What happens when a classically trained fine dining chef decides to trade white tablecloths for paper plates and still serve some of the best food in Virginia Beach? Meet Chef Jesse Wykle, the culinary mastermind behind Aloha Snacks and a true Hampton Roads legend who once took down Bobby Flay on national television with his signature lumpia.
We got the real dirt about food television competitions, where Jesse shares the surreal experience of competing against Bobby at 4 AM after a night of drinking with his wife in New York City. This story is priceless—from Bobby glazing over when hearing "lumpia" to bringing in a Filipino chef to teach him the basics, and ultimately inviting Jesse to his restaurant Gato after losing the competition. "I've never hung out with anybody," Bobby admitted, making Jesse's victory that much sweeter.
But beyond the glitz of Food Network fame lies a deeper conversation about what makes a restaurant community thrive. Jesse passionately advocates for breaking down the competitive walls between local establishments, arguing that Hampton Roads will never attract Michelin recognition until restaurants support each other rather than operating in isolation. "If James Beard is looking for a place to give someone an award, they're going to a place where multiple places have that quality," he explains, urging chefs to focus on building collective excellence rather than individual prestige.
Jesse also shares details about the upcoming Virginia Beach Strawberry Festival on May 17th, shutting down Laskin Road to celebrate local farms and raise money for EquiKids. Please go out and support this new festival location!
His advice to young chefs considering restaurant ownership is refreshingly blunt: "Either get out or realign it." This interview offers an unfiltered look into both the creative joys and brutal realities of the restaurant industry from someone who's mastered the art of working his way up, to work his way out.
Want to understand what makes Hampton Roads' culinary scene special and where it's headed? Listen to this episode, then head to Aloha Snacks in Virginia Beach to experience the casual culinary magic of a chef who wears Nike tennis shoes while preparing some of the best tuna.
You can find out more about this hidden gem of a spot here: https://alohasnacksvb.com/
And on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/alohasnacksvb
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*The views and opinions on this show are meant for entertainment purposes only. They do not reflect the views of our sponsors. We are not here to babysit your feelings, if you are a true industry pro, you will know that what we say is meant to make you laugh and have a great time. If you don't get that, this is not the podcast for you. You've been warned. Enjoy the ride!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, kristen, check it out.
Listen, we got, we got a legend.
We got a local legend.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Local legend, one of my favorites.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Mr Jesse Weichel, right here from Aloha Snacks, if
you all know about that.
Speaker 3 (00:08):
You got two legends.
Hold on.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
You can't, you can't cap out, you can't, you can't
tap out of it.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
He tries to be understated.
He's like he's moved on fromthe more famous chef world into
this understated presence ofbeing.
That is you now.
Oh, I'll say this Hold on aminute, a couple teaming me now.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Now listen, you can't .
If someone says you're a legend, you just roll it.
You don't say, you don't,un-legendize yourself.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Fair enough, you can't be un-legendary.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
Fair enough, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
It's like you know once you slap someone in the
face fine, it's all it's in love.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
Right, this is gorgeous, so I can't believe it
we use the word legendary.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Tell us what she started something at the
beginning of this conversation,real quick, you just said it a
minute ago.
Um, you worked through.
You worked your ways up towhere you can actually be, where
you are now right.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Well, you worked your way up to work your way to a
like the life you wanted.
So the reason I I love you andI wanted to have you on the show
is because there's a lot ofunderrated people in this area
that people don't really knowabout or don't know their
history in the culinary space,and you're one of those people.
I think people love Aloha Snacks, the Virginia Beach.
The food is great, but that'snot where you started and people
(01:18):
don't realize your actualtrajectory of training and where
you were in the chef worldbefore that restaurant and
that's I mean, that was part ofthe reason I wanted you to be
here to kind of share that well,first, before you go deep, do
this, explain what aloha snacksis, because there's a lot of
people that watch us from allover the world and we have a lot
.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Actually, our following is is reaching well
past our area.
So give us, give us a quickrundown of what your vision and
what your inspiration for alohasnacks got to tell you first,
man, working my way up to workmy way out.
I mean, this business is notfor everybody and not for the
whole home.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
This thing is nuts.
Sometimes I have you know.
You wake up and you got theseterrible dreams.
You're like oh my God, thewater's been running.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
Orders didn't come in Nightmare, is it?
Speaker 3 (01:58):
a dream, is it reality?
I know you've had those.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
I had one last night.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
Mine are always not being able to get water to the
tables.
Actually, you want to know whatit was.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
What was it?
It came true, oh no.
I had a dream that my friggingdelivery people were coming in
here and they couldn't get inand we needed everything because
it was a big day.
And I got here today and therewas a frigging delivery driver
outside waiting to get in Crazy.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
They come whenever they want, don't they?
Speaker 1 (02:22):
Yeah, don't worry about the invoice or what it
says, because that doesn'tmatter.
You know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
So you started okay.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
Aloha Snacks.
Why the name?
Why the inspiration?
It's all a lot of tuna, a lotof Hawaiian, a lot of sea stuff.
So we got you in there theother day.
You have the musubi.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Thanks to Kirsten.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
Yeah, I like the spam .
I kind of a fine-tunedrestaurant, fast, casual spin on
Hawaii and everything that welove out there in the islands,
Paying homage to the people andthe places that we've traveled
to, enjoyed the food and thecuisine and put it on a
compostable paper plate Takingsome of the arrogance out of the
restaurant.
(02:58):
We're wearing Nike tennis shoesto work and shorts and cutting
up some of the finest tuna inthe world.
It's casual as all get out, butthe food is not.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
The food is not elevated and we got our little
pickup window, which I loveexactly.
So we we were talking beforeand we're talking about how the
how such far reaches.
Now it's much easier to getregional food.
You know you, you have a lot ofinspiration from hawaii, but it
really in turn, I mean it is alot of virginia beach cuisine
really.
I mean a lot of that over theyears.
That stuff is kind of meldedtogether and uh, and you guys
(03:32):
are really putting it out thatway with a lot of I would say uh
, pacific infusion right, isthat right to say?
Speaker 3 (03:40):
yeah, I mean, it's um , it's like a melting pot in
virginia beach, you know, andcomfort food could be pad thai,
and it's crazy that we've comethis far.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Whereas comfort food would be pulled, barbecue or
something.
Now it's pad thai and you'vegot comfort food items on your
menu?
Speaker 3 (03:56):
Sure, I absolutely have, because it's comfortable.
The pizza who doesn't want tobe?
Speaker 2 (03:59):
comfortable bro we eat food to be happy.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
Yeah, no one goes to have a shitty time.
No one wants to beuncomfortable.
But see, you've got to gooutside of your realm and be a
little uncomfortable.
Sometimes, you know, in acreative process that happens
that could be Chesapeake.
It is.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
But let me tell you something In the creative
process, when a chef's creatingfood, a lot of that is
uncomfortable because you don'tknow what direction.
Then the comfortability comesinto it.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
But it is uncomfortable.
Chef, we had no idea that Alohasnacks would fly.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
I mean, we didn't know Right, so you just roll the
dice.
So how long has it been therenow?
How long have you had thatrestaurant?
Seven and a half years, okay,it came from Zoe's Yep.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
Fine dining.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
You were a fine dining chef.
The last dinner we did was, Imean, hillside sunspot.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
It was crazy and Schaefer ain't a joke anyway,
that's already a.
That right there.
Just to match the food as achef to that quality of wine is
some of the struggles.
We come with A fun one, acreative one, but you have to be
creative and you have to thinkand you have to have skill to be
able to match what's in thatbottle.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
We can't make that bottle look shitty or make that
bottle make our food look somuch it can't be so much better
than our food that we have tomatch what's in that fucking
bottle, if not beat it.
You know, amen, that's how Ilook at it.
You know, the better the winefor a wine dinner to me is, the
better the food I'm going to putout, so I can keep up to the
caliber of that rating on thatbottle and it's a marriage, you
know, and not overpower it.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
And you know, I see y'all's wine list and I mean
it's dude, let's crack some it'sa little hard.
He's like I'm ready Pop somebottles.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
We can have a glass of wine right now.
If you want, we can totally dothat.
I love it.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
So let me say this you have a good resume, you have
a good accolade, so tell usabout it, tell everybody about
it.
People want to hear this shit.
You were working with BobbyFlay and them guys, weren't you?
You were on TV, you were on theFood Network and stuff.
Correct me if I'm wrong.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
Yeah, well, it started with the James Beard
House.
I was the youngest in Virginiato be able to you know I was
chosen to cook at the BeardHouse.
You've done that.
I think there's a pool or somenames that they gravitate
towards um, that kind of funnelsyou through, uh, the food
network and whatever shows,right, they want you to go on um
, and so that's how we got onthe b bobby flay show so talk
(06:13):
about that show man.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
We want to hear about this stuff.
Um, you know, I mean, it wasbehind the scenes, it was kind
of crazy, honestly.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
Um, just, I guess the casting you know well, they
want to.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
Do they tell you to be a dick?
Do they tell you to like theywere, like you ever?
Speaker 3 (06:26):
smoke pot.
I'm like.
I mean, are you all the feds?
Speaker 2 (06:28):
What's going?
Speaker 3 (06:28):
on.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
This is a D-Bobby play show.
That's crazy, I mean, why wouldthey ask that?
Speaker 3 (06:32):
Right.
And then, as we're goingthrough, you know the menu and
they were like, how aboutchicken parm?
And I'm like, how about not?
Speaker 1 (06:47):
I was like I'm not making out chicken parm.
In the last next I was like,sorry, I said poke, bulgogi,
cheesesteak, you know, burgers.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
All that had been done and then I was like boom,
olympia, and that was Bobby'skryptonite, his Asian food he
just blanked.
He was like what.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
You know what, though ?
I'd be with him in that,because I would kind of blank
out on Asian food.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
I love to eat it.
It's a spring roll, yeah butyou do yours different.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
Yours is different than a traditional lumpia.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
We like the XL.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
You do like the real elevated version of it and it's
not the traditional, just thebeef beef, the ground beef, and
you have a lot going in on yoursis that what you made on the
show?
Speaker 3 (07:24):
yeah, it's the local pork, is that so the lumpia
that's on your menu, is that?
That's what I went againstbobby, so when?
Speaker 1 (07:29):
you're on the show with bobby.
How was that?
Was it?
Was it fun?
Was was a lot of jokes going on.
We like to be.
You're a humorous guy, you liketo have fun.
You like to all right so youwant?
Speaker 2 (07:38):
the whole story was there.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
We gotta start about the night before because, my
wife and I went up and we justraged.
Maybe I was wound tighter thana $2 watch or whatever it was.
But we went up that night and 4in the morning rolls up and
we're like dude, we kind of gotto get dialed in for the show.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
So it's 4 in the morning.
You're going on set and there'sthis cab driver, that dude.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
He was out of the Jetsons just flying.
I mean he must have clipped twocars.
I'm like this is it?
I'm gonna die in new york city,perfect, yeah.
So anyway, four in the morningrolls in um.
I'm getting texts from foodnetwork, probably around six,
yeah two hours, two hours ofsleep and they're like telling
me which shirt to wear.
(08:22):
So we show up, we're film.
We're filming in Harlem.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
Did they give you a bunch of shirt options to wear?
Speaker 3 (08:28):
No, no, we brought some, I mean whatever.
I had, like this old Jamaican,like you know, tuna shirt.
Whatever I was, like let's doit.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
That's so you.
I had like maybe one button.
You just left the plug.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
There's a chef contestant room and all the
chefs are like just walkingaround.
I'm like, oh my God, you know,this shit is real.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
Yeah.
And then it's kind of like themovie.
Were they the chefs on the showcompeting with you?
Speaker 3 (08:55):
They were like fill-ins too.
They were like other chefs,like ready to just drop and roll
.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
And then it's like the movie Gladiator.
You could hear Bobby wasalready filming.
It's what a beast he is.
He's already filming anothershow and like it was 7 or 8 in
the morning and the crowd's likeoh, and you're like oh, my God.
I mean, the anxiety was.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
They had a live crowd out there.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
Oh, it's like a stadium seating.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
You had that for yours so that you could hear,
and I had my wife up there.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
She's yelling at me the whole time.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
So you're getting nervous at this point.
Now it's real.
She's throwing things at you.
I love you.
Darling, she's going to bewatching this.
I love it.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
So whatever.
Then we go up, I go againstthis other chef at New York City
and they're talking about ourintro and he was going to say
something in Portugal and and Iwas like, because I brought my
ukulele, they wanted me to.
I wrote a song for Bobby,actually.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
So you have a lot of Hawaii.
This ukulele is in Hawaii.
You like Hawaii?
Ok, we got it.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
So I rolled out there and I just like pointed at
Bobby with the ukulele.
They're like OK, this guy's adud probably you know what I
mean.
This guy's out as it all tryingto tell me about everything and
that's not how I learn.
I'm like a visual, tangible,and I was just like, all right,
(10:10):
man, you're just going to shutthe fuck up.
I was like I cannot, I can'tconcentrate.
He's like oh, you do you, We'llsee what happens.
I'm like okay.
So then whatever they come outfor me.
I mean, it was like cannedwhite beans and I'm like no
(10:32):
one's eating that shit.
And then it was dried whitebeans and I'm like you can't.
I mean what do?
We got 18, 20 minutes.
I'm like I'm damned if I do,damned if I don't.
And so I knew that old boy wasgoing to go for a castellay and
I was like I thought about doinga fritter and we ended up just
kind of playing it safe, goingwith a little salad, had some
(10:54):
guanciale croutons on there andI think that's for sure.
But I did try to pickle thebeans in like a little vinegar
and sugar and I boiled them somebitches for like 19 minutes
hard.
I mean the pan was melting andthat bean was hard as a rock.
I mean the pan was melting andthat bean was hard as a rock
Still.
So at the end of the salad dishafter we had plated, I was kind
(11:15):
of taking some of that liquidand just kind of splashing it
over the salad, just a littleacid, you know, on the fatty
bean that we had, I had a fattyvinaigrette and some bitter
greens and one of the beans fellon the plate.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Oh, no, and.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
I was like trying to blow that bitch off.
You know what I?
Speaker 1 (11:31):
mean For sure.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
So the guy came over whatever the dude's got a
headset or whatever.
He was like trying to run thisfood or whatever.
He's like, what's that?
I was like I don't know, takethat off.
So he just wiped it off.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
I'm like boom Perfect , Because if I had put those
beans on there.
Speaker 3 (11:46):
They'd have been like who is this guy?
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Yeah, break a tooth.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
So then we went on to the second round with Bobby,
and that's the juicy stuff youwant to hear about.
Bobby's short, bobby's not tall, but Bobby is super cool.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
I mean Just a wisecrack.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
So cool and you know, when we're like kind of
standing face-to-face and hewants to hear about like
whatever dish I have and they'relike they want me to present on
him and I'm like I don't know,it's Bobby dude, he might come
up on me, Even if it's five footfour, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
I'm six two.
Speaker 3 (12:16):
So I said Olympia and he just glazed over.
He's like I don't even knowwhat that is.
So a Filipino chef.
I go back over to my kitchen.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
This Filipino chef starts she rolls this
motherfucking card out and shestarts showing him how to roll
Olympia.
And I'm like, wait a minute,this is cheating this is
bullshit.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
So my chef was like bro, it's his kitchen.
I'm like look.
I don't care at this point, Idon't care if I win, lose, draw,
as long as I beat the first guy, because I'd have been like, no
, I wouldn't go there.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
You know, right, you got to challenge Bobby Winning
would be great, but at least youget to the level Just hanging
with him, yeah.
Speaker 3 (12:58):
So there was a lot of downtime.
I mean, while we were sittingup there, they'd have to film a
segment.
They didn't like it.
They'd have to re-film it.
Bobby's just sitting there onhis phone, just you know.
God knows what employee walkedout on him.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
I'm dealing with the same thing he was Googling.
Speaker 3 (13:11):
Lumpia.
I would like to think he'sdealing with the same problems
you and I are dealing with whichis like the hiring.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
No, I think he was Googling Lumpia.
Yeah, he's probably Googling AIhelp.
Yeah, what do I do?
Speaker 3 (13:22):
So I looked at Bobby and I go, and I don't know what
possessed me to say this but Iwas like, so tell me more.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
Yeah right.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
Tell me more, bob.
And he's like you knowcookbooks, restaurants, staffing
issues I film two shows a day.
He's like it just never stops.
And I was like that's cool.
So I just kind of I didn't sayanything and maybe like a couple
minutes later I was like that'scool.
So I just kind of I didn't sayanything and maybe like a couple
minutes later I was like, hey,I'd love to buy you like a beer
and a shot afterwards orsomething.
(13:58):
Just kind of pick your brain on.
You know, you're like the ElonMusk of the restaurant business,
you know how do you do it.
And he goes a shit ton ofassistance.
I'm like fair enough, hire,well.
So then the show goes on and wehave a great time and I'll tell
you more about that.
But afterwards he came over andmy wife's up there yelling and
I know she was about to freaking, pass out and he goes hey, so
(14:19):
what are you and your wife doinglater?
And I was like nothing, he goes, I want to have you all to gato
.
So he invited us over to hisSpanish restaurant.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
Gato, that's amazing man, that's great.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
I was like you do this with all the winners, huh,
and he's like I've never hungout with anybody.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
Did you beat him?
I beat him, you beat Bobby FlayBeat him.
Here we go, beat him with thelumpia.
And his little lumpia rollerdidn't have what it took.
Yeah, to get the Aloha snackaction.
Speaker 3 (14:45):
And the Aloha snack features it still.
So the judges from the firstround end up being like kind of
in my corner the second round,because they have like these
restaurant judges, you know, andum, I think it was like sonny
anderson's like what can we getyou?
I was like cold beer I need Ineed an equalizer.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
Let's go back to the night before 4 am right.
Speaker 3 (15:04):
So I was like cold beer.
And then, at that point, Iguess, I wound up with a ukulele
in my hand and I startedsinging, bobby, a song like
chili pepper paste, all up in myface.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
Nice.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
Aromatic static pork belly mace.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
Dude, he lost it.
Spitting Dude, he lost it, he'sspitting over here.
Oh my God, I love it.
Speaker 3 (15:24):
So let me after you're done spitting fire With a
ukulele, yeah, with a uke.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
After the fire spat you come back to the beach,
right, and then now you have howdid that boost your?
That had to have boosted you upto another level in the
culinary world.
It had to help, as it all doesfor all of us.
Anytime we get some sort ofaccolade, it helps us to the
next level.
That right there, that has tohave been a huge, did you get?
Speaker 3 (15:49):
any more response from shows?
Did you have any?
What did you do there?
A couple things happened.
Coming back the next day, wehad a wedding for Bruce
Hornsby's nephew at the Hornsbyhouse in Williamsburg.
It was a Mac Daddy wedding 250people.
I was honestly getting a littleteary-eyed on the flight back
because there's so much cultureNow, this was in November 2019,
(16:11):
so right before COVID hit.
And man, there was's so muchculture.
now this was in november 2019,so right before covid hit yeah
and um, and there was just somuch culture and you know, I've
always wanted to be a michelinchef and man, they're never
going to come to virginia beach.
Um, and I'm just like manfreaking.
Virginia beach, that's what youknow what I mean but you're in
the same boat as me, bro itlasted for like one second
(16:32):
because I mean we have theabsolute best clientele, we have
the best customers, we have thebest farms, farmers, they work
so hard and just I think you'vegot to be thankful for where we
are.
We're not in New York City.
Our game in the culinaryindustry has just grown
exponentially and, you know,very honored, we got a lot so
(16:54):
exponentially and, you know,very honored, we got a lot.
So I had a lot to be thankfulfor.
That show was, uh, you know,definitely a pinnacle in my
career.
It wasn't a michelin star, butit was uh, well, no but it's
huge.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
I mean, you put yourself on the map, but you
also put Virginia Beach on themap, and one of our episodes
that we're going to talk aboutagain some point in time is is
community over competition solet's talk about that real quick
with him.
I mean, I think it's veryimportant to know, I always feel
this Beard Michelin, thesethings don't come to a region
(17:21):
unless the region itself isnotable.
So a lot of these people won'tcome here because of that.
And I feel that in our area, aswell as other areas that have a
lot of great restaurants, greatchefs, what the fuck is missing
?
And I feel that in our area, aswell as other areas that have a
lot of great restaurants, greatchefs, what the fuck is missing
?
And I think it's community.
The restaurants and the chefsaren't working together as a
community.
It's an individual competitionthat outweighs a community.
Speaker 3 (17:45):
It is definitely a competition in BB and they're
like I don't want to see whatyou got.
Going on, you can't see what Igot.
And an oceanfront restaurant.
It's like some bullshit frozencrab stuff, flounder, and not
only that, that's the secretingredient, that's your secret.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
They're going to pepper, sear their ahi tuna and
put a wasabi glaze over the top.
We all know that.
So, instead of the restaurantsin any town, any area, there's
so much competition individuallythat they're not paying
attention to the locality.
For instance, there's people ifyou do the best of competitions
, people don't want nothing todo it because it's rigged.
If you're noticed as this, forinstance, 2024, I was voted best
(18:23):
chef of the Year of Virginiafrom the restaurant hospitality.
Commission now that, to me,would be something you would
hear about.
Not one person gives a shitabout it.
Again, like you, something wasbrought to Hampton Roads, where
it usually goes to NorthernVirginia, dc area,
charlottesville right, it's outthere, richmond it never comes
(18:45):
to Hampton Roads.
So here we are with this andit's almost like a competition,
where people don't want to speakabout it because it wasn't them
or it's bullshit, or yeah right, there's no community of
support here and I think we needto work on that.
Speaker 3 (18:59):
What's your community or your people?
And look at this right herethis is a mecca.
You're like Kevin Costner dudein the Field of Dreams, dude,
you built it they are here, dog.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
You built it.
You built this bad boy dude.
Look at this.
Like you said before, nowrestaurants now restaurants.
Speaker 3 (19:12):
For sure, there's some jealousy aspects of it, you
know it's like I worked incharlottesville on the downtown
mall before I moved to umvirginia beach and dude
everybody.
They would share sugar,employees, drugs, whatever they
were like, just tight, that'sthey were tight.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
You know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
That's the community.
And you know, I'm not obviouslynot saying that you should
share drugs at all, but I amjust telling you that the
restaurants were tight, that'swhat I'm trying to tell you.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
No, no, I get it.
So that's what I mean.
So the community in some places, Take that one out.
Now we sell it, sell it, push it.
So anyway, we have Listen, wehave the community of people,
right?
Chefs, owners, restaurateurs.
They're not working togetherand if you don't work together,
(19:59):
you're never going to have thosepeople get the interest to come
here, because no one from anyfoundation is going to put their
efforts into one thing.
If there's one place here thatis worth that star, if the area
itself isn't worth the starseverywhere else, they're not
going to come here.
If James Barrett is looking fora place that they're going to
give someone an award, they'regoing to go to a place where
(20:20):
multiple places have thatquality so they can come back
and give another award.
They're not going to come forone person.
So if you think you're the oneperson who's going to change the
world, one person.
So if you think you're the oneperson who's going to change the
world, you're not.
It has to be a community.
There has to be involvement inthe community.
There has to be culinaryfoundations of our own set up
here.
There needs to be a chefnetwork.
There needs to be, like I said,foundations.
(20:40):
There needs to be thingstogether that the community
works as a chef community.
Speaker 3 (20:44):
We need a round table .
We need to be talkingTomorrow's the draft.
Right, we were just talkingabout the draft.
We need to have, like ananti-draft of like don't hire
this employee.
You know what I mean Likewithout having to deal with, you
know, without having to dealwith any kind of repercussions
from the labor board.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
You know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
But I mean that's the real of it is.
You know, there's so many fakeresumes going around, just so
they can still collectunemployment, you know?
And I mean I don't even knowwhy I mess with my email anymore
, because they'll send stuff inand then they'll never show up.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
You have a successful name.
Someone comes to me with anAloha Snacks resume.
They were cooking there for twoyears.
I'm going to call you directly,check with the guy, make sure
that's true.
If it is true, I know becausehe worked for you, he's probably
going to have some skill andknow something because he gained
something from you.
Now, people with a luce resumefuck you guys, by the way, if
you're watching this.
So who I'm talking about?
You walk out of my restaurantbecause you don't like something
(21:36):
I said to you or you didn't getenough hours.
I'm talking about the cooks,right, and they go and they want
to be a chef somewhere else.
Now, everyone knows luce resume.
Everyone knows that if youworked for me, you probably work
, and if you work for me forsome time, you learned something
.
People know my name, I have areputation, but they're not
checking with me.
They just take it because thisguy could be the biggest shitbag
there was, or girl could be thebiggest shitbag there was, but
(21:59):
because they worked for me for ayear, they're just going to try
and soak anything they can outof that person.
Who cares what type of personthis is?
Who cares why I fired thisperson.
They don't even give a shit.
You know, this guy could haverobbed me blind.
He could have done anything.
He could have done anything hewanted in my kitchen and they
wouldn't even know.
But because they're sodesperate to have anything they
can worth a fuck that they'renot going to look into it.
(22:21):
Like you said, an anti-draftwould have been useful because I
would have told them guys, nope, nope, they did this, this,
this, this and this.
They're going to do it to you.
They ain't worth shit.
And just because they workedfor me for a year doesn't mean
they weren't a pain in my assfor the year.
Speaker 3 (22:33):
Let's get a website and let's throw some names up.
Here's the number one draft fornot hiring them.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
It's like the Facebook group of like have you
dated this guy?
Speaker 1 (22:44):
That's the big Facebook group here, so women
put pictures of guys on there,have you?
Speaker 2 (22:48):
hired this person.
The labor board would look downon this.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
They would the labor board would look down on this,
or some human rights activist orsomebody would be mad at this.
Speaker 3 (22:57):
But again, why the fuck?
Speaker 1 (22:59):
do we have to deal with this?
You're going to protect them,but you're not going to protect
us.
You're not going to allow us toprotect ourselves from hiring
these muttonheads because youdon't want to hurt their
reputation.
They hurt their reputation.
I didn't.
I'm just telling you what thehell this muttonhead did or
didn't do, or whatever you knowwhat I'm saying.
This guy's taking pieces offilet out of the walking three
(23:20):
times a week and bringing ithome to feed his family.
Or, you know, once in a whileyou get four lobster tails that
just disappear and you know it'sthis person.
You catch them.
Why can't we say to the nextperson fuck that, dude.
Speaker 3 (23:30):
You know I'm saying dude, there's definitely
somebody needs to write a book.
I mean, let's do it.
There's definitely some storiesyou know around hampton roads I
have.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
I have a book in mind .
I'm not going to divulge it onhere, but I'll tell you when
we're done.
Yeah right, copyright, thatfirst.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
Yeah but now let's go on you.
You are involved with a lot ofgreat things, talking about the
community right, Because we canjoke, we can be pissy, we can
talk shit, but honestly there'sa factual thing.
You have a lot of good thingshappening in the community of
Virginia Beach.
Your name is attached to a lotof things, from politics to
strawberry festivals, tobringing that stuff from the
Pungo Farms to Virginia BeachOceanfront, which is not close
(24:08):
but it's not far, to VirginiaBeach Oceanfront, which is not
close but it's not far, but it'sfar enough to be able to bring
it to the oceanfront where it isPungo and Virginia Beach.
From Virginia Beach Oceanfrontis a good 20-minute ride.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
For sure.
But you had a reason for doingthat, absolutely Trying to bring
it back 100% community.
Speaker 3 (24:23):
Talk about that man.
That's what we want man, wewant community, we want to be
able to have our own events.
On Laskin Road there's so manybeautiful little shops.
You know, I was just in WayneJones flowers.
Um, he did my parents flowersat First Prez when they got
married, you know, and he didmine as well.
That's how long that guy's beenin business um, and it's still
there just some cool littleplaces.
(24:44):
So we want to bring a festivaldown there.
You know like the vibe is, theculinary is an we're going to be
a culinary arts in the arterydistrict and so we're going to
have chefs, we're going to havefriends of the artery, you know
from Chesapeake and Pongo, andwe're going to bring them in.
We're going to have some MacDaddy competitions.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
And people don't know the value of a freaking Pongo
strawberry.
They don't understand thegoodness of this fucking nugget.
Speaker 3 (25:08):
Dude, they're popping off right now.
If you hadn't been getting any,oh, I've seen the fields I've
seen some of the stuff onlineCauliflower's going off Flanagan
.
You know some of them arepick-your-own.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
They're not picking quite yet, right, they're
picking.
Speaker 3 (25:17):
They've been picking for two weeks.
Okay, good.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
Let's go pick, yeah stuff I want to do.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
That would be so cool to be out there in the fields.
Speaker 3 (25:28):
Bullifer's got their little chef smackdown, so
they're looking for chefs.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
We're just trying to create something cool and we're
all about community Strawberry,melon, gazpacho or something,
that's it.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
He's over on that side now.
He's so distracted by the foodhe's hungry the strawberry
caprese you know, with theburrata and the heirloom
tomatoes, strawberry brodo for apiece of halibut.
Speaker 3 (25:52):
They're in food porn land right now, Strawberry pico.
You know I'm all over it.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
Just sous vide some strawberry out with a piece of
fish in the bag.
Oh my God.
Speaker 3 (25:58):
Strawberry ice cream.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
Sorbetto let's get it , let's go.
I want an ahi tuna, strawberry,taco or some shit.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
Oh, that would be fun .
Do a little strawberry wasabiglaze.
They're calling.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
See how this works.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
I was just joking because you were saying the
glaze and the tuna.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
I'm funny.
I know it's a joke, you'regoing to do it anyway.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
So when is the festival?
May 17th.
Speaker 3 (26:27):
We've actually got some funding from Original Pongo
Strawberry Fest.
We've raised over $24,000.
Ocean Storage is going to bethe main presenter.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
Tickets no tickets Free event.
Speaker 3 (26:39):
Yeah, we got North End Bags Go on their Instagram,
check them out.
They just printed some reallydope bags.
It said picked in Virginia wegot Shave Ice Get Lost Shave Ice
coming out there.
We've got all the coolrestaurants, from Pacifica to
Sorella's.
Duck Dive's been doing greatthings, all great spots.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
Nick's yeah.
Speaker 3 (27:00):
You know.
So, loja Snacks, we'll have ourfood truck out there.
We've got bands.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
And it's an all-day thing.
You guys are actually shuttingLaskin Road down.
Shutting it down.
So if you do drive to and fromthe oceanfront in Virginia Beach
, you're shutting down the wholestreet.
Speaker 3 (27:15):
Not the roundabout.
Speaker 1 (27:15):
Which has not been done, from the roundabout down
to the statue.
Is that what it is?
Speaker 3 (27:19):
From the roundabout to Pacific.
Okay, great, so yeah, almost aquarter mile, so that's a great
time.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
local driven.
Love to have you all there.
Indigenous stuff.
Speaker 3 (27:29):
And then this fall we're going to do like an oyster
roast with some surf music.
Perfect, you know we're goingto tap the noblemen we always
give back.
So the big thing for us is, youknow, trying to give some
awareness to all these farmsdown in Pungo that are working
so hard.
And then there's EquiKids sojust children with disabilities
and veterans PTSD so justchildren with disabilities and
veterans PTSD.
(27:49):
So raising money for EquiKidsand giving back and having a
hell of a party.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
That's amazing stuff.
So you know we can talk all dayabout this.
What would you give to when westart our careers and we get
into our cooking like you saidwhen you were at Zoe's doing the
wine dinners and we start out,we don't have the business
acumen, we start out with thecooking and the cooking and we
think we want to be owners, wethink we want to move on with
absolutely zero knowledge ofwhat it takes right.
What do you give to the peoplewho are in that mindset right
(28:16):
now?
They're at the brink.
Speaker 3 (28:17):
They've put in the years of cooking.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
Get out Good advice.
Speaker 3 (28:21):
Save yourself.
So when they want to get fromthat cooking, Do you see these
gray hairs?
Guys Focus in on this when youwant to get out from the cooking
.
43, looking like I'm 63.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
When you get out of the.
That's your advice.
It's not wrong.
Either get out or realign itGet into something.
Owning a restaurant.
Coming from a chef to owningrestaurants, you better
understand you are making alifelong commitment to something
you never knew was fucking evenpossible.
Well, you're right.
It's totally, totally different.
Speaker 3 (28:51):
A lot of these kids are in culinary school and and
I'm definitely not hating on ciaor civ or whatever acronym you
want to throw out there forcooking school um, but man, I'm
really, when I'm hiring, I'mlooking at your resume.
I'm not looking at where youwent to school and you're going
to rack up so much money justget your.
If you want something and to beproud and your mom and dad be
proud and have a piece of paperon your wall, get an associate's
(29:12):
degree.
You know, I mean, some of thesebachelors at CIA are like over
$100,000.
Man, you're never going to paythat back.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
You can't recoup.
You can't recoup $100,000 bycooking.
It's hard.
Speaker 3 (29:24):
Even at $20 an hour.
Yeah, it's hard.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
You know.
Speaker 3 (29:27):
So you want to get out there and you want to grind
and be intuitive, be inventiveand create something that can be
yours, whether it's a sauce,that's your branding.
I mean, the entrepreneurship ofthis business is the only thing
that's going to save you.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
And don't cook.
My advice to this I see a lotof young people, including
myself, back in the day.
You cook to impress other chefs, or you cook to impress or
compete with Instagram or socialmedia.
Fuck all that nonsense.
Cook to impress your guests,because they're the ones who are
putting their faith in you.
They're the ones who are givingyou or your establishment the
money.
They're the ones choosing youto come in there.
(30:01):
You need to cook to impressthem.
Look at your room, read yourpeople, see what it is they like
, why do they trust you and honein on that.
Don't worry about what the chefdown the street's doing, because
he may not be worrying aboutyou.
He could be worrying about hisguests and that's why his
restaurant is full.
Worry about what people trustin you and stop worrying about
what people the chef down thestreet doesn't fucking matter.
(30:23):
He's your competition in asense.
Really, he's not paying you.
He's getting paid, paid.
You're getting paid.
Work for what's in your heartand bring it out on the plate.
Then work from there and if youget enough of a following, you
may have a chance at opening arestaurant yeah, I mean it would
be like what do you mean?
he's got soft shell crabs withthe same strawberry glaze I have
you know what I mean, and thatdoes drive you a little bit
(30:44):
right.
Let's fry it, let's put it on aroll, let's eat it.
We got right and he's doing thesame shit.
Yeah, exactly so don't worryabout that so much.
Worry about what you can dodifferent.
See what's going on.
Don't compete with the guy downthe road.
Don't do what he's doing orshe's doing.
Look at what they're doing andfigure out how to do it
different, better and more funand more exciting, and have fun
(31:06):
doing it.
Have fun doing it.
You cannot have fun if you'reworried about what someone else
is doing.
You know.
Speaker 2 (31:10):
We've said that Like a lot of that in the industry, I
mean again we've lost it.
Like we've lost a lot of thelike sex, drugs and rock and
roll of the industry Of peoplejust really doing the job
Because it is fun.
It's fun to be out there.
Every that makes you excited tobe there, absolutely.
Speaker 3 (31:33):
We want to know how it tastes, we want to see their
excitement.
Yeah, you know, and that's whatdrives us.
I mean, if you're not havingfun in this industry, you're
definitely like a lost puppy outthere You're in trouble.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
I mean it's not all going to be great.
Speaker 3 (31:46):
People take it way too serious At the end of a
shift.
You know, all your line cooks,all my guys, we're all hugging
it out.
You know going, hey, it's allgood.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
It's just that service rush I tried to kill you
twice today, but it's all right.
You said it right.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
People take it way too serious the executive chefs
or the restaurant owners.
They have the right to betaking it serious.
You don serious to where youcan't get stuff done, but you
also have to respect theseriousness of where you are, of
course.
When you go home at night,fucking relax.
If something goes wrong, figureit out.
You don't have to go crazy overit.
(32:18):
Don't lose your life.
Don't go goddamn get hooked upon heroin because you can't
handle your work.
Fucking flow, just relax, man.
Take a break, have a drink,have a shot of tequila, pass the
Jager bottle around.
If it gets that goddamn bad,you know what?
Speaker 2 (32:30):
I mean.
Amen On tap, amen to that.
Speaker 1 (32:33):
So what do you think about the culinary scene moving
forward?
I mean, I know we have all thethings we've talked about.
We have accessibility toingredients we've never had
before.
We have accessibility to theskills and talents we've never
seen before with social mediaand stuff like that.
We have culinary tools now thatnever existed.
Something as simple as afucking microplane that we never
had.
When I was young, these thingsdidn't exist.
You were talking about thathard bean salad, and the only
(32:55):
thing I was thinking about iswhat I would do in your position
, and while I'm thinking aboutthat is I would literally take
my microplane and I would gratethese fucking beans over
something nicely and consider ita fucking cannellini dust, and
that, right there alone, wouldhave created a flavor of a moami
that you wouldn't have thoughtof.
Just because of a microplaneand a hard bean could change
everything and you can now eatthis hard bean and not even know
(33:15):
what the fuck it is, and youcan call it that and it'll be
Bobby if it'll be.
Bobby, but these tools that wenever had before, you don't?
I mean, we have little shin wasnow that we didn't even have
back then, really China look,the health department still
doesn't acknowledge sous videcooking.
Speaker 3 (33:32):
So I mean, how far are we really?
Um, they look at it as tdz.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
You know, time, danger zone, wonderland you know
you can't and I'm like it'spathetic sous vide.
Speaker 3 (33:41):
It's been around since the 90s.
Oh, what are we talking aboutearlier than that?
Yeah, accessible to the 90s,you know um bro, you're exactly
right.
Speaker 1 (33:48):
Mean there's certain things I do with a vacuum seal
bag.
There's things I do that myhealth department just rags me
on, that I do with a friggingcryovac machine or a vacuum
sealer you know what I'm sayingTo infuse flavors If I want to
do a nice melon or a watermelonand I want to compress it.
So if I do a compressed melonand stuff, I go, oh, you can't
(34:09):
do that.
What do you mean?
I can't do that?
Yes, I can, because I did andit's delicious and guess what,
everybody loves it.
You're a fucking witch.
Get out of here, go stir yourpot with your gruel okay, a fun
police.
Yeah, man, sorry, do you know?
Speaker 3 (34:22):
also that Virginia denied the $.
Speaker 2 (34:30):
Really, and radar restaurants.
Speaker 3 (34:31):
Really.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
That's amazing.
Thanks, virginia.
I'm not surprised, is thatYunkin?
Speaker 3 (34:36):
I mean, dude, I've loved Yunkin on a lot of things.
I think that restaurants shouldbe getting grants and I don't
think there was any help withtaxes and grants.
Speaker 1 (34:44):
I was looking at grants yesterday on the fucking
website, on the governmentwebsite, looking for any type of
grants that I could do to helpprogress my staff.
I want to help my staff outmore.
I want to create more avenuesfor my staff to be enticed to
come to work.
I want to give them morebenefits.
I want to give them moreoptions.
So I was on looking for grantsyesterday that has anything to
(35:05):
do with restaurants, staffing,bonusing, helping people
progress into the next, maybeeven insurances or education,
anything I can offer my staff,not a fucking thing, nothing.
However, if I want to get agrant for you know a mud sample
of the grass outside, I couldget that grant, though you know
what I mean, because that reallymatters, because the
(35:26):
architecture or the agriculture,it doesn't shit, that doesn't
matter, you get a grant for it.
But moving someone forward,there's no help in the
restaurant industry.
Speaker 3 (35:33):
But moving someone forward.
There's no help in therestaurant industry.
None Well, I was bummed aboutthe Michelin because, man,
although my restaurant wouldprobably obviously not be a
Michelin-rated restaurant, Ithink yours would definitely be
in contention for that.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
We'd have to change some of our comfort zone.
It brings diners out.
Speaker 3 (35:48):
So diners would be, you know, more apt to travel
from another state to come tonot just.
Dc, but you know Richmond andfurther south than that.
I mean Charlottesville's gotsome great places, hampton Roads
has some great places,tidewater, whatever you want to
call it.
We don't know what we want tobe called.
We're called everything.
Speaker 1 (36:07):
We want to give that type of service to our guests
and we do the best we can herewith it.
It's do the best we can herewith it.
It's not the best we can.
We can always do much better,but we're giving it to the
actual what makes sense rightnow.
It's hard to run a Michelinstaff, a Michelin dining room,
michelin etiquette whenMichelin's not an option.
It's a lot of money, it takes alot of time, it takes a lot of
(36:29):
training, it takes a lot ofschooling, it takes a lot of
schooling, it takes a lot ofdedication.
But if Michelin is not allowedto come here because your area
isn't justified, then it's justa lot of everything and at the
end of the day you getdiscouraged because you know
it's not even an option.
So you have to back off a littlebit to give the best of the
fine dining at the next level.
Speaker 3 (36:48):
Now Florida, georgia, tennessee, man, they pay the
money Texas.
So, now Michelin's going tooverpass us and head on down
south, and the money's neededbecause Michelin is not only
about restaurants, and that'swhere people make the most
mistake.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
Michelin is an area, it's a destination and the
restaurants are a destination inthat area.
So your area has to be Michelinready.
You have to have hotels worthy,you have to have restaurants
worthy.
You have to have mechanic shopsworthy.
They judge and rate multiplethings, not just restaurants.
So the whole area has to beMichelin approved right.
(37:26):
That's where the money comes in.
So even that money doesn'tdirectly go to every restaurant,
but it goes to the area touplift it for the Michelin guide
on all subjects.
Speaker 3 (37:36):
To make it worthy of Michelin.
Speaker 1 (37:38):
The city has to be a Michelin rated city.
It's not only about therestaurant.
The restaurant is just a littlesegment that just happens to be
the most popular part and themost interesting part of the
Michelin guide.
But they have tire shops thatare in the Michelin guide.
That's the whole point of it.
Speaker 3 (37:53):
That's how they started.
Speaker 1 (37:54):
That's how they started, so it's not only about
restaurants.
Speaker 3 (37:56):
It was a road map.
It was a road map while you'regetting your tires on where to
stop and eat.
Speaker 1 (38:00):
Sure.
So the Michelin area has to beMichelin worthy on all levels.
You mean the.
Speaker 2 (38:05):
Sunsations and the Hermit Crab sales on the beach
aren't going to bring theMichelin.
Speaker 3 (38:10):
The t-shirts say 20 bucks is 20 bucks.
Yeah, yeah, right yeah.
Speaker 2 (38:14):
It's not going to suck itself.
All the good t-shirts are goodones.
Yeah, there's a lot of goodones up there.
Speaker 1 (38:18):
There's a lot of shit down there, but I'm all for it
and I think that anybody whowants to get a Michelin star or
work in that type of environment.
It is a totally different game.
It's gastro, it's definitelymolecular cooking.
There's a whole different style.
But it definitely could be donehere, and I would love to rise
up to that if the option wasavailable.
Speaker 2 (38:39):
We have the talent here.
We have the talent.
Speaker 1 (38:41):
We do have the talent and I can't put in the extra
money when I know it's not evenan extra fucking option.
Speaker 2 (38:44):
It's not going to come back to you as a business
owner.
Speaker 1 (38:47):
It's not feasible, Right now my Michelin stars are
my guests.
That's what I focus on now and.
I'd give them the best of whatwe, what they expect for where?
Speaker 2 (38:54):
we are right now.
True, I agree, amen, amen,that's that, that's that, that's
that.
Speaker 1 (39:00):
So we're gonna end it on that man, because we can
keep on going and going andgoing, but people got to get
back to work.
Right now we're getting blamedfor fucking people, showing up
late, taking their break toolong because they're listening
to this, and it's wonderful.
Speaker 3 (39:11):
Well, I just look, I appreciate, look, I appreciate
y'all so much, everything you do, chef.
Speaker 1 (39:15):
Thank you, man you too, chef Kristen, you and your
husband, y'all have beensupporting me since day one.
Speaker 3 (39:18):
Always, and just a shout out to all our listeners,
all our followers, thisrestaurant, mine, other
supporters, you know, and diners, you know.
Just treat people right.
I'd love for one week and thentell me how did that feel?
Speaker 1 (39:34):
Tell?
Speaker 3 (39:34):
me.
Speaker 1 (39:36):
Did you just sing?
Speaker 2 (39:36):
a little Britney, I did.
Speaker 1 (39:38):
Tell me more Now listen to me.
Speaker 3 (39:40):
Tell them where they can find you.
Speaker 1 (39:42):
Where can they get you Instagram social media
websites?
Speaker 3 (39:44):
Yeah, Loja Snacks, Phoebe.
Facebook's pretty much dying.
I mean, rarely go on there.
I wouldn't check that out.
It's not updated, but yeah youknow whatever, come down to the
store, we'd love to treat you.
You know some poke.
We got a lot of cool thingshappening on Laskin Road and
obviously there's some coolthings happening out here In
Chesapeake too, in Chesapeakethe 757 is coming up.
Speaker 1 (40:07):
The freak Chesapeake, the freak's real to find us,
because you already did, becauseyou're watching us right now.
We appreciate you.
Hit like, hit, subscribe, hitall the things click them
buttons.
Speaker 2 (40:18):
I don't, that wasn't.
Speaker 1 (40:19):
I don't know what that was you clicking?
Speaker 2 (40:21):
that's you clicking I'm like I can't tap anything
it's all right, I'm whatever.
All right y'all ciao for now,thank you.
All right, kristen, check it out.
Listen, we got, we got a legend.
We got a local legend.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Local legend, one of my favorites.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Mr Jesse Weichel, right here from Aloha Snacks, if
you all know about that.
Speaker 3 (00:08):
You got two legends.
Hold on.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
You can't, you can't cap out, you can't, you can't
tap out of it.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
He tries to be understated.
He's like he's moved on fromthe more famous chef world into
this understated presence ofbeing.
That is you now.
Oh, I'll say this Hold on aminute, a couple teaming me now.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Now listen, you can't .
If someone says you're a legend, you just roll it.
You don't say, you don't,un-legendize yourself.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Fair enough, you can't be un-legendary.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
Fair enough, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
It's like you know once you slap someone in the
face fine, it's all it's in love.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
Right, this is gorgeous, so I can't believe it
we use the word legendary.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Tell us what she started something at the
beginning of this conversation,real quick, you just said it a
minute ago.
Um, you worked through.
You worked your ways up towhere you can actually be, where
you are now right.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Well, you worked your way up to work your way to a
like the life you wanted.
So the reason I I love you andI wanted to have you on the show
is because there's a lot ofunderrated people in this area
that people don't really knowabout or don't know their
history in the culinary space,and you're one of those people.
I think people love Aloha Snacks, the Virginia Beach.
The food is great, but that'snot where you started and people
(01:18):
don't realize your actualtrajectory of training and where
you were in the chef worldbefore that restaurant and
that's I mean, that was part ofthe reason I wanted you to be
here to kind of share that well,first, before you go deep, do
this, explain what aloha snacksis, because there's a lot of
people that watch us from allover the world and we have a lot
.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Actually, our following is is reaching well
past our area.
So give us, give us a quickrundown of what your vision and
what your inspiration for alohasnacks got to tell you first,
man, working my way up to workmy way out.
I mean, this business is notfor everybody and not for the
whole home.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
This thing is nuts.
Sometimes I have you know.
You wake up and you got theseterrible dreams.
You're like oh my God, thewater's been running.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
Orders didn't come in Nightmare, is it?
Speaker 3 (01:58):
a dream, is it reality?
I know you've had those.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
I had one last night.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
Mine are always not being able to get water to the
tables.
Actually, you want to know whatit was.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
What was it?
It came true, oh no.
I had a dream that my friggingdelivery people were coming in
here and they couldn't get inand we needed everything because
it was a big day.
And I got here today and therewas a frigging delivery driver
outside waiting to get in Crazy.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
They come whenever they want, don't they?
Speaker 1 (02:22):
Yeah, don't worry about the invoice or what it
says, because that doesn'tmatter.
You know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
So you started okay.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
Aloha Snacks.
Why the name?
Why the inspiration?
It's all a lot of tuna, a lotof Hawaiian, a lot of sea stuff.
So we got you in there theother day.
You have the musubi.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Thanks to Kirsten.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
Yeah, I like the spam .
I kind of a fine-tunedrestaurant, fast, casual spin on
Hawaii and everything that welove out there in the islands,
Paying homage to the people andthe places that we've traveled
to, enjoyed the food and thecuisine and put it on a
compostable paper plate Takingsome of the arrogance out of the
restaurant.
(02:58):
We're wearing Nike tennis shoesto work and shorts and cutting
up some of the finest tuna inthe world.
It's casual as all get out, butthe food is not.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
The food is not elevated and we got our little
pickup window, which I loveexactly.
So we we were talking beforeand we're talking about how the
how such far reaches.
Now it's much easier to getregional food.
You know you, you have a lot ofinspiration from hawaii, but it
really in turn, I mean it is alot of virginia beach cuisine
really.
I mean a lot of that over theyears.
That stuff is kind of meldedtogether and uh, and you guys
(03:32):
are really putting it out thatway with a lot of I would say uh
, pacific infusion right, isthat right to say?
Speaker 3 (03:40):
yeah, I mean, it's um , it's like a melting pot in
virginia beach, you know, andcomfort food could be pad thai,
and it's crazy that we've comethis far.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Whereas comfort food would be pulled, barbecue or
something.
Now it's pad thai and you'vegot comfort food items on your
menu?
Speaker 3 (03:56):
Sure, I absolutely have, because it's comfortable.
The pizza who doesn't want tobe?
Speaker 2 (03:59):
comfortable bro we eat food to be happy.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
Yeah, no one goes to have a shitty time.
No one wants to beuncomfortable.
But see, you've got to gooutside of your realm and be a
little uncomfortable.
Sometimes, you know, in acreative process that happens
that could be Chesapeake.
It is.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
But let me tell you something In the creative
process, when a chef's creatingfood, a lot of that is
uncomfortable because you don'tknow what direction.
Then the comfortability comesinto it.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
But it is uncomfortable.
Chef, we had no idea that Alohasnacks would fly.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
I mean, we didn't know Right, so you just roll the
dice.
So how long has it been therenow?
How long have you had thatrestaurant?
Seven and a half years, okay,it came from Zoe's Yep.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
Fine dining.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
You were a fine dining chef.
The last dinner we did was, Imean, hillside sunspot.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
It was crazy and Schaefer ain't a joke anyway,
that's already a.
That right there.
Just to match the food as achef to that quality of wine is
some of the struggles.
We come with A fun one, acreative one, but you have to be
creative and you have to thinkand you have to have skill to be
able to match what's in thatbottle.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
We can't make that bottle look shitty or make that
bottle make our food look somuch it can't be so much better
than our food that we have tomatch what's in that fucking
bottle, if not beat it.
You know, amen, that's how Ilook at it.
You know, the better the winefor a wine dinner to me is, the
better the food I'm going to putout, so I can keep up to the
caliber of that rating on thatbottle and it's a marriage, you
know, and not overpower it.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
And you know, I see y'all's wine list and I mean
it's dude, let's crack some it'sa little hard.
He's like I'm ready Pop somebottles.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
We can have a glass of wine right now.
If you want, we can totally dothat.
I love it.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
So let me say this you have a good resume, you have
a good accolade, so tell usabout it, tell everybody about
it.
People want to hear this shit.
You were working with BobbyFlay and them guys, weren't you?
You were on TV, you were on theFood Network and stuff.
Correct me if I'm wrong.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
Yeah, well, it started with the James Beard
House.
I was the youngest in Virginiato be able to you know I was
chosen to cook at the BeardHouse.
You've done that.
I think there's a pool or somenames that they gravitate
towards um, that kind of funnelsyou through, uh, the food
network and whatever shows,right, they want you to go on um
, and so that's how we got onthe b bobby flay show so talk
(06:13):
about that show man.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
We want to hear about this stuff.
Um, you know, I mean, it wasbehind the scenes, it was kind
of crazy, honestly.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
Um, just, I guess the casting you know well, they
want to.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
Do they tell you to be a dick?
Do they tell you to like theywere, like you ever?
Speaker 3 (06:26):
smoke pot.
I'm like.
I mean, are you all the feds?
Speaker 2 (06:28):
What's going?
Speaker 3 (06:28):
on.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
This is a D-Bobby play show.
That's crazy, I mean, why wouldthey ask that?
Speaker 3 (06:32):
Right.
And then, as we're goingthrough, you know the menu and
they were like, how aboutchicken parm?
And I'm like, how about not?
Speaker 1 (06:47):
I was like I'm not making out chicken parm.
In the last next I was like,sorry, I said poke, bulgogi,
cheesesteak, you know, burgers.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
All that had been done and then I was like boom,
olympia, and that was Bobby'skryptonite, his Asian food he
just blanked.
He was like what.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
You know what, though ?
I'd be with him in that,because I would kind of blank
out on Asian food.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
I love to eat it.
It's a spring roll, yeah butyou do yours different.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
Yours is different than a traditional lumpia.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
We like the XL.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
You do like the real elevated version of it and it's
not the traditional, just thebeef beef, the ground beef, and
you have a lot going in on yoursis that what you made on the
show?
Speaker 3 (07:24):
yeah, it's the local pork, is that so the lumpia
that's on your menu, is that?
That's what I went againstbobby, so when?
Speaker 1 (07:29):
you're on the show with bobby.
How was that?
Was it?
Was it fun?
Was was a lot of jokes going on.
We like to be.
You're a humorous guy, you liketo have fun.
You like to all right so youwant?
Speaker 2 (07:38):
the whole story was there.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
We gotta start about the night before because, my
wife and I went up and we justraged.
Maybe I was wound tighter thana $2 watch or whatever it was.
But we went up that night and 4in the morning rolls up and
we're like dude, we kind of gotto get dialed in for the show.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
So it's 4 in the morning.
You're going on set and there'sthis cab driver, that dude.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
He was out of the Jetsons just flying.
I mean he must have clipped twocars.
I'm like this is it?
I'm gonna die in new york city,perfect, yeah.
So anyway, four in the morningrolls in um.
I'm getting texts from foodnetwork, probably around six,
yeah two hours, two hours ofsleep and they're like telling
me which shirt to wear.
(08:22):
So we show up, we're film.
We're filming in Harlem.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
Did they give you a bunch of shirt options to wear?
Speaker 3 (08:28):
No, no, we brought some, I mean whatever.
I had, like this old Jamaican,like you know, tuna shirt.
Whatever I was, like let's doit.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
That's so you.
I had like maybe one button.
You just left the plug.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
There's a chef contestant room and all the
chefs are like just walkingaround.
I'm like, oh my God, you know,this shit is real.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
Yeah.
And then it's kind of like themovie.
Were they the chefs on the showcompeting with you?
Speaker 3 (08:55):
They were like fill-ins too.
They were like other chefs,like ready to just drop and roll
.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
And then it's like the movie Gladiator.
You could hear Bobby wasalready filming.
It's what a beast he is.
He's already filming anothershow and like it was 7 or 8 in
the morning and the crowd's likeoh, and you're like oh, my God.
I mean, the anxiety was.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
They had a live crowd out there.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
Oh, it's like a stadium seating.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
You had that for yours so that you could hear,
and I had my wife up there.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
She's yelling at me the whole time.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
So you're getting nervous at this point.
Now it's real.
She's throwing things at you.
I love you.
Darling, she's going to bewatching this.
I love it.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
So whatever.
Then we go up, I go againstthis other chef at New York City
and they're talking about ourintro and he was going to say
something in Portugal and and Iwas like, because I brought my
ukulele, they wanted me to.
I wrote a song for Bobby,actually.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
So you have a lot of Hawaii.
This ukulele is in Hawaii.
You like Hawaii?
Ok, we got it.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
So I rolled out there and I just like pointed at
Bobby with the ukulele.
They're like OK, this guy's adud probably you know what I
mean.
This guy's out as it all tryingto tell me about everything and
that's not how I learn.
I'm like a visual, tangible,and I was just like, all right,
(10:10):
man, you're just going to shutthe fuck up.
I was like I cannot, I can'tconcentrate.
He's like oh, you do you, We'llsee what happens.
I'm like okay.
So then whatever they come outfor me.
I mean, it was like cannedwhite beans and I'm like no
(10:32):
one's eating that shit.
And then it was dried whitebeans and I'm like you can't.
I mean what do?
We got 18, 20 minutes.
I'm like I'm damned if I do,damned if I don't.
And so I knew that old boy wasgoing to go for a castellay and
I was like I thought about doinga fritter and we ended up just
kind of playing it safe, goingwith a little salad, had some
(10:54):
guanciale croutons on there andI think that's for sure.
But I did try to pickle thebeans in like a little vinegar
and sugar and I boiled them somebitches for like 19 minutes
hard.
I mean the pan was melting andthat bean was hard as a rock.
I mean the pan was melting andthat bean was hard as a rock
Still.
So at the end of the salad dishafter we had plated, I was kind
(11:15):
of taking some of that liquidand just kind of splashing it
over the salad, just a littleacid, you know, on the fatty
bean that we had, I had a fattyvinaigrette and some bitter
greens and one of the beans fellon the plate.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Oh, no, and.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
I was like trying to blow that bitch off.
You know what I?
Speaker 1 (11:31):
mean For sure.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
So the guy came over whatever the dude's got a
headset or whatever.
He was like trying to run thisfood or whatever.
He's like, what's that?
I was like I don't know, takethat off.
So he just wiped it off.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
I'm like boom Perfect , Because if I had put those
beans on there.
Speaker 3 (11:46):
They'd have been like who is this guy?
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Yeah, break a tooth.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
So then we went on to the second round with Bobby,
and that's the juicy stuff youwant to hear about.
Bobby's short, bobby's not tall, but Bobby is super cool.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
I mean Just a wisecrack.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
So cool and you know, when we're like kind of
standing face-to-face and hewants to hear about like
whatever dish I have and they'relike they want me to present on
him and I'm like I don't know,it's Bobby dude, he might come
up on me, Even if it's five footfour, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
I'm six two.
Speaker 3 (12:16):
So I said Olympia and he just glazed over.
He's like I don't even knowwhat that is.
So a Filipino chef.
I go back over to my kitchen.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
This Filipino chef starts she rolls this
motherfucking card out and shestarts showing him how to roll
Olympia.
And I'm like, wait a minute,this is cheating this is
bullshit.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
So my chef was like bro, it's his kitchen.
I'm like look.
I don't care at this point, Idon't care if I win, lose, draw,
as long as I beat the first guy, because I'd have been like, no
, I wouldn't go there.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
You know, right, you got to challenge Bobby Winning
would be great, but at least youget to the level Just hanging
with him, yeah.
Speaker 3 (12:58):
So there was a lot of downtime.
I mean, while we were sittingup there, they'd have to film a
segment.
They didn't like it.
They'd have to re-film it.
Bobby's just sitting there onhis phone, just you know.
God knows what employee walkedout on him.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
I'm dealing with the same thing he was Googling.
Speaker 3 (13:11):
Lumpia.
I would like to think he'sdealing with the same problems
you and I are dealing with whichis like the hiring.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
No, I think he was Googling Lumpia.
Yeah, he's probably Googling AIhelp.
Yeah, what do I do?
Speaker 3 (13:22):
So I looked at Bobby and I go, and I don't know what
possessed me to say this but Iwas like, so tell me more.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
Yeah right.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
Tell me more, bob.
And he's like you knowcookbooks, restaurants, staffing
issues I film two shows a day.
He's like it just never stops.
And I was like that's cool.
So I just kind of I didn't sayanything and maybe like a couple
minutes later I was like that'scool.
So I just kind of I didn't sayanything and maybe like a couple
minutes later I was like, hey,I'd love to buy you like a beer
and a shot afterwards orsomething.
(13:58):
Just kind of pick your brain on.
You know, you're like the ElonMusk of the restaurant business,
you know how do you do it.
And he goes a shit ton ofassistance.
I'm like fair enough, hire,well.
So then the show goes on and wehave a great time and I'll tell
you more about that.
But afterwards he came over andmy wife's up there yelling and
I know she was about to freaking, pass out and he goes hey, so
(14:19):
what are you and your wife doinglater?
And I was like nothing, he goes, I want to have you all to gato
.
So he invited us over to hisSpanish restaurant.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
Gato, that's amazing man, that's great.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
I was like you do this with all the winners, huh,
and he's like I've never hungout with anybody.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
Did you beat him?
I beat him, you beat Bobby FlayBeat him.
Here we go, beat him with thelumpia.
And his little lumpia rollerdidn't have what it took.
Yeah, to get the Aloha snackaction.
Speaker 3 (14:45):
And the Aloha snack features it still.
So the judges from the firstround end up being like kind of
in my corner the second round,because they have like these
restaurant judges, you know, andum, I think it was like sonny
anderson's like what can we getyou?
I was like cold beer I need Ineed an equalizer.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
Let's go back to the night before 4 am right.
Speaker 3 (15:04):
So I was like cold beer.
And then, at that point, Iguess, I wound up with a ukulele
in my hand and I startedsinging, bobby, a song like
chili pepper paste, all up in myface.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
Nice.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
Aromatic static pork belly mace.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
Dude, he lost it.
Spitting Dude, he lost it, he'sspitting over here.
Oh my God, I love it.
Speaker 3 (15:24):
So let me after you're done spitting fire With a
ukulele, yeah, with a uke.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
After the fire spat you come back to the beach,
right, and then now you have howdid that boost your?
That had to have boosted you upto another level in the
culinary world.
It had to help, as it all doesfor all of us.
Anytime we get some sort ofaccolade, it helps us to the
next level.
That right there, that has tohave been a huge, did you get?
Speaker 3 (15:49):
any more response from shows?
Did you have any?
What did you do there?
A couple things happened.
Coming back the next day, wehad a wedding for Bruce
Hornsby's nephew at the Hornsbyhouse in Williamsburg.
It was a Mac Daddy wedding 250people.
I was honestly getting a littleteary-eyed on the flight back
because there's so much cultureNow, this was in November 2019,
(16:11):
so right before COVID hit.
And man, there was's so muchculture.
now this was in november 2019,so right before covid hit yeah
and um, and there was just somuch culture and you know, I've
always wanted to be a michelinchef and man, they're never
going to come to virginia beach.
Um, and I'm just like manfreaking.
Virginia beach, that's what youknow what I mean but you're in
the same boat as me, bro itlasted for like one second
(16:32):
because I mean we have theabsolute best clientele, we have
the best customers, we have thebest farms, farmers, they work
so hard and just I think you'vegot to be thankful for where we
are.
We're not in New York City.
Our game in the culinaryindustry has just grown
exponentially and, you know,very honored, we got a lot so
(16:54):
exponentially and, you know,very honored, we got a lot.
So I had a lot to be thankfulfor.
That show was, uh, you know,definitely a pinnacle in my
career.
It wasn't a michelin star, butit was uh, well, no but it's
huge.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
I mean, you put yourself on the map, but you
also put Virginia Beach on themap, and one of our episodes
that we're going to talk aboutagain some point in time is is
community over competition solet's talk about that real quick
with him.
I mean, I think it's veryimportant to know, I always feel
this Beard Michelin, thesethings don't come to a region
(17:21):
unless the region itself isnotable.
So a lot of these people won'tcome here because of that.
And I feel that in our area, aswell as other areas that have a
lot of great restaurants, greatchefs, what the fuck is missing
?
And I feel that in our area, aswell as other areas that have a
lot of great restaurants, greatchefs, what the fuck is missing
?
And I think it's community.
The restaurants and the chefsaren't working together as a
community.
It's an individual competitionthat outweighs a community.
Speaker 3 (17:45):
It is definitely a competition in BB and they're
like I don't want to see whatyou got.
Going on, you can't see what Igot.
And an oceanfront restaurant.
It's like some bullshit frozencrab stuff, flounder, and not
only that, that's the secretingredient, that's your secret.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
They're going to pepper, sear their ahi tuna and
put a wasabi glaze over the top.
We all know that.
So, instead of the restaurantsin any town, any area, there's
so much competition individuallythat they're not paying
attention to the locality.
For instance, there's people ifyou do the best of competitions
, people don't want nothing todo it because it's rigged.
If you're noticed as this, forinstance, 2024, I was voted best
(18:23):
chef of the Year of Virginiafrom the restaurant hospitality.
Commission now that, to me,would be something you would
hear about.
Not one person gives a shitabout it.
Again, like you, something wasbrought to Hampton Roads, where
it usually goes to NorthernVirginia, dc area,
charlottesville right, it's outthere, richmond it never comes
(18:45):
to Hampton Roads.
So here we are with this andit's almost like a competition,
where people don't want to speakabout it because it wasn't them
or it's bullshit, or yeah right, there's no community of
support here and I think we needto work on that.
Speaker 3 (18:59):
What's your community or your people?
And look at this right herethis is a mecca.
You're like Kevin Costner dudein the Field of Dreams, dude,
you built it they are here, dog.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
You built it.
You built this bad boy dude.
Look at this.
Like you said before, nowrestaurants now restaurants.
Speaker 3 (19:12):
For sure, there's some jealousy aspects of it, you
know it's like I worked incharlottesville on the downtown
mall before I moved to umvirginia beach and dude
everybody.
They would share sugar,employees, drugs, whatever they
were like, just tight, that'sthey were tight.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
You know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
That's the community.
And you know, I'm not obviouslynot saying that you should
share drugs at all, but I amjust telling you that the
restaurants were tight, that'swhat I'm trying to tell you.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
No, no, I get it.
So that's what I mean.
So the community in some places, Take that one out.
Now we sell it, sell it, push it.
So anyway, we have Listen, wehave the community of people,
right?
Chefs, owners, restaurateurs.
They're not working togetherand if you don't work together,
(19:59):
you're never going to have thosepeople get the interest to come
here, because no one from anyfoundation is going to put their
efforts into one thing.
If there's one place here thatis worth that star, if the area
itself isn't worth the starseverywhere else, they're not
going to come here.
If James Barrett is looking fora place that they're going to
give someone an award, they'regoing to go to a place where
(20:20):
multiple places have thatquality so they can come back
and give another award.
They're not going to come forone person.
So if you think you're the oneperson who's going to change the
world, one person.
So if you think you're the oneperson who's going to change the
world, you're not.
It has to be a community.
There has to be involvement inthe community.
There has to be culinaryfoundations of our own set up
here.
There needs to be a chefnetwork.
There needs to be, like I said,foundations.
(20:40):
There needs to be thingstogether that the community
works as a chef community.
Speaker 3 (20:44):
We need a round table .
We need to be talkingTomorrow's the draft.
Right, we were just talkingabout the draft.
We need to have, like ananti-draft of like don't hire
this employee.
You know what I mean Likewithout having to deal with, you
know, without having to dealwith any kind of repercussions
from the labor board.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
You know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
But I mean that's the real of it is.
You know, there's so many fakeresumes going around, just so
they can still collectunemployment, you know?
And I mean I don't even knowwhy I mess with my email anymore
, because they'll send stuff inand then they'll never show up.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
You have a successful name.
Someone comes to me with anAloha Snacks resume.
They were cooking there for twoyears.
I'm going to call you directly,check with the guy, make sure
that's true.
If it is true, I know becausehe worked for you, he's probably
going to have some skill andknow something because he gained
something from you.
Now, people with a luce resumefuck you guys, by the way, if
you're watching this.
So who I'm talking about?
You walk out of my restaurantbecause you don't like something
(21:36):
I said to you or you didn't getenough hours.
I'm talking about the cooks,right, and they go and they want
to be a chef somewhere else.
Now, everyone knows luce resume.
Everyone knows that if youworked for me, you probably work
, and if you work for me forsome time, you learned something
.
People know my name, I have areputation, but they're not
checking with me.
They just take it because thisguy could be the biggest shitbag
there was, or girl could be thebiggest shitbag there was, but
(21:59):
because they worked for me for ayear, they're just going to try
and soak anything they can outof that person.
Who cares what type of personthis is?
Who cares why I fired thisperson.
They don't even give a shit.
You know, this guy could haverobbed me blind.
He could have done anything.
He could have done anything hewanted in my kitchen and they
wouldn't even know.
But because they're sodesperate to have anything they
can worth a fuck that they'renot going to look into it.
(22:21):
Like you said, an anti-draftwould have been useful because I
would have told them guys, nope, nope, they did this, this,
this, this and this.
They're going to do it to you.
They ain't worth shit.
And just because they workedfor me for a year doesn't mean
they weren't a pain in my assfor the year.
Speaker 3 (22:33):
Let's get a website and let's throw some names up.
Here's the number one draft fornot hiring them.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
It's like the Facebook group of like have you
dated this guy?
Speaker 1 (22:44):
That's the big Facebook group here, so women
put pictures of guys on there,have you?
Speaker 2 (22:48):
hired this person.
The labor board would look downon this.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
They would the labor board would look down on this,
or some human rights activist orsomebody would be mad at this.
Speaker 3 (22:57):
But again, why the fuck?
Speaker 1 (22:59):
do we have to deal with this?
You're going to protect them,but you're not going to protect
us.
You're not going to allow us toprotect ourselves from hiring
these muttonheads because youdon't want to hurt their
reputation.
They hurt their reputation.
I didn't.
I'm just telling you what thehell this muttonhead did or
didn't do, or whatever you knowwhat I'm saying.
This guy's taking pieces offilet out of the walking three
(23:20):
times a week and bringing ithome to feed his family.
Or, you know, once in a whileyou get four lobster tails that
just disappear and you know it'sthis person.
You catch them.
Why can't we say to the nextperson fuck that, dude.
Speaker 3 (23:30):
You know I'm saying dude, there's definitely
somebody needs to write a book.
I mean, let's do it.
There's definitely some storiesyou know around hampton roads I
have.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
I have a book in mind .
I'm not going to divulge it onhere, but I'll tell you when
we're done.
Yeah right, copyright, thatfirst.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
Yeah but now let's go on you.
You are involved with a lot ofgreat things, talking about the
community right, Because we canjoke, we can be pissy, we can
talk shit, but honestly there'sa factual thing.
You have a lot of good thingshappening in the community of
Virginia Beach.
Your name is attached to a lotof things, from politics to
strawberry festivals, tobringing that stuff from the
Pungo Farms to Virginia BeachOceanfront, which is not close
(24:08):
but it's not far, to VirginiaBeach Oceanfront, which is not
close but it's not far, but it'sfar enough to be able to bring
it to the oceanfront where it isPungo and Virginia Beach.
From Virginia Beach Oceanfrontis a good 20-minute ride.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
For sure.
But you had a reason for doingthat, absolutely Trying to bring
it back 100% community.
Speaker 3 (24:23):
Talk about that man.
That's what we want man, wewant community, we want to be
able to have our own events.
On Laskin Road there's so manybeautiful little shops.
You know, I was just in WayneJones flowers.
Um, he did my parents flowersat First Prez when they got
married, you know, and he didmine as well.
That's how long that guy's beenin business um, and it's still
there just some cool littleplaces.
(24:44):
So we want to bring a festivaldown there.
You know like the vibe is, theculinary is an we're going to be
a culinary arts in the arterydistrict and so we're going to
have chefs, we're going to havefriends of the artery, you know
from Chesapeake and Pongo, andwe're going to bring them in.
We're going to have some MacDaddy competitions.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
And people don't know the value of a freaking Pongo
strawberry.
They don't understand thegoodness of this fucking nugget.
Speaker 3 (25:08):
Dude, they're popping off right now.
If you hadn't been getting any,oh, I've seen the fields I've
seen some of the stuff onlineCauliflower's going off Flanagan
.
You know some of them arepick-your-own.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
They're not picking quite yet, right, they're
picking.
Speaker 3 (25:17):
They've been picking for two weeks.
Okay, good.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
Let's go pick, yeah stuff I want to do.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
That would be so cool to be out there in the fields.
Speaker 3 (25:28):
Bullifer's got their little chef smackdown, so
they're looking for chefs.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
We're just trying to create something cool and we're
all about community Strawberry,melon, gazpacho or something,
that's it.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
He's over on that side now.
He's so distracted by the foodhe's hungry the strawberry
caprese you know, with theburrata and the heirloom
tomatoes, strawberry brodo for apiece of halibut.
Speaker 3 (25:52):
They're in food porn land right now, Strawberry pico.
You know I'm all over it.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
Just sous vide some strawberry out with a piece of
fish in the bag.
Oh my God.
Speaker 3 (25:58):
Strawberry ice cream.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
Sorbetto let's get it , let's go.
I want an ahi tuna, strawberry,taco or some shit.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
Oh, that would be fun .
Do a little strawberry wasabiglaze.
They're calling.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
See how this works.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
I was just joking because you were saying the
glaze and the tuna.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
I'm funny.
I know it's a joke, you'regoing to do it anyway.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
So when is the festival?
May 17th.
Speaker 3 (26:27):
We've actually got some funding from Original Pongo
Strawberry Fest.
We've raised over $24,000.
Ocean Storage is going to bethe main presenter.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
Tickets no tickets Free event.
Speaker 3 (26:39):
Yeah, we got North End Bags Go on their Instagram,
check them out.
They just printed some reallydope bags.
It said picked in Virginia wegot Shave Ice Get Lost Shave Ice
coming out there.
We've got all the coolrestaurants, from Pacifica to
Sorella's.
Duck Dive's been doing greatthings, all great spots.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
Nick's yeah.
Speaker 3 (27:00):
You know.
So, loja Snacks, we'll have ourfood truck out there.
We've got bands.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
And it's an all-day thing.
You guys are actually shuttingLaskin Road down.
Shutting it down.
So if you do drive to and fromthe oceanfront in Virginia Beach
, you're shutting down the wholestreet.
Speaker 3 (27:15):
Not the roundabout.
Speaker 1 (27:15):
Which has not been done, from the roundabout down
to the statue.
Is that what it is?
Speaker 3 (27:19):
From the roundabout to Pacific.
Okay, great, so yeah, almost aquarter mile, so that's a great
time.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
local driven.
Love to have you all there.
Indigenous stuff.
Speaker 3 (27:29):
And then this fall we're going to do like an oyster
roast with some surf music.
Perfect, you know we're goingto tap the noblemen we always
give back.
So the big thing for us is, youknow, trying to give some
awareness to all these farmsdown in Pungo that are working
so hard.
And then there's EquiKids sojust children with disabilities
and veterans PTSD so justchildren with disabilities and
veterans PTSD.
(27:49):
So raising money for EquiKidsand giving back and having a
hell of a party.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
That's amazing stuff.
So you know we can talk all dayabout this.
What would you give to when westart our careers and we get
into our cooking like you saidwhen you were at Zoe's doing the
wine dinners and we start out,we don't have the business
acumen, we start out with thecooking and the cooking and we
think we want to be owners, wethink we want to move on with
absolutely zero knowledge ofwhat it takes right.
What do you give to the peoplewho are in that mindset right
(28:16):
now?
They're at the brink.
Speaker 3 (28:17):
They've put in the years of cooking.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
Get out Good advice.
Speaker 3 (28:21):
Save yourself.
So when they want to get fromthat cooking, Do you see these
gray hairs?
Guys Focus in on this when youwant to get out from the cooking
.
43, looking like I'm 63.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
When you get out of the.
That's your advice.
It's not wrong.
Either get out or realign itGet into something.
Owning a restaurant.
Coming from a chef to owningrestaurants, you better
understand you are making alifelong commitment to something
you never knew was fucking evenpossible.
Well, you're right.
It's totally, totally different.
Speaker 3 (28:51):
A lot of these kids are in culinary school and and
I'm definitely not hating on ciaor civ or whatever acronym you
want to throw out there forcooking school um, but man, I'm
really, when I'm hiring, I'mlooking at your resume.
I'm not looking at where youwent to school and you're going
to rack up so much money justget your.
If you want something and to beproud and your mom and dad be
proud and have a piece of paperon your wall, get an associate's
(29:12):
degree.
You know, I mean, some of thesebachelors at CIA are like over
$100,000.
Man, you're never going to paythat back.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
You can't recoup.
You can't recoup $100,000 bycooking.
It's hard.
Speaker 3 (29:24):
Even at $20 an hour.
Yeah, it's hard.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
You know.
Speaker 3 (29:27):
So you want to get out there and you want to grind
and be intuitive, be inventiveand create something that can be
yours, whether it's a sauce,that's your branding.
I mean, the entrepreneurship ofthis business is the only thing
that's going to save you.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
And don't cook.
My advice to this I see a lotof young people, including
myself, back in the day.
You cook to impress other chefs, or you cook to impress or
compete with Instagram or socialmedia.
Fuck all that nonsense.
Cook to impress your guests,because they're the ones who are
putting their faith in you.
They're the ones who are givingyou or your establishment the
money.
They're the ones choosing youto come in there.
(30:01):
You need to cook to impressthem.
Look at your room, read yourpeople, see what it is they like
, why do they trust you and honein on that.
Don't worry about what the chefdown the street's doing, because
he may not be worrying aboutyou.
He could be worrying about hisguests and that's why his
restaurant is full.
Worry about what people trustin you and stop worrying about
what people the chef down thestreet doesn't fucking matter.
(30:23):
He's your competition in asense.
Really, he's not paying you.
He's getting paid, paid.
You're getting paid.
Work for what's in your heartand bring it out on the plate.
Then work from there and if youget enough of a following, you
may have a chance at opening arestaurant yeah, I mean it would
be like what do you mean?
he's got soft shell crabs withthe same strawberry glaze I have
you know what I mean, and thatdoes drive you a little bit
(30:44):
right.
Let's fry it, let's put it on aroll, let's eat it.
We got right and he's doing thesame shit.
Yeah, exactly so don't worryabout that so much.
Worry about what you can dodifferent.
See what's going on.
Don't compete with the guy downthe road.
Don't do what he's doing orshe's doing.
Look at what they're doing andfigure out how to do it
different, better and more funand more exciting, and have fun
(31:06):
doing it.
Have fun doing it.
You cannot have fun if you'reworried about what someone else
is doing.
You know.
Speaker 2 (31:10):
We've said that Like a lot of that in the industry, I
mean again we've lost it.
Like we've lost a lot of thelike sex, drugs and rock and
roll of the industry Of peoplejust really doing the job
Because it is fun.
It's fun to be out there.
Every that makes you excited tobe there, absolutely.
Speaker 3 (31:33):
We want to know how it tastes, we want to see their
excitement.
Yeah, you know, and that's whatdrives us.
I mean, if you're not havingfun in this industry, you're
definitely like a lost puppy outthere You're in trouble.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
I mean it's not all going to be great.
Speaker 3 (31:46):
People take it way too serious At the end of a
shift.
You know, all your line cooks,all my guys, we're all hugging
it out.
You know going, hey, it's allgood.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
It's just that service rush I tried to kill you
twice today, but it's all right.
You said it right.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
People take it way too serious the executive chefs
or the restaurant owners.
They have the right to betaking it serious.
You don serious to where youcan't get stuff done, but you
also have to respect theseriousness of where you are, of
course.
When you go home at night,fucking relax.
If something goes wrong, figureit out.
You don't have to go crazy overit.
(32:18):
Don't lose your life.
Don't go goddamn get hooked upon heroin because you can't
handle your work.
Fucking flow, just relax, man.
Take a break, have a drink,have a shot of tequila, pass the
Jager bottle around.
If it gets that goddamn bad,you know what?
Speaker 2 (32:30):
I mean.
Amen On tap, amen to that.
Speaker 1 (32:33):
So what do you think about the culinary scene moving
forward?
I mean, I know we have all thethings we've talked about.
We have accessibility toingredients we've never had
before.
We have accessibility to theskills and talents we've never
seen before with social mediaand stuff like that.
We have culinary tools now thatnever existed.
Something as simple as afucking microplane that we never
had.
When I was young, these thingsdidn't exist.
You were talking about thathard bean salad, and the only
(32:55):
thing I was thinking about iswhat I would do in your position
, and while I'm thinking aboutthat is I would literally take
my microplane and I would gratethese fucking beans over
something nicely and consider ita fucking cannellini dust, and
that, right there alone, wouldhave created a flavor of a moami
that you wouldn't have thoughtof.
Just because of a microplaneand a hard bean could change
everything and you can now eatthis hard bean and not even know
(33:15):
what the fuck it is, and youcan call it that and it'll be
Bobby if it'll be.
Bobby, but these tools that wenever had before, you don't?
I mean, we have little shin wasnow that we didn't even have
back then, really China look,the health department still
doesn't acknowledge sous videcooking.
Speaker 3 (33:32):
So I mean, how far are we really?
Um, they look at it as tdz.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
You know, time, danger zone, wonderland you know
you can't and I'm like it'spathetic sous vide.
Speaker 3 (33:41):
It's been around since the 90s.
Oh, what are we talking aboutearlier than that?
Yeah, accessible to the 90s,you know um bro, you're exactly
right.
Speaker 1 (33:48):
Mean there's certain things I do with a vacuum seal
bag.
There's things I do that myhealth department just rags me
on, that I do with a friggingcryovac machine or a vacuum
sealer you know what I'm sayingTo infuse flavors If I want to
do a nice melon or a watermelonand I want to compress it.
So if I do a compressed melonand stuff, I go, oh, you can't
(34:09):
do that.
What do you mean?
I can't do that?
Yes, I can, because I did andit's delicious and guess what,
everybody loves it.
You're a fucking witch.
Get out of here, go stir yourpot with your gruel okay, a fun
police.
Yeah, man, sorry, do you know?
Speaker 3 (34:22):
also that Virginia denied the $.
Speaker 2 (34:30):
Really, and radar restaurants.
Speaker 3 (34:31):
Really.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
That's amazing.
Thanks, virginia.
I'm not surprised, is thatYunkin?
Speaker 3 (34:36):
I mean, dude, I've loved Yunkin on a lot of things.
I think that restaurants shouldbe getting grants and I don't
think there was any help withtaxes and grants.
Speaker 1 (34:44):
I was looking at grants yesterday on the fucking
website, on the governmentwebsite, looking for any type of
grants that I could do to helpprogress my staff.
I want to help my staff outmore.
I want to create more avenuesfor my staff to be enticed to
come to work.
I want to give them morebenefits.
I want to give them moreoptions.
So I was on looking for grantsyesterday that has anything to
(35:05):
do with restaurants, staffing,bonusing, helping people
progress into the next, maybeeven insurances or education,
anything I can offer my staff,not a fucking thing, nothing.
However, if I want to get agrant for you know a mud sample
of the grass outside, I couldget that grant, though you know
what I mean, because that reallymatters, because the
(35:26):
architecture or the agriculture,it doesn't shit, that doesn't
matter, you get a grant for it.
But moving someone forward,there's no help in the
restaurant industry.
Speaker 3 (35:33):
But moving someone forward.
There's no help in therestaurant industry.
None Well, I was bummed aboutthe Michelin because, man,
although my restaurant wouldprobably obviously not be a
Michelin-rated restaurant, Ithink yours would definitely be
in contention for that.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
We'd have to change some of our comfort zone.
It brings diners out.
Speaker 3 (35:48):
So diners would be, you know, more apt to travel
from another state to come tonot just.
Dc, but you know Richmond andfurther south than that.
I mean Charlottesville's gotsome great places, hampton Roads
has some great places,tidewater, whatever you want to
call it.
We don't know what we want tobe called.
We're called everything.
Speaker 1 (36:07):
We want to give that type of service to our guests
and we do the best we can herewith it.
It's do the best we can herewith it.
It's not the best we can.
We can always do much better,but we're giving it to the
actual what makes sense rightnow.
It's hard to run a Michelinstaff, a Michelin dining room,
michelin etiquette whenMichelin's not an option.
It's a lot of money, it takes alot of time, it takes a lot of
(36:29):
training, it takes a lot ofschooling, it takes a lot of
schooling, it takes a lot ofdedication.
But if Michelin is not allowedto come here because your area
isn't justified, then it's justa lot of everything and at the
end of the day you getdiscouraged because you know
it's not even an option.
So you have to back off a littlebit to give the best of the
fine dining at the next level.
Speaker 3 (36:48):
Now Florida, georgia, tennessee, man, they pay the
money Texas.
So, now Michelin's going tooverpass us and head on down
south, and the money's neededbecause Michelin is not only
about restaurants, and that'swhere people make the most
mistake.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
Michelin is an area, it's a destination and the
restaurants are a destination inthat area.
So your area has to be Michelinready.
You have to have hotels worthy,you have to have restaurants
worthy.
You have to have mechanic shopsworthy.
They judge and rate multiplethings, not just restaurants.
So the whole area has to beMichelin approved right.
(37:26):
That's where the money comes in.
So even that money doesn'tdirectly go to every restaurant,
but it goes to the area touplift it for the Michelin guide
on all subjects.
Speaker 3 (37:36):
To make it worthy of Michelin.
Speaker 1 (37:38):
The city has to be a Michelin rated city.
It's not only about therestaurant.
The restaurant is just a littlesegment that just happens to be
the most popular part and themost interesting part of the
Michelin guide.
But they have tire shops thatare in the Michelin guide.
That's the whole point of it.
Speaker 3 (37:53):
That's how they started.
Speaker 1 (37:54):
That's how they started, so it's not only about
restaurants.
Speaker 3 (37:56):
It was a road map.
It was a road map while you'regetting your tires on where to
stop and eat.
Speaker 1 (38:00):
Sure.
So the Michelin area has to beMichelin worthy on all levels.
You mean the.
Speaker 2 (38:05):
Sunsations and the Hermit Crab sales on the beach
aren't going to bring theMichelin.
Speaker 3 (38:10):
The t-shirts say 20 bucks is 20 bucks.
Yeah, yeah, right yeah.
Speaker 2 (38:14):
It's not going to suck itself.
All the good t-shirts are goodones.
Yeah, there's a lot of goodones up there.
Speaker 1 (38:18):
There's a lot of shit down there, but I'm all for it
and I think that anybody whowants to get a Michelin star or
work in that type of environment.
It is a totally different game.
It's gastro, it's definitelymolecular cooking.
There's a whole different style.
But it definitely could be donehere, and I would love to rise
up to that if the option wasavailable.
Speaker 2 (38:39):
We have the talent here.
We have the talent.
Speaker 1 (38:41):
We do have the talent and I can't put in the extra
money when I know it's not evenan extra fucking option.
Speaker 2 (38:44):
It's not going to come back to you as a business
owner.
Speaker 1 (38:47):
It's not feasible, Right now my Michelin stars are
my guests.
That's what I focus on now and.
I'd give them the best of whatwe, what they expect for where?
Speaker 2 (38:54):
we are right now.
True, I agree, amen, amen,that's that, that's that, that's
that.
Speaker 1 (39:00):
So we're gonna end it on that man, because we can
keep on going and going andgoing, but people got to get
back to work.
Right now we're getting blamedfor fucking people, showing up
late, taking their break toolong because they're listening
to this, and it's wonderful.
Speaker 3 (39:11):
Well, I just look, I appreciate, look, I appreciate
y'all so much, everything you do, chef.
Speaker 1 (39:15):
Thank you, man you too, chef Kristen, you and your
husband, y'all have beensupporting me since day one.
Speaker 3 (39:18):
Always, and just a shout out to all our listeners,
all our followers, thisrestaurant, mine, other
supporters, you know, and diners, you know.
Just treat people right.
I'd love for one week and thentell me how did that feel?
Speaker 1 (39:34):
Tell?
Speaker 3 (39:34):
me.
Speaker 1 (39:36):
Did you just sing?
Speaker 2 (39:36):
a little Britney, I did.
Speaker 1 (39:38):
Tell me more Now listen to me.
Speaker 3 (39:40):
Tell them where they can find you.
Speaker 1 (39:42):
Where can they get you Instagram social media
websites?
Speaker 3 (39:44):
Yeah, Loja Snacks, Phoebe.
Facebook's pretty much dying.
I mean, rarely go on there.
I wouldn't check that out.
It's not updated, but yeah youknow whatever, come down to the
store, we'd love to treat you.
You know some poke.
We got a lot of cool thingshappening on Laskin Road and
obviously there's some coolthings happening out here In
Chesapeake too, in Chesapeakethe 757 is coming up.
Speaker 1 (40:07):
The freak Chesapeake, the freak's real to find us,
because you already did, becauseyou're watching us right now.
We appreciate you.
Hit like, hit, subscribe, hitall the things click them
buttons.
Speaker 2 (40:18):
I don't, that wasn't.
Speaker 1 (40:19):
I don't know what that was you clicking?
Speaker 2 (40:21):
that's you clicking I'm like I can't tap anything
it's all right, I'm whatever.
All right y'all ciao for now,thank you.
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