E113 Christie Collins

This week's guest is Kristi Collins. Kristi has a good course of her career working in the Kitchener Water area, and then he noted local landmarks such as Oscars, Hannah Bell's Bistro, Public Kitchen and Bar, and Corner Kitchen, plus many others. We talked with Kristi about her many working experiences locally, as well as in cottage country Ontario and out of British Columbia. We discussed the differences between working as a server and a manager, and Kristi discusses how she developed her appreciation and knowledge of wine.

And we finished up the episode talking with Kristi about her new venture, GrowPrepCreate.com, a platform dedicated to helping people cook, meal plan, and prep in a way that supports your health goals and delays your taste buds. You can also find Kristi on Instagram at Grow.prep.create, and check out the show notes for all the links. Enjoy the show. Okay, we're back with another episode of the industry podcast.

My name is Kip. This is Dan, and literally just called me a douche before we start recording. And then he goes to the shoe fence. Hey, how are things going with you?

Fantastic. Thanks. The weather is picking up, so we went from winter to summer once again. One week of spring.

We should mention that we just came from a Trump, tequila trombone event in Toronto hosted by Juuki, former guest on the show. You can check out her episode in the archives. It was a fun time. Played some ping pong and drank some tequila.

Nice. Yeah, it was good. So getting through this sort of paperwork here, we should mention that if you wish to be a guest on the show, you should email us at info at theindustrypodcast.club, or you can DM us directly at the industry podcast on Instagram. Our artwork is done by Zackana at Zackana.co.

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Oh, yeah, subscribe. Great review. Do that. Right on the ball.

Yeah, I told you I drank a bunch of tequila. I know how to say that a little bit. As a professional, we sold your own. Professional, eh?

Yeah. And speaking of being a professional, we have a sponsor this week. Do you tell him? Yes.

Rick Beren Shelley at the Case for Wine. And he is who you want to go to for all your wine needs, whether it's for a bar restaurant, like my two bars, I deal with Rick at Sugar Run in Downtown Kitchener and Battle on Sisters Uptown Waterloo. Or you can if you want to just have some consignment wines for your home, you can get in touch with Rick for that as well. But how would I do that if I wanted to?

Well, let me just tell you that the email is Rick at thecaseforwine.com. Right. And I'll put a link to that in the show notes as well. Yeah, so shout out to Rick.

You can get in touch with him for Wine for your bar and restaurants, or for your private home collection and enjoyment, such as wines from Lael Vineyards. And you can find the Blue Brink Habernet at Babylon Sisters, actually. And the Lael Vineyards is produced by Robin Vale. She's one of Napa Valley's most iconic and influential wine figures.

And her dad was a Napa pioneer. The 2017 Blueprint Cabernet was the Wine Enthusiast Wine of the Year. Oh, fancy. It is.

And you can get that at Babylon Sisters. Or maybe if you want it for your house, just go through Rick directly. That's Rick at thecaseforwine.com. Okay.

And now let's get to our guest this week, which is another great one. Kristi Collins is joining us. How are you, Kristi? I'm good.

How are you guys? Doing great. All right. Let's put your comment on the show.

Of course. Thanks for having me. So let's just jump right into it here. Talk to us a little bit about how you first got started in the service industry.

And we'll start rolling through the career. Sure. So sort of one of the classic ways of getting involved. I started working at a family restaurant that some of my family worked at.

So I had two cousins that already worked at Oscars family restaurants. Oh, nice. Back more than 20 years ago now or almost 20 years ago. And so they kind of got me in.

I was 16 and started blessing and hosting there. And that's what kind of started it all. About Oscars. I've seen that place where I've been there a bunch of times.

Is that still the same ownership that it's been the entire time? It's been the entire time. It's been the entire time. It's changed a couple of times.

No, I know it's changed at least one time. So the owners who owned that then went on sold it shortly after I worked there. So about 20 years ago and then bought Benny's or ran Benny's where it was on Bieber. And then actually full circle moment.

They are the owners at now on corn kitchen, which is there now in the old Benny's location now, which is now where I'm currently working. I got to. OK. Yeah.

It's all come full circle. It has. Yeah, it's really bizarre, but it just worked out that way. And so after us, what did you end up going to work after that?

So after that was the iconic Hoother Hotel, which I feel like you. If you are like in the industry in this city and you have been for a while, you either have worked there or know somebody who has. So I was an expedited there for almost two years, which is a pretty good record for the Hoother. That's the price that that place has expedited.

It's like, it just. I mean, it did back in the day. I don't know. That was pretty packed all the time, right?

I really still are. Weekend. Yeah, I mean, I work there kind of in the heyday. Like it was like very busy.

The barley works and the barley works, the patio and all of that. And it was actually like an expediting position where you didn't really leave the kitchen. Like we did occasionally we would rent food if we needed to, but they had pagers. So we would page them and they would come.

So you would just make sure, you know, the sauces are with that. You've got a spoon or a knife or whatever you need it and then page the server to come get it. So yeah, interesting. And so two years is a very long time to actually be working at the Hoother.

I think that might be some sort of record. How did you manage to stay there that long? Well, again, got in there through family. So my sister was there as well as she was expediting.

So it was fun, right? Like we went in and hung out together and I did it together. And then we had a couple of friends kind of coming going only lasted the more traditional few months there, but it was a lot of fun with my sister. And as long as you like, I don't know if I should name or name, but the matriarch of that restaurant.

He's kind of like known to be a little bit, I don't know, scary, intimidating. Yeah. But if you were just sort of like, you knew, I guess I sort of had some kind of confidence in there, maybe because of my sister or whatever, that she would come in and be like, you know, something, something and be like, okay, fine. You know, we just let it roll off and you're like, okay, like we know we're doing what we should be doing like, it's fine, you know, and then she'd run off somewhere else and it was fine.

So I don't know. It was a pretty decent career that was there at the time. So it worked. Yeah.

And then you so you went to school for a little bit after that. So that is food and beverage management and that comes from it. And how did you put that program? Because we've been, I've actually had a couple volunteers doing their hours at both Babylon sisters and Sugar Run from the food and beverage management.

And from what I can ascertain is they didn't teach them too much. Yeah. Into the food and beverage experience. Yeah.

Yeah. That's fair. Well, I went there in a weird time where I think that the culinary and food and beverage thing used to be at the do campus at some point or maybe it was somewhere else and then it, there was a brief time where it was in the office space that sort of behind the wild craft area, like a weird office building. Yeah.

And it was this amazing new building that they now have. So I was in it during that ghetto phase, but I was in this like office building that was converted into classrooms in a kitchen. I mean, I enjoyed my time there. Again, I had pretty good like people that I went through with and I really enjoyed like the chef there and some of the teachers, but it's definitely the theory, right?

Like you need practical experience in order to actually be good in a restaurant. Like you need confidence and actual experience. And that just taught you sort of the theory, like I said. So it was good in some ways for certain parts of my career and gives you sort of the base, you absolutely need like some kind of practical experience with that as well.

We did do practical, like we had one day a week where you were in the kitchen and one day a week where you were in the dining room. So you've got some of that, but I mean, it wasn't busy like a restaurant. It wasn't run exactly like a restaurant. So it wasn't quite the same.

So did you also have to do volunteer like ours at bars and restaurants? It was all done at the spot. So when I did it, it was a two year program which had a six month co-op term in between. Okay.

So there was nothing like during like while you were taking the courses, it was just the six months in between. And that's when I went up to a scope up for six months. And some debauchery happened. Yeah.

So it talks a little bit about working on that muscoker. It sounds like it would probably be pretty fun way to spend your summer. It was very fun. It was very fun.

I was 20 years old and drinking a lot, partying a lot. And I had again, sort of family. So my sisters, two really good friends had been going up there for years and years, which is kind of the connection that I got to going up there. And they had been working at this golf course.

So they kind of got me in there. So I already had kind of them as built in friends and they knew a few other people up there. So they knew the owners of the one bar in town. So yeah, it was a really fun summer.

We had a staff house, you know, we had like a kitty pool in the living room at one point. We were like across the way from like a sort of public dock area. You could walk anywhere in the town. It was a small town.

So yeah, it was a very fun summer. And I learned some things. Lately, I've been learning some things about Rick Banchali at the case for wine. Yes, I will tell you all about it.

Some of the amazing wines that he has available to purchase at the case of wine, such as domain Joseph Wolo and his wines are a masterclass in understatement, letting the terroir do all the talking be a relatively low alcohol levels plus a prune use oak and sulfur. So that's the Zuros F. Wolo Vonier, premium crew. It is available at Babylon Sisters or just go to Rick Banchali directly and you can get it at the case for wine.

That's Rick at the case for wine. com back to you, Christy. So you're after a spoke, that's like a great way to spend a few months popping up and around with the cottage people. What's a crowd like there?

It was kind of mixed. I actually had a really funny encounter with like a celebrity like a NHL player. So the Lindroses were members at this golf club. So both Eric and Brett and their dad, they were all members there and they would come for like some of the dinners, like if we did a Thanksgiving dinner or whatever, like a fancy dinner.

So they would come to that, not bread and air every time, but they were coming one day and I knew they were coming and I was in sort of like this snack area by myself. And like, I like hockey, but I don't know what people look like, right? So I was like there, I knew they were coming and still I think it was Brett who came in first and he was by himself. So I was probably expecting like a crew to come in all together.

But he came in first by himself and anytime one of our members, I think it was members only I'm pretty sure it was a private club. So anytime one of our members would come in and order whatever we asked them for their last name and charge us their accounts. So he orders some sandwich and I was like, oh last name. He's like, Lindros.

And I'm like, oh, yeah, okay. No problem. I go back like make a sandwich and and bring it out to him. It was just like, I felt like, oh my God, like I knew he was having and still didn't get it right.

Well, they wear helmets when you see them on TV. Exactly. Right? Yeah.

Okay. So I think I was going to be working in KW again. Yeah. So I finished school.

I think like I was still still at the hooter for a while there. Like after my second semester, I think or maybe I just wasn't working anywhere there. And then after I finished, the girlfriends and I went and decided to move out west for just again, just this summer. So six months we moved out to Kelowna and that was another really fun summer.

Yeah, it was my three girlfriends living in Kelowna. We did a lot of like skateboarding and biking around. Not as much drinking that summer. It was more about like smoking pot and, you know, hanging out at the beach and that kind of of thing.

So that was another like really fun summer. And I did two things there. I worked at a blend, like a coffee shop. It's sort of like like a Starbucks but a smaller like West Bose chain.

And they also worked at this really cute little eatery that was just like mostly takeout but a little bit inside of there and just sort of like hung out for the summer. So it got to experience in different areas of F&B but not a lot of like solid, you know, restaurant experience, but it was enough to pay the bills and have fun that summer. So yeah, that was that. And then when I came back from that summer is when I went to HANIS and applied at HANIS.

Right. Yeah. So I was a member of people on the show who have worked at HANIS and I'm pretty worried about the budget. I listened to them all as well.

Oh, there you go. See the archives there for people. Yeah. So I talked to us a little bit about HANIS and experience working there.

Why do you think it's turned out so many of the servers in town where it's sort of still in the game and kind of well renowned? Yeah, I didn't know. It was sort of like a magical place. I actually almost didn't get hired there because like the guy thought I had all this experience, right?

Like I had, you know, worked my way from Busserhoe, sex, but I'd had some like serving experience and then went to school for it. And it actually was in my interview and Tyler, who I know you've had on as well, Tyler Smith, is an old friend from high school. Like we kind of work on different high schools, but we're kind of adjacent friend groups, you know? Yeah.

So I knew him from high school and I was having my interview with Helen, HANIS sister, and she was kind of like, well, usually hire people with more experience. Like I don't know. And then Tyler's behind her being like, yeah, it's like hire her, like totally home her to be like hire her. So I owe that to Tyler getting in there.

So I kind of did lunches up in the Bistro and then did the tapas lounge down there. And I don't know, there was just like, I think HANIS just had a way of finding the right people with the right attitudes. And everyone was just like such team players. It was the first time that I really experienced that where people like actually cared about how you did and how like your section, how the whole place ran, right?

Where a lot of places like it's kind of everybody is on their own kind of thing. But there, yeah, it was just like such a cool crew of like people who had a lot of experience that knew what they were doing. And I learned, I actually learned so much more there than I did in school. Oh, good.

Yeah. Well, it's like I said, the practical, it's a practical part of it that you really, like, oh, so let's dial back to that just for a second. Like, do you feel like would you recommend to someone who wants to get a start in the business to go to school for it? Or would you just say just try and find a good job?

Yeah, I don't know. I don't think you necessarily have to. If you want to get into management, it probably is a good baseline for that. I think like kids going into it at like 18, 19 is not really ideal.

I feel like you kind of need to know that you want to be in the industry and then take something like that because there were good courses on like hospital and things like that that you do need to know as a manager to run like a functioning, profitable business. Obviously, if you have a really great mentor, that could work as well. So I think it's not for everybody, but it can help if you have a very specific life trajectory of wanting to manage or own something. Yeah.

Okay. That makes sense. So sort of like the way to go is kind of like go get some work experience and if you decide that that's what you want to do, then maybe there's some value in your course after that. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. That makes sense to me. So you worked at a halo.

It was there for about three years, two and a half, three years somewhere in there. And so did you leave during one of the times that that place was closed down because I closed down and reopened several times or did you leave? So I was in, I left on the own court. I was in when they were in the new space.

So it was in like the old space across from or beside Jane Bonne there for a while. So I was in the new place, which is like the Waterloo Hotel, which has like the whatever is in there now, something else. So I came in there after they had been there for a while and I left there with somebody that I worked with their like a work friend with the idea of like moving out West. So I left there and was probably only about, I don't know, maybe five or six months before it ended up like closing for good.

Yeah. And so then you didn't move that West again? Yes. So then, so then I actually, so this friend of mine that I worked with their names, Brit, we decided to go out West.

We had, she had some friends that she knew that were going there, but they were also spending the winter in Mexico. So we decided to drive down to Mexico in January to escape the winter. So we drove down to Mexico and lived there for about two months or so, sort of with the idea like maybe trying to work and then travel a bit more, but it ended up that we just like rented a really cheap apartment for two months or so and then kind of took two weeks and traveled and like camped up the coast of Mexico and then up the West coast of the US as well. That was really cool.

Yeah. It's such a dynamics a couple nights. Yeah. We've all done that.

That's something wrong with that. So you, so yeah, so you didn't end up actually working while you were in Mexico though. No, we went to the beach like it was our job. That's fair.

Now, where were you working when you were out in West this time? So that was more where I was more like established. So I ended up staying out there for five and a half years or so. So we ended up actually going up to Squamish, which is in between Vancouver and Whistler because that's where the save runs that we knew in Mexico were going up there.

One of them was taking a class like a course in Squamish outdoor leadership course in Squamish. So we ended up going up to Squamish, which is pretty random. It's a kind of small town, but they have bars and restaurants. So we were like, well, I'm sure we can get a job.

So we actually ended up getting our apartment before we got jobs and I was like putting out applications everywhere and got a job at like a dive bar, like a real sketchy bar, worked there for a while, which is where I met my now husband, Kamala Husband and then got a nicer job kind of in the nice restaurant there. And then eventually my husband had to move down to the city for work. So I followed him down there within a few months of knowing him and updating him. So then I moved down to the city.

So then I lived in Richmond, North Vancouver for about five years in the actual Greater Vancouver area. Oh, wow. So what made you guys decide to come back here? Well, that was an opportunity to buy some land up near Owen Sound, which led me to then working at the golf course, playing around there.

So buying some land there, an off-grid property with my sister and her partner, doing a bunch of like rhinos with that. And then they ended up having kids, which then didn't work out for the overall plan that we had. So then that's when we moved back to KW. Oh, got you.

So let's talk a little bit about the golf course you're working at there though, because that seems like it's probably a similar kind of doing the musculica. But I'm always interested because I never actually worked on a golf course and I'm just like, it seems like it's just awful. You can tell me how to work. I can't confirm.

It's awful. Yeah. I had some fine aspects to it. Again, we met some really cool people up in that area.

Some people that we're still friends with. I don't know if it's all golf courses. I've had other friends or, again, we got to work at golf courses that are better to work at. But this one particularly was really not ran well.

And I had, so back in Vancouver, I had gotten into kind of the supervisor manager-y things in Vancouver. But moving back wanted to just sort of come back and serve and make some money, do my thing like have a big garden, do my thing at the property. So I wasn't interested really in management anymore, but it was poorly managed. So I was like, so once a manager always manager kind of thing.

And I never fully agreed to be a manager there because I saw through the first year that I was there how that went for the manager. And I'll just say that every year that I worked at before summers, there was a new F&B manager. Right. Yeah.

They feel like we've all worked at a place like that where the management keeps shipping in an out. And you never really know is it because they're hiring shitty managers or the owners' cities and nobody wants to work with them. Also, middle management is kind of a shitty job. Yeah.

Let's talk a little bit about that because you mentioned you, after doing it for a little bit, you were kind of like, I just need to get back and do some money again. You do make more money serving and it's way less of a hassle. So maybe talk to us a little bit about your experience with that management and why you decided you had enough of it. Yeah.

It's such a thing. It's like, it's what I kind of thought I was going towards and I thought I wanted out of the industry. And then when you kind of get into it, and I'm sure there are some places that are great to work out as a middle manager and manager. I don't know either.

I'm just sorry. I don't know. I'm just sorry. I don't know.

But if people understand the value of that work, like balance at least a tiny amount, maybe it would be an okay place to manage. But I find that that's it. It's like, you're a server, you work a certain amount of hours, but you're getting those tips and you're making more money and your hours are generally a little shorter. And as a manager, it's like all of a sudden you get a salary and they expect you to work 60 hours a week or more.

You're basically all of it's on you. All of the stress is on you. Employees are the worst to try and sort out schedules and if somebody's sick or whatever, the worst part of it is dealing with the employees. Even if you like a lot of the crew you have, it's still a nightmare to try and wrangle it all.

I'm not going to say doing the schedules is the most dangerous job for you because someone is always going to be pissed off. There's no way to make everybody happy. That's always the first thing I delegated. I hope that I'm like, okay, you can do the schedule.

It's just brutal. But you're also in attestation, you're taking shit from each direction, right? Because you get on by the employees. You're always unhappy and you're always happy to be able to do the job properly.

But then, me as an owner, the first person, I don't go to the staff. I go to my manager and say, what the fuck? I mean, then, so you get it in the world's ways, right? So when you move to back to serving and you were mentioning earlier that it's kind of hard to turn off your managerial brain after you've already done that, because I had that problem too.

When I left my first bar that I owned and went back to just bartending for a little bit, it's like it is kind of hard to go to that spot where you're somebody else is making the decisions again and you can see maybe that they don't make sense or at least they're not the way you would have done it. It's really hard, right? Very. Yes.

I found it very hard to kind of turn that part off. And I very quickly, so after the first year, they could obviously tell, like, I'm a very organized person. I'm a very like systems person. So I love implementing a good system and like making sure people are following it.

So after the first summer, I got my bearings and that manager was gone and I pretty much trained the other managers that came in every year after that. But resisted, like, one of them really wanted me to be there as a sister and I was like, okay, this is what I'll do. I'll do two management shifts a week, but it's hourly and I'll do the win this because I really like wine and I want to make sure that all the wine's there when we need it and make sure that the fat system's in place. And I'm really set a boundary with that.

And then I was like, and I also need my other three shifts to be like, like the money shifts, like I want them to be this is this is the schedule I want. And luckily they like let me let me do that. So that was nice. And then I kind of took over.

I was doing the wine almost the entire time. I think sort of through the fall and winter after my first summer there onwards, I had some hand in it. We did have a manager one of the years that was like a smiley which was really cool. And she kind of took it that year, which I was happy for because she did it well.

Otherwise, I was doing the wine list the whole time as well. So yeah, it was very hard for me to because it was not functioning well. I wanted it to talk it was selfish. I wanted it to function well while I was there.

So I wanted to walk into a not a shit show every time I was there. And so I like helped them create like their steps of service and like they're opening and closing duties like all of those things. So I was like, these things need to be done. So that when I walk in, it's not a shit show every time.

So I couldn't go. Yeah. Well, and you mentioned that I want to talk to you a little bit about your love for wine, but you know what? Let's find out.

Tell me who does Rick Berencelli at the case for wine. Tell me more with some Rick's wines. Yeah, well, a lot of Rick's wines are available at Babylon since there's an uptown water leave. So you should definitely swing by there and check it out.

But we have some beauties up there from Rick, including the 2018 Sri Ramon Dosa de Mio, and the Lunde John, the 2019, as well as the Demendivio, Saint Demión, Pomerole, and the Barolo Vibethi from Giovanni Vibethi. All these wines are beautiful, approachable in the price of your range, but Rick doesn't just deal in the price of stuff. He's got stuff for all price ranges. So if you were looking for something for the home or if you're a bar restaurant, you're looking for a new wine supplier, let me recommend Rick Berencelli at the case for wine.

How have I got to hold on if I were interested in that? That would be Rick at thecaseforwine.com. Oh, thank you very much. Good to know.

Getting back to your love for wine. I'm going to eventually take up some W-Set courses, correct? Yeah, so I did that when I was in Vancouver. So I worked at a place in Edel Canada, which was on Grandville Island.

So it was like super busy touristy place. I had an incredible mentor there, who was actually only a year older than me, but she was just so into wine and spirits and that she was going through her level four, W-Set at the time, which is super intense. And so I kind of saw her doing that. I already really loved wine in general.

I was already over my shitty beer and gin and soda phase and was into the wine firmly already. And Edel Canada had only Canadian everything. So we had all Canadian wine, beer, it's everything there, which is really cool. So the first I'd experienced like, oh, we make a gin in Canada.

We make a vodka. We make all the things, right? So we had all Canadian everything. And through her, it was just like so contagious.

She was so into it all and it got me wanting to do it. So that company paid for half of my level two W-Set. And yeah, which was really great. So I did it in Vancouver.

It was six weeks. I never felt the urge to go above level two. I wanted it. I wanted to do it in order to feel more comfortable talking about wine as a server, talking about it as a manager, creating a wine or just knowing how to curate a wine list.

But I never felt the urge to go for level three. Level two is amazing. You taste six wines every week and it is all multiple choice. The test.

You get to level three and it's like an essay, a wine tasting. It's a lot. So I was like, I'm good with level two. I'm comfortable talking about it all.

And I'm sure I have slightly more knowledge now than just a level two just through doing wine lists and reading about it and tasting lots of things. But I just never really have the urge to go any further than that. Yeah. So when I finished level two, I felt like that's enough to speak confidently about wine at a table, certainly enough to make a cool wine list.

You have that knowledge. The jump from zero knowledge to finishing level two is crazy. You have a lot of knowledge by the time you've just done level two. I get it.

A lot of people stop after the second level, I think. And you're already way ahead of anyone you're going to be serving for the most part. Yeah, that's the thing. I find people who really know wine, who know more than me, they're just going to pick the wine that they want.

They're going to look at the list and be like, yes, that's what I want. It's people that don't have as much knowledge and don't really know a lot. And then you can give them so much information that they don't know. So that was what I always experienced.

It's like, if they know, they already know, and if they don't, then I can teach them a few things or tell them the story and get them to buy some wine. It's been 15 minutes talking about a certain wine. You think they're liking at the end? Okay, I'll have this other thing instead.

Yes, that is true. That does happen. Look at this really cool wine over here. No?

There's going to have what you always have. Fuck. Okay. Yeah.

That was to be a little tail. Yeah. No. So you did, it's almost exhausting to go through your resume because you're in so many places now.

But like, I do want to talk to you on public a little bit because that's still a flourishing restaurant in the city. What was your experience like working there? It was wonderful. So I know Carly and Ryan from back in the Hannah's days.

I actually lived with Carly and Ryan when they very first started dating, which is actually a funny story as well. So we have been talking about it for a couple months, me and Carly and she lived like a couple blocks away from Hannah's. And so we were like, okay, I'm going to move in, but I'm going on a trip to Europe. So I went to Europe for three weeks.

And they had, Carly and Ryan had just started dating right before I went to Europe for three weeks. And then when I came back and I was moving in, he had moved in. So and Carly had had two young kids at the time as well. So I did, he had moved in while I was in Europe, even though they had just started dating, but it worked out obviously for a lot of years later.

So we all three of us lived and two young kids that were there, you know, half the time kind of thing and two blocks away from Hannah's like summertime. It was amazing. So we lived together there. So we were really good friends.

And then when I moved to it was record in BC. So then when I come after visit, I have a big family, I would always visit my family, but I would also make time to visit them as well. And they had a couple of kids along the way as well. So I'd always visit them as well.

And then when I moved back into the city, I kind of had lunch with Carly first and was like, listen, this is where I want to work. It's the best restaurant in town, my opinion. But I don't want to like push anybody out. I know we probably have like not a high turnover, whatever.

And so she, you know, thought about it for a bit. And then she was like, absolutely like, yes, we want to have you. So, so I started there and I actually wasn't, you say the exhaustible list. I actually worked with Nick and Matt for a while as well.

Like I did both and I did a little bit of my bio. So Nick and Matt as well from the Hannah's days, I worked with them at Marvel's for a while as well. And I was like, I'm going to work all the time hours at public and it was just a better vibe there. It was so fun working there.

So I went and worked full time there. And I think around that time when I was kind of off for that full time, the current Molly was on the way out as well. So I kind of took over the wine list there as well as like full time hours. And it was so great.

Like, I mean, pre pandemic, right? It was like the place to go. It was hopping. It was so much fun working there, such amazing other people that were working there as well.

I know, Jess, you've had on as well. She was amazing to work with a lot of really great people. Chris Kim also was on your show. He worked there for a while when I first started there.

It was just such a great crew. It was really fun. So it was such a great place to work. Well, I don't want to try to get a big head, but you're dropping that she was fun to work with because I found the experience miserable.

But I wasn't the owner, so. Obviously, I'm joking, guys, if you're listening to this. So yeah, I think it says a lot about you too, though, because you see that like, these people we used to work with back in the day want to then hire you when they move along and start opening their own places, right? So that's something about you.

Well, yes. I suppose so. I have a pretty good work ethic if I say something else myself. And so what do you have to do these days?

What's going on? Where are you still in the service industry? And if so, in what capacity? Yeah, so sort of probably even before the pandemic, so probably a couple of years, even before I took a nutrition course, because I was always sort of interested in that side of the food equation as well.

So I took an online course to be like a holistic nutrition and food coach, but never really wanted to do the sort of traditional thing that health coaches do, which is sort of take private clients, work one on one or do group coaching or things like that. But specifically with like nutritional needs, I kind of just wanted the background to validate what I had already been reading and studying about. But always with the focus on food. So having worked with so many amazing chefs through the years and at great restaurants, I was always the one that was there asking questions about the future, asking like how they did this, how they do that and observing things.

So I was already cooking so much at home and really into that kind of thing. So just before the pandemic, probably about a year or so, I was really kind of thinking, okay, can I do my own business? I've never really had a strong entrepreneurial force in my life. Nobody in my family really did that.

But Instagram, you see a lot of things. You read a lot of things. I think I can do this. I think I can do something with recipes and health and whatever.

So kind of bringing the restaurant vibe and flavors into a more nutritious area of recipes in that. So I started developing, well, I had already been developing recipes but actually writing them down and following through. So I was more of a creative cook before, but actually developing recipes in that. So then I, as soon as the pandemic happened, I obviously was off of work and had a lot of free time on my hands.

And so that's when I first started my Instagram account, Road Prep Create, and started just documenting what I was doing and that kind of thing, very bad photography to go back far enough. So then it took a while for me to kind of figure out how I was going to try and actually make money doing any of this. And then it came across like a platform, a software that I use that kind of gave me the background systems and stuff that I needed for that. So now I have what I call the recipe bolt.

So it's a monthly subscription and you basically get access to my platform that has hundreds of my recipes and recipes that I've adapted from other food bloggers and that kind of thing. And through that, then I started doing a lot more of like meal planning and prep stuff, which I do meal planning almost every week for myself, for myself and my husband. But I started getting more into that. And now I'm launching like a course on meal planning and prep and doing a lot more about that.

So I'm doing a live course right now, but I'll eventually make it into an evergreen thing as well. So I got into that entrepreneurial thing. I'm still working in restaurants because I can't quite make the leap yet to all together. But that brings me back to that full circle where I now work at Corner Kitchen Breakfast and Lunch, which is a very different thing for me, which I was very nervous about, but I love it.

Yeah, it's yeah, because most of the places you've worked out, I guess, have been mostly dinner spots, right? Like the online. So how do you like the whole breakfast crowd and working early in the morning? Yeah, I was very nervous.

So, I mean, I started going there, sort of once a month-ish during the pandemic and a little bit before. And so we kind of got to know Kate again, who's the owner and chat a little bit a few times. And probably almost a year before I started actually working there, she started trying to recruit me. She was like, oh, you want to come work for me?

And I was like, I don't know. I can't do breakfast. I can't wake up that early. I can't do it.

I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. And I couldn't do it.

And then there's a point where I was like, you know what? I think I'm ready. I can work a few shifts during the day, get that out of the way, and then I can kind of do my own thing the rest of the days and eat things. That might work for me.

So like, yeah, let's see. You know, always knowing like, of course I could get a job pretty much anywhere if it didn't work out. But actually do worries. But I love it.

I love it. I love it. I only have to be there at 6.30am. I only have to be there at usually eight or nine, which is doable.

That's better, yeah. 6.30. I don't know if I could do, but I could do eight or nine. Yeah, you know, I'm roll over into lunch and then head home.

That doesn't sound so bad. I think it's great. It's funny. You start getting older.

You realize like, oh shit, I guess I could do more of a daytime thing. Yes. Yeah, absolutely. I'm like, I don't want to stay up until 2am.

I think we'll work for three or whatever. Like, no, I think I could do this. And it's been amazing. That's great.

Well, I want to thank you for coming on the show because that was fun. And let's just make sure that our listeners know where to find out about all the cool things you're doing with your online platform and your courses, etcetera. Yeah. So my Instagram is actually grow.prep.create on Instagram.

And then my website is KristiCollins.ca or growprepareat.com. Awesome. Well, thanks again for doing the show. And we look forward to seeing what you're going to be doing in the future.

And good luck on all this breakfast. Yeah, I've got to check out Battle of Sisters. I'm going to need to do it. Yes, do it.

And so should everybody else listening for that matter. Absolutely. Thanks, Kristi. Yeah, thanks so much.

Thanks. Thanks. Thanks.