FM Talk 1065 Podcasts
Sip and Chew w/Mike & Stu 7.21.2024 Chewin on Cheeses. Sippin Coffee's Chatting French Sandwiches (and more)
[ [MUSIC PLAYING] Mike Bailey, a pioneer of the Gulf Coast blind scene, and award-winning food entrepreneur. I know a lot of you wonder what to do with your moon pass, but I've got some wine suggestions for you. Lemon moon pass, sub-yum blum, shinny blum, or peanut gricho, steward, rib, Donald, a claimed food and travel writer, and world-class chef. I was the chef de casserole. I made the casseroles in the frozen food department. For more than a decade, they've combined their expertise to answer your questions and introduce you to the culinary movers and shakers you want or ought to know. Four-time Taste Award finalists, 10-time NEPI award losers. They are the dynamic duo of dining. Drop, drop, keep a scream at before. Mike and stew on FM Talk 1065. [MUSIC PLAYING] What? [MUSIC PLAYING] Well, good morning, steward, Donald. Hope you're having a good morning on this moist Sunday morning. Last day-- Last day of the fish and chips. [LAUGHTER] Down and off and down, the better known as the Alabama Dixie Fisher Road. Oh, I did not even feel it. Anyway, so the largest fishing rodeo in the world. That's right. In the whole wide world. In the wide world. That's it. It could be the universe, too, you know? You never know. But anyway, there was a time that we thought those were the same thing. Yeah, there's that. And it wasn't that long ago. Do you know that in 1905, we thought the known universe ended at Neptune? Just that recently, we thought the entire universe was the sun to Neptune. Where is it now? [LAUGHTER] Yeah, it's way past the indoor. So it's past Uranus, right? Uranus. That is Uranus. Uranus, Uranus. Wow. Anyway, welcome to the Sip and Chee Show. And what a subject to be talking about. So we've been dropping puns all before the show started, before even you got here, Stu. But anyway, so. Because yesterday was the 50th anniversary of us faking the moon landing? That depends. No, the liars can't test. Just about the liars can't test. Do you know how we know we didn't fake the moon landing? I don't know. Because we put a mirror on it so that we could shoot it with a laser and measure the distance. And any university that has one of these lasers can shoot, can get the coordinates, and hit that mirror with it. And it will bounce back to them until then the distance. That's how we know we visited the moon is we put something on it that we can see from Earth. That makes sense. And hit with a laser and confirm, hey, we put this thing there. You just can't bounce it off a rock like they do sonar. I was listening to a compilation of moon conspiracies on the way in. And they were talking about the hollow moon theory. And they said, here's the thing with the hollow moon theory. Logically, makes more sense than anything else we've come up with. They said it is the most logical conclusion is that someone somewhere else in the universe made the moon and put it where it is. There's no natural-- The chances of that happening are far greater than any accidental happening. Interesting. Yeah, that's great. I love it. But here's the big question. Is the moon made of cheese? I mean, for centuries they've been saying the moon's made of cheese. And if it is, what type of cheese is it? Limburger. Limburger. Clearly, they have a dusty, rusty taste. Oh, oh, like that. What is that? That fog cheese that imitole fog or something like that that they sell at cheese cottage that has ash in it. Oh, it is so good. It's like a blue cheese. There are cheeses that have what they do when they harvest grapes. They burn the vines. And they use the ash from the vines and fill in. In the middle, they'll put it in a little cheese. Yeah, I'll look it up here in the commercial break. It is a phenomenal cheese. Just phenomenal. But yeah, it has ash in it as part of the community. I've seen that. I bought bread before at a fresh market that had bamboo ash in the bread. Phenomenal. Oh, really good. Oh, look, my highs aren't going to get there. Yeah, the St. Marie, the Valentiné, French cheese, like Moby Air. Yeah, I think that the fog is a brand name that we get off of it. But another good one, they have a cheese cottage is that red dragon cheddar. Steve would like that one. Steve, the Humboldt fog. Humboldt fog. That's it. Oh, that cheese is good. And you get a cheese. The goat cheese made by Cypress Grove Cheese in Humboldt County, California. Yes. They've got another cheese you would love. It's got a layer of edible vegetable ash. That's good. Yeah. OK. Yeah. Yeah, delicious cheese. If you're a blue cheese fan, if you like a full cheese-- I've had the cheese with the ashes of grapevines. Yeah, it's probably going to be very similar, very similar. But Steve, there's another cheese I think you would love called red dragon. I've heard of it. It is a cheddar made with English ale and coarse ground mustard in the cheese. It is so good. We've done it at dinner parties. I think I did it at one of the dinners we did. We did it at the same time, sounds like sour. I've had merlot cheese, and I've had steakhouse cheese, and both of those are my favorite is Parmesan oreggiano. So to me, the undisputed king of cheese. Any time you start dropping the word Parmesan ore-- Parmesan oreggiano is like-- Parmesan oreggiano. It's like washer sister sauce. And washer sister sauce. Which the name Parmesan oreggiano means it originates in the Palmer region of Italy. There are all kinds of Parmesan cheeses that are made elsewhere using the same methods. But they didn't originate in Palmer where they have a distinctive soil. They give them a distinctive price that the cows eat and then gives the cheese a distinctive flavor. Yeah. That interconnectedness. You understand what is it called? Vint knowledgey. Is that what they call the wine growing process? Vint knowledgey. Vint knowledgey. That among other words. Vint knowledgey. The interconnectedness of our environment is very obvious and things like that. In wine, you know that first hand. And there's a very popular coffee in Wisconsin called Bulletproof Coffee. And what it is made with-- My sister drinks it. Is a tablespoon of coconut oil. And a tablespoon specifically dairy Irish butter. And the reason it specifically has to be that Irish butter is because the all cattle for production in Ireland are grass-fed. And that grass gives it a certain note and certain elements in that butter that you can't get from Wisconsin butter or Vermont butter or California butter because the soil is different. But those things make that Bulletproof coffee healthy, incredibly healthy. And you put the tablespoon of butter, the tablespoon of coconut oil, and you just kind of whirl it. And what you end up with is it's creamy coffee. In essence, it's like an unsweetened cappuccino. Because once you do that, you're getting the butter fat, which is what makes heavy cream do what it does in coffee. And you're getting that mouth feel of cream. So it's not going to be like its buttery taste and a coconut taste in coffee. When I understand, it just tastes like coffee with cream in it. But you can only do it with that Irish butter. And the Wisconsin dairy farmers hate it. - Well, I've noticed in speaking of coffees, I just noticed there's so many different brands that are popping up all over the place now. - We helped launch one back there in the senior bowl. Remember when I met up with Zach Blackerby who has sports talk shows on the internet, does radio here locally and all over the Southeast Conference. But he and his wife started their own coffee company where you order it on Monday. They roast it, grind it, and ship it to you on Tuesday. - Wow. - And the difference is this is fresh as you're going to get coffee other than roasting it yourself. Anything you get at a grocery store has been sitting in a can for three months. - You can go to Fair Hope and go to Fair Hope roasting company. - Right. Which is fabulous. Their coffee is great. And we've got other local great coffee companies like that that, what is it Nova? They're back off a St. Louis street. - Right by my house. - Right, and then, you know, Carpe diem's been around forever. And they do custom roasts for different restaurants over in Mobile. We have a custom roast from them at Mars Hill. - Okay. - That nobody else had. It was the Mars Hill roast. - Yeah. - Coffee is very interesting. I'm not a coffee drinker. - I wasn't until I got COVID and then that's what I was drinking every morning. - I went through a spell where I drank coffee to get going in the morning. And then I just decided, man, if I don't do all this stuff to get coffee going in the morning, I can sleep later. - 25, 1, 3, 4, 3, 0, 1, 6 is the Call of Hands, Irish social club, call and text in line. - Uh oh, uh oh, I don't like juice. (upbeat music) - They are the dynamic duo of dining. - Sit and chew with Mike and Stu. Call 3, 4, 3, 0, 1, 0, 6. Now back to Mike and Stu. - Hey, you know what, when I'm drinking coffee, guess where I go drink coffee, I don't send them once. - I'm gonna wager a guess. It's someplace on or about the corner of Fat and Happy. - Absolutely. Bob's downtown down there on the corner of Fat and Happy, which is North Jackson and St. Francis Street. Yes, they have good coffee. - You like their coffee because they've named part of the ingredients after you. - Well, not all of it. - Yeah. - But part of it's named after you. - I guess that's part. - The Bayleys. - Cream. - Oh, that's one I have after the show. (laughing) I have that after the show. Anyway, we want to thank them for helping us stay on the air over here. We appreciate them so much. Great food there, by the way. Great food if you haven't been. And they've been friends of the show for quite a long time. - Yep. - Quite a long time. We want to thank Hall, Sausage and Wholesale and Meek. - You mean the nappy award winning Hall, Sausage and Wholesale? - Exactly what I was about to say. - Yes. That was nappy as sausage in South Allen. - I didn't even see 'em. But there were so many people there that had. So I didn't see 'em. I stayed through the media and I kind of don't see that out. Don't see no doubt. - Do you network any? - No, I saw a lot of people in you. But we had fun. We had fun. I'll tell you a minute, what was it fun? - Oh. - But anyway, so anyway, we want to thank Butch Cassidy's over there in the part of the award. - The nappy award winning Butch Cassidy's? - Yeah, the nappy award, a hamburger, a best hamburger award winning. - I'll give you that. - And there you go, man. Good job, Roy, and the gang over there. And Roy is a heck of a stand up guy too, 'cause he gave all his employees off for the fourth. - I thought you meant for the nappy's? - No, no, no, no, he gave his employees off for the fourth and the whole week. And there ain't too many employers that do that. And he paid 'em too, so that's unusual. But that's the stand up. - Very unusual in this industry. - Yeah, for sure, for sure. But yes, as I mentioned, I went to the nappy's of the night and I got up to the counter and I don't think, what in the world is taking so long? The line is hardly moving. Well, when I got up there, and of all days to do it, with the internet problems going on around the world, and a lot of credit card machines were down, they only accepted credit cards. They wouldn't take cash. (laughing) And that just chapped me. And, but the beers were $11, $11 for the beers. And I know somebody, he bought nine beers for his group. $99 plus two, for nine beers. And I just got one, and it was $11. And then it just, I was perturbed about it, so. - I gave a good, okay tip. I was prepared to give more, but I was just dumbfounded. I was like, $11. - Was it domestic? - No, no, but all of them were insane. - Oh, man, I'm not paying $11 for Bud Light. - Well, listen, let me tell you. - I wouldn't drink Bud Light if you paid me 11. - I was out in the lobby. - $12. - I was out in the lobby talking to my friends, that people I knew, and they said, apparently you hadn't been to a baseball game or pro football game or anything, they didn't bought a beer there. And how, and he's right, he's right. And they were right. How outrageous at a stadium. - Is it outrageous, or is it concession stands charge what you, what restaurant should be charging? - It's outrageous to me. (laughing) - It's not about what we wanna pay. - Well, that's not what prices are about. They're never about what we wanna pay. - Well, they're about what something costs. - My point is, the point is that he was making this, I'm lucky I paid $11 'cause in a bigger city. - Oh, yeah. - Where they got sports, professional sports. I'd be paying a heck of a lot more. - Oh, yeah. - And I'm just thinking that it ain't that crazy 'cause my brother, and my brother, when they lived in Dallas, he'd take all three boys and his wife and they'd go to baseball games and the football game and pay three, four, five hundred dollars to go to game or goin'. How, that's just a normal family, an average family cannot do that. - An average family shouldn't be able to do that because that's a luxury. Luxuries are expensive. - People do it every weekend. - You save up for luxury. - Right. - People do it every weekend. - Yeah. - Rich people. - Yeah. - Yeah, they can afford luxury. - I know a few that they forgo vacations just so they can. - And that's a life choice. - Yeah. - That is their vacation. I worked with this guy at Hertz years ago, one of the supervisors. Every day, for lunch, he had the exact same thing. Two pieces of bread with one slice of ham in it. And we're like, Kevin, you surely make enough money here that you can afford one. - Let me ask you. - And he goes, when my wife and I go on vacation, we spare no experience. If we want the filet mignon for breakfast, we get the filet mignon for breakfast. He goes, to me, it's the perfect trade-off 'cause I don't need something different every day. - Did it have condiments on it? - I don't think so. - All right, 'cause I had a good Italian friend. And when we'd go somewhere, and I says, when I was in the wine business, we'd pull into a subway, and this guy's from Milan, Italy. - Right. - And he'd go in a subway and all he would order is plain bread. Well, like a multigrain bread. - Yeah. - With a slice of ham and a slice of cheese. - Yeah. - No mayonnaise, no mustard, no nothing. He said, this is what's wrong with you Americans. - Yeah. - You gotta sleep out. - You put all that mayonnaise and other stuff on there, and it's not good for you, and this is healthy. Er. - I will tell you, the best sandwich I've ever had in my life was in New Orleans that should not surprise anyone. But it was not a po'boy, it was not a Mofolletta. It was at Coach on Butcher, Donald Link's butcher shop that he opened to furnish his restaurants with stuff, and he has a sandwich shop out of it. It was the duck-pestrami slider. And you know, I'm like, oh yeah, and this was one of these things that, you know, 10 years ago, it was a $13 sandwich with nothing else, just a sandwich. And we come, and what I get is like a grilled cheese sandwich with the corners turned in like you would a club. And visually, I'm looking at, well, it looks like a brilliant grilled cheese sandwich, but I was really expecting more than this. - Yeah. - One thin layer meat, one thin layer of cheese, and then I took a bite. And it was the most perfectly balanced sandwich I've ever eaten. If you added extra cheese, you ruined the sandwich. If you added more pestrami, you ruined the sandwich. - It's just a balanced one. - If you added bacon, you would have ruined the sandwich. - You would only taste the bacon. - It was so perfect. It was a perfect gastronomic balance. - Yeah, and it was really high quality bread that I'm sure they got it, a local bakery there. The New Orleans has lots of great local brewies. And, you know, just really good butter soaked into the bread, so it was darn near deep fried in it. - Yeah. - And then that thin layer of the duck-pestrami and the thin layer of the cheese, which I don't even remember, it started with an M, I'd never encountered it before, and I haven't seen it since, it's duck. - Pestrami. - Pestrami. You treat the duck breast just like you would beef to make-- - It's amazing. - Which is part, people don't know, pestrami is beef brisket that is treated two different ways. First, it is corn, like corn beef, which is pickled. - Yeah. - Then it's finished by smoking it. And it usually has a ton of pepper on the outside of it. An awepwav method, if you've ever had steak awepwav before. And if you haven't, let's talk about that. (laughing) 'Cause Stephen and I were talking about steak last week, but steak awepwav is a steak that is completely covered in peppercorns, which an awepwav is French for with pepper. But that's how pestrami is normally done. Well, Donald Link did the same thing to duck breast that you do to beef brisket. And then thinly sliced it, really thin. Just the most perfect sandwich I've ever had. And we also had some hogs head cheese. The hogs head cheese at Koshan Butcher is just unbelievable. - I mean, I should've thought, I know you've heard of this, the mortadella. - Yeah, it's very similar to bologna. You can substitute bologna. But it has, if you ever see it slice, it's the one that's got these white squares in it. That is pure lard, pure pork lard, very clean. Mixed in it so that when it hits your tongue, it just kind of melts and spreads the flavors. The other prominent thing that's in this is pistachio. - I've heard, yeah, I must say, I've read, 'cause I just happened to see that was Anthony Bourdain's favorite sandwich. Was the mortadella, mortadella meat sandwich. And so I'm going today. - Do you know what sandwich we have here on the Gulf Coast that features mortadella? - What? - The muffalata. - Okay. - True muffalata's mortadella sapprissata, I believe. And I forget, but if you go to central grocery in New Orleans, you're gonna get mortadella on that. - But today, after the show, I'm going to buy some of this. - Okay, where you going? - I don't know. - New pickley wiggly wiggly. - I probably don't know. - I know fresh market sells it. - Yeah. - But when I'm here daily, I believe some pickley wigglies do. - I would think that for us too. - I would think that would, yeah. - But that would be my first stop. - It's gonna be my first stop. - So it would have the mortadella in there. - But I want to stop. 'Cause I'm gonna try this sandwich. I want to try it. But yeah, I have to show up. I'm gonna get two five, one, three, four, three, oh, one of six is to Callahan's Irish social club. Colin takes the line. We'd like to hear from you. ♪ Dining bubbles ♪ (upbeat music) ♪ Hey ♪ - For more than a decade, they are the dynamic duo of "Dining". ♪ Dining bubbles ♪ - Mike and Stu on F&T on 1065. - Hey. - Hey Stu. - Hey Mike, they need to update our intro again already. We are no longer 10-time nappy award losers. We're now 12-time nappy award losers 'cause we lost in two categories this year. - Yeah, yeah. - Just like we lost in two categories in the taste awards last year. - We're winners just by being nominated. - Yep. (laughs) So anyway, congratulations to Bill Fitch for getting. - Excuse me. - What? - Sorry. (laughs) - Is that the wrong sound effect? - It's supposed to be a raspberries. - Oh. - Oh. - Okay. - Well, it kinda was. - Yeah, yeah. - Hey, radio history for you. - I wanna say happy birthday to Lee Connolly. Lee Connolly is at Babe Breeze Cafe. Everybody on the Eastern, most everybody mobile knows Lee Connolly. Awesome, great lady. And she works over at the Babe Breeze Cafe in Fairhope. And we wanna say happy birthday Chad Scroggins. He is a World Food Championship participant a lot. All the time, that's where we met him. - He's a food champion. - He is a food champion too. Awesome. - Anybody that competed in World Food Championships is a food champion. - There you go. - You had to wear something to get there. - There you go. Hey, and also, you know what national day it is today? It's a fun one. Ice cream, it's a national ice cream day. - Also, do you know what national day it is today? - Wow, that's interesting. - There's an echo in there. - There's an echo in there. (laughs) - And also today, it's a national jump-through day. - Joke? - Joke-through day. - Okay, 'cause it sounded like you said jump food at first, something like pop rocks? - Joke. - Joke, I got some of those in my house for some reason. I don't know where I got them from. - I'll tell you, rock and roll sushi at least used to. They may not anymore. They used to make a sushi roll that had pop rocks in it. You don't taste them because the other flavors over power, but then they start popping on your tongue and it was very cool. - It was actually called pop rock. - Get it, rock and roll sushi. - Yeah. - Pop rock and roll sushi. That's a great concept. - Yeah, he did a great job creating that environment, that theme and study. - I used to know him. Sammy, he used to work over in the mall and I was working at the Disney store. - Wow. - Yeah, I went to him and yeah, it was his first store. - Yeah. - How about that? - He was too cool. - Yeah, I think they run out of album covers. (laughs) - I think, I thought they had run into some trouble with ASCAP or something about using the albums for me. - It was a little bit ASCAP BMI copyright, but they worked out. - What name were the items too on the menu? I know they had to change those. - Well, when you go in and you license out your ASCAP BMI, what that's for is to license every time that you play it, it covers that. So all your fees go into that. Well, the argument was the covers are separate because it's artists and it's not. No, they went ahead and no, because the artists already covered that when they paid for the artist to do all that, so. - Okay, yeah. - Learned some of the FYI. - I like learning something new every day. - Yeah. - So anyway, it gives you something to forget. Another thing to forget. (laughs) It pushes something out. I bring something new in my brain and it pushes something out. - I get it. (laughs) - Well, you were out partying last week. So I saved this for when you came in, but I drove out to Hurley based on your suggestion. - And that was Deborah Hodges' suggestion. - Yeah, anything we learned about Agricola Hurley, that area, we're getting from Deborah Hodges. Nappy award winner, Deborah Hodges. And tried sassies. - Yeah. - They got two size burgers. You know, Roy does two size burgers. Got a five ounce and an eight ounce, or seven ounce. They're small as an eight ounce, and they're large as a 10 ounce. - Wow. - And I have always thought the perfect ratio of bun to burger is a four ounce bun, which is the size Roy serves, that bigger bun, and a 10 ounce patty. So they hit right down the road. I got the Southwestern with crunchy stuff on it and jalapenos like that. - It had pop rocks on it. - No, it did not have pop rocks on it. And I got their loaded potato salad, yes, aside. But I started off, this was the only thing I ate that day. I skipped breakfast, went out there, had that lunch, ate so much for lunch, I didn't eat dinner that night. But I got an appetizer, the small order of their porker fries. The porker fries are cheese fries that then have pulled barbecue rib meat on top of it. - Wow. - Oh my gosh, they do, in addition to burgers, they get barbecue ribs. - Not the butt, but the rib. - The rib, the rib meat, pulled on top of it, and then a drizzle of barbecue sauce and the sun. That was awesome. And this place, you know the burgers are good for them to be known for burgers, because right next door to them is another place that only sells burgers. The name means something to me that I think has nothing to do with this restaurant, but it's a lot of burger. - A lot of burger. - A lot of burger. - I'm sure they mean it's a whole lot of burger. But growing up, we had a place on Lot Road that spun the name Waterburger into Lot, hyphen A burger. - A lot of road. - Yeah. And my grandfather used to take me there 'cause they were the only place in Mobile County that had soft serve ice cream. He went there for the ice cream, love soft serve. (laughing) - That's just crazy. (laughing) - I love when people do that, you know. - It's like I'm going to Lot of Burger to get the ice cream. - My brother says he has found that some of the best burgers you will ever get are in places that specialize in something other than burgers. And his example was Bonefish Grill. Has one of the best burgers you'd ever have, but who orders a burger there because it's a seafood restaurant. - Yeah. - And so he's made a point of trying the burger at places that specialize in something other than that kind of flavor. - That's what happened with A&W. You can see how the A&W float, everybody loved A&W root beer and you had the A&W float. But man, they're burgers, and they're fries and they're onion rings. - Well, I was, I like when Rousseau's downtown, I'd get the ribeye. It was a Greek, black and Greek style ribeye. - I never ate seafood at Rousseau, I always got the ribeye. - It was delicious. - When I worked for Wences, we had a car salesman out on the airport that would come in there. And if I was working, he would order the ribeye, blackened, because I was the only one that actually blackened it. 'Cause most places you get blackened, and this was, this standard at Wences, too, is you just took the blackening season and sprinkled some of that. That's not blackening. - Blackening is you completely coat the meat with it. Just like you would flour if you're gonna fry it. And so I would put the blackening season Ziploc, drop the steak down in there and get it completely coated, and then do some hot oil on the grill and cook it like that. And he almost never ordered seafood. When he came in, it was to drink. And if he was gonna eat it was gonna, if I was there, he'd have me blackened him a ribeye. - Roy's got award-winning hamburgers, but I enjoy seafood. - Yep, I do. He's got good seafood. You come in there for the turkey sandwich. - Yeah, coming over for turkey sandwich. - That's true. - Well, that's good. - Yeah. - It's a good turkey sandwich, I'll get it. - It absolutely is. - Absolutely is. - Have you been to part of Trelua? - I have not. I mean, they just opened and I've been busy. - Yeah. - Not had a busy one. - Let them get their sea legs under them. - Yeah. - They still think that drives me up the wall more than people that will go to a restaurant the first day or two that it's open and if things don't go right, just swear I'll never go back. - I know. - And I'm just like, come on, they've got to figure it out. - I got like a month or two policy about, you know. - Usually if they do a soft opening, I'm invited to come over to the soft opening. - Right. - Yes, there's that. But I like, let them get their legs under them first and then go. - Yeah, 'cause even if it's, you know, some kind of cookie cutter chain, it doesn't matter that they use the exact same floor plan that they've used for a hundred other restaurants and the exact same equipment and everything, every restaurant has its own personality. - Yeah. - I mean, how many SS steel homes are there in Mobile with the same floor plan and every one of them's got its own personality. You know, it's the same way and you have to learn it. You just, you know, I got this six eye vault can stove right here. It gets, you know, 20% hotter than the one we use at the other restaurant. So now I've got to adjust. I can't put the dials in the same numbers 'cause this one, just for whatever reason, burns hotter than the one. - Let me ask a quick question. Kind of going along the same idea here. Why is it, does it seem like in Mobile that you get a really good restaurant, starts up like that and then does really well for a while. I mean, we're a killer's a restaurant in Mobile. It's like they last for six months and they're gone. - That's the industry. - Is it? - Okay. - Yeah, okay. Once I have proven close within the first two years of opening and it's because it's the lowest profit margin industry in the Western world. - I got you. - 'Cause a lot of them make their profits on liquor. - Yeah. - And if you don't sell alcohol, you're not going to make a problem. You're really struggling. - Yeah. - Okay, so my son and his wife came down 'cause decades past week and one of the things he was going to do was take me out for hurricanes. Well, hurricanes have been gone now for a couple of years. You know, and I said, yeah, I know what I hear now. It's a Mongolian restaurant, I think, but he was like, oh man, why? You know, and it's the way the industry is. - Well, you know what Stu just said about not having alcohol, but then you got places like Sheryl's and Sugar Kettle Cafe. There are only open, one of them's just open lunch Monday through Friday and they're booming all the time, not open on weekends, and then you got Sugar Kettle and Daphne, and they don't serve alcohol, but they do breakfast and lunch, and they don't have alcohol, and I think they open on Sundays. - Sorry, you said that a key opened less often than a few to bigger? - Yes, 'cause you're cutting your overhead that way. You're not paying people to be on the clock for five customers an hour. - Yeah, that makes sense. - Well, they get pretty packed in. They get pretty busy. - And COVID taught us that too. You notice a lot of restaurants don't stay open now as late as they used to. - Right. - So they found out that closing two hours earlier during COVID, they actually were making more money than they were, and I've said it before, you get a table, even if they spend $100, 15 minutes before closes when they show up, so they're leaving in 45 minutes after a close, you've lost money having that table come in, 'cause you've gotta pay the cooks, you gotta pay the servers, the bartenders, everyone has to stay until they're done, and every minute you have someone on the clock after your state of closing time is lost money, 100% lost, 'cause there's no money coming in to pay them. - Right. - 'Cause even if that table came in, you close at nine, they cashed out at 945, officially that money was made at 9 p.m., 'cause that's when you close. So every minute after 9 p.m. is lost money, every minute after. So when you condense those hours of operation, you lose those hours where you're paying a bunch of people there on the off chance. - But that's where you gotta make a decision. - Right, right. - Who do you send home, and then you don't wanna make the customer make 'cause you want 'em to come back. - Right. - And you don't want 'em to feel rushed and uncomfortable. - Uncomfortable. - To leave, uncomfortable. - Yeah, yeah. - Just start sweeping around 'em and turn the lights on. - And one of the things I thought of is you close your dining room 30 minutes before you close your kitchen. So people that are last minute people, yeah, we'll package it up to go, you can take it home and eat it. While we're cleaning up, we can still service you, but you can't bring a crowd in and sit down. - That makes sense. - 'Cause that allows me to get 80% of my staff off the clock. A lot of restaurants do late night kitchen when they leave one cook in there and they have a very limited menu that cook and execute by themselves. - Yeah. - I like that. - And it's to handle their bar people. - If you're that type of restaurant, yeah. - Right, right. Red Star Tavern used to do that, and like nine o'clock, we'd cut down to one person. - 2-5-1-3-4-3-0-1-6 is the Call of Hands, Irish social call and text in line. ♪ My carnivorous habits ♪ ♪ Needing nearly seven a day ♪ - To get on the line call 3-4-3-0-1-0-6. Now back to Mike and Stu. - Hey, welcome back to the Sip-a-Choo show for the final half of the remainder of the show. - Yes. - Wanna thank a few people, wanna thank Bob's Downtown, and I don't wanna corner of fat and happy, which is St. Francis and North Jackson Street. We wanna thank the Hall of Sausage and Wholesale Meats. - Napi Award. - Napi Award winning Hall of Sausage. And we wanna thank Napi Award winning. - Napi Award. - Butch Cassie's. Oh, we gotta say that Bob's Downtown down there too. Napi Award as well. - Napi Award. - So all great people, fun people, great staffs. You wanna hang out in these places. - Now, Sip-a-Choo and Mike and Stu? - Not Napi Award. - Susan Lucci, Susan Lucci. - Napi Award. (laughing) - I'm just trying to scare you right there. Who is this? Cookie will talk about that more to Dela. - Oh, okay. - Cookie wants a big ol' loaf of more to Dela to sit down with and just gnaw on while she's watching. - ♪ We're the moon, who's the hero ♪ ♪ I like a big pizza pie more to Dela ♪ (laughing) - No, that's not why I called, but it is, hey, who can ever, why would you turn that down? You know, I mean, whether somebody sings it to you, even if it, I don't think it was off key, I hope. (laughing) But first of all, the green thing, there's something that's very overlooked for people, particularly if you wanna just grow it in a pot on your patio, if that's what you've got, but you want to just pick a few leaves to put on sandwich or something once or ever. You know, it doesn't take up as much space as the big vining one. This one is called Persling. It's, I believe it's a native plant. And, but you got it, make sure you get one that's edible because they're not all edible, but they are semi- succulent, and they are very easy to grow. In fact, you have to beat 'em back, you know? (laughing) Kind of a thing, and I've given some away, but I'm just amazed how many people don't even know about it. Now, I will caution you once they've put up these beautiful little stalks with tiny pink flowers that turn into, with the Golden Center, do not take them inside (laughing) because they are shatter soers. They will sew all over your drywall. And I know, but leave 'em out on your porch or leave 'em out on your patio, you know? It's like, or just cut the stalks off us, you know? If you don't wanna come up, you know? I don't wanna continue to grow and give them away somebody else so that they can, because they can just toss 'em on the ground. They're teeny tiny little seeds. You can just toss 'em on the ground. You can toss 'em on the ground around some of your other plants, and they will come up and you can eat 'em and you can enjoy 'em, right? Excellent, are you in a question about the current rate for service and restaurants? Yes, that's primarily what I, yes. Me none. What are the current, no, no. I'm talking about the current rate. Pay rates? For, for cooks. Waitrons, look, when I wrote a manual for the staff, you know, I was going, okay, well, what do y'all think we should say? And they said, waitrons. (laughing) Yeah, waitrons, cooks. Now, managers, of course, are set. And assistant managers, yada, yada, da, are all corporate. But what currently, in mobile and the mobile surrounding area, are the rates for servers, as I think it's called now, and cooks, and I don't know whether it's still called porters or not, people who do the cleanup. Most of the time they make the cooks do that. In a kitchen. Yeah, in the kitchen. And you're looking palin' sheets on there. Yeah, but your cook pay around mobile, it's low, lower than it should be, somewhere between $14 and $16 an hour. If you're at a busy restaurant these days, $18 and up is what you should be paying, but mobile tends to underpay on that. Servers remain at $2.13 an hour. Wow. Had not changed since 1994. That's crazy. And that was when they were giving their rates to $2. I know some restaurants that pay more than that. Very few dollars. But all they're required is the $2.13, yeah. You can't even get buried for that, can you? But you make tips. Yeah, they rely on tips. That's what they make their money. And when the federal government went to that mode, essentially what it did is it made tipping the law. You have to tip. But, in the infinite wisdom- Okay, now they're all in complications. Am I interrupt here? There have always been complications. There have been places that were like, the first one of the first places that I worked in, where as long as I had less than, I think it was six or, well, how many, it was a very few tables. But if you ran the counter, and you also served the tables, which were less, they were much less than 10. That probably were six or maybe eight. It was okay for them to pay you less than $3 an hour. And there were no tips. There ain't no tips in a dam. I'm sorry, excuse me. And a fried chicken, or, you know, comparable place. Okay. No, not there, not there, no. Honestly, there shouldn't be tips if you're not receiving regular table service. A lot of to-go places put tip jars up. And I threw it to them because I know the people need it. But at the same time, you're not doing me anything. You just turn the little screen around. Yeah. So that I can sign it. And the only reason they put the tip jars up, is because the owners have admit that's, that's basically an owner admitting to you, I don't pay them enough. So I'm gonna let them- Well, my owners did not admit that. Yeah. Yeah, well, none of them ever do. That's what I say they're essentially admitting that they don't pay them enough. And it's because if you try and raise the prices on food to where they should be, people lose it. And I've brought the example up before. If you pay $10 for a sandwich at a restaurant, the restaurant makes a dollar. If you pay $10 for a pair of socks at a department store, the store makes $9. That it's just restaurants are not profitable. And people think that the price on the menu should only reflect what the price of the ingredients are. And that's a very small percentage of what it takes to get that meal on your table. So the standard model is being you take the price of the ingredients, multiply it times three and that's ridiculous. It should be at least multiplied by five. Well, and you look at what the grocer industry is saying. Also, I mean, the profitability on that is- Oh, they don't lose money at grocery stores. It's amazingly surprising though. Yeah. Even if it's corporate. Right. They don't lose money at grocery stores. They don't. Well, the markup is- Yeah. Yeah, because restaurants buy products from a wholesale distributor, but it's only like 10% off of what you would pay at a grocery store. It's a minor difference. Cookie, thanks for your call today. Yeah, we gotta get it, don't we? So anyway. Yeah, huh? So we gotta get, don't we? Yeah, we gotta be pretty close. The sun's coming out. It looks like it's gonna be a nice day, rest of the day, hopefully. We'll see. It's supposed to be sending percent chance of rain today. And tomorrow? And tomorrow. And Tuesday. In Wednesday. I ain't worried about tomorrow. Yeah. Yeah. But I just worried about the next five, six hours. Yeah. I would not count on it. Folks, get out there, support local, be local by a little tip well. Earners, servers, earn your tip. And Mike, what cheese comes on a muffler? Well, today I'm going by some pro-alone! There you go. He'll be Magnolia Lees. (upbeat music)