Behind the Scenes of Pop-Up Dining with Chef Jonathon Merrick of Family Meal Boise

In this episode we dive into the world of pop-up dining with Chef Jonathon Merrick of Family Meal Boise, an in-home pop-up restaurant he runs. You get a behind-the-scenes look at the challenges and triumphs of running the successful pop-up, and gain insights into menu creation, guest interactions, and the intricacies of hosting unique dining experiences. This episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in the dynamic world of pop-up dining.

Key Takeaways:

1. Pop-Up Dining Experiences:
   • Evolution of Jonathon's pop-up dining, 'Family Meal Boise'.
   • Challenges and learnings from hosting pop-ups.
   • The importance of creating a unique dining experience.
2. Transitioning from Professional Kitchens to Distribution:
   • Jonathon's career shift and how he maintains his culinary passion.
   • The role of mentorship in his career.
   • Balancing a full-time distribution job with culinary creativity.
3. Legal and Practical Aspects of Running Pop-Ups:
   • Navigating local regulations and community support for pop-ups.
   • The importance of understanding the legal landscape in different regions.
4. Mentorship in Culinary Arts:
   • Jonathon's experiences with mentorship.
   • The significance of finding and being a mentor in the culinary field.
5. Menu Creation and Storytelling:
   • The process behind Jonathon's diverse menu themes.
   • The role of storytelling in enhancing the dining experience.

JONATHON MERRICK
Jonathon and Family Meal Boise on Instagram
Chef Merrick on TikTok
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Transcript

Chris Spear: 0:01

Have you ever thought about doing a pop up? Either a one off or a long term one. On today's show, you'll hear from Chef Jonathan Merrick, founder of family meal Boise, a pop up fine dining experience, he's running out of his home. If you want to learn more about the world of pop ups stick around. This is Chris spear and you're listening to Chefs Without Restaurants The show where I speak with culinary entrepreneurs and people working in the food and beverage industry outside of a traditional restaurant setting. I have 31 years of working in kitchens but not restaurants and currently operate a personal chef business throwing dinner parties in the Washington DC area. If you've listened on the show for a while, maybe you've heard one of my other episodes about popups I've discussed it with Sam for Nico kekalainen, Kyle Shankman, Justin Khanna, Matt Collins, probably a few more even. But every one of those chefs does it a little differently. Something I want to highlight is that Jonathan has a full time job besides the popups he talks about not paying himself which isn't really realistic if you're hoping for this to be your sole method of income. There's nothing wrong with doing that and growing something on the side and reinvesting in it. But this episode is not about how you can quit your job and live off your pop up. However, you will get a behind the scenes look at his successful dinners, hopefully picking up some of his tips. And for the personal chefs out there. I think there's a lot of relatable content. He talks about the service aspect, how he plates, his food, and how many staff he uses for service. I think all those things are applicable to many of you working in the food and beverage industry. And we address something I brought up with other personal chefs doing dinners out of their homes. I wanted to talk about the legal and regulatory aspects of this hearing what he's experienced in Idaho. Besides the popups, we also talked about mentoring, as well as his experience working for a food distributor and how he balances his corporate job with his own culinary endeavors. So if you enjoy the topic of pop ups, please go and check out one of the other episodes I've done on this subject. And if you like this program in general, I'd love for you to go check out chefs without restaurants.org. From there, you'll find links to our private Facebook group as well as our chef database which we use to help you potentially get more gig leads. As always, I'd love it if you connected with me on Instagram or threads at Chefs Without Restaurants or feel free to email me at chefs without restaurants@gmail.com. Thanks so much for listening and have a great week. Or you a personal chef looking for support and growth opportunities. Look no further than the United States personal chef association with 1000 members across the US and Canada. US PCA provides liability insurance certification lead generation and more. Consumers can trust that their meal experience is ensured and supported by us PCA. And now until December 31. Save$100 on membership by using code Happy Holidays 2023 at us pca.com. Plus, if you have products or services to sell chefs and their clients showcase your business on hire a chef and the US PCA website with our great introductory packages. To learn more about membership advertising or partnership opportunities. Call Angela at 1-800-995-2138. Extension 705 or email a PR a th er@uspta.com Hey, Jonathan, welcome to the show. Thanks so much for coming on. Thank you for having me, man. Looking forward to talking to you today. It's uh, you know, we've connected a little bit on social medias. But I'm glad that we can kind of expand on some of the conversations. We've had it other times and hopefully share some really beneficial stuff with the with my audience today.

Jonathon Merrick: 3:42

Absolutely, brother. Yeah, thanks again. I'm excited. Weather's nice sunshine and guy will set up here. Well,

Chris Spear: 3:48

I do want to just kind of jump in and start where you're at right now with your pop up. That's just one part of what you do. But I think it's something that a lot of my audience is really interested in. Everyone always asked me about, you know, have you done pop ups? How do you do a pop up? Is it worth it and all this stuff, and you're someone who's had some success with that recently? So if you don't mind I'd like to start there. You have family meal Boise and those are the popups you're doing and they're in your home. Is that right?

Unknown: 4:16

Yeah. It's funny like we just celebrated a year technically July was was a year so last July I officially did the family meal pop family meal Boise, which is the name of the separate club pop up, and we just sell it this Saturday. We did our celebratory dinner our pop up right so we just I just did like summer bounty vibes like just super real heavy seafood heavy light, just had some fun with it. But really, the birth of it started when I was in Ithaca, New York during COVID I actually technically started doing like a mini pizzeria pop up out of my apartment. You know when COVID first hit. And you know, I did some pop ups here and there on the East Coast. I always knew I was going to do a pop up dinner like a consistent monthly deal. So, you know last year we it was scary like you said I didn't know if it's worth doing I didn't know how I was going to do it. I mean yeah, I could write the menu and do the food and serve it but it was freaky it was freaky man. But we launched it took a leap people showed up it wasn't that many but they did you know and then basically one eight top turned into a 10 top then it turned into a 12 top. Then it turned into Okay, we have to do two in a row and then we max out at like 28 people so we split 28 and a half we do 14 on Saturday 14th on Sunday. All the menus I do I wasn't married to this idea in the beginning but I kind of bounced from either a cuisine or a concept or some kind of fun vibe. You know we did Tuscan we did Tuscan part too because it was so popular. We did a Brasserie menu and then we did Brasserie part two because it was you know, super popular. You know, and then we did I do it. I did. Basque we did. Japanese, French and like fusion. And honestly man where it's at right now it's crazy to see how far it came. And like to go from If I only knew what I knew. Now back then, like, there's just so every single dinner you learn something you get, you know, there's so much to take away and so much to grow from. But I'm dude, I'm just fucking proud of it to like, the fact that this many strangers are willing to come to a dinner with people they don't know sit down and I don't know, man. It's just super exciting. You know, we I think we've gotten so much better the space is upgraded. I mean, we don't rent anything anymore. We own all of our flatware we use$15 wine glasses. We don't cheap out, you know, I try to make it nice. And yeah, man. It's just been it's been a wild ride.

Chris Spear: 6:52

So you've been doing this for a year now. Congratulations. That's huge. Like to do anything consistently for a year? I think it's tough. How are you finding your people? Is it just all through like social media, internet, email marketing type stuff.

Unknown: 7:05

So one of the things I don't even want to call it a tactic, but one of the things that I intuitively kind of did about six months before I even did the first pop up before I launched it. I started planting seeds. And what I mean by that is out and about not being a salesman, but just having cotton, organic conversations with people and you know, I would see someone that had a food shirt on if some sorts. Oh, hey, you know, when I started sparking a conversation and saying, you know, having a conversation telling them my story, how I'm a chef, and then I would, I would like say, Look, you know, I'm really excited. I'm planning on doing this pop up thing. I don't know if I'm going to do it, but. And then they would say, Oh, well, if you do, here's my Instagram. So I did that about five or six times. And literally my first pop up was just those seeds I planted six months ago with people I met in the community. And they were just they were just I couldn't believe it. I'm like, I don't know these and they showed up. So that was how it really started. The biggest thing for me has been word of mouth. I feel like when someone really enjoys themselves, if they go on like Facebook groups, there's like a big one out here called Boise food finds, I think there's been a couple people that posted photos of their experience and talked about it. And that's when it was like, blew up. And the other thing is a news roundup came they came here with a camera and I there's like I think it's the biggest like newspaper in the area. And they did a technically a digital front page. Got a ton of ROI on that. And again, I think word of mouth as people leave having a great experience. My DMS will just fill up and what happens is, the first question is, how do I sign up? How do I do this? They get on an email list. And every month that email goes out a month prior to the dinner. And it's like, Here's the menu, Baba Bah, here's how to sign up. And it's kind of first come first. The best case scenario we've majority of the dinners have sold out within a day, which blows my mind. But so we're selling out quick, you know,

Chris Spear: 9:01

and you're doing this consistently one time a month. Is that right? Two nights back to back once a month.

Unknown: 9:06

Yeah, we're picking one weekend out of the month, depending it could be early in the month or later middle but I pick one weekend and I say we're going to do a pop up on Saturday and Sunday and then we launch it with a month so like if you're going to be one of my guests at a dinner I'll you'll get the email a month before the dinner so you can make plans and stuff. I really everyone's asking me they're like you need to do more. So I'm considering doing two a month which would technically be for seedings. I'm just not going to do that until I am for sure. Ready to execute equally as good. You know,

Chris Spear: 9:43

well it's a lot and you know there's so many questions I want to ask about this but one is kinda like why bother you know it? One of the things is it's not a huge moneymaker. I've done these right and it's a ton of work and I know this isn't your only thing you're doing for income So it's just kind of something you do on the side, right? So why even go to the trouble of doing it? I'm sure there's a huge love of food because we're chefs. Right? But like, do you ever have that thought of like, I don't know, is it even worth doing this? There's

Unknown: 10:15

been a couple, not many dinners where it was like, oh, man, because like you said, it's so much work. Like my staff, if I like you said, there's not a big moneymaker. So I have to do all the means and plus before my staff shows up, so they show up to a set table. Amazing. Plus done and the cooks just have to execute and cook food, right? So there's been times where it's like, Damn, man, I just worked so damn hard, and maybe it's a rough night. Dinner is great, but it's a rough night. I'll go back to why I started it. So for me, I got out of professional kitchens technically cooking back in like 2014 and I was doing like the food sales thing consultant, you know, doing like side hustle stuff. And then I was a corporate chef for like a food distributor. So I was like, you know, the nine to five work, right? I did it because one I miss cooking for the public. I got on Tik Tok, I, you know, my tick tock grew a lot. And then I'm creating all this awesome food, but it's just like, for me right in front of a camera. I miss having that dish I'm proud of to feed someone. I mean, that's the whole reason why we do it. Right. Like, like, we're chefs, because we want to nurture and feed people. So for me, this is my playground. This is where I can play with new. See, you know what else I'll say? When I worked in restaurants, one of the things I fucking hated the most was that I would burn out really quick because I was cooking someone else's food. And if I worked for an owner, he had control. And he did, he dictated what was on the menu, or the chef did or even when I was the executive chef or Executive Sous chef. I didn't have the chance to own it, man, my menu my food, good or bad. So this is this is me, man. Like, do I want to collaborate with other chefs? Yes. Do I want my sous chef to create a dish and have his name on the menu? Yes. But at the end of the day, the whole thing is like, I get to put my soul on a plate. So that's the I think that's kind of the main reason I do it, you know? And, yes, we're building a brand I think we're we are building a brand and and I think this can really be a segue into something, something even bigger, but for me, it's the playground. It keeps me sharp, it keeps me super sharp did.

Chris Spear: 12:23

I mean that's how I was feeling I was the executive chef, I was working at a retirement community, it was a higher end one. And we were doing some cool stuff. But obviously, I had to cook food for a certain clientele. So I started my own personal chef business, which, at first I thought it was going to be like, it's gonna be my food, because it's my business. And it could and that's a whole nother, you know, thing to get into. But at the end of the day, I need work. People come to me they say, This is what I like, this is what I want. I propose a menu. And we might go back and forth and say, you know, I really just want a filet mignon, I really want like a baked salmon. You know, like, I might not want to be doing that. So I'm still cooking food, that I enjoy cooking, but it's still not always 100% my food. So when I've done these pop ups, it has been the this is my food, right? Like, I'm selling it to ones and twos. This isn't a customer coming to me kind of dictating what they want. It's me saying this is the menu. This is what I want to serve who's interested. And I've had no trouble selling those out when I've done them, but it hasn't been as much as you've been doing it.

Unknown: 13:25

It's a grind for sure. But, you know, people always ask me guests will leave, especially when they have a great experience. You know, they're like, Well, what's next? And I'm just like, I don't know, you know, I'm not trying to like I have ideas, you know, maybe love to do a pizzeria down the line. I have a pizza background, but I don't I try to and I'm not very religious, but I kind of in a spiritual way. Kind of like leave it up to God. Like, I think that universe. We make plans and God or the Universe laughs right. So I feel like whatever it is, this will turn into will happen on Gods or the universe's watch, you know, but for now, I I still love doing them. There's been some rough ones, but I do I do love it, man. How

Chris Spear: 14:07

many people are you bringing to come work with you on these dinners?

Unknown: 14:11

So it's funny you asked that because in my mind, I was just thinking about mentioning something to that extent, like, what I realized is the toughest thing about doing pop ups. So there's a lot but the biggest thing is you're only I'm only doing them once a month. So what does that mean? I have to find front of the house graders, back servers print server, usually there's one or two from the house. And then I have a sous chef and someone to help with dish and bounce. So it's me sous chef, like a backup apprentice, like a call me and then a front of the house server. And if she's lucky, she'll have a back server five. So what I realized is these folks have other jobs if I'm lucky. What I have to do is reach out to them first and say hey, are you available on the first and second? If they say no, I can't launch a pop up. I got to say okay, are you You know At what point is when I get the yes, I'm available those dates, that's when I can launch the menu. Because if I don't have staff, I can't do a pop up. So what I realized is to your question, yeah, that's kind of what the staff looks like. But what I've been thinking about moving into this next year is to elevate, I always want to, you know, Thomas Keller talks about it, you walk into work, and you try to do one thing a little you will try to do if you were at an eight yesterday, try to be at nine today. And I tried to do that with the pop up. So what I was, what I'm considering doing is taking, and I don't pay myself, by the way, anything that's leftover from the pop up is separated for the net, either reinvesting or separated for the next pop up by plates. And then just keep that money in a bank account, the little bit that it is as we accumulate it. With that being said, I'm thinking about taking a less of a cut, profit, and overstaffing.

Chris Spear: 15:49

It already sounds like you have a ton of staff like for context, I've talked about this, like I work as a personal chef, kind of doing like what you do, I do, you know, four to seven course dinners in people's homes. And if it's eight people or less, I literally do it all myself. That's the cooking, that's the serving, that's all of it. If I have like 10 people, I'm bringing someone it might be my wife, but like, at the very most, I've had three people one time, like myself included, because they wanted someone to do bar while we were doing appetizers, I can't imagine what I would be able to do with that many people, but also the cost of it, which comes back down to like you're saying, you know, you're not paying yourself. And you're reinvesting, which is something if you're looking to do this has your income because I think a lot of people think like, I'm gonna leave my restaurant job as a chef, and go do pop ups. But, you know, if you're expecting to get paid a decent sum, the model might look very different. Yeah,

Unknown: 16:44

I mean, even if I wanted to pay myself, I think for me, my suggestion to anyone would be to expect not to pay yourself, at least for the first year, you know, unless you unless you want to do it to buy a watch and a couple pairs of sneakers and go ahead. But like for me, it's you know, I'm trying to be smart with that money if the whatever is leftover at the end of the day. But yeah, we you know, we're doing five course tasting, I call it a five course tasting menu. And the reason I'm trying to I mean, that sounds like a lot of stuff. And the reason I'm trying to go even heavier. I don't want to be compared to Michelin, I don't want to use those words, but I want to execute on a on a high level. And I think what I realized is even with that many people I noticed I don't want to say quality, and degrade the folks that helped me out. But it is a struggle finding cooks that that are professionally trained, you know, that have experienced like, I'm mentoring these young cooks. Now these young kids, I call them kids because they're young. But I'm not dealing with guys that have been in high level kitchens. So that's another part of it. That's, you know, my thought is if I can get two solid cooks, and someone like I have to train the front of the house, server when I have them. And they're always different. I got like four people rotating and it's like, they have a little experience. But some of them don't know how to pour wine. When the guest goes to the restroom, I have to remind them fold their napkin, put it back on the thing, you know, we you know, our table setting is pretty crazy. You know, we set it up like almost banquet style, we have, you know, two wine glasses, water, you know, we do sparkling or still water. But it's it's a struggle to execute on the level that I'm trying to execute on. But, you know, just economy that made some great points, because he has a lot of experience with this. And like, a lot of times we get so caught up in like the guest experience. And we focus on things that are good to focus on. But sometimes the energy is not well spent on something silly that no one's going to realize, right? I guess my point is, I'm really trying to get to a higher level of plating. My biggest struggle is this. I do all the music plus its service night first course is going up. If I don't have my sous chef and he can't work right I have a call me young kid. He's a call me right. I try to show the plating to him. He doesn't hold the spoon, right? He the plates are getting sloppy. Like that's the shit that the food's delicious, but I just think we could dial it in better. And I would like to eventually not be that guy that's on the past only but it would be refreshing to just be on the past one night have two cooks that know what they're doing, you know, firing all cylinders. And, and but at the end of the day, man. I'm proud of the work we've done. You know,

Chris Spear: 19:39

but are you pulling in the same staff over and over? Like, are you getting these guys over and over? So they're kind of you know, as you invest time into them, they're getting it and then you can see a progression or do you have a larger stable of people where it's like, you have different people every time cooking with you.

Unknown: 19:54

I got a guy's names. I'm sure he's okay when we tell him to say his name Joe. He's a Consider him he's like, quote unquote sous chef. He's been with me for most of the dinners but not all he has a full time job. I mean, he's doing catering he's running a restaurant. When I have Joe with me, we kill Joe's Joe's just any such a good dude. And then when I don't have him, that's where I that's where it gets dicey like this last dinner last. This past Saturday was fucking rough. We got through it, the food looked good, it tasted good. But to like, the problem was it was the kitchen. As long as you have some important line water clear in plates. That's that's the ease one of the easier parts I was in the kitchen would just mean to call me. And I don't know if I have my menu here. This is one of my other menus. But uh, yeah, man, it was it was dicey. Because here's my setup, too. So I have an outdoor patio that's like really big and open and nice. So on the patio is where I do the cooking. See, especially if it's high temp searing. I have a Conroe to beach a ton charcoal grill out there. I had a deep fryer there. And I had one of those propane burners setup. So I have a full kitchen outside. So I'll be like, hey, whoever it is, say his name's Joe, or nick or Bob, Hey, Bob, I need you to, you know, get ready for the next course I need you to get this lightly cooking, heat the sauce up, I'll be right back, then I go out and I see are the ducks. Sometimes when I come back, insert, name that person, Bert something or undercooked it or it's not hot or forgot to put something in the oven. So there's that dynamic. And my point is not having a sous chef is where that comes to be an issue sometimes. Do your

Chris Spear: 21:36

guests talk to you too, because I find that to be another wild card. And I was doing a dinner last week. And these people really wanted it to be kind of like a not an instructional dinner, but they want to ask a lot, you know, I'm there by myself. So again, like, I'm kind of in my head thinking like, Oh, I gotta get to this, I gotta do that. And then all of a sudden, you realize like, oh, shit, I'm like 20 minutes behind, like the brussels sprouts should have gone and oven to be roasting. And now I'm behind just because like, it's really hard to focus on cooking while you're interacting. So how much interaction do you have with your gas,

Unknown: 22:06

I want to have more. So the interaction for me starts when they sit down. So when they when they sit down, they get some water, they get a glass of wine. Maybe I serve an amuse. And then after we serve the first course, I'll cert will serve the first course and I talk about every course and I try to have a story with it as much as possible. Like if I serve a salad, like I did this past dinner, which I learned in Boca, there was a story behind it. I'll talk about the food. And then that's it, I'll try to have maybe crack a joke and I'm laughing, please enjoy your course we're gonna go work on the next course please enjoy, and I walk away. And we and I do that for the entire menu. But I you know, when you serve hot food, you got to be careful too. Because if I start telling a long story, their foods getting cold. So I try to keep the hot food that's you know the story short, sweet. But one thing I really thought about this past dinner was I want I'm higher, I need to get a greeter like just some warm person that's just like my girlfriend's great, because she's just like the best at that. But um, she's not always available. But um, to your point, as far as guest guest interaction when they show up. We do a cocktail, a cocktail half hour, so it's it's a half hour of shaking cocktails, putting a drink in their hands. They're all strangers, they gather around, they're outside, and they're chillin, and they're talking, and I'm inside, getting ready for the first course or the muse. And so I have my bartender outs or server outside doing drinks. But I'm not there. What I need to do is have a greeter. Welcome How you guys doing? My name is so and so welcome in I want like, again, to be more guests driven, I want to add that component to the to the experience. And you know, maybe maybe in the future if I if my if I have a sous chef that's solid enough to handle the first course. Then I could be out there, which is what I should be. I think I should be out there hugging people and kissing babies, you know? Totally,

Chris Spear: 23:55

totally because people love that. Right? Like part of it is you right? When you can go out to so many restaurants. I'm sure there's people coming to see you. I mean, they know what the menu is going to be. But they want some of that face time.

Unknown: 24:07

Yeah, I want to get better at that. And you know, they get it though. Like they see me running around. And sometimes I'll make a joke, like, I'll come out. And I'll like grab a drink. And I'll say, I just want to you know, I'll say whatever. Welcome everybody. You might see me running around crazy for 10 minutes, but like, smokes about the clear you're about to have a great night. So if you see me zoned out, don't worry, we're just getting ready to make your food great. And we'll see a little bit and they laugh, you know, but one of the you know, again, going back to like trying to do better every time. I want to do what we're doing now, but I want to make the guest experience. Insane dude, I want to go fucking heavy on it. I want them to feel like Damn. He upped his game. You know?

Chris Spear: 24:46

There's so much to a dining experience beyond just food. Right? And I think that's hard when you're, I think when you come up in the back of the house and you're so focused on cooking and food and you don't really Have that customer interaction, you know, we've talked for years about front of the house versus back a house or whatever. And I guess my point is that, for me, now I'm looking at the experience when I go out to eat as much as the food, like, if you go and you have terrible service, it makes you not want to go back somewhere, I'm more likely to forgive. You know, I ordered this medium, but it's medium well, but if someone I feel like is ignoring me, or I've had really bad service, like that makes me not want to go back. And that was a big switch for me when I started becoming more guest focused on the service end, and not just the food end, for sure. And

Unknown: 25:35

you know, one of the things that I find difficult is remembering people's names, because there's so many people on the email list, and a lot of my guests are repeat customers. So I have a lot of every dinner, I would say at least 40, sometimes 70% are all returned guests. There's one couple in fact that have come to almost every single dinner and I have one guy I always I always I don't not make fun, but I always call him out because it's funny. He's He's a solo diner, he's retired. He's a great guy, but he's been to almost every dinner as well. So he's that is that it's the guy, you know, those people are easy to remember. But like, I feel so bad when a guest comes and it's their second or third time. And I just I don't remember their name. It happens so quick. You know, we start to dinner. We have five courses, and then they're on their way out the door. It's tough. Like we don't have it's

Chris Spear: 26:26

even worse when you don't remember their face. I've gotten to places and people don't say say nice to meet you. And they say you cooked for me before you know it's I'll remember how but the COVID years were weird because so many people were wearing masks, right? So someone would I go to someone's house and cook for a dozen people. And then one of the people at the house would hire me for their party. So it'd be a different house. I get there. I say, oh, nice to meet you. And they say, Oh, you don't remember, I'm like, oh my god, like I cook for literally 1000s of people. But I still really feel really bad when I don't remember that I've actually cooked for someone before.

Unknown: 26:56

One of the things I thought about doing was, again, going back to having a greeter I think if we do it almost like not at a podium but have some sort of relaxed sheet like almost a sign in sheet where the where the where the guests are I'm sorry, the the host welcomes the guests and says, hey, whatever. What's your name? What's your name? Your we have you down for two tonight. And your name was? Oh, Joanie. Joanie, welcome. And then she marks it. And she may be making some kind of note or some way where at the end of the day, those 12 or 14 guests, she has a list of like, red shirt, whatever, whatever it is. Red shirt, fucking white hat. Joanie, you know what I mean? And the guy is wearing blue button down. And then like, I could do my homework at the end of the dinner, I think that's the only way to do it, and then somehow print that in my brain. And, you know, Google Docs is good, too. Like, I think there's ways for me to get better at that. But I don't know. I don't mean to go off on that. I just, that's just like one of those things that I'm trying to dial in. It's

Chris Spear: 27:58

one of the niceties. I'm always surprised when I go to these very nice, not always Michelin, but very nice restaurants where, you know, they've been collecting data on you, whether they're, whether you've been a repeat guest or have died at one of their other properties, or whether they just scraped social media, but you come in and they know something about you or something. Like you can tell there's places that go out of their way to do a little recon on who their dining guests are. And I always feel especially welcome when I know that's happened. Can we talk pricing? Like, can we can you share how much you charge for these dinners just to kind of give people an idea. And I know, the country is so big and pricing is different in different places. But how much are people paying for dinners if you don't mind? If that's something I can ask you?

Unknown: 28:40

Yeah, totally. That was one of the things I struggled with in the beginning because I wanted to attract as many guests but not shoot myself in the foot. You know, I wasn't trying to make a bunch of money not because there's not much to make anyway. So I landed on. Well, first before I say we do charge, not that I'm hiding it. I just want to just give perspective to the listeners to understand what what we offer. So when a guest comes to this dinner, we offer five courses. You don't leave hungry. I've been to dinners like this where I go to Wendy's afterwards because I'm still hungry. I like to think that we plate elegantly I'd like to think we're close to a Michelin plating. If that's even a thing. Bottled water, we're not you know, we're not cheeping out we get to cases of Pellegrino and acqua panna, and I don't call them wine dinners, but we offer wine with every dinner, a white or red sometimes I do pairings but I noticed that people don't in these dinners don't really care as much about that. They want a nice wine that goes with the lighter courses and they want a nice red for dinner. So I do that and we do a cocktail, I guess at half hour and I'm buying top shelf. MC booze. We're craft mixing batch mixing for a really nice pre batch. And I'm not just giving them one drink if they want to drinks we're feeding them right I'm not here to get them drunk. And anyway, wine and we don't skimp on the wine. Like when you go out to dinner and you buy the wine flight for your courses, your five courses, you pay 90 bucks and they give you like little pores like we're pouring wine. With that said, I landed on 150 a person. Now, as I got through on my seventh, or maybe fifth dinner, I looked at the what I was spending on wine, and I went to 160 10 more dollars a person allowed me to you to buy better wine, and even source better ingredients. So some with the last three dinners I think we did for 160 ahead.

Chris Spear: 30:33

That is insanely inexpensive. I don't know anyone doing any kind of dinners like that, I think it would be worth buying a plane ticket just to fly out there and have a dinner at your place. So yeah, because in my realm of like a private chef like dinners, basically for what I do start at like 125 for for courses with no alcohol included. And I'm not having to pay staff, you know, when I go out, that's the market around here. 125 Minimum gets you just for courses with no alcohol, you know, that includes me coming to your house and doing all that stuff. But you know, what you're charging with alcohol alone, that's like, easily 250 ties dinner around here, if not more ease, and then the amount of staff that you're providing. I mean, it's like, it's almost like in my mind, you're having people tripping over each other, like for the service. So I can't imagine there's a better deal out in your area, you could probably book this out every single night at your house. know

Unknown: 31:30

for sure. And that's what I tell people. I'm like, you know, because some people, they hear that and like, wow, that's a lot of money. And I'm like, You have to understand now, that's a lot of money. If I was in pouring wine and drinks. If it was BYOB, that'd be still would be on par but it would still you know, but yeah, for what we offer man. And you know, I thought about not doing alcohol and not offering wine. But then I said to myself, I know what it's like to go to a pop up and assume they'd want to pour wine and they don't have anything. And I remember being like given one glass of sparkling wine and I'm like, Dude, I want to, you know, so anyway, all inclusive. Could I get more? Yeah, but we bumped it. 10 bucks. 160 seems to be working out I think. I think we can get more but you got to be careful out here. You know, Boise is a growing city, the food scene is growing, but you probably have one other restaurant along with myself that are doing tasting menus in the whole fucking state. Well,

Chris Spear: 32:28

it's really hard when you have so little comparison that then it makes you an easy mark for comparison against those places, right? Like, I live in the metro DC area. So people towards DC have an idea of fine dining. So it's not that outrageous for them. But I'm actually like 45 minutes out and like in Frederick we have volt, which is like Bryan Voltaggio Top Chef, you know, when I'm charging what he's charging, you instantly get the comparison. I'm like, oh shit, I can go to volt and get a seven course meal for the same price. Who the hell are you? You know, like nobody said that. But like, just looking at my market of where you compare. It's like that's why I have a tougher time here in my hometown versus really just like marketing to the DC crowd.

Unknown: 33:11

What's crazy to the point you just made, I said this a couple of times. I wanted to do this in my hometown when I lived there. And I plan I had a space for it and all. I guarantee I know for a fact in my hometown where I know every chef, I'd like to think I'm pretty respected as a chef of my town. I grew up there. I do not think I'd be able to do what I'm doing here back home. I don't know if it's the demographic the market there was back home. Oh, so I'm grew up in northeastern Pennsylvania. So I'm about an hour and change north of Philly and I'm left of Manhattan. So I'm on the top north of PA Scranton Wilkes Barre.

Chris Spear: 33:49

I used to live in Westchester so kind of familiar. You know, I lived in Pennsylvania for like five years. So I actually started my personal chef business catering, kind of like on the main line of Philly, which was a really good area for that kind of stuff. That's kind of how I started my business. Back in 2006

Unknown: 34:06

Boise has just been so supportive, people are thirsty for this kind of thing. Whereas back home, people eat chicken wings and pizza and they, you know, they bitch about a $15 cheese steak. You know, that's the kind of, you know, a coal miner town. Like,

Chris Spear: 34:18

I just talked about a $15 cheesesteak, although it was, I think 1695 Because I had a customer asked me what I could do for them for $35 ahead and being as polite as I could. I said something well, you know, I just went out to dinner last night and my son's cheesesteak was 1695 So doing a four course dinner in your home. There's nothing I can do for 35 I guess the big thing that nobody really likes to talk about or wants to talk about is kind of the legalities of all this and how that works. And like everything in every business. You know, it varies from state to state and county to county but can you You shed a little light, you know, and as as much info as you can share that I think would be helpful because I know, this is something people do in other areas. I had a guest on my show who has been doing this for over a decade and his home with no problems. And then I know people who've tried to do it one time and have been shut down. So what's your experience been with that? What did you research before you did it? Anything you can tell me? It'd be great. Yeah, one

Unknown: 35:24

of the things I did before I even did the pop up was, I went to there was I needed a suit. So there was a guide on the road. And I went to get fitted for a suit and he was in the area. So I talked to him. And he knows all the business people in the area because they go there. So I told him when I was going to do and he's really sharp guy and I just had a lot of conversations with guys like him. And one of the things he said, he goes, dude, he goes, you're in Idaho. He's like, no one's going to do that shit, meaning no one's going to call on you. No one's going to, you know, report you. He goes, you're an Idaho man. He goes, You have to really piss someone off for someone to do that. So there's something about Idaho is the first thing I'll say, especially Boise and the surrounding towns and cities and neighborhoods. So like to your point, my buddy back home and Pa did a pop up. nicest guy ever clean a chef found a space and someone called on him. There's something different out here, man, the East Coast is weird, especially where I'm from. I think you just you're gonna on the East Coast, you're gonna have haters, you're gonna have weirdos that just want to be decks. Right? So I've been fortunate. At the end of the day, I'm sure there's ways like to get creative and you see pop up folks talking about like, don't

Chris Spear: 36:35

charge for the food you're charging for a tour of your house or it's a it's a donation of such and such.

Unknown: 36:41

Yeah, donation suggested donation, whatever. I haven't really had to do that, man. I mean, it's, it's it's been I mean, fingers crossed, right. But we

Chris Spear: 36:50

have here our Department of Health are actually the ones looking for these causing the problems. It's not even haters, you know, I the first time I did one, we rented an Airbnb sold tickets on Eventbrite had a bunch of people come now we did it, because we thought we were cool with that I cook out of Airbnb is all the time. So we got some publicity. And of course, it landed us on the front page of our local newspaper and magazine. And then, you know, then I'm being told that I'm running an illegal restaurant out of an Airbnb, and this can't be happening. So then I just moved to other counties with it. And it's been a non issue. I've talked to the Department of Health, you know, 20 miles down the road and a different county, and they're like, if it's on private property, we don't care. If you're not a restaurant, we don't care. So it's really hard and challenging, but I just know, like, around here, they're on your face, but like, they will follow your social media pages and look for that stuff. And then they won't even reach out and say, Hey, I see you're advertising this dinner. They will just show up to the dinner. And like shut it down. Yeah, oh, yeah. Yeah, if you don't pull a permit, I had a friend who was doing a pairing at a winery and was contacted. And I guess she, you know, she was just making like desserts like macarons or something and showed up to the winery. And they didn't even give her a heads up and say, Hey, by the way, I see that you're advertising to do food for this, and totally would have been legal, she would have just had to pay, you know, $25 permit, whatever. But instead, they waited to show up till the event had started. And people had shown up for them to come in and say like, shut it down, made her take all our food and throw it out and leave. You know, that's just for show, in my opinion. Yeah,

Unknown: 38:25

well, you know, it's you said the front page right up and it was the reverse for me like when they did the front page for me when I came here. I forget what the title was. But it was like something about a chef brings five star which first of all, what is five stars. But anyway, that like Chef brings five star food to Boise with pop ups. And it was all positive. I don't know. I think one of the things that helps too, is there's a nonprofit culinary program for like they call it at risk. Basically kids getting in trouble helps him get a GED and but it also is a full culinary program. And so I try to mentor the students if I can. And I do demos there, I'm I'm trying to get or I'm trying to I am involved with them. But I'm trying to even get more involved. But some of the folks that work for me at the pop ups are from that program so that like people like to hear that in this area. And when they see you're doing stuff like that, you know, it helps them not helps them but it's it looks good in this type people like that in this town. You're not

Chris Spear: 39:24

doing it just for personal money for yourself. You're actually giving something back. Yeah.

Unknown: 39:28

And when I did a donation dinner like a full pop one full pop up for 10 people, I donated the whole thing out of my pocket for it was a nonprofit. I don't want to throw their name out there. Neither here nor there. But it's a good thing to do. I like doing stuff like that. Well,

Chris Spear: 39:44

and I want to talk to you about mentoring a little bit because I know this is something that's important to you. It's something that's important to me and I talk about on the show a lot because I have found a lack of mentorship in the restaurant industry for a number of years. I feel like I came up in a time where it was like especially if you went to culinary school And everyone expected that you knew what you're doing, right? Like you get on the job. And it's like, okay, you know, there it is go, here's the station, here's the food, whatever. And very few people were willing to really take the time to work with you to help you with your technique, and so forth. I don't know if that was your experience. But I've seen that. And I think in subsequent years, it's just getting worse, like people are having less time to do that. And definitely with the, you know, everyone talks about the employee shortage that it's just expected, you're going to hit the ground running and go and nobody's cutting you any slack. And you really don't have the mentorship. So what's your experience been with that?

Unknown: 40:37

So, for me mentorship, I've talked about this a lot. Not that much publicly. But, you know, over the years, I never knew what a mentor was, like, I may have heard the word. But for the most of my career, I just worked for chefs. I mean, there was some chefs that were, I think, at a level that I would consider them mentor worthy. But I was I didn't know any better. I was just there to learn and cook. I didn't I was I was kinda like, you know, just grinding it out. What I learned about mentorship is man, like once I really, really had some people in my life that I consider mentors and I conceptualize that, that relationship. It really helped me for a lot of reasons. It also gave me the courage to as my, as I go, went through my career, to walk up to here, you know, him or her whoever it is, and sit and say, you know, we have this relationship, would you be interested in mentoring me? So my first mentor, I'd never called him a mentor. Well, I was I was basically getting kicked out of school, I had a lot of trouble. That's how I got into cooking. And basically, I ended up in a program that was similar to the life's kitchen program I mentioned, but it was through the high school. So basically, it's a trade school vo tech, long story short, I get in there, it was it was either get kicked out of school or have a second chance to give me a second chance. And Dave Joyce man, he was my first mentor and never called him that though. So the word to me means a lot different now. And then about a few years ago, guy named guys Aner, one of the smartest guys I know, man, just brilliant chef. And he's the one that said it. He's like, he's like I want this to be he said, he's like, I want this to be a mentorship, I want to mentor you. He's like you're lacking here, I need you to do this, this and this. And so what I learned is, is that it's very important in this business, to have mentors, and when young cooks come up to me, and they're like, What, what's some advice you can give me? I say, first of all, you have to know what you want out of this business. And if you want to learn from a chef, and you want to learn from a restaurant in particular, I would not if it was me, I would knock on the door, I would get in front of Michael mean, or Thomas Keller, whoever it is. And I wouldn't ask for a job. I would I would say, I'm looking, I'm looking for a mentor, can you do you have the time to mentor me? Are you available? And they might say no, and that's okay. Because it might take a year, it might take two years. But to have a mentorship relationship is very, very important. And here's another good one. Recently, I consider my mentor now, but there's a gentleman that I work for now. And he I asked him if he would be my mentor. I said, I don't want to just work for you. I want to be mentored. He could have said, Yeah, sure. Let's do it. But one of the most amazing things that came out of his mouth, in my opinion that I appreciate it so much he goes, he goes well, before I give you an answer. He goes, I want you to tell me what that looks like to you. He's like, what exactly does that look like to you? He goes, I'm not telling you yes or no. But he's like, I want to clear I want you to write out a clear understanding of expectations of what you're looking for. Because first of all, what do I have to offer to him as a mentee? Right? And I thought that was that just justified? Why I want him to be my mentor, just how he answered that question. And I thought I respected that so much. And it made me think Man, like, you know, I don't think every one that's mentor worthy is gonna say yes. And I don't think that they should say yes, you know, but, you know, I think we have a lot of lack of like you said it, there's definitely a lack of mentorship in this business. I think there's a lot of chefs and I've heard a couple of big names, chefs like just flat out say, I don't mentor like, I don't have time, like fuck you. And I think for me personally, it's our job as leaders to spend time with the right mentees and spent in carve time to do that, because without the mentors, I had, I owe it to the younger generation, right. I feel it's our obligation as leaders, as chefs as professionals. I mean, that's, that's the whole brigade. That's how it all started. You know,

Chris Spear: 44:39

one of the interesting things I've seen is, you know, sometimes you're in a kitchen where you're trying to train people and almost like mentor them without them asking for right like, I feel like your job as the chef is to do that. And they're not, you know, they're they're just there for a paycheck or, you know, whatever. So they're not really interested in that. But then there is some and who is so you kind of work with them? And then there's the pushback of like, oh, favoritism? Well, why are you always working with them? Why are we showing them? It's like, Well, I tried to show you, I tried to show everyone you know, I think that also gets to be kind of hard in some places, because you can't literally, necessarily mentor everyone in a large kitchen. So it's usually you know, I think you you kind of know when that relationships gonna be right.

Unknown: 45:22

There's so many I could remember like, so many times Michael meat is one that that if I knew what I knew now, then I, I would have because I worked with him on the line. He was on the past when I worked there. And I didn't even know that it was only because the chef at the time had to take leave. And if I could go back, not that I want to, but I would probably do a one on one with Him and be like, Chef, what are your thoughts on mentorship? Is that something you'd be interested in doing? And do you do that, you know, because I think I would have stayed there longer. And I would have got a lot more out of that job had I did that. Because when he left the past, and the chef came back, or he left the kitchen, it was different man. The chef was just, he just like he just wanted you there to fulfill your station. And when I gave my two weeks, he's like, Well, you know, you're never gonna, you're never going to work in the city again. And I'm like, really? Oh, that's nice. Or I don't know if he said city, but he's like, you've definitely never worked for another micrometre kitchen again. And I'm like, Alright, man, well, I have an opportunity. It was he was just like, Alright, see you fuck you.

Chris Spear: 46:21

That's why people don't want to stay in this industry.

Unknown: 46:24

It's tough man. And I see it firsthand. Because, you know, I deal with restaurants every day. I'm a consultant with a distributor. So I work with restaurants to source them in Greek to you know, basically source their ingredients, help them with more the artisanal line side of it, but every day, man, no one could find like, it's very hard to find help. So

Chris Spear: 46:46

what is that, like? You know, so I alluded to it earlier that obviously the popups isn't your only thing. Do you enjoy what you do? And what is your kind of day to day look like with that? Yeah,

Unknown: 46:56

so the short, short, short story story is, you know, when I left the kitchens, I was a food sales rep. I was burned out, I wanted to get out. And then I turned, I got promoted to a corporate chef for a really big company in New York. And that was people, I want to say yes, compared to kitchens, it's a lot more cushy, but it's a different hustle. It's as hard just different. And I moved here three years ago, it's in my mind, it's funny, I wear like three hats, right? We don't have a technical corporate chef, but everyone considers me that like I do play that role. My my titles, artisanal provisions specialist, and Italian specialist. So we have two categories that we call portfolios of, of ingredients that you would buy from us as a distributor. So when I wear the Italian specialty hat, that means if you own a pizzeria or an Italian restaurant, you're gonna call me and say, I'm not your sales rep. But you're gonna call our company or your sales rep. And I'm the guy that you're going to ask, Hey, I need this certain buffalo mots from Italy, can you get it? I only want this kind of cheese only I need the San Marzano tomato, and I want Caputo flour, whatever, whatever. And that's where I support. And then you might say, my pizza recipes off. I'm not getting enough crisp on it, I want it. And then I'll say okay, well, let's look at your hydration. Let's look at how much yeast and salt you're putting in or sugar, what type of flour you're using, or what temperature and you're baking it you know. So I hope in that way to support the, you know, support the sales reps. So you have

Chris Spear: 48:29

to be really knowledgeable about that type of stuff. I don't think just any old person could talk about hydration and a pizza dough.

Unknown: 48:36

Oh, I mean, it's crazy. I so I co owned a pizzeria in New York City back in. Oh, geez, fuck 2007 Six, Atlanta. And I was 22 or 23 super young. And basically my best friend Charlie, rip. His mother basically bought us a restaurant. So I was a working partner. But um, I opened it from the ground up. And my point is I thought I knew a lot about pizza before taking this position. But the the amount of knowledge I've learned every day is insane. And what's great about it is it's just equipping me better and better for my future. You know, whether or not I have want to open my own pizzeria or whatever. It's just like, I'm grateful to have all this knowledge because I can go to the source. If I want to. If I want to really geek out, I could just call one of my vendors and say let's talk about Spain. I really want to know how they produce these Iberico pork. Like I want to know what they like the process, you know, or produce. I want to know the seasonality and where it grows and how you know, I'm going out to actually, Salinas I go out almost every year and we go out to the fields and we you know, we're in their payload, taking artichokes out of field and picking berries and it's a great position for a guy like me, you know?

Chris Spear: 49:58

Would you be able to do it If you didn't have the pop ups meaning like that itch to create something culinary because I think that's the challenge, right? Like a lot of chefs get older, they can't deal with the kitchen or they don't want to do it. So they take a job as a sales rep. And then you can tell that it's like slowly killing them because they want to be cooking 100%

Unknown: 50:18

I see it happen all the time. A lot of people come into the distribution business from the kitchens a lot, and not all of them stick around. Because you'll see it to like, the it's a much better job for a family. And although as the those benefits, there's I see a lot of folks that just Yeah, it's not for them, they can't scratch that itch. So we have a test kitchen in our facility. And we you know, we could bring customers in, and we do all the time. And we'll do r&d, we'll do presentations to show them all of our products and recipes and stuff. And that's fun I ever there's a rationale. It's a full range. And that kind of scratches the itch, but I always wanted to do fine dining. Always. When I started cooking very young when I went to culinary school, when I graduated, I wanted to do fine dining. Michelin didn't hit the states yet. So I graduated CIA in 2005. And I five in the Michelin just came in shortly after that. So if there was Michelin stars, I probably would have ran to one of those places, but I took a different route. You know, I bounced around. I had a lot of personal issues, you know, with as you know, like the chef life, I struggled with some of the things that we're known for. And to the point of like getting out of kitchens and working in distribution and that scratching that itch with food. If I did not do the popups would my job scratch that itch? Halfway it would it would scratch it, but not to what this does, man, it wouldn't fulfill me as much as this. Well,

Chris Spear: 51:48

it's nice that you can find that balance and do that. Because not always you don't always have a full time job that affords you the ability to also do that on the side.

Unknown: 51:56

For sure. And you know, my, my, I'm pretty sure my boss technically is aware of this. I mean, it's it's once a month, it's nothing crazy. It's not like I'm going to ham, but it never came up. But if it was, I'm very confident that the popups helped me in my day job, right. I walked into a restaurant. And the chef was like we never met before. And I'm like I was here. I was helping him with some kind of sauce. Like you wanted some ingredients for the sauce. So I was there with a sales rep. And then he heard my name and he goes, Wait, he goes, You're from family meal. His whole demeanor changed. He was like wrapped a hug. And he's like, Dude, I saw you on Instagram. That's so sick. So doing these pop ups. I feel like when she when chefs know associate me with that. They respect me more. Like even though I was a chef, I could have worked for Keller, I could have worked for Noma. I don't I'm not in restaurants currently. So I walk into a kitchen and he has a chef coat on and I have a suit on are dressed it's dress code. I don't they don't care that used to be in kitchens. What are you doing now? Like, it's different. So I guess what I'm saying is actively doing these popups I think gives me gets me more respect in front of some of these, some of these chefs,

Chris Spear: 53:10

I was just talking to someone about this on the podcast last week, because he works for a large company. And he does. He's kind of like their corporate executive chef. And he has a big following on social media. And they actively encourage that they think it's great that they're, you know, in House Chef is now becoming like a household name through this. But then there's other companies who basically say like, No, you work for us, like, you know, no moonlighting or whatever, they don't want you to be creating your own brand on the side. I don't know, if they're afraid that you're gonna, you know, leave to go do your own thing. I don't know. But I see that falling out a little bit. Because I've worked for companies in the past, where they definitely didn't want you having, you know, a social media presence. That big. Like, I don't know how they would have felt about me having a podcast when I worked for some of these companies. Yeah, man.

Unknown: 53:57

It's tough. I know. There's i It's, I work for a big company. We're the biggest independent broadline distributor on the west coast. So we're a big player. And I know there's probably people in the company that are looking at me looking at my soul, especially my social media, and look, it's not that I don't have that big of a following I have almost 200,000 on Tik Tok. That's, that's my biggest following.

Chris Spear: 54:17

That's, that's pretty big, though. I mean, yeah, that's a lot of people watching finger stakes videos, for sure. I mean,

Unknown: 54:24

but you know, I guess what I've seen is like, you know, there's there's probably some folks on the higher level that have kept eyes on me. And it hasn't been an issue yet. It only came up once where it was like, someone had to go to bat for me, because someone said something like, you know, well, he's built his brand and not building our brand. But if you if I go back, right. About a year and a half ago, I tried to support the company on social and got shot down and they everyone freaked out and I was like, Well, if that's the case, I will not mention nothing of you on my social. In my opinion, it would be a good move, but I'm playing it safe. And if they came to me tomorrow and said, We want to let's collab, let's integrate with what you have going on. I'd be all about it. My heart's in the right place. It's just, I did have had, I had to have someone go to bat for me at one point, like, Listen, he's not doing anything wrong. I have no problem with it. And that was it water under the bridge. So, so far, so good, man. I mean, yeah, I mean, I would like to think that they support me. I'm

Chris Spear: 55:25

thinking about that a lot. Now, just because while I love what I do, as a personal chef, I am open to opportunities. So I recently like, tidied up my resume, and just kind of like, dipped my toes out there just to kind of see like, what interesting opportunities there are. But knowing that I always want to continue doing what I'm doing. And that's a non negotiable, so letting everyone know upfront that besides, you know, whatever I would be doing for you, I'm still gonna be creating content at home, I'm still gonna be blogging, I'm still building a community, I'm still podcasting. And you have to be okay with that, because I'm not giving that all up just to go work for some company. So if the right opportunity presents itself, that's going to be you know, one of my terms there.

Unknown: 56:06

Yeah. And a lot of times, I mean, I didn't do that I wasn't doing pop ups when I first came on board, but like I had, I've been doing them, I would have said something to the effect of right up front, like you said, right in front of Jump Street and say, look, so you know, here's what I got going on on the side, it's not going to interfere with my job, it's not going to do it. I need that I need God to be okay with that before we move forward. And once they sign off, it's kind of like almost that kind of holds up, you know, long term. It's for the most part, but I think, you know, my heart's in the right place, man. I'm not sacrificing anything. As far as It's concerned with my job, you know, I'm probably actually better at my job because I do these, you know,

Chris Spear: 56:45

me too. I mean, I was doing this on the side when I was working for someone, and it was really pushing my creative creativity. And then being able to take that back, like, what did I learn about service at a small 15 person, personal chef dinner that can now be scaled up with the proper staff at our location? You know? Yeah. Well, what do you want to leave our listeners with? Before we get out of here today? Is there any parting words for our audience?

Unknown: 57:13

Well, one thing I can leave for the listeners too, which is really important for me, and helpful for me is, when it comes to the pop up, in the beginning, I wanted to just develop my style, like we talked about when people ask a chef, like, what's your style? What's your cuisine? And I think a lot of chefs struggle with that. I know I do. You know, I was French trained kind of, I lived in Italy, you know, Italian food was all over the place growing up. So Italian food is my comfort zone. I'm not by any means an Italian chef. But like, that's the food I cooked. My whole life was Italian, French, and then you know, a lot of seafood where I came from. But the popups I want it to be one lane. I'm like, maybe we'll just do like tasty menu, fine dining, but we'll do like global flavors. Or maybe I was on a kick from Middle Eastern. So my father was Middle Eastern, and I never was around that culture. So I'm like, maybe if I just dive into my roots on that side, I could do like a fine dining Syrian Lebanese vibe. And then I'd be the chef that does tasting menus, but it has influences of the Middle East. And then I'm like, That's not me. I never like I could cook that food. And I want to keep learning that food. But it's not me, right. What I'm trying to say for the listeners is I think this is really important for me, what I realized is, we always switch it up. It's a different cuisine. It's a different vibe, again, French, Italian, Basque, Japanese, whatever. And that has been the menus that are most successful. When I do summer bounty. It barely sells out. When I did Farmers Market harvest season, the shit I geek out about when I go talk to the farmers and I'm procuring the most fresh ingredients that were just in the ground. people out here, don't freak out up, they don't geek out like we do. So people want to be sold on a story. And I had to just settle on that because I didn't want to be that guy that those French and that Italian, the Japanese, like how do you do all those good things, all those things? Well, well, the way I do those well is because I do a lot of research and development and studying. You know, I don't just throw shit on a menu like I'm doing my homework. And, you know, I feel like if you've worked in a kitchen for as long as I did, it doesn't take that much effort to do your homework and make a

Chris Spear: 59:22

no and you're probably eating out at a lot of those places. You know, you get to be your age, you've eaten plenty of Thai food or middle eastern food or whatever.

Unknown: 59:30

Well and you know what I do is I try to avoid the word authentic by all means because truly what is authentic and then the people that bitch that something's not authentic, if you really go back to what they're saying is authentic is not authentic. It's like, there's there's nothing new under the sun. Like everything comes from somewhere, right? You know where it was passed or truly invented? Right? What's that? So I don't, I don't use the word authentic. A lot of times I'll use the word ish. I just It's my lazy way of saying Tuscan ish, Hawaiian ish like we did a Hawaiian manual. Was it true? Hawaiian No, there was there was, there was different. There was Jaffee, there was different Asian cultures in that menu, and especially the climate we live in with the appropriation stuff, like I try very hard to not use that word, authentic. But as long as you do is I do a vibe on it. And it's a theme that's just been so successful for me. People want that story they want that menu to be from somewhere, you know, it frustrates me.

Chris Spear: 1:00:28

I could go on and on about that. But I think I'd like to leave it there. I think that's amazing advice. And something that I hope will resonate with a lot of people. And if they're trying to figure out kind of how to design their menus and their events that they maybe think about giving that a try.

Unknown: 1:00:44

And I hope that helps because like, you know, we could talk all day about all the things that like if someone's thinking about starting to pop up tomorrow. I mean, sometimes I like to say just gotta dive into it. Because it's trial by fire, do your homework, take good notes, but you know, you only learn as you go,

Chris Spear: 1:01:00

I've thrown plenty against the wall. Some of it sticks. A lot of it doesn't just keep going right, especially when you have your own business, you've got to take risks, otherwise you die. And that's going to be another podcast episode for another time that I'm I'm working on right now. But it's been great having you on the show. I'm so glad we could talk today.

Unknown: 1:01:18

I'll hit you when I'm out in DC. And if you're ever obviously forever in my neck of the woods, man, you love the show. You're on Boise, you know?

Chris Spear: 1:01:24

Absolutely. I've never really been out that way. So I'll hit you up. I love traveling. So maybe I'll come out there soon.

Unknown: 1:01:29

Let's do it, man. Well, thanks

Chris Spear: 1:01:31

so much for coming on the show. My pleasure, brother. Thanks for having me, man. And to all of our listeners. As always, this has been Chris with Chefs Without Restaurants. You're still here, the podcast is over. If you are indeed still here, thanks for taking the time to listen to the show. I'd love to direct you to one place and that's chefs without restaurants.org. From there, you'll be able to join our email newsletter. Get connected in our free Facebook group, and join our personal chef catering and food truck database so I can help get you more job leads. And you'll also find a link to our sponsor page where you'll find products and services I love. You pay nothing additional to use these links. But I may get a small commission which helps keep the Chefs Without Restaurants podcast and organization running. You might even get a discount for using some of these links. As always, you can reach out to me on Instagram at Chefs Without Restaurants or send me an email at chefs without restaurants@gmail.com Thanks so much.