Podcasts about oceanaire

Chad Kelley, a former teddy bear-turned-grillmaster, navigates the high-stakes, high-pressure culinary world as he strives to build his own beer-centric restaurant, learning the hard way how to balance intensity and professionalism."I found something here. There's something. And I was like, I should probably follow this up with a more bachelor's based degree, because I also found that I was very good at not just the cooking side of things, but the financial side of things as well. As most people are a lot of chefs out there are great chefs, great cooks. But when it comes to managing numbers and all that stuff, they know fucking nothing." - Chad KelleyChad Kelley is a chef from Southern California who has worked in seafood restaurants in Dallas, San Francisco, and Indianapolis. He has worked his way up from line cook to executive sous chef and has experience in both the cooking and financial sides of the business.Chad Kelley was born and raised in Southern California but didn't take school seriously, instead preferring to work and have fun. When his cousin suggested culinary school, Chad realized it was something he could excel in and found himself in San Francisco at the California Culinary Academy. After bouncing around to different jobs in the kitchen, Chad found himself back in Southern California where he worked for a real housewives of the OC restaurant. He then moved to Indianapolis and later Dallas, where he became the youngest executive chef in the company. While in Dallas, Chad took charge and didn't take any nonsense from his cooks, and eventually he opened a beer centric restaurant with 100 taps, proving his success in the culinary world.In this episode, you will learn the following:1. How did Chad go from a high school student working at In-N-Out Burger to becoming a successful chef?2. What is it like to work in a high-volume kitchen and how to handle the high pressure?3. How did Chad transition from working in the kitchen to becoming the executive chef of a beer-centric restaurant?Check Out my Other Projects:Chef Made Home @InstagramRoasted Bean Freak @FacebookOther episodes you'll enjoy:Ariel Guivi, Part 1: What is a Chef?Patrick Stark: The Untouchable EgosJosh Morris: Balancing a chefs drive with family lifeMore Links for YouInstagram: @insidethepressurecookerYouTube: @insidethepressurecookerPatreon: @InsidethepressurecookerFeedback: Email me!Website: https://insidethepressurecooker.comLoved this episode? Leave us a review and rating on Apple Podcasts or Follow Us on Spotify or your favorite podcasting platform.TransciptAnd welcome back to season two. And so today we're going to be talking really more about my background, my history, and how I how I grew. Originally, I was going to break this up into the interview where we are going to be looking at both Morris and I kind of at the same time as we grew, where our backgrounds, where we came from, and how we ended up at the same restaurant. But the more I kind of listened and started looking at these things, it was like, man, it doesn't make sense. So we're going to go ahead and drop these episodes separately just to make sure we can do each its own justice without just editing the shit out of it and turning it into something it's not. You guys listen to this because it's more raw, and creating something super edited is not something that I want to do or something I think you want to listen to.Speaker B 00:01:15All right, welcome back. We're here with Josh Morris and today's session, if you will, episodes. Morris is going to grill me.Speaker C 00:01:32It's not really a grilling. We'll compare and contrast our paths as chefs, I think.Speaker B 00:01:40Okay, that works. Compare and contrast. Yeah. The different perspectives. I mean, we kind of talked a little bit about that last week, where it was definitely much more old school in a lot of ways. It served me well for a long time. It got me into plenty of trouble as well, especially as my career progressed. And there were more and more bitches coming into the kitchen. When I say that, I'm not talking about the females. They were much stronger. I will tell you. We're 100% I would rather have an all female kitchen than some of the all male kitchens I've had is less drama. I mean, they were there to fucking work, and they were kicked ass. Some of the guys are just fucking little dramatic assholes. They were my bitches. They were the dramatic bitches. So I need to clear that up before I got in fucking trouble on that one. So the Morris, take it away.Speaker C 00:02:45Well, we've known each other for six years or so, maybe seven, somewhere in there.Speaker B 00:02:54Okay, sounds about right.Speaker C 00:02:57I know that you grew up in Southern California, and I know that you worked in Dallas at mostly seafood restaurants. Everything else about your career is a fucking mystery to me, and I know you personally, so let's dive into that a little bit. Where did you come from and how did you get here?Speaker B 00:03:18Where did I come from? I came from the shadows. Yeah. Having my voice a little jacked up, that worked pretty well there. So I came from Southern California. Born and raised southern California. Orange county. And no, I didn't surf. No, I didn't skateboard. I did spend plenty of time on the beach. I would frequently ditch high school and go hang out at the beach. And that's something that was possible there, because in high schools, a lot of high schools back then were open campuses. You can drive on, drive off whenever you want. So it was good and bad. And I was working for in and out at the time, and I was enjoying working a whole lot more than I was enjoying going to school. School was always busy work for me.Speaker C 00:04:25Did your family is it like a foodie kind of a family?Speaker B 00:04:31No. My grandmother was in charge of the catering at her church. My mom and my aunt at one point did some catering. Very small scale kind of thing. But at no point were anybody in my family were they really involved in cooking.Speaker C 00:04:59Okay.Speaker B 00:05:01But anyway, after high school, I was still working in and out. I just didn't give a shit. I was having fun time. Everybody else was doing their own thing. And my cousin, who he's been on the show, Jeff, mentioned going to culinary school. And then at that point, something just snapped. Like, that light bulb. It didn't come on all the way, but the dimmer hit switch. Someone hit the dimmer switch, and all of a sudden, it was like, hey, there's something there. And it was just like, okay. And I started exploring it, and the more I dug into it, the more it was like, this is kind of cool. And this was late ninety s I want to say 97, right? Is probably when I started digging into it. And I looked at several schools, whether it's the CIA there was a school in Arizona. I don't remember what it was called. And then I ended up going to California Culinary Academy in San Francisco. It was downtown. And this was before it was bought by La cordon Blue. That was cool. Living in downtown San Francisco for a little over a year was pretty badass, man. Sorry, I was just hearing noises. I'm like, what is that? Living downtown San Francisco, going to school in this old building. It was just French and austrian chefs and a couple of germans thrown in there just for fun. And it was just it was the time of my life. I mean, I absolutely hated school in every traditional form because I learned quickly, and I apply what I learn quickly, right? And I could not figure out for the fucking life of me what I was learning in high school. Had zero application on what I was doing in my everyday life.Speaker C 00:07:13Yeah.Speaker B 00:07:18It was just like, what the fuck is the point of this? But when I got into a culinary school and it was intense, it was just an intense and large volume of knowledge just being fucking shoved down your throat. And it was like, either retain it and move on and do well, or you don't. You fail and you go back and do it again. And so there's a lot of pressure to stay with your class, and so every week to two weeks, you go to your new class. And so it wasn't like a college curriculum where you have, hey, today at 03:00, we're doing French, and then whatever. You didn't bounce around. Like, there was two sessions at the campus. There's the morning and then the evening sessions. And you just rotated some semesters, it was the morning. Some there were at nights. But for eight, 9 hours a day, that's all you did. You took one lunch break or dinner break, and then that's it. And you just did nothing but execute or learn the theories. And I just fucking loved it. I took it all in, and I was like, this is it for me. And I found it was one of those I excelled. And I'm like, okay, this is cool. I can do this. So that's kind of where I ended up after school.Speaker C 00:08:50All right, what about first jobs in kitchens that were not in and out?Speaker B 00:09:02Probably. So I did bounce around. I worked at a couple of places in San Francisco just very short term, doing some stage kind of things. Nothing of any importance or note, but it was just there to kind of get some experience. And then Northern Arizona I ended up going to nau Northern Arizona University after culinary school because I'm like, okay, I found something here. There's something. And I was like, I should probably follow this up with a more bachelor's based degree, because I also found that I was very good at not just the cooking side of things, but the financial side of things as well. As most people are a lot of chefs out there are great chefs, great cooks. But when it comes to managing numbers and all that stuff, they know fucking nothing. And that's unfortunate because that's a huge part of the business. Sometimes it's too much. But hey, if there's no money in the bank, you can't buy shit. You can't fucking operate anyway. And I was like, okay, I'm going to go there. And nau kind of worked out okay, but same thing turned into this. Like, this is doing nothing for me. I'm paying you guys to teach me something that I already know, and I'm going to work over here. And it was a brew pub and working 40 plus hours a week over there while taking a full load at school. And I was breezing through school, but I was getting paid to learn in the restaurant, right? And I'm like, so why am I going to school again? Thing. And I was like, okay. So I finished that off. I didn't end up I didn't get the degree. But it was just like, okay, I'm just going to stick with that. And I was I started there as just as a cook and grew to, like I guess it would be the equivalent of a sue pretty quickly. But this was also a smaller college town, and 99% of the cooks that were there were college kids that just didn't have the charisma to be in the dining room. So I became sue, not just because of work ethic and all that stuff, but also because it was like, okay, you're not really going anywhere anytime soon. And then from there, I ended up back in California, Southern California, and did a couple of different things there. I actually worked as a front of the house for a while just to kind of get some money. And I hated serving. I hated it. I could do it, and I was all right with it, but I just hated it. And then I did a job where it was weird. It was like Real housewives of Orange County kind of shit. And honestly, I think she was on the show, too, when it finally came into that area where her husband had some software company or something, just tons of money. And so he bought her a restaurant so she would have something to do, all right? And it was a ground up construction, and they had someone that they knew that was helping them, but they also hired a consultant. And so I worked with a consultant, got to know him pretty well, and we had a pretty good relationship. And I will never forget this one. We were handed a manila folder with just tear outs from magazines of recipes. And it's like, this is our menu. We covered the walk in parchment paper, right? And then just put and just drew a bunch of fucking squares and then the titles of all the recipes. And then just me and a couple of other guys would then go through and then work on scaling those recipes into professional recipes. And, like, okay, this works. This doesn't. Because it's like you don't go and it's like you're making something. You're like, okay, I need a cup of butter. What the fuck is a cup of butter? But also, just as you know, too, when you go to scale things and scale spices, they don't always scale the same way. But there was this one recipe, it was like some kind of shrimp dish. And the way they described it versus what the recipe was written, like, we could never get it right because we never knew what the finished dish was supposed to be. And they would try to tell us, and we would try to execute, and we were executing what they were saying, but it was always wrong. And they would come back all the time like, what the fuck is this? And this but nobody's like, I don't know. And they would just get so pissed about that stuff. But it was like one of those things that's like, I don't know what to tell you. And they react, fix it. I'm like, I don't know what I'm fixing. I don't know what it's supposed to be. But, yeah, that was a very interesting get right there, and then from there, I ended up in Indianapolis. Did not have a job or anything lined up over there. Moved there for other reasons and just got a job once I landed. And it was at the Oceanaire and they were building out, right? They were getting ready to open. So I was kind of a late hire to them as well. And I was joined them as a saute cook. And I remember in the elevator with the chef, and he's like, you ever done any volume cooking? And I instantly was like, oh, shit. Because I kind of done some, but not to the scale that we were about to do. But oceanaire, I was a saute cook, man. I got fucking my shit kicked in on a daily basis. A lot of that stuff is very saute heavy, two, three pan pickups, pan sauces, all that fun stuff. And it was fun. You definitely learned to cook differently. When you're doing seafood, there's a ton more finesse that's involved. Your margin of error is much less. And when it comes to creating elements that go with seafood too, you also got to be much more careful because you can overpower fish very fast, right? But we were creating for 500 cover nights, and everything came in fresh. Everything was butchered in house. Man, those butcher shifts sucked whenever the butcher was out. When I was finally a sue over there or a lead cook, I kept a duffel bag in the office, which is fucking long johns because the butcher you worked, it was an eight to ten hour shift in a walk in, right? And the butcher table and sink and all that stuff was in the walk in. Sometimes you'd be working and you'd see blood on your hand and you weren't sure where it came from. Did I cut myself? The fish have the blood. It's the same color. And you're just like, oh, fuck, where did this come from? You couldn't feel your fingertips.Speaker C 00:17:44I've never seen anything like that.Speaker B 00:17:46That's cool. Yeah. And then so I was there for about a year and a half or no, close to three years, and just worked my way up through the ranks there, you know, from line cook, lead line, sous chef, execs sue. I helped them open up the restaurant in San Diego as a saute trainer. That was fun. But I was always very intense, always very intense person. And I'm a big guy, and so people have always been scared of me, which I'm just a fucking teddy bear, right? But like any teddy bear, you just don't want to piss me off. But no, there's a few times they're like, hey, dude, take it easy. We don't need these guys quitting yet. But I was just like, dude, come on. You're getting ready to open. And every time we'd fire something, they'd have to stop and look at their notes. I'm like, no, come on, let's let's go. Go. Let's go. I've always been that way. Mike, you got to start trusting yourself. You can't stop and look at your notes every time you got to do something right? Guess what? You're going to fuck up. I guarantee it. But that's also how you're going to learn. If you don't screw up, then you don't know how to fix anything because you've never screwed it up. And if you don't know how to fix it, then you're in worse shape than you've ever been in now. You're going to have to rely on other people. But anyway, so no. And then I moved down from Indianapolis to Dallas when the exec position opened up. And so I was 29. I was the youngest exec in the company at that time. And they just said, Fix it. Things were not as oceanaire as they needed it to be, right? That was the way they put it. They were burning stuff and sending out burnt stuff and it's like, man, it's we're too high scalable place and to be sending out food that's burnt. And so I did, and we kind of brought it back and we had a lot of fun. And then the company itself started going through some hardships. I was struggling as well with the company because just of my personality, my intensity, and there was a lot of that, why are you mad all the time? Kind of shit. And I'm like, I'm not. I'm making sure I'm hurt. But I also didn't take shit. I did not take any shit from anybody. I had two brothers that worked for me that got into a fight on the line on Mother's Day brunch. It was like one of the fucking two days of that year we did brunch and they started to get into a fight on who was doing the poached eggs or whatever, and I fucking kicked them both off the line. Get the fuck out of here. I didn't take shit. Right? That's part of as a younger cook as well, in a lot of ways, where I believed in a lot more structure and a lot more I want to say a lot more structure. But structure needed to be there. The level of fuck off. You can have fun, but at a certain point, hey, time to buckle up, time to be professional, right? Yeah. It's time to get your head in the game. You should always have your head in the game, right? But there are times when you can be a little bit more relaxed. And that restaurant, for the longest time was very relaxed. The GM, he made his decisions by whoever kicked up the most dust got the fucking candy. And that is not how I work. Whoever kicks up the most dust is most likely to get my fucking foot up their ass. And so it just became a very confrontational environment for everybody. So I left and got the opportunity to build out a restaurant down in Dallas, the Metals of Mouth. So that was the opening chef for that one. And that one was a lot of fun. It was the first real ground up build that I've done where I was 100%, had the input on what was going on and working with the owners on creating the menu and then the actual physical space.Speaker C 00:22:45That was like a brew pub, too.Speaker B 00:22:48We didn't brew anything there. It was a beer centric, right? We had maybe 100 taps or something. There was a lot, right? 50 somewhere in that range. Somewhere in the range of just, that's a lot. And damn, that's a lot, right? But it was all beer centric, right? Very small wine. People weren't drinking wine. They came there for the different beers. And we did beer dinners. I did beer dinners with garrett Oliver from Brooklyn Brewing. Met him. Fantastic guy. Ken with sierra Nevada, guys like Bob Ross. He's very quiet, but that was colby. He's very much a recluse, right? And so to get him out and do a dinner with him was a lot of fun. Adam avery with Avery brewering. We can go on and on, but at the time, this was 2010, beer was a very big thing, and a lot of these big name breweries were coming there, and they were coming to Dallas to do dinners with us. They weren't hitting other places. That was a lot of fun. We were doing beer dinners all the time, so we were always creating. People would come to us and be like, hey, I want to do a beer dinner for ten over in the private room, kind of thing. It was like, Cool, let's do it, right? We did it. But that one was just, holy shit. The kitchen was fucking tiny. The size of a bedroom, of a normal bedroom, I think it was. By the time it was all said and done, it was like 13 deep by 18 wide or something. But that was the prep kitchen, too. Like, once you go behind it, where you'd think some prep and other stuff was going on. No, that was just a dishwasher. It wasn't big enough to do anything else with the space. There's no refrigeration back there either. I think there was maybe a couple of countertops work tops, but that's it. And dude, from the time we opened, the time we closed, it was packed, and we were losing cooks because it was too busy, and because a lot of these guys are it's their second job, and it was just a fucking beating because everybody knows the same. If you're not a day ahead, you're a day behind on your prep, right? So all the prep you're doing today should be to set you up tomorrow. So you're not behind, right? You're always working that day ahead. Well, at the end of the night, yeah, we would have no product left because we weren't allowed to 86 stuff. And so many times we were making stuff to order. And so by the end of the night, like, everything's just cleaned out. Like the walk in is empty. I mean, we are getting deliveries daily just because one, our walk in was fucking tiny shit. These guys, they had done bars. All they had done before was bars. This is their first restaurant. I was their first chef. And they're like, this isn't a restaurant, this is a bar. We're only going to do about 40%, 30% food out of here anyway, so that's what they built for. Even though there is a reservation system and a hostess and everything that a restaurant has, bars don't. So they called a restaurant now, but I think it took them like ten years. But no, that thing just kicked ass. From the day it opened. We were in the running for best new restaurant. We lost out. I think we essentially just came in second place for that. But that was kind of a pretty cool thing to do. But we wanted to try to be more I don't want to say edgy, but aggressive with the food, right? It was probably one of the first places, really, that we had bone marrow, sweet breads. I'm trying to remember other stuff we were playing with lambs tongue. Those were all on your appetizer list. Not separately, but on the same day. You want the sweet breads, the marrow or the lambstone? But we wanted to be kind of aggressive in that means of just kind of bringing new foods to Dallas that weren't necessarily scary. I mean, the rest of the world was eating it, but they kind of get people involved in it and they did really well. It was definitely one of those people were getting stuff just to fucking I bet you can't eat this kind of thing. And then all of a sudden, they were fucking loving it. It was like dealing with fucking 30 year old fucking children. Just eat it. I know you're going to like it's. Pretty good. Yeah, I love that scene when people would say something like, oh, it's actually pretty good. Also. You expected it to suck. No, that's not what I said. I'm like, yeah, it is. You expected it to suck because it was actually good. But no, the moth was great. And creating a lot of attention for myself kind of gave me onto the chef list of Dallas, if you will, just because I was more aggressive with food and we were having fun. But it got to the point where every time one of the owners would come in, I just saw Red. All I could see was myself just grabbing him by the throat. And it sucks because he's a good person and I learned a lot from him, but it was just our relationship had come to an end and so I moved on. I was going to actually open up my own place at that point. And we had scouted the properties and we had a signed lease. My wife is an architect, and so the firm she was with, we had set plans that cost us nothing, right? We had the full plans, everything you need to do to build out. And we even had some investors lined up. And then it just got to the point, after six months of dealing with the landlords in the city, it was no longer feasible for us to continue because it was just more political shit involved. And it was like, well, I can't just sit here and wait for you guys to work out the politics. What area was it in, lois? greenville.Speaker C 00:30:24Cool.Speaker B 00:30:27That area is popping now, but we went into it back when. So that area, it was a ton of clubs at one point.Speaker C 00:30:41Mostly just bars.Speaker B 00:30:43Yeah, but it's surrounded by neighborhoods, family neighborhoods all around it. And so they finally just went in after lots of police activity. One of the bar owners was, I don't know, they caught him with like a fucking trunk full of drugs and some other stuff. I don't remember all the details. He was selling out of the club. So they pretty much went in and put in an ordinance that no bars could be opened past like ten or eleven. Most of those places didn't open until like ten or whatever it was. And so you had to apply for a special permit if you wanted to be open past until 02:00. Right? And just everything that came in there, like denied, denied. So they ran everybody out, but the city was working on revamping that whole area. And we were like, hey, timing is there. And we're the kind of restaurant that is going to fit what you're looking for. We're not going to be a family restaurant necessarily. We're not going to have a fucking playground in the back. But you got kids, come on in. We can cater. We wanted to build like a neighborhood restaurant, just your neighborhood bistro kind of thing, but that just all fell through. But during that time though, I started working with a place called The grape and been there for about 40 years, I think. And the chef that was running it, Brian, was just known as like the chef's chef. And I was only working there kind of part time, picking up grill, chefs kind of thing, and I fucking loved it. It took me back into and reminded me how much I just loved to cook. I got so caught up in management and running things and other stuff that I kind of forgot what it was to love cooking. And then after that, that was a short period of time. And then my daughter was getting close to being born, and then I was like, well, I kind of need to have a real paycheck. And then I ended up at another Dallas institution, cafe Pacific same thing that had been there for I think it's been there since 1980. And they brought me on, and they're like, hey, we need to kind of bring in some new energies, some fresh life. That's what I did. We went in, reformatted the entire menu when I was there. When I got there in 2012, the menu folders or whatever it is, are the same ones that they'd use from 1980.Speaker C 00:33:51Wow.Speaker B 00:33:52Right? Yeah. They weren't updating anything, so we went in and updated everything, changed up some wineless stuff and just made it much more presentable. Kind of gave it a steak house feel. But with the seafood presentation, it started to do a much better and still has a very old clientele. He got to meet a lot of rich Dallas money. The owner would be like, there's like four billionaires in here right now. Okay. And then from there, I ended up working with you. And it was actually because of the moth, because the guys were like they specifically said, hey, we want to do the moth, but up here. And the guy they were talking to, the recruiter, was like, okay, I know, guy. So he gave me a call, and I was like, okay, let's do it.Speaker C 00:35:00When you signed on for that, was the idea just to do the one restaurant, or was it pretty laid out that we're going to do multiple concepts right off the bat?Speaker B 00:35:16Yeah, that's the best way to put it. I knew they wanted to do multiple concepts. There was like, hey, we're hiring you to do this one concept. And but there's potential to do some other stuff. Right. They wanted to kind of fill me out a little bit, which makes sense. But before we even got the first one open, they had me on a plane out to fucking Seattle, go test drive and learn how to use these pizza ovens for this other restaurant they were working on. So it was like, well, shit. All right. I guess that test drives over. Before the first one was open, I was already working on the second restaurant.Speaker C 00:36:06Yeah.Speaker B 00:36:10Well, that's my story. I'm sticking to it.Speaker C 00:36:19What about what happened there since then? Do you want to touch on that?Speaker B 00:36:25What happened there? I feel like you're fishing for something here. What are you fishing for?Speaker C 00:36:36Well, there's a reason we're talking on this podcast right now, right? You're not still in the kitchen.Speaker B 00:36:43Well, yeah, no, I retired from the kitchen. From the kitchen? Really? Two years ago. And I don't want to say that it was the restaurants that did it to me. It was me that did it to me. It just happened to be where I was at. And in the timing of it all, my personality is very much head down, let's go. You can either follow me, or I just can run you the fuck over. And that personality still exists today? Very much so. But. I didn't have an on off switch necessarily. I didn't have different gears. I couldn't downshift as much as I would try. But I always took a lot of responsibility making sure that people were taken care of as well. So when COVID hit and we laid off, I forget what the final number was, but it was several hundred people, even though I had no impact on that. We didn't lay anybody off because of any decision that I made. Right. I mean, this was just happening nationwide, but I felt a lot of pressure, I felt a lot of responsibility. And it was kind of a weird sense of failure and responsibility of like, okay, how do I get these people back to work now? And then at that point, I didn't even know how long I was going to have a job for. I went through and we laid some people off and then it was like, okay, now what? We went right back to getting things open. And I just worked nonstop at that point, just trying to figure out how we could reopen each concept in a drive through format. Right. Luckily, by the time we got to the last one, things were opening up a little bit more. Still hard. But we were also faced with the challenge of how do we also keep numbers down? Like, we're not going to have the volume, so how do we I don't want to say it, but there's a lot of like, how do we take shortcuts? I was not vibing with that, and I wasn't that was kind of annoying some people, but they let me do my thing. But the other part that was a challenge for me is I wasn't getting a lot of feedback from anywhere else. So I spent probably, god, I don't know, close to a year, right, eight months, not knowing if I was going to be fired tomorrow. And that kind of weighed on me a little bit, but it was like, okay, fuck it. Let's just keep going. And then finally it got to the point where my body just broke. Mentally and physically, it just broke. So this is during COVID and it kind of sucks because instantly everything was just covered. Then if you had something.Speaker C 00:40:49Looked at you real weird.Speaker B 00:40:51Oh, man. Yeah. I mean, you kind of had a COVID. shove something up your fucking nose and see if you got COVID, man. I've had some brutal COVID tests. Next thing I know, I'm locked up in my room, but I wasn't getting any better. And so one did a COVID test. A couple of days go by, it's negative talking to me. Still have a bunch of the symptoms of how I'm feeling. Go back, take another COVID test, and I drive up to the COVID test because everything was drive through at that point still. The nurse was out there. And this is my doctor's office, the one I was going to I wasn't going to another clinic or something. I went to the people I knew and she's like, you look like shit. I was like, thank you. And so does the COVID test. And she's like, hey, I'll be right back and grab some other stuff. grabs my blood pressure, does the pulse ox and all that stuff. And my blood pressure was like I don't remember what it was, but it was low. And my pulse ox was really low. So my oxygen in my blood was low. My blood pressure was low. Apparently I was really white and I just had these cold sweats going on. But I felt normal, right? I was functioning. I was like, no, I feel a little crappy. And she's like, you need to get to the yard now. She's like, do you need me to call someone to come get you? And all of a sudden I just panic set in. I'm like, Fuck, no, I can get there. But so I drove over to the er and they checked me in, obviously. So I go in and you have to check in out front. And like, no, I'm here because yada, yada, yada. Next thing I know, like, they've got like, this fucking armband on me. And then people are coming out and like has mad suits and shit to take me into this fucking room. And it was just like, damn. But I mean, it was all precaution. I get it. And fucking did a rotor ruder job on my nose just to fucking get a COVID sample. I mean, my nose was bleeding for a couple of minutes after this COVID test. And the guy was like, COVID test is only as good as a swab. Damn. So within an hour or two later, that comes back negative. Still hazmat suits come off. They start doing blood cultures, blood work. They come in, they had me do an X ray. Then they took me in for a ct scan of my lungs. They had me on oxygen the whole time. And over the period of about 6 hours, my oxygen and blood pressure slowly recovered. I was there for about 6 hours getting fluid and oxygen. And the nurse comes in. He's like, so the doctor tell you what happens if this comes back positive? Like, no. And this is before. He's like, yeah, so if you come back positive, we're sending you to this hospital over here in plano. And it was this was also during the time where if you were admitted to a hospital, you didn't leave. And then it was like, well, shit, if I would have known this, I want to fucking come here. But my oxygen wasn't recovering either. So finally blood everything like, okay, we're not going to admit you with COVID You're not getting transferred anywhere. But we couldn't get my oxygen up. And so they're like, okay, we're going to admit you for that. And I was like, Fuck, was like, well, it's very dangerous because your body will essentially just start doing a lot of damage. But anyway, so finally they got to the point where they're like, okay, we're going to let you go. I think they just didn't want to admit me, but if you ever start feeling xyz, come back immediately. I was like, sure, not going to happen. And then but that was it. And then shortly after that, a couple of weeks after that, my wife and I decided to take a vacation. We just need to get away. And we did. We ended up in Colorado. lestes park, and Rocky Mountain National Park had just reopened, and we were up there with my family, and it was great. Just got grounded. I'm very much one of those people. I'm not a hippy kind of thing, but there's something about being out in a forest. It's the vitamin D, the sun energy. It helps reground you. And I just felt better and came back after about a week and felt good. Went back to work, came home that day, and I was like, I don't want to do this anymore. I'm done. We started talking about it, and the reason for that is I knew that if I kept going back, that I would put myself right back to where I started, because I didn't have that control. And two, I didn't have what's the word I'm looking for? I don't know, but just my work ethic and who I was, and I didn't have the resources outside of work to kind of control stress, right? And so I would have just put myself right back to where I started. I would have been burned out again. I would have just had this short fuse, and it would have happened really quick. And I saw that and I was just like, this isn't for me. And then at that point, just more things started happening. This was probably maybe August or something of 20. And then October of that year, my dad passed natural causes wasn't COVID. He actually just said, I'm done. He had been locked up for a while. Not locked up, he was in a home, but nobody could go visit him, so he just refused meds and just checked out. And then six weeks after that, my father in law passed away from COVID related symptoms the day after Thanksgiving. And then it was just all this stuff was going on, and then people were passing away that were close, and it was like, yeah, we're making the right decision. And also, luckily, my wife has got a great career, and she was with a firm that really appreciated her and was helping her grow. And so if it wasn't for her being in the position where she was at, it would have been a much harder decision for us to make. But we went from a two income household down to one, but that one income was still solid enough, right? Yeah. We still need to make some adjustments, and we're working through that. We had some money in the bank, but that's kind of drying up. So that just made that decision. It's like, okay, let's step away. We'll figure out what we're going to do. But first things first is like, let's start getting healthy ish right. But my wife, her thing, too, was she did not want me just to completely walk away from restaurants. She's like, there's no way you can there's no way you can completely walk away from just cooking. And the other part, she put she's like, we've also invested too much in you and kind of building a brand for myself in the Dallas area to just give that all up. So we need to kind of make sure we stay involved in that. So that's kind of where Chef made home, then came along. Now I'm here today, correct? Yeah. That sounds long winded to some, but that's the short story, too.Speaker C 00:49:36Well, I enjoyed it.Speaker A 00:49:37Hey, thanks for listening to this episode on season two and learning a hell of a lot more about me than you probably realized you wanted to know. And next up, we're going to be talking a little bit about Morris and more detail of his growth, and then we'll kind of we start tying that together in the next episode. All right, once again, thanks for listening. I'm your host, Chad Kelly with Josh Morris. This is inside the pressure cooker.

Eat your heart out, Nancy Drew. Kevin Flores, co-founder and editor at FORTHE, is back for part two of our Long Beach housing story: Ocean-Error and the Case of the Missing Middle. This mystery is full of twists, turns, complex finance schemes, and community wine dispensers! For whom should affordable housing be prioritized and why is everyone playing dumb while developers rob the city blind? We promise you will never look at the Oceanaire building the same way again. Follow Long Beach Chisme on IG and TikTok @lbchisme and on Twitter at @LongBeachChisme. Show Notes Here.

My thoughts on the crab cake at the Oceanaire --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/onyinthecity/support

I talk about a lot of different topics on this episode. From sports to how important it is to communicate with your significant other, Oceanaire vs. Ocean Prime, and how I like it that kids these days aren't dependent upon clothing brands to determine their worth.

Alex Gonzalez our local journalist is back and this show is dedicated to Dallas Ft. Worth residents or people that come to visit the DFW area. He regularly writes reviews for local residents. Most recently he reviewed the following restaurants that are standouts in the area. He went on a Galleria Restaurant Tour and we agree that Oceanaire is above and beyond our favorite restaurant. The food, drinks and service are impeccable. High-end chain offering seafood, steaks & a deep wine list in sophisticated but lively environs.Mi Cocina is a staple in our area and all of us agree that their frozen drinks are the best anywhere. Everyone needs to try their Mambo Taxi, Mambo Limousine and Dilemma. Trust us - let us know what you think.It is a collection of neighborhood restaurants serving authentic Tex-Mex dishes and legendary margaritas all over Dallas – Fort Worth ...Mi Dia from scratch is a standout because of their fresh ingredients and their table side guacamole and Hibiscus Champagne Margarita are so amazing that everyone needs to try them. Upscale Mexican restaurant features cooking of chef Gabriel DeLeon, whose dishes blend traditional Mexico City recipes.Alex tells us about Legacy Hall in the Shops of Legacy West in Plano Texas where he really likes the new restaurant The Italian Job - they serve fresh affordable pasta dishes and have an excellent "Frozee".Wahlburgers - Mark Wahlbergs restaurant in the Texas Star in Frisco leaves Bernie very underwhelmed and disappointed because he expected a lot more. This conversation turns into a Where can you find the best burger in the DFW area?The guys talk about Uncle Ubers in Deep Ellum, which is Alex's absolute favorite place for burgers and sandwiches. They also like Hop Doddy's, Village Burger Bar and Jakes. Te Deseo is a new Latin Restaurant in Dallas with the most incredible food and a dance floor where they have either live music or a DJ."Lively Latin American-inspired restaurant featuring a series of sultry-lit dining rooms, a courtyard with a must-see art piece, four bars, and a stunning rooftop patio overlooking the city. Gloria's is also a favorite. For more than thirty years, Gloria's Latin Cuisine has served a signature mix of Salvadorian, Mexican and Tex-Mex classicsDizzy Brands alcoholic ice cream and popsicles are incredible and their headquarters is located in Addison. The ABV is 17%."DizziBrands small batched lickable liquors feature a wide variety of alcoholic ice creams, sorbets, gelatos, cupcakes, frozen pops, gelatin shots, and gummies in a selection of sizes with branding that is unmatched in the industry."Sugar Daddy's Cakery stars from Sugar Rush on Netflix have the most incredible desserts in the area. Not only are they gorgeous - they also taste insanely great. Ashton Snyder and Lio Botello, owners of Sugar Daddy's Cakery in Dallas, appeared in a competition over desserts for the Netflix show Sugar Rush.They were also on the Kelly Clarkson Show and Alex wrote about them for an article in the Dallas Observer. Zip Code Media Cafe in Plano - a great new place with a green screen to create content. Alex thinks it will be a hot spot for social media influencers and journalists.Better than sex desserts in Plano is a great scandalous date night place or a girls night out place with great wine choices besides the cleverly, raunchy named desserts. Side Care Social in Addison is a place where you can sing Karaoke with a live band.North Italia in Shops of Legacy West is another favorite Cut by Cinemark Frisco is a new luxurious movie going experienceParigi Longtime neighborhood bistro boasts creative New American cuisine in a sophisticated atmosphere on Oak LawnGung Ho on Greenville Avenue Casual, colorful spot for chef-driven American-Chinese favorites from fried rice to broccoli beef.60 Vines has great wine including a wine from Austria which is super rare and great past pairings. Bulla Gastrobar in Legacy West First Texas location of a popular destination for inventive Spanish tapas & cocktails.Kai Sushi Restaurant Chic option for Pan-Asian dining (sushi, tempura, dim sum & a tasting menu) with sake & cocktails.Table 13 is one of Gabrielle's favorites in Addison, Classy restaurant featuring fine American cuisine & cocktails, plus live piano & jazz tunes.P and P Talk with Miss Polly: Why do toxic men have the best dick? Even Miss Polly is left a little speechless by this question. Question of the Day: How do you feel about guys with earrings?

I don't like working with people I don't like. Period. After more than 30 years in business it's the one thing I know for sure. You have to build a friendship with the people you're in business with. But these days that is absolutely frowned upon. I'm joined by Rob Atkocaitis from OceanAire to talk about this problem.  Should bringing coffee to the work-site be banned?  Can I hang-out with the people I do business with?   INSTAGRAM: @TimByrneAlmostLive TWITTER: @TimByrneAlmost FACEBOOK: Facebook.com/TimByrneAlmostLive

Musician, biologist and legal assistant are a few of the hats Danny Lee tried on before finding his perfect toque as Chef and Owner of Mandu, a traditional Korean restaurant in Washington, DC. No stranger to the restaurant business, Lee's mother, Yesoon Lee, also chef at Mandu, owned a sandwich shop in Old Town Alexandria, VA in the 1980s, and in the late ‘90s, a Charlie Chiang Kwai takeaway store at Reagan National Airport. It was at Charlie Chiang Kwai that Lee learned the basics of running a food establishment. He cemented his restaurant knowledge at Oceanaire, where he worked under Chef Rob Klink who trained him both on the managerial and culinary side of the food business. In 2006, Lee and his mother decided to open their own restaurant, one that played to their strengths and represented their culinary traditions and culture. They opened Mandu's first location near Dupont Circle in November 2006 and five years later, the second one in DC's Mount Vernon Triangle neighborhood.   Mandu has won “Best Korean” in the Washington City Paper annually since 2010 in addition to being featured in several local and national publications.  Mandu was also recognized as a recommended restaurant in the Michelin Guide's premier Washington, DC issue in 2016 and again in 2017. In the Fall of 2016, Lee and his mother were invited to London to showcase a Korean tasting menu for a two week Mandu residency at Carousel Restaurant. In 2017, Lee started a new restaurant group with Andrew Kim and Chef Scott Drewno, called The Fried Rice Collective.  The group's first restaurant, CHIKO, opened in July of 2017 on Barrack's Row in Washington, DC. CHIKO serves modern Chinese and Korean cuisine in a fun and casual environment.   CHIKO immediately garnered local and national interest upon opening, including being named one of Washingtonian Magazine's Best New Restaurants of 2017 with a three star rating.  The Washington Post also featured CHIKO in their 2017 Fall Dining Guide as one of the top ten restaurants in the city with the Post's food critic, Tom Sietsema, giving CHIKO a rating of three stars.  In 2018, CHIKO was a semi-finalist for Best New Restaurant in the country by the James Beard Award Foundation. Lee has been featured in several national and local publications, such as the Wall Street Journal, Men's Health, Lucky Peach, Washington Post, Washingtonian, and many more. IN this episode, we talk about his path to success. Enjoy!   EPISODE 27:     Welcome to Season 2 of The Chef Rock Xperiment. SUBSCRIBE TO THE CHEF ROCK XPERIMENT! http://rocksolidfood.com/shiftdrink (Watch the trailer for the upcoming visual, Shift Drink at rocksolidfood.com/shiftdrink)   HOW BEST TO CONNECT WITH CHEF DANNY LEE: http://www.chikodc.com https://www.instagram.com/dannyleedc (Instagram) http://chikodc.com/media (ChiKo and The Fried Rice Collective Media)

WBZ's Jordan Rich talks with Dan Enos, Executive Chef of The Oceanaire Seafood Room, about their amazing ambiance.

WBZ's Jordan Rich talks with Dan Enos, Executive Chef of The Oceanaire Seafood Room in Boston, MA.

The Total Tutor Neil Haley will interview Houston Rockets Owner Tilman Fertitta of CNBC's Billion Dollar Buyer. Tilman Fertitta is the sole owner, chairman and CEO of Fertitta Entertainment, Inc., which owns both the restaurant giant Landry's and the Golden Nugget Casinos and is recognized today as a world leader in the dining, hospitality, entertainment and gaming industries. The Company today has revenues over $3.4 billion and assets of more than $3.5 billion. Landry's operates more than 500 properties in 36 states and owns a number of international locations. It is also one of the country's largest employers, with more than 60,000 employees. Landry's owns and operates more than 50 different restaurant brands, including McCormick & Schmick's, Chart House, Landry's Seafood, Rainforest Cafe, Saltgrass Steak House, Bubba Gump Shrimp Company, Claim Jumper and many more award-winning concepts. Landry's Signature Group of restaurants includes some of the world's premier fine dining concepts, like Mastro's Steakhouse and Ocean Club, Morton's The Steakhouse, The Oceanaire, Vic & Anthony's, Brenner's Steakhouse, Grotto, La Griglia and Willie G's. What is further unique about Landry's is that it operates all of its locations and doesn't license or franchise any of its domestic units.  

When you think of pioneers in the restaurant business in Minnesota you think of Phil Roberts, Co-Founder and CEO of Parasole. Buca, Oceanaire, Manny's, Muffaletta, Mozza Mia, Burger Jones, Chino Latino and Figlio are all Parasole restaurant concepts. In this episode we revisit some of his successes and failures along the incredible path he has forged on our restaurant scene. Phil shares his unique idea generating process and even throws in a few travel stories as we talk about his company and his career.Support the showFollow the Makers of Minnesota on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram @MakersofMN. Send story ideas to Stephanie@stephaniesdish.com If you appreciate the work we do here, please subscribe on Patreon Please subscribe to My newsletter at https://stephaniehansen.substack.com/ so you don't miss an epiosde of the Makers of Minnesota This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe

When you think of pioneers in the restaurant business in Minnesota you think of Phil Roberts, Co-Founder and CEO of Parasole. Buca, Oceanaire, Manny's, Muffaletta, Mozza Mia, Burger Jones, Chino Latino and Figlio are all Parasole restaurant concepts. In this episode we revisit some of his successes and failures along the incredible path he has forged on our restaurant scene. Phil shares his unique idea generating process and even throws in a few travel stories as we talk about his company and his career.Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/StephanieHansen)

When you think of pioneers in the restaurant business in Minnesota you think of Phil Roberts, Co-Founder and CEO of Parasole. Buca, Oceanaire, Manny's, Muffaletta, Mozza Mia, Burger Jones, Chino Latino and Figlio are all Parasole restaurant concepts. In this episode we revisit some of his successes and failures along the incredible path he has forged on our restaurant scene. Phil shares his unique idea generating process and even throws in a few travel stories as we talk about his company and his career.Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/StephanieHansen)

When people hear the name Reggie Jackson they usually think about a black man that hits home runs, not a white woman that tells jokes. Originally from Virginia, Reggie moved to Atlanta in 2005, and very quickly found her knack for making people laugh. Aside from performing stand-up, Jackson is also a member of the interactive sketch comedy group, Call Me Up.The path to comedy that David Young took may be an unusual one, if there is such thing as a usual path to comedy. Originally out of Virginia, David moved to Atlanta in 2011 to pursue his passions in film and sound engineering: behind the scenes of showbusiness. When he took a job running sound at a comedy club, he began to develop his ear for the timing and subject matter that led him to perform on stage. Drawing upon his experiences in international travel and the entertainment industry's hidden quirks, David flashes his unique perspective through the lens of his laid-back, cartoon-like voice.Tune in each Tuesday night as Reggie and Dave take on the tables of some of the hottest restaurants in Atlanta.In this episode, #Oceanaire, #TheDaiquiriFactory, #EAVThaiandSushi, #AtlantaComedyClub, #BetweenWomen, #HighlandPub, #AcrossTheStreetBarConnect with Comedian Reggie Jacksonfacebook.com/comedianreggiejacksontwitter.com/comedianreggiejmyspace.com/reggiethecomedian 

When people hear the name Reggie Jackson they usually think about a black man that hits home runs, not a white woman that tells jokes. Originally from Virginia, Reggie moved to Atlanta in 2005, and very quickly found her knack for making people laugh. Aside from performing stand-up, Jackson is also a member of the interactive sketch comedy group, Call Me Up.The path to comedy that David Young took may be an unusual one, if there is such thing as a usual path to comedy. Originally out of Virginia, David moved to Atlanta in 2011 to pursue his passions in film and sound engineering: behind the scenes of showbusiness. When he took a job running sound at a comedy club, he began to develop his ear for the timing and subject matter that led him to perform on stage. Drawing upon his experiences in international travel and the entertainment industry's hidden quirks, David flashes his unique perspective through the lens of his laid-back, cartoon-like voice.Tune in each Tuesday night as Reggie and Dave take on the tables of some of the hottest restaurants in Atlanta.In this episode, #Oceanaire, #TheDaiquiriFactory, #EAVThaiandSushi, #AtlantaComedyClub, #BetweenWomen, #HighlandPub, #AcrossTheStreetBarConnect with Comedian Reggie Jacksonfacebook.com/comedianreggiejacksontwitter.com/comedianreggiejmyspace.com/reggiethecomedian