Behind the Scenes with Sager: Craft Beer, Partnerships, and Kitchen Magic
Chris Lindstrom hosts the team from the Sager-Stoneyard Pub including Jim Zobel from Doughboyz! This episode revolves around the collaboration between Sager Beer Works and Stoneyard Brewing, highlighting how partnerships just might be the future of brew pubs!
Listeners are introduced to Paul Guaracini and his journey in brewing, along with Oz from Stoneyard, who brings his unique brewing style to the mix, and Jim from Doughboyz with the pizza and technically challenging chicken wings that were a delight.
We also touch on the upcoming dinner between DeWolf Brewing and the team which will be held on July 15th at Sager. More news to come on that soon!
Mentions:
Sager Stone Yard Pub (@sager_stoneyard_pub) - Sager Beer Works (@sagerbeer) - Stoneyard Brewing Company (@stoneyardbrewingcompany) - Doughboys (@doughboyzroc) - DeWolf Brewing (@dewolfbrewing) - Living Roots Winery (@livingrootswine)
Mentioned in this episode:
Joe Bean Roasters
Joe Bean Coffee - Coffee that lifts everyone. https://shop.joebeanroasters.com
Transcript
I'm Chris Lindstrom and this is the Food About Town podcast.
Speaker B:Rochester.
Speaker B:Well, why Rochester?
Speaker A:Chris Lindstrom was a hoot.
Speaker A:He was just so much fun.
Speaker A:He never stopped talking.
Speaker B:I mean, it was great.
Speaker A:Here's a good idea.
Speaker B:Have a point.
Speaker B:It makes it so much more interesting.
Speaker A:For the listener and we don't need.
Speaker B:Any characters around to give the joint atmosphere.
Speaker B:Is that clear?
Speaker C:Because I'm a pro.
Speaker D:That's what pros do.
Speaker D:A professional.
Speaker D:Look it up in the book.
Speaker A:But now, yeah, I'm thinking I'm back.
Speaker A:And we are back with another episode of the Food About Town podcast.
Speaker A:And I'm here with a wide, wide selection of gentlemen so called.
Speaker A:Oh.
Speaker A:So guys, why don't you introduce yourselves?
Speaker A:We're here to talk about beer.
Speaker A:We're here to talk about other stuff like that.
Speaker A:So introduce yourselves.
Speaker D:Hi, I'm Paul Guaracini and I'm the one of the partners and at Sager Beer Works, the Sager Stone Yard Pub, I end up doing most of the brewing and the brew side of the Sager Beers.
Speaker D:We're the only dual brewery tap room in western New York.
Speaker D:And to my left is Oz osborne and he's Mr.
Speaker D:Stonyard, so he can introduce himself.
Speaker D:And then to my right is my other partner with the business, Don Tuminelli, but he'll introduce himself too.
Speaker A:What's going on, Oz?
Speaker B:Hey, how's it going?
Speaker B:So I'm Jeff Osborne, more commonly known as Oz.
Speaker B:I'm the owner, head brewer of Stone Yard Brewing Company and I'm one of the partners at the Sager Stone Yard publisher.
Speaker B:I handle mostly the Stone Yard side of the business and help out front of house when I can.
Speaker A:Nice.
Speaker C:Doing a great job, guys.
Speaker C:All right, Don Tuminelli, currently Sager Bear Works and I work with Paul.
Speaker C: rted Sager Bear works back in: Speaker C:Just at a golf tournament this morning in staff management.
Speaker C:So far, end of it.
Speaker C:Yeah, I'm out of the back of the house now.
Speaker C:That's Jim's job.
Speaker A:Nice.
Speaker E:Yes.
Speaker A:And Mr.
Speaker A:Zobel.
Speaker E:Jim Zobel, owner of Doughboys.
Speaker A:So this is something I've been interested in talking to you guys about for a while because this is, I heard, you know, some of you guys talk about it on connections, talking about some of the newer directions of tap rooms in Rochester.
Speaker A:Newest, you know, tap rooms and craft beer in general.
Speaker A:It's a complicated world.
Speaker A:It's challenging.
Speaker A:I mean, I'm consulting on a place opening in Victor, that is going to be very sizable.
Speaker A:150 seats and a big brewhouse.
Speaker A:This is.
Speaker A:It's a fascinating time to be in and around the craft beer world.
Speaker A:But I'm excited to talk through all of your stuff and then we'll have an event to publicize as well coming up.
Speaker A:So I kind of want to start with you, Paul.
Speaker A:Let's talk about Sager and how that got started.
Speaker A:Because you've been in craft brewing in Rochester for a while, before Sager even.
Speaker D:That's right.
Speaker D:So this is my second brewery and I'll just say partnerships is.
Speaker D:We're going to talk about partnerships a lot today.
Speaker D:They can be really great, really successful, but some are, some don't work out.
Speaker D:And that would be what I'd say about my first one.
Speaker D:So I was between breweries at the time and Don and I, we had been working together.
Speaker D:Don can tell you more about it.
Speaker D:He was a finalist in the Livingston County Challenge, I think it was called, to open a brewery in Livingston County.
Speaker D: Brewer Livingston: Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker D:Oh, there we go.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:Because then some of that was going on for a while where they were doing like town specific, like brewing competitions with New York State kind of.
Speaker C:Correct.
Speaker A:Pushing like, you know, newer brewers and trying to do stuff like that, right?
Speaker C:Yeah, that's correct.
Speaker C:It was called Brew Livingston.
Speaker C:I live in Livingston county and that's kind of how I got involved in it.
Speaker C:It was open to anyone else outside of Livingston county, but it was very close to home for me.
Speaker C:And it was a great venture.
Speaker C:You know, I learned a lot.
Speaker C:But basically what it was was Levinson county secured a number of dollars worth of grant money.
Speaker C:It was about $750,000.
Speaker C:And they were going to find four places to award that money to.
Speaker C:That was their goal.
Speaker C:And that's how Paul and I partnered and got involved while he was at Fairport.
Speaker C:I used him as part of the competition.
Speaker C:We worked together and got all the way to the end.
Speaker C:It was about a year long competition, believe it or not.
Speaker C:Talk more about that later.
Speaker A:Yeah, because that, that had gone on in a lot of different areas and I think it was, you know, during the time where we.
Speaker A:There was a huge desire for growth, especially in New York State with the farm brewing licenses and everything else.
Speaker A:Seemed there's a big drive towards that and obviously we've seen that, you know, penetration in the market and the density of everything ramp up to an extreme over the last number of years.
Speaker A:So you were at, you know, we're at where you were before and then Ended up trying to figure out what was next.
Speaker D:Yeah, that's right.
Speaker D:So Don and I were.
Speaker D:Well, he was kind of down because he didn't get the grant money and is kind of bummed about that.
Speaker D:And I had just said sayonara to my other partner.
Speaker D:And so we just.
Speaker D:We're having a beer at the.
Speaker D:What's now called the.
Speaker D:The beer.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker D:Was it your beer hell or something where beer.
Speaker D:And ironically, we just hatched this idea to maybe we should start a brewery together.
Speaker D:I wasn't ready to give it all up, and I said, I'll give it another try.
Speaker D:And Don was keen.
Speaker D:You know, it's.
Speaker D:You know, he really wanted to open a brewery, too, so.
Speaker D:So that.
Speaker D:That's where the genesis came from for Sager.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And so you're.
Speaker A:We're going to talk a lot about style today because, like, each of you has a different kind of style that you're tackling or have a different angle on things.
Speaker A:So talk about your beer.
Speaker A:What are your beer preferences?
Speaker A:Because, I mean, it seems to me that, like, you have a great affinity for the classic styles, for sure.
Speaker D:And to me, the hallmark of classic styles is drinkability.
Speaker D:You know, these are beers that have been made for hundreds of years and haven't changed much.
Speaker D:And the reason they've survived is these are beers that you can drink all day long, have multiple ones, and you don't have to work too hard at them.
Speaker D:You know, they're not extreme beers, they're not dull beers, but they're not too much in any one direction.
Speaker D:That's what makes them drinkable.
Speaker D:So I happen to like those a lot, and I think we've put a stake in the ground in that general style area, and I think we're.
Speaker D:We're doing pretty good at those.
Speaker C:I call that staying power.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:Those beers have staying power.
Speaker C:They've been around many, many years, and there's a reason for that.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And that.
Speaker A:That edges towards, like, your Eastern European beer, some of the English beers, a lot of that class, you know, beers that have been around for 100 years, you know, and they don't change that much.
Speaker D:Exactly, exactly.
Speaker D:But at the same time, you know, there are a lot of beer styles, and another important element of our evolution is that I realized I wasn't going to be great at everything.
Speaker D:And you just got to a point, you can't outgrew everybody, so you got to decide what you're good at and give up on other things.
Speaker D:But giving up is not kind of part of me, so that's where Oz comes in.
Speaker A:It's a tough one.
Speaker A:I mean, I gotta be honest.
Speaker A:Like, it's a tough one to give up on something that you love and also like that there's a beautiful ideal that you have in your mind of, oh, this is the perfect thing.
Speaker A:This is my pure vision of what this is.
Speaker A:And it's hard, it's hard to give that up.
Speaker A:I know I've, I've struggled with that in the past with like when I had to give up on my project working with small minority owned restaurants.
Speaker A:Nominate, like I had to give up on.
Speaker A:I couldn't keep doing it and feel like I was doing a good job at it.
Speaker A:And that was really difficult because that purity of the vision is intoxicating to what, for lack of a better.
Speaker D:You know, you're running a retail business and not everybody shares your vision.
Speaker D:So yeah, if you want people to come in the door, you have to respect their, their desires and their interests and you know, that's where, you know, you want to have a very wide portfolio of if you're running a neighborhood style business that, that we, that we have.
Speaker D:So.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And speaking of which, I forgot to put the plugs out right away.
Speaker A:Where is Sager Stone yard Pub located, gentlemen?
Speaker D:46 Sacred Drive.
Speaker D:And people ask us, well, where'd that name come from?
Speaker C:Wow.
Speaker D:For the sake of.
Speaker D:Brewer says it's the street.
Speaker D:There's no, none of us have the Sager name or anything like that.
Speaker D:It's just the street.
Speaker D:It's a, it's a little side street.
Speaker D:Parallels University.
Speaker D:That's it.
Speaker D:And we, we decided, I guess I'm just thinking Don.
Speaker D:We decided it was a, you know, wasn't a complicated name, only five letters, easy to say, easy to spell.
Speaker D:Let's just go with it.
Speaker C:Yeah, the funny part was like, you know, we, we found the location before we had the name.
Speaker C:Right?
Speaker C:So I think for the first maybe month or so I'd be calling Paul and I'm like, where are you right now?
Speaker C:What are you doing?
Speaker C:He's like, I'm a Sager.
Speaker C:And I'd be like.
Speaker C:Then he called me and I'd be like, I'm at Sager.
Speaker C:And it just kind of stuck.
Speaker C:We're at Sager.
Speaker C:We're at Sager.
Speaker C:You know, so Sega works.
Speaker C:Okay.
Speaker C:Bingo.
Speaker C:We're done.
Speaker A:Yeah, to the point.
Speaker A:And that's right in the heart of the University Ave neighborhood.
Speaker A:Kind of a, you know, in this, you on the same side street, you're right on the edge of living Roots Winery and Lots of stuff.
Speaker A:You want to make a great evening bouncing around or have a great evening just there.
Speaker A:Lots of places to go visit and hang out.
Speaker A:You know, you park one spot and you can bounce around.
Speaker A:It's.
Speaker D:It's got to be a bit of a, let's just say a boozy enclave.
Speaker D:We have you pick your poison.
Speaker D:It's.
Speaker D:It's right within, you know, a block of us.
Speaker D:So.
Speaker A:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker A:So that launched what year, Paul?
Speaker D: That was: Speaker D: Late in: Speaker D:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker C:So we got the keys in February.
Speaker D:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker D: So we spent: Speaker D:But yeah, by Thanksgiving we were, we were serving beers.
Speaker D:We had a long, soft opening.
Speaker D:There was a.
Speaker D:As you had a lot of hassles in getting open, so it was like a month long soft opening or something.
Speaker D:I don't know that I, I've been trying to forget that.
Speaker C:We should have named our first beer fire marshal.
Speaker C:Right after the fire marshal.
Speaker D:That's right, yes.
Speaker D:We didn't have enough alarms or something like that.
Speaker A:For every day of the soft opening, there's an extra O that gets added to soft opening of the beer.
Speaker D:Exactly.
Speaker A:Soft.
Speaker A:So that goes on for, you know, a period of time.
Speaker A:We're coming up towards the, Coming towards the pandemic.
Speaker A:And then when does the, I don't know, opportunity, I think really end up where we end up having the conversation with, with Oz over here.
Speaker B:So I'll step in from at least my point of view.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:Yeah, please.
Speaker D:How did this happen?
Speaker B:So from my point of view, we.
Speaker B:So I had partners.
Speaker B:Let me run you through the quick, quick history of.
Speaker A:Yeah, please.
Speaker B: Opened in: Speaker B:Well, technically, sober say.
Speaker B:Sorry.
Speaker B:Stone Yard.
Speaker B: bar, I'd say, in Brockport in: Speaker B:The owners at the time had, you know, strong desires to open a brewery someday.
Speaker B: Fast forward to: Speaker B:They court me to leave my engineering job and become their head brewer.
Speaker A:What kind of engineering were you?
Speaker B:I was a mechanical engineer.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Yeah, me too.
Speaker A:And I've just stuck with it.
Speaker A:Well, I, I think there's know the different angles at this.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Like I've chosen the consistent day job side of things and being on the outskirts of the industry versus being deep in.
Speaker A:And I think there's pluses and minuses to both.
Speaker A:It's a different life.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:It's a different, different world of trying to do one and partially the other instead of being all in on one thing.
Speaker B:I've been all in.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So I was an avid Homebrewer, you know these guys.
Speaker B:I was an engineer making way too much money as a 28 year old at the time.
Speaker B:And my, the then owners came to me and were like, hey, like we're going to open a brewery.
Speaker B:Like, sure you are.
Speaker B:Like back then everybody was opening a brewery, of course.
Speaker B:So I'm like, sure you are.
Speaker B:But in the meantime I'll agree to play the game.
Speaker B:And you guys are giving me free beers and occasionally free food and did that for a couple years.
Speaker B:Then one day they called me up and they were like, hey, we're going to buy equipment.
Speaker B:I'm like, oh shit, this is really happening.
Speaker A:This is real.
Speaker B:Like I'm gonna actually have to quit my job and become a brewer.
Speaker B:Wow.
Speaker B:So again, 28 years old, I figured what better time to make the jump?
Speaker B:No wife, no kids, et cetera.
Speaker A:A lot easier to live like a.
Speaker A:Live like a bachelor is the nice way of saying it.
Speaker A:But like you can do a lot when your standards are low and nobody else has standards for you.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:Like no one's, no one's relying on me to keep a revolution of their heads.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker D:And the appearance up until that point you were brewing in a closet in this little pub, right?
Speaker B:Well, yeah, so that was, that was the brewery.
Speaker B:So the original brewery, the original Stonyard brewery was actually an old elevator shaft and motor room.
Speaker B:So the whole brewery was 11ft by 7ft.
Speaker B:The entire production space we'll say.
Speaker A:Perfect.
Speaker B:So we had, we had storage space elsewhere.
Speaker B:Obviously grain was able to be kept elsewhere, kegs elsewhere, but the beer was being made in an 11 foot by 7 foot closet.
Speaker B:Essentially.
Speaker B:The room we're in right now, the room we're in is probably twice the size of.
Speaker A:That's wild.
Speaker B:So yeah, it was, it was a challenge.
Speaker B:But it was fun though because I went from being a home brewer to brewing essentially homebrew on a slightly larger scale.
Speaker A:I was going to say that's probably.
Speaker A:What was that?
Speaker B:A one, two and a half barrel.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:Because that's, I mean that's still way bigger than a home, but it's not enough to hugely change.
Speaker A:I mean you're changing recipes, but not a crazy.
Speaker B:No.
Speaker B:Yeah, it's not.
Speaker B:There's nowhere near the complications of scaling to a much larger facility.
Speaker B:But yeah, so that's what, 80ish gallons, two and a half barrels.
Speaker A:And you said that that started in the late aughts.
Speaker B: So that was: Speaker B: head brewer for Stoneyard in: Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker B:Lots of ups, downs, ins, outs over the years.
Speaker B: But I'll Fast forward to: Speaker B:We opened our 30 barrel production facility in Brockport, and it was fun.
Speaker B:I mean, we were all excited.
Speaker B:You know, we had a lot of.
Speaker A:Beer to make and 30 barrels.
Speaker A:I mean, that's when we're talking about size in Rochester.
Speaker A:That would have been in excluding.
Speaker A:Excluding Genesee.
Speaker A:So that would.
Speaker A:Then it would have been like Roebuck three heads and.
Speaker A:Yeah, so that's about you guys, Right.
Speaker B:As far as the amount of beer made that order is correct.
Speaker B:Our brew house is actually larger than Rohrbach's brew house.
Speaker B:They have a 20 barrel.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So it's wild.
Speaker B:There was a lot of beer to make, and we were kind of off to the races and.
Speaker B:And then Covid put a big kind of asterisk in all of that, because.
Speaker A: That was, you know, in: Speaker A:Was that when you guys were pivoting out?
Speaker A:Cause you guys had opened the Webster.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker A:You know, the Penfield, the big brew pub, which is around the corner from where we are now.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker A:Because was that around that same time frame?
Speaker B:So that's actually one of the reasons that that facility went from being the Stone Yard Beer hall and Grill to just the American Grill Beer hall and Grill or whatever.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:Whatever it was called.
Speaker B:Whatever paragraph of a name it was, for sure.
Speaker B:But yeah, the deal was we were just stretched in at the time.
Speaker B:It was pretty much the same management group that had been there since it was just a restaurant in Brockport.
Speaker B:And now we were trying to manage a restaurant in Rockport.
Speaker B:A restaurant.
Speaker B:A much larger restaurant in Webster.
Speaker A:And that's.
Speaker A:By the way, that space is so big.
Speaker E:Huge.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker B:Oh, the mural.
Speaker A:Yeah, that space is so big.
Speaker A:And that was like, you know, when it was hopping.
Speaker A:It was.
Speaker A:It was a crazy place.
Speaker A:I mean, the volume that was going in and out of there, both of beer and food and the cars and people parking on Empire.
Speaker B:It was.
Speaker B:It was.
Speaker A:It was wild.
Speaker B:And I will give my former partners credit.
Speaker B:They made it the thing.
Speaker B:It was.
Speaker B:It was crazy.
Speaker B:What was the challenge with that space was never keeping it busy on a Friday night.
Speaker B:Yeah, it was.
Speaker B:It was.
Speaker B:You know, if you were open on Tuesday at lunch, like, that's, you know, people are coming in for dinner, people are drinking beers, mostly at dinner.
Speaker B:Tuesday at lunch would be a little slow.
Speaker B:But that place was so big, you had to have six people working at all times minimum.
Speaker B:So you're paying salaries no matter what.
Speaker B:And like I said, I think we were doing a pretty good job of.
Speaker B:Of maintaining the crowds and kind of.
Speaker B:And having it be a thing still.
Speaker B:But then as we opened our production facility and again managed Muriel roles kind of all switched around with the same guys that had been doing it for a few years.
Speaker B:At this point, it was just too much.
Speaker B:So we stepped away from that part of the business, focused back on Brockport, had the tap room out in Brockport and then the production facility out in Brockport.
Speaker B:Most of the managers from the restaurants went into the managing the brewery side of things and became sales guys, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker B:It was.
Speaker B:It was a big change.
Speaker B:Yeah, it was a challenge for sure.
Speaker B:That was A.
Speaker B: So: Speaker B: It was August: Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:In that facility.
Speaker B: And then: Speaker B: Was it: Speaker B:When was the summer of Seltzers?
Speaker A:That's about right.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And so that put a pretty big hurt on.
Speaker B:On craft beer.
Speaker B:And then Covid obviously put a pretty big.
Speaker B:Put a pretty big hurt on craft beer.
Speaker A:And I still, by the way, like as.
Speaker A:As an old, like, you know, around, like.
Speaker A:I don't get it.
Speaker A:I don't understand the whole.
Speaker A:That whole appeal for the seltzer thing.
Speaker A:It just seemed like.
Speaker A:It seemed like a whole bunch of nothing.
Speaker A:And I get that's why that's the next podcast.
Speaker B:Yeah, I could talk about that for an hour.
Speaker A:I would love to.
Speaker A:Just because like it never.
Speaker A:It never rang to me.
Speaker A:But yeah, as the sign on the wall says no funds.
Speaker A:I don't like fun.
Speaker A:And there's no.
Speaker A:It seems like that's not like there's no enjoyment to those.
Speaker A:Like, it's like alcohol without any of the depth and character and interest.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:Like there's no enjoyment.
Speaker A:There's just fun and fun without the enjoyment.
Speaker A:Like the depth and the interest doesn't interest me whatsoever.
Speaker A:Like, I don't get it.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:But you know, also I didn't drink till I was 30 because it just wasn't my thing until I got into the nerdery of it.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So anyways, man, this has become a long winded.
Speaker A:That's all right.
Speaker B:Introduction to Stonyard.
Speaker B:But then as Covid hit as the world was rocked by that, pretty much the whole business got completely shaken.
Speaker B:We obviously had to lay off people.
Speaker B:Every bit of out of state distribution we were doing dried up.
Speaker B:It was tough.
Speaker B:It was tough during that time.
Speaker B:And long story short, I ended up one of.
Speaker B:Actually, I won't skip over that part.
Speaker B:I had one of my partners, actually a very good friend and I would Say mentor George Rice.
Speaker B:He passed away during that time, was diagnosed with COVID or cancer, and was gone less than a year later.
Speaker B:So obviously the partnership was all over the place.
Speaker B:And then we had, we had the tap room, which was managed by one group, and the brewery, which was managed by me.
Speaker B:And that kind of how that worked was in New York State, you're not allowed to own both, which is important later.
Speaker B:You can't own a tap room and a production brewery that isn't under the same roof.
Speaker B:And because of our situation out in Brockport, we had them in two separate buildings.
Speaker B:Well, during COVID things were getting much harder and much harder to deal with.
Speaker B:And the guys that I was working with that wanted to manage that were doing the retail side of the business, the pub were like, eh, we're out, you know, we don't want to do it anymore.
Speaker B:It's a lot of work.
Speaker B:It's, it's so much harder now with COVID et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker B:So that left me holding a 30 barrel production facility.
Speaker B:Brewery with no retail, essentially.
Speaker B:So for a year and a half while Covid kind of straightened itself out, I was, I called it like the Willy Wonka Chocolate Factory.
Speaker B:Like, nobody went in, nobody went out, but beer came out, you know, type thing.
Speaker B:Like it didn't seem like anybody was working there ever, but we would just, just have beer on shelves and.
Speaker B:But it became very apparent that that was not going to be a sustainable business practice.
Speaker B:So I started looking for retail space and partners to get retail going again.
Speaker B:And that's where the Sager guys came in.
Speaker B:Paul approached me at one of our brewers meetings and was like, hey, here you're looking for retail?
Speaker B:We're looking for, to diversify our portfolio.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And the rules, like I said, I'm not allowed to own a brewery and a bar.
Speaker B:I am allowed to own two breweries.
Speaker B:So I was able to become a partner in Sager Beer Works.
Speaker B:And that bar or brewery has a bar.
Speaker E:Yeah.
Speaker B:So I was able to bring the Stoneyard brand with me, give it retail, move it to the city, which has a little bit more healthy, you know, foot traffic than Brockport does.
Speaker A:So I'm kind of.
Speaker A:So I want to pivot just for, just for a second and not, not to get too in the weeds, because you mentioned something that I think a lot of people don't understand about the industry is how important the retail is or the self retail, because, like, people like, oh, well, you got into Wegmans, that's the big deal.
Speaker A:Like, that's where you make all the.
Speaker A:That's where you're making all the money.
Speaker A:And yeah, if you're selling a crazy volume and that's all you do or the majority, but that's especially for the craft industry, that's not the case.
Speaker A:Not to get into, like, hard numbers or anything, but, like, talk about.
Speaker A:Talk about that for a second.
Speaker A:The difference between, like, you were in every Wegmans, you're in all over the place.
Speaker B:You're still in a lot of the.
Speaker A:Wegmans, and that's a big deal.
Speaker A:Like that volume and everything.
Speaker A:But talk about the difference between retail.
Speaker B:And wholesale again, without getting into the numbers too much.
Speaker B:There is certainly more money to be made if we're making the beer and we're selling it directly to the final consumer.
Speaker B:Obviously.
Speaker B:Yeah, that's just, you know, pretty easy.
Speaker A:To see, you know, and the margins are wildly bigger selling retail than they are selling to.
Speaker A:Selling to a distributor or through a distributor, then to another store.
Speaker B:Distributor to a store.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Like you're making dollars, you know, on.
Speaker B:On a case of beer as opposed to that same amount of dollars on a couple pints.
Speaker B:You know what I mean?
Speaker B:Like, it's.
Speaker B:It is wildly different, the margins that you're working with being a distributing brewery versus a selling direct to consumer brewery.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Losing that option kind of takes the wind out of your sails, for lack of saying it.
Speaker B:And I.
Speaker B:To be perfectly honest, I think Stoner is still recovering from it.
Speaker B:One of the things that made us strong in the beginning was we always.
Speaker B:My former partners were very, like, would roll deep, as we would say.
Speaker B:Like, there was always a bunch of us.
Speaker B:We would always go out.
Speaker B:We were very good about supporting the bars that supported us.
Speaker B:We were always trying to be out there, and so people knew who we were and what was going on, and they were excited.
Speaker B:During COVID obviously, we couldn't do that anymore, so.
Speaker B:And then post Covid, it was essentially me and two assistant brewers, and we couldn't do that anymore.
Speaker B:We were a lot busier and just didn't have the people to do that or the money to do that anymore.
Speaker B:And it really makes a big difference that people get to talk and see and meet the people that are behind the brands, especially in the crappier market.
Speaker B:You know, it's.
Speaker B:It's a.
Speaker B:It's a.
Speaker B:It's, you know, like, it's not Budweiser, you know, it's not like, oh, it's just unanimous across the board, and everybody knows what it is, and everybody just gets it because that's what they, that's what their dad got and that's what their grandpa got.
Speaker B:With craft beer, it's about creating that relationship and having people understand what you're about.
Speaker B:And with no retail space, I wasn't able to do that.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And it's easy for people to think about everybody as nameless, faceless, you know, companies and everything else.
Speaker A:And that's definitively not the case with, you know, the craft beer side of things.
Speaker D:You know, the, the biggest of breweries, you know, they sell image through traditional media, advertising, tv, et cetera.
Speaker D:But we do that differently.
Speaker D:We do that with personal connections.
Speaker D:On Monday nights, you can meet Oz, he's right at the bar and you can hear these same stories.
Speaker B:Yeah, I'll tell you the exact same.
Speaker D:Story I'm gonna tell you.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker D:And so you can't get that, you can't get that anywhere else.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker D:That's a big difference.
Speaker A:So I think we're going to do, we're going to go to break, we're going to pivot into, you know, you know, making that final, and then we're going to go into the food side.
Speaker A:We don't want to ignore Jim over here.
Speaker A:He's mess up.
Speaker A:So we're going to take a break and we'll be right back.
Speaker A:And we're back with the second half of our conversation with Sager Stonier Doughboys.
Speaker A:All together, all at once.
Speaker A:Before we get into the rest of the episode, do want to mention that DeWolf Brewing, the brewery I've been consulting on for two plus years because time is questionable when it comes to construction and everything else that has gone on, a lot more to come on that side.
Speaker A:But we are doing a pop up dinner event at Sager stone yard on July 15th.
Speaker A:Paul, tell people about the kind of event that this is and what people generally expect from these.
Speaker D:Well, this is the next in a series of beer and food pairing dinners that we started a number of years ago, but now with Doughboys.
Speaker D:But Jim had a great idea to not just do that per se, because it's been done, but bring in other chefs, bring in other restaurateurs, and we can make it even a more interesting event that you just can't get anywhere else.
Speaker D:And so basically it's a four or five course dinner where there is a beer sample that has been paired with the dish and we give it a lot of thought, consideration of what works well with each one.
Speaker D:So we're trying to teach really partially how great beer is with food.
Speaker D:In fact, I'll Argue better than wine, all you whiny winos out there.
Speaker D:So.
Speaker D:But, you know, that's the challenge that we have is to coming up with the best pair we can have and have one plus one equals three is what I usually say.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:And then when this one will be up, you'll be able to buy tickets.
Speaker D:Yes, we'll have tickets very soon.
Speaker D:Where are we?
Speaker D:We just started June, so I think in a few weeks we should be selling tickets.
Speaker A:Yeah, we'll do some more PR for that.
Speaker A:So it'll be on Sar's website, I assume?
Speaker D:Yes.
Speaker D:Yeah, on our.
Speaker D:You can get tickets on our website.
Speaker D:There'll be a link on our Facebook page and I probably on Doughboy's Facebook.
Speaker E:Page promoting as well.
Speaker A:Awesome.
Speaker A:So, yeah, more to come on that.
Speaker A:Really excited about working with Jim and the whole team on that pairing dinner.
Speaker A:A lot of fun discussions to come for sure.
Speaker A:So finish off Oz.
Speaker A:So we got to pandemic and brewing beer and then the, you know, starting to merge.
Speaker B:So Paul approached me and my understanding.
Speaker B:Now jump in if I'm.
Speaker B:If I'm out of line here, Paul.
Speaker B:No, but essentially, I tend to be known for more New world styles.
Speaker B:Funky flavors, crazy beers all over the place.
Speaker A:And I've never tried any of those.
Speaker B:And as Paul was mentioning before, his.
Speaker B:His affinity lies in, you know, more traditional styles.
Speaker B:And while I like to dabble in more traditional styles, I would say I tend to lean more New world.
Speaker B:Well, so what was great is his offer kind of was, why don't you join us and we'll split the taps half and half and I'll focus on what I want to focus on and you focus on what you want to focus on, and it's going to give customers a really cool experience.
Speaker B:And two very different feels of brewery breweries all in one house, which was really cool.
Speaker B:And again, the.
Speaker B:The legality sides of it, it was worked out perfect for me.
Speaker B:I was allowed to be a partner in that business.
Speaker B:It just seemed like a real home run of an idea.
Speaker A:I also, I also love the idea when you mentioned, like, you get to do what you do and Paul, you know, you guys get to do what you do.
Speaker A:Like, that's.
Speaker A:That's a big deal.
Speaker A:Like, you get to really.
Speaker A:It's something that I've found is the most valuable thing, know who you are, know what you're good at.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:And try to amplify that instead of, you know, tamping it down to try to build up some of the deficits.
Speaker A:You get to amplify what you're great at, instead of tamping that and focusing on the deficit, like, have somebody else focus on that.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:And you can be great at what you do.
Speaker B:What I really.
Speaker B:One thing that was asked a lot when we first started the partnership was, well, am I going to be brewing all the beer now, or is Paul going to be brewing all this Stonyard beer now?
Speaker B:And I was like, no.
Speaker B:Like, the whole beauty of it is we buy ingredients separately, we use different base malts, we use different yeasts.
Speaker B:We're two completely separate brewers and breweries acting independently.
Speaker B:And you just get to have both under one roof.
Speaker B:And if I just started brewing all the sacred beers, or he just started brewing all of the Stonyard beers, it would very quickly turn into everything tastes like Stony beer or everything tastes like Sager beer.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Having two people doing it completely separate does make a difference.
Speaker A:And so before we pivot over to food.
Speaker A:So, Paul, this has now been going on together for, what is this, what, three, three, three, four years now?
Speaker D:Did.
Speaker D:We did a sort of a shadow start in the spring of 23.
Speaker D:23.
Speaker D:So.
Speaker D:So two plus years.
Speaker A:And that.
Speaker A:That's.
Speaker A:It takes a ramp up, of course, to learn the ins and outs of working together and everything else.
Speaker A:So what was.
Speaker A:What was the thing that surprised you most about, you know, starting to work together?
Speaker A:I mean, you knew each other already, but what was the thing that surprised you most about working with Oz in the way that you didn't expect?
Speaker D:Hmm.
Speaker D:I don't know.
Speaker D:Well, I have to say, the thing I adjusted.
Speaker D:Adjusted or adjusting to is I'm more of a planner.
Speaker D:I look ahead and I can see what I think we should be making or how we should make it.
Speaker D:He's very experiential.
Speaker D:It's.
Speaker D:It's a kitchen sink kind of brain that he has.
Speaker D:And so I just don't even try and figure it out.
Speaker D:Whatever.
Speaker D:Whatever.
Speaker D:You know, he's going to have, what he's going to have, when he's going to have it.
Speaker D:You know, don't.
Speaker D:You know, that does.
Speaker D:And just that that's fine.
Speaker D:He's doing what he does really well.
Speaker A:And.
Speaker D:And, you know, I'm going to step back.
Speaker B:I'd love if you were to ask me the same question.
Speaker A:I was going to.
Speaker E:Yeah.
Speaker B:Sorry to jump ahead.
Speaker A:No, please.
Speaker B:What's been a real pleasant surprise with.
Speaker B:I mean, I gained two partners in the deal.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:But Paul is like.
Speaker B:Like, I was an engineer in a former life.
Speaker B:As we were talking about earlier.
Speaker B:I'm a numbers guy.
Speaker B:I really Appreciate that.
Speaker B:But Paul makes me look like a toddler.
Speaker B:He loves numbers.
Speaker B:He plays with numbers, he fiddles with numbers.
Speaker B:And it's so awesome having somebody who like the number is part of it, like is there and he's great at it and he wants to do all that analyzation and all that stuff.
Speaker B:And then I can look at a report and I'm like, wow, this is awesome.
Speaker B:Like I know exactly what happened last month.
Speaker B:And thanks so much, Paul.
Speaker B:Don on the other hand is a little bit more like me.
Speaker B:Kind of seated his pants a little bit sometimes.
Speaker B:But Don's pretty fun watching Work a crowd.
Speaker B:I love watching Work a crowd.
Speaker B:Like everybody work at the room.
Speaker D:We love it.
Speaker B:Everybody knows him.
Speaker B:Everybody's like, where's Don?
Speaker B:What's up, Don up to.
Speaker B:I haven't seen half room as much lately now.
Speaker A:Now what about, what about that process do you enjoy?
Speaker A:Like, because there, there's something about when you get a chance to work a room and what about that process do you enjoy?
Speaker C:I think it's just the interactions with the people.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:It's, you know, for me, don't get me wrong, my passion is in the kitchen.
Speaker C:But like you said earlier, you have to do what you do best, right?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker C:And unfortunately that even though I love cooking and all that, I realized that that wasn't where I needed to be.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:For the.
Speaker C:For us to survive as a business, I needed to be out there.
Speaker C:Customer interface, that's what I was doing best.
Speaker C:And that's hence how Jim's going to came in.
Speaker C:Segue into that in just a little bit.
Speaker C:Yeah, but it's working with the people, the public, being part of the community.
Speaker C:Watching Rochester become what I never thought it would be in my lifetime.
Speaker C:It's happening right now as we speak.
Speaker C:Something that took me off guard, but being part of the community, meeting the people and having customers right there.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker C:You know, in the industry like you're in as a mechanical engineer and I actually do have a full time job.
Speaker C:Everyone I work for a microbiology laboratory.
Speaker A:Oh, nice.
Speaker C:And my customers are all over the world.
Speaker C:I may never see half of them with being in the tap room.
Speaker C:They're right there.
Speaker C:I can see them, speak to them.
Speaker C:It's great.
Speaker C:I feel like there's a connection.
Speaker A:It kind of changes you too.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker A:Like contributing something to Rochester changes you.
Speaker A:Makes you feel like you're really a part of being where you are versus just living here.
Speaker A:Like you're actually contributing to what makes Rochester what it is.
Speaker C:Exactly.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:I'm appeal person So I feel like I'm right at home in the tap room.
Speaker A:That's awesome.
Speaker A:So all that being said, speaking of somebody that's tried, you know, made his mark by starting something when didn't have another option.
Speaker E:Right.
Speaker A:What's going on, Jim?
Speaker E:What's going on, guys?
Speaker A:So you've been quiet because we were talking about the whole journey, but let's talk about the food side of things.
Speaker A:So I knew you from Doughboys originally because during.
Speaker A: sn't in Milwaukee for most of: Speaker A:But then people just started popping up, doing something just because they could.
Speaker A:The phraseology I use often is they just can't not do something.
Speaker A:Try to create something, some joy for people.
Speaker A:And one I ran across was I saw pizza pop ups popping up, and I'm a wild pizza nerd.
Speaker A:And it was you and Luis popping up with peels on wheels and Doughboys was popping up.
Speaker A:I remember going to a driveway on the west side of Rochester, picking up a pizza and eating on the hood of my car and saying, oh, got it.
Speaker A:These guys are trying really hard.
Speaker E:Yes, sir.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So tell us about.
Speaker A:Tell us about what that was like starting that with nothing.
Speaker E:Yeah.
Speaker E:So obviously, like, everybody during the pandemic lost their jobs or was put in a, you know, box to try to figure refigure things out.
Speaker E:I got laid off from Char Steak and Lounge, where I was a chef.
Speaker A:And you were there for a while, right?
Speaker E:Yeah, I was there for about a total of five years.
Speaker E:Three years.
Speaker E:And then I came back.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker E:Did some executive chef jobs at Branka Basin.
Speaker E:And then I came back to Char.
Speaker E:And that's because that's plausible.
Speaker A:I might have written the Char review while you were there.
Speaker E:Yes, I definitely remember because I.
Speaker E:I wrote that.
Speaker A:That was when I was still writing restaurant reviews, probably when you were first starting.
Speaker A:So sure might have been that one.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker E:And then, yeah, I got laid off.
Speaker E:And I was like, man, this is great.
Speaker E:Two days went by and I'm walking around my house literally just going crazy.
Speaker E:And I was like, all right.
Speaker E:And, like, the first thing that popped in my head was like, man, I really wish I could have Fiorella's pizza right now.
Speaker A:Shout out to Gino and the whole team over there.
Speaker A:They're great.
Speaker E:Yeah, they he.
Speaker E:It's my favorite pizza, Rochester at the time.
Speaker E:And, you know, I was like, all right, this is my time to recreate it or do it my way.
Speaker E:So I went, I went nuts.
Speaker E:I was waking up 3, 4 in the morning making pizza dough.
Speaker E:I had 6, 7 different pizza doughs with different hydrations, you know, really nerding out.
Speaker E:And you know, at one point I remember my roommate being like, will you just go to bed, please?
Speaker A:So the pizza dough doesn't go to bed until it goes in the fridge.
Speaker E:I don't sleep if she don't sleep.
Speaker E:So finally I was making pizzas.
Speaker E:I started on the big green egg.
Speaker E:I burnt the gasket.
Speaker E:I got the oven to or the charcoal grill to 900 degrees and burnt the gasket.
Speaker E:And my roommate was.
Speaker A:And those are, those are built for high.
Speaker A:Yeah, those are, those are not like rubber gaskets, right?
Speaker A:Those are like, you know, they're like enforced and they're like fiberglass and stuff like that.
Speaker E:My arm hair.
Speaker E:He was like, you got, you gotta figure this out.
Speaker E:So I bought a pizza oven and then I started posting on Instagram and I did the, hey, I'm gonna make 10 pizzas next week.
Speaker E:If you want one, let me know.
Speaker E:Inbox flooded.
Speaker E:Sold out at 10 pizzas.
Speaker E:Did it again.
Speaker E:Sold out of 10 pizzas.
Speaker E:So then I went to 20 and then we, I was.
Speaker E:We finally got to 60 and we did it every single week.
Speaker E:And this is where I actually got to like bring the chef out because I was like, okay, now you guys want.
Speaker E:You guys keep coming back, so I gotta give you something different.
Speaker E:So that's where we started making pizza specials and popping up.
Speaker E:Literally opened the garage.
Speaker E:We had cops down the street directing traffic.
Speaker A:It was like a Chick fil a opening is what it was.
Speaker E:It was a whole system.
Speaker E:Like, we were very serious about the COVID to masks, gloves, everything.
Speaker E:Pop your trunk.
Speaker E:We put the pizza in there.
Speaker E:You drive around and see it later.
Speaker E:So, yeah, that took off.
Speaker E:We.
Speaker E:Then we got to the point where Cuomo shut down all the breweries or at some point because they didn't have food.
Speaker E:And that's where we really leveraged ourselves to start this whole pop up thing.
Speaker E:We're like, people were begging us to come out just so they can open the tap room so they can pay their employees and, you know, make some money.
Speaker E:So that's where we were three, four days a week.
Speaker A:Because you were, you were at a few different places, right?
Speaker A:You had three heads for sure.
Speaker E:Three heads.
Speaker E:We were at Rock Brewing Star Cider.
Speaker E:I mean, we were everywhere.
Speaker A:Yeah, the demand was endless.
Speaker A:I mean, I think Luis was doing the same thing, like, just bouncing around, hitting everywhere, because the demand for that was.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Crazy.
Speaker E:We're in survival mode for not just us, but for those guys, too.
Speaker E:Like, I mean, like, you were just saying, you don't have your retail.
Speaker E:You know what I mean?
Speaker E:That's got to be hard to figure out what you're going to do next.
Speaker E:So anytime.
Speaker E:We never said no to anybody.
Speaker E:We always said, yes, we'll be there.
Speaker E:And then that grew into, you know, us two years down the road doing that.
Speaker E:We're like, the winners suck.
Speaker E:We're done doing this.
Speaker E:And then we landed in our first brick and mortar.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:At the Richmond, which was kind of like a.
Speaker A:Like a permanent residency.
Speaker A:And that went through.
Speaker A:You know, that was a bit of a tumultuous.
Speaker A:Tumultuous little time.
Speaker E:That was rough.
Speaker E:I mean, we went through two or three different owners, four or five general managers, and I was gonna say, the only thing that people knew was the food doughboys was there.
Speaker E:And, you know, during all that, all those problems and all those doors closing and reopening, you know, we just stayed true to ourselves, and we just kept putting out good food because that.
Speaker A:That was a.
Speaker A:That was a tough situation, Right, because there was, you know, there was.
Speaker A:There was.
Speaker A:There was a lot of turnover, a lot of hurt feelings.
Speaker E:Lots of hurt feelings around.
Speaker A:Just.
Speaker A:Everybody got hurt, just top to bottom.
Speaker A:Like, there were tons of hurt feelings there.
Speaker A:I mean, hey, one of my friends was the original owner, and there were a lot of hurt feelings.
Speaker A:And that.
Speaker A:That sucked.
Speaker E:It did suck.
Speaker A:And that wasn't.
Speaker A:That wasn't a fun time.
Speaker A:Like, man, I wanted to go in and visit, but, like, hey, I was friends with him before I was friends.
Speaker E:With you, and, you know, I wanted.
Speaker A:To go in more often, but, like, I didn't feel like I could also.
Speaker A:Yeah, and it was.
Speaker E:Situation.
Speaker E:Yeah, it was.
Speaker E:It was what it was.
Speaker E:You know, I.
Speaker E:I wish everybody best of luck some.
Speaker E:Like we just said before this podcast even started, you know, partnerships work out.
Speaker E:They don't work out.
Speaker E:And, you know, it's what makes us who we are.
Speaker E:And, you know, at the end of the day, as long as we grow, live, learn, and be a better person, then I, you know, you just got to keep pushing forward and you wish the best for everybody.
Speaker A:In the end, I think it's the most we can do.
Speaker A:And I know, like, some of the partners I've had in the past, like, hey, this wasn't going to work out.
Speaker A:I didn't feel great about doing some of the Stuff and I had to move on.
Speaker A:I had no choice.
Speaker A:It's.
Speaker A:It's difficult.
Speaker A:Like, I, I don't regret those things either, though, because I've learned I've become better.
Speaker E:Right.
Speaker A:I'm hoping I've gotten better because of it.
Speaker A:So you're going through all that and you're there for, you're there for a hot minute there.
Speaker A:Like.
Speaker A:Yeah, a couple, two, three years there.
Speaker E:For a total of three years.
Speaker E:And then we shut down for eight months.
Speaker E:I had to go.
Speaker E:I mean, we were scheduled for four to six weeks and it turned into eight months.
Speaker E:And that was with.
Speaker E:Well, figure it out.
Speaker E:So we had to go back into, you know, pop up mode and.
Speaker A:Which had to be a little bit of a jarring situation, having had a space, you know, roughly.
Speaker A:I mean, it wasn't like your space, but you had a space to be for a while.
Speaker A:It had to be a little jarring to go back to the, to the pop up grind.
Speaker E:Yeah.
Speaker E:I would say that was probably the hardest part of our story, was just the.
Speaker E:We finally made it.
Speaker E:We finally got out of the cold.
Speaker E:Yeah, we finally.
Speaker E:I don't have to pick up that tent anymore and set it up and man, get home at three in the morning and clean dough trays and a sink the size of this.
Speaker A:And it says easy up.
Speaker E:It's not that easy.
Speaker A:You still got to get all the sandbags and you still have to bring all that stuff because what you don't want is during the middle of a service, you're 10 start flying away.
Speaker E:Been there.
Speaker E:Yeah.
Speaker A:Oh, that had to be a hell of a thing when that happened, wasn't it?
Speaker E:That was probably the worst.
Speaker E:And you know, the worst part was there was just no, like, there was no backup plan.
Speaker E:It was no, like, hey, I'm employed right now.
Speaker E:I'm bringing people in to do that.
Speaker E:And you know, it just got delayed, but at the end it definitely paid off.
Speaker E:It was definitely worth, you know, the wait.
Speaker E:And, you know, we killed it when we opened back up the Richmond.
Speaker E:We.
Speaker E:We were, we were.
Speaker A:And that was Richmond under Mortalis.
Speaker E:Yes, correct.
Speaker A:And that was the big shift.
Speaker A:And that was like, you know, pedal to the metal at that point.
Speaker E:That was because that can't get a seat in the house.
Speaker E:We're seating upstairs, downstairs, back patio.
Speaker E:I mean, we're, we're, we're crushing it.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And speaking of, like that kind of place that had every, every demand for people to drink their stuff.
Speaker A:And we've all, we've all seen the hypes before.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:I think at this point, you know, between everybody here, we've seen hype breweries go in and out over time, but that was that, that hit for a long time.
Speaker A:I mean, I remember when, like, Oz, when you first made.
Speaker A:You were one of the first to make a New England style IPA here in Rochester.
Speaker A:And I remember the fervor when that came out.
Speaker A:Like people were.
Speaker A:People were drooling at the mouth and like they were foaming.
Speaker A:They were just so ready for that.
Speaker A:And I remember when yours came out, it was crazy.
Speaker B:Yeah, there was.
Speaker B:And it's so funny thinking back about that time and being like, I had no idea what I was doing compared to what I do now.
Speaker B:You know, like, you're just kind of like, all right, well, I think I read about this on the Internet, like, let's figure it out.
Speaker D:But what was that called?
Speaker D:Was it Juicy something?
Speaker D:I don't even remember the name.
Speaker A:I think that was before the term was used that much.
Speaker D:Yes, yes.
Speaker B:Oh, man.
Speaker B:I do know I'd have to go back through my notes and see what it was.
Speaker B:I wonder.
Speaker B:It'd be interesting to even see that recipe again.
Speaker A:We can look it up untapped again.
Speaker A:I'm sure we can.
Speaker E:Untapped for sure.
Speaker E:If you look up my.
Speaker B:On tabs or like, I, I have all my recipes I've ever done still, so.
Speaker B:But they.
Speaker B:Yeah, I remember that was what the, the tap and mallet crowd back then.
Speaker B:It was Joe essentially pushing for, hey, why is nobody doing this?
Speaker D:Yes, that's right.
Speaker A:Well, I, I remember that discussion so vividly because, like at that point I was, I was a line waiter, like in Vermont and other spots.
Speaker A:Like, I remember waiting in a trillium line in, In Boston, you know, seaport area and you know, in the back alley of a tiny brewery.
Speaker A:And then I think it did the treehouse line.
Speaker E:Treehouse in that dirt road?
Speaker A:Yep.
Speaker A:I did a treehouse line once and then I did, you know, a few in Vermont, a bunch in Vermont, but it was, it was a specific time.
Speaker A:And Mortalis was having their time where the demand was absolutely insane.
Speaker E:Yeah, we used to do the pop ups out there and man, we used to sell out every time.
Speaker E:Eighty hundred pizzas.
Speaker E:And you know, the thing about the Richmond, when we opened back up, that was like, you know, shout out to my team.
Speaker E:I'm so proud of them.
Speaker E:But it was a two man kitchen.
Speaker E:We're doing $5,000 food nights and like, it's a two man kitchen.
Speaker E:The same thing that we're doing right now.
Speaker E:And, like, when that storm came in and with a cooler being in the basement, it was not.
Speaker E:It was not fun.
Speaker E:It was not fun.
Speaker E:We kicked ass.
Speaker E:Lots of booze.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker E:But, you know, so, you know, we held it down.
Speaker E:We held it down.
Speaker E:That was a good time.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So that and that then your residency there ended up coming to an end.
Speaker E:Yep.
Speaker A:And how did this discussion end up happening?
Speaker E:So, basically we, you know, it got to the point where they.
Speaker E:They were like, we want to take over the kitchen.
Speaker E:And, you know, that we didn't have anything in firm writing.
Speaker E:So I was like, all right, fine, you know, we'll go find something.
Speaker E:So the word got out.
Speaker E:I was secretly, you know, poking around, seeing what was going on, and one of.
Speaker E:One of our regular customers came in.
Speaker E:He's like, hey, you ever heard of Sager?
Speaker E:I was like, yeah, I've heard of Sager.
Speaker E:He's like, I think they might be looking for somebody to operate their kitchen.
Speaker E:I was like, get me a sit down.
Speaker E:And me and Don hooked up, and, you know, I got to check out the place.
Speaker E:And it was an open kitchen concept just like we've been rolling with.
Speaker E:And, you know, as soon as I got on that, got in there, I felt comfortable, and I was like, I think this can happen.
Speaker A:So from your perspective, having you were running, you were doing that.
Speaker A:What was that experience like?
Speaker A:Trying to figure out what's a good fit for that.
Speaker A:How did that go from your end?
Speaker C: I'll say is when we opened up: Speaker C:I would have said, absolutely not.
Speaker C:No way.
Speaker C:This is our kitchen.
Speaker C:We're doing it.
Speaker A:So you were.
Speaker A:Were you trained before doing that, or did you just start doing.
Speaker C:Oh, no, no.
Speaker C:I've been in kitchen since I was 15 years old.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:I'm Webster.
Speaker C:The old Homestead.
Speaker C:I was Washington.
Speaker A:Okay, so you're doing.
Speaker A:Yeah, classic Americana kind of stuff.
Speaker C:Yeah, I mean, I worked at breweries out in California back in, you know, know when Ballast Point was just starting, I was working at San Diego Brewing Company.
Speaker C:I was at.
Speaker C:Okay, it's six service Brewing Company in Northern California.
Speaker C:So you were doing Empire Brewing Company when I came back.
Speaker A:So you were doing big volume brewery food for a long time.
Speaker C:Yeah, Yeah.
Speaker C:I was always in the kitchen.
Speaker A:Gotcha.
Speaker C:Kitchen end of it.
Speaker C:And dabbling with the brewing side.
Speaker C:Okay, Right.
Speaker C:So, you know, five years into Sager, it was rough.
Speaker C:I'm not going to lie.
Speaker C:Two years of COVID we were struggling.
Speaker C:It wasn't easy.
Speaker C:And the more I tried to get out of the kitchen, the more I got drawn in.
Speaker C:It was just.
Speaker C:It was becoming like, this isn't happening.
Speaker C:I need to be in the tap room working with customers, taking care of the customers.
Speaker C:And that wasn't happening.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker C:So Ethan.
Speaker E:Yep, Ethan, he's a good rigger.
Speaker C:We got talking one night and I was like, listen, you know, he's a restaurateur over the years.
Speaker C:And he said, I'll start poking around roster.
Speaker C:I know a lot of people.
Speaker C:And the next thing you know, he walks in like two months later.
Speaker C:I forgot even who he was.
Speaker C:He starts telling me this, and I'm like, where are you?
Speaker C:And he goes, we talked like two months ago.
Speaker C:And I was like, oh.
Speaker C:And then he said.
Speaker C:And I said.
Speaker C:I said, well, what's going on?
Speaker C:He told me.
Speaker C:And literally that night, the same night, he told me I was at Richmond.
Speaker C:Yeah, the same night.
Speaker C:Having a couple shots.
Speaker E:Yep.
Speaker E:I remember he came in with Ethan.
Speaker E:I was like, who is this guy?
Speaker A:It was.
Speaker C:It was a no brainer.
Speaker C:I said, can you come in Sunday?
Speaker C:And Sunday you came in, checked out the place, and we pitched a plan to Paul and Oz, and here's the rest is history.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So talk about that transition too, because, like, you had very clear.
Speaker A:You had a very clear picture about what you were doing.
Speaker E:Yeah.
Speaker A:And how was that process starting to learn new partners and figuring out what this all looks like as a combination?
Speaker E:Yeah.
Speaker E:So, I mean, we.
Speaker E:We were out of the Richmond July 31st.
Speaker E:We were already talking by then.
Speaker E:We.
Speaker E:We were already like, what, four to six weeks into hashing out a plan.
Speaker E:So I was like, okay, I'm gonna go on the road.
Speaker E:Nico wanted to start this barbecue type pop up.
Speaker E:So we did that for a little bit, but then when we got in there, it was, how, How?
Speaker E:First of all, what am I using for a pizza oven?
Speaker E:I had no idea, like, the pizza oven was staying at the Richmond.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker E:Cause you ain't moving that.
Speaker E:So.
Speaker E:Sponsored by Gosne.
Speaker E:They came out with these new dome ovens that were natural gas.
Speaker E:So without even thinking of it or doing anything, of course, they sent me one or two, and I got them there.
Speaker E:And Paul's like, what are we doing with these things?
Speaker E:And I'm like, well, we're going to hook them up.
Speaker E:He's like, well, how are we going to do that?
Speaker E:And I was like, I don't know.
Speaker E:And he was like, all right.
Speaker E:He's like, all right, buddy.
Speaker E:I'LL take care of this for you.
Speaker E:So we get the ovens in there, we start, start laying out the thing, the, the kitchen and everything.
Speaker E:And then we, we went from there.
Speaker E:And you know, service has been absolutely awesome.
Speaker E:These guys have been very patient and understanding and you know, with having new business partners and everything, there is going to be some give and take and lots of patience and.
Speaker E:But you know, at the end of the day it's always, we've always had the same, you know, end of the day goal and that's, you know, to give really good hospitality, really good food and really good beer.
Speaker E:And it's been going really well because.
Speaker A:That'S a ramp up to rise a ramp up in a new space.
Speaker A:Learning how to put out volume, right?
Speaker A:Like, I remember talking to some people, you know, first few weeks ago, like, oh, we're.
Speaker A:They're still figuring stuff out.
Speaker A:And they're like, oh, I had this experience, like, they're still figuring stuff out.
Speaker A:Guys always give them some time.
Speaker E:Always.
Speaker E:Six to eight weeks is always the rule of thumb for me.
Speaker E:As you guys know, five, six times I've closed, open, closed open with this doughboys, you know, extravaganza, whatever it is.
Speaker E:So, you know, you always got to give it, give it the time.
Speaker E:We're gonna figure it out.
Speaker E:Most of the time we try to keep it simple, but you know, at the end of the day we still have to have a full menu.
Speaker E:And you know, the chicken wings just got dialed in what, three, four months ago.
Speaker E:You know, it takes time and now they're the best.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:So what?
Speaker A:Let's talk.
Speaker A:I mean, we can talk about pizza.
Speaker A:We'll do that another time.
Speaker A:And because we don't have time to go into that depth of nerdery, that's gonna take another hour.
Speaker A:Um, let's talk about this chicken wing.
Speaker A:So it's been a while since I had some of the food.
Speaker A:So I grabbed a couple pizzas, you know, in preparation for the pop up so we can start having our conversations.
Speaker A:I thought I had to have a whole bunch of food because I think we love that.
Speaker A:It's the only, I think it's the only sensible way to do anything like that is to honestly say, hey, what are they doing right now?
Speaker A:Because that helps.
Speaker A:You know, if you're going to do this right, you want to know where.
Speaker E:They'Re starting, our strengths.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:What, what's going on?
Speaker A:What are the seasonings?
Speaker A:What are the sauces?
Speaker A:What's going on with the dough?
Speaker A:How's everything going?
Speaker A:And when, you know, I don't tip, I don't eat meat and cheese typically, but I'm eating everything for this.
Speaker A:Just to make sure we're going.
Speaker A:But those, the amount of work that went into those wings, that was like, oh, right.
Speaker A:There is a shit ton of work going into those because you don't get that accident dental, you don't get that texture on the outside.
Speaker A:The, you know, the depth and the durability for sauce all in one package without work.
Speaker A:That doesn't come for free and it doesn't come without thought and planning and testing.
Speaker A:Talk about what it took to make those what they are now.
Speaker E:Well, I appreciate you saying that because they really have been, you know, back in August when we did hit the pop up scene, back at it, Nico wanted to do the, the barbecue.
Speaker E:We really, that's where we first started doing the smoked wings.
Speaker A:And barbecue's tough, very tough.
Speaker E:He's, he's a genius.
Speaker E:That Nico is phenomenal on the smoker.
Speaker E:That's his smoker.
Speaker E:I learned from him when it comes to barbecue, I'll say that, you know, so we started doing these wings and we started smoking them and smoking them, smoking them.
Speaker E:And we kept getting to the point where like, how do I keep the product to be consistent from one hour to four hours to eight hours through the process of you eating them?
Speaker E:And how can they stay crispy?
Speaker E:And also how, why aren't they falling off the bone?
Speaker E:That's what that was like our first question when we started smoking them.
Speaker E:So immediately after a month of doing the pop ups, we got there.
Speaker E:I'm like, we gotta do smoked wings and also we gotta brine them, we gotta season the meat.
Speaker E:Because if you don't brine them, you're going to dry out the meat and it's got to stay, you know, juicy.
Speaker E:So we brined them.
Speaker E:That took us about a month to figure out the brine ratio because we were trying to figure that one out.
Speaker E:And then from the brine, we strain them and then they go right onto the smoker.
Speaker E:When we first started, Nico was smoking them, started the smoker at 350, put them on, let it cool down.
Speaker E:Way too hot.
Speaker E:They were shrinking up.
Speaker E:We really wanted the juicy wing.
Speaker E:So then we found out, okay, they're not as big as we want them to be.
Speaker E:So we had to go back, change the temperature of the smoker.
Speaker E:And then we found out how to find that crust.
Speaker E:So the crust comes from basically coming straight off the smoker.
Speaker E:It's all gluten free.
Speaker E:It's a rice flour cornstarch, 50, 50 mix.
Speaker E:As soon as they come off the smoker, they get jam packed into Cambros but evenly coated at the same time.
Speaker E:So when they cool down, they absorb all that rice flour, cornstarch, which creates that crust well.
Speaker A:And also the smoking desiccates the skin a little bit too, which any juices that are wet out are only going to make adherence work.
Speaker A:But then the skin can also get crispy underneath because it's already been desiccated from the smoking process.
Speaker A:It's kind of like you'll salt it in the fridge and let it sit, dry out the skin.
Speaker A:You get that bubbling and crackling.
Speaker A:You're kind of doing that with the smoking and then also adding the extra.
Speaker A:I'd say, you know, not quite Korean style with the rice flour, but it's Korean esque with the, with the coating.
Speaker A:Because that has a very different kind of crisp than a wheat flour crust.
Speaker E:Correct.
Speaker E:And also like it being hot, going to cold and that sitting in that dredge, it literally just sticks right to it.
Speaker E:So and then the next day we pull them out of the cooler after they've been properly cooled down and then it's like a fossil.
Speaker E:I mean Nico's in there literally with a pair of tongs knocking them out of there and then we portion them and then we fry them for only three to four minutes, you know what I mean?
Speaker E:So they're already parked, they're.
Speaker E:I think we pull them off at like 150, 155.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker E:So they're already fully cooked technically.
Speaker A:Well, I mean at that, at that temperature, as long as it hits a duration that is fully cooked, especially with.
Speaker E:The carryover of them coming off.
Speaker A:Well, it's also like the FDA has a temperature for instantaneous safe cook, but that doesn't mean that a lower temperature for a longer time isn't safe.
Speaker A:There's a curve.
Speaker A:Yeah, science nerdery.
Speaker A:If you want to learn about that stuff, there is a whole bunch of information about what is safe temperature.
Speaker A:There is not one safe temperature.
Speaker A:Their temperature is instant safety, not optimal for texture and flavor and experience, which you can hold a temperature for a longer time.
Speaker A:And that is equally as validly safe as 165, which is instant safe.
Speaker A:But 150 for a longer time, equally as safe as long as you hit your times and temperatures.
Speaker A:And especially with chicken, because misnomer chicken wings are not dark meat.
Speaker A:Chicken wings are white meat.
Speaker A:So they don't have that much intramuscular fat.
Speaker A:The fat's really on the skin and the ratio of skin to meat.
Speaker A:So if you overcook it, they get really dry and awful.
Speaker A:That's why when you have terribly overcooked wings is a awful experience.
Speaker E:It's a terrible experience because, like, you.
Speaker A:Can do chicken thighs, you can treat them terribly.
Speaker E:Right.
Speaker A:And you can still get a good experience.
Speaker A:Chicken wings, on the other hand, you can get a terrible experience.
Speaker E:Oh, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker E:So we.
Speaker E:We put a lot of time and effort into these chicken wings.
Speaker E:And like I said, when we first opened up in September, I think the first two months, we had a lot of friends come in and they were like, yeah, they were okay.
Speaker E:And then they came back and they were like, what did, what happened?
Speaker E:What did you guys do?
Speaker E:And, you know, it's.
Speaker E:It's just the process of cooking, man.
Speaker E:Like, things take time.
Speaker E:You want things done right, you're not going to figure it out overnight.
Speaker E:So I appreciate all the patience and all of our fans and guests and, you know, customers that keep coming in and they.
Speaker E:They know we're working on stuff, which is great.
Speaker D:So, you know, we did have to go through a little period with some of our existing customers on those because, you know, we had been selling grilled wings.
Speaker A:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Speaker D:And they're different.
Speaker D:They were.
Speaker D:They were good, but not as good as these, I have to say.
Speaker D:But.
Speaker D:But again, the.
Speaker D:Just the idea that it smoked there was.
Speaker D:There's still to this day a bit of education that goes on every now and then.
Speaker D:They're just not used to pink meat being smoked and fully cooked and things like that, so.
Speaker D:But that's what makes it unique, right?
Speaker D:That it's like, no one has anything like that.
Speaker D:And that's the special part.
Speaker A:Well, and that's like.
Speaker A:And when you get the chance to taste that process, like, you know, the work that goes into it, having done it and worked at those kind of places.
Speaker A:But you can, when you taste the process, when it gets to the result, process doesn't mean anything unless it gets to the result that you want.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker A:Because otherwise it's just work for work sake.
Speaker A:It's nerdy nerdery sake.
Speaker E:Right.
Speaker A:It's not if it doesn't get to that result, that end point, but when you tasted it for the first time, when it was right, I'm sure you had that, like, sparkle.
Speaker C:It's fantastic.
Speaker C:Yeah, fantastic.
Speaker A:Because it carries the sauce and then you can dial your sauces accordingly to work with that kind of.
Speaker E:We want to play off the smoke and the crispy now, you know what I mean?
Speaker E:So, yeah, we're just evolving every day.
Speaker E:I mean, I literally just hit the pretzels probably a month ago.
Speaker E:All right, to be honest, let's, let's.
Speaker A:Let'S talk about the pretzel because let's finish off with that and then we'll finish off just as a quick round.
Speaker A:But that is one monstrosity of a pretzel.
Speaker A:Like, it's a big boy.
Speaker A:It's thick, it's got a lot of texture, but it still feels like a pretzel.
Speaker A:It doesn't feel like a, like a loaf of bread, like a small loaf of bread, even though it's a little mini.
Speaker E:It's literally the same size of our pizza.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker E:300 grams.
Speaker E:So our pizza balls are 300 grams.
Speaker E:Our dough ball or pretzel ball is 300 grams.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:And it's got a density, but it still feels like a pretzel in a way that's not like generic.
Speaker A:Like, it feels like that.
Speaker A:It's got the salt, it's got the outside texture, and it feels good like this.
Speaker A:Got that, you know, baking.
Speaker A:So I'm not sure if you're doing Lyons stuff too.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Because it's got that outside leathery crust, that dark brown flavor that's hard to replicate if you're not lie, you know, lie boiling.
Speaker E:Absolutely.
Speaker A:Or at least dip it.
Speaker D:We may be one of the few brew pubs that actually make their own pretzels.
Speaker D:They're, you know, the bar, unfortunately is very low.
Speaker D:A lot of places have soft pretzels, but they don't make them.
Speaker D:They're just, I don't know, they're just heating them up or something.
Speaker D:And Sega started doing that in a very, very early days.
Speaker D:And so Jim has improved it.
Speaker D:We still have it now, and it's still a special item that you can't get anywhere else.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And that mustard is serious business.
Speaker E:Oh, yeah.
Speaker E:That'll hit you in the face.
Speaker A:I love that.
Speaker A:It's not, it's not an amateur hour mustard.
Speaker A:No, I love mustard.
Speaker A:And I usually.
Speaker A:I can just like slather something in it.
Speaker A:And I took a hit.
Speaker A:I'm like, oh, okay, got it.
Speaker A:This is not an amateur mustard.
Speaker A:No, I ended up actually using.
Speaker A:So we have like a Friday hot dog day at work.
Speaker E:Yeah.
Speaker A:So I bring in my own sauces because I don't deal with that pedestrian nonsense.
Speaker A:But I made my own like, like, like Szechuan esque soy sauce mix.
Speaker A:And then I put the mustard on the bottom.
Speaker A:So I got a little bit of spice double spice action going on.
Speaker E:A little Bit.
Speaker A:Ooh, that was fun.
Speaker A:But that.
Speaker A:That was the thing that actually popped me most, was the mustard.
Speaker A:Because it was not just the whole mustard.
Speaker A:I have one in the fridge.
Speaker A:I gotta have you try before you leave.
Speaker A:But it has that spice.
Speaker A:It has that texture too.
Speaker E:Right.
Speaker A:And it worked with the pretzel.
Speaker A:And you know what, you could put that on the chicken wings too.
Speaker A:And you had mustard in your gold sauce.
Speaker E:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:And you can taste it in there.
Speaker A:But every little thing, like you're using the mustard multiple places, using that, multiple spots.
Speaker A:It's all about efficiency and having this group of people working together.
Speaker A:You know, it takes time to build that efficiency as a group.
Speaker A:How do you feel as a partnership right now you are with efficiency?
Speaker A:Do you still think you have with, you know, space to grow?
Speaker E:Oh, we always got space to grow, for sure.
Speaker E:We get better every day.
Speaker E:Communication.
Speaker E:These guys are always here.
Speaker E:This is the best part about this partnership, in my opinion, is, you know, I'm working with these guys day to day.
Speaker E:Boots on the ground.
Speaker E:If it's Paul every Monday morning, recapping what we're doing for the week or going over specials, or Oz being there to check in and.
Speaker E:Or Don being out there talking to people, it's like, you know, it feels good, actually.
Speaker E:See these guys every day, boots on the ground.
Speaker E:So, you know, we can only improve and communicate and get better and dial it in.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Makes a big difference being present.
Speaker E:For sure.
Speaker A:You're not out of town.
Speaker D:Sure, sure.
Speaker A:You're not.
Speaker A:You're not out of town.
Speaker A:People you don't own from a distance, you are here with the people making it happen every day.
Speaker A:And I think people can feel that.
Speaker E:Yeah.
Speaker D:Oh, absolutely.
Speaker A:In a place like this, plenty of.
Speaker D:Feedback saying, hey, I.
Speaker D:I talked to the owner when I was there, and, you know, you can't.
Speaker D:You can't make that stuff up.
Speaker D:I mean, that's, you know, you just can't duplicate it very easily.
Speaker D:Or.
Speaker D:I, I looked into the kitchen.
Speaker D:I saw Jim.
Speaker D:There he was, whatever.
Speaker D:He's doing those wings.
Speaker D:And you know, that that's, that's part of the experience of, of, of that we offer.
Speaker D:You don't get in a large restaurant, a commercial chain or things like that.
Speaker D:It's.
Speaker D:It's just so different.
Speaker A:Well, guys, this was great.
Speaker A:I'm really excited we got a chance to do this.
Speaker A:Let's get the plugs out again for everybody.
Speaker A:So, Paul, Don, where can people find Sager Stone yard pub, you know, address, and where can people find it?
Speaker C:All right, we are at 46 Sager Drive, Suite E.
Speaker C:Technically speaking, we're down an alley, so it's sometimes not easy for some folks to find.
Speaker C:But the best way to point you to us is around the corner of Culver and University.
Speaker C:Okay.
Speaker C:Living roots and revelry are good, you know, reference points.
Speaker C:Okay.
Speaker D:Right across the street.
Speaker A:Absolutely.
Speaker C:So the whole district is.
Speaker C:Has been very popular lately, everywhere between Whitten and Culver.
Speaker E:Yeah.
Speaker A:That's awesome.
Speaker A:And Oz, where can people learn about Stoneyard beer if they want to find it out in a bat still?
Speaker B:Oh, come visit me on Mondays.
Speaker B:No, we still, you know, beers out all over New York state and into the northern half of New Jersey.
Speaker B:Distro is out there.
Speaker B:If you can't find it, ask for it for sure.
Speaker B:Because if your store, if your favorite beer store isn't carrying it, they can tell them to bring it in.
Speaker A:I love that.
Speaker A:Still experimenting.
Speaker A:I'm sure I will taste something wild on Saturday coming up.
Speaker B:Oh, yes, you sure will.
Speaker A:And Jim, where can people people learn about doughboys and the specials coming out?
Speaker E:Definitely follow us on Instagram.
Speaker E:Very, very active on Instagram.
Speaker E:We just launched our new Haven Pizza Tuesdays.
Speaker A:First we're gonna do a pizza Nerdy.
Speaker A:Another time.
Speaker A:I want to talk all about that.
Speaker A:I want to talk all about that.
Speaker A:We.
Speaker A:We would go for way too long.
Speaker A:I want to talk all about that.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So doughboys on Instagram.
Speaker E:Check our Instagram or website.
Speaker A:Awesome.
Speaker A:All right, guys, thank you so much for coming over and appreciate you joining this episode of the Food About Town podcast.
Speaker A:Follow on the Everybody socials.
Speaker A:We will pop the event for DeWolf Brewing at for July 15th at Sager Stone Yard Pub.
Speaker A:We're doing some interesting fusion of Spanish food and doughboys food.
Speaker A:Super excited about that and hope you check out some of the other shows on the Lunchadore podcast network.
Speaker A:Why don't you check out some of the newest shows?
Speaker A:Common thread from Rory Van Grohl and Greg Benoit talking about living the hardcore music lifestyle and how it's turned them into the adults they are today.
Speaker A:And if you're into music, I want you to check out nights and weekends from the team from the Sound.
Speaker A:We recently had an interview with one of the members of the Dandy Warhols.
Speaker A:Doing more interviews coming up.
Speaker A:So thank you so much for listening and we'll be back next time with more on the Lunchadore podcast network.
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Speaker A:Music for the podcast was created by the fabulous Taurus Savant.
Speaker A:You can hear more of his work@taurusavant.bandcamp.com and make your presence known by seeing him perform live.
Speaker A:Foodabout Town is a proud member of the Lunchadore Podcast Network.
Speaker A:Oh no, here comes McKenna.
Speaker A:This has been a presentation of the Lunch Lunchador Podcast Network.
Speaker A:Yes, the episode sounded good.
Speaker A:Yes, it sounded professional.
Speaker A:You didn't hear the 20 minutes of me Miserable before this started dealing with technical issues.
Speaker A:I wish I'd recorded it.
Speaker A:Nobody would ever want to hear it.
Speaker A:But you're going to hear about it now.
