E149 Hugo Gamino

This week's guest is Hugo Genino, who joins us from Sunny and Warm Phoenix, Arizona. Hugo is a classically trained chef and spent over a decade in professional kitchens of multiple brigades across the United States, holding such positions as Sue Chef, Chef De Quisine, Executive Chef, and several Skajas at Michelin Kitchens. Hugo then transitioned out of the hospitality industry and into the fashion world where he worked for brands such as Brooks Brothers and Tom Ford for several years. Ultimately, Hugo made his way back to the hospitality industry where he worked for the Chicago Cubs baseball organization as Director of Operations Premium.

Eventually, Hugo moved to Phoenix, Arizona with his family where he is now a regular online contributor and content creator on multiple social media platforms. Hugo is also in the process of developing his short story cookbook of the industry. We really enjoyed our interview with Hugo as a terrific life story and you'll enjoy it too. Okay, welcome to yet another episode of the industry podcast.

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That's it. What you got anything else to talk about? I got nothing smart to say the best times. Okay, great.

Let's go to our guest. You can give me no coming to us from Phoenix, Arizona. How are you? Very close.

How are you guys? Thanks for having me. Doing great. Thanks.

I've come on the show. Yeah. Thanks for doing this, man. Yeah.

Amazingly, we've had an incredible number of people from Phoenix for some reason. Yeah. In the last couple weeks, seven or five, I think, which is kind of for one area. Well, we do a recurring feature with Lisa, the badass bartender, who's pretty famous on Instagram right now.

Yeah. I can't ask for you to run this one. Yeah. Yeah.

So I don't know. I don't know what it is about Arizona, but Arizona loves the industry podcast. Yeah. I know what it is about Canada.

I've gotten a strong Canadian following recently. Oh, is that right? Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. It's this will be my second Canadian podcast that I've been on. The other one was more like on the fashion side, but it's interesting that the love that I'm getting from Canadians north of us. Nice.

So are you still doing fashion stuff? No, no, no, no. I stopped, like, I would say maybe five, six years ago. Yeah.

Okay. So I want to get into that, but like, okay, let's start. But like, how did you get into the service industry originally? Yeah.

So out of high school, I feel like this is like a tale that a lot of chefs have, you know, like kind of fuck up in school. It wasn't really like, you know, self-diagnosis ADHD kind of thing where I played sports. I played baseball in my, you know, my entire life into junior college and sports with my thing. And I thought that sports, if I grew up in a border, a border town in South Texas and I thought that if I was going to get out, I was going to go through education, the army or.

Yeah. So when it was, I ran it very enough, like I wasn't doing great in school, but you know, I'm still getting by and my mom and my grandfather, they cooked, you know, like my grandfather would buy goats and butcher goats and pigs. And, you know, I grew up seeing that. So that was just like normal to me, but it wasn't until my mother got sick.

I think it was my junior year. And we were going to do Thanksgiving, she was like, I'm not going to do it this year. And I said, you know what, I've seen you do it every year. And I think it's just like you and my two brothers and like nobody's going to taste it.

So long story short, it worked out. That's kind of what got my first inception of idea. But then I picked up kitchen confidentiality from Anthony Bourdain as a senior in high school. And it was like the first time that I had heard someone speak about like vagabonds and like weirdo, drifter kind of people.

And there was like a career for them, right? Like there was like an industry for them. It was food and beverage, right? Like either back in the house or your bar tender.

And it was like, this was like a perfect world for you, right? So you were kind of like a misfit in your regular life. Like this was this was it for you, but it was a grueling ass industry, right? It was like you were going to make your bones and it was going to be hard.

And like there was just something super like sexy romantic about like the nastiness of it the way he wrote it. And I just I was like full blown determined to like go into that industry. And I had like a really shitty ass guidance counselor in high school where I, you know, I have to like, Hey, where's the best culinary school I want to go there? And she gave me two options as a kid that was not at the top of the class.

She was like, Well, maybe you should join the military and become a cook. Wow. Or work your way up in McDonald's. You know, yeah, those are the two options that fucking Lady Gavely and it stuck with me.

But I have an awesome teacher in high school that was just like, no, fuck that. Go look at the school. This is like a community college culinary program. They have it there.

So I did that for like six months after I graduated. And I was like, no, like I want to be in a great kitchens. I want to be in. I don't want to just do cafeteria style stuff.

So I essentially like from there, I kind of worked my way up in the in the ranks in Texas, Washington, D.C. Chicago. I ran two kitchens in D.C. I started in the couple of missions, our restaurants.

And I was in it for like 11 years. So this was like around now, like around 2011. We were living in D.C. My wife and I and I was starting to really question like what I was doing because it was, you know, six days a week, 16 hour shifts, just the grind of the industry.

Right? Like the and I was lucky enough. I still say this and say I was lucky enough to come through that era of break your bones in the industry. Right?

Like, you know, you have a shot that like cusses your ass out and brigade style. You are there from just on and you were doing everything and anything in the kitchen. And I loved it. I love the grind of it.

But I was not seeing my family. It was just, you know, and it's funny because I was listening to one of your previous guests, chef that I highly respect. And he said, you got to be like, you got to be fully fucking in it. Right?

Like an every chef knows that every not only chef, but I think that every hospitality industry individual understands that. And it's like one of those things where you look to the right and left of your guys and when you're not fully in it and somebody's picking up your slack, you're like, Hey, I'm fucking these guys up and either I'm in or I'm out. Right? And I think at that point in my life, I was like, I just can't do it anymore.

Like, I just, I, I saw a lot of my buddies, you know, shooting themselves up, highly alcoholics. I mean, I went as far as like just smoking cigarettes. I never did any heavy drugs and things like that. But I just, I didn't, I wasn't judging them because I was like, man, you got to get through it.

However you need to get through it. Right? It was, it was a grind. And I was just like, I don't think I can do this anymore.

I've done this for 11 years. So that's interesting though, like, because you're like making the conscious decision to be like, I'm letting people down. So I got to, like, like, it's almost more about letting down your team than letting yourself down. Yeah.

I mean, it's funny because like the word brigade, right? Like you're in a brigade and it's very military and style mindset in a kitchen where you almost kind of sacrifice yourself for the betterment of like the guy to your right and your left. Right? So it's like, if you're far behind, you're, you're fucking somebody else.

And it becomes this thing where you feel shitty about feeling selfish about yourself, right? Like you feel shitty about saying like, I can't do this anymore. And I am not in love with it. Like other of my friends that are chefs that are running kitchens like I am are in love with it.

And I just, I need to be honest with myself and I need to have that respect for my team before like it gets to a point where shit starts falling through the cracks. Right? So that's kind of when like, talk to my wife and she was like, look, I was supporting whatever you want to do. The downfall was, I didn't know anything else besides that.

Right? Like that was an industry. There's a fucking problem. Right?

Yeah. Right. It's just a short sign. I kind of did the same thing.

I went like for many, many years at the front of the house and I was like, I got to do something else. I'm letting the business that I work at down. I like the people who I worked for. And I was like, I got to get out of here.

And I went, then I was like, okay, I'm gonna go do something else. But I was like, you know, in my 30s at this point, I'm like, what the fuck am I supposed to do? Yeah. And I got the worst job ever.

But it sounds like you got a good job. So talk about what happened to you. Well, in title, right? It was a good job.

But so like after that happened, I had made friends on the East Coast and a lot of my friends were artists and some were in the fashion industry. One of my friends was like, look, man, I work for this. Michael Kors, the clothing brand. I worked for, they're looking for a visual merchandiser and literally all you have to do is just fucking dress mannequins, right?

Like you're a creative guy, but you don't need brains for that shit. Right? Like you just, you get salary, you get insurance and you're good. So I was like, yeah, I need your job.

Okay, let's do that. And I did that. And I started doing that and became pretty good at it. But then I started opening stores and I started doing trainings.

And then I got recruited with Brooks Brothers and then I started doing product development with them and opening up store for them. And then that's kind of where like the idea, the inception of like the fashion, I think it boils down to like, I love being creative. And it just went from one format to another, like creating. Yeah.

Creativity flows through all genres, right? Like if you're a creative person, you can be creative doing whatever someone directs you to do. Yeah. Right.

It might not be your passion, but it's not gonna stop your creativity. Yeah, it was just like a different medium of being able to have like some sort of self expression. So that, I started really like thinking about it and really like putting pen the paper and being like, all right, you know what, like, I can't, if I'm gonna be a designer, I can't be a designer without any formal education. Like you can somewhat like bullshit your way through some kitchens and then earn your bones while you're in it, which there was a lot of kitchens that I did that through where I was like, light on my CV.

And then, you know, once I was there, I proved myself because I just busted my ass. But in fashion, it's a little bit different, right? Like you need to know kind of illustration and all these kind of things. So my wife and I looked at different fashion schools and we found, I'm originally from Chicago.

So we found the artist student Chicago. And I said, if I could go there. And the beauty of it was like, I'm gonna be a student for the first time in my life, and I'm not gonna work in corporate America. I'm not gonna be a leader.

I'm not gonna be like leading a team and I'm just gonna get a job as a server. And I'm just gonna be a dude that like puts all his efforts into his craft and that's what I did. And I was fortunate enough to get a serving job at a restaurant group, but I'd like to entertain you. So they have like 56 restaurants across the country.

They have a whole bunch of like, board winning chefs. The founder is James Beard, board winning restaurant tour, you know, Rich Melman, which later became one of my main mentor. But I went in there with such a bravado, right? Like as a server and I was like, this is so fucking part time, but this like you guys are servers.

I'm gonna be a designer. I was a chef and you just go in and I was quickly like, I always tell people that that was my favorite job, my favorite four years of my life because it was such a kick in the nuts and such a beautiful like humbling experience. These people like when you talk about like, and I'm not talking about just like servers. I like your regular just I'm talking about like professional service individuals, hospitality individuals.

It's like the first time where I work in a space where like literally everybody studied everybody was just on it. It was like the servers, the bar backs of the publishers. Everybody was 1000% committed to the goal of servicing the guests at the highest level, right? And it was for me, it was really nice because I came in there and I thought, you know, this is so part time.

I'm an art student. Like, this is nothing to me. I'm not doing this. And I quickly got humbled by how stupid I was in an area or how stupid I felt in an industry that I felt that I knew for so long, right?

Like, every day I went in there. I learned something new. And I'm not just talking about from cooks and bar backs and bartenders and wine directors. I'm talking about from the publishers, so the prep cooks, like these guys were just units in the kitchen and it just drove each other to work harder and it really taught me what what break leadership was, what innovation really meant.

Service was like at the top of its game and it really changed my perspective and it really helped me in design, you know, like the attention to detail really like was something that I had never seen before, before jumping into this restaurant. So, yeah, I mean, that's kind of how I went from the food industry into the fashion industry. And then around the time where I was like kind of submitting my resume to fashion houses because I was, I got an internship with Tom Ford, the designer, and I was working there for a year. And I thought that I was like, I'm for sure going to play my application on some of my wife was like, you're ready, we're either going to move to California, New York or Europe, like wherever we go, like we didn't have kids or just like we're fucking going anywhere.

It doesn't matter, right? Okay, I'm just going to stop you right here because I'm very interested. Like when you're doing an internship for Tom Ford, like what is what are your day to day responsibilities? I think people will be interested in hearing that.

Yeah, so in the beginning, it was like they hired me because I had visual merchandising experience, right? And I have been calling them for like a year trying to get an internship with them and they're like, and it's like working for Tom Ford is like trying to get a job with the CIA. It's like, nobody answers nobody calls you back and so hard, but I would. That's also like trying to get a liquor license from the AGCO.

Yeah, well, I don't know if you're here, we were talking about liquor license, I was like, I wonder if it's just as hard in the morning. That was a bad question. But actually I'm interested in this. Sorry.

Of course not. So my thing was like, I'm a very persistent guy, like when it comes to like if there's something I want, I will chase it down and I will chase it down not when the moment is right, but like I'll chase it down and like tell them, look man, I'll be maintenance. I'll clean the shower of a restroom. I'll throw trash out.

I'll be like, I work in your ship and you're receiving. If you just let me work in this building and then let me start. So essentially like that one of the managers was just tired of having me come in twice a week and like roaming around asking for him that he was just like, all right, look man, the corporate director of merchandising is coming in next week into our store. And you can talk to him like stop bothering me kind of thing.

I did. He basically like gave me free range of the store and said, all right, what I want you to do is I want you to style for mannequins. I want you to rearrange the section and I want you to bring back like four or five sketches of yours, like that you would say that would work with our brand. Right.

So I did that. Didn't say anything but then like a week later, he was like, yeah, got the job. So basically I was helping re-mercionize the store at first. And then I would pull pieces for like fashion shows and for like for what they're called showcases where you like presented to new collections, things like that.

So that was basically like what I was doing. And all the while, like every time my boss would come in to visit, which was like every other week, I would throw him like 10 to 15 sketches every week. It was like, oh, yeah. So it was like, that's not what he was asking for.

But that was like, this is what I'm working on. He's like, okay, okay, okay. Can I get your punch card? Yeah.

And I think that that's the beauty of like starting my career back of the house is that everything I did after that seemed on an easier level, right? Because it's a hustle. It's the fucking hustle, right? And you know, like, for instance, if you're trying to get like a new recipe on the menu at a place that you work at, what do you have to do?

You just got to keep fucking pepper and well until they take you seriously. Yeah, it's just it didn't bother me to keep grinding or just like I grew up in that grind mentality. My brother's my mother, like, you know, like that's always, you know, before education, my mother instilled hard work. So it was like, you know, you might be smarter than me or you might have talent over me, but you, there's no chance at how that you're going to work me.

And I have more endurance than you and like when it comes to getting your teeth kicked in, right? So I was like, I was the prize in that. So it was just, that's a longevity of like what it's taken me to, but, you know, fast forward. And I'm serving tables one night and I'm submitting my resumes and then this couple comes in with their kid and my friend was like, man, I don't want to fucking serve them.

They have a two year old fuck that. I don't like nobody likes serving kid that I find any restaurant. No. So I was like, you know what, it's early in the shift.

It's like four o'clock. Like I'll take it, man. Don't worry about it. Like everybody deserves a good time.

And I genuinely believe that right? Like I genuinely thought, amen. They fucking deserved just as good of a time as I was. Yeah.

So we're talking, we're chatting it up and he said that he had just moved to Chicago because he took on a new job and, you know, it's kind of a big profile job. And you know, he asked me about my background and how I play baseball. He played baseball. And I was a chef and just all that stuff.

And at the end of it, he's like me as card and like, as you know, like in this industry, a lot of people's like your card, right? Like it's just like, Hey, you know, come work for me like, and then half the time it's like computer sales or tech sales, you'd be great at sales and that kind of shit, right? So half the time I was like, no, so he's like in his card and it looks super bootleg because it literally just has his name and nothing else on it. And I was just like, all right, man, this, you got these made of kinkos.

I got them. You're going to be a person. No, who knows what's happening? He said, you know, put your email on it as well.

So I was like, I put my email on it and I didn't think nothing up and then two weeks later, he gives me a call back and I would like for you to come by the office and really, you know, I would like to talk to you about this idea that I have in my head about how you could be a part of this. Well, it turns out that the guy that I was talking to was the director of operations at Ringfield for the Chicago Cubs. Oh, fucking crazy, man. Yeah, man.

Little face. So what would happen? What would happen was that like six, seven years prior to that, the Ricketts family had bought the Cubs, like they had bought the Cubs and they had a vision to like redevelop the entire neighborhood and kind of re not rebrand the Cubs, but elevate the brand of the Cubs, right? You know, every sporting event is hot dogs and burgers and they were like, look, we already do that at the maximum level, but I want to capture the premium spaces, right?

Like, I want to create restaurants. I want to recreate the suite levels. I want food and beverage to be at the highest level in these like premium restaurants, faces. So the idea that my boss, my old boss had was we need to bring somebody in that has restaurant fine dining experience, right?

And from our conversations of my background from being not only like running kitchens on the back of the house, but working front of the house and also having design background. He was like, look, man, you might never get an opportunity like this again, where you have an opportunity to create menus beverage programming, design uniforms, design, like interiors of restaurants, essentially create your own restaurants because I told him that I wanted to open a restaurant or bar like in the future. And he was, this is your opportunity on somebody else's time. Like, and that's he's like, that's my pitch to you.

I don't know what else you got on the table. Hey, this all just came from like a fucking great service that you gave him at a table one night. Holy shit. That's fucking amazing.

So it is because I always tell people like, there's like, there's these two things, right? These parallel things called like luck and the right place at the right time. Yeah. But I always say like that if that individual is not like actively like searching and aware and ready for that meeting in the moment when the moment around.

Yeah. Yeah. And honestly, like, I think that there was like equal parts luck and there's equal parts like right place at the right time. But then there was also that equal parts of like my belief in hospitality that everybody deserves the best service every single time regardless of who you are and like what your background is.

Because I could totally have met that table with the same attitude that Michael Walker would have met it and nothing would have happened. Right. But because I genuinely like cared that they had a good time that they enjoyed themselves that they didn't feel like a nuisance because they had a two year old that find any restaurant like it was like my job in my head to make him feel comfortable and not me make them feel any less of right. And as an aside, like you only deal with that two year old for the that part.

Yes. He has to go home and deal with it. Yeah. No, no, no.

No, you guys. I completely avoid going to restaurants now just because I want you to ask. Okay. So yeah, but that's fucking incredible.

Like what an incredible story. Like, and like you said, like if you weren't ready to meet the moment at that time with like being a professional and realizing that everybody deserves the same service no matter how annoying their table might seem or whatever, you never would have to you. But also like you said, like right place, right time. So now tell us like what was your like what are you doing day to day at regularly?

Yeah. So fast forward when I'm in it or whatever. Like basically I jumped in when the restaurants had already the concepts had already been developed. Right.

Like I showed up and they were like, this is what the restaurants are going to be. And this is what the uniforms are going to be and these other drinks are going to be. And from my understanding the way my boss put it to me was like, if you like it, great tweak some things. But if you don't like it, like it's on you and you change it.

But it's, you know, and I said, I will never get this opportunity ever again in my life. I might never get this opportunity to be able to create restaurants on somebody else's dime or 100% my vision at that time. For many, many years. I had always doubted my creativity or like my vision and at that time I was like probably at the most confidence I had been in myself and I said, the hydrogen for reason fucking go for it.

If nothing works, you go back to waiting tables and you go back to like looking at resumes or like applications for fashion. Right. So I didn't like anything that I saw. It was very on the same line.

Was it was a white and blue pinstripes? Yeah. It was, how do I, it was like very catalog driven right? Like I had nothing to do with what like where the industry was going.

All the drinks were still very like sugar driven like cocktails like everything was pre made pre box and, and I said, if you really want to give the client the premium experience. We have to change the food but we have to change the service more than anything first and foremost right because like if we keep hiring people that just slim drinks and food in a concession style manner where you're like super sugary drinks super sugary like. You're not going to get somebody that cares for the craft of making food. So like you're like trying to bring like real industry professionals into a sports stadium which is like you said like sports games generally hire people who are just like know how to crack a beer open.

Yeah. Yeah. So what I did was I researched every single culinary program in the area like the Paul University, Loyola, all these universities and I went to their, I went to their hospitality department heads and I said, look, I want people that want to be in this industry in the future. People that want to, you know, work as restaurant managers want to beverage directors culinary directors that are on a path to go into this route right like that know that there is a hardship industry and kind of with their eyes wide open up what it is.

And so I went and I recruited a ton of college kids to be kind of the beacon of like the shift leaders for these roles right so my idea was if I can create a hospitality program where we get the leadership team, you know supervisors shift leaders to believe and they will then trickle down that like training. So we started doing beverages from scratch we started doing simple syrups from scratch we stopped buying, you know, syrups we cut everything in the stadiums you don't really cut fresh produce your order fresh produce. Right. So do you mind not trying to interrupt you but I just have a question about this specifically like Adam massive operation like that at a ballpark like are you getting any pushback on like that's got to be more cost for them as well right.

They like on the cost level. My team like my you know my account director, my purchasing director they fucking like we're so annoyed with me. They were so annoyed with me but the fact the thing that I had working on my side is I had sold it the idea to the client the owner of the Chicago place of this new vision I had for service. Right.

So when I got them on board they were like yeah that's what I want that's how we so I got in trouble in the sense of like I went off the rails and I pitched an idea to the owner of the Cubs and you liked it and now my team is like well where are we going to eat the cost right and I said look man the rich the ROI the return will be there in the end right but if we don't do this right we're just going to be like adding me other ballpark. And the rule of thumb that I had was if another stadium is doing it I want to do it. Right. That was my like idea.

So the day to day operation was in the beginning was bringing in every single member of service in that building and I literally wrote an hospitality manual from scratch of like what that building needs to run like with stuff to service we talk about wine service and I'm teaching people in concessions about wine because I figured everybody at the same level has to serve the same way. Right. Like that was my biggest belief right. And luckily we were able to do it and I was able to partner with makers mark barrel to be created one of the restaurants that we created was the maker mark maker's mark barrel room.

And I created a cocktail and this is around the time. What year was that? It's like 2018. Right.

And I was like what the fuck are you going to make a smart spot here. Yeah. So what the view so if you would ever go like they have a signature cocktail right and this is what the of all the things that I've done I've been most proud of this right because I'm not a beverage guy that wasn't. You're not in the kitchen right yeah but when our beverage director left our corporate company to he went to aviation he took some kind of job there and it's and my boss was like we're going to bring somebody else in there going to help with the beverage program and like the guy that I am is like no I can do it.

Yeah. Let me do it. And he's like are you sure. And I'm like yeah.

So I didn't know what the fuck I was doing and you know respect to the beverage industry because it's hard but then as soon as I like kind of like simplified it in the way of like him and you were a chef and you understand flavors and you understand how it builds flavors. So if you take that same kind of concept and try to bring it into beverage. Maybe you might have something right like maybe something might work. I never said that and then like that's the way cocktails are going now anyways like you need to have the chef background to do proper fucking craft cotailing so you're right on point there.

And that aspect so the one thing I thought about like right let me sit down in every club and every restaurant they wanted like a signature cocktail they wanted something to be like. And for that club that year was going to be kind of like the crown jewel of the new clubs that were opening. And I said to myself okay like whiskey bourbon like what do I like with that. And I remember thinking like well I like a cigar with that.

And I was like well flavors do you like and I was like well I like like chocolate. I like that kind of so this kind of inception of like drink making I created this garment and more basically like I wrote down the cigar in a one inch piece in kind of like a cow powder. And then torch it covered the glass instead of like the traditional Manhattan glass where that you would use I use the sifter glass because I figured like the sifter glass create a more of a dome in the smoke can like airy a little bit more. So then you cover it and then I build it the same way as I did with the I mean had would be built instead of like the regular bitters I use acid chocolate bitters so I really wanted that kind of like nutty chocolate flavor.

And then you turn it over before the drink and that's why I said it was like the craz of smoke drinks it was like way back it up though like you're using an actual cigar. Yeah so here's the point that I'm going to get to. When I presented it everybody loved it because at the end of the before the season starts like six months in advance you present to the client the owners everything that you have planned and everything that I put together right. So when I did that drink they absolutely love the presentation of like making the drink the cocktail itself.

Then the first thing that came out was like how the fuck are we going to put smoke in a stadium. But you can have you can have cigarette or cigar smoke in a stadium is just like regulations. They love the drink so much that they went to the point of being the first and I don't know now but I know for sure it was the first to get a legalized smoking license out of sports venue because they wanted that drink really. So Chicago Cubs every field has a in that room not everywhere but like they have a smoke like a smoking loud almost.

Yeah but you can't smoke in there but they allow that the licenses only to like that drink really. Yeah and thank you. So that's why I go like that was like the one big accomplishment like one of the biggest accomplishments that I did was like. So you know then that sparked the conversation with construction of like how high does the smoke go and like the air vents and like one thing trickles into another thing so from there I started learning a lot more about construction because it's like okay well the bar high needs to be lower because the smoke reaches a certain height and then like it's enclosed it's not an open air venue.

So it was just like these things that I started learning on the job. That's crazy man what a crazy fucking story. You've had quite the fucking career man like I gotta say that's like and I was super interested to talk to you about just like the whole experience with Riggly like how many people do you get do we have the pleasure to talk to you like we've never thought anybody who's done that so what episode are we on now? Yeah so yeah so well no thanks man like this is a super fascinating story and especially like we're big sports fans I've been to regular Riggly several times in my life is one of my favorite places on earth outside of family which is still the best part but it works well together.

Yeah but that's a crazy fucking story man so okay so when do you leave there and how do you end up in Phoenix? Yeah so my wife and I always wanted at around that time I was like you know shit you started like seeing everything that you've done and everything that you created and you started your confidence started building in a good way not a pretentious way but like you're like hey man I can do this like I can create concepts I can organize I can you know the operations of it I can do that as well and my wife and I always kind of we've wanted to I wanted to do a restaurant group and me and my wife really wanted to do a coffee shop so our like let's start with a coffee shop and kind of go from there right. Well 2009 the 2020 season was gonna be my last one where I was just like all right we're after the 2020 season we're gonna go for it we have been scouting locations in Chicago for spots to create the coffee shop and and we had we were like three weeks away from like putting a down payment on like a space for like okay we're and then like my son was born 2019 December 2019 we were on like paternity leave and then I like two weeks in to me being back to work over here so we were all kind of like on a standstill like what's gonna happen with the season we don't know like we have been a week away from opening days so we were everything was like loaded into the stadium product and delivered like ordered all that stuff. So I we kind of put the brakes on the idea of like the coffee shop but I was still working on it during covid because like there was no work.

So it was just like you know what like let me really dive deep into developing this idea like the restaurant and when I and when it got deeper into the summer of like yeah we don't know what the hospitality industry is going to look like like guests are going to go we don't know how long this can last. I pivoted the idea to an e-commerce site right to so I was like you know what like let's let's create our own source for beans this roaster beans let's set up e-commerce but then let's partner up with a whole bunch of like luxury coffee brands like goat, goat story fellow like all these brands and we made partnerships with them and we sold their products so kind of like a boutique show. And then like the idea was like oh shit we can do this from anywhere right if we're doing an e-commerce shop we can do this from anywhere my wife's originally from Arizona and I think us having our first child and being isolated in Chicago and living away from home for so many years like DC for eight Chicago for seven. I think we were just like shit we're done being in this like 700 square foot condo with no backyard no space to walk anywhere like no parking like we need some air right like we need we need something.

So I think that that's when I told my wife if the season comes back we're staying up we're gonna finish off the season I'm gonna honor that with the team but nothing was happening right like nothing was happening nothing was happening. And so I felt guilty with myself to say they're knowing that I was gonna leave right like knowing that there had been a mass layoff of like 64 employees at my at our campus or what the stadium where we call it. And I felt really guilty of being this guy that was getting paid knowing that I was gonna leave and there's other people that I got like go and I said but this like I'm gonna call it like we're gonna do it. And like you know maybe like maybe if I leave with my salary they might bring some other people back right.

So in June, no yeah like in June I told my boss hey I'm gonna leave but I'm not leading until September but I'll leave in a month so you guys can try to bring some people back. And he was like you know rightfully so he's kind of like why are you doing this you know this is secure this is like you should you're risking a lot you know and we did we risked a lot we went forward with that plan. You don't seem like a guy who's at first a risk though so. The worst fear that I would have honestly the biggest regret if I didn't do it that would eat me up more than like yeah that's exactly how you seem.

Yeah so I said you know my wife and I said yes we're gonna do it and we moved to Arizona and we did the coffee company and I was packaging shit out of my you know out of my back room. I was delivering it myself I was doing marketing social all that stuff like one person job and you know the silver lining was like yeah I was able to do the back end of it. It didn't end up working up to three years. That's a hard business.

Yeah it is man you know Mike Mentor than I said earlier but that was a founder of Letting Thing. He would always be like look there's copies hard. You know you have to do more than just coffee and that's what I tried to do. I did partnerships with sports athletes for athletes.

I did I was able to get myself into markets and I was really proud of all those things that I did as a one man show without like that business background. And I learned a lot and I'm glad that I did it. There's no way in how that I wouldn't go back and do it differently. The back side of it was like shit I don't have a job right I don't have a job and I don't have a business and then I don't have a network here in Arizona.

Right like. Yeah. For as good as I thought it was like it didn't mean shit here. Nobody was calling me back.

Like nobody was calling me like there was nobody that I couldn't reference any of my old chef co-workers, restaurants, where as beverage managers all these people that network that I built in the East Coast and in Chicago. It didn't mean shit here. Like nobody cared here. Right.

So it was like I went through a really hard time of like damn what the fuck am I going to do now. What am I doing with my time and you know I see a therapist and she was like look me. And then you know I see a therapist and I'm like I'm like what do you think that's missing in your life is like you've always been a creative guy and you just need to find something that's creative without a monetary value to it. And I was like what the hell does that mean.

And she was like every time you've always been creative it's like it had to be some sort of RY and you know there's a return on investment for it right like if you create this how does it sell in the market if you create this how do the fans create how do the consumer at a restaurant feel to it. You just need to do something creative for yourself and that's it right like just so I started cooking again and honestly man like I hadn't cooked cooked for years like I hadn't cooked for years because it was kind of like I always say it was like a bad ex-girlfriend. It was like the worst of just being like in that industry and just being heartbroken by it. But then two things really got me into like what I do now I'm like creating content was a I was tired of seeing these people that created content online that were really great at editing but you could tell that they stuck at cooking.

Oh fuck yeah we're making drinks. Yeah yeah yeah and it just it bothered me because I had so many friends in the industry that buster ass and are still in that grind and me being someone that was in that industry. It's not fucking glamorous it's not easy. And you could tell in a video like who can make a drink who can cook and who can and who's really good at it.

100% yeah so I was really like there was that piece of me that was like really annoyed by that like that I was like you know what I'm gonna do it I'm gonna do it in a way that respects the craft respect my industry respects like what we do. So I showed like my basis is like I try to make everything from scratch like if I was prepping in the kitchen and I was doing it but got me back into just being creative and just being like in it and like slowly like it was started for me and still is for me like this just a therapeutic thing for me and it's slowly grown into something else. I don't have a link tree to like here try this five second 10 second recipe that you could know that's not what this is for it's for me like I enjoy cooking and I enjoy editing and I enjoy being creative. So once again like tell the tell the listeners like exactly what you're talking about what is it you're doing like what's that's like basically I like twice a week I create recipes that I either learned throughout the way from like my industry of people that I met and someone taught me or crazy or just recipes that I cook for my family and then once a week I put out a story that's associated with those recipes right like I've always been driven in design or in food that everything has like a story connected to it.

And that's kind of I enjoyed it right I've always enjoyed being a writer and but you know the educational system always told me that I wasn't a good writer because of my grammar and dyslexia but like this was like the best format to be able to do it where I could create a story and people can just hear it versus having to read it right so yeah create content and I'm a contributor often on with other publications food writing and it's been absolutely amazing it's it's been super therapeutic to to be back to cooking and creating and it's opened up a lot of opportunities for me like it and I didn't think it was going to do that for me I thought that it was just going to be something for me and it's still is and I don't want to lose that because when you get on social it's really hard to fucking to do that and at the end of the day I'm still trying to respect the industry and respect those that do it on a regular basis. I got to say man like you're doing it the right way you know like like just talking to you like you're doing this properly and it's such a it's so great to talk to someone like you who is and it's not just to talk to you. who is and it's not just about how many fucking followers can I get by editing everything perfectly so tell our listeners where they can't actually follow someone who's for real. Yeah so my Instagram is Google HUGO underscore Gummy no GAM I know and then my TikTok is Google's cookbook to life.

That's that's the handle. Yeah so it's it's food that I create but it's also like stories that have been resonated with me in my life and those is like what's what's inspired me in terms of cooking and the industry and I try to showcase our industry as best as possible. Like there's a story that I wrote about the dishwasher right like someone that gets overlooked all the time and just I try to give as much shine to our industry as possible because I personally think that it's one of the hardest industries out there it's an industry that I think that got hit the hardest in the pandemic and the grind that I saw my friends that were still in it is just remarkable and it's just it's it's an industry front and back of the house where your polisher bartender bar back or cook that you put so much time and effort to service other people and it's a one industry where you like show up to work and you're have to put your own fucking emotions on pause to be hospitable to other people that I don't think consumers really understand how hard that can be at times right so it's like I try to do my best every single time that I put out content with the mindset of like is this you know doing our industry justice is just giving people like if one of my friends so that's why I like to this day I still don't call myself a chef anymore because I'm not running a kitchen right like I respect the title I respect the role and of those who are doing it. Yeah and that's all I'm trying to do just while you're doing it right do it go and we really appreciate you coming on the show this was super fascinating because it was one of my favorite conversations in a long time.

I appreciate it. Yeah thanks very much man appreciate you and we'll put all the links to everything in our show notes so the people can follow you and follow someone who's doing it right. Sweet man thank you guys. Thanks very much.