AM Show Hr 2 | Victim Of The Shrimp Heist Joins The Show

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
It's that time, time, time, time, luck and load.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
The Michael Verie Show is on the air.

Speaker 3 (00:14):
Mister President, mister Prime Minister, mister speakers, see members of
the knesse It and cherished citizens of Israel. We gather
in a day of profound joy, of soaring hope, of
renewed faith, and above all, a day to give our
deepest thanks to the Almighty God of Abraham.

Speaker 2 (00:38):
The President at a peace summit in Egypt. This is
something we have all wanted for a very very long time.
Whether you cared deeply about peace in the Middle East,
or whether you just wanted the violence to end, or
whether you were ready for America to focus on internal

(00:59):
issue shoes, you can all be happy, as can Graham
le Board. He told the story. Last week we reported
that a man in a delivery uniform entered Winnies restaurant
and tried to steal shrimp. And he called it, I

(01:21):
guess if not one of maybe altogether the most creative
ways criminals have tried to get to him in his career,
and he was able to thwart that effort. Owner Graham
le Board of Winnies as our guest, welcome to the program.

Speaker 1 (01:38):
Graham I'm very happy to be here.

Speaker 2 (01:42):
First of all, tell me about Winnies.

Speaker 1 (01:45):
So, Winnies in Midtown we've been open about four years.
Right after COVID, I had been in fine dining, and
so my wife and I and my business partner always
loved the idea of how having a casual, more casual
sandwich kind of place. So it's cocktails, great little patio

(02:07):
and fun, say fun and inventive sandwiches.

Speaker 2 (02:10):
Where were you in fine dining?

Speaker 1 (02:13):
So I was the director of operations for Killing's, so
all of the restaurants that Ronnie owned, and then before
that I had a restaurant in the Heights called Bernardine's.

Speaker 2 (02:27):
You had Bernadine's, Yes, sir. I thought Bernadine's was Chris
Cusack No.

Speaker 1 (02:34):
So he was, Yeah, he was the owner. I was
the chef, and kind of inspiration. Bernardine was my grandmother.

Speaker 2 (02:43):
I knew it was named for somebody's grandmother. I assumed
it was Chris's grandmother. Okay, that's that's very interesting my grandmother.

Speaker 1 (02:51):
I'm from Louisiana, which is where kind of the Cajun
influence and Louisiana influence from Bernardines. And then by translation,
Winnies too. We make a heck of a great gumbo
trimp po boy. We get our bread from New Orleans.
It's fantastic.

Speaker 2 (03:09):
Wait, hold on, going back to Berney's. What were you
doing before that?

Speaker 1 (03:13):
Before that, I was a butcher working with Felix Flores,
Texas Meet and then when I was in New Orleans,
I worked in places like Blucherie Commander's palace restaurant called Stella.
So I've been around, but the Gulf Coast is my home.

Speaker 2 (03:33):
Where were you born in the last fifteen years? Where
were you born?

Speaker 1 (03:38):
I'm sorry didn't here.

Speaker 2 (03:39):
Where were you born?

Speaker 1 (03:41):
Lafayette, Louisiana?

Speaker 2 (03:43):
And then where you did you know? The new mayor
of New Orleans is from Episcopal High School in Houston.
I was just I was just told that you knew that.

Speaker 1 (03:51):
I didn't know that.

Speaker 2 (03:52):
Yes, I don't know anything about the new mayor, but
I was just told that fact kind of interesting.

Speaker 1 (03:57):
So you were born in I did that there is
a new mayor?

Speaker 2 (04:01):
Yeah, you know, I gotta tell you. I thought Nagan.
You know, Nagan was pitched as a guy that was
a business guy. He was a VP at Cox. He
he was not going to be you know it was
not going to be the nonsense we've seen before. It
wasn't going to be racial politics. And he turned out
to be the worst of them all. I was glad

(04:24):
to be shed of Moreole, who I thought was a crook,
and then Reagan turned Nagan turned out to be a
terrible crook. I thought Landra actually helped Landrew. I thought
Landrew was going to be good. I've about given up.
And I love New Orleans. I mean, when I was
growing up, we got more excited going to New Orleans
than we did Houston. New Orleans was it, man, that
was the cultural mecca, and I'm just so disappointed at

(04:48):
what has become of a once great city. It's it's
very frustrating. So you go to high school in Lafayette.

Speaker 1 (04:55):
I did Episcopal School of Acadianna.

Speaker 2 (04:58):
Okay, and what's your parents dream?

Speaker 1 (05:00):
All towns just outside of that called Cade and my
father was an attorney, okay, and did mom work she
did not okay?

Speaker 2 (05:10):
And then from there, where'd you go.

Speaker 1 (05:13):
From there? Went to culinary school in Rhode Island, which
Johnson and Wales.

Speaker 2 (05:22):
That sounds expensive and pretty.

Speaker 1 (05:26):
It was anything, but it was located right next to
a landfill in Providence.

Speaker 2 (05:32):
Did you pay off for it?

Speaker 1 (05:35):
Culinary school is one of those things I have a
lot of people ask me whether it's worth it. I
think from an there's a lot of things you can
learn in culinary school, but the biggest value for me
came in learning the basics of how to operate a business,
how to handle the money, what to do, how to

(05:59):
treat employeloyees. That is something that most people who get
into the restaurant business the love of cooking don't necessarily
always know, and it really can get a lot of people.
I mean, the failure rate is high en up in
restaurants in general. That if you don't know how to

(06:19):
be a good steward of the money that you take in,
it can be really challenging.

Speaker 2 (06:25):
I've known a lot of people go.

Speaker 1 (06:26):
To school, and you gave me a good structure for that.

Speaker 2 (06:29):
I've known a lot of people go to culinary school,
whether the Cordon Blue or CIA or any number of
different culinary schools of various levels of reputation, and I
have never once had one of them tell me that
they learned the valuable lesson of how to manage people,

(06:50):
deal with people, how and fire people and run a business.
I think that is brilliant because for a lot of people,
you know, doctor medical school has changed now dramatically to
where doctors are I am told taught a bedside manner,
which was something that you could be considered a great
doctor and very very unlikable or obtuse when it came

(07:13):
to human interaction. I think that's fantastic because I don't
think restaurants fail because their food isn't good. I think
that it's almost never the case that a restaurant fails
because their food isn't good. And I am of the
theory that most people don't know the difference between great
food and good food. If it's solid and consistent and
a price point that wherever they are they can afford,

(07:34):
that restaurant will survive if if you like the experience
that you have. And I'm probably true of that too.
And I like food. I mean I'm a big I
talk about food more than most people. But I think
that having learned that lesson would put you in very
good stead and a lot of people don't learn. And
I've been into restaurants where the owner will invite me

(07:54):
to come and see the place, and you go in
and they're yelling at their employees. And then you go
up and you meet them, and they're they're all of
a sudden nice to you because they want you to
say something nice about them, and they proceed to tell
you how stupid their customers are, and their customers don't
appreciate how brilliant they are. And I just think, boy,
that's that's got to be a tortured existence. Grandble a board.

(08:15):
Hold with me for just a moment, My good man,
do you have a favorite artist musician?

Speaker 1 (08:21):
Musician?

Speaker 2 (08:22):
Yeah, favorite song? Oh good? I asked our guests what
his favorite artist was so we could play that song.
And Ramon comes back doesn't play that artist, which is
odd because it's also one of your favorites. That you
just add a power play on your part, is what

(08:43):
that was? What? I did not ask him a question
about his dog?

Speaker 4 (08:51):
You did, Ramone said, to ask you why he's playing that.

Speaker 2 (09:01):
You gave him some reason that he played this.

Speaker 1 (09:04):
I named my dog after this song.

Speaker 2 (09:11):
Why, oh so your dog's name is Ventura Highway.

Speaker 1 (09:17):
My dog's name is cater Todd Ventura Highway.

Speaker 2 (09:20):
But yes, it took me a second. I was racking
my brain. I had I had to hold are you.

Speaker 1 (09:29):
Forty two?

Speaker 2 (09:30):
Well, when you're fifty four and you know the song
and you're trying to think of the line, you have
to sing the whole song to get to that part.
You can't just you can't just quickly recall it. So
you went to culinary school. You felt you you feel
like it was it was the juice was worth the
squeeze in that you learned a lot about the business

(09:50):
of running a restaurant, which I'm fascinated by. Have a
number of friends who are restaurant owners. I'm a consumer
fascinated by the business of restaurants, and I often use
restaurants as an example for a number of different anecdotes
or stories that I'm telling, because everybody can identify with

(10:11):
the restaurant. Everybody can identify with parenting. No matter what
you do, everybody at some point goes to a restaurant,
even if it's just a fast food restaurant. And it's
interesting that you learn the business of it because for
being such a common and important part of our lives,
there's very little training. You know, UH has an HRM program,

(10:31):
but that's really for because of the Hilton family. That's
really more the hotel industry lodging as opposed to restaurants.
And I think most people learn the restaurant business on
their own. How did you choose that school?

Speaker 1 (10:47):
It? You know, there's a bunch of culinary schools and
some very good ones in Louisiana. But I grew up cooking.
The men in my family cook. It's a big part
of our culture, and so I had a firm grasp
of how to cook already, how to make food taste good.

(11:11):
So I wanted to go somewhere to learn food that
I didn't know, and Providence has a very big Italian scene.
I've lived in New England, you know, earlier, and so
I was searching for a school that could give me

(11:33):
the tools that I was specifically looking for, which you know,
there aren't a ton of culinary schools that that have
that business minded focus, and so that's why I ended
up choosing Johnson Wales.

Speaker 2 (11:46):
Mister Leboard must have done pretty well.

Speaker 1 (11:49):
He did all right, Yes, sir, a great father.

Speaker 2 (11:53):
Is he still alive? He is? He must be very
proud of.

Speaker 1 (11:57):
You, I like to think so. And he telled me, so.

Speaker 2 (12:02):
Are you married?

Speaker 1 (12:04):
I am?

Speaker 2 (12:05):
You have kids?

Speaker 1 (12:06):
Married with three kids?

Speaker 2 (12:09):
What are their names.

Speaker 1 (12:11):
My wife Page is amazing, and our kids are Sophie,
Celeste and Alden.

Speaker 2 (12:20):
See those are rich people names they are. That's like patrician,
blue blood Northeastern names. You've got a little Northeastern pinky
out when he drinks his his hot tea to you, Graham,
A little bit of that, I can tell.

Speaker 1 (12:39):
That's fair.

Speaker 2 (12:41):
But it might mix well with the Louisiana down home.
You know sometimes that that that can be a you know,
Emerald Lagassi acts like he was born on Carondole, but
he wasn't. So so you graduate from there and then
what uh?

Speaker 1 (12:57):
Moved back to New Orleans cook there for about a
day decade from pages from Baton Rouge.

Speaker 2 (13:03):
Oh okay, all right, what high school she got to?

Speaker 1 (13:07):
She went to a Baptist high schools name is escaping me.

Speaker 2 (13:13):
Oh my goodness. Okay, well tell me when you think
of it. So you go to New Orleans. So what's
your first job there?

Speaker 1 (13:22):
First job there was Commander's Palace.

Speaker 2 (13:24):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (13:27):
And what we're doing there in the pastry department and
guard man Jay under Tory mcphil uh.

Speaker 2 (13:34):
What was your favorite pastry to make?

Speaker 1 (13:40):
I load making the bread, putting two flets on a
busy day, we'd make hundreds and hundreds of them. At
one point my right arm or looked like Raffael Nadals
just from whisking egg whites.

Speaker 2 (13:56):
How about that, Yeah, it's I guess we don't think
about you know. After the BP explosion, I was invited
to come and do my show out of New Orleans
to encourage the return of folks to New Orleans tourism
and the return of the economy in One of the

(14:17):
folks that invited me to broadcast out of their restaurant
was Commander's Palace, and I did. And it's against FCC
regulations to drink while you're on the air. People still
do it, but I was a former lawyer. I was
a little persnickety at that point and worried I don't
want to lose my job. But they kept bringing me

(14:38):
drinks through the course of the show, and I may
or may not have partaken of them. But it was
so much fun to be in there. They had a
little side room that had French doors and I could
see the restaurant outside of that as I did the show,
and it was so much fun. I had such a
I love that restaurant. My wife and I. One of
our favorite places to go in New Orleans is Is

(15:00):
on Sunday for brunch. And you've got the guy that's
like the drum major that comes high stepping up in there. Oh,
that's fantastic. It's like cab cal a smaller version of
cab Callaway.

Speaker 1 (15:10):
All right. So then from there, from there, I worked
in a restaurant in the French Quarter called Stella, which
is no longer open, but that was a very you know,
fine dining, casing menu only kind of experience.

Speaker 2 (15:26):
I don't know if I've been there before, but I
know of it, which must make it pretty famous for
it to hit my radar.

Speaker 1 (15:33):
It was the place to be in New Orleans at
the time. That and restaurant August, which August is an institution.
But if you were in the CBD or in the
French Quarter, that was where you were going.

Speaker 2 (15:48):
How much do you think you were getting paid at
Commander's Palace?

Speaker 1 (15:52):
Oh, I mean, I can tell you twelve dollars an hour?

Speaker 2 (15:56):
And where were you living.

Speaker 1 (16:00):
At that point? I was living with a cousin near
Tulane on Pine and simple.

Speaker 2 (16:07):
Okay, And then why'd you leave and go to Stella?

Speaker 1 (16:14):
Just maybe it's because I'm add maybe it's because I can't.
I thought I had maxed out my ceiling, but I
moved restaurants probably every six months to a year in
New Orleans. Learn as much as you can, and then
move on. I was at a stage in my cooking

(16:36):
career where I was trying to absorb as much information
as I could, as quickly as I could.

Speaker 2 (16:41):
I think that's actually a pretty good strategy, especially for
that Field coland just on Gramble aboard of Winnie's Restaurant Midtown,
our guest coming up. Really, the only reason to open
another RCC is to have Wayne Tubs concerts. I could
put us out all the headache of running a place,
because it is a headache. I'm here to tell you, folks,

(17:03):
it is a headache to run a bar or restaurant.
And if people knew what a headache it was, they
would they do two things differently. They would complain less
about little pitdly things. Had a guy sent me an
email over the weekend Ramon, He says, maybe it's to
Margarita speaking, but I need you to talk to Russell

(17:24):
about the fact that my wife doesn't want a full
whatever it was Enchilada platter, so she orders the children's platter.
Children's platter supposed to cost less, but because she's not
a child, they charge her regular. And they said, we
can't discount it if you're not a child, and bye

(17:45):
bye bye bye, bye bye bye. And I said, you know,
maybe it's my margarita speaking. I didn't have any margaritas.
But I think you're a jackass. And if I owned
a restaurant, I wouldn't want you there. He's a frequent emailer.
I said, let me explain for the restaurant that I
don't own. I thought that it was still at Gringos,
but let me explain for the restaurant I don't own.
I know I'm not passing this on to Russell. Why

(18:09):
they do that. You offer a price break for kids
to help families out, so that families can go out
on It's not a value proposition. Dollar dollar in, dollar out.
You offer a discount for the third or fourth member
of a party because they're a child. If an adult
is going to order a smaller platter, you don't offer

(18:29):
a child's discount because it's not a child. It's not
based on how many beans you serve. And oh, by
the way, it wasn't even gringos he ate at.

Speaker 1 (18:37):
It was some.

Speaker 2 (18:38):
Indiscription undetermined tex Mex restaurant in Brenham. I said, you
know what, just why, why why send me that? I
don't I don't understand you. If you're at the point
that you're mad over that, you got so many things
going so right that you need to focus on them,
because that's not a that's not a good reason to

(19:00):
send me an email. So, Graham, you went to h Commander,
you went from Commander's Palace to Stella. You're working in
some pretty fancy restaurants here. I mean, it's just not
an easy thing to do. And then where.

Speaker 1 (19:15):
Well, I was a chef at a duck hunting camp
in gate On, Louisiana called uh and I did that
in the winters. It was called the Florence Club.

Speaker 2 (19:27):
Okay, just so you know, anytime you say something, I'm
gonna ask for the name. No, okay, that's just gonna happen.

Speaker 1 (19:32):
Graham, I find it so funny. Sorry to go on
a tangent, but I find it so funny. As a restaurant,
you have to feather when you can respond to ridiculous
emails like that. Yeah, because if you don't want to
be combative with the general public, because trolls, it's like
arguing with idiots. They'll bring you down to their level

(19:54):
and beat you with experience.

Speaker 2 (19:57):
But do you know Ricky Craig that on subcap for yourself?

Speaker 1 (20:01):
Yeah? Absolutely, Okay, Ricky.

Speaker 2 (20:02):
Is certifiably nuts and that's why I love him. And
he stopped doing it now, But he used to be
kind of famous, you know, ten fifteen years ago, for
people would go online and criticize and he would just
unload on him. And he would do it if he
had some drinks in him. But Ricky would do it
Stone Cools over and people would say, you shouldn't talk

(20:22):
to people like that. Do you see what you say
to him? I mean, it's feather is such a good word.
It's it's such a good word for exactly. You have
to have the discernment to know you can't do that.
I used to be a little better at that, but
I think in the era of Trump, I feel more
comfortable just unloading on people as to how did you feel.

(20:46):
You know, if I post a picture of me and
my son, I'll have people who say you need to
stand up straighter. You need to get kicked in the nuts.

Speaker 3 (20:53):
What are you?

Speaker 2 (20:54):
I don't even know you. What are you doing criticizing
my you know, my posture in my photo. Anyway, I
got distracted, Graham. I got distracted, Graham. The board is
our guest Whennie's Restaurant in Midtown, So what is the
next restaurant from there? You were the chef and then
where Yeah?

Speaker 1 (21:10):
And then I moved to Houston.

Speaker 2 (21:13):
Why did you move to Houston?

Speaker 1 (21:16):
You know, at the time, growing up in Louisiana, we
always thought of Houston as a bad word. It just
urban sprawl, know nothing about it. But I had kind
of maximized what I was looking to do in New Orleans.
Wasn't making much money, not a lot of upward momentum,

(21:39):
and the city is so based on tourism that the
summer months are you know, devastating, So you're not getting
the hours that you're looking for. And so I came
to Houston and staged which is an unpaid kind of
two day interview for Brian Caswell at Stella Sola.

Speaker 2 (22:02):
Oh yeah, yeah, have you been?

Speaker 1 (22:07):
Yes? You think Brian's friend had lunch at Latoulli a
couple of weeks ago with my business partner and loved
it like a Greatest Hits album. Uh, it's fantastic and
restaurant itself is gorgeous.

Speaker 2 (22:22):
Yeah, you know, Brian got knocked Caswell got knocked down,
as as a lot of people do when when they
get really big, really fast. And then he he spent
his time in Siberia. He was cooking for some guys
at you know, their hunting leases on the weekend, and
I think he was he was kind of in a

(22:43):
in a Eric Clapton away finding himself again. And then
when he started this project, you could tell his his
his dad had passed, but it was like he's a
different person now and and he's a wiser may it
may not be his inner jet because he was as
a young man when when he and Bill had their

(23:03):
their place down in Icon, but I think he's much
wiser and a happier person. I'm very happy for him.
He's he's it's it's been interesting to watch his growth
and development personally anyway. So so you'd go to work
for for Caswell at Stella, which great Wrestler.

Speaker 1 (23:20):
Was opened for next a week and then we opened, uh,
and then it closed, So I had to find another job,
and that's how I ended up as a butcher.

Speaker 2 (23:33):
Did you read it little biggs.

Speaker 1 (23:36):
Uh Sliger place? Yeah, maybe once or twice.

Speaker 2 (23:39):
It's fantastic.

Speaker 1 (23:40):
It was not in my rotation. I lived in the Heights,
so Montrose was not.

Speaker 2 (23:47):
It replaced a little Chinese It replaced a little fast
food Chinese place called means not means called. I'll think
of it in a minute, but it replaced this little
place that was The guy had the the uh. He
kind of reminded me of Caswell. He was Asian, but
he's built like Caswell, big guy, and he had this

(24:09):
idea that he was going to take this thing and
take it national and in franchise it and the holend.
It didn't work, but their food was fantastic. It was
just fantastic anyway. So so Stella and then where.

Speaker 1 (24:21):
And then I was a butcher for Black Hill meets YEP,
which was local port selling almost exclusively wholesale to restaurants.

Speaker 2 (24:31):
Yeah. Felix used to put on display demonstrations for us
at the RCC and he would come come over.

Speaker 1 (24:38):
Yeah, Felix. So Jess Timmons, who I know through Felix,
is a great friend.

Speaker 2 (24:42):
And ran r yeah, yeah, well he used to come
over met I got.

Speaker 1 (24:46):
A tour of the kitchen before you guys open.

Speaker 2 (24:50):
Was that the most overdone kitchen you've ever been in
your life.

Speaker 1 (24:54):
You could have put out weddings for five thousand easily
out of that kitchen.

Speaker 2 (24:58):
I knew I had done it. When Tillman Fertita came
over to visit the first time, unannounced, he said, can
I see your kitchen? Of course, I've asked to see
everybody else's kitchen. And we go in and he said, Michael,
this is ten times more kitchen than you need. Is
that bad? Yes, that's that's bad. Oh, nobody told me
hold on Grandma Board when he's restaurant in midtown Houston,

(25:19):
supposed to be great publish, supposed to be phenomenal publics,
And Cody Johnson said that you know why he would know?
Do you like Grandma Board? What do you like about it?
And a fount plain? Why are you on another call
if we have a guest with what do you like
about it? Where the women? I'm very pretty because he

(25:44):
was getting nice to you. When you call it you're
like a dog, that's all you care about. Give me
a treat. Oh, you're killing my family. Okay, Well, the
treats are over there in that box over the thing
to say treats. Okay, yet take all the time you need.
My friend Jane Gee rights. Aside from good food, Winnies
goes all out in Christmas decorations, great holiday decorps. They

(26:08):
closed down to decorate. John Feeler writes, the Catholic Girls
High School in Baton Rouge is, or at least was
Saint Joseph's academy. My wife taught there in about seventy four.
I can't believe, dude, for God's wife's school. I cannot
believe that. Let's see, there was one other comment on him.

(26:29):
I was going, it's Sammy Hagar's seventieth, seventy eighth birthday today.
How about that. Graham lea Board is our guest. He's
the owner of Winnie's restaurant in Midtown. Why don't you
tell me the story and then we'll go back to
your very fascinating journey to get here. So you're at

(26:51):
the restaurant, which, by the way, my friend Cody Johnson
says that y'all are just fantastic. I thought you were
a black guy. I don't know why, and so I
was surprised. So he sent me a message when I
told the story last week, and he said, uh, oh man,

(27:12):
you got to try their Poe boys. They're fantastic. They're wonderful.
And I know him if you want to talk to him,
and I said, and so he said something else, and
I said, wait, is he a white guy? And he
said yeah. I said, I didn't know that, and he
sent me a message and we started talking today. He said,
ask him about the chicken palm caesar sandwich and the

(27:34):
pork belly BLT. And then we were going to break
and I was going to make a fat joke, but
I realized when you make a fat joke and you
don't do it in a nuanced way, then it comes
across as you know, just being rude, which I don't mind,
but it wasn't intending to because Cody's a friend of mine.
And he said, I know you were about to make
a fat joke, and for whatever reason, you held up.

(27:54):
Just so you know, I've lost thirty five pounds, I'm
safe from fat jokes. Well, Cody, it was fat enough
that he can lose thirty five pounds and he's still
going to get some fat jokes, but good on him
for losing thirty five pounds. How well do you know
Cody Johnson?

Speaker 3 (28:09):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (28:10):
I've known Cody for years. We hunt together. I've gone
to his ranch a few times. His wife, Stephanie is amazing.

Speaker 2 (28:18):
He's wonderful, and.

Speaker 1 (28:20):
They are living a life that I am from time
to time jealous of. You know, I love my kids,
I love my family, wouldn't trade it for anything, but
being Danks has it pluses, you know.

Speaker 2 (28:33):
I agree. And you know, my wife and I didn't
have kids until much later, and we adopted, but we
didn't have kids so much later. And I always hated
when people would tell us to have kids, and I
resented that. So I don't do it. But between you
and me, I think they should have kids because I
never realized how much I would love love having kids

(28:55):
until I did. And I think it's hard to imagine
for some people. It's hard to imagine yourself in that
role and what your relationship is going to be like
with your spouse and what your time and how your
time is going to be spent. All right, so you're
at Winnies and what happened?

Speaker 1 (29:10):
So we you know, life of a restaurant tour. I
was there to check a water heater issue. I'm almost
never there right at the open, but I was the
first person to arrive and one of my staff comes
and gets me out of the office and said, did
you take twenty pounds of shrimp out of the cooler?

(29:32):
I said no, So I had thought at the time
we'd seen the guy, but nothing clocked as unusual. I mean,
deliveries start coming in right as we get there. People
drop product, wait for a check, and hit the road,
and so I assumed the guy was waiting for a check,
not really thinking twice about it. But when my employee

(29:56):
asked me about the shrimp, I got up, walked over
and felt the shrimp and they were still cold, right,
you know, still ice cold, So they hadn't been left
out all night, which was my first assumption. But the
guy was nowhere to be found. So there's a facet
to the story that I didn't report earlier. I walked

(30:18):
out of our back door down the alley and saw
a bicycle with a trailer on it, And on the
trailer of the bicycle was two boxes filled with wagu beef,
seven tomahawk ribbas and ten pounds of ground wagu that

(30:41):
this guy had already stolen from another restaurant. So I
grabbed that meat because there's a sticker on it unless
you know what restaurant it belongs to, and confronted the
man as he's walking out of the restaurant trying to
break into the other businesses. So he's coming out of
the hallway and now he sees me with the meat

(31:04):
that he had already stolen, and that's when we tussled,
and I pushed him out of the back door and
locked it.

Speaker 2 (31:11):
Uh, but did you did you engage him in any
particular moves that you had watched on TikTok? Oh?

Speaker 1 (31:18):
Yeah, I mean I used all of the prowess of
my junior varsity defensive end abilities to arm bar him
out of the back door.

Speaker 2 (31:30):
And what was his height? Weight?

Speaker 1 (31:32):
Oh, little guy? I mean maybe five five, one hundred
and ten pounds, one hundred and twenty pounds.

Speaker 2 (31:40):
How old would you guess? He was not much?

Speaker 1 (31:43):
Probably mid forties, older than me, but nothing that really
stood out.

Speaker 2 (31:49):
How often do you think he smokes myth.

Speaker 1 (31:54):
Uh? He was on something, that's for sure.

Speaker 2 (31:58):
And how what's your height weight?

Speaker 1 (32:00):
I'm six foot two oh five.

Speaker 2 (32:04):
Was he a white black? Hispanic?

Speaker 1 (32:08):
Uh? Either very tan white or Hispanic? Nothing clear?

Speaker 2 (32:13):
Did he have an accent?

Speaker 1 (32:15):
Never? No, no accent.

Speaker 2 (32:18):
Was he wearing a ball cap? He was not.

Speaker 1 (32:22):
He had a close knit we like to call it
a New Iberia haircut.

Speaker 2 (32:26):
Was he unkempt in any way.

Speaker 1 (32:31):
No, which is why he wasn't out of place. He
looked like a delivery driver, wearing shorts, had glove work
gloves on. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (32:41):
Maybe maybe he was having a you know, like a
fried shrimp dinner, had some family members coming over that night.
Have you guessed? Have you thought to yourself.

Speaker 1 (32:51):
Looking for the surf?

Speaker 2 (32:52):
What's that?

Speaker 1 (32:54):
I said? He had the turf in the meat. You know,
he's looking for the surf.

Speaker 2 (32:58):
Yeah, okay, So so you arm bar him out and
then uh then then what happens? You called a popo
or what happened?

Speaker 1 (33:06):
Call the police? Police show up? Uh, you know, ask
him if I want to press charges? Of course, you
always press charges. That's how we get resources allocated to
our neighborhood. So stuck stuck around, filed the police report,
and a real life Houston detective called me a couple

(33:26):
of days later, wanting to or actually later that day,
wanting to uh hear my story telling me they were
on the case, which I can only assume is because
of the chronicle story of course.

Speaker 2 (33:41):
Yeah, but hey, if it got attention. Do you remember
his name?

Speaker 1 (33:46):
Uh, the detective? I do not.

Speaker 2 (33:49):
H Was he a polite very Did he come and eat?

Speaker 1 (33:53):
No? I don't know that yet. If he did, he
didn't ask for me.

Speaker 2 (33:58):
Do you offer a law enforcement discount?

Speaker 1 (34:02):
Uh? We haven't in the past, but we would.

Speaker 2 (34:06):
Hmmm. All right, So then then what happens? So you
called it at that point? Are you one of those
guys because we all know that type. Are you one
of those guys that, after this happens the whole day,
you're telling everybody all day about it.

Speaker 1 (34:20):
Hell yeah, okay, I'm telling the story.