Ep. 2 - Beau Bourgeois | Bourgeois Meat Market | 4th Generation Owner Continues the Legacy

 

Miracles in Meat Podcast | Ep. 2 – Carrying the Legacy: Beau Bourgeois & the Future of Bourgeois Meat Market

From Horse & Buggy to a Second Location: The Evolution of a Cajun Institution

In this episode of Miracles in Meat, Shane Thibodaux, a fourth-generation butcher, sits down with his cousin Beau Bourgeois, the current owner of Bourgeois Meat Market, to discuss the history, resilience, and future of their family business.

Since 1891, Bourgeois Meat Market has been a staple in Thibodaux, Louisiana, serving up legendary Cajun smoked meats, boudin, and beef jerky. From their great-grandfather’s horse and buggy deliveries to the opening of a second location in 2023, this episode dives into the challenges and triumphs of expanding a 130+ year-old business while preserving tradition.

Inside This Episode:

🔥 The humble beginnings of Bourgeois Meat Market and its early traditions
🔥 Expanding in modern times – the opening of a second location in 2023
🔥 Stories of resilience, from hurricane recovery to adapting in a changing market
🔥 The passion and family values that fuel their commitment to quality

Why You Should Listen:

This episode is packed with nostalgic family stories, Cajun heritage, and business wisdom, making it a must-listen for history lovers, food enthusiasts, and anyone inspired by legacy businesses.

💥 Exclusive Offer

🛒 Use code: MIMPODCAST for 10% off your cart at checkout!

🔗 Connect with Us:

🌐 Website: www.bourgeoismeatmarket.com
📍 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bourgeoismeatmarket
📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bourgeoismeatmarket/
📩 Email: Shane@bourgeoismm@gmail.com

 

Transcript

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Music.

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You're listening to the Miracles in Meat podcast. I'm Shane Thibodaux,

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a fourth-generation butcher at one of the oldest meat markets in the world.

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My great-grandfather started this business by slaughtering one cow or pig at

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a time and selling the cuts door-to-door on horse and buggy.

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Today, our products are enjoyed across the globe. I will attempt to give you

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some insight as to how we got here and explore the challenges we've had along the way.

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At Bourgeois, our mission is to preserve our heritage generation after generation

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through legendary Cajun flavors and the development of relationships not customers.

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Since 1891, Bourgeois has maintained age-old culinary traditions that fuel the

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South Louisiana lifestyle.

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Over the past 133 years our Cajun products have gained global recognition and

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for tens of thousands of folks around the world the Bourgeois Cajun Lady logo is a symbol of home.

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Today the fourth generation butchers sit at the nine-foot maple block with loyal

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loyal customers to discuss the adventures, skills, and passions that guide each of their legacies.

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These conversations will become priceless resources for future generations of any industry.

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This is our way of maintaining the spirit, purpose, and traditions of our lost

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arts in a world of change.

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133 years, four generations. We're just getting started.

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Music.

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All right, episode two of the Miracles of Meat podcast. Episode one was with

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Donald Bourgeois, the third generation owner of Bourgeois' Meat Market.

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If you missed that one, be sure to go listen.

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Today, I'm with Donald's son, Beau Bourgeois, who is the fourth generation owner.

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Beau is my older cousin, and I've looked up to Beau ever since I can remember.

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And I'm very lucky to have been by his side as he expanded this 130 year old

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family business with a second location that opened up in March of 2023.

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Bo and I have been through a whole hell of a lot together and I just I feel

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like there's so much more left for us to accomplish and I'm very excited to work with Bo.

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I'm not exaggerating when I say that Bo is who I would consider to be the most

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intelligent person I've ever met.

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It's very overwhelming. And honestly, it's exhausting at times for us normies.

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You know, I remember all the things I had to learn in school as a kid,

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middle school, high school, all of the things.

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You know how it's really hard to remember all those dates and all those events

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and formulas and names and all that boring stuff?

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Well, Bo Bo not only remembers all of that stuff, but he can apply it in front

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of your face in real time in actual scenarios and actual problems that need to be solved.

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And I got to watch that over the past, you know, 10 years and it's fun, man. It really is fun.

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I love working with Bo and he is absolutely the right guy for the job.

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So let's get a bit more into his brain and see what we can dig out.

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Let's go, Beau Bourgeois.

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Beau, what you got? You're my cousin, and I know almost everything about you, but...

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No one else does. Yeah. Not, maybe not the people that are going to hear this.

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So we're going to try to, try to fade in an intro and then get into some,

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some deeper things with you.

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But first, this will be fun for me to learn. Tell me about maybe your first

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memories of the meat market.

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I have my, my first early memories, but I guess I don't really know yours.

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I don't know, you know, how far back you can remember and what that was like.

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How far back I can remember.

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So my parents got divorced when I was three, uh, and I lived with my mom,

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but every weekend that I was at my dad's house on Saturdays,

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I would come to work with him. I said, we're open seven to one.

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And I dude, how trying to think of how old I was that I can remember,

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but I don't know, seven, eight years old, I'm sure.

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And yeah, so I would hang out with dad, answer the phone, not really do any work.

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I was a little kid, but just talking to everybody and seeing how the place ran.

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And there was probably five or six workers back then. And I would just wait

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until I could see people playing outside at Mama and Papa's house across the street.

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And then I would go over there and play the rest of the day.

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So that's probably my first memories of the market.

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So if you're standing in front of the market or you're standing in Papa's front

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yard, which is the yard directly across, and you're looking at the market,

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how was it different? How was that view different?

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When I was a kid, even up until probably high school, probably up until Katrina.

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So the whole parking, well, for sure the front of the market was smaller.

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We added that on in like 2011.

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But more importantly, there was also no parking lot on the left side at all

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where that gravel parking lot is.

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There was a very narrow path that was like really overgrown.

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There was a chain link fence that you had to walk on side of the market to get

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around to the back to get in.

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And there was a old man named Leander that lived in that house.

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And I, the main thing I remember about that house is that you could barely see it.

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The whole yard was overgrown and everything, but he was an old man and.

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Passed away i'm guessing in the early 2000s and

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dad wound up buying the lot they well the

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hansons actually lived in there for katrina so they remember that

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yeah so in 2005 they lived in

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that house and then at some point after that they moved the house off of the

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property and dad turned it into a parking lot so it did look a lot i would say

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a good bit different the building itself maybe didn't look a lot different we

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only added on like 400 square feet in the front right there and then,

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the parking was the big the big difference you could only park in front of the store.

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And that included employees right so there was a lot of parking going on across

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the street and for christmas i mean cars would park all the way down to the

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bridge back there yeah i remember that house i remember the pathway to get on

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around the left side of the market It was a little sketchy, huh?

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I remember carrying a pirogue from Pawpaw's house through that gap and then into the bayou.

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And then the bayou was actually beautiful back then.

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You had trees on both sides. You couldn't see the road. It was very pretty. Yep.

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The water was, I remember the water being cleaner and just looked nice.

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Looked like a bayou and not a ditch.

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You didn't realize you were in town. It felt like you were in the middle of

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a swamp or the woods or something. It was really cool. So, of course,

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being a kid, too, changes your perception.

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But I remember us. I remember we called them the boys, but it was Nick,

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Jason, and Brody. The boys. The boys.

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And, yeah, we would do that. We'd take that P-Rogue all the way into those bridges

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as far as we dared. Each time we'd go a little farther.

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Lots of spiders under those bridges. It's fun.

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Yeah, and the Main Street was a two-way on one side.

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Not in my time. Not then, but before then. Well, yeah, originally it was just

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a gravel road on the far side of the bayou, and this side was a two-lane, like not a one-lane.

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And for those of you who don't know, our great-grandfather, he would slaughter

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a cow or a pig, and he would wrap up the cuts, you know, the fresh cuts,

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and he would hit the road, that road right there.

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It was an old gravel road. He would hit that road on a horse and buggy and go

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door to door and he would just make sales and wouldn't come back until it was gone.

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So we've come a long way since then. You couldn't in those days.

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There was no refrigeration.

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So the whole cow had to get sold that day and then whoever bought it had to eat it that day.

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So yeah, you were, you were young and you were kind of just,

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it was kind of a daycare for you of sorts. Yeah.

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That's kind of, kind of my memories too. I remember wrapping a little bit of

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jerky for customers and standing on a little stool.

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And I remember when the, you know, Ms. Karen and Jenny and Ms.

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Kathy would, would let me wait on customers.

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They would basically just tell me what questions to ask. And then I would ask

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it. And when the customer gave me the answer, I would just look at them for what to do next.

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And they would, you know, they would let me give them the total.

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And I would say, okay, it's $575.

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And then they would give me the money and then I would just give it to Karen.

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And she would say, okay, now give them back $1.20.

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And then I would give it back.

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But yeah, I remember that. When we would get busy and I was little and try to

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help and wait on customers, I'd ask somebody what they need.

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And if it wasn't something easy that I knew how to get, I'd be like,

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listen, they're going to help you in just one second. Next.

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And if they wanted something easy, like a pound of Hogshead cheese or something, I could get that.

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And then I'd put it on the scale and I'd have to jump up and hold myself on the counter.

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Because you remember those dial scales you couldn't you couldn't just look up

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at them you had to be at the right angle so I had to get I had to hold myself

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up at the counter to get the price and then hop down and write it on the pack.

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Some people might have got charged

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the wrong amount in those days sure no problem it's for the kids yeah.

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So, all right, tell us a little bit about your family.

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Okay. My wife is Chelsea. She's from a little bit all over the place,

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but mostly like Napoleonville, I guess.

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And I met her in college at Nichols. We got married in 2014,

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so we just celebrated our 10-year anniversary.

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And we got four kids. My oldest is Theodore Bourgeois. We call him Teddy. He's eight.

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And then next comes Thomas. he's about

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a year and a half younger and then the

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girls are next so rosie is four about to

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be five and adeline just turned one how do you convince chelsea to marry a butcher

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i don't i hope i think she wasn't thinking about that she was just after the

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dance moves yeah definitely the dance moves,

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and yeah you got four kids and y'all

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are doing the kids stuff right now y'all are doing

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sports and traveling the country for peewee

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baseball not yet well it's sort of we do go to hammond and all that they they

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just finished up travel baseball boys are on the same team and they do anytime

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they're in between sports they're doing jujitsu of course of course and uh beau is a black belt in,

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guerrilla jiu-jitsu.

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Sure, that's fair to say. Yeah.

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No big deal. We won't talk about that.

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What's your, what's your favorite products that we're selling right now?

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What's like your go-to, let's do this. What's your staple, what's the things you always take home?

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And what's the, what's the, just your favorite product right now?

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Maybe a new product that we have or just something that's just always been your,

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your favorite little treat.

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Okay. So the things I take home the most often are hamburgers and pork chops

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because, you know, we're always on the run.

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But my favorite things to take home for ever has always been calf cuts stuff that's about to go bad.

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And we do a lot of roast too it's just it's easy to what's a good uh calf cut to grab.

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On a weeknight like i said whatever's going bad whatever's going bad so you

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can they're all good and you just smother them down so taste delicious speak

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more on that how'd you learn how'd you learn how to just do that.

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Papa and my dad, I think that's all my, I think that's the only meat my grandpa

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and dad ate growing up was the stuff that wouldn't sell.

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Right. So he's talking about, we have a cooler full of meat.

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We've got tenderloins and we've got the ribeyes and we got all the great stuff.

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But what Papa would do and Uncle Donald

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would do is save that stuff for

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the customers because that's how you make money so the

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stuff that hasn't sold you know

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it's a few days old and it's it's time to do something with it that's what goes

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home and that's what gets cooked and that's what feeds the family and that's

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in the tradition that's what that's what they did that's what our our parents

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grew up on and with that comes maybe a different cooking style than

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most are used to because you kind

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of have to know what to do with some of these cheaper cuts of

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meat you know it's like the calf the calf the cuts the veal cuts they're all

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grass fed grass finished which is a much different taste and texture than what

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everyone else is used to to cook and it's not a restaurant style flavor so if

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you take a what are you taking like a neck chop.

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An old old rusty neck chop home and what

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are you doing with it i like rusty just to

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add to that a little bit so the the calf cuts

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are kind of like a dying thing these days you know

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nowadays we probably get you know one calf a week maybe one calf every two weeks

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or something but in in years past you know dad dad and papa and all they would

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slaughter multiple calves every week to fulfill fail customer orders and a big

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part of papa's business for a long time was slaughtering,

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people's other people's calves and cutting and wrapping it for them so yeah

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people don't people don't cook

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that way anymore and they're not you seeing that and it's also not like a.

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How do you say this? It's not, it's not, it's not a, you might have to,

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you might have to cut my stumbling, but it's not like an industrialized thing.

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Like you can buy, you can buy a box of ribeyes, for example.

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You can buy a box of tenderloins. You can buy a box of chuck roasts.

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You can't buy, you can't buy like calf chuck chops.

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It's not, it's not something that, that is sold.

206
00:14:49,501 --> 00:14:52,541
It's not like mass produced and packaged.

207
00:14:52,661 --> 00:15:00,361
Thank you. You can't, yeah, you can't, you can't buy a case of Chuck Chops. Right. Right.

208
00:15:00,741 --> 00:15:06,061
And so, but so yeah, customers have always gotten a little aggravated and I

209
00:15:06,061 --> 00:15:10,461
understand the frustration, but you know, when we break, we break a quarter

210
00:15:10,461 --> 00:15:12,241
at a time, either front quarter or hind quarter.

211
00:15:12,561 --> 00:15:16,961
And you can't just, if everybody wants the number sevens, for example,

212
00:15:16,961 --> 00:15:21,561
which are still really popular, you can't just break another front because you're

213
00:15:21,561 --> 00:15:25,061
out of sevens. You have to wait till the rest of the, the cuts are sold.

214
00:15:26,281 --> 00:15:30,241
So yeah, as soon as you, as soon as you start breaking and cutting into the

215
00:15:30,241 --> 00:15:31,901
meat, it starts going bad a lot faster.

216
00:15:32,581 --> 00:15:38,281
Right. So, and we really rely on those, those customers that they,

217
00:15:38,361 --> 00:15:41,481
they have these recipes because they were passed down from their,

218
00:15:41,481 --> 00:15:47,001
their grandparents and they know how to cook the veal sirloins and they,

219
00:15:47,081 --> 00:15:50,321
they cook round steaks and they do all this stuff.

220
00:15:50,901 --> 00:15:55,501
And we rely on those customers to show up because if they don't show up for

221
00:15:55,501 --> 00:15:59,961
two or three weeks then we're sitting on meat that now we have to take home

222
00:15:59,961 --> 00:16:04,301
the cup all right and now my kids are sick of rice and gravy um they'll ever

223
00:16:04,301 --> 00:16:09,101
be sick of rice and gravy so as quickly as possible,

224
00:16:09,781 --> 00:16:15,821
explain how to cook neck chop all right there's like three pretty easy ways

225
00:16:15,821 --> 00:16:20,901
but you get them slice relatively thin maybe a half inch but some people like them a little thicker.

226
00:16:22,204 --> 00:16:27,264
Here's maybe an easy way that most people could already do it that know how to cook.

227
00:16:27,584 --> 00:16:31,224
You just season them, brown them, take them out, make a roux,

228
00:16:31,224 --> 00:16:35,304
add onions, put them back in, a little water, cover it until it's tender.

229
00:16:35,804 --> 00:16:40,424
That's simple. Boom. If you want to do it even faster, you dust them in flour

230
00:16:40,424 --> 00:16:44,344
first before you pan fry them with some oil. And that kind of makes your roux.

231
00:16:44,784 --> 00:16:48,384
Then you take them out, add your onions, cook them down, and then put it back

232
00:16:48,384 --> 00:16:49,764
in the pot, a little water, cover it.

233
00:16:50,424 --> 00:16:53,704
Simple. Down the hatch. That's it. Salt and pepper.

234
00:16:53,964 --> 00:17:02,684
I think me and you both learned to cook with a very simple preparation, I guess.

235
00:17:02,884 --> 00:17:07,324
There's not really crazy, complicated recipes.

236
00:17:07,984 --> 00:17:13,424
Most of the things we cook probably follow just a few key principles,

237
00:17:13,544 --> 00:17:15,124
and we do that with everything.

238
00:17:15,124 --> 00:17:17,924
And um they're simple and they

239
00:17:17,924 --> 00:17:20,964
they they do take time but i i

240
00:17:20,964 --> 00:17:25,244
do think that that's why papa and mama and my dad and all are such good cooks

241
00:17:25,244 --> 00:17:29,464
is that they had to learn how to cook stuff that people didn't want the less

242
00:17:29,464 --> 00:17:34,944
desirable parts of the animal right anyone can make a a porterhouse take tastes

243
00:17:34,944 --> 00:17:39,384
good right but and in 15 minutes instead of two hours,

244
00:17:40,544 --> 00:17:44,184
But yeah, to take an old, nasty neck chop.

245
00:17:45,444 --> 00:17:49,424
And you need to make it taste good and split it nine different ways because

246
00:17:49,424 --> 00:17:52,224
they had seven kids. And you got to get the kids to like it.

247
00:17:52,664 --> 00:17:55,604
I don't think they ever cared about that back in those days.

248
00:17:55,924 --> 00:17:57,424
You're right. Here's the food.

249
00:17:58,344 --> 00:18:00,384
Sorry, y'all. Sorry, y'all had to go through that.

250
00:18:02,084 --> 00:18:07,564
It's before they had food. That was a long time ago. Before they had grocery stores. Yeah.

251
00:18:08,494 --> 00:18:14,014
All right, so you graduated from Vanderbilt.

252
00:18:14,434 --> 00:18:23,114
Yeah. Played football, dabbled in some martial arts, some jujitsu, some what else?

253
00:18:23,794 --> 00:18:27,934
That's about it. I was real big into football in those days and took that pretty

254
00:18:27,934 --> 00:18:34,494
seriously. And then, yeah, I started doing jujitsu like sophomore year, 2002-ish.

255
00:18:34,554 --> 00:18:35,294
I graduated in 2005.

256
00:18:35,634 --> 00:18:37,894
And hunting and fishing throughout. Yeah.

257
00:18:38,494 --> 00:18:40,774
Any chance, well, just put it

258
00:18:40,774 --> 00:18:44,514
this way, any time Dad called and there was anybody, I was going. Right.

259
00:18:45,034 --> 00:18:52,994
Pretty big in our family. I think most of the men in the family were avid fishermen and hunters.

260
00:18:53,794 --> 00:18:56,874
Yeah, we mostly fished growing up.

261
00:18:57,154 --> 00:19:02,074
Dad got into deer hunting a little later, but we would still go probably once a year.

262
00:19:02,414 --> 00:19:05,754
And then did a little duck hunting for a while.

263
00:19:06,314 --> 00:19:09,254
And but mostly i remember going to uncle john's camp

264
00:19:09,254 --> 00:19:13,074
which was mostly a fishing camp in du large but man

265
00:19:13,074 --> 00:19:15,994
every once a year beginning of february we

266
00:19:15,994 --> 00:19:18,834
would do right after a deer season ended we would do a

267
00:19:18,834 --> 00:19:23,154
big family rabbit hunt with all the guys and it

268
00:19:23,154 --> 00:19:28,754
was a lot of fun and it was really weird what was

269
00:19:28,754 --> 00:19:32,394
weird you know you were there so the

270
00:19:32,394 --> 00:19:35,294
rabbit hunt was it was like a coming of age thing in

271
00:19:35,294 --> 00:19:38,294
the bourgeois family and you get you get

272
00:19:38,294 --> 00:19:41,514
invited to uncle john's camp you know maybe throughout the summer and you go

273
00:19:41,514 --> 00:19:46,434
hydro sliding and you go maybe frogging and fishing and all this stuff and all

274
00:19:46,434 --> 00:19:50,034
the fun times but the rabbit hunt was something different the rabbit hunt was

275
00:19:50,034 --> 00:19:57,314
for the men and big kids yeah and i don't know how old were we when we probably did our first dude you.

276
00:19:58,907 --> 00:20:02,307
Seven or eight i might have been 10 or 11 best guess

277
00:20:02,307 --> 00:20:05,927
could be a couple 20 gauges maybe i

278
00:20:05,927 --> 00:20:09,767
know i had a youth punk 20 gauge and we

279
00:20:09,767 --> 00:20:14,907
would hit the levee and we would we would walk and we would rabbit hunt but

280
00:20:14,907 --> 00:20:19,327
the rabbit mostly the rabbit dogs right we would go flush out the rabbits so

281
00:20:19,327 --> 00:20:25,167
the the grown-ups can shoot but the focus of the rabbit hunt wasn't necessarily

282
00:20:25,167 --> 00:20:26,647
the rabbit hunting It was more,

283
00:20:26,647 --> 00:20:29,547
more so the shenanigans back at the camp. Yeah.

284
00:20:30,647 --> 00:20:32,127
Yeah. You're right. It got weird.

285
00:20:34,047 --> 00:20:40,407
Lots of loud noises, lots of horns. Vacuum cleaners. Yeah. Bridges being opened and closed.

286
00:20:40,807 --> 00:20:42,787
They would take a PVC. Donuts in the body.

287
00:20:43,527 --> 00:20:49,307
It would take a 12 foot, maybe three quarter inch PVC pipe and,

288
00:20:49,327 --> 00:20:52,107
and blow into it as hard as they can for as

289
00:20:52,107 --> 00:20:56,027
long as they can which was like thinking back now some

290
00:20:56,027 --> 00:20:59,007
of some of our uncles can do that hold that note for

291
00:20:59,007 --> 00:21:03,207
four or five minutes at least and or where they might have been passing it on

292
00:21:03,207 --> 00:21:07,547
i don't know i've seen a cigar smoked i've seen like a one foot cigar smoked

293
00:21:07,547 --> 00:21:13,067
i've never seen a normal size cigar at that camp right ever lots of stuff lots

294
00:21:13,067 --> 00:21:17,347
of vacuums and you may or may not,

295
00:21:17,387 --> 00:21:22,707
you may or may not be woken up by a vacuum running across your face.

296
00:21:23,107 --> 00:21:25,407
Or put to sleep on one. Yeah. Right.

297
00:21:25,827 --> 00:21:29,427
But yeah, rabbit camp was, the rabbit hunt was special times.

298
00:21:29,827 --> 00:21:36,087
And it's about time we start introducing something like that with our kids. Yeah.

299
00:21:36,947 --> 00:21:41,727
Something a bit scary, exciting, and dangerous.

300
00:21:43,267 --> 00:21:49,747
I'd say would be the key factors there. So, you graduated from Vanderbilt and

301
00:21:49,747 --> 00:21:52,987
then off to college. Yep. Went to Nichols.

302
00:21:53,667 --> 00:21:57,787
Graduated in three years in computer science after about...

303
00:21:59,087 --> 00:22:00,467
Well, so I chose computer science

304
00:22:00,467 --> 00:22:04,447
because it, I don't know, computers seemed cool back in those days.

305
00:22:04,767 --> 00:22:10,427
And then after about a year and a half, I realized that I hated computers and

306
00:22:10,427 --> 00:22:11,527
programming especially.

307
00:22:12,307 --> 00:22:16,667
But I was like, I'm only a year and a half away from graduating.

308
00:22:16,667 --> 00:22:19,227
So I just buckled down and finished it.

309
00:22:19,487 --> 00:22:23,787
I was a bit of an idiot in college in general, if anybody knew me back then.

310
00:22:23,987 --> 00:22:28,727
But I did do the coursework and graduate.

311
00:22:29,087 --> 00:22:32,467
Quickly because I didn't like it but after

312
00:22:32,467 --> 00:22:35,667
I graduated I got interested in all

313
00:22:35,667 --> 00:22:38,587
of them well I had to take a lot of math classes for computer science and

314
00:22:38,587 --> 00:22:41,607
I did I've always liked math and I decided

315
00:22:41,607 --> 00:22:49,047
I wanted to try to get a graduate degree in math and Nichols did not have a

316
00:22:49,047 --> 00:22:56,807
PhD program but Tulane did and I decided Tulane sounded pretty cool it's obviously

317
00:22:56,807 --> 00:22:59,767
really expensive so So, and hard to get in.

318
00:22:59,847 --> 00:23:05,627
So I applied and it was kind of a deal where first I have to get in.

319
00:23:05,727 --> 00:23:07,427
And second of all, if I don't get

320
00:23:07,427 --> 00:23:11,587
an assistantship that will pay for everything, then it's off the table.

321
00:23:12,067 --> 00:23:17,547
But all of that worked out. And yeah, I was in a PhD program for two years and

322
00:23:17,547 --> 00:23:23,807
I probably had, I'd done most of the coursework, but I still had like four years left to do.

323
00:23:23,807 --> 00:23:26,787
Like it takes that much longer to do your dissertation

324
00:23:26,787 --> 00:23:36,007
and it just I mean I was 24 at that point and I was like no this is dumb I'm

325
00:23:36,007 --> 00:23:39,467
gonna be working at the market anyway it's it's time to call it quits so you

326
00:23:39,467 --> 00:23:45,527
had already decided that the market wasn't was next at Tulane or at Nichols or before then.

327
00:23:46,853 --> 00:23:51,513
Say that again? When you actually decided that you were going to pursue the meat market.

328
00:23:51,993 --> 00:23:55,593
I'm not sure of that. Did that happen in high school or college?

329
00:23:56,213 --> 00:24:00,873
I don't know. I guess I always knew that it was going to happen.

330
00:24:01,213 --> 00:24:04,433
I guess I didn't think much about it.

331
00:24:04,933 --> 00:24:07,313
It's not like I ever considered doing anything else.

332
00:24:08,433 --> 00:24:10,873
Yeah, I don't know. The school part was just for fun.

333
00:24:12,073 --> 00:24:18,233
And then you came back after Tulane. and you came back and you taught some classes

334
00:24:18,233 --> 00:24:20,213
at Nichols or did you teach at Tulane as well?

335
00:24:20,713 --> 00:24:25,173
Yeah, so that's part of the assistantship deal is you teach classes,

336
00:24:25,853 --> 00:24:33,553
and you teach basically undergrad classes and you get a tuition waiver and a

337
00:24:33,553 --> 00:24:36,173
small stipend, $17,000 a year.

338
00:24:36,733 --> 00:24:41,653
And I heard that your class was pretty hard to pass. No, that was at Nichols.

339
00:24:42,253 --> 00:24:47,053
The Tulane, Tulane, everything was cool. Yeah, when I, when I came back,

340
00:24:47,093 --> 00:24:50,453
the head of the math department, his name was Dr. Beslan.

341
00:24:50,813 --> 00:24:54,573
He had reached out to me to see if I'd be interested in teaching some summer courses.

342
00:24:55,073 --> 00:25:00,913
It was night classes and I had some experience doing it already. It sounded fun.

343
00:25:01,113 --> 00:25:03,913
Pay wasn't, wasn't really a factor.

344
00:25:05,596 --> 00:25:07,876
But yeah, I had fun doing that. I did that for a couple of summers.

345
00:25:08,796 --> 00:25:13,196
And yeah, I might not have been known as the easiest teacher.

346
00:25:13,776 --> 00:25:16,156
Good. I think I had a 25% pass rate.

347
00:25:17,376 --> 00:25:23,596
And around, is that around the time you took your backpacking trip?

348
00:25:24,156 --> 00:25:29,796
I took the backpacking trip in the middle of Tulane. So I was at Tulane for two years.

349
00:25:30,216 --> 00:25:35,336
And then the summer in between, I had met. So there's not, there's not too many

350
00:25:35,336 --> 00:25:41,796
Americans in math and physics graduate programs in this country.

351
00:25:42,156 --> 00:25:44,456
A lot of Asians and a lot of Europeans.

352
00:25:45,016 --> 00:25:49,796
They made up more than 50% of the, the, like my incoming class.

353
00:25:50,176 --> 00:25:56,256
And anyway, yeah, I'd made some friends with a bunch of people throughout Europe, Germany, Cyprus.

354
00:25:57,296 --> 00:26:00,936
Yeah england and my mom

355
00:26:00,936 --> 00:26:04,616
my mom had booked a thing

356
00:26:04,616 --> 00:26:07,396
through nickels like a european tour i

357
00:26:07,396 --> 00:26:10,416
don't know what you call it but it was through nickels a professor came with

358
00:26:10,416 --> 00:26:13,196
us it was a giant group of us it was two weeks and it

359
00:26:13,196 --> 00:26:16,016
was really cool but she was paying for that

360
00:26:16,016 --> 00:26:19,056
and so i decided like hey i might i might

361
00:26:19,056 --> 00:26:21,996
just stay the rest of the summer by myself and and go

362
00:26:21,996 --> 00:26:24,736
visit some of my friends that were home for the summer

363
00:26:24,736 --> 00:26:27,536
so yeah he just called him up and said

364
00:26:27,536 --> 00:26:31,796
hey i'm coming over well we had talked about it before i before i left but yeah

365
00:26:31,796 --> 00:26:36,596
and where so where'd you go oh i'd have to look back i think it was 10 or 11

366
00:26:36,596 --> 00:26:46,416
countries i went a little bit everywhere so england germany amsterdam italy norway cyprus.

367
00:26:48,596 --> 00:26:52,096
Czech republic a bunch of places it was really

368
00:26:52,096 --> 00:26:57,276
cool and you did that i just had a backpack i had two shirts what kind of shirts

369
00:26:57,276 --> 00:27:03,316
shorts tap out shirt wool wool of course oh yeah you had ice you had merino

370
00:27:03,316 --> 00:27:08,856
wool before it was cool before it was cool wait didn't you have a first light before it was cool?

371
00:27:09,336 --> 00:27:12,456
Yes. Yeah, an old first light. Like, from when?

372
00:27:13,076 --> 00:27:15,636
Uh, 2000...

373
00:27:17,506 --> 00:27:22,966
2010? Yeah, that's OG. Yeah. That's an OG first light consumer.

374
00:27:23,726 --> 00:27:28,966
I was really just looking for anything merino wool for thermals. Right. For hunting.

375
00:27:29,686 --> 00:27:33,406
Function, not fashion. Yeah. That was before Sitka. Yeah.

376
00:27:34,246 --> 00:27:37,186
Man, that's pretty special. You should never get rid of that.

377
00:27:37,926 --> 00:27:40,946
That first light. Oh, I still wear it. It's great.

378
00:27:41,386 --> 00:27:44,106
It's actually better than the stuff they make now, I think. So you got to do

379
00:27:44,106 --> 00:27:47,146
the whole traveling thing. You got to do the subway systems,

380
00:27:47,246 --> 00:27:49,806
and did you take some trains and all of that?

381
00:27:50,146 --> 00:27:52,366
Trains were the best way to travel. They were cheap.

382
00:27:52,906 --> 00:27:58,546
And, yeah, I would grab a bottle of wine and a sandwich, and I had a little tiny laptop.

383
00:27:58,606 --> 00:28:02,606
I would just watch movies for, like, the six-hour ride and drink a whole bottle

384
00:28:02,606 --> 00:28:03,646
of wine and eat a sandwich.

385
00:28:03,766 --> 00:28:08,246
Would you recommend that to the college grad traveling?

386
00:28:08,526 --> 00:28:12,966
If it's still affordable, yeah. I did it for really cheap. I know a lot of people

387
00:28:12,966 --> 00:28:17,006
are doing the hostels and stuff like that. And I think that's the way to do it if you're in college.

388
00:28:17,166 --> 00:28:21,906
Yeah, I did hostels when I had to. But I would also, I liked sleeping in like

389
00:28:21,906 --> 00:28:24,246
train stations and airports because that was free.

390
00:28:24,546 --> 00:28:28,486
And all the flights that I took, dude, I took, I don't think I ever paid more

391
00:28:28,486 --> 00:28:31,346
than $50 for a flight. Most of them were $20 or less.

392
00:28:32,046 --> 00:28:36,246
And of course, with that comes like the flights leaving at three in the morning

393
00:28:36,246 --> 00:28:38,586
or five like ridiculous hours.

394
00:28:39,306 --> 00:28:45,126
You have to stand up the whole time. Well, that was a bonus for me because it

395
00:28:45,126 --> 00:28:47,306
saved me a night that I had to pay at a hostel.

396
00:28:47,486 --> 00:28:49,586
I'd find some stairs to sleep under.

397
00:28:49,806 --> 00:28:51,826
And there's that math, you know?

398
00:28:54,026 --> 00:28:59,146
So. I take it back. The most expensive flight I took was coming home.

399
00:29:00,206 --> 00:29:06,586
And that was $200. I flew from Norway to Iceland, Iceland to New York,

400
00:29:06,686 --> 00:29:09,446
New York to Atlanta, Atlanta to New Orleans.

401
00:29:09,446 --> 00:29:13,466
All those fights were $200 yeah not

402
00:29:13,466 --> 00:29:16,286
gonna happen these days I was really good at finding fights back

403
00:29:16,286 --> 00:29:19,186
then you'd be in for two stacks these days

404
00:29:19,186 --> 00:29:22,026
but you did a lot of traveling growing

405
00:29:22,026 --> 00:29:27,606
up too right you had you were always in a camper with your grandpa yeah so so

406
00:29:27,606 --> 00:29:34,686
yeah my mom and dad got divorced and my mom's mom passed away like the next

407
00:29:34,686 --> 00:29:39,426
year and then my mom and my grandpa were We're both teacher to principals.

408
00:29:40,166 --> 00:29:43,786
And so they were off all summer. And Papa had a camper. And yeah,

409
00:29:43,826 --> 00:29:47,966
every summer we would take off pretty much the whole summer as a kid.

410
00:29:48,406 --> 00:29:55,426
And we'd go all over the place from Yellowstone to Washington, D.C. to wherever. Yep.

411
00:29:56,297 --> 00:29:59,817
That's awesome. And then now you're doing it with your kids. Yeah.

412
00:29:59,997 --> 00:30:04,077
We got a camper because obviously I loved it growing up and I wanted my kids

413
00:30:04,077 --> 00:30:05,477
to experience that too. It's cool.

414
00:30:06,617 --> 00:30:15,477
So after college, you came back and you started your active pursuit of the meat market.

415
00:30:16,477 --> 00:30:19,297
How did that happen? What was that like?

416
00:30:19,397 --> 00:30:24,537
Do you remember your first day full time?

417
00:30:24,757 --> 00:30:27,617
I'm here permanently. I'm full-time. And now what?

418
00:30:28,197 --> 00:30:32,617
I guess I don't remember it like that. I had always worked here in college and

419
00:30:32,617 --> 00:30:35,477
usually over the summers and well, every Christmas.

420
00:30:36,177 --> 00:30:40,957
And, you know, from the time I was probably 12 years old, every Christmas,

421
00:30:40,977 --> 00:30:45,837
as soon as school was out, I was here 80 hours a week and I already knew everybody.

422
00:30:46,097 --> 00:30:50,957
I, you know, it's not like, I guess, I guess it just, it didn't feel like anything.

423
00:30:51,037 --> 00:30:53,757
It just felt like the next thing. Was there anything you weren't allowed to a

424
00:30:53,757 --> 00:31:00,357
do at you know high school age like were you allowed to like cut on the saw

425
00:31:00,357 --> 00:31:07,677
dad never really had rules like that it's not that he ever said don't cut on

426
00:31:07,677 --> 00:31:13,037
the saw it's just i knew not to does that make sense do you know how he is.

427
00:31:15,857 --> 00:31:18,597
That's a good question though i don't remember when i started cutting on the saw

428
00:31:18,597 --> 00:31:22,817
but i was in college and when did

429
00:31:22,817 --> 00:31:25,957
you learn how to smoke jerky i learned how to smoke jerky

430
00:31:25,957 --> 00:31:29,497
around that time in 2011 12 when i

431
00:31:29,497 --> 00:31:35,097
started full-time that was always something super top secret and at that time

432
00:31:35,097 --> 00:31:40,617
we still had two guys that had been here shit 15 20 years at that point and

433
00:31:40,617 --> 00:31:44,637
they were the two smokers and like it was it was just their job nobody else

434
00:31:44,637 --> 00:31:47,577
was allowed to touch it take uh chris and calvin yeah,

435
00:31:48,077 --> 00:31:51,157
but did they teach you how to smoke or did your dad teach you,

436
00:31:52,408 --> 00:31:56,468
remember i don't it was probably it

437
00:31:56,468 --> 00:31:59,568
was probably cal it was

438
00:31:59,568 --> 00:32:02,308
either chris or calvin yeah i got a little bit

439
00:32:02,308 --> 00:32:07,168
of everyone i i was able to get some calvin some you and a little bit of your

440
00:32:07,168 --> 00:32:11,808
dad was chris on by the time you started yeah he was there through high school

441
00:32:11,808 --> 00:32:15,748
and stuff but i didn't i was not learning how to do that in high school yeah

442
00:32:15,748 --> 00:32:20,728
so when you so what was what was like your role? Did you kind of switch?

443
00:32:21,288 --> 00:32:26,888
You had already done everything, but did you have like a specific role?

444
00:32:27,588 --> 00:32:32,348
I didn't. At first I was just another worker. I guess I was a good hire.

445
00:32:32,508 --> 00:32:33,608
Were you like a back of house?

446
00:32:35,208 --> 00:32:39,808
Yeah, pretty much back of house. But, but in those days, everybody did a little bit of everything.

447
00:32:40,228 --> 00:32:44,728
And so I was, you know, I spent 80% of my time in the back of the house,

448
00:32:44,728 --> 00:32:50,568
but for lunch, when the girls up front would go to lunch, the guys in the back

449
00:32:50,568 --> 00:32:54,288
would go up front and wait on customers and cut meat and do whatever.

450
00:32:54,808 --> 00:32:57,668
So it was always a little bit of everything.

451
00:32:58,988 --> 00:33:01,468
But yeah, most of my time was in the back of the house.

452
00:33:03,094 --> 00:33:08,094
What would you like to do back there? So if you ask anybody here,

453
00:33:08,214 --> 00:33:10,034
it's probably their least favorite thing.

454
00:33:10,234 --> 00:33:13,254
But my favorite thing always was hanging jerky.

455
00:33:15,214 --> 00:33:19,474
It's monotonous. It takes two hours every morning. But to me,

456
00:33:19,494 --> 00:33:22,354
it was my favorite part of the day because, you know, everybody just got there.

457
00:33:22,494 --> 00:33:25,334
Everybody's waking up, having their cup of coffee.

458
00:33:25,554 --> 00:33:30,214
And, yeah, just some of the conversations that we've had at that jerky station.

459
00:33:30,214 --> 00:33:34,194
Boy, boy, boy. Boy, if we would have had a podcast back then, huh? Yeah, dude.

460
00:33:35,194 --> 00:33:39,814
Some conversations, you're right. You learn a lot about a lot as a kid.

461
00:33:39,834 --> 00:33:41,974
We always had characters.

462
00:33:42,374 --> 00:33:46,974
Yeah. They almost weren't real. You know people like Buddha? Buddha.

463
00:33:47,594 --> 00:33:53,014
Boy, I learned a lot from Buddha. Yeah, he was like a movie character. He was awesome.

464
00:33:54,074 --> 00:34:00,354
Yeah, you hear a lot of profanities back there. and just, you just learn how

465
00:34:00,354 --> 00:34:02,134
to grow up, you know? Yeah. If it's.

466
00:34:02,294 --> 00:34:06,694
Definitely rated R. It's a now, it's a now, it's a grow up now or never type of situation.

467
00:34:07,194 --> 00:34:10,014
Yeah. And I guess that's still how it is.

468
00:34:10,774 --> 00:34:14,534
We have some part-time high school kids. I'm sure they're learning a ton.

469
00:34:17,614 --> 00:34:23,174
So Papa was still there at this time. He, and he, I'm assuming he was kind of

470
00:34:23,174 --> 00:34:24,634
active, kind of there daily, maybe.

471
00:34:25,294 --> 00:34:29,494
As a kid, Papa worked every day and worked.

472
00:34:29,674 --> 00:34:35,694
Like he still, every time I was there as a kid, he was there and working. He was cutting the saw.

473
00:34:36,294 --> 00:34:39,754
But stuffing the bag too. He was still stuffing sausage, all that kind of stuff. Yeah.

474
00:34:40,134 --> 00:34:46,894
But I'd say if we just separate 2011 when I started full time,

475
00:34:47,354 --> 00:34:52,874
at that point and throughout the rest of his life, he still came to the market every single day.

476
00:34:54,254 --> 00:34:59,694
It was usually to wait on customers and he still cut on the saw and he still

477
00:34:59,694 --> 00:35:02,634
mostly just BS to the customers.

478
00:35:02,814 --> 00:35:08,334
And yeah, it was, it was always great when you saw him riding his bike down the gravel road. Yeah.

479
00:35:08,654 --> 00:35:13,374
And as he got older, he kind of stopped pedaling and the road has a gradual

480
00:35:13,374 --> 00:35:15,674
decline from his house to the market. it.

481
00:35:15,774 --> 00:35:21,074
And I remember seeing him, he would just hold both of his legs out wide and

482
00:35:21,074 --> 00:35:26,934
he would maybe give like one or two pushes throughout the whole journey.

483
00:35:27,014 --> 00:35:32,214
He would just kind of push off the, the hill and just coast all the way across.

484
00:35:32,354 --> 00:35:36,814
And he would always cut his brakes off his bike as soon as he got them.

485
00:35:37,274 --> 00:35:40,734
Not sure if he used that for something else,

486
00:35:40,754 --> 00:35:44,414
maybe somewhere in the the barn or on a boat maybe but

487
00:35:44,414 --> 00:35:48,074
he didn't have brakes and he didn't

488
00:35:48,074 --> 00:35:51,694
want to stop his momentum if the cars were the cars were passing once he got

489
00:35:51,694 --> 00:35:56,514
to the road so he would just make that curve and he would just you know side

490
00:35:56,514 --> 00:36:00,974
hill the road until there was an opening in traffic and cut it across it was

491
00:36:00,974 --> 00:36:04,994
always terrifying and then he'd have to run into the building to stop right Right.

492
00:36:07,414 --> 00:36:11,194
We did see him get hit by a car one time. My car backed into him,

493
00:36:11,254 --> 00:36:14,694
you know, just kind of knocked him over right in front of the window.

494
00:36:15,254 --> 00:36:21,414
Yeah. Got to see that. And then, of course, there was a time where me and you

495
00:36:21,414 --> 00:36:28,034
heard a big splash one day and we opened the door and there's a Toyota Camry

496
00:36:28,034 --> 00:36:33,134
in the bayou and Papa was the one driving it.

497
00:36:35,374 --> 00:36:39,054
Yeah, that was a wild little afternoon. We had just, we had just closed up.

498
00:36:39,174 --> 00:36:44,114
It was about 5.05 or so. And me and Shane and Phil were, I don't know,

499
00:36:44,134 --> 00:36:46,154
talking about something in the office before we left.

500
00:36:46,234 --> 00:36:50,254
And we heard, we heard an unmistakable splashing sound.

501
00:36:50,934 --> 00:36:58,534
And it took, it didn't dawn on me at first what it was, but I remember you immediately

502
00:36:58,534 --> 00:37:02,674
saying, I think Papa's in the body, taking off out of there.

503
00:37:02,674 --> 00:37:07,014
I don't know how you knew that that's what that sounded like, but you knew right away.

504
00:37:07,454 --> 00:37:13,534
And yeah, I followed you out there and he, he didn't drive it into the body.

505
00:37:13,674 --> 00:37:18,574
Let me say that. Not, not the way that it was positioned. He jumped it into the body. Right. Okay.

506
00:37:18,674 --> 00:37:22,134
He launched it. It was all the way into the middle of the body.

507
00:37:22,294 --> 00:37:27,354
It wasn't just like his front end kind of went in and yeah, we had to,

508
00:37:27,374 --> 00:37:30,614
I remember both of us jumping into the body at the same time.

509
00:37:30,614 --> 00:37:35,914
I forget who was on what side of the car but we had to pry the door open because

510
00:37:35,914 --> 00:37:39,034
it's wedged down into the mud And i'm like paul. You okay?

511
00:37:39,134 --> 00:37:43,414
He's like, yeah, i'm fine And uh, we're like, let me help you out and he's like no.

512
00:37:44,721 --> 00:37:47,901
He made us take his groceries first. We had to save his groceries before we

513
00:37:47,901 --> 00:37:50,481
could save him. You remember what the groceries were?

514
00:37:50,921 --> 00:37:55,421
Yeah, I remember trying to pull him out the driver's side and I have him by

515
00:37:55,421 --> 00:37:58,741
the arm and he's pulling against me, trying to go the other way.

516
00:37:58,841 --> 00:38:02,541
And I thought he was, I thought he, cause Bo was on the right side, the passenger side.

517
00:38:03,161 --> 00:38:05,861
And I thought he was trying to go out towards you.

518
00:38:06,641 --> 00:38:10,101
And I got him by the arm and he's leaning the other way. I'm like,

519
00:38:10,121 --> 00:38:12,121
no, Paul, come this way. I already got the door open. him?

520
00:38:12,441 --> 00:38:18,161
Well, he sticks his arm in the, you know, the leg room of the front passenger

521
00:38:18,161 --> 00:38:22,561
seat and the muddy water was all the way up to the seat.

522
00:38:22,901 --> 00:38:26,801
So floorboard to seat is just muddy water and I can't see into it.

523
00:38:26,941 --> 00:38:34,241
And he's reaching down in there and he pulls up bag of shallots and a loaf of

524
00:38:34,241 --> 00:38:36,661
bread. Yep. I remember that distinctly.

525
00:38:37,741 --> 00:38:42,601
Shallots and bread. And he, and he handed them to me And he said,

526
00:38:42,721 --> 00:38:44,321
don't forget my groceries.

527
00:38:46,501 --> 00:38:51,261
And I do remember we had got him out. We pulled him out. And the first step

528
00:38:51,261 --> 00:38:53,681
he took outside of the car, his leg went into the mud.

529
00:38:54,041 --> 00:38:56,101
And he pulled up his foot with no shoe.

530
00:38:57,281 --> 00:39:04,021
And keep in mind, his shoe's got to be 10 years old and overhauled several times.

531
00:39:05,481 --> 00:39:08,641
And once we got on the bank, he realized that his shoe was gone.

532
00:39:08,761 --> 00:39:10,721
And I did have to go get this shoe.

533
00:39:12,341 --> 00:39:15,461
And that's some deep nasty mud too if you

534
00:39:15,461 --> 00:39:18,841
if you visit the the new location

535
00:39:18,841 --> 00:39:21,741
in gray right when you come into the door you look

536
00:39:21,741 --> 00:39:24,761
on that the little half wall by the grocery section and

537
00:39:24,761 --> 00:39:32,401
there's a picture of pawpaw with the car behind him in the bayou and he's holding

538
00:39:32,401 --> 00:39:37,661
up a pack of shallots and a loaf of bread so that's something to see now you

539
00:39:37,661 --> 00:39:41,961
know the story yes so what was it like Like working with your dad,

540
00:39:42,141 --> 00:39:46,001
that's maybe an uncommon situation for most.

541
00:39:47,221 --> 00:39:52,601
What do you remember? How was that hard? And yeah, just tell us a few things.

542
00:39:52,921 --> 00:39:55,941
So it's definitely tough working for your dad.

543
00:39:57,081 --> 00:40:01,581
If there's anybody out there that's done it, they'll know that. But I really did love it.

544
00:40:01,661 --> 00:40:05,281
I loved seeing him every day and talking to him.

545
00:40:06,021 --> 00:40:09,701
And I loved the work that we did. And I think we were a good team.

546
00:40:10,081 --> 00:40:12,881
We did that for almost 10 years before he retired.

547
00:40:13,081 --> 00:40:18,221
So I really liked it. And the thing that I actually missed the most about him

548
00:40:18,221 --> 00:40:23,641
retiring was I went from, you know, Seeing him and talking to him eight hours,

549
00:40:23,801 --> 00:40:29,361
ten hours a day to once a week now, it kind of sucks. He's busy, man.

550
00:40:29,901 --> 00:40:34,261
Retired, and he's got a lot of things to keep him busy. Oh, yeah.

551
00:40:34,661 --> 00:40:38,681
Which is good. You want him to not stop, you know?

552
00:40:39,161 --> 00:40:42,521
Yeah, that's how Papa did. I think that's a big part of why he made it to 97.

553
00:40:43,381 --> 00:40:50,561
Yep. But, yeah, you know how that is. He's got a garden at the property on 308.

554
00:40:50,561 --> 00:40:54,781
He's got, you know, he might have to go run two and a half hours to the camp

555
00:40:54,781 --> 00:40:59,401
to get some well water for his illicit still.

556
00:40:59,981 --> 00:41:04,361
You just never know. You never know with him. He had some things, some projects.

557
00:41:05,361 --> 00:41:10,261
Papa always had projects. He would always come across the street to the market

558
00:41:10,261 --> 00:41:12,381
with something he was making.

559
00:41:13,161 --> 00:41:19,541
That's a fact. They might make him a new spatula out of a piece of cypress he

560
00:41:19,541 --> 00:41:23,621
found or you name it. Yeah, middle of the day, busy lunch rush.

561
00:41:24,321 --> 00:41:26,881
We're cutting all kind of meat on the saw. He's like, hang on,

562
00:41:26,961 --> 00:41:28,001
boy, I need a saw for a second.

563
00:41:28,281 --> 00:41:32,761
All right. And, yeah, he'll shave off three-quarters of an inch of a piece of

564
00:41:32,761 --> 00:41:37,501
a block that he's using to build a rod holder in his boat or something. Or a toilet.

565
00:41:38,001 --> 00:41:40,581
Yeah. And I'm like, all right.

566
00:41:41,541 --> 00:41:45,221
And then, you know, he's already gone. Oh, yeah. thing and now we gotta like

567
00:41:45,221 --> 00:41:51,301
stop take the sock completely apart and clean yep notorious oh yeah,

568
00:41:52,001 --> 00:41:56,061
yep i think we're like that though i think

569
00:41:56,061 --> 00:41:58,961
we know when when we're on to something it has to happen now

570
00:41:58,961 --> 00:42:02,721
oh yeah and i think we got that from them man you

571
00:42:02,721 --> 00:42:05,921
remember you remember slaughtering any cows

572
00:42:05,921 --> 00:42:09,861
with papa so well i

573
00:42:09,861 --> 00:42:14,861
guess to start off my slaughter experience dad stopped slaughtering i'm gonna

574
00:42:14,861 --> 00:42:20,381
guess i'm gonna guess like around 2000 say and so i would have been you know

575
00:42:20,381 --> 00:42:27,521
12 or something 13 and that was something that they i think they did it on like

576
00:42:27,521 --> 00:42:29,161
mondays or tuesdays maybe maybe.

577
00:42:29,501 --> 00:42:36,341
But the point is I was never around for most of that. And of course, occasionally I got to.

578
00:42:37,574 --> 00:42:41,434
I got to go watch. I never, I was never at the age or,

579
00:42:41,494 --> 00:42:45,094
or the point where I could help with any of it, but you know,

580
00:42:45,114 --> 00:42:49,234
they'd let me like shoot the cow or, or watch or, or clean up a little bit,

581
00:42:49,274 --> 00:42:54,254
but very limited experience with slaughtering while, while we did it.

582
00:42:54,434 --> 00:43:01,194
And then like later on, when I was say, say after 2011, when I was here full

583
00:43:01,194 --> 00:43:04,734
time, there were, there were just random occasions.

584
00:43:04,834 --> 00:43:07,874
Cause dad still liked doing it. So he'd take every opportunity he could.

585
00:43:08,254 --> 00:43:12,674
So uncle Biff had cattle for a while that we would, that, you know,

586
00:43:12,674 --> 00:43:14,254
he'd slaughter one a year or something.

587
00:43:14,334 --> 00:43:16,954
I'm sure you were involved with one of those at some point.

588
00:43:17,534 --> 00:43:23,434
And there's another meat market around here, which I'll just leave at that.

589
00:43:23,534 --> 00:43:26,914
And you know, sometimes they, they had orders to fulfill and,

590
00:43:26,934 --> 00:43:30,854
and their butcher was out sick or something.

591
00:43:30,954 --> 00:43:35,154
And so they, they called dad I had to go give him a hand for the day and we'd do something like that.

592
00:43:35,514 --> 00:43:40,054
So I had pretty limited experience with that up until COVID.

593
00:43:40,554 --> 00:43:44,214
So with COVID, meat got really hard to come by.

594
00:43:44,294 --> 00:43:48,614
They shut down a lot of the slaughterhouses and, you know, we don't,

595
00:43:48,614 --> 00:43:51,234
we don't really take no for an answer too good.

596
00:43:51,634 --> 00:43:56,774
So we still, we still know people that know people that got stuff.

597
00:43:57,154 --> 00:44:00,794
And so, yeah, we would get a cow. I don't know. Keep in mind,

598
00:44:00,814 --> 00:44:03,534
this was only for our personal use. Okay.

599
00:44:03,634 --> 00:44:09,694
I mean, just put that caveat out there, but yeah, we, we slaughtered several

600
00:44:09,694 --> 00:44:16,034
cows for COVID and then the fireman's fair, we slaughtered some for that too.

601
00:44:16,314 --> 00:44:21,854
And so that, that around that time is when I got the most exposure to it and

602
00:44:21,854 --> 00:44:25,954
got like, learn how to do it the right way and all the way.

603
00:44:26,574 --> 00:44:32,734
So yeah. And one One of them, one of them, Papa, well, that dad couldn't be there for some of them.

604
00:44:32,754 --> 00:44:37,094
And so me and Papa did some too. That was really cool. Got some pictures of it.

605
00:44:37,574 --> 00:44:41,194
I remember Uncle Biff coming, come stop by for one or two too.

606
00:44:41,554 --> 00:44:46,894
Yep. And it's pretty cool to see him skin a cow after, I don't know,

607
00:44:46,894 --> 00:44:51,274
how many years has he, you know, skipped doing that? I don't know.

608
00:44:51,994 --> 00:44:54,834
Yeah. I'm sure he did a bunch. Uncle Biff was the oldest. as

609
00:44:54,834 --> 00:44:57,534
he was probably what eight or eight years older than dad

610
00:44:57,534 --> 00:45:00,254
so he he did a lot of it in his

611
00:45:00,254 --> 00:45:05,454
younger days and so but yeah dude that was it was cool 40 50 years ago and he

612
00:45:05,454 --> 00:45:09,674
still got it it looked like he didn't forget all right one single step very

613
00:45:09,674 --> 00:45:14,874
cool to watch this is very much a lost art and when you get to see those guys

614
00:45:14,874 --> 00:45:19,354
do that you realize what it is you know it really is a skill.

615
00:45:20,749 --> 00:45:30,329
So COVID, before COVID, you had these dreams to expand the business and open up a new location.

616
00:45:31,129 --> 00:45:33,249
What was the trigger for that?

617
00:45:34,409 --> 00:45:38,529
Well, that actually goes back way, way far.

618
00:45:39,509 --> 00:45:47,169
So in, let's say, 2000, I'm going to guess, dad bought some property near Highway 90.

619
00:45:47,169 --> 00:45:51,889
Actually like right across the street almost from where we wound up building

620
00:45:51,889 --> 00:45:56,729
and then yeah he bought that property with the plan of eventually building a

621
00:45:56,729 --> 00:46:02,369
new location there well in maybe 2005 or 6 is when dad bought out uncle john

622
00:46:02,369 --> 00:46:06,209
and that kind of went on the back burner for a while and then,

623
00:46:07,289 --> 00:46:11,929
synergy bank came along and made a great deal on it so he sold the property

624
00:46:11,929 --> 00:46:16,209
to them which that's That's where that synergy bank is right there in gray near highway 90.

625
00:46:16,689 --> 00:46:20,649
And then he turned around and bought the piece of property across the street

626
00:46:20,649 --> 00:46:21,629
from him on the Bayou side.

627
00:46:21,709 --> 00:46:25,549
There was a house there and that's where we ultimately did build the market.

628
00:46:25,609 --> 00:46:33,149
But that is that, that house actually I lived in for a little while when I came back from Tulane.

629
00:46:33,889 --> 00:46:35,169
What was the question again?

630
00:46:36,549 --> 00:46:40,769
Oh, okay. Yeah. It is the, how all that started. Okay.

631
00:46:41,129 --> 00:46:47,229
So 2010 or so, dad is now thinking about doing it again.

632
00:46:47,829 --> 00:46:53,329
And he had always been thinking about it. It was always, I think, a long-term goal of his.

633
00:46:53,709 --> 00:46:59,029
And the old market is just, we were outgrowing it. It was small.

634
00:46:59,129 --> 00:47:05,489
It was just not efficiently designed because Popo had just added on so many times over the years.

635
00:47:05,589 --> 00:47:08,829
You have to walk through the front cooler to get to the back.

636
00:47:09,009 --> 00:47:12,509
It's, it's just, it is, and it's old.

637
00:47:13,069 --> 00:47:17,569
Pawpaw built it himself in the late forties, early fifties, I guess.

638
00:47:18,089 --> 00:47:22,549
So it, it, we, we needed, we needed something, but anyway, 2010,

639
00:47:23,049 --> 00:47:27,789
2011, I came home and dad was still thinking about doing, he decided,

640
00:47:27,869 --> 00:47:30,309
he decided he was going to hold off a little while longer and he was going to

641
00:47:30,309 --> 00:47:32,309
add on to the, to the old market.

642
00:47:32,589 --> 00:47:35,689
And that's when we added on that 400 square feet to the front.

643
00:47:35,749 --> 00:47:37,169
That's where where the registers are.

644
00:47:37,249 --> 00:47:41,349
There's a little office back there. It's where the hotbox is for the boudin

645
00:47:41,349 --> 00:47:42,469
burritos and stuff like that.

646
00:47:42,869 --> 00:47:49,469
And just over time, he still just, I guess he got to the point where he decided

647
00:47:49,469 --> 00:47:54,449
he was going to be retiring and decided that it needed to just be my problem.

648
00:47:55,709 --> 00:48:03,109
But yeah, so since 2011, it's been on my mind and it's something that I've been working on.

649
00:48:04,374 --> 00:48:08,454
And what'd you think about this location right here? Were you,

650
00:48:08,774 --> 00:48:12,154
I don't know, did you ever consider not doing it right here?

651
00:48:12,634 --> 00:48:16,974
Yeah, I thought maybe Homo would be a better location for it.

652
00:48:17,534 --> 00:48:21,914
You know, but after talking to dad and just, I guess, thinking on it a little

653
00:48:21,914 --> 00:48:26,914
bit, I decided to access the Highway 90 might ultimately be a smarter move.

654
00:48:27,494 --> 00:48:30,714
Plus the property, plus dad had already bought the property. Right.

655
00:48:31,414 --> 00:48:35,534
Yeah, 90 is a big corridor for the rest of the world.

656
00:48:35,994 --> 00:48:42,454
And being right off of it really is a huge benefit because that,

657
00:48:42,514 --> 00:48:48,414
what, six-minute drive from here to the Thibodeau store is a determining factor

658
00:48:48,414 --> 00:48:51,394
for some people. If they have to go that far, they're not going.

659
00:48:51,634 --> 00:48:55,914
And even if it's, yeah, even if it's not the distance factor,

660
00:48:55,954 --> 00:48:59,114
it's the fact that you can see it from the interstate kind of.

661
00:48:59,114 --> 00:49:07,374
So what's what's the steps you had to take like how do you how do you build

662
00:49:07,374 --> 00:49:14,454
a new location and how do you what's the scaling like when you when you double

663
00:49:14,454 --> 00:49:18,334
up on equipment and staff and,

664
00:49:19,194 --> 00:49:22,494
what was all that like do you remember thinking about how you were going to

665
00:49:22,494 --> 00:49:26,334
do it do you remember or having a specific plan.

666
00:49:27,254 --> 00:49:32,054
Yeah, it's all I thought about for a long time. You were there for the most of it.

667
00:49:32,394 --> 00:49:38,374
But my first step, my very first step, was to realize that I couldn't do it

668
00:49:38,374 --> 00:49:40,894
by myself. I couldn't be in two places at once.

669
00:49:41,274 --> 00:49:46,034
The way that dad ran the oil market and the way that I kind of learned from

670
00:49:46,034 --> 00:49:51,394
him to do it was he was kind of like a control freak, like a micromanager.

671
00:49:51,474 --> 00:49:54,694
He had his hand in everything. everything and of course that's that's how i

672
00:49:54,694 --> 00:49:58,874
always was and i'm like well that's physically impossible to do in two places

673
00:49:58,874 --> 00:50:02,314
at once so the first thing i need is another person like me,

674
00:50:02,874 --> 00:50:07,754
and that's where you came in so you were the first and most important step and

675
00:50:07,754 --> 00:50:11,934
then from there you were you were there for the rest of it we i mean how many

676
00:50:11,934 --> 00:50:14,574
how many hours did we sit around with,

677
00:50:15,114 --> 00:50:19,894
with what you call that grid paper just drawing floor plan after floor plan

678
00:50:19,894 --> 00:50:23,254
there's thousands of So the graphing paper days, yeah.

679
00:50:23,394 --> 00:50:25,354
We got pretty good with Triple Edge.

680
00:50:26,898 --> 00:50:29,878
Of scale yep but yeah i remember

681
00:50:29,878 --> 00:50:33,158
drawing up design after design

682
00:50:33,158 --> 00:50:36,478
after design and drawing up the individual rooms

683
00:50:36,478 --> 00:50:39,478
and we we drew equipment to scale and

684
00:50:39,478 --> 00:50:42,958
we did that from when until when i mean

685
00:50:42,958 --> 00:50:47,078
we did that for a couple years and then let's

686
00:50:47,078 --> 00:50:50,498
see dad retired in what 18 or 19 and then

687
00:50:50,498 --> 00:50:53,638
i was like okay now we just need money

688
00:50:53,638 --> 00:50:56,358
so it took a couple years to get the

689
00:50:56,358 --> 00:50:59,078
to get enough money for you know because we

690
00:50:59,078 --> 00:51:01,818
had talked to the bank to see what they needed to put down kind of

691
00:51:01,818 --> 00:51:06,678
stuff and and we just we had to make it work financially because you know i

692
00:51:06,678 --> 00:51:14,238
owed dad money at the time for for the market still do and and yeah we were

693
00:51:14,238 --> 00:51:20,398
about ready to pull the trigger and then a car crashed into the market in February of 2020.

694
00:51:21,698 --> 00:51:26,778
So February 2020, a white Mustang pulls into the market all the way.

695
00:51:27,958 --> 00:51:31,558
And when you say all the way, I mean, none of it was sticking out.

696
00:51:31,558 --> 00:51:35,918
You mean into the parking lot? None of the white Mustang was out of the building anymore.

697
00:51:36,478 --> 00:51:40,278
It was all the way in. We had some injuries, no fatalities.

698
00:51:40,858 --> 00:51:46,198
It was a bit of a mess. Thank God for the purples and everybody else that had a hand in that.

699
00:51:46,198 --> 00:51:52,578
And then a month after that, finally we're squaring stuff away,

700
00:51:52,758 --> 00:51:57,478
which the boatlands actually were the ones that fixed that, that fixed up the

701
00:51:57,478 --> 00:52:01,478
market that we had already contacted them because they were the ones that were building a new market.

702
00:52:01,858 --> 00:52:07,058
And then, yeah, a month after February 2020, when the car crashed,

703
00:52:07,258 --> 00:52:11,078
we had a little something called COVID, the lockdowns and all that happened

704
00:52:11,078 --> 00:52:16,218
in March or April or whenever that was. us. And that was a whole nother nightmare.

705
00:52:16,898 --> 00:52:22,998
It turned out okay. I was really, we were all really nervous about it and weren't

706
00:52:22,998 --> 00:52:26,918
sure how we were going to make it, but yeah, it worked out great.

707
00:52:26,998 --> 00:52:30,718
And then the following year we're ready to pull the trigger again.

708
00:52:30,798 --> 00:52:36,318
And then that summer of 21, we had hurricane Ida and I'm like,

709
00:52:36,458 --> 00:52:40,198
holy shit, dude, Ida was bad. Ida was real bad.

710
00:52:41,896 --> 00:52:48,436
But we came around after that, and that's when I think construction started not too long after that.

711
00:52:48,536 --> 00:52:51,236
It took about a year and a couple months.

712
00:52:52,216 --> 00:52:56,396
It probably started in January 22-ish.

713
00:52:57,736 --> 00:53:03,956
Yeah, there was several years of rendition after rendition of final,

714
00:53:04,076 --> 00:53:07,996
final floor plans and final 2.0.

715
00:53:08,016 --> 00:53:10,856
They're still on my computer. And final, final, never delete.

716
00:53:12,176 --> 00:53:16,456
We have folders and folders of final floor plans that are all incorrect.

717
00:53:18,316 --> 00:53:26,516
And then all this planning is taking place, and then you finally get to see the equipment on site.

718
00:53:26,936 --> 00:53:31,216
And I remember coming right over here when it was just excavators out there

719
00:53:31,216 --> 00:53:34,016
and dropping off pylons and stuff.

720
00:53:34,136 --> 00:53:36,756
So what did that feel like when you get to see that stuff?

721
00:53:36,936 --> 00:53:41,776
Finally, something's moving. you know dude once the walls were up it was like

722
00:53:41,776 --> 00:53:46,076
up until that point i wasn't too impatient but once the walls were up i was

723
00:53:46,076 --> 00:53:50,216
like holy crap i can i can see it and feel it and i want it now.

724
00:53:51,736 --> 00:53:57,336
Because yeah it was it's it's so cool to see something that you've you've just

725
00:53:57,336 --> 00:54:04,116
dreamt about for for so long yeah you get this you get to actually see it you

726
00:54:04,116 --> 00:54:07,416
can see where the toilets are going to be, you know? Yeah.

727
00:54:08,896 --> 00:54:12,476
Yeah. I remember walking the slab and you get the, you just,

728
00:54:12,556 --> 00:54:18,296
you know, imagining a line of customers wrapped right here out the building,

729
00:54:18,456 --> 00:54:24,396
you know, up to the counter and you're imagining taking the trees of sausage

730
00:54:24,396 --> 00:54:27,956
and slinging it across the rail, across the back room.

731
00:54:28,036 --> 00:54:32,516
And you're picturing where the grinder is going to be and all this stuff,

732
00:54:32,776 --> 00:54:38,136
we've been doing it for so long and we know all the processes and where everything goes,

733
00:54:38,816 --> 00:54:44,016
and this building isn't a whole lot different than our other concept of the old market.

734
00:54:44,076 --> 00:54:46,596
It's just more efficient and spread out and bigger.

735
00:54:48,495 --> 00:54:52,195
And again, we lived, we lived it on paper for such a long time.

736
00:54:52,255 --> 00:54:56,255
It's, it's really like we, we knew where we were getting, you know,

737
00:54:56,255 --> 00:54:57,295
just walking on the slab.

738
00:54:57,395 --> 00:55:00,275
You really understand what's, where you're standing in the building.

739
00:55:00,595 --> 00:55:04,555
Yeah. Which is really, really cool. And then, yeah, you're right.

740
00:55:04,615 --> 00:55:10,555
Once the walls are up, it really felt, it felt like this just thing,

741
00:55:10,695 --> 00:55:17,155
man, just felt like we're in a factory, you know, big industrial factory.

742
00:55:17,155 --> 00:55:20,155
Factory much different than than the

743
00:55:20,155 --> 00:55:22,995
humble beginnings yeah it was really

744
00:55:22,995 --> 00:55:26,395
exciting and so our our vision

745
00:55:26,395 --> 00:55:29,835
as you already know but our vision was you

746
00:55:29,835 --> 00:55:33,655
know we wanted everything to be exactly the same as

747
00:55:33,655 --> 00:55:37,195
at the old market we just needed more space in

748
00:55:37,195 --> 00:55:40,055
each place the only thing that we wanted to add

749
00:55:40,055 --> 00:55:42,915
different was we wanted

750
00:55:42,915 --> 00:55:46,675
a kitchen and we wanted some customer like

751
00:55:46,675 --> 00:55:49,355
retail area to put to put a few more things on the

752
00:55:49,355 --> 00:55:52,215
shelves but other than that everything's the same

753
00:55:52,215 --> 00:55:55,315
we had the same guys build the smoke houses

754
00:55:55,315 --> 00:56:02,755
old old mr landrum we hanged yep hank and hank old hank and his son hank boy

755
00:56:02,755 --> 00:56:07,175
they did some they did some building yeah they did a lot of stuff for popo back

756
00:56:07,175 --> 00:56:12,375
in the day but yeah they built the smoke houses we had the pots built to the same

757
00:56:12,535 --> 00:56:16,955
specs as the old pots, you know, all of that stuff stayed the same.

758
00:56:17,035 --> 00:56:21,955
But some of the things that couldn't stay the same just because of the building

759
00:56:21,955 --> 00:56:24,175
design, for example, was like the meat railing.

760
00:56:24,455 --> 00:56:27,975
So if for those of you, I've never seen the back of a meat market,

761
00:56:28,095 --> 00:56:31,835
there's this railing that goes throughout the building where you can,

762
00:56:31,855 --> 00:56:33,115
it helps you move product around.

763
00:56:33,255 --> 00:56:37,535
So it's got these things called trees on them, which maybe look a little bit

764
00:56:37,535 --> 00:56:42,195
like a really dangerous tree that you can hang meat on, or you can tie string

765
00:56:42,195 --> 00:56:44,555
around sausage and hang it on these trees.

766
00:56:45,075 --> 00:56:47,795
So as, as you're working, as you're bundling sausage or boudin,

767
00:56:47,875 --> 00:56:50,435
you can put it on the tree and then you slide the tree into the cooler.

768
00:56:50,715 --> 00:56:54,055
So you have to have an same thing with the big hanging meat.

769
00:56:54,115 --> 00:56:57,935
You need a, you need a way to keep that off the ground and you can't set it on a shelf.

770
00:56:58,415 --> 00:57:04,235
So at the old market, all that's tied into the ceiling and Joyce and Harvard,

771
00:57:04,375 --> 00:57:07,655
however, However, Pablo did that back in the day, but that wasn't an option

772
00:57:07,655 --> 00:57:08,915
here. We had higher ceilings.

773
00:57:09,195 --> 00:57:13,335
The ceilings are just like that. I don't know that hanging ceiling kind of thing.

774
00:57:13,655 --> 00:57:15,155
You're not anchoring anything to it.

775
00:57:15,575 --> 00:57:21,995
So we had to figure out how to, we had to figure out a lot of stuff like that, but we did.

776
00:57:22,875 --> 00:57:28,075
Yeah. A lot of, it was math. It was math involved for sure.

777
00:57:28,595 --> 00:57:32,435
Sure. Somebody did so. So, and a lot of, lots of engineering and,

778
00:57:32,495 --> 00:57:35,895
and lots of making sure, lots of research.

779
00:57:37,602 --> 00:57:44,742
It was a big process, long, long process, very, very complicated.

780
00:57:45,062 --> 00:57:50,882
And I think that's the thing about this place is whether it's because we're

781
00:57:50,882 --> 00:57:55,042
stubborn or our ways really are the best for what we do.

782
00:57:55,942 --> 00:58:00,922
We did absolutely want everything to be a certain way, even though someone could

783
00:58:00,922 --> 00:58:02,902
come up with a much easier idea.

784
00:58:03,522 --> 00:58:07,062
We were afraid of getting rid of the way that already worked,

785
00:58:07,142 --> 00:58:13,002
you know, so I I feel the same way but you know growing up I I would ask dad

786
00:58:13,002 --> 00:58:16,282
you know why do we why do we put this in this or why do we do this this way

787
00:58:16,282 --> 00:58:21,122
and his answer was always was that's how papa showed me or that that's how he

788
00:58:21,122 --> 00:58:26,202
did it or whatever so that that's always been my answer for everything and,

789
00:58:26,742 --> 00:58:31,302
a lot of people don't like that or get that whether they be in the building

790
00:58:31,302 --> 00:58:34,042
industry and And, you know, Kirby,

791
00:58:34,202 --> 00:58:38,742
Kirby is the guy that did a lot of the, he's a welder, incredible welder that

792
00:58:38,742 --> 00:58:44,262
did a lot of the special stuff for our pots and, and rail system and all that.

793
00:58:44,622 --> 00:58:48,782
But yeah, he, I think he was ready to either bang me on the head or I was going

794
00:58:48,782 --> 00:58:53,742
to bang him on the head because, because he was tired of, of why he had to do

795
00:58:53,742 --> 00:58:55,782
it a certain way. I'm like, dude, I don't know why.

796
00:58:56,302 --> 00:58:58,782
And why it doesn't matter. This is just how we want it.

797
00:58:59,883 --> 00:59:02,943
So, yeah, there might be a better way to do everything that we do,

798
00:59:03,003 --> 00:59:04,423
but we're not going to find out.

799
00:59:05,743 --> 00:59:11,043
Maybe that's stupid, but. Kirby is with, or he owns GWR Services,

800
00:59:11,203 --> 00:59:14,363
which is that welding shop right before you get to Highway 90.

801
00:59:14,583 --> 00:59:17,783
It's like the last building across from the new Danos location.

802
00:59:18,403 --> 00:59:22,583
And if you pass, you'll see him slapped, filled with cars and equipment and

803
00:59:22,583 --> 00:59:25,063
forklifts and just things.

804
00:59:25,163 --> 00:59:29,803
And he's incredibly busy, but he works with his dad. And his dad is still in

805
00:59:29,803 --> 00:59:36,343
the, if you pass and you see welding sparks flying, his dad was probably going to be on the gun.

806
00:59:36,683 --> 00:59:40,103
And those two are pretty impressive to work with and they can,

807
00:59:40,103 --> 00:59:43,763
man, they can make anything. And they built all kinds of custom things for us.

808
00:59:44,043 --> 00:59:50,083
Meat rails, pots, dippers and scoops and nets and you name it.

809
00:59:50,163 --> 00:59:55,283
We, we draw it up, tell them what we want. And a couple of days later or four

810
00:59:55,283 --> 00:59:59,243
years later, we, it's, it's, it's, it's in our range.

811
00:59:59,363 --> 01:00:02,083
Kirby, if you're listening to this, I still need some more jerky sticks.

812
01:00:03,103 --> 01:00:08,023
But yeah, if you got a special project, you know, all of our stuff needed to

813
01:00:08,023 --> 01:00:14,083
be stainless and there's lots of welders in the area that claim they can weld

814
01:00:14,083 --> 01:00:15,703
stainless, you know, fin stainless,

815
01:00:15,963 --> 01:00:21,463
but it's just might not be true when, when you, when push comes to shove,

816
01:00:21,523 --> 01:00:24,863
they might back out. And that's what happened to us until we met Kirby.

817
01:00:26,483 --> 01:00:30,703
So while we're on that subject, there were a lot of people like instrumental

818
01:00:30,703 --> 01:00:33,063
in building a new market. So I'm going to give a few shout outs.

819
01:00:33,483 --> 01:00:38,463
So Synergy Bank and Cassie Barrancato were like hugely beneficial.

820
01:00:39,223 --> 01:00:44,723
They were easy to work with and really helped just iron out the loan process.

821
01:00:45,363 --> 01:00:50,263
Ray and Bo Boudwin are the contractors that built the building.

822
01:00:50,263 --> 01:00:53,543
And I cannot say enough amazing things about those guys.

823
01:00:53,743 --> 01:00:56,683
If you have any commercial buildings...

824
01:00:57,975 --> 01:01:00,895
That you're looking at doing, just go with these guys. They're honest.

825
01:01:01,115 --> 01:01:05,715
They do a really good job. And yeah, stick with them.

826
01:01:06,715 --> 01:01:11,275
ASEs out of Lafayette, Acadian Scales and Equipment, they did a lot of our heavy

827
01:01:11,275 --> 01:01:18,435
equipment and they still help us out a lot with repairs and everything else still going on.

828
01:01:19,095 --> 01:01:24,635
Rojig's Electric. So Chris had either just retired or was about to retire when

829
01:01:24,635 --> 01:01:25,475
we started the building.

830
01:01:25,475 --> 01:01:28,515
But man he still he was still here and still

831
01:01:28,515 --> 01:01:33,555
helped us out and those guys are awesome pat and scott graber were the plumbers

832
01:01:33,555 --> 01:01:36,615
and they're awesome in fact they just came out the other day to hook up the

833
01:01:36,615 --> 01:01:42,795
generator richard supply ryan and his team helped us out with some of the kitchen

834
01:01:42,795 --> 01:01:46,635
equipment but more importantly they helped us design the kitchen which was way over my head,

835
01:01:47,175 --> 01:01:51,555
and uh speaking of design we have kevin grow with gfp design they they did the

836
01:01:51,555 --> 01:01:54,335
architecture plans or whatever you call that.

837
01:01:54,755 --> 01:01:57,695
Did a great job. I mentioned Kirby already.

838
01:01:57,895 --> 01:02:04,095
And then of course my wife, Chelsea, there's nobody else that I had to,

839
01:02:04,095 --> 01:02:09,495
that had to put up with me for the year or so of building this thing.

840
01:02:09,795 --> 01:02:15,135
But she was awesome to bounce ideas off of and pick out paint colors and bricks.

841
01:02:15,275 --> 01:02:18,175
Cause all the dude, that's all the type of stuff you don't think about,

842
01:02:18,275 --> 01:02:20,175
you're like, this building's going to be awesome.

843
01:02:20,635 --> 01:02:23,795
And then, you know, Mr. Ray will call you and say, hey, what kind of bricks

844
01:02:23,795 --> 01:02:25,115
you want for the front? I'm like, what?

845
01:02:26,895 --> 01:02:31,655
I never once thought about that. What color you want the walls?

846
01:02:31,735 --> 01:02:34,435
Dude, I don't know. I want them wall colored.

847
01:02:34,775 --> 01:02:38,875
Yeah. You know, the walls at the old market, if you ever pay attention,

848
01:02:39,115 --> 01:02:46,795
the brick wall on the right inside used to be the outside wall and they painted it like a mint green.

849
01:02:48,082 --> 01:02:51,002
A nasty little color but i love it i'm never gonna change it

850
01:02:51,002 --> 01:02:54,222
yeah balls of wall i remember you

851
01:02:54,222 --> 01:02:59,382
talking to you know the guys that did the flooring oh and you know yeah i remember

852
01:02:59,382 --> 01:03:02,142
you talking to them and they're like yeah what you want to go with and you're

853
01:03:02,142 --> 01:03:08,622
like well you know that stuff at the old market it's got like the little kind

854
01:03:08,622 --> 01:03:13,562
of like a digital print on it a little pebbles and And could you get that?

855
01:03:13,662 --> 01:03:15,862
And they're like, are you sure?

856
01:03:16,002 --> 01:03:19,562
I mean, you could have anything you can get. You know, there's lots of new,

857
01:03:19,662 --> 01:03:22,602
there's lots of new technology out there with flooring.

858
01:03:22,802 --> 01:03:25,502
I think they still make that. Maybe we could get it. Yeah. But why?

859
01:03:27,522 --> 01:03:33,382
And they're like, what color? And you're like, this just exactly was on the

860
01:03:33,382 --> 01:03:34,682
old market. The same thing.

861
01:03:34,782 --> 01:03:41,002
And he's like that you want that color at the end. You want that in the new building? Yeah.

862
01:03:41,742 --> 01:03:45,902
All right. Okay. Hey, a lot of conversations like that.

863
01:03:46,062 --> 01:03:50,362
Same thing with the countertops. Same thing with the paint colors.

864
01:03:51,142 --> 01:03:55,502
With the countertops. But yeah. Like you want that? But I wanted it to look

865
01:03:55,502 --> 01:03:58,022
exactly like the old market.

866
01:03:58,102 --> 01:04:02,182
So when all of our old customers walk into Gray for the first time,

867
01:04:02,382 --> 01:04:05,842
we kind of wanted them to go, oh, man, this is cool.

868
01:04:06,002 --> 01:04:08,322
It feels like I'm in Timberville. Yeah, like when you're standing at a counter

869
01:04:08,322 --> 01:04:11,362
for it to look the same. Right. I don't know that I succeeded.

870
01:04:11,742 --> 01:04:17,042
All the way but I tried right is the only aesthetic that I considered in the

871
01:04:17,042 --> 01:04:18,242
entire building, right?

872
01:04:18,722 --> 01:04:24,902
You got this big new Fancy building and we kind of wanted it to feel a little

873
01:04:24,902 --> 01:04:29,402
more homey, you know, then it was Then it was looking you know.

874
01:04:31,437 --> 01:04:36,777
Speaking of like Chelsea and family and stuff like, you know,

875
01:04:36,777 --> 01:04:40,617
I'm sure you were up every night, especially when things started moving along.

876
01:04:40,777 --> 01:04:47,157
I'm sure you're up late or up early with ideas or new, you know,

877
01:04:47,157 --> 01:04:49,997
solutions to problems or coming up with new problems.

878
01:04:49,997 --> 01:04:53,537
And that's like a 24-7 thing so how do

879
01:04:53,537 --> 01:04:56,677
you kind of balance work life

880
01:04:56,677 --> 01:04:59,877
during something as exciting as

881
01:04:59,877 --> 01:05:02,777
this something you've been working on it's really hard to get

882
01:05:02,777 --> 01:05:07,257
you know tunnel vision and kind of forget about everything else how do you how

883
01:05:07,257 --> 01:05:12,377
do you balance all that well it is it is hard first of all but second of all

884
01:05:12,377 --> 01:05:16,737
i think i think dad was good at it and papa was good at it and i I learned it

885
01:05:16,737 --> 01:05:21,597
from them is that when they weren't here, they, they weren't here.

886
01:05:22,117 --> 01:05:25,157
They didn't, they didn't really bring work home with them.

887
01:05:26,117 --> 01:05:30,257
And so for example, Papa and my dad always took one day off during the week

888
01:05:30,257 --> 01:05:34,797
and they'd usually go fishing, but whatever, whatever it was,

889
01:05:34,817 --> 01:05:37,357
when they were off on their Tuesday, like that, that was it.

890
01:05:37,417 --> 01:05:40,877
They, they didn't think about work and dad was always like that.

891
01:05:40,877 --> 01:05:45,737
So I kind of, I kind of, I kind of, I don't know, developed that way myself.

892
01:05:45,877 --> 01:05:50,717
So I was always good at, at separating the two, but that being said,

893
01:05:50,837 --> 01:05:54,897
yeah, when you're in, when you're in the middle of a hurricane Ida or,

894
01:05:54,897 --> 01:05:59,457
or a new building on the verge of opening up and you're thinking about all the

895
01:05:59,457 --> 01:06:01,117
new hires you're about to have to make.

896
01:06:01,137 --> 01:06:05,397
And did you, did you think to do this? Did you think to do that? Yeah.

897
01:06:05,997 --> 01:06:10,537
I'm sure I wasn't the most pleasant person to be around, but we're still married.

898
01:06:12,737 --> 01:06:16,257
It's something right yeah man hurricanes

899
01:06:16,257 --> 01:06:19,077
and covid remember pulling up

900
01:06:19,077 --> 01:06:22,517
to the market that next day after the hurricane yeah how

901
01:06:22,517 --> 01:06:27,737
can i forget boy it was all the oak trees across the street all the beautiful

902
01:06:27,737 --> 01:06:32,837
300 year old oak trees were snapped and branches everywhere just getting here

903
01:06:32,837 --> 01:06:38,077
was an adventure yeah and we had to pull that that big pine tree and snap it

904
01:06:38,077 --> 01:06:40,177
along with my the chassis I said, yeah, my truck.

905
01:06:41,957 --> 01:06:48,697
The only thing that could have been worse was what happened to Brody, man. Poor Brody.

906
01:06:49,057 --> 01:06:53,017
Yeah. He came all the way back from Joe to help us out one day. To slaughter a cow.

907
01:06:54,477 --> 01:06:57,437
Yeah. And he ran over a telephone pole.

908
01:06:58,457 --> 01:07:02,897
Almost all the way. He hit it hard. Yep. Brand new truck. Yeah.

909
01:07:07,680 --> 01:07:10,820
Yeah so what we're like i

910
01:07:10,820 --> 01:07:13,760
guess what were the hardest struggles that came

911
01:07:13,760 --> 01:07:17,500
with covid or or the hurricane you

912
01:07:17,500 --> 01:07:20,340
know i know supply issues were were

913
01:07:20,340 --> 01:07:23,520
big for both but with that

914
01:07:23,520 --> 01:07:26,540
with anything with lack of supply or or

915
01:07:26,540 --> 01:07:30,440
all this stuff or new rules it forces decision

916
01:07:30,440 --> 01:07:33,640
forces you to make decisions you know

917
01:07:33,640 --> 01:07:37,260
things like masks mask mandates

918
01:07:37,260 --> 01:07:39,920
and you know do you

919
01:07:39,920 --> 01:07:43,420
go up on pricing right now because rounds just

920
01:07:43,420 --> 01:07:48,540
went up two dollars a pound do you do you hold out to pass the savings loan

921
01:07:48,540 --> 01:07:52,460
to the customer are you scared and you need to go up now how do you make those

922
01:07:52,460 --> 01:07:58,020
decisions so covid covid was so hard at first because of the uncertainty you

923
01:07:58,020 --> 01:08:00,380
know they were they were shutting businesses down left and right.

924
01:08:00,440 --> 01:08:03,140
And we thought like, well, dude, what the hell are we going to do if they come

925
01:08:03,140 --> 01:08:04,340
in and shut it down? You know?

926
01:08:04,800 --> 01:08:11,540
So I guess once we got over that fear, it was, everything was the only other

927
01:08:11,540 --> 01:08:17,400
huge issue to navigate was support the supply chain issues, man.

928
01:08:17,500 --> 01:08:22,480
It was, it was a nightmare trying to, trying to find supplies.

929
01:08:22,780 --> 01:08:26,740
And then when you did, the prices were just unbelievable, you know.

930
01:08:27,040 --> 01:08:31,300
Meat prices had shot up, you know, in some cases double or more.

931
01:08:32,140 --> 01:08:37,940
300%. Yeah, you know, rounds had gone from like $2.50 to $9 a pound. Right.

932
01:08:38,600 --> 01:08:44,420
And, you know, some of that stuff is just, like, there's no way to make money and buy that.

933
01:08:44,820 --> 01:08:48,860
And then some things you just, you can't get. So what you do?

934
01:08:49,420 --> 01:08:51,420
How you make boudin without pork, you know?

935
01:08:53,123 --> 01:08:56,863
That was hard and stressful. And then having to watch prices every single time

936
01:08:56,863 --> 01:09:00,003
you ordered, change the prices every day.

937
01:09:00,103 --> 01:09:04,683
And then, yeah, figure out what to do when somebody in the market had COVID.

938
01:09:04,803 --> 01:09:06,483
Do you shut the whole place down?

939
01:09:06,643 --> 01:09:12,583
Do you tell them to go home for how long? And it was all a mess, but it all worked.

940
01:09:12,763 --> 01:09:20,743
So explain what our plan was that we implemented for COVID and for, what did they call it?

941
01:09:20,743 --> 01:09:23,843
What they call the uh you talking

942
01:09:23,843 --> 01:09:26,903
about with the employees yeah i forgot the

943
01:09:26,903 --> 01:09:30,263
term that everyone was using you had to isolate what

944
01:09:30,263 --> 01:09:35,223
would they call it a quarantine the quarantine so explain that i think we had

945
01:09:35,223 --> 01:09:41,103
three teams and so each team which it kind of lucked out because we had started

946
01:09:41,103 --> 01:09:45,263
hiring for the new market at that point okay that's well that's where i was

947
01:09:45,263 --> 01:09:49,163
going was hiring so how many How many employees did we have,

948
01:09:49,323 --> 01:09:52,803
let's say, the year before the expansion?

949
01:09:53,563 --> 01:09:59,143
Probably right under 30. Under 30. And then? And we probably only needed 20.

950
01:09:59,883 --> 01:10:05,383
But, you know, we had made some key hires to, we had to duplicate a lot of the key positions.

951
01:10:05,823 --> 01:10:10,963
And so, and we couldn't hire them day one because now you got a manager and

952
01:10:10,963 --> 01:10:12,123
it's his first day on a job.

953
01:10:12,483 --> 01:10:14,483
That's not how we like to do things.

954
01:10:14,923 --> 01:10:18,423
So yeah, we had started early. We had, we had extra employees luckily.

955
01:10:18,883 --> 01:10:23,903
And yeah, we separated us into three teams. So we're each going to work trying

956
01:10:23,903 --> 01:10:26,583
to remember the details, but I think we each worked one week at a time.

957
01:10:26,983 --> 01:10:32,023
Everyone else was instructed to like, go home and don't catch COVID. That was their only job.

958
01:10:32,583 --> 01:10:36,883
And if somebody on your team that week caught COVID,

959
01:10:37,023 --> 01:10:40,383
then everybody goes home and now they're

960
01:10:40,383 --> 01:10:44,103
quarantining and the next team comes in you know

961
01:10:44,103 --> 01:10:47,063
we do we just we come up with the most ridiculous things

962
01:10:47,063 --> 01:10:50,143
and you think i don't

963
01:10:50,143 --> 01:10:52,863
know you're just trying to keep the place open so what do

964
01:10:52,863 --> 01:10:55,623
you do at first it's funny and then it sounds like it

965
01:10:55,623 --> 01:10:58,643
might be the best plan i remember your first

966
01:10:58,643 --> 01:11:01,423
plan was well let's do this we

967
01:11:01,423 --> 01:11:04,603
just can't all catch covid at the same time correct yeah

968
01:11:04,603 --> 01:11:07,623
I was gonna go to the hospital and start licking doorknobs yeah he

969
01:11:07,623 --> 01:11:10,363
said after I caught it I could be

970
01:11:10,363 --> 01:11:13,863
safe and come back to work he's like okay me

971
01:11:13,863 --> 01:11:18,703
and you can't catch at the same time and then Phil and Lacey can't catch it

972
01:11:18,703 --> 01:11:23,923
at the same time but if but if me and Phil catch it that's okay or if you and

973
01:11:23,923 --> 01:11:27,623
Phil catch it that's okay that's kind of how it was so Bo was like I'm gonna

974
01:11:27,623 --> 01:11:32,303
go to the hospital and lick some doorknobs and you go to the camp and just go go hunting.

975
01:11:32,543 --> 01:11:35,683
And then as soon as I catch it, we'll switch.

976
01:11:35,823 --> 01:11:43,523
I'll go to the camp and then you hurry up and come back and catch it so that we can be done with it.

977
01:11:43,803 --> 01:11:47,003
Yeah, for some reason we decided to table that plan, but.

978
01:11:48,380 --> 01:11:54,600
Anyway, it worked out. We stayed open. And I think we, I like to think that

979
01:11:54,600 --> 01:11:58,300
we helped some people out because we were able to keep prices down because of

980
01:11:58,300 --> 01:12:02,460
just, we do things a little differently than the mass market grocery store stuff.

981
01:12:02,780 --> 01:12:06,820
Yeah. It was scary times. It was emotional times. It was, you had,

982
01:12:06,840 --> 01:12:10,760
you know, you had employees with family members catching it and,

983
01:12:10,780 --> 01:12:14,440
you know, falling ill and some bad stuff.

984
01:12:14,520 --> 01:12:18,200
You know, it was, it was pretty nasty for, for a very long time.

985
01:12:19,380 --> 01:12:23,040
And this doesn't stop, you know, the business doesn't stop because,

986
01:12:23,080 --> 01:12:29,020
because COVID is happening and, you know, people still have to provide for their

987
01:12:29,020 --> 01:12:30,260
families and everyone's.

988
01:12:31,100 --> 01:12:35,060
Everyone's worried and we don't have the answers, but you kind of have to,

989
01:12:35,860 --> 01:12:40,080
I don't know, that's where, that's where the leadership comes in at, you know, you have to,

990
01:12:40,640 --> 01:12:47,540
you have to manage expectations and you have to show everyone that you'll figure it out,

991
01:12:47,540 --> 01:12:50,320
right i think that that's what you're good at

992
01:12:50,320 --> 01:12:53,900
is i think anyone who's who's

993
01:12:53,900 --> 01:12:56,680
worked with you worked under you i think they're

994
01:12:56,680 --> 01:13:02,540
they're always confident that even if they're not capable you are you know so

995
01:13:02,540 --> 01:13:06,960
if they just attach their self to you somehow we'll get through it that's that's

996
01:13:06,960 --> 01:13:12,020
how i've always felt so now we're here and we're in the new market and it's

997
01:13:12,020 --> 01:13:14,320
been a year what was the the first year,

998
01:13:14,440 --> 01:13:18,840
like it was actually a lot easier than I thought it was going to be.

999
01:13:19,560 --> 01:13:24,560
Everything was smooth. We had, turns out we did have some good hires, which I knew about.

1000
01:13:24,820 --> 01:13:30,680
I knew that we did, but you know, people like Phil and Lacey and Brad and Mark,

1001
01:13:30,820 --> 01:13:35,360
and a lot of these other key members that, that we had hired with the intention

1002
01:13:35,360 --> 01:13:39,480
of, you know, each one is going to have to be able to do their job on their own.

1003
01:13:39,920 --> 01:13:45,800
And they, they all succeeded kind of beyond our wildest expectations, you know? Yeah.

1004
01:13:46,080 --> 01:13:50,800
So that, that took a lot of pressure off of me. And then it was just a matter

1005
01:13:50,800 --> 01:13:53,300
of trying to figure out the best way to do things.

1006
01:13:54,420 --> 01:13:59,760
Sure. And man, it's, I'm interested to start, you know, talking to some other

1007
01:13:59,760 --> 01:14:03,380
business owners around here because it's like, we don't get to see,

1008
01:14:03,500 --> 01:14:07,600
we don't get to see what it's like. We don't, we don't really have anything to compare to.

1009
01:14:07,680 --> 01:14:11,960
We just know the way we do it and we know our people, but you know,

1010
01:14:11,960 --> 01:14:15,120
these other, these other companies, like, man, if they don't have,

1011
01:14:15,180 --> 01:14:17,140
if they don't have a Phil,

1012
01:14:17,340 --> 01:14:22,740
a Brett, a Mark, a Lacey, a Brody, a Stacey, like if they don't have that, what,

1013
01:14:23,240 --> 01:14:25,540
what are they going to do, you know?

1014
01:14:26,660 --> 01:14:32,500
So I'm interested to kind of dig in to other people and, and figure out if they,

1015
01:14:32,520 --> 01:14:37,500
if they do have that, or if they're just winging it and they're doing it alone, you know?

1016
01:14:39,549 --> 01:14:44,029
It's not the way to go. It's not. It's not. You have to trust people.

1017
01:14:44,189 --> 01:14:48,009
You have to, you have to give up some of the, the control.

1018
01:14:48,229 --> 01:14:55,249
You have to let people's good ideas blossom and only good things will come out of it.

1019
01:14:55,309 --> 01:14:57,949
You know, they're going to, they'll respect you more for it.

1020
01:14:57,989 --> 01:15:02,649
They'll trust you more and you have to, man, you can't, you can't do it alone.

1021
01:15:02,809 --> 01:15:06,329
That was, that was honestly the hardest part for me.

1022
01:15:06,329 --> 01:15:10,869
And of course it happened before we opened, but yeah, the hardest part was letting

1023
01:15:10,869 --> 01:15:14,529
go of some of that because I was, I was the same way as my dad,

1024
01:15:14,649 --> 01:15:18,829
you know, every boudin day I'm in the background and boudin I'm on the front

1025
01:15:18,829 --> 01:15:20,109
making sausage every morning.

1026
01:15:20,109 --> 01:15:25,589
I'm making sure that this is happening and that's happening and that's all fine.

1027
01:15:25,729 --> 01:15:30,149
I don't mind doing that, but, but ultimately it's not something that is,

1028
01:15:30,269 --> 01:15:33,149
uh, sustainable with two places and,

1029
01:15:33,349 --> 01:15:38,589
you know, it's not really how you want to live your life, scared to death to

1030
01:15:38,589 --> 01:15:40,749
go on a vacation or be sick, you know? Right.

1031
01:15:41,049 --> 01:15:47,829
So you need, you need people that you trust and can do a damn good job.

1032
01:15:47,829 --> 01:15:53,789
And so just, just as an example, like, you know, we had, we were aware,

1033
01:15:54,049 --> 01:16:02,029
let's just say of some negative views of the market on our customer service over the years. Right.

1034
01:16:02,309 --> 01:16:08,549
And so, you know, I decided we, or Shane and I decided that we needed to do

1035
01:16:08,549 --> 01:16:13,809
something about it and it wasn't in our wheelhouse. It was not something we

1036
01:16:13,809 --> 01:16:15,769
ever once thought about, right?

1037
01:16:16,029 --> 01:16:18,749
We thought good. This is what we grew up thinking.

1038
01:16:18,829 --> 01:16:24,489
Good customer service was if whatever you want is going to be the best that

1039
01:16:24,489 --> 01:16:28,629
it can be made and you're going to get it as fast as you can.

1040
01:16:28,769 --> 01:16:31,169
And that's the only thing that matters, right?

1041
01:16:32,212 --> 01:16:34,832
If you asked anybody that worked here in those days, that's what they,

1042
01:16:34,912 --> 01:16:35,932
that would be their answer.

1043
01:16:36,432 --> 01:16:41,012
And you didn't, you might not have gotten a high or even a smile,

1044
01:16:41,232 --> 01:16:44,752
but you were going to get the best product that we can make.

1045
01:16:44,812 --> 01:16:47,952
And you were going to get it as fast as we could possibly get it for you.

1046
01:16:48,432 --> 01:16:54,632
And we needed, we needed some outside help to fix that. Okay.

1047
01:16:55,252 --> 01:17:01,732
So like, just as an an example. My dad kind of taught me how to hire, sort of.

1048
01:17:02,072 --> 01:17:06,512
And this is how he would hire new people. He would ask them,

1049
01:17:06,552 --> 01:17:10,992
you know, when he would ask them to come in and then he would watch them walk

1050
01:17:10,992 --> 01:17:12,772
from their car to the counter.

1051
01:17:13,192 --> 01:17:16,892
And if they walked from their car to the counter really fast, then he would hire them.

1052
01:17:17,312 --> 01:17:19,292
And if they didn't, he would not hire them.

1053
01:17:20,232 --> 01:17:23,432
That's how he chose, that's how he picked people to hire.

1054
01:17:23,552 --> 01:17:26,732
And I mean, who's to say that that's wrong.

1055
01:17:26,772 --> 01:17:34,812
It worked for us for a long time, but well, now we take in some other factors and yeah.

1056
01:17:34,972 --> 01:17:40,972
Anyway, all this goes to say is we hired Phil in 2018, 19, 2018,

1057
01:17:41,152 --> 01:17:46,172
let's say, and Phil Cass is like customer service savant.

1058
01:17:46,572 --> 01:17:51,052
If, if you don't know who he is, if you come into the new market,

1059
01:17:51,072 --> 01:17:53,332
when he's working, you will immediately know who he is.

1060
01:17:53,912 --> 01:17:58,412
He's, he's just got that it factor and he's worked in so many customer service

1061
01:17:58,412 --> 01:18:03,332
related industries and he knows how to do it.

1062
01:18:03,372 --> 01:18:05,932
He knows how to hire for it. He knows how to train for it.

1063
01:18:06,092 --> 01:18:08,512
And all of those are things that I didn't know how to do.

1064
01:18:08,952 --> 01:18:15,252
So yeah, that's just an example of, of like hiring for skills that you don't have.

1065
01:18:15,372 --> 01:18:19,092
And, and Phil's been a fucking, and I have to cut that.

1066
01:18:19,712 --> 01:18:21,552
Phil's been an amazing member of the team.

1067
01:18:23,255 --> 01:18:27,935
Is weird. You know, sometimes you get, sometimes you think you have too much

1068
01:18:27,935 --> 01:18:30,575
skill. Sometimes you think you have all the skills.

1069
01:18:31,035 --> 01:18:34,875
It's, it's very easy for this to happen to, to anyone in a leadership position

1070
01:18:34,875 --> 01:18:39,975
is just because you're good at one thing doesn't mean you're good at the rest of the things.

1071
01:18:40,015 --> 01:18:42,955
And you have to know where those lines are.

1072
01:18:43,035 --> 01:18:47,335
And sometimes that means you used to be the best at it, you know,

1073
01:18:47,335 --> 01:18:54,055
but when you got guys that have been here for 10 years, you can't say you're the best at it anymore.

1074
01:18:54,195 --> 01:18:56,755
You know, when they've, when they've been doing the boot ant for,

1075
01:18:56,815 --> 01:19:00,275
for 10 years, you know, we're no longer the best at it.

1076
01:19:00,315 --> 01:19:02,595
And we have to learn to trust those guys' opinions.

1077
01:19:02,755 --> 01:19:07,715
And I do think we're good at that. And maybe we just learned to get good at

1078
01:19:07,715 --> 01:19:10,215
it, but that is super important.

1079
01:19:10,315 --> 01:19:13,315
You can't, you can't, you can't be like that. You can't hold people back.

1080
01:19:13,555 --> 01:19:19,035
And you, you know, you're not always the one in every room, you know?

1081
01:19:19,475 --> 01:19:24,495
And I think that that's probably common for business owners is to never let that go.

1082
01:19:24,675 --> 01:19:31,075
And they always have to be the one that has final say on, you know,

1083
01:19:31,095 --> 01:19:37,915
complicated situations that they may not have touched in several years because they've hired,

1084
01:19:38,015 --> 01:19:41,055
you know, they've hired that part of the business out to someone.

1085
01:19:42,275 --> 01:19:46,015
And yeah, we have a wide range of skill here.

1086
01:19:46,095 --> 01:19:49,875
We've got Mark and Stacy that

1087
01:19:49,875 --> 01:19:52,975
just hit it 10 years with us you know that's pretty cool

1088
01:19:52,975 --> 01:19:55,915
historically the market has had high

1089
01:19:55,915 --> 01:19:59,575
tenure and we've had you know people that

1090
01:19:59,575 --> 01:20:03,955
have made careers out of this place to you know damn near 20 years several of

1091
01:20:03,955 --> 01:20:08,815
them and that's i think that's something to be proud of as a as a small business

1092
01:20:08,815 --> 01:20:15,375
to be able to do that you know and if we can do it with you know 10 people i

1093
01:20:15,375 --> 01:20:17,755
guess next is can we do that with

1094
01:20:17,915 --> 01:20:27,115
a staff of 40 or 50 can we keep some you know multiple 10-year hires 20-year so what's,

1095
01:20:28,375 --> 01:20:32,495
what's next what's the plan what's the plan this year what's the plan next year

1096
01:20:32,495 --> 01:20:38,555
this will be our so last year was our first christmas in this place and i guess

1097
01:20:38,555 --> 01:20:43,195
you're saying it went sort of as planned i don't know about as planned but it

1098
01:20:43,195 --> 01:20:46,695
went smooth yeah everything Everything worked out,

1099
01:20:46,735 --> 01:20:51,855
no catastrophes, no burnt batches of boudin or whatever.

1100
01:20:53,595 --> 01:20:56,835
From here on out, I think it's more of the same.

1101
01:20:58,995 --> 01:21:02,155
Know what we're doing, you know, keep training the relatively new employees

1102
01:21:02,155 --> 01:21:04,915
that we have, try to get more efficient.

1103
01:21:05,715 --> 01:21:09,535
But, but you know, this as well as I do, we have different goals for each market.

1104
01:21:09,975 --> 01:21:15,275
The goal kind of for the new market is to, to, to grow, might do a little more

1105
01:21:15,275 --> 01:21:19,595
advertising next year or two, but for the old market, it's to get,

1106
01:21:19,595 --> 01:21:20,755
it's to get more efficient,

1107
01:21:21,475 --> 01:21:26,095
and, you know, cross train people and just get it, get it kind of back to how

1108
01:21:26,095 --> 01:21:30,795
it was when we were kids, which is really exciting for me. And I think my dad really likes it too.

1109
01:21:31,135 --> 01:21:34,975
Every time he goes over there, I think he gets excited seeing it like it used to be.

1110
01:21:35,935 --> 01:21:41,635
What Bo is talking about is over the past few years, we've, we've like split

1111
01:21:41,635 --> 01:21:45,015
into sort of departments or like specialties for everyone.

1112
01:21:45,095 --> 01:21:49,195
So like we're hiring people based on a particular role that they're going to

1113
01:21:49,195 --> 01:21:53,115
fill, which is very new to how the way it used to be when we were kids.

1114
01:21:53,175 --> 01:21:56,995
And we, we came into it was everyone did everything.

1115
01:21:57,135 --> 01:22:00,855
You started in the back, you know, you started as help, you started as a hand

1116
01:22:00,855 --> 01:22:06,195
and you prove yourself with, you know, attaining new skills and,

1117
01:22:06,215 --> 01:22:07,995
and building trust with people.

1118
01:22:08,015 --> 01:22:10,435
And you get to learn, you know, you stick around long enough,

1119
01:22:10,455 --> 01:22:14,415
you get to learn the next thing, the next, you know, more important thing.

1120
01:22:14,915 --> 01:22:20,695
And it keeps going, keeps going, keeps going. And eventually if you've been there for 10 years,

1121
01:22:20,795 --> 01:22:24,215
you can, And, you know, you can answer the phone, you can clean a pot,

1122
01:22:24,315 --> 01:22:27,455
you can make boudin, you can smoke jerky, you can smoke sausage,

1123
01:22:27,535 --> 01:22:31,315
you can take in a deer order, you can break down a calf,

1124
01:22:31,615 --> 01:22:35,435
you can cut pork chops, you can check people out on the register,

1125
01:22:35,615 --> 01:22:38,315
you know, you can do everything. And...

1126
01:22:39,478 --> 01:22:44,318
From the, I don't know what year, but up until we split, we kind of got rid

1127
01:22:44,318 --> 01:22:47,338
of that. And we sort of had back of house, front of house.

1128
01:22:47,458 --> 01:22:49,898
And that's how it kind of stayed.

1129
01:22:50,038 --> 01:22:50,938
You know, if you're hired for

1130
01:22:50,938 --> 01:22:53,598
the front of house, you don't know how to make ground meat in the back.

1131
01:22:53,718 --> 01:22:58,178
You don't know how to hang turkey. And we're slowly trying to get back to the

1132
01:22:58,178 --> 01:23:00,718
way it was because it is much more efficient.

1133
01:23:00,798 --> 01:23:05,878
And I think it might be a little more fulfilling for people.

1134
01:23:06,018 --> 01:23:09,658
You know, you get to see some different things throughout the day.

1135
01:23:09,758 --> 01:23:13,278
And it's a little less mundane and maybe a little funner.

1136
01:23:13,738 --> 01:23:15,818
Yeah, it was absolutely.

1137
01:23:16,658 --> 01:23:22,298
And it was tough as the old market got, got bigger and busier.

1138
01:23:22,518 --> 01:23:25,638
It got harder to, it got harder to do those things, right?

1139
01:23:25,718 --> 01:23:30,618
Like the guys in the back, because they were so busy making things all the time,

1140
01:23:30,678 --> 01:23:33,618
they couldn't really get to the front to help out and you

1141
01:23:33,618 --> 01:23:37,098
know vice versa so it it started specializing

1142
01:23:37,098 --> 01:23:40,398
on its own and then we just kind

1143
01:23:40,398 --> 01:23:43,658
of made it more so and i

1144
01:23:43,658 --> 01:23:46,538
guess when you combine that with with like

1145
01:23:46,538 --> 01:23:49,498
training new hires and turnover it got it got

1146
01:23:49,498 --> 01:23:52,318
to be too much because you know you've got this person that's been there

1147
01:23:52,318 --> 01:23:55,438
for two years and they've learned everything and now now they're

1148
01:23:55,438 --> 01:23:58,558
gone and it takes two more years to train somebody to

1149
01:23:58,558 --> 01:24:01,278
do everything whereas it takes two weeks

1150
01:24:01,278 --> 01:24:04,098
to train somebody how to wait on a customer and if

1151
01:24:04,098 --> 01:24:08,838
that's all they need to do then you're done but yeah that's a tough that's a

1152
01:24:08,838 --> 01:24:13,278
tough call yeah but since the new markets open the old markets uh it's slowed

1153
01:24:13,278 --> 01:24:16,878
down a little bit and so it it's it's a lot more viable and makes more sense

1154
01:24:16,878 --> 01:24:23,318
training's hard here because we we're holding on to the the sort

1155
01:24:23,418 --> 01:24:27,798
of wild west mentality that we have here compared to a supermarket.

1156
01:24:28,798 --> 01:24:34,518
Whereas they have to have all these rules, you know, put down on, onto them.

1157
01:24:36,018 --> 01:24:41,798
And it becomes less, you know, less of a custom experience for the customer.

1158
01:24:41,938 --> 01:24:43,478
You only get what you see.

1159
01:24:43,878 --> 01:24:48,158
Whereas we, we try to hang on to this vibe of we can do anything.

1160
01:24:48,278 --> 01:24:52,118
Well, you know, you, if you want it, we'll do it for you because we're,

1161
01:24:52,118 --> 01:24:54,478
because we're allowed to and because we know how.

1162
01:24:54,938 --> 01:25:00,718
And that's very hard to train an employee to understand all of the complicated

1163
01:25:00,718 --> 01:25:04,478
requests and ways to answer customers.

1164
01:25:04,738 --> 01:25:08,378
And, you know, without, you know, if a customer asks for something they've never

1165
01:25:08,378 --> 01:25:13,318
heard of, you know, avoiding that employee, just giving them a no, sorry.

1166
01:25:13,558 --> 01:25:16,518
You know, we're not, we try not to be a no, sorry.

1167
01:25:16,658 --> 01:25:20,158
We don't have that place. We try to be a, I'm not sure what that is.

1168
01:25:20,218 --> 01:25:21,218
Let me go ask the butcher.

1169
01:25:21,318 --> 01:25:24,938
And then the And the butcher comes up and the butcher says, absolutely.

1170
01:25:26,560 --> 01:25:29,480
To use a different cut. Would you mind if I use a different cut for that?

1171
01:25:29,620 --> 01:25:32,600
You know, tell me, tell me what you're cooking. What are you trying to achieve?

1172
01:25:32,860 --> 01:25:37,240
And I'm going to help you through this process versus, you know,

1173
01:25:37,240 --> 01:25:40,020
check out our stocked meat counter.

1174
01:25:40,160 --> 01:25:44,360
That's what you see is what you get. You know, we don't want to be viewed as that.

1175
01:25:44,900 --> 01:25:49,420
And with that comes really hard training. And we've had to implement,

1176
01:25:49,560 --> 01:25:55,920
you know, SOP binders and all this stuff that big corporations do.

1177
01:25:56,240 --> 01:26:01,800
We've had to kind of dabble with, with all that stuff and it's, and I hate it.

1178
01:26:01,840 --> 01:26:06,580
It's complicated, but it, it seems to be necessary, even if it's just a phase

1179
01:26:06,580 --> 01:26:10,500
we had to go through for the time and, you know, we can kind of get back to

1180
01:26:10,500 --> 01:26:13,920
just kind of winging it, you know, I don't know.

1181
01:26:14,140 --> 01:26:18,840
Yeah. I mean, we, whenever we opened, we planned on hiring, I forget how many

1182
01:26:18,840 --> 01:26:21,600
now, 50 or probably 50 people. Right.

1183
01:26:22,060 --> 01:26:26,400
And so, yeah, we needed, we needed all that going in because how do you train

1184
01:26:26,400 --> 01:26:28,440
50 brand new people to open a store?

1185
01:26:29,100 --> 01:26:33,700
You know, I think some places like, uh, like a raising canes or whatever,

1186
01:26:33,820 --> 01:26:38,020
like they, you know, they have all this figured out. They, they know how to open a new store easy.

1187
01:26:38,600 --> 01:26:42,880
They've done it hundreds of times or whatever, but this is our first time.

1188
01:26:42,920 --> 01:26:47,020
And so we had to figure it all out. So, but yeah, some, some of that's hard

1189
01:26:47,020 --> 01:26:49,460
to, some of that's hard to get around.

1190
01:26:49,940 --> 01:26:54,520
And I, that's what I like about, about what's happening at the old market is

1191
01:26:54,520 --> 01:26:56,880
I think a lot of that is doable and coming back.

1192
01:26:56,920 --> 01:27:01,320
But just as an example with your stuff, man, I can't tell you how many customers

1193
01:27:01,320 --> 01:27:05,820
I've waited on that either wanted something we didn't have or was asking for

1194
01:27:05,820 --> 01:27:09,720
something kind of ambiguous, like, like, like beef chops, right? Is the famous ask.

1195
01:27:10,120 --> 01:27:15,120
I want beef chops. Well, of course a beef chop is almost any cut off of a calf.

1196
01:27:15,520 --> 01:27:19,000
So, you know, when you're asked for, when you're asked for something like that,

1197
01:27:19,060 --> 01:27:21,720
you know, my immediate question was, what you cooking?

1198
01:27:22,160 --> 01:27:24,880
You know, oh, I'm frying them. Well, didn't you want rib chops?

1199
01:27:25,000 --> 01:27:27,700
You know, I'm smothering. Well, you, you probably want chuck chops.

1200
01:27:28,240 --> 01:27:32,100
You know, we're, we're out of, we're out of chuck chops, but I'm,

1201
01:27:32,100 --> 01:27:34,440
I'm smothering something down. What you got? We got shoulder,

1202
01:27:34,480 --> 01:27:35,660
we've got shoulder steaks.

1203
01:27:35,760 --> 01:27:38,120
They're, they're even better. So yeah.

1204
01:27:39,227 --> 01:27:41,947
The kind of stuff that's so hard to train and it's not even

1205
01:27:41,947 --> 01:27:45,547
something you can train people to do it's like and

1206
01:27:45,547 --> 01:27:50,347
this is what i do with all the butchers i'm like guys take stuff home cook it

1207
01:27:50,347 --> 01:27:54,427
if you're not sure how to cook it ask me come to my house i'll cook it for you

1208
01:27:54,427 --> 01:28:00,367
like you gotta you have to experience all those things to know what to know

1209
01:28:00,367 --> 01:28:03,207
what they're doing what's going on there's no,

1210
01:28:03,787 --> 01:28:06,687
there's no book for the way we do it

1211
01:28:06,687 --> 01:28:09,727
you know this we do we do do it a bit different

1212
01:28:09,727 --> 01:28:13,267
than you know maybe the bearded

1213
01:28:13,267 --> 01:28:16,367
butchers on youtube the way they break down an

1214
01:28:16,367 --> 01:28:19,167
animal is a bit different than the way we we

1215
01:28:19,167 --> 01:28:21,947
traditionally do it here because people don't cook the same

1216
01:28:21,947 --> 01:28:24,727
things down here as they do up north and you know

1217
01:28:24,727 --> 01:28:27,847
they they're looking for different cuts the demand is

1218
01:28:27,847 --> 01:28:30,887
higher on certain parts of the animal and lower on on

1219
01:28:30,887 --> 01:28:33,807
other parts and it might be the opposite here just based on

1220
01:28:33,807 --> 01:28:36,867
culture and and recipes and availability of

1221
01:28:36,867 --> 01:28:39,707
other things that that people need or you

1222
01:28:39,707 --> 01:28:42,887
know what people like to do and it's very

1223
01:28:42,887 --> 01:28:47,867
shane ask me ask me why we break a calf like we do why because that's how dan

1224
01:28:47,867 --> 01:28:54,207
and paul talk exactly i don't know why and no i had a thought earlier you're

1225
01:28:54,207 --> 01:29:00,587
talking about customer service and the best way the best example i can

1226
01:29:00,627 --> 01:29:07,427
give people is, is we were very much similar to like the soup Nazi on Seinfeld.

1227
01:29:08,667 --> 01:29:13,287
If you look hard enough, there is a review that might refer to a girl that works

1228
01:29:13,287 --> 01:29:15,547
for us currently as the soup Nazi.

1229
01:29:15,967 --> 01:29:19,867
We, you know, we want you to get in line.

1230
01:29:20,767 --> 01:29:24,967
We want you to wait your turn. Be specific. Tell us what you want.

1231
01:29:25,067 --> 01:29:27,347
We're going to get you exactly what you want.

1232
01:29:27,667 --> 01:29:31,707
It's going to be the best thing you can find. And it was going to come to you fast.

1233
01:29:31,987 --> 01:29:38,067
And then we need to wait on the next person. That was our view of customer service. It really was.

1234
01:29:38,287 --> 01:29:41,227
And we loved it. You know, it's fun.

1235
01:29:41,267 --> 01:29:48,207
It's fun to fly around the building and run in each other and all this and wrap

1236
01:29:48,207 --> 01:29:50,127
people's stuff as fast as we can and send them.

1237
01:29:50,427 --> 01:29:53,927
You know, but we've learned that some people don't like that.

1238
01:29:53,927 --> 01:29:58,327
They need to be schmoozed a bit and, you know, got a little better at,

1239
01:29:58,327 --> 01:30:02,807
at slowing down and just kind of having the conversations with people and making

1240
01:30:02,807 --> 01:30:04,287
sure that their experiences,

1241
01:30:04,887 --> 01:30:09,987
is nice is what they, is what they wanted, not what we think everyone wants, you know?

1242
01:30:10,467 --> 01:30:14,687
Yeah. Phil, Phil told me something kind of profound that, that helped change

1243
01:30:14,687 --> 01:30:15,867
my opinion on it or whatever.

1244
01:30:15,927 --> 01:30:20,267
And it's, you know, if, if a customer has a problem or, or even if they don't, that.

1245
01:30:21,303 --> 01:30:24,523
So the goal isn't for you to be right.

1246
01:30:25,003 --> 01:30:28,623
It's for the customer to leave happy, whatever, kind of whatever that means.

1247
01:30:28,763 --> 01:30:33,383
And that even includes just them having a regular shopping experience.

1248
01:30:33,543 --> 01:30:36,863
Even if they don't have a problem, you want them to leave happy.

1249
01:30:37,163 --> 01:30:39,963
And that's different for every person.

1250
01:30:40,383 --> 01:30:45,823
Now, you know, maybe not hugely different, but, you know, that salesman in the morning is in a hurry.

1251
01:30:46,243 --> 01:30:49,743
He doesn't care if you're nice to him. He needs to get the hell out so that

1252
01:30:49,743 --> 01:30:53,703
he can drive 300 more miles to Houston or whatever, right?

1253
01:30:54,903 --> 01:30:58,403
Whereas, you know, the little old lady that's shopping in the afternoon,

1254
01:30:58,703 --> 01:31:01,123
she might want to talk to you.

1255
01:31:02,263 --> 01:31:05,043
So you got to be able to read people and Phil's good at that.

1256
01:31:06,083 --> 01:31:12,023
So I heard you say one time, I don't know if I asked you, I think,

1257
01:31:12,043 --> 01:31:16,583
I don't know, I may have asked you, it was either me or someone else.

1258
01:31:16,583 --> 01:31:18,043
Could have been a reporter. I don't know.

1259
01:31:18,283 --> 01:31:23,303
But you were asked like, you know, what's it like to own this meat market?

1260
01:31:23,363 --> 01:31:32,503
It's been around for, we're in the fourth generation and, you know, 133 years in existence.

1261
01:31:32,603 --> 01:31:35,523
What's it like to be the, to be the, you know, the owner.

1262
01:31:35,663 --> 01:31:38,323
And you said something that stood out to me.

1263
01:31:38,843 --> 01:31:42,703
You said something along the lines of, you know,

1264
01:31:42,743 --> 01:31:45,683
I don't, I don't think, think I don't look at myself as

1265
01:31:45,683 --> 01:31:48,823
the owner like no one can own this thing like

1266
01:31:48,823 --> 01:31:51,723
this thing is bigger than it's bigger than we

1267
01:31:51,723 --> 01:31:54,683
can be you know kind of

1268
01:31:54,683 --> 01:32:01,483
making sure it can get to the next generation you know I remember you saying

1269
01:32:01,483 --> 01:32:06,883
that I remember it making a lot of sense and why do you feel like why why do

1270
01:32:06,883 --> 01:32:13,443
you feel that way or can you can you explain that more I guess I so yeah I think I

1271
01:32:13,563 --> 01:32:16,063
think I said something along the lines of, yeah,

1272
01:32:16,203 --> 01:32:18,763
I don't, it doesn't really feel like mine.

1273
01:32:18,863 --> 01:32:23,143
You know, I'm looking after it for now until the next generation comes along

1274
01:32:23,143 --> 01:32:25,343
and, you know, hopefully that'll be my kids.

1275
01:32:25,423 --> 01:32:28,783
But if, if it's not something they're interested in doing, you know,

1276
01:32:28,803 --> 01:32:30,183
my dad never put pressure on me.

1277
01:32:30,823 --> 01:32:33,523
It doesn't have to be them, right? It could be Shane's kids.

1278
01:32:33,603 --> 01:32:37,503
It could be Brody's kids. I've got 36 first cousins.

1279
01:32:38,483 --> 01:32:39,903
It'll be somebody's kids.

1280
01:32:41,460 --> 01:32:45,060
Point is, yeah, I'm the, I'm the fourth.

1281
01:32:45,180 --> 01:32:48,800
I'm the, it's, it's a little cliche, but you know, the,

1282
01:32:49,320 --> 01:32:52,820
the Isaac Newton quote of standing on the shoulders of giants,

1283
01:32:52,960 --> 01:32:58,200
it's, it's, it's, it's probably a bit much, but you know, it is,

1284
01:32:58,200 --> 01:33:03,840
it is true in a sense that, you know, this is this, the market is its own thing.

1285
01:33:03,860 --> 01:33:09,420
It's its own entity at this point. And I'm not, I guess I, yeah, Yeah. I don't know.

1286
01:33:10,040 --> 01:33:15,620
It's a weird thing to talk about, but yeah, I just, I feel like I'm, I'm hanging on to it.

1287
01:33:16,020 --> 01:33:20,880
I'm going to, you know, I plan on leaving my impact, which hopefully is this new location.

1288
01:33:21,540 --> 01:33:28,620
And even, even the new location for me was to me, it's a, it's an insurance policy, right?

1289
01:33:28,860 --> 01:33:32,520
This building has to survive. And what happened if the old one burnt down?

1290
01:33:33,220 --> 01:33:36,840
Well, now if the old one burns down, no problem. Everybody can come work over

1291
01:33:36,840 --> 01:33:38,460
here until we rebuild it.

1292
01:33:39,420 --> 01:33:42,640
Yeah, I wanted to make sure it survived to the next generation.

1293
01:33:43,180 --> 01:33:46,700
And that's, I guess that's my ultimate goal. Yeah.

1294
01:33:46,920 --> 01:33:52,200
What do you think it's going to be like then, you know, when our kids are in

1295
01:33:52,200 --> 01:33:57,000
their 30s, you think this meat business will be any different?

1296
01:33:57,120 --> 01:34:00,800
Will people still, you know, what are they going to stop buying then?

1297
01:34:00,900 --> 01:34:04,940
I don't know. It's kind of weird to think about that. Will people stop buying

1298
01:34:04,940 --> 01:34:12,180
the veal cuts? Will they stop smoking's trendy right now? Will they stop smoking meats?

1299
01:34:12,680 --> 01:34:15,620
I don't know. It's a great question, Shane.

1300
01:34:15,820 --> 01:34:19,380
And unfortunately we are, or not unfortunately, maybe fortunately,

1301
01:34:19,500 --> 01:34:22,640
but we're ultimately at the mercy of our customers.

1302
01:34:23,140 --> 01:34:29,560
And so this kind of haunts me that happened to Pawpaw, right?

1303
01:34:29,900 --> 01:34:38,340
So Pawpaw was selling mostly fresh cuts of meat. for, I don't know, a long time.

1304
01:34:38,520 --> 01:34:44,560
He would slaughter cows, pigs, chickens, and sell the cuts. That was mostly what he did.

1305
01:34:44,680 --> 01:34:49,840
The whole purpose of boudin and hog's head cheese and even sausage and these

1306
01:34:49,840 --> 01:34:54,780
other things was to find a way to sell the stuff that didn't.

1307
01:34:56,142 --> 01:34:59,562
Going bad right you you cook it and turn it into boudin or the

1308
01:34:59,562 --> 01:35:02,562
parts that that you can't sell right if you can't nobody wants

1309
01:35:02,562 --> 01:35:05,722
pork liver this week is going into boudin nobody wants

1310
01:35:05,722 --> 01:35:10,902
a whole hog head so we'll make hog's head cheese same thing with the sausage

1311
01:35:10,902 --> 01:35:15,682
like sauce smoked sausage as far as i know it didn't start off as a seasoning

1312
01:35:15,682 --> 01:35:18,842
it started off as a way to make your sausage last a few more days so you could

1313
01:35:18,842 --> 01:35:24,982
sell it so that that's what papa was doing and all of the specialty stuff was

1314
01:35:25,202 --> 01:35:28,022
small it was it was small it

1315
01:35:28,022 --> 01:35:31,042
was his leftovers and it's not it's not necessarily what

1316
01:35:31,042 --> 01:35:33,922
people were shopping for okay and then in the

1317
01:35:33,922 --> 01:35:36,982
70s or late 60s

1318
01:35:36,982 --> 01:35:40,362
i forget the year of course this was before my time but papa said

1319
01:35:40,362 --> 01:35:45,582
they opened the first supermarkets in thibodeau and it killed it killed his

1320
01:35:45,582 --> 01:35:51,362
business so he went from slaughtering lots of chickens to now the grocery stores

1321
01:35:51,362 --> 01:35:56,882
with their mass produced selling chicken farms are selling chickens cleaned

1322
01:35:56,882 --> 01:35:59,162
and all that for cheaper than he can buy a live chicken.

1323
01:35:59,682 --> 01:36:03,502
So like what you do, you can't sell chickens no more. Nobody's going to buy

1324
01:36:03,502 --> 01:36:07,522
your chickens. They ain't that much special than, than the grocery store chicken.

1325
01:36:07,862 --> 01:36:10,522
And then of course they were selling cuts of meat too, that were,

1326
01:36:10,522 --> 01:36:12,722
you know, cheaper and stuff.

1327
01:36:12,842 --> 01:36:18,902
And so what did he do? He adapted, he started, he started making more of the

1328
01:36:18,902 --> 01:36:22,922
stuff that, that we're known for today, day, like the boudin, the hog's head cheese,

1329
01:36:23,122 --> 01:36:27,422
the smoked sausages and the different sausage flavors and, you know,

1330
01:36:27,422 --> 01:36:28,862
stuff you couldn't get at the grocery store.

1331
01:36:28,962 --> 01:36:31,942
So I'm sure something like that could happen again.

1332
01:36:32,822 --> 01:36:37,402
I hope it doesn't. I hope we can keep everything status quo, but we'll see.

1333
01:36:38,222 --> 01:36:41,542
I definitely hope it's not my problem at that point. Sorry.

1334
01:36:42,542 --> 01:36:43,942
Sorry, kids. Yep.

1335
01:36:45,997 --> 01:36:51,337
I wonder, what would you advise if your kids wanted to go to school,

1336
01:36:51,497 --> 01:36:55,557
they wanted to go to college, and their plan was to take this business over?

1337
01:36:57,317 --> 01:37:00,437
Any field of study you think they should focus on? Yeah, not math.

1338
01:37:02,157 --> 01:37:05,417
Math didn't help too much. Because we have calculators, right? Yeah.

1339
01:37:06,817 --> 01:37:09,857
I probably would have taken some more business classes.

1340
01:37:10,537 --> 01:37:15,437
I guess I don't know enough about it to think that they would help me run the business.

1341
01:37:16,237 --> 01:37:20,177
But some, but some financial classes would have helped so that I,

1342
01:37:20,257 --> 01:37:26,537
there wasn't such a learning curve on reading all the financial statements and all that other stuff.

1343
01:37:26,697 --> 01:37:31,577
That way I would have a better understanding of all of it, especially from the

1344
01:37:31,577 --> 01:37:34,157
get go that, that that's what you really need to figure out.

1345
01:37:34,337 --> 01:37:40,517
If you know, you need to cut labor or go up on prices or try to find cheaper

1346
01:37:40,517 --> 01:37:43,617
supplies eyes or, you know, whatever, whatever that, that helps you make a lot

1347
01:37:43,617 --> 01:37:47,037
of decisions without having to figure it out on your own.

1348
01:37:49,077 --> 01:37:53,177
The old market, if anyone's ever been inside the back of the old market,

1349
01:37:53,237 --> 01:37:58,697
when we say that there's nothing special to it, we mean it, but also we don't.

1350
01:37:58,697 --> 01:38:00,537
I mean, there's a lot of things that are special to it.

1351
01:38:01,897 --> 01:38:07,137
Mainly the, like the ingenuity of the place. And I think that's something we

1352
01:38:07,137 --> 01:38:08,657
were passed down. Right.

1353
01:38:08,757 --> 01:38:13,777
And it's something that I think, you know, guys that are building businesses

1354
01:38:13,777 --> 01:38:17,997
today, they maybe they just didn't get a glimpse of that.

1355
01:38:18,057 --> 01:38:22,477
They didn't get a glimpse of using something until it breaks and then fixing

1356
01:38:22,477 --> 01:38:23,577
it and then using it again.

1357
01:38:24,797 --> 01:38:31,277
And if another thing breaks, then putting those two machines together to make

1358
01:38:31,277 --> 01:38:33,417
something else and use that until it breaks.

1359
01:38:34,537 --> 01:38:37,237
Because the thing that helps us too with that though, Shane,

1360
01:38:37,317 --> 01:38:42,757
is we remember, we still remember doing all those things without the machine, right?

1361
01:38:43,057 --> 01:38:49,217
Like if the jerky slicer breaks, you know, if this was any other business like

1362
01:38:49,217 --> 01:38:51,517
that, that relied on a machine, they'd be like, well, I guess,

1363
01:38:51,517 --> 01:38:53,037
I guess we don't have jerky anymore.

1364
01:38:53,497 --> 01:38:57,197
But we still know how to make it by hand. It wouldn't even slow us down.

1365
01:38:57,257 --> 01:38:58,817
Well, it'd slow us down, but. Right.

1366
01:39:01,868 --> 01:39:08,588
And the building and the equipment has just been fixed and fixed and fixed and fixed again.

1367
01:39:08,648 --> 01:39:12,268
Papa could do a lot with a little and he never threw anything away.

1368
01:39:12,388 --> 01:39:14,708
Right. Including his Ziploc bags and all that.

1369
01:39:14,928 --> 01:39:23,208
That would be my advice to a new business is don't compare yourself to any other businesses.

1370
01:39:23,488 --> 01:39:26,188
Worry about what your goal is. what

1371
01:39:26,188 --> 01:39:29,708
are you trying to provide for people or what's the

1372
01:39:29,708 --> 01:39:33,488
skill or the service that you're offering and that

1373
01:39:33,488 --> 01:39:38,468
has to be the first thing like that that thing that product that service that

1374
01:39:38,468 --> 01:39:43,428
skill that is the important thing and all the other stuff can come later you

1375
01:39:43,428 --> 01:39:48,468
know or or it doesn't have to come at all you know you don't need the you don't

1376
01:39:48,468 --> 01:39:50,028
need the fancy stuff you just

1377
01:39:50,108 --> 01:39:53,348
need the things that are required to make your product.

1378
01:39:54,148 --> 01:40:00,988
So my advice would be, you know, bare bones it for a long time because we,

1379
01:40:01,048 --> 01:40:04,668
you know, we did, we didn't have to go through it, but we did.

1380
01:40:04,748 --> 01:40:07,748
And I would, I would attribute a lot of the success to that.

1381
01:40:07,808 --> 01:40:12,888
You know, I think if Pawpaw was worried about putting a new awning on the building,

1382
01:40:13,008 --> 01:40:17,088
you know, what, what would have suffered because of it, you know,

1383
01:40:17,088 --> 01:40:19,688
where would we have maybe slipped along the way?

1384
01:40:20,648 --> 01:40:25,748
And when you get, you know, as we've experienced, when you, when you build a

1385
01:40:25,748 --> 01:40:29,008
new building, things can get out of control really quickly.

1386
01:40:29,088 --> 01:40:33,728
Cause you, you know, if you got a new room, then you need a new chair to put

1387
01:40:33,728 --> 01:40:39,548
in the room, you know, whereas that, that concept didn't exist before we built the new building.

1388
01:40:39,608 --> 01:40:43,268
Uh, and I think we're, we're settling back into the ways of old,

1389
01:40:43,348 --> 01:40:48,568
you know, here, but But I think, you know, not these days, if you don't start

1390
01:40:48,568 --> 01:40:51,648
off with that mentality, you'll burn up quickly, you know?

1391
01:40:51,988 --> 01:41:00,908
Yeah. My advice for new businesses is put 100% of your effort or time or whatever

1392
01:41:00,908 --> 01:41:07,288
into the product or service because that's the only thing that's going to make you money, right?

1393
01:41:07,568 --> 01:41:11,828
If you don't have something people want, then nothing else matters.

1394
01:41:11,928 --> 01:41:14,408
The pretty building, all the employees, none of that.

1395
01:41:14,728 --> 01:41:19,968
Does anything for you so you know everything you do should be tied to that right

1396
01:41:19,968 --> 01:41:25,048
if you need to hire an employee it should be because you need to make more of

1397
01:41:25,048 --> 01:41:29,748
something or you need help with something but they need to be they need to be

1398
01:41:29,748 --> 01:41:31,248
on board and can do it you know.

1399
01:41:32,638 --> 01:41:39,938
It all needs to be tied into that. And you, man, you can't, you can't forget.

1400
01:41:40,658 --> 01:41:45,278
I would say they shouldn't forget this is that if you're building a new,

1401
01:41:45,378 --> 01:41:49,958
you know, if you're building a new meat market and you think that you need to,

1402
01:41:49,978 --> 01:41:56,098
you need to build this, you know, fancy state of the art smoker.

1403
01:41:56,098 --> 01:42:01,938
And you need to post your picture on Instagram of your brand new smoker.

1404
01:42:02,078 --> 01:42:07,118
And that's the focal point is how awesome and new this thing is.

1405
01:42:07,578 --> 01:42:13,018
There may be a business down the road that gets the, they're bragging about

1406
01:42:13,018 --> 01:42:20,158
their beat up, used, rusted up, ugly thing.

1407
01:42:20,158 --> 01:42:27,838
Thing and that's working for them too so it isn't it isn't about the it isn't about the things,

1408
01:42:28,378 --> 01:42:34,898
you know the things that you use i think that can be maybe a trap for some people

1409
01:42:34,898 --> 01:42:39,118
yeah for sure especially in this day and age and i think it just comes from,

1410
01:42:39,758 --> 01:42:44,778
from social media and you know seeing kind of seeing everywhere else and see

1411
01:42:44,778 --> 01:42:48,438
you seeing the way everyone else does things you know it doesn't have to be

1412
01:42:48,438 --> 01:42:50,638
the way you do things Yeah.

1413
01:42:50,718 --> 01:42:55,698
And don't get something because it makes it easier. Get something because it does it better. Yep.

1414
01:42:56,418 --> 01:43:01,158
Yeah. This was, I remember talking about this before we, I don't know,

1415
01:43:01,198 --> 01:43:06,478
before we, before we really started making the hires to kind of double up on,

1416
01:43:06,498 --> 01:43:08,098
on staff and roles and everything.

1417
01:43:08,338 --> 01:43:13,718
We talked about, you know, the fact that you have to get better before you get bigger.

1418
01:43:14,038 --> 01:43:19,058
And it's a, it's an easy trap to just want to get bigger in that you're assuming

1419
01:43:19,058 --> 01:43:20,318
that that That makes you better.

1420
01:43:20,698 --> 01:43:25,578
You know, having two locations doesn't make you better than having one location.

1421
01:43:26,578 --> 01:43:31,798
It cost us a lot of money to double hire all of our managers for over a year.

1422
01:43:31,938 --> 01:43:35,698
Right. But it made the product better because when we opened,

1423
01:43:35,778 --> 01:43:38,138
they weren't, you know, they knew what they were doing.

1424
01:43:38,438 --> 01:43:43,638
Heck, Phil, we hired in 18 or 19. Yeah. And we opened in 2023.

1425
01:43:44,498 --> 01:43:49,938
Right. When we hired him, we told him we were going to open next year. Thank you.

1426
01:43:53,343 --> 01:43:56,343
Else I think this was good I think we

1427
01:43:56,343 --> 01:43:59,523
got a lot we got a lot said um you and

1428
01:43:59,523 --> 01:44:02,383
I can sit and tell stories um for

1429
01:44:02,383 --> 01:44:05,503
hours I'm sure and maybe we'll do that next time uh

1430
01:44:05,503 --> 01:44:10,883
pick some pick some key stories that we can just reminisce about there's some

1431
01:44:10,883 --> 01:44:16,503
good ones well all right I think that's that's enough for today boo and we'll

1432
01:44:16,503 --> 01:44:20,763
we'll get back and we'll do this more and and uh tell some more More stories

1433
01:44:20,763 --> 01:44:22,663
let people in a little deeper.

1434
01:44:23,423 --> 01:44:25,423
Sounds good. Thanks Shane. All right. Later.

1435
01:44:29,023 --> 01:44:31,963
All right. That's it for this episode of the Miracles to Me podcast.

1436
01:44:32,383 --> 01:44:36,943
We ask that you share it with at least one person in your life that you think needs to hear it.

1437
01:44:37,963 --> 01:44:41,043
You know, if you got a little something from it, you got some little goose pimples

1438
01:44:41,043 --> 01:44:42,723
or it just gave you some feel goods.

1439
01:44:43,783 --> 01:44:46,623
You know, send it to someone else. Let them let them feel that too.

1440
01:44:47,263 --> 01:44:51,223
And if you loved it, please leave us a five star review. That'll really help out.

1441
01:44:51,323 --> 01:44:56,003
And if you only loved it like four stars or so, please do not leave a review.

1442
01:44:56,303 --> 01:45:00,643
Same thing with the one through three. Not interested in any of those. Only five stars.

1443
01:45:01,403 --> 01:45:05,423
If you have any personal questions or comments about the episode,

1444
01:45:05,603 --> 01:45:08,883
shoot them over to Bourgeois Meat Market on Facebook or Instagram.

1445
01:45:10,023 --> 01:45:15,343
And we'll reach back out. And if you have any ideas for any cool future guests,

1446
01:45:15,583 --> 01:45:17,043
please shoot those over, too.

1447
01:45:17,103 --> 01:45:22,223
We're always interested in hearing. sharing um who else is out there and what

1448
01:45:22,223 --> 01:45:27,183
kind of cool stories we might be able to bring into this place see you next

1449
01:45:27,183 --> 01:45:28,443
time thanks for listening.

1450
01:45:29,040 --> 01:45:36,559
Music.

 

Butcher / Meat Market / Butchery / Family / Business / Oldest Family Business / Louisiana / Cajun / Thibodaux Louisiana / Schriever / Houma / New Orleans / Baton Rouge / Southern Food / Southern Cooking / Cuisine /Beef Jerky / Boudin / Sausage / Andouille / Pork