September 7, 2025 • 34 mins
A listener calls in to talk about a memory of the GooGoo Dolls. Andy is Johnny Rzeznik’s No. 1 fan and cannot wait to see the Dolls play tonight! There was a murder on a Charlotte light rail train in North Carolina late last month, when Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska was stabbed in the neck unprovoked by homeless man Decarlos Brown Jr. who has mental health issues. Santa Monica is facing a fiscal emergency as a result of the city’s financial struggles blamed on COVID-19 and the payout for a sexual assault lawsuit involving 220 minors. Gen Z is facing bathroom anxiety because the kids don’t feel comfortable using the restroom while at work. Battle of the generations, with elder generations presently hating on the youth and Gen Z – but it’s a tale as old as time! Andy chats in the studio with guest Mike Ungaro of the San Pedro Fish Markets. More with Mike Ungaro of the San Pedro Fish Markets, who now has a TV show on Amazon Prime. Sunday News Quiz Returns! With Richie, Robin, Eileen, Nikki & Mike Ungaro!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're listening to KFI AM sixty on demand.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
But that Google Doll song that you guys played was
great because my son, for whatever reason, he already had
me stopped, so he had to go to the restaurant,
and so he was like, this is a perfect song
for me right now because he didn't want anybody to
see him. But we had to stop again because he
chose to drink a whole bunch of water when he
(00:27):
knows his ladder is very, very small.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
There you go. Okay, we're helping out, I guess, or
we're we're at least stayed hydrated that song. Man, when
that chorus hits, this is the third time I've seen
the Goo Goo Dolls. I was a huge fan growing up.
Man oh man. When that I think it was Dizzy
(00:50):
Up the Girl. That record that had Iris and Slide
Black Balloon on it, and that came out Broadway.
Speaker 4 (00:56):
Like.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
One of the reasons they started to play the guitar
was because I could play that song, figure out how
to play that song, because I thought that guy is cool.
Johnny Resnik is like a male Meg Ryan, and he
looks cool and he's got a cool energy, and he
sings about stuff that I do not understand, but that
(01:16):
song was everywhere and it's amazing now. Over the years,
I saw them probably in the early two thousands, pretty
big venue. I think they were playing with Augustana and
the uh Counting Crows. Then I saw him not long
ago here at the Palladium, kind of a smaller venue
(01:37):
than where we're going tonight at the Greek and they
played a pretty good rock show at the Pladium. You know,
that's a good place to see some real rockus stuff,
and you know, they were really influenced by the Replacements
Paul Westerberg. So I think that's still a real big
rock band, even though you know everybody knows songs like
Slide or Iris Name. But it gets a little crazy
(02:02):
there at the Google Doll show, I saw people fighting,
like get into a physical fight, and Johnny Resnick on stage,
the lead singer of the Goo Dolls, stops the song
or stops performing some part of the song and says,
are you guys really gonna fight at a Goo Goo
Doll's concert? But it gets a little crazy. So very
excited to see them tonight with Dashboard Confessional at the
(02:24):
Greek Theater. Can't wait now, something that's just gone wild
on social media. Is a story out of Charlotte, North Carolina.
This is a serious story and I wanted to do
it because there's so many layers to it, and I
think that social media and the sort of social media
misinformation and correct information versus sort of what you see
(02:46):
on the news is worth at least exploring and talking about.
But some background. It was a murder on a light
rail train that happened in Charlotte, North Carolina. This was
August twenty second. The victim's name is Irena Zarutska. She's
a twenty three year old refugee from Ukraine who fled
to America after the war started there. She was sitting
(03:08):
on the train, had headphones in mining her own business.
She was attacked from behind, stabbed in the throat. She
was slashed. Her throat was slashed. De Carlos Brown Junior
was arrested and charged with first degree murder. He's going
to undergo a competency evaluation. He's a thirty four year old.
(03:29):
He was diagnosed with schizophrenia and has a violent criminal history.
And a lot of people saying, look, this raises a
lot of questions about safety in general. How we treat
people who have committed crimes repeat offenders in these cities,
the effectiveness of the judicial system failures by the community
(03:53):
to address mental health. According to Axios, Brown's mother blamed
the court for allowing her son to be out in
the world. He was released from jail without bond in
January for mis using nine to one one. He called
nine one one a bunch, claiming he was being controlled
(04:16):
and I mean he's schizophrenic, you know, he's having mental issues.
In July, his public defender questioned his ability to proceed
with his court case, and the judge ordered a forensic evaluation,
which was never done. Brown stayed out of custody and
then later went on to allegedly commit this murder against
(04:37):
this twenty two year old Arena Zarutska. He is now
being held without bond and like I said, he's going
to undergo a competency evaluation. But in the past have
some fourteen convictions or at least been arrested fourteen times,
multiple times convicted for crimes including armed robbery, felony, larcensey,
breaking and entering, shoplifting. Nothing that raised to the level
(05:00):
of murder, but a lot now is being made about
the reaction from the community, specifically the mayor. Charlotte Mayor
Vy Lyles is her name in a statement, and this
is according to the NPR affiliate in Charlotte, WFAE ninety
(05:24):
point seven, a statement that was made on Tuesday. Lyles
did not mention the victim by name or discuss any
specific measures from the Charlotte area transit system to address
public safety on the train. She focused on the suspect
and urged others not to demonize rather homeless people, saying
(05:47):
that the suspect appeared to have a struggle with mental
health and suffered a crisis, saying that Charlotte and the
transit system is by and large safe, saying quote, we
will never arrest our way out of issues such as
homelessness and mental health, saying I'm not villainizing those who
struggle with their mental health or those who are unhoused.
(06:08):
It's a disease that needs to be treated. Those who
are unhoused are more frequently the victim of crimes and
not the perpetrators.
Speaker 5 (06:16):
Too.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
Many people who are on the street need a safe
place to sleep and wrap around services to lift them up.
So a lot of people took this as to say, wow,
you are focusing a lot on this perpetrator and not
the victim of this crime. Didn't even mention her name.
Then a few days later, the video comes out and
it is now public. You can see it on the internet.
(06:36):
The video basically close caption or close caption rather closed
circuit cameras security video from the attack that shows this
horrible attack pretty clearly. The mayor says, again, the video
is now public. I want to thank our media partners
and community members who have chosen not to repost or
share the footage out of respect for Arena's family, saying
(07:02):
that she was heartbroken, and a lot of people saying
why is there no coverage about this on mainstream media,
many on the right on Twitter saying it's an example
of a cover up. I bet you will see more
coverage throughout the week as this sort of starts to
get bigger. There were no stories on it on CNN
or Fox News when I looked yesterday on the websites.
(07:25):
The video did come out on Friday, so there isn't
a lot of enterprise reporting going on over the weekend.
A lot of local places in Charlotte have covered it.
I'll be really no newsroom I've ever worked in is
functional enough to cover up something. But many places these days,
if it gets clicks, they will then click they will
write articles about it. And so if this is starting
(07:47):
to become a thing that exists beyond the specific parts
of Twitter where this is very popular, or even broader
parts of TikTok, etc. Then I think you will start
to see it covered. Really tough story, awful, awful situation
there in Charlotte with this murder of a twenty two
(08:09):
year old woman and a lot of people saying, wow,
she left a war torn country like Ukraine came to America.
Isn't safe on the transit on public transit? Interested to
see where this all goes. Check in with us if
you have any thoughts on the iHeartRadio app us the
(08:30):
talkback feature, or give us a call eight hundred five
two zero one five three four.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
We got to get these chefs to bring in food
next time they come around, but I don't understand it's
hard to get, you know, all the way from San Pedro.
Do you want him to bring a bunch of Yeah,
a bunch of I mean I'm sure it'll be good.
It's never bad, but I just don't know if it's
going to be the optimal experience. Santa Monica is facing
a fiscal emergency considering an emergency declaration on Tuesday, they
(09:06):
will be asked to approve to give city Manager Oliver
Chi the authority to take all necessary steps to address, alleviate,
and mitigate this emergency. It's as a result of the
city's financial condition on uncertain revenues, increasing costs, and liabilities.
(09:27):
They're blaming the COVID nineteen pandemic as well as financial struggles.
Of course, challenges achieving revenue expenditures and reserve funds coupled
with uncertain financial forecasts. Oh, I just fell asleep reading that.
They also are looking at a big, big expense two
(09:48):
hundred and thirty million dollars to settle a sexual assault
case involving a former city employee named Eric Uller, who
is accused of sexually assaulting children from the late nineteen
eighties to I think two thousand and ten, more than
(10:13):
two hundred twenty victims who were underserved kids in the
Peaco neighborhood in Santa Monica. This city, by the way,
as the highest sales tax. I think I said it
was twelve and a half percent. It is ten point
seventy five percent. That's one full percentage more than Los Angeles.
LA also having some financial troubles. They have insane expenses.
This is not a secret. When things are good, they've
(10:35):
taken a lot of money, mostly from sales tax, use tax.
That's where the city gets most of its gets most
of its money. They spend almost all of it, and
it's evidence when that goes away, then they got none
of it left. I'm not surprised, though. You go to
Santa Monica, there's lots of businesses out, so there you
(11:02):
go an emergency in Santa Monica. It's crazy when you
think about California struggling with money, how much we spend
property tax, sales tax, state income tax, gas tax, city fees,
(11:25):
the vibe tax. I don't know, it's crazy, just how
expensive everything is anyway to just be here. I've been
thinking a lot about generations, generational divides. It started after
we did a story on KTLA about gen Z having
bathroom anxiety. Here's a little bit of that. Advice reports.
(11:48):
Gen Z's workplace anxiety also extends to the bathroom. Eighty
four percent of them surveyed said they felt anxiety about
using the restroom at work, so much so that they're
seriously considering quitting their We are not serious people. Here's
the scoops. Some workers say that they've timed their brakes
so that they'll be alone in the commode. Others avoid
(12:09):
restrooms based on who is inside. Half a workers say
they don't tell their boss about a bathroom emergency, no
matter how bad it gets. Why would you wants? I
wouldn't want to know. Yeah, so we had a lot
of engagement on this story. I saw a really good
comment from somebody who said, it's the opposite. They don't
have anxiety. Whenever they go into the bathroom, they sit
(12:31):
down and so to speak, fire a warning shot, fire
a warning shot out to put everybody else at ease.
Now you might be grossed out by that comment, but
there is one person who responded to that saying, will
you marry me? So there's someone for everybody out there. Anyway.
The story did really well, like half a million views
on Instagram. And I would love to think that it's
because of how charming I am, but I fear it
(12:54):
is not. It might be for reasons that I don't like.
A surefire way to get people talking, or to get clicks, engagement, whatever,
is to pit generations against each other. It's mostly older
people hating on the youth. It's just really easy. I
think there's a specific kind of hate we have for
people who are younger than us. As a millennial, I
(13:15):
feel this for gen Z. I don't think it's terribly fair.
I think they remind us of our mortality. We're no
longer young and hot, and like I'm thirty seven, I'm
out of the demo. Nothing is made for me anymore.
My whole life, everything was made for me, music, television, videos, movies.
(13:38):
It was a teenagers world that I lived in. All
of the thought pieces were about millennials. Now they don't
even do think pieces about us anymore. Everybody, though, throughout history,
hated generations below them, And to prove that, I thought
I would share some ways that older generations spoke about
younger generations throughout time. Okay, so this is from nineteen
(14:00):
ninety from Time magazine. This was about the then young
people jen x and tell me who you think? This
sounds like they say they have trouble making decisions. They
would rather hike in the Himalayas than climb a corporate ladder. Also,
of course, they have few heroes, no anthems, no style
to call their own. They crave entertainment, but their attention
(14:22):
span is as short as one zap of a TV dial.
We could just replace that with swipe of a TikTok video.
They like family life, local activism, national parks, penny loafers,
and mountain bikes. Only a hazy sense of their own identity,
but a monumental preoccupation with all the problems the preceding
(14:44):
generation will leave for them to fix. This is what
boomers were saying about Gen X in nineteen ninety. When
boomers were kids, were they the bootstrap, rugged, you work hard,
don't complain generation that they they are known to be now.
(15:05):
In nineteen fifty one, here's how they were described. Many
young people so pampered nowadays, they had forgotten there was
such a thing as walking, and they made automatically for
the buses. Unless they did something, the future for walking
was very poor. Indeed, in nineteen fifty one they thought
young people were so lazy that walking would go extinct.
(15:28):
It goes back to nineteen twenty five. Here's a quote
on the conduct of young people. Young folks attitudes grossly thoughtless, rude,
utterly selfish. Eighteen forty three they called young people untutored savages,
boys with dogs at their heels and other evidence of
dissolute habits. Girls who drive coal carts, ride astride upon horses, drink, swear, fight, smoke, whistle,
(15:56):
and care for nobody. The morals of children are tenfold
worse than formerly. Back to the seventeen hundreds, the men
are described as a race of effeminate, self admiring, emaciated fribbles. Ooh,
I think I have a new Twitter bio. Even back
(16:18):
in the time of Aristotle fourth century BC, the thinking
was young people are high minded because they have not
yet been humbled by life, nor have they been experienced
by the force of their circumstances. That makes sense. And
you know what, generations are just made up. It's like astrology.
Don't tell a makeup artists. Generational divides. I've thought this
(16:42):
a lot. They exist to keep us siloed, and I
think in large part put us into groups because it's
easy to market towards us. Who gets the prilosec, Who
gets the PDUs share. We got them put people into
the little boxes. And I don't know, maybe it's partially
because it's a way to keep us angry. So what
I'm saying today is, if you're gen X, gen Z,
(17:05):
jen y, baby boomer, reach out and hug another generation today,
because ultimately we are all the same. We've all thought
weird things about younger people, and we've all grown up
to be older people, and we all used to be
those young people. It's the Andy Reesmeyer Show.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 3 (17:28):
Welcome to the Andy Reesmeyer Show on this Sunday in
studio with one of my my I think my favorite people.
And I use this word a lot, and I don't
want to overuse it, but it's true inspirational. We had
Francesco Zemone on last week, you know, from Lentika Pizzeria Domokeli. Yeah,
and he's done an incredible job. He opened six restaurants
in six years on that on the on the East
(17:52):
Coast and here in America or in California as well.
Speaker 5 (17:55):
I saw one in New York when I was vising.
Speaker 3 (17:59):
So but it's you know the fact that you have
taken this legacy brand, your Famili's San Pedro Fish Market,
and you guys have always been hot. It's always been
an iconic thing in Pedro. But really, I think recently
under your discipline, kind of gone to the stratosphere, really
(18:21):
branched out and did a whole bunch of other things.
There's the locations where you can obviously it's the bread
and butter, but specifically the bread and shrimp and garlic butter.
And then you've also got podcasts, you're doing this other
you're doing TV shows. Mike and Garo joining me.
Speaker 5 (18:42):
Now.
Speaker 3 (18:42):
I want to just play this from three years ago
and I want you to reflect on where you were
when I interviewed you three years ago and where we
are now. So take a listen test of time. The
San Pedro Fish Market.
Speaker 6 (18:54):
We are our family owned business. We have been for
sixty five years. My grandfather started a business.
Speaker 4 (18:58):
This is Michael Ungaro, the CEO and owner of the
San Pedro Fish Market.
Speaker 6 (19:01):
Our most unique offering is that the customer gets to
design their own plate, so you can pick out any
combination of seafood and anything you like here and we'll
cook it for you family style.
Speaker 4 (19:09):
There are so many options here. It's almost overwhelming, but
they'll help you out.
Speaker 3 (19:12):
Do you want your usual shrimp and salmon, got it? Tuna, steaks, crawfish, lobster, mussels, yep,
holy mackerel, I think that's a shark. There's even sausage
and pork belly.
Speaker 4 (19:23):
Or you can pick out a whole arm fish and
watch it as they break it down and prepare.
Speaker 3 (19:27):
It for the fryer.
Speaker 4 (19:27):
Gnarley mikel Dust build this giant.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
Plate, first a quick fry, and then it all goes
to the flat top, grilled up with potatoes, veggies and
their special seasoning. Pick it up. Walk through the market
like Robert, a proud teacher and a school of fish.
Speaker 4 (19:41):
Then best to bring friends for this dig in go
wild activity food at its best. It's all about the fish,
the seasoning, a little hot sauce.
Speaker 3 (19:49):
This lobster was nuts, and this man loves his shrimp.
Speaker 4 (19:54):
Mike really rolled out the red carpet and made sure
we were stuffed to the gills with gills.
Speaker 3 (19:59):
With gills. That was a fun day. That was a
fun day. That was the perks of this business I
think are obvious. Being able to go down and meet
people and go all the way around LA and listen
and learn stories. But I think spending time with you
and everybody down there at your location, the older location. Yeah,
for the whole afternoon. It's coming back, drinking beer and
(20:19):
eating shrimp, eating fish. It's coming back. Since then, things
have really gone crazy.
Speaker 7 (20:27):
I mean yeah, and I'm just like, man, what a flashback.
So that was that five three years ago, four years ago,
three or four probably, so I know what happened after that,
so that we're redeveloping that entire waterfront, right, and we've
seen you since you've come down, Like we're in that
temporary parking lot spot, which we're still in. It's incredible.
Like we were only supposed to be there six months.
I think we're in month thirty.
Speaker 3 (20:45):
That's crazy.
Speaker 7 (20:46):
But we're just about done. We've actually built an entirely
new temporary location. Okay, and it's not a parking lot.
It's actually thirty three thousand square feet. It'll have about
it may have sixteen to eighteen hundred seats, less than
we had we had three thousand when you were there.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
That is, so how many covers would you be doing
like a day?
Speaker 7 (21:05):
Well, you know, that's a great question. It's hard to
track because there's so many families that come in, but
I know out of the parking lot we're doing about
five hundred thousand guests.
Speaker 3 (21:12):
That is a year per year. Yeah, yeah, that is
an insane amount of people and in the sane amount
of volume of food. I mean the line sometimes.
Speaker 7 (21:21):
Yeah, we were doing two hundred tons of shrimp at
the height of twenty twenty two before we had to move.
And yeah, and that's just that's just that wasn't the
wholesale stuff we're doing in grocery or anything else. That
was just customers buying it by the pound, having us
cook it and turning into those trades.
Speaker 3 (21:37):
That what is the pressure of having your family a
part of this.
Speaker 7 (21:41):
It's you know, there's virtues and visors right to everything.
So there's a lot of power in it because it's historic.
You know, when we've had two major disruptions of this decade, right,
you had the pandemic, and you could see that was
during the pandemic a right kind of in the middle, right, Yeah,
we were fortunate that all that seatings outside, so we
were able to kind of move things around and deal
with all the restrictions in a way that worked for us,
(22:03):
so we actually did okay once once things started to
loosen up.
Speaker 3 (22:06):
Likes sense.
Speaker 7 (22:07):
Yeah, but we opened another location on Long Beach six
weeks before that pandemic, so that one really struggled. That
one's just now getting to like out of the dark ages,
we'll say.
Speaker 3 (22:16):
And it's a nice, big restaurant as well, that I imagine
is not you know, it's not It's not like you
just have a food truck in the middle of a
parking lot. I mean there's a lot of fixed costs
with that place. I'm sure.
Speaker 7 (22:25):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, So so Long did You're doing great.
That's that's in It's kind of near second in pch
on Alamitos Bay. It's an old Joe's crapsh acts about
four hundred and seventy seeds. It's a little more full service,
but you could also go up and pick out on
your owneafood too. But what's cool is it faces west
where San Pedro faces east, so you can see the
sunset over the bay. Some of the most beautiful sunsets
from there too. So I love the city so much.
(22:47):
I love Pedro. I've been able to You've been there
a lot.
Speaker 3 (22:49):
I've been a lot, and I've done I did a
hometown Pride series there, which basically was about the goings
on of San Pedro and sort of the things that
people like. And everybody obviously has said you got to
go to San Petro Fishmark, and I was like, well, great,
I already know the guy, So yeah, easy. You have
a legacy business in California, a place that is, let's
be real inhospitable to businesses. Yeah, it's tough, real tough.
(23:15):
I can't imagine you ever think about could we do
this somewhere else?
Speaker 7 (23:20):
We have been and we are let me, let me
go back. So the family thing helps with that. Yeah, right,
There's what one of the challenges is is we've made
things work that shouldn't be able to work because we
just don't take no for an answer. We innovate all
the time and we're just stubborn and headstrong. But as
we were expanding, we realized we don't really know how
to run restaurants.
Speaker 3 (23:41):
Very well.
Speaker 7 (23:41):
We managed to do it, but the standard operating procedures
that exist in the rest of the restaurant entry we
invented our own. Oh okay, so when we bring people
in from outside to say Hey, we don't know how
to We need help running this new location, Like, well,
where's this, where's that? You don't have this. We've had
to reinvent all of it. So it took a few
years and COVID kind of helped. So sort of the
what's happens. You have the family way of doing things
(24:02):
and then you have the professional way. So my goal
is just really like how do we merge the two
so we have sort of this hybrid that actually can
compete and give us an advantage of our brother businesses.
Speaker 3 (24:09):
And that's where we are now. So I want you
can you stick around for the next break. Okay, so
we're going to take a break, but before we get
out of here, I know the lines can be crazy.
You're the man, you know the details and the stats.
How do people get there and not have to wait
in crazy lines without slipping you a hundred.
Speaker 7 (24:26):
Bucks early or weekdays or long beach. You can go
open table and en reserve table.
Speaker 3 (24:32):
Okay, all right, great, Well I'm weird the here with
Mike Angaro, the UH proprietor. I think I'm just sort
of the man of the house in the San Pedro
Fish Market. We're going to continue to talk about how
he is not only surviving as a restaurant tour in
California against insane odds, but also thriving. That's all coming up.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 3 (24:53):
Here're Mike Andngaro from San Pedro Fish Market. What is
your actual title? Because to me you are just like
the fish master. I'm technically CEO, but also because it's
sort of a family run.
Speaker 7 (25:05):
Business, I don't get paid anymore than any other family
member for that. Really, No, it's just more the role
that I hold, Like I mean, visionary is probably more accurate.
More like, here's where we're gonna go. I don't know
how we're gonna get there. We're gonna find people to
help us. So you're crazy, there's no way we could
do that, but we're already doing it.
Speaker 3 (25:21):
Guys. You've got the obviously the restaurants. You've got all
of the things that you can. You brought here with us.
We have some seasoning, some garlic, salt, we've got some
hot sauces. You always come with such a great thing. So, Eileen,
I know I told you earlier that he didn't bring anything,
but he brought some stuff. So if you want to
come in here, it's not fish right there, but you
(25:42):
can grab some hot sauce. I like to keep a
bottle of hot sauce in my pocket at all times.
So the beyond the food, there's also this television show
on Amazon Prime, Kings of Fish, and it's it's like
a legit show. It is because it's you guys was
running the restaurant, but also the family drama associated with
(26:03):
it as well.
Speaker 7 (26:04):
Yeah, so you know that that came to us. So
we actually did about seven seasons just on social media,
you know, and I forgot the seven season was all
about COVID and it happened because we were setting three
Guinness World records at one point, and we did. We
set all three in a day, and this film crew
followed us around and created us as we really shopped
it around. No one's really interested in it, but I'm like,
this is really cool. We could use this for other things.
(26:24):
So we decided to self produce it, and then during
the pandemic, one of somebody.
Speaker 5 (26:28):
Reached out to us.
Speaker 7 (26:29):
It was a like a distributor because I can get
you on Amazon Prime and PEPSI will pay for it
and make all these episodes, so we repackaged it. I
never saw the money. The guy kind of disappeared. No,
really weird, but like we made it anyways. And as
you may or may not know this, but one of
the main characters, Tommy Junior, who died, you know, he
had COVID and he passed away. We lost a couple
family members and so we weren't going to do any
(26:50):
more of them. But the idea was this would be one.
You know, we're gonna be in Amazon Prime, so that's
kind of an interesting idea.
Speaker 5 (26:56):
I might have some value. Who knows, I don't know.
Speaker 7 (26:58):
We didn't know, but we thought it be a great
way to memorialize some of the people we lost to.
So we kind of sat down with all the family, Like,
you know, I was these his kids age when my
dad died, because he was fifty six. Like all I
got is a couple of pictures, maybe some random video.
You guys have seven seasons of your dad being himself,
Tommy Junior and their and their aunt Tiffany too. So
I'm like, let's this. This would be a way to
(27:20):
memorialize them if nothing else. And it looks like it's
paid for it. It didn't get paid for, but we
did it anyways, and it was really interesting, Like it
kind of changed the dynamics. So now as we're rebuildings
as an example, right, like, hey, we need to bring
in some more people to help us. We need help
building out our finance team, we need a controller, we
need to find architects, we need to find these and
as we're talking to these people, it turns out, you know,
I've been a customer of you for thirty three years.
Speaker 3 (27:42):
How old are you become?
Speaker 7 (27:43):
I've been covered since I was one month, and I'm like,
I've watched your podcast. You have a podcast called fish Factor.
You can find it on the San Pedro fish YouTube page.
And we have the series too. So now there's this
opportunity where we're at.
Speaker 3 (27:55):
No squid zone. Sorry, it came to me late. Yeah,
we could try to figure out how to do a
bill a round a joke. It's up. So sorry you
railed your whole thoughts. Go ahead, no.
Speaker 7 (28:03):
Problem this is but it's it's been cool because the
value I realized we had like fifteen years ago is
like nobody knows our story. Yeah, and we have this
really unique family history story, you know, going all the
way back to nineteen fifty six because my grandfather was
originally a bookie. The whole thing was a front and
it wasn't supposed to become the business. You know, guys
who knew, but you know that's you know you've been there.
Speaker 5 (28:23):
You know.
Speaker 3 (28:23):
I love it and I love that that. It feels
like an East Coast town. And I know everybody's been
to Sant Peter. But if you haven't been, like, go again.
If you don't go a lot, go check it out.
Sant Peter Fish Market multiple locations, including some in Long Beach.
Speaker 7 (28:36):
Yep, coming soon Monterey up north. I just have the
thirty year least for opening on Fisherman's warf.
Speaker 3 (28:42):
Love love Monterey. They need that up there too, because
I think that, like everybody else, you know, you've got
these legacy places, these large spaces, and for you guys
to come in and do something like that. Now, do
you have to change the name to the Monterey Fish.
Speaker 5 (28:53):
Market or not?
Speaker 7 (28:54):
You know, Long Beach wanted us to do that Monterey
is but no, we had to stick with the brain.
Speaker 3 (28:57):
Of course. Of course, how how fun is it? I
know it's stressful, about how fun is it to look
at this? I'll use the firm empire. I know you wouldn't,
but I will and see it and think, look at
all of my family members with stuff to do.
Speaker 7 (29:12):
It is cool because you know I was told young,
like hey, don't get stuck there, like me, go do something.
So I went to college. I work banking, worked insurance.
Hated it, but those things I brought back with me. Yeah,
And as we're watching the fourth generation, which is typically
where family businesses fall apart, what I've tried to create
is opportunities like you don't have to work in the restaurant.
We have this whole IT department. We have an HR department,
I have an accounting department, and now we have a
media apartment because really, the way I see is we're
(29:33):
becoming more of a media company.
Speaker 3 (29:35):
Right because you know, how for restaurants to do this
thing that people love, but how to translate that into
what everybody the endpoint now is on the internet, on
social media, be the story.
Speaker 7 (29:45):
Like my friend Sean Walscheff at Cauti Barbiercamedia, we would
do a lot of work with It's like be the show,
not the commercial. Right now, that's genius, Sean, because that's
the thing nobody wants see a commercial. I already fast
forward the commercial. We don't need to be a commercial.
We have plenty of stories and everybody that visits us
can be part of it because they can be in
the show.
Speaker 3 (30:01):
Yeah, totally.
Speaker 7 (30:02):
So we integrate that and we're asking people now. I
have one of our hosts at the entrance in the
San Pego location, like, where'd you come from? How far
did you come? How can you come? You'd be It's
amazing how far people travel to visit and spend the
day with us.
Speaker 3 (30:13):
Yeah, and it states and they do wait. People will
wait because it's it's a real it's a real, good product,
and I think it's a good price. I want to
ask you maybe the last question here before we get
out of here. How do you deal with running a
business in California. It's it's inhospitable to have a business.
It's difficult to run a restaurant anywhere right now? Everything
is so expensive. How do you keep your prices reasonable?
(30:33):
Which I think they are. And you know, when we
went and we filmed there, I was looking at the
video that we just we just watched, we just listened to.
It's a lot of guys who are just like coming
from the docks. You know, I think we were there
at eleven in the morning. So it's a lot of
third shifters. Yeah, who you just you love because they're
just getting off work. They pop on over from from
the docks and have some fish. How do you keep
it reasonable for a working person but also have enough
(30:57):
money to keep the lights on and to pay your employees.
Speaker 5 (30:59):
You know, it's for us.
Speaker 7 (31:01):
So most restaurants don't have as many seats as we do,
so that gives us a huge competitive advantage.
Speaker 3 (31:06):
For one. Two are family.
Speaker 7 (31:08):
You know, our typical guest is two or three generations
of families actually, so it could be ten to fifteen people.
So we do everything family style. So you're getting this.
You might say this cost two hundred dollars, you're feeding
ten people. Yeah, so you get this giant pile of
seacre that you design. So it's really what it comes
down to. It's like give people value and create memories
for them. And so people come in now go I
used to come when I was a kid, and now
(31:29):
I'm here with my kids because I want to I
want to share these memories with them.
Speaker 3 (31:32):
So we try to stay true to that It's a
really memorable experience because of the location. Obviously you can't
get over the mountain of fish on a tray, but
also just it does have this very special sense to it.
So I'm glad you're doing it. I'm glad you're going.
You're doing well. Thank you so much for coming. Yeah,
San Peter fish Market. Find them everywhere? Yeah, truly everywhere?
Do we do? We do the hot sauce like in
(31:53):
Whole Foods? Yet is this in else? Like?
Speaker 7 (31:55):
Are we We're I'm launching a new company that's focusing
on that.
Speaker 3 (31:58):
Hey, yeah, well, very good. I can't wait to uh
to come back and see you down there. Uh, thank
you for driving all the way up here. I'm sure
that was not easy, but we really appreciate it. It
was a two cigar drivers. Michaeh Gar there. Very good.
Thanks for joining us here on the any Reesema Show.
Robin is Chris Merril with us. Yes, Hey, y Hey,
(32:18):
how you doing, buddy.
Speaker 5 (32:19):
I'm doing really well. I'm so excited about fish now.
Speaker 3 (32:22):
I was there you go? You get ye? You got
any bottle notes?
Speaker 5 (32:28):
Nor?
Speaker 3 (32:31):
Can we turn on no Meryl too?
Speaker 5 (32:32):
I would?
Speaker 3 (32:32):
I'm curious if you have had any bottle nose. But
I'm asking my car at studio, do you have any
bottles down there at the market just.
Speaker 5 (32:38):
In the harbor occasionally?
Speaker 3 (32:39):
Yeah, not on the plate.
Speaker 8 (32:42):
I love that comment too, about to be the you know,
the content, not the commercial.
Speaker 5 (32:45):
And that is fantastic.
Speaker 8 (32:47):
And it reminded me of that that Pawn Stars shop
in Vegas.
Speaker 5 (32:51):
The line was around the block and how I would
drove by there.
Speaker 8 (32:54):
I mean, and it's such a tiny shop, but that
place was huge and they didn't have to do anything
because they're you know, the show itself is a commercial.
Speaker 5 (33:01):
So that's that's the way to go. Man, good job
on that, Meryl.
Speaker 3 (33:05):
When you're when you're over next time, let's pop on down.
We'll get a plate. What's your what's your fish of choice? Uh?
Speaker 5 (33:13):
I surprise me because oh I like cod or whatever.
Speaker 3 (33:19):
It's like mystery meat.
Speaker 8 (33:22):
I grew up around the Great Lakes and U and
I gotta be I gotta be straight with it. Things
like like trout is a little too fishy for me.
But I love a good fried perch or maybe.
Speaker 5 (33:31):
Just a whole smelt it all. We do both.
Speaker 7 (33:35):
We do both of those, and a lot a nice
steak of swordfish.
Speaker 3 (33:40):
Good stuff. Hey MARYL what's coming up on your show?
Speaker 5 (33:43):
I don't know. I'm all confused now. I was thinking
about the fish.
Speaker 3 (33:46):
Sorry kidding me.
Speaker 8 (33:47):
Yeah, I got bad news and that is that Andy.
Speaker 5 (33:51):
Uh, sadly you got to talk to me today because
I didn't win the.
Speaker 8 (33:53):
Lottery, but I gave it a lot of thought about
what I would do if I did win the lottery.
And uh, first of all, you know, you'd have to
make an appointment to talk to me. But beyond that,
the whole annuity versus the instant payout, and I know
the experts say you take the lump sum. I'm not
sold on that actually, and so I've got some thoughts
(34:14):
on that. So we'll talk about the lottery. We'll talk
about how winning the lottery might be the only way
to achieve the American dream nowadays. And we also, of course,
are going to do our round up with the lawmakers,
the lawbreakers, and the times that there ought to be
a law la law coming up here at about four thirty.
Speaker 3 (34:28):
I love it, love it, love it. Chris Merril sticking
with us all the way until seven pm tonight.
Speaker 5 (34:35):
Yeah, that's when the long National nightmare is over.
Speaker 3 (34:38):
That's my line. Merril, thank you so much, good to
see you. Thanks buddy, we're looking forward to it. Thank
you so much for listening to the Andy Reestmeyer Show.
We'll see you back here next week.
Speaker 1 (34:47):
KFI AM six forty on demand
You're listening to KFI AM sixty on demand.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
But that Google Doll song that you guys played was
great because my son, for whatever reason, he already had
me stopped, so he had to go to the restaurant,
and so he was like, this is a perfect song
for me right now because he didn't want anybody to
see him. But we had to stop again because he
chose to drink a whole bunch of water when he
(00:27):
knows his ladder is very, very small.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
There you go. Okay, we're helping out, I guess, or
we're we're at least stayed hydrated that song. Man, when
that chorus hits, this is the third time I've seen
the Goo Goo Dolls. I was a huge fan growing up.
Man oh man. When that I think it was Dizzy
(00:50):
Up the Girl. That record that had Iris and Slide
Black Balloon on it, and that came out Broadway.
Speaker 4 (00:56):
Like.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
One of the reasons they started to play the guitar
was because I could play that song, figure out how
to play that song, because I thought that guy is cool.
Johnny Resnik is like a male Meg Ryan, and he
looks cool and he's got a cool energy, and he
sings about stuff that I do not understand, but that
(01:16):
song was everywhere and it's amazing now. Over the years,
I saw them probably in the early two thousands, pretty
big venue. I think they were playing with Augustana and
the uh Counting Crows. Then I saw him not long
ago here at the Palladium, kind of a smaller venue
(01:37):
than where we're going tonight at the Greek and they
played a pretty good rock show at the Pladium. You know,
that's a good place to see some real rockus stuff,
and you know, they were really influenced by the Replacements
Paul Westerberg. So I think that's still a real big
rock band, even though you know everybody knows songs like
Slide or Iris Name. But it gets a little crazy
(02:02):
there at the Google Doll show, I saw people fighting,
like get into a physical fight, and Johnny Resnick on stage,
the lead singer of the Goo Dolls, stops the song
or stops performing some part of the song and says,
are you guys really gonna fight at a Goo Goo
Doll's concert? But it gets a little crazy. So very
excited to see them tonight with Dashboard Confessional at the
(02:24):
Greek Theater. Can't wait now, something that's just gone wild
on social media. Is a story out of Charlotte, North Carolina.
This is a serious story and I wanted to do
it because there's so many layers to it, and I
think that social media and the sort of social media
misinformation and correct information versus sort of what you see
(02:46):
on the news is worth at least exploring and talking about.
But some background. It was a murder on a light
rail train that happened in Charlotte, North Carolina. This was
August twenty second. The victim's name is Irena Zarutska. She's
a twenty three year old refugee from Ukraine who fled
to America after the war started there. She was sitting
(03:08):
on the train, had headphones in mining her own business.
She was attacked from behind, stabbed in the throat. She
was slashed. Her throat was slashed. De Carlos Brown Junior
was arrested and charged with first degree murder. He's going
to undergo a competency evaluation. He's a thirty four year old.
(03:29):
He was diagnosed with schizophrenia and has a violent criminal history.
And a lot of people saying, look, this raises a
lot of questions about safety in general. How we treat
people who have committed crimes repeat offenders in these cities,
the effectiveness of the judicial system failures by the community
(03:53):
to address mental health. According to Axios, Brown's mother blamed
the court for allowing her son to be out in
the world. He was released from jail without bond in
January for mis using nine to one one. He called
nine one one a bunch, claiming he was being controlled
(04:16):
and I mean he's schizophrenic, you know, he's having mental issues.
In July, his public defender questioned his ability to proceed
with his court case, and the judge ordered a forensic evaluation,
which was never done. Brown stayed out of custody and
then later went on to allegedly commit this murder against
(04:37):
this twenty two year old Arena Zarutska. He is now
being held without bond and like I said, he's going
to undergo a competency evaluation. But in the past have
some fourteen convictions or at least been arrested fourteen times,
multiple times convicted for crimes including armed robbery, felony, larcensey,
breaking and entering, shoplifting. Nothing that raised to the level
(05:00):
of murder, but a lot now is being made about
the reaction from the community, specifically the mayor. Charlotte Mayor
Vy Lyles is her name in a statement, and this
is according to the NPR affiliate in Charlotte, WFAE ninety
(05:24):
point seven, a statement that was made on Tuesday. Lyles
did not mention the victim by name or discuss any
specific measures from the Charlotte area transit system to address
public safety on the train. She focused on the suspect
and urged others not to demonize rather homeless people, saying
(05:47):
that the suspect appeared to have a struggle with mental
health and suffered a crisis, saying that Charlotte and the
transit system is by and large safe, saying quote, we
will never arrest our way out of issues such as
homelessness and mental health, saying I'm not villainizing those who
struggle with their mental health or those who are unhoused.
(06:08):
It's a disease that needs to be treated. Those who
are unhoused are more frequently the victim of crimes and
not the perpetrators.
Speaker 5 (06:16):
Too.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
Many people who are on the street need a safe
place to sleep and wrap around services to lift them up.
So a lot of people took this as to say, wow,
you are focusing a lot on this perpetrator and not
the victim of this crime. Didn't even mention her name.
Then a few days later, the video comes out and
it is now public. You can see it on the internet.
(06:36):
The video basically close caption or close caption rather closed
circuit cameras security video from the attack that shows this
horrible attack pretty clearly. The mayor says, again, the video
is now public. I want to thank our media partners
and community members who have chosen not to repost or
share the footage out of respect for Arena's family, saying
(07:02):
that she was heartbroken, and a lot of people saying
why is there no coverage about this on mainstream media,
many on the right on Twitter saying it's an example
of a cover up. I bet you will see more
coverage throughout the week as this sort of starts to
get bigger. There were no stories on it on CNN
or Fox News when I looked yesterday on the websites.
(07:25):
The video did come out on Friday, so there isn't
a lot of enterprise reporting going on over the weekend.
A lot of local places in Charlotte have covered it.
I'll be really no newsroom I've ever worked in is
functional enough to cover up something. But many places these days,
if it gets clicks, they will then click they will
write articles about it. And so if this is starting
(07:47):
to become a thing that exists beyond the specific parts
of Twitter where this is very popular, or even broader
parts of TikTok, etc. Then I think you will start
to see it covered. Really tough story, awful, awful situation
there in Charlotte with this murder of a twenty two
(08:09):
year old woman and a lot of people saying, wow,
she left a war torn country like Ukraine came to America.
Isn't safe on the transit on public transit? Interested to
see where this all goes. Check in with us if
you have any thoughts on the iHeartRadio app us the
(08:30):
talkback feature, or give us a call eight hundred five
two zero one five three four.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
We got to get these chefs to bring in food
next time they come around, but I don't understand it's
hard to get, you know, all the way from San Pedro.
Do you want him to bring a bunch of Yeah,
a bunch of I mean I'm sure it'll be good.
It's never bad, but I just don't know if it's
going to be the optimal experience. Santa Monica is facing
a fiscal emergency considering an emergency declaration on Tuesday, they
(09:06):
will be asked to approve to give city Manager Oliver
Chi the authority to take all necessary steps to address, alleviate,
and mitigate this emergency. It's as a result of the
city's financial condition on uncertain revenues, increasing costs, and liabilities.
(09:27):
They're blaming the COVID nineteen pandemic as well as financial struggles.
Of course, challenges achieving revenue expenditures and reserve funds coupled
with uncertain financial forecasts. Oh, I just fell asleep reading that.
They also are looking at a big, big expense two
(09:48):
hundred and thirty million dollars to settle a sexual assault
case involving a former city employee named Eric Uller, who
is accused of sexually assaulting children from the late nineteen
eighties to I think two thousand and ten, more than
(10:13):
two hundred twenty victims who were underserved kids in the
Peaco neighborhood in Santa Monica. This city, by the way,
as the highest sales tax. I think I said it
was twelve and a half percent. It is ten point
seventy five percent. That's one full percentage more than Los Angeles.
LA also having some financial troubles. They have insane expenses.
This is not a secret. When things are good, they've
(10:35):
taken a lot of money, mostly from sales tax, use tax.
That's where the city gets most of its gets most
of its money. They spend almost all of it, and
it's evidence when that goes away, then they got none
of it left. I'm not surprised, though. You go to
Santa Monica, there's lots of businesses out, so there you
(11:02):
go an emergency in Santa Monica. It's crazy when you
think about California struggling with money, how much we spend
property tax, sales tax, state income tax, gas tax, city fees,
(11:25):
the vibe tax. I don't know, it's crazy, just how
expensive everything is anyway to just be here. I've been
thinking a lot about generations, generational divides. It started after
we did a story on KTLA about gen Z having
bathroom anxiety. Here's a little bit of that. Advice reports.
(11:48):
Gen Z's workplace anxiety also extends to the bathroom. Eighty
four percent of them surveyed said they felt anxiety about
using the restroom at work, so much so that they're
seriously considering quitting their We are not serious people. Here's
the scoops. Some workers say that they've timed their brakes
so that they'll be alone in the commode. Others avoid
(12:09):
restrooms based on who is inside. Half a workers say
they don't tell their boss about a bathroom emergency, no
matter how bad it gets. Why would you wants? I
wouldn't want to know. Yeah, so we had a lot
of engagement on this story. I saw a really good
comment from somebody who said, it's the opposite. They don't
have anxiety. Whenever they go into the bathroom, they sit
(12:31):
down and so to speak, fire a warning shot, fire
a warning shot out to put everybody else at ease.
Now you might be grossed out by that comment, but
there is one person who responded to that saying, will
you marry me? So there's someone for everybody out there. Anyway.
The story did really well, like half a million views
on Instagram. And I would love to think that it's
because of how charming I am, but I fear it
(12:54):
is not. It might be for reasons that I don't like.
A surefire way to get people talking, or to get clicks, engagement, whatever,
is to pit generations against each other. It's mostly older
people hating on the youth. It's just really easy. I
think there's a specific kind of hate we have for
people who are younger than us. As a millennial, I
(13:15):
feel this for gen Z. I don't think it's terribly fair.
I think they remind us of our mortality. We're no
longer young and hot, and like I'm thirty seven, I'm
out of the demo. Nothing is made for me anymore.
My whole life, everything was made for me, music, television, videos, movies.
(13:38):
It was a teenagers world that I lived in. All
of the thought pieces were about millennials. Now they don't
even do think pieces about us anymore. Everybody, though, throughout history,
hated generations below them, And to prove that, I thought
I would share some ways that older generations spoke about
younger generations throughout time. Okay, so this is from nineteen
(14:00):
ninety from Time magazine. This was about the then young
people jen x and tell me who you think? This
sounds like they say they have trouble making decisions. They
would rather hike in the Himalayas than climb a corporate ladder. Also,
of course, they have few heroes, no anthems, no style
to call their own. They crave entertainment, but their attention
(14:22):
span is as short as one zap of a TV dial.
We could just replace that with swipe of a TikTok video.
They like family life, local activism, national parks, penny loafers,
and mountain bikes. Only a hazy sense of their own identity,
but a monumental preoccupation with all the problems the preceding
(14:44):
generation will leave for them to fix. This is what
boomers were saying about Gen X in nineteen ninety. When
boomers were kids, were they the bootstrap, rugged, you work hard,
don't complain generation that they they are known to be now.
(15:05):
In nineteen fifty one, here's how they were described. Many
young people so pampered nowadays, they had forgotten there was
such a thing as walking, and they made automatically for
the buses. Unless they did something, the future for walking
was very poor. Indeed, in nineteen fifty one they thought
young people were so lazy that walking would go extinct.
(15:28):
It goes back to nineteen twenty five. Here's a quote
on the conduct of young people. Young folks attitudes grossly thoughtless, rude,
utterly selfish. Eighteen forty three they called young people untutored savages,
boys with dogs at their heels and other evidence of
dissolute habits. Girls who drive coal carts, ride astride upon horses, drink, swear, fight, smoke, whistle,
(15:56):
and care for nobody. The morals of children are tenfold
worse than formerly. Back to the seventeen hundreds, the men
are described as a race of effeminate, self admiring, emaciated fribbles. Ooh,
I think I have a new Twitter bio. Even back
(16:18):
in the time of Aristotle fourth century BC, the thinking
was young people are high minded because they have not
yet been humbled by life, nor have they been experienced
by the force of their circumstances. That makes sense. And
you know what, generations are just made up. It's like astrology.
Don't tell a makeup artists. Generational divides. I've thought this
(16:42):
a lot. They exist to keep us siloed, and I
think in large part put us into groups because it's
easy to market towards us. Who gets the prilosec, Who
gets the PDUs share. We got them put people into
the little boxes. And I don't know, maybe it's partially
because it's a way to keep us angry. So what
I'm saying today is, if you're gen X, gen Z,
(17:05):
jen y, baby boomer, reach out and hug another generation today,
because ultimately we are all the same. We've all thought
weird things about younger people, and we've all grown up
to be older people, and we all used to be
those young people. It's the Andy Reesmeyer Show.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 3 (17:28):
Welcome to the Andy Reesmeyer Show on this Sunday in
studio with one of my my I think my favorite people.
And I use this word a lot, and I don't
want to overuse it, but it's true inspirational. We had
Francesco Zemone on last week, you know, from Lentika Pizzeria Domokeli. Yeah,
and he's done an incredible job. He opened six restaurants
in six years on that on the on the East
(17:52):
Coast and here in America or in California as well.
Speaker 5 (17:55):
I saw one in New York when I was vising.
Speaker 3 (17:59):
So but it's you know the fact that you have
taken this legacy brand, your Famili's San Pedro Fish Market,
and you guys have always been hot. It's always been
an iconic thing in Pedro. But really, I think recently
under your discipline, kind of gone to the stratosphere, really
(18:21):
branched out and did a whole bunch of other things.
There's the locations where you can obviously it's the bread
and butter, but specifically the bread and shrimp and garlic butter.
And then you've also got podcasts, you're doing this other
you're doing TV shows. Mike and Garo joining me.
Speaker 5 (18:42):
Now.
Speaker 3 (18:42):
I want to just play this from three years ago
and I want you to reflect on where you were
when I interviewed you three years ago and where we
are now. So take a listen test of time. The
San Pedro Fish Market.
Speaker 6 (18:54):
We are our family owned business. We have been for
sixty five years. My grandfather started a business.
Speaker 4 (18:58):
This is Michael Ungaro, the CEO and owner of the
San Pedro Fish Market.
Speaker 6 (19:01):
Our most unique offering is that the customer gets to
design their own plate, so you can pick out any
combination of seafood and anything you like here and we'll
cook it for you family style.
Speaker 4 (19:09):
There are so many options here. It's almost overwhelming, but
they'll help you out.
Speaker 3 (19:12):
Do you want your usual shrimp and salmon, got it? Tuna, steaks, crawfish, lobster, mussels, yep,
holy mackerel, I think that's a shark. There's even sausage
and pork belly.
Speaker 4 (19:23):
Or you can pick out a whole arm fish and
watch it as they break it down and prepare.
Speaker 3 (19:27):
It for the fryer.
Speaker 4 (19:27):
Gnarley mikel Dust build this giant.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
Plate, first a quick fry, and then it all goes
to the flat top, grilled up with potatoes, veggies and
their special seasoning. Pick it up. Walk through the market
like Robert, a proud teacher and a school of fish.
Speaker 4 (19:41):
Then best to bring friends for this dig in go
wild activity food at its best. It's all about the fish,
the seasoning, a little hot sauce.
Speaker 3 (19:49):
This lobster was nuts, and this man loves his shrimp.
Speaker 4 (19:54):
Mike really rolled out the red carpet and made sure
we were stuffed to the gills with gills.
Speaker 3 (19:59):
With gills. That was a fun day. That was a
fun day. That was the perks of this business I
think are obvious. Being able to go down and meet
people and go all the way around LA and listen
and learn stories. But I think spending time with you
and everybody down there at your location, the older location. Yeah,
for the whole afternoon. It's coming back, drinking beer and
(20:19):
eating shrimp, eating fish. It's coming back. Since then, things
have really gone crazy.
Speaker 7 (20:27):
I mean yeah, and I'm just like, man, what a flashback.
So that was that five three years ago, four years ago,
three or four probably, so I know what happened after that,
so that we're redeveloping that entire waterfront, right, and we've
seen you since you've come down, Like we're in that
temporary parking lot spot, which we're still in. It's incredible.
Like we were only supposed to be there six months.
I think we're in month thirty.
Speaker 3 (20:45):
That's crazy.
Speaker 7 (20:46):
But we're just about done. We've actually built an entirely
new temporary location. Okay, and it's not a parking lot.
It's actually thirty three thousand square feet. It'll have about
it may have sixteen to eighteen hundred seats, less than
we had we had three thousand when you were there.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
That is, so how many covers would you be doing
like a day?
Speaker 7 (21:05):
Well, you know, that's a great question. It's hard to
track because there's so many families that come in, but
I know out of the parking lot we're doing about
five hundred thousand guests.
Speaker 3 (21:12):
That is a year per year. Yeah, yeah, that is
an insane amount of people and in the sane amount
of volume of food. I mean the line sometimes.
Speaker 7 (21:21):
Yeah, we were doing two hundred tons of shrimp at
the height of twenty twenty two before we had to move.
And yeah, and that's just that's just that wasn't the
wholesale stuff we're doing in grocery or anything else. That
was just customers buying it by the pound, having us
cook it and turning into those trades.
Speaker 3 (21:37):
That what is the pressure of having your family a
part of this.
Speaker 7 (21:41):
It's you know, there's virtues and visors right to everything.
So there's a lot of power in it because it's historic.
You know, when we've had two major disruptions of this decade, right,
you had the pandemic, and you could see that was
during the pandemic a right kind of in the middle, right, Yeah,
we were fortunate that all that seatings outside, so we
were able to kind of move things around and deal
with all the restrictions in a way that worked for us,
(22:03):
so we actually did okay once once things started to
loosen up.
Speaker 3 (22:06):
Likes sense.
Speaker 7 (22:07):
Yeah, but we opened another location on Long Beach six
weeks before that pandemic, so that one really struggled. That
one's just now getting to like out of the dark ages,
we'll say.
Speaker 3 (22:16):
And it's a nice, big restaurant as well, that I imagine
is not you know, it's not It's not like you
just have a food truck in the middle of a
parking lot. I mean there's a lot of fixed costs
with that place. I'm sure.
Speaker 7 (22:25):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, So so Long did You're doing great.
That's that's in It's kind of near second in pch
on Alamitos Bay. It's an old Joe's crapsh acts about
four hundred and seventy seeds. It's a little more full service,
but you could also go up and pick out on
your owneafood too. But what's cool is it faces west
where San Pedro faces east, so you can see the
sunset over the bay. Some of the most beautiful sunsets
from there too. So I love the city so much.
(22:47):
I love Pedro. I've been able to You've been there
a lot.
Speaker 3 (22:49):
I've been a lot, and I've done I did a
hometown Pride series there, which basically was about the goings
on of San Pedro and sort of the things that
people like. And everybody obviously has said you got to
go to San Petro Fishmark, and I was like, well, great,
I already know the guy, So yeah, easy. You have
a legacy business in California, a place that is, let's
be real inhospitable to businesses. Yeah, it's tough, real tough.
(23:15):
I can't imagine you ever think about could we do
this somewhere else?
Speaker 7 (23:20):
We have been and we are let me, let me
go back. So the family thing helps with that. Yeah, right,
There's what one of the challenges is is we've made
things work that shouldn't be able to work because we
just don't take no for an answer. We innovate all
the time and we're just stubborn and headstrong. But as
we were expanding, we realized we don't really know how
to run restaurants.
Speaker 3 (23:41):
Very well.
Speaker 7 (23:41):
We managed to do it, but the standard operating procedures
that exist in the rest of the restaurant entry we
invented our own. Oh okay, so when we bring people
in from outside to say Hey, we don't know how
to We need help running this new location, Like, well,
where's this, where's that? You don't have this. We've had
to reinvent all of it. So it took a few
years and COVID kind of helped. So sort of the
what's happens. You have the family way of doing things
(24:02):
and then you have the professional way. So my goal
is just really like how do we merge the two
so we have sort of this hybrid that actually can
compete and give us an advantage of our brother businesses.
Speaker 3 (24:09):
And that's where we are now. So I want you
can you stick around for the next break. Okay, so
we're going to take a break, but before we get
out of here, I know the lines can be crazy.
You're the man, you know the details and the stats.
How do people get there and not have to wait
in crazy lines without slipping you a hundred.
Speaker 7 (24:26):
Bucks early or weekdays or long beach. You can go
open table and en reserve table.
Speaker 3 (24:32):
Okay, all right, great, Well I'm weird the here with
Mike Angaro, the UH proprietor. I think I'm just sort
of the man of the house in the San Pedro
Fish Market. We're going to continue to talk about how
he is not only surviving as a restaurant tour in
California against insane odds, but also thriving. That's all coming up.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 3 (24:53):
Here're Mike Andngaro from San Pedro Fish Market. What is
your actual title? Because to me you are just like
the fish master. I'm technically CEO, but also because it's
sort of a family run.
Speaker 7 (25:05):
Business, I don't get paid anymore than any other family
member for that. Really, No, it's just more the role
that I hold, Like I mean, visionary is probably more accurate.
More like, here's where we're gonna go. I don't know
how we're gonna get there. We're gonna find people to
help us. So you're crazy, there's no way we could
do that, but we're already doing it.
Speaker 3 (25:21):
Guys. You've got the obviously the restaurants. You've got all
of the things that you can. You brought here with us.
We have some seasoning, some garlic, salt, we've got some
hot sauces. You always come with such a great thing. So, Eileen,
I know I told you earlier that he didn't bring anything,
but he brought some stuff. So if you want to
come in here, it's not fish right there, but you
(25:42):
can grab some hot sauce. I like to keep a
bottle of hot sauce in my pocket at all times.
So the beyond the food, there's also this television show
on Amazon Prime, Kings of Fish, and it's it's like
a legit show. It is because it's you guys was
running the restaurant, but also the family drama associated with
(26:03):
it as well.
Speaker 7 (26:04):
Yeah, so you know that that came to us. So
we actually did about seven seasons just on social media,
you know, and I forgot the seven season was all
about COVID and it happened because we were setting three
Guinness World records at one point, and we did. We
set all three in a day, and this film crew
followed us around and created us as we really shopped
it around. No one's really interested in it, but I'm like,
this is really cool. We could use this for other things.
(26:24):
So we decided to self produce it, and then during
the pandemic, one of somebody.
Speaker 5 (26:28):
Reached out to us.
Speaker 7 (26:29):
It was a like a distributor because I can get
you on Amazon Prime and PEPSI will pay for it
and make all these episodes, so we repackaged it. I
never saw the money. The guy kind of disappeared. No,
really weird, but like we made it anyways. And as
you may or may not know this, but one of
the main characters, Tommy Junior, who died, you know, he
had COVID and he passed away. We lost a couple
family members and so we weren't going to do any
(26:50):
more of them. But the idea was this would be one.
You know, we're gonna be in Amazon Prime, so that's
kind of an interesting idea.
Speaker 5 (26:56):
I might have some value. Who knows, I don't know.
Speaker 7 (26:58):
We didn't know, but we thought it be a great
way to memorialize some of the people we lost to.
So we kind of sat down with all the family, Like,
you know, I was these his kids age when my
dad died, because he was fifty six. Like all I
got is a couple of pictures, maybe some random video.
You guys have seven seasons of your dad being himself,
Tommy Junior and their and their aunt Tiffany too. So
I'm like, let's this. This would be a way to
(27:20):
memorialize them if nothing else. And it looks like it's
paid for it. It didn't get paid for, but we
did it anyways, and it was really interesting, Like it
kind of changed the dynamics. So now as we're rebuildings
as an example, right, like, hey, we need to bring
in some more people to help us. We need help
building out our finance team, we need a controller, we
need to find architects, we need to find these and
as we're talking to these people, it turns out, you know,
I've been a customer of you for thirty three years.
Speaker 3 (27:42):
How old are you become?
Speaker 7 (27:43):
I've been covered since I was one month, and I'm like,
I've watched your podcast. You have a podcast called fish Factor.
You can find it on the San Pedro fish YouTube page.
And we have the series too. So now there's this
opportunity where we're at.
Speaker 3 (27:55):
No squid zone. Sorry, it came to me late. Yeah,
we could try to figure out how to do a
bill a round a joke. It's up. So sorry you
railed your whole thoughts. Go ahead, no.
Speaker 7 (28:03):
Problem this is but it's it's been cool because the
value I realized we had like fifteen years ago is
like nobody knows our story. Yeah, and we have this
really unique family history story, you know, going all the
way back to nineteen fifty six because my grandfather was
originally a bookie. The whole thing was a front and
it wasn't supposed to become the business. You know, guys
who knew, but you know that's you know you've been there.
Speaker 5 (28:23):
You know.
Speaker 3 (28:23):
I love it and I love that that. It feels
like an East Coast town. And I know everybody's been
to Sant Peter. But if you haven't been, like, go again.
If you don't go a lot, go check it out.
Sant Peter Fish Market multiple locations, including some in Long Beach.
Speaker 7 (28:36):
Yep, coming soon Monterey up north. I just have the
thirty year least for opening on Fisherman's warf.
Speaker 3 (28:42):
Love love Monterey. They need that up there too, because
I think that, like everybody else, you know, you've got
these legacy places, these large spaces, and for you guys
to come in and do something like that. Now, do
you have to change the name to the Monterey Fish.
Speaker 5 (28:53):
Market or not?
Speaker 7 (28:54):
You know, Long Beach wanted us to do that Monterey
is but no, we had to stick with the brain.
Speaker 3 (28:57):
Of course. Of course, how how fun is it? I
know it's stressful, about how fun is it to look
at this? I'll use the firm empire. I know you wouldn't,
but I will and see it and think, look at
all of my family members with stuff to do.
Speaker 7 (29:12):
It is cool because you know I was told young,
like hey, don't get stuck there, like me, go do something.
So I went to college. I work banking, worked insurance.
Hated it, but those things I brought back with me. Yeah,
And as we're watching the fourth generation, which is typically
where family businesses fall apart, what I've tried to create
is opportunities like you don't have to work in the restaurant.
We have this whole IT department. We have an HR department,
I have an accounting department, and now we have a
media apartment because really, the way I see is we're
(29:33):
becoming more of a media company.
Speaker 3 (29:35):
Right because you know, how for restaurants to do this
thing that people love, but how to translate that into
what everybody the endpoint now is on the internet, on
social media, be the story.
Speaker 7 (29:45):
Like my friend Sean Walscheff at Cauti Barbiercamedia, we would
do a lot of work with It's like be the show,
not the commercial. Right now, that's genius, Sean, because that's
the thing nobody wants see a commercial. I already fast
forward the commercial. We don't need to be a commercial.
We have plenty of stories and everybody that visits us
can be part of it because they can be in
the show.
Speaker 3 (30:01):
Yeah, totally.
Speaker 7 (30:02):
So we integrate that and we're asking people now. I
have one of our hosts at the entrance in the
San Pego location, like, where'd you come from? How far
did you come? How can you come? You'd be It's
amazing how far people travel to visit and spend the
day with us.
Speaker 3 (30:13):
Yeah, and it states and they do wait. People will
wait because it's it's a real it's a real, good product,
and I think it's a good price. I want to
ask you maybe the last question here before we get
out of here. How do you deal with running a
business in California. It's it's inhospitable to have a business.
It's difficult to run a restaurant anywhere right now? Everything
is so expensive. How do you keep your prices reasonable?
(30:33):
Which I think they are. And you know, when we
went and we filmed there, I was looking at the
video that we just we just watched, we just listened to.
It's a lot of guys who are just like coming
from the docks. You know, I think we were there
at eleven in the morning. So it's a lot of
third shifters. Yeah, who you just you love because they're
just getting off work. They pop on over from from
the docks and have some fish. How do you keep
it reasonable for a working person but also have enough
(30:57):
money to keep the lights on and to pay your employees.
Speaker 5 (30:59):
You know, it's for us.
Speaker 7 (31:01):
So most restaurants don't have as many seats as we do,
so that gives us a huge competitive advantage.
Speaker 3 (31:06):
For one. Two are family.
Speaker 7 (31:08):
You know, our typical guest is two or three generations
of families actually, so it could be ten to fifteen people.
So we do everything family style. So you're getting this.
You might say this cost two hundred dollars, you're feeding
ten people. Yeah, so you get this giant pile of
seacre that you design. So it's really what it comes
down to. It's like give people value and create memories
for them. And so people come in now go I
used to come when I was a kid, and now
(31:29):
I'm here with my kids because I want to I
want to share these memories with them.
Speaker 3 (31:32):
So we try to stay true to that It's a
really memorable experience because of the location. Obviously you can't
get over the mountain of fish on a tray, but
also just it does have this very special sense to it.
So I'm glad you're doing it. I'm glad you're going.
You're doing well. Thank you so much for coming. Yeah,
San Peter fish Market. Find them everywhere? Yeah, truly everywhere?
Do we do? We do the hot sauce like in
(31:53):
Whole Foods? Yet is this in else? Like?
Speaker 7 (31:55):
Are we We're I'm launching a new company that's focusing
on that.
Speaker 3 (31:58):
Hey, yeah, well, very good. I can't wait to uh
to come back and see you down there. Uh, thank
you for driving all the way up here. I'm sure
that was not easy, but we really appreciate it. It
was a two cigar drivers. Michaeh Gar there. Very good.
Thanks for joining us here on the any Reesema Show.
Robin is Chris Merril with us. Yes, Hey, y Hey,
(32:18):
how you doing, buddy.
Speaker 5 (32:19):
I'm doing really well. I'm so excited about fish now.
Speaker 3 (32:22):
I was there you go? You get ye? You got
any bottle notes?
Speaker 5 (32:28):
Nor?
Speaker 3 (32:31):
Can we turn on no Meryl too?
Speaker 5 (32:32):
I would?
Speaker 3 (32:32):
I'm curious if you have had any bottle nose. But
I'm asking my car at studio, do you have any
bottles down there at the market just.
Speaker 5 (32:38):
In the harbor occasionally?
Speaker 3 (32:39):
Yeah, not on the plate.
Speaker 8 (32:42):
I love that comment too, about to be the you know,
the content, not the commercial.
Speaker 5 (32:45):
And that is fantastic.
Speaker 8 (32:47):
And it reminded me of that that Pawn Stars shop
in Vegas.
Speaker 5 (32:51):
The line was around the block and how I would
drove by there.
Speaker 8 (32:54):
I mean, and it's such a tiny shop, but that
place was huge and they didn't have to do anything
because they're you know, the show itself is a commercial.
Speaker 5 (33:01):
So that's that's the way to go. Man, good job
on that, Meryl.
Speaker 3 (33:05):
When you're when you're over next time, let's pop on down.
We'll get a plate. What's your what's your fish of choice? Uh?
Speaker 5 (33:13):
I surprise me because oh I like cod or whatever.
Speaker 3 (33:19):
It's like mystery meat.
Speaker 8 (33:22):
I grew up around the Great Lakes and U and
I gotta be I gotta be straight with it. Things
like like trout is a little too fishy for me.
But I love a good fried perch or maybe.
Speaker 5 (33:31):
Just a whole smelt it all. We do both.
Speaker 7 (33:35):
We do both of those, and a lot a nice
steak of swordfish.
Speaker 3 (33:40):
Good stuff. Hey MARYL what's coming up on your show?
Speaker 5 (33:43):
I don't know. I'm all confused now. I was thinking
about the fish.
Speaker 3 (33:46):
Sorry kidding me.
Speaker 8 (33:47):
Yeah, I got bad news and that is that Andy.
Speaker 5 (33:51):
Uh, sadly you got to talk to me today because
I didn't win the.
Speaker 8 (33:53):
Lottery, but I gave it a lot of thought about
what I would do if I did win the lottery.
And uh, first of all, you know, you'd have to
make an appointment to talk to me. But beyond that,
the whole annuity versus the instant payout, and I know
the experts say you take the lump sum. I'm not
sold on that actually, and so I've got some thoughts
(34:14):
on that. So we'll talk about the lottery. We'll talk
about how winning the lottery might be the only way
to achieve the American dream nowadays. And we also, of course,
are going to do our round up with the lawmakers,
the lawbreakers, and the times that there ought to be
a law la law coming up here at about four thirty.
Speaker 3 (34:28):
I love it, love it, love it. Chris Merril sticking
with us all the way until seven pm tonight.
Speaker 5 (34:35):
Yeah, that's when the long National nightmare is over.
Speaker 3 (34:38):
That's my line. Merril, thank you so much, good to
see you. Thanks buddy, we're looking forward to it. Thank
you so much for listening to the Andy Reestmeyer Show.
We'll see you back here next week.
Speaker 1 (34:47):
KFI AM six forty on demand
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