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Hello and welcome to cooking issues. This is Dave Arnold, your host of cooking issues coming to you live on the network every Tuesday for man or no like 1212 10 to like you know like one like one on one dish from birth pizzeria in Bushwick. Not joined as usual, Anastasia to hammer Lopez she's in an investor meeting but not in the business. Or other businesses apparently more important than you folks out there. So there's that. We got Dave in the booth. Yeah, take that to the bank. Yeah, I do. And Dave, I'm gonna read about you. Alright, how's your how's your week? So far? So good, I guess. I think the Stasi said she may come later. And thankfully she will never listen to the back so she won't hear me talking about her like a dog. That's true. But we do have today in in the studio, an interesting guest we have Joshua Apple stone. Hello, hello, the founder and owner of Apple stone meats and Fleischer's as in one who cuts up flesh isn't a butcher? Yes. One who cuts up flesh is like a butcher. Yeah. Because you in fact, are a butcher. Yes. Yeah. All right. We also have in the studio with us the chief chief creative officer that was done. I'm the CEO and then creative director, Creative Director, COO, COO Chief Operating Officer, right? What the hell does that mean?

It means I do everything that

I don't want to do. Okay, but like so I've always been curious. There's all these like C's and then some o's and stuff. Like, I understand what a CFO does. That's the money person. Not that they have money, they move the money around, right? CEO, basically, I guess does whatever they want to go to see CEO, see oh, and I like do all institutions have a CEO. I mean, I know we don't have a see anything of oh, we have just like, you know Booker and DAX. We've got repartee do that you know what I mean? Just the Stasi and myself, but

I like to quote one of our employees on this, he gave us an employee feedback review. And he said that Josh was kind of like a wild animal like energy in the world, and that I was the prism that channeled all of his wild ideas into reality. So in our case, anyway, the CFO is the person who just like, makes the crazy ideas happen, and then oversees everybody else who's also really making it happen.

I like that. So by the way, people when you're starting a business, you know, you should find people who have the skills you don't

Oh, God, just hire Yes. You know,

I have made this mistake before.

You can't hire all the same personalities, you can't hire everyone the same idea. You need a well, diverse staff.

And then also in the booth, we have Rebecca, who I've worked worked with years past it at Momofuku, how're you doing? I'm good. Yeah. So what's your what's the what's your official story right now?

I am working with these fine, folks. And with you

nice, yes. But so you're not you're officially not involved with the Momofuku anymore? You are,

I left Momofuku in May, although they will always be

family, I can never tell what's official and what's not. Because what happens is, people first of all, I can't even keep my own name straight, or like, you know, birthdays in my family. So people, as soon as someone says, Don't say anything, for me, that's like, forever. So like, Rebecca tells me like, you know, don't say anything, because I'm going to do something on my own maybe. And so for me, that's a forever don't do that for this for

forever. Dave, you're breaking that right. Dave? All right.

So listen, people, you're gonna want to call in your questions to 718-497-2128. That's 718-497-2128. Because if you didn't know it, the one of the really cool things about Apple, stone, meats, meats, meats, meats, is that I didn't know whether it's meats or meat company

means the company, the meat company we have. Right, but it's

Apple stone meat company. Yes. Yeah, Apple stone meat company. So the cool thing about this, and, you know, I'm actually pretty curious to talk to you about what the the the impetus for it and kind of what the positives and negatives are. The idea here is that you have this, you have this desire to sell, very high quality, well raised, well butchered meats, right. And then you have a group of people that wants to buy that. But they might want to buy that at a time in which you don't feel it convenient to sell it to them.

We, the idea of brick and mortar being open on a traditional nine to five doesn't fit everyone's everyone's schedule, and to play with the hours of availability is almost not fair. So we are 24/7 and seven days a week.

And so that just to say it, because I haven't said it yet, these guys put their meat in vending machines. Now, for those of you I know, this is a this is a podcast, so you can't see what I'm talking about. So I'm going to help you picture what kind of vending machine we're not talking about, like a soda vending machine where you just see a picture of the soda we're talking about. And no one's gonna remember this because I don't know, because no one out there is old enough. But they used to have these vending machines for sandwiches in like 1970s and early 80s.

Really? Yes. Because that's the machines we use currently. Yeah, well, I

saw the picture of it. I didn't know I thought maybe you refurbish old ones I didn't know they still made them.

When we started this years ago, we couldn't find those machines that accept the credit cards, because those type of machines are only used in institutional use that worked off of debit accounts. So we had to not only take what we needed, with existing technology, we had to turn it to what we needed to do to see if it would work. Because, you know, we've been doing for four years, we started with the idea of how this would be great if we could do this, too. How can we how can we do this? And to now we're into designing and patenting around machines, because what's available now still is not what we need is not readily available now in the marketplace. We're still customizing constantly. Yeah, I mean, it's it's it's a faceless transact, although we have someone there the hours are 11 to six, I believe, seven days a week. So you can always talk to somebody for questions or any issues that might pop up. There's always someone there to talk to a decent window of time every day. But to have a faceless transaction to have a transaction that you become a brand that's trusted because you know, no matter what you get out of the machine you're going to good to go has been a process in the study and from my previous company working that for 10 years and be in the food industry forever. Seen what we're doing now that doesn't seem like such a big deal is really been amazing because where we started at where people don't know, we're every kind of company basically to people think we're crazy to start it when we started and people give me the look like you know how could that be and buying something that's like I said mind somehow a vending machine, we're going towards the idea of not concentrating about buying of a vending machine, but having a sales experience or a retail sales experience. Normally, it's quick and efficient, but it was on their schedule, which is really crazy. It's crazy. It's awesome, to help me who the hell wants to meet at 10pm. And of course, we're just on engineers office recently in this woman came up to her, she's like, I gotta tell you, I've diabetes, you've saved my life. Because I get out of the gym at 9pm, I need to go home, there's nothing open up state. And now I can get fresh meat from you or somebody gets frozen, or whatever it is. And she's good to go. She has exactly the balanced meals she needs when she needs it. And we have fire men, fire people, we have people commuting, it's just people don't all work the same hours. It's such a, it's such a old concept that you that well, you should only be open nine to five or under. And anyone out there in retail understands the cost involved with running a brick and mortar to cut to have the sales in the certain window. It's a fall,

but also like, like everyone in the country, especially, especially everyone you know who's not living in, you know, who's living kind of in the suburbs has become accustomed to 24/7 Major, big grocery. And so basically what happens is if they want food outside of what you're saying like that nine to five hour range. They are they're buying supermarket product that

people will we've seen with Amazon and other more convenient platforms for selling direct to consumer sales. People in a way we'll sacrifice quality for convenience. And it's almost a punishment there. If you you want to be able to get this anytime you're only going to have this many products to pick from. It's a common problem where even people don't have a selection, they don't have enough choice and things are getting more and more expensive. How do you get more for your dollar without losing money? Or how can you give a consumer more more more convenience, more quality for the same amount of money without having to cut prices? And to us it was about the time that people have access to it?

Right? Well, I think also there's like a, you know, I mean, obviously, this is not like anything new. But there's a there's a much a fast growing segment of the population with enough money to buy decent quality products, but not so much money that they're completely price insensitive. And no one is price insensitive. I believe that right. And, but so like to be able to, you know, not have to deal with like the loss and the problems of distributing to, let's say, a local supermarket, it's open 24/7. You know, I think that group of people, like you know, I'm one of those people, we also like thinking that the person that we're buying from even if we don't get to see you in person somehow gets to lead a decent life.

You know what I mean? It goes beyond that, where I think it's not only do you want your butcher your convenience person, to have a normal life, you want to see them at ballgames, you want to see them out in the weekend, not behind the counter. But people really want to believe that they're supporting a local ecosystem. Even if, if you had a soup if you had a small mom Papo Degas that doesn't have anything local people still believe and they are they're supporting the local economy. Even though the products don't come from New York City or Brooklyn or wherever it is. That there is different ideas of local there's different ideas of locale that supporting a small business is literally doing that a local economy. And it's important that the 24/7 was such a gift in a way to consumers that we didn't realize because it was one of the final things final hurdles people had that the buy me to have machine is a big deal but really to be able to buy it anytime you want at a high quality. We I was just talking about where I was at the store and these guys are talking to one guy as a weightlifter and they're the ones some big MMA star and talking about how they constantly go to our place, you know, late at night they work out it's an easier thing. And you realize that people need clean food everywhere. They need a safe zone everywhere that we hear about food deserts we hear about just shops being too expensive, or just not you know, not carrying the quality it's very hard to appease everyone. But when you start picking and choosing your battles really carefully and focusing the store on that it seems to work like you know right now we just do meat we're trying to stay with that. To do other groceries to me kind of takes away from the purpose of what we're doing. But they're still it's like milk. You we we have our first store which is Stone Ridge up in the Hudson Valley and really the whole place closes down to 10pm You know you have to feed your you forget about picking up dog food late at night you have you need milk for the morning. There's just something really convenient about a model like this that doesn't tax you Do between the quality and the price,

as it seems to work. The thing about meat, though, is that I mean, almost anybody, meat is still even with the absurd relative cheapness of meat these days, in supermarkets, meat is still seen as kind of like the big buy of the day, you know, and check this

out when we go to Vegas every year to go to the vending shows, because we're always looking for new talent technology, which is why we're doing our own machines, because there's just nothing out there, that we were at win last year. And these guys, so like $3,000 computers, and like, yeah, we can sell this many computers, no problem a day, it's no big deal at all, but someone's gonna buy a $6 pack of ground meat, you got to really think about that. And we realized that we were really onto something because just with my background and my ears with this type of product, I know it better than anything, that it's easy for me to sell this. And it's, it's not easy for me to sell it faceless, but it's shorter of a gap for me to make that for people to get people to understand. Because people are so used to buying computers, they're so used to these things. And it's I think one of the reasons it hasn't been done is because there has not been a name out there that's so trusted with such a particular type of safezone. Right. And that's why and you know, it sounds so stupid. But the 24/7 is what really was like we because we realized that like, you know, success. Not everyone successful working tons of hours is making tons of money. But there's like a little theme here you realize, like, oh, everyone's working tons of hours. No one has any time. Tell me about it. I know. Well, even. Yeah, but that's where it isn't. You know, it's funny with our staff. We work five days a week, we work Monday to Friday, and we start seven, they are off by three. And one of the things that they people would come to me our employees be like, Wow, it's really amazing. They have off on the weekends. I've never literally never in 20 years that off on weekends always work restaurants. And you realize that it satisfies the front of the house because we have a convenience, we have a product and we have a locations that we can we're working on the people are very willing to try it out and on the back end with our employees that we can pay them a little bit more, we can give them more time off. And just like I said, it's like it's all of a sudden you realize that it brings more of a human factor to everything. And when we came up with this originally, my whole thing with talking to the butchers was you can now close your slowest day and just have this machine packed. And you don't even worry about being open, you're only going to do a certain amount anyway, you know that you sell these things, these regulars. And all of a sudden having a day off. It's like having a real day off, especially when you have a kid that's that's a big deal.

Yeah. And now Okay, so a couple things by the experience and a couple of questions. So when Rebecca first told me, Hey, you know, meat vending machine like, but I have to say like you have to Google, you have to Google it. And look at the look at the vending machine and you can see right away that I am one of those people that I must see the thing I'm buying this is why I know I'm a complete Luddite strangely because I'm known for its I've kind of technical cooking stuff, but I don't use delivery services for my groceries because I like to see the food that I'm going to buy. Even if I go to my local fine, fair, you know, garbage supermarket. I like to pick out my produce. I like to pick out the products I'm going to use specific cuts specific pieces, I want that piece because I'm going to cook it a particular way. And this the vending machine is like a stack of carousels. So you have like a column with carousels on it. eight rows, eight rows and you can see and I don't know how many how many in each segments and each

depends on the size of the pocket,

but enough and you can rotate through and you can pick exactly the thing you want. You're not like pushing a button and like you know you don't like it a vending machine just because this is what I was thinking you're buying. Like those Ritz crackers even though they have salmonella now the risk sandwich crackers, and there's that screw thing and the one that's in the front is mangled. But the one that's in the back is nice and you're like ah I want the rich cracker but I don't want the mangled one I want the one behind it. In this situation. You get to choose exactly which one you want right you get to choose your piece of meat like you can choose whichever column you want. No,

yes this is this is yes. But it's a whole long conversation I'm sure Sam is giving me the look don't get it having a convenient shopping experience with a as guarantee as you can perfect product. There are compromises and the new machines we're developing that the thing that you just said. The reason I picked these machines now that we use currently flip past two and a half years is because you can rotate them to see different states there'll be different prices. But when you really do you haven't been there so when you look at it, you can't really see them though you can see them but you can't see him the way you what you just said you're the type of person when you walk into a butcher shops and can take that tray out. I want to see that 1/3 in the back are set and that's fine. That type of customer with the new machines might not be as satisfied now but I'm betting that it works out anyway. And we did this on purpose because cuz the way vending machines are built today, you can't make it as displayable as you wouldn't a butcher shop with the

safety for food safety reasons, or

it's not food safety reasons, it's packaging reasons, it's integrity of the product reasons, it's the setting up of the machine reasons. And for you for one to have to literally mimic a butcher shop 100% It can be done, it most likely would make the same amount of profit margins that a modern butcher shop does, which are small. And

I can I interject, though, Hey. Um, however, you do have someone there. And one of the things that I like about the store is say you do want to see exactly what you want to pick out, they can go pull, and you can look at a variety of pieces, which they do, you know, so I think

the new machines will do the same thing, except it does it in a different way. And the reason I say it's because I'm a butcher, and because my entire background is in, I want to see that third steak in the back.

That way I live.

But there's a way there's, there's a person when you walk into a store, just the back, it will tell you see just saying this, like, Oh, I know exactly what the when you walk into a butcher shop, you expect certain sounds, feet smells, feeling of the air. The reason that you feel so empowered to say I want to throw it in the back is because this is a routine that you've been trained to accept and know that you know your limitations within this word is

that so Dave Arnold is Dave Barnes.

I'm not gonna say that. So, the situation of someone walking into a shop like ours with new machines and saying, I want to feed three people, I want to do three Bonin steaks, the machine will show them a series of steaks to pick from just like you want. So provides guidance, the new guidance at the the sizes, the pricing of each one, the whole Michigan is how thick it would be with a ruler next to it. But not yet, that's no, that's the new, there's no right now you can see them. But I'm talking about the way the way the future is going the way I can see it the way I can see. Pricing, staying lower accessibility getting better and better and quality staying there without being taxed on price. That we have to be retrained how we look at things. And the same way when we when you said people can only buy a machine, they're so thrilled and it's done. My next generation of machines, I hope people not to think about buying out of machine, rather than saying that was the coolest fucking experience I've ever had. I just bought this stuff. And by the way, everything I got there was amazing. Like, every time I go there, it you know, I want the same I want the same size flattered I get every time I want the same ground beef a taste the same as the same mouthfeel. And that's what people are really looking for. They're looking for a consistent steady product, they know what's good for them. That's not going to kill them in the pocket.

Isn't that. But isn't it a consistency is always when you're dealing with kind of like higher end meats is the hardest thing to achieve in general, whether you're I don't think so for me for in the market. And here in New York, like it's so variable because the supplies aren't as consistent. Really, yeah, I

swear to God, nice. It's just it's a matter of how one conducts their business. Not that one's better or worse, it's just that I know that what I have done through a time I know what I who I work with, I it's just what I do. So my job is sourcing and execution. And the we're just talking about I was talking about these guys, I was talking to yesterday about the idea of how being a butcher is such an art because there really is like, you know, muscles are different, you have to trim them a certain way. You know, going back to the idea of the faceless transaction, it's really important for us to have consistency, it's really important for us to have knowing that someone's gonna buy something out of the machine, although there's someone there you can always kibitz with you can if you buy something you don't like it, you can turn around, return it and you know, exchange it, you want more selection, it's you know, we're customer service, we're there to help. But there's there's a there's an hours for that. And the rest have just come freely and do what you want or do what you can.

So do you still get to have me like do you miss or do you still get I guess that kind of customer back when I had a back when I was a real human being? Like I used to like every question that it was like, you know, like 1617 years ago when I was a real human, and I had a butcher his name was Michael and I would visit Michael. And we would spend like a half hour together. And you know, he would be like I can get you the illegal lungs, Dave and then like, you know what I mean? And we talk about his family and he'd get married and I buy him a bottle of wine for his marriage and you know what I mean stuff like this.

That definitely still happens. We it's we have shifted ports to shift reports a day we're including the shift reports that Sam's actually set up that we have communication with customers and special things that happen a bad things and we still have the same feeling that we've always had with our company. I'm dealing we still we were really big on community. We're looking at Community cookbooks were constantly talking to our customers. The social and interaction with people is still there is what really blows our mind is how many people do not want to talk to anyone, and they come there late at night. And it's not just people coming up. It's literally just people like, Look, I just want to get in and out and be done. One of my favorite stories like 2am sons, and they're trying to use the machines, and there's not work in this one of the two. And there's another person, there's some dude there. And the guy looks over to his right. And the guy's like, oh, yeah, I'll show you about somebody shows me how to do it. Because like, thanks a lot. He looks at me goes, thanks for those Daniel Craig James Bond, literally to show me. But it was just interesting. Not just people traveling through but the way we see things is that every single person out there needs to shop when they do and when they want to. And the idea that this is hitting anywhere from a fireman to someone famous, the teacher says that we're on the right path. You know, what the biggest question I had from people when we started was like, who, who actually shopped there. And it was one of those days where I walk in and my, my eight year old son at the time was talking to some people rubbing their 70s on how to use the machine. And, you know, it was one of those clicking moments going, wow, there's really no method to the madness, just that everyone out there needs clean food, how do we get it to them? And how do we make it as easy as possible? We don't think we're going to get everyone but what's really funny is that even the person who wants to pick the third stick in the back is going to use that place at least once a week because it's convenient. You know it not everyone wants a $30 bone steak. Some people just need a pack of ground beef.

So we have we have a color we're going to take but then when I get back I want to know a cut of meat. Daniel Craig bought call I remember you don't remember. Come on, man. I'll be like, what? Anyway? Caller you're on the air.

Jeff given from Costa Mesa, I met you in the bar last night. We're talking about patents.

Yeah. Hey, how you doing? How's it? Yeah. So you had a question about patents. And he's working. I can say this because he said it on the air before in the realm of sinks and foot pedals use foot pedals

for pedals and sinks. Yeah, the pedal

was very convenient because they mix the temperature well, right foot pedals go to schmaltzy. Oh, in the butcher shop Anyway, go ahead. What's up?

Yeah. So you also we walked over the front of waffle soaking in. And you mentioned something about needing to separate the braid off the starch. And it reminded me that I have at home a quart container of strawberry juice that it couldn't get to clarify and the spins off. And I wondered if I warmed it up too much in the vitae prep. If you've ever had a problem with that, where I don't know if there's some kind of like, that illustrates potato situation where it's like setting the pectins too hard with them. They can't they can't break down from the enzyme.

I have never had that happen with strawberries. What can happen with strawberries is if they don't, if you don't get the solids to clump hard enough, I understand you're saying that you're thinking of functionalizing the pectin such that they don't drop out or don't get killed by the enzyme. Yeah, I just wondered if I would do a little redoes of enzyme again, like maybe the strawberries are a little harder than they were before and right around the pH range of strawberries, the you need to up the enzyme load on the SPL to get it to clarify properly. Okay, so you could try hitting with a little more SPL, you were using wind finding agents or no?

I did all the Yeah, you can also just the fact we're just the enzyme and then went with the Keystone dam,

right. So if you're doing like Kiesel saw, aka D one, right, and then chi to San and then Kiesel Sol, again, if it doesn't flop hard enough, you can just hit it again with whatever the opposite of the last one you hit it. So if you did D one, D two D one, you can go back to a little bit of D two. I've never done it more than like one more like addition of D one D two, little extra enzyme and that should drop out but a good idea as that stuff sits in the fridge overnight. Should clump harder. And you should see like some cloudy stuff at the bottom of your juice and that stuff will spin spin right out.

Yeah, I've got that. And so now it's been in there for a long time. So then I'm wondering if I should just turn it into strawberry drink and what what you would actually do for that process? Oh, well.

Strawberry fresh strawberry is going to have a brix anywhere between eight and nine and change depending unless you have some preposterously see sweet strawberries out there. So if you want to, and it's very tart so I used to use this product when I was teaching college anemic acid that would erase people's sense of sweet and if you remove the sugar from a strawberry, it is a freaking acid bomb. It's just really really really sour. So I wouldn't do

those back end some simple or something after Oh, you could

you could ferment it dry and then hit it with sugar to bring it to bring it back but I would say you're going to want to add some sugar anyway to take it up. I would take it up to like like 1516 bricks to ferment it dry and then it's going to be really acidic. So you're going to want to cut it with something or Yeah, I guess you could you know turn it to an off try to do it but the the acidity level those strawberries is going to be typically quite high. Okay. and strawberry on its own without sugar because when I ferment stuff I in general prefer to drink dry fermented things like yours and wines dry.

And so I did some dry Mead earlier with a bunch of wild honey and some friends wild grapes and how was it gonna drive like bushes?

Yeah, so like drive just like beware I think that's the problem with a lot of craft ciders and craft fermented stuff in the US these days is that they you know don't take into account how acidic things become when they're fermented dry. And they always like you know, kill the process when they're still sweet but let us know how it works out.

Thank you and

good luck with your patents. We should take a quick break. All right, take a quick break come back with more cookie issues.

At sassy it's time for our Bob's Red Mill moment where we put your cooking improvisational skills to the test. This week secret ingredient is lentils Anastasia tell us what you'd make

I would make lentils with cotechino or what was the other one? Like they do in Italy for New Years and whatever that's why because they cook super quick

now lentils New Year's because lentils is the equivalent of money. Yeah, they shaped like little coins. Yes. And they cook fairly quickly because they're so thin. You don't need to soak them very much they cook very quickly. It's easy to cook lentils in a very fast manner. Yeah. Thanks to Bob's Red Mill for supporting cooking issues visit Bob's Red mill.com to shop their huge range of products use the code cooking 25 for 25% off your order that's cooking no space the number two the number five and we are back talking to Joshua from Apple stone meat Corporation at what is it? Was it really apple? What

does it really stone meat company

Apple stone meat company? I can never get the names of anything right even my own company. It's crazy.

National meat Corporation sounds really bad.

Yeah, amalgamated conglomerated meats gloried it's like it's like right up there with congealed is a bad thing. When you talk about meats the meat is congealed. No one wants to wrist and yeah. business idea. So don't get me is the now here's the thing. I have questions. So you said you're moving to new machines? Is it because you one of the things because you want to increase like the density of product you can store in the in the machines? Is it that you can't get enough pride into your current machines? That's one of the reasons? Yeah, I mean, like, because you're limited by by the way, I don't know if you know this. We had to we have at my bar. We have some old Coca Cola vending machines. Modified. Yeah. But we have legal problems because like people like usual put these other places, and I'm actually working on that, too. I'm like, it's illegal for me to do that. I don't have the proper license to do that.

It's interesting. Yeah, we can. That's another radio show. Yeah. But,

you know, specifically in New York State. You know, liquor laws are tough. Yeah, they're tough. And so, you know, you, you know, we have a license to sell on premise. We're specifically not allowed to sell off premise. So we, in our vending machines, people are like, are you allowed to do that? And I'm like, I couldn't hear you. I couldn't hear what you said. But the like, we're very, very careful. Hearing listens. Yeah. Well, we're super careful. Like, we make sure that everybody who takes one opens it, right. Like, right, yes.

Like, yes, like jersey, how you can vote? Yeah, yes.

So it's like, as long as we know that it's opened like, it's, it's kosher. Right. And the other thing is that because it's on premise, and it's illegal to over serve, we only sell token by token to people, not like, Hey, can I buy a set of tokens? And you're like and you're like no a machine

of the champagne machines the same way you have to buy tokens. Yeah.

What if someone comes in every day? And they buy one token, and they don't use it

a message on my business for I think

you started it nice the night show of payback from

I mean, obviously, obviously from a business standpoint, it's a token as a someone wants to buy a token as a keepsake, man that's a win like a like a like a 50 cent tote or certificates, MAN Yeah. I mean, when when when the but when the thing is also is that like, there are vending machines are completely monitored. Like there's always a host within 10 feet of that and then the bartender at the point of the bar can look over and see what's going on. So it's our last calling machine to same so like the like well If you buy a token, like you are not allowed to pull a drink out of that machine after our license is up, right, so like, technically, if like, on a Monday, we close it, you know, our liquor license is till midnight. So as long as they pull that bottle out of the machine before midnight, we're not we probably won't sell them a token after like, 1150. But if they want to pull the bottle out, like if it gets past midnight, I'll just refund them their money. Yeah, you know, because like, if they want to take the token with them, Mazel Tov, but if they're like, I want the like, you know what, here's your money back, you know, my, you know, my blessings coming from again, we're

still using customer interaction to sell the token. So it's the same thing like you just tell them. So now it is.

Yeah, in the cut off in a bar, right? When you think about a bar is like a bar, I guess like a butcher? Is it? You know, people go there for different reasons. Some people, they want to sit at a table, be left alone and just have the drinks. Some people, they want to sit at the bar, they want to have an interaction with a bartender there. And the same customer could feel, you know, like, different on different days. One day, I might want to be at the bar one day, I might want to be left alone. I don't know. You know what I mean?

Yes, I know exactly. You're talking about exactly how the company runs.

We see people who like will walk past us nine out of 10 times and then one out of 10 times they just want to chat. Now we have super narrative focus shift reports, we've taught our staff to really talk about like people patterns and things about people in their shift report so that everybody who's working has an idea of the actual human element, rather than just like the logistics of it. So like when I know certain people by name who I've never even met before, because I'm not working retail, but I know that like art always buys this on this day. Like the reports say no. Yeah, like

art. Hello, did you get worried you're like, oh my god, we ran out of brisket in our it's gonna come

they literally say that. We have a regular just like any shop you have people regular. Some people, like, you know,

if they had a baby, they'll be like, Oh, it's okay. Man with son and they finally had their baby, you know, like, so we're in the loop on the narrative of our customers even when we're not there.

That's cool. Yeah, I mean, for us, the vending machine was a we could do it be we we, you know, my last bar had a bottled cocktail program, which

is amazing.

Thank you. They're so good. And then you

shouldn't be old machines to the the which one the old machines that were cocktail mixing machines.

No, that sounds cool. Like actually from back in the day. Yeah.

Sounds like just travel a lot and I can't remember where the hell it was. It could have been Denver, but it's not an operation anymore, but they just use it as a come in. Take a look in

English they work like the old coffee machines used to where you're like I want 20

bottles upside down. You pick like you know a martini whatever. And you if you want like a gin martini, you pull the gin thing and then pick the Martini. It's like an old computer where it was like you punch out certain holes in a card you feed the card to build UNIVAC work that's

not have been Vegas just sounds like Vegas could have been

the reason I know we couldn't have a reason I think it was Vegas because everyone went in Vegas is always like, this one was really no one

seemed like it was more like Reno. So like, the thing with the vending machine for us was is it wouldn't look like the real bartenders, barbacks and prep people who are making the cocktails for you in the real life or making the cocktails that are in the vending machine so that our hands are still there. You know what I mean? It's the same

thing with us. Just people just sometimes people don't want to talk to you, they don't want to say I want to throw in the bag just want to get in split and it was one of those just one of those moments, we were like, you know, when we the reason this whole thing came about is that when I started the company, I begged him to come on board and was just she and I I'm in the back cutting and she's handling the front trying to figure out how we want to structure the company what we're doing. And you know, I'm constantly being stopped when I'm doing come to front talk to someone sell nothing. And it just it was one of those moments where I wouldn't ever get anything done. And we started with the machine and it was it was crazy. It you don't understand, like when we started versus where we are now that the acceptance factor is just worlds away that you know, how could anyone want to do that to people are not the man but they really love to see us and every single town they're in that there's a lot of areas that need clean, good safe zones that don't have anything and it's it's interesting that we're trying to keep up.