Chef David Hill & Chef Chris Jones

Chef David Hill (00:29):

Okay, welcome to another episode. We are at episode seven of Chefs and Lambos by Chef David Hill and how about this venue? Would you look at this? This is quite an upgrade from the last venue we had. We're at Bonita Beach at one of my regular clients' homes. She was nice enough to let us film here, so I'm super thrilled and we have a great guest today. We have a restaurant chef. I'll let him introduce himself.

Chef Chris Jones (00:56):

Thanks for having me, David. I'm Chris Jones, I'm owner operator of LowBrow Pizza and Beer, Industry Pizza and Slice Shop, Industry Beer and Barbecue, and The Barbecue Shop.

Chef David Hill (01:06):

Wow. That sounds like a lot going on.

Chef Chris Jones (01:07):

All in Naples, in Collier County. Yeah.

Chef David Hill (01:09):

So how do you keep up with all this and manage all this?

Chef Chris Jones (01:12):

I do a lot of driving around these days.

Chef David Hill (01:13):

I bet.

Chef Chris Jones (01:15):

We founded LowBrow in 2017, opened in 2018, turned around and opened Industry Pizza and Slice Shop in 2019 and then consecutively 2020 we opened the barbecue joint down in Bayfront, that's Industry Beer and Barbecue. And then The Barbecue Shop is about to launch this summer.

Chef David Hill (01:36):

Wow. So from going from your first place going into your second, it seems fairly soon. Was that-

Chef Chris Jones (01:43):

It was. Yeah. I mean it-

Chef David Hill (01:44):

Was it based on success that the first one was so good, "Hey, let's do it again," or?

Chef Chris Jones (01:47):

I guess opportunities came along and we jumped after it. I'm pretty entrepreneurial and just saw a need as well. Our restaurants, I think, filled a void in Naples that we didn't really have. They're very laid back, very casual, younger, kind of focused on quality, but kind of fun and approachable and affordable. So, the Pizza Shop was in 2008... Or sorry, 2019, right after LowBrow and we just found the spot. Kind of my broker brought it to us and-

Chef David Hill (02:21):

It's a great spot.

Chef Chris Jones (02:22):

And I wanted... well, I wanted to explore that style of pizza too. At LowBrow, we do wood fired pizza, which is more of a Neapolitan style, smaller pies, really hot oven, wood fired, and so I wanted to delve into that New York style. And then I also had real [inaudible 00:02:38] for Detroit-style pizza. I got family up in Michigan, so.

Chef David Hill (02:40):

Cool. Me too. I'm from Detroit, Livonia.

Chef Chris Jones (02:42):

Love that. Yeah. Love that. Love Buddy's, love that style and we didn't have it here.

Chef David Hill (02:47):

Great pizza. I love Buddy's.

Chef Chris Jones (02:48):

And it travels well, it's a good takeout pizza, it's good delivery pizza. And so the idea behind Industry Pizza and Slice Shop was that's a great pizza that you can take home. It'll travel well. You put a Neapolitan pizza in a box, it's not as good as it is in the restaurant, so.

Chef David Hill (03:02):

I've heard some chefs say there's like a difference in the water you use. Is there like any-

Chef Chris Jones (03:07):

Sure, yeah. So, I mean, the science behind it, for sure. The water in New York is highly mineralized because it travels through all these aqueducts and they're old, they're centuries old and so that water has got this hardness to it that affects gluten a certain way, and so you get that chew in New York pies and bagels and that kind of stuff. And then down here, we have equally hard water, but it's a different composition, so it affects gluten differently. And so kind of what we've done is we've learned to blend our flours. So we don't just use one flour for a certain recipe, we actually blend harder flours with some softer flours and more mild flours, like double zeros and high gluten. And we've come up with a pretty good way to mitigate the water situation, so.

Chef David Hill (03:51):

Okay.

Chef Chris Jones (03:51):

So you can end up with a pretty good product. It ain't New York, I mean, the new Yorkers will argue all day long about their pizza, which they have every right to do, but we think ours is pretty good.

Chef David Hill (04:02):

When you're coming up with these pizza ideas and what you're trying to do there, do you have a partner that kind of helps you, "Hey, this is working for us," or?

Chef Chris Jones (04:10):

Yeah, it's all trial and error. It's kind of come out of this brain here. I started in the pizza business at 14 back home in Canada at a chain restaurant called Boston Pizza, but back in those days, we were actually really cooking. The chain pizza industry's very automated now, everything's on a conveyor belt and everything's brought in. You don't make your dough, you don't make your sauce, you don't make anything, you just put it together and fire it through an oven. So there was no real craft there, but back in the day there was, and I got hooked on it a little bit and then I kind of changed direction in culinary arts from there.

(04:41):

But I came back to pizza because it's just sort of... When I want to do my own restaurant, I want to do something that was going to always be approachable. Everyone loves pizza. I mean, it's almost bulletproof. The pandemic proved that, so we really wanted to kind of... we wanted to go out and test the limits of pizza, especially in this geography, because pizza's kind of been mediocre at best around the Naples Collier County area and so-

Chef David Hill (05:06):

It's mostly the big-

Chef Chris Jones (05:06):

We had an opportunity to do some good pizza.

Chef David Hill (05:08):

I was going to say in Florida, I think the big chains are the dominant... The Papa Johns, the Dominoes, and-

Chef Chris Jones (05:14):

Yeah, and it's cheap and that's cheap food. It's over-processed, again, it's approachable and affordable, but it's junk too at the same time, so.

Chef David Hill (05:22):

Now going back at, I think you said at 14, as a young kid, what drew you to want to be a chef or was there something-

Chef Chris Jones (05:29):

Well, I think just the scene, there's... you're around some older kids and just the restaurant was for me straight off the bat. I started off washing dishes, knew I had to make my way in the kitchen, but I wasn't going to get there unless I washed the dishes. And that doesn't happen anymore. I really went after it, got in the kitchen, became the kitchen manager of that pizza joint before too long. And then I decided, so pizza's one thing... Pizza's its whole... it's kind of its whole industry, it's own industry and I wanted to learn how to cook and so went to culinary school and-

Chef David Hill (06:06):

What school was that? Where did you go?

Chef Chris Jones (06:06):

Well, it was called Camosun College, it was a community school, but in Canada we have a formal apprenticeship program that's kind of like the European model. And so you can start an apprenticeship and then you actually work on the job for 11 months. So you're in the field-

Chef David Hill (06:19):

Oh, that's different.

Chef Chris Jones (06:19):

And then you're only in the classroom for a month.

Chef David Hill (06:21):

That's totally different than here in the US.

Chef Chris Jones (06:23):

And to me, that's the way to go. And so I did three years of that and got some very good experience in some higher end restaurants and hotels and it escalated my progress pretty quickly, so yeah.

Chef David Hill (06:36):

When you were going to that culinary school, did you already have an idea of "Hey, after school, I'm either going to be a restaurant chef or I'm going to be a caterer?"

Chef Chris Jones (06:44):

No. I didn't know.

Chef David Hill (06:45):

You had no idea.

Chef Chris Jones (06:46):

I didn't know how, I think, big the industry was. So I knew I was focused on kind of higher end. I really... I love the creative, the plating, that artistic stuff. You get wrapped up in that I think when you're young and I think a lot of young kids kind of put all the effort into what the food looks like on the plate versus the actual cookery. Obviously-

Chef David Hill (07:09):

Right, the colors.

Chef Chris Jones (07:09):

Yeah, yeah. This looks great, but maybe it doesn't taste that great, you know what I mean? Is it delicious? So that took a while for me to kind of fumble through that and then... But I got to work with great chefs and that's really the bottom line. The mentorship that I got was pretty awesome.

Chef David Hill (07:24):

In the whole learning process, was there anything that drew you to a certain, "Hey, I want to be a hot food chef or I want to be a pastry..." Was there anything that kind of grabbed you?

Chef Chris Jones (07:34):

Well, it was fine dining. I mean, I got enamored with Michelin quality restaurants pretty young and so that kind of was the lure for me and to work in the high end and just gastronomy in general, just kind of go for the best of the best. Best product, best preparation. Feeding people that are into that kind of stuff, the foodies and that kind of thing.

Chef David Hill (07:58):

Yeah. Do you remember when you were off your first culinary job, do you remember what you were getting paid per hour?

Chef Chris Jones (08:05):

Yeah, I mean... Gosh, I mean, I probably made... I don't know, 11, 12 bucks an hour.

Chef David Hill (08:10):

That's what I was going to say, probably about 10, 11 bucks.

Chef Chris Jones (08:13):

I got elevated pretty quickly. My first real chef appointment, I probably made 40 K a year.

Chef David Hill (08:18):

That's a good jump.

Chef Chris Jones (08:19):

And then I got escalated to a pretty high end position and that was on probably 60 K, and I'm 25 years old making 60 K in Canada, and that's a pretty good deal.

Chef David Hill (08:31):

Top of the world.

Chef Chris Jones (08:31):

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, I earned it. I was 14 hours a day in the kitchen and quite a bit of travel. It was a remote resort on Vancouver Island in Canada and my commute was two hours a day, at least, on top of 12, 14 hours a day in the kitchen.

Chef David Hill (08:46):

That's a lot. Boy, the dedication was definitely there.

Chef Chris Jones (08:49):

I was pretty committed, yeah.

Chef David Hill (08:49):

Yeah, definitely.

Chef Chris Jones (08:50):

Yeah, it didn't feel like work though. It was kind of-

Chef David Hill (08:52):

Because you were into it.

Chef Chris Jones (08:53):

I loved it. Yeah.

Chef David Hill (08:54):

Yeah. I think sometimes the people think "Oh, it's going to be so much fun or whatever," but then when they get in there and realize, and you're in the weeds and it's like you can't quit, you got to get yourself out of these situations.

Chef Chris Jones (09:06):

Yeah. And it's a young man's job, too.

Chef David Hill (09:07):

Right.

Chef Chris Jones (09:07):

You got to have the fitness for it and the mindset for it. It's very demanding and hard on your body and emotionally hard. You go through a lot of, I think, ups and downs because it's just when people are paying that kind of money for the meals that you're preparing and the pressure's on all the time, so, you got to deliver day in, day out.

Chef David Hill (09:27):

And then what was the transition going from Canada to move to Florida? How did that hold experience?

Chef Chris Jones (09:32):

Yeah, just sort of had a... My wife at the time had family down here. They had just moved to Naples probably maybe three or four years before we came down and I went through a little health scare and then convalesced for about a year and decided that let's try this out. We actually came down here almost sight on seen. We knew what Naples was, we knew... But really didn't knew what the opportunities were. I was kind of prepared not to work for a little while and then before too long, I wound up in the country club business. I was already in the club business a little bit prior to leaving Canada and then... So it was a kind of little bit automatic to move into the country club business.

Chef David Hill (10:11):

Well, I was going to say our paths sound very similar. I was first dishwasher and this was like an Asian restaurant, so I was super into watching the flames and their knife skills are top level.

Chef Chris Jones (10:24):

Yeah, absolutely.

Chef David Hill (10:24):

So I was super into that. They all drove motorcycles. I mean, they just seemed like really gangster.

Chef Chris Jones (10:30):

Yeah, yeah.

Chef David Hill (10:31):

And I was like, "Man, I really want to do that." And then so I got to prep a little bit and then so I kind of learned a little bit, and then one of the chefs was like, "I think you have a lot of natural ability. I think you should go to culinary school and kind of fine tune yourself."

Chef Chris Jones (10:46):

Yeah, and I think that's kind of was the case with me. I knew I had it. I don't know where I got it from, but I knew I had it. And so you kind of realized that you got that kind of, again, the natural ability, but the drive too, and so, it worked out pretty good.

Chef David Hill (11:02):

And then, I was going to say also similar to you is, I went from culinary school, graduated, right away I moved to Florida and my first job was obviously country club too, and the reason why I picked the country club was for the benefits.

Chef Chris Jones (11:17):

Right. Yeah.

Chef David Hill (11:18):

You know what I mean? There's very few restaurant jobs where you're going to find benefits and-

Chef Chris Jones (11:22):

Yeah. I mean, it's, again, the country clubs kind of run fairly profitless and so they have to have the service that members kind of obviously demand that and that's what they join a club for. So it's a little bit easier to hire and I did too. The salaries are great in the clubs, the benefits are great. The downside is is that it's tough. It's a business that's sort of unrelenting, especially in season. You don't get a lot of time off, the work life balance is tough in the clubs, I think.

Chef David Hill (12:00):

And then was there a transition for you to come to Florida and realize all the tropical flavors and know that it's very kind of different cuisine? Cause for me, I was not used to that coming from Michigan as well. It's all cherries, apples, you know what I mean? It's just like-

Chef Chris Jones (12:15):

Right. Yeah. I'm from the Pacific Northwest and so, polar opposites, I moved down here and felt like a fish out of water. Obviously, up there we're known for seafood and so I had the skills obviously from a culinary point of view, but learning the product took a while. And then I really wanted to learn... Florida's not Southern in terms of Southern style cooking. It's a big kind of... Lot of diversity here, obviously. Latino, Hispanic, to Southern cooking, to... And then everybody that comes down here brings something with them from their culinary world. But I wanted to learn about Southern cooking. So, actually, I got down here in 2004 and again, in 2006 I went to Charleston and I worked with Sean Brock.

Chef David Hill (13:06):

Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

Chef Chris Jones (13:07):

And his only restaurant was McCrady's at the time, since then he's blown up into this huge thing. But I stayed with him for a month and basically [inaudible 00:13:18] at his restaurant and here I am a fairly accomplished chef and go work for this young kid that's blowing everybody's minds, but I really wanted to learn about the south and Providence and Southern cooking, where it comes from, what it is, and that kind of sent me on a path in a different direction. It really rounded out my experience. And I rely on it today, but we've certainly moved into barbecue. I fell in love with... we don't have barbecue in Canada. It's grilling, we don't... Barbecue's not a thing. There's barbecue restaurants now in Canada of course, but barbecue's truly a Southern thing. And so I wanted to learn a little bit more about it.

(14:00):

But, my transition from the clubs into the restaurants was... a lot of it was live fire cooking. We wanted to cave man cook. Build a fire, these Italian Forno ovens. I was really interested in that. I spent almost every year in New York for about 10 years, my first 10 or 12 years down here, just to eat Michelin restaurants, trying to kind of discover the best of the best and where the best cooking is. And there's a pizza restaurant in Brooklyn, in Bushwick called Roberta's. Okay. And so they're kind of the OGs of the modern Neapolitan pizza. And so when I saw that, I was like, "I want to do this. I got to check this out."

Chef David Hill (14:46):

That's cool.

Chef Chris Jones (14:48):

So I dove into that and that eventually was a lot of the inspiration behind LowBrow.

Chef David Hill (14:53):

Well, let me get into... I'm always curious because I don't do the restaurant thing. So I want to know how hard is it to find the right pieces that you can actually step away and say, "Hey, my place is not going to burn down tonight."

Chef Chris Jones (15:07):

You go through a lot of them. So, I've been lucky. I think, I've spent a lot of time trying to attract the right people and treat people the right way too. Making sure that the people that work for us have a great work life balance, they have the tools to do their job, they have everything they need to succeed and they have the mentorship as well. It's not easy. I've definitely, I think, I've let people down along the way, but I've also tried to make that up as well. But yeah, it takes some time to find the right people. Trust is.. That's a tough one because you're trusting your dream, your baby, your money, all of it.

(15:50):

And your success is due to them too, though. You have to put that trust in there. You can't do it yourself.

Chef David Hill (16:00):

Right. Right.

Chef Chris Jones (16:01):

And those folks, they want to do the job. When you find the right people, they're looking to work for a company that is moving forward, that is progressing, that does cool stuff and that's fun to work at and gives them opportunities to grow as well. And that's kind of our focus is taking the people that are our core, the people that we know that make LowBrow what it is, make the industry brand what it is, and invest in them and make sure that they grow with us and have an opportunity to... There's always a ceiling. People are going to move on, but man, if I can keep a manager around for 5, 6, 8, 10 years, it's awesome.

Chef David Hill (16:41):

Yeah. Well, I'm glad it's worked out for you.

Chef Chris Jones (16:42):

Yeah. I mean, it's got ups and downs and it's like a marriage in a lot of ways with some of these folks, but they're definitely become loyal and they have ownership too. They love the place and so that's super important.

Chef David Hill (16:57):

I think that's an important piece-

Chef Chris Jones (17:00):

I mean, they're the faces of the restaurants. I'm in the restaurants... Everyone knows I own the restaurants and I'm in there as much as I can, but I really want the guys that work for us to be the face and be that contact and have the rapport with the customers and everything else. It's really important. And it's important for their growth, too.

Chef David Hill (17:19):

Yeah. And I think with what you said, I agree with if I owned a restaurant, you got to make these people feel like, "Hey, this is your home too. Take care of it. Clean up your stuff. Hey, we don't want rats or whatever." You got to make sure that the place is always clean, well taken care of.

Chef Chris Jones (17:34):

Well, and you know, David, something happens every day. You know what I mean?

Chef David Hill (17:37):

A fire.

Chef Chris Jones (17:38):

There's a fire every day. It's always something. Not a day goes by where you're just sort of going... You got to keep in perspective. You got to let it roll off your back a little bit. And there's things you just can't do. Air conditioning goes out or certain things don't show up with the deliveries, staff calls off, obviously we had COVID, you have all kinds of things that-

Chef David Hill (17:59):

I was going to ask you about your COVID experience. Tell me about the hardship problems, what was going on with-

Chef Chris Jones (18:04):

Yeah. I mean, I think we're stronger for going through it, there's no question. We learned a lot about ourselves.

Chef David Hill (18:11):

Was there a shut down period for a while?

Chef Chris Jones (18:13):

Yeah. We did close. When no one knew what it was, you know what I mean, there was that freak out period where everyone's just like-

Chef David Hill (18:19):

So everybody stay home. Yeah.

Chef Chris Jones (18:19):

"What do we do?" The guidance wasn't great. Everyone's got their opinion formed and there's a lot of divisiveness around it early on. And we sort of had to take a critical approach and kind of decide what's best for us as a restaurant and what can we do? Restaurants are razor thin profit margins and you can't stay shut for too long.

Chef David Hill (18:43):

Right, right.

Chef Chris Jones (18:44):

And so, we decided really to kind of pivot to take out, obviously. We're in the pizza business, pizza travels well, it's a no brainer. I mean, I always say, "Well, there'll be zombies walking around and there'll still be pizza." So, we were lucky that way. And we were able to... Especially at LowBrow, we were able to transition into this curbside situation that we still do today. Nobody ever comes in the restaurant to pick their pizza up. We have a curbside situation that I think is the best in town and people call, they roll up and we got their pizza ready for them.

Chef David Hill (19:15):

That's awesome.

Chef Chris Jones (19:15):

We time it. That pizza's coming out of that oven within two or three minutes that you pull on up. We don't tell people 20 minutes, we tell them "It's going to be ready at 7:35."

Chef David Hill (19:25):

That's awesome.

Chef Chris Jones (19:26):

And if you're not there at 7:35, well, your pizza is. It's ready, so that's on you. And so we try and deliver the best product that way.

Chef David Hill (19:34):

Well, let me ask you with everything that you have going on right now, do you feel content with everything or is there more so goals? Is there going to be another place? What's in the back of your mind as far as future goals?

Chef Chris Jones (19:45):

I'm probably never content, but I have other interests too. But I'm starting to learn that. I have grown boys, my daughter's turning 16. I have missed some of their life because of the business and so I'm concentrating a little bit more on that. Trying to be around a little bit more. I mean, this is-

Chef David Hill (20:06):

That's that hard thing to balance.

Chef Chris Jones (20:07):

Restaurant ownership, when I was a country club chef, I just couldn't afford the time. I was... it was a demand. I had to be there and couldn't really get away with it, get away from it. The balance was awful sometimes and it did burn me out on the industry really and I knew that I had to take a leap to go out on my own and figure out how to do that. And so, ownership gives me some flexibility now.

Chef David Hill (20:31):

That's awesome.

Chef Chris Jones (20:32):

So I'm content that way, but pushing the restaurants is important to me.

Chef David Hill (20:37):

So you do foresee another restaurant coming or do you think you got your hands full?

Chef Chris Jones (20:41):

You never know. I mean, we get opportunities and people want LowBrow to move north.

Chef David Hill (20:46):

Oh, okay.

Chef Chris Jones (20:47):

We hear it all the time. Not sure we're ready for that yet. I'm always concerned about the staffing issues that we have, which is obviously Countrywide, but it's particularly bad in Naples. I've never seen it this bad. So, I wouldn't know. I don't know. These people opening new restaurants right now, I'm just kind of... I marvel at it because I don't know how you're staffing them.

Chef David Hill (21:07):

Right, right.

Chef Chris Jones (21:08):

Because the talent pool is shallow and there's just not enough people around.

Chef David Hill (21:13):

Very good.

Chef Chris Jones (21:14):

We got an issue here in Collier County with housing and everything else.

Chef David Hill (21:17):

I know, it's so crazy. Everything that's going on, I mean.

Chef Chris Jones (21:20):

It's tough, so. But yeah, we're always... We're growing and part of the reason why we grow is obviously there's an end game for us as an ownership, myself and my partner, but we have people to take care of too. When you grow, you provide opportunities, so that's an important piece of it for sure.

Chef David Hill (21:42):

I was going to say, we're talking about your youth, it's kind of like a young man's game and I think probably being a restaurant owner, you probably count on maybe a young chef coming aboard with a lot of drive and energy to say, "Hey, getting a little bit older, I'm going to train you how to do this thing," and maybe they could be like a chef type owner walking out.

Chef Chris Jones (22:03):

Yeah. I can't hang like I used to.

Chef David Hill (22:05):

I agree. I mean with me, I mean, it's still... You get older and you try to stay healthy.

Chef Chris Jones (22:11):

Yeah. I mean, I got hip replacements, I got...

Chef David Hill (22:13):

Oh, shoot.

Chef Chris Jones (22:14):

I'm beat up and the industry will do that to you.

Chef David Hill (22:17):

I know, it's very brutal.

Chef Chris Jones (22:19):

I worked my butt off to get to this point. But yeah, I got good young guys that are... They got their eye on the prize and they're really... they're moldable and they're definitely... They speak the same language I do and that's... When we go out and find somebody that kind of has that creative edge and kind of understands the philosophy behind what we're doing, we really take a really strong culinary approach to what we do. You wouldn't see it on the surface of it because that's the irony of our restaurants is that we are laid back and it looks like we're not that serious, but it's all scratch. I mean, we do everything from scratch, from our recipe. Nothing's ready to use, nothing's store bought. It's the real deal. It's real cooking. It costs us a lot more money, especially in the pizza business. You can buy everything in the pizza business, and get away with it too. I mean, it's almost universally accepted that trash pizza is a thing, but it's not what we do. We want to do it the right way.

Chef David Hill (23:24):

Are you more of a fan of taking someone who's not culinary trained and training them or do you kind of look for a graduate?

Chef Chris Jones (23:29):

A little bit of both, but I definitely like the fish out of water guy. Yeah. Because if he's motivated and he's interested and he has the drive, then you can instill your ideas pretty easily. The other side of it is someone that's just stuck in their ways and just won't budge and has their own ideas and their own agenda. And that sometimes doesn't work with a focused brand like we have. We definitely have a philosophy. We definitely have a brand. We definitely have a way forward with our cooking and the food that we produce and sell.

Chef David Hill (24:08):

Okay. Well, look, I think you're killing it. I mean, you got a lot going on and-

Chef Chris Jones (24:14):

Yeah, we're trying. It's not for a lack of effort. We've had pretty good success and the customers are great. Again, we created something that's... it's laid back and that's what Naples really needed. It needed a younger... I have grown boys and when I got here, I'm like, "Where do these guys go for dinner? Where's the under 50 set going?" Everyone builds a restaurant for the snowbirds and the Boomers and everything else and nothing against that, that's a big part of the market and we love those customers too, but we love craft beer. That's kind of-

Chef David Hill (24:50):

That's another niche.

Chef Chris Jones (24:51):

That's got a younger demographic and we're deeply interested in it, that's a big part of the restaurants. And then just food that goes with beer, you know what I mean? Barbecue, no brainer. Pizza, no-brainer.

Chef David Hill (25:02):

Totally.

Chef Chris Jones (25:04):

And we, again, those are areas where I think there was a need in Naples. There's plenty of pizza, but there's not great pizza. And, again, that's a subjective thing. Pizza's like a sense of place thing too. Connecticut has some of the best pizza in the country, New York obviously has some of the best pizza in the country, but that pizza's better in New York. That pizza's better in Connecticut.

Chef David Hill (25:27):

I hear it all the time. New York is the place.

Chef Chris Jones (25:30):

So our pizza's our pizza. We call it Florida pizza. This was made in Florida, created here, and so it's Florida pizza. And so I kind of always kind of remember that and try and tell customers that. Don't compare it to what you have at home. Because that's what people do obviously, but try and enjoy it for what it is here in Florida. And then same with barbecue. We're inspired by barbecue styles, obviously. We cook on big Texas style offsets, which is like a big converted propane tank with a fire box on one end, a massive chimney on the other. So [inaudible 00:26:05] heat and smoke all the way through the chamber. And I love that style of barbecue, but we're not tied to Texas barbecue. We love the Eastern Carolina style, the North Carolina style, the Memphis, Kansas city, so we kind of have a little mishmash of all that, those flavors, the idea of it and trying to do something that's delicious.

Chef David Hill (26:26):

How often are you taken on catering jobs?

Chef Chris Jones (26:29):

Well, more now. We're trying to do as much as we can. Barbecue's a-

Chef David Hill (26:33):

What's the biggest you've done?

Chef Chris Jones (26:35):

Well, we can cater up to probably up to 800.

Chef David Hill (26:37):

Wow.

Chef Chris Jones (26:37):

And we haven't done 800, but I've done some big numbers, but we have the capacity to okay. We have about almost 3000 gallons of smoking capacity at our central kitchen. And so we can do some pretty big volume. We're going to add to that as we grow, but catering barbecue is again, casual. We're not fancy. People don't want barbecue fancy. It's an eat with your hands, get messy kind of thing. And so there's a little less pressure on you when you do that kind of catering. You're used to the higher end, I know, and-

Chef David Hill (27:14):

I mean, I'm doing small events. I'm 20 people.

Chef Chris Jones (27:19):

Yeah. Yeah.

Chef David Hill (27:19):

You know what I mean? I'm not doing no 800.

Chef Chris Jones (27:19):

Yeah. But we can do some big stuff, but generally we see 50 to 150 these days.

Chef David Hill (27:24):

Wow-

Chef Chris Jones (27:26):

But we use the best stuff too. We're prime beef, best pork we can buy. So we're a little more expensive, I think, than... Barbecue has got a stigma, not stigma, but it's kind of known to be economic, which is... that's a tough thing to do because you buy great meat, there's a trim, there's a shrink, there's a yield and then there's 12 to 14 to 16 hours on a fire. And so the time and effort put into barbecue, people, they forget about that.

(27:56):

And the difference between us is that we do have a Pitmaster. We do have to tend to a fire. We're out there every 20 minutes stoking a fire and managing that fire to make sure that the heat and smoke is correct in the right temperature. And our competitors use automated smokers. They run on propane gas and they burn one log of wood and you set it and forget it and you can produce great barbecue that way, but that's not us. We're into more of the craft side of barbecue and want to do it... Honor tradition too, do it the right way and do it in a way that we're consistent and have great product.

Chef David Hill (28:34):

I mean, look, like I said, I think you're killing it. I had you on here because I watch you and I could tell you're a very professional person that's very serious about your craft.

Chef Chris Jones (28:44):

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I try to be. Again, irony of us is that we're... I'm a laid back guy. I try not to take myself too seriously, but we're serious as a heart attack about cooking, for sure.

Chef David Hill (28:56):

Well, like I said, you're doing great and I just want to say thanks for coming on today.

Chef Chris Jones (29:00):

Yeah. Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Chef David Hill (29:01):

All right, you have a great day.

Chef Chris Jones (29:02):

All right, you too, David.