's the beginning of why I am here. And so that was 10 years ago. Yes. Were you doing anything in the food service entrepreneur restaurant space prior to coming down here?

Entrepreneurship, definitely. So, my parents were actually they were born in west, were West Africa, and they actually came to America. And started their own business. My parents owned a hair salon, so I grew up in a hair salon and learning about entrepreneurship at a very young age. And that was also once I became [00:11:00] an adult and understood how difficult that was to come to new country, you didn't really know the language.

And for them to start a business and be very successful in their business, and they came here to give us the opportunity. I had one leg ahead, so I always dreamed of being an entrepreneur and owning my own business. So I got into the hair field. As well. So I would always work full-time. I did medical, I worked in the medical, I did admin in the medical billing, coding and that sort of thing.

So I kept that job because it was like guaranteed salary, but as a hobby, I kind of did here as an entrepreneur, and that did extremely well. But towards the end of that, I started slowly losing the passion behind it because when you turn something that you love doing into a business. It tends to kind of get away from you and kind of lose the passion behind that.

Yeah, because, and so once I moved here, although I built an amazing business there, once I moved here, I was like, I don't wanna do that. Went back into the medical field and so I was doing that [00:12:00] for quite some time, but never thought about working in the kitchen, never thought about doing food services.

That was never even remotely on the radar at the time. So what was the transition where you got into doing this? Well, like I mentioned, up north food culture is very much one, like I mentioned earlier, we're West African, so you didn't eat out much, you know, Hey mom, let's get McDonald's this food at home.

Hey mom, let's this food at home. There's, there's always food at home. So we grew up eating at home. You didn't really eat out very often. So one, you learn to. Cook in the kitchen, especially as a female, you're in the kitchen with your mom and you're learning to cook. So she's kind of teaching you that.

Once I moved here, sorry, let's go back. So in Boston, the food cultures, if you did eat the mom and pops, were the, the places you went to the local pizza shop, the local sub shop, they kind of knew your name when you walked in. And you would [00:13:00] go there maybe once every three months, but they knew you and that was what you, that that's what you knew.

And so when I moved here. He had already been here. So I said, I, I wanna order a pie, like can, where's the local pizza shop and get a pizza delivered today? And he's like, you can call like a Domino's or a Pizza Hut. And he then had to, and then as years go by, I am starting to recognize that wow, like there isn't like a mom and pop place that you can go to to get.

You know, a nice burger, a good slice of pizza. It was more chain here. Yeah. And so I always had that in the back of my mind. Now I'm gonna make the connection. So because I mentioned that I am from a big family, we love to host. Sunday dinners was like a big thing because I love to host. When I moved here, I wanted to make that connection from feeling like I'm still home.

So we would often, and we would often invite [00:14:00] friends over. We started making friends here. We'd invite our neighbors. 'cause very different from up north where you actually are friends with your neighbors down south, which I love. Yes. So we would invite our neighbors over and we would start, you know, grilling and cooking out and hosting.

I love hosting, I love having people. And eventually folks started saying, Hey, like this food is really good. Like, you guys make really good food and nothing makes you more excited than. Making food and people actually enjoying eating your food. So eventually after we're hosting, then our friends and family started saying, Hey, do you mind catering for this event?

Do you mind coming and grilling for us? We're, you know, we're throwing this birthday party, or we're having this cookout. Can you come and do the food prep for us? So from that point, then we started looking at it and he. Has always mentioned that he wanted to get into entrepreneurship. He wants to be, to be an entrepreneur [00:15:00] and own a business.

And so that's when that idea first came into place. So literally smashing burgers in our backyard as I play with sauces in my kitchen in Lawrenceville, Georgia is where TLC originated. And how, how long ago was that? I wanna say about 2018. 2019 is when we started catering and started getting the request for And were you just doing this outta your house?

When at that point, absolutely. Absolutely. So you're doing catering orders, just cooking outta your kitchen? Absolutely. People that have had your food or maybe friends that knew somebody that had had your food that needed somebody. Decatur for an event. Absolutely. And the only thing that I knew about a restaurant is I worked in a restaurant as a host in the front.

I greeted people. I had the personality. I knew absolutely nothing about what happened in the back in the kitchen. So here we were going to our local Kroger's and Publix. And per, you know, purchasing all this [00:16:00] food and spending all this money. 'cause we had no idea, right? We were just starting off. So absolutely right in our house, right in our backyard is how this business started.

So how do you go from that? That's not that long ago, let's call it six years ago from that to Best of Georgia. It wasn't an easy ride. I will tell you it was definitely a lot of bumps in the road. It was a rollercoaster. I think sometimes people come in and they're like, oh. Oh, you know, they just heard about us and they come in and like, you guys are like, you just started and you're doing so amazing.

But it's like, we've been going at this for a very long time and there was points that we, we didn't think that we were gonna push through, like we were questioning, okay, can we really do this? Like, can we really sustain and support our family with this business? Is this something that is possible? And there was a lot of moments in that six years.

Once we decided to take it serious and register the LLC and really make a [00:17:00] business out of it, there was definitely some moments in that. Now how we ended up here in Gainesville. They say that every good idea comes from a necessity. So my husband actually worked in the area and I used to pack his lunch all the time and I forgot to pack his lunch one day.

He had a 30 minute break. It took him 15 minutes to get to the closest place to grab some food, 15 minutes to get back. He was eating in the car. And he started to think, wow, there's nothing in this area that can do food like, like good food service around here. And he started thinking, Hey, what if I could maybe get a couple of contracts?

'cause there's a lot of in industrial parks here and a lot of companies here in Gainesville. What if I can get a couple of contracts with some companies in the area and possibly. Have a food truck come and we can serve these people. They can order ahead, come outside, food will be ready. They [00:18:00] get their food and they have 30 minutes to enjoy their food.

And so that's what brought us here to Gainesville. That is a, just such, exactly what you said, such a great idea. Just seeing a need. It reminds me I had a friend of mine that's that hadn't talked to him in. Few years, but he was a massively successful business person and just, I knew him on the, on the tail end of his retirement.

He was outta the business. And I remember him telling me this was decades ago that he and I, I, I remember fragments of the story, so I apologize, Greg, for butchering your. Testimony of your life. Take your time. Take your time. So Gregory, we got you B. Basically what he, what he did was he went around when the telecom industry was really kind of starting and he was literally flying to cities around the country.

And [00:19:00] as he told me this story, I'm like, you cannot be serious. So he's broke, he's flying to cities. With money. He doesn't really have to pay for these airline tickets. And he literally is flying into the city mapping out where are the tallest buildings in the city coming into the airport, where are the tallest buildings in the city?

And then he's going and basically knocking on the doors of those those buildings telling the the leasing agent or the property manager, whoever's in, in control of the facilities for the, the the building. Why are you not leasing your roof? This, again, this is before anybody had, you know, towers.

Now every building you see has towers, cell towers, you know, everything on the roof. He was on the front end of this seeing like you have this, you know, this massively expensive real estate and you have completely untapped surface area on your roof. That is prime for this growing industry. [00:20:00] And wildly successful for decades doing, you know, but that's how we started.

He was going to these property managers and these people that, that operated these buildings and they had no clue what he was talking about, but they understood what he was talking about. Saw the, saw the potential for revenue that cost them zero. But it was, it was similar but different of like o okay.

There's this obvious thing that nobody is. Is leaning into how did you decide what you're gonna cook? We always knew that we, there's not a good smash burger. Right? And that was, that's my favorite way to eat burgers. And so we are, we already knew that we wanted to do the smash burger. Now, eventually as we got deeper into the business, we, we started with.

Smash, burger, subs, sides, and wings. I think like very simple menu. Well, let me back up. [00:21:00] So for the first year, once we got this location here in Gainesville, this was our commercial kitchen, so we wasn't open to the public. Our business plan was to go and get these contracts and strictly use this, get a food truck on the road, serve these people, come back.

That was the plan. It did not pan out that way. We could not, we was knocking on doors every day. We driving from Lawrenceville an hour and back knocking on doors, passing out, and I understand that they didn't know us. You know, we're walking in there, they're not familiar with the food, they're not familiar with the company, and they're like, who are these people trying to come serve as food and get these contracts?

So we kind of had to sit. That was the first year we kinda had to sit back and say, okay, where do we go from here with? And I turned around and I said, you know, every time we're in the parking lot, people are walking back and forth and they, they wanna know what's going on here. Let's open the door, let's sell food to the public and see how that goes.

We can't get, we're already [00:22:00] down. It cannot get any, we can, it can get any worse than where we are right now. So, Ooh, look at, as we bring Jake some food. I mean, we couldn't have you at the lunch counter and you couldn't try the food. So what you're looking at right now is we have a loaded holy cow, our loaded french fries.

We got a four piece looks like cash wings. Oh my gosh. Which is a customer created hot honey lemon pepper mix. And then we have the burger that started the business, which is a double TLC. Oh my gosh. We open the doors, Jake, when I tell you crickets. We had a lounge chair in the office and it was just the two of us, and this is, I'm not kidding.

We would literally take turns taking naps because it was just, I would, because it was just the two of us. We would get up so early to get here to prep and no one, now it's year. That's almost a year [00:23:00] now, so now we're year. Year two. People would come here and there, but it was not enough or like, I think that we just need to step away from this.

This is not our calling. This is not what we need to be doing. And is that, was that before COVID? No, this is after. This is after COVID. This is after COVID. Okay. And so we we're going back and forth and I'm like, I really think, but then we had three years in our contract here, so we had one more year. We spoke to the landlord and he was like, he understood it.

He's like, I can see it's not, but from a business perspective, he was like, unfortunately, either you have to pay the remaining. Or get someone in here. We kept trying, didn't work. So we're sitting back one day, I'm like, okay, let's give it six more months. Sent it back one day and he goes, Hey, go pass out some flyers across the street Sunday.

It's packed over there. Yeah, just go and put some flyers on I the windshield. I go across the street, I put in [00:24:00] flyers and an amazing gentleman pulls up in his golf cart and he goes, Hey, I can give you a ride to the front. And I said, no, sorry sir. I was just trying to promote my business. He's like, oh, unfortunately I can't have you solicit.

He said, but what are you promoting? I said, oh, I'm the owner of the lunch counter across the street right there, and I was hoping I can get some of the church goers to come across and have lunch with us. We open at 12 o'clock. He goes, you know what? You seem like a really nice young lady, so this is what I'm gonna do for you.

Hand me those flyers. I'm getting a little emotional. He said he hit me those flyers and I will pass it to everyone that I give a ride back to their car, sending it out. He goes, and I can't today, but when's the next day you open? I said Wednesday. He said, okay, I'm gonna be there on Wednesday to try your food.

And sure enough, Mr. Tom Smiley from Lakewood Baptist Church. Yeah, outta here, walked across the street with his friend buddy. Ordered a meal. [00:25:00] Blessed this place. And the rest is history. Yeah. And if you don't know, Tom Smiley is the senior pastor, founding pastor of Lakewood, I think Tyler is currently the senior pastor.

Wow. That one day that started it, people started pouring in here. He started calling, spreading the word. And what I learned with Gainesville is once the right person knows. Then everyone knows, right? Ain't that the truth? I tell, I tell people we, we moved here. So I've been in this area for 20 years and I tell everybody that's are new to the area and I said, lemme tell you one thing I said in this area, there are two degrees of separation.

Every human being two, not six degrees, like Kevin Bacon, two. I said, do not say anything about anybody unless you want that person knowing that you said it. 'cause it is going to get to them very quickly and it works for you as well as against you. So you can, you can take that two degrees [00:26:00] separation and run either direction with it.

And I learned that quickly. Like they're like, once you get in with with Gainesville, you are in. And then slowly people started saying like, you guys are in and we just, it has been overwhelming. Gainesville has been such a supportive community. They, everywhere I go, people run into me at Walmart or Target, even if I'm not in uniform.

Your face looks familiar. I got the curls out and they're like, I know you from somewhere. And I'm like, pull it back. And I'm like, TLC. They're like, oh my God, Nina, I didn't recognize you. I didn't realize you had all that hair underneath here. But I, it, it is truly. Overwhelming, how blessed I feel to be here.

That's amazing. It's Gainesville has been so, so good to us. And so I wanna mention two other people that truly helped take us to the next level. After that happened, Gainesville now came [00:27:00] in she did a social media video on us and that kind of went crazy. So that brought that next group of people.

And then I have a young lady from Atlanta called a TL Gems that has a big following as well. She came in and to, to today's date, I think that was about 2 20, 20 24. I have 6,047 views on her video. Wow. And she still draws people in. I have people, I've had people because I, that video drop from Atlanta, I've had people come all the way from Kennesaw places that I'm learning towns I've never heard of here in Georgia.

And so it has been truly overwhelming and amazing, and because of the community and the support and the fact that we make some amazing food. That has brought us to why we are best of Georgia 2024 and best of Georgia [00:28:00] 2025. And we are recording this in the first quarter of 2026. So they're probably strong, strong year for 2026.

I'm, I'm praying, having pursued a dream, seeing a, a, a hole in the market as, as you just said, the necessity part of that, but not having the background, not having, like you said. You, you, you literally worked at the front door of the restaurant. Never on the anything on the backside. For somebody who is in the, I have a, I, I see a gap.

I see a need. What would you share in terms of a just a nugget of wisdom or like biggest lesson in, in having gone through those things of we're so exhausted, nobody's coming in, let's take turns napping. B, because we don't know what else to do and we're too tired to do anything else to two years running best of Georgia.

You, you've [00:29:00] been through it in a short period of time. Absolutely. I mean, honestly it's just push through. You gotta push through and even during the tough times, if you have a dream and you believe in yourself, you have to believe in yourself, and you have to believe that you can make it happen with the little faith.

Or a lot of faith focus have to focus and a lot of sacrifices. We've had to sacrifice a lot to get to this point, so you have to, you have to push through and it's not, when something gets really tough, you give up. I really believe I can do this. I believe we have a great product. The right people need to try it, and it's going to sell.

I have to keep going and just having faith that it's going to. Get me through the next level and my dreams are going to come true. Your comment about focus is so important, especially when you are every department in your business. You're, you're your admin, you're your accounting, you're your ordering supplies, you [00:30:00] know, the logistics the sales, like your, all of the things.

How have you self-diagnosed and, and given yourselves those jobs. I mean, it's just. It, it's it's just really communicating and understanding each other's strong suit, right? You can't handle every part of the business. I can't handle every part of the business. You're really good at logistics. You're really good at knowing business.

Business. I'm really good at selling. I got the personality, so I'm going to focus. I'm really good at knowing what looks good. So I'm going to focus on this. Front, I need you to tackle the back and focus on that. And together we can build the business. It's not a book we can read to figure that out.

It's literally going through the process. And we've never run a business together. We don't know a thing about that. So it's really just, and we're still going through that process. And I also wanna give a shout out to our team [00:31:00] because we finally got a team now, because eventually we could not do it, just the two of us.

So. Thank you Ella. She is the, the TLC manager, and then we have our head Chef Terrance, and then we have Alex that kind of does a little bit of everything here. So I wanna give a shout out to them because we definitely could not make these. TLC get to this level without their help and support, especially when you're running a food truck.

Oh my God, definitely. Because we don't close the restaurant. That's different animal. Yes. It doesn't necessarily ever get easy within the first five years of opening a business is a reason why the statistics are so high as far as businesses failing especially restaurant businesses failing within the first five years.

It's, you know. We kind of live in a world now where everyone thinks, you know, I got this great idea and I'm just gonna run out there and I'm gonna make a whole lot of money because, you know, this person down [00:32:00] the street or a person on Instagram has done it. And you know, I'm gonna do the same thing. And you know, everyone tells me my burger's better, even better than his, you know, so I'm just gonna get it.

Get out there, I'm gonna do it. They just don't. But you gotta take the time. Before we started this business, it was, you know, two years of planning in advance. Before there was a store, before there was a trailer or a food truck or anything. It was two years of what are we gonna do? How are we gonna do it, what are we gonna sell?

You know, and even still, what, there's that famous Mike Tyson saying, you know, everybody's got a plan until they get punched in the face. And it's a hundred percent true for all the planning and everything that we did. We opened the doors and it was like, yeah, this isn't working out, you know? Neither one of us had a real great social media background or anything, so, and then I don't think I'm really wanna learn either.

So it's like, you know, it's one of those things, eventually you pay someone to do it for you for as much planning you're doing and as hard as you work. 'cause I don't [00:33:00] think there, I, I, there's someone that works harder than me. I, I try to be the first person here and help my team and everything is just, it's gonna be hard.

But the thing about it is, if your product is as good as you say it is, and. You're willing, you have excellent customer service and you're priced correctly for your market, then eventually over time you will succeed. But it's definitely not a tough, easy business. You know, every day we see it. You know, for every restaurant that opens, there's probably two or three that are shutting down.

And that's make avoiding the mistakes in the beginning that everyone wants to make. Everyone wants the fanciest place and you know, they want this grand opening and they want ton of staff. And, you know, that overhead in the beginning stepping into it is what kills a lot of restaurants because you're walking into it.

With a whole lot of negative equity or a lot of debt, I should say. And with that amount of [00:34:00] debt, if you don't hit the ground running on your first day, then generally in six months or your, you ran through all of your cash reserves that you thought you had, that was gonna hold you down again. The, our biggest challenge right now is scaling, which we want to do slowly commercial.

Space in Gainesville in particular is not cheap. Everyone that walks in this door says, Hey, you know, you guys need a bigger place. You guys need a bigger place. Where, where are we gonna sit down? I need somewhere to sit down and, and I say, you know, I, I want to give it to you. The problem is, if I get this bigger space you're looking for, then our single that costs $6 now is probably gonna cost $9.

And that's one thing. Folks don't look at it, just say, Hey, you know, get a bigger place and we go get a bigger place. Now we have to up our prices so that way we can afford this new location we move into. Yeah. So if there are any landlords in the Gainesville area that have a nice location available, feel free to reach.

Maybe you can work out a lunch [00:35:00] plan before we go into your, the next question I have having be, be as young as you are Mike, y'all aren't that old. I think we just look young. Okay. We have a child in college. No, you don't. I absolutely. Oh gosh. Your business is, is not, I mean, you hadn't been around for 40 years and you weathered being in the restaurant business.

You weathered COVID from the start to now in the next let's say in the next six years since that's been in the last six years. In the next six years, how do you keep your business to where it's, it's moving forward, but not to the point that you can't weather that storm? 'cause there's so many people that I, I talked to somebody last week and they told, they, like, their words were the last five years were such a good teaching moment for us because we were able to sustain our business, [00:36:00] you know, keep our operation going.

But when, when everything's fat and happy, it's like you get sloppy, you lose your discipline. Most people don't know their numbers, like I mean, all kinds of things that are just horrible life and business practices. Is there anything that you would just kind of single out as if the next six years is any reflection of the last six years, this is the thing that we're gonna focus on to just keep us moving forward.

I mean, I think our biggest thing and the reason why we, we feel like we have an opportunity to grow, but we're really, really being very picky about what direction we're moving on moving into. Because of that, we don't wanna go to create, 'cause we've seen that happen where they're, you know, they start opening up different places and then, you know, the, you are leaving staff everywhere and the quality's not the same.

And then people are like, oh, [00:37:00] it's not like it used to be. And, and so ideally maybe having two other locations and being able to just kind of run the three locations. Anything. I guess it would go back to what I had said earlier. The first thing, the pitfall would be, avoid as much debt as possible.

Don't try to grow too fast. Aside from what you've already shared, best memory from when you moved out of your kitchen? I would say a core memory is when we flew out to, we bought a bunch of kitchen equipment and we flew out to Philly to pick up all the kitchen equipment, and then just kind of actually seeing the kitchen equipment and actually seeing we are, we are doing this and driving all that equipment through state lines from, from Pennsylvania.

All the way back to Georgia and just making the stops and us talking and kind of going through these wings are amazing. Oh my gosh. And kind of just, [00:38:00] that was, that's definitely a core memory of mine. And sometimes when the pictures pop up I'm like, oh my God. And then just 'cause that, that's the start of it.

Like that's our first investment. I mean, there's so many, but that's one core memory there is, is, is. When it felt realistic because everything was kind of on paper and ideas and holy cow, but what, what is that that I just put in my mouth? That is you. You're having a loaded, loaded fries right now. Half loaded fries.

So we loaded up with ground beef cheese, TLC sauce, which is a sauce I started making in my kitchen. I'm make it from scratch. I'm the only one that has that recipe, by the way. That is amazing. With the ranch bacon bite. Jalapenos pickles and crushed red peppers. Oh my gosh. We loaded it up. Yeah, buddy. I'm gonna, I'm gonna wait for after.

This is so good. I'm gonna need you to use both of your hands to eat that burger. Oh my God. Let me grab him a napkin. Oh, so our son that told us about [00:39:00] your food, he doesn't have the, he has a good enough palate that I trust him, but when he gets excited about food, there's only like one or two things that he's like raved about that.

I'm like, ah, it was all right. You know? But normally he's pretty good on that. His taste in movies is terrible. Both our older kids, their their favorite movies. I don't remember what movie it was. It was some movie with Brad Pitt in it, and it was the, it was the dumbest movie I've ever watched. I, we got to the end of the movie and I'm like, so the whole, the whole plot was that there was no plot.

And he's like, right. And I'm like. I'm gonna murder you. Like, I'm like, I just wasted two hours of my life, stayed up past my bedtime to watch a movie that was not about anything. The whole movie was like an accidental plot. I'm like, some of you know the movie. It's, it's it was Brad Pitt and George Clooney and somebody got murdered in somebody's closet or something like that.

It is the. Dumbest movie I think I've ever watched. Now [00:40:00] I'm interested to watch it and it's in one of his watch, his favorites. I'm like you. I said, you cannot pick movies ever again, ever again. No more picking for you. Now, I'm interested to watch that movie. Don't watch it. Don't watch it. Stare at the wall.

Stare at a blank wall for two hours. Anyway, I don't even, I, when you started talking and I started eating, I blanked out on whatever your favorite memory was. This, do I need to bring it back? Did you say something? Because I stopped thinking, I stopped hearing your words because my taste buds were exploding.

It's in there. Okay. It's in, I can re-say it if you need. No, you're good. You're good. How has this, because you mentioned you apparently have a son in college. Daughter, daughter, daughter. You got a child and a daughter. You gotta say like a Bostonian, a daughter. She's seen you through these seasons of all of this and.

Starting out in her life. I mean, your, your story of your parents immigrating here, starting their own business as entrepreneurs, [00:41:00] supporting a family of 13, somehow through that to now your, now you are the parents. Anything that you have seen that, in terms of how that's affected her? Definitely. I think that, 'cause she's had some, you know, growing up some ideas of where she, what she wanted to do as far as career.

And I think she's actually studying business and so she's definitely has had a shift in entrepreneurship and really seeing the benefits of, you know, working for yourself. Our boys too, the youngest is four and he, he's already said where he wants to open his location. Our 8-year-old as well, he has his set.

They all wanna open their own locations. They have, you know, their different, my 8-year-old, he loves geography. He's going out of the country. My boy's setting up shop out of the country in different places. So they're, I can definitely see that already. Even though you asked about our old, even our youngest [00:42:00] is recognizing that and already speaking that as young as four years old.

That's awesome. Let's not mention that. Our girl definitely hooked us up during the summer. Oh yeah. This was her summer job before she went to school. And it's interesting 'cause my husband's like, I'd rather, he definitely prefers. To work with that daughter over me. She's like a good mixture, right? So she has the personality, but she also has the okay time to where me, it's like, Hey, I haven't seen you in a while.

How's, you know? And I, and another thing is, and like I mentioned in, in the beginning of the interview, is when I used to go to my local mom and pops, they remembered you. Remembered your name. And customers here started, they found that so shocking and surprising, like wow. Nina, you remember me like absolutely.

Like I try to make it a point to remember my customers, especially if they come often when they come in, you know, remember the wife, the children, and try to ask. And so they really feel like this is not only is this family owned, but they feel like they're part of the TLC family as well. And that's kind [00:43:00] of the vibe that I've kind of set here.

And so that. That's, that's awesome. That's we didn't, I, I think get to that, but that was, that was part of the, the heart behind why I started this podcast is I want people the first time they get physically connected with the location, whether it's a restaurant, whether it is you know, a, a family attraction or whatever.

Like I want them the first time they get there. They feel like they already know the place. There's a built in affinity because they get to hear your story from you and they get to, they feel like they know the person behind the business or the location or whatever even though they've never been there and they've never met.

Let's go through kind of real quick, your menu, like what you have on a day to day, and then for businesses who you know, are interested, maybe they have. Small, medium, large sized business, whatever, they wanna get you on the schedule on a rotation. [00:44:00] Like, they're like, we've never thought about doing something like this.

This is absolutely something that would make sense for our business. Just how how that would work and how they would get connected with you. Well let's start with our menu. So we make our burgers in single double and triple patties. We have the American. American TLC and TLC double. Those are our three first, the three first burgers that we started making.

And then now we have our specialty burgers. So as we were growing, we started playing around with different recipes and trying different burgers. So we have our specialty burgers, which are also very delicious. And then we have of course, wings. And we have different flavor wings. When you say specialty burger, what does that mean?

That's, that burger is a specialty burger, not in TLCI. And that's your basic burger? Yes. So specialty burgers is we will like, we have our jalapeno cheddar that's extremely popular. So our jalapeno cheddar, what we do is we have a double patty, but what we do is we stuff the middle [00:45:00] of that, that those two patties with jalapeno and cheddar cheese.

Then we top it off with jalapeno and cheddar cheese. And then we drizzle some mustard and mayonnaise on there. And that's a specialty burger because it's not just your basic, you know, lettuce, tomato, or ketchup mustard or TLC sauce. And it's not, we don't smash it because you have the jalapeno CHD cheese in the middle.

Yeah, we leave it just a little bit thicker on there. So my favorite specialty burger is the Oklahoma Onion burger. Yeah, it's a burger that originated in Oklahoma, and I promise you it's really, really simple in ingredients because it's just mayonnaise, grilled onions, and. Burger and cheese, of course, but when you bite into that burger, the taste, your taste buds is get so excited.

Like, like bursting with flavor. When people read it, they're like, Oklahoma, like, I'm like, I promise you, if that burger's not good, I owe you another burger. And I have not had one person return that burger yet. And your wings. So our wings very, very important. [00:46:00] We clean prep 'em in-house. Never frozen. They're fresh wings.

So we go every week. We buy our wings, we clean it in house, we season it, we season our wings before we fry 'em. And we do not fry our wings until it is ordered. So you're every time you come in. So I would tell everybody, give us at least 18 to 20 minutes because we make everything fresh to order. We are.

And what is the wings that, that I'm eating here? So you are actually eating a customer created flavor. So it's hot honey mixed with lemon, pepper, wet. And we call it the cash wings because that's our customer that created that. I'm gonna have to bring these some, this is like my wife's favorite. It's like she, when we go get wings, she has like, I call her complicated order because she can't like just security, security, her this, her.

Sorry, he tried to bite me, so we're gonna, she, so, I'm sorry Jake, I just have, as a wife, are you really gonna bring your wife a [00:47:00] half eaten chicken?

Don't worry, sweetie, we got you covered. We're gonna drop you some wings and send it home. You just made a friend. But it's it's hot honey mustard and ranch is like her thing. And so, but that's not on a menu. So every time it's like we go to order something, she's trying to explain to the cashier how to make sure to order it right.

And I'm just like, can we just, can I. Can I get three people back and just be not You are 75% of the husbands in the lobby. They always come up first. They order like I, I want number one, and then the, they're behind. The wifes like making these faces 'cause, but I'm a wife so I understand. I'm like, go ahead.

Like I have all the patience, I have all the time. Just sir, give her a minute. Let's get this right 'cause I want her to come back. Oh, she's gonna be here. Businesses. What's the process? Do you, you do one time catering and you do regular all of that. [00:48:00] Yeah, so we do, we can do one time catering or we can get you on a schedule if it's someone that works with us and we can get the staff on there.

The best thing to do is you go onto our website, so TLC by BY. Nina, NINA b.com, and there's gonna be a dropdown tab. There's gonna be a catering, and then as well as a food truck. So if you just wanted catering. I know we didn't discuss catering too much, but we also do stove top cooking. We do lasagnas, we do pasta salad, we do rice bowls chicken, steak, salmon.

We can do a thanks. We did a Thanksgiving meal. We, for a Friendsgiving, we did fried Turkey for them, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole. So we do all of that as well. And I promise you a burger joint can cook. 'cause I think sometimes when I say that people are like, can a burger? Like, we can cook. We don't just fried food and smash burgers.

We can really chef it up here. So, again, if you want inquire about that, just go to the website, drop [00:49:00] down, put in all the, ask you all the in information there, answer the questions. It comes straight to our email, and then we can respond that way. And your physical location right across from Lakewood Baptist in Gainesville on Thompson Bridge Road.

You can't miss Lakewood 2224. Thompson Bridge Road, Gainesville, Georgia, suite B, normal hours of operation. We are open Wednesday through Sunday, 12 to eight o'clock. One more time, your website and then your social media handles. What platforms are you on in social media? So we're def we're on Instagram as well as Facebook.

So website is again www TLC by BY Nina, NINA b.com. Our. Instagram is the lunch counter. Same on Facebook. Awesome. Thank you so much for, I love this for coming. Yeah, my TasteWise loved it even more so. I'm so excited. I hope this turned out okay. My wife's gonna come in here and she can say is, hi, I'm Amber.[00:50:00] 

Amber, I got you covered girl. Don't worry about it.