Joel Frosch of South Plains Food Company: Serving Up Community

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Ever wondered what it's like to be at the heart of Southern hospitality? Join us as Joel Frosch from South Plains Food Company takes us on a flavorful journey through his life in the food service industry. We reminisce about his great-grandma's unforgettable cooking, his go-to comfort food—the Rib-eye Melt—and our shared mission to bring back the charm of open-door hospitality with heartwarming Sunday gatherings. Joel's story is a testament to how food, family, and community can create unforgettable experiences.

Meet our intuitive self-taught chef who transformed a spontaneous flounder dinner into a culinary passion. He reveals his unique approach to cooking, relying on memory and instinct rather than formal recipes. Despite claiming a poor palate, his knack for perfect timing and remembering customers' preferences paints a vivid picture of an artist at work. Plus, hear about his early days managing Sammy's in St Francisville—a period filled with unexpected love, lifelong friendships, and invaluable lessons in restaurant leadership.

 We also discuss the challenges of updating a lunch menu amidst rising costs and the incredible generosity that sustains our community. Finally, take a walking meditation through the heart of Zachary, fostering a sense of unity and connection. This episode is a heartwarming exploration of the ties that bind us through food, family, and community.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey guys, this is Joel Farosh from South Plain
Food Company and this is Porchand Parish the podcast.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
Hey there, zachary Fall is in the air.
Well, kind of To kick off theseason.
Our crew is busy at workcompiling the fall edition.
More on that in weeks to come.
We recently enjoyed SouthernHospitality at the establishment
we're about to highlight today.
The menu is truly vast and thelunch in the private room above
the staircase was quite a treat.
Ask about that in person,though.

(00:31):
Today we're thrilled to welcomea special guest to the show,
joel Frosch from South PlainsFood Company.
Joel's knowledge of the foodservice business will leave your
head spinning, if you ever gethim to stop working long enough
to speak with him.
He's at the helm of a modernZachary business that we're all
getting to know and love.
Welcome, joel.
As always, we're bringing.
Take this part again.

(00:52):
Welcome, joel.
As always, we're here to bringyou the best of Zachary in the
Baton Rouge area throughengaging conversations every
Monday from our Virginia Streetheadquarters.

Speaker 3 (01:01):
This is Portrait and.

Speaker 2 (01:02):
Parish the podcast.
Stay tuned because thelightning round is coming up
next.
Looking for a family outing offthe beaten path?
Trot over to Breck's Far ParkEquestrian Center for a unique
experience.
Far Park offers guided trailrides throughout the fall.
Starting on September 22nd, youand the family can enjoy the
fresh air, beautiful scenery andquality time with loved ones

(01:25):
perfect for all ages.
Follow the link to sign up.
Spots are limited.
Oh and hey, jen, hi, all right,we're back from the lightning
round.
All right, I've been enjoyinghaving jen on pretty much every
show for the past three or fourhere, so you know, welcome back.

(01:48):
So, joel, lightning roundquestions.
What is your go-to comfort foodfrom South Plains Food Company?
Rib-eye melt.

Speaker 1 (01:57):
Rib-eye melt Absolutely All right, you're
going to have to explain thatSix-ounce piece of rib-eye meat
that we smoked the rib-eye, wecut it, we seared on the flat
top.
Onions, mushrooms, bacon, twopieces cheddar cheese, toasted
bread yum, so it melts becausethere's cheese on it.

Speaker 2 (02:13):
Put the seven sauce on it.
Seven sauce, okay, I don't know, that's a weird question they
just always called melts, likeonions, mushrooms and melted
cheese.

Speaker 1 (02:21):
Right, that's just my ignorance.
I don't know.
I don't know either.
It sells.

Speaker 2 (02:25):
I had the eight ounce and that melted, but there was
no cheese on it, so that wasamazing.
All right, if you could cook ameal for any historical figure,
who would it be and why?
Oh, wow.

Speaker 1 (02:37):
I guess it'd be like Tiger Woods.
I don't know, he is kind of.
Yes.

Speaker 2 (02:40):
He is kind of yes, he is, he's old, he's past his
prime for sure Probably not winmuch.

Speaker 1 (02:45):
Historical.
You probably meant no go fortiger.

Speaker 2 (02:48):
I love it.

Speaker 1 (02:49):
Gosh, my great-grandma could cook this.
She could cook this casserolethat we've all tried to redo it
and where it would take herthree days.
There would be stew meat in thecrock pot or in the big cast
iron pot.
On her stove.
It was always lit, it neverburned, and then she would put

(03:09):
it in this pasta, the sauce andcheese.
Like maybe cheese was justdifferent and you know back then
and it didn't just like meltout and turn into oil, uh, so
I'd probably try to do that forher.
Yeah, but she also cooked herhamburgers with butter.
You know, when the burger wasjust about done, sliced butter
went on it.

Speaker 3 (03:24):
Right, and that's how she finished it off.
Okay, so I'd probably cooksomething for her.

Speaker 1 (03:27):
Yeah, not very appealing to anybody that's
listening, but that's beautifulman, I think you know those
meals.
Probably I feel the most likethose down-home meals that you
went to great-grandma's anddidn't you.
Yeah, it was just there.
It was always there, like sheknew you were coming.
Time's different, you know it'slike back then you could just

(03:50):
go to someone's house, knock onthe door and then visit for two
hours.

Speaker 2 (03:52):
Right Like Sunday.

Speaker 1 (03:53):
Now you're like your parents are here.
They didn't even tell us theywere coming.

Speaker 2 (03:57):
Watching Netflix.

Speaker 1 (03:58):
Yeah, come on.
You can't just go knock onsomeone's door these days.
You can't do it.

Speaker 2 (04:03):
I don't know, maybe we can bring that back.
It seems like it's possible,right.

Speaker 1 (04:08):
I don't know.
I feel like they didn't tell mebefore you come, man.

Speaker 4 (04:12):
Right, can I get a text?
Yeah, anything.

Speaker 2 (04:15):
Right, right.
I got to know Jen'sgrandparents really well and
they're both passed now, butthey had that open door policy
on Sunday and it was just arevolving door of wonderful
who's who.

Speaker 4 (04:30):
And literally the door was, like, literally open,
and my grandmother would justsit at the head of the table and
hold court, and people would bein and out all day and there
was always something to eat.

Speaker 2 (04:39):
Yeah, in the morning it was French bread with hog
head cheese, and then, you know,butter.
Well, like the butter wouldjust sit out on the table and oh
, it was great.

Speaker 1 (04:48):
If y'all ever decide to do that, let me know.

Speaker 4 (04:50):
Yeah, all right we're trying to kind of bring it back
.
Actually we've only done itonce, but we're trying to do
this sunday spaghetti thing,where we we've been walking to
church at saint john um since wemoved here downtown, and then
we'll have mike's parents and acouple of our friends who also
go to the same church.
We'll come over and we'll cooka big spaghetti.

Speaker 2 (05:09):
But it's cool because we walk back from church and
they walk with us and we've gota bunch of kids.
We've got the little.
It's not a power wheel, it's adad power wheel.

Speaker 1 (05:19):
And.

Speaker 4 (05:19):
I push them back.

Speaker 2 (05:21):
But all these kids come over and wreck our house.

Speaker 1 (05:25):
So Push them back.
But all these kids come overand wreck our house.
So great we love it.

Speaker 2 (05:27):
All right, a couple of months you could take them
across the tracks, right, oh,yeah, yeah, do you have scoop?

Speaker 1 (05:31):
on that?
I do, yeah, jen's got somescoop, you got some scoop.
Yeah, I mean we can talk aboutit, or is this a jinx.
I've got a lifelong friend.
They do like custom recipes.
And then I think we talkedabout this Like you, you come up
with your great recipe and thenall of a sudden you don't have
time to make as much as you need.

(05:51):
So you, you go over to theirplace and, uh, it's a really
cool place.
Yeah, they do their own stuff,but they'll do custom, but in a
batch that's like 400 gallons,right?
and then they'll freeze it inbags yeah, and then, uh, they'll
send it to cisco.
Cisco sends us, so it's ourproduct.
Well, my is working with thisguy, and then, obviously, lisa

(06:13):
does the farmer's market andthey have food trucks all the
time.
Yeah, this guy has a food truck, that's been here and he's a
super decent guy from what Iunderstand.
Yeah, awesome love that guy.

Speaker 4 (06:21):
Yeah, let's pray over him, pray over the successful
breakfast on weekends initiative, because man would that be
convenient.

Speaker 2 (06:30):
Yeah, I'm a breakfast guy.
Senator John Kennedy came toZachary Rotary this week and he
said Zachary is a breakfastcommunity.
What?

Speaker 4 (06:40):
does that mean?

Speaker 2 (06:40):
He said it's just a simple breakfast.
I don't know, but he said itOkay, I don't know, but he said
it Okay, I don't know.
Now it sounds nonsensical, butto me it made a lot of sense.

Speaker 4 (06:50):
It just yes, we like our breakfast.
I don't know the way he said ittoo.
Yeah, it was Guess you kind ofhad to be there.

Speaker 1 (06:57):
Okay, probably called it the 100 towns of Breakfast
Town and people cheered him.

Speaker 4 (07:01):
Yeah town and people.

Speaker 2 (07:02):
Yeah, yeah, on the commercial he called it a sleepy
little town.
So anyway, let's move on.
I'm a political, here we go umall right, where is you got a
lightning round question?

Speaker 4 (07:14):
it looks like you have a burning lightning round
question for him um, I kind ofdo, but I haven't looked at your
script yet I don't have ascript on your toes, okay, I
want to know when did interestin cooking for other people take
hold of you?

Speaker 1 (07:28):
Oh gosh, for me it was weird.
I'm such a storyteller.

Speaker 4 (07:34):
No, I love it, we need stories.

Speaker 1 (07:35):
My answers always end up in stories.
So this guy, jim Kitchen.
I met him for the first time.
They caught some flounder andthey were pretty excited about
it but they didn't know exactlywhat they wanted to do with it.
And I was at Sammy's and I saidI'll give him to me, I'll take
care of him.

Speaker 2 (07:48):
Is this.

Speaker 1 (07:49):
Lori's gym.
Yeah, lori's gym.
Okay, yeah, great guy.
So it was Joey, john Williamsand Jim.
So I said, bring me theflounder, I'll take care of it.
So I cleaned him for him andfilleted him, and I've been
fishing my whole life.
There's not a fish in the worldI can't clean Sheephead.

(08:09):
Yeah, I mean I don't want to,but I will Just give me your
knife to do it.

Speaker 3 (08:13):
Right.

Speaker 1 (08:14):
And so I fixed him up with like this crab stuffing
and eggplant and crab and toppedit with whatever sauce I made
for it.
I brought it over there to themand they're like you want some.
I was like I don't really eatthat, I'm more of a Ham.
Sands kind of guy.
And Jim, who I just met thatnight, looks at me in the most
serious and he says so.

(08:37):
What is your inspiration forcooking?

Speaker 4 (08:38):
I can just hear Jim saying that.

Speaker 1 (08:42):
I don't what do you mean.
And he goes like Emeril, who doyou watch, who do you take
after?
And I was like, oh, I don'tknow, I just make food people
eat.
Like if you like it, I canprobably make it, and if you
tell me what you like, I canmake something along those lines
.
Even more so if you come intomy restaurant and tell me that
you had something really good,like we don't have eggplant on
the menu, if you the menu, ifyou tell me that you had

(09:06):
eggplant, and it was really good, and you tell me how it was
over at you know geno's.
Yeah, I promise you, the nexttime you come in, I'm having
eggplant there and I'm gonnafeed you what you told me was
really good somewhere else.
Right, right, and it's gonna bereally good like it's just food
people eat, I remember Iremember.
If you tell me you don't eatraw tomatoes, I'll remember that
for the rest of my life.

Speaker 3 (09:26):
Oh crazy.

Speaker 1 (09:26):
There's customers that come in and like, hey, I
used to go to Sammy's all thetime and I don't remember their
face or I don't remember theirname, and then they tell me like
we used to get the seafoodplatter no oysters and like
extra crawfish.

Speaker 3 (09:37):
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (09:39):
That's crazy, it's weird that I remember things
like that, but I can't rememberother weird things.

Speaker 2 (09:45):
You see food in colors or something.

Speaker 1 (09:49):
Yeah, I don't know how much salt goes in something.
All of my recipes, and it neverfails when someone new comes in
and they go well.
Do you have a recipe for yourgreen beans?
I'm like, no, I don't, I justdump honey in there and I put
brown sugar.
You know, like the old peopleyou say sprinkle this, sprinkle
that, that I dump honey in thereand I put brown sugar and you
know, like the old people yousay sprinkle this, sprinkle that
.
Yeah, uh, that's kind of how Icook.
But I'm lucky I don't have likea two pound bag of green beans.

(10:11):
You know what I mean.
And if I put too much salt init you got to go back to the
store and get more green beans.
I've got a 30 pound case greenbeans.

Speaker 2 (10:25):
Yeah, it's like a total cheat you know that's
right 20 gallons of etouffee andI'm over salted.
You just start with salt andthen add food that's right.

Speaker 1 (10:29):
That's kind of what you do around here so did you
have any formal training?
None zero wow.
I just watched other peoplecook and I messed up a lot.
Yeah, there's people in thisworld who tell you, joel Frososh
has never fed me anything thatwasn't delicious and I'm like,
yeah, that's because I threw itaway and I started over.

Speaker 2 (10:46):
Well, I'll vouch for you on the chicken parm like.
All right, so I would.
I would not expect south plainsto come up and like impress me
and wow me on chicken parmesanright that makes me feel good.
Yeah, I'm telling you, but thesauce was right on it was.
We talk about grandma's cooking.
I would would go every Sundayto my Cestillion grandparents'

(11:07):
house and they would have thesame thing every Sunday with
chicken parmesan.
Sometimes it wouldn't be theparmesan, it would be chicken
put in with stew, meat andeverything into the spaghetti.
But I mean it was a fantasticdish.
I loved it.

Speaker 1 (11:20):
Okay, let me tell you a secret about me real quick.
Only certain people know thisand they don't even believe me.
I have the worst palate in theworld sweet savory.
Yeah, all that stuff doesn'tmake sense to me.
I just cook food and it ends upreally good.
Like I, I can cook a perfectmedium rare steak sitting here
and the grill is outside andI'll just tell you when to flip

(11:41):
it.
It's going to be perfectbecause I can time stuff in my
head on.
I know the grill is scorchinghot or I know the grease is 350
degrees.
Yeah, I've just been around itthat long You've got your 10,000
hours in beyond, but when itcomes to tasting.
I eat like a bear's chasing me.

Speaker 2 (11:56):
You know what I mean?

Speaker 1 (11:57):
I just take big bites and swallow huge chunks like a
shark.
So I don't taste food, I don'teat it.
The chicken parmesan.
I'm like, yeah, it's good, it'sfilling my stomach, yeah, yeah,
but I'm not enjoying the foodlike my wife enjoys good food.

Speaker 3 (12:12):
Yeah, you know.

Speaker 1 (12:13):
I don't have that.
I'm like that's too much garlicRight, Not possible.
What is the best meal thatsomeone else has ever cooked for
you?

Speaker 3 (12:29):
a restaurant or I mean.
The obvious answer is asandwich on a boat.

Speaker 2 (12:30):
If you've never had a , you've never had a bad
sandwich on a boat right,there's not a lot of resources
on the boat either so, um, mywife actually cooks really good.

Speaker 1 (12:39):
I just don't eat much of the food that we.
She likes etouffees with riceand gumbos and soups and yeah,
stuff like that.
I don't eat a whole lot of that.
I'm steak and potatoes kind ofa guy.
Um, my brother-in-law makes anincredible caesar salad and he
does it from like he has to gobuy all the ingredients because

(12:59):
that's the best a perfect oliveoil and fresh garlic that he
roasts in the oven.

Speaker 2 (13:05):
What's the fish that goes in?
Is it anchovies?

Speaker 1 (13:07):
Yeah, anchovies, and he buys the anchovies and he
peels the top off and he smashesthem with a fork and it's all
done in a wooden bowl.
He makes a really, really good.
He also makes a really goodgrits and griot that we eat
every Christmas Thanksgiving ifwe go there for the morning.
He makes that and Mandeville'sa little bit different.
You drink wine with yourbreakfast down there for the

(13:30):
most part mostly because it's aholiday and that's always good.
It's on a cheesy grit and hedoes it just perfect and we
always get to bring a little bitof that back.
I don't get to eat much of itwhen it gets back, but as far as
someone else cooking a reallygood meal, it's tough, because I
do a lot of the cookingwhenever I'm around.

Speaker 4 (13:51):
Okay, but do you all go out to dinner?

Speaker 1 (13:54):
We used to.
Yeah, we did that a lot.
Rufino's was a place that Lisaand I, when we had money left in
our college days, we'd go spenda little bit at Rufino's.
Yeah, nice, okay.
So if I go to Rufino's I don'tneed the menu.
I don't know how clean we areon this, but I'll tell you, if I
sit down at Rufino's I don'tneed the menu.

(14:15):
I just get a calamari prime ribmedium rare and don't let my
crown run out.

Speaker 2 (14:22):
Yeah, you know what I mean, and Lisa's like I want
the stuffed pork chop.

Speaker 1 (14:26):
I want the veal.
And do y'all still have thatfish, katie?
Yeah, you know the fish, Katie,they gotta still have that.
That was like around whenDiNardo's was there.

Speaker 4 (14:34):
I know I actually ate the fish, katie, because we
went to that restaurant for oursenior prom and that's what I
ordered.

Speaker 1 (14:41):
Yeah, fish Katie, it was so good it had the little
lemon, it was DiNardo's, andthen with the Rufino's and it
comes out on a wooden plank.
I think it had like maybe somebalsamic vinegar on it and some
tomatoes or something like that.

Speaker 4 (14:53):
Can we get a Fish Katie at?

Speaker 1 (14:55):
South Plains.
Oh, it's time, let's do aspecial.

Speaker 2 (15:05):
I could.

Speaker 4 (15:05):
Okay, so that's where that local knowledge, that
baton rouge knowledge comes in.
I was not in in like the littlewhat cheese cloth with the
lemon in?

Speaker 1 (15:09):
it but yeah, yeah, they did what cheese, cheese
cloth.

Speaker 4 (15:12):
Okay, like is that the right thing?

Speaker 1 (15:14):
that's, that's exactly right.
You tie it around the lemon, sowhen you squeeze the lemon, the
seeds don't come out yeah, itwas like grilled.

Speaker 4 (15:20):
Oh man, it was so good, and they had that bread
where you could they.

Speaker 1 (15:23):
They pour the olive oil in the bowl and they shave
fresh parmesan for you and thentwist the pepper cracker and
right, that's when that was likea new thing and they, they
spoofed it on saturday nightlive and he was like do you want
some more pepper, yeah, yeah um.

Speaker 4 (15:38):
Wait, I was gonna ask you um.
So you mentioned when y'all hadleftover money in college.
So you, you and Lisa have beentogether since college.

Speaker 1 (15:44):
Since 2000.
Oh wow, I say 2000.
I met her in well.
She graduated high school in 99.
I was working at Sammy's in StFrancisville.
For some reason, I was 20 yearsold and they thought I'd be a
great manager to open a brandnew restaurant in St
Francisville.
And I did too at the timebecause, it paid much better
than being a fry cook.
Yeah and uh, so I went up there.

(16:05):
She had to get a job over thechristmas holiday.
Her dad made her get a job.
I didn't know anything aboutthis girl.
Do you want to hear the story?
Yeah me and lisa gosh.
We don't have.
This is going to last so muchlonger than 45 minutes yeah, we
like the stories all right.
So, uh, lisa had to go up there.
I didn't know who she was and,uh, I remember she'd asked me

(16:28):
like I was on the grill, and shesaid, look me and my boyfriend
just aren't really getting alongright now.
Should we break up?
And I was like yeah, and sothat afternoon I was at the
fountain machine gettingsomething to drink and she said,
hey, do you have any gum?
I said yeah, so I pulled out mygum and it was green extra.
That's what I had in my pocketat the time I could care less

(16:48):
what kind of gum I'm chewing.
And she goes oh, my husband'sgoing to chew green extra.
And I was like this isfantastic.
Good, I'm happy for him, and Iput it in my pocket and walked
away and at the time I wasseeing this, this girl, not very

(17:09):
seriously at all, and lisadecided.
Little 17 year old lisa decidedto go tell this girl, who's
probably 20 or 21, hey, I'mgonna uh steal your man from you
, and so we went to this.
This is on brand yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (17:19):
So I had this is.

Speaker 1 (17:19):
I had to be 21 because we went to the casino
and she was, yeah, you know.
She's like, hey, that littlegirl has a crush on you and I,
I'm like, not my type, she's 17.
I think her dad owns a gunstore.
He doesn't even have to be agood shot.

Speaker 4 (17:31):
He's got a lot of bullets.

Speaker 1 (17:33):
So, and then that summer came around.
She turned 18 in December.
She didn't work there very much, and then that summer she went
to LSU and we just kind ofhooked up.
Yeah, crazy enough, one of herfriends started liking my
roommate, which is what theytold me at the time.
Now, sitting in this chair,looking back, it probably wasn't

(17:55):
the case.
And we just started hanging outthat summer at LSU.
Yeah, and off and on, off andon.
And six years later we gotmarried.
Beautiful man, we just made 18years Nice.

Speaker 3 (18:06):
Thank you for sharing that 10 days ago.
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 (18:08):
What a good story that's awesome.

Speaker 3 (18:10):
So, on brand, though, you're so right so on brand for
Lisa.

Speaker 1 (18:15):
She's never changed.

Speaker 3 (18:17):
Never yeah.

Speaker 1 (18:18):
Okay.

Speaker 4 (18:19):
I'm going to let you take it away, because I've been
riffinging I love it, I love it.

Speaker 2 (18:24):
All right, so let's focus in a little bit on the
south plains food companyjourney.
So you gave a little bit ofbackground there that you were
at sammy's.
You were, um, did you?
Did you maintain the managerjob or like, demote you back
down to spongebob fry?

Speaker 1 (18:38):
cook.

Speaker 2 (18:39):
Sometimes I did yeah, sometimes I didn't yeah, I have
this distinct honor.

Speaker 1 (18:43):
listen, I wouldn't be sitting in this chair talking
to you if it wasn't for JasonJackson.
Jason Jackson was Sammy's andwe worked.
We had this incrediblemanagement crew that he put
together and we worked extremelywell together.
I have and we joke about it nowthe distinct honor of being one
of the only people in Jason'slife where I'm the last person
he ever wanted to see and I'mthe only person he ever wanted

(19:04):
to see.

Speaker 2 (19:05):
You know what I mean.

Speaker 1 (19:05):
Like we've.
We've been as low as we can go,we've been as high as we can go
, uh, and we've always been veryhonest with each other and been
good friends.
And he knows there's there'snever a day that my phone would
ring.
I wouldn't answer for him.
And I know the same thing abouthim, you know, uh, and he
taught me not by teaching,because I don't know if jason's

(19:26):
a good teacher.
I watched everything he did,his reaction, the way he talked
to people that I knew he didn'twant to be talking to at the
time.
Or the way that he handledmanagers that he had a lot of
respect for who'd done somethingjust boneheaded, yeah, or a
boneheaded guy that had donesomething really good that he
showed a lot of appreciation.
You know what I mean, yeah, andI still go to him now in times

(19:48):
where I'm like, hey, how?
do I handle this situation?
Because I don't quite want tohandle it.
I don't want to come out of myshoes upset with this person who
just completely disrespectedthis company, right, because as
a business owner, you have towatch out for that stuff.
Yeah, you can't just comeunhinged.
You know what.

Speaker 3 (20:06):
I mean.

Speaker 1 (20:09):
You can't.
Just you're dependent on thecommunity, but you also have to
be a little bit authoritative.
In what you did wasdisrespectful and I'm going to
hold you responsible, not forthe damage you caused or not for
the people you offended.
Yeah, because the standard ofthis restaurant is we don't
allow anybody in that does whatyou did.
Whether guys will get intofights at the bar, yeah, you

(20:32):
can't fight.
You got to go and I know we'vebeen friends, but you can't come
in for six months, right, Ican't have people thinking we
can't go sit in the bar.
Fight might break out.
Yeah, and if you just let oneguy go and don't let the other
guy go, uh, saint roadhouse it'snot, and it's the same way in

(20:54):
the kitchen yeah, you know wehave.

Speaker 2 (20:55):
We have.
We have fun rules in thekitchen I work.
I was a cafeteria chef for 400uh kids up in north carolina.
It brought out the worst in memany times.

Speaker 1 (21:02):
Well, you know, we have like no fighting in the
kitchen.
It gets hot in the summertime.
I get it, yeah, mostly becauseI know that those two guys that
just got into a fight areprobably riding home together.

Speaker 2 (21:14):
You know what I?

Speaker 1 (21:14):
mean, and so like we have no fighting in the kitchen,
yeah, there's people out there.
Don't care if y'all are gettingalong, they want their food
right, and if y'all can't gettheir food to them, yeah, y'all
go outside and fight, I'll gettheir food for them.
Yeah, and whoever loses isfired and whoever wins comes

(21:35):
back in and you have to workyour station and the person
whose ass.

Speaker 3 (21:39):
You just kicked.
You know what I mean.
Yeah, uh it's never.

Speaker 1 (21:44):
It's never happened, by the way, yeah these aren't
real rules uh, but they're justthey.
They keep the the mood light,sure, in the kitchen, uh, uh, or
like guys will start singingand then another guy starts
singing along too.
Yeah, and now you got twopeople singing the same song and
neither one of them can singvery good.
So I have a rule if somebody'ssinging, the other person can't

(22:05):
sing along unless they sing thegirl parts right, you know what
I mean like you have to, youhave to be the backup singer
yeah, endless loveyeah there, it is there it is uh
, you know, look you gotta.
You gotta keep it light in thekitchen.
Uh, you have to keep theattitudes going.
There's a million things thatcan go wrong in a kitchen.

(22:26):
That caused your hamburger tonot come out on time yeah, like
there aren't like it's just ahamburger man.
What'd y'all have to do?

Speaker 2 (22:31):
go back there and catch the cow and kill it like
no, we didn't man, but it speaksa lot to morale, though.
Yeah, morale connecting to backto just the simple process of
creating something absolutelyand I think so to bring the
story full circle yeah I learnedthat from jason, learning how
to handle situations, learninghow, um, you know.

Speaker 1 (22:53):
So to tell on myself, one time we had this fry cook
and I don't want to say his name, I remember his name perfectly
and it was probably 15 years ago, yeah and he decided well, I'm
not dad gum, I have to givemyself away in order to tell the
story no, it's okay.

Speaker 2 (23:05):
No, no, it's okay.

Speaker 1 (23:06):
It's okay because it ends up funny.
So this kid's a really good frycook and sammy's back in a day.
We needed three really good frycooks on a friday night, yeah
and uh.
And this kid comes in at likefive o'clock and he brings his
buddy with him, who's neverworked in a restaurant before,
and he looks at me, goes hey man, I got a really good job at
Turner and I'm quitting.
But I brought this guy and he'sgoing to take my place and I

(23:27):
was like oh, not tonight, right,yeah, you can work this weekend
.
He's like no man, I'm quitting,dude, this job's paying me like
$30 an hour.
I'm out and I had some choicewords for him and then, as he
decided he didn't want to listento those words anymore, which
he didn't have to, he decided towalk to his truck.
I halfway followed him to histruck, finishing my sentence,

(23:48):
and he got in his truck and heleft and I get a phone call from
Jason like 10 minutes later.
He goes hey man, did old boyquit?

Speaker 3 (23:56):
I said yeah.

Speaker 1 (23:57):
He said yeah, she got a call from his mom.
Oh no, got a call from his mom,oh no.
I said okay.
He said, um, she's the vicepresident of the bank that we
bank with and she wasn't realhappy.
So let's not say those words topeople anymore.
I know you're upset, but youcan't say that to people.

(24:19):
Just let him quit, let him go.
We'll figure it out, man, we'llbe all right.
Yeah, I said all right, yes,sir, I'm sorry.
And he said and, by the way,you can't take the deposits to
the bank?

Speaker 2 (24:29):
anymore.
Beautiful, you've been banned.

Speaker 1 (24:33):
Nice, I like that one man uh, you know, it's
everything that I that I've everdone watched him being
successful.
I try to do.
And you know, restaurants areso fluid, there's so many moving
parts, and just because yourhamburger came out burnt this
time doesn't mean that the nexttime it's burnt it's for the

(24:53):
same reason.
You know, sometimes thetemperature of the meat the meat
could have been the cooler wastoo cold because the thermostat
went out and the cook just threwa burger on it and it was
frozen, and it takes longer tocook when it's frozen and so it
burnt.
But at the same time, every timethere's a problem, I always
tell everybody this, becausesome people just choose to run

(25:17):
from problems.
They don't like theconfrontation of it, and I'm
like y'all.
Every problem we have is anopportunity to present.
These people just came in forgood food.
The experience isn't happening.
Let's go talk to them about it.
We're real people.
They're real people.
They'll understand, and 99% ofthe people understand.

(25:38):
Like, if you just acknowledgewe messed up, I'm going to fix
it as fast as possible.
Like, again, I tell.

Speaker 2 (25:46):
Talk about the bigger story that you shared before.

Speaker 1 (25:50):
Oh well, so I'll tell both those stories.
Yeah, they're both pretty shortstories.
One day at Sammy's, guy sendsback his fried shrimp and they
were burnt and he was upset inthe service that he doesn't want
anything else.
I always tell them when theydon't want anything else.
They came in here to get food,they want something else.
They just are mad.
So I go out there to talk tothe guy and he's at this big

(26:10):
table.
I could take you to the tableright now with my eyes closed
and the guy's sitting, the wifeis at the head of the table and
he's right there at the and Isaid hey, man, look, I'm sorry
we burned this ramp.
I'm going to get you some freshramp because I don't want
nothing.
I said okay, and he just kind ofturned away from me and snubbed
me.

Speaker 2 (26:28):
So I looked at his wife and I said is he?

Speaker 1 (26:31):
always like this oh yeah, but you have to own that
part, yeah.
And so I ran back into thekitchen.
He didn't say anything.
Thankfully he didn't sayanything to me, and she just
kind of laughed it off, becausemaybe he is always like that, or
maybe he's just when he's likethat she thinks it's funny.
Like my wife if I'm in a badmood, my wife is going to have a

(26:51):
good time.
And so I go back in the kitchenand I fix the shrimp and it's
perfect.
I mean, the potato is perfect,everything in there is perfect,
the garlic bread was toasted,perfect, and I put it in the box
.
And I walked out and I set thebox in front of the lady and I
said ma'am, this is exactly whathe ordered.
I know he don't want to talk tome, but if he gets hungry, here

(27:12):
it is and it's perfect In 10minutes.
It ain't going to be perfect inthat box anymore.
The table, I don't care whatyou do with it.
This is exactly what he ordered.
I did it myself, yeah, and I'mnot charging you for anything.
And I just walked away.
A little while later, servercomes in the kitchen.
She goes hey, joel, somebody'sout here to see you.

(27:32):
I said all right.
So I walked out and there'sthat guy standing right there,
right outside the kitchen door.
Yeah, I said, hey, man, how youdoing?
He said this shrimp are perfectand he gave me a hug.

Speaker 2 (27:44):
And I hugged him back .
You know what I?

Speaker 1 (27:45):
mean, and that's what you can do if you care to do
that for people.
How simple is it to go?
Oh shoot, we burned his shrimp.
All right, I'm sorry.
Tell him we're sorry and we gotall these other tickets.
But you take a little bit oftime and give somebody this
personal thing, and maybe it waslike the little jab that I gave
him.
I don't know what it was.
But I also took time to fix itright and tell him I don't care

(28:08):
what you do with it, I'm goingto make sure what you ordered
was perfect.
And he was hungry and he dideat.
He ate it all and it wasperfect.
He was hangry, perfect enough.
And maybe his wife told him nowgo get that boy a hug.
Yeah, yeah, but you got to puteffort into it.
Jason jackson's done nothingbut always put effort into
everything he's ever done and hedoes it for people.

(28:29):
Yeah, you know he wants people,he genuinely wants people, uh,
to enjoy themselves at his place, and so that's just kind of the
spirit that I brought to southplains.
Yeah, there's other otherstories.
This guy, uh, we ran a specialone day and it was, uh, if I can
remember right, it was likemahi, my fresh mahi.
Mahi blackened over pasta with,like, uh, crab meat, lemon

(28:52):
butter, whatever it was.
But it was really expensive.
It was 28 for the for the.
And the girl who wrote this isa crazy story.
Just how little things can gowrong.
And the girl who wrote this isa crazy story.
Just how little things can gowrong.
And the girl who wrote thespecial boards had great
handwriting.
She didn't write the pricesnext to the specials.
And he comes in for lunch.
He's by himself.
He says never been there before, and he says that looks good,

(29:16):
I'll take that.
And so she gets that and shebrings him a salad and then she
brings him his meal and he eatsthe whole meal and he enjoyed
everything he had until he gotthe bill and his bill's like 40
bucks yeah and now he's got toleave a tip.
He just spent 50 bucks on lunchand he just walked out of there
upset, so he took the time, likewhen he got home, to write me
this letter.
I've still got the letter yeahand uh and it was a full like

(29:40):
typed page, like it was tightwas typed or handwritten.
No typed.
Like you remember in collegewhen you had to type, I want one
full type To whom it mayconcern.

Speaker 2 (29:50):
It was hard.
Yeah, no double spacing, youknow, I think I typed like eight
words a minute or something incollege.
It was terrible.

Speaker 1 (29:56):
I typed with two fingers yeah, me too.

Speaker 2 (29:58):
Yeah, I got Mavis Beacon though Anybody else who
struggles with typing.

Speaker 4 (30:02):
Mavis Beacon go ahead so.

Speaker 1 (30:05):
I don't know.
Don't make me ask you whatMavis Beacon is, Don't don't?

Speaker 2 (30:08):
I just throw these things in for other people to
cut down their time frames, so Iget the letter and you could
take that 100 ways.

Speaker 1 (30:17):
You could crumble it up and go.
I don't have time, man, I'm upand go.
I don't have time, man.
I'm sorry, but we did this, butso I just took the time to go
back and write a letter to him.
Did you type it?
I think it's handwritten, buthe can tell you if it was typed
or not.
Maybe I'm.
I'm a handwritten guy.
Yeah, I write everything down,I'm.
If it, I'd still be typing,obviously, if I typed the letter
to him.
No, it had to be handwritten,and uh, and so I type him a well

(30:40):
thought out letter of genuineconcern for what we'd done to do
everything right except for onesmall thing yeah and end up
with this.
And the guy, the manager thatcame up with the specials right,
he really wanted thatresponsibility and I guess you
learn everything, like I learnedthat you don't throw a knife

(31:01):
into a dirty sink by an old manoh yeah, ripping me about it.
And 18-year-old Joel Frosch hasno idea that you're not
supposed to.
That's where the dirty dishesgo and he made me fish it out.
Yeah, and he's like that's adirty sink, it was just water in
there.
I can't see that knife.
I'm going to cut my hands.

Speaker 4 (31:16):
He always says that.

Speaker 3 (31:19):
Say that to everybody , yeah but I had to learn that.

Speaker 1 (31:23):
And so this guy has to learn.
We don't run $28 specials forlunch, we run like $16.
We try to go $12 if we can.
People are just eating lunch.
They got two more meals to eatthat day, right.
And so I returned his letterand I mailed it to him.
And he comes in.
A couple days later.
A guy walks in I don't know whoit is and he, uh, he says Joel.

(31:45):
I said yeah.
He said, man, I want to let youknow something.
I really appreciate you sendingme this letter.
I said, well, man, I kind ofhope that you did.
That was my intention, but Iknow you live in Baker, that's
what your address was.
You drove from Baker just tocome up here and talk to me.
He's like man, business justisn't done like this anymore,
like it, it.
It feels good that there'ssomebody running a business,

(32:07):
yeah, that cares enough abouttheir customers to return a
letter, yeah, and, and I thinkwe're losing that because we're
losing sight of what's reallyimportant.
You know what I mean like itdoesn't matter what I eat.
And I tell people this itdoesn't matter what I eat.
You might not like that, sowhat I try to prepare, jim, my

(32:29):
inspiration is you jim kitchen?
Yeah, he's a great, you're notgonna find much better guy than
jim kitchen no, he's perfecthe's a really really good guy.
Always got a smile on his face.

Speaker 2 (32:42):
Yeah, yeah, You'll have to find him when he's at
Fenwood singing Dinosaur onetime right.

Speaker 1 (32:50):
Okay, let's make that happen, yeah.

Speaker 2 (32:52):
We'll have to have him maybe play the podcast,
outro that would be, so great,just play Jim Dinosaur yeah.
That's excellent, all right,right.
So here you are, you're running, you're running this, this
massive operation, now southplains.

Speaker 1 (33:10):
I think you asked me, like, where the inspiration was
to in the beginning for southplains.
Yeah, and I did not answer thatquestion, by the way well, what
was it like?

Speaker 2 (33:19):
it's hard to go back to the start of south plains at
a minute 45.
No, I'm just kidding.
No, let's go there, let's gothere, the start of south plains
.

Speaker 1 (33:28):
Um, we always wanted to be in zachary.
Since sammy's left, there was avoid, absolutely.
Uh, you know chris evans, whichcoincidentally jim's
brother-in-law yeah, uh was atmy house the other night talking
about like when you went tosammy's you didn't know anybody
that was going to be there, butyou knew everybody that was
there and you never had to worryabout like hey, I wonder who's

(33:50):
at sammy's tonight?
like you knew there was justgoing to be people there, yep,
and, and like the, the peoplethat sat in the bar, when they
would come in with their family,you'd see them in the back of
the restaurant and you'd go hey,what are you doing back here,
man?

Speaker 3 (34:03):
You're supposed to be up there.
This is very weird right now,go now.

Speaker 1 (34:07):
But there was just a lot of people who really enjoyed
that place and I don't knowwhat made it that place, whether
it was the managers who made itthat place because we kept the
employee morale up, but we had alot of really good managers.
I can them all right now andI'm still friends with all of
them right now and I can textall of them like a funny story
that happened that they'll neverforget for the rest of their
life you know what I?

(34:28):
mean, and uh like, the coolthing about a restaurant is you
meet a billion people and theyall have very different uh
stories about you.
I guess to tell, yeah, you knowlike I remain the same,
everybody else revolves aroundyou.
I'm a king of a 15 secondconversation, yeah, but those 15
seconds with that particularperson means something, yeah,

(34:51):
and if it doesn't mean somethingto me to go have that
conversation, then you lose, uhthat community you know what I
mean.
If I just stay in the kitchenall night, which I could and be
like, oh, tell them I'm busy.
Tell them I'm busy, you'd never.
I always wanted them to go seemy buddy Joel, go see my buddy
AJ, go see.
You know, I think Chad works onTuesday nights.

(35:12):
Y'all can go up there,everything will be fine, and we
had that in the beginning.
That's what I wanted to replaceand give Zachary a place where
the community could go, and thatwas the initial idea.
And then you realize that's alot harder to pull off when you

(35:33):
don't have seven really goodmanagers who all want the same
thing.
We were all very well trained.
Nowadays I'm not saying theydon't work hard, you just have
to show them how to do that, youknow, whereas back then we just
kind of we just kind of did it,we worked for that purpose of
all the people that were there,yeah, and you get a lot of other

(35:53):
people doing that from day one,two and three.
You can't train them to do that, to create that, and then it
just creates it's.
It's something that happensover time where time and time
again, people are seeing my guys, are seeing me make decisions
and do stuff, and then it takesthem a little while to adjust,

(36:15):
to do those things as wellreminds me of, like lsu,
starting a new season, losingthe quarterback over and over
and over every three years.

Speaker 2 (36:23):
Yeah, that's right.

Speaker 1 (36:25):
And you bring in Joe Burrow, then you bring in Jaden
Daniels and you think well, heck, now we're back.
What's Nuss going to do?
You can't possibly do that, canyou?
And hopefully he does.
I saw somewhere they had him atSEC first team, all-american or
SEC first team.
I was very excited about that.

Speaker 2 (36:44):
Yeah, yeah, jordy Collada came and gave us the
recap at Rotary a couple weeksago, so it's looking like the
defense is going to be healthierthis year and you know, we'll
see Sunday night, but thisepisode will be airing the day
after that.

Speaker 1 (36:58):
Funny back story about Jaden Daniels.
Yeah, when he came to LSU Ididn't know much about him.
He was from Arizona State.
I don't even know where Arizonais, it's on the other side of
Texas.

Speaker 2 (37:08):
You know what I mean.
Yeah, I know what you mean.

Speaker 1 (37:09):
It's that weird Nevada Arizona area You're in
food service.

Speaker 2 (37:12):
You don't have time to think about these things.

Speaker 1 (37:15):
I know that I get vegetables from somewhere out
there, right, right, which.
If you get the opportunity togo to California to that valley
and see the vegetables, it'samazing, I think, like 70% of
the world's vegetables are grownlike in this mountain valley.

Speaker 3 (37:30):
Yeah, it's a very cool.

Speaker 1 (37:32):
Monterey Bay is a very cool place.
I went in there at night.
You'll appreciate this.
I flew in at night, had no ideawhat was on either side of the
road.
I'm smelling this weird thing.
I'm like God that smells good.

Speaker 2 (37:43):
What is that it?

Speaker 1 (37:44):
smells like something that I'm familiar with, but I
don't know what it is.
And four days later I'm drivingback to the airport and it was
a garlic farm.
Yeah, wow, that was amazing.

Speaker 4 (37:55):
It was it was garlic.

Speaker 1 (37:56):
I knew I liked it, but but Jaden Daniels comes in
and we were all hyped up onMiles Brennan.
Yeah, and I was like man, I'mputting $50 on Miles Brennan to
win the Heisman Trophy this year.
This is the year he's going towin.
And then, obviously, he felloff a pier and tore his stomach
off of his hips Ow no no, that'sone way to put it.

(38:18):
I think that's what they said.

Speaker 2 (38:21):
I can't confirm that he tore his shoulder off.

Speaker 1 (38:24):
They said the injury.
If they'd gone and done surgeryit would have been the first
time that surgery had ever beendone.
It would have literally likeTommy John was the first guy to
get the elbow.
It would have been the MilesBrennan surgery because they had
to put his torso back on hiship.

Speaker 3 (38:37):
Yeah, no, it was horrific.

Speaker 1 (38:40):
It was absolutely horrific.
They've never done that surgerybefore.

Speaker 4 (38:44):
And all these surgeons- trying to figure out
I'm going to have to do a deepdive.

Speaker 1 (38:47):
It was going to be called the Miles Brennan surgery
and he opted out of it.
What?
Or his parents?

Speaker 4 (38:52):
did it could have been a legend, could have been.

Speaker 2 (38:55):
Well, he's still a legend for that, apparently.

Speaker 1 (38:57):
Yeah for losing 50 bucks, he didn't even play were
losing 50 bucks.
He didn't even play.
He retired.
Watch.
His parents are gonna be likefrom okay, he went to school in
bay st louis.
They might not be from bay stlouis, he went to st stanislaus
he went to stanislaus, he didwow who knew that's right.

Speaker 2 (39:17):
They're in bay st louis yeah, yeah, but I mean it
pulls from a regional crowd umtell me about the lunch menu the
lunch menu in case you missedour real and my story recap yeah
, that's been, that's been, it'sbeen successful.

Speaker 1 (39:32):
We uh, I don't know you have to I think I said this
just a little while ago but like, if you're not in tune with
what your customer base wants,you're not going to be around
for long and you can go back andlook before the restaurant ever
opened, like in our um, not ourmotto.
What is your business plan?

(39:53):
or whatever the case may be, andthen you have to have and I
said we need to be geared tochange with the times.
If what we're doing isn'tworking, I need you to tell me
what is going to work and thenI'll try to match that.
Yeah, and I just realized, likewith the, with the price of
everything being so expensive,like you can't go to the
restaurant, to rouse's, withoutspending 90 bucks yeah,

(40:17):
inflation is oppressive rightnow, um, everything's just
really expensive.
And lisa doesn't grocery shop awhole bunch, I just.
I do it because it doesn'tbother me at all and I don't
know what I'm getting.
She's very organized with youknow she needs frozen corn three
pound pack and she needs and ifthey don't have the three pound
pack, then she's like gosh.
Should I get like three, twopound?

Speaker 3 (40:39):
to make that three pounds, six pounds trying to
math and it just overwhelms hera little bit here.

Speaker 1 (40:46):
Recently she's gotten much better since I started
working seven days a week, andso I had to come up with an idea
, and I saw lunch is fading.
People just couldn't come in.
We have one portion of shrimpand it costs $20, and catfish is
$20.
And it has two sides and it'sthree-quarters of a pound of

(41:06):
catfish.

Speaker 3 (41:07):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (41:07):
And then I realized, like Joel, that's what you would
eat you know, mm-hmm.
So the sleepy little town ofZachary has people you know
plenty of people over the age of50, 55 that just don't eat as
much, and then in the summertimeI don't eat as much.
So I just came up with thisidea let's change the menu and
put a few new things on and takesome stuff off that's not

(41:29):
selling.
In a restaurant you can't justhave one thing, do one thing.
Yeah, you know calamari, forinstance.
You can't run specials withcalamari.
Who's going to eat a friedcalamari?
Po' boy, that's not.
That sounds pretty good.
Actually, I did not think ofthat.
So we brought in some newthings that we had multi-use for

(41:55):
.
We lightened up lunch a littlebit and I think that's the word
we used on the menu is the lightportion of shrimp.
So now it's $13 with one sideand it's six shrimp instead of
10 shrimp with two sides andit's going over.
Well, you know, and obviouslyin business you never, you never
want to lower your price righton something.
And then people now instead ofspending 20, they spend 13.

(42:16):
But like it's, let's take thatchance and maybe we get two
people to come in for lunch andeat the light side, as opposed
to the one person who was eatingthat big, heavy lunch.

Speaker 2 (42:25):
The Parmesan was enough for two people.
Like I went back the day afterI had it and I was like I have
to have this Parmesan and then Ibrought half back to Jen and it
was like a solid value.
Tell me the price of that again.
$16?
Yeah, $16.
I'll do that all day if I canbring back some from our wife
Like that's incredible.

Speaker 1 (42:45):
What a value.
My buddy Martin Goo came.
It was his wife's birthday.
He came in and they were justhaving some appetizers and wine
and I said, hey, I knew sheliked chicken parmesan.

Speaker 2 (42:54):
Well, we don't have an Italian restaurant, so that's
now my go-to, else I can goit's just uh that.

Speaker 1 (43:00):
Back to the thing.
I just remember what people eat, and not even because you came
in the restaurant, like we wentto the camp one day.
I saw that was in yourrefrigerator.
You had chicken parmesan,something like that.
You know what I mean weirdstuff and uh.
So I had them go make them oneand they brought it out and they
both ate.
They didn't eat like a fullmeal, obviously, they were just
snacking, but they ate.

(43:20):
And then the next morning their17 year old son finished it off
for breakfast.

Speaker 2 (43:25):
Yep, and parmesan for breakfast.
Absolutely, I can do thatabsolutely cold too.

Speaker 1 (43:30):
Yeah, I can do that, he said I'll eat that with
coffee, he said.

Speaker 2 (43:33):
Man elliot said this is fire and I said well, it's,
it's not counter warm papajohn's the next day.

Speaker 1 (43:41):
You know, right, it's hard to beat that Papa.
John's pizza at 7.30 in themorning.
I don't know it really isthere's something wrong with it
man, leave it in the box on thecounter, it's perfectly fine.

Speaker 2 (43:52):
I don't get nauseated at Lit, I'll leave it there.
I like me some Lit pizza.
Lit pizza's good those guys.

Speaker 1 (44:00):
As far as business owners go, those guys are really
really smart.

Speaker 2 (44:07):
Yeah, the whole QSR Chipotle layout.
I mean it's just.

Speaker 1 (44:12):
Yeah, but it's good food.

Speaker 2 (44:15):
Oh no, I'm saying yeah it's a smart way to get in
and out of a restaurant.

Speaker 1 (44:19):
Yeah, so I know Ozzy and I call the guy bookie, but
his name's conrad yeah, andthey've both helped me, um,
understand things about businessthat I didn't quite understand,
or or how to do things, um,that I didn't quite understand,
and I lean on them a little bittoo.
Yeah, and they're both supergracious guys, both really good

(44:42):
not like just good people ingeneral, you know, and it's nice
to do business with people likethat, yeah, yeah, or have
friends like that, you know.

Speaker 2 (44:50):
Yeah, I want to get you talking about food costs a
little bit more, because I meanyou know food costs.

Speaker 1 (45:00):
So I started purchasing for Sammy's, probably
in like uh 2012 yeah, at thetime, I think we're I couldn't
even tell you like buying sixmillion from cisco.
Yeah, like we were four storesand we were big and we were busy
at all four of them.
We were very popular and uh,you know, doing maybe buying 25

(45:24):
million annually and we were abig customer for a lot of people
.
And uh, in the beginning I kindof I never I didn't see it
anywhere.
I just I thought aboutdifferent scenarios that you can
purchase by and I came up withthis, this deal where you can
buy for three different reasons,and it probably applies and

(45:46):
it's probably in a booksomewhere.
I'm going to get beat up fornot giving them credit where
credit's due.
But honestly, I thought of thismyself and I remember telling
Jason this conversation.
I was like, hey, man, we canbuy for three different reasons.
Right, we can buy for a price.
If someone's got the lowestprice, we're just going to buy
for them.
But that doesn't work, becausewhat if this little guy stocks
our shrimp and someone beats himby a quarter a pound?

(46:06):
Now he's stuck with that 3,000pounds of shrimp that he can't
sell that he was counting on usbuying.
So you can buy for price if youwant to.
You can buy a product that youreally like Like they had this
shrimp that we used and wereally like that product or we
can buy.
Well, if that product runs out,we're in big trouble.

(46:28):
You know what I mean.
If someone's just giving us thebest price, we're going to end
up hurting one of the littleguys somewhere along the line,
and that's not what we want todo.
We were a little guy, we're bigguys now, but we can buy from
people who we have relationshipswith.
And I think if we buy frompeople who we have relationships

(46:48):
with, that we trust that arelooking out for our interest,
our price and our product isgoing to stay in a range where
we can sustain, you know.
And so that's what I did.
I started purchasing frompeople that I like and that I
trusted, and then, anytimesomebody else wanted our
business like, let's just say Ihad two different seafood
vendors at the time, bayou Golfand MJ Seafood and MJ would have

(47:12):
a better price on oysters thisweek he's like hey, man, I got
this gallon of oysters for backthen they were like $30.
And I was like.
I got them for $28 this week youwant some and I was like I mean
I would, but Todd John'salready stocked us up for this
week and I'm gonna buy from him.
And then I'll let todd johnknow, like, if he can get to 28,
I'll buy from him next week, ifnot, I'm gonna get from mj.

(47:34):
Yeah, and that would hurt mj'sfeelings.
He's like, well, now you'rejust gonna take a lower price
and still buy from him.
Like, well, mj, what if I didthat with todd john for you?
What if, todd john, you knowthe crab meat that I get from
you?
What if todd john gets a goodprice on it?
You don't want, you don't wantto lose the crab meat that I get
from you.
What if Todd John gets a goodprice on it?
You don't want to lose thatcrab meat.
Right, I do it for everybody,like that.
And then your guys starttrusting you too and you're

(47:58):
always looking out for them aswell.
Yeah, and when you have twopeople, I'm buying, you're
selling, but I'm also lookingout for you as a seller, which
means I'm not just giving myprice to everybody out on the
street that has crab meat andyou believe that.
Then you start to trust me alittle bit more.
Those relationships work out.
I'll bet right now there's notone vendor that we buy from at

(48:21):
South Plains that if I called atmidnight on Saturday, is that
the end of our interview.

Speaker 4 (48:29):
No, that's my carpool alarm.

Speaker 1 (48:31):
I'll bet you there's not one person that I buy from
at South Plains.
If I called them at midnight onSaturday, If they didn't answer
, the second they saw it theywould call me and do anything
within their power to help meget whatever problem I'm having
resolved.

Speaker 3 (48:45):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (48:47):
I mean shoot.
We've had the vice president ofCisco and the president of the
company that represented McCainFrench Fries at the Cisco
warehouse on a Saturday and inthe food business everything
shut down on Saturdays.
Nowadays they work on Saturdays.
Back then they didn't.
They were there Sundays for theMonday trucks.
They cleaned up.
Friday and Saturday was theirweekend.

(49:07):
That was their whole weekend.
We unlocked the Cisco warehouseand loaded up some French, and
Saturday was their weekend.
That was their whole weekend.
We had we unlocked the Ciscowarehouse and loaded up some
French fries because there was amistake that was made and I
don't know that anybody wouldhave done that for anybody.
But that's the kind of respectthat they had for us and our
business and that we had forthem as the people who
represented the business thatthat we purchased from.

Speaker 2 (49:27):
Yeah yeah Awesome represented the business that we
purchased from.
Yeah yeah Awesome.
Um, that's a good segue into um, how available you have been
for the Zachary community.
Um, and you know this isn'tthis goes beyond just some big
love fest, right it's, but thisis real.
You show up for Zachary.
Um, you always haven't lookedbefore I finally got you to talk

(49:49):
to me, like you.
You, I had these 15, uh, secondconversations with you for the
first 15 years that I lived hereand then you finally, you know,
talk to me for more than 15seconds and I'm like this dude
is he shows up, so talk aboutthat a little bit.

Speaker 1 (50:07):
I don't know that, like there's's, there's anything
to talk about I'm gonna let jendo it.

Speaker 4 (50:12):
I just do let me just brag on um y'all jen you have
proof of it.
Yeah like time and time again.
Okay, so when we first starteddoing those uh, cooking classes
or whatever- we called it lastyear.

Speaker 2 (50:27):
I mean mean you generously donated, the wine
that's right and the lettuceyeah, and the lettuce and the
tomatoes yeah, all of it, Ican't remember specifically no,
but he shows up with, like acase of wine, exactly, and I'm
like man, I just needed like twobottles.

Speaker 4 (50:42):
But thanks, Thank you .

Speaker 1 (50:44):
Okay, so I'll tell you this.

Speaker 4 (50:47):
And turkey dinners.
We're going to talk about that.

Speaker 1 (50:49):
Yeah, liz and I have already talked about the turkey
dinners.
We're excited about that.

Speaker 4 (50:53):
I don't know about this Last year when he
generously donated 10 fullThanksgiving meals to people in
need in the community.
Yeah, that's right, and wehelped get the word out.
And I mean he was.

Speaker 1 (51:04):
Somebody called me at like four o'clock that
afternoon.

Speaker 4 (51:07):
Yeah, four o'clock that afternoon.
Yeah, I remember.

Speaker 1 (51:08):
I found somebody else .
I forget who called me.

Speaker 4 (51:12):
I think it was me.

Speaker 1 (51:13):
Yeah, it was me.
Absolutely.

Speaker 4 (51:17):
Remember last Thanksgiving.
I don't want to make you feelbad, but I gave you my turkey.
Oh what?
Yeah, I mean, what did you eatfor Thanksgiving dinner?
Cereal.

Speaker 1 (51:27):
Ham sandwich.
Obviously, we went to mybrother-in-law's and we smacked
his grits and grits, that'spretty good, yeah, no, no, I
think I just got like a half aprime rib.
I made like a prime rib roastor something like that.

Speaker 4 (51:40):
That's too good of you.

Speaker 2 (51:42):
Well, anyway, I don't want to make you feel awkward,
man, but I've just noticed thatanything that this community
needs, you're always the firstone to to be there to volunteer,
and that's just.
You know it's.
It's what makes zachary goaround, and it's a good example.
We're all.
We're all watching, you know,even though we get to talk to
you for 15 seconds at therestaurant.

Speaker 1 (52:03):
You know, the first time I ever met dave brewerton
yeah, and I've.
We've been standing in you in agroup of six or eight guys and
they want to talk about the playhe ran on third down to win the
state championship.
What a genius call that was andall that stuff.
I don't really Great call.
That's what you do.
You win football games, hecalled.

(52:24):
So we knew each other inpassing.

Speaker 3 (52:27):
Mm-hmm.

Speaker 1 (52:28):
And he probably had Miss Diane called me and wanted
to set up a meeting with Brewand I said, okay, that's fine,
tell him to meet me upstairs.
And so we went upstairs.
You know, dave is a big guy.
Oh yeah, he sat right in thatchair, you're in.
Such a nice, gentle human being.
But he commands respect when hewalks in the room.
Yes he does.
I was, legitimately, a littlebit nervous about how this was
going because I had stuff Iwanted to say too, but he's the

(52:51):
one who called the meeting,which means he has something to
say.
So how do I get the things Iwant to get out to him?
And it turns out he's theeasiest person to talk to.
He's the easiest human being totalk to in the world.
He's always smiling.
He's like Jim Kitchen, but alittle heavier.
And he said I got him to theroom and before he could even
sit down, before he could evenget comfortable, I was like hey,
coach, listen, I know you'vegot stuff to talk to me about,

(53:13):
but can I start thisconversation?
He's like yeah, whatever you'vegot to say.
And I was like I don't knowexactly how to say this, but
here's the deal.
If you just want to put my nameon the jumbotron, I'm not
interested.
If you need to feed 200 parentsbecause somebody messed up.

(53:33):
You call me and I'll have foodthere.
Yeah, like I don't just want togive zachary high money.
That's not what I'm about.
Zachary high can get money froma lot of people and if y'all
run short, let me know yeah Iwant to give zachary high food.
I want to give parents food.
Um, and it's kind of like thatwhole deal where, like it could
be taken two ways, like oh,you're just kissing up to the
parents and stuff like that.
I'm like, yeah, kind of him,because I want them to come have

(53:54):
a good time in my restaurant.
I want them to know, hey, southplains is doing stuff for our
kids, so, like the girls soccerteam on away trips, they had to
eat.
So I'm like, yeah, sign me up,I'll give 17 boxes of chicken
sandwiches to the girls going to.
That's not a big deal.

Speaker 3 (54:12):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (54:12):
Just make sure those 17 girls' parents know South
Plains gave it to them.

Speaker 3 (54:17):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (54:18):
You know what I mean, because that is word of mouth
and that's doing something forthe community.
I don't want to put my name ona baseball team's jersey.
I don't want to do that Everytime a foul ball's hit.
I don't want it to be that.
Well, that foul ball, southPlains Food Company.
You know what I mean.
But when Jacob has his auctionwhich is the biggest thing, he

(54:41):
has, right For somebody to tellme like let's just say you walk
up and go.
Hey, man, I'm feeding 300people tomorrow night and I
don't really know what to do.
Or I'm feeding them in twomonths and I don't know what to
do.
What do I do?
I'm like, just tell me how muchmoney you got to spend.
If you got like six bucks aperson, I'll tell you what I can
get for you and it's not a bigdeal, and you're like, okay,

(55:06):
well, let me know.
When do I need you to?
Let me know?
By Thursday at 10 o'clock inthe morning, and it's not a big
deal.
Or like we do these big golftournaments at Fenwood and we're
feeding 150 people, sometimesreally good food.
Well, when you're putting on agolf tournament, when you're
putting on this baseball auction, you've got to get all these
guests and you've got to get allthese seats and name cards and

(55:28):
the flowers and the decorationsand all the stuff that goes into
a baseball auction that I don'tknow anything about.
I'll tell you what's easy andwhat.
Just, you don't have to worryabout the food.
Yeah, you just go.
Hey, joel, I need the food hereat six o'clock, I need it hot,
I need sternos, and I go, okay,no problem.
And then everything goes offperfect.

(55:49):
You know what I mean.
Like they had enough to feedeverybody, because I really
brought enough for 350 people,or you know something like that.
And they're like hey, what doyou want us to do with all this
food?
I'm like I brought you boxes totake it home.
Yeah, like that's such goodpublicity.
That's not a billboard sign andthat's not a commercial on
Jordordie collada's show yeah,you know that says tell

(56:11):
everybody, go to south plainsfood company because that stuff
costs money, just like food does.
Yeah, but if I could.
Weddings and stuff like that,you know what I mean.
Yeah, um, funerals happen, andwhen funerals happen, people
don't.
They've got, they've got griefto deal with.
Why should they have to worryabout feeding, about feeding the

(56:32):
guests that are coming throughtoo?
And that's what Jason alwaysdid, that's what Jason always
said, and I wholeheartedly agreewith taking care of your
community, your communities.
Who takes care of you?
We're a community business.
If we can't take care ofZachary, uh, why is that

(56:53):
supposed to take care of us?
Yeah, you know, and that's justhow we felt.
Yeah, that's how we'll alwaysfeel.
As long as I'm there orwherever I am, anywhere I'm at,
yeah, you take care of thepeople around you well said man.

Speaker 2 (57:05):
you know my grandpa um, not a very tall guy, just
just like me, but he was reallysuccessful in business and
everything in Metairie, right,little Sicilian guy.
But when he passed away, at hisfuneral, the only thing that
anybody had to say about him washe fed me he was a restaurateur
too, but he would bring peoplelike ham sandwiches at lunch

(57:28):
from the local deli deli meat,all that kind of stuff.
It matters when somebody takesthe time to feed you and look
you in the eyes as they give youa plate.
It's just, it's next level.
Yeah, it goes beyond Southernhospitality and you know all
these catchphrases.
It's something at a higherplane.

Speaker 1 (57:47):
Okay, so there was I told you about Fenwood the golf
that there was a little bit of ahigher plane.
Okay, so there was.
I told you about Fenwood thegolf there was a little bit of a
mix-up.
Maybe somebody had a little toomuch to drink and they said
something.
That doesn't bother me.
It never did.
I called the guy to talk to himabout it.
Yeah, and I said hey, if youhave any questions, we've been
me and Jason have been feedingdoing the Fenwood Golf

(58:11):
Tournaments for probably sevenyears now.
Yeah, I said, you know, onSaturday nights when we feed
like the big, like we do primerib this year we did fillets,
smoked fillets we always dosomething really nice and it's a
really good meal.

Speaker 3 (58:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (58:20):
And I said listen, when I get all the food over
there.
And it was some dispute about,like what I thought about doing
the food, and somebody said thewords were misinterpreted but
they couldn't have beenmisinterpreted.
I said I want you to thinkabout.
We serve at 7.

(58:40):
At 7.15, have you ever noticedwhere I'm at?
He goes?
I don't know.
I said I'll tell you where I'mat.
Every time at 7 15, at 7 15, I'mstanding in the back corner
right there by the kitchen doorand I'm watching everybody eat.
Nobody cares what they shottoday, nobody cares how far back

(59:01):
they are from the lead, nobodycares how many strokes they have
the lead on, nobody cares howmuch money they lost, how many
balls they lost.
Nobody cares about any of that.
They're eating the food.
I said I'm not eating the food,I'm enjoying watching them eat
the food.
Like that's my time to providesomething to a group of people

(59:24):
that they really enjoy.
And if you think that, like whatis said or what was being said
is true, that's okay.
I can't change your mind.
But the next golf tournament, 715 find me.
Yeah, you know, it's justsomething about providing
something to somebody.
And cooking is not difficult.

(59:45):
For me, cooking comes veryeasily for me.
It doesn't not for everybody isit like that, but you're also.
You know, I tell people it's.
You go to the dentist and youneed let's just say that color
in your teeth or whatnot, andthe girl goes, oh, he's a v26.
And they pull the v26 and she'slike gosh, you're right.
Or you're like some guy walksup and goes, oh, that's a

(01:00:06):
three-eighths hex, right.

Speaker 3 (01:00:07):
It's like how do you know that's a hex?

Speaker 1 (01:00:10):
and three-eighths for real.
But like some people, thepeople that do those things are
really good at that.
That's what I'm really good atdoing.
I'm really good at food.
It doesn't scare me to say Igot to cook for 400 people and
it's got to be ready in like sixhours.
I'm like okay no problem, I'llI still got an hour and a half
before I have to get the ricegoing.

Speaker 2 (01:00:28):
Well, we are out of time.
Let's wrap on that.

Speaker 1 (01:00:35):
Joel, it was a huge honor to have you here at
Headquarters man.

Speaker 4 (01:00:37):
I don't think I said anything productive, by the way,
oh no, are you kidding me?
That was amazing.
I brought nothing to thisconversation.

Speaker 2 (01:00:41):
No, I love stories.
You always bring something tothe table, and so does South
Plains Food Company Go table,and so does South Plains Food
Company Go.
Check them out for lunch if youhaven't checked that out in a
while and you know what?
I was there last week and I saweverybody that I know that is
the place to be at lunch.
That's it for this week'sepisode of PNP.
Catch us on all localnewsstands or on the World Wide

(01:01:04):
Web at portsandparishcom.
Make sure you spell out theA-N-D.
It means thanks to all of oursponsors who make this content
free to you.
So please go out and supportthem.

Speaker 4 (01:01:13):
Oh, one more thing.

Speaker 2 (01:01:14):
Wait, no, I ended it really smoothly.

Speaker 4 (01:01:17):
Now what?
No, it's okay.
I is going to be September 13th, so shoot me an email at editor
, at porchandparishcom.

Speaker 2 (01:01:35):
Nice.
Bye-bye, great voices.
We received such a positiveresponse on our walking
meditation last week.
We're going to do it again, sohere's a little encore for you.
Find a comfortable position,whether you're seated or
standing, close your eyes, ifyou'd like, and take a deep

(01:01:57):
breath in and slowly exhale asyou breathe naturally.
Visualize yourself movingthrough the vibrant heart of
Zachary.
Feel the connection to theground beneath you and imagine
it linking you to every cornerof our lively community.

(01:02:19):
With each breath, focus on thespirit of Zachary, our shared
spaces, local heroes and thewarmth of our neighborhoods.
As this music flows, thinkabout the exciting events

(01:02:43):
happening in Zachary thefootball jamboree LSU playing
this weekend, football jamboreeLSU playing this weekend, energy
of the cross-country meets andthe band's joyful practice in
front of the high school.
Feel that pulse of ourcommunity's vibrant life and the
joy it brings, whether it'slunch at your favorite

(01:03:03):
restaurant or you see yourfavorite friends, or just going
to the doctor and getting ahealthy checkup this week.
Allow that beat of that musicto guide you to a peaceful place
within.
Focus on your breath.
Let the rhythm help ease anytension away.

(01:03:28):
Embrace a sense of calm andbalance.
As you relax, reflect onsomething you cherish about
Zachary it might be a person, aplace or a memory and imagine

(01:03:48):
sharing that feeling ofappreciation with others,
spreading that positivity andwarmth throughout our city.
Envision the shared positivitygrowing into a giant wave of
unity that connects everyone inZachary.
Picture a community where weall feel embraced and valued,

(01:04:13):
thriving together with harmonyand strength.
Take one final giant, deepbreath, feeling invigorated and
linked to Zachary.
When you're ready, gently openyour eyes, carrying this sense
of unity and peace with you intothe world, and that might be in
Baker, baton Rouge, stFrancisville or wherever.

(01:04:34):
We send love with you and enjoythe rest of your week, thank
you.