June 6, 2025 • 55 mins
When Navy SEAL Chris Fettes packed an ice cream maker into his cruise box and churned frozen desserts with camel's milk in the deserts of Iraq, little did he know he was laying the foundation for his post-military career. This extraordinary journey from special operations warrior to gourmet ice cream craftsman reveals the unexpected ways passion can transform into purpose.
Chris shares with raw honesty how he navigated the challenging transition from military service to entrepreneurship, addressing the psychological shift from team-based validation to self-validation required for business success. "If you're not willing to start from the bottom," he explains, "you're never going to move forward in the culinary world." This philosophy led him to invest $4,000 in ice cream formulation school before earning his first dollar—a decision that seemed questionable to others but proved essential to developing his exceptional product, Be Free Craft Ice Cream.
What sets Be Free apart isn't just the remarkable creaminess and innovative flavors (like tea and cookies or mascarpone with fig jam), but the heartfelt connection to service. Flavors like "Millie Mint" and "Point Man Pistachio" honor fallen teammates, with proceeds supporting their families. The business has evolved from home deliveries from coolers to a thriving café in Virginia Beach and now distribution deals that will take the brand nationwide. (look out for it soon!)
Whether you're a culinary enthusiast, aspiring entrepreneur, or simply someone who appreciates an inspiring story of reinvention, Chris's journey demonstrates how discipline, determination, and a willingness to start small can transform a simple passion into something extraordinary. Check out Be Free at their Virginia Beach Cafe location or follow their expansion:
WEBSITE: https://befreeicecream.com/
INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/befreecraft_cafe
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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):
Burn hands perspective.
Here we are.
Listen, you introduce this.
Oh, I get to introduce him.
Yeah, you do it.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Okay, all right, so this is someone I know I was
going to say our Mario Lopezlookalike Chris Bettis yeah, who
is representing the ice creamworld for us today, but has a
really cool story of BeFree andhow it came to be and working in
spec ops community, being inthe military, growing up with
(00:26):
this.
So we want to hear the wholejourney of ice cream, because I
think a lot of people think youjust make it, it's good, but you
do gourmet, which is like nextlevel, freaking insane ice cream
that I love so much.
So we're excited that you'rehere today, thank you.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Cool story, really cool story, and not only is it a
cool story, but it's going tobe an ongoing story in his life,
because you switch fromsomething you were doing that
had nothing to do with us tosomething that you have nothing
to do with, and it's just goingto continuously get more nuts
and you're going to probably atsome point, question why in the
fuck am I doing this?
Speaker 3 (00:56):
I think yeah, if you haven't already, yeah,
absolutely.
I think scaling for me isscaling.
Every step of the way is going.
I don't know what the hell I'mdoing, no matter how far I go, I
don't think we do so wheneveryou have passion in what you're
doing, no matter what.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
that's the case.
So, being a chef and being arestaurant owner and whatever it
is with your reframe and allyour stuff, no matter what we do
, we always ask that questionbecause it's never good enough.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
So if it's never good enough, when the hell does it
end?
So you're always in thisconstant stress factor of
getting better and growing andit's just never going to dude.
So after 14 years now of doingthis, I'm going to be the first
one to tell you that when youstep into the food world, the
culinary world or thehospitality world, if you're
passionate in what you're doing,it's never going to get better.
Yeah, there's no end, there'sno tunnel, there's a light, but
(01:43):
it's way over there.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
We brought you here for the positivity today.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
Totally for the positivity.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
I give up.
I put it as positive because welove it.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
It's a sickness.
It's a sickness.
I think you've seen scarierthings, yeah let's get to that.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
Let's see where you're coming from.
Man Speaking of scary, realquick Hell's Angel thing and I'm
like I think that's badass.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
One thing has nothing to do with the other, right?
Yeah, but it kind of does,because it's my life and your
history is your life and weinclude it and we work these
things into our life andeverything applies actually.
Everything applies how you dealwith people, how you handle
things, how your stress levelgoes.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Actually that was one topic we wanted to talk about
Coming from the SEAL teams intobusiness ownership.
You have to manage people waydifferent too, joking aside, I
can't imagine being a Hell'sAngel organization.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
I'm sure you have structure, teams, we have
accountability, all the samethings, similar things, it all
falls down to that.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
It really falls down to accountability.
We all have personalaccountability.
That's something you prove toeach other.
To get there In this world,though, there's.
We all have personalaccountability.
Yeah, yeah.
And that's something you proveto each other to get there,
right, yeah.
So in this world, though,there's no accountability other
than someone wanting a fuckingpaycheck.
That's the shock factor.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
They don't give a shit.
Some of them don't Now.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
I'm lucky and fortunate enough to have great
teams.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
There's people that slip through the gate every time
, but depending on where you arein, snip it at the bud sooner,
but sometimes they sneak throughthe cracks, man yeah but I'm
(03:16):
thinking at your level of whatit is you have to do you and the
clownery phase.
Well, not only that, but youhave to deal.
You're the passion, you're,you're the passion, and there's
not much room for anyone else tocome in and recreate your ice
cream right.
So it's something you have todo.
So you have a lot.
I'm sure you have a lot of kidsscooping the ice cream or
working the storefront orselling the merch and that's
(03:37):
where they're.
A lot of them are there for thepaycheck.
So I think you have a lot moreof them than you do.
Career people right so back,back to that I know I've begun,
so that's the difference betweendealing with your teams or my,
my brothers in the club, or andwe don't really have to deal
with them this way becausethey're already accountable yeah
, they've already signed up forwhat they sign up for.
Now we're accountable to eachother, so the buffoonery is on a
(03:58):
different level.
It's a lot more.
Yeah, it's a lot when it is aproblem.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
it's a yeah, and I've learned in 10 months that it's
like I had no standards startingout because I didn't know what
I was kind of getting into.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
On the business side.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
I didn't apply a lot of that structure and stuff.
I learned in the teams and theguys like him that he learned,
you know, in his chapter orwhatever, and I'm like now I'm
already fixing it.
You know, switching that sortof mindset they go.
Oh, we need to have a highstandard that people meet, you
know.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
Right, and not only a high standard, but you also
have to have a high level ofpatience.
Oh, absolutely so much morepatience.
See, in the teams or with me,things get to an escalated level
.
You deal it out, you duke itout and then you're back to
living life and everything'sgood, oh my God, here you can't
punch your employees in the face.
You can't punch your employeein the face anymore.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
No, you'll spiral.
You don't have time Like.
If you want the best solution,you have to have patience.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
The only cool ones you can punch in the face, the
guys that are cool or that cantake the punch and carry on
realizing that it was worth it.
You know they're all right, sotell us how you started.
How did ice cream get into allthis whole structure?
Speaker 3 (04:58):
dude.
In childhood I just grew upcooking.
My grandmother is Japanese.
She immigrated with mygrandfather during Vietnam.
He was stationed there for awhile.
That's where they met.
She's just like the culinarysource for our family All the
recipes and the sushi and thewontons and all the things.
So all Asian infusion,basically at your house.
(05:18):
Asian infusion for sure.
When I make up a huge bowl ofwontons it's like the
neighborhood hears about it andthey're over for dinner.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Going to dinner, I'm coming.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll bring you some.
So yeah, just like my youngerson does this, if I'm in the
kitchen he's there watching andyou can tell that he's paying
attention to everything.
And my older son helps outsometimes, but he's a little
more of the analytical-mindedtype.
Helps out sometimes, but he'sin, you know he's.
He's a little more of theanalytical minded type, you know
, so you'd probably be reading abook or something you know and
the little one doesn't readbooks we all have that right.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
So who started?
Speaker 3 (05:51):
who started making the ice cream like taught you um
so I didn't make that much icecream, but I did have, you know,
a little machine when I was akid and it was like you know, my
sister's got an easy bake oven.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Yeah, and I remember using that more like the snoopy
snow cone machine type of shit.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
Yeah like uh, you know, I can make like this much
brownies in that thing you know,and then make like two bites
ice cream.
Yeah, with those, just a littlecuisine art you know type
machines but, um, you know, fastforward, I really didn't start
it just ice cream, it reallystarted with just that's just my
favorite thing, you know.
So I think my mom told me onestory where we were in Japan
(06:28):
when I was little.
We lived there for a couple ofyears because, you know, she
married, remarried my, my, myfather, my stepfather, who's I
consider my father, and he wasin the Air Force.
So we, you know, we lived therefor like four years.
Oh gotcha when I was younger,seven until I was about almost
12.
But we'd go get, would go getice cream, and you know there's
(06:48):
just one story where my icecream scoop was falling off and,
like you know, I had this justcat-like reaction and just
caught caught it in my handthere was no time to miss that.
Yeah, and that's the momentwhere she was like wow, ice
cream's your your favorite thingyou know that's it so well,
that needs to be a t-shirt, bro.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
A skeleton hand with the ice cream falling.
Yeah, yeah, you have only onechoice, me and Virtue had some
Catch it or not.
Oh, there you go Catch it orfail.
Yeah, let it go.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
Me and Virtue had some comedy ideas for media,
where we're going to go like I'mjust going to put ice cream
ready, just wet and healthy, Ilove it, it doesn't surprise me
at all.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
Yeah, so it's just my favorite thing in the world.
You know if it was my last youknow day, that's your last meal.
That would be mine yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
So, before making your own, finding ice cream that
you liked is the hard part, andI have a story of my own for
you.
Speaker 3 (07:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
But so what the hell were you eating before?
Speaker 3 (07:40):
Briars.
What were you?
Speaker 1 (07:41):
going.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
Dude, just like Baskin Robbins, is everything
that I remember from childhood,that was your move.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
Baskin Robbins, 24 flavors yeah, once I could, what
?
Speaker 3 (07:48):
was it 31?
31?
31 flavors or something.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
Baskin Robbins, I don't know Somebody's got to
fact check that.
Speaker 3 (07:59):
So, we had Carvel when I was young.
Oh, I love blizzards.
I had one the other day.
Yeah, me too.
I'll roll through Oreo cookie,one Once every couple of weeks.
Yep Reese's.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
Oreo cookie one for real.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
So fast forwarding so we get through that stage.
You went into the military.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
Did you go out in the military like right out of
school?
Speaker 3 (08:19):
I was, you know, messing around for a couple of
years, but I really was just,you know, getting in trouble and
not not doing much with my life.
Really, I just didn't have anydirection.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
That's a good story.
Speaker 3 (08:29):
That's my favorite story kind of a skateboard, you
know kind of a loser kid, youknow.
You know, um living in myfriend's houses and you know,
partying and going to raves andstuff back then and just like
wasting time basically.
So, uh, you know, 9-11 happenedand I kind of like, just kind
of woke up to go.
Man, I really um could imaginemyself doing something, you know
(08:52):
, towards this, that somethingit just like came together in my
mind to go.
I have an opportunity to go,just do something meaningful
with my life, right, and um, Ijust had memories of talking
about the SEAL teams withfriends in high school and stuff
like that.
And you know I wasn't.
I don't think anybody in myfamily would have guessed that I
was going to go in the military, and so you not only went, you
(09:14):
went hard, you went hard.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
So I think that's yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
You are military.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
We are going for the bottom, Just like you're going
for the top tier top tieroperators.
Yeah, so yeah For the rest ofmy life.
That kind of set the tone to goif I'm gonna go do something
you know I want to go try to do.
Yeah, just be be the best thatI can at it you know.
So that's kind of drove metowards, you know, the rest of
my, my path is like, hey, if I'mgonna go in, I'm gonna go to
(09:39):
the seal teams, you know, then Igotta go to the best seal team,
and you know.
And then after that I gotta goget a job and then if I want to
start a business I gotta try tomake it the best you know.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
Version that's a great.
That's a great habit.
That's a bad, that's a badhabit, but it's a great one yeah
, so we have to be perfect, wecan lose things along the way
trying to do that which I haveas well yeah but it's something
that you just can't.
It is what it is, and that'sjust the way it is the things
that are going to be there inthe end are going to be there in
the end, the ones that hold onyeah, um but it's.
It's not an easy.
It's not an easy habit to havehabits, the wrong word.
(10:09):
What is it not a habit?
A curse right?
Speaker 2 (10:10):
it's a blessing and a curse.
It's a blessing.
It's a blessing for everyonearound you and it occurs over
other things in your life.
Speaker 3 (10:16):
Yeah, you got to find a balance between high level
and perfection, becauseperfection is not perfection.
That'll, that'll ruin it,you're never going to get
perfection.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
I don't know what perfect is.
I know what not being perfectis, but I don't know what
perfect is because every time Iachieve something I'm trying to
do and it seems like it was tooeasy or something like that,
that wasn't perfect.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
So what the?
Speaker 1 (10:37):
hell is perfect.
I keep going.
It's a curse, it's a drug, it'san addiction.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
Maybe perfect is realizing that there is no
perfect.
Maybe who?
Speaker 1 (10:44):
knows, maybe that's true.
So you became a SEAL.
You went to Bud's, you did allthat and in your mind you're
just thinking about I just needan ice cream right now.
So you're sitting theretreading water, you're doing the
thing with the log on the beach, you're doing the buddy stuff
in Bud's.
You're Chocolate, ice cream,what are?
Speaker 3 (11:00):
you thinking yeah, mint chocolate chip.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
Now, if my son Declan was here right now, he'd be
fighting, he's a little guyYou'd probably beat him.
However, he will fight for somemilk, chocolate chip, ice cream
.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
Yeah, I'll fight again.
He'll throw hands for ice cream.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
Throw hands, let him and the little brother, fight
over the last one in there.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
I end up eating it.
Yeah, you take them down realquick, but this is one of my
favorite stories is that youwere the guy in the teams who
made ice cream and you got totell everybody.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
I mean how the hell you make ice cream in the middle
of the desert, why I joined atall and sort of my path through
everything and then and thenthings that I had to sort of
(11:49):
figure out afterwards in myself.
Speaker 3 (11:51):
All you know kind of revolved around validation, you
know, and like you know, likejust, and everybody needs, needs
it.
But we're in a world right now,in 2025, where, like so many
people just require constantvalidation because we're just
insecure in general.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
Well, there's so many avenues to get validation now
that it's ingrained us that weneed to achieve it.
Speaker 3 (12:12):
It's like entitlement .
Speaker 1 (12:12):
Social media likes comments.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
DMs, all that stuff.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
These are things this is the validation you're
speaking of.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
Yeah, and I think that now being I'm
self-validating, you know, sosorry.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
No, you're right.
No, you're right.
I mean go on.
Sorry, I'm just I'm into whatyou're saying.
Speaker 3 (12:26):
Oh, thanks, yeah.
Yeah, I try to catch myself.
I'm trying to get better atthat.
You know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
It's like Not requiring it.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
Yeah Well it's kind of you need it because you guys
are working to get, you'reconstantly getting.
Speaker 3 (12:50):
It is literally yeah everything it's about is your
reputation yeah you know you notonly survive but thrive.
You know you, you justconstantly need validation from
everybody.
But even to have awareness, toknow where you're, where you
stand in the team, right.
So after that's all done, it'slike, pretty quickly, I learned,
if you don't learn how toself-validate, it's just you're
going to struggle.
(13:10):
It's really hard, like you gotto let go of that, that that
need and requirement forvalidation, even more than just
the average person is like.
And then you go into businessand you're like wow, I learned
really fast.
You know that you, I have to beself-validating Because you
must know, with so muchexperience, that you don't have
(13:33):
time to wait for validation fromeverybody to make decisions and
to do things.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
And they don't want to give you credit.
You're right and saying that Iused to do that and catch myself
all the time fucking up wastingtime Because you're waiting to
get validated, sometimes bypeople who aren't worthy of the
validation.
Yeah, they know less, or theydon't understand what you're
doing and they're going to giveyou an opinion based on what
they would have done, butthey'll never fucking do a day
in their life because they don'thave the gumption to get out of
bed early enough to do it.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
So therefore, you're right.
Right, I want to know how youvalidate this.
Validate, like she said at thebeginning, making ice cream in
the desert, yeah, underway, Icouldn't even imagine cooking
eggs like that man, of course Ihave, but you know it's, tell me
about this exciting shit,because I can just imagine
everyone's sitting around likewhat the fuck is chris?
Speaker 2 (14:18):
what's he doing over there, man?
Speaker 3 (14:19):
yeah, oh, he's making an ice cream social, yeah,
sitting around like yay machineEveryone's sitting around like
yay, yeah, only certain guysknew because, like I said,
because of that validation thing, I actually was kind of shy
about my creative side of things.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
Well, you've got to be tough.
Well, you don't want someonesaying, yeah, you're a pussy
because you're over there makingice cream.
You don't want to be teasedbecause of something you're
doing.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
Same thing with the Hells Angels.
It's hard for a Hells Angel andmyself to say like hey, that's
a badass Hells Angel, butlooking at him, he's sous-viding
an octopus.
I will beat your ass and sitdown at the table and eat dinner
with you after.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
Yeah, you'll eat what I cook and you're going to like
it.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
Who cares?
Speaker 3 (15:00):
right, they don't understand it.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
The passion I have for my art and you have for your
art has nothing.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
Don't be confused.
What it has to do with us beingmen on other things.
Oh dude, now it's like I knowwhat it means and what it is and
I have no problem with it.
If I'm at a bar with a bunch ofHell's Angels and I get a
Shirley Temple, I'm like thefuck, are you drinking you
little pussy?
And they're like the fuck, areyou drinking you little pussy?
I'm like, well, I normally justdrink whatever I want to drink.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
Yeah, that's what I drink.
Right, exactly, and not onlythat, I'll get my ass.
I'll buy them a whiskey afterthat.
I'll go a step further.
I'll get my ass beat and stilleat dinner with you.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
Either way it's happening.
Either way you're going back tothe ice cream and the food.
Speaker 3 (15:39):
That's true about fighting level most badass you
know motherfuckers in the worldlike the like ufc fighters.
What are they doing after thefight's over?
No matter who wins, somebodygets knocked out yeah, the guy
who knocked him out and the guythat got knocked out.
They're hugging.
They're eating ice cream.
They're hugging.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
You know they're crying they're releasing all of
that energy they're normal thatup to that and and then they're
there for each other.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
You know, in a way, where just before that they were
trying to kill each other.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
Yeah right, you know.
All right, so back to.
We got to get to making thisstuff yeah, we're dodging the
subject.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
You guys want to tell us how to make ice cream in the
desert.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
I know I can see what's going on here, so I've
heard this story like secondhand I've never heard it from
you, so I don't know how much ofit is like you know where
they're making.
You just seem like it was thishuge production.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
No, it wasn't a big deal.
Actually, it was pretty quiet.
It was like it was kind of asecret and only yeah, so I
upgraded.
You know, when I got to sealteam 10 2006, ish, I upgraded to
this machine that was like atwo quart, you know Italian
machine called.
It's called a Lello Musso, Ithink on Amazon if you look it
up.
Okay, 5800 model, so it makestwo quarts.
(16:41):
Okay, cool, I'm writing thisdown because I want to make some
.
Yeah, it serves from the top.
I have one I can give you thatone.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
So that's perfect, I'm getting gifted by the master
.
It means something, because itwas making ice cream with
camel's milk in Iraq.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
So we're revealing now Camel's milk.
Okay, go for it, yeah.
Speaker 3 (17:03):
I mean, you know from Mark, we have those big boxes,
we pack all our gear, all of ourstuff.
So you're a cruise box.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
Cruise box Normally each guy has a Metal fold-up
cruise box.
Is that what it is?
They're like Pelican cases.
Yeah, that's it.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
You know like what these?
Speaker 3 (17:25):
guys instead of the booze box.
Because I'm pretty allergic toalcohol anyways, I kind of
forced myself to drink.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
I'm allergic to it too.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
You have the Asian gene Every time I get drunk, it
never works out.
Well, no, but you have theAsian gene.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
I really do, yeah, so he has to actually take
medicine before he drinks, sothat he doesn't blow up and get
out.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
I was a drinker, but I just still did it to sort of
fit into the culture, and thenit just became a normal thing.
So I just packed that machineinto I got a picture of it
somewhere Packed that machineinto a cruise box and then after
some missions we'd come back,I'd pull it out and just whip up
two quarts of ice cream,because that's kind of why it
was a secret too is it wasn'tenough for everybody.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
So it just runs out of electricity.
Speaker 3 (18:08):
You dump your milk, your product, all your sweet,
all your ingredients inside.
I was just using ice cream, uhformulas that I found online.
You know, back then I didn'thave my asking g, I didn't know
how to formulate it myself thatwas before google, right?
yeah, like ask the beginningyeah yeah, that was you had to
do some research and get somebooks.
You know there's some, a coupleold school ice cream ice cream
books that were, uh, really goodfor that.
Um, but for the most part Icould just walk across to the
(18:30):
little, you know dinky littlechow hall where you know they
contracted, you know, localiraqis to work in.
You know we come back from amission every before we even
shower up or everybody get inthere with their dusty gear
right, get their, get their eggsscrambled up and, you know, eat
breakfast and then roll out andgo to bed for the next night.
So I'll just stay up a littlebit longer and whip up some ice
(18:51):
cream and, you know, if there'sa couple of guys left that were
still up, we'd eat the ice cream.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
How long did it take to churn and make Like?
15 minutes for a batch, that'sit.
Wow, that's quick for them.
Speaker 3 (19:01):
We're making ice cream now, yeah 15, 20 minutes
If you chill the mix first.
And I was just making vanilla,it was pretty easy.
I had a bunch of extracts, sothat's always easy, but to
flavor it up I was just usingwhatever was available.
I was smashing up bananas thatthey shipped over to that chow
hall, but it was pretty easy toget figs.
(19:24):
So there was a couple Terps.
There's this one Terp namedJohnny Walker.
He's actually pretty known outthere because he obviously likes
drinking.
Johnny Walker, probably themost badass.
I mean, he's probably got morecombat experience than any SEAL
I've ever known.
He just was like through theduration of that war, of all of
(19:45):
iraq, he was he, you know, hewas working for it for every
seal, you know all the sealteams that were out there.
So he had no fear of like theenvironment and it was easy.
Hey, johnny, I could really usesome figs, but I can't go off
base and to bad guy land, youknow, from here unless we're on
a mission, and I can't go to themarket when I'm on a mission,
you know.
So he a couple times grabbedfigs and you know, like whatever
apples or whatever they had outthere and I was making, so he
(20:06):
was like.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
He was like red on uh shawshank redemption yeah, he
was bad, I can get you somethingyeah I heard you.
I heard you're a man that canacquire things.
Yeah, and I'm doing.
Speaker 3 (20:14):
I'm plugging this on purpose, because you gotta love
him, he's out there.
He wrote a book.
He's out in San Diego.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
Johnny Walker, this is for you.
Yeah, him and his family arenow here, so they've immigrated
over afterwards.
Speaker 3 (20:27):
So he grew up in Mosul and the bad guys killed
his brother and he became atranslator for the good guys and
it's a crazy cool story.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
It's in a story you can read in his book.
Yeah, yeah, so story.
It's in a story you can read inhis book, so check out, johnny.
Speaker 3 (20:38):
Walker's book Plug, and I don't know if he remembers
the ice cream stuff, because heknows hundreds of missions.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
How do you not remember having ice cream in
Iraq In the middle of it all?
It's the world around.
Speaker 3 (20:50):
And we were drinking heavy between those missions too
.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
So there were some nights where I can't remember
the ice cream, ice cream social.
Get a little drunk, have alittle ice cream.
Speaker 3 (21:04):
And it kind of just went from there and it was just
always in my mind.
But when I went to Dev Group Ididn't pull it out much because
the reputational validationthing became even more intense,
where it was like I got to fitin here.
That's one of the criteria forhaving a good career there is
fitting in, and if you don't,you could be out.
Just for that reason.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
Even if you perform good, don't play that like
you're not copacetic witheverybody that's there,
absolutely.
Speaker 3 (21:27):
Yeah, so there's all these different factors, but
that's for sure one of them.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
So, no matter what faction of life you're in,
validation or being part of thecrew is not ever going to go
away.
It doesn't matter what that'sjust the way it is.
I think that's in every life,no matter what you do.
I think that's human race.
I think that's just the way itis Human nature.
Speaker 3 (21:46):
Yeah, absolutely so fast forward to after, when I
just went through the struggleof transitioning and sort of
reinventing myself and trying totransform myself, to let go of
all the shit and the stuff thatI just didn't need to be anymore
and be who I want to be.
That's part of the.
The thing aboutentrepreneurship that I'm
learning real fast is the thedoors don't open and things
(22:08):
don't really start to happen inin the profound way that they're
happening to me right now,until I really got right with
god and really, like, wentthrough a very specific decision
to, to make a change andtransform myself into the person
that's worthy of walkingthrough those doors and so like,
once you feel that and youactually commit the time like
(22:29):
it's been years, to, to, to, toa process of years, and then
once entrepreneurship, you know,is there, it's like all right,
you know I'm worthy of this.
And once you really focus andjust really go for, go for it
and just really focus, you know,without all the bullshit and
all those other distractions,it's like my personal life
(22:50):
improves and then my business isjust like we're now on like a
rocket ship of growth with thisdistribution thing, right, so
you?
Speaker 1 (22:57):
want.
Before you get to that, let'sgo in the middle.
So you got.
So you got home.
You were digging right intothis ice cream.
People started liking it.
I've tasted your ice cream, Ithink two years ago maybe.
Yeah, it was yeah For the firsttime and it was like, oh shit,
this is really good.
One of my bartenders actuallystopped and got it somewhere and
brought it in and we were allsitting around it and I used to
work at an ice cream place whenI was a kid probably 15 years,
(23:19):
16 years old.
I worked at a place making icecream, so it was up in Maine, it
was in New England.
So New England's a huge icecream area.
You either have shit ice cream,but most of it is really taken
seriously.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
The small towns all have their dairy joy or their
you know what I mean, andthey're all local homemade ice
cream places.
And this one place I worked atwas called big dipper right and
they had all kinds of flavors.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
We would.
It was one big machine and wewould just dump ingredients in
it and they would dump out into,like a cambro bucket, a round
bucket, yeah, and that's how itwould be.
And after that we put it downin the fridge, down in the
freezer, the old school the oldschool and those is what we
would serve out of, and therewould be rows of them, you know,
and it'd be all kinds of greatflavors, like bubble gum and,
you know, great, great nut yeahgreat nut cereal.
(24:00):
We had great enough and it wasgood, this was back in the
freaking night, early 90s, late80s.
Right, yeah, the mint chips,the uh almond joy, the all.
That's the coconut rum, all allthese crazy good flavors yeah,
and it was so creamy and it wasso smooth, and I still haven't
found ice cream like that yetuntil I had yours.
Oh, thank you.
And once I had yours, becauseyou have that.
It is a more northern style.
(24:22):
It's a more northern, rich,creamy, lactic.
You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3 (24:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
Now we can talk nerd culinary stuff yeah yeah,
there's science to it, for sure.
When you were in the desert.
I'm imagining your ice creamwas good because it was there
and there was nothing like it,so it was good.
However, I'm sure tell me ifI'm wrong.
I could be 100%.
Maybe I am.
I'm imagining, though, justwith my knowledge and stuff like
(24:47):
that, with the climate andeverything else, it was probably
coming out more crystally, alot more frozen, a lot more icy.
You know what I mean.
Your milk was frozen, but itwas more crystallized and kind
of crunchy a little bit yeah, Ididn't have a good.
Speaker 3 (24:59):
You know I hadn't learned how to do formulas
myself to get to get ice creamthe way I want and that's,
that's where I'm going.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
So you just hit the word, so formulating from that
chunk to non-junk, right?
Yeah, you had to go throughstuff in order to get on a
national level or startproducing the way you are or to
start getting incorporated theway you are.
You have to really grasppeople's mouths, taste buds,
interests, and it all comes fromquality, right.
Speaker 3 (25:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:24):
So anyone can make ice cream.
You're gonna give me thismachine, right?
I'm holding you to it, yeah.
I'm gonna put some stuff in thatmachine and it's not gonna come
out the way you did it.
I don't care what it is, it'svery important, especially for
the younger generation.
(25:45):
The reason why yours is good isbecause you formulated it on
your own.
You had to ask Jeeves and thatwas the only assistance you had.
Now you can go online and justsay Google how do I make ice
cream.
It'll tell you exactly how tomake ice cream and then you make
the ice cream and it's going tocome out nine times out of ten.
Okay, decent, good.
But no one's going to have togo any better than that, because
(26:06):
they're never going to have tohave to go better than that,
because they can just ask thenext question how do I make this
ice cream better?
And it might just come outbetter.
You learned how to do it fromthe beginning and now you can
write the script on the fuckingcomputer.
Yeah, so people are missingthat whole fucking thing.
(26:26):
Listen to this folks, everyoneout there, every camera.
When you start in the culinaryworld, whether you're making ice
cream, pasta sauce, pizza dough, it doesn't matter.
If you're not starting from thefucking beginning, you're going
to always be chasing everyoneelse.
Speaker 3 (26:35):
You have to formulate your own system by starting at
the goddamn bottom yeah, oryou're going to have to go back
and correct or learn somethingthat you just don't Right.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
If you're not willing to do that, you're never going
to move forward in the culinaryworld.
And you experienced thatbecause you learned you had a
passion for this before itbecame a job.
Speaker 3 (26:53):
I think when you become yeah, when you become an
entrepreneur, I'm glad I go backand go man.
I'm grateful that I don't knowwhy I did this.
Why did I go spend $4,000 to goto ice cream formulating school
?
You know which they also do alittle bit of the business side
of stuff too, and the dairies.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
There's an ice cream school.
Speaker 3 (27:11):
Yeah, there's an ice cream school.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
That's how I learned how to do it, but there is like
a chef school.
There is points that need to bemade by going oh it does?
It only helps you get the basisfor what you kind of didn't
know and you should know, but itdoesn't help you grow out into
who you are.
Speaker 3 (27:26):
It only gives you the basics.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
Yeah, and it's necessary, yeah so it's
essential to go because you'regoing to learn something?
Speaker 3 (27:31):
I think so because one thing that, um, the first
accounting firm that this thiswas a thing I learned too is
like trash, you know, like theydid my bookkeeping.
But I learned it, man.
I really needed to get a goodcontroller eventually, right,
which now I have an amazing one,but but then it was like 200
bucks a month.
They do your bookkeeping.
I was doing a better job thanthey were at my bookkeeping, but
(27:52):
when I, when they sold me onthat sort of little contract,
the guy in the firm that came into do the sale was like you
know, one of the things he saidhas now helped me.
Or he's like you know, you knowyou're gonna be good with the
ice cream thing.
You gotta, you know we'll doyour accounting or whatever, but
it's really hard to fuck up icecream right.
And I was like yeah, how hardis it?
(28:14):
basically, we're just sayinglike it's, it's an easy thing,
it is, you can go make ice creameasily, just like you said, but
you can go make a sandwich yeah, right, but you go buy a
sandwich or you can go makepasta.
But you go to luce and it's bombass.
Right, pasta there's, there'smore to the higher level stuff.
And then you know,intuitionally, I go back and
think of myself from eight yearsago because it's so stressful
(28:37):
getting out, you know, gettingyour new job, and then having to
tell my wife like hey, I'mgonna, I'm gonna before, like I
start really start this new job,I'm gonna go spend this money
to go do this.
And she's like why?
It's like like why do you haveto?
Speaker 2 (28:49):
do.
That's a fun, because in thefuture I don't know how to start
.
Well, the best part is and Iknow his, I know his wife very
well, so to sit there and say,hey, I just got out of the teams
, I'm going to go spend all thismoney on ice cream and her.
Speaker 3 (29:02):
That could be a red flag for them to be like oh God,
what is he?
You know she did laugh.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
I mean nobody.
In the beginning I think waslike they were like oh cute,
he's going to make ice creamlike he loves it.
Speaker 3 (29:14):
It's great.
And then you but the supportwas real.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
Though the support in the marriage was real, she did
support you, jumping in way morethan you expected.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
And now she's part of the team, if not most of the
team.
Speaker 3 (29:23):
Absolutely, she runs it with me Right.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
And that's great.
The faith in it worked bothways and it worked out perfect
for you.
Speaker 3 (29:30):
She had faith that I couldn't even see for so many
years.
And then we went through thestruggle of starting up and in a
and I really learned when wewere building the cafe out that
she had faith the whole time.
And then, once that cametogether, I was like, oh my god,
the doors just opened up forfor growth, with the strengths
and the thing that she does andthe in the way that I do, you
know, the creativity and visionstuff, it's like it's amazing.
(29:52):
But at first it's so hardbecause you know nobody can see
that.
You know, like I see this thing, just like when I went to the
ice cream school.
I'm like I don't know why.
I can't explain.
You know why I need to pay thisfour thousand dollars right now
when I need to put food on thetable first.
But I just know that in thefuture I need this and it's just
an intuitional thing andthere's been so many moments of
(30:12):
intuition that I did somethingthat are now paying off later it
costed me so much up frontright it didn't seem to make
sense and look crazy to peoplenow the four thousand dollars.
You're looking at it like thatwas the best four thousand
dollars I could have probablynow my wife yeah, absolutely,
and my wife um loves to do helpme with the merch stuff because
she's, she's, she's stylish.
You know, she's kind of atrendsetter because they're fun,
(30:33):
but I did the designs aheadwhere, you know, before we even
opened the cafe and I was, youknow, I didn't just make, I
didn't even make a dollar in youknow three years.
You know I actually the factthe first year of starting I was
negative 40 grand for my familywhile she was supporting the
family.
And but my point is like, whileI was doing that, some of that
(30:54):
cash I was spending was ondesigns because I'm, you know,
have a creative mind and nowit's paying off because every
time she wants to do a merchdrop, I have a library of
designs to choose from andthey're all really good, awesome
designs, and I don't have tostress out about that.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
Sure, and that's important.
Image is just as important asyour product, if not more so.
What's the saying?
A pound of image is worth anounce of performance.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
Yeah, so true.
Speaker 1 (31:17):
So it is true.
So you know you have to backyour product up.
You can't have a fake image.
You know what I mean.
Your image has to be betterthan your product, but your
product has to be better thaneveryone else's.
So that's kind of what you'redoing.
So, your ice cream shop.
Where is it located?
Right now we have some icecream.
Yeah, we actually are going totry it.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
Actually, I want to back because I think what you
hit on is that for the firstyear, you lost money.
Speaker 3 (31:39):
Yeah, and I don't think people.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
You just opened a cafe, so that's new within this
last year, but you had thisbusiness for several years prior
and you have to tell I mean thelengths you went to to deliver
ice cream to people locally Likehe's local in Virginia.
Beach and literally had coolersand had people pulling up to
his house to pick up their icecream.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
It's the only way.
Yeah, I mean, you worked yourass off.
When I started Luce the firsttime, it was the same type of
thing, thank you.
I said it too, I was like we'regoing to try some ice cream,
Like I'm not the most excitedfucker in this room, right now
I'm just trying this bro.
We got ice cream galore.
(32:20):
We're going to talk and eat, sodo you have what we?
Now?
I know that you're just openingup this shop.
In a sense You're kind of newto it.
Yeah, we're like only 10 monthsin, 10 months in, so you're
dealing now with the.
But it's amazing and it'srewarding and I love it.
I know I talk down on it a lot,but I'm only talking down for
those who don't understand whatwe go through.
Speaker 3 (32:41):
They don't know what it takes.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
But I absolutely love it.
I do there's parts of it I hatebut like in any job.
You're going to hate something.
Speaker 2 (32:47):
You know what I?
Speaker 1 (32:48):
mean.
Yeah, getting dust down thebarrel of a weapon is just as
annoying as a bad employee.
So it doesn't matter whatyou're doing.
You have to clean, you have tofix it, you have to go through
it.
These are all things thathappen, yeah, so you're going to
hire somebody that's going tobe a shithead in the end.
You're going to hire someonethat takes advantage of you.
You're going to hire someonewho thinks they're the reason
why you are here and you weren'tmaking desert freaking ice
(33:10):
cream.
Speaker 3 (33:14):
That is the story going on this year.
What?
Speaker 1 (33:16):
That is some of my, so we have branded packaging,
like that Branded packaging.
Speaker 3 (33:19):
But we ran out and you know we've got some more and
these are like the precursorsto these are the pre.
Speaker 2 (33:23):
Oh, pina colada, this is going to be fun.
She said, pina colada, I got myattention really quick.
Speaker 1 (33:34):
There's.
It's the precursor to the vibeof our packaging when we get
into stores towards the end ofthis year and into next year.
What's your favorite one?
Do you have a favorite?
I hate that question but what'sthat question?
Speaker 3 (33:39):
It's hard because I like the innovative flavors.
We've come up with a couplereally cool ones.
I made once mascarpone cheesebase ice cream with fig jam.
That I really love.
I did the marzipan rainbowItalian cookies flavor marzipan
flavor with those cookies inthere.
So those are a couple of myfavorite innovative kind of
flavors.
(33:59):
Peanut butter pork belly was areally good one.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
I love anything.
Peanut butter, peanut butterchocolate, peanut butter
chocolate banana.
Speaker 2 (34:04):
I wish I brought one Chocolate and banana.
Speaker 1 (34:05):
All that shit man.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
Okay, so there is, yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
I had peanut butter and banana.
Speaker 3 (34:09):
I just didn't bring it, millie mint chocolate chip.
That's probably.
I know you want that myfavorite, because I think mint
chocolate chip is probably myfavorite classic flavor.
Oh it came apart.
Speaker 1 (34:20):
Oh, wow so what is this now?
Speaker 3 (34:23):
Millie is short for Milliken, so this is a flavor
named after one of my greatestteammates that was killed in
combat.
Speaker 1 (34:30):
Oh, that's amazing.
So you're naming stuff afteryour—so there's a history to—.
Speaker 2 (34:35):
Some of the names.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
Yeah, seal teams and your heritage and everything is
going right into this yeah.
Speaker 3 (34:39):
I've named two flavors like that after
teammates that have fallen.
That's some bullshit.
Speaker 1 (34:48):
In my mind this is bullshit.
Speaker 3 (34:50):
This one's a spearmint and peppermint mix, so
it's not just mint like normalartificial mint flavor, it's
like real extra.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
Well, it's not, and that's the funny part, it's not
green this isn't even funny.
Speaker 1 (34:59):
I used to steep the leaves, but now I have to make
so much Come on man, I can'tsteep.
Speaker 3 (35:02):
You know three tons of mint leaves.
Speaker 2 (35:04):
Okay, so basically, and you built the brand
obviously based on your combathistory, so the whole thing
about leafy leaves.
Speaker 1 (35:12):
You're not just saying it like that it I'm going
to tell you something.
Speaker 3 (35:17):
I have point man, pistachio, that is another one
of my favorites, just because Iknow how hard I worked on that
one just trying to gain all ofthe things I thought were
missing out of pistachio flavorsanywhere that I've ever tried,
so that's also one of myfavorite.
These are my two most favoriteclassic flavor types this is
ridiculous mint oreo, darkchocolate chips, spearmint,
(35:38):
peppermint cream, unreal.
Speaker 1 (35:41):
So when I talk about this food, it's not because
you're on the show, because ifit wasn't that good, I wouldn't
tell people it sucked.
I would just be like, yeah,it's pretty good, carry on.
Yeah, you seem like a truthfulhonest, but what I'm going?
To tell you is this, people aregoing to sell it short.
Speaker 3 (35:58):
This is amazing To me just so you guys know this like
dude like part of the dream isliterally the moments I get to
sample my ice cream and gainconfidence from legit people
like a chef that has you knowtwo of the most badass.
Italian restaurants in thewhole like the two best Italian
restaurants in the area.
Speaker 1 (36:17):
It the two best Italian restaurants in the area.
Speaker 2 (36:19):
It's really good.
The texture's amazing.
It's really hard to understand.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
First thing I look for in ice cream is moisture.
Speaker 3 (36:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:28):
Because moisture freezes, moisture crystallizes.
Speaker 3 (36:31):
That's alright.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
So the moisture in ice cream will crystallize and
it will create a texture in theice cream that's not all that
pleasant.
Speaker 3 (36:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:41):
And that's part of the formula right.
Speaker 3 (36:43):
Yeah, like the mouthfeel, the consistency,
that's right.
Speaker 1 (36:45):
So the cream and this is very creamy, with no ice at
all, so that means to me thatyour fats and your creams
weren't overbeat and all thatshit Like emulsified.
Speaker 3 (36:54):
Right.
Speaker 2 (36:55):
That's just good.
This is the pin-up espresso.
Speaker 3 (36:57):
Those little details, those are the things that
matter, that subconsciouslypeople don't really think of
when they try an ice cream.
Like man, it's good that youlearn.
In that school we did so muchtastings and like they set out
like a dozen.
Yeah, it was heaven and it wasstressful too because we had to
pass tests and everything.
But they'd just lay out a dozendifferent brands of vanilla and
(37:18):
you'd have to taste them andgrade them.
Almost like you tests andeverything.
But they just lay out a dozendifferent brands of vanilla and
you'd have to taste them andgrade them Almost like a Somalia
.
Speaker 2 (37:22):
you're doing like yeah, like a Somalia, you're
doing it for ice cream.
So this is pistachio butter inhere.
Yes.
Speaker 3 (37:28):
Yeah, so really from ground pistachios for the
flavoring.
So it's an expensive flavor butit's worth it because it's yeah
it.
Yeah, that one's been a big hit, like Norwegian sea salt.
Speaker 2 (37:41):
Where you have the caramel in it.
Speaker 3 (37:44):
You know I came up with just a pretty simple brown
sugar praline recipe for some ofthe nuts that we put in the ice
creams Going hard here.
Speaker 2 (37:50):
I know this has literally turned into a fucking
thing.
Speaker 1 (37:52):
This is brownie espresso.
You had this one already, Chriswe lost the entire conversation
.
Oh, he can keep talking.
This is the first time.
I want to just have someoneelse talk.
Speaker 2 (38:05):
The Millie Mint flavors meaning-wise.
Speaker 3 (38:06):
The Millie Mint flavor is one of my favorites
because the dream would be thatwhen we put this flavor in
stores which is one of the sevenwe're going to start out with I
will come up with a certainnumber of proceeds, if not 100%
of it.
I don't know what would makesense as, as we go into, it.
You guys gotta try to just getit around directly back to you
ruling and the milk crew needsto eat.
That'd be amazing and like thepayback part of it is what's
(38:28):
starting to happen for me, whereit's like man.
Now, you know, two, three yearsof not not paying us anything,
you're putting putting anythingon the on the table.
You know I agreed to my wifewhen I started this whole
venture.
Speaker 1 (38:41):
This looks like chocolate mousse bro.
Speaker 2 (38:43):
It's got like that mousse texture.
It's really creamy.
Speaker 1 (38:45):
It's absolutely beautiful.
It's like chocolate mousse.
Speaker 3 (38:47):
It's like a custard.
That was a Dutch processedcocoa powder, so I just love
that for chocolate mousse.
It's not fucking good man, butit is cool.
Speaker 2 (39:00):
You'll be able to once you go through this
expansion.
So, now that the the shop hasbeen open yeah, you formulated
the flavors.
Um, I think, going into thatdistribution phase, you've done
this, I mean it is pretty quick.
Speaker 3 (39:09):
I mean considering how long you've been in business
like some of these things don'thappen for people till like
five, six, seven, eight yearsdown the line so you're having
to learn so much about thebusiness side so fast, about
distribution of food productsand getting make sure, making
sure my cafe is stable and stillthe standards are high yeah, as
well, while I'm traveling,doing all this stuff, and you
(39:30):
know we are like in a sprint forthis, like I think it's going
to feel like that the whole waybecause there's so much to do-
yeah, you know to do adistribution model like that and
it's just constant businessplanning with the group that
we're working with to bring usto market.
Speaker 2 (39:45):
Okay, so you are working with a group that's
helping you with that.
He is living his best life,right?
Speaker 3 (39:49):
now, just so we're all aware.
Speaker 2 (39:50):
Yeah, yeah, he can give two shits about what is
going to happen for the rest ofthis episode.
He's just eating ice cream.
Which one are you eating?
Speaker 1 (39:56):
I don't know Sorbet.
Speaker 2 (39:58):
Oh, that's the pina colada.
Speaker 1 (39:58):
You know what's funny ?
You said that I was just aboutto say it tastes more like a
sorbet and you just said it's asorbet, so my fucking flavors
are right.
My mouth still works.
Congratulations, I still knowwhat I'm talking about.
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (40:08):
He knew.
Speaker 2 (40:20):
And I figured out a, a plant-based fiber called so
it's still vegan called inulin.
It's like chicory root fiber,this sorbet that you're making.
So you do have other stuff inthe shop that's non-dairy.
Speaker 3 (40:27):
Yeah, we just keep like four or five flavors
rotating with non-dairy.
But a sorbet doesn't have to beicy, it can still be a little
creamy like ice cream.
Speaker 2 (40:37):
This is creamy.
This reminds me, it's likevacation in your mouth.
It tastes like a suntan.
Yeah, yeah, it's like a.
Speaker 1 (40:44):
Hawaiian tropic fine reef girl ass.
Speaker 2 (40:46):
He's going back to one.
Speaker 1 (40:47):
He's going to be walking right on set right now
with that big reef ass.
Remember the surf?
Speaker 2 (40:52):
With the tan line, you got the big tan line.
Speaker 1 (40:54):
That was their thing.
Was the nice ass.
Can we get a Reef Girl assplease?
Speaker 2 (40:59):
Okay, so we've got an idea for a shoot for that now.
Speaker 1 (41:03):
Yeah, cool.
Can we call that Reef Girl ass?
We should just make him themodel he could be the model for
the Reef Girl ass cream.
Speaker 3 (41:10):
No, that's not appropriate at all.
Speaker 1 (41:11):
Come on man, that's not, it no.
Speaker 2 (41:15):
Ass cream does not sound good with ice cream.
I'm doing it Ass cream does notsound good with ice cream.
Speaker 3 (41:24):
It's just two totally different things.
Now which one is this Tony'slike?
Speaker 2 (41:26):
I'm in the mood for some ass cream.
If we go full throttle youcould slow drip the sorbet.
Speaker 3 (41:29):
That's tea and cookies.
Tea and cookies.
So what's tea and cookies?
It's like an Earl Grey type oftea and little Biscoff cookies.
Speaker 2 (41:38):
So actual cookies.
The so actual, okay Cookies.
Speaker 3 (41:40):
Yeah, the UK people would love that one.
Speaker 2 (41:43):
Yeah, that's the UK.
I got some UK Special Forcesbuddies that love that flavor.
Speaker 3 (41:50):
Did you ever have a flavor that?
Totally Not my favorite, butit's delicious.
Not my favorite.
Speaker 1 (41:54):
Stop talking about the ice cream Two seconds.
Speaker 2 (41:56):
Did you ever had a flavor that totally flopped?
Oh, absolutely.
You learned those two.
What was the worst combinationyou ever did?
Speaker 3 (42:04):
That's like probably a standup comedian in some of
their you know.
I think some of the best oneshave probably been booed off
stage a few times and had tostruggle through that.
You know they, just I just knowit.
So let's see Worst ones.
I think, Soy sauce one one timeyeah.
Speaker 1 (42:21):
Yeah, it'd be tough to hit that one we.
Speaker 3 (42:26):
We did a matcha mochi Chocolate chip that I loved,
but a lot of people didn't likethat one and I think it was just
the area, you know.
I'm like maybe in, likesomewhere like New York or
somewhere you know.
Speaker 1 (42:37):
I think a soy sauce could work, if maybe you did the
right mixture with a little bitof ginger, yes, and sweeten it
up with some melon and ginger.
You made it right Somethinglike that.
Speaker 3 (42:45):
Yeah, but not so.
The way I was doing ice creambefore the cafe was every week I
was just coming up with aflavor of the week like blasting
it on social media trying tohype it up.
Every drop I did for two yearswas a noon Saturday drop.
So, like it would, the, thesale would open, they'd get on
the instagram or whatever, maketheir order and schedule a
(43:07):
pickup for the, the next thenext week and you, you only did
like a certain number ofcontainer, like a couple hundred
, yeah, of them, and as soon asthey sold out, they were gone,
so he actually created
Speaker 2 (43:16):
a scarcity mindset around the ice cream, so when he
knew he'd sell, out.
Speaker 3 (43:20):
He missed it.
I'm not making that flavoranything unatt again.
Speaker 1 (43:22):
Anything unattainable is better.
Yeah, you know what I mean, sothat's great.
Speaker 3 (43:26):
And then it got cool, because the second year of that
some people were like can youbring that one flavor back?
Speaker 1 (43:30):
And then I'd have a flavor for that week the next
year.
These are amazing dude, reallyhonestly.
Speaker 3 (43:34):
Oh, thank you.
I'm joking a lot but because,jordan, part of my dream we're
doing a tasting at the Lucerestaurant right now Ice cream
tasting on the podcast.
Speaker 2 (43:45):
This is the first time.
Speaker 1 (43:46):
Yeah, on any podcast.
Speaker 2 (43:49):
But so what's next now?
The next steps.
You know where do you seeeverything going?
Speaker 3 (43:52):
The next steps are?
I?
Rapidly, once this deal startedto happen, it just went on
hyperdrive and I was like man, Ianticipated being in my cafe,
you know, 12, 16, 20 hour days,like it was when we first opened
for a few months, for like acouple of years, and and and
then going hey, maybe, you know,after year two we'll start to
think about scaling into anotherlocation or franchise or
(44:14):
something, if it works out, youknow.
And then this happened and itwas like, oh my God, I got a lot
of stuff to do to make surethis place runs really well, to
the standard that I want whenI'm not here, because I gotta
now be everywhere for this, forthe distribution thing.
I gotta be at the factory inpennsylvania, the, the brokerage
group in north in charlotte,you know, my team, my, my best
(44:34):
friend and business partners inchicago and just the stores,
publics and things that aregoing to start to happen those.
Speaker 1 (44:40):
That's where you're going to be in a better position
.
I just started doing my saucesjarred, my sauces and stuff like
that.
They have not yet hit themarket, they're still being
jarred and produced, but I tookthe same time.
I, as you did.
My sauces are going to be moreof a um compliment to the
italian, his heritage in a jar.
It's not just a jarred sauce,it's, it's.
It's going to be an amazingmeal, right?
(45:01):
So I took a lot of time inmaking sure the ingredients are
all sourced properly, they'reexecuted properly, all done to
the traditions.
There's nothing in it fake, allnatural, no artificial
additives, nothing at all.
So it's going to be all naturalsauces.
A little bit more expensive,but you're paying for better
right.
Speaker 3 (45:18):
I think people subconsciously like food, really
good food, the process that youdo for all that stuff really
matters.
Speaker 2 (45:28):
They don't even see it, but they taste it and feel
it.
You make all the dessert.
Everything that goes in here ismade.
Speaker 3 (45:32):
Yeah, we make it all from scratch you know, based off
my formulas, and you know, I'vegot employees that flavor it up
and come up with cool ideas,you know.
So now I've got like morebrains thinking about flavors
than just my own Right, and it'sfun for them.
Speaker 1 (45:46):
You give them that creative freedom yeah for sure.
Speaker 3 (45:49):
I was big on that, and you've got to be careful
with that too, because creativefreedom shouldn't mean, you know
, like control, right, right.
Speaker 1 (45:57):
And that's what they think.
So a lot of people think thattheir creative freedom, that you
gave them, is the reason whyyou're still around, and and
that's the biggest mistakeanybody could make because, no
matter what happens, that's theabsolute wrong thing oh, it's
literally.
You know who helps you move onand who doesn't.
You know deep down inside thatthere are some key employees
that if they were to leave, itwould affect you.
That that's a that's a fact Ihave them yeah, but I also know
(46:20):
there's a lot of people outthere who don't realize that if
they do leave, for me it's goingto be a complete inconvenience.
But you were never a part of mybusiness plan when I invested
everything at the beginning.
Speaker 3 (46:30):
I didn't know your name.
Speaker 1 (46:31):
I didn't know who you were.
I was just going on the factthat this position needs to be
filled and you happen to fill itamazingly.
But that's where we are.
You get a great job, you getgreat pay, I have a great
employee, and that's kind ofthat.
If you were to leave for anyreason, whether it be an
emergency or a car accident, godforbid, or whatever you know
what I mean yeah, I'd still haveto move on without you, but if
(46:52):
you do, it.
Speaker 3 (46:52):
Yeah, if you develop an arrogance.
Sorry, I didn't mean to cut youoff, you're right, I'll forget
if you develop an arrogance toto it like some sort of
entitlement towards you know,towards that Right, right To go
to try to make me believe that,like my whole business is going
to just disappear or dissolve.
You're delusional.
Without you, you're delusional,they're delusional.
(47:14):
They have no idea there's amission that will just like at
SEAL, team 6, is like dude, theylead us all to believe.
We do believe that, like you doneed every man in that six man,
seven man team.
It's crucial, right, but if oneof them retires and one of them
goes, it's still a machine andthere's still a mission.
So it's like, yeah, it's gonnahurt for a minute, but it's
(47:34):
gonna keep going.
It hurts for a minute, but itdoesn't hurt anymore.
Speaker 1 (47:37):
yeah, I can tell you this for all you listening to
you leaving, doing us dirty,fucking us over or thinking that
you're gonna pull one over onus when you leave, you're not
doing anything more than we'vealready been through on our own
learning how to do this.
We've lost so much trying to dothis Lost money, time,
everything.
The only reason why we'resuccessful is because of all the
(47:58):
shit we've lost in the middle.
That's the self-validatingentrepreneur thing.
Speaker 3 (48:02):
Exactly that.
Speaker 1 (48:02):
You can think you're fucking us over as much as you
want, but you are not screwingus over Any more than what we've
already been screwed over byourselves.
We screwed ourselves over morethan you can do to us At some
point in time in this journey,so you're just another fucking
speed bump.
Speaker 2 (48:17):
If you want to be like that.
Speaker 1 (48:19):
But again, don't be confused for the good For the
great team members who would beaffected by losing them as
people as human beings as theirspark as their passion and all
that stuff.
Losing those people is crucial.
Speaker 3 (48:34):
The ones that end up being the wrong ones.
I'm grateful for them too,because I learned so fast.
Speaker 1 (48:39):
It took me years to get rid of them.
It took me years to understandthat.
Just get rid of them becauseit's toxic man and it's only
going to get rid of them.
It took me years to understandthat.
Just get rid of them becauseit's toxic man and it's only
going to get worse.
And then they're going to begetting other people on their
team and it's just a mess.
You know what I'm saying.
So the best thing to do is getrid of them, no matter what
happens.
It's only going to suck for aminute, just like a Band-Aid
Really it is.
Speaker 3 (49:04):
Just get rid of them.
Process of what of doing.
That is what I really learn islike dude, patience and staying
calm and collective is like thatis where things from the team
start to apply.
That makes sense to me.
They go, man.
We're like some of thosemoments feels like you're just
have your face in the mudgetting shot at and there's just
bullets all around you and ifyou just have some patience and
stay calm and get through it,you know you're gonna be good.
It's like if I just apply thatsame life and death mindset.
It's like dude.
It gave me the patience to getthrough how hard it is to go
(49:26):
through the process of, you know, moving past the wrong ones and
gradually getting it to whereyou have like 95%, all awesome
workers, which is starting tohappen really fast.
Speaker 2 (49:38):
So in the last like we have about five minutes left,
so let's go through kind of thelike you know, the struggles
right now.
Are there any of the thingsthat you I mean?
Speaker 3 (49:44):
yeah, it really is that it's like we get started.
You get started with a certainstaff and you know, I didn't
know what I was doing, of courseyou know.
And there's certain ones thatare like, man, he doesn't know
it and it's all judgment.
It's like, yeah, I, I've neverstarted a business before, of
course I don't know.
It's like I want to go windmilldunk a basketball you know it's
gonna.
It's gonna take me some time toget to that, not dominique
wilkins yeah, right, yeah, yeahyeah so, but what I'm saying is
(50:07):
I'm I'm grateful that this ishappening so fast, because it's
making me like I have to getgood fast or it's gonna it's all
gonna fail you know, and it'sall on you yeah and so like
that's okay.
So I'm just gonna go through itand get good fast and that's
what we're doing.
So you know I got this awesomenew manager.
Is like running the place whenI'm not there, so it's like now
I have less stress to go do this, this other bigger business
(50:30):
model.
That's happening and thingsjust continue to improve.
Speaker 1 (50:33):
If you just stay focused and not waste time in
distractions and bullshit, youknow, in your life I'm going to
say this With all that passiongoing into these courts or these
containers here, ben andJerry's, all them people, you
better watch out.
That's right.
This is it right here.
This is coming after you righthere from Virginia Beach.
Go ahead and tell us plug.
Where can they find you?
Give everybody some way to findyou.
Speaker 3 (50:57):
Yeah, we have a cafe.
Because of the space design waspretty big for just an ice
cream shop, so I kind of waslike man, this is kind of scary,
but why don't we make it?
The point was to make it an R&Dcenter for this bigger thing
happening.
That was the actual goal.
Hey, I need an R&D center, likea headquarters Might as well.
(51:20):
Take advantage of the spaceopportunity and make it a cafe,
right?
And then I don't know nothingabout coffee we'll do a coffee
house and do try to do our bestat that.
And, um, we got to bake stuffto go in the ice cream anyway.
So maybe we do sort of a minikind of bakery thing also, you
know, and so it kind ofdeveloped from there and then
it's.
It's been pretty successfullocally.
So we're right in red mill,virginia beach um, over by like
(51:41):
home depot and target, and redmill um in its own building next
to Planet Fitness andSandbridge Tattoo Shop, which is
the best tattoo shop inVirginia Beach.
Speaker 2 (51:50):
My buddy Second best, my buddy, tommy.
We have our friends too, sowe're like they can fight.
We'll fight over the ice creamand that We'll live stream it on
Instagram.
I love it, yeah.
And where, like all the socialmedia and website stuff, yeah.
And where, like all the socialmedia and website stuff.
Speaker 3 (52:03):
Yeah, my personal ChrisFetis6 on Instagram,
facebook, all that stuff.
You can find a lot of the storyand some of my different
interviews and things going onin there.
And then the ice cream isBeFreeCrafts all together
underscore cafe, and that'sreally specific to the cafe, and
as we develop this, we'll startto either do a separate one or
just start to plug in some ofthe distribution product type
(52:25):
stuff that Virtue is going to behelping me out with.
He's awesome.
Then the website isBeFreeIceCreamcom.
I'll update that too as we movealong.
That one's more focused rightnow on just our day-to-day menu
in the cafe and a bunch of merch, because we're really big on
merch.
Speaker 2 (52:43):
The merch is badass.
I've left my shirt over theretoo, but the merch is badass.
But you can go on there andorder that, you can't the ice
cream.
Hopefully people will startseeing it when they see it.
Speaker 3 (52:52):
You know, with this uh group, the stuff that's
happening.
Speaker 2 (52:54):
We for sure will do e-commerce with the pints too,
so we'll be shipping ice creamokay, okay, good, I know that's
a lot of logistics, so you'vegot to work in that.
Speaker 3 (53:02):
This is not still towards, probably like December,
january of this year.
Speaker 2 (53:04):
That's awesome.
Speaker 1 (53:06):
So yeah, so we have a Navy veteran, Navy SEAL veteran
, American hero, ice cream maker.
Speaker 2 (53:12):
Ice cream hero.
Speaker 1 (53:13):
Entrepreneur, just a straight up great guy, great
conversation.
Speaker 2 (53:19):
There we go.
Speaker 1 (53:19):
Total positivity coming out of you, man.
Speaker 3 (53:21):
The vibe is man.
That was all, jess, with thecrop tops.
Speaker 1 (53:23):
I can tell why the ice cream is so good and
passionate, because you have itall in you, man, and this has
been an awesome conversationbecause, just feeling I can tell
that you have the same passionas I do for what we do.
It's just good to share thattype of conversation, man.
So we wish you all the best andthe luck, and maybe we'll be
selling your ice cream in mymarket down in Northville
selling your ice cream in mymarket down in town in Norfolk.
Speaker 3 (53:43):
Now that we're doing it this way, I apologize because
you asked me to do a Spumoniflavor when I was moving through
my commercial kitchenexperience and I was like that's
still in my head, so I'm goingto deliver on that.
Speaker 1 (53:54):
I'm trying to get him to do a Spumoni.
Speaker 2 (53:56):
A labeled.
Speaker 1 (53:56):
Spumoni flavor for me .
Speaker 3 (53:59):
Personally Pistachio and chocolate will be part of
that.
Speaker 2 (54:02):
We Personally, personally that pistachio and
chocolate will be part of that,we'll just do the cherry you
might have to share a little bitof it.
That's okay, but yeah, I'm soproud of you.
I know I've seen you do thisfrom the very beginning.
Speaker 3 (54:10):
Yeah, proud of you too, and it's been pretty
incredible.
So it's exciting.
It's an honor to be doing thisin the Luce restaurant too.
Speaker 1 (54:18):
Thank you, appreciate you.
Speaker 2 (54:19):
We love it.
Speaker 1 (54:20):
Keep on talking all day with this guy.
Speaker 2 (54:21):
I know, now we're just going to eat some ice cream
, that's it.
Go check it out.
Check it out.
Speaker 1 (54:25):
It's amazing, definitely treat yourself, get
to the store, get online.
Ciao for now.
Speaker 2 (54:29):
Ciao Peace.
Burn hands perspective.
Here we are.
Listen, you introduce this.
Oh, I get to introduce him.
Yeah, you do it.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Okay, all right, so this is someone I know I was
going to say our Mario Lopezlookalike Chris Bettis yeah, who
is representing the ice creamworld for us today, but has a
really cool story of BeFree andhow it came to be and working in
spec ops community, being inthe military, growing up with
(00:26):
this.
So we want to hear the wholejourney of ice cream, because I
think a lot of people think youjust make it, it's good, but you
do gourmet, which is like nextlevel, freaking insane ice cream
that I love so much.
So we're excited that you'rehere today, thank you.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Cool story, really cool story, and not only is it a
cool story, but it's going tobe an ongoing story in his life,
because you switch fromsomething you were doing that
had nothing to do with us tosomething that you have nothing
to do with, and it's just goingto continuously get more nuts
and you're going to probably atsome point, question why in the
fuck am I doing this?
Speaker 3 (00:56):
I think yeah, if you haven't already, yeah,
absolutely.
I think scaling for me isscaling.
Every step of the way is going.
I don't know what the hell I'mdoing, no matter how far I go, I
don't think we do so wheneveryou have passion in what you're
doing, no matter what.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
that's the case.
So, being a chef and being arestaurant owner and whatever it
is with your reframe and allyour stuff, no matter what we do
, we always ask that questionbecause it's never good enough.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
So if it's never good enough, when the hell does it
end?
So you're always in thisconstant stress factor of
getting better and growing andit's just never going to dude.
So after 14 years now of doingthis, I'm going to be the first
one to tell you that when youstep into the food world, the
culinary world or thehospitality world, if you're
passionate in what you're doing,it's never going to get better.
Yeah, there's no end, there'sno tunnel, there's a light, but
(01:43):
it's way over there.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
We brought you here for the positivity today.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
Totally for the positivity.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
I give up.
I put it as positive because welove it.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
It's a sickness.
It's a sickness.
I think you've seen scarierthings, yeah let's get to that.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
Let's see where you're coming from.
Man Speaking of scary, realquick Hell's Angel thing and I'm
like I think that's badass.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
One thing has nothing to do with the other, right?
Yeah, but it kind of does,because it's my life and your
history is your life and weinclude it and we work these
things into our life andeverything applies actually.
Everything applies how you dealwith people, how you handle
things, how your stress levelgoes.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Actually that was one topic we wanted to talk about
Coming from the SEAL teams intobusiness ownership.
You have to manage people waydifferent too, joking aside, I
can't imagine being a Hell'sAngel organization.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
I'm sure you have structure, teams, we have
accountability, all the samethings, similar things, it all
falls down to that.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
It really falls down to accountability.
We all have personalaccountability.
That's something you prove toeach other.
To get there In this world,though, there's.
We all have personalaccountability.
Yeah, yeah.
And that's something you proveto each other to get there,
right, yeah.
So in this world, though,there's no accountability other
than someone wanting a fuckingpaycheck.
That's the shock factor.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
They don't give a shit.
Some of them don't Now.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
I'm lucky and fortunate enough to have great
teams.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
There's people that slip through the gate every time
, but depending on where you arein, snip it at the bud sooner,
but sometimes they sneak throughthe cracks, man yeah but I'm
(03:16):
thinking at your level of whatit is you have to do you and the
clownery phase.
Well, not only that, but youhave to deal.
You're the passion, you're,you're the passion, and there's
not much room for anyone else tocome in and recreate your ice
cream right.
So it's something you have todo.
So you have a lot.
I'm sure you have a lot of kidsscooping the ice cream or
working the storefront orselling the merch and that's
(03:37):
where they're.
A lot of them are there for thepaycheck.
So I think you have a lot moreof them than you do.
Career people right so back,back to that I know I've begun,
so that's the difference betweendealing with your teams or my,
my brothers in the club, or andwe don't really have to deal
with them this way becausethey're already accountable yeah
, they've already signed up forwhat they sign up for.
Now we're accountable to eachother, so the buffoonery is on a
(03:58):
different level.
It's a lot more.
Yeah, it's a lot when it is aproblem.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
it's a yeah, and I've learned in 10 months that it's
like I had no standards startingout because I didn't know what
I was kind of getting into.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
On the business side.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
I didn't apply a lot of that structure and stuff.
I learned in the teams and theguys like him that he learned,
you know, in his chapter orwhatever, and I'm like now I'm
already fixing it.
You know, switching that sortof mindset they go.
Oh, we need to have a highstandard that people meet, you
know.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
Right, and not only a high standard, but you also
have to have a high level ofpatience.
Oh, absolutely so much morepatience.
See, in the teams or with me,things get to an escalated level
.
You deal it out, you duke itout and then you're back to
living life and everything'sgood, oh my God, here you can't
punch your employees in the face.
You can't punch your employeein the face anymore.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
No, you'll spiral.
You don't have time Like.
If you want the best solution,you have to have patience.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
The only cool ones you can punch in the face, the
guys that are cool or that cantake the punch and carry on
realizing that it was worth it.
You know they're all right, sotell us how you started.
How did ice cream get into allthis whole structure?
Speaker 3 (04:58):
dude.
In childhood I just grew upcooking.
My grandmother is Japanese.
She immigrated with mygrandfather during Vietnam.
He was stationed there for awhile.
That's where they met.
She's just like the culinarysource for our family All the
recipes and the sushi and thewontons and all the things.
So all Asian infusion,basically at your house.
(05:18):
Asian infusion for sure.
When I make up a huge bowl ofwontons it's like the
neighborhood hears about it andthey're over for dinner.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Going to dinner, I'm coming.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll bring you some.
So yeah, just like my youngerson does this, if I'm in the
kitchen he's there watching andyou can tell that he's paying
attention to everything.
And my older son helps outsometimes, but he's a little
more of the analytical-mindedtype.
Helps out sometimes, but he'sin, you know he's.
He's a little more of theanalytical minded type, you know
, so you'd probably be reading abook or something you know and
the little one doesn't readbooks we all have that right.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
So who started?
Speaker 3 (05:51):
who started making the ice cream like taught you um
so I didn't make that much icecream, but I did have, you know,
a little machine when I was akid and it was like you know, my
sister's got an easy bake oven.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Yeah, and I remember using that more like the snoopy
snow cone machine type of shit.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
Yeah like uh, you know, I can make like this much
brownies in that thing you know,and then make like two bites
ice cream.
Yeah, with those, just a littlecuisine art you know type
machines but, um, you know, fastforward, I really didn't start
it just ice cream, it reallystarted with just that's just my
favorite thing, you know.
So I think my mom told me onestory where we were in Japan
(06:28):
when I was little.
We lived there for a couple ofyears because, you know, she
married, remarried my, my, myfather, my stepfather, who's I
consider my father, and he wasin the Air Force.
So we, you know, we lived therefor like four years.
Oh gotcha when I was younger,seven until I was about almost
12.
But we'd go get, would go getice cream, and you know there's
(06:48):
just one story where my icecream scoop was falling off and,
like you know, I had this justcat-like reaction and just
caught caught it in my handthere was no time to miss that.
Yeah, and that's the momentwhere she was like wow, ice
cream's your your favorite thingyou know that's it so well,
that needs to be a t-shirt, bro.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
A skeleton hand with the ice cream falling.
Yeah, yeah, you have only onechoice, me and Virtue had some
Catch it or not.
Oh, there you go Catch it orfail.
Yeah, let it go.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
Me and Virtue had some comedy ideas for media,
where we're going to go like I'mjust going to put ice cream
ready, just wet and healthy, Ilove it, it doesn't surprise me
at all.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
Yeah, so it's just my favorite thing in the world.
You know if it was my last youknow day, that's your last meal.
That would be mine yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
So, before making your own, finding ice cream that
you liked is the hard part, andI have a story of my own for
you.
Speaker 3 (07:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
But so what the hell were you eating before?
Speaker 3 (07:40):
Briars.
What were you?
Speaker 1 (07:41):
going.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
Dude, just like Baskin Robbins, is everything
that I remember from childhood,that was your move.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
Baskin Robbins, 24 flavors yeah, once I could, what
?
Speaker 3 (07:48):
was it 31?
31?
31 flavors or something.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
Baskin Robbins, I don't know Somebody's got to
fact check that.
Speaker 3 (07:59):
So, we had Carvel when I was young.
Oh, I love blizzards.
I had one the other day.
Yeah, me too.
I'll roll through Oreo cookie,one Once every couple of weeks.
Yep Reese's.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
Oreo cookie one for real.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
So fast forwarding so we get through that stage.
You went into the military.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
Did you go out in the military like right out of
school?
Speaker 3 (08:19):
I was, you know, messing around for a couple of
years, but I really was just,you know, getting in trouble and
not not doing much with my life.
Really, I just didn't have anydirection.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
That's a good story.
Speaker 3 (08:29):
That's my favorite story kind of a skateboard, you
know kind of a loser kid, youknow.
You know, um living in myfriend's houses and you know,
partying and going to raves andstuff back then and just like
wasting time basically.
So, uh, you know, 9-11 happenedand I kind of like, just kind
of woke up to go.
Man, I really um could imaginemyself doing something, you know
(08:52):
, towards this, that somethingit just like came together in my
mind to go.
I have an opportunity to go,just do something meaningful
with my life, right, and um, Ijust had memories of talking
about the SEAL teams withfriends in high school and stuff
like that.
And you know I wasn't.
I don't think anybody in myfamily would have guessed that I
was going to go in the military, and so you not only went, you
(09:14):
went hard, you went hard.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
So I think that's yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
You are military.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
We are going for the bottom, Just like you're going
for the top tier top tieroperators.
Yeah, so yeah For the rest ofmy life.
That kind of set the tone to goif I'm gonna go do something
you know I want to go try to do.
Yeah, just be be the best thatI can at it you know.
So that's kind of drove metowards, you know, the rest of
my, my path is like, hey, if I'mgonna go in, I'm gonna go to
(09:39):
the seal teams, you know, then Igotta go to the best seal team,
and you know.
And then after that I gotta goget a job and then if I want to
start a business I gotta try tomake it the best you know.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
Version that's a great.
That's a great habit.
That's a bad, that's a badhabit, but it's a great one yeah
, so we have to be perfect, wecan lose things along the way
trying to do that which I haveas well yeah but it's something
that you just can't.
It is what it is, and that'sjust the way it is the things
that are going to be there inthe end are going to be there in
the end, the ones that hold onyeah, um but it's.
It's not an easy.
It's not an easy habit to havehabits, the wrong word.
(10:09):
What is it not a habit?
A curse right?
Speaker 2 (10:10):
it's a blessing and a curse.
It's a blessing.
It's a blessing for everyonearound you and it occurs over
other things in your life.
Speaker 3 (10:16):
Yeah, you got to find a balance between high level
and perfection, becauseperfection is not perfection.
That'll, that'll ruin it,you're never going to get
perfection.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
I don't know what perfect is.
I know what not being perfectis, but I don't know what
perfect is because every time Iachieve something I'm trying to
do and it seems like it was tooeasy or something like that,
that wasn't perfect.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
So what the?
Speaker 1 (10:37):
hell is perfect.
I keep going.
It's a curse, it's a drug, it'san addiction.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
Maybe perfect is realizing that there is no
perfect.
Maybe who?
Speaker 1 (10:44):
knows, maybe that's true.
So you became a SEAL.
You went to Bud's, you did allthat and in your mind you're
just thinking about I just needan ice cream right now.
So you're sitting theretreading water, you're doing the
thing with the log on the beach, you're doing the buddy stuff
in Bud's.
You're Chocolate, ice cream,what are?
Speaker 3 (11:00):
you thinking yeah, mint chocolate chip.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
Now, if my son Declan was here right now, he'd be
fighting, he's a little guyYou'd probably beat him.
However, he will fight for somemilk, chocolate chip, ice cream
.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
Yeah, I'll fight again.
He'll throw hands for ice cream.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
Throw hands, let him and the little brother, fight
over the last one in there.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
I end up eating it.
Yeah, you take them down realquick, but this is one of my
favorite stories is that youwere the guy in the teams who
made ice cream and you got totell everybody.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
I mean how the hell you make ice cream in the middle
of the desert, why I joined atall and sort of my path through
everything and then and thenthings that I had to sort of
(11:49):
figure out afterwards in myself.
Speaker 3 (11:51):
All you know kind of revolved around validation, you
know, and like you know, likejust, and everybody needs, needs
it.
But we're in a world right now,in 2025, where, like so many
people just require constantvalidation because we're just
insecure in general.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
Well, there's so many avenues to get validation now
that it's ingrained us that weneed to achieve it.
Speaker 3 (12:12):
It's like entitlement .
Speaker 1 (12:12):
Social media likes comments.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
DMs, all that stuff.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
These are things this is the validation you're
speaking of.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
Yeah, and I think that now being I'm
self-validating, you know, sosorry.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
No, you're right.
No, you're right.
I mean go on.
Sorry, I'm just I'm into whatyou're saying.
Speaker 3 (12:26):
Oh, thanks, yeah.
Yeah, I try to catch myself.
I'm trying to get better atthat.
You know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
It's like Not requiring it.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
Yeah Well it's kind of you need it because you guys
are working to get, you'reconstantly getting.
Speaker 3 (12:50):
It is literally yeah everything it's about is your
reputation yeah you know you notonly survive but thrive.
You know you, you justconstantly need validation from
everybody.
But even to have awareness, toknow where you're, where you
stand in the team, right.
So after that's all done, it'slike, pretty quickly, I learned,
if you don't learn how toself-validate, it's just you're
going to struggle.
(13:10):
It's really hard, like you gotto let go of that, that that
need and requirement forvalidation, even more than just
the average person is like.
And then you go into businessand you're like wow, I learned
really fast.
You know that you, I have to beself-validating Because you
must know, with so muchexperience, that you don't have
(13:33):
time to wait for validation fromeverybody to make decisions and
to do things.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
And they don't want to give you credit.
You're right and saying that Iused to do that and catch myself
all the time fucking up wastingtime Because you're waiting to
get validated, sometimes bypeople who aren't worthy of the
validation.
Yeah, they know less, or theydon't understand what you're
doing and they're going to giveyou an opinion based on what
they would have done, butthey'll never fucking do a day
in their life because they don'thave the gumption to get out of
bed early enough to do it.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
So therefore, you're right.
Right, I want to know how youvalidate this.
Validate, like she said at thebeginning, making ice cream in
the desert, yeah, underway, Icouldn't even imagine cooking
eggs like that man, of course Ihave, but you know it's, tell me
about this exciting shit,because I can just imagine
everyone's sitting around likewhat the fuck is chris?
Speaker 2 (14:18):
what's he doing over there, man?
Speaker 3 (14:19):
yeah, oh, he's making an ice cream social, yeah,
sitting around like yay machineEveryone's sitting around like
yay, yeah, only certain guysknew because, like I said,
because of that validation thing, I actually was kind of shy
about my creative side of things.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
Well, you've got to be tough.
Well, you don't want someonesaying, yeah, you're a pussy
because you're over there makingice cream.
You don't want to be teasedbecause of something you're
doing.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
Same thing with the Hells Angels.
It's hard for a Hells Angel andmyself to say like hey, that's
a badass Hells Angel, butlooking at him, he's sous-viding
an octopus.
I will beat your ass and sitdown at the table and eat dinner
with you after.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
Yeah, you'll eat what I cook and you're going to like
it.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
Who cares?
Speaker 3 (15:00):
right, they don't understand it.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
The passion I have for my art and you have for your
art has nothing.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
Don't be confused.
What it has to do with us beingmen on other things.
Oh dude, now it's like I knowwhat it means and what it is and
I have no problem with it.
If I'm at a bar with a bunch ofHell's Angels and I get a
Shirley Temple, I'm like thefuck, are you drinking you
little pussy?
And they're like the fuck, areyou drinking you little pussy?
I'm like, well, I normally justdrink whatever I want to drink.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
Yeah, that's what I drink.
Right, exactly, and not onlythat, I'll get my ass.
I'll buy them a whiskey afterthat.
I'll go a step further.
I'll get my ass beat and stilleat dinner with you.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
Either way it's happening.
Either way you're going back tothe ice cream and the food.
Speaker 3 (15:39):
That's true about fighting level most badass you
know motherfuckers in the worldlike the like ufc fighters.
What are they doing after thefight's over?
No matter who wins, somebodygets knocked out yeah, the guy
who knocked him out and the guythat got knocked out.
They're hugging.
They're eating ice cream.
They're hugging.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
You know they're crying they're releasing all of
that energy they're normal thatup to that and and then they're
there for each other.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
You know, in a way, where just before that they were
trying to kill each other.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
Yeah right, you know.
All right, so back to.
We got to get to making thisstuff yeah, we're dodging the
subject.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
You guys want to tell us how to make ice cream in the
desert.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
I know I can see what's going on here, so I've
heard this story like secondhand I've never heard it from
you, so I don't know how much ofit is like you know where
they're making.
You just seem like it was thishuge production.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
No, it wasn't a big deal.
Actually, it was pretty quiet.
It was like it was kind of asecret and only yeah, so I
upgraded.
You know, when I got to sealteam 10 2006, ish, I upgraded to
this machine that was like atwo quart, you know Italian
machine called.
It's called a Lello Musso, Ithink on Amazon if you look it
up.
Okay, 5800 model, so it makestwo quarts.
(16:41):
Okay, cool, I'm writing thisdown because I want to make some
.
Yeah, it serves from the top.
I have one I can give you thatone.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
So that's perfect, I'm getting gifted by the master
.
It means something, because itwas making ice cream with
camel's milk in Iraq.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
So we're revealing now Camel's milk.
Okay, go for it, yeah.
Speaker 3 (17:03):
I mean, you know from Mark, we have those big boxes,
we pack all our gear, all of ourstuff.
So you're a cruise box.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
Cruise box Normally each guy has a Metal fold-up
cruise box.
Is that what it is?
They're like Pelican cases.
Yeah, that's it.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
You know like what these?
Speaker 3 (17:25):
guys instead of the booze box.
Because I'm pretty allergic toalcohol anyways, I kind of
forced myself to drink.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
I'm allergic to it too.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
You have the Asian gene Every time I get drunk, it
never works out.
Well, no, but you have theAsian gene.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
I really do, yeah, so he has to actually take
medicine before he drinks, sothat he doesn't blow up and get
out.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
I was a drinker, but I just still did it to sort of
fit into the culture, and thenit just became a normal thing.
So I just packed that machineinto I got a picture of it
somewhere Packed that machineinto a cruise box and then after
some missions we'd come back,I'd pull it out and just whip up
two quarts of ice cream,because that's kind of why it
was a secret too is it wasn'tenough for everybody.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
So it just runs out of electricity.
Speaker 3 (18:08):
You dump your milk, your product, all your sweet,
all your ingredients inside.
I was just using ice cream, uhformulas that I found online.
You know, back then I didn'thave my asking g, I didn't know
how to formulate it myself thatwas before google, right?
yeah, like ask the beginningyeah yeah, that was you had to
do some research and get somebooks.
You know there's some, a coupleold school ice cream ice cream
books that were, uh, really goodfor that.
Um, but for the most part Icould just walk across to the
(18:30):
little, you know dinky littlechow hall where you know they
contracted, you know, localiraqis to work in.
You know we come back from amission every before we even
shower up or everybody get inthere with their dusty gear
right, get their, get their eggsscrambled up and, you know, eat
breakfast and then roll out andgo to bed for the next night.
So I'll just stay up a littlebit longer and whip up some ice
(18:51):
cream and, you know, if there'sa couple of guys left that were
still up, we'd eat the ice cream.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
How long did it take to churn and make Like?
15 minutes for a batch, that'sit.
Wow, that's quick for them.
Speaker 3 (19:01):
We're making ice cream now, yeah 15, 20 minutes
If you chill the mix first.
And I was just making vanilla,it was pretty easy.
I had a bunch of extracts, sothat's always easy, but to
flavor it up I was just usingwhatever was available.
I was smashing up bananas thatthey shipped over to that chow
hall, but it was pretty easy toget figs.
(19:24):
So there was a couple Terps.
There's this one Terp namedJohnny Walker.
He's actually pretty known outthere because he obviously likes
drinking.
Johnny Walker, probably themost badass.
I mean, he's probably got morecombat experience than any SEAL
I've ever known.
He just was like through theduration of that war, of all of
(19:45):
iraq, he was he, you know, hewas working for it for every
seal, you know all the sealteams that were out there.
So he had no fear of like theenvironment and it was easy.
Hey, johnny, I could really usesome figs, but I can't go off
base and to bad guy land, youknow, from here unless we're on
a mission, and I can't go to themarket when I'm on a mission,
you know.
So he a couple times grabbedfigs and you know, like whatever
apples or whatever they had outthere and I was making, so he
(20:06):
was like.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
He was like red on uh shawshank redemption yeah, he
was bad, I can get you somethingyeah I heard you.
I heard you're a man that canacquire things.
Yeah, and I'm doing.
Speaker 3 (20:14):
I'm plugging this on purpose, because you gotta love
him, he's out there.
He wrote a book.
He's out in San Diego.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
Johnny Walker, this is for you.
Yeah, him and his family arenow here, so they've immigrated
over afterwards.
Speaker 3 (20:27):
So he grew up in Mosul and the bad guys killed
his brother and he became atranslator for the good guys and
it's a crazy cool story.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
It's in a story you can read in his book.
Yeah, yeah, so story.
It's in a story you can read inhis book, so check out, johnny.
Speaker 3 (20:38):
Walker's book Plug, and I don't know if he remembers
the ice cream stuff, because heknows hundreds of missions.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
How do you not remember having ice cream in
Iraq In the middle of it all?
It's the world around.
Speaker 3 (20:50):
And we were drinking heavy between those missions too
.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
So there were some nights where I can't remember
the ice cream, ice cream social.
Get a little drunk, have alittle ice cream.
Speaker 3 (21:04):
And it kind of just went from there and it was just
always in my mind.
But when I went to Dev Group Ididn't pull it out much because
the reputational validationthing became even more intense,
where it was like I got to fitin here.
That's one of the criteria forhaving a good career there is
fitting in, and if you don't,you could be out.
Just for that reason.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
Even if you perform good, don't play that like
you're not copacetic witheverybody that's there,
absolutely.
Speaker 3 (21:27):
Yeah, so there's all these different factors, but
that's for sure one of them.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
So, no matter what faction of life you're in,
validation or being part of thecrew is not ever going to go
away.
It doesn't matter what that'sjust the way it is.
I think that's in every life,no matter what you do.
I think that's human race.
I think that's just the way itis Human nature.
Speaker 3 (21:46):
Yeah, absolutely so fast forward to after, when I
just went through the struggleof transitioning and sort of
reinventing myself and trying totransform myself, to let go of
all the shit and the stuff thatI just didn't need to be anymore
and be who I want to be.
That's part of the.
The thing aboutentrepreneurship that I'm
learning real fast is the thedoors don't open and things
(22:08):
don't really start to happen inin the profound way that they're
happening to me right now,until I really got right with
god and really, like, wentthrough a very specific decision
to, to make a change andtransform myself into the person
that's worthy of walkingthrough those doors and so like,
once you feel that and youactually commit the time like
(22:29):
it's been years, to, to, to, toa process of years, and then
once entrepreneurship, you know,is there, it's like all right,
you know I'm worthy of this.
And once you really focus andjust really go for, go for it
and just really focus, you know,without all the bullshit and
all those other distractions,it's like my personal life
(22:50):
improves and then my business isjust like we're now on like a
rocket ship of growth with thisdistribution thing, right, so
you?
Speaker 1 (22:57):
want.
Before you get to that, let'sgo in the middle.
So you got.
So you got home.
You were digging right intothis ice cream.
People started liking it.
I've tasted your ice cream, Ithink two years ago maybe.
Yeah, it was yeah For the firsttime and it was like, oh shit,
this is really good.
One of my bartenders actuallystopped and got it somewhere and
brought it in and we were allsitting around it and I used to
work at an ice cream place whenI was a kid probably 15 years,
(23:19):
16 years old.
I worked at a place making icecream, so it was up in Maine, it
was in New England.
So New England's a huge icecream area.
You either have shit ice cream,but most of it is really taken
seriously.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
The small towns all have their dairy joy or their
you know what I mean, andthey're all local homemade ice
cream places.
And this one place I worked atwas called big dipper right and
they had all kinds of flavors.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
We would.
It was one big machine and wewould just dump ingredients in
it and they would dump out into,like a cambro bucket, a round
bucket, yeah, and that's how itwould be.
And after that we put it downin the fridge, down in the
freezer, the old school the oldschool and those is what we
would serve out of, and therewould be rows of them, you know,
and it'd be all kinds of greatflavors, like bubble gum and,
you know, great, great nut yeahgreat nut cereal.
(24:00):
We had great enough and it wasgood, this was back in the
freaking night, early 90s, late80s.
Right, yeah, the mint chips,the uh almond joy, the all.
That's the coconut rum, all allthese crazy good flavors yeah,
and it was so creamy and it wasso smooth, and I still haven't
found ice cream like that yetuntil I had yours.
Oh, thank you.
And once I had yours, becauseyou have that.
It is a more northern style.
(24:22):
It's a more northern, rich,creamy, lactic.
You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3 (24:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
Now we can talk nerd culinary stuff yeah yeah,
there's science to it, for sure.
When you were in the desert.
I'm imagining your ice creamwas good because it was there
and there was nothing like it,so it was good.
However, I'm sure tell me ifI'm wrong.
I could be 100%.
Maybe I am.
I'm imagining, though, justwith my knowledge and stuff like
(24:47):
that, with the climate andeverything else, it was probably
coming out more crystally, alot more frozen, a lot more icy.
You know what I mean.
Your milk was frozen, but itwas more crystallized and kind
of crunchy a little bit yeah, Ididn't have a good.
Speaker 3 (24:59):
You know I hadn't learned how to do formulas
myself to get to get ice creamthe way I want and that's,
that's where I'm going.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
So you just hit the word, so formulating from that
chunk to non-junk, right?
Yeah, you had to go throughstuff in order to get on a
national level or startproducing the way you are or to
start getting incorporated theway you are.
You have to really grasppeople's mouths, taste buds,
interests, and it all comes fromquality, right.
Speaker 3 (25:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:24):
So anyone can make ice cream.
You're gonna give me thismachine, right?
I'm holding you to it, yeah.
I'm gonna put some stuff in thatmachine and it's not gonna come
out the way you did it.
I don't care what it is, it'svery important, especially for
the younger generation.
(25:45):
The reason why yours is good isbecause you formulated it on
your own.
You had to ask Jeeves and thatwas the only assistance you had.
Now you can go online and justsay Google how do I make ice
cream.
It'll tell you exactly how tomake ice cream and then you make
the ice cream and it's going tocome out nine times out of ten.
Okay, decent, good.
But no one's going to have togo any better than that, because
(26:06):
they're never going to have tohave to go better than that,
because they can just ask thenext question how do I make this
ice cream better?
And it might just come outbetter.
You learned how to do it fromthe beginning and now you can
write the script on the fuckingcomputer.
Yeah, so people are missingthat whole fucking thing.
(26:26):
Listen to this folks, everyoneout there, every camera.
When you start in the culinaryworld, whether you're making ice
cream, pasta sauce, pizza dough, it doesn't matter.
If you're not starting from thefucking beginning, you're going
to always be chasing everyoneelse.
Speaker 3 (26:35):
You have to formulate your own system by starting at
the goddamn bottom yeah, oryou're going to have to go back
and correct or learn somethingthat you just don't Right.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
If you're not willing to do that, you're never going
to move forward in the culinaryworld.
And you experienced thatbecause you learned you had a
passion for this before itbecame a job.
Speaker 3 (26:53):
I think when you become yeah, when you become an
entrepreneur, I'm glad I go backand go man.
I'm grateful that I don't knowwhy I did this.
Why did I go spend $4,000 to goto ice cream formulating school
?
You know which they also do alittle bit of the business side
of stuff too, and the dairies.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
There's an ice cream school.
Speaker 3 (27:11):
Yeah, there's an ice cream school.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
That's how I learned how to do it, but there is like
a chef school.
There is points that need to bemade by going oh it does?
It only helps you get the basisfor what you kind of didn't
know and you should know, but itdoesn't help you grow out into
who you are.
Speaker 3 (27:26):
It only gives you the basics.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
Yeah, and it's necessary, yeah so it's
essential to go because you'regoing to learn something?
Speaker 3 (27:31):
I think so because one thing that, um, the first
accounting firm that this thiswas a thing I learned too is
like trash, you know, like theydid my bookkeeping.
But I learned it, man.
I really needed to get a goodcontroller eventually, right,
which now I have an amazing one,but but then it was like 200
bucks a month.
They do your bookkeeping.
I was doing a better job thanthey were at my bookkeeping, but
(27:52):
when I, when they sold me onthat sort of little contract,
the guy in the firm that came into do the sale was like you
know, one of the things he saidhas now helped me.
Or he's like you know, you knowyou're gonna be good with the
ice cream thing.
You gotta, you know we'll doyour accounting or whatever, but
it's really hard to fuck up icecream right.
And I was like yeah, how hardis it?
(28:14):
basically, we're just sayinglike it's, it's an easy thing,
it is, you can go make ice creameasily, just like you said, but
you can go make a sandwich yeah, right, but you go buy a
sandwich or you can go makepasta.
But you go to luce and it's bombass.
Right, pasta there's, there'smore to the higher level stuff.
And then you know,intuitionally, I go back and
think of myself from eight yearsago because it's so stressful
(28:37):
getting out, you know, gettingyour new job, and then having to
tell my wife like hey, I'mgonna, I'm gonna before, like I
start really start this new job,I'm gonna go spend this money
to go do this.
And she's like why?
It's like like why do you haveto?
Speaker 2 (28:49):
do.
That's a fun, because in thefuture I don't know how to start
.
Well, the best part is and Iknow his, I know his wife very
well, so to sit there and say,hey, I just got out of the teams
, I'm going to go spend all thismoney on ice cream and her.
Speaker 3 (29:02):
That could be a red flag for them to be like oh God,
what is he?
You know she did laugh.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
I mean nobody.
In the beginning I think waslike they were like oh cute,
he's going to make ice creamlike he loves it.
Speaker 3 (29:14):
It's great.
And then you but the supportwas real.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
Though the support in the marriage was real, she did
support you, jumping in way morethan you expected.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
And now she's part of the team, if not most of the
team.
Speaker 3 (29:23):
Absolutely, she runs it with me Right.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
And that's great.
The faith in it worked bothways and it worked out perfect
for you.
Speaker 3 (29:30):
She had faith that I couldn't even see for so many
years.
And then we went through thestruggle of starting up and in a
and I really learned when wewere building the cafe out that
she had faith the whole time.
And then, once that cametogether, I was like, oh my god,
the doors just opened up forfor growth, with the strengths
and the thing that she does andthe in the way that I do, you
know, the creativity and visionstuff, it's like it's amazing.
(29:52):
But at first it's so hardbecause you know nobody can see
that.
You know, like I see this thing, just like when I went to the
ice cream school.
I'm like I don't know why.
I can't explain.
You know why I need to pay thisfour thousand dollars right now
when I need to put food on thetable first.
But I just know that in thefuture I need this and it's just
an intuitional thing andthere's been so many moments of
(30:12):
intuition that I did somethingthat are now paying off later it
costed me so much up frontright it didn't seem to make
sense and look crazy to peoplenow the four thousand dollars.
You're looking at it like thatwas the best four thousand
dollars I could have probablynow my wife yeah, absolutely,
and my wife um loves to do helpme with the merch stuff because
she's, she's, she's stylish.
You know, she's kind of atrendsetter because they're fun,
(30:33):
but I did the designs aheadwhere, you know, before we even
opened the cafe and I was, youknow, I didn't just make, I
didn't even make a dollar in youknow three years.
You know I actually the factthe first year of starting I was
negative 40 grand for my familywhile she was supporting the
family.
And but my point is like, whileI was doing that, some of that
(30:54):
cash I was spending was ondesigns because I'm, you know,
have a creative mind and nowit's paying off because every
time she wants to do a merchdrop, I have a library of
designs to choose from andthey're all really good, awesome
designs, and I don't have tostress out about that.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
Sure, and that's important.
Image is just as important asyour product, if not more so.
What's the saying?
A pound of image is worth anounce of performance.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
Yeah, so true.
Speaker 1 (31:17):
So it is true.
So you know you have to backyour product up.
You can't have a fake image.
You know what I mean.
Your image has to be betterthan your product, but your
product has to be better thaneveryone else's.
So that's kind of what you'redoing.
So, your ice cream shop.
Where is it located?
Right now we have some icecream.
Yeah, we actually are going totry it.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
Actually, I want to back because I think what you
hit on is that for the firstyear, you lost money.
Speaker 3 (31:39):
Yeah, and I don't think people.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
You just opened a cafe, so that's new within this
last year, but you had thisbusiness for several years prior
and you have to tell I mean thelengths you went to to deliver
ice cream to people locally Likehe's local in Virginia.
Beach and literally had coolersand had people pulling up to
his house to pick up their icecream.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
It's the only way.
Yeah, I mean, you worked yourass off.
When I started Luce the firsttime, it was the same type of
thing, thank you.
I said it too, I was like we'regoing to try some ice cream,
Like I'm not the most excitedfucker in this room, right now
I'm just trying this bro.
We got ice cream galore.
(32:20):
We're going to talk and eat, sodo you have what we?
Now?
I know that you're just openingup this shop.
In a sense You're kind of newto it.
Yeah, we're like only 10 monthsin, 10 months in, so you're
dealing now with the.
But it's amazing and it'srewarding and I love it.
I know I talk down on it a lot,but I'm only talking down for
those who don't understand whatwe go through.
Speaker 3 (32:41):
They don't know what it takes.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
But I absolutely love it.
I do there's parts of it I hatebut like in any job.
You're going to hate something.
Speaker 2 (32:47):
You know what I?
Speaker 1 (32:48):
mean.
Yeah, getting dust down thebarrel of a weapon is just as
annoying as a bad employee.
So it doesn't matter whatyou're doing.
You have to clean, you have tofix it, you have to go through
it.
These are all things thathappen, yeah, so you're going to
hire somebody that's going tobe a shithead in the end.
You're going to hire someonethat takes advantage of you.
You're going to hire someonewho thinks they're the reason
why you are here and you weren'tmaking desert freaking ice
(33:10):
cream.
Speaker 3 (33:14):
That is the story going on this year.
What?
Speaker 1 (33:16):
That is some of my, so we have branded packaging,
like that Branded packaging.
Speaker 3 (33:19):
But we ran out and you know we've got some more and
these are like the precursorsto these are the pre.
Speaker 2 (33:23):
Oh, pina colada, this is going to be fun.
She said, pina colada, I got myattention really quick.
Speaker 1 (33:34):
There's.
It's the precursor to the vibeof our packaging when we get
into stores towards the end ofthis year and into next year.
What's your favorite one?
Do you have a favorite?
I hate that question but what'sthat question?
Speaker 3 (33:39):
It's hard because I like the innovative flavors.
We've come up with a couplereally cool ones.
I made once mascarpone cheesebase ice cream with fig jam.
That I really love.
I did the marzipan rainbowItalian cookies flavor marzipan
flavor with those cookies inthere.
So those are a couple of myfavorite innovative kind of
flavors.
(33:59):
Peanut butter pork belly was areally good one.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
I love anything.
Peanut butter, peanut butterchocolate, peanut butter
chocolate banana.
Speaker 2 (34:04):
I wish I brought one Chocolate and banana.
Speaker 1 (34:05):
All that shit man.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
Okay, so there is, yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
I had peanut butter and banana.
Speaker 3 (34:09):
I just didn't bring it, millie mint chocolate chip.
That's probably.
I know you want that myfavorite, because I think mint
chocolate chip is probably myfavorite classic flavor.
Oh it came apart.
Speaker 1 (34:20):
Oh, wow so what is this now?
Speaker 3 (34:23):
Millie is short for Milliken, so this is a flavor
named after one of my greatestteammates that was killed in
combat.
Speaker 1 (34:30):
Oh, that's amazing.
So you're naming stuff afteryour—so there's a history to—.
Speaker 2 (34:35):
Some of the names.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
Yeah, seal teams and your heritage and everything is
going right into this yeah.
Speaker 3 (34:39):
I've named two flavors like that after
teammates that have fallen.
That's some bullshit.
Speaker 1 (34:48):
In my mind this is bullshit.
Speaker 3 (34:50):
This one's a spearmint and peppermint mix, so
it's not just mint like normalartificial mint flavor, it's
like real extra.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
Well, it's not, and that's the funny part, it's not
green this isn't even funny.
Speaker 1 (34:59):
I used to steep the leaves, but now I have to make
so much Come on man, I can'tsteep.
Speaker 3 (35:02):
You know three tons of mint leaves.
Speaker 2 (35:04):
Okay, so basically, and you built the brand
obviously based on your combathistory, so the whole thing
about leafy leaves.
Speaker 1 (35:12):
You're not just saying it like that it I'm going
to tell you something.
Speaker 3 (35:17):
I have point man, pistachio, that is another one
of my favorites, just because Iknow how hard I worked on that
one just trying to gain all ofthe things I thought were
missing out of pistachio flavorsanywhere that I've ever tried,
so that's also one of myfavorite.
These are my two most favoriteclassic flavor types this is
ridiculous mint oreo, darkchocolate chips, spearmint,
(35:38):
peppermint cream, unreal.
Speaker 1 (35:41):
So when I talk about this food, it's not because
you're on the show, because ifit wasn't that good, I wouldn't
tell people it sucked.
I would just be like, yeah,it's pretty good, carry on.
Yeah, you seem like a truthfulhonest, but what I'm going?
To tell you is this, people aregoing to sell it short.
Speaker 3 (35:58):
This is amazing To me just so you guys know this like
dude like part of the dream isliterally the moments I get to
sample my ice cream and gainconfidence from legit people
like a chef that has you knowtwo of the most badass.
Italian restaurants in thewhole like the two best Italian
restaurants in the area.
Speaker 1 (36:17):
It the two best Italian restaurants in the area.
Speaker 2 (36:19):
It's really good.
The texture's amazing.
It's really hard to understand.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
First thing I look for in ice cream is moisture.
Speaker 3 (36:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:28):
Because moisture freezes, moisture crystallizes.
Speaker 3 (36:31):
That's alright.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
So the moisture in ice cream will crystallize and
it will create a texture in theice cream that's not all that
pleasant.
Speaker 3 (36:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:41):
And that's part of the formula right.
Speaker 3 (36:43):
Yeah, like the mouthfeel, the consistency,
that's right.
Speaker 1 (36:45):
So the cream and this is very creamy, with no ice at
all, so that means to me thatyour fats and your creams
weren't overbeat and all thatshit Like emulsified.
Speaker 3 (36:54):
Right.
Speaker 2 (36:55):
That's just good.
This is the pin-up espresso.
Speaker 3 (36:57):
Those little details, those are the things that
matter, that subconsciouslypeople don't really think of
when they try an ice cream.
Like man, it's good that youlearn.
In that school we did so muchtastings and like they set out
like a dozen.
Yeah, it was heaven and it wasstressful too because we had to
pass tests and everything.
But they'd just lay out a dozendifferent brands of vanilla and
(37:18):
you'd have to taste them andgrade them.
Almost like you tests andeverything.
But they just lay out a dozendifferent brands of vanilla and
you'd have to taste them andgrade them Almost like a Somalia
.
Speaker 2 (37:22):
you're doing like yeah, like a Somalia, you're
doing it for ice cream.
So this is pistachio butter inhere.
Yes.
Speaker 3 (37:28):
Yeah, so really from ground pistachios for the
flavoring.
So it's an expensive flavor butit's worth it because it's yeah
it.
Yeah, that one's been a big hit, like Norwegian sea salt.
Speaker 2 (37:41):
Where you have the caramel in it.
Speaker 3 (37:44):
You know I came up with just a pretty simple brown
sugar praline recipe for some ofthe nuts that we put in the ice
creams Going hard here.
Speaker 2 (37:50):
I know this has literally turned into a fucking
thing.
Speaker 1 (37:52):
This is brownie espresso.
You had this one already, Chriswe lost the entire conversation
.
Oh, he can keep talking.
This is the first time.
I want to just have someoneelse talk.
Speaker 2 (38:05):
The Millie Mint flavors meaning-wise.
Speaker 3 (38:06):
The Millie Mint flavor is one of my favorites
because the dream would be thatwhen we put this flavor in
stores which is one of the sevenwe're going to start out with I
will come up with a certainnumber of proceeds, if not 100%
of it.
I don't know what would makesense as, as we go into, it.
You guys gotta try to just getit around directly back to you
ruling and the milk crew needsto eat.
That'd be amazing and like thepayback part of it is what's
(38:28):
starting to happen for me, whereit's like man.
Now, you know, two, three yearsof not not paying us anything,
you're putting putting anythingon the on the table.
You know I agreed to my wifewhen I started this whole
venture.
Speaker 1 (38:41):
This looks like chocolate mousse bro.
Speaker 2 (38:43):
It's got like that mousse texture.
It's really creamy.
Speaker 1 (38:45):
It's absolutely beautiful.
It's like chocolate mousse.
Speaker 3 (38:47):
It's like a custard.
That was a Dutch processedcocoa powder, so I just love
that for chocolate mousse.
It's not fucking good man, butit is cool.
Speaker 2 (39:00):
You'll be able to once you go through this
expansion.
So, now that the the shop hasbeen open yeah, you formulated
the flavors.
Um, I think, going into thatdistribution phase, you've done
this, I mean it is pretty quick.
Speaker 3 (39:09):
I mean considering how long you've been in business
like some of these things don'thappen for people till like
five, six, seven, eight yearsdown the line so you're having
to learn so much about thebusiness side so fast, about
distribution of food productsand getting make sure, making
sure my cafe is stable and stillthe standards are high yeah, as
well, while I'm traveling,doing all this stuff, and you
(39:30):
know we are like in a sprint forthis, like I think it's going
to feel like that the whole waybecause there's so much to do-
yeah, you know to do adistribution model like that and
it's just constant businessplanning with the group that
we're working with to bring usto market.
Speaker 2 (39:45):
Okay, so you are working with a group that's
helping you with that.
He is living his best life,right?
Speaker 3 (39:49):
now, just so we're all aware.
Speaker 2 (39:50):
Yeah, yeah, he can give two shits about what is
going to happen for the rest ofthis episode.
He's just eating ice cream.
Which one are you eating?
Speaker 1 (39:56):
I don't know Sorbet.
Speaker 2 (39:58):
Oh, that's the pina colada.
Speaker 1 (39:58):
You know what's funny ?
You said that I was just aboutto say it tastes more like a
sorbet and you just said it's asorbet, so my fucking flavors
are right.
My mouth still works.
Congratulations, I still knowwhat I'm talking about.
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (40:08):
He knew.
Speaker 2 (40:20):
And I figured out a, a plant-based fiber called so
it's still vegan called inulin.
It's like chicory root fiber,this sorbet that you're making.
So you do have other stuff inthe shop that's non-dairy.
Speaker 3 (40:27):
Yeah, we just keep like four or five flavors
rotating with non-dairy.
But a sorbet doesn't have to beicy, it can still be a little
creamy like ice cream.
Speaker 2 (40:37):
This is creamy.
This reminds me, it's likevacation in your mouth.
It tastes like a suntan.
Yeah, yeah, it's like a.
Speaker 1 (40:44):
Hawaiian tropic fine reef girl ass.
Speaker 2 (40:46):
He's going back to one.
Speaker 1 (40:47):
He's going to be walking right on set right now
with that big reef ass.
Remember the surf?
Speaker 2 (40:52):
With the tan line, you got the big tan line.
Speaker 1 (40:54):
That was their thing.
Was the nice ass.
Can we get a Reef Girl assplease?
Speaker 2 (40:59):
Okay, so we've got an idea for a shoot for that now.
Speaker 1 (41:03):
Yeah, cool.
Can we call that Reef Girl ass?
We should just make him themodel he could be the model for
the Reef Girl ass cream.
Speaker 3 (41:10):
No, that's not appropriate at all.
Speaker 1 (41:11):
Come on man, that's not, it no.
Speaker 2 (41:15):
Ass cream does not sound good with ice cream.
I'm doing it Ass cream does notsound good with ice cream.
Speaker 3 (41:24):
It's just two totally different things.
Now which one is this Tony'slike?
Speaker 2 (41:26):
I'm in the mood for some ass cream.
If we go full throttle youcould slow drip the sorbet.
Speaker 3 (41:29):
That's tea and cookies.
Tea and cookies.
So what's tea and cookies?
It's like an Earl Grey type oftea and little Biscoff cookies.
Speaker 2 (41:38):
So actual cookies.
The so actual, okay Cookies.
Speaker 3 (41:40):
Yeah, the UK people would love that one.
Speaker 2 (41:43):
Yeah, that's the UK.
I got some UK Special Forcesbuddies that love that flavor.
Speaker 3 (41:50):
Did you ever have a flavor that?
Totally Not my favorite, butit's delicious.
Not my favorite.
Speaker 1 (41:54):
Stop talking about the ice cream Two seconds.
Speaker 2 (41:56):
Did you ever had a flavor that totally flopped?
Oh, absolutely.
You learned those two.
What was the worst combinationyou ever did?
Speaker 3 (42:04):
That's like probably a standup comedian in some of
their you know.
I think some of the best oneshave probably been booed off
stage a few times and had tostruggle through that.
You know they, just I just knowit.
So let's see Worst ones.
I think, Soy sauce one one timeyeah.
Speaker 1 (42:21):
Yeah, it'd be tough to hit that one we.
Speaker 3 (42:26):
We did a matcha mochi Chocolate chip that I loved,
but a lot of people didn't likethat one and I think it was just
the area, you know.
I'm like maybe in, likesomewhere like New York or
somewhere you know.
Speaker 1 (42:37):
I think a soy sauce could work, if maybe you did the
right mixture with a little bitof ginger, yes, and sweeten it
up with some melon and ginger.
You made it right Somethinglike that.
Speaker 3 (42:45):
Yeah, but not so.
The way I was doing ice creambefore the cafe was every week I
was just coming up with aflavor of the week like blasting
it on social media trying tohype it up.
Every drop I did for two yearswas a noon Saturday drop.
So, like it would, the, thesale would open, they'd get on
the instagram or whatever, maketheir order and schedule a
(43:07):
pickup for the, the next thenext week and you, you only did
like a certain number ofcontainer, like a couple hundred
, yeah, of them, and as soon asthey sold out, they were gone,
so he actually created
Speaker 2 (43:16):
a scarcity mindset around the ice cream, so when he
knew he'd sell, out.
Speaker 3 (43:20):
He missed it.
I'm not making that flavoranything unatt again.
Speaker 1 (43:22):
Anything unattainable is better.
Yeah, you know what I mean, sothat's great.
Speaker 3 (43:26):
And then it got cool, because the second year of that
some people were like can youbring that one flavor back?
Speaker 1 (43:30):
And then I'd have a flavor for that week the next
year.
These are amazing dude, reallyhonestly.
Speaker 3 (43:34):
Oh, thank you.
I'm joking a lot but because,jordan, part of my dream we're
doing a tasting at the Lucerestaurant right now Ice cream
tasting on the podcast.
Speaker 2 (43:45):
This is the first time.
Speaker 1 (43:46):
Yeah, on any podcast.
Speaker 2 (43:49):
But so what's next now?
The next steps.
You know where do you seeeverything going?
Speaker 3 (43:52):
The next steps are?
I?
Rapidly, once this deal startedto happen, it just went on
hyperdrive and I was like man, Ianticipated being in my cafe,
you know, 12, 16, 20 hour days,like it was when we first opened
for a few months, for like acouple of years, and and and
then going hey, maybe, you know,after year two we'll start to
think about scaling into anotherlocation or franchise or
(44:14):
something, if it works out, youknow.
And then this happened and itwas like, oh my God, I got a lot
of stuff to do to make surethis place runs really well, to
the standard that I want whenI'm not here, because I gotta
now be everywhere for this, forthe distribution thing.
I gotta be at the factory inpennsylvania, the, the brokerage
group in north in charlotte,you know, my team, my, my best
(44:34):
friend and business partners inchicago and just the stores,
publics and things that aregoing to start to happen those.
Speaker 1 (44:40):
That's where you're going to be in a better position
.
I just started doing my saucesjarred, my sauces and stuff like
that.
They have not yet hit themarket, they're still being
jarred and produced, but I tookthe same time.
I, as you did.
My sauces are going to be moreof a um compliment to the
italian, his heritage in a jar.
It's not just a jarred sauce,it's, it's.
It's going to be an amazingmeal, right?
(45:01):
So I took a lot of time inmaking sure the ingredients are
all sourced properly, they'reexecuted properly, all done to
the traditions.
There's nothing in it fake, allnatural, no artificial
additives, nothing at all.
So it's going to be all naturalsauces.
A little bit more expensive,but you're paying for better
right.
Speaker 3 (45:18):
I think people subconsciously like food, really
good food, the process that youdo for all that stuff really
matters.
Speaker 2 (45:28):
They don't even see it, but they taste it and feel
it.
You make all the dessert.
Everything that goes in here ismade.
Speaker 3 (45:32):
Yeah, we make it all from scratch you know, based off
my formulas, and you know, I'vegot employees that flavor it up
and come up with cool ideas,you know.
So now I've got like morebrains thinking about flavors
than just my own Right, and it'sfun for them.
Speaker 1 (45:46):
You give them that creative freedom yeah for sure.
Speaker 3 (45:49):
I was big on that, and you've got to be careful
with that too, because creativefreedom shouldn't mean, you know
, like control, right, right.
Speaker 1 (45:57):
And that's what they think.
So a lot of people think thattheir creative freedom, that you
gave them, is the reason whyyou're still around, and and
that's the biggest mistakeanybody could make because, no
matter what happens, that's theabsolute wrong thing oh, it's
literally.
You know who helps you move onand who doesn't.
You know deep down inside thatthere are some key employees
that if they were to leave, itwould affect you.
That that's a that's a fact Ihave them yeah, but I also know
(46:20):
there's a lot of people outthere who don't realize that if
they do leave, for me it's goingto be a complete inconvenience.
But you were never a part of mybusiness plan when I invested
everything at the beginning.
Speaker 3 (46:30):
I didn't know your name.
Speaker 1 (46:31):
I didn't know who you were.
I was just going on the factthat this position needs to be
filled and you happen to fill itamazingly.
But that's where we are.
You get a great job, you getgreat pay, I have a great
employee, and that's kind ofthat.
If you were to leave for anyreason, whether it be an
emergency or a car accident, godforbid, or whatever you know
what I mean yeah, I'd still haveto move on without you, but if
(46:52):
you do, it.
Speaker 3 (46:52):
Yeah, if you develop an arrogance.
Sorry, I didn't mean to cut youoff, you're right, I'll forget
if you develop an arrogance toto it like some sort of
entitlement towards you know,towards that Right, right To go
to try to make me believe that,like my whole business is going
to just disappear or dissolve.
You're delusional.
Without you, you're delusional,they're delusional.
(47:14):
They have no idea there's amission that will just like at
SEAL, team 6, is like dude, theylead us all to believe.
We do believe that, like you doneed every man in that six man,
seven man team.
It's crucial, right, but if oneof them retires and one of them
goes, it's still a machine andthere's still a mission.
So it's like, yeah, it's gonnahurt for a minute, but it's
(47:34):
gonna keep going.
It hurts for a minute, but itdoesn't hurt anymore.
Speaker 1 (47:37):
yeah, I can tell you this for all you listening to
you leaving, doing us dirty,fucking us over or thinking that
you're gonna pull one over onus when you leave, you're not
doing anything more than we'vealready been through on our own
learning how to do this.
We've lost so much trying to dothis Lost money, time,
everything.
The only reason why we'resuccessful is because of all the
(47:58):
shit we've lost in the middle.
That's the self-validatingentrepreneur thing.
Speaker 3 (48:02):
Exactly that.
Speaker 1 (48:02):
You can think you're fucking us over as much as you
want, but you are not screwingus over Any more than what we've
already been screwed over byourselves.
We screwed ourselves over morethan you can do to us At some
point in time in this journey,so you're just another fucking
speed bump.
Speaker 2 (48:17):
If you want to be like that.
Speaker 1 (48:19):
But again, don't be confused for the good For the
great team members who would beaffected by losing them as
people as human beings as theirspark as their passion and all
that stuff.
Losing those people is crucial.
Speaker 3 (48:34):
The ones that end up being the wrong ones.
I'm grateful for them too,because I learned so fast.
Speaker 1 (48:39):
It took me years to get rid of them.
It took me years to understandthat.
Just get rid of them becauseit's toxic man and it's only
going to get rid of them.
It took me years to understandthat.
Just get rid of them becauseit's toxic man and it's only
going to get worse.
And then they're going to begetting other people on their
team and it's just a mess.
You know what I'm saying.
So the best thing to do is getrid of them, no matter what
happens.
It's only going to suck for aminute, just like a Band-Aid
Really it is.
Speaker 3 (49:04):
Just get rid of them.
Process of what of doing.
That is what I really learn islike dude, patience and staying
calm and collective is like thatis where things from the team
start to apply.
That makes sense to me.
They go, man.
We're like some of thosemoments feels like you're just
have your face in the mudgetting shot at and there's just
bullets all around you and ifyou just have some patience and
stay calm and get through it,you know you're gonna be good.
It's like if I just apply thatsame life and death mindset.
It's like dude.
It gave me the patience to getthrough how hard it is to go
(49:26):
through the process of, you know, moving past the wrong ones and
gradually getting it to whereyou have like 95%, all awesome
workers, which is starting tohappen really fast.
Speaker 2 (49:38):
So in the last like we have about five minutes left,
so let's go through kind of thelike you know, the struggles
right now.
Are there any of the thingsthat you I mean?
Speaker 3 (49:44):
yeah, it really is that it's like we get started.
You get started with a certainstaff and you know, I didn't
know what I was doing, of courseyou know.
And there's certain ones thatare like, man, he doesn't know
it and it's all judgment.
It's like, yeah, I, I've neverstarted a business before, of
course I don't know.
It's like I want to go windmilldunk a basketball you know it's
gonna.
It's gonna take me some time toget to that, not dominique
wilkins yeah, right, yeah, yeahyeah so, but what I'm saying is
(50:07):
I'm I'm grateful that this ishappening so fast, because it's
making me like I have to getgood fast or it's gonna it's all
gonna fail you know, and it'sall on you yeah and so like
that's okay.
So I'm just gonna go through itand get good fast and that's
what we're doing.
So you know I got this awesomenew manager.
Is like running the place whenI'm not there, so it's like now
I have less stress to go do this, this other bigger business
(50:30):
model.
That's happening and thingsjust continue to improve.
Speaker 1 (50:33):
If you just stay focused and not waste time in
distractions and bullshit, youknow, in your life I'm going to
say this With all that passiongoing into these courts or these
containers here, ben andJerry's, all them people, you
better watch out.
That's right.
This is it right here.
This is coming after you righthere from Virginia Beach.
Go ahead and tell us plug.
Where can they find you?
Give everybody some way to findyou.
Speaker 3 (50:57):
Yeah, we have a cafe.
Because of the space design waspretty big for just an ice
cream shop, so I kind of waslike man, this is kind of scary,
but why don't we make it?
The point was to make it an R&Dcenter for this bigger thing
happening.
That was the actual goal.
Hey, I need an R&D center, likea headquarters Might as well.
(51:20):
Take advantage of the spaceopportunity and make it a cafe,
right?
And then I don't know nothingabout coffee we'll do a coffee
house and do try to do our bestat that.
And, um, we got to bake stuffto go in the ice cream anyway.
So maybe we do sort of a minikind of bakery thing also, you
know, and so it kind ofdeveloped from there and then
it's.
It's been pretty successfullocally.
So we're right in red mill,virginia beach um, over by like
(51:41):
home depot and target, and redmill um in its own building next
to Planet Fitness andSandbridge Tattoo Shop, which is
the best tattoo shop inVirginia Beach.
Speaker 2 (51:50):
My buddy Second best, my buddy, tommy.
We have our friends too, sowe're like they can fight.
We'll fight over the ice creamand that We'll live stream it on
Instagram.
I love it, yeah.
And where, like all the socialmedia and website stuff, yeah.
And where, like all the socialmedia and website stuff.
Speaker 3 (52:03):
Yeah, my personal ChrisFetis6 on Instagram,
facebook, all that stuff.
You can find a lot of the storyand some of my different
interviews and things going onin there.
And then the ice cream isBeFreeCrafts all together
underscore cafe, and that'sreally specific to the cafe, and
as we develop this, we'll startto either do a separate one or
just start to plug in some ofthe distribution product type
(52:25):
stuff that Virtue is going to behelping me out with.
He's awesome.
Then the website isBeFreeIceCreamcom.
I'll update that too as we movealong.
That one's more focused rightnow on just our day-to-day menu
in the cafe and a bunch of merch, because we're really big on
merch.
Speaker 2 (52:43):
The merch is badass.
I've left my shirt over theretoo, but the merch is badass.
But you can go on there andorder that, you can't the ice
cream.
Hopefully people will startseeing it when they see it.
Speaker 3 (52:52):
You know, with this uh group, the stuff that's
happening.
Speaker 2 (52:54):
We for sure will do e-commerce with the pints too,
so we'll be shipping ice creamokay, okay, good, I know that's
a lot of logistics, so you'vegot to work in that.
Speaker 3 (53:02):
This is not still towards, probably like December,
january of this year.
Speaker 2 (53:04):
That's awesome.
Speaker 1 (53:06):
So yeah, so we have a Navy veteran, Navy SEAL veteran
, American hero, ice cream maker.
Speaker 2 (53:12):
Ice cream hero.
Speaker 1 (53:13):
Entrepreneur, just a straight up great guy, great
conversation.
Speaker 2 (53:19):
There we go.
Speaker 1 (53:19):
Total positivity coming out of you, man.
Speaker 3 (53:21):
The vibe is man.
That was all, jess, with thecrop tops.
Speaker 1 (53:23):
I can tell why the ice cream is so good and
passionate, because you have itall in you, man, and this has
been an awesome conversationbecause, just feeling I can tell
that you have the same passionas I do for what we do.
It's just good to share thattype of conversation, man.
So we wish you all the best andthe luck, and maybe we'll be
selling your ice cream in mymarket down in Northville
selling your ice cream in mymarket down in town in Norfolk.
Speaker 3 (53:43):
Now that we're doing it this way, I apologize because
you asked me to do a Spumoniflavor when I was moving through
my commercial kitchenexperience and I was like that's
still in my head, so I'm goingto deliver on that.
Speaker 1 (53:54):
I'm trying to get him to do a Spumoni.
Speaker 2 (53:56):
A labeled.
Speaker 1 (53:56):
Spumoni flavor for me .
Speaker 3 (53:59):
Personally Pistachio and chocolate will be part of
that.
Speaker 2 (54:02):
We Personally, personally that pistachio and
chocolate will be part of that,we'll just do the cherry you
might have to share a little bitof it.
That's okay, but yeah, I'm soproud of you.
I know I've seen you do thisfrom the very beginning.
Speaker 3 (54:10):
Yeah, proud of you too, and it's been pretty
incredible.
So it's exciting.
It's an honor to be doing thisin the Luce restaurant too.
Speaker 1 (54:18):
Thank you, appreciate you.
Speaker 2 (54:19):
We love it.
Speaker 1 (54:20):
Keep on talking all day with this guy.
Speaker 2 (54:21):
I know, now we're just going to eat some ice cream
, that's it.
Go check it out.
Check it out.
Speaker 1 (54:25):
It's amazing, definitely treat yourself, get
to the store, get online.
Ciao for now.
Speaker 2 (54:29):
Ciao Peace.
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