“You’re Getting Scammed!” Joshua Weissman Reveals How Restaurants REALLY Make Money

So you started out as an overweight teenager who loved food, and now you're a shredded, rich, successful YouTuber with 10 million subscribers. How much time is realistically needed to get to, like, a decently impressive home chef? I didn't go to culinary school. I worked in restaurants, in real-life scenarios, learning real-life techniques and tricks. Where's the lamb sauce? What's the worst thing you've seen in a restaurant? State officials today looking to address the growing issue of substance within the restaurant and hospitality industry. There have been people that I've worked with that were like, and then one day they just disappeared. Someone was standing up with their chef knife. The person stood up and turned into their knife. They got rushed to the hospital, got stitched up, went back to service. How much money do you think your restaurant's going to make? I have no idea. I mean, how much does Gordon Ramsay make on his restaurant? It's like $200 million a year. This is my new restaurant, which officially opens today, and it's called Ben & Lynn's. What's the most you've ever paid for a meal? One of the most expensive ones was for you guys. I wouldn't say it's phenomenal. Not my cup of tea. It's too buttery. What is the biggest mistake that you have made? He's a friend. Yeah, it's fine. So why should people listen to you? Listen to me? Well, it depends on the advice I'm giving. If I'm giving advice about cooking, I can give you a few reasons. I feel like you're an expert, though, at cooking, cars, watches, and business. You're really good at all those things. You know, sometimes I feel like an expert in many of those things, and sometimes I don't. I feel like in cooking, yes. In cooking, I've spent my whole life learning how to be good at it, learning how to avoid mistakes. I've made a million mistakes. I've made a million mistakes cooking, right? Like, I spent my whole life doing it. So, like, my goal is to help other people avoid making the same mistakes I did in cooking. That's pretty much all I ever do. So if you ever watch any of my videos of me cooking, you're going to see I oftentimes interject and go, oh, by the way, don't do this because X, Y, Z, or do this because X, Y, Z. So my goal is always to give value. That's kind of it. But do people need to listen to me? No. There's a million resources out there, right? But I like to think that I'm doing something to help people. Why are people so drawn to cooking? Something I feel like everybody can understand to a certain extent, right? Like, everybody eats. I feel like this has been said so many times. Everybody eats. But the reality is, like, if you pick up something and it tastes great, there are certain things that universally taste good, right? Like a perfectly ripe and crispy apple, right? Lots of people love a perfectly ripe and crispy apple. Some people could sit down and, like, I could sit down and digress why it's so good, why I enjoy it, why I think other people will enjoy it. But at the end of the day, like, anyone can pick that. You pick it up, eat it, and understand it. You know, it doesn't matter what language you speak. It doesn't matter where you're from. You get it. So I think it's something everyone can touch. How did you learn to be a cooking pro? Oh, God, a pro? You guys are throwing the questions at me. I mean, you get paid to cook, right? And you were a pro. Were. Whoa. And you are a pro. You are a pro. I'm messing with you. I mean, I think the simple rule for life is just repetition. You got to be able to do it over and over and over again and not be afraid to make mistakes. And over time. Over time, you will master it. But that. What's the rule? It's like the 10,000-hour rule. 10,000-hour rule? It's kind of like. I look at it like that, right? Like, the more time you spend just failing and f***ing up and, you know, making small modifications, getting a little better every time, eventually you're going to reach a tipping point where you have a total understanding of a subject. And in the world of cooking, like, it really comes through repetition. How much time is realistically needed if you're starting from zero food skills to get to, like, a decently impressive home chef? Jack's asking for himself. You should see the way this guy cooks. Yeah, but I thought you cook now. I do cook now, and I use flaky salt, and I have MSG. Yeah, I mean, you're already there. I think it's healthy enough. He puts the steak in the air fryer. You know, honestly, I've come around with the air fryer. I've come around. They've gotten better, though. They've gotten better. I meant to say microwave. He hasn't graduated from the microwave. He still uses the microwave. Yeah, I don't even. You're talking to a guy who literally, like, when I first met him, his freezer was stacked bottom to top with Lean Cuisine and Hamburger Helper. You know, it's funny. Like, the first time I ever came on the podcast, I didn't know you guys that well, and then over time, we've become friends, which I love you, too. But the funny thing is, I remember when we first met, and I remember thinking, like, oh, you know, maybe, like, Graham will get into cooking and, like, get, you know, like, noticeably better by the next time I see him. And I feel like the amount of growth that's happened in your cooking from then and now is, like, pretty small. But I don't know. I don't need to because. It's completely fair. No, because any time I need, like, a really nice meal, honestly, I just, I buy CookUnity. And they're really good. CookUnity is sponsored by CookUnity. So how much time would be needed if you're taking, like, someone with no food skills to become an impressive old chef? Like, for an average person, if someone's watching this right now, and they, like, they want to become a decent chef, how much time would they really need to help? If I was teaching them or just very generally speaking? Just very generally speaking. I really think most people can do it a lot faster than they think. It's just the people kind of hold back too much. Like, again, this applies to so many things, but if you're willing to just throw yourself into it and let go of the fear of, like, messing up or wasting ingredients, which are real, you know, those are real tangible things to be worried about. But if you're willing to forego that, I think you can learn to cook pretty well. And honestly, if you, let's say, open a cookbook and you just keep cooking recipes out of a cookbook and follow directions to a T, let's say you do it three to five times a week. I know it's a lot. Maybe two to four times per week. I think you could become relatively confident in your cooking skills within two to four months. I'm not saying you're a master. You'll just have the confidence to keep going. Now, you say that you've made a lot of mistakes and a lot of this is a learning process. There was a time I was making a sauce called, do you know what a gastrique is? No. It's basically like a reduction between, it's vinegar, sugar. You reduce it into kind of like a sweet and sour syrup. It's a French sauce. And I was reducing the sauce. And a lot of time in restaurants when you're doing prep and it's early in the morning, you can utilize multiple, multiple burners. So you could theoretically have three or four sauces that need to be reduced, but they're all different. So you have like three or four pots with all your different associated sauces. You'd go throw them on the burner, get them to a boil, reduce it to low. And you know that, hey, these are going to take 10, 20, 30 minutes. I'll put different timers for different things. And then I'm going to go off and like, I don't know, pick some herbs or do something else, right? Maximize your time. Try to do as many things at once as possible. So anyway, I was doing that and I had all my pots on the stove. One of them was a gastrique and a few other sauces. They're all reducing. I go off and I'm chopping some veg. I'm doing some other prep to the side. One of my timers goes off. So I'm pulling all my different sauces as they get reduced at different rates. But one of them was taking a while. It was the gastrique. I pull them, I leave the gastrique on. I'm letting it sit. It's simmering. It's reducing. I go off and do another thing. I'm working. At this point, I forgot about the pot on the stove, the gastrique, the last one. So it's just kind of reducing and reducing and reducing. I have no idea because I don't even think it's on the stove anymore. I've completely forgotten about it. My timer went off and I let it go in my pocket and I didn't know. And someone goes, hey, there's a pot on fire. And I'm like, pot on fire. Well, I had a gastrique on, but I think I took it off. And also, how is a gastrique not going to catch on fire? It's just water or it's just vinegar, water, or sugar. That's it. And I go, I go over there and there's literally like a 12-inch flame, like a jet engine shooting directly out of this pot, like directly into the air. And I'm like, wait a minute. And then it says gastrique with my initials on it on the handle. And I'm like, wait, how is that even possible? And it's like carbon at this point. It's carbonizing. So it's like bubbling with like black soot out of the thing while also being on fire. So I'm like, okay, no worries. I got this. So there's a few ways to put out a pot fire, right? You could do baking soda. You could throw water in there, but that's more dangerous, right? It could splash, so many different things. So I suffocated it with salt. I took kosher salt and I just poured a bunch of kosher salt until literally was mounded up in the pot. It sounds like you're making a bomb. Yeah. That's crazy. And so the fire goes out. But then like a little like wiggling flame goes through the salt. And I'm like, ah, no big deal. And then it just keeps, and then the fire engulfs the salt and it's still going. And I'm like, how is this possible? Like, I don't understand how this is possible. And then, and then the president of culinary for that company walks in and he goes, whose pot is this? I'm like, oh my God, it's my pot. I don't know what's, I don't know how this is on, still on fire. It was a gas streak. And he's like, well, take it outside. And I'm like, okay, all right. And so I like, I start to pick it up and he's like, I got it. Moves me out of the way, grabs the pot and then walks outside with it. Tosses it on the ground. He's like, just put a hose on it. Anyway, this was like in front of the president of culinary, the CDC of the restaurant and all of my coworkers and all of the front of house are watching this go down. Yeah, it was, it was very embarrassing. Nothing really that bad happened, but it was like one of those things where it's like ingrained in my brain forever. So now I never forget pots on the stove. So as a chef, when you walk into a restaurant, what is the first thing that you notice? Probably honestly, sanitation. The first thing I noticed is like how clean are the tables, is the space well-kempt. It depends on where I'm going to eat though. Like if I'm going in and out, I'm not looking for that. Like I shut that part of my brain off. But if I'm going to like a nice restaurant, I'm not looking for problems to be clear. I just notice things, right? Like if the table's really dirty and I put my hands on the table and I'm like. you know you notice that it's sticky you get you ever sit down and like yeah grease on the table right ew right and then that makes you think oh what are they doing back there so that's probably the first thing i notice or or staff interaction like if the front of house are like particularly rude i mean i'm not going to say anything but i usually notice that can you enjoy a mediocre meal or do you find yourself hyper analyzing everything when you go out to eat no it's not fun to hyper analyze everything you got to be able to enjoy i listen like half of what is great of going out to is being with your friends hanging out with people having good conversation who no one really loves to go out to eat alone unless i don't know graham you i feel like you do i don't know why i like eating standing up as fast as possible you're just it's terrible macy hates it because what i'll do is i'll just microwave food i sit over the counter watching a youtube video and i just scarf down my food horrible i get it down and i'm on to the next yeah your digestion system's just working overtime man is there a proper way to eat though no i'm not a doctor i can't answer that for you you know you're gonna have to you're gonna have to get one of these wellness gurus to give you that info um but yeah i mean like i don't i really try not to overanalyze those things i don't think about it that often honestly i i just want to go out and eat and have fun but what do you mean by mediocre you mean like something that's not fancy yeah just like an average you know you're just like driving through barstow and you have to stop at a place i prefer eating like that i i think i'm kind of over fine dining a little bit you know it's like it's expensive um it's also just like i feel like i feel kind of stressed out when i eat at a fancy place you know they're like when they're sitting there describing the meal to you like sometimes i want that but like over like that's just not real life like sometimes you just want to go out and get a good burger sometimes you want to go out and just chill something more relaxed do you like it when they describe the meal because i've found when i go to very fancy restaurants which is not very often but when i do and they're just like let me read off this menu to you i'm like well i can read first of all like and then they go through everything and they say a bunch of words i have no idea what they're talking about and i'm like i have no idea what they're saying they're saying like different sauces and this jack's just gonna get the burger too we don't need to get the cheeseburger and if they don't have that i'll get the chicken fingers or the steak i thought we were talking about fine dining restaurant here okay yeah fair enough but i'm just saying like like this whole process of fine dining is it's a process getting a little annoying right now i think when they explain everything we need to do retention style editing for yeah waiters and waitresses like i think i think if there's a dish that's like inherently nest like there's a necessity to describe it like how to eat it if you know that people are always going to go hey how do i eat this like if it's if it's plated really crazy and you're like how i eat this i would understand i think that's helpful if some if staff go hey this dish has this and that it's easier if you eat it like nachos or whatever right like that i think is has value but i think if you sit there and explain every single dish it gets a little monotonous and boring and also i'm just kind of like awkwardly waiting there like can you leave i want to eat you know i'm curious when it comes to restaurants why do so many restaurants fail i don't have all the answers to that but i feel like uh i mean there's so many reasons that restaurants feel running a restaurant is really hard like i think people don't realize how hard it is to run a restaurant um margins are thin it's very hard to find um you know people who know what they're doing it's really hard to to keep standards high um it's really easy to make mistakes the margin of error is super small um so i mean all of those things combined obviously can lead uh to a treacherous path to somebody who's not as knowledgeable or is more inexperienced but even experienced people get knocked down and they're not as experienced as they are as experienced as they are as experienced as i mean we've seen tons of like celebrity chefs and like famous people who own dozens of restaurants and every once in a while they'll just close a restaurant what is more important is it location or good food i don't know anymore honestly like i i think good location is always going to help right like having a bad location is not going to help you so my first thought would be like location is probably a little more important but i think if you have bad food who cares right i think that this notion that you know if you have bad food but a good location like you'll survive is not necessarily true but it depends on the city right if you're in like a really expensive city like los angeles um or or even austin or or new york like i feel like even if you have a great location your rent's going to be really high so you're already spending a ton on overhead your staffing is going to be really expensive so you're even more overhead uh and so now you have all this that you have to pay off before you can even make a profit so if you're not selling enough volume or you're not selling at a high enough ticket per person which usually kind of goes back to the same thing you're not selling at a high enough ticket per person oftentimes um if it's not balanced properly then you're eventually going to become that negative pretty quickly so if your food is bad like how are you going to have repeat customers how are you going to sell enough food you know so i would say probably a good mix of both but location definitely helps how much does the average restaurant make because we've been to some pretty crazy ones where i see those build outs that are tens of millions of dollars and i look at the menu and i'm thinking how on earth are they ever going to pay this back but before we go into build it makes a little more sense why the food gets so expensive like if you go out to order a couple steaks maybe some drinks all of a sudden it's a 200 bill that's why a lot of the time i'd rather stay home make a great steak and eat really well for way less money the only thing is that you have to know how to cook a steak right for it to come out anything like the restaurants and that's the hard part because unless you really know what you're doing you're basically guessing when to flip it when to pull it off and how long to let it rest our partner chef iq does all of the thinking for you it tells you when to flip when to pull when to rest and even when it's ready to serve so whether you're making steak chicken pork lamb fish or even burgers you don't have to sit there wondering if you're about to undercook it or completely ruin it unless it's really simple you just download the app and connect the probes then just start cooking and chef iq will send alerts to your phone telling you exactly what to do and when to do it like our editor michael's girlfriend literally cooks everything for him he has no idea how to cook awful cook but he even cooked a perfect steak with it chef iq i mean this is just incredible this was the easiest thing the ui of the app is also so nice i could not cook a steak like this in a million years if i wanted to look at how juicy that is are you kidding me bro this is so good so if you want to feel more confident when you're cooking and save money by not eating out head to chef iq.com and use the code iced for 25 off sitewide once again that is chef iq.com code iced for 25 off sitewide how much does the average restaurant cost you to cook a steak with chef iq i mean this is just incredible this was the easiest thing i've ever done in my life i've ever done in my life i've never done a steak with chef iq.com high volume but low ticket cost restaurants right so that would be like a like a fast food place or a fast casual place where the price per person is lower but the volume that they sell is way higher but then you go to a fine dining restaurant oh well we only serve 50 people a night but it's like three hundred dollars a person so higher ticket average lower volume so you have to like tip the scales one way or another um so it it can vary pretty wildly depending on the type of restaurant that you're looking at but i will say the most profitable ones are usually lower ticket cost higher volume usually not always it depends like like i'll give you an example like um like steakhouses make a load of money like some steakhouses can make 20 30 sometimes 40 million dollars annually whoa in one space um just google like highest revenue steakhouse and what they get per location because it's like a big number it's like kind of shocking and is that steak or we're talking like drinks like both steak steak is like one of those it's so i think it's a i think a lot of what makes these type of restaurants like make a lot of money is the perception of value that's what i was curious about how much psychology goes into pricing because if you see a hundred and twenty dollar steak mentally i'm thinking oh that must be a pretty good steak 47 million dollars annually for one restaurant for joe's prime seafood and steak have you been there no but i mean that's just an example oh my gosh man that seems like the best place to go we'll join you million dollars per year for one restaurant wow isn't that kind of crazy so they so theoretically like if they sold that one restaurant as a business at a 3x multiplier they're selling it for over 100 million dollars okay what's their profit margin on that though i have no idea i don't know i don't have their books i don't know i mean i'm gonna be making 20 right i think it's probably between i don't i don't know yeah it could vary wildly i don't want to i don't want to say but like it could it could theoretically be 30 to 35 percent maybe that's a guess wild guess don't know for sure have you ever heard of the myth or truth i don't know i'm not really sure about in and out only making money from their drinks i've never heard of that i've never heard of that you've never heard of that i feel like that was like a pretty commonly shared belief is that in and out literally only makes money off of like their soft serve there's no way there's so many numbers that fly around in a restaurant it's kind of hard to say like what you know how much how much are they ordering what's their what do they have a special deal with their purveyor like if you're if you're an in and out you probably have a purveyor that you have a you're getting like really low pricing on product because you buy so much you don't have a you can usually get a special deal on it so they're probably spending less on tomatoes and lettuce and ground beef than anybody else in the world like theoretically right or in in u.s um i don't know like it depends maybe but there's so many different makeups right like i've heard from and i don't know if this is true or not but i've heard from people that uh terry black's barbecue is doing like 30 to 40 million a year as well and they have supposedly like 35 37 margins i don't know if that's true i don't know like i can't guarantee that i've never seen their books this was like a he said she said thing but i would believe it though because again they have volume and they have high ticket and that's what makes steakhouses so profitable because they're like perception of value right you've got a steak that they purchased it's a new york strip that's one pound it's one inch thick it's a nice big juicy steak uh they bought the steak for let's call it 20 to 25 but they're going to sell you that steak for 125 to 250 dollars right because it's australian wagyu and this that and the other but they might be getting a special deal they may be even spending even less per steak so their multiplier on food their food costs in correlation to how much they're charging you is just abysmal you can't do that in other restaurants but the perception to me when somebody walks into a steakhouse is they feel usually when people go to a steakhouse they're like oh this is going to be a fancy meal or maybe it's their you know valentine's day or it's it's their anniversary like it's a treat so most of the time people walk into a steakhouse they are prepared to and are okay with spending high ticket i don't know what it is but they won't do it at a certain fine dining restaurants what's interesting is some foods in my opinion have no reason being as expensive as they are for example sushi sushi is like rice and it's just like raw fish you don't even have to cook it yeah but they sell it for this premium price you go get one roll and it could be 20 at a restaurant and who gets full off of one roll realistically you need two to three have you noticed five you know like you need to eat a lot of sushi so it's extremely expensive for something that you think is it should be a lot cheaper have you noticed how many sushi places have opened in the last like five to ten years yeah but that's because what they're just more popular i feel like more people are just eating sushi these days it's because they're really popular and people have recognized that they're like probably one of the highest roi restaurant businesses you could possibly make like have have you guys noticed that there's like omakase is popping up everywhere yes where it's like just a table and like two chefs because now people can open a restaurant for like a little bit more reasonable cost because it's a small room they don't need a huge space they don't need 20 staff they only need two sushi chefs and maybe like a porter and and and a waiter or waitress they serve they don't need a huge space they don't need you know they have a seat for 10 people they do maybe two to three rotations so 30 people a night i i don't i can't think off the top of my head but let's say you get like a hamachi nigiri right it's per nigiri piece you might spend anywhere between 10 12 14 15 bucks dude it's like a half ounce of fish like 15 let's think about this for a second how much do you think just a fillet of the hamachi is 80 bucks no way less less way 30 way really yeah probably i mean i don't i don't have the price off the top of my head but it's way less than 80 like maybe the whole fish um but like you're probably spending i don't know maybe let's call it per side i don't know 40 bucks so you've got 80 bucks in the whole fish you have two sides each side is let's call it eight ounces so you got 16 ounces or probably more than that let's call it 24 ounces of fish right you're doing a half ounce per roll it's like do the math like you're making a crazy markup on that fish so one thing i'm really curious about there's a lot of fish that i've seen that i've seen that i've seen that i've seen there's an all you could eat sushi spot here in vegas it's 23.95 when you go after 9 p.m how do they make money because we're getting a table full of food for 23.95 maybe for them it's like they're regaining margin on product that would be thrown away anyways so and while we're on the topic of taking care of yourself it's also really important to think about the people who depend on you i think a lot about how much goes into building financial security and making sure the people i care about are taken care of is a big part of that yeah it's something nobody really wants to think about but getting a plan in place is actually way easier than you would think with our partner ethos they make getting life insurance incredibly simple so you can make sure the people who 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who rely on you are covered get your free quote at ethos.com iced coffee once again that is ethos.com iced coffee the link is also down below in the description application times may vary and rates may vary maybe they're they've got like they all they're fresh fish they're saving for like the the the the typical day eaters i guess uh you know the the the 6 p.m to 8 p.m crowd and then like whatever scrap pieces they do is it the full menu it's a limited menu well there's a few pieces they don't put on there's like a meat piece like a steak sushi one there's like very few pieces that are not available okay it's like 90 plus percent of the man that's kind of crazy i don't know yeah i'm maybe i heard it's reject fish like this is the fish that would have gone served at like a nicer restaurant but it didn't qualify for it so they just send it to all you can eat spots there's so many ways that they could make margin on that though like theoretically you're to your point they could be buying fish at a lower cost because it's lower quality and then they can sell that fish and get it sold um at a lower cost for you and then they're they're able to sell more volume again remember it's like ticket average versus volume so to to me it sounds like they're getting more volume by putting that 9 p.m they're packed every night cool great so now they're selling way more than they usually do so i'm sure that they make up their margin doing that so you just opened up a restaurant people have probably been wanting you to do this for a long time what was the logic behind that it's so funny you state the question like that like what was the logic yeah this is not a logical decision it's not a logical decision yeah yeah yeah yeah uh i mean look i i love food and i love restaurants uh i have a huge passion for hospitality before i was doing any of this i worked in restaurants i mean i didn't choose to go work in a restaurant to to um be you know have a silly fun time i did it because i love restaurants and i love hospitality and i'd also to be honest like just felt weird having this like connection with this community that i've built and i've built and built who also love food and i feel weird that i haven't been able to serve them my food do you know what i mean like that's that's like part of my mo i cook for everybody i know um it's a big thing for me it's how i express myself but it's also how i connect with people i like having conversation but it's so funny whenever i have people come over a lot of the time like i'll kind of like recede into the kitchen and be like quiet for the next hour or two so i can like really focus on making a great meal and then once i'm done i'm like hanging out with everybody but i really like that part where i'm like in the cut and making an experience for somebody right it's almost like if somebody loves acting or somebody loves being a comedian and they like performing it feels like a performance for me and i just feel like that part of my body and or that part of my brain has been like repressed for the past like five years because i i can perform on camera but i don't get to serve people my food uh and it just feels weird that i'm not and so it just felt like time to open a place so what went into making that decision like when did you decide that you wanted to open up a restaurant how long has this process been oh so long i mean the last time i opened a restaurant i opened a restaurant i opened a restaurant i opened a restaurant i think i talked about how i wanted to open a restaurant and it's taken a long time to figure it out because it's a big risk right i'm doing i mean i've gone through so many different iterations of restaurants there are other restaurants i would like to and will open over time but i've had to like bounce around on different concepts because i have multiple concepts already built but i had to bounce around with different concepts of like should i open this first or should i open this first and i was worried about what people would think if i opened this kind of a restaurant versus another kind should i go high end should i go medium whatever and ultimately i decided you know i really want my first place to be a place that anybody can eat i don't want to like be another person that's opening a super expensive restaurant that you can't get into that is like super exclusive it's like what's the point you know i i want anybody to be able to just swing in grab a bite it's affordable you can go in and get a sandwich and know that you're getting it for like a really really good price a very competitive one like one that competes with fast food prices so explain this exact restaurant how did you decide that the build out the location all of the logistics behind it with with most of the things that i do i always identify well exactly what i want the end result to be and then i work backwards so to me the end result was like i said i want it to be restaurant premium quality like something you would pay a premium for but deliver it to people in a much more affordable cost and way more chill like you don't need to dress up uh and so that was like the core of the idea and then i worked backwards from that so i was like okay well what will the dish be like will it be multiple dishes will be one i ultimately decided on like a holistic concept which was like fried chicken sandwiches i just feel like it's like an area that i i love fried chicken sandwich my favorite sandwich i would choose a fried chicken sandwich over a hamburger 99.9 of the time it's just to me it's a better eating experience um but most of the new ones that come out are like 25 bucks you know this one's way is way less than that and so i i'm saying that my sandwich is just as good as a 25 or 30 sandwich but it's just not that expensive you could just come in and get it for fast food prices and it's about 100 times better than what you'll get at and you know a wendy's or a burger king and it's actually made with premium ingredients we're making our own pickles we're making our own sauces we're making our own everything like basically right like we're breading hand breading our chicken etc once i figured out all of that i basically was like okay well we're gonna have to work really hard to make this margin possible and now it comes down to like really getting volume so like you know fingers i really believe if you put a good product out there people will show up so i'm hoping that you know we get the we get the volume that we're looking for the number of people to come in and eat and And at that point, once I figured out the branding, I was looking for a spot that would fit that. So I looked for what's called a second generation space, which is like places that already have a kitchen. That's it, right? Like let's say a restaurant was formerly there. They left. Now there's still a kitchen, but nobody, no resident. Nobody's holding that property. It's now up for lease. Those are the hardest to find. It took me three years to find one, three years. So I went to multiple people. The first year and a half, I went to different locations and tried to get a lease thing going. And then once I realized how long it was going to take for each spot because of the permitting and build out, I was like, we're so screwed. If we, it's going to take us years to open a spot and so much more money, by the way, because you have to pay for so much more because there's nothing there. So yeah, I found a second generation spot. We built it out. I did all the branding and probably over a quarter million has been invested like just in like general build out. Um, but I'm, I'm like the only, I don't have an investor. I don't have a fund. I don't have a, a friend giving me money. It's basically like, Hey, Josh, we need to buy this. And I put it on your personal credit card, but not my personal business credit card. Yeah. Yeah. I mean like, but basically, yeah, if, if something needs to be paid for, I'm, I'm paying for it essentially. And are you going to have a drive through? No, it's crazy about doing all of this with no investors is that everything is on his shoulders. So if something goes wrong, there's nobody else there to pick up the slack. And I think a lot of people relate to that. If you have a family and you have people who rely on you on a day-to-day basis, there's a lot that's riding on you being there, which also means you have to think about what happens to those people. If one day you're not there and that's where our partner ethos comes in. They may getting life insurance, incredibly simple. 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Again, that's code ice 15 for 15% off any mag back product with the link down below in the description. Highly recommended. This is completely unscripted. I genuinely love this phone case, and I have recommended it and got discount codes for every single one of my friends and family. It is like you don't know a good phone case until you have one. And I kid you not, this is the perfect phone case. Not for this place. Yeah, no drive through here. But I'm interested in doing a drive through. The only problem with the drive through is it adds a few logistical things that I'm not sure if I want to add yet or not. If people are like overwhelmingly asking for it, I will find a way to do it. Like, I want this to be a place that people are excited to go to. But as of right now, we don't have drive through. I always thought the drive throughs increased revenue substantially. Like, I always wish that you could do a drive through Chipotle. It just seems like an easy thing to do. So there's a few logistics that are involved with drive throughs. There's like, I'm sure there's additional permitting. But then there's also like you need a different kind of POS system, I think. I've never built a drive through, so I don't know. I just know that my operator that I work with, he's pretty hesitant on the drive through just because of the logistical hurdles to make it happen. It's not easy. Otherwise, everybody would have drive through. Do you think it's a good thing that it's so difficult to open up a restaurant? That's part of the reason why I wanted to open one. Because I feel like a lot of people are coming into the food space because it's a fun and I want to choose my words carefully. I don't want to say it's an easy way to make money, but I think people have identified food in the content space as like a place to find food. And that's not why I got into it. I can promise you that. But I don't like that. I don't like that people are just kind of jumping in just to make money, like because it skews all the people out there that are trying to do good things. And so the restaurant, I think, is a good barometer of who really cares. But do you think they actually make money? Like I saw a clip of David Dobrik saying that Dobrik's pizza is costing him ten to fifteen thousand dollars a month to stay open, but he likes it because he likes driving down Sunset Boulevard and be like, hey, there is my spot. If restaurants didn't make any money, then nobody would open any more restaurants. Right. I mean, I feel like that's a pretty that's like one common sensical way to look at it. But they are. It's harder to make. It's one of the hardest businesses to make money. And then you have to constantly baby it. But I mean, I mean, how much does Gordon Ramsay make on his restaurants? Like two hundred million dollars a year. So are you planning to franchise or are you planning to open up a whole bunch of restaurants? Like Dave's hot chicken sold for like what? One billion dollars plus. My number one goal is just to make really, really good food at keep the quality standards and just constantly deliver a great sandwich that people love to eat, that people will want to go eat, that will make people think more about having a good experience when they're eating. That's my that's my goal. Here's a here's a curveball question for you. Could you sell the chicken at that price if minimum wage was twenty five dollars? An hour? I think. Yeah, I think so. Because you we don't need a ton of staff to do our our our business like we built it in a way that we don't need like twenty staff all the time. Does it ever work to automate like the cashier in front? Like I see some of the McDonald's now that really just have this kiosks. You walk up to you, press a few buttons and like you just see someone scrambling in the back, just putting it together. I mean, of course, you're not paying another person. But I like I like the FaceTime. I mean, right now. We're so early beginning, you know, I don't know. Like I don't I will say this. I don't feel comfortable franchising. Would I open up multiple locations? Maybe. Yeah. I mean, I think I think it'd be really fun, actually, if like I could interact with the people who watch my videos and be like, OK, let's vote. I'm going to open another place. Where is it going to be? And then have like everybody vote for it. Have everybody be like L.A. or or whatever. Right. And whatever gets the most votes, we just like, all right. And then we just open wherever it gets the most votes. So I think that would be really fun because then it then now people can. They can enjoy the sandwich. But if you live in, I don't know, San Diego and San Diego one. Well, now San Diego can get the sandwiches that happen to come all the way to Texas. What's the secret to making a good fried chicken sandwich? I mean, many ways it's going to cat, right? Everybody has a has an opinion. To me, it's like a few things. The chicken has to stay crispy for a long time because once you put it on a sandwich, all the sauce and pickles and everything, it's going to go like flaccid and chewy. The goal is to keep it crispy. So something that stays crispy for a long time. So it's crunchy when you bite into it. The cook on the chicken is like. Maybe the most important part. You ever get a dry chicken sandwich? Horrible. Horrible. It's just like sawdust. You can't even focus on the eating experience because you're focusing on not suffocating to death on this dry chicken. So cook time on the chicken and then seasoning like and I don't mean like herbs and spices. I say this all the time. People make fun of me for it, but like salt levels are like really crucial for chicken sandwiches because there's so many components that it can it can be under seasoned really easily. And then maybe like the fourth one is like adequate saucing. Like you need usually a little more sauce than you think you need. I like it saucy. Which fast food restaurant has the best chicken sandwich then? Like who's who would be your main competitor outside of you guys? Who has the best chicken sandwich? Reliably, you go there, you get a chicken sandwich. This is almost ideal. I don't really have like a fast food place that does that for me. Popeye's. When the Popeye's sandwich first came out, I would say Popeye's was one of the leaders for sure. But now it's like I feel like their quality has gone down so much. That's just my own personal experience, though. Shaq is a hot chicken spot. I haven't had Shaq's yet. Is it big chicken? I think so. It's called like Shaq's Big Chicken. Yeah, something like that. I have no idea. Like, do you think that it's going to be worth your time? I hope so. So it's really that risky to open up this restaurant? I mean, you can sit there and run a pro forma. We've ran a pro forma. But I mean, like as as any anybody who's ever opened a business likely knows that you can write a pro forma and that's great. But it's a theoretical piece of paper. What if you just don't sell what was on the performer? okay, well then performance out the window. Um, it could make a, it could make seven figures if it does really well. Um, but I mean, of course there's the margin. Uh, and I think if prices change dramatically, the margin will change, right? If wages go up dramatically, the margin will change. Um, but I will say this though, um, I'm not taking any money from this place out the gate. Like I'm, I'm very, very focused on, on nurturing this business. I'm not going to like the second it becomes profitable, start putting in my pocket. In fact, like I'm going to probably if I, if, if opening another one makes sense because people really want it in another city, I'm just going to use the money that we make off this to open another one. I'm not going to just like start taking cash out of it. So I'm much less focused on making money off this place right now. And more so focused on just like making really good chicken sandwich and getting it to as many people as possible. What was the most surprisingly difficult thing about opening up a restaurant? I mean, the risk, the risk is theoretically infinite. I mean, unless you close the doors, the risk is theoretically infinite. Right. Um, and as, as you know, like the failure rate for restaurants are extremely high. The costs are extremely high. Um, and if in, in my case, if you don't have an investor, I mean, somebody has to pay for something, right? If something goes wrong, let's, let's, let's look, let's look at it like this. There's the initial investment of all the stuff and equipment you have to buy commercial equipment, super expensive. Like if you, if you need a commercial oven, $20,000, if you need a new hood vent, that could be 60, $70,000. For a hood vent. I mean, why do you get a commercial thing? Why don't you just get like a residential hood? It's illegal. Every city has rules. You have to have commercial permitted equipment in a commercial space to serve people from a food safety standpoint, but also for, from city safety standpoint, they want to protect against fires. They want to protect it. And also, by the way, here's another thing. It's not just a hood vent. Where is your, uh, where is your out, uh, your output for the hood vent? Where's all of the, whatever the hood vent is sucking up, where is it going physically out of the building? Is it going out the top or is it going out the side? Because there's also rules about that. If it's going out the side, you have to add something on the, on the outside of the building called a scrubber. So it, it, it's called scrubber because it scrubs, it cleans the air that comes out before it exits the building because it could be blowing on a street. It could be blowing into someone else's building and scrubbers can cost thousands and thousands of dollars. You know, what's really interesting. I'm always tempted to go to restaurants when I drive by and I get the whiff. And I get the smell, you know, like wood ranch. Every time you drive by a wood ranch, you get that smell of that meat being cooked. And it makes me want to go there. There are very few restaurants that do that. There's also people that theorize that's not even from the food. They're just spraying fragrances into the air. That's, that's what, there's no way. Maybe I'm just on like conspiracy food Reddit or something, but I've also heard about something like that. I'm just saying that could also be a potential marketing ploy is to spray fragrances that lure people into your restaurant. So. I've thought about this. Is this something that you're going to lean into is making like the streets smell like your chicken. Should I make chicken candles? That. Fried chicken candles. That would genuinely sell, like you walk into an In-N-Out and you can buy In-N-Out clothes. You walk into your restaurant and you buy chicken candles. Yeah. Like, like our, our herbs and spices in the form of a candle. Yes. That's hilarious. That's actually really funny. Okay. I'll, I'll see what I can do. What about the risk of lawsuits? Like someone comes in, they slip and fall or they say, Hey, I got really sick from the food. It's under, yeah. I mean, theoretically that can happen with literally any business, like any physical business. If you guys decided you wanted to open a, I don't know, like a, a finance com, like a company that finances houses or something, right? A mortgage company, which I don't know that you would ever do that, but if you did, and you had a physical building, you run that risk too, right? Any physical location, um, insurance, right? You should have insurance. We, we have all sorts of insurances, uh, for that. Graham's asking how good your insurance is and if the floors are going to be slippy. I got wobbly feet. Yeah. He has really wobbly feet. You know, very prone to just slipping. Well, it's funny you say that. I actually have a picture of you on the wall that says, do not let this man enter, give him the sandwich on the other side of the street. On the drive-through, hopefully. Yeah. Now you're going to run the car. Yeah. Now, one thing I've noticed though, is it seems like a lot of influencers these days are getting involved in like restaurants and they're really promoting restaurants and doing a great job. Like I love the people in their car. They're just eating in the car. I love them. I've been to a lot of the restaurants. Cause I see them in the car and they just rave about the spot and then I find it fun to show up. Yeah. So is this something that more restaurants should lean into? You don't even need to, cause they'll show up if it's good. Right. But, um, sure. Yeah. I don't see why not. I mean, these guys aren't like chefs, but I mean, some of them seem to have pretty good takes. I did a video where we went and like tested the pallets of a few of them and like went to all the places that they recommended. And a lot of them were actually pretty good. Um, I'm open to it. I, it's not like you need to be a chef to say if something's good or not. And some of them have good pallets. Can an influencer save a bad restaurant? Yeah, totally. It's, it's happened a few times, hasn't it? I think there've been a few news articles of like restaurants that were struggling and then like Keith Lee goes there and then they're fine. But I'm curious. Why is a good restaurant struggling? That's what I want to know. Like if you have really good food at somewhat of a reasonable price, isn't it kind of just like natural that you would start to get regulars and be able to sell enough food to make a profit? I feel like at this point it's like a little bit, you kind of have to lean into the theory of it. Right. Cause there's no way to know for sure, but I mean, we live in a noisy world. There's restaurants all over Las Vegas. There's restaurants all over every city. Um, and they're all trying to promote themselves. They're all trying to get people's attention. So when you have so much noise going back and forth, sometimes people can get forgotten in the mix. Maybe they're not a savvy from an entrepreneurial standpoint. So their margins aren't right. Maybe their food is good, but they have consistency problems. I mean, there's just so many reasons why restaurants fail. Uh, it's, it's tough to like nail down a specific reason, but the one thing that I am curious about is how long can a restaurant succeed from an influencer post? Because let's say like Keith Lee goes somewhere and they blow up, but is it going to be blowing up for the next five years? I don't think so. I think it would be like a couple months maybe of like high foot traffic, but like, do they maintain that? I don't know. I'm curious. Like we don't have the data for that yet. I think dough bricks is kind of an example of that because originally there were lines out the door, like they, they would sell out. But now I went there recently and like, there's like a couple people in there, Matt. Yeah. I mean, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. And so I think that it might just be like that beginning phase. And then like, if your food is really good, people will continue going there. But like David Dobrik is not a chef. Like David Dobrik isn't known for food. And also like, I guess let's take a step back. What about the restaurants that have been around for 10, 20, 30, 40 years? What makes them successful versus these other places? Like if you let's take a restaurant that's been open for like a long time, like dominoes, right? Because I guess that's a pizza concept. So let's look at Domino's and let's look at Dobrik's. Why is Domino's around for so long, still has the sales that they do? That's just because it's easy. What do you mean? Just being able to go online. They're everywhere. Everywhere you go, you get essentially the same product versus Dobrik's is one location, physical. I don't know if they deliver. So then why doesn't he make those changes to make it easier to get? Like, why doesn't he, why didn't he add a drive-thru element? Why didn't he add an Uber Eats element? Why didn't, you know, like, uh, is that his answer? Is his answer to make it easier for people to eat and then his problems are solved? That's probably also Domino's is the cost structure down that they're able to do so much. Yeah. But there's so many examples of that, right? It's not just Domino's. There's, there, there are restaurants where there's a lot less restaurants, um, or sorry, a lot less, uh, number of buildings, but you know, they're doing really well. There are restaurants that have 10, 20, 30 locations and they do really well. And they've been around for 10, 20, 30 years. Or what about the single restaurants? There's single restaurants that have been around for decades. Um, like what about Mr. Beef in Chicago? That just, all they do is sell Italian, sandwiches. They've been around for literally generations, but why are they still around? There's just an Italian sandwich. It's not even expensive, actually. Um, it's not even expensive meat, but they've been around for generations. I think the question is like, what is it that makes a restaurant stick around and what are these other places not doing that is, you know, that they're struggling with? I also think things ebb and flow too, right? Maybe, maybe he'll go back up later. Um, I don't know. Right. Now for the really nice restaurants out there, how do they treat celebrities different? Like, if, if a normal person just calls up, Hey, is there any availability? No, we're booked, but like Brad Pitt comes in and somehow they have a table. Are they, do they always have tables? Most restaurants don't book all of their tables in advance, but it's not because they're holding it for a celeb. It's just that they always have, they leave room for walk-ins basically. Right. Because people cancel their reservations. So if you fully book your restaurant and you're relying on people to eat in your restaurant, if you fully, fully book it, as in like you book every single table, you know, a day or two in advance, well, now anybody who comes in off the street, they're going to walk up and you're going to go, Oh, I'm sorry. We're booked for this evening. Right. Which, which can happen. But then what if 20% of the people that book don't show up, you could have sat, you could have seated those people. So you always leave room for walk-ins in the event that there's a walk-in just to make sure that you maximize as many customers as you can get as much volume as you can get to make sure your restaurant's full. But, and this is, this is where the celebrity part comes in. If a celeb calls and maybe they really like that celeb or they, they want them in the restaurant. Yeah. They'll probably pick off one of their seats that's reserved for walk-ins and give it to them. So we have in the past, not that I like it. In fact, I kind of hate it, but we'll call and they'll be booked. And then Graham will tell someone usually, Hey, you call as my assistant and say, we have YouTuber, you know, or some, some person, famous person coming in later tonight, if you have some space and I'm like cringing in the corner, but every, I think every single time it's worked, it's worked every single time. We did it the first time as a joke, just to see let's mess with them a little bit and show Sure enough, they got right back. Yes, we'll see you. And it was prime time. It was like 8 p.m. And it was a party of like six. And somehow they made it work. One of them I didn't even believe at first was in Vegas. Have you seen this place? Whoa, yeah, yeah, yeah. Really famous. For six months straight. But somehow they could have availability. Yeah. We've had it happen to us multiple times whenever we do shoots and we need to shoot at a really famous restaurant or like a multi-Michelin or like something that's booked out months in advance. And sometimes we're like, we need to book, but we don't have enough time to book. And we'll call them and be like, hey, we're shooting a video. We want to cover your restaurant. And usually they're like, yes. So yeah, they have room for it for sure. But they're not, I don't think that they're, I don't think that they're inherently reserving it just for famous people, but they will give it to them for sure. And so do they just boot someone else off? No, no. I think they're, I think that they're giving. Or they'll make a table. No, they're giving you the walk-in table. Oh, the walk-in tables. I think that if it's a fine dining restaurant seats and they don't take walk-ins, I don't think they're booting anyone, but I do think they'll try to find a way to make a table or get an additional table. One time I, oh, I feel so bad for this. So there's a restaurant in Denmark. I'm actually good friends with the chef now after this happened, surprisingly. You would think that he'd hate me after this. So the restaurant's called Alchemist. Have you heard of this place? Crazy. Yes. Crazy, right? Have you been? No, but I've seen all the videos. Honestly, this is a place that I think you should go to, even though it's so like outside of your, honestly, I would watch. A full-length video of a GoPro of him just going through that. Oh, gosh, I don't know if I could do it. Describe it to Jack. It is a 50-course, seven-and-a-half-hour dining experience through three or four different dining rooms. It is the most absurd restaurant experience I've ever seen in my entire life, not just operationally, but from an experience standpoint, it is genuinely mind-boggling. How much does that cost? I don't remember it. I think it was like $800 to $1,000. That's it? No, I think it's more than that. I think it's at least $1,000, but I don't know the exact number, though. We might want to quote that because I don't want to say the wrong thing. For eight hours and 50 courses? It's a pretty good deal for how long the meal is. I think some of the courses, though, are like a little bite. Yeah, one bite. You'll lick something. Yeah, that's true. There's a part where you start eating paint, actually, in a room and painting with a crazy person dancing. It's pretty wild. Oh, but the story. Here's what happens. I didn't know. How big of a deal this restaurant was. I knew that they did really cool stuff. I didn't do that much research on them. I just knew, oh, this is a really famous place. Michelin star. The chef is amazing. And I was trying to get a reservation, but I couldn't figure out how they were. I was on the plane from Texas to Denmark with my wife. And I'm like, oh, I really want to do a dinner with her there. And so I'm like looking and trying to figure out. And I'm like, I'll just DM the chef. Maybe he'll help me get a reservation, whatever. So I DM him. And this is the evening before. The dinner. Like normally they're booked months in advance. They did not take walk-ins. They literally have like a locked door that only opens at your reservation time. No way. Like a two huge mass of like 20 foot doors, like open like the gates of heaven or hell. Anyway, so I DM him and he goes, let me see what I can do. And then he comes back to me and he's like, we got it all sorted. We got you guys booked. And we go there. I found out that they had to get a new table and put in a new table in every dining room. No way. New chairs. Just for you. For us. And I was, I felt so bad. I had no idea. And then we did, we went through this whole meal. It was amazing. We had a great time. We met the chef. We met all the people. They were super sweet to us. And at the end of the meal, they didn't charge us. They would not charge us. And I had, we had a lot of wine pairings that night. So, I mean, we would, we definitely would have been on the higher end of the cost of that. And they didn't charge us anything. All right. I'm so curious. What perks do you get as Joshua Weissman? Perks? I really try not, I really try to force people to not give me perks. I don't want that. Like, I want to support the, restaurants are hard enough. I don't, I don't want to get a meal for free. If anything, I try to force them to make me pay. Like at the end of that meal at, at Alchemist, I specifically was like, please charge me. And they were like, no, no, no, no, no. And they literally refused. So I basically got them to, I basically forced them to charge me a dollar so I could tip my waitress. Yeah. That was the most that they would let me do. It's kind of crazy. But how often do you just sit down at a restaurant, just, you're just out with maybe some friends or whatever and they just say, hey, don't worry, it's on us. It's, it's often, but like I normally don't let them though. Like I normally don't let them. I literally do not let them. Usually the, like, a lot of restaurants will send stuff out for me, which is really nice, but I always over order. So I usually end up having like, my table's like too stacked with stuff. That last night we got, we got that $120 mozzarella for free. Couldn't believe it. Now what's great about going out with you is, that I get all the food to go. I hate any sort of, And then I pay for it. Yeah, but I don't like any sort of waste. I don't like ever. I never like it. Listen, I never like it when food is thrown away. To me, it just feels like that's, that's food that someone prepared. Yeah. Especially if it's like an animal food, like some, some animal gave its life to feed people. Like I'm going to eat it. How much food waste is there in restaurants? I mean, I would hope that it's gotten better today, but I mean, when I worked in restaurants, what I saw, was obviously a lot of, a lot of food waste. It, it really depends. Some restaurants are really good about it and they make sure that they, they check. Some restaurants will literally check the weight of something at the beginning, at the end of producing it, so that they know how much food waste and they can calculate how much they're wasting to try to minimize it. So some restaurants are really good about it, but the restaurants that don't do that is really out of control. Because think about it. If you sell like a meat product, you're ordering hundreds, thousands of pounds of meat. Anything that reaches the end of its lifespan in terms of food safety gets thrown away, obviously. So that could be in the hundreds of pounds. It could be more. Um, fine dining restaurants, whenever they make like really highly portioned foods. So like you, you ever go to like a fine dining restaurant and there's like a, a perfect piece of meat that's like exactly rectangular. Well, the meat didn't come that way. So they'll usually cook the whole thing where they'll like kind of par cut it, cook it. And then they'll do what's called portioning where they portion it into the perfect shape. Now a good restaurant will take the trim and make something else with it. But a restaurant that doesn't give a, we'll just throw the trim away. And if they're throwing trim away, they're, they're wasting probably anywhere between 30 to 50% of all of the meat that they use for that. And that does happen. But I couldn't tell you which restaurants are doing it right or wrong. One thing I'm really curious about is the restaurant rating. Like when you walk in, you see like an A or a B or a C. What goes in behind the scenes to get an A? Or when you see a C, is that a red flag? I don't know if it's exactly a red flag. Like sometimes, some health inspectors are brutal, man. It's really hard. It's really hard for restaurants. But I mean, there's so many things, right? Like, like from a food safety standpoint, every restaurant has usually two buckets, right? They have buckets for soap and they have buckets for sanitizer. And it's really important that they constantly rotate the bucket of sanitizer because the sanitizer that's in the bucket has a certain lifespan. So if they don't rotate it, they basically, usually people will label it with a time to swap it out and put fresh in. And then they put a new, label on it. If you don't constantly rotate that and the inspector notices, hey, this sanitation bucket has been out for an hour longer than it's supposed to, and you haven't rotated it and put a new label on it, that's a demarcation. If you, if you, I mean, appearance, right? If the floors are super dirty and their walls are greasy, that's a demarcation. Like there's so many little things. Like if you're busy and you forgot to replace your sanitizer, like you're getting marked for that. That kind of sucks, right? But it's also dangerous because the sanitizer isn't as effective. So if you wipe something down, with sanitizer that's old, you might not be cleaning it at all. But a food safety inspector, are they typically like undercover when they look into a restaurant? Okay, so they walk in with the clipboard and everything. Okay. And also like, let's be real, like someone's in your kitchen, like doing this, like. Oh, okay. They're like, no. Yeah, yeah. But you, you usually know, like a little bit ahead of time. Like you'll usually know like an hour or two. I, anytime I've ever worked in a restaurant, I've usually been like, hey, the health inspector is going to be here today at 2 p.m. Like, so I've never seen them come in undercover. What's the most you've ever, paid for a meal? One of the, one of the most expensive ones was for you guys. Oh, gosh. Was that Jose Andres? Jose Andres. What was that, like four grand? You know what's funny? We sit down and they're like, you know what? Like, we'll order for you. Like, we will take care of you. Like, this will be great. We'll get you all the good stuff. We're sitting down looking at the prices and you're like, this is pretty expensive. Like, this is nice of them. They brought out the A5 that I didn't order and then they charged me for it. Yeah, and then they bring down the bill and it's like a few thousand dollars. Yeah. They must've made a mistake. Wow. Did you make your money back on that video? Not, yes, yes, yes, we did. Okay, good. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So what was the most expensive meal outside of that? I did an omakase once with a bunch of friends and I paid for everybody. And it was like a really expensive omakase. And I think it was like, we had 20 people eating with us and it was like, with drinks, because I mean, think about how expensive sushi is, right? And then go to an omakase and then multiply that by like 15 to 20 people and then everybody's having alcohol and everybody's having all the, like 4,000, 5,000 bucks. Yeah, no, I think it was like, it was nine grand plus tip. So like, maybe like, it was over $10,000. I don't remember how much. So I think I got you beat, believe it or not. Really? Believe it or not. Wow. So I run this group, it's called The Index, link down below in the description. It's a group of entrepreneurs and we meet up four times a year. And the first meetup we ever did, I booked 21 Royal. in Disneyland, and this is Walt Disney little house above the Pirates of the Caribbean. You have no idea. This doesn't sound like Graham at all. Well, it's for an entrepreneur meetup group. So it makes sense in context of this. But it's $1,500 a person. And it was $18,000 for the dinner. Plus, I think we tipped another $2,000 on top of that. It might have been $3,000. But it probably already included gratuity, I'm sure. So you probably paid on top of that. I don't know. It was just a flat $18,000 that we tipped on top of that. So it might have been $20,000 total for, I think it was, 10 or 12 people. That's brutal. Wow. Does my wedding count? I guess not. How much was the food at your wedding? We had a 25-person wedding. But I had a two Michelin star restaurant cater it. No way. Yeah. And it was 25 people. And it was shockingly expensive. I think it was like $23,000. How expensive was your wedding? I don't remember. I don't remember. It actually wasn't as bad as you would think. It was not as bad as you. Honestly, big hack. Big financial. You can either have a big wedding in the States and let's call it 100 people. And you spend. I honestly don't know. You guys know this, right? If you want a nice-looking wedding, it's expensive, right? Flowers are expensive. The venue might be $30,000 to $50,000 or more. Sometimes venues are $100,000. But I've seen a lot of weddings go into anywhere between the $50,000 to the $100,000 marker for 100 people with good food and a nice venue, right? You could do that. Or you can take your clothes off. You can take those family, 25 people, and go to Italy or France or somewhere that's vacation-like for a week. Take them all out there. Pay for their flights. Get a venue. The venues out there are a lot less expensive. You could literally do this at an Airbnb. You can get an Airbnb and stay at the Airbnb, like a wine vineyard. And it's maybe $2,000 a night for everybody to stay there. And you'll spend probably less money doing that. And you'll be able to have a whole week's worth of fun. So we did that instead. So what do you think that costs total? Like 100 and something, 150? All right, hold on. When weddings start getting that expensive, you have to start getting a little bit creative with where your money's actually going. Yeah, because you still want it to feel special without spending a fortune on every little thing. Exactly. You want to find those unique things that stand out and are actually worth the money. And small business owners are basically looking for the same thing when they're stocking their stores, which is something our partner, FAIR, makes a whole lot easier. FAIR gives independent retailers access to over 100,000 unique brands from around the world, so there's a ton of products to choose from, especially if you're looking to stock up ahead of the holidays. And having those unique products can make a huge difference because they help your store stand out, they bring in new customers, and they keep your regulars coming back. Not to mention, FAIR has wholesale products across home, apparel, beauty, food, and more. And if you're ready to join more than 700,000 retailers with access to over 100,000 brands, sign up today and get 50% off your first wholesale order up to $100 at faire.com. Iced coffee. Once again, that is faire.com slash iced coffee. You can also click the link down below in the description. Terms may apply. Like 100 and something? 150? Probably less, honestly. I think less. I think you could do it for as little as 50. And probably if you want it to do a lot of flowers and stuff, it's going to go up pretty dramatically. It could end up in the $100,000 marker, maybe. $100,000, $150,000, maybe. You could end up. It just depends. I mean, I've seen people do it for a lot less. I have a friend who did one like in Poland and he did it for like 50K. It seems pretty affordable compared to Logan Paul. How much was his? $3 million? Millions. Oh, yeah. We didn't spend even close to that. I think we maybe spent $125,000, maybe. And that was to fly everybody out, put everybody up for a week and a half. We paid for dinners. We had like two Michelin star restaurant caterer. We had amazing. Amazing floral arrangements. Like, it was a good deal. I was not looking to get screwed by the wedding industry. Right. So, it was fair. Do you think tipping culture has gotten out of control? I don't care. I just tip. It's fine. Like, if it makes somebody else happy, like, I'm always happy to tip. I always tip way more than I need to. I usually tip anywhere between like 25% to 35% minimum. What if it's you're going out to a coffee restaurant or like a coffee shop and you get a coffee to go? I always tip 25%. Do you tip when you. Order food to go and they give it to you in the plastic bag? I tip regardless, honestly. Okay, I mean, I do too. I'm just curious because a lot of people, like, think that tipping culture has gotten completely. It has. You know what? I think it's made it more harder to make things affordable for people. I think the average person, it makes it way harder to make things affordable. I would be frustrated. But, I mean, like, I also know that, like, I can. I'm happy to do it. I can afford to tip them, so I do it anyway. And if it makes their life better, then great. I tipped on. My smog test. I've tipped on my smog test as well. Okay, well. Yep. The guy was really nice and really chatty, very friendly, and just, you know, turns that thing around and there's the tip. And I was like, I can't not tip now. But it is the job to do the thing. I just understand why can't businesses just pay people what they should be paid? You know, the tipping thing feels like. I guess where it gets out of hand is if people aren't being paid what they should be paid, and then needing to use tipping. Yeah. Yeah. It helps to get up to that point. But they're not. They're paid what they're paid, but the tipping is free. I mean, it's just like, for them, it costs the business nothing. I guess it's an incentive for them to stay at the company. Or to just, like, just hop here and cheer here. There's no downside for the business or the employee to turn the thing around, and then it says, what do you want to tip? And that's why at some point it does make sense to, like, speak out against, you know, tipping for a smog test. Here's where I would draw the line. So, do you do Christmas lights in your house? Yes. It's expensive. Yeah. I'm grandfathered in, though, so I've got the original price. I was one of the first customers. Really? Can I ask how much you pay? Yeah. I think it's $800. What? That's so good. Yeah, that's what I was saying. So, it's $400 to put up, $400 to take down. But I think now they charge, like, $1,500, but they've never raised the price. Yeah. And in fairness, we've given them a lot of business. Okay. So, there was a. I don't use this company anymore, but there was a company that I was using, and it was, like, $2,500 to do Christmas lights every year. And then, one year, they charged me the $2,500. And every time I paid it, I winced, because I'm like, God, this is so dumb, just, like, Christmas lights up. But I'd rather do it than, you know, risk my life. They sent me the invoice, but there was, like, a tip. Like, a mandatory, you have to, like, put a tip. Mandatory? Mandatory. You could press no tip, but it was, like, a mandatory button you had to press. And I was like, oh, wait, what? But I'm already paying $2,500 for you to put up my Christmas lights. What's the tip? What am I tipping for? Do you know what I mean? Yeah, but there's no. But, again, there's no downside. If even 20% of people give something, it's free money. Yeah, I guess, like, it doesn't matter. If there's an option to press no tip, then I guess, like, it doesn't matter. But there still is that social pressure to always tip. Like, if they're turning the thing around, like, there's no way I'm never clicking no tip. I've never pressed no tip, you know? Did you tip on the Christmas lights? I did. How much did you tip? I think I tipped, like, 10%. Because I was already paying $2,500, dude. I think there's. And it's one guy. Who am I tipping? That's what I would think. It's like, if this dude is getting. If his business is charging $2,500, why don't you. Hey, dude, start your own. Honestly, start your own business with the amount of money that you got. It was his business. Yeah. So you're tipping the business only. Yes, you are. It makes no sense. It's just like, if you want it. Correct. Probably for the holidays. He was a one-man band. It was literally just him putting up Christmas lights. So my confusion. That's where I get confused about the tipping. If you're a sole. If you're like the sole business owner and you're doing the work and you ask for a tip, that's where I'm confused. Because I'm like, well, you set the price. Why not just set it at the price that you want to charge? We technically have tipping enabled on the channel. Like, people could leave us tips, and I get them every now and then from people who comment. And it says, like, so-and-so tipped you blank. Okay, I'm going to be honest. Guys, do not tip the channel. Just don't do it. Like, you don't need to. You don't have to. You guys have the most tips you've ever gotten. I would not recommend tipping you on the channel. Everybody tip this just to prove them wrong. No, if you want something, become a YouTuber. Like, a channel member, because then you're actually getting something. Don't tip us. Yeah, yeah, right. Don't tip us. Just save the money and invest it in your Roth IRA. The channel memberships are way more fun. And we're doing post-shows. We're doing midweek episodes as a channel member. Or just throw in a Roth IRA. Either or. Why do you have a tip button? Why don't you just take it away? I honestly didn't even know if I'm being. No, because. Well, the honest answer is because if people want to do that, it shows up. And their comment gets boosted. And then I always see it. I always respond to every single one of them. But we aren't prompting people to tip. No. But it's there. But, yeah, it's not like you're watching a video. It's like, do you want to tip this YouTuber? That's insane. That would be so funny. We should do a graphic where it turns around. Wait, why has a company not came up with that idea? Like, tipping YouTubers. That is hilarious. That'd be so funny if it was like a graphic of a hand emerging from the window. And, like, going like this. I would love to see the video just paused at the exact moment. And saying, like, how much do you want to tip? And then you could say no. But then you're going to be on a list as, like, one of the people who said no. Like, I even think I could be incorrect here. But I even saw there was, like, I was paying a bill or something like that. I'm talking, like, a utility bill or, like, an internet. But there was a tipping option on that as well. Of, like, it was some sort of utility. It might have been, like, the pest control guy. But it was one of those where everything now, the tip option is there. I guess, like, in some ways you could say it's gotten out of control. But in most cases, like, pretty much every case, I'm just like, whatever. I'll just do the tip and, you know, it's all good. And what about expensive wines? Because. The service is basically the same if you're opening up a cheap versus an expensive bottle. You know, you could get a $30 bottle. can get a ten thousand dollar bottle should your tip vary from you know fifteen dollars to to three hundred or three thousand speaking of that i do want to say there was a post that went crazy viral on twitter of a lady who got reamed for leaving a tip that was like thirty dollars because her meal was like a thousand but only because she ordered the really expensive drinks and she said it takes the exact same amount of time exactly what you said but people were blaming her that if you have the means to do that you also have the means to tip but this person argued no the person didn't spend any more time any extra service on me than they did the other table the work didn't change that's so funny you say that i've thought about that once before this happened to me not that long ago i went to a coffee shop and i got my i got my typical order my wife's coffee but then i got like three bags of beans and the beans were super expensive they were like 30 bucks per bag so you know my my bill or the the final cost is like i don't know 130 or something right now had i not ordered that i would just immediately press 25 but then i i paused because i was like wait a minute why is my tip because i you know did my typical 25 sign and paid and i was like wait what did i just tip them like 40 bucks like what what just happened but it was because the initial bill was so much higher i was like oh wait but i just picked these bags up and bought them does that mean that i should tip them 40 or do i tip them for the coffees that they made me like i don't know i have done that exact same thing at a coffee shop buying the beans they throw that in with the espresso shot that i got and i'm like i got one espresso shot and i'm tipping like eight dollars like the cost of the espresso shot for grabbing a bag yeah it's it's a little that's that that part's a little confusing to me it doesn't make sense how like that you can tip 15 or you can order a door dash and a person literally goes and picks up food drives it all the way to your house delivers it to your front door takes a picture and that is like 15 tip to like those services in my mind do not appear to be equal and so like there are certain things i'll like i'll tip more aggressively on and then the other things like i'll tip less like yeah like based on the effort exactly i think like for me what i do is like i've shifted my brackets up and so like the worst tip that i'll ever give is like maybe 18 but like if someone does a really good job i do i do let my tip amount reflect the level of service that they give me like and i do think that people should do that like i think if they gave you a really good service you actually should tip more and if they gave you a bad service you should tip less yeah you should tip more and if they gave you a bad service you should tip less yeah you should have a minimum yes threshold and then if somebody exceeds expectations you should try to try to give them but people always just tip 20 that's it it's like wherever i go it's 20 i actually think that you should adjust it accordingly yeah i got a guy at a pokey restaurant he is awesome i leave the biggest tips and since i started leaving it's like i live in two bucks every day no but no but it started because he gave me these really generous scoops you know like a chipotle where they just like a big fat scoop and then sometimes they'll go and like get a little more started doing that i started doing that i started doing that i started doing that i started leaving bigger tips and then i started noticing his scoops got bigger so i kept up in the tip too and now you're almost equalizing the the value yes you are yeah but he benefits because he gets the tip and i benefit because he's he's very generous with his scoops like you know the pokey scoops but theoretically you're just paying for more fish at that point not really it's it's implied it's a mutual respect that i have that like hey you uh you give me a little more scoop i'm gonna help you out too and then we're buddies do you think that chipotle actually serves four ounces of protein with every meal do they weigh it no okay so then how can they accurately say that like do you think it probably averages out to about four ounces i mean it could there is no way unless if it's just the chipotle i go to but i happen to go to i i go to a lot of chipotles do you think it's more or less way less way less they're supposed to give you four ounces of meat in actuality it's probably close to like 2.875 have you measured it i've actually watched a few youtube videos on it people did measure it and there are tricks that you can use to get more meat like having cameras on you have you seen this i have seen if you have somebody film you while you're ordering your chipotle bowl supposedly they will give you more of everything i've seen that also here's a trick if you want to get more meat this is what i've started to do is i actually just ask for the meat on the side because they have sized cups and they put it in the cup and they make it level with the top of the cup and so it's actually four ounces as opposed to like a scoop but that's so interesting is it compressed or so no they they don't tip it maybe they'll give it a couple pats but it's not like fully compressed but it is 100 without a doubt more meat if you ask for it on the side as opposed to in the burrito or that that would make sense yeah very interesting yeah i mean i i mean look it's not it's not possible for them to accurately give you four ounces of meat every single time when they have however many hundreds of locations and hundreds or if not thousands of employees chicken on there but they're not weighing it how can you accurately say that it is possible for them to give you three ounces every single time instead of four or less than they should give you because i get they do they do i'm surprised is it seems like a lot of people at chipotle don't care and that for them it doesn't really cost them anything extra if they're a little more generous with their sizes so i always thought the chefs don't have to cook as often is my that is like my logical conclusion of why they skimp out on the meats is because it puts more of a burden on the chefs if they're constantly churning i would disagree i don't think the people in front are in cahoots with the people in the back i think it's probably management who's like hey guys we got cameras over here corporates watching we got to be you know good on our sizes to remain profitable that's my guess do you guys think that it's more so the decision of the people on the floor or do you think that it's more so the corporate decision it's got to be always been corporate yeah yeah because i don't think i think it's better for the person to be like yo i'm gonna a little more it would make everybody's day and everyone would lighten the mood and they'll make them happier because like if i had the choice to give it a little more i would i also just think like when you're cooking chicken and serving people chicken and standing in the same spot for eight hours like you're just like tired of making chicken all day you know like they're people you know maybe maybe they don't want to cook more chicken i don't know or i don't know i don't know if it would make everybody's day better but i do get the concern with the last lack of consistency there though i i would i wouldn't be happy with oh i'm never upset at the workers themselves for me it's just like like you're paying for a certain thing and you're not getting that thing that's fair and so that's on the business it's not yeah i'm with you on that yeah now i'm curious when it comes to cooking i want to talk about cooking myths number one is msg bad there's a there's not a lot of data out there that says whether or not msg is directly correlated with being bad for you there's a lot of uh uh conversation out there about it but at the scientists let me be clear about that but um from what i've seen in my own personal experience at the end of the day msg is monosodium glutamate right so it's a salt form of glutamate and glutamate is what right glutamate is found in so many different things like pork tomatoes mushrooms it's naturally found in these things um it's just a salt form of it right so if if we're already designed to process glutamate generally speaking like a sodium form of glutamate should be perfectly safe to eat i know that there's all sorts of things on the internet of people saying that they get nightmares and they can't sleep i have never experienced that personally um i think that there's a lot of things that people ingest when they're eating things that have sodium in it like all sorts of things that could they could have an allergy to etc um but there's just not a lot of data out there that suggests it's not good for you and it tastes awesome uh ever since i got over that whole fear i've never had a problem with it and it's only made my life better i love msg is truffle oil a lot of truffle oil is made from like perfumes or like flavor compounds rather than like like literally sometimes it's artificial flavoring right like you're eating artificial flavoring in oil as opposed to actual real raw truffle if you want truffle flavor you obviously you get it from a truffle um it's a great way for a company to make a ton of money off of flavoring and oil to taste like truffles um but i i don't think it tastes that great and it's also super overpowering is wagyu overrated i think yes oh my god i think wagyu has had this crazy pr campaign for the last what do you think like five years maybe probably maybe 10 maybe 10 yeah so i think wagyu has been on this crazy pr train for the past 10 years i think wagyu is amazing from a product standpoint it's like super unique and there's nothing else like it and i i think it's a beautiful thing i also think it's like a special occasion thing i don't want to eat wagyu every day and also like it's just so much fat it is like who wants to eat when i eat wagyu i don't want to eat wagyu every day i don't want to eat wagyu i appreciate it and i love it whatever but like i can eat maybe an ounce two ounces of it before i'm like oh i don't want anymore you no one's eating a whole steak of wagyu so to me it's like a it's a delicacy it's worth it every once in a while but it's right now just it's way overrated most other types of beef like there's american wagyu that's being made that's really good that's not a5 that has less fat in it that's way way better and way way nicer to eat um it's just too specialized you know is expensive olive oil worth it i look at it like kind of like wine like if if if if it has to do with economies of scale right like certain olive oils are expensive just because it's a small producer and they have to charge a certain amount to make money whereas you could go to a bigger producer that's producing the same quality but they have economies of scale so they can charge you less so yes and no i would i would just look to pick the best quality olive oil that you can afford um and call it a day but most of the time i would say 50 50 yes and no but sometimes you're just buying a lot of olive oil and you're like oh my god i'm gonna buy a lot of olive oil and i'm like okay i'm Premium because it's a small producer. Are expensive eggs worth it? I mean, it's part of egg pricing you can't control because it's like the economy. But I mean, no, because they all do the same thing. If it's a health thing for you, that's your own thing, right? Like if you're like, oh, I only eat pastured eggs or only I only eat organic eggs. Well, then you're going to you're going to pay a premium. Are you getting an egg that can do something that another egg can't? No, they're all identical. Aren't you paying for the treatment of the chicken? Like free range. Sometimes they're not. Cage free is like not even like helping the chicken, which is my understanding. I've read that a lot of these like cage free, like organic. I don't know. I've never been to them, but I've read and I've seen articles about them. Free range is very different from cage free. Cage free is like almost the same thing. Yeah. People expect that when they see like free range or cage free, that it's chickens roaming this big field somewhere with the sun. But when you really look at the definition, it's usually like a covered building and they're like they're not in a cage, but they're in a gigantic pen, like pushed up against each other. Yeah. Yes. And a lot of the treatment of that is not what you expect when you buy that. Yeah. But but they're able to upcharge you on cost. Yeah. Yeah. What is it worth to to spend the extra money on? Like of all of the different ingredients, like would you say a nice salt, a nice seasoning, nice chicken nice eggs nice olive oil like of all of these things what makes an actual impact the more money you spend uh buying from local farms it's expensive to buy from local farms but the benefits are you're supporting your local economy in a legitimate way you're actually like supporting fam like real families directly so that's cool you're you are getting almost always a super duper premium product like this is like you know if you're looking for free range like likely they are actually roaming around in the sun so if that's something you care about you're the premium you're paying is actually going to that right um and you're developing a cool relationship which i think is fun right um but i would say that that that's the one where your dollar does actually go towards something that is what you think it is does that make sense as opposed to like the egg conversation where like oh it's free range so you're spending two dollars more for free range but they're actually not really free range so you would say always just try to find a source that makes it so like if you could find a source that makes olive oil if you could find a source that makes butter it's always better just to go there i yeah and i also think you'll feel better about spending the money because now you you have like almost a relationship with those people too like you might even meet the person that not just a salesperson but you might even meet the person that works for that company and you know maybe you'll become friends with the co-owner one day and they'll start giving you deals uh you know i that you developing a relationship with a company like that is really cool i like doing that with small small producers is it true the use is really rampant in the restaurants it can be i don't know it's been a long time since i've worked in a restaurant almost eight years since i've worked in a restaurant so but is when i was when i was working in restaurants yeah my understanding is it very much still is like from my friends that work in restaurants i used to work in a restaurant like what do you mean by that though like i mean i've seen i've seen people do right outside the restaurant i've seen people um i remember there was a line cook that i worked with and i like got in their car and they were like like i saw it in the car and i was like oh interesting it might sound dumb but why is it like a performance thing to like do better at the restaurant or are these just like man it's this is such a tough question to answer because it's it's so nuanced there's so many reasons why right of course it's a harsh work environment and people that maladaptive coping mechanisms right they they do it to cope um and i don't know if it's a bad thing to do that but i I get it. Sometimes it's coping. But also, I think that restaurants have this really weird. Restaurants are in such a weird place in the job market world where it tends to lure people in and will hire people who have issues like because anyone can work in a restaurant, right? There's no there's no barrier to entry to work in many restaurants. And so I think like, because there's such a wide open door for anyone to work in, which I think is amazing, by the way, that's like one of the best things ever about restaurants is anybody can come into a restaurant. And the most restaurants will accept you with open arms, no matter who you are, where you're from, like you could barely speak English, and they'll still hire you like that's I think that's amazing. But when it when a door is wide open, anyone can walk in, right? So you got to remember that that means that people who might have problems that you don't don't normally see might walk in those doors. But also maladaptive coping mechanism. It's really hard to work in a restaurant. It's very stressful. So listen, it starts like this, right? You go, you work your first restaurant shift, maybe you have personal problems, maybe you don't. But if it's not a good working environment, or it's a toxic working environment, you don't know how to cope with that you don't have anybody to talk to, maybe you're very lonely, who knows. And you're getting screamed at every day, it's stressful, you're working from 11am to two in the morning, every day, six days a week, you get one day off. And so like the one way to release steam when you're constantly pressured is like, you know, maybe, maybe you have a shot, a whiskey at the end of every night, and then two, and then three. And then that's not effective anymore. So you're one of your other buddies, you know, gives you a little, or whatever, I've never partook in any of that I don't drink. I don't, I don't, you know, I've never taken any before, but I've seen it many times. And because of how I saw it ruin people's lives. I always was like, I will never touch that stuff. Because I've seen people like, go, you know, there have been people that I've worked with that I loved. That were like, that worked in restaurants. And then one day, they just disappeared. You know, sometimes like they disappeared, because they stopped paying rent, and they got evicted. And then they got fired. And like, who knows, maybe they're homeless. I don't know. Never saw him again. And that makes me sad. But it also made me realize like, I have to be really careful. Because at some point, someone will offer you something at your lowest moment on a terrible night. And you're the and you go, you know what, okay. And that is the turning point for a lot of people. I feel like I don't know for sure, right? But I've seen it happen so many times. I mean, I've seen I've seen so many things. I've seen people get in screaming matches and throw pots and pans at each other, like big, heavy pots and pans that we like 3040 pounds, like hit somebody in the head, though, they could theoretically, right? Yeah, sure. I wasn't there when this happened. There was somebody that worked at a sushi bar once. And someone was standing up from grabbing something from a low boy. And another chef was turned to their right with their chef knife grabbing something. And so the person stood up and turned into their knife. And the knife went into them. Like they accidentally completely accidentally not not meant to happen. And they were fine. But they'd like got rushed to the hospital. Like, they checked everything. They went back for service that night. And finish the night. They still have that chef coat in that kitchen, by the way, in a framed with a stain on it where they got. It's kind of crazy. What's the rudest request? Request from customers? It's tough because I feel like customers should be able to make requests. Granted, like my restaurant, like we're not allowing modifications for the first couple of months. But that's for the sake of of consistency. It's not because we don't want to give people mods. We will add them later. But it's usually in the world of like impossible modifications. Right? So if like, let's say you're let's say you go to a restaurant, right? Let's say you're a pescatarian. And you go, I'd like the halibut pescatarian. Do I do? Do you want do you just want because then it becomes a series of questions, right? Now it's a big logistical process to get you your food. You deserve to have what you want. And if that's what you want to do, that's totally fine. But like from a logistical standpoint, you are now the hardest person to work with in the room because now we have to figure out okay, well, we'll do it for you. No problem. But like now we have to figure out are you okay with the fact that you're going to get literally just like sauce and like maybe garnish and maybe a vegetable. And now you have to make a decision. Not knowing what the plate looks like. So you could still be unhappy with what you get, by the way. Not only the plate looks like to go, yes, I want that. And then we have to like kind of make those mods, make those changes and bring it out to you with our fingers crossed that you're going to like it. And then if you don't, then there's the worry of like, are you going to be mean to us because you didn't like it? Or, you know what I mean? So it's just like puts it puts everybody in a weird position, including you as a diner. What's the most difficult customer experience you've had? Yeah, I just had like, I think there was like a table. And by the way, I have no problem if somebody has a specific dietary need, I completely understand. But when they make requests for dishes that like literally are almost impossible to make, like literally a pescatarian ordering a fish dish. I've had tables where they'll, you know, you've got a table full of pescatarians or vegetarians where they order a bunch of things that are inherently not vegetarian or pescatarian. So it's like, well, we don't have an alternative for that. But we do have pescatarian and vegetarian options, but they don't want that. So how bad is it? Because I go to some steak places. And I say, I want my steak medium rare plus. Half the time they either say, we don't do that. Or what is that? The other half, they say, oh, that's fine. Is that a bad thing? Because sometimes they give me that look where I'm like, should I not even ask? I don't know what that is. I think that makes sense. I don't think that's a bad mod. I think that's totally a fair ask. I think that it will confuse people who don't have the knowledge. Like, how trained is your staff? And also, does your staff cook? Like, if you have a waiter or waitress that maybe cooks at home, and they're super, super well trained, they've worked there for a while, they know how steaks work. I think if you said that to that kind of a waiter or waitress, they'd probably go like, oh, okay, so like, take it to medium rare and just a little more. That makes sense to me. Interesting, though, I started going in a back and forth with the server who said, that's there's no such thing. And I said, there was. And they go, we have never been asked for that. And I said, that's impossible, because I go here at least every other week. And I get it all the time. I've never seen you here before. They don't know I've been here for, you know, a long time. We've never gotten that. It's impossible, because that's all I get here. Yeah, I mean, went back and forth, and I had to pull up on my phone that like, this is a thing, but I didn't want to, I felt like at that point, now I'm the, but it's not the craziest request. I think it's fair for you to ask. But you also shouldn't be surprised that people are confused about it, right? Like, yeah, I would say that's impossible. I explained it's not impossible. I just I know. I know. Yeah, I explained it. I explained exactly what it was. And they say, No, we don't do that. But I said that that was factually incorrect. So I feel like at that point, if so, if someone's saying something, I feel like you probably annoyed her. Jack calls me out all the time. When I say something that's factually incorrect. Jack makes it very well known that I'm incorrect. And listen, I will give it to Jack when he is correct. I say, you know what, you're right. Shouldn't be that way. But it is. I mean, you you know, what you could say next time, honestly, is you probably just go like, you know, whenever the chef tempts it, can he just like temp it five degrees over me? Yeah, I try to that's like the simplest way to put it, right? Because that's essentially what you're asking for, right? Like five to eight degrees above medium rare. But why are you doing that, though, in the first place? Because a lot of times I get medium rare, and it is like, it's closer to rare. And it's so true. You're trying to preempt improper cooking. By asking for medium or plus. Is that right? No, I like it closer to medium. But medium to me is overcooked. God, dude, I don't know if I ever want to cook. Yeah. And this is a dude, by the way, that eats lean cuisine. Okay, so like, I used to, I mean, I kind of liked it. He's super specific about how he eats, though. I respect that. I am too. But like, that's crazy, though. So how often are you satisfied with the way the meat comes out? 90% of the time. It's only because of how you order it. Yes, because yeah, the medium or plus, I would say 90 plus, it is perfect. I actually have this issue. 10%. It's like, I could go either way. But I wouldn't never complain about it. It's good. I have this issue with my coffee order. Because my coffee order is kind of weird. So quad shot ice latte, right? Seems simple enough. Yes. Completely different, depending on where you order it from. Have you ever gone to one place and you get a really milky ice latte and you go to another place? It's not really milky. But you just ordered an ice latte. So it has to do with like the cup size. How big is that? How big is the cup? Right? How much volume? Because the shot of espresso will almost always be the same. Right. So if the cup is larger, you're going to get more milk. It also depends on how much ice they put in it. So now it's how big is the cup and how much are they diffusing it? This sounds so dumb now that I'm breaking this down. But I think about this so much, because I'll go to one place and ask for a quad shot and it's way too milky. I want it stronger. So my order now to get to do what you do, my medium rare plus is quad shot ice latte in a 12 ounce ice latte. So my order now to get to do what you do, my medium rare plus is quad shot ice latte in a 12 ounce cup if they have it. And if they don't, my first question is, what's your cup size? And if they go, oh, it's 14 ounces, or it's 16 ounces, then I'll go, can I get a quad shot ice latte, extra ice short. So when you do that, you now have enough ice that you'll be able to fit less liquid in it. So that means less milk. And if you ask for it short, they'll put in like 20 to 20% less milk. I want to challenge this for a second. I think that part of going to a restaurant is getting something a little bit different. And like for me, if I go to a steakhouse, I always order my steaks medium well. I'm kidding. I always order them medium well done. Every, every, every place I go to, I order a medium rare and some places it's a little bit more on the rare side and some places it's a little bit more on the medium side. But I think that this is like part of the experience of going to a restaurant is that every time it's going to be a little different. I know how I like my coffee, but I still don't go to the same coffee spot every single day. Like I'll go around and try to get a coffee from here and try something different over here. But that's why people have their favorite restaurants though. People have their favorite restaurants because they like how that restaurant makes that thing. People have their favorite coffee shops because they like the way they make their coffee. That's how I go when I, when I go to the same coffee shops, cause I know they're going to make it. That's true. But if you're going to a new spot, are you still going to order with the same criteria that you apply on your favorite place? I think it depends on how addicted you are to getting the final product. Like for me with coffee, I really don't want a different coffee. I drink the same coffee every morning and I have for the past 10 years. So I don't want my coffee to change, but like with food though, I'm open to it. What are three dishes that every single person should know how to make? I would say an omelet is a great dish to know how to make because it's easy. It's low stakes. It's fast, but as you get better making it, you can do so many things with an omelet. It's also good for healthy for you, right? Eggs and whatnot. A steak, because again, you you'll learn a lot of different techniques in one thing. You'll learn a lot about how product and how a specific ingredient can change the cooking process, right? The steak, the thickness, the quality of the steak, how, what temperature it was like, there's a lot of detail in a simple dish like that. So steak, this one might be a weird one, a little bit of a curve ball, but like a really good salad, not because not if you, whether you like salad or not is, is, is a different conversation, but salad will teach you a lot about a really important component of cooking, which is emulsification. You'll learn how to properly emulsify a dressing, which applies to so many different avenues in cooking. It's like, not even funny. So emulsification, it'll learn how to, it'll, it'll teach you how to properly season things that are inherently difficult to season because vegetables have a lot of water in them. And if you don't season it enough, it's under seasoned. And also like vegetables are hard to make taste good. So you really have to force yourself to really think about the flavor that you're adding to this. What's the best meal to impress a first date? Hey, by the way, really quick, if you want extra content, just like this, as well as early access and a bonus post show every single week, feel free to join as a channel member to get immediate access to all of that, as well as early access to everything else that we post along with priority responses to all of your comments. So if that sounds cool, feel free to join. Would love to have you on board. Thanks so much. We'll get back to the podcast now. Oh, I mean, everybody knows this. It's a steak dinner. Always a steak dinner. Always a steak. How do you cook a perfect steak? Simply. You don't overdo it. You don't overthink it. Salt, pepper. If you want to baste it with butter, you can. I like to go the easier route, like less prep, more so I can spend time with, you know, my date, in my case, my wife. But it would be like a nice one and a half inch steak, whatever your preferred cut is. But I would recommend either a ribeye or a New York strip. Look for something with a lot of high intramuscular fat. It's like nice marbling, basically. Not Wagyu. I think like prime is fine. If you can find an Australian Wagyu or an American Wagyu, you'll get the right quantity of fat that's not overwhelming, but will make it juicy. Um, and super simple. You bring it out, you let it come to room temp for like 20 minutes so that the surface is nice and warm. Sear it two to three minutes per side so you can get a nice medium rare. And then baste it in butter. You can throw herbs, thyme, garlic, whatever. Baste it with a little bit of butter for like 30 seconds to a minute. Let it rest. Slice and serve with whatever you want. It's like always delivers. Unless you find out they're vegan, then that would, that would be sad. Does it matter how expensive the knife is? Like I've seen some of these like $300 knives. Does that make a difference at all? No, I have, I have like $2,000 knives that are not any better than my $50 knives. If you, if you like, if you're, if you like a craftsman and you like collecting art, then you may enjoy collecting a nice knife. But no, the amount of money you spend on a knife will not improve your cooking. In my opinion, I think that everyone should have one good knife. One, you don't need three. You don't need four. You don't need a paring knife. You don't need, no, you need, if, if someone's like, Hey, I have a hundred bucks. I want to spend ever on cutlery. Get a 10 inch chef's knife. The nicest one you can find the nicest one you can afford. It could be $20. I don't care, but a 10 inch chef's knife can do absolutely everything that any knife can do. It can even cut crusty bread. It's not as good as a bread. It's not as good as a bread knife, but it's still a piece of steel with an edge and it can cut bread. Not, not perfectly, but it can still do it. Why don't you have a knife that you sell? I feel like that's such a great product for you. I don't know, man. I thought about doing it, but I'm just so particular on how I like my knives. I just don't want to create a product that like is too expensive for people. And I just feel like my knife is going to end up being really expensive and people will have a problem with that. So I just haven't done it. Like that's kind of it. It's also like hard to repeat purchase those, you know, like, um, yeah. Cause a good knife is supposed to last you like 10 plus years. Yeah. Yeah. A lifetime, a good knife could last you theoretically a lifetime. Right. Um, depends on how well you take care of it. Yeah. Also the knife that I would make might be something that not everybody wants to deal with. Like I'm, I love carbon steel knives, but they're so nightmares to take care of. And most people don't want to deal with that. Well, you do sell books. How many books at this point do you have? Two, two books. Well, actually three, but like one I published when I was 17. So that that's out of that, that was out of print by the time I was like 18. How many books have you sold? My first book, I think it's over a million. The second book, I haven't checked in on it for a minute. Um, in the hundreds of thousands for the second book. And how does it work? Do you just get royalties at this point where every book that's sold, they just like send you a check? Yeah. It's usually like two checks a year. Is it lucrative to sell books? If you sell a lot of them, it is. And the first book you had a publisher, correct? Both. What went behind the decision of having a publisher for the second book? Because if I remember correctly, on the first podcast, we had discussed you getting a publisher for your first book and you sold a ton of copies, but you, I mean, you made a fraction. of the amount of money that you could have made had you just sell self-published. Yeah, it's crazy. I look back at that and I'm like, if I had self-published that book, oh my God, would have been so different. I wasn't like, well, first of all, I didn't even want to write my first book. I was kind of like, I already make recipes online for free. I don't know if I want to sell them or not. And like, I was kind of like pushed to do, to put it, but there's like, you know, not in a bad way, but my team was like, come on, like, it's one book, like your chef, like do a cookbook. And I'm like, okay, fair play. And I did a book, did a cookbook. That's, that's literally all the thought that went into it. So I didn't know it would do that well. The second time around, I was like, I don't know if I want to do another one. This is a lot of work. And they, you know, they gave me, they gave me like a big bonus as like a incentive to do it. And I, you know, I was like, all right, fine. I'm not gonna say no to that. So, you know, yeah. What's something that the average person doesn't understand about writing and selling a book? If someone's going to go into writing a cookbook, the first thing that they're going to realize is that it is significantly more work than you can imagine. And it's usually under an unnecessary time crunch. That's what I really don't like about the publishing world is, and I'm not, I'm not outing publishers. Like I enjoyed working with my publisher, but it's just like, Hey, you have a year to write this thing, which sounds like plenty of time, right? No, it's not, dude. It's so much work. First of all, all the writing, right. But then there's all the editing and then you got to get into the photography. I mean, you're, you're taking photos of a hundred, a hundred plus recipes, right. But they usually only give you a couple of weeks to shoot a hundred plus recipes. I think I shot my first books recipes in like five days. How does that work? Do you have like a team behind the scenes making some of the dishes and then you're just like, you show up to take a photo with them? Yeah. So basically I have all the rest, all the recipes are written. They're all proofread and tested and they're good to go. And they're locked in on the book. You would bring, you would hire a photographer to take the photos, like a professional proper photographer. You, they, they wanted me to have food stylists for the first book. I was like, no, I'll style it myself. Holy. That was a terrible decision. Because what ended up happening was I had a bunch of culinary people from restaurants that I knew that came in and helped me cook it. I was like, here's all the recipes, right. I would, I would check to make sure everything was being cooked properly so that nothing was wrong. They would do all the cooking. And then I would be waiting. We had three sets set up and you know, one dish would be delivered over here. I would assemble it and I would food style it. They would take the photo. Then I'd run over to the next set, assemble it, food style, next set, food, food style, 14 hours every day for like four or five days where I would like run over to this set, run over the next set. And I did that for, for 14 hours straight. And then I would run back to the kitchen. Mind you, sometimes things would get, would get up, right. Something would get overcooked or didn't look quite right. And I'd have to have them remake it, which that's okay. That happens, but like slows down the day. This sounds dumb, but why can't you eventually just AI the thing? And it looks perfect. I would never do that. I just, I guess it depends on the use of the AI. You know, I mean, like, I don't know, this is a hot topic right now. I feel really weird about making my food. Like if I was doing a cookbook, another cookbook, right. And I need to take a photo of food. I just don't feel emotionally right. Putting this image out there that isn't the actual dish. And part of like a recipe to me is proving to people what they're going to get when they make the dish. And if I didn't make it or assemble it on camera and take a real photo of the actual, the actual recipe that was executed, it feels a little smoke and mirrors. And I don't, I don't like that. I want to be transparent with people. And I also like, want to be able to say, Hey, if you make this recipe, that picture in that book is the recipe. It's not doctored up to, you know, with like spray paint, you know, I'm sure you've seen some of these crazy food. Yeah. Like we don't do that. We use real food. Like they, by the way, some, there were times with photographers where they wanted to use like imitation mashed potatoes to make it look like I was like, no, we're using the ice cream. Uh, and, and, um, I, I believe that if you can at least do that and I think it's, it's honoring the audience and the people that are buying your book and saying to them that, you know, this is a legit recipe. How big is your team? We have on staff full time, probably about 12 people, um, you know, from like editors to head of production to be like, um, assistant creative head, you know, like I I'm technically creative lead for the, for everything that we do, but we, we're, we need to bring in a head of creative probably because it's getting pretty hard for me to do it by myself with all the other stuff I have going on. Um, so 12 people full time. And then we've got about three or four freelance editors that we kind of dip into their well when we need them. And then everybody else is kind of freelance aside from the restaurant, obviously, which, which is like a totally different business. Are you ever worried about the Mr. Beastification of YouTube? The things are maybe a little too optimal. Yeah. Yeah. A little bit. I just don't know where it's going right now. And it feels like a lot of people are doing the same thing as somebody who came from like what I would call, and you guys did too, actually what I would call like the last of OG YouTube. Where like it was a little less hyper optimized. I think optimization is great by the way. I love optimizing, but it just feels like a lot of people are doing the same thing. And anytime somebody does something cool and unique, hundred other people do the exact same thing so then now that cool and unique thing can never blossom into a greater thing it just is immediately like gobbled up by a bunch of like you know money hungry people who want to make money on youtube and then now the concept's dead and nobody can extrapolate on it ever again because they literally shot that horse like 600 times but then if you don't do it then it's just your videos don't get recommended i think what people don't realize about youtube is there is there is a threshold where you you can like completely dissolve your business if you don't like pay attention to what works like you can't control the market no one can control the market in any business if the real estate market shifts tremendously you're gonna have to deal with it you don't have a choice you can't like call the government and be like fix interest rates please you know and so the way i look at it is like the market on youtube has just aggressively shifted so much if you operate in that space and you're not optimizing your thumbnails and titles you're probably just not going to see much of a result and i think it's unfair for people to look at that and be like well don't do it because i don't like it it's like guys like these are people's livelihoods here like people have been building businesses oftentimes what i've found is like there are still great shows being made but it's just going to take time for people to get past the optimization of the title and the thumbnail we were just talking to someone who's telling us about the anti-thumbnail and it's just it's like kind of like a still shot frame that is made to look like an iphone shot and now because people are like oh my god i'm not and now because so many thumbnails are optimized that when you have the one thumbnail that looks like just a still they stand out it stands out so now it's a swung in the opposite direction everything's a pendulum it is that's the other thing that's the other part of this conversation right it's like oh well aren't you guys sad about the the hyper optimization of youtube just like anything else the pendulum swings man it'll go back the other way like just like in politics and just like in in culture like things will swing really aggressively in one direction and then it'll swing really aggressively in the opposite direction even with ai like i think there's going to be a huge boom which i'm really excited about in analog stuff like not just like watches and and stuff like that but like just things that are analog getting together at a restaurant getting together with your friends instead of cooking on like a hyper fancy stove people are going to be cooking on like og gas without any leds on it no computer cooking like cooking on a campfire not just in cooking i think across all things in life yeah like the hyper optimization of is going to create a pendulum swing for analog stuff i totally agree with you what are some of your financial goals well i have a family now you know i have i we i have a nine month old son um and we plan to have more kids and so i look at like my finances super differently now i'm not just like let me you know build the biggest building in the world or like you know what i mean like from a metaphorically speaking i'm not like let me build the biggest building of course i want to do that and that's that's a goal of mine but i don't know man i just want to make sure that i'm not going to build the biggest building of course i want to make sure that my family's set up and taken care of aside from my kids going to college like i already have my son's college funded you know so what what's my goal my goal is to make sure that you know they're safe for their lives that they're taking care of um no matter what in any situation for the rest of their lives i'm not necessarily saying that i'm going to fund their life but you know in an emergency that there's something there for them um you know long after i'm gone long after we're gone um that would be my ultimate goal i don't know if i have like a specific number in mind i don't know if i have like a specific number in mind um i think it's more so just when that feels right having the freedom to be able to make more creative decisions would be big for me like i think to your point about the optimization of youtube i think a big achievement for me would be to get to a point financially where we can just from a production standpoint go you know what we're going to upload once every three months and just really dive deep on really really really cool stuff um that to me is really interesting because i think being under the gun of constantly having to create content sometimes put you in a position where you feel like you're putting ideas out that you like but like you know could be a little better or could be a little bit more optimized like i'm sure you guys feel that too right every creative person feels that people even the people who make movies uh like you know 100 million dollar budget movies feel that way right because they're under a time crunch and they've got 100 million dollars cranking down on them but i'm sure that they wish that they had more time how is your income broken down these days so my margins for my business are primarily made off of youtube adsense like almost entirely so because that's if you think about it that's like the only consistent number that you can monitor that like comes in every month guaranteed. Brand deals, I want to be able to say no. Like a lot of people don't know this, but like I leave tremendous amounts of money on the table with brand deals on purpose because I don't want to say yes to every brand. What's the biggest brand deal you ever turned down? There was a brand deal that came in last minute, right? And I'm sure you guys get these, right? Where they're like, hey, can you guys do this in a week or two weeks or whatever? It's like a crazy turnaround time. It was a crazy turnaround time. They wanted a long, they wanted quite a bit. They wanted two long forms, one short form and like three stories. And that was it. It was quite a, quite a big ask. And they wanted all turnaround in two weeks. And I think it was like, I think it was like half a mil. Whoa. And so I was like, I was considering it. And so I went to them and I was like, well, can we just do a long form for half a mil? And they said, yes, for one video. Holy crap. That's when I was like, oh, okay. That changes things. Maybe we should do this. But the problem was like the brand was just like not my, like, I just wanted to see if they would say yes, to be honest with you. But the brand, I just didn't really, I didn't use, I was not a huge fan of them. They kind of had some, some issues with them as a company, like public, public PR issues. And I really thought about it, but ultimately like, even after they said, I wish I hadn't asked if they would do that. Cause that, that, that was when I was like, why did I ask that? Cause I, I was trying to make them go away. Um, and when they said yes, I like sat there for a day thinking like, should I do this? And I had ultimately decided no, because it didn't align with my, my, my values. So I said no to half a half a mil for a 32nd talking point. That was a hard one. Wow. That was a hard one, but you know, you got to stick to your guns, man. Like at the end of the day, I care way more about like, not, I can't, once you crush that threshold, you can't go back. Yeah. So what do you spend your money on and how are you saving and investing? Nowadays? I mostly invest my money. I don't really spend that much anymore. Like, uh, I, like aside from like my, um, I mean the majority of what we spend is obviously on the business. That's like the majority of our money. Um, but like any money that I make, uh, like right now we're not as like cash positive from a content standpoint. Cause I'm really focused on just making the best stuff that we can. A lot of people think like, Oh, the channel makes tons of money and Josh is pocketing it all. That's not true. Like I have tons of people that I pay. It costs a lot of money to, to, if you want to really gun it and make big content to grow, like you got to spend a lot of money to do it. Like we, we spend hundreds of thousands of dollars a month to make our production happen a month, a month. And so like, Holy crap, that much money. It's just like all the production people, the cost of the flights, the cost of like, uh, equipment, the cost of hotel bookings. Like we did a video where I was like, Oh, this is a great metric. We did a video where I was like, what can I get to eat for a dollar? Around the world. And we traveled the entire circumference of the earth and went to like eight to 10 countries with a dollar and ate all over the country. And then came back. I mean, that video, how much do you think that video cost me? Probably like 50 grand. I was going to say $50,000. No, actually more because you're traveling also with staff. It was a good, it's a good guess. It costs us, costs us like around almost $90,000 to shoot that. Oh, the irony of spending that much to, to see what I could get for a dollar. 90,000 in like $8. Yeah. That's not a good business model, but I just wanted to try it. Right. And so like, we're, we're like, we're like shooting for the moon here. Right. So anyway, my point is like when, when, when like good deals come in or whatever, like I'll usually just invest it. Right. I have, like I said, I have a family, like I'm trying to be responsible. Um, so I don't really like spend on a lot of frivolous stuff. What's the best investment you've ever made? The S and P 500, honestly, it's been great. S and P 500 has been great. Is that just where you invest? That in Nvidia, when Nvidia dropped to $78, I threw a pretty big chunk. No way. Yeah. So you got to be up like five X on that then. Yeah. Are you making more money from investing than you are from your business? No. Like in terms of what is net to you at the end of the year, you think that your net worth grows more from your business profits? Not yet. No, no. I think, I think I, I it's probably close, but not yet. No, I haven't quite crossed that threshold yet. That's so impressive because we talked to so many YouTubers very often and virtually none of them invest. And the few that do are stoked that they do. And they end up building good net worths and they can afford the things they want to afford the other people. They never invest. And all of their income is from their active income. But if something were to happen to their YouTube channel or their social media accounts, like they would completely lose out on all of this financial growth. So like you're one of the very few people we, we talked to that like actively invest, which is, which is insane to hear that probably 50% of your net worth growth comes actually from your investments as opposed to your active income. Yeah. I mean, it's definitely, it's definitely getting to a point where you're like, oh, I don't know. I'm not a point where I could see the tipping the scales tipping over in the next couple of years for sure like but it depends right like because at the same rate like as my investments have grown like some of my income has grown too so it's like they're like almost like escaping each other but like it's getting closer though like it's there have been times where I've looked at some of my returns and I've gone oh that month was a little bigger than last month you know like I've had months where my investments have done far more than than what I've made in a month personally but from an annual standpoint not quite yet what's the worst investment you've ever made bitcoin oh no how much did you lose in bitcoin I cannot say it's not good uh like hundreds of thousands did you tax ourselves no I I'm pretty honestly like guys I'm I'm pretty uh uh what's the word um conservative I'm pretty conservative you know I I don't I don't are you holding or did you just sell did you just sell out of it no I'm still holding you know what's so funny so this is really bullish for bitcoin in fact today it was up three per second I saw that the reason why I just found out yesterday that jack sold his bitcoin I sold all my bitcoin based up at what at what cost basis I don't even know honestly maybe like maybe like 65 70 that's great let's go my cost basis is 90 so I'll tell you oh sorry my cost I was down for sure. Like my cost basis was a lot higher. I sold it probably right around 65 to 70. Bullish. My cost, but my cost base, I mean, I think I lost like 40 grand or 30 grand. Oh, really? Oh, that's actually, wait. So then your cost basis was higher then, wasn't it? Yeah, it was. Yeah. You don't remember what it was? I do not. Cause it was the iBit ETF. Oh, you didn't, so I don't know what Bitcoin was at when I, yeah. Oh, okay. I have that, but I also, I still do have a little bit of Bitcoin, but not that much. By the way, I've never purchased Bitcoin in my entire life ever. I've always just, I'm like I said, I've always been a conservative investor. So like I'll put money in, you know, the S&P 500 companies that I believe in. And I'm very much of like a, I'm not trying to make money quick. I'm just like, you know, put my money somewhere where it'll grow through the nature of attrition and call it a day. I don't want to look at it. I don't have time to day trade. I'm not like, let me make as much money as I can on the stock market. But when Bitcoin started going down, I was like, well, maybe this is an opportunity for me to give it a taste test. So I didn't put a ton of money in there, but I, you know, I put enough to make it worth it if it went up. And yeah, I mean, I went in at 90. So I'll tell you the best thing you could do is tax loss harvest. So you'll sell it and you could buy it right back. You actually own the Bitcoin itself. You could sell and buy back the same day. There's no wash sale, claim the loss, and then use that loss to offset other capital gains. Yeah. But you can't use that unless you like sell, let's say another stock or an asset. Yeah. That you realize again, you're going to get hit with capital gains, but it does carry forward. And then perpetuity, right? Yes. So you may as well just take the loss. And then what you could also do is sell enough to realize that gain, it raises your tax basis. And that way, at least you get to realize that, you know, it's, it is going to work in your favor by realizing the loss. So are you suggesting, are you suggesting someone should take their Bitcoin, sell it at a loss, buy it back, and then possibly. Sell another thing that's profitable and receive. Yes. So I'll give you an example. I sold a property and I have a big capital gain. I used my loss on Bitcoin to offset the entire capital gain, but I buy back the Bitcoin immediately and now I'm good. So you get to keep the cash from the thing that you sold. Correct. You get to keep the profit without getting taxed on it. Correct. And my exposure. But you still hold the Bitcoin and it has the ability to gain later. Correct. And my exposure to that remains the same, but now my cost base, this is lower. So theoretically now let's just say, uh, Bitcoin now goes up to 300,000. I will have a bigger capital gain, but I get to utilize the benefit today by having more money left over today that I could then reinvest. So like theoretically, if you had like a stock that was like crazy up and likely not to go up for another decade or something, you could theoretically let that go and correct. I do this every year, every year in November, I look at my accounts and I say, what, what base, what lots do I have? How big is that loss? And then I might have a loss of, uh, you know, X amount and I'll sell that. And you just want to make sure you're not going to do a, like the wash sale. So you have to wait, you know, a certain amount of time you can't buy in the previous 30 days. You got to wait 30 days, but on some of these lots, I just dump a chunk of money in there and then I just wait and it's fine. It's fascinating. Wow. And what do you do with the, with the, so what about the money that you you're getting capital gains on? What are you doing with that? Are you just holding it in cash? No. So what do you do with the money that you're getting capital gains on? What I did, I bought a tax-free muni bond. So this is real estate that I just sold in LA and I did the calculation that I earn a little more in a tax-free muni bond than in the property. So I just basically put it in a tax-free muni bond. So you reinvested it? Yeah, it's all reinvested. But I took a chunk of that and I just bought today an international index fund, an emerging market index fund, and a little bit in the S&P 500. That's interesting. But the chunk of that is in tax remunerated bonds. That's crazy. So now I make more money tax-free without any of the hassle of real estate. That's a crazy leveraging hack. That's wild. Yeah. So you basically get free leverage. That's basically what you get. If you're going to reinvest that money, you basically get extra leverage for no capital gains tax. Yeah, that's sick. Yeah, so you could utilize a few little things. But also, if you have a good accountant or someone looking over your portfolio, they're going to identify these things. Yeah, yeah. And they might just say, listen, right now you don't have any gains to offset this. Let's just leave it and see what happens to Bitcoin. How do you feel about that? How do you feel about accountants and wealth advisors and things like that? If somebody is a long-term investor, right, let's say somebody, it just feels a bit like, what are they doing if you just plan on sitting under this? For certain people, it benefits them a lot. Right. We know some people who are really good with money who use financial advisors because it's not worth their time to even think about. Like having someone optimize and do these little strategies, like one little strategy could pay for their service for the whole year and then they're free. So there are all these little things. And like, I'll give you an example, actually, of why even a financial advisor would benefit me. I'm not using a Roth 401k. And we had the money guys on the podcast and they're like, dude, you could save so much money by basically, you know, doing a Roth 401k. You're just leaving money on the table. You could save X amount. You contribute like 60 something thousand a year. Compounded over that. Like, that's a service that would pay for itself. I'm just not doing it because I'm busy with other things. I'm like, I just don't want to think about it. There's so many things with kids too, like doing a 529 account, which is like the education investment account. There's so many cool things out there with kids too. But getting back to this, I'm curious, what is the biggest criticism about you that you think is correct? I guess the biggest criticism is more of like a blanket thought rather than a specific criticism. But that people think that like, I have this like one track mind way of thinking about everything in terms of food or like my opinion. Like, I think my opinion is always right. I definitely don't feel that way at all. I mean, I project that a lot on screen because oftentimes like it's like, we have a challenge in the video. So we're building towards something. There's like a story we're building. And so I'm adding emphasis and intensity. And I think sometimes it comes across as like, you know, I only think about things one way. But like, honestly, I'm pretty, I'm pretty like fluid when it comes to stuff like that. One thing that I think is is correct. Honestly, it's not that it's not that crazy. Like the only thing people have really gotten right about me is that, that I'm extremely, that I'm extremely anal about how things are made, like specifically with little small details, like salt, like people are like, Josh is over obsessed about salt and blah, blah, that's probably right. Like, I'm probably a little almost like I harp on that a little too much. But to me, this is more of a personal preference. I just feel like it's the one thing that everybody can leverage to make their food taste as good as possible. And if you don't, you're kind of missing out. It's the only thing that enhances flavor, if you think about it, besides MSG. Yeah, you have a really extensive watch collection. What was your first piece? And what are all of your watches? Oh, first piece Milgauss. Great. I love that watch. Great watch. It's it might be honestly, the most underrated Rolex I can think of. I agree with you. The Rolex Milgauss. It's a really cool watch because it's like a you have an oyster perpetual that's unlike any oyster perpetual I can think of. The second hand is a lightning bolt. Yep. Just crazy. Like what what Rolex has done that that feels like so off kilter for them. The blue dial plus the green glass. It's just like a wacky watch. It's thick. Yeah. I also like that it never took off. I like to I like that nobody really loved it because I love it. And I'm like, you know what this this watch deserves love. So that's one I still have it. Very first watch. Actually, you know who I bought it from Rolex itself. No, Nico Nico. No way. Cool. That's awesome. Nico Leonard. Nico Leonard sold me my first watch ever. Yeah, he's a good he's a good friend of mine. Like before he was even huge on YouTube. I bought it from him. Really? And I'm not going to claim anything here. But like, I see you have a new watch. Oh, yeah. Wow. It's that new. Oh, my gosh. He didn't even he didn't even bother to take the stickers off. He did that for you. I leave the stickers on. Really? Oh, yeah. Take them off. I have one. You think it'll mess the watch up? It is they'll get they'll be they're just hard to get off. They get kind of gluey. And then when you try to take them off, they like won't really come off. It's better to because you're going to wear it and the oils from your skin are going to get in that and it up. It's fine. If you don't, you can get them off. But this is a really good fake. Thank you. Yeah, it was $25. So we have an inside joke about selling options. Okay, Graham doesn't believe in it. I believe I'm so tired. And so what I did, what I did to prove Graham wrong was put $100,000 into an account, and then just sell options. And however much money I made doing that I was going to buy a watch. And so I bought this one. And this is my options. I will tell you, I will tell you the counter to that is that Jack got very lucky with the options that his stocks didn't drop because the market's been on a tear. But he could have just as easily put $100,000 in the account, bought stocks, the stocks dropped 30%, he loses $30,000 and sells some options here and there and makes $4,000. It's a beautiful looking watch. You have nothing to prove. Meanwhile, it's like got an Omega on Zenith. Zenith. Okay. Yeah. See, when you have something to prove like this, it's signal. I have nothing. I have nothing to prove. Actually. Yeah. In fact, when I was in Japan, I was gonna buy somebody flexes on you. The first thing you do is you just you just point out that they're single. I didn't even realize you're married and you you have a warm bed. I didn't even realize that I was wearing this watch. I just kind of, you know, threw it on or Oh, yeah. Yeah. This old guy. I'm happy for you. But how about this? It literally looks bad. But if your stocks, if your stocks drop, you have to sell it. Is that how that works? Yes. I don't think he's gonna sell. Anyways, I got this in Japan. I like it. Thanks. Yeah, I mean, I love watches. Watches are great. But yeah, the Milgauss is such an underrated watch. I think it's so great. And I love that they that they discontinued it. I'll never sell that watch. That's like my favorite watch of all time. And I also think of Nico every time I wear I can't help but feel like eventually they will bring that watch back. Maybe because I think it's it's becoming popular now. That it was never popular. Yeah. And I could I could see Rolex in a few years just being like, Oh, it's the new watch. Because after the land dweller, I think they're looking for like new hype pieces. And I feel like that Milgauss is going to come out. And here's my prediction. It's going to be something crazy. They're going to do a precious metals Milgauss. That would be incredible. They're going to do Oh my god, if there's gold or with with the blue dot like, Oh, I'm telling that would that would be a seller that would and also the stainless steel original Milgauss probably go up because of that, too. Yeah. Because if they release a precious metal one, it'll drive the core price of it to get one so high that the low cost ones that don't exist anymore will probably naturally go up. Yeah, that's crazy. Wow. Well, I will say like, for me, like with watch purchasing, like I try, I try to purchase more, if not equal to the same watches that I purchased for myself for other people, you know, like my family, my mom, my dad, my wife, like people that I'm close to, like I get watches for pretty much everybody. Like I've gotten a Rolex for a lot of people. I've gotten a lot of almost all the close people in my life. So I try to try to try to not just reward myself here, you know, and so the Milgauss and then anything else like what what speaks to you most out of your watch collection? I can't I'm not gonna reveal my full collection. But the more recent one that I got, which is like, super, super special piece is like to celebrate the birth of my son. I got like an insane allocation from AP I got to open work the white gold 37 millimeter open work with the blue flange or flange. I don't know how it's pronounced. That's like probably my like, most prized piece, not because of like, how rare it is, but because it's I got it to celebrate the birth of my son. So I mean, it's like, kind of like a reminder of him every time I wear it. But that's a special piece to me. That's a really special one. But it's not again, like, because of my son. One thing I will say, dude, is that you've been looking very just like buff, like very in shape lately. Graham really has been looking me up and down since I noticed that. He's got eyes. Yeah, he does. He does. Sultry. I'm curious. What is something that people misunderstand about getting in shape and losing weight? Oh, man, there's so many things. I feel like I could really simplify this. Cardio is great, guys. You really I really reckon it's like the one thing that really changed it for me. But I mean, it's unfortunately, it's just super simple. Like you have like, if you really want to get exact results, right, you want like a specific result, which is usually like, oh, somebody wants to lose X amount of pounds. Like sure, you can like, hop on a diet, you can hop on a paleo this you could do keto right but if you want to guarantee guaranteed result. All you have to do is beat a calorie deficit and count your macros that are going in your food. So you know what you're eating that way that you're not guessing and hoping that it happens. You know what you're ingesting every day and do the same workout every day that will put you in a deficit. So like for me, it's like I do an hour of weight training, 30 minutes of cardio every day, six days a week, and just do that. Do you think that being fat is a choice? I don't know enough about science to say whether or not like there's I don't know if somebody has like a high thyroid issue, like does that? Does that mean it's a choice? I don't I don't know, like, but I think that if you are in a position where you don't, or you're not happy with the way that you look, I think the important thing to remember is that it is possible to make a change, like even if it's small. And I think a lot of people get stuck in the idea that they think it's not for them, or they think that they can't do it. Or, you know, they don't have the money or whatever, like there's all kinds of things that can happen. And I think that's a choice. There's always something you can do, even if it's small, and it's worth trying. And it's worth committing to for a long period of time, whether that's three, four, five, six months, how difficult was it to get in shape? Was like one of the hardest things you've had to do? No. So it wasn't that hard for you? It wasn't like impossibly hard. But there are a lot of challenges that come with it, right? I travel a lot. I have to shoot food every day. And I'm like in front of food every day, I have like a slice of pizza that I have to take a bite of, and then put it down and then not take another bite because I had to do it for a hammer up. But I have to do that 20 times in a day, three to five days a week, and still be on a diet, you know, does unhealthy food almost always taste better than healthy food? Honestly, oftentimes, well, define unhealthy high calorie food. Yeah, higher calorie calorie food tastes good, because it's higher calorie probably has more fat in it fat tastes good. It probably has more carbohydrates in it. carbohydrates taste good sugar tastes, it tastes good. Like it tastes good. But things that have that provide a lot of energy to us typically have high caloric density. So what's your go to meal to get shredded? I did a burger a while back that people love that like went crazy online. That's literally just like 96% lean ground. It's it every time I posted it does well. Yeah, but it's super simple. It's literally just 96% ground beef to three ounce patties smashed salt and pepper on both sides, a slice of American cheese. You can make like a yogurt mustard sriracha sauce. It's really low calorie on both buns, pickles, eat it. It has all the flavor components that tastes like a great smash burger without all the calories. It's like 400 450 calories. Would you shave your goatee for $100,000? untaxed? Sure. Yeah. I know. How much to shave your head? Half a mil. So theoretically, because it grows back. Yeah, if it was like it'll if it's like you have to go bald for the rest of your life. Well, that would be a different conversation. But it's like, Oh, you have to shave your head. And it'll take like a year to grow back. Okay, so I made half a mil for the year for shaving my head. Okay, it's not bad for $600,000. You shave your goatee and your your head both. Yeah, I need a mil for that. So like, it's one or the other. Okay. Okay. What would you do a million though? Goatee, hair and eyebrows? 2 million. Eyebrows are a million dollars. Yeah. Because you just got the whole look. Now I can't even market myself. I will say you'll probably end up making more than that because your videos would just go crazy. Or they wouldn't because nobody would want to look at my egghead. You know, like, like, that's gonna look crazy. Okay, so we now have some rapid fire questions for you. Hit me. How much for you? How much for you to shave your head actually? Like bald, bald, bald. Man, I feel like if someone really offered me like untaxed, you're wired the day of once you're complete with the task, I'd have a hard time saying 100 grand. Probably because it's kind of short the way it is. I know in three months, it would grow back and I just wear a hat. You made 100k in three months. It's great. Yeah, I would do it. All right. So these are rapid fire. Give us quick answers. How much should a hamburger cost? $10. $10. How much should a steak cost? 50. Cream cheese on sushi? Yes or no? Why not? Does buying organic matter? According to what I've read? Apparently not. How much to quit YouTube? People are not gonna like my answer. I love it. 100 million. I love it too much. What would I do? I mean, like, it's not even about money. But I you'd have to like, give me enough money that I could do whatever the hell I want for the rest of my life, including do dumb businesses that fulfill my, my needs. It'd be like, it'd be like a probably like 150 200 million. Would you never cook again for a billion dollars? A billion? Untaxed? I'd probably take the billion. Let's be real guys. Like, let's be real here. I mean, like, I think, you know, what's funny about that question, though, I think I would be unhappy for the rest of my life if I did that, though. But I know that like, my family would be taken care of forever. You know, literally forever. Like, what's what's more worth it? Me, feeling like creatively fulfilled or like my whole family being taken care of forever. I mean, come on. What's the best fast food? Jollibee. What's the worst fast food? Actually, no, let me change that in and out for me, for the burger. Whataburger. Really? I hate Whataburger. What's the best restaurant? This answer changes all the time. I'm going to say Interject Thai. And the best dish? These Sichuan chili noodles that I had in China like six months ago. Most overrated restaurant? Most steakhouses. Most overrated food? A5 Wagyu. Which country has the best food? China. What are your thoughts on airport sushi? Never had it. Gas station sushi? I will never have that. That sounds horrible. Okay, before we close out the podcast, we have one last thing for you. We have a basic tier list. Tier list here. And we just want you to rank. It's a few foods and a few ways of preparing foods. And you just let me know what you think. Oh, okay. Air fryer. You know, in the past, I would have given this maybe a D. But nowadays, they're pretty, pretty dope. I'm gonna give it an S. There we go. I love air fryer. All right. Love air fryer. Blackstone. They're, you know, an A. They're really useful, but they take up so much space. Carbon steel. They're great, but there's so many other types of materials. They're so many different types of materials. They're so many different materials that are less cumbersome to clean. I'm gonna give them a B tier. Cast iron. Same thing. Same reason. B tier. Green egg. Ooh. Ooh. A lot of people love these. You know, honestly, you can do so much with a green egg, and they actually don't take up a ton of space, and they look cool. A tier. Hexclad pans. What is that? I, I, I don't, you know. What are hexclad? It's Gordon Ramsay's. I've used them, but they, they don't, they don't do what they've been advertised to do for me personally. So I'm gonna give them, they work well until they get messed up and dirty. So I'm gonna give them a B tier. Microwave. A tier. Yes. Told you, Jack. There's a lot of uses for a microwave. Do everything with that. Nonstick pan. S tier. You know, they're not good for you, but there's so many things to do, and you cannot make them. I mean, you can make an almond in stainless steel, but there's so many, so many things that nonstick solves for you, makes life easier. Oven. S tier. Absolute necessity item for so many reasons. Pellet smoker is great to have, but it's not as good as your traditional smoker. I think a traditional smoker, I would give an S, and a pellet smoker, and a pellet smoker, I would give an A, because it's easy. Sous vide, which you misspelled, by the way. That's very funny. I'm a little overrated, but it works really well. Stainless steel S tier immediately. They do so many different things, multi-purpose. It can do almost anything. It's the pan that I use for almost everything. What brand stainless steel do I buy? Made in. Easy. Not a sponsorship. Done. I have been sponsored by them in the past, though. Weber kettle. Big fan. S tier. It's affordable. You don't need a lot of fuss to use it, and they work very well, and they last a long time, as long as you clean them properly. What about a George Foreman? George Foreman grill. Is that on there? It's not. Where would you put that? S tier. C or D. It's a single-use item. Dangerous. Burn your feet. Spam, I'm going to give an A tier. It's amazing. Not an S tier, because it doesn't apply to everything, but it's tasty. Chicken, I'm going to give it an S tier, only because, actually, A tier. A tier chicken. A tier chicken, because it's hard to cook really, really nicely, but when you do it right, it can teeter into S tier territory. I'm in between, but I'm going to land it on A tier. Fish, S tier. To me, it's the most underrated food on the planet. Actually, to me, it's like the second most underrated food on the planet, and when done right, it's impeccable. Pork, S tier immediately. The most underrated meat, period. End of story. Think about it. Some of the greatest things that people love universally. Ham, bacon, pork belly. I mean, cultures all over the world, and yet nobody talks about pork? Snails, C. It's not a fan. Steak, S. Come on. Do I need to explain why that's an S? Turkey, I'm going to give it a B tier. It's all right. When it hits, it hits, but it's not that great. Caviar, I'm going to give an F. It would be crazy if I gave caviar an F. I'm going to give caviar an A tier. It's nice to have. You really don't need it. If you lived your whole life never having caviar, you're not missing out on the essentials of life. Head cheese, B tier. It's good, but it just doesn't apply to everything for me. I don't really seek it out that much, but it is good. Sweet bread. What do you mean by sweet bread? Like breads that are sweet? Like banana bread? Sweet breads or sweet bread? Like lamb sweet breads? Because there's an image of bread on this. The organ meat. Oh, I'm going to give that a D tier. I really don't like sweet bread. Sweet breads, I've had them before and they're all right. Bubble gum. See, I hate the weird. I'm not a huge fan of the weird aftertaste it gives me. Spearmint maybe, but like Hubba Bubba, I'm not a fan. Foie gras. This is going to throw some people off. I'm going to give foie gras a D tier. Thank you. I'm not a fan. I don't seek it out. There have been times I've had incredible foie gras. 10% of the time I've enjoyed it. Most of the time, I just don't want it. It's not that great. The texture throws me off and the gaminess is not. It's not always that great. It needs to be perfectly made to be good to me. Truffle, I'm going to give a B tier. It's nice. It's great to have. Sometimes it really pops, but most of the time it's not really worth it. I don't think people should spend their budget for the week on it. Barbecue, S tier. Immediate S tier. Barbecuing is an instant way to make almost anything taste incredible from vegetables to meat. You can even use it as a smoker to smoke something like a sauce. Josh, thank you so much for coming on. We're going to link all your info. It's down below in the description, including your restaurant. Yes. Yeah, if you guys want the best fried chicken sandwich for a reasonable price, it's at our restaurant and it's very good. And you're taking on investors, right? So we'll throw a little money your way and we'll Jack and I will own 5% of it. A measly 10%. If you want to pay for an entire set of five stores, then yes. We'll discuss. Guys, thank you so much for watching. Thanks for coming on the show. Thank you to everyone for listening. Yeah, and thank you all to the channel members as well. We post a lot of videos every week. We post the whole episode without all the retention edits. Edited, unedited. So enjoy that just like Josh likes it. Thank you so much. Until next time. Until next time. Thank you guys. What is something that the left is fundamentally right about that the right does not want to acknowledge? Nothing. Get the fuck out of my face. And who the hell lets you back on this campaign? Good luck because they don't give a fuck. How difficult is it to change someone's mind? Depends. I have plenty of friends. I'm fine having a few enemies. They're all in the same room. They're all going to the same parties. And when they all share the same worldview, it's a blind spot. How much money have you lost by not being PC? Many tens of millions of dollars. I've had people say that I was a hate speaker because I said soccer was. I do. I think so. What political beliefs have you changed your mind on? I don't know that anyone has ever actually convinced me to take a more. Who's been the most intelligent person you've debated? People aren't going to like this answer. Who's been the most intelligent person you've debated?