E210 Jay McNeely

This week's guest is Jason McBealy, who joins us for an in-person interview. Jay got an early start in the industry when he started washing dishes at his grandparents restaurant in Genanagwe, Ontario. Jason eventually worked in all the roles from dishwasher to cooking to server before he eventually left to go to school in Ottawa. Initially, Jay did a quick stint at University of Ottawa studying physics before realizing that this wasn't a career for him and switched over to culinary school at Le Corden Blu.

Jay's career has been on a constant upward trajectory ever since. We talked with Jay about what it was like to work in corporate kitchens such as the Hard Rock to work in smaller private establishments. He was moving to becoming a food sales rep, then a rep for micro breweries, and his eventual transition over to bartending. We covered a lot of great stories of Jay and the many roles he's had over the years.

Currently, Jay is the lead bartender at Area, which isn't the well complex in Toronto. It was great to have Jay drive out and meet us in person. We had a ton of laughs with him. Thanks again Jay for coming out and make sure you check out his Instagram page for some great industry memes at j.mcn and at his jayay.miccharleneovember or check the show notes for all the links.

Enjoy the show. Okay, welcome to another episode of the industry podcast. I am Kip, this is Dan. What's going on?

Thank you much. It's another start of the week. It's always exciting to go to work on a Monday morning and start crying on Sundays around 4 o'clock. It's the weekly day and it's his job.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And realization I have no other choice. So that's the way it is. You about buying lottery tickets?

Yeah, that's a lot. That's a lot. Yeah. What about yourself?

Let's go with you. Great. Another weekend, another homecoming. Letting in multiple university and college down.

Yeah, who's that? Actually, Stephen, back to last week. We got more fun because of the limited as well at the same time, the previous weekend. So, and I don't know, we got more students too.

Like all the Florier students go to the same three bars. Yeah. And they were, it was amazing. I was watching in Atlanta, but like Kentucky or Prohibition or those places was like so long and it was kind of rainy.

And it's like, these kids are idiots. Like, just go walk literally across the street and start drinking and watch the line get smaller. Yeah, yeah, no chance. Quietly as effort and thought.

Also, it's amazing how, and I guess times it changed, but, or maybe this is the kind of people we were, but like, when we were in university many moons ago, like we would, we were already with our friends. We're not gonna line up for fucking a half an hour to get into a bar. We would just go to a different bar and drink there, right? But now people are just like, they gotta be where everyone else is.

So, or maybe it's always been that way and we just weren't that type of person. Really, a little bit of both. No, all right. Great.

Well, look that way and broke that down. Got to the bottom. Another puzzle solved on the end of the supply. Yeah, yeah.

Start a remarketing company. Well, we have an awesome show coming up for you. Jamie, Neal, he's gonna be joining us in a second and he's joining us in person, even though he lives in Toronto. So, that's great.

But before we get to him, we should mention that if you like what we're doing here on the show and why wouldn't you? You should follow us or subscribe depending on what platform you're on. That's the easiest way to support the show. If you wanna leave a review, even better.

Give us a rating five stars over. Yeah. Or no bother. Yeah, or like I could do, but I'd say, just tell one other friend.

That's all it takes. One more person. That's the easiest, no effort job you could do. That's right.

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And before I get all the shilling out of the way, we should mention that if you're in the kitchen and waterloo area, you should come visit one of my bars. Sugar run, that's the down-down kitchen area. You can have to find it yourself because we're not gonna tell you where it is. Then there's Babylon Sisters, at Babylon Sisters Bar, up-town waterloo.

That one's a little easier to find right on King Street on the Strip. Check us out, find out what's going on there and come visit if you're in the area. Please do. Yeah.

Anything else you wanna talk about? Nope. Nothing else going on. Really for you.

Since it's risky. Yeah. Alright. Well, let's get to our guest, Andy.

Hey, thanks for coming down. Thanks for having us. Thanks for having us. Dan has shared some of his whiskey that he brought in here.

Caribou Crossing. Yes. Caribou Crossing, single barrel. Free tasty.

I'll let you know. Alright. Alright. So, Jay, thanks again for coming down to the person.

We always love the in-person interviews. I don't know something about it. If the conversation was a little freer, then over Zoom. We love the other ones as well.

But it's great to do it in person. Absolutely. I have an interesting voice. Yeah, of course.

So, let's talk a little bit about I was really bio. You started back at house. What did I let us just talk about this? Because I have a lot of people who have done both.

And how do you feel your experience in the kitchen ended up serving you when you moved to the front house? I mean, it's huge. One of the only rules I've never worked in the restaurant itself is as a bar back. Right.

And I think most bartenders should have that role. Right. And then I had a lot of small, smaller towns and we don't have the resistance bar backs. I was elated to learn that that existed when I was barbed.

I got some of them just doesn't really work great. Well, at first, like the manager should come and tell me like, dude, that guy will do things. You don't have to do everything. And I was like, I'll need that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We shut up the tip. I'm like, I took an extra. Why?

I'm like, what do you do? But what I really think for me... I started washing dishes when I was a small kid. What city was I didn't say?

Yeah, like, lands down technically. But I'm getting awkward. Yeah, so very close to where I grew up as well. small town, bring up order and my grandparents owned that restaurant.

So I like to say that they taught me how to watch dishes and then they taught me how to walk. You know what? I'm the oldest grandkids so I'm in and it wasn't like the first time. I hated it.

I never put restaurants in. I never put my hand. It was three sinks by hand. I got featured in the Clanes magazine for 50 places to stop across Canada.

So I just blew up. It's like a scratch kitchen diner, a turkey roast beef and people were coming from all over and I'm on Saturdays and Sundays just in a dish. I'm watching the clock like rag and once you get to move out of that you're never more grateful for any other job in the world after because you don't hate it so much. Right.

Right. You know wait. I don't know about that. People have tried that way but when you think about it dad he's a great introduction to the industry because all of a sudden all the other shitty jobs you end up doing seem not so bad.

Yes. The time you have to help in the dish pit is installing. That's like once you're placing here that you get back there and help me. Oh it's not so bad.

But first of all that gives you a great mindset any other job you get. And then the back it goes it's very much not a you know high-end restaurant where to go. I worked there until I was 18 so I did that for nine years. And very much it's on the line hotline bam bam bam.

This is a place where some people ate every single meal there. You could be the farmer from down the street or the construction workers and you're showing up. Some guys had the key for the restaurant. You could call them open because they would be going to work before we open the restaurant.

So we had to get the key to come in and start coffee pot. Really? Yeah. And then the other guys show up and then my grandfather or my uncle or my uncle or my mom whoever was coming in.

Oh okay I'm here now. Yeah. I'm starting to make him get my grandfather kind of ran out of my grandmother ran back in. It's like a fucking anti-griffist show.

Yeah. I always, I've heard about bartender but I've never realized it was kind of like far as back in the day because they would. People would just open our tab and leave and come in and sign their paycheck over at the end of the week because they would eat breakfast on dinner. And then this one table would just grow in a minute with people.

They'd give you like three people and I was at seven and I was at 12 and then back to nine and then up to like in the whole community. So they're just like a community hub. You're just figuring it out. Right?

That'd be pretty awesome. You know what? Get out of the local bar. They tried that thing with write yourself a tab and pay it while you're checking the only way you get done that well.

Yeah. This is Robinson. Oh yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Not good. Yeah. I mean, I mean, they don't do it anymore.

My family doesn't want to live since sold it because none of my brother's sister, myself, took the restaurant over and parents would have to have to have a little different of the small town like that in a different town as well. Right? So yeah. Yeah.

A lot of the, so my grandfather got my uncle, he has a four-s barn. So a lot of those guys would go on into charges cigarettes. They sold cigarettes up in front of the end of the little community in the front of the front. So they would charge cigarettes like everything.

These guys were like, they're like, they have to pay check. There's whatever. So I got to see a lot of that from the back of the house. In perspective of what I was on the line.

I'm just addition of this food fast because these guys won't got to go back to work. So they can come talk about it in five hours. And that's a lot of things I think even now when I'm training other bartenders, they're so into like, well, I can make this cocktail so delicate and intrigued. I can make my own fashion.

This one, I don't care. I need a line cook right now who's going to put that in. Like definitely like later in life when I was in some pirate kitchen and went to culinary school, like the flavor matching absolutely comes in. But more than anything, it's like you're a soldier on the line service.

Like I don't need you to be creative when we're 15 tickets deep. And then there's, it's like, I totally, and we're bouncing around a little bit here because I do want to talk to yourselves on the other page because I'm a big fan of it. But like I get that vibe exactly from the means that you post and the little videos that you post that you do have that soldier in our army mentality. Yeah, which is cool.

But it's good to know the back story of why you feel that way. It's coming up that way, right? Yeah, and I think that comes a lot from the service to the back house because almost entirely the restaurant was older when I worked at the servers. They were like, that was our job.

They weren't here for, you know, they lived in this town. They pay mortgage. They had a fan. The ladies on the back of the line, I couldn't keep up.

I was, you know, maybe 13, 14, 9, young, but I couldn't touch my grandmother for speed or anything. Yeah, and like, one of my times I was like 17 before I left, I was, you know, I knew what to do. Well, so maybe how much speed you get with experience? Yes, right.

Like the fact that your body slows down is not even close to how much your mind speeds up. So how much you learn efficiency. Yeah, absolutely. So I, during that time, I, like right before I left, we had some high school kids that were doing it because in GAN, in Gallon, not quite, the high school started a hospitality program that built this whole new wing.

And so a lot of kids were digging hospitality and getting really into it, going to get a competition. And then my mother worked at the AMP or Metro, I guess now, at the time, it was just right inside high school. She worked at it. Yeah.

I still have this dominion. The dominion and AMP, those were the big ones in Kingston too, yeah. So they merged and she was right inside the high school. That's how she started there.

She worked because small town, you know, in the 80s or 70s, and they were going up. And it was, oh yeah, I work here and then had benefits and it was right inside the high school. So when she started running the restaurant, all the kids from the high school, they would just come up and she was like, oh, you're cooking? Perfect.

I got a job for you. This cooks are hard to find everywhere. And for all time. Yeah.

But it's never going to stop the so you know, we'd pick off people with good ones and be like, who's that school? I'm like, yeah, great. We got them and they'd even go to culinary school or do what they do. So it was a neat part of the thing to be a part of to see like, you don't really realize what time I just thought I'm going to call you.

Oh, yeah, this is great. And honestly, at that point in my life too, I was thinking I can't wait to not do this anymore. I'm going to go to school. Like, I'm going to make food and whatever.

There's no drink program to this non-alcoholic place. That way, the restaurant. Yeah. And it will always be that way.

Actually, I guess people who bought it now sort of alcohol, but behind it, they built an OPP station. And it's in a rural area. So, like, yeah, yeah, how much do I ever drink? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Just waiting next door and pick you up. Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to go into a car like that too.

But then what he did was he just got the cops to come there and drink like drink late night, drink after hours. And they're all was good. Well, I remember when they built that station, they started shutting the bus. Yeah.

You pick people up and you just have a guaranteed street. Yeah. But yeah. So at that point, you're thinking, this is not my career.

This is not what I'm going to do in my life. But at some point, something slicked and you go to culinary school. So like, what happened there? Yeah.

So I you're cooking whenever I went to high school. I did really well in high school in terms of like math and sciences. And I actually wanted to go to school for it was music. Yeah.

And I was at a band in high school when I left like guitar and drums, all the things. Like rock bands. Rock bands. Rock bands.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

We had school bands too. Like, I just really loved it. But the guidance counts just even do very well in some good subjects. This is, and music is not really a profitable career.

It could be a dead end. I understand. I understand. So I took physics and it was great.

It was fun. But I just after a year and a half to start, I was like, this isn't the vibe that I want for my life. I don't, I don't, they were very nice people. But it's just, they're some very stuff.

I'm very competitive. Not that people everywhere are. I just seem, I don't want to work with these people my whole life. And even next school, when I was doing that, I was working in restaurants and bars to put myself through.

Just like, I really like that. I love doing that. And the food network was exploding at the time. The time I had all this.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Absolutely. But I was just like, sir, you know, what's happening? I'm like, oh, like chef's a glamorized right now.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know.

I don't know. I would die for you. Yeah. Exactly.

And so, you met the culinary school at the Coronavirus. Coronavirus. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. And it was straight. I worked a couple of places when I started at the hard rock cafe, which was right. That's great.

Yeah. It must have been. Yeah. Because that, it was hard.

Now, was that on the down side of the hard rock cafe where there's so pretty hot at that time, maybe it was like the last year, maybe it was like in the market in Ottawa. It was like, you know, never had no time. The market in Ottawa was a fucking good town. So I live in Ottawa for a little bit.

And yeah. And the problem with Ottawa is that it's got the amount of people for a cool bar and restaurant scene, But there's just not. And the market was the one spot where it was like, oh, not bad. Like, you maybe have a couple of decent spots.

But basically, for a town like that, it's like, do you have an idea why there's such a shit fucking industry scene there? Yes. OK, great. So governments are capital.

Yeah. And a lot of these, my brother's a loser. And he works in the government. His wife works in the government.

They live just on the gat and side. A lot of the civil servants come into town. They work their nine to five to leave. They're back to their son and their families.

And the other half of the university kids, who don't so much care about the elevated poverty they want. Yeah, they want to drink. And they want to fuck, right? Which, you know, that's, we even thought high in coffee bars would be up to people.

Yeah, that's true. That's true. Yeah. And they pretend they're more than this.

Yes. Exactly. So that was, I think, a big contributor for a long time. I still have friends that live there from when I work there.

And it's kind of along my career. There's really cool bars there now. There's Rap Hole. Moon Room is always a cool one.

It was a cocktail bar back in the day on Preston Street. And it's going to be like, I didn't even know about it when I lived there originally. And my friends took me. And she even has the, I don't know the same lady owns it.

But they have the rules from milk and honey. They're like, oh really? Right. Yeah, that's crazy.

It was very in touch with cocktails. It was doing nothing crazy, but they were just doing classic cocktails, which it was a great, and since it's like great dining with a classic. Well, the cocktails in Ottawa. And that's huge for them.

Yeah. And it's a really cool one. It's opening now and then there's a few places like Stephen Flood, which is where Capri Deera started things out. It was called Blackmore.

And then he moved over there. And he's doing some really neat stuff. But you can only go as fast as people are going to follow you. That's right.

Well, we were talking a little bit about that before we started recording. And my friends raised it with the city as well. It's just like, it created me ahead of the curb except not for jazz. Yes.

Yeah, yeah, no, nobody loves to be an unappreciated editor. Yeah, I would say every living artist. Yes. Everything for instance, better than Michael Jackson now.

Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, there's that. Mattie is another great one.

There's so many cool spots now that are of the union. Union 6 on 3 on a good donation to the free bank, Ivan. The people of people say his stuff on him. He owns the brand and it's awesome.

He's like everything this guy, he's very adamant that like, make a donation to the food bank to do and all that stuff. So yeah. Well, that makes me happy that Ottawa's doing a little bit better. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I actually didn't even work in bars until I almost left. I still cooked.

Cause while I was at the hard rock, I left there. And it was just, the bar times were just like the cool guy. But I didn't even, at the time, I was like, they're just making rum, coaks. They're servers, I think, rum and coaks.

That's all it was with the hard rock. Yeah, the recipe's on the title, it's not that cool. Yes, yeah, yeah. It's like, oh, keep a lee.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Oh, he said that in the most boring capital city on the Earth, yes. Yeah, yeah.

It's what I like to do, it's too bad cause it's very pretty. Yeah, like the city's beautiful. I remember it was just nothing fucking gone. Like, yeah, not the place to hang out if you like have a good time.

Well, so I'm glad it's doing it. Okay, so let's continue. Then you're, so you're working in kitchens there. At what point do you start transitioning into either a front house or into a different city?

What happened? Sure, yeah. So I was there at the same time at a hard rock at school. At the same time, I was working another job at a pub called the Manx, which is also still there at Grey Pub.

It's like in a basement, kind of cheers. Yeah, it's huge. They were long from doing like the best brunch in the city. And it was awesome.

The best tip I'd ever got is a kitchen guy as well. Like you get like 50 to 70 dollars a night kind of thing. Which, yeah. I think it was just so crazy, but as a kitchen person, trust me, it's amazing.

And I also did brunch with this guy, Sean Hill, who was the Ottawa citizens newspaper there. Heavy Metal Reviewist. We got free tickets all the time. Work brunch, go, hit a cool show.

Stay up way too late. Like if you obviously show up to your brunch the next day and kill it, it was awesome. Yeah, so like I get those jobs while I was in culinary school. And what was great about the Manx was that, I immediately, I probably stayed the hard rock for two months.

And I was like, this other job is so much cooler. Like it's like, they give us drinks after work. I was only like maybe 21 at a time. So they didn't have drinks after work.

Like yeah, like we were smoking outside. Like you can just pop it up the one chef's like, smoke it, we know it back and coming back and do it. He's somehow great. And I'm like, all right, these guys are like, these guys are like rock star chef.

And every night you got to make the special if you were leading the line, which made culinary school very easy. Cause I would look ahead at what I had to do. All right, that's some more of the assignment. And I just ordered the produce and meat, whatever I needed to do.

I worked and bang out, you know, a hundred or two hundred plates of it and next day and kill it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But we're devoning chickens today for trusting chickens. Let's go.

Yeah. It looks stupid on my menu, but you know, I was like, why is there a trusted chicken? Don't worry about it. Yeah, you're gonna need no basis.

You know, you know. So from there, when I graduated college and school, I was like, okay, I need to keep on this course. I gotta go somewhere high end. There's a place called Donas in the market as well.

And it was sort of the farm table, one of the first farm table places in Ottawa. John Taylor was the chef who ran it. And him and his wife, Sylvia, it was a Somalia Trump. And there was that and another place that was kind of like number one and two.

And the one spot I actually tried to work out while I was in school and I went and I told the chef, you know, I really like to work here. Anytime I'm not in school, I'm yours. And he told me that wasn't enough time. And he did your like soul for this place back in the day.

It was like, no, no, we'd be paying for 40 hours, but you worked like 80. Right, all schools. Yeah, I was going to school and come back. And they were like, no.

No, we don't have time for your school. Yeah, later in life, after a few, after graduating working at the other place, I was very thankful that I didn't get the job. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you know, I'll go back and work there once it's.

Once it's not school and I thought, I thought, I thought, I'm a chance. So yeah, I worked at Donas with John Taylor. There was a bunch of great cooks in the kitchen. There's Adam Vetterall, who was North and Navy, which is this great northern Italian restaurant.

I went out actually in the original place, where I applied to where I wouldn't go. Really? Take it over that space. Go to fuck them.

Yeah, I'm going to put on bigger, bigger things. And I don't have the same regimenting. So he's running that. Another guy, John Spaz was running Fauna.

He also ran a different cocktail bar, which closed during the pandemic. But all of them have kind of gone on. They worked out. They were incredibly talented team.

And he's very fortunate to be part of it. And that's where I learned a lot of mine more. Like, oh, this is why we're working this way. We're doing this.

Growing up, it was just like grandma's rules. You know, this is why we cook in the kitchen. This is how we go fast. I was talented in speed.

But I didn't understand a lot of the back. I got to school a little bit. But the school is not practical. It's not the same as the kitchen.

No. Because you're combining what you've looked at. And I do think, of course, if you could take, certainly for back a house, front a house, I'd fill in Muslim and religious. But the knowledge of a game from going to culinary school is valuable.

But it's not practical. And so it's only when you put the two together that it matters. Yeah, absolutely. At Coron-Guil, it was very difficult to touch your kitchen.

And you can volunteer for those hours. But unless you can just do it. Oh, good. But that way you learn.

Because in Coron-Guil, there's also signatures restaurant, which is a very fine dining front restaurant. And you can also volunteer to work there. And after you, I think, when I was writing, I had two shifts, just to see the service. So that's like Stratford at the school.

They have the same go program. They have a restaurant at the school. Great. But what you learn in the production kitchen is the flow in of all the product.

And if you're a starting student, you learn that they are not keeping track of the spot. Yeah. It's going to take almost cook here. Yeah.

Yeah. And so you take all your cook. But you know, OK, this is what's happening. And all of a sudden it's flying out everywhere.

Because I had a restaurant experience with my grandparents. I'm like, OK, well, there's no way they're going to open taking these two extra steaks. So they're going to know if they listen to this, this never happened. That was kind of an invaluable thing to see the flow of product.

The flow of product is just happening. It's a flow of wonderful place. And where leakage is. This is great.

I can hear here. I don't think it's expensive school to go to. So anyway, you can find some meals or some extra. So then I don't want to graduate there.

After a while, my parents were having a lot of their restaurants. They were going back to help them. So they're doing 70, 80 hour week work weeks both. And there's no real time for them to do anything else.

You know, it could be nice. There's no apartment above the restaurant. You can live in? You know, it's good.

Free restaurant sounds good. Yeah, that's right. Help you guys out too. Especially with that.

Yes. Absolutely. I'm going to have to live with you when I get free rent. Perfect.

And one of my buddies was able to live there too. It was a two-bedroom spot. So I moved back there. I did that for a bit.

And then there was a fire at the restaurant. I didn't cause it. I didn't know I did any money. We were having a dinner, a family dinner.

And we got a call. And we were racing back in places and flames. And they came out there. And there was a, so it was an old building.

You've been there for a long time. You used to be a gas station back then. They'd say, yeah, I'm so friendly. So they're still there today.

And upstairs they had just the receipts and the, like, you know, this is a key to receipts of power. Many double transactions for how long after that. So they just stored them upstairs. And there was a compressor that kicked on and a spark landed on.

One of the receipts and it was just Tinder. Yeah. So the actual damage wasn't too bad. They got it up at the smoke damage I grew in the place.

The best part, like I said, this place was a community place. So all the firefighters are there. My mom just gave them the food. She's like, here's a pie for you.

Can't sell that. Every guy went home with a different pie. They said, they were like, there's so much one. I don't know what she's like.

I don't know what she's like. They eventually reopened it. But I ended up needing a job. Obviously I was at a job.

And I was, you know, cooking there wasn't a passion project. It was like, okay, I'm going to make some money. Get my debt paid off. And I was paying that exactly.

But I don't, and again, it's not the episode of Hope Museum. Yeah. That's not aware of that. Yeah.

So I was like, well, I have to move somewhere and move to bigger cities. I started cooking somewhere else. But I worked up at that time that our food distributor, which was Summit, which I think is now Colibor, similar to GFS. They needed a wrap.

I thought, okay, I can do that. I'm able to talk to people because while I was working for my parents as well, you know, just cooking you, you do front house. You go where you meet it. You know, I was especially at the family.

It's like, oh, stay around. I knew that the front house definitely made more money than the back. You learned it from back. That's not it.

That's day one. Yeah. So, but they needed a wrap. That's okay.

I've never really done that nine to five. I think it was shot. And it took the job on. I had to kind of tear it away from Ottawa to Kingston.

So I was selling frozen french fries for wherever they were making. Did you find that kind of mind-numbing? Absolutely. It's hard to get passion.

It's actually coming from a culinary background. Right. You went to culinary school and now you're literally selling. I'm not selling with what they do.

They service many pubs and small town restaurants all across the globe. But they do a certain thing. And it's like, basically frozen food to that you can turn around quickly and like deep priors and whatever. So how do you get passionate about being like, well, my fucking frozen french fries might be a penny cheaper thing.

I'll save you 1.8% in the corner here. Well, that's 600. It's all going to be hard because we'll see when people have already got a- Yeah, if they're dealing with GFS, why do they want to change? Exactly.

Because all the pricing is the same. Yeah, it's yeah. I mean, my big picture of them was I was like, listen, I've seen all these game works and I used to work in restaurants and I know that they're coming in and they're telling you they're going to cut this price and this price and this price. They're making it up for their advantage.

They're going to creep it up here. I'll go through it every week with you if you want. And it worked out. It was good.

But it's soulless. You're just doing it. You're putting the numbers and the hours are nice. Yeah.

Yeah. And you make their own like literally you're more than fuck off for the day. Well, that's a beauty of reppig. It's like you do make your own hours.

And that's like there's a part of that that's awesome. But also we all know the way they made the most money is to be working the most hours. Yeah. So I mean, yeah, I could tell I was not fired up about it.

And I thought like, you know, the hours are nice. I like these hours maybe, but I got to find something I could sell passionately. And I got time craft beer was kind of kicking off. It was big in the States already like New York, California, Stonewton, Bering, and popped up.

And you know, American craft. It was just go, he was seen. Yeah. And then like Canada was coming along.

We had the Scocca and FlyMonkeys and GLB. FlyMonkey, definitely one of the first ones that I'm in. Like one of the Scocca for sure. I remember flying monkey beans at the first time.

I was like, yes. But also they were making, they were the first ones that doing those like high percentage IPAs. Yeah. Yeah.

And they were delicious. And you're also like, oh, they should know if I need to be drunk on two beers. So that was right. And Ottawa was right for us.

So Bose from Ottawa. They were everywhere. And people were talking about how it was a great. It's a local beer.

I was like, well, no, no, just you're talking about a Bose. You're a great drummer. I'm like, this is, it's still just a lot. It tastes a lot like good.

It's good. But it's and then I trade drink local beer. You know what it is? It's almost like, well, it's not bad.

Like, you know what I mean? Like, I was like, look, that way. And that's like, you almost have to judge. There's so many fucking beers now.

It's like, you judge it that way. Like, look, this one's not bad because everyone's doing good shit. Yeah. Yeah.

I was like, oh, I'm on these IPAs and ask what I can handle labels. I just said, like, they jump out of the shelf. So I can sell the shit out of Ottawa. Like everybody's here.

It's a hyper local city. They don't want that. I have all these connections. I called them up and as I came in, I got pretty into beer.

I met you one time and I kind of mentioned that I might have to do it. I was like, what do you know about beer? I was like, well, that much. I know that you drink it.

I'll talk about it in three more. I drink my fair share. I ran into one of beer dinner a year later. And I just, I, because he's like, I don't know what we're talking about.

I'll show you. I do everything. Like, I got certified like a system. I went and stuff like that.

I went, I went, I went, I went and I went and I went and I went. He's like, I know you. I'm like, I want a job. You wouldn't give me one?

He's like, fuck you. Let's go. So I got that job and I was doing the Ottawa territory. I was like, that's fine.

And it was great. They were kind of the first ones doing the idea. Mad Tom came out kind of right on the back. Yeah.

But it was like, that was a great thing. Yeah. Yeah. And then everybody was like, okay, it's now.

So this is an aside. We'll get back to it. But like, do you think that that is what kind of killed, like, they're still going. I'm obviously not killed.

But like, it's really cut into the proper version of like a flying monkey when all of a sudden they did something and then fucking a million breweries started doing the exact same thing. I mean, I think so. I know for them they were definitely focused on like other international markets too. Like, the guy who was a very smart guy, he said, you know, he's like, I can sell.

I'm a beer, I can sell Canada. Do you want to know how many I can sell to Canada and try? Right. He said, you want to be put in there?

Yeah. And I'll be here. Yeah. Yeah.

I was like, that's good. I heard it. And then I guess. But yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, get it all to them for sure. I think that definitely is the reason the whole craft beer in general. And they just cannibalize each other because the start of reverses it distilleries. Yes.

You can do it. Yes. You can start going right now. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I didn't steal a beer like that for a while. Just another reason the competition.

Yeah. Yeah. He wasn't at Mollie's soaking in the towel. That's the odd part of it.