This week we have a two-part episode. In the main part of the show, our first guest is Roger Watson, a highly-claimed chef who joined us from Indianapolis, Indiana. Originally from Doncaster in South Yorkshire in the UK, Roger started working in the industry when he landed a job at a local restaurant while finishing up high school. Eventually, Roger found himself enamored with the camaraderie in order of the kitchen and moved up the ladder of success as he moved to Manchester and eventually London to work.
Roger has worked in several Michelin-star restaurants and has cooked for top diplomats and the royal family. Eventually, Roger got his break into the private chef industry working for a billionaire while in London. After several years, Roger moved to the United States, first to Memphis, and then to Indianapolis, where he currently lives today. But the second part of the episode, Alyssa Dunn returns to join the show again.
We talk with Alyssa about rebranding from the badass bartender to the hell queen, how this happened and how she's making it work. Enjoy the show. We're back with another episode of the industry podcast. My name is Kip and this is Dan.
What's going on buddy? You know, you're still going to ask him more or less. And yourself, how did he go? You're juggling three bars.
Three bars? Yeah, lots of time in my car. It's amazing to be when you get into the dream of being a bar owner and the more you own, the less you spend in the bar, the better time you spend in your fucking car. But these are first world problems.
I'm lucky. Yeah. So yeah, let's talk about the bars. So I can plug this.
Yeah, we have a sugar run downtown Kitchener. That is the speak easy. Check at sugar on bar on Instagram to find out what's going on there. Yap, we have Babylon Sisters, wine and spirits bar.
And that is at Babylon Sisters bar on Instagram to find out what's going on there. DJ Bain every Friday night. DJing Anna last Saturday of every month. And then the new spot in Preston, Cambridge area is Argyle Arms, 2023.
But the return of the Argyle Arms in the Preston area, we're doing a big wing and pint special starting on Wednesdays now along with open mic night with mandapal. So you can want to check that out. And then we have live music every weekend Friday, Saturday night. And probably once we get our heads out of our asses every night.
That's all happening. That's at Argylele, underscore arms, underscore 2023 on Instagram to find out what's going on there. So those are the bars. As far as the podcast goes, if you like what we're doing here, you're going to want to subscribe or rate and review that helps us out a great deal.
And if you want to be a guest on the show, you can DM us directly on the industry podcast on Instagram or you can email us info at the industrypodcast.club. What else? That can't. Was that can't?
At saccana.co does the artwork for our Instagram page? Big shout out to him and I used to check him out for all your graphic arts needs that AKA double NAAH.co. And I don't think I've anything else to prouder on about. So we may as well just get to our guest.
Yeah, sounds like a plan to me. All right. We have Roger Watson joining us. How you doing, Roger?
I'm doing good guys. How you doing? Well, yeah, I was coming on the show. Appreciate it.
I'm pleasure. So you're coming to us from where right now? I'm in Indianapolis, Indiana. You've had super interesting career.
We'll talk a bit about it now. I'm very interested in how you ended up in Indianapolis. Where were you from originally? Originally, I'm from a South Yorkshire in the United Kingdom, a place called Doncaster.
Not very well known to most Americans. I usually say Manchester because it's the kind of nearest city that people know of. Just a really small town now. And got you into the service industry to begin with?
Were you always in back of us? It was a strange way that I got into it. I was doing my exams in high school. My dad knew a guy who'd owned a restaurant in the local town, 20 years called Labistro.
He said that I should go get a job there. I called the owner up and he invited me for an interview. He actually interviewed me for a waiter job. And then the night that I showed up to work my first shift, he said that someone in the kitchen had walked out and he asked if I'd literally handed me an apron.
I was like, I don't really want to be in a kitchen and go, this isn't really my kind of thing. But I just kind of did it to make money. Fell in love with it, basically from there. That really was the way that I kicked into it.
It's interesting. Yeah, that you cook a lot at all before that or just kind of a trial-life dinner. Not really. So what specifically did you find that you loved about it?
I really loved the organization of the kitchen and sort of like the hierarchy of it. That kind of appeal to me and just the camaraderie really, of everybody's like any family. That's probably for me what got me in. I think that's what sucks us all in after a while, right?
It's just whether you're in front of the house or back house, I'd spend all my time at the front of the house. But you do develop sort of a familial relationship with the people you work with. And it's funny that if you go to work at another place, all of a sudden that old family's gone and you've got a whole new family. But you very quickly developed that relationship with the new people and you very quickly lose the relationship with the whole people.
Yeah, that's true as well. I mean, there's some key people throughout my career who I've kept with from each place. But you're right. There's so many that come in and out of the door, especially with turnover and things like that, especially in the kitchen.
Oh, yeah. That's true. You could be best friends with somebody in the next minute they're gone. Do you find that?
Because I was trying to stereotype, but in micro, I've definitely found that people who work in the kitchen are transient by nature and tend to always feel like the grass is going to be greener at the next spot. Have you found that? I definitely think that's true in kitchens. Yeah.
And the other thing is whenever you usually go for an interview and things like that, everything seems rosy until you actually get really appealing in the interview. And then when you get there, you just shit to them. So I know it's at the same time as the front house at the end of the day. It's always the same job.
It's just a different spot, right? Like you're going to be doing different things. You might have different creative control or whatever. But at the end of the day, the back house, your cooking food and the front house, your serving drinks, like it's the job doesn't change.
Yeah, that's true. Yeah, I agree. Okay. So when you, so you start working at the Libby's throw and then like when did you, what point did you decide, hey, maybe I want to make this my career?
So as I was working weekends at Libby's throw, my head chef, that Paul Lovell sort of like needed more help throughout the week. So it became more of a four, four, five day a week job. And I was getting more and more into it. Paul was telling me at the time about places in London and Gordon Ramsey was the name that he told me back then.
This was in 2001 and he wasn't big yet. He'd done the boiling point episodes and things like that. But Paul had told me about that and that really piqued my interest. And then this is really strange.
I'd gone to, I guess in the UK, we call it like a tech college, not like college in America or where it's like a big, big thing, like going to college, but like tech college, I went to a tech college of hospitality and catering, Doncaster catering college. I'd actually gone to sign up for a different course. And on the day, I had seen the hospitality and catering course there to sign up for. And I literally made the decision on that day to sign up for that course.
Really? What were you going to sign up for? I was signing up for like plumbing and things like that. That's a good call.
Except for the money difference. I hadn't been well in school and things like that. Just to, you know, I'm only good at things that I'm really like interested in. And at high school, I just, my grades were pretty bad.
And I realized that this cooking thing was really, I was really enjoying it. And so I thought let's try and pursue it further with this tech college. So I signed up for that. And then it's really strange how it worked out because if you had gone to this open day, you could skip straight to level two or three if you had gone to the open day.
But on the open day, I'd actually been asked to work by four. So I'd gone into the restaurant and worked. And I don't know if it was like a punishment from them, but they kept me on level one, even though I was the only person on the course who like had any kitchen experience. So they'd held me back a year just by missing that open day.
And it never really worked out for me at the tech college. A lot of the teachers there said that unless you complete level one, two and three, you'll never really amount to anything in the industry. And that really kind of like motivated me, my entire career to show them that wasn't true. And I think I've done that tenfold really.
It looks like about the resume. So when you like how far did you get? I actually didn't even complete level one. Okay.
So because I was going to ask you like I talked to people who have gone to cooking school. I've talked to people who have gone to bartending school. And like it's very hit and miss on whether people think it was a useful experience or not, right? You definitely come from the side of like hands on experiences better than like class education, I'm guessing.
100% I agree that catering college and in our particular industry going to school to learn is not the way to do things. And America catering school is a very big thing. Unless you have a degree in cooking and things like that, people don't really think you're a chef even. But in the European system and things like that, I think that hands on experiences way more useful than going to school.
I mean, it was called at the time NVQ. And then I went and started in a professional kitchen and said, you know what that means? And I said, no. And he said it means not very qualified.
He said, everything you learn there forget about it. I don't stand at the sink and wash our hands for a minute. And he's like, this is the real world now. Yeah.
I was thinking about bartending. Like when people would come and apply for a job with me or before when I was in Hawaii as well, like working alongside them, people who had the fucking degree from the bartending college didn't know shit about how it actually works in real life. They just learned the basic recipes and someone had taught them like how to shake. Yeah.
And then try putting them in a bar with like 100 people at the same time and you'll see what happens. It's the same in the kitchen. Yeah. So yeah, I'm very I'm very opposite of going to catering college and culinary school.
I think. Sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt you. Hey, especially in the United States, you pay so much to go to culinary school, whereas I was paid to learn better.
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So the other thing that you had mentioned in your bio that you said is that you were very anti sort of the bullying that can go on in the kitchen.
I don't know if I'm saying that exactly right. But you did mention that you worked with Gordon Ramsay. So is this where this came from? Yeah.
I think throughout the time in particularly in London, when I worked in London, there's a massive culture of that, particularly Gordon Ramsay's, although it's pretty much all those kitchens were sort of like that kind of atmosphere. I just, because I trained in that kind of atmosphere, I just never really wanted to be like that. I don't really think that's a good way to teach the next generation of people. I mean, some of the stuff I saw there at Gordon Ramsay is just complete bullshit of how they taught people and, or didn't teach people, just, you know, abuse them verbally and physically, sometimes as well.
Can you give us some examples of some of the abuse that you actually witnessed? I mean, I've seen people getting kicked in the back of their heels for not running around the kitchen is just for walking. I've seen people get slapped around the back of the head, spat out, opt in freezes, things like that. Really abusive atmospheres.
And we were working really long hours with, you know, you were supposed to start at 7am, but most people would be there by like six, because everybody wanted to be there first, and then we'd leave at like 1.32am. So not only are you like drained and fatigued from, because we were doing like six days a week, so you're on complete zero energy. And then on top of that, you're getting abused. It's, it affects you.
And when you're working in those mission and star restaurants, and there's zero room for error, if you work in that kind of environment for a long time, like I did, it affects you later on in life, you know, it's like everything. Like everything now in my life now, I'm 36 years old now, if something goes wrong, that's, that's just a mean, your little thing to me, it annoys me more than it should, because it's ingrained in me from back then, you know, where the tiniest little thing goes wrong, and it's the end of the world. So, you know, it's hard to get into that mindset a little bit, like where I was trying to say to people, we said it a lot of times I showed it was like the end of the day, no one's fucking curing cancer in these jobs. Like we're making food and drinks, we're bringing them to people.
Like let's just calm down. Exactly. We're just cooking food at the end of the day. Yeah.
Yeah. But yeah, those, it's funny that so what years would this be that you were working in sort of that kind of abusive sort of kitchen? Or I moved to London in 2007. So that's really when it started.
But after I left LeBistro, I'd moved to Manchester and worked in one of Raymond Blanche's restaurants. And my head chef there, Simon Stanley, he was, he took me under his wing and he was like a father figure chef to me. And he knew that eventually I was going to go on to London, because that's really in the UK where everybody's going to go if you want to go and work in two, two-star restaurants. He prepared me for what it was going to be like because he'd come from that background.
So when I went down to London, I heard he had a good idea of how it was going to be. But yeah, 2007 is when I moved down there and started in Michelin star kitchens. Can you give us our listeners? Because we talked to a couple of people who have worked in Michelin stars, but no one who's got the sort of experience that you have, I don't believe.
We've already talked about the negative side of that, of how it could be. But like, what is sort of like the day-to-day of you as a chef working in a Michelin star restaurant? Give our listeners a little bit of the behind the scenes of like what goes on at a place like that. It's extremely repetitive because each person's role, you get sort of like the same jobs for a long time.
Like, you know, the menu changes seasonally, but for that season, you're going to come in and you have the same job list every single day. And so basically what you're doing is like looking at the clock and knowing that like, okay, now it's 8am, I should be on this by now. So it's very repetitive and it's a race every day. Yeah, you have a very big, the prep list is massive because each dish has sort of like 15 different components to it.
But yeah, you know, in the Michelin star restaurant, I definitely say things are very repetitive and you're in a rush all the time to get it completed. And if you do get it completed and you have free time, then people are like looking at you like, hey, you know, you have free time. You're like, I'm not going to tell me. Yeah.
I got to ask you this then, like, okay, so you're dealing with kind of like an abusive atmosphere. It's very fucking repetitive. What you like about it is a camaraderie. But if you're going there at 6am and getting there at 1.30am, there can't be too much time for that.
Like, what keeps you going in a job like that? Just knowing that it's going on the resume and that you're working and you know, you're learning, even though they're not sort of teaching you yourself just by being around with that kind of thing. Like, I got Moses. Yeah.
Yeah. You know, I used to carry a notebook in my back pocket on a pencil and somebody told me to do something and I'd be like writing it down. So I've got a bunch of notebooks from 15 years ago that I've got recipes in that wouldn't make sense if anybody read them. So, yeah, it's like a on the job learning that you can't get anywhere else.
Yeah, absolutely. And for me personally, the camaraderie thing in the Michelin kitchen is definitely not as much as some of the other places I worked because the turnover, like I said, was just unbelievable. People would come and start one day and they'd leave that day. And it was funny because we used to, the kitchen was on the first floor and on the ground floor was the entrance and exit and the bathroom.
And people would say they're going to the bathroom and they'd be taking their knives and be like, why are you taking the first floor? You learned the spot of it. We would call that bolting. People would come and leave within a few hours and some people would stay a couple of days and some people would say a couple of weeks, but the turnover was so high.
It wasn't even worth learning people's names. You could tell when somebody wasn't going to make it. So how many people would be working on a regular, like say, get there at 6am, I can work that whole field. How many people would be in the kitchen?
There was around 25 chefs in the kitchen there and that's 120 cover restaurant. So, you know, you've got all your different sections, meat, fish, veg, desserts and stuff. There's about five to six. And then also you have like the people they're working for free on sarge's from different countries and stuff.
They were always cool. We met a lot of different people through those kind of jobs from around the world. You can't really complain about that. The staging shit is all right though, right?
Because you know at the end of the day you're working for free. If you really don't want to be there anymore, you'll just fucking take off. Absolutely attitude the people who do the stuff. Is the salary reasonable working at the Bishland Star restaurant?
No, I mean, take for example Gordon Ramsay's in 2007. Commi Chef salary was like 11,000 pounds. And then he went to the Bishland Star restaurant and he was like 14,000 dollars a year in London, which is like two months of rent for a partner probably. Yeah, I mean, I had a room in London.
How much time I spent in that room? Not very much. So, I went around London and ate out in places and things. But yeah, it's not about the money at that stage.
It was more about just getting the experience. Yeah. That's pretty surprising. Yeah, you really got to fucking love it though, right?
Because otherwise you're not going to... There's no way you would last. Yeah, you do. You have to love it.
So at what point did you get sort of into doing the private chef thing? Well, I was a string one as well because in 2012 I took a year out and I went to Houston, Texas. I was just going to a nanny for a very wealthy family. And while I was out there, I'd done a few dinner parties for very wealthy people and things like that.
And still at that point, I was doing the dinner parties and I didn't realize really what a private chef was. But when I moved back to the UK in 2013, my best friend Lawrence, who's a private chef as well, he said that he was working for a Ukrainian family and they had four chefs and one of them was leaving. And would I like to come for an interview? And I was like, what do you mean?
Like a family have chefs? Yeah, yeah. Didn't even know what it was. So I went there for an interview for the guy who was leaving and that's really how I fell into that.
It's difficult to get into the private chef world. You kind of have to have some kind of in like that. I mean, it was just lucky that Lawrence told me about it and had been working for this family for a year in London. And it was all at the right time.
I came back from Texas. I needed a job. It was amazing money. So, I mean, Jeff, gigs are generally pretty good money.
I would imagine. Massive, yeah. Really? Seriously.
Yeah. So yeah, it was Mega Money in London. It's four of us cooking for a family of four. And yes, what are the hours like for that?
Like, this involves all three meals of the day. I'm guessing. Yeah, we would go in if you did the breakfast shift. You'd be there at like 5.30 a.m.
And you'd leave about 9 p.m. That was still long. And honestly, it was just as intense as a Michelin star restaurant because the food we were putting out was, I would say two stars. Sometimes we saw we'd all come from that background and one person was constantly working on sort of like new dishes and things because the family didn't really like repetitive.
They didn't have the same dish twice unless they thought it was outstanding. Oh, man. And the lady was vegan and raw food only. So it was really hard to keep coming up with like innovative ideas.
So, constantly working on like creating things. And what about like, do they have kids? So the father was not living in London. He was in the Ukraine.
The mom was living in London and she had two boys and then they had, we also had to cook for the bodyguards of the boys. And then, so it was cooking for four. And then on top of that, one of us had to cook for the staff and there was a lot of staff. It was about seven or eight maids.
They had personal assistants, bodyguards, drivers. So the staff food was sort of like for 20 people. Oh, wow. So, like, I know you touched on this briefly before starting recording and being Ukraine, of course, I'm going to ask this.
What kind of product do you cook the color of Ukraine dishes? Anything that you remember specifically or? Boosh, soups. Sweet.
The cut leki. Oh, yeah, that's really good stuff. That's probably one of the dishes I've carried over and kept cooking. Yeah.
Nice. Lots of cabbage roll still and. Lots of cabbage. Cabbage potato is horse meat is another one she ate.
Oh, nice. I've got a funny story here because she loved her fish. And we could never get fresh enough fish in London. We're using Michelin star suppliers and it was still not fresh enough for her.
So we got to the point where we were hiring a courier to literally bring it to us. And she was still saying it's not fresh enough. And we were like, what is going on here? This is so fresh.
And then finally, when we went to the Ukraine to their house in the Ukraine, they created a private lake there with sea bass in the lake. And they were just going down the golf cart, bringing it and giving it to her within like five minutes. All right. That's why nothing's fresh to her.
Yeah, that's funny. So like, I was asking about the kids was like kids are notoriously picky eaters. So how like how is it to try and keep up with what the children want to eat? Well, what we would use is when they ate out, we would find out what they had ordered when they went out and what they'd enjoyed when they we would ask the bodyguards.
Yeah. Really talk to them directly. So we would just tell the bodyguard, you know, when you go out for dinner and see what he eats, let us know. And that's really how we keep him happy.
That's really interesting. It's a crazy dynamic. Like, so you're not really in contact with the family at all and you're getting info from bodyguards and maids and other like servants who work for them. We had butlers who spoke both languages.
So often they would come in and speak in Ukrainian and then the butler would translate to us and then we'd be looking at the butler answering back to him and he'd be translating it back to her. I mean, we know when she was pissed off because I'm sure you don't have opinions when they get angry how they speak. Oh, Christ yeah. That's the time.
That was mom talks of every time I hear one of them. Yeah. I was pissed off when you what was coming. So yeah, here's the word hodgata.
A lot of the times. That's funny. No. Like, were you doing big dinner parties for them as well or is it mostly just day to day cooking?
For that family, not so much the big dinner parties. They would occasionally have friends over for dinner, but the formal dinner parties now. Not really. And like so you've gotten okay.
So after working with for that family, where did you go next? After that, I had moved to the United States to Memphis. Okay. So why there?
I got married. That'll do it. Congratulations. Congratulations.
Yeah. Yeah. I'd moved to Memphis to get married. Wasn't sure if I was going to be working in a restaurant over there because I wasn't sure if they were to private chef jobs.
But I knew somebody through her family who knew somebody who was looking for a private chef, probably one of only two families in Memphis who have private chefs. And I was just really lucky that I got in there. So that was 2015. So what kind of so now you're working for your creative family in London and then you come and you're working for an American family in Memphis.
Talk to us a little bit about the differences and what you're kind of preparing for these families. Yeah, not in day difference. American Americans are extremely chilled out and appreciative. You know, you were there was no butlas and things like that.
You're talking directly to the family. You're much more part of the family. The food. Yeah.
The food in London was more like two or three star in Memphis. It was family meals. So, you know, you know, things like lasagna and things like that. You have to cook, you know, and then the family in Memphis would actually have the dinner parties that you were asking about.
They would have like 20, 30 people and you do a big dinner party and events outside of the house and things like that. So, and all my background had prepared me well for that. So, yeah. And so how many people, how many of you were working for that family?
There was just me cooking. Just you. So like, why don't you have like one of these giant dinner parties you obviously have to bring in some help. So how do you go about that?
I'm just really interested in the sort of dynamics of the whole thing. Well, in Memphis, we had a house manager and we had a couple of staff as well in that house and they would double up. And if we had a dinner party, we would have them help me or, you know, I would just hire people who I met locally in restaurants and things. You know, if I ever have a good meal out and there's an amazing server, I'd give them a card and say, do you do private work?
Often they look at me and they're like, you know, what the hell is this? Right. Yeah. It's it was a bit of both in that role in Memphis.
It was, I would say mostly the family meals with the occasional large dinner party. And so there are totally different scenario altogether, which is kind of cool. And now Memphis is also sort of known for food as well, right? So and but probably a very different style of food than you'd been used to preparing.
So how do you sort of switch focus and like learn on the fly for a totally different type of cuisine? Pretty much just self taught myself this other food. You know, I don't want to shit on Memphis as food scene, but it's probably about 15 years behind London's. Right.
So like the best restaurant in Memphis, I remember I looked at what it was and I don't want to name it, but I went to date there. And you know, I think that's a tradition. It was like filling in on with balsamic reduction and strawberries. And I'm like, you know, this is what I'm up against.
This is the best restaurant in Memphis. Yeah. You're looking pretty good all the time. It's actually going to shit on it.
So yeah. Yeah. It's all you know, the only guy working for the family as the chef, like, do you have any days offer? How does that work?
Yeah. It's been Monday through Friday. Okay. In all my roles really in the private business because in the other roles, we've had people deputize and work on a rotor system.
But in these two houses, the Memphis one and the one I'm in now, it's Monday through Friday. And then on the weekends, they normally eat out. Okay. All order in.
So, you know, Monday through Friday, it's lunch and dinner. Oh, that's a little sweet. Okay. So I'm sorry.
I'm really just kind of fascinated by this whole experience. And we haven't really talked about people. So I hope you don't mind me asking you tons of questions about sort of the same thing. But like when you're, when you're used to doing this sort of one, two, three star type meal in London for the Ukrainian family, then you come to Memphis.
But then in that scenario, you're almost like removed from the family. And then you go to Memphis and you're maybe not cooking at the same level as you're normally used to cooking, but you're more a part of the family. Like, which dynamic do you like better? Did you miss cooking like this, like at the level that you're normally used to cooking at?
Or did you like just like the camaraderie with the family better? I think for me, I've combined a bit of both. I don't, I don't fall into the trap of being too sort of like friendly with the family. I have that professionalism as well from London.
The yes, no miss kind of attitude of London. I've kept that. And I think that I think the Americans like that sort of like the, it's like working in the two of the chefs in the Ukrainian kitchen. And worked at the palace for the queen.
Oh, yeah. That was my first private chef job. And so I learned a lot of being a private chef, how to behave like one from them. And I'm not talking about cooking.
I'm talking about how you act around the family. So like when you're talking to the lady, you know, you stand with your arms behind your back and curtsy to her and things like that. I learned all that on the fly in London from those guys. And I kind of carried that over and I've always kept that.
So yeah, it's a lot more friendly, but I do know sort of like my boundaries and how to behave and things. So. I guess did you miss the style of cooking though? Like were you kind of like sometimes when you're making a fucking lasagna or you're just like Christ.
I think so. Yeah, but I also kind of occasionally make, make dishes and post them on like Instagram just for myself just to keep to keep familiar with all that. So, you know, I don't usually end up serving it to them, but you know, if I'm making a lasagna on the side over here, I'm making something else that I take. You know, so I don't miss it too much because I get to do that.
And I get to, in my current job, I get to play around with things like that. And any produce from around the world at my fingertips. So it's actually kind of cooler than working in the Michelin star kitchens. Yeah, that's cool.
So I do want to talk about how you ended up in the apples, but I did kind of we didn't even really talk about this whole working at the palace situation. Tell us a little bit about that whole experience. Well, two of the chefs for the Ukrainian family had worked at the palace. Dale and Kevin and Dale had actually worked for the Queen directly.
So he traveled with her. Wow. I learned a lot of that. I learned a lot of things from them.
I'd also cook for the Royal Family, myself in restaurants in London. And I done a dinner party where Prince Charles was a regular. Wow. But yeah, just they had the experience from there and we did dishes from the palace.
They would always be referring to it as the palace. We did this at the palace and this is what we did. And we kind of all did that in the Ukrainian house. And I think they liked that.
You know, I think Americans in general, when they know you've cooked in that kind of thing, they liked that as well. Oh, fuck Americans have a weird and actually Canadian city working, but like North Americans in general have a weird fascination with the Royal family. I don't really understand. King Charles to be on my money soon.
Yeah, sure. That's true. At least we're part of the Commonwealth. It makes a little more sense.
So we're looking for the palace already. I did this. You thought we're kind of on the big request from what I knew the Queen, you know, she liked very humble food. She liked the chips, but she liked the chips fries for all the American listeners out there.
To be cut, sort of like small enough to fit in her mouth. She didn't like to eat things where she would be like having to eat it in two or two things. She liked the small eat very elegantly. So we kind of followed that up as well with the lady in the Ukrainian house.
I think for her and she enjoyed that. Interesting. I think they eat very humbly, you know, special Prince Charles from what I've been told. But they would come to the Michelin star restaurant that you were working at as like a night out.
And so what would happen if when the Royal family is coming to a restaurant, they should have all placed out. They pretty much would. Yeah. They'd come on and sort of on an ounce visit.
They may get a table in the corner and book all the tables around it and have a bodyguard sit on the tables around it. But yeah, we had the place I worked on in London, the bend and we had the Royal family there. We had Obama there. I remember they actually came and met with the restaurant directors before they came and had a look where all the exits and entrances were and things like that, the week before he came.
So that was pretty cool when he came. But yes, I don't have to taste the food before they get it. Are we in those kind of kitchens? We taste everything.
You can think about that from their side. Yeah. No, actually. No.
So now we know how to kill them. That actually brings up a strange story because with the Ukrainians, they are Ukrainian residents. They had a laboratory where all the produce have to go before we could get our hands on it to test for things like poison and things. And they would have a guy who every other hour would take an air sample and check if there was any poison in the air.
They had a separate outbuilding from the kitchen where they tested everything. So it was a pain in the ass because you'd be waiting to get the produce in and they'd have it, they'd be checking over it for poison. So, you know, it's weird. Okay.
I'm going to ask you this. You can't answer. We'll just cut this out in the edit. But like, what did that family do?
Like, why would they so wealthy and why were they worried about being poisoned? The Ukrainian guy, we didn't ask too much. That's all I feel about this guy. We didn't ask many questions, but you can do the Google when you get their name.
And you know, it appeared to us as though he pretty much owned everything that there is in the Ukraine. The Afro-chimmedia police, everything was paid by him. He's the richest man in the Ukraine by a country mile. And he's one of these Ukrainian oligotchers.
So interesting. We didn't ask too much, but yeah, no, probably best. Probably best. Okay.
So we'll let you go soon. You're going to see a lot of time. We really appreciate it. But yeah, I know you don't have that much fucking time off.
So we do appreciate coming on the show. But talk to us about how it was that you ended up in Indianapolis. So my job in Memphis, I've been there since 2015, getting a little bit tired from it. And I had an agency working for me who placed chefs with families.
And he'd said that there was a family in Indianapolis. At the time, I didn't know what the hell Indianapolis was. I knew that Peyton Manning played football there. Yeah.
And I was really hit. That's all most people know about it. Yeah. So they flew me out to Indianapolis.
I was like, even if I don't take this job and they don't like me, at least I've checked off another state and it's painful. Right. But I rolled up for a two day interview where you cook for the family and meet the family and we just completely hit it off. It was natural.
The gentleman who I worked for, unlike other roles that I'd been in, personally came to the kitchen and shook my hand and thanked me for coming to cook for his family. That was a felt good. Yeah. This guy is different.
And I found out that he was self-made. That is so different from families that I worked for in the past. Right. Yeah.
He's just so humble and welcoming to me. And I remember when I started, I had to go downtown to the office where he runs everything, his worldwide company from. And I went up to the top floor of this office building and he was in the middle of a board meeting and he saw me through the glass and he stopped the board meeting and came out and shook my hand and thanked me for coming. Oh, that's awesome.
This guy is different. And from what I've never been to Indiana, but from what I understand, that's sort of like the state in general, everyone's super nice there. I think it is. Yeah.
I think people up north here and nicer. I think the one in the south is a lot of people are over friendly and fake. Right. But no, definitely I think Indiana and North people are real and they are nice.
Yeah. But that's crazy. What a crazy fucking life you've led, man. Especially you're not even at all yet.
You must have ever stopped and reflected or even have time to stop and reflect on all the crazies that you've already done. I think sometimes I do. I always think back to that time in college when that teacher told me that I would have anything. Yeah.
Fuck that guy. Or woman. Game fish with cunning was. We'll get some teachers made up.
I think about that. And I think about all the chefs who have had a massive impact on my life. Paul Lovell, my first head chef who's passed away since Simon Stanley from Manchester, massive figure in my career. And then the time in London, I don't think I'd change anything.
I hated those times in London and how it was. But I don't think I would change anything. I've really enjoyed it. I've been doing this for now for about 21 years.
I wouldn't change much. And I really enjoy the job I'm in right now. I wouldn't trade this job for anything. So I'm very lucky.
So I do reflect on it and think how lucky I am. I'm about to be a cool guy. And it's been super fascinating talking to you. Like what a career.
And it's still going. So just as long as you don't have to test for poisons in Indianapolis, you can probably keep this gig for a bit. Well, thanks again, Roger. It was super awesome talking to you.
I'm not joking. I was like one of the more fascinating conversations we've had on the show. So thanks very much for giving us the time. I know you don't have a lot of it.
Thank you guys. Okay. Thanks. Thank you.
That's better. And now for the second part of the episode with the Hell Queen, Elissa Dunn. Okay. We're back with our friends from many months ago.
It's been a while coming to us from Phoenix, Arizona. It's unfortunately no longer a badass. She used to be a badass, but now she's just a Hell Queen. It's Elissa.
How are you? I'm good. How are you guys? Doing well.
Doing well. Good to see you. Yeah. It's been a while.
You know what's funny is like, because we do this, we have two guests that are recurring guests and it's you and you'll later. And we haven't had her on in a while either because it's just, and it's only because I do the booking and I've just gotten too fucking busy to keep up with monthly things. So thankfully you reached out with this time and reminded me that we hadn't been on in a while. So I was like, yes, let's do this.
And now you've got an interesting story to tell as well because you lost your handle. I did. We're starting from the bottom again. Yeah.
So trademark is a funny thing. I would definitely suggest anyone who starts a business to check the trademark before they say the game. It's a I'm going to be a story now. But honestly, you probably didn't expect to get this like sort of well known this quickly.
So why would you have thought to do that? Yeah. I mean, but I mean, when I started it was just like, you know, when I started the Instagram or the social media, it was just like this little thing that I did. And so I wasn't really worried at the time like, oh, I should make sure, you know, just in case.
We said you wanted to show that was like what a couple of years ago now. And like, and you had like maybe a couple thousand followers or whatever, right? And like now it's like a real thing. Yeah.
And then you find out. You got to check it and then you're like, Oh crap. Yeah. So describe to the list.
There's what happened. Exactly. Yeah. So, you know, obviously the social media has been getting larger and larger.
It's getting to a point where I, you know, felt it was appropriate to trademark the badass bartender moving forward, you know, since I was, you know, going to be, you know, getting compensated for my social media, different things like that under that name. And unfortunately the badass, badass bartender was already trademarked. That doesn't really make too much of a difference. And so I, you know, I've been having to go through this whole rebrand the past couple months.
So whole new name, whole new website, whole new Instagram handle, new logo, new, new, new, new everything. And it's been, it's been stressful, but it's really good. I'm really happy about it. I'm trying to think of it more as an upgrade them, you know, like a whole rebrand.
Well, clearly your heads around it now, but like it must have been pretty demoralizing when you first fucking found out that you were saying rigor, we started recording that like you reached out to them asking if you could use it. And so describe that process and what happened there. Yeah. So I reached out to the, you know, the person or the company that owns the trademark badass bartender.
And I was hoping that I could get some type of consent from them that I would be allowed to use the name because we are in different categories. I'm obviously, I'm an individual person looking to, you know, just do the social media stuff. They are a organization that owns it and is developing an organization kind of thing. So we're kind of in different genres.
And I mean, yes, we're still in, you know, a drink umbrella, but they unfortunately, you know, said they'd rather not that I, you know, did something else. And so, you know, I have to go on that. I can't just be like, well, no, I'm going to do it anyway. And then they said, if I was going to continue, at some point, it would get to that, which I understand.
If I'm making money off of names they own legally, they are allowed to say, hey, no, you can't do that. My worry was that it was going to be a little bit down the line. And what will happen is you will have to pay back whatever you've made off that name to that money. And I was like, that's where I don't want to get to.
Sure. And you've been growing so exponentially like that could happen faster than you. I was like, I don't want to think about how much I would have to pay back. I started doing, you know, classes a little bit more in different things that are going a little bit more generating income at this point since I've kind of gone to that point.
And so I was like, if we're gonna do it, we might as well just do it now. So yeah, it was, this most stressful part was really coming up with a new name because if you've ever tried to trademark anything, every name is taken. All right. You've basically had to come up with a new word or you can use your name, it's a little bit easier obviously.
But yeah, I pretty much had to come up with a whole new word. So that's how we came up with the Hell Queen cocktails. And so that is trademark, I own the trademark on that. We are all good to go.
No worries now. That's crazy though. Yeah, that must have been stressful. I mean, because you have done such a good job of getting the bad ass bartender name out there.
And we talked about it a million times when you come up. But how quickly it grew. And going back to what I was saying earlier, but when we first met you and you just had a small social media following and now, and then it fucking exploded. And then you had, I think the last time you were telling us about that one video that you did about tequila or bad tequila, which tequila did you drink?
Oh yes, that was the one that really like helped blow it up. Yeah. And so you do all this work and then all of a sudden, you're like, I can't use this fucking name anymore. Yeah, I mean luckily I don't have to start a whole new Instagram.
I can just change my handle name. And I've been, you know, I've been advertising it while I took, I went, I kind of ended up in social, I ended up in Instagram jail for a couple months where I wasn't able to do branded content or monetize in any way. So it was like, well, you know what? I have to do this rebrand anyway.
Like right when I'm getting done with this jail impression is right when I'm about to launch the new brand. So why don't I just take a huge break? And then when we start, so I've been advertising it, you know, a little bit throughout the past couple months and like moving up to it. So hopefully my followers will start to recognize that that's what's going on.
I talked about it a lot on my channel and everything like that. So hopefully it won't be like too much of a like shock and like what is this person now? But you know, we're just gonna have to see what happens honestly. Yeah, at least it's good that you had some time, right?
Because like you can't keep doing it. Like if people are already following you. So if they're watching you do the videos and you're constantly dropping a new name, then like, you would have seen people just follow along. Yeah, yeah.
And hopefully they will. Like I said, I don't have to start a whole new Instagram. I can just change my handle and I keep all my followers and everything like that. So luckily it's not, we're not completely starting for structural.
I don't know what I would have done. If I had, if that was gonna be the case. So just like describe to us how you came up with the name despite or besides like just looking for any fucking name that wasn't already trademarked. I mean, I'm not gonna lie, that was a huge part of it.
I went through name after name and looked at trademark trademark trademark and I had my, I have a trademark lawyer that I've been working with and she was looking up names for me and I mean, honestly, it was kind of just going down the line and I'm like, no, that would take it. Cross it out. No, that would take it. Cross it out.
No, that would take it. Cross it out. And you just get to a point where you're like, I got to a point where I was like, okay, I'm going to have to come up with a new word basically to be part of this brand. And there's a company called Helbaites, which I'm a really big fan of.
And they do a lot of like T-shirts and they're very feminist and women and I was like, well, maybe I could play off of that. I really like that, how they came up with kind of a new word and just the queen and the cocktails, that kind of alliteration was like, really easy to kind of flow and everything like that. And once I landed on it and it wasn't trademarked, I was like, that's what we're going with. I don't wanna talk to anyone else questioning me.
It's a good one. It's a good one. So I like, yeah, it's not a bad translation, but that's how it feels pretty well. And I feel like it stays within like what I hope that my brand represents, which is, you know, like the feminism and, you know, talking of things outside the drink world, not just like stuff to the cocktails necessarily.
What was your favorite one of that giant list that was already taken? Oh, I think the queen of cocktails, I really liked, but that was already taken. I'm trying to think of there was something. I mean, I mean, the badass bartender just was like, that was really good.
Yeah. It's just so perfect. I was like, oh, come on, come on, please. I really wanted to write back a letter with just being like, please, you guys, please.
I'll do anything. I'll do anything. Well, no, I think I had another good one. And like, so, and the good thing is that you are going to be able to rebrand really quickly like we were talking about earlier because you've already got the following.