This week's guest is Chef James Franco, who joins us for an in-person interview. James made his first appearance on our podcast on episode 3 and makes his triumplet return for episode 188. In this episode, we catch up with James and talk about his experience opening a restaurant two weeks prior to COVID being declared a pandemic in March 2020. We talk with James about getting away from the hospitality industry for a couple of short years to recharge and how we got back in the industry as he is now the driving force behind the menu and food offerings at Babylon Sisters in Uptown Waterloo.
James is also the founder and sole operator of the renowned Harper's Delly, a premium sandwich shop operating out of Babylon Sisters Bar for the lunch crowd. Make sure you check it out online at Harper's Delly or Visiting Person or check the show notes for the links. Enjoy the show. We'll check the show notes for all the links we've had in the show.
We've had a bunch of good interviews lately, so check those out in the Archives industry podcast on your platforms. Alright, enough about us, let's get to our guest today. It is James Franco's. How are you going buddy?
How are you doing buddy? Thanks for coming over. Let's do it. So we just discovered that James was actually the third guest ever on the industry podcast and now he's guest 188.
That was correct. Wow, so there you go. Some full circle. First of all, we know some really slim pickings there at the start.
Yeah, and now we're back to them. Everything old is new again. Back in the cutter. Well, a lot has happened since we've been on the show.
We had pandemic, I don't remember that. I vaguely recall something about that. Love you wearing a mask, I mean you're a little bit of an old West situation or something like that. He actually wandered into an old-timey bankrupt.
Yeah, so when we talked to you last, you had just opened Robin Rebels. Correct. Which is an unfortunate COVID-19. Correct.
Talk to us a little bit about how that all went down. I mean, so we opened two weeks before the first shutdown. So in retrospect, we were dead in the water. But at the time, no one really knew what was happening.
So we opened, everything was great. Buddy of mine was like, oh, it's just COVID-19, got an infection? I'm like, I don't know yet. It's gonna be a big deal, right?
Seems to be a baby of Chinese thing, I'm not really sure. And then we got forced into the initial government lockdowns. From there, we were just like, spitballing day to day. We didn't really know what was going on.
They opened up patios, we couldn't have a patio. Delivery became a huge thing, but our product wasn't a great delivery product. Yeah. I would equate it with breakfast or a steak dinner.
No one's really getting those things delivered. Oh, there's lots of people getting those in front. I don't know why. The weirdos like you were potentially getting the breakfast delivered.
Probably getting the breakfast on the bed. I'm just getting old, except for me more. So yeah, we managed to stay in business for over a year or three that, which is quite surprising. We did have some good regulars come in.
The product itself was good. But interestingly, what was sort of nail on our coffin there, it was our location was very dependent on the local lunch traffic. Local office workers coming in for lunch. Our initial business model didn't even have a dinner.
It was just lunch and then we were going to close it like seven a clock. And that's why you chose that. Okay, exactly. Just for the office crowd.
So we're like, okay, there was a call center there, which had like, I don't know, 500 employees or something, like a significant number. That's a perfect work from home model. Right. All the other offices around there transitioned to work from home.
So we went and talked to our language. We're like, look, it's not the same place that we initially tried to lease for. Clearly the demographic has changed. What can we do about this?
There's like nothing inside of the lease. We're like, well, I guess right here. Right. So then went through the whole process of closing up shop.
And yeah, that was sort of sort of the end of the road. Totally. It's like, what are we doing here, guys? I just, I don't understand that either.
Like, because I have an example of landlords all the time as well. And it's like, how does it serve them to just be constantly cycling through new tenants? Right. And you could just like work something out with a tenant who's going to stick around if you work with them.
I mean, like you said, it probably would have been the best move for you anyway. But yeah, like why didn't it won't give you a break? It's beyond me. Like they were confused as well.
The time like we don't know what's going on. Like we have all this empty space. We need to get the money as we can. Everyone's behind on rent.
We're going to see this rent that's in a rear is at this point. But to their credit, they were pretty good with us. It was just when it came down to like, Ross, like, look, we need to knock a few bucks off this monthly rent because it's just not realistic for the amount of traffic that we have coming through the doors. And they're just like, well, we can't do that because we signed the lease.
But since then, they've had no problem getting more tenants into the space. I'm not sure who's signing up to open up a restaurant here where there's really no residential or commercial around you. Yeah, they're right there now. Nothing.
In our space, it's like another noodle place. It's a noodle chain from Victoria. I used to live in Victoria and it was out there called Noodle Box. But the chains have a much better chance.
Sure, as well. It depends by that. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely.
So talk to me a little bit about how that whole process of shutting it down. Now you've got to sell off all the fucking equipment. Yeah, we were pretty fucked because of how new we were. So we had built that place from a shelf.
We had engineers, architects, electricians, plumbers, all these guys coming through. We were all like, hey, man, we don't give a fuck about COVID. We want to get paid. Yeah.
It's like, oh, god. My business partner was just like, fuck these guys. You're like, what are you going to do? I don't know if that's going to work in a court of law type situation.
So for the most part, they were all pretty good about it. Like, yeah, be okay as well. You can. Other people were like, fuck you, pay us right now.
And that's what I just called my business partner, who was like a very imposing individual. You know what I mean? And he was like, well, what are you going to say something? You know what I mean?
Yeah. It became this sort of weird standoff street thing, which was just totally ridiculous. So ultimately what I did was I talked to our outstanding creditors and was like, look, this is a situation. I just pretended that I was representative of the company, not actually part of the company.
I spoke to these guys and was like, look, I'm representative of wrong levels. Clearly, everything's fucked right now. We're trying not to just go through the corporate bankruptcy route and screw everybody. So we're willing to pay you some money, but it's going to be pennies on the dollar.
And thankfully, almost everyone was desperate as we were at that time. But these are basically, like you said, contractors. Exactly. You're not talking about the hydro company or the other.
So that's what you're going to do. No, no. Even for them, we didn't owe them that much money. Because our consumption.
Yeah, no one long ago. So even when we were open, our consumption rate was so incredibly low. So it was like a couple hundred bucks there. But it's like, these contractors and equipment suppliers and all these different people.
So the majority of them were like, yeah, thanks so much for reaching out. We just basically get a hang up whenever we try to call somebody else. So at least you're doing the right thing by here. So I did learn through that process that, like, don't just dodge people.
Generally, people want to work with you if they can. They understand that these are extraordinary times. So yeah, I ultimately went to pay pennies on the dollar to get out of both of them. So now the only debt that we have left is our Siva loan.
So in that situation, we're just kind of waiting on it. We'll see if the government just washes this apparently they're not going to. So at this point, we'll just have to go through the bankruptcy and get that done. Right?
So yeah, I did. What? As I literally just closed down business of my own, that it's amazing that the process just never seems to be over. Like, at some point, you just like, first of all, it's a failure in your life.
Like, whether it was your fault or not, it's something that you did open that failed. And then you're like, well, you just want to be done with it. Not think about it anymore. Watch that part of your life and the benefit of the memory.
But you're still just constantly dealing with it. Right. There's always something, right? I'm really surprised with this whole Siva situation.
Like, you have billions of dollars of loans that are out there. And I know a lot of them are fraudulent. And there's all kinds of questions about that. And there's certainly the regular tax paying Joe who's like, hey, man, you took a loan, you got to pay them money back.
Why should me, taxpayer Joe, have to pay this for you, of my rent tax dollars, right? But simultaneously, if I put a gun to your head and tell you to close your business down, then I'm like, oh, you know what, just kidding, here's a little bit of action money to keep you going. It was not going to take it. Exactly.
Yeah. Exactly. So it's like, it's the fault of, you know, it's not really anything, but the way it was handled, I think we just really bungled in retrospect. You know, Ontario had the longest shutdown in the world, right?
Right. And it's the... They closed the ski hills. They were completely absurd.
Like, I was like crazy. I was like, they were closing, like, beaches. Yeah. Like, all over the world.
So I think we're going to look back at this and read this back. Like, we're already, I think most people are already looking back at it now, meaning like, what the fuck did we do? Sure. Like, why, like, shutting all this stuff down?
You could only have 10 people in the, like, in the bar. Yeah. And that included your staff. Yeah.
And not that you needed much fucking staff saying there was only 900 people there. Yeah. And we also had to be closed at 9pm, which where a restaurant is not so bad, but for a bar, like, my business over bars. Like, we're not getting busy till 10, 11 o'clock.
Right. It was actually insane. And it made no sense. Like, like, I know, I understand that nobody knew what they were doing.
And so you've got to give them a little bit of leeway for that. But the fact that, like, it's just common sense. It's completely illogical to say, oh, what COVID does doesn't come out before 9 o'clock. Yeah.
19, how does this go? It's like COVID monsters? Of course. Yeah.
Like, hindsight is 20, right? So I understand that those in charge, they have a playbook for this. Right. They're like, they could sort of go by.
So there's kind of wing it. But like, a big one that I, that's except to me was the patio situation. It's like, well, it's a little more, more dangerous when you're in an enclosed area. Right.
OK. OK. Sure. So you can't come into my space and have, like, a single meal by yourself.
But you and I and Dan can go to a patio somewhere, which has essentially been turned into a nightclub. Yeah. People are like fighting, dancing on tables. It's packed with a rafters, no one's wearing masks whatsoever.
But because it's outside, then no one's going to contract COVID. Like, it was just ridiculous. We didn't have a business here where they got in town where, like, they shut down the whole parking lot, gave them this massive parking lot patio. But then it was a business where you had to go inside to get your drinks.
Yeah. But that was OK. Yeah. And so they'd have a line up of people standing there waiting to buy drinks.
Yeah. Just to take them back out to the other bank because they didn't have tables. It's completely winnacy, right? So it's interesting, again, in the retrospective.
Some of this is really thriving off of this. You know, like, I like to use examples like, you know, Joe Dick Fox, Pizza Shop, right? It's been a mainstay for, you know, 50 years in the community. That's done.
That's history. We can't do that at all. But Domino's next door to it has absolutely record sales. Right.
It's the best time they've ever experienced in the history of their business. Yeah. Something just not giving you, you know? No, I know.
Yeah. And like, I do think that they're going to look back and be like, I can't believe we shut the whole economy down. Like, and granted, sure, give them some leeway to not knowing what they were doing, but in getting caught off guard. Maybe we can discuss why they were caught off guard.
Like, why wasn't there some planning for, I think that people probably in government should have contingency plans for a global pandemic. Right. Yeah. Yeah.
But once the rules that were logical, they're the ones that still aren't me. Of course, we're going to take these loans. Yeah. We don't know what's happening.
We need this money. Yeah. It's like, I'm not getting revenue from anywhere else. Right.
And literally, yeah. And like, my place is where bars where I don't even run the kitchens. So literally no revenue. Right.
Like, we were trying to sell bottle cocktails and stuff, but that wasn't giving us going. Yeah. You know who's doing a really good job of that still to this day is that you're in a civil pores. Yes, I have.
Love their stuff. Yeah. Have you heard of a civil pore? Not familiar with that.
Well, we're talking about them. They're a Toronto distillery that are making keg and bottle cocktails to sell to bars and restaurants mostly. Sure. You can buy them for your home if you like.
It's actually not a bad idea. They're full strength. They're made with artificial flavors so that they taste exactly like a cocktail coming up in a shaker. I have tried these products.
In fact, we're going to use one of them, at least at Babylon Sisters and perhaps sugar on as well. They're fantastic. You literally pour them out of a tap for the keg or if you just pour them out of the bottle into a shaker, shake them up one time, come at like a perfect cocktail. Oh, yeah.
It's amazing. Where do I find more information about this? Well, if you wanted to order them, you can get them for your bar restaurant or any venue. You want to email sales at civilpores.com.
That's C-I-V-I-L-P-O-U-R-S dot com. But they're honestly amazing. They're produced sustainably by some of Canada's best bar tenders and they use proprietary patented vacuum distillation technology. They have a whole distillery now.
And civil pores is actually related to civil liberties that amazing cocktail bar in Toronto. And again, I tried these products. They're unbelievable. The espresso martini.
One of the big things about the espresso martini is getting that layer of foam properly on the cocktail. That was my biggest worry. I was like, OK, you got to go bottle. You got to come in at the kegs.
They're really going to have that foam on top. Shake it up a couple of times in a shaker. Boom. And so if you're working in a high volume cocktail bar, like both of my bars are, they're perfect.
It just cuts down on the classics. They have the espresso martini. As I mentioned, they have margarita. They have a halpy and margarita is in the works of cosmopolitan is in the works.
I'm trying to think of the other ones that I tried, but I will get the full list. But it's an amazing array of products in a bottle or on a keg, which is amazing. And again, if you are a high volume cocktail restaurant, they have an old fashion. I do remember that one.
Unbelievable. And they taste exactly, and again, these are made by high-end bartenders. So they are actually, they taste exactly like if you stir in a short cocktail yourself. But you're saving all this time.
We're going to use them in my bars. I suggest that you do two sales at civilpours.com. Perfect. I like to drink.
Me too, man. Okay. So James, back to the conversation we were having about, well, we may be doing one from COVID now. Sure.
Yeah. I'm talking about COVID. The only thing I'd like to end with on the COVID note is we're going back to these sea balloons. The fact that the government is now calling these in and they get the people, you know, you take a loan, you should pay it back.
But you're talking about billions of dollars, should these small businesses that have not recovered yet? Right. So you have so many bankers he's having now, even last month compared to last year, it was up like 35, almost 40% in Ontario. The bankruptcy numbers, what do you think is going to happen?
It's going to be going more and more and more and more. 97% of the business and candidates small business. Why are we trying to systematically destroy these guys? Give them a hand, give them a lifeline.
This is absurd. They haven't made the money back. They can't pay the money back. They're not all scumbags.
They're just trying to buy it at all. It's just brutal. It's just brutal. We can take it for a ride, right?
Yeah, it's under the top of that trip. And it's like you said, like there was a bunch of COVID money that was flat out stolen. But it doesn't mean that the small businesses can handle paying this money back. Right.
Yeah. Well, you want all these small businesses to close down. Enough did close down. Like yours specifically just over the pandemic already.
Now you want to shut down 100. Like the data that was seen that loans came due. How many places shut down right away? Absolutely.
Absolutely. And it's every week, which is more and more and more. And so what's the end game here? So we're going to have more like, you know, jackasters and subways around.
You know what I mean? No one needs or wants any of that crap, right? Right. Okay.
So let's talk about that. I'm going to get PTSD again. So since then, you had a period of a transition where you were sort of out of the industry for a bit. Yeah.
Yeah. I started the industry for a bit. Learned or taught myself how to day trade. So I did that for about two years.
It was interesting, interesting learning experience. Something that I'd never really known much about. Took a bunch of courses. I saw that was sort of trending.
It's like, okay, let's see what this is going, what this is all about. So I won't go into too much detail about that. But it did sustain me for a couple of years. Paid the bills.
It's just there's not many jobs out there where you can go to work and walk out losing money. Right. You know what I mean? So like once you learn sort of like the risk management side of it, it's definitely doable for people.
But I think a lot of people view that type of activity as like just like I get rich quick. Right. Some other situations. And that is not the case.
And if that's how you're viewing it, then many better run away, right? You're going to be walking out there till between your legs. Right. So I was doing that for a while.
It was definitely sustaining me. It wasn't super interesting. Like you're basically staring at a screen all day, you know, looking for different signals. Again, not going to get into it.
And then interest rate started going up. And once the interest rate started going up, it became incredibly volatile. So I was like, this is just way too much review. This is like, you know, I think if you're playing a video game, I was kind of on like, you know, easier, medium level and all of a sudden became like God mode level.
And I just could not handle this anymore. So I know I'm just sort of like, walk away from a certain situation. So I did it that time. And that's when you and I got together and started working, of course.
Right. So for those of you who know, I sort of saw my kitchens. So I'm a firm believer in don't do what you don't know anything about. And I've never worked in the back of the house.
So I've always, and so I was always like, even in my first couple of businesses where I did run the kitchen for a little bit, I was like always at the mercy of whoever was the chef at the time because they knew more than I did. And as much as I tried to learn, there was stuff I was never going to get. Especially when it came to like waste or what's proper costing for it for menu items, etc. And how much waste is reasonable?
How many, like how much linen do you guys actually need back there? I don't know because I never worked back there. So I started outsourcing it. And one of my kitchen at Babylon's sister is now outsource to James and Chef James and Shrennego's here as well as your own business harpers deli, which you now run out of Babylon's sisters during the day.
Right. So talk to us about how you came to that idea. So you're like, yeah, you know, I used to run the kitchen here and I was like, I could probably do that. I think like getting back into a kitchen was never really something that interested me very much.
And it was what I knew, but it's like, I'm not young, man. It's a young man's game. You know, so I was like, okay, how can I sort of operate this, you know, generate some revenue from it, provide a good product for you guys without me physically having to be there breaking my back all the time. Right.
So we started doing that. We got zero working with us, you know what I mean? So he comes in and he does the service there at night. And so then I was thinking to myself, like, you know, I have this concept for a sandwich shop.
Least rates at that time were crazy high. They still are absurd. So I was like, why don't we run this in the daytime? We have a space anyway.
See if it has legs, you're dark in the day and then give it a year or whatever. And see if it's worth opening a standalone business. So it's just sort of like old school Italian deli sandwiches, you know, fresh baked bread, you know, fresh produce, you know, high quality proteins made with love. There's nothing really special about it.
When people come in like, oh my God, you're so good. Like, what's the secret? I'm like, there's no secret. You've just been like indoctrinated to the trash.
Right. So you go to like, you know, a large chain sandwich shop, for example. And these are huge multinational corporations. So the lettuce, for example, it's bought in by like the metric ton.
It's cut. It's sprayed down with an anti-browning agent. It's back packed, somewhere off a turnpike in New Jersey, that it shipped out to all the locations to sit on a shelf for three weeks to ultimately end up on your sandwich in your belly. Right.
So you're eating like, no, no, it's not really great. You know what I mean? So just by me having like fresh cut produce, it's like, oh, this is what it's supposed to taste like. Right.
So it's been pretty easy to sway people over to a quality product. Right. Right. Right.
Right. Yeah. It's funny because when you first brought up the idea to me, I was like, I had questions because I was like, I don't know, man, like I'm pretty shitty at cooking and I also can be pretty lazy sometimes. So I, but even I can like make a sandwich for myself.
But there is a massive difference in somebody who knows what they're doing to make like a high quality sandwich for you and not have it be like that subway bullshit. Right. Right. And it's really taken off.
Like you're doing really well. Yeah. It's doing really well. And like, I'll just touch back on the COVID thing.
One thing I sort of learned about that was that people, especially during those times, they were eating their feelings. Right. And so it's like fried chicken and donuts and candy and cake and like, you know, saucy, mons, cooking goodness. And that's what was really taking off there.
Right. So when I had this concept, I was like, what's something that would be sort of impenetrable to a like a shift in dining interest. Right. So I was like, well, sandwich it.
Everyone loves sandwiches. And you're right. Anyone can make a sandwich at home. But simultaneously, when people are like, ah, we want for dinner tonight.
I don't know. I don't know. Let's just get a sandwich. You know what I mean?
Just like, let's just get a burger. Right. Let's just get one of those things. So it falls into that category where it's like, you might not be like aspiring or blowing people away just by getting a sandwich.
But all the people who don't really feel like cooking tonight or aren't really interested in like, you know, trying some new exotic Asian or, you know, pan-pacific cuisine that might be like, what's just going to sandwich? What's going to go grab stuff? You know what I mean? Because I used to do.
I'm like, I don't know what I'm going to get. I'll just swing over to Mr. Sub and get like, uh, assorted. Right.
So I felt there was definitely a little bit of a market now for it. No one's really doing good sandwich around here. You got a couple places, no question. But nothing quite like what I'm doing with these.
I agree. And I think that's the real thing is that no one else is really doing it. And like, the only other places are like Subway or Mr. Sub.
Right. It's obviously not the same experience. Exactly. Yeah.
And there's, you know, I'm not going to shit on those businesses. There's a time and place for Subway and Mr. Sub. It's, you know, uh, consistent.
It's relatively affordable. It's routinely available. Right. So that's why people are driven towards these places.
On the same note though, the era of the $5 full-on is gone. And if I'm paying this exorbitant amount of money for a fast food product, why not just spend two or $3 more? I guess that's actually really good. Yeah.
You know what I mean? So I think that's where the disconnect a lot of people have had. And we've talked about it before. Like if a big Mac costs a dollar, I'll get two of them.
Right. I mean, if a big Mac costs $30, I'm probably not going to get a big Mac. And I'm not going to think about it anymore. Right.
You know what I mean? So like with the driving high prices of these fast food places, people are going away from that. I mean, like, well, if I'm paying $15 for a big Mac combo, I'm going to pay $17 to go to like that really cool burger joint down the street. Right.
Hey, do we mention the name of your place that much time? Oh, which one? Harper's deli. Yeah, Harper's deli.
And we can find that online? Instagram at Harper's deli. Yeah. Perfect.
Yeah. That's what I was talking about when you were mentioning about the whole concept of like the burger joint. So it's, do you feel like this is not just your business to say events, but like some of these like more independent burger shops are going out and doing the same thing? I think so.
Yeah. I think so. I know that fast food consumption, certainly what you think about fast food, you know that the Harvey's, the Burger Kings, the A&W's, and that their sales have been trending downward. So much like the craft beer market that I took over a decade ago, you know what I mean?
Like it surely didn't knock out like the in-bevs of the world, but it did take a much larger piece of that pie than those guys that ever anticipated. And I think that's sort of what you're seeing now. It's simply because the fast food is not super cheap anymore. I mean, I was growing up.
I'd have five bucks in my pocket. I'd be high as balls. And I'd go to Taco Bell to be completely satiated. I mean, you can't do that anymore.
So if I'm like a low-income earner or I'm some burnout kid like I was, and I'm just looking for quality or not quality, but like, you know, consistent, affordable cuisine, you're not getting it there anymore. It's expensive and it's still trash. Yeah, right? Yeah, it makes you feel like shit.
Exactly. Yeah. So, you know, if it's an extra few dollars of work or something significantly better, why not? So how much does the location help where you are now?
Because you're obviously the uptown court. Now there's not a lot of offices up there. You find that the visibility helps a lot more than two? Uptown's good and bad, right?
Like people associate uptown with being quite busy. And uptown is quite busy Friday and Saturday after 10. But you hit it on the nose. There's not a lot of offices.
You know, there's not a lot of people that work around there. So people that do work around there. Like, you know, the guy Frank Stewart is a regular. The owners of Ethel's come in, right?
But there's not a thousand employees at these places. You know what I mean? So the two guys, the hair salon, come down, right? So you're sort of got these small pockets of people working around there in the daytime, where something like this would do a lot better.
And it wasn't actually told you enough, for example. I mean, we have like lots of hungry people descending there on lunch, right? Yeah. Plus the parking.
We all know town parking isn't tight deal. Yeah. But you're getting a lot from the delivery service. The delivery works well.
Actually, it's very centrally located. So deliveries worked by utilizing a radius around the location. So they'll go like 10 kilometers in this radius. And it's like, see, centrally located.
So they'll travel all around there. So about 50% of my business comes from the hospital. 64th sandwich or something like that. Like, pretty well.
Does he have a card that you punch? I've never seen her. I've never actually met her. Really?
She's listening to this by the grace of God, girl. I love you. Do you want me to go out every day? Come on.
It comes from a sandwich. Do you want me to? Or a turkey sandwich, right? 64 times 64.
Wow. That's kind of crazy, right? From those apps, do they give you metrics into what areas specifically? No.
Do they give you any insights about it? No. They just say, hey, man. They just give you like this is like up 20% this week.
This item is down. You know, that's basically a bit offline for so long. Their whole goal is to keep you online as much as possible. Yeah.
Right? So they offer like incentives for people who are like online all the time, never pausing their orders, right? So they sort of like the battle you face is the walk-in traffic versus the Uber traffic. If you're a high-volume place, you'd have a little area dedicated to just dealing with the delivery apps.
But with me, it's just me. Yeah. So I've like a bunch of people coming in. I have to turn off the tablet.
So I paused the tablet and we're getting some set about that. No, no, no. You need to pause the people coming in and keep the tablet on. Sure.
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah.
Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. Because they, I mean, I think everybody, honestly, I think it's listening to this and who doesn't know this by now, but those apps are right there.
They do. Yeah, they do. So I'll speak to that for a second. Yeah.
When I was with Ramen, we didn't ever plan on being any of these apps. Because fuck those apps, right? So when we're forced into these apps, you know, alternative, people weren't allowed to leave their homes. Right.
We're like, oh, we're going to have to take this hit. It's 30%. They take 30% of the total bill. So you're going to get in Chinese with this $200.
60 bucks to that goes to Uber. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like it's pretty significant, right?
But now somewhere along the line, people decided or restaurateurs decided that, you know what? If you want to goddamn grilled cheese sandwich delivered to you and you're underwear on your couch, you're going to have to be a premium for that. Why is that coming to my pocket? So now everything is marked up on the restaurant end.
You come in and get a sandwich from me. It's $15. You come on the app and order sandwich for me. It's like 1850.
Right. It's just to cover the Uber expense, right? Mm-hmm. Is it 30% still?
Like, now it's just a tiered thing. So that if you have 30% that you give to them, they give you more visibility and they give you support. But you can go as low as 10%. But if you go that low, you don't even show up in the app.
So you're coming on looking for Harper's deli. You're not going to see it there. You're not going to specifically search it out for it to pop up. But both people are just like scrollers, right?
They're sitting there. They're like, why don't I just scroll through the app? They're on the way home or whatever it might be. Oh, what's the deal?
Which one's coming up? Which one's from the center form? That's the one I'm ordering from, right? Interesting.
The order's asking is, at work, we always order. We have to take our lunch on Wednesday. We always have to do it through DoorDash for the most part. We read.
And it's interesting what I see that pops up at the top tier of results. Like, Shumper Drug Bar sleeps with somehow wind up at the top and Essel gas station. Yeah. I'm curious about how that works.
Yeah. You can do a bunch of stuff. But like, though, say the one's reward the ones, yeah, with good products. So if you're like, you know, your score is above, like a certain level.
You have so many orders. You've had like so few complaints, then they'll give you like a top each sort of status, right? Because they want people to order the goods. They want people to order the ship bag spots that are rated like 2.6, you know?
Like, who's ordering that? Right? So it's like, let's push those down to the bottom and bring them more popular ones and more consistent ones to the top of the app, right? Gotcha.
And it took you a while to get to that top of the status, right? Yeah, sure. Yeah. I take pride in that.
Yeah. Yeah. But like for our listeners, if you can possibly just go pick up the- That also works. Yeah.
That also works. Pick up the sandwich yourself. That's going to be better. Talk to us a little bit about the concept you have for the food in Babylon.
So we can double promote here for a second. Yeah. So Babylon, yeah. It was a little bit of a challenge here because there's sort of like restricted kitchen area.
You know, there's no exhaust, but there's no deep fryers and you know, rained or anything like that. So it's like, what sort of high-inquis being sort of put out of here that is functional out of the space that we have here. Right. So, you know, we curate like really cool cheeses and meat for our churri boards.
We do like some fresh ceviche coming out of there, different types of fresh dips, international ones. Things that are pretty good that people could share. You know, you're sitting down, you order a few different plates, you're nibbling on these, enjoying some fantastic wines and cocktails from the ultra-strict guild staff that are working there. Yeah.
So it was just sort of a mental compliment, sort of the vibe and work within the confines of that space. And people seem to love it. And I mean, people seem to really do it this way. Yeah.
The people are coming back for sure. It's definitely been one of our better working relationships. We've had good months before. We had Steph on here from Little Mushroom.
We used to run the kitchen there as well. And we'll get to the sugar run. And they stopped doing the outsourcing. They went great, really, for them.
But definitely the people are loving the food for, I guess they don't really have a business name for that. I mean, it's just Babylon here. I'm not going to come in and be like, it's like other people might be. Like, it's not independent of it.
It's Babylon. It's all one harmonious unit here. Yeah. It's what I like working with you.
It's like there's no self-promotion. And it's just like, I'm here for the people, man. Yeah. Like that's the whole point of it, right?
It's the transfer to the guests. But it's become a little bit too much self-promotion in this whole game of whether it's like, start tenders or celebrity chefs. Or people who want to be celebrity chefs or whatever. Right?
And it's just like, isn't the whole goal of this just to make good products for people to come and enjoy? Yeah. I mean, I would like to track your social media. I feel it's like the cause of a lot of the ills in this world.
And I think that's what I think. Because everyone has their own goddamn brand now. You know what I mean? So it's like, well, I'm just building my own brand and doing all this and that.
And who knows to you for building up your own thing and trying to do what you want to do. But from a consumer standpoint, it's just confusing its fuck, man. Because like, why is there like seven different brands coming out of this one single bar here? Why can't it just be the bar that has a good bartender?
Right? I mean, like, each business has all these underlying, like, a runner business is below it, right? It's just, it's too much. Like, I don't see how people can even consume that level of information that won't dissect it.
It's also like, very complicated to describe to a guest that you're a restaurant or bar, right? If they come in and it's just like, well, we don't actually provide the food. That's this company. Yeah.
Which is why, like, and it does lead to confusion from the guests as well. You know, that's true. That is well, obviously what I'm doing. But just being able to say, well, no, this is battle.
Obviously, I'm just doing a part. I'm just like, what fuck, I just want to hammer it. I don't know what you're talking about. You know what I mean?
Like, give me a pint and a burger, right? Right. Yeah. Yeah.