February 8, 2025 • 24 mins
Growing up as a family of 11, the Harrigan’s dinner table was always filled with large plates, simply and lovingly prepared with both taste and budget in mind. As a tribute to their mother, Mary Lou, and inspired by memories at their own dining table, Stonefire Grill began as a simple approach to bringing families together over shared plates with a commitment to freshness, efficiency and value. Today, nearly 25 years later, those same values still hold true – freshly prepared, wallet friendly meals made for sharing in a happy to serve environment. Great dishes for the Big Game. Take a listen!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
One of the first sponsors of The Fork Report and
one of the first partners on the show was Stonefire Grill,
and they have such a great local story and they've
grown to twelve locations now and you can find them
all over the place. And I still when I find
people that haven't tried them, I want to slap them,
(00:20):
but in the best way possible.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Irvine.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
You know Lakewood, Valencia, West Hills, Pasadena. There in Hastings Ranch,
Thousand Oaks. That's close to my family and where I
grew up. So I've used that one many many times.
Fountain Valley, Chatsworth, Rancho Cucamonga, Torrents, Ventura Brea. So you
got a lot of options, and you can find that
(00:46):
out at Stonefiregrill dot com, Stonefiregrill dot com. But today
we thought let's do a deep dive. We have an
opportunity before the big game to remind you where you
can get some fantastic foods. So David Youngberg is with
us today. You are the CEO. I am look at
you big man on campus and I hear look at
(01:09):
you your your your triathlete.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
Oh wow, you must have looked me up. Yes, yes,
I do.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
My homework.
Speaker 4 (01:16):
You're gonna say triathlete, you have to say iron Man, trifling.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Wowkle this is my place. I was just putting.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
Oh no, no, no, no, no, all. I love it.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
I'm gonna try athlete too, because I'm gonna try that.
I'm gonna try that dish there. I'm gonna try a
little bit of that.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
I love that. I love that. Trithlete it was I'm
a decathlete.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
Of food, right, I'm gonna try both ten dishes today.
So that's that's the triathlete is the big three. It's swimming, biking, yes, wow, yeah.
So who's chasing you because that's the only time I
would do any of those things.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
No one's chasing you. The beauty, I know dogs.
Speaker 4 (02:00):
The beauty I think of the sport is it's you're
challenging yourself, like I know we're here to talk about restaurants,
but both against leadership and everything else. And you know
I got into it. I did my first iron Man
at fifty, so that was eight years ago. So I
at fifty, I am look at you and it's I think.
The thing I love about it. The thing I love
about the sport is it's all it's all about you.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
You.
Speaker 4 (02:22):
It's you against you, it's you against nobody else and
the and the environment and everything. And honestly, what it
does is it helps me stay fit so I can
eat as much food as I possibly can.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
Okay, hold on writing a list of reasons why I
gave you. It might take me a minute.
Speaker 4 (02:37):
My friends, my friends call me a food enabler. So
whenever we go out to restaurants, whenever we got to dinner,
I will be the one that'll look at the menu
and they'll be like, Dave, go ahead and order. I'm like,
we got to have this, We got to have that.
I love food. That's why I love your show. I
love listening to it. I love the premise of everything
you do because food is like what brings people together
and it's fantastic.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
And ain't it though.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
I mean, it's just one of those things treaties like
wars have been, you know, concluded over meals. I mean,
it's always been this, you know, breaking bread. And we
talk about this on the show that the word companion,
the root word is pan.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
It's bread. It is one you break bread with my companion.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
So it's one of the things that actually I fell
in love with with Stone Fire grilled the attitude and
the a family style environment in the actual location. So
you go in and you know, you could grab your plates,
you can do whatever, you can do. All these things. Now,
I know there was there's been changes throughout with the
(03:38):
pandemic and everything that has left its mark on eating
out and the like. But I always loved that the
attitude and the connection with the food at Stonefire was
celebrated was family style. You always went home with more
and I can eat as you know, but you know,
taking food home and quality.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
I've been through the kitchens.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
It's something they may not know is about the scratch
made nature. So why don't you explain the kitchen and
attitude of stone Fire, Ah.
Speaker 4 (04:09):
Man, I hope you have a lot of time I'm
in you know, you talk about it. I picked up
his food in Pasadena and I had to go early
because I like to look at the restaurant. I like
to see the fuel of the restaurant. I always love
to talk to guests and ask them how their food is.
And it's just it's such a warm environment. There's families
sitting around on the patio and in the restaurant they're
sharing food right. It's a family style atmosphere and like
(04:32):
you talked about the whole piece of wars and treaties
being solved and typically in families, when once the food's
served and you sit around and you're eating food, everything
becomes better. And the beauty of what Stonefire is is
we not only do it really well in the restaurant,
but we can bring it to your home. You can
pick it up for takeout. We can you know, cater
to you. I mean we cater parties of thirty all
(04:54):
the way up to six thousand people. We're getting ready
to do a six thousand person catering event up at
Grace Community.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
Church, one of our wonderful, very familiar.
Speaker 4 (05:04):
And yeah, and we we basically feed six thousand people
in about forty five minutes to an hour. So our
team is just amazingly incredible.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
So a little bit of a show off though considering
Christ only fed the five thousand. I mean is that,
I mean, is that the thing? You're really competitive? I
think we're learning we'll do six thousand.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
I don't make that decision. Grace Community does.
Speaker 4 (05:27):
They They've grown over time and it's just a really
a wonderful event that we take part in. But to
your point, I mean, you know, the thing that I
love about Stonefire Grill is that there's not a single
bag of product in our restaurant that you would heat up.
We do not have microwaves. Everything is made from scratch,
you know, we are. I brought our carrot cake. You
(05:49):
know these were probably made last night or this morning.
And you know the cream cheese, frosting is is whipped together.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
There's and that's a family recipe, right, Yeah, that's Grandma's
rest be if I remember, I believe.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
So. Yeah, there's a bunch of different stories.
Speaker 4 (06:03):
But I'm pretty close with Mary Harrigan them the founder,
and she and I communicate on a regular basis, and
I've asked her, I said, next time, we really have
to sit down and talk about this, cause I got
to go to know, I have to know the origin story.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
I'm not a huge carrot cake fan, and it will
change your mind. That is one of the only care cakes.
It's absolutely my favorite by far, but it's one of
the only that I will eat.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
You know, it's it's carrot Cake's interesting.
Speaker 4 (06:30):
I've been married thirty five years and carrot cake was
on my wedding cake, right, and I think back then
carra coke standard because it was one that everybody likes.
And I've always been a fan of carrot cake. But
you go places and look, everybody makes it a different way.
There's spice cakes, and there's different types, and to me,
this is just it. I loved it well before ever
coming to work for the brand, and then having the
(06:52):
opportunity to come to work, it was like it was
a dream come true for me because I was a
fan of the brand. I was a fan of the
carrot cake, fan of the tri tip, you know, fan
of thes and the things that they did. And to
be a part of it now and to be a
part of the innovation and the growth and what we do.
But yeah, like I think what's important is nothing has
preservatives in it are you know, like our chili, we
(07:14):
make the beans from scratch, you know, like we add
like we have the poblanos and the serranos and the chipotles,
and you just go into the kitchen and you can
smell it in the herbs and there's a toasted cumin
that's on top of it. And I love being in
the restaurant in the morning because they're toasting spices in
that bouquet, and it just opens things up. And I
just love our kitchens because they're open. You can see
(07:37):
in them, you can see what the cooks are doing.
We cook every piece of meat over an open flame
mosquite wood. We you know, bring in mesquite? Would we
go through?
Speaker 3 (07:46):
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (07:47):
I think one thousand pounds a week out of our restaurants.
And so every try tip or chicken or salmon or
anything gets cooked over an open flame. At least, you know,
reheated over an open flame. We cook low and slow
on our trites hip and our ribs and chicken. I
just realized I didn't bring you ribs, but oh no,
trust me, we have some. We have a.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Great, great sample. Okay, we're gonna get some news. We're
gonna come back. We're gonna taste some of these dishes.
We're gonna change all these dishes that you brought. But
I want to get into something that I've noticed about
the scratch kitchen and the way food is produced at
Stonefire Grill. Hoping you agree. My guest is David Youngberg
(08:30):
from Stonefire Grill. He's the CEO, and his passion obviously
is contagious and it's one of the reasons why we
wanted to have him on to come.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
Talk about the food.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
They are a sponsor, but I will tell you you
know me, I don't participate or connect or get engaged
if you will, with any product that I don't use,
believe in, and wouldn't send my own mother to go
get or to use. So I proudly am excited about
the food we're going to try today. And to remind
(09:00):
you that for the big game or events, you know,
Handles talked about his daughter wanting to have you guys
cater and that's no joke. And today we're celebrating with
David Youngberg. He is the CEO of Stonefire Grill. If
you remember you've been listening since back in the day
(09:20):
when we started the Folk Report, they were one of
our first sponsors and partners, and I fell in love
with them instantaneously. And it is one of those places
every time I recommend people come back and they say.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
Oh, I loved it. I loved it. It was great.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
Add yeah, do you have fantastic barbecue. Yeah, you got
the barbecue. Try tips great. I love the lemon, lemon, garlic, chicken,
all these things mashed potatoes, but there's so much more.
So I wanted to talk to you a little bit,
David about let's talk about the newest thing, because I'd
like to try this this. I've not had this pulled
(09:56):
pork sandwich before and this was something that you said, Hey,
would be great on the menu.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
To talk me through this.
Speaker 4 (10:02):
Yeah, we added we added pulled pork to our menu
last year and big hit. And we were also looking
to expanded some of this with some catering sandwiches. And
so when football season came around, we just we partnered
up with King's Hawaiian, which you know again local company,
fantastic breads, and we the ones you're eating right now
(10:25):
are are our pulled pork sliders on a pretzel bun
and it's you know, our pulled pork and we've got
a creamy coleslaw and our you know pickles and our
pickled onions and yeah, they're just they're fantastic. And you know,
I guess I'll self promote and say, look, you're looking
for something for the big game tomorrow, you know, call
your Stonefire Grill and order the order some sliders.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
We've got trictip sliders.
Speaker 4 (10:48):
We've got pulled pork sliders, and we've got a chicken
guacamole slider that is out of this world.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
And you can pick up a tray.
Speaker 4 (10:55):
There's trays of nine of them, and that with some
carrot cake and some you know, garlic mashed potatoes and
you know some trychip and a pizza, and boy, I
guarantee you every person in your household is going to
be happy with what they eat for the game tomorrow.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
Good night. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
Okay, the pulled port obviously took to perfection. This is
one of the things I love about Stonefire Grow. When
you have a scratch kitchen, it's sometimes I feel like
somebody's making the thing, like I'm making carrot cake, but
you're not. What you do is you're mixing multiple things
(11:36):
together that are going to become the carrot cake. Right, yes,
So I feel like that in this sandwich, this slider
is exactly the same thing. And this is one of
the reasons why I love Stonefire, the mindfulness of the ingredients,
their textures, their flavors, and how they work together. It's
(11:59):
not the slider, it's pulled pork, it's it's pickled vegetables
for your coleslaw. It's the sauce. It's things like you know, toasting,
or the type of bun you're putting it on. In
(12:20):
this case it's a pretzel bun. It's all those things
coming together to make this altogether new thing.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Right.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
I can't stand when somebody makes like a bad buffet.
You go through, you look at it and you go, wow,
that looks delicious. You bite into it in this garbage,
you know, so you can taste in everything that every
ingredient is there for a purpose and a note of
(12:50):
what it's trying to, you know, the music it's trying.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
To create whatever.
Speaker 4 (12:53):
I truly appreciate you obviously you're you know, with your
palate you recognize that. And and look, food is you
know when you're serving food, Yes, they're you know, there
are world famous chefs that put meals together that are
you know, just incredible. But one of the things that
you know, we look for is to put food together
that taste great, that the the the ensemble of it
(13:14):
together when it hits your mouth and you're yeah, and
you're and you you're tasting, like you said, the textures,
the textures of the pulled pork and the crispiness of
the pickled onions, and then you get that the sweet
and sour of you know, the slaw and the pickles,
and then that with you know, the spices that are
on the pulled pork. It's you know that that's kind
of that that taste explosion in your mouth. Like we
just we want to serve good food. We want to
(13:36):
serve good, wholesome food, and we want to make sure
that then when we're you know, when we're nutrients, were
putting nutrients in our body, that it's that it's good
for us. And you know that that's one thing that
we take pride in here is is making sure that
the food that we produce every single day, every single dressing,
every single sauce, Our garbonzo beans are cooked fresh, you know,
our chilies, you know, made from scratch. Like everything comes
(13:58):
together from ingredients that we mix on a daily basis.
And is it cheap to do that.
Speaker 3 (14:04):
It's not.
Speaker 4 (14:04):
But you'd be amazed at how simple it is to
actually bring ingredients together and do it yourself. And look
at the size we're at, we're still able to do
it and just for as long as we can do it,
that's what we're going to do.
Speaker 3 (14:15):
And you know, I'll make a quick comment about our cheesecake.
Speaker 4 (14:19):
When we decided our guests and our we had care cake,
and it was kind of like, well, let's do another dessert.
And we knew that the company prior to the pandemic
used to make a cheesecake, but they stopped making it
because it was difficult to make and it takes a
lot of time and a lot of prep work and
every day exactly. So I said, well then let's go out.
Let's go out and find a local bakery. And we tried,
(14:40):
you know, fifty I think sixty different cheesecakes and finally said, hey,
let's let's make our.
Speaker 3 (14:45):
Recipe and see how it is.
Speaker 4 (14:46):
And we made the recipe, and I think everybody sitting
around the table basically dropped their forks and went, oh, yeah,
we're not trying any other one anymore, because that that
cheesecake is made from scratch and it you know, the
gram cracker crust and the sour cream and powdered sugar
topping that goes on top of it, and when you
put it all together, and the taste and the flavors
(15:08):
in it. Quite honestly, there was nothing else out there
that we could buy that was better than what we
could make in house. And I think we just realized
at that point in time that our goal was going
to be making sure that we could produce fantastic food
with ingredients fresh ingredients that we have in the restaurants.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
Even looking at it, David, I can see the ratios,
you know, you can see the ratios and the layers.
It's strata of that texture of that graham cracker crust
and building up through the creaminess and then the light
finish at the top. All right, we're going to take
another quick break. We come back. I have a question
(15:45):
for you, and this is you know, it's been said
that having one child is, you know, hard enough, you
have two, It's not twice as hard. It quadruples the
amount of difficulty, right, So I feel the same way
when it comes to assistency each time. So twelve we're
gonna talk. We come back about having twelve locations for
(16:05):
Stonefire Grill across the Southland and how you keep consistency
because I've never been to one and said, okay, this
one is not as good as the other one. So well,
that's ponder that, and we come back. David Youngberg, CEO
of Stonefire Grill, is here is my guest reminding you
that tomorrow there's a big game. You got a lot
of mouse to feed. Maybe you were planning to cook,
(16:28):
and it's now Saturday, and you go, I would like
to enjoy and spend the day. Well, there's still time.
Go to Stonefiregrill dot com. Stonefiregrill dot com. You can
check out the menu, the locations. They will take care
of you. They'll go, sh we got you.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
You're gonna be fine. Yeah, and you're going to be
a huge hit.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
We're just having great conversation on and off the air
about food, the importance of food, the importance of scratch
made food. A lot of people don't think about that.
And I left you with a thought, David, about and
excuse me. I'm enjoying the food during the break. People
think I do this for everyone that comes in.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
I don't.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
I taste something, but I can't really eat because I'm
doing a show. Well I'm eating. I'm sorry. I do
love me some Stonefire Grill. As I've said, I've had
I've been to events where we've catered. I've had parties
where I've gone and picked it up, I mean bags
and bags and tins full and brought it and had
(17:34):
everybody enjoy it. Consistency. You've got twelve locations and for
those of you wanting to look, go to Stonefiregrill dot com.
Stonefiregrill dot com. Still time for the big game tomorrow.
If you ruin something, or you're tired and don't feel
like putting this together, or you're going to do an
appetizer and you want someone to do the heavy lifting.
(17:55):
Stonefiregrill dot com twelve locations in the Southland. Check them out. So, David,
how how do you keep consistency on? It's a large
menu and scratch made kitchen. I mean there's room for
mistakes right right.
Speaker 4 (18:11):
I'm gonna I'm gonna comment on one thing. Twelve locations
of Stone Fire but we actually have thirteen restaurants. We
have a Rattler's Barbecue which is in Santa Clarita Valley,
been there thirty seven years. And actually the origin of
Stonefire Girl came out of Rattlers. The family worked at
Rattlers and then left and basically established Stonefire Grill and
(18:32):
then later on actually brought Rattlers into the mix.
Speaker 3 (18:35):
So just bringing.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
Yeah, I've been there many times. I can see it
right now in my head.
Speaker 4 (18:42):
Yeah, I had to have my general manager, Javier there
says it to everything, stone fire, everything, stone fire.
Speaker 3 (18:47):
What about rattlers? So I got to get the middle Guyal, Yes,
he is.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
Built.
Speaker 3 (18:53):
You wouldn't exist, you know, consistent.
Speaker 4 (18:56):
Look, if if you want to talk about consistency, I
would say it starts with people. You hire the right people,
you train the right people, you take care of them,
and you can get that consistency. I have a saying
that I use in it. It was years ago I
read Schultz's book on Starbucks and he said, we're not
(19:18):
in the coffee business, We're in the people business. And
I took that and transitioned it into a saying that
I have said for years and saw my business card.
I came up with it with we are not in
the we are not in the food business serving people.
We're in the people business serving food, and it truly
is the people business. So when you want consistency, you
you have to set standards. You have to you know,
(19:40):
set a way that you do things. You have to
establish that this is the only way that you can
do it right. And then you train your people, and
you take care of them, and you provide them with
the tools that are necessary and the right ingredients and
and everything, and and and an environment where they want
to come to work and they want to do a
great job. You know, when you take care of people
and they're happy at work, it's amazing how how wonderful
(20:01):
they'll be about coming to work and wanting to do
things the right way right.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
And it's not always you know, financial bonuses or things.
Of course, we all need money to live, yes, but acknowledgment,
you can tell. I hate the fact, especially with what
I do. I hate the fact that hospitality is some
of the most inhospitable places these days, and they're starting
to find their way back and places like Stonefire Grill
(20:28):
have focused on that being the backbone and everything emanates
from there because there's a lot of places, I'll be honest,
you guys could cut corners when I walk through that kitchen,
and I've been in the back, I've been in the
back of the house. I've seen how they run the
front of the house. There's a lot of places you
could cut corners to save money, but you're not going
(20:48):
to get that quality in the same way.
Speaker 4 (20:49):
You said the word, which is hospitality. You know, there's
two things that can make up a restaurant. Food and service.
The food that you provide someone that you give them
great food that they can enjoy. They take that bite
and it just tastes fantastic, and then you give them service.
And service is something that you do for somebody. Hospitality
is the X factor in restaurants, and as you said,
(21:10):
you're seeing a resurgence of that. But that is something
that is so important to us. Every single one of
our team members wears a T shirt and on the
front of the T shirt it says happy to serve.
And that is our mantra, that is our promise. That
is everything we do for our guests. We are happy
to serve the guests that come into our restaurants walk
by other restaurants to come in and eat at our restaurant.
(21:31):
If I can keep my team members happy, my manager's happy,
and then they'll keep their team members happy.
Speaker 3 (21:36):
And if the team members are happy, guess what the
guests are happy.
Speaker 4 (21:39):
And hospitality is is not what you do for someone,
it's how you make them feel.
Speaker 3 (21:45):
That's hospitality.
Speaker 4 (21:46):
So it's making sure that we have a smile on
our face when our guests come in. It's the ability
of making you know, like using the we call it
commerce for all, which is we want guests. If you
want to order on our app, we have an app,
and if you want to order on the app, you
can order on the app. If you want to come
to the restaurant in order, if you want to place
it on the internet. We're working to be at kiosks
in the restaurant. Look, some people just want to come in,
(22:06):
stand in front of someone and place an order.
Speaker 3 (22:08):
Great, I want you to be able to do that.
Speaker 4 (22:09):
But I we want our guests to use us how
they see fit and what's comfortable for them. And that's
I think the difference. And in creating the environment and
with our team members, we varied schedules and we do
pay as competitively as possible, and we want to make
our people happy. And like I said, if you give
them the tools and you give them everything that they need,
they're they're gonna they're going to produce the consistency you need.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
One last thing is we're up against the clock. Is
I have a big family. I've said this many times.
I got five brothers and a sister and then we're
all old enough to have extended family. Stonefire Grill is
to this day one of the only places I can
go with my family in large numbers and not feel
like a burden. And that's saying a lot, right, Like
(22:53):
we can go and have a long table, push tables together,
do whatever we want and still feel like we're having
a fan style. And I cannot emphasize enough from someone
who came from a big family, that is not something
you experience a lot, because it's like, oh no, a
big table, this is going to be a paint. The
way it works, it's just and it's that's a huge
(23:16):
thing for me to say because that is a part
that I don't get anywhere else, and I don't care
on what level the restaurant. So thanks for what you do.
Dave Youngberg from David Youngberg from Stonefire Grill CEO. Thanks
for coming in, Thanks for feeding everybody here and pleasure
and bringing so much great food. I'm going to be
eating it through the rest of the program. I'm yeah,
(23:41):
Andrew goes come back whenever.
Speaker 4 (23:42):
Yes, absolutely, we appreciate you guys. Thank you so much
for having us.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
You're so passionate about it. You are welcome anytime. I
know you love food because we've been talking about it
off the air.
Speaker 4 (23:50):
You and I will have to meet up at a
Stone Fire grill or wherever else you want to go.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
We'll go grab, we'll go kidnap handle and we'll go.
We'll go through the menu.
Speaker 4 (23:59):
Madam at our restaurant in Irvine. Not too long so yeah, yeah,
so let's get together.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
That will be fun. Nice to meet your brother very much,
You too,
One of the first sponsors of The Fork Report and
one of the first partners on the show was Stonefire Grill,
and they have such a great local story and they've
grown to twelve locations now and you can find them
all over the place. And I still when I find
people that haven't tried them, I want to slap them,
(00:20):
but in the best way possible.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Irvine.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
You know Lakewood, Valencia, West Hills, Pasadena. There in Hastings Ranch,
Thousand Oaks. That's close to my family and where I
grew up. So I've used that one many many times.
Fountain Valley, Chatsworth, Rancho Cucamonga, Torrents, Ventura Brea. So you
got a lot of options, and you can find that
(00:46):
out at Stonefiregrill dot com, Stonefiregrill dot com. But today
we thought let's do a deep dive. We have an
opportunity before the big game to remind you where you
can get some fantastic foods. So David Youngberg is with
us today. You are the CEO. I am look at
you big man on campus and I hear look at
(01:09):
you your your your triathlete.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
Oh wow, you must have looked me up. Yes, yes,
I do.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
My homework.
Speaker 4 (01:16):
You're gonna say triathlete, you have to say iron Man, trifling.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Wowkle this is my place. I was just putting.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
Oh no, no, no, no, no, all. I love it.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
I'm gonna try athlete too, because I'm gonna try that.
I'm gonna try that dish there. I'm gonna try a
little bit of that.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
I love that. I love that. Trithlete it was I'm
a decathlete.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
Of food, right, I'm gonna try both ten dishes today.
So that's that's the triathlete is the big three. It's swimming, biking, yes, wow, yeah.
So who's chasing you because that's the only time I
would do any of those things.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
No one's chasing you. The beauty, I know dogs.
Speaker 4 (02:00):
The beauty I think of the sport is it's you're
challenging yourself, like I know we're here to talk about restaurants,
but both against leadership and everything else. And you know
I got into it. I did my first iron Man
at fifty, so that was eight years ago. So I
at fifty, I am look at you and it's I think.
The thing I love about it. The thing I love
about the sport is it's all it's all about you.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
You.
Speaker 4 (02:22):
It's you against you, it's you against nobody else and
the and the environment and everything. And honestly, what it
does is it helps me stay fit so I can
eat as much food as I possibly can.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
Okay, hold on writing a list of reasons why I
gave you. It might take me a minute.
Speaker 4 (02:37):
My friends, my friends call me a food enabler. So
whenever we go out to restaurants, whenever we got to dinner,
I will be the one that'll look at the menu
and they'll be like, Dave, go ahead and order. I'm like,
we got to have this, We got to have that.
I love food. That's why I love your show. I
love listening to it. I love the premise of everything
you do because food is like what brings people together
and it's fantastic.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
And ain't it though.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
I mean, it's just one of those things treaties like
wars have been, you know, concluded over meals. I mean,
it's always been this, you know, breaking bread. And we
talk about this on the show that the word companion,
the root word is pan.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
It's bread. It is one you break bread with my companion.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
So it's one of the things that actually I fell
in love with with Stone Fire grilled the attitude and
the a family style environment in the actual location. So
you go in and you know, you could grab your plates,
you can do whatever, you can do. All these things. Now,
I know there was there's been changes throughout with the
(03:38):
pandemic and everything that has left its mark on eating
out and the like. But I always loved that the
attitude and the connection with the food at Stonefire was
celebrated was family style. You always went home with more
and I can eat as you know, but you know,
taking food home and quality.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
I've been through the kitchens.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
It's something they may not know is about the scratch
made nature. So why don't you explain the kitchen and
attitude of stone Fire, Ah.
Speaker 4 (04:09):
Man, I hope you have a lot of time I'm
in you know, you talk about it. I picked up
his food in Pasadena and I had to go early
because I like to look at the restaurant. I like
to see the fuel of the restaurant. I always love
to talk to guests and ask them how their food is.
And it's just it's such a warm environment. There's families
sitting around on the patio and in the restaurant they're
sharing food right. It's a family style atmosphere and like
(04:32):
you talked about the whole piece of wars and treaties
being solved and typically in families, when once the food's
served and you sit around and you're eating food, everything
becomes better. And the beauty of what Stonefire is is
we not only do it really well in the restaurant,
but we can bring it to your home. You can
pick it up for takeout. We can you know, cater
to you. I mean we cater parties of thirty all
(04:54):
the way up to six thousand people. We're getting ready
to do a six thousand person catering event up at
Grace Community.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
Church, one of our wonderful, very familiar.
Speaker 4 (05:04):
And yeah, and we we basically feed six thousand people
in about forty five minutes to an hour. So our
team is just amazingly incredible.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
So a little bit of a show off though considering
Christ only fed the five thousand. I mean is that,
I mean, is that the thing? You're really competitive? I
think we're learning we'll do six thousand.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
I don't make that decision. Grace Community does.
Speaker 4 (05:27):
They They've grown over time and it's just a really
a wonderful event that we take part in. But to
your point, I mean, you know, the thing that I
love about Stonefire Grill is that there's not a single
bag of product in our restaurant that you would heat up.
We do not have microwaves. Everything is made from scratch,
you know, we are. I brought our carrot cake. You
(05:49):
know these were probably made last night or this morning.
And you know the cream cheese, frosting is is whipped together.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
There's and that's a family recipe, right, Yeah, that's Grandma's
rest be if I remember, I believe.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
So. Yeah, there's a bunch of different stories.
Speaker 4 (06:03):
But I'm pretty close with Mary Harrigan them the founder,
and she and I communicate on a regular basis, and
I've asked her, I said, next time, we really have
to sit down and talk about this, cause I got
to go to know, I have to know the origin story.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
I'm not a huge carrot cake fan, and it will
change your mind. That is one of the only care cakes.
It's absolutely my favorite by far, but it's one of
the only that I will eat.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
You know, it's it's carrot Cake's interesting.
Speaker 4 (06:30):
I've been married thirty five years and carrot cake was
on my wedding cake, right, and I think back then
carra coke standard because it was one that everybody likes.
And I've always been a fan of carrot cake. But
you go places and look, everybody makes it a different way.
There's spice cakes, and there's different types, and to me,
this is just it. I loved it well before ever
coming to work for the brand, and then having the
(06:52):
opportunity to come to work, it was like it was
a dream come true for me because I was a
fan of the brand. I was a fan of the
carrot cake, fan of the tri tip, you know, fan
of thes and the things that they did. And to
be a part of it now and to be a
part of the innovation and the growth and what we do.
But yeah, like I think what's important is nothing has
preservatives in it are you know, like our chili, we
(07:14):
make the beans from scratch, you know, like we add
like we have the poblanos and the serranos and the chipotles,
and you just go into the kitchen and you can
smell it in the herbs and there's a toasted cumin
that's on top of it. And I love being in
the restaurant in the morning because they're toasting spices in
that bouquet, and it just opens things up. And I
just love our kitchens because they're open. You can see
(07:37):
in them, you can see what the cooks are doing.
We cook every piece of meat over an open flame
mosquite wood. We you know, bring in mesquite? Would we
go through?
Speaker 3 (07:46):
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (07:47):
I think one thousand pounds a week out of our restaurants.
And so every try tip or chicken or salmon or
anything gets cooked over an open flame. At least, you know,
reheated over an open flame. We cook low and slow
on our trites hip and our ribs and chicken. I
just realized I didn't bring you ribs, but oh no,
trust me, we have some. We have a.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Great, great sample. Okay, we're gonna get some news. We're
gonna come back. We're gonna taste some of these dishes.
We're gonna change all these dishes that you brought. But
I want to get into something that I've noticed about
the scratch kitchen and the way food is produced at
Stonefire Grill. Hoping you agree. My guest is David Youngberg
(08:30):
from Stonefire Grill. He's the CEO, and his passion obviously
is contagious and it's one of the reasons why we
wanted to have him on to come.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
Talk about the food.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
They are a sponsor, but I will tell you you
know me, I don't participate or connect or get engaged
if you will, with any product that I don't use,
believe in, and wouldn't send my own mother to go
get or to use. So I proudly am excited about
the food we're going to try today. And to remind
(09:00):
you that for the big game or events, you know,
Handles talked about his daughter wanting to have you guys
cater and that's no joke. And today we're celebrating with
David Youngberg. He is the CEO of Stonefire Grill. If
you remember you've been listening since back in the day
(09:20):
when we started the Folk Report, they were one of
our first sponsors and partners, and I fell in love
with them instantaneously. And it is one of those places
every time I recommend people come back and they say.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
Oh, I loved it. I loved it. It was great.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
Add yeah, do you have fantastic barbecue. Yeah, you got
the barbecue. Try tips great. I love the lemon, lemon, garlic, chicken,
all these things mashed potatoes, but there's so much more.
So I wanted to talk to you a little bit,
David about let's talk about the newest thing, because I'd
like to try this this. I've not had this pulled
(09:56):
pork sandwich before and this was something that you said, Hey,
would be great on the menu.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
To talk me through this.
Speaker 4 (10:02):
Yeah, we added we added pulled pork to our menu
last year and big hit. And we were also looking
to expanded some of this with some catering sandwiches. And
so when football season came around, we just we partnered
up with King's Hawaiian, which you know again local company,
fantastic breads, and we the ones you're eating right now
(10:25):
are are our pulled pork sliders on a pretzel bun
and it's you know, our pulled pork and we've got
a creamy coleslaw and our you know pickles and our
pickled onions and yeah, they're just they're fantastic. And you know,
I guess I'll self promote and say, look, you're looking
for something for the big game tomorrow, you know, call
your Stonefire Grill and order the order some sliders.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
We've got trictip sliders.
Speaker 4 (10:48):
We've got pulled pork sliders, and we've got a chicken
guacamole slider that is out of this world.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
And you can pick up a tray.
Speaker 4 (10:55):
There's trays of nine of them, and that with some
carrot cake and some you know, garlic mashed potatoes and
you know some trychip and a pizza, and boy, I
guarantee you every person in your household is going to
be happy with what they eat for the game tomorrow.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
Good night. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
Okay, the pulled port obviously took to perfection. This is
one of the things I love about Stonefire Grow. When
you have a scratch kitchen, it's sometimes I feel like
somebody's making the thing, like I'm making carrot cake, but
you're not. What you do is you're mixing multiple things
(11:36):
together that are going to become the carrot cake. Right, yes,
So I feel like that in this sandwich, this slider
is exactly the same thing. And this is one of
the reasons why I love Stonefire, the mindfulness of the ingredients,
their textures, their flavors, and how they work together. It's
(11:59):
not the slider, it's pulled pork, it's it's pickled vegetables
for your coleslaw. It's the sauce. It's things like you know, toasting,
or the type of bun you're putting it on. In
(12:20):
this case it's a pretzel bun. It's all those things
coming together to make this altogether new thing.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Right.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
I can't stand when somebody makes like a bad buffet.
You go through, you look at it and you go, wow,
that looks delicious. You bite into it in this garbage,
you know, so you can taste in everything that every
ingredient is there for a purpose and a note of
(12:50):
what it's trying to, you know, the music it's trying.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
To create whatever.
Speaker 4 (12:53):
I truly appreciate you obviously you're you know, with your
palate you recognize that. And and look, food is you
know when you're serving food, Yes, they're you know, there
are world famous chefs that put meals together that are
you know, just incredible. But one of the things that
you know, we look for is to put food together
that taste great, that the the the ensemble of it
(13:14):
together when it hits your mouth and you're yeah, and
you're and you you're tasting, like you said, the textures,
the textures of the pulled pork and the crispiness of
the pickled onions, and then you get that the sweet
and sour of you know, the slaw and the pickles,
and then that with you know, the spices that are
on the pulled pork. It's you know that that's kind
of that that taste explosion in your mouth. Like we
just we want to serve good food. We want to
(13:36):
serve good, wholesome food, and we want to make sure
that then when we're you know, when we're nutrients, were
putting nutrients in our body, that it's that it's good
for us. And you know that that's one thing that
we take pride in here is is making sure that
the food that we produce every single day, every single dressing,
every single sauce, Our garbonzo beans are cooked fresh, you know,
our chilies, you know, made from scratch. Like everything comes
(13:58):
together from ingredients that we mix on a daily basis.
And is it cheap to do that.
Speaker 3 (14:04):
It's not.
Speaker 4 (14:04):
But you'd be amazed at how simple it is to
actually bring ingredients together and do it yourself. And look
at the size we're at, we're still able to do
it and just for as long as we can do it,
that's what we're going to do.
Speaker 3 (14:15):
And you know, I'll make a quick comment about our cheesecake.
Speaker 4 (14:19):
When we decided our guests and our we had care cake,
and it was kind of like, well, let's do another dessert.
And we knew that the company prior to the pandemic
used to make a cheesecake, but they stopped making it
because it was difficult to make and it takes a
lot of time and a lot of prep work and
every day exactly. So I said, well then let's go out.
Let's go out and find a local bakery. And we tried,
(14:40):
you know, fifty I think sixty different cheesecakes and finally said, hey,
let's let's make our.
Speaker 3 (14:45):
Recipe and see how it is.
Speaker 4 (14:46):
And we made the recipe, and I think everybody sitting
around the table basically dropped their forks and went, oh, yeah,
we're not trying any other one anymore, because that that
cheesecake is made from scratch and it you know, the
gram cracker crust and the sour cream and powdered sugar
topping that goes on top of it, and when you
put it all together, and the taste and the flavors
(15:08):
in it. Quite honestly, there was nothing else out there
that we could buy that was better than what we
could make in house. And I think we just realized
at that point in time that our goal was going
to be making sure that we could produce fantastic food
with ingredients fresh ingredients that we have in the restaurants.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
Even looking at it, David, I can see the ratios,
you know, you can see the ratios and the layers.
It's strata of that texture of that graham cracker crust
and building up through the creaminess and then the light
finish at the top. All right, we're going to take
another quick break. We come back. I have a question
(15:45):
for you, and this is you know, it's been said
that having one child is, you know, hard enough, you
have two, It's not twice as hard. It quadruples the
amount of difficulty, right, So I feel the same way
when it comes to assistency each time. So twelve we're
gonna talk. We come back about having twelve locations for
(16:05):
Stonefire Grill across the Southland and how you keep consistency
because I've never been to one and said, okay, this
one is not as good as the other one. So well,
that's ponder that, and we come back. David Youngberg, CEO
of Stonefire Grill, is here is my guest reminding you
that tomorrow there's a big game. You got a lot
of mouse to feed. Maybe you were planning to cook,
(16:28):
and it's now Saturday, and you go, I would like
to enjoy and spend the day. Well, there's still time.
Go to Stonefiregrill dot com. Stonefiregrill dot com. You can
check out the menu, the locations. They will take care
of you. They'll go, sh we got you.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
You're gonna be fine. Yeah, and you're going to be
a huge hit.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
We're just having great conversation on and off the air
about food, the importance of food, the importance of scratch
made food. A lot of people don't think about that.
And I left you with a thought, David, about and
excuse me. I'm enjoying the food during the break. People
think I do this for everyone that comes in.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
I don't.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
I taste something, but I can't really eat because I'm
doing a show. Well I'm eating. I'm sorry. I do
love me some Stonefire Grill. As I've said, I've had
I've been to events where we've catered. I've had parties
where I've gone and picked it up, I mean bags
and bags and tins full and brought it and had
(17:34):
everybody enjoy it. Consistency. You've got twelve locations and for
those of you wanting to look, go to Stonefiregrill dot com.
Stonefiregrill dot com. Still time for the big game tomorrow.
If you ruin something, or you're tired and don't feel
like putting this together, or you're going to do an
appetizer and you want someone to do the heavy lifting.
(17:55):
Stonefiregrill dot com twelve locations in the Southland. Check them out. So, David,
how how do you keep consistency on? It's a large
menu and scratch made kitchen. I mean there's room for
mistakes right right.
Speaker 4 (18:11):
I'm gonna I'm gonna comment on one thing. Twelve locations
of Stone Fire but we actually have thirteen restaurants. We
have a Rattler's Barbecue which is in Santa Clarita Valley,
been there thirty seven years. And actually the origin of
Stonefire Girl came out of Rattlers. The family worked at
Rattlers and then left and basically established Stonefire Grill and
(18:32):
then later on actually brought Rattlers into the mix.
Speaker 3 (18:35):
So just bringing.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
Yeah, I've been there many times. I can see it
right now in my head.
Speaker 4 (18:42):
Yeah, I had to have my general manager, Javier there
says it to everything, stone fire, everything, stone fire.
Speaker 3 (18:47):
What about rattlers? So I got to get the middle Guyal, Yes,
he is.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
Built.
Speaker 3 (18:53):
You wouldn't exist, you know, consistent.
Speaker 4 (18:56):
Look, if if you want to talk about consistency, I
would say it starts with people. You hire the right people,
you train the right people, you take care of them,
and you can get that consistency. I have a saying
that I use in it. It was years ago I
read Schultz's book on Starbucks and he said, we're not
(19:18):
in the coffee business, We're in the people business. And
I took that and transitioned it into a saying that
I have said for years and saw my business card.
I came up with it with we are not in
the we are not in the food business serving people.
We're in the people business serving food, and it truly
is the people business. So when you want consistency, you
you have to set standards. You have to you know,
(19:40):
set a way that you do things. You have to
establish that this is the only way that you can
do it right. And then you train your people, and
you take care of them, and you provide them with
the tools that are necessary and the right ingredients and
and everything, and and and an environment where they want
to come to work and they want to do a
great job. You know, when you take care of people
and they're happy at work, it's amazing how how wonderful
(20:01):
they'll be about coming to work and wanting to do
things the right way right.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
And it's not always you know, financial bonuses or things.
Of course, we all need money to live, yes, but acknowledgment,
you can tell. I hate the fact, especially with what
I do. I hate the fact that hospitality is some
of the most inhospitable places these days, and they're starting
to find their way back and places like Stonefire Grill
(20:28):
have focused on that being the backbone and everything emanates
from there because there's a lot of places, I'll be honest,
you guys could cut corners when I walk through that kitchen,
and I've been in the back, I've been in the
back of the house. I've seen how they run the
front of the house. There's a lot of places you
could cut corners to save money, but you're not going
(20:48):
to get that quality in the same way.
Speaker 4 (20:49):
You said the word, which is hospitality. You know, there's
two things that can make up a restaurant. Food and service.
The food that you provide someone that you give them
great food that they can enjoy. They take that bite
and it just tastes fantastic, and then you give them service.
And service is something that you do for somebody. Hospitality
is the X factor in restaurants, and as you said,
(21:10):
you're seeing a resurgence of that. But that is something
that is so important to us. Every single one of
our team members wears a T shirt and on the
front of the T shirt it says happy to serve.
And that is our mantra, that is our promise. That
is everything we do for our guests. We are happy
to serve the guests that come into our restaurants walk
by other restaurants to come in and eat at our restaurant.
(21:31):
If I can keep my team members happy, my manager's happy,
and then they'll keep their team members happy.
Speaker 3 (21:36):
And if the team members are happy, guess what the
guests are happy.
Speaker 4 (21:39):
And hospitality is is not what you do for someone,
it's how you make them feel.
Speaker 3 (21:45):
That's hospitality.
Speaker 4 (21:46):
So it's making sure that we have a smile on
our face when our guests come in. It's the ability
of making you know, like using the we call it
commerce for all, which is we want guests. If you
want to order on our app, we have an app,
and if you want to order on the app, you
can order on the app. If you want to come
to the restaurant in order, if you want to place
it on the internet. We're working to be at kiosks
in the restaurant. Look, some people just want to come in,
(22:06):
stand in front of someone and place an order.
Speaker 3 (22:08):
Great, I want you to be able to do that.
Speaker 4 (22:09):
But I we want our guests to use us how
they see fit and what's comfortable for them. And that's
I think the difference. And in creating the environment and
with our team members, we varied schedules and we do
pay as competitively as possible, and we want to make
our people happy. And like I said, if you give
them the tools and you give them everything that they need,
they're they're gonna they're going to produce the consistency you need.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
One last thing is we're up against the clock. Is
I have a big family. I've said this many times.
I got five brothers and a sister and then we're
all old enough to have extended family. Stonefire Grill is
to this day one of the only places I can
go with my family in large numbers and not feel
like a burden. And that's saying a lot, right, Like
(22:53):
we can go and have a long table, push tables together,
do whatever we want and still feel like we're having
a fan style. And I cannot emphasize enough from someone
who came from a big family, that is not something
you experience a lot, because it's like, oh no, a
big table, this is going to be a paint. The
way it works, it's just and it's that's a huge
(23:16):
thing for me to say because that is a part
that I don't get anywhere else, and I don't care
on what level the restaurant. So thanks for what you do.
Dave Youngberg from David Youngberg from Stonefire Grill CEO. Thanks
for coming in, Thanks for feeding everybody here and pleasure
and bringing so much great food. I'm going to be
eating it through the rest of the program. I'm yeah,
(23:41):
Andrew goes come back whenever.
Speaker 4 (23:42):
Yes, absolutely, we appreciate you guys. Thank you so much
for having us.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
You're so passionate about it. You are welcome anytime. I
know you love food because we've been talking about it
off the air.
Speaker 4 (23:50):
You and I will have to meet up at a
Stone Fire grill or wherever else you want to go.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
We'll go grab, we'll go kidnap handle and we'll go.
We'll go through the menu.
Speaker 4 (23:59):
Madam at our restaurant in Irvine. Not too long so yeah, yeah,
so let's get together.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
That will be fun. Nice to meet your brother very much,
You too,
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