E206 Matt Maretz

This week's guest is Matt Moritz who joins us from New York City. Born and raised in San Diego, Matt moved to Syracuse to study acting. After graduating, Matt worked in various acting projects before turning to hospitality and falling in love with the bar industry. Over the last five years, Matt has worked through the program at the World Redown Bar, employees only, and is now a principal bartender and assistant bar manager.

Employees only is celebrating its 20th year in business this year. We talked with Matt about his journey through acting, some of his early jobs in the industry, the local bar scene in the West Village plus many more topics. You can check out the bar online at Employees only and why. And check out Matt's profile at Matt Moritz or check the show notes for all the links.

Enjoy the show. Alright, we're back with another episode of the industry podcast. Keep in mind with you as always. How are you, Dan?

Oh, I'm doing awesome. I feel like we got your work venting out of the way before we hit record this. That's good. Yeah.

But yeah, we're getting ready for a summer to finally be fucking over. So maybe some business comes back to the bars and people are stuck in town again. So they go out. Well, the weather definitely turned us for sure.

Yeah. From the super hot weather we've had to go hang in. Everyone's going away everywhere. Now it feels like late fall almost.

I'm ready for it. Yeah. I'm ready for it. Yeah.

And if you are stuck in town in the kitchen, Marlu area, you should come visit one of my bars. Sugar Run Downtown Kitchener that's at Sugar Run Bar on Instagram. Or if you're in the uptown Marlu area, it's at battle on Sisters Bar. That's battle on Sisters.

Wine and cocktail bar. Lots of good stuff going on there. And that both spots and you can check out exactly what's happening on any given night on our Instagram feeds. That's your best source.

What else? We have a lovely artwork by Zacana. Yeah, right on the Instagram page, which is a great way to follow what we're doing here on the show at the industry podcast. Zacana at Zacana.co is the graphic arts brain behind our Instagram page.

And that's where you could DM us if you'd like to be a guest on the show or if you'd like to provide support for the show. Also, you can email us directly info at the industrypodcast.club. And while you're listening to this, why not take the time to punch that follow, subscribe button that's right on the top right corner of most feeds and maybe leave a review. Yeah, or even you're your telefrag about the podcast.

It's all one other person. That's one other person listening to how shitty Jim stage. Oh, every week just piles up and gets better. Yeah.

Well, before I get you up on that tangent again, let's bring in our guest. Matt Rhett is joining us here from New York City. How are you Matt? What's going on guys?

Yeah. Lots of fun. Thanks a lot for joining us on the show tonight. Of course, thanks, Hammy.

A few technical glitches getting this one going, but we are live and recording. So it's exciting. Now we took about eight or nine attempts. I forgot to use microphone.

It's better when yours was on silent anyway. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

So Matt, you are currently working in New York, but you started you grew up in San Diego? Yeah. You're up in Diego. We're raised from California, boy.

But there until basically went to college at Syracuse University to study acting and naturally phoned hospitality after graduating and moving to New York and sort of fell in love with that. And now that's I mean, I mean, the career of it. So you went to Syracuse to study acting. Like that doesn't seem like the spot for I know they have big and broad.

Casting. Yeah. No, broadcasting there. They're well known for obviously about cost is my tree.

Oh, they all went there big time broadcasters. But the drama program at Syracuse, we don't actually win the time that I attended university there was like, I think top eight in the world. Oh, really? Is there like a conservatory program in Syracuse?

And yeah, you wouldn't think, but you know, you have professors there who are I think our chair was used to the chair of Juilliard and like, you know, crossover and that NYU and all that stuff that more reputable and more reputable conservatories that have their professors and whatnot kind of moved Syracuse and teach there. So did you make the program elevated in a lot of ways? Was there a specific instructor? Cause I like listening to these stories.

I like listening to podcasts about actors from actors and actresses and like talking about like specific instructors or specific methods that they taught. Were there any that stood out while you were there? Yeah, I mean, so many you have a lot of different sort of how I would say characters, but you have a lot of different personalities that kind of come and teach there and different methods of sort of the whole kind of mindset of the university program at Syracuse was to sort of obviously a four year program. But the first year is basically everybody kind of comes in as like the star of their high school or whatever.

So that you have a lot of egos. And so the process of that is basically to rip all that down and kind of get, you know, you push me, you know, moments where you just like have bursts of emotions out of nowhere, you have this dad angry, you know, everything just because you're getting all that stripped down and then your software, you're kind of building up a better foundation junior year, you're kind of practicing it more and then senior year, you're sort of applying it to the real world. And that goes, you know, Syracuse sprites themselves and not necessarily admitting students that are capable of being commercially viable, but more so they're they want to admit students that are students for people first, you know, people interested in characters. So I guess I'm an interesting character.

But yeah, no, and that really made the experience in college interesting, but really, really, really amazing to have that community there. And I think that that kind of ties in a little bit to the program and it points only in the industry as well. The bars of sort of, hey, you know, you did certain bars that work in certain ways and do things differently. And you know, we do things this certain way because it helps and progresses the shift or service in these directions and kind of works differently at each spot.

So at what point, like, obviously, it makes sense just like any underemployed actor or realtor or teacher that you fall into the service industry after a while is a good sort of side gig. At what point did you realize, okay, maybe I'm just going to, like, was there a point where you're like the acting is not working out, or was it just like, I fell in love the service industry or is it somewhere in between there? Both. Yeah, I think it's definitely a combination.

I think I had just finished a tour, like a six month tour with the musical actually that went on to Broadway called The Lighting Thief. And it was the actual show that I was in. I was the first touring company for it. And then they kept touring it.

And then basically that tour got so popular that they had to do a main stage for it. They did a main stage for it. Just like, you know, not a touring company. It's just a stage somewhere.

I can't remember exactly what city they did it, but then they went on to Broadway, which is really cool. But I did a tour of that and then got back and my dad, who's a, he's an attorney in San Diego and works a lot with hotels, like Beverly Hills Hotel Belair, that kind of thing. So he has seen a lot of people in HR and all those and sort of that kind of world of five star hotels and heard word that they were opening up an electric hotel in New York. They needed people and the hotel opened up in just 15, it's called Baccra Hotel, 53rd Street.

And I just, I remember going through like an intense bootcamp of hospitality. And with five star hospitality, it's, you know, I always have to talk about the different levels of sort of the Forbes rating of like three star being kind of like, you do everything well. Four stars is like, you do everything perfect. But five stars is like, you do everything perfect.

And then some, you do kind of go beyond what is necessarily asked of you or what's, what's expected of an ultra luxury property. So that kind of training really set me on like a, oh, wow, this is, this is more of an art form than anything. You know, you're not just getting people's bags or checking people in or thinking people drinks, you're creating an experience and you're creating. You know, sort of a, you're tailoring different experiences to different people.

And what I mean by that is like, you're like, for example, for me, if somebody called me Mr. Morrass, it would make me feel uncomfortable. That's not who I am. You know, whereas, you know, you don't necessarily do the white love service for every single guest that comes in.

You know, I'd have guests that come in and you'd speak to them very differently than you would for, you know, the Prince of Bahrain who would stay with us all the time. You know, that particular individual, the Prince, whoever, you know, you have to address them as your highness or you have to address them as this or whatever. And so tailoring that experience, getting that experience right, going above and beyond for people, even if it doesn't cost any money or just that extra level of attention to detail and care can go a long way. And I fell in love with that, to be honest, and I really wasn't getting the love on the acting side.

You know, it's already a really, it's a fickle business. It's tricky. Yeah, I heard it's not easy. And it's not easy that it's not easy.

It's like, you can work, you're like so, so, so hard and still get nothing, you know, or on the flip side, you don't have to work that hard. You can get one lucky break and you could just skyrocket. So, it's a point that I'm not gonna be able to do. It was like almost like, holy shit, it's like, it doesn't matter how good I am.

It doesn't matter how hard I work. In the end, this job is so much more about luck and timing than it is about my talent and hard work. Yeah, I think I kind of went back to somebody who spoke to us in college about acting as like, you essentially, in order to pursue this as a career, you need to want to do it like you want to breathe. Like you can't imagine your life without it.

And for me, I'm just like, I'm not that passionate about it. Share that same passion for it. But even you could be, and if you didn't catch that one fucking break, maybe it never works out anyway. Yeah, no, exactly.

That's the crazy thing about that profession. Yeah, exactly. And so I just, you know, and I sort of fell in love with the hospitality thing much more and I was enjoyed my life more doing that than I did going to auditions and beating down doors and trying to meet casting directors and all that. A lot of rejection, huh?

Yeah, and it's not even the rejection. It's just like, I mean, it is the rejection, but it's just, it's about patience. It's about being right place, right time, right for the role, creating those relationships, which is to me, I just, I was. And also, so much of it must be subjective, right?

Because like the casting director, like someone else slightly more than like you for whatever reason, even though you fucking nailed the audition, it might even matter. Yeah, it's crazy. But it's cool that you got to then take those skills and then put them into it. And so I just like this hotel gig is like the perfect one where you're like, first of all, you learn this job teachers, you had to read people really well.

So you know what each client is looking for, what kind of experience they're looking for when they come in. But also you can sort of like you're using your acting skills in the way that you're dealing with each different guests, right? Like 100%. Yeah.

I mean, it's all improv. And that's actually what it is is improv. And you're, you're on it. I mean, especially at the place like employees, only you're really on a stage.

And you're performing and whether that's, you know, the way you move behind the bar, the way you speak to guests or the way you handle the vibe of the overall vibe of the night, it's all performative. And I think that that sort of being at the hotel, the reason I left the hotel was because the unionized and it just, that kind of, that atmosphere was just incredibly toxic. And I've been back recently and the vibe there is, you know, not trying to throw the hotel to the bus, but it's, it's different, you know, and it's different than when I started there. And I really fell in love with the brand and the idea of hospitality and doing things that were not necessarily expected of you because of just the love of taking care of guests and, and, and, you know, making the hotel the best place to possibly be within you and comes in.

And there's a bunch of rules and guidelines and all this stuff. And so I kind of went to work at a bar, at a die bar in, in, in Greenwich Village. I won't mention the name of the bar, but, but I remember starting there and I had quit this job as union job that was paying tons of money and, you know, I was making good money in this die bar, but they basically said like, you know, listen, we've, I was referred by a friend there and, you know, they're like, we've been around for a long time. We've never hired anybody with no experience.

This is the manager telling me this. And, and then I was like, okay, you know, that's great to hear now that I've just quit my job and like, start. And it's gonna kind of tell me like, listen, I, you know, never had a bit of no experience. We don't really know if you have one it takes.

We'll see how you kind of like, mesh the team or whatever this night. I'm like, do I have a job? I don't know. Yeah.

So in the mode, no. And, and I don't really know. And so I went and I got hired at a public hotel at public kitchen at the John George restaurant and the woman who hired me, Maria, she basically looked at my resume and she said, and she said, one of the things that I will always always stick with me because I think they were just, they were desperate for part time at the time. But at the same time, like, it was, you know, it was a hiring process.

And she said, you know, looking at resume, you went to acting school, you went to a credible acting school that I know of that has a good program. I can teach you how to pour liquid into a glass, but we're just, you know, that's all. I say that to people all the time. And I've hired many people who have less experience than what you expected, even like, and my buyers are a little higher end.

So you normally, they're normally not your first stop. But when the pandemic hit, we did have to hire people because so many people got out of the industry. Right. So, but I will always weigh more as like getting the interview.

I don't really give a shit about your resume. Like, let's have a conversation and I can read whether you are going to be able to talk to the guests. Right. And then I can teach you the rest.

And then if you don't have it, then we'll deal with that later. But yeah. Well, that's kind of a, that's a famous story, but there's a known story, at least video that Steve Schneider, who's a legendary bartender there, he was in the documentary, Hey Bartender, now he runs Sipping Gazzle with with Andrea. My wife.

And, and he, I remember high, like interviewed with Igor, one of our owners. And basically, like, he looked at his resume and he was like, I don't really care about your bar experience. That's not really like what I'm looking at. You went to the military, so you understand discipline, you understand hard work, you understand sort of what it takes to be on a team and to work in a group.

And that to me is more important than any bar experience out there, especially the bar like EO that is just, it's so different than most, than most programs, just with the setup and the level of teamwork that we have, you know, it's just, it's a different style. And I think that that, that really goes such a long way to have someone who's has that same, that same mentality of, you know, coming from a background of working on a team, working with, you know, with a group and having that mentality, having that personality, which, you know, she took a chance on me and I worked there for a little bit at public kitchen and then went on to work at Westline, the William Dale Hotel, and then yeah, went on to EO from there. Yeah. So for our listeners who might not be familiar with when he refers to talking about EO, it's employees only and New York, it's one of the most famous bars there, one of the most famous cocktail bars right up there with like Death and Co and, you know, please don't tell all these amazing, like sort of older, I mean, there's a ton of new ones that I probably don't even know about it now, they've become very famous, but like, that original core of like, when cocktail bars were becoming cool again in New York.

So talk to us a little bit about how you feel employees only is different. How is the program different than other places? I mean, the first, I kind of the most obvious one that I think that people talk about the most is our style of making drinks with reporting. We don't use jiggers, we don't use any measuring devices.

And I say we don't use measuring devices, we don't use any sort of any jiggers. We train our staff on free pouring and we train our, you know, the newer members of the team on how to properly free pour into a glass. You know, we use the clear like, you know, pint glass. And with that, you're able to sort of see the ingredients and the liquid in the glass to, you know, sort of measure by sight.

There's a lot of feel to it as well, but more importantly, we taste every single cocktail. I still, you know, we work three shifts a week, ten hour long shifts or, you know, long service and tasting every single drink. Just make sure that it's right, it's perfect. And that's, and for us, the way that we have kind of everything set up with the bottles on the back bar, everything kind of has a speed poured.

The way that the bar is set up, it invites a lot of movement with the bartender. So we have two bartenders working on one of the sides of the bar. And so there's sort of a dance that we like to call it. And you have guests that sit in front of us all the time, they're just kind of watching, like, wow, like it's just mesmerizing to watch you guys move.

You know, we're sort of like in the heat of the moment, whether we're weeder or whether it's busy or whether we're just, we're kind of just feeling the vibes. There's a movement and there's an energy and that kind of keeps the flow of the night going. And it's, again, like we were talking about its performance, its performative, you know. And yeah, and it's a cocktail bar that's celebrating our 20th year this year, which is incredible.

And back 20 years ago, opening a bar in the West Village was like, what are you doing? Like what in the world, why would you open in 2004 in an area that nobody really goes to to go out? You know, now it's the it's the neck of cocktail bars. You have so many bars opening now.

And Dante has a location in the West Village now. They're on Google, the original location in Tana Kitten is across the street, Sipping Guzzles down the street, Angel Share. So many great cocktail bars are in that area. And it's just cool that we're sort of, we, you know, sort of pioneered that in a way.

And, you know, the name employees only when when we opened 20 years ago, I say we, I wasn't around then. I was still in middle school. But no one would drink back then. But when the five owners opened the bar, you know, they worked behind the bar and they worked on the floor and they ran, they ran the place.

And that was sort of the idea behind the name employees only was that you have the employees who are the owners and they were running the ship. And I think at the time the bar opened, I think the New York Times called the worst name bar in New York State. Why would you name a bar employees only? And the idea is that we're an industry bar, you know, we're open for him licenses in New York are so rare.

It's such a rare thing to see anymore. And we were lucky to have that and we have our kitchen open till 3am. So you have people coming in after their shifts from all over the city and we're on their way back to Jersey or whatever, you know, we're right by the path train. But, you know, they come after the shift.

They have a bite to eat, drink, hang out with us. And, you know, it's, it's, it's really created a nice vessel to make some, some good connections in the industry and to have some friends around the city. Do you have an issue with like the that late night crowd when you're getting, like you said, people may be getting on the train back to Jersey. You're probably a lot of people's last stop at a night because you're open before AM and who knows where they've been before that.

So like the only issues regarding like crazy drunk people late night or is everybody's well behaved? Everybody's well behaved? Everybody's over at the end of night. Nothing bad happens.

No. You know, I think that I think that that again goes with kind of the art of hospitality and of facilitating that environment and not getting something not like yourself to carry away and yourself kind of cross that line of control, but not letting the crowd sort of cross that line. Either me taking that and you know, the one of the reasons why we, we free pour, we, we free pour, we cold the glass up so we can see it, but more importantly so we can have eye contact with the guests or, you know, making sure that everything is kind of going smoothly on the floor or just simply talking to somebody taking an order. So yeah, I mean, it's, it could be tricky at times for sure.

Like most bars, like everybody really that has that kind of late night crowd. But again, it's just, it's part of our responsibility to sort of facilitate that and to make sure everybody's having a good time and the safe time and, and yeah, you know, it's, it's, it's part of our training as well that we train our bartenders to sort of key into that a little bit more, be more vigilant about those things, kind of listening to conversations and kind of keep an eye out for that stuff. So when you first started, like, what, sorry, what year did you started employees only? I started 2000, oh my gosh, 2019.

So five years ago. And like, so you had to go through the whole COVID bullshit and, but like you moved up pretty quickly to the position here right now and employees only and like, how do you manage that? I mean, to be honest, it was, it was one of those things where I worked for a year and a half at West Light, which is a rooftop bar in Brooklyn. And one of the summer of 2019, a couple guys came and worked at West Light for the summer and I trained one of them and, you know, guided him through, you know, the product, this guy was just quiet, but like very nice and humble and everything trained him on, on kind of on the process.

And then at the end, the manager comes up, she's like, how's he doing? And I'm like, yeah, he's great. He seems to know a lot. And like, you know, that is right.

I'm like, no, like that's the bar manager and employees only. I'm like, oh my God, like, he didn't say anything. He didn't mention it. I'm telling him, like, yeah, make sure you trigger probably make sure you go.

And he didn't want for once. Like, yeah, I know, like I'm the bar man. You know, and I was like, wow, this guy's very modest, very humble. And then I also met a guy named Frankie, who now is the bar manager and employees only with me and I'm working as assistant bar manager there.

And but, you know, so I met those guys and I just, I saw what they did there. I went in a couple of times to visit them and I'm like, wow, this is, this is a place, you know, and we talked briefly before we started about, about kind of what makes EO special. And to be honest, the feeling I felt walking in there for the first time, my first day of training, I was like, even during the daytime, I'm like, this place, there's something going on here. You know, there's something special that's happening in this bar.

You know, they say, you know, these walls could talk kind of thing. And it is true, you know, the memories that have been had here, people that still come up and this, like, we've been together for 10 years and we met it employees only one night drunk and I helped her and whatever. And it's those stories that kind of just like, wow, like this place is special. And so for me, you know, to go back to your question, I think it was just something that I've never, I've never felt and going back to the acting thing as well, I've never felt this sort of wave of like, I need to be, I need to like work my ass off.

I need to come in early, stay late, make sure everything's perfect, be super detail oriented, do everything that's asking me and then some because I just cared about the brand so much and I still care about the brand and a great deal and it's incredibly special to me and I know that that sort of feeling of wanting to just be wanting everything to be so successful and that kind of drove me to sort of be in the position I am now in sort of leadership position. It's weird when you think about it, like these, like, going back to what you're talking about, like, in any, you can go to any city in the world and there's going to be a bar. Now in New York, obviously there's going to be way more of these bars, but like, you can go to a small shitty town just outside where we live in Ontario and there'll be the one bar that has been there for so long. So many people have a personal connection to it, so many memories, generations go through it or whatever.

And it's easier to understand why that happens sometimes at a really tiny town because maybe it's the only fucking bar there. But as you progress that to bigger cities like New York, as big as it gets, what is it that you think that if you could target a reason or do we even know the reason why a certain bar in a city that big sort of gets all this history and feeling behind it that goes into what you're talking about where it's just like, there's something special about it, but you can't put your finger on it and there's so many memories. Like these people coming in, we met here 10 years ago, blah, blah, blah. What do you think?

What's the answer to that? Yeah, I think it's a good question. I think that employees only is sort of a quintessential New York bar. I mean, we're a provision speaking, one of the first speakers is to come out in that big, speakeasy craze years ago.

It has that fun quirkiness to it, but it's still buttoned up, but it's also not buttoned up. And it allows the guests to sort of have the experience that they want to have without feeling like they're sort of catering to what we think that they should drink or how they should act or whatnot. For us, you can come in, people top people in the industry from 50 best bars or whatever, they'll come in and they'll just have a beer. They'll just have a beer because they're going to have a beer and they're going to chat with us and we're going to talk to them.

And there's going to be no sort of judgment or sort of like, oh, you're not drinking or whatever it is, we want you to be happy. If you, if a vodka soda is going to make you happy, then by all means, you know, yeah, there's no judgment. Like you didn't get anything off the fucking car. You didn't get anything off the specialty cocktail list.

You're not judging them. You're just like, whatever you want. No, listen, as long as your card goes through and you're not too drunk and you're not rude to the bartenders, then you can do whatever you want. And I think that that's kind of the idea of employees only is that you're kind of, we're welcoming you to our house and we want you to feel at home and we want you to feel like you can come in and have that, you know, have that after shift, you know, bite to eat or shift drink or, you know, whatever it is that you want to do.

I think that employees only allows people the freedom to exercise that, you know, to really come in and beat themselves. What do you think, like, what's the cocktail scene like in general in New York right now? Because we talk about this as some of our other guests in big cities and it's just like, like, I often wonder if we're getting to the apex of what you can do with a drink to the point where like, there was a slant of everybody's trying to do the last molecular idea of like how to make a cocktail or whatever. We're just going to revert back to classic cocktails or like, what have you noticed that you're about?

You know, I think that the trends now have been, you know, making classics with a little twist, really going back to basics. I think that we, you know, there's still like a lot of molecular stuff that's going on, a lot of clarification and that kind of thing. But I think a lot of cooking and cocktails. Yeah, I mean, I've sort of always been drawn to sort of gastronomy when making a cocktail and using ingredients that you wouldn't necessarily find in most cocktails and like you have a drink on the menu right now with Truffle, you know, the Truffle L, which is super unique because you can get a ton on the nose.

You know, I think you don't really get that much in this kind of place in your mind a little bit. And, but yeah, I think that, you know, speaking about the bar community, I think I had a moment, but we had a moment in, we were down to the 50 best ceremony in San Diego, the end. And all the New York bars just sort of congregated into this into the sort of the area of the ceremony. And I just like kind of look around just wow, we've gotten to a point now because it didn't always used to be like this with bars.

It was a little bit competitive at times, but we got to a point now where we're also so, so supportive of one another. When we host people from out of town, from Europe or Mexico or wherever, you know, we're taking them around to all these bars and experiencing that. And every one of them has a very unique thing to do super super well, you know, and I think that just the diversity in the New York cocktail scene is just incredible, you know, and the support that we've certainly felt the support that I can sort of gather from my wife being obviously working at one of those bars in the city that I kind of had a little bit of an inside scoop on, you know, it's, you really, there is definitely a community aspect to it that I've never seen before. I mean, I've been in the industry for a long time, but there's just a really, really great support system and we all kind of have each other's backs and, you know, yes, it's great.

I mean, there's, yeah, it's supportive in that way. So yeah, I think that's certainly where the bar community is now in New York, from what I've gathered. That's good because there was like, even in our smaller, much smaller community, there was like a very competitive vibe for so long where it's just like bars weren't helping each other out. And I like, obviously the more successful bars in an area of any town is better for everybody because no one wants to sit in the same fucking bar all night anymore.

People just like want to bounce around to a community of cool bars. They want to go to an area of town where they know there's going to be a bunch of cool bars and they're going to go to all of them. Yeah, exactly. And that's what I kind of thought when I can't remember what bar open in our neighborhood, but I remember thinking like, is this, not as good or bad for us, but how will this impact us?

And I'm like, it can only be positive. It can only be sort of, you know, people that want to come to Katana Kitten, they've heard about Katana Kitten because it's this world renowned bar. And Masa and everybody there that are just doing such a great job, more Dante up the street. We have three bars, three world class bars within three blocks of each other on the hustle.

And so for us, that's like, we've walked people over to Katana Kitten. We've said, hey, you know, we're visiting from Spain. Where else do you recommend? We go here.

I have a free moment. Let me walk you over. I'll introduce you to some of the people Katana Kitten. It's an amazing bar.

We'll walk you over to Dante and we'll introduce you to them. And they do the same. Masa will walk over from Katana Kitten, some guests and introduce us and do a shot and then go back. And that's super cool.

And I think that, you know, unlike restaurants, you know, restaurants is tricky because you sort of have guests for the entire evening at a restaurant. That's sort of your experience for the night. Whereas bars, I mean, you go to an area and it's like, okay, we're going to go out here, here, here. You know, same kind of happen in Roma, in Mexico City.

All these bars within like four blocks of each other. It's just crazy, you know, and it's only good for everybody. That's right. Yeah.

And so we should all be supporting each other. That's the key. Absolutely. Let's just let the spot to leave it before we let you go.

We should, we'd be remiss if we didn't bring up the fact that we mentioned, you mentioned your wife a couple times on the show here. And we should mention that you and I were discussing this interview this last week and it came to my attention through you that we had already interviewed your wife in like what? She was episode 23. I think I discovered.

Yeah. Yeah. And now Matt, your episode 200 and this is episode 206. That's pretty crazy.

But yeah, Andrea was actually one of our first guests who was outside of Canada, which, and then really helped like that really helped promote the show for us. So we're obviously super grateful to her and helped us get started. So it started to get guests from all over the world because we were mentioning before we started recording them. Most of our guests at the beginning were just our buddies in town.

Yeah. Yeah. So we had a couple, we had one dude from New York, Nancy Violi, right at the beginning. And then Andrea was pretty shortly after that.

Yeah. Like I'm going through the list right now and it's pretty far back. I think I looked when I was talking about it. I think it was 23.

Oh shit. Yeah. Which is pretty crazy. So like I said to you before, say hi to her for us and thank her for helping to explode the show into other countries.

Yeah. She had a great time. She loved her talking to you guys. I'm hoping that we got a little bit better at this because it was probably, I was probably pretty shit at that this way back.

You guys had a great speed. I think we got the drinking by that episode. I was 24th 2020. That's what that episode.

Okay. So yeah, like in the first couple of episodes when we actually did them live with their friends and it was way too much wine and it went off the rails. Yeah. I know it's a lot of editing.

That's why I talked so little now because I had to edit everything I said out at that point. We just said it by now. But there won't be much heading on this one. That was a great episode.

Thanks again for doing this. We really appreciate it. Anybody going to New York should obviously visit employees only if they don't know that already. And what's the Instagram link for employees only for those who might want to check it out?

At Employees Only. And why I think is the handle. Yeah. And what about your personal?

And my personal is at Matt Merritt's just my first last name. Put those in the show notes. Yeah. So check out Matt, check out employees only.