E101 Justin Vail

This week's guest is Justin Bale, who currently resides in Toronto, Ontario. Justin has been working in the industry, closing in on nearly two decades now. Justin also happens to be a co-owner of Sugar Run in Downtown Kitchener. We talked with Justin about how he got his start in the industry in his early 20s, while he was pursuing a musical career.

We talked about the benefits of starting out working in a chain restaurant where structure and rigidity are beneficial in your development. We discussed how Bart design and appearance are insights into the personality of the bar owner, and Justin also discusses how the change in roles to ownership affects staffing and your personal life. As always, it's another terrific episode that you're definitely going to enjoy. OK, we're back with another episode of the industry podcast.

My name is Kip Saunders. I'm the host of the producer extraordinaire of Dan Soretta. What's going on with you, buddy? It's much just hanging out, as always.

Now things going with you. That was the lockdown, has subsided and capacity limits. I'm coming back and... Yeah, I think things are open up a little bit.

You can come by Sugar Run, Downtown Kitchener, or Babylon Sisters Uptown Waterloo. If you want to check out what's happening in the bar scenes right now, definitely things are opening up. I think people are a little less nervous about being out in public. And apparently, in a couple weeks, we're recording this on February 22nd.

So a couple weeks were done with the vaccine mandates also. Oh, nice. Those fucking truckers did it now. The truckers did it.

Everyone from the Freedom Rallys can finally come in and order a couple of glasses of wine. Can't wait to meet these numscalls. Yeah, another hanging out in Cambridge, for sure. Oh, well.

So we have a great guest, as always, Justin Vale. My business partner Sugar Run is going to be joining us very shortly. Check out the archives. We just had our 100th episode.

That's right. We're joined by Matt Hewson and Janine Saunders. Correct, correct. And then, the previous to that, we had Hoom.

Sassy Raybir-Lass. I was sorry, yeah. John Thung-Gushi was number 99. And Sassy Ray was acquired of that.

And then Heather Scholestahl, Dominique Jackson, Andrew Dach, Kajun Pasul, and Elise Suryi for the last eight or nine episodes. Yeah, so check out the archives. You want to head up all those really good episodes there. I guess that's all we need to say about that.

We should tell you that if you like the show, then the best way to help us is to subscribe, rate, and review. If you want to be a guest on the show and you've got experience in the service industry, then DM us at info at the industry podcast, or you can email us directly at info at the industrypodcast.club. As always, a huge shout out to Zach Hannah for all the great artwork. I actually forgot to shout him out on the 100th episode, which really makes me a dick.

But, so sorry about that, Zach. What do you mean, reading kind of? Zach's a huge part of what we do here. He's been amazing doing all the artwork for our Instagram pages this whole time.

You can check him out at, but what is it again? Zach Hannah dot CO. Yes, Zach Hannah dot CO. So that is at aka, and then AH dot CO, both on Instagram and his website.

Great. So, I should also mention new food providers to both of my bars. The wonderful little mushroom catering is going to be supplying food for both sugar run, and Babylon sisters. So you're going to want to come by the bars and check the new menus out.

And I guess that's all we got to talk about. Okay. All right, show's over. So I guess today is Justin Vale, one of my oldest and best friends and my current business bar in the sugar run.

How you doing, Justin? I'm good, man. Thanks for having me on. Yeah, I only took 100 episodes.

I mean, I speak to you more than anybody else in my life. So, you know, I think we've held off for good reason, I think. What's another hour on your day, Otto? Yeah, right.

And now you're making me do a video. So I have to see you too, which is not ideal for you either. Yeah, to see me. That's pretty awesome.

Yeah. All right. Well, I feel like I already know most of the stories, but for our listeners, let's start with how you broke into the service industry and how long you've been doing this. I think it's funny.

I was talking about how long you've been doing this for the other week. And I think I've been actively serving and bartending. I'm 38 now. So since I was probably about 21 years old, I would think.

But like many people getting into the industry, like I was sort of on the periphery as a big musician. So chasing that dream, you know, little tours, regionally playing in bars and being really broke, but not wanting to, you know, work all the time. And not have the freedom to just go away when I need to. So yeah, I just kind of kind of bled that way, you know, from being a musician, meeting bar owners, meeting bartenders, drinking with them, and then eventually just getting a shot.

Actually, I think you might have been somewhat responsible for my first actual serving gig, funny enough. I think that's true. Actually, I'd like for you. Yeah.

Then I don't know if you remember this, but you set me up on the interview because it was your buddy, your buddy, our buddy, who was doing the interview and told me to give me a hard time. And yes, I was sitting there getting grilled to like a police interrogation by this guy until they finally asked me about the J's. And so they said that he knew you and I had the job like before the interview started. Yeah.

And that was that wild craft. So that was a wild craft. Yeah. So we had a lot of people work through the charcoal system on the show before previously.

So talk to us a little bit about the experience. You feel like you gained working in more of a corporate type restaurant. Yeah, it's interesting. Like I think I don't make any sort of like bones about making my distaste for the general corporate atmosphere of a restaurant known, but I think actually starting to work in one was valuable because they're so adamant about things like steps of service and just like general protocols and these little things that, you know, like a lot of structure, right?

Yeah, lots of structure, like tons of structure, tons of repetition and a lot more rigid, you know, and like I think both of us, you know, kept and kept an eye. We like to have, you know, comfortable, maybe a little more loose atmosphere with our employees. So, you know, it feels like home while we still expect high levels of service and, you know, with some of the rigidity of like a corporate restaurant, we don't really subscribe to that. And I don't think a lot of smaller places do either.

But these are actually things that are good to know and good to hone your skills and, you know, work with, you know, smaller sections and work your way into bigger sections. And yeah, just all the little like right down to like, you know, learning to carry a trade in a way they do it. Like these things are important. And yeah, I think working starting in a corporate atmosphere was good for me in that sense.

I actually have come along to the sort of notion that it's almost desired to have somebody work in one of those spots first before they come. It was always the sort of scene for a while where you'd go to like, oh, the local neighborhood spots, you can get a job there and that'd be a first serving job or whatever. But I kind of feel like you're better suited for your own development, but also for your employer. If you kind of cut your teeth on one of these corporate spots and you've sort of learned the basics first.

Yeah, no, I totally agree. Sometimes, but definitely not all the time, but a lot of times it could be very obvious who, you know, who has had some time in that atmosphere and who has, you know, just done the neighborhood sort of pub training. And I forget who was saying this, but I remember when we were opening Sugar Round, we were talking about how to get our kitchen filled. He was talking to me about actually seeing resumes with things like, you know, a sous chef, like Boston pizza as our Kelsey's or when I'm on the menu.

And you know, mentioning that there are a lot of people who see this as like a downside, but the truth of the matter is, as long as they have other experiences, you know, like those sorts of restaurants are training their shelves and their line cooks to be just really honing on costing and being cost effective and being efficient. And you know, it's like military brigade, you know, and that's valuable to small businesses where quite frankly, things like cost and food costing can be, you know, a much bigger issue than something that was bigger places. And I also like we don't have at a smaller independence spot A, the time and B, the staff of two, like we can't afford to staff someone just to train people how to do that. So it sort of falls on us and we don't have the time to do it.

So it's kind of like it's so much better. Someone else has already shown them that before they come to us. Yeah, I mean, that's the thing like, you know, like, you know, like small businesses, like ours, you know, it's, we have expertise in like one area, sort of, you know what I mean, like in Bartend, I can work some tables. I can tell you if your food tastes good to me, but other than that, I can't help you in the kitchen.

I'm almost at your mercy, right? So yeah, finding, finding people who have come from, you know, a well-homed and sort of proven system like that. I mean, that's valuable experience in my eyes for people. Yeah, we found that out about the chef side of it the hard way.

Yeah. Yeah, that's, yeah, that's putting it lightly. So we'll just tell the story real quickly, but then we'll get back to you, Justin, but the- Sorry, are we going to talk about the carrot? Yeah.

Yeah. I'll just get, I'm going to let you tell most of it. I'll just give a quick pream, but we had hired our first chef for Sugar Run. He delivered a knockout tasting at my apartment while we were still doing the build and we're like, this guy's got it.

He knows what he's doing. He was talking a big game. I had known him for a long time. He was a decent guy.

And, but then once we opened, he just seemed completely lost. Like, almost to the point where we started guessing whether he had had someone else do the cooking for that tasting at my apartment because something wasn't driving. And the council were off. There was way too much waste that wasn't being reported.

A numerous, numerous problems. But the biggest problem was we weren't selling any food at all. And, and also getting some complaints about it. So then I'll let you take the story from here on the fateful night that our chef was trying to figure it all out.

Well, yeah, I mean, I think after a while, you and I were starting to write him a bit, you know, and say, hey, can we get a decent job done? Essentially, you know, and as you were saying, like food was coming out, you know, overcooked, undercooked. Like he just hitting all the check marks here, you know, and yeah. So after time, I was sort of trying to get him to figure this out, figure this out.

He was a person who used to just like to sit at the bar and pontificate constantly after his shift. So one night he's sitting there at the bar with his, you know, grand book of ideas that he likes to draw in. And I'm, you know, being a hopeful optimist that you know I am. I think he's, you know, jotting down some inspired recipes, something, maybe, you know, a new formula for costing our food.

And that happened to walk over from behind the bar to see if he wanted to drink and managed to glance down at what he was, what he was doing. And what he was doing was sketching a picture of a carrot. Well, if you'd seen the look on his face, it was like he was lost in thought of like how he was going to, because we had just had the conversation with him about how we need to do something to improve the menu or get some food sales going because we weren't justifying a salary at this point. And that's what he would come up with.

He was working overtime. He was chewing his pen, looking up toward the heavens, you know, like he just looked so inspired. I wanted to peek to see what he was doing. And lo and behold, the answer to all of our problems was a carrot, a poorly drawn carrot.

Amazing. Yeah. So yeah, needless to say he doesn't work there anymore. And then shortly after we started out, we started out searching our cooking once again, check out the mushroom.

Oh, it's okay. Let's get back to you guys. So you eventually moved to Toronto to sort of more pursue your musical career at the time, and also needing some money you get back into the bar game at some point. Yeah, right.

So I'm in Toronto and I'm doing music and obviously needing money. So I ended up working my way around. I found myself serving in the Westin Harbor Castle at a restaurant called Tula. That also would occasionally let me hop on bar, which was good.

And it's, you know, serving quite frankly to my mind sort of like, you know, expensive sort of dated like business guy food, you know, like the, the scallops and the giant half shell from 1985. That's what I mean. And I'm serving these tables in a full suit, which, you know, for a 20 something year old musician feels like a big defeat. Yeah.

But yeah, I'm there and probably my first actual foyer into like, like really bartending was just a terrific local bar that I used to just frequent and became friends with. It was called Unit. Right. So I didn't have you.

Don't you have a story from Western Harbor Castle about Andrea Banyani? Oh, yes. It's a, yeah. But also you don't know and believe me at this point in this man's career, you have no reason to know who it is.

I mean, I was a professional basketball player. Yeah. The great white, no. Yeah.

Exactly. I think they used to call them. Yeah. I mean, like a good idea at the time.

But yeah, though, I mean, did it, I was like, you know, nothing's like having a seven foot tall NBA player who's scared to be anywhere near the basket, you know what I mean? That's a recipe for success. That was the Brian Clangelo era, was it? Yeah.

Yeah. Well, I mean, this was nearing like when I was finishing my term at Tula. So, you know, I'm sure you've both experienced, you know, when you're on the way out the door at times, you can be a little more free with your opinions, you know, but this was after another showing where he's, you know, he's playing for the Raptors. And one night he, you know, the night that night or the night previous, he had one of his performances shooting, I don't know, we're playing down 15 points, but letting in like 98, you know, seven feet tall and never rebounding.

So he actually showed up in a restaurant and he was having dinner. This big dripping greasy played a gnocchi from what I remember. And I was serving his table. And at the end of the night, you know, check and I just I asked him if there was anything else he'd like.

And he was like, oh, he's fine. And I had to tell him, I just needed to be up. And yeah, yeah, you know, he looked kind of surprised. And I just think the remember not receiving a tip that evening, which I don't know.

I think it was worth it, you know, maybe he's the one if he needed a tip that I'm. It might have been worth it, but it didn't work. It didn't work. So he started a unit and that as like, that used to be what I mean, it seemed like, because I've lived here in Kittera, little hold on to your event in Toronto, but I would always come up for games or concerts or whatever.

And wherever you and a couple of other friends in Toronto were drinking at that time, it was pretty much my de facto place to drink also, because once you guys found a place that you liked, that's where we went. That was always good spots. But like you know, it was this cool, like definitely like a tiny little cool classic Toronto independent joint. Yeah, it was, to be quite honest, I think to this day, it's still, I mean, this algebra is a big part of it.

It's still like probably my favorite bar in the city. It's long gone. Unfortunately, the owners had moved on to bigger and better things and just couldn't, you know, didn't want to keep the place going. But it was around for about seven years.

But yeah, right next to the Gladstone Hotel, you know, was the no sign era. So you did no sign and just like every, I love the bar, a because the people that would come in, we just did track such a great crowd. And the staff there were all just, I mean, they were fantastic. Like they were either a amazing what they did or a be, you know, figures in the community that people just like loved being around.

And everything about it, like the, I just remember distinctly the way it looked. I'm sure you guys have bars like that. They're just like, like, striking cord with you. You know what I mean?

And it feels like home and yeah, the way it looked, every piece of it, like this old, this really old like 1920s or wooden refrigerator that used to have the, used to need the giant ice block to keep things cold inside. But they, they truly fitted it, right? So there was actually, it wasn't motor, but it just like, you know, it just, it made me really fall in love with like bars beyond the fact that like, hey, this is the place that I can get drunk in, right? Like sort of the aesthetics of a bar and like, like, sort of focusing on what makes a bar look cool or what makes a bar feel cool?

Well, yeah, yeah, it looks cool and feel cool. But more than that, like the idea, like I was sort of like, you know, when we did Sugar Run and you, you know, graciously, like said that, you know, Justin, go have free rain to do like design or do whatever, you know, like, try to make the place look how we want it to look. You know, I think I mentioned to you that like one of the things I really like about bars is even now as a person who doesn't drink anymore is the fact that like, they can be these glimpses into the personality of people who own the place, you know, they can feel really personal and it can be like a separate world. You walk off to a street and it can be a separate world.

I like that idea. I don't know. It's just like a venture outside of, you know, normal life, real life, which is the street and then you walk to the door and then you're in whatever world that person wants to put you in. And I like that.

Yeah. And we like to, I mean, I guess this makes sense. We were very good friends before we started doing this. I'm not maintaining friendship left or going on three years now.

We've had Rocky points. Yeah, for sure. But the one thing I remember when we were planning the bar, it was almost like, no, like I'll give an example. Like when I did White Rabbit, my business partner and I had not talked about any of this shit at all.

And we just went and did it. And then it was like very clear, very quickly that we had completely different ideas about what we wanted to do. Whereas I feel like when you and I sat down to first discuss doing it as a place together, like when we talked about the aesthetics of how we both wanted to look, we were immediately on the exact same page, like right down to like how we wanted the back bar to look, how we wanted the bar to look, how we wanted to focus on the place, how we wanted bank ads, like everything. And then it was kind of like, like you mentioned where I was like, okay, I'm not good with the details of this.

I can see in my head how I wanted to look, but I have no, I can't make it happen. So that was when you came in and like, yeah. Yeah. And it's like, if I, I mean, if anybody had seen the space, I mean, I've got a picture that I don't know if you've even seen it, maybe you've seen it, but the bar very shortly after we signed the lease, and for you to be like, you know, put that trust in me, a person who's literally never done this before was pretty big and kind of scary.

But yeah, like when we, when we talked about it, like we talked about the concept of the bar and the things that we liked in bars, and we were, we were definitely on, on the same page, which definitely made it easy, you know, in the terms of like, you know, I didn't have to like, you know, we didn't get an argument and say about like, I want the back bar to the arched and it's worth the money to build it that way. We just hope, you know, we need the arches. Yeah. So that's, you know, that made it very easy to do.

But yeah, I just, I love, I love like helping like to create the, the feeling of our bar. And that's one of the things I actually first experienced at unit was, you know, really taking that all in and feeling how personally it could be. Actually, well, like after the show's over, I'll say to send me some of those before pictures and what we'll do when this episode airs will post some before and after shots on the sugar run Instagram, because that people are always interested in what you used to look like there. And I always describe it as a murder basement.

Yeah, it's pretty much it. I like describing it as an asbestos storage unit. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, that was daunting.

But yeah, like it was, it was just so like, yeah, sorry, I don't mean the backtrack, but like, yeah, you know, it was great for that in so many, so many reasons. And that's one of the things I really talked about, you know, and I think I think it was pretty evident too, at times during our build, you know, clearly like there were times where I was holding things up and like, you know, with some of the design stuff. And it was because it was, I was taking it so personally, you know, like, and it's funny because I try not to talk too much. But when I have a customer who's, you know, very interested in asking questions, I can literally tell anybody a story about every inch of that place are railing the tile, each lighting fixture, you know, all that stuff, I can tell it's a story.

And yeah, I think I like it for that reason. I do too. I mean, obviously it costs a lot of money. We had a lot of delays and a lot of stress getting that place open.

But I agree with you. When I look around there and people ask me like, well, it's just like, there's not an inch of this place that you and I didn't touch. And sure, we had contractors, but some of the shit we were just in there doing ourselves, like the fucking wallpaper in the bathrooms, which was. Yeah, that was the worst thing.

That was one of the worst things I've ever experienced. The wallpaper. Like, you know, the wallpaper. Yeah.

I ended up being mostly adjusted. My wife, Janina, was on the last show and I did one of the rooms. We had sort of a secret room there. We'll just call it that for anyone who hasn't been to Sugar Run yet.

You should come and check it out. We did that room. But Justin and his girlfriend at the time did. Oh, you and I did the one bathroom and then you and her did the other bathroom, I think, is how it worked.

But you and I did, yeah, you and I did half of the banana leafs, although the banana leaf was. Yeah. And then the other washroom, which is like, I mean, what kind of idiot chooses this wallpaper. It's like geometric patterns.

You gotta match them up. Yeah. And it was a sticker type too. It wasn't the kind that you put the glue down.

Oh, and it was a fucking I actually was in there. I was trying to help you and Rachel, but like I, there was too many people in the bathroom was too small and I was just like, this is not working. So I'm like, okay, you guys got to do it. I went bought some other shit that we needed to do the build time.

But yeah, that was a fucking nightmare. Unbelievable. I was, I think I've never been so close to wanting to hang myself as a halfway through that bathroom and to cap it all off, after we left, I was so worked up and pretty sure me and Rachel got in the argument and our drive back to Toronto and then mid argument I got pulled over and was given a $230 speeding ticket. So that's how that night tapped off.

Oh fuck. Yeah, Janina and I got into an argument at one point too. But she even warned me. She's like, we're not allowed to fight if we're going to do this together, but there's no way to avoid it.

I don't fight anyone to put up wallpaper with another human being and not fight. No. Honestly, there are a couple of things in my life being, you know, 38 I've learned that I will never do myself again. I was paid people to do it and it's moving and wall-papering.

Like I'm happy to eat that cost. My house was full of wallpaper and I moved in. I was the tool, the fucking devil. Yeah.

I never had to appeal some of them. I was like, I'm not on Suck's do, but not as bad as putting it up this. Right. Because take it down was a fucking nightmare.

It's awful. Well, getting the glue off was actually a point of doubt. So we did touch like every inch of that, but I remember the other thing was doing stuff that like we're not qualified to do, like just trying to figure it out on the fly to save some costs here and there. Well, yeah, that's, you know, I was just going to say that's like another thing.

Now what I've been treated to ownership is just like, I mean, you kind of, you kind of do everything, right? Like you kind of have to do everything, you know, like at one point, like since we've been open I was, I mean, you remember the first summer when we had the air conditioning problem like like all and I'm like hanging off with the roof, trying to try to refill this industrial air conditioner. It's like, you know, what? I had to do that to win the winter one time.

We had to do it in the winter once too, right? Because, and it was like, you're on the top of the roof. It's fucking snowing ice hanging on, right? And the door sucks.

You have to yank it. And then you're just like, what? Yeah. Our landlord's solution for having an inefficient industrial air conditioner for our building that uses glycol to keep things cool instead of like replacing it or repairing it properly.

It was to have like tenants scale the roof, you know, depend mostly on any like, you know, sort of arachnid tendencies we may have to stay against this air conditioner and fill it up and get it started again, which is like not only terrifying, but like, I mean, there's a chance that we've done it wrong and I'll get more. Why don't you just, we don't have to do this yet? He's telling me on the phone how to do it. I'm using my phone as a flashlight because it's the middle of the night and I am cringing and you're hanging on that stupid fucking little ladder.

That's like, what are we doing here? But you definitely have to do that way more than I did. I know, but you do. I'm smaller.

So what if I left you? I feel the five stories. It's funny though that like how you're exactly right, that you want you to move into the ownership side. If you're a smaller independent spot like ours are, like you find yourself doing shit that is like, this is not why I got into the bar business.

So let's talk a little bit about that. Like, you know, I think for a lot of people who end up in the service industry that a lot of them are just doing it and are happy to do that. A lot of them are doing it as a vehicle to make money to do something they really want to do or travel or what have you or do music. But for the rest, for a large portion of us, it's like to get into the ownership side at some point.

You feel like that's what you want to do. So talk a little bit about now that you've done that. And like, are you enjoying it? Was it what you thought it was going to be?

Talk about the frustrations? Talk about things you like and don't like about it. Yeah, I mean, you could turn into a very lengthy conversation. There's definitely, I mean, it's like anything, I think there's things I really enjoy about it and you know, you take a lot of pride in it.

But like, in the day to day, you know, when you look at your day to day, there are definitely things that are incredibly frustrating, you know, and you're taken back by, well, I'm taken back by it. And it's just like, you know, I mean, it's going into it. It's like, I expected it. I expected to be doing more.

I expected to have my hands and all different facets of this business to keep it running. But the reality of it definitely feels different, you know, it definitely looks different, which is good and bad. Like anything, I do find I hate. One thing I hate about myself is, you know, when I was a bartender and you're working for whoever, you know, and you get to that point when you're like, oh, the bosses, you know, the bosses, they're always chirping this and that and about money and, you know, dollars and, you know, you clocked in late and all this stuff.

Now it's like the fact that I think about money almost drives me crazy, you know, it's like I feel like such a sellout, you know, but the fact of the matter is it's like, you kind of have to kind of have to think about waste and like, you know, I was, you know, every time glasses break, so does my heart, you know. Yeah. That's my big thing. That's why I hate the most, you know, because it used to be that like, you know, I'm a bartender, a glass broke, it's busy, you know, but now I watch a surfer drop an entire tray of water glasses and all I can think about is now having to wait three days to get them back in and pay for them, you know, and it's not a big deal.

These things happen, but like, you know, I almost kind of hate myself for now thinking of it these days. Yeah, I think about money a lot, which is something you never think about when you're just making it behind the bar. You always have cash on your hand and it seems to be easy to get. Now it's like, you constantly think about the money that's going out, which I'll tell you for me, it's stuck a lot of the fun out of it.

Have you found that as well? Yeah, I mean, definitely the, so I think you were listening to all the reasons that people get into the industry and one of the reasons you forgot and I think is, if we're all being honest with ourselves is because, you know, it might be like, we're interested in cocktails, we do music, we do this as an ad, but if we're all being honest with ourselves, I think it's a good percentage of us. We'll also get into it because we get to continue staying up late, hanging out and drinking, you know, and it's a good career to keep going with that. And it's like, it can be, it can be a fun, you know, industry to work at, like, let's be honest, especially when you're young, you know, and you're a social person.

And that's just like kind of not the case any longer, really. It's, so yeah, it's not quite as fun. Although, you know, I'm still behind the bar and it does feel worth it to me when I, you know, you run into those customers who are genuinely really happy to be there and join their experience and just you have the time to talk with them and, you know, really make them feel like this is their place, like that actually means a lot to me. And it actually means more to me now that it's my bar instead of doing it for somebody else's.

So yeah, I agree with that. The times that I still have fun are when like you come into what, like if I come into one of my places and it's busy and music's just how I like it and the lighting's perfect and it's full and everybody's having fun and like immediately that just puts me in the best mood ever because my whole goal and I think you would probably agree with me is creating this amazing experience for people to come and hang out and just super enjoy. And like when you can stop thinking about all the millions and millions of annoyances of doing this for a career and just focus on, holy shit, this is what I wanted this to be. You see like just a large group of people having an amazing time in your spot.

That's when it's impossible not to have fun. No, it's, yeah, I mean, it really is a good feeling now, especially with a place like, like Sugar Run, obviously a lot has gone into it to like I was talking about before, make a personal, make a charming to give an experience, you know, like we could have just open, you know, your like room for drinking, you know what I mean, like white walls, you know, those exist and there's a time and a place for them too, but we did something more personal so when you get to see it become personal for other people, that's a pretty cool thing, I think. Yeah, it does make it worthwhile sometimes. But there are, how do you feel things have changed sort of for you as like going from employee to owner and dealing with staffing and like even how that's affected your personal life?

Yeah, staffing is, I mean, especially now like posts or less pandemic area where end has become a huge challenge finding people like so many people have left the industry, which is, you know, quite sad and but also understandable as we were all, I don't think I'm offside for saying completely abandoned in what's happened. And in terms of, you know, just overall dealing with staff, it starts to like it has blood into my personal life a bit because you're always thinking about like my staff are also out there representing the business. And if they're happy, then customers will be happy, right? So I find I try to tend to their needs, you know, and also like I'm the type of person who is trying to find that line between like, you know, I mean, I hate the word like boss, manager, whatever, you know, whatever, you know, it's just like doing that.

But also like I'm a person who just likes people and likes to be people's friends, you know, so it's hard for me at least it's actually been kind of hard finding that line and probably took a little while for me to settle into it. And quite frankly, I'm still probably learning, you know? Yeah, and like you're also working alongside them as well. So that's like, which is also a whole different dynamic, not all owners are doing that.

So that adds like an additional sort of like, there's a weird line to be drawn when you're their boss, but you're also their coworker at the same time, making tips of them, whatever, right? So yeah, yeah, for sure. It is like it can feel uncomfortable at times. And I'm sure at times it's a little awkward for them too.

And I really try to reiterate that like, you know, we're on the floor, we're like a team and working and if things need to get done, like I, not somebody who's overly sensitive when we're working, if it's busy, things need to get done just yell at me, you know, that's cool. If you notice something and you need to get done and you're bogged out, just yell at me. That's fine, you know? And I'm sure it is a little weird for, especially when they're starting for staff to be like, okay, well, like how do I ask him to do this?

I would like yell at him and do this sort of thing. Yeah, definitely is an interesting dynamic, I would say. Yeah, I've actually even struggled with, so I mean, I like to think I'm a pretty personal guy in regular life and like got lots of friends and I can talk to people on a podcast or whatever. But when it comes to business stuff, I'm very direct and can be borderline curt when just like, because I just got a lot of my mind trying to run two businesses and my phone's always going off with one or the other.

So like, I'm very direct and just like, let's get to the point, let's just deal with it and I found that there's sensitivities to that and I'm like, okay, one more thing to think about is the sensitivity of the person you're talking to. But sometimes I find it frustrating as well. It's just like, look, I'm just talking business right now. Let's just get it done, you know?

Yeah, and it's interesting because like, you know, that's where you meet Differs. I had the opposite problem. Like I had to learn to become more curt because it's like, even like managing, like I managed like I was like, other places, like the brewery, I was at before this. But like, you know, it's even a different dynamic just managing as it is from like owning your own place, right?

And I had to, yeah, I had to maybe learn how to be more curt, you know? Because that is not, I don't think that is my nature. I don't move, right? Okay, so one more thing that you're sort of famous for in the service industry is workplace injury.

Yeah. Let's run through some of the most unbelievable ways. I don't mean to make light of them because you seriously heard yourself a number of times, but if we just run through, like it's, no one's even going to believe this. So let's just start by saying this, all of these things actually legitimately happened.

And let's talk about some of the more crazy ways you've heard yourself on the job. And let me preface this by saying he's not a glist, none of these were his fault. Yeah, I mean, like, how have I been hurt on the job? I mean, like, I was, uh, electrocuted pretty, uh, hardly by a glass washer.

Just coming in high. Yeah, I worked out before this. I also at one point, this is the worst. I'm not going to name the bar because I love the actual work in there.

And I love the duty ones that it's really independent place and it was a great place to work, just to, you know, to preface this. But I cut the tip of my pinky finger off at one time. Not the whole tip, but like right at the corner with like this fancy citrus peeler, but just laced into it one night. And I was the only person working because it's a really small bar.

So this happens. And I am just a fountain of horror and blood. So I rush over to the first aid kit and without exaggeration or any lie whatsoever. I open it up and nothing but MP candy bar rappers.

So, I bet you'll have it. Yeah, it was, it was, uh, yeah, it was, it was funny, I guess in retrospect. So you're fashion a band-aid other than the Snickers rappers? Yeah, I found some duct tape.

So I used that and a couple of latex gloves to create a mitten for the rest of the evening because I had to finish the shifts because I'm the only one working. So, I mean, that's happened. I don't even know. I went to the top of my finger off on a mandolin and I was worn several times.

I was kind of cucumbers for garnish. And, uh, or no for, I think we were modeling them. And, uh, this was a rabbit and like my chef was like, just be careful when you get to the the end. I'm like, yo, I think I know how to do what.

The top of my finger. Those things are fucked up. What happened when you fucked up your hand that really, that brutal way? Oh, when we were touching the other bar.

Uh, so this was, uh, at the, the same place that electrocuted me. That was actually, that's great. You know, I don't think I'm famous for workplace injuries. I think I'm famous for workplace industry, uh, injuries at this particular one.

Yeah, maybe that's it. Um, but with my hand, it was a, uh, a walk-in fridge door that had been broken forever and we'd been complaining about it to get fixed. Uh, it eventually like the track snaps and the door kind of fell and crushed my hand, um, sort of between the door and the wall or the hinge. Um, and, uh, surprisingly nothing was broken, but this thing was like very large purple for a good two weeks, uh, two and a half weeks.

Um, I mean, you saw- You just, you know, his hand was like, well, the one hand was at least four times the size of the other one. I remember we had, and I hadn't seen him yet. He had told me it happened over the phone. He was coming to town.

We were gonna pitch. Uh, we were still building sugar rum, but we were in the, like, I, I can get pretty, uh, I don't know what the word for it is, um, because I'm just can't think of it right now, but sometimes I just get like, okay, let's do another thing. Let's do another thing. And don't turn down any opportunities.

I said, I still very much feel that way, but some, it come available to pitch these, um, Korean gentlemen on another bar in a condominium that I thought was a good opportunity for. So Justin came, we had a different, we had another idea. Justin came down and he had told me about the injury, but not really the extent of it. He told me what happened.

He really fucked up his hand and he shows that when we were getting lunch so we could discuss the pitch before we went to the pitch. And I've never seen him in a more furious in my life and because he couldn't, it was, it was his eating hand. So he was like trying to eat a salad, but his hand looked like literally like from a Looney Tunes cartoon, like someone gets hit in the hand with a hammer and it's like expansive, like this, like a cartoonish size compared to the other one. Justin's trying to go to work on this salad with his left hand and I just dabbing it out and I thought he was going to go right through the plane.

I'm like, how are we going to go do this pitch? But then we get to the spot and because Justin's a foreign performer just like, he clicked over and he was just like, he had the whole room sold in like 10 minutes. But I was just like, I was just like, I was just like, I was also like, it was also like having a built in laser pointed out for the presentation. Nobody could take their eyes off of it.

The other day, well, and then the one that still is crazy to me because of, it was one, it was during this pandemic and the rules of the time were, because we've gone through so many fucking different phases of rules, they finally let us reopen the sugar run, but we were only open to, let it be open till 9 p.m. and we were all led to 10 people. So it was just Justin and I hanging out in there and hoping somebody would come in and we were just shooting this jet, there was nobody there. And then all of a sudden I hear he was leaning it back against the back bar and all of a sudden he was like, what the fuck, what the fuck?

And he was on fire. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm a big vintage clothing guy, so I was wearing an old wool shirt, you know, they like peeled, like a peal, but yeah, I guess a candle must have caught me in the back of my shirt. I was full on on fire.

100%. And the best part is like Justin and I both grew up in the era that you did of like being told exactly what to do in the situation a million times when you were a kid. Stop dropping the rules. You can't remember that in those situations, no, or at least we couldn't.

That's a, kind of a conclusion that's completely an ineffective tool to teach kids, because in the moment nobody's stopping and dropping a roll. And I just, I hulk hulk it. I had to hulk hulk it. Yeah.

I never, I thought you were like, get it off of me. I'm like, how am I going to grab it? It's on fire. Yeah.

But yeah, that's a funny story about you did fuck up your back pretty bad. So when you stop scars and shit, right? Yeah, I got some scars. It looks like somebody took a hunk of bacon out of me on the back, but I mean, it could have been a lot worse just there.

It could have been a lot worse. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

One of those things, I guess, you know, like tough on fire. Yeah, crazy. Well, that place has been a blessing and curse. We've had so much shit happen there.

Literally shit sometimes. We had to shovel out of there through floods and stuff. But somehow we're all still standing. It should have run.

I don't know how, but. Yeah. I mean, a question I have. And let me ask you actually.

It's not really how the show works, but okay. Sorry. I'm going to turn the tables here. I mean, both, like, you know, as an owner of a spot before when you were owning, you know, rabbit, like, these things commonplace, you know, and it's just like, you know, it's just like, we've been, yeah, we've been thrown so, so many curve balls.

It's unbelievable. Yeah. Well, and I will say that every place I've owned out of the three right now, there's always problems. Like, I always say I wake up every morning and I look at my phone with like, just like, fear, just to see what's coming.

But so we had multiple problems getting open and rabbit. We had multiple problems when rabbit was open. I have multiple problems with Babylon, same thing with the opening of there, but nothing comes anywhere close to sugar. It's like, if we make it through a full night without a disaster, it's amazing.

And I like to think that we keep it together so the guests don't really know that all this shit's going on. Well, the fucking thing about it is that like, it's a pretty busy bar and people really love coming there, you know, which is great. And I love, but you should all know that it's chilling me slowly. Like, at times literally, like when I'm on fire.

Do you think I was in the middle child because it's literally my middle bar of the three that I've owned, but also like it's got that middle child problems? Yeah. You know, like, always acting out. Yeah, it's true.

But you know, we also like, we took a pretty messed up space. Let's be honest, the place where the bar is was never supposed to be anything. You know, like nothing, nothing inhabitable should have been down there. And we made it inhabitable.

So I guess, you know, there are some very old buildings. Well, there are some innate, innate issues that are going to come by that I suppose. I just wish we, we, we consider that. Well, I feel like we did a little bit, but I also feel like there's some of the things that no one could have seen coming.

Like, certainly, yeah, it's leaks here and there and plumbing issues. You could kind of expect that to happen in an old building in a basement. The fire, the fire rating issue no one could have seen coming. Right.

Yeah. Like during the build that cost us almost $3,000 to fire rate it properly. Yeah. And that was basically because the fire department themselves kept changing their mind about what they were going to be okay with.

And then we had the problem with the railing, which was the same thing. Like, I'll never forget. So yeah, there's a, if for those of you who haven't been there, shame on you, but do we have like a sort of inverted stage, like a sunken in area in the middle of the bar that we had to put a railing around there? There was a railing there already.

So we were just going to reuse that. And then they told us that we couldn't. And then they told us we could. And then they told us it had to be fortified with spindles.

Yeah, thank you. And that was right at the end. We were just about to open. And that was right at the end.

We were just about to open and those spindles, that was going to cost us an extra like $6,000 that we did not have at that point. And I was going back and forth with the building specter back and forth with the building specter. He literally came in, looked at it, measured the depth of the spot in person. He's like, actually, you know, according to code, you don't need a railing at all.

And I'm like, are you serious right now? Because I was going to solve all my problems. And he's like, yeah, 100%. I'm like, okay, great.

So that's what you're saying. We don't need it. He's like, yeah, I'll sign off on that. I'm just going to get back to the office.

I'll email you the signature. You're good to go. You can open. This is the last thing we were waiting on.

But the time he got, so I just wasn't there at the time, but my contractor and I were literally like hugging each other. Like, whoa, it's fucking done. We don't have to deal with this. As that's happening, I get an email from the building specter who, I can only assume he just made it to his car at this point.

And he was like, actually, I was rethinking that. You're going to need the full railing. That was happening to us. Like, what are you talking about?

I had to call the mayor at one point and be like, look, something like you got to help us out here because every time we do what they say they need us to do, they move the goal post. And that actually did help with the building specter came through after that. But yeah, it was something else. And it's been something else keeping it open this whole time through two years of pandemics and floods and fucking.

Yeah. It's been, yeah. But the thing is, is that we are still here. Yeah.

And people are still coming and that's a good thing. And I think there's sadly a lot of businesses that we all know didn't make it. And quite frankly, we probably only, I think we've maybe only started to see the amount of businesses that are going to close because of the pandemic and because of inflation. And like, we're going to see a lot more casualties.

So I'm doing my best to consider ourselves pretty lucky, you know, to be around. I agree. It's a positive way to think of that. It's been an amazing ride.

And I think we got a lot more years in us just since. Yeah. I think so. Thanks, buddy.

And thanks for doing the show. Yeah, no problem. Yeah. And being the fact that it's you and me.

I'll see you tomorrow. Yeah. I'll see you later. And then I'll probably be pouring your beer shortly.

Perfect. Thanks for your time. Thanks for your time. See you guys.