AM Show Hr 3 | The Free Chips And Salsa Era Coming To A Close

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Yeah, from aggressive acts in war through aggressive acts.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
In a tex mex restaurant. We pivot first. A few
days ago. Michael t and his female friend from the
University of Texas joined us this past weekend and Russell
Lebara invited us to the Rockets game. And while there,

(00:44):
Russell had several friends and one of them was a
young man named Umberto, and Russell had been wanting me
to meet this fellow for a while and figured this
would be a good time to do it. Umberto had
written Russell a letters folks sometimes do, and said, Hey,
have this little restaurant. It's in downtown on Mileam. It's
called Space City Meria A and you're very successful in

(01:08):
the field and it means the world to me if
you would just come and eat and give me your
whatever your honest reaction is, and anything you think I
can do to improve upon it. So he did, and
since then Umberto has he used to be a seller
at dn M Leasing. Funny story. Yeah, So this guy's story,
I come to find out, was he was a leasing

(01:29):
agent at DNM Leasing and he had two partners and
they started. You remember I am Burger. It was an
Israeli burger franchise concept, and the three of them bought
into it. He put up the money his savings from
working at DNM leasing. The other two were the operations partners.
And it's in a space in Mileam down on the see.

(01:54):
I guess that's it. I guess that's the north end
of downtown. I want to say it's the east end,
but I guess that's technically the north end of downtown,
sort of at the beginning of Mileam over in the
old park, kind of the Allen's Landing portion. At the
there's a There are two high end apartment complexes there,
one called the Brava across the street and the one

(02:16):
that do you know it, the one next to it,
which I believe it or not, has a swimming pool
hanging off the side of the building. I've never seen
this in my life. And the glass of the swimming
pool is all clear, so you look up what must
be forty floors up and you see people kicking and

(02:36):
the water splashing, and your watching the bottom side of
the swimming pool. If you're in that pool, I'm certain
that when you look down you see the street below
through the glass like a glass bottom boat. Pretty fascinating. Concept.
I've never seen anything like that, but anyway, that's what's
directly across from him. So we left Toyota Center basketball

(02:58):
game and went over and tried his place, and the
three of us we all just uh and Russell join us.
Love this place that I am. Burger came in and
opened a matter of weeks before COVID, and that wiped
him out. So he brought the key and said, hey,
I'm out, I'm done. I'm I'm you know this, this

(03:20):
wiped me out. I thought I'd try the restaurant business.
But in the landlord, to their credit, uh, it was
Eugene Lee with Lindback, who has a great reputation at
least in my experience in the business, said no, no, no,
I'm not letting you leave. I want you to start
a new concept here. We need to build your dream
here and I'm going to help you do it. So
he did. He started base City, a space city Bria

(03:43):
b I R R I A. It's a double R,
so it's they Bria is. The concept of it is
it's like a taco, but the taco is sort of dehydrated,
folded over meat that is stewed for a long period
of time and cheese, So think of kind of a

(04:05):
slightly more crispy Casadia, if you will. And then the
juice that is extracted from the meat while it is
in the in the tortilla while it's cooking, that juice
is made into like a rooe and you dip the

(04:27):
you dip it in that room and it moistens it
again and that's how you eat it. It is phenomenal.
It's I only know about it because it's kind of
one of those TikTok type things that got real hot,
like Dubai chocolates off of TikTok. And when my wife
was going to India and she was stopping through Dubai
and Carac said, may you gotta get me as many

(04:48):
Dubai chocolates as possible. This whole you know, the ability
to use TikTok wisely for certain retail products is it's
is important. Who was this post on you meeting? Oh
Billy Bob Thornton. Okay, anyway, so we go over there.
It's fantastic, it's wonderful. But I had told him, I said,

(05:10):
before he got there. He said, do you eat beer?
I said, well, my kids do. And so if they
bring it home, and if it's their night to choose
for family night, for dinner, for family dinner, then I'll
eat it. I'm not crazy about it, but I like it.
I can see the appeal. It's a trendy thing, I said,
But tacos. I eat tacos breakfast, lunch, and dinner when
I ate three meals a day. I would sometimes eat

(05:31):
three meals a day. I'll eat a breakfast taco, a
lunch taco, and a dinner taco. Now, because I only
eat one meal a day, I need it to be heartier,
so I eat tacos less often than I used to.
I will admit that. So we get there and he's
got the beerer already done, and he's got these Mexican drinks,
different drinks that I'd never heard of, and Michael and

(05:55):
Crockett loved them. I had a margarita, which was fantastic.
To hein, you do to hain or salt, I like to.
I mean, I'll do both, but tein thanks for asking.
And then he brought out the street tacos and they
were perfectly crispy. It's the three little tacos. The only
other person I've seen in town that does the three

(06:17):
Street tacos quite like this is one hundred percent Takito
and Marcos who owns that and I went to college
together University of Houston. I think they do a great
job with that. Anyway, these tacos are I don't like
my corn tortilla taco to be a rubbery, which often happens.

(06:37):
These corn tortillas are crispy, not too crispy, not crunch,
not tortilla, but just crispy enough. And it's hard to
do them. So he brought out the the chicken, some
kind of stewed pork, the carna sada, and what I

(06:59):
suspected we'd best is what I always like, which is
the puss stoor. Anyway, the place is called Space City
Beria b I R R I A or you can
say Bria if you want, and it's down on Milam
at the end. As for Umberto, he's the owner. I
think they're great. So that brings us to our next issue.

(07:20):
We might get Beria for dinner. See, I can't eat
at lunch. You forget this. Southwest Airlines is in the
news again and it's not good. Southwest Airlines is in trouble.
There's no doubt that that. It's sort of like I
told you when a bar, When you see a sign
at a bar that says Tuesday night, what is not

(07:42):
drunk drave What are thet driving lessons when you get
in trouble? What defensive driving classes? That's that's the red
flag we're going under. We're desperate. So Southwest Airlines now
after they're only out of hobby, they're now they changed
the bags fly free, their credit their flight credits will
expire now, I mean they're in trouble. Well, that brings

(08:06):
us to the Text Mex paying for chips question. I'll explain,
come out Michael Berry, America Grande all the time. Man,
is there anything better on a Saturday than a big
Tex Mex lunch esteeming greasy enchiladas and onions? It ain't

(08:31):
see chips in caso, A couple of beers or Margarita's.
I can never decide to be honest with if I
get beers, I wish I got margarita, I get Margarita.
I wish I got beer. I wish I could decide.
I wish I could pick a favorite. Sometimes you got
to do both, and then you've got nothing else to
do the rest of the day. You've got no speech
to give. That night, nowhere to be, nobody coming over you,

(08:54):
not going anywhere. That's why I decline everything, because then
about two o'clock you go back, roll up on that couch,
make it a little too cold, put a cover over it.
Nobody's in the room with you. You fart all you want.
Oh it's a good feeling right there. Your belly's full.

(09:15):
You don't care what you look like. You're all stripped
down to your My wife says you touch you underwear.
You ain't trying to please nobody, not any one person,
and boy, you are content. Okay. So let me start
by saying, there is a movement now of these people

(09:38):
who are consumers at restaurants who have created this there
as bad as Black Lives Matter Antifa. They're little agitators.
I hate them. I hate them so much because they're
a little power hungry food reviewer wannabes. They just want
some power, They want some power in the food business.
So they got websites and they and they're this swarming

(10:01):
hive of people and they run around town and they're
mad at this person. They don't they don't understand how
hard it is to make a restaurant run. If they
had any clue how many restaurants they drive out of business,
it would shock them or maybe it would delight them.
It's their power. So I never side with these people.
I want you to know that I never side with
these people. But this is the one time that i'm

(10:23):
if this article is true. And by the way, if
you're the owners of Spanish Flowers restaurant, call me. I
have enjoyed many, many, many wonderful meals at your restaurant
on North Maine, many many wonderful meals with my wife,
and I liked that they had the Mariachi's coming around
I do. I don't want every restaurant doing it. I
just want there to be one in town that does it.
So if I want the Mariachi's, I'll go there. It's

(10:45):
like Mi Tierra in San Anton. I like the Mariachi's,
but I don't want them at Gringo's. I don't want
to know just one little place. It's kind of yeah, yeah, anyway.
Headline Houston Spanish Flowers speaks out after Chips and Salsus scandal.
Scandal's a little off their headline writer, Okay, calm down,

(11:06):
the longtime tex Mex restaurant group was accused of charging
customers without notifying them. Better not be for chips. It
was for chips. Is it illegal to charge for chips
and salsa? It is not, but given how strongly people
feel about it, maybe it should be Spanish flowers in
the Woodlands. Well, hell, I didn't know they had a

(11:26):
Woodlands location is finding itself front and center of Houston's
latest food scandal, and its owners are not thrilled about
the situation at all. And then it talks about the
foodie groups and how they're complaining about this, and that
you're being charged for chips and salsa that you didn't
know you were being charged for after you go in.

(11:47):
Now here would be the question for me. I go
into tex Mex restaurant and this blows my mind, Mom
blows my mind, and they don't have chips and salsa
and you have to ask for it. I'm like, bye, God,
the Russians have won. What are you doing? I mean,
a good Text mexs experience is to walk in and

(12:12):
there's some guy who doesn't wait tables. He doesn't wait tables.
He's about four to eleven and he's about sixty eight
years old, and he doesn't speak much English, but he
has the biggest smile on his face, and he sees
you coming, and you see him coming, and he times it. Man,
this guy's got a knack for it. And you sit

(12:32):
down and whoa, he slides that red basket of piping
hot tortilla chips in front of you. Oh man, and salsa. Okay,
at a minimum red. Now, I will tell you, Russell
Lebarr is one of my dearest friends. So yes, I'm
a little biased. I don't touch their red sauce. I

(12:56):
don't know why I would, because they're green. Sauca is
a select intro. I believe it's a cilantro. When we go,
my wife will order. You can get orders to go,
and we will at home put different stuff in it.
It's that good piping hot all right. Everybody's got a

(13:17):
different kind of chip. I love it that the red
sauca and and and a basket of chips is a minimum,
a hot basket of chips. Okay, you're on your game.
The green sauca. All right, Russell lebar you're good. You
you are a master in your field. All right. Now,
I've never had it happen that somebody bring me out

(13:38):
a hot caso complimentary, But if they did, I don't
know what I'd do. I might lose my mind. Ramon,
are you talking to somebody, because you should be listening
and helping me out here. Okay, so just tell them
to hold on. There's nothing they can add to what
we're talking about right now. This is this is our zone?
Then what? No? Those are? Chuny's? Those are? Is this
an Indian called to correct more pronunciation? Tell that I'm

(14:00):
asked to shut up? You think I'm gonna do the
most thick Indian accent I possibly can and lose my
Tell them thank you, but no thanks. People get all
fired up. That's something they know I got. Well yeah, whatever, anyway,
can we focus on it. I'm I'm on a roll here. Okay,
all right, nobody brings the caso, but they should ask you. Okay,

(14:20):
not a hard sell soft cell? Uh? Would you like
to order? Like to order? That's the word. You got
to pay for it? Some hot case? Yes? Small or large? Uh?
Whatever depends on I mean you with you? Do you
want meat in it? They'll ask you that at good
company Cantina. No, I never want meat. I just want jeez,
I'm gonna eat meat on my regular meal. That's by

(14:40):
that time I'm really too full, and then I'm mad
at the restaurant. Okay, so that is kind of the
that is a well established tradition. Now what I don't know.
Apparently they have charged people at Spanish Flowers for the chips,
and then these people on there are going, that's shady,

(15:01):
that's horrible, that's this, that's this all right? Shot across
about Russell Lebar looks to me, this is this is
war talk. Russell Lebar posted about this issue. This is
the Michael Berry Show show. You know, god good does

(15:28):
any supergroup I reformed across any genre? The body of
work each one of them brought in individually, and then
what they accomplished together. Bobby writes the very of Tacos
at Rancho Grande and Magnolia are insanely good. They do

(15:49):
use a lot of cilantro, which I love saying. Anyhow,
on the subject of chips and sausa, a lot of
places are now serving the sausa warmed up, which I
was against at first, but have come to perfer to cold.
What do you like? You like cold? I need to
I'm hearing in emails that Russell warms it. It's not

(16:09):
a deal breaker for me. It doesn't matter. I mean,
it's not that big a deal. But if I were
to say I think, I'd probably like, I don't know
that I like it cold. I've come to understand that
a lot of things that I think I like, it's
more accurate to say I'm accustomed to. Once you grow
accustomed to eating something a certain way, a certain food,
a certain preparation, a certain temperature, then that's what we

(16:33):
tend to believe is proper because we don't like to change.
And I'm as guilty as an X guy. Another fellow wrote,
they probably stopped doing the free chips and chips and
salsa because of the I'll say crass hole instead of
the ash word he used. Who eat a bunch of
chips and leave without paying for them? Wonder who that

(16:54):
would be? The dining the dining and dash crowd. There
are people who come into your restaurant. They're always fat
with the intention of costing you as much money as
possible and also benefiting themselves as much as possible and
giving you as little or no money as they possibly can.
But don't you dare try to keep them out. Well,

(17:15):
I'm going to tell you this. Here's a little inside
baseball to the RCC. I'll tell you something that this
will piss a couple of you off, but that's only
because you are that person. So at the RCC, we
were constantly looking for ways to stay profitable. It's a
very tough business. That's why you'll notice places open and
close constantly. In fact, Uncle Jerry and I went last
night and looked at the RCC and we spent about

(17:35):
three hours there. We walked every corner, looked at everything
and looked at the changes they had made and changes
they hadn't made. As I exited fifty nine South Southwest
Freeway at West Airport and Kirkwood, the old James Cooney
Island is now a Kawba Bob's. The U Horse Saddle
and Tag Shop is gone. The Argentinian State place you

(18:00):
call the concept gaut show where they like the green
means bring me more beef and red means stop. But
you have read and they keep asking you. I never
understood that. Hey, I'd have to read over for ten minutes.
I'm trying to have a card. I'm having a conversation here,
I'll put green back. When I'm reading's wondering if you
want somebody this point, well, yes, I want to bring yes,
put it down, goshdock it. You can't stop. And then

(18:23):
you got the beef sweats when you leave anyway. That
is now kalahari something something something, everything has changed. So
the chips and salsa argument at the RCC was this,
there were people who would come to the RCC who
wanted a night out to dance, and their ideal situation

(18:45):
would be they would come to your place and dance
all night and it's been not a penny. If they
could spend nothing, that would be perfect. They were also
the biggest complainers, huntstant complainers, and the reason was they
wanted a dance hall. And what you will find is
that dance halls are very difficult to make work because

(19:05):
dancers are not drinkers. Now you can tell me I'm
a drunk and a dancer, You're fine, You're in the minority.
There are lots of people who show up stone cl
sober and leave stone cl sober, and they've danced the
night away. In order to eate waters which are free
and not spent a penny, they buy general admission tickets.
They don't care where they said, they don't eat, they
come a lot of times. They'll eat somewhere else and

(19:26):
come to your place and dance, and then they bitch
the entire time that people who bought seats are in
their dance area. I don't own a place anymore and
probably won't, so I can say it. Those people were
the bane of our existence, because you can't survive in
the There's a reason House Blues does not have a
dance especially Western dances. Country and Western dances because they

(19:49):
take a lot of space. You know, you see these
kind of angry rage white nineties band mob type bands
that it's just white people jump up and down in
the same space, so you can have space there for
them to dance, because it's really just a mosh pitz,
just a standing room only. But the country and Western
folks want you to clear everything out so that they

(20:11):
can waltz across Texas on your dance floor and not
spend a penny. So we finally just said, look, we
either survive and shut down the dance aspect, or we
let them dance, and I guess they can take the
place over when we're gone, and I had a friend
named Michael Massa. He owned Massa's restaurant, and he was
constantly complaining. And I said, Michael, the first time you
buy a ticket, because you pestered me for free tickets

(20:31):
every time, and the first time you buy a beer,
I don't drink anymore. Okay, first time you spend a
dollar here, Please feel free to complain because you don't.
I love you, You're my friend, You've been my friend
a long time. But I really don't need complaints and
I definitely don't need them from the non payers. So
back to the chips and caeso A chips and sauceo.
I I asked russe Lebarrow. Some of you remember this

(20:52):
this question months ago, I said, from the time I
was a kid till today, Textmax has gone from being
in Orange. We had Casa Ola that we got at
Costa Ola. That was a big deal. So we had
Taco Bell, which we thought was tex mex and Casta
Ola came in, and then we had one restaurant owned
by some some Mexicans. I don't think they were in

(21:12):
the in the in the food business, but there were
some Mexicans that had come to town and they had
a little bitty place. It was everybody in the family
worked there. The kids be coming over and cleaning over
you tape. It's one little family, had no extra employees.
And then they bought what used to be the Mister
Daddy's on the Circle. But we don't have a circle
anymore because we can't have anything nice in Orange. That's
why they don't name anything after me, or Bob Phillips
for that matter. So they bought this much bigger restaurant,

(21:35):
and to me, it lost the charm because it had
been this little bit tiny hole in the all text
mex place that we would eat a But when I
came to Houston in eighty nine, I started noticing, slowly
but surely, and here we are thirty six years later.
I think text maxis by far the most popular format
of a restaurant. I mean, even Tilman got into it

(21:55):
with Cadillac Bar, which I think is a great concept.
I mean even Levi Good's dad got into it. Now
Levi's expanding in that with a Good Company Cantina. And
then you look at guys like Russell Lebara, who's got
over twenty restaurants, and they're building Tomball, They're building Richmond.
There building a big win in Richmond on ninety nine.
That goes to show you that if you are doing

(22:16):
it right, especially the family friendly, you're not seeing the
hole in the walls opening anymore. The La Mitchell Ecanna
San Luis put THESSI and two beers, they're not They're
not there anymore. They're they're those that are there, the
Rouci's or the arandas those little joints that used to

(22:38):
be there. Some of those will survive. But the casa
Ola concept, the kind of cheesy white owned you know,
go there for your birthday party that's going away, and
what you're getting now is is gringos. What's the one
Dominic has l tempo? What's the one Peter Holt has

(23:02):
got to dog? I kid? What loupe tortells? You're getting?
You're getting a high standard, in my opinion, low price
point for what you're getting. And the other reason I
don't like those those groups is there are people that
just love to bitch and they don't believe you should
charge anything for your food, and whatever you charge, they

(23:24):
resent and if you add two pennies to it. So
I'm reading this chronicle article and they make notes that
the owners of Spanish Flowers say it's only two ninety
nine for the chips. The point you could charge fifty
dollars for the chips. The point is people are used
to not paying, and psychologically paying for something you haven't
paid for is hard for people to get their arms
run with them. Michael Berry and you manesteatic on my radio.

(23:52):
Uffly Barr posted interesting article about the article I told
you about. Although complimentary tortilla chips, red and green salsa
plus free ice cream at Gringos and Jimmy Changa's account
for six percent of our food costs, we would never
consider consider charging our guests extra for them. We would

(24:12):
much rather educate them that each triangle tortilla chip is
eighteen calories and then let them decide whether or not
they want to consume thirty tortilla chips before their meal
arrives for free, the free part being how many you
want to do it on your own? So the Chronicle

(24:32):
article is about people, you know, the fact that somebody
complains is the sort of thing that usedton Chronicle lows.
Everybody's under fire. Spanish Flowers under fire, they call it.
Spanish Flowers speaks out after chips and salsa scandal. The scandal.

(24:54):
A scandal is when the president wasn't even signing documents
with his name on and somebody else was that. We
don't know who that was, and we don't believe that
he authorized any of them, and certainly not all of them.
That's a scandal. The fact that some people don't like
that they were charged for chips is not a scandal.
You can do great harm to a restaurant or any

(25:16):
kind of business with a nasty article like this, and
there are a lot of people who will never say, well,
is that true or is it not? And I don't
know if it's true. I'm just saying, having been on
both sides of this man's that's that's pretty tough, all right.
In a Tuesday phone call to The Chronicle with the Chronicle,
a Spanish Flowers staff member who did not want to

(25:38):
be identified, said the new charge had not been received
well by customers at the restaurant. Quote, as the floor staff,
we see the backlash, backlash. We're trying to survive it.
We're a Mexican restaurant. No you're not your text mex
Restaurant's a big difference, and like ninety nine percent of
those restaurants don't charge. Unfortunately, that's the reality. The anonymous

(26:00):
staff member alleged that Spanish Flowers has seen an unspecified
decrease in foot traffic since the recent policy. First of all,
they don't know that that person even works for Spanish Flowers.
They don't know that that person doesn't work for the
restaurant across the street. The lunch crowd, they said, don't
ask for much. They want their meal, their tea, or
their water. They don't want to spend a big buck.

(26:21):
They don't expect to be charged for the chips. That
is all right. But in a Wednesday phone call to Cron,
the Hernandez family, who owns Spanish Flowers three locations I
know they had three, so they're the Woodlands and who
knows where, said they've not seen or heard any pushback
from their customers. While they chalk up any situation where
the customer didn't know about the cost of chips and

(26:43):
salsa as a miscommunication, they also expressed exasperation at the
whole ordeal, especially when other restaurants and chains are charging
more than what they are now. Listen carefully, do you
know how much we charge for chips and salsa two
ninety nine for unlimited chips and salsa to the restaurants
charge you ten dollars or seven ninety nine for no

(27:04):
refills one. Hernandez said, I don't know anybody who charges
for chips. You charge what you want. I believe that
it's not our business. Customers don't get to set prices.
I've said this all along. It makes me crazy. Customers
don't get to set prices. Customers get to negotiate price. No, Michael,
we don't get negotiaated. We're just stuck with what they
give us. Yeah. What you have to understand is the

(27:25):
only negotiation you have is to choose to not go there.
If nobody goes there, they'll drop the prices. Trust me,
it happens every time. Jimena, who manages the original location
on North Maine, said the Spanish Flowers in the Woodlands
is the only location that's currently charging for chips and salsa.
In response to the complaint about the Greater Heights location,

(27:46):
she said the restaurant only charges when customers abuse the
free chips and salts of policy. She claimed that servers
have pleaded with management to charge after some customers have
five refills of the complementary appetizers. That is a certain
type of customer who you don't want. And that's why
in this country we have to get very comfortable saying

(28:09):
if you come in and cause a problem, you're out
and you're never coming back. That is where you have
to get comfortable saying not everybody is equal in how
they tip behave, treat the staff, you name it. There
are people. There are people, and they make a lot
of other people look really bad. Who are absolute monsters,

(28:29):
the din and dash crowd, the complain constantly, the constant refill,
the sending stuff back half eaten. One of the big
parts of our endorsement of a company is they know
that the people who are going to respond as a result.
It's not just the quantity of them, it's the quality
of them. It's the kind of people you want in

(28:49):
your restaurant. If you own a restaurant or any other business,
you want people who are looking to have a good time,
who are going out to celebrate after the little league
game or the volleyball or graduation or anniversary, and they
are looking to receive something wonderful and give in return
a commensurate compensation and a smile and a thank you,

(29:11):
and even a referral. People's mentality needs to change. He
may have said, I was the kind of person who
would go to a steakhouse because they have the best bread.
I can't even recall a restaurant that gives bread for free.
Mass Rafts doesn't do it. Steak forty eight doesn't do it, sweetheart.
Let me explain something to you. Steak forty eight is
a very high end, white tablecloth, expensive place that no

(29:36):
individuals pay for. Those are corporate credit cards. That's why
sales prostitutes around the bar downstairs. That's not at a
family restaurant. That's a corporate credit card for guys on
a trip, and the only thing they pay for that
night is the girl that sleeps with them from the bar.
Everybody in town knows that. Everybody in town knows that
you're not that you're a budget Textmex restaurant. So the

(29:59):
fact that those places don't give a free item starch
product when you walk in is because they don't have to.
It would ruin what they're doing. Their image is that
everything here is expensive, even especially the girls at the bar.
What you're doing is for people on a budget right,

(30:19):
Spanish Flowers. When I was here, I didn't drink till
I was twenty nine. So my first thirty times I
went to Spanish Flowers. I was a college student and
we were going after studying all night and it was
late and you'd go over there and it was cool.
We were in Houston. Now there were restaurants from Mariachi's.
This feels like Mexico. We didn't know. But the idea
that you're comparing yourself for that is a really really

(30:42):
bad lack of understanding. And when you say people's mentality
needs to change, that is a red flag in the
hospitality industry. You have to do what you do, and
you have to do it so well that people come back.
What you're witnessing here is the growing pains of an
industry that is reaching saturation. And you have a lot

(31:04):
of people who have survived a long time in text
mex because of the because of the format, the genre.
What am I thinking of? The the category of food,
what do you call it? The whatever that is? Because
you were in text mes, you survived well. Now all
the places that used to go into burger joints and
steakhouses and different things, fried chicken, they're all they're all

(31:26):
out there looking and going, wait a second. If you're
a good operator in the text mech space, that's where
the money is. I don't know about you, but when
I'm celebrating, that's one of the first things that come
to mind. My mind is text mex uh, if I
want to get a beer after an event, if I

(31:49):
want to get some some chips, and QSO and and enchilada.
Those are things that kind of come. So what's happening
is what this is is Spanish Flowers is struggling to
maintain profitability. That's why you charge for things like that.
And I feel for them because it's like the defensive
driving you know, Tuesday night defensive driving course at the bar.
That's your sign. And the result is trying to nick

(32:12):
people for three more dollars for the chips is going
to mean that you're going to lose the person that
you got a thirty dollars tab on. So unfore, it's
a tough business. Tough business anyway. Feel free to share
your thoughts with me by email through the website Michael
Berryshow dot com.