E208 Chris Gardner

This week's guest is Chris Gardner, who joins us for a in-person interview. Chris got his star in the industry in his teen years when he landed his first job, washing dishes at the legendary Golden Griddle. Currently, Chris is a chef at Malton Barley and Kitchener. We talk with Chris about his career progression from washing dishes to working on the Donalds, to managing the kitchen at theels and many stops in between, and to his current job in Malton Barley, balancing career life while playing in a band, the benefit of never burning your bridges when leaving a job plus a host of other topics.

It was great to finally get Chris on the show, we had a great time talking with him. Enjoy the show. Okay, we are back with another episode of the industry podcast. My name is Kit, this is Dan, what is happening?

Oh, I know it's another exciting start to the week, and it's a temper, but it's not too much you. What about yourself? How has the return of students to town in the fall? That's alright, there's more foot traffic, more people walking around.

More importantly for MyBars is that we have trapped the parents back in town now because their kids are back in school so they can't go away every fucking weekend. Gotcha, yeah, good point, what's up with that? They're trapped because we get an older crowd at MyBars, which you should check out if you're in the kitchen-model area that's Battle on Sisters, in the uptown Waterloo, at Battle on Sisters Bar, on Instagram, or should have run downtown kitchen or at should have run bar on Instagram to check those places out if you're in town. But yeah, I'm very happy this summer's over and summer was very slow for the smaller joints in town, but it's over now.

Yeah, that's a yes. But I popped anyway for this week, you know why? No, do you Joe? We've been doing this over a fucking four years and you still don't know what turns me on.

Oh, I know, we're not going to say on there. It's still like a 86-level silence. It's because we have an amazing guest with our good friend Chris Cariner who's going to be on the show this week. Good point.

And he will be joining us in just a second, but apparently I found out that I had asked him several times to be on the show and he kept turning us down until it came out when we were watching football the other week that I had never asked him. So that was on me. We finally got him in the house, so it was going to be a good one. He's a great friend of ours in the show.

Before we get to him, we should mention that if you want to be a guest on the show, the best way to reach out is to email us info at theindustrypodcast.club or you can DM us at the industry podcast on Instagram. That's where you're going to find the amazing artwork from Zach Hanna at Zach Hanna.co for all your graphic arts needs. His work is stupendous and he's always up to something cool. It's always like to say, just pass on the word of the show to the friend.

And then follow us, rate review. Actually, I have an idea about that because something came up the other week at bar. So that one sisters, there's battle on sisters, it's a wine bar. And we have a DJ every Friday night and he was telling us recently that people will walk by and be like, oh, that sounds cool in there because we got the DJ playing and there's people dancing often and they're like, oh, a wine bar and they won't come in.

And Janine who runs the place is, was telling me also people come in and I'm like, do you have like a vodka soda? Can I get like a vodka? Like it's a bar. And so I'm wondering, is this a new trend with younger people who don't understand that all bars serve all kinds of booze, even if it says wine bar or is it, am I just, like I've been in the industry for so long that I had such industry head that maybe I just assume that everybody knows this or is it if you're not in the industry would you not know?

Well, you know, I think it might be just wine like when you see a ramen restaurant which you're no shortage of uptown anymore, then we have ramen so you could probably assume that might be the same case with like a bar. Because I kind of have kids, I would just assume that everybody knows that if it's a bar it has everything. Or they think it's going to be very limited. Well, what I would like is if anyone's listening to this, anyone's listening to this, outside the industry post a little comment on wherever you're listening on whatever platform you are and tell me what you think the answer to that question is because yeah, that one's done to you but I think maybe it's just I've just been so red-pilled in the industry that maybe I don't really know that I just think that's natural of course, it's a bar, we're not going to only serve wine.

Yeah, I think people might think it might be limited. Well, that's fine. Everybody close a comment if you're listening, tell me what you think. Yeah.

Okay, I think enough about that and let's just get to it. I guess what you say. I think that's a great idea. Chris Gardner's here, yes.

Hello. I think the most sober I think of three of us have been at the same time. The night's on. Yes.

I've already been for tacos. Oh, guys. Okay. All right.

So I'm thinking about this today when you were going to come on. I don't actually know how you got your start in the service industry because by the time I met you, we worked together at the whole store many years but I worked there for a few years before you worked there and you got the job there in my brief two-year hiatus and then I came back and you were already well entrenched. Yes. So I don't know what you did before that.

So tell me. All right. Well, I started in the industry, I guess you could say, as a wee little lad of around 14 years old, I think, 14 or 15, washing dishes at the Golden Griddle. Oh, really?

Yeah. The one on Weber? Oh, yeah. Where was that?

It was a textual hotel or it was like coal. Yeah. Okay, right now it's shelter, right? Yeah, and it's across from corner kitchen now.

That's right. Yeah. Yeah. We can shift there, clean and buffet dishes, possibly still to this day, the worst job of my life.

And just starting to wrap it, you grew up in kitchen room. I grew up in kitchen room. So that was like, was that your first job? Yeah, other than like a paper carrier.

Oh, okay. Yeah. Nice paper room. The pet was already working there and he kind of got me a little, got me a job there, got me at her, who at least recommended me.

And yeah, they stuck me in the dish pit and, oh boy, Golden Griddle weekend is buffet dishes. Yeah, that was like seven. And a lot of those dishes. Yeah.

Seven to three, which often turned into five. Wow. And those dishes, they don't fucking fit in the dishwashers, right? Like, I'd say it's all handling.

And especially when we got older cooks who like to pile the dishes on just for shits and giggles and laughs and lots of eggs and things like that. But you must have been bringing a lot of cash compared to all your friends at that age. Yeah, I was all right. I was probably working eight to 10 hour shifts Saturday and Sunday.

So that was fun. That lasted, I'd say, maybe six months. And then I got the good old classic McDonald's job for a couple of years. You were talking about that.

Yeah, on Highland Road. Okay. Yeah, it was all right. And that was where I kind of, I don't know, like, I guess you could call it cooking.

Well, I will say this. We've got a number of people on the show who got their start at McDonald's and all of them say the one thing that I taught them is just like work ethic and efficiency. Yeah. Yeah, I did a little bit of everything there.

I did the cash for the first little while. Didn't enjoy that. So I managed to get myself back in the kitchen, work there. And then I did, I also did like the overnight shifts.

I did the cleaning crew for a while. I did a little bit of everything. Oh, wow. So that was fun.

And then how long were you there? A little over two years. Yeah. And so now you're like 17, 18?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then, you know, university started for me at Laurier.

And once again, Pat Finch. My good friend Pat helped me get a job at Wilfs. Oh, okay. And Laurier.

That was Pat also working in the kitchen. Yeah. So he had been there for a year already. He was in year two, I think.

And he was a supervisor. So he built some strings, got me in there. And yeah, slotted out there for a couple of years, I guess. Now you guys also played in the band together for many years.

So I'd already started at this point. Yeah. That's one of our earlier formations for sure. So it also resulted in some Joe's at Wilfs and stuff like that.

So yeah. And then I was a supervisor there by my second year. Now, I'll be honest with you, it wasn't really that hard to do the supervisor job as long as you showed up and did the work. Plus, it's the university so people are leaving every four months.

Turned out it was crazy for sure. So but holy moly, like that was a busy place. I'm really, really busy. Yeah.

I see. We both worked at the bombshell there when we were at university. So that would be Waterloo instead of Laurier. But the same thing.

It was like you could move up. As long as you weren't completed yet, you could move up pretty fast because people were always leaving. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

And then basically I'm trying to think it was 2002, I think, February is when I started. Through another Will's connection, Ryan Stevens. Oh, okay. Help me get an interview if you want to call that at Eiffels.

Eiffels Lounge in Waterloo. And that's when I started there. Ryan worked out before you there? Yeah.

Oh, yeah. So because you guys both must have started when I was gone. I guess. Yeah.

Because I didn't, I never met either of you until I came back and you guys were both working there. But I was assumed you were there longer than him. No, he was there before me and he told me I was living with him as well. So for about six months or so, I lived with Ryan and we lived with Pat.

And his now wife, Jen, up on James Street. And Ryan's like, he's like, you know what, I'm working a great place. Come down to Eiffels. That's very lovely.

She helped me up. Yeah. I'm going to do it. And I met Junior.

Right. And he gave me a shot. Oh, nice. So Eiffels at that time was pretty crazy as well because like that was sort of right at the time that they expanded the patio.

Mm-hmm. The kitchen stayed the same size. Yeah. So they were expecting you to pop out all this extra food.

Plus it was the busiest patio in the city at the time. Now other places have popped up so there's more options. But the time there weren't, like really, how many really big patios in KW at the time? Not many, right?

The only other one in uptown was probably the two there. That was it. So just ramped at all times. Yeah.

And like I said, the kitchen, they expanded the patio with the kitchen never got any bigger. So that... Even to this day. Even to this day.

So describe a little bit about like working there in that fucking heat bin in the summer and what pumping out all that shit. Oh man. Those, especially like I mean those early days when it was really, really pumping. And we had to get crew back then.

We had a lot of strong people on. But yeah, you want to talk about like a full moon winding during the heart of the summer. You know, just, again, you describe how hot it was. You know, you needed ice buckets.

You needed whole cloths. You needed all that stuff. Because you're just pumping out food out of this tiny, tiny little kitchen. Yeah, it was...

Anybody ever like pass out? Yeah. I can't personally remember it but it would shock me if it hadn't happened, right? I mean that's one of the early things that I ever learned working in a kitchen.

Especially a small in Hotland, especially seasonally like the kitchen at Efels was you just, you got to stay hydrated as much as possible. Because probably people would definitely, they would weaken for sure. I remember coming back there sometimes and I would like need something like either ask a question or make a modification on something or whatever. And back then it was just handwritten chips stuffed in a chip on a, what do you get chip board I guess you call it.

And sometimes you'd have a full row of chips and then like a stack at the end of it. Sometimes I'd like 25, 30 chips. For sure. At the end of like the ones that are up and I'm just like, I would just look at it.

I'd just turn around and walk back out. Just let them figure it out. Yeah. And well, and especially let them figure out your goddamn handwriting chip.

Oh, you know what I mean? Damn. I'll never forget Katrina who was an early guest on the show who worked on this air. What's said to me?

Are you sure you're looked at it? I do have a very bad handwriting. But then once you got the vibe of the handwriting, you could translate it. Oh, absolutely.

Yeah. And then you translate it to all the new people coming along. Just like that line means hummus. That's JR's.

Oh yeah. What is this? It's amazing that it works. But then I do remember the time that I remember forgetting to put in a food order for a table and then be like, oh no.

You got to go back there? Yeah. Because, oh no, I got to go back there. But also, that could be the difference between the marketing server for an hour and a half at that point because you guys were so fucking busy.

It was crazy. Yeah. We had that early crew that I was with between 2002 and I'd say like five. Those were some good people back there.

We had Dave Shob and we had Karen and we were hard works. We worked really hard. And we got the job done and I think we had a good time back then. Well, the one thing I would always say about you, like I said, I came back.

I didn't know you from anyone. There was not one person who worked on Kitchen who I never met before. But a lot of the front-ups people were still there for one of them because it was a good money job. So people don't tend to leave it.

But the one thing I always remember about you is as fucking crazy as we get back there, you would never lose your shit. And so many of the other people just lost it. Just all the time losing it. And I'm like, that's understandable.

It doesn't help anything. But you can totally get it. But you would have this weird... So what is the secret to this level of calmness that you have?

Is it just that you're like, you know what's not going to do any good? Or is that just your personality in general? Well, I don't know if I'd say it's my personality in general. I've got the ability to pop off for sure.

But yeah, I think it's counterproductive in that kind of situation. I think once somebody on the line kind of starts going down like that, then it makes more work for the other people. And to try and keep morale at a reasonable level, I just think that once somebody starts fading. It's just kind of a domino of that.

So yeah, I just think, I had a couple people along the way, also just kind of tell me to. It's not the end of the world. At the end of your shift, you're going to drink a beer. It's going to be okay.

The place isn't going to shut down. We're not going out of business. Stuff happens. That's what I still try and tell my employees to this day.

From the front house, the bartender's got 15 chips in front of them. I'm like, you know what? People will wait for a drink. Can they find...

And you get stressed out about it. You can only move as fast as you can move. So just do that and get through it. And if people get upset about having to wait, well, fuck em.

And honestly, I would say, eight and a half times out of ten, or nine times out of ten, people will not be upset about waiting. And generally they'll understand, especially if they can see it's business. They can see it's also on the front house staff to set their expectations and just be like, look, I remember I would just be like, someone sat down, that would be like, I'm going to tell you right now. It's about this amount, it's like a 40 minute wait for a food.

And we appreciate that. And then if you know, then you're going to make a decision. Oh, we don't have that kind of time. Now you're not going to get mad.

That's something we'd often relate to the front house to. Like when you're in the weeds, you'd be like, be sure to be telling those people out there that it's going to be a while. We're doing the best we can. You just tell them that.

And then, like I would always overshoot it because then if you deliver under, then they're super happy. Absolutely. That's going to be an hour. And then if you show up in 40 minutes, they're fucking thrilled.

Mm hmm. I also find in those situations too, when you think you're in the heavy weeds and you think, Oh geez, we're not going to get that table served for another 40 minutes. It'll probably come out in 20 to 25. Yeah.

You know, people pick up the pace. They do their thing. Sure. Defining to about the asyl situation was that the menu was so huge and it was all over the place.

So I always think like it's way easier at a place where it's like, Oh, maybe they got six or seven things on the menu. There's lots of cross ingredients. You can do a bunch of things at the same time. That was not the case there.

No, no. I agree. Yeah. Back then there's, you know, you got your smoker, you got your Mexican stuff, you know, you got your pizzas, your pans, your raudy, all those types of things.

Yeah. And to be honest with you, it hasn't really changed a whole lot of the years. No, I guess that's true. And it's part of the reason why people like to go there.

Yeah. It's also like part of the reason you guys get fucked in an already fucked situation. Yeah. It's so tiny.

Yeah. Well, there's definitely been a lot of hard work over the years to try and make it more efficient, you know, find better ways to use these, perhaps not cross ingredients, like you're saying, like to try and make it easier, but definitely it's a challenge for sure. But there's only so much you can do. There's only so much other spaces, only so much grill space and no deep running ever.

So there's no easy outplay. Absolutely. How many people can work out a maximum amount of staff in the kitchen? In that kitchen?

Like comfortably? Yeah. I would say four plus a dishwasher is like, I think that's tight. I can't even imagine that.

I've seen it, but I just like, it's hard for you to remember. And what's the capacity of that folks? Which is inside, it's like a 90 maybe. Yeah.

The patio is like an extra hundred. Oh, yeah. Yeah. You've got a little capacity.

So you've got, you know, you've got three, four people pumping out all that stuff for on a busy Friday or Saturday. I'm trying to even picture times where I saw four people back there and I can't even remember that. It could be so tight. Yeah.

Well, generally there's usually someone walking around doing nothing. So that helps. So at some point you took over the management roller. Was this before, like you left a couple times and came back.

Yeah. Was there, were you the manager before you left the first time? Not by title. By proxy.

It was just like there was no one else to do it. So you were just going to do it. I was kind of always in that sort of role, but I was never really technically in that role, I would say. I probably, if I have a druthers, would have been offered it a couple times, but maybe I was a little too crazy back in my late 20s and early 30s to be trusted for that.

I will admit. But yeah, I worked there from 2002 to 14. I think I'd say the last five years of that stretch, I had as much to do with maintaining and running that kitchen as anybody else who actually had the title. But, you know, we worked together and we did it.

And then, yeah, I left for, I don't know, I left for at least a couple years before I kind of came back a little bit part time. Right, and you were doing, you were going to teach us college and you didn't want to do it. I tried that for a spell and that wasn't for me. Were going to retirement home?

Yeah, I worked at Luther Village on the park for a couple years. And then I tried a different job over at the University Gates thing when they opened up. That also was not for me. That's a long-term care, is a lot different than retirement cooking.

I don't know if anybody can know that. Yeah. Just try the difference though. It's a lot more grueling and you're not just in a kitchen.

You're in the kitchen preparing stuff but you're also delivering it to the floors and actually serving it and doing stuff. It's really grueling work. For some reason long-term care homes don't really believe in having dishwashers. Those do not as well.

So you go through a whole eight-hour shift and you do basically get no break. I was just after two or three months. I had shin splints from walking around so much and going up and down stairs. I lost about 20 pounds.

It was a lot different than Luther Village on the park. Retirement and their own... Also, was that long-term care home? Was that one by the people?

It was privately owned still. It was just definitely right. Yeah, it's a different setup for sure. I learned that pretty quickly.

What about pay-wise? Is there any difference between pay-wise or very comparable between the care home versus... Yeah, it was kind of comparable. I didn't stick around loving that.

What it would get to. My experience at Luther Village, the retirement home there in Waterloo Park, was fantastic. It's kind of funny because I left Ethels. I went there.

I got in there full time. Right around the time my son was born. The next year was when I got the Schlegel Village's opportunity. I worked there for a little bit.

Didn't work out. Then I reached back out to Luther Village to see if they had any part-time positions available. They hired me back on part-time, which was fantastic. That's when I also got my other half of being part-time was going back to Ethels again.

That's when Craig was running the kitchen. Yeah. I run the work with him again. I do.

He's my boss one more time. Well, if that's a guy who needs to come on the show and complain. I will say one other thing about Mr. Becker.

He is the funniest person I think I've ever worked with. These are his stories to tell, so I won't tell him. Craig, come on the show and you can tell your own stories. I'm not going to speak for you.

He made me laugh the hardest I've ever laughed at in the ad work. I think every time in my life, one time. It's one story and I don't know if you'll remember what it was. I just agree to it.

Yeah. Craig and I have been around the block a few times together. When I first worked with him, when he first met hired at Ethels, I was actually the one that hired him. That was early on.

I was given the task of doing interviews and deciding who to hire at that point. When somebody else was the manager, we won't mention who at this point. Anyway, I hired Craig. I had known him a little bit from Uptown.

I knew he was a bit of a goofy. I also knew that he had a good resume so far. We were just like, let's get him in here. He was a great hire.

He did really good. We worked together for a bit there. He did a whole bunch of things. He hired me back.

I guess, going back to Ethels part-out, then I got another full-time job at Luther Village on the part. Again, Don't Burn Bridges is another lesson. Don't burn bridges. There's another lesson.

I spent a couple more years there, fully entrenched, making my way up the ladder. What kind of hours? I did a little bit of everything. 11 to 7, 10, 30, and 6, 30 was what you did in the main dining hall.

If you were the main cook of the day, you were making the main meal and all that stuff. I also did the early breakfast and lunch shift too quite often, which was five a.m. and you worked until 1.30. Which was, you know, it's hella early, but by the time you blink, it's noon.

Yeah, it was already a good question. It was already a good question. Beers and you're in bed by six o'clock. That's actually your life now.

It's not far off. I got up pretty early. Working for Leviness. And then, uh, letting Rockin' Pawn again.

At the end of 2018. I'm going to take back over. So, would you, what was going on? Yeah.

I, for my understanding, because at this point you and I were good friends for a while now, and at that point, and you were just like, look, I couldn't turn it down. And you weren't necessarily sure you wanted to do it, but the package was good. The package was good. They, uh, they definitely, um, nailed that one for sure.

That's good. I think they kind of had a bit of a shift in their philosophy at that point. Realizing that like paying people like shit to fucking, and, and, like, just sort of keeping responsibilities on them without naming them a man. They're also, you need a leader.

Yeah. Like, like a designated leader, not just a guy that people know, well, like I just, they're ordering. Yeah. Well, and a few of the guys they had over the years doing that, you know, they, they worked hard and they did a good job, but they really had no motivation to keep going.

So that motivation and that drive dwindled over time because it just, that's just the way it was, right? Yeah. So, the one I wanted to get back to before we skate right past it is that, like, I know, when you were saying, so we're going to backtrack for a little bit, but when you were saying when you were in your like 20s and early 30s or whatever, and you were kind of like, they didn't think that they trusted you to do the management, but also that is kind of around the same time that your band was doing pretty well. True.

And then you were going to get more available to them. Yeah, there's definitely, you know, I was stretched in a couple different directions. Like, you would go in two or four weeks at a time. Yeah.

And the great thing about Ethels and, you know, the management there was that they let me go away for three, sometimes four weeks at a time to do music, you know, on the West Coast tour with my band. That'd be pretty fun for, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

And Greg would come with us too who also worked at Ethels. So, they'd be losing two staff members for like three to four weeks at a time and they were okay with it. And I saw them for London to do that. They sound like that freedom.

It was great, yeah, for sure. Yeah, you can't fault them for that. I'm just always curious about this because like a local band kind of starts making good. You guys were good.

I saw you guys play live many times. I also listened to your records. They were good. Like we've had many conversations about this.

I was a fan. And, but like at what point does a group of guys who are like, they're just stretch where you're like, okay, this is as good as we're going to get. This is as big as we're going to get. That must be a very difficult decision to make or a difficult realization to come to when your dream is kind of in a play music.

It is definitely a difficult realization. And you can kind of see it sometimes happening in real time. But like, you know, you keep going out to band practice every night and you know, you keep booking those shows. But there comes a time.

I'd say we were rocking a role in between 2001 and 2008. And you know, then life happens. You know, people are getting married. They have their little bit older.

They have more job responsibilities. They don't run as much time. And it kind of comes to a point. And I think so with the stars here, Pat just called us to a meeting one day.

And he was just like, I don't think we should do this anymore. And he didn't say, I don't think I can do this anymore. He's like, I don't think we should do this anymore. And explained exactly why.

And we're all just like, yeah, you're right. You know, there's too many variables going on. You've had a great time. You've got a great run.

You know what? We've got jobs, wives, families. Yeah. I thought you were going to kick them out of the band and hire to hot chicken.

No. Yeah. And it's hard to maintain that, especially when you start to get a little older, you know, you know what things go on. Well, I was thinking about that line in Pulp Fiction where, myself as well as the other as well as character is like, if you were going to make it, you would have made it by now.

Yeah, for sure. Yeah. We're always waiting for that offer to come through. Yeah.

We get really weird stories about bands that fucking did this forever and then finally broke like, like many bands that like toured and did nothing for like decades. I've heard that story a million times about them. And then, but they just stuck it out, stuck together. But, yeah.

We're not a million chance. Yeah. So do you guys ever still play together? At all?

Okay. There we go. We have a couple of years. Sometimes the starts here actually in January of 2020, before all the nonsense happened, it was our 10 year anniversary of having been like, of having broken up.

Yeah. And we did get together one night for like a big, long jam session and we went through like a long set of like all of our old tunes. It was a really fun night. You know, we just, you know, it was like three hours of playing together and we hadn't done it in probably like literally close to 10 years as a full unit.

So that was a really good time. We just got it under the wire before all the 2020 garbage happened. But we haven't done anything since then. But you were in another band for a while as well.

That's true. Yeah. With some of the same guys. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Hawkeyes was from 2012 to I would say 2022, I think when we finally threw it in. So that was another 10 years or so as a band there.

But again, like when we just, COVID kind of derailed us a little bit too. And the planet. And the planet. Yeah.

But at the same time too, there were six of us. Wives, families, jobs were most of us were in our 40s, if not really 50s and just couldn't be in anymore. We're doing enough gigs to really make it work. You're not the level that you're making a shit ton of money doing it right?

So it's like after a while it's like okay, like all and when you have that many different people in a band and at least a couple of them are going to be like, why am I doing this? It's fun. But I'm not making any money. And like real money.

And I do have a full time job where I make real money and now I have responsibilities like kids and wives and whatever. Yeah. It was okay. It was another situation where we were just like, you know, everybody kind of sat down or just like, so is this what we want to do anymore?

And you know, arguments were brought up and I think we all agreed that we had a good run. Let's remain friends. Yeah. Of course I miss it.

Sure. I'll share it. I'll take it. I'm really just watching police academy in between jamsets at the gym hall.

Yeah, and the long rides are all packed into a tightrope. We're sleeping on top of a guitar case. Do you still play guitar in your start time? Yeah.

I noodle on the acoustic at home. I should probably do a little more than I do to be honest with you. You also have a kid now and like shit to do. Really?

Yeah. I still have my little trusty Les Paul classic that I bought probably in 2004, maybe I'd say. That was the one that I primarily used for most of, I think I bought before 2004. I have an Epiphone ES.

It looks like one of those like BBK.com. It's cherry red. Nice. I have a phenotelic acid too.

Oh, sorry. Rarely used. Probably you should use more. Yeah.

That's a nice one. I don't have steel, like tube or solid state or is it tube? Tube. Tube.

Yeah. Fender Deluxe was my app for many, many years. I had an awesome orange amp with a Marshall cab that I used for a lot of the stars here here. It was a good crunchy sound.

It was, yeah, it was all the things you wanted. Yeah, and it crunched it. Yeah. And then you got stolen away from me.

You might have poured the fever of our band hall. Yeah. Really? Yeah.

They had a shared band hall and they let their equipment there. Another band stole their fucking equipment. Like, how shitty is that? And then put it up for sale, right?

That's how you found out. We had a band hall on bright up as many people did in the 90s and 2000s. And for years it was just ours and then we decided to, you know, some people were looking for places so we would share it and share the rent and stuff like that. So we shared it with a couple of different people and it worked out well.

And then we came back from a, we had a show and we packed back in one night and then we had a show and then our keyboard player, Patty, went back the next day or the day after that to pick up something and the door was unlocked and a bunch of shit was gone. His fender roads keyboard was gone, a bunch of guitars, drum pieces. My orange amp was gone. Cab was left there for some reason.

My last poll was left there for some reason. But yeah, and then coincidentally, I wish I could name names but I'm not going to name names because I'm not going to do that. But one of the fellows that have been renting from us previously, after some sleuth work by us kind of watching Kijiji's and online on shops and stuff like that, we found the orange was for sale and the roads was for sale. Couldn't really prove necessarily by looking at the orange pictures that was mine but Patty's fender roads had a cigarette stain on one of the keys and it was there in the picture.

So we did some work and tried to purchase it back under some different aliases and we were able to get a bite and then we got in contact with police and one of the police was in the one evening, the Waterloo Regionals paid a visit to this guy's house and got him to confess that he had a couple of those pieces but he had a story that he had bought it in London and he explained that he didn't know that it was stolen but let's be real here. But you've seen what the fucking band says. Band whole space. He's done that routine a few times before he had a story ready to get it.

I've heard some stuff about this local musician previously, who's not named, I'll put his name in the show no stater. Alright well we were going pretty long but before we wrap it up we should mention that we should talk over where you work now and who you work for. So after I worked, so when I got back to Evel's in 2019 I took the job in January and I worked there for a solid four years or so and you know it was good, it was up, it was down, it had all the things, they treated me well, they paid me well, took care of me and my family but a bit of my third time around and I think it was time to just move along and again let's be friends. So I left, I gave my notice and I took a job with the Scranton drum in New Hamburg with the Clan gathering of restaurants, Dave Hutchison Sabrina and I worked there for about six months or so and I tried something else briefly, didn't work out and so then I knocked on Hutch's door again and he got me back into their group working at the Imperial market which was also in New Hamburg and I worked there for a few months and they changed ownership, Hutch and his wife were involved in July and I kind of came knocking on their door one more time because I just loved working for them.

They're wonderful people, if anyone knows who knows them already, anyone who doesn't, if you have a chance to work for Dave and Sabrina. So now I just started on your tour duty last week at Molten Barley in Kitchener, working under Craig Becker. I think I'm so sorry. Moloss again and I did my first week last week and it was great, got my ass completely handed to me on Friday night, you know, which I'm okay with.

After this, like you've been doing this for a long time, do you still enjoy it or does it seem like more like just like a job for you? I still enjoy it. I enjoy it when I can contribute more than just my manual labor, you know what I mean? So I think that's kind of what we talked about when I got the Molten Barley offer.

You know, I'm going to contribute in the menu planning and things like that. That's, you know, I want more out of my job than just flipping burgers and grinding. It's like that. I can do all that and my body doesn't like it so much anymore but that's part of the there's two sides of the job and if you can do both then it keeps, it kind of like, if you have some creative control then it makes like the factory work side of it because it can be like factory work sometimes.

Yeah, absolutely. It kind of softens that blow and then you're able to be like okay but I'm also contributing in a creative way and that keeps your inventory motivated. And that's what, you know, that was part of the agreement with Craig and with Hutch too, is like the expectation and I'm willing to, you know, I'm happy to do that. So I'm excited about a new chapter and I'm excited to stay with this company for a while because they treated me really well.

Again, like I said, don't burn bridges. This is my third time working for this company in a little over a year, year and a half. Yeah. Well, there's a reason why the people keep having you back and part of this is you don't bring your bridges but the bigger part of it is because you're really good at your job and goes back to what I said before is like you don't fucking panic, you don't get mad, you just like calmly move through the shit when you're in the weeds and it is what it is and that's why I love working with you and that's why we've maintained this friendship we've had for all these years ever since I started working with you.

It's great to have you on the show finally. You kept saying no. That was so funny. I think I was mixing you up with Jamie.

Yeah. I was like, what are these days he's going to ask me? What? I'll talk to you in a seven episode.

Yeah. We're going to run. We're going to have to like who's that? Right here.

For everyone, Chris is one of our best friends so it's ridiculous that he hasn't been on the show for this amount of time. It's completely my fault but we're glad that you came tonight and we love you. Cheers. Thank you very much.