E262 Alex Black

In this week's interview, we are joined by Alex Black, director of bars at our house hospitality company. Alex discussed his career journey from bartending in Winnipeg to overseeing multiple venues in Toronto and Hamilton in the surrounding areas. Alex shares his approach to cocktail creation, emphasizing the importance of tailoring drinks to specific venues rather than creating new ones. Alex detailed his role managing multiple bar and restaurant properties, including Prime Seafood Palace, Iron Cow, Maddie's Paddies, and Rizzles House of Park and many others, while battling to sing education initiatives and staff development.

Alex highlighted his passion for teaching and certification, while occasionally taking the time to refresh his own knowledge. We also touched on Alex's working relationship with celebrity chef Maddie Matheson, and the company's focus on maintaining quality across different venue concepts. You can find more information about Alex on his personal website, BlackTending.com, and follow him on Instagram at BlackTending or check the show notes as always for all the links. We had a wonderful time talking with Alex, and you'll enjoy the interview too.

And we're back with another episode of the industry podcast. My name is Kip, and this is Dan. Hey man, that's me. How's it going?

Good. How are you doing? That's still awesome. Still awesome.

It's a 262 episode, Dan. 262 episodes of awesome. Shut up, totally. Congratulations.

Thank you. Thank you very much. I do have some snowboarding, so that made me pretty happy. Season is complete now.

I can pretty much call it a year. There you go. Let's go to bed for the long sleep. Very well, Mike.

Yeah. Well, if you do decide to leave your bed after the snowboarding adventure, come check out my bar here in Kitchener. It's Sugar Run, downtown Kitchener, at Sugar Run Bar on Instagram to figure out everything that's going on down there. We have live music.

We have karaoke. We have burlesque. So there's always something going on. DJs check it out at Sugar Run Bar, Kitchener on Thario.

And if you are looking for wine or spirits, you can hit me up directly Kip Saunders at gmail.com for spirits from allure distilling company and wine from Malibuar, Winery in beautiful Beamsville, Ontario. That's KYPPSAUNDERS at gmail.com. If you like what we're doing here on the show, the best way to help us out is to subscribe, follow, rate, review, tell a friend. All of those things help us out tremendously.

Sure do. Especially tell a friend that helps out a lot. It's the easiest thing to do. It takes you about a minute.

Just to share a link and just tell him a listen. I need to think of one of those in the whole episode. That's fine too. Yeah.

And if you'd like to provide support for the show, you can email us in both the industrypodcast.club. That's .club or you can DM us on Instagram at the industry podcast. That's where you'll find the amazing artwork from the great Zacana at Zacana.co for all of your graphic arts needs. And that's those who place you in the region for well as well if you're just gonna be a guest on the show.

So once again, that's info at the industrypodcast.club and at the industry podcast on Instagram. And if you are a bartender who's just having a brain fart behind a bar, can't remember how to make that cocktail that you haven't had to make in three years. What would you do then? Well, I think I'd probably bring up one of my favorite apps.

That would be the Inbibli app, because today's episode is in partnership with Inbibli other visual cocktail app built by bartenders for bartenders. Every classic recipe in Inbibli is cross-referenced, the gained 75 plus cocktail books with detailed notes on variations and origins. But unlike dusty bar manuals, you can search by flavor, share recipes via QR codes that work without app downloads and scale proportions instantly. It's the knowledge of a cocktail historian in the phone you already carry.

Here are all the details on episode 216 of the industry podcast. See why it was featured by Bon Appetit and hit number one on the app store when it launched. The free download gets you 500 plus recipes and all core features with subscription options for individuals and businesses to unlock advanced tools and connect entire teams. Check www.inbibli.com or as always check the show notes for all the links.

Inbibli app. We love it. Check it out anytime. Okay, so that's about all we need to talk about before we get to today's guest joining us.

Well, I guess you're at Hamilton right now, but basically in Toronto, mostly it's Alex Black. How are you? Fantastic team. How are you guys?

Well, thanks for taking the time out to join us on this wintery Monday night. My pleasure. So yeah, we were just sort of briefly discussing before you. We started recording that you were kind of working on with a new project there in Hamilton with a wedding.

Well, I'll let you describe it, you know better than I do. Yeah, right now I'm sitting in the private dining room for Iron Cow, which is our new property that we just opened up at Hamilton. The company workforce all our hospitality. So we've got a few spots taken around, Ontario, Cafe Ran, Maddy's Patty's, Prime City Palace, all in Toronto.

We've got this big boy that we just opened up here in the down of Crystal Beach in the Fort Erie and Ridgeway neighborhood of the Dauphursa House of Park. So this is the new baby of the group, 200 seats, a lot of the craft beer, TVs where you want to go, re-event, sports games, good classic pub feel in it, but it's got that new bar smell, which is always really nice right now. Yeah, it's important obviously that listeners at home here, you can't see the private room, but I love the dark wood paneling. Looks great.

Yeah, I'm sure the wood in this room alone is caught more than I'm going to probably ever make it my lifetime. There's a 200 year old vintage door that we'd sourced for this room. Oh, wow. Nice.

We're about to actually have a kid also. We're about to sit at Hamilton. It's a tap right to the old cops policy on Balboa, the TD cops. I saw Earth went in fire there back in November to summer for like opening event.

I was at the same show. Oh, nice. That was a lot of fun. I can't believe that 15 people have found each other and are content enough to be co-workers for five decades.

Yeah. That's the most surprising part of that band. Well, it helps a bunch of them start dying off. Describe this a little bit.

Obviously, we're going to get into a little bit of the history of your career, but just for some of our listeners who have never done something like this, what's it like overseeing a number of bars and restaurants and a giant conglomerate as opposed to just working in a single bar restaurant? It's got its own frustrations. It's got its benefits too. Just on a human level.

It's really fun to put on a new hat multiple times a day or multiple times a week where it's like, OK, this is my get to beat pub creative guy today when we're talking about things for Hamilton. Then I get to be really family-friendly, focused, Italian, and Aberdeen. When we're talking about Rizzos. And then off on guard, Martini style, when we're talking about perhaps a few pals and then what's some fun package product that's kicking around Toronto, we can bring it to Maddy's patties.

So that angle is really, really great. That's something I really like. I think that it's a real testament to the creative process to be able to execute on all those different lines. I can have an idea and then I can step back and be like, what venue does that idea work the best?

Whether I've had when I've been operating single units, you have an idea and you're like, that's enough for us. Then you're like, well, maybe I do a separate brand into doing some pop-up in a few months and I can use that one idea for it. But it's great for that. It's also really interesting just to have that foresight of costly asking yourself if what you were doing makes sense for the brand of that one space and separating those brands and make sure that as a company, we have a holistic brand approach, but each individual venue also isn't cannibalizing the other venue, isn't crossing over too much.

You're still a standard quality that can be expected. But the things we say and the way we do things can be dialed down in a regular way so it is unique to that specific venue rather than copying and pasting from the successes we've had at another venue. That's something that when I was operating two units side by side in Vancouver, I noticed a lot when I came in, chested out and opened my second bar in Vancouver. I was like, yeah, the first one did so well, copy-taste.

Then two weeks in you're like, that was a terrible idea. This is really, really bad. It's great. It's really fun.

For me, I like controlling everything. That's just the way I'm interning. It's a really great exercise for me to just trust people and have people in our role. We're very, very good and I've even done clear guidance and can let them be autonomous and just guide them on their journey and me stepping back.

It's been interesting and not right. It's got its own unique sense of challenges, no more, no less than a single venue, but it's fun to play with. Do you find yourself on the road a lot traveling between all the different venues? Are you stationary one place or a week and then move to another spot?

How does your day to day work? I think this industry one day, I'm helping Kerry freeze her down through flights of stairs and moving a copy of her around even though it's not on the job descriptions. It's all over the place. It's still, we're a well-known brand group, but we're still a small company.

So you lend hands wherever we can. There's been times in the basketball ones where I've been in the kitchen of one of our units, shocking oysters and just helping out. So my week, usually three days a week is in Toronto. I like to get myself a work from home day just on one day and then in venue, making sure that I'm getting all my meetings in once a week at least in Hamilton because the GO train is really convenient from Toronto to Hamilton.

So I can use the train as an office on my way up here, which is fantastic. It could be more fantastic for Grand later and more frequently. And then down in the Niagara and the Ridgeway region, I'm usually there once a week to check in. The operation down there is pretty next level with what they're able to do in the local organization.

So usually when I'm down there, it's more fun for me than necessity of the business. I just get to hang out with them and see the operation, but all over the place really. Yeah. So basically doing what we all do, but just doing it at several different locations.

So yeah, so if getting back to what you're talking about, the cocktail creation for all these different spots as well, I'm sort of interested in that. So that's kind of how your brain works. You come up with an idea of the cocktail and you're like, oh, which one of these spots can I put it in? Or do you find more that, or do you work both ways where sometimes you're just thinking specifically for a venue and you're like, oh, what's a good cocktail idea for this venue?

Or is it like this is sort of the nice thing to have where you can just like come up with an idea and then you probably have a venue that fits it? Yeah, it's a little bit more of a ladder. It's a little bit more of like you look at the venue and work backwards. That's just how my brain works.

I know this is going to be a contentious point, but I see no reason to create any new cocktail. I think that we're good. We're good. Thank you.

That ice doesn't need to grow. Oh my god. It's almost like you've been listening to the show. I like Sam Ross.

I've gotten to work beside him. We didn't even really need the paper plane to the penicillin, but we're going to be okay with it. It's nice that it's around. So for me, it's more like looking at the venue and then looking back at eras or styles or whatever that suits what we're trying to do with the program at any given time.

So it's more of that, rather than having a brainstorm, I'm still up with that. I'll try something. I'll be like, oh, this product would work really well here and that does happen. But mostly I start with the venue and then I sit there and I bring in ideas and you're flipping through old.

I mean, you were talking about the digital database. The amount of times that me and my friends are messaging each other, being like, hey, you remember when you worked at this place 10 years ago, what was your buy show? You're like your recipe because I was like a 10 out of 10. And you're like, I can't remember where I made the beijoo a decade ago, but I was great.

I wish I worked down. So it's a lot of that for me. It's more start with the venue first and see what's in my mind and within arm switch to fit into that program. Nice.

Okay, so let's back up a little bit. You were born and raised in Winnipeg, correct? I am a great, correct. Yeah.

So what did you start your career in the service with industry in Winnipeg or was that after you left? I started in Winnipeg. My first shift was my first bartending shift was when I was 16 years old. I worked at a festival that was, I didn't know at the time, it was heavily attended by gang members, a certain ethnic equation.

And it was my first job and I had been there for a year and people that had been there before knew what to expect. So there was a lot of call-ins and I went from an usher to a coffee attendant to a bar back to a bartender all in one day. I think I got like six promotions. Someone else didn't show up, so you're there.

I'm sure enough. I'm just like, this is easy. John's great. And sure enough there was heavy gang activity there and a lot of sketchy things happen.

And the first time I ever closed down a bar, I was 16 years old and I did it behind a line of when the police department blocked the arm and arm as one of the cops looked at me and he just said grab everything and leave. Wow, crazy. This is the job I want for the rest of my life. Getting home and being like, mom and dad, this happened and I made 200 bucks.

Yeah, that's the thing, right? That's the thing that's always the money that gets you at the end. But there is like, we talked a lot on the show as well, but like, there takes a certain type of person who wants to do this job for a living and you usually do catch it young. And maybe you don't even, like for me, for instance, I didn't even really realize that that's what I want.

Like, it was a lifestyle choice for me because I like to travel and I like the hours, like I'm a night hawk. So it made sense while I was doing it. And then just one day I woke up and I'm like, holy shit, I've been doing this for like 15 years. And I guess this is what I do.

Now, were you more on that vein or you like hook right away and you're like, this is what I want to do? I mean, like a little bit of both. I was in high school when I started bartending and then it kind of became the easiest job to have when you're going to university. But I came up in the late 90s, early 2000s.

So you got invited to all the parties and you're a young kid and you're just surrounded by the most attractive people in the world constantly. And you have access to all of these things that someone from my social economic background would never have. And just that personality style that I think a lot of us have, especially then when it was it was an extremely service oriented and not a creative outlet piece at all. A lot of those personality traits, this is kind of the only job that would let us be who we were.

You know, Grancy, who is out at the pack room in Vancouver, one of Canada's best marketers, he's got a great bar and he just sorry bar like a line like I'm saying, he says, he just says that all of the things that he got shovel for in school for his attitude and to zoopokan is in joke making where all the things he's been rewarded for in hospitality. And I think that, you know, I was one of those people who said that thing were just like all of a sudden you're in a place where like, oh, I'm allowed to go off. Yeah, I'm allowed to do this. I'm allowed to be loud and wait for it.

And in fact, it makes me more money. Yeah, like to actually, I'll be allowed to like, sort of display your own personality and actually be rewarded for it. Like you said, it's funny because I never thought about that way before, but that's that's neat to it. He like, this is the only job that my personality would have worked for.

Then all of a sudden you're in your early 20s, you're going to take an out to play call for the Picard on Wednesday and read the one Thursday and you're like, well, I'm winning in life. Why would I do anything else? Right. Exactly.

Right. Yeah. It's and it takes depending on what area you grew up in, it sometimes takes a while to figure out that you're winning in life because the job did have like a negative stigma of not being a real job going on quote for a long period of time, right? It wasn't a real career.

And then that's way too much. That's the honest. It kind of entirely isn't right. We're still goofing around.

Yeah. I've worked in offices. I was a forklift operator. I couldn't get away with the stuff I do.

No, no. I'm not a boss. That's true. That's true.

So did you, when you moved out to Vancouver, was that for school originally? Nope. I followed a red head out. Yeah.

There you go. I'll save you a spoiler to you. I followed a red head to Toronto. So my, I know, I know my mom is just praying that I find a red head and I bring it back and it brings me back.

I don't think it's going to happen. But you know, I did that thing. Like, as you said, you know, hospitality is not a real job really cranking down, especially when I beg at the time, you know, and I like, I go back off into Winnipeg and their food and drinks in is still killer right now. Yeah, we had someone else on it was saying that and we were surprised.

I can't remember who it was now, but like, yeah, because it's not what it's not to say that anyone thinks about when you're thinking about like an awesome food and drinks scene, right? Like, no, not at all. But it caught late, but it caught quick. So, you know, like, Su-Soul, Shirley's, you know, in Osborn Village was both their possible weeks, 10 of the temporary social experiences.

But so moved to Vancouver, the intent was, you know, I was going to get a real job and sit down and be an adult. And if I was to stay in hospitality, it would just be for a few months until I achieved that goal and, you know, got on with my life. But I moved to Vancouver, Trevor Kalies was the first person hired me. And that was probably the most fortunate thing that's ever happened in my career in my life.

I think that today is probably the most important part, I know, for Park Health from Canada. And that just I remember starting night one in the grand room and looking at the back bar and never knowing that that many different American whiskey existed. And I remember looking at the bitters tray, being like, I didn't know there was more than one of these things. And I just started asking questions and going from there and learning everything I could and being the best I could and just kind of went from there.

So that was your first real in-depth experience into craft talk, build culture, and sort of like what shape your career going forward. What specific lessons do you think you learned there that you have taken with you? I mean, J.R. was a beast.

I still haven't seen anything even really worldwide competes with what Grand Room was doing at that time. It was right in the heart of Grandma Street and Vancouver. And listeners don't know what that is. You're right across street from the Roxy, which has been open for 30 years.

And it's a live band style space that serves people from 17 to 70 and has probably been the ruin of a lot of NHL contracts. You're beside a lot of different nightclubs and high-volume places. It was the heart of Vancouver's entertainment districts. So you would get ladies and for girls nights doing lemon drop shots, and then you'd get bros that wouldn't get into the club next door coming in to vodka Red Bulls.

And then you would have craft cocktail aficionados down at the end of the bar, sitting on sasraaxing, you'd have industry people coming in and crushing James and shots. And Guinness, and it was just this crazy thing where your orders are like, I'm making six rank dragons and then I have two porn star martinis, and then I've got a red hook and then I've got a penicillin and then I've got a Guinness and then I'm going back to Gagraboms. So it's the place where there was a verbal altercation at least once a night. So you need to be a little bit chestel presentable.

But also I think that a lot of people who are really still good friends from the industry in Vancouver, I met with them sitting on the other side of that bar and I was really grateful for taking me to the chest. I handed over 230 resumes when I first went to Vancouver. I got one phone call and one interview and that was at the ground. That's one of those stories.

The one that you actually get selected for is the perfect spot for you to be. And the way you describe what you're doing on a nightly basis, I don't know if there could be a more perfect or fertile training ground for a bartender. That was absolutely insane. I remember being asked where my words blossom water was night one.

And maybe like I don't know what that is. And the response was, well, how did you make your English to visit? Is it my response? Well, good news.

I also don't know what that is. So no problem there. That's funny. You could use the ambibile app for that.

Right. Oh, now you wait a circle back. So at some point you also start now you're probably okay. This is what I'm doing for a living.

You're starting to take a little bit more as a career situation and you start getting into the education side of as well. So you start doing W-Sect courses, etc. Was that around the same time or? That was a little bit later.

So from Grandma Room, I danced around a little bit. You know, Grandma Room, if anybody is in Vancouver in the industry, you know how often they've done complete wide sweeping changes. Now it's kind of a bubble service bar. But so, you know, they came in, did a full sweep of the staff, ran with the room.

I moved around a little bit, but I ended up existing. I ended up getting hired at Hogwarts. I got hired at an awkward the day. They were named Canada's Best Restaurants and that was intimidating to be a part of that pre shift.

They had just won the Seal of Sazer X. They're still the only Canadian bar that's ever accepted in the world. It tells us the cocktail. And you know, the team at Oxford was, you know, it was Cooper-Tardable.

It was great, I was sitting there. It was John Polinsky. It was me. And you know, that was the team for almost four years with no turnover.

But the powerhouse that those bartenders were, I needed to be the best I could be. And the most quantifiable way I could do that was just learn. And I remember the question that sparked everything was me just having a slow day and asking like, well, why are all bottles 750? And I know they're not all 750 right now.

That was just a PQ. I was like, who would read upon this? Right. And then I just like went digging and found like the European standard and the conversion to and you know, just like, oh, this is like, this is really interesting stuff.

And you know, also I had just read Mondo cocktail by a month that I just needed to slondo, who, you know, now is like waiting for such a delightful individual. But I just started getting really interested in how cocktails and how spirits and alcohol and the history of the world really combines. And one lead, one question led to another and one certification led to another. And now I'm in this weird world where people ask me to pilot their certification.

So I'm not even going out getting them. They're kind of falling in my lap. But yeah, it was just this thing where I, you know, I was a pretty quick bartender, but I wasn't the quickest. I was personable, but I wasn't the most personable.

You know, I'm, you know, not the most attractive, but I was like, I can, you know, there's a hard skill here that I can develop and it's I can be the most knowledgeable. Well, and you maybe are now, if I'm reading through your credentials of all the certification you actually have received, it's like, the list is almost exhausting. It's like, I felt like I got certified by the end of reading it. But yeah, so like you obviously just kept going.

So there's part of you like the maybe brain a little bit like mine where it's like, if you get super interested in something, you just kind of know everything about it. Yeah, 100%. And you know, I just like asking, like, weird interesting questions. You know, I think that I've been to many distillery tours and some of them have been with people repetitively.

And I know that like I've gotten a feedback or just like, every time Alex had a tour, he asked a question that the instructors like, you know what, no one's ever asked about. Yeah, yeah. And that's the stuff that just like, I want to know like, if I'm on a tour, like I, I want to see the stills and stuff like that, like show me the room where you're like, probably getting your E string. I want to see, I want to see the cool nuanced nitty-gritty stuff and I want you to tell me why it's important.

So one of the things I found like when I was taking some of those courses is that the, like you get immersed in it while you're studying it, but like anything else over time, like including like maybe a university or whatever else, like unless you're constantly following up and keeping in practice, you start to lose some of the knowledge with all of the different certifications that you've studied for and received. How do you manage to keep it all, like keep it all fresh? Oh, 100%. There's a lot of reviewing before I discuss or before I do a seminar because yeah, that's what I have to do.

You know, like I ran, you know, I ran a Biden bar in Vancouver for years and people would follow me up and ask the questions and I was like, okay, like we can talk about film and just fun guy and parallel fermentation. Like let's go. And then this year in a budget company was like, oh, can you do a budget seminar for as inter- I was like, I don't know any of this, like I'm going to go back and like crack up in a book and like refresh. So I think as a presenter as an educator, one thing that I think I'm particularly good at is building out, like, the structure of it's, and like the slides and everything like that, in a way that reminds me where I need to be, you know, or else if someone was just like, go up there and talk, you know, I could start talking about, you know, Caribbean rum and, you know, vendor and markets and then ten minutes later, we're, you know, we're suddenly talking about the sugar economies in France and Britain, and we're never getting back to sugar, but I'm just like, I tend to spiral a lot.

Well, I think I just did there. Well, I think probably a lot of that though comes from the fact that you've studied all of these different things. So, and they're all kind of, although they're all different, they're intertwined in the way that they're all sort of about the same common subject. So it'll be very, to me, like, in your position, like, it'll be very easy to get off on a rant if you don't make a formal structure.

Yeah, 100%. I think a piece of rant feedback that I get relatively often is that was really good, but you didn't need to go back in depth. Right. And so they don't really like the casual drinker on a tequila.

I didn't want to know how fruit dins are converted to sugars and all roasting goods. Yeah, it's hard though, right? Like, because I've taught a few of these courses as well. And like, for me, it's like, you don't know, like, it could be like a workout in, like, that somebody booked, like, oh, we'll go to this bar and do it to kilotasting or wine tasting or whatever, and we'll get a little instruction on it.

And like, so maybe there's like 20 people in this party. Some of them have absolutely zero knowledge and want like, just the very basics. And then you might have the one or two people there who actually do know a little bit and want like something a little bit more in depth and harassing more in depth questions. So it's kind of like, how, what is your approach to like dealing with a group of just like completely varied knowledge?

I think it depends on the end goal. So like, if I'm, if I'm teaching WCT, you need to know everything because you're getting tested on it. My job is, is, is my job as a WCT instructor is kind of less to educate you and more to prepare you for that test. Yeah.

So we've got to go through it in like a perfect scenario. Like if I'm, if I'm doing the general public, I just, I want a group that's able to have a dialogue because if they just tell me what they want and what they're expecting and what they're not interested in, then I can just gear it to that. Like, you know, if I'm doing a seminar on just like, you know, broad spirits in general and everyone in the group is like, I'm not interested in Jim. Great.

And we got 10 extra minutes. We can talk about something other than Jim. So, you know, you know, it depends on, on the endgame. But I think, but if it's not education based, based on certification based, then my job and instructor, you know, instructor is not the right word for it.

But to kind of guide somebody's experiences to just get them to give you feedback and telling me. Like what do you want? Yeah, like it's almost like to entertain, right? So it's like, you know, in a way, and like that's what I do as well.

It's like, I'll just like games the group at the beginning like, okay, what is, what are we, what are we looking for? Other experience and then, and then I'll be, and then I'll be like, okay, so I can get, I can start the very basics or I, and if I'm telling you, I think you already know, then just tell me shut the fuck up and move on. Like, yeah, it's got to be like, you know, I think a lot of times I'm surprised on both sides. I remember doing a seminar on carbonated cocktails, like cocktails with carbonation, not like forced carbonation yet.

I was a rootvul, you know, like 40 people were there who loved to eat and drink enough that they were spending money on a ticket and it was myself, Jake and Sweet Apple were paired up with Craig Fentiment of the Fentiment's Brand. And then I'm going to forget the gentleman's name who invented like the Perlek carbonation system. And, you know, we did this, we put together this big presentation on the history and the science and what that we asked everybody in the room was like, what's everyone's favorite sparkling cocktail. And of course, everyone just sat down.

So no one wants to answer. So we're just like, we start going through the motions of like, well, who likes a G&T? I want people to put up their hands and we were like, well, who likes friends 75? And we do people put up their hands.

No, that's interesting. Like I figured that be. So how many people have not had a friend 75 and the rest of the room put their hands 30 people. So we're like, oh, we went way too deep on what we need to talk about here.

We can like reel this way back and teach you guys just about how to like mix a nice, bubbly drink it home. Well, yeah, so yeah, I'm always surprised, you know, at the level of knowledge and I think it goes to show to that there's some people out there who possess what we would call such a very little knowledge, but we're still hungry and thirsty to use a more better plan for it. You know, that sometimes feel that we are kind of reach a bad and we can really dial back our information and make it approachable for them and teach them how to drink better and drink more better. So you mentioned that you had followed another red head back to Toronto.

So at some point you moved back to Toronto and obviously at this point, you're fairly well known in your field. You have all the accreditation. You have your being asked to instruct all the time. And now you get a job.

Do you get your current job? Did you have a job before this in Toronto? I helped out that a few things. Yeah.

But there was like an upper position of all the time position was interviewing and winning from the right thing to fall in my lap. Yeah, and sounds like it did. This is obviously an awesome opportunity must be thrilled. So like that.

But now you're in this role where you're overseeing all these different properties. Do you still are you still immersed in the instruction? Like you have time for that? I do every now and then.

It's something that I'm putting a little bit more effort into now. I think now that I've got like my footing as a human being in Toronto a little bit more. You know, I want to start being part of the community a little bit more getting back for the industry and also, you know, helping the people who are in the public feel like facing around people to get more knowledge. So it's something that I'm definitely get a little bit more.

I've got a couple of opportunities to do. Stay tuned and probably working with some of the projects. I'm doing some consumer facing things coming up. But it's where my passion is.

Just seeing getting room full of people that want to know more and more and hosting them and empowering them with some knowledge and at the end of the day, confidence is a really big thing for the general public. They want to know that they want to know that they have the information so they when they walk into a bar, they can confidently ask for what they want. It's really big. So yes, it's not as much as I would like right now, but New Year New Me more becoming a down the pipeline in 2026.

Amazing. So you gave us a little bit of a snapshot of kind of how your week works and like and obviously you're still doing sort of the like you said, like you said, like next, you may be fixing the dishwasher one day or whatever, like whatever the place needs. That's what you're there to help out with and do like how what is your titled role for this company and like what what are their expectations for you on the day-to-day basis? Like I know obviously you fill in whatever you need, but like I just mean like more like when you took on the position.

How did they describe it? So my position is director of bars. You know, the position was a very initially very geared towards an opening that we did a couple of years ago or last year. And my role has changed not entitled by JavaScript.

The short answer is I don't think anybody including myself knows what I'm supposed to do. Well, that's kind of what I was wondering because it sounds like I'm just moving around to these different spots and like just doing what needs to be done. But that's not really like a job description, right? There's a lot of like my accountability points are heavily based in partner relations with different brands and companies.

Very, very big on making sure that each venue is hitting certain targets on the liquor to food ratio, depending on the venue. Very, very, very big emphasis on making sure across the goods sold in the liquor realm is as healthy as it could be. And then also I have for our full service teams, I have bar managers at each location. So I'm responsible for kind of overseeing them, guiding them, making sure they have all my support in their career development and their help with the teams that they have underneath them as much as possible.

And then staff and team education falls into my lap and then just kind of general like motivation and interpersonal stuff, treating humans like humans and making sure they feel valued if they're on the bar team size things. So when you're touring around these different venues that are part of the corporation, like, and you're talking about staff training and education. So give me a glimpse of that. Like, so let's focus on the spot you're at right now in Hamilton.

Like if you come in, it's like a pub style concept. So you're educating probably more on like beer, I'm guessing then. And then if you go to like some of the more the higher end restaurants, maybe more on wine, whatever, like, is that kind of how it works? Yeah, definitely.

Like, you know, it's not a broad sweeping initiative. So the teams are always more than welcome to come to the other educational pieces at other venues, but distance can be a factor of that. So with what we do, Iron Cow right now, it is just new. So we're just tearing it up.

But because we are involved with so many local producers, a lot of the educational is going to be kind of future based. So going to some of the amazing breweries and distilleries and wineries and side-res in the area so that I can see kind of like hands on what's going on. And then power them that way, you know, down in Rizzo's, it's a lot of like our skill. It's a lot of like how can we improve our functionality, find the bar, how can we cut down, get ticket times, how can we improve on that?

You know, like also with, you know, some products that they get, you know, they get an annual like really fun, intense just before the growing week, like a one and a half hour in a growing seminar on the history of the growing. So that goes really well. You know, and then Brian is a lot more high level, you know, things would be more in line with like WCT, like spirits, like two, maybe 2.5 of like diving into our own V and brand T's or like diving into our single most scotches or stuff like that. But yes, it's always different for different venues and, you know, it's about beforehand.

It's about setting what my anticipated goal is for us and then executing it and then checking in, you know, after a few weeks or maybe a period or two and seeing if that goal target was met and then shifting the educational component to maybe better meet that. If it wasn't that. And how do you find, so this is a struggle that I have now and it's probably just, it may just be because I'm like an old man who's yelling at people to get off his lawn now, but like, there's also part of it that like I do think generationally it's shifted a little bit with people coming in the industry. There seem to be less people who are taking it seriously as a career and more people who are just taking it as a job to do whatever they want to do next.

So when you're going to, and I don't know, maybe feel free to speak that like if you have had a different experience. But like when you're going to do some of these training and education sessions at these different locations, how are you finding the reception from the staff? Like, is it hard to keep their attention? Do you find that it's sinking in?

Like, give us sort of an idea of that. Yeah, I mean, I think if you would just, if you'd asked me 10 plus years ago, I would have a much different outlook on this. I came up with the confluence of two British military families in a blue-collar city in Winnipeg. So the only thing I knew was like negative reinforcement my entire life and just like do this or else.

But we had to develop and change that leadership style because it wasn't healthy for anybody. And I think you're right. I think that there's much different reasons that people get into the industry now than they did 15, 20 years ago. I think there's some bad stats.

I think for me, one of the biggest things is I'm not in charge of hiring the entirety of the bar team, but definitely the leaders. And I encourage them to do the same as the first question I ask anybody in an interview is what makes you feel valued as an employee. And from that moment on, I want to make sure that I remember that and I come back to it so I know what your motivational piece is. And if somebody just says money, great.

If I know your motivational piece is then I can use it to help you get that. If someone says they want education, I can use that. If someone wants a better career path, I can say that. But I think that that's the biggest thing is understanding that with your team and being able to explain why this educational component will help achieve what they want to achieve in their hospitality career.

Or careers with just this job. You know, it's not used the word career of location, but in this time and place with who you are understanding why people want to work there and what they need from that job. And just explaining to them in terms that they understand and that motivates them to show up and listen and help execute. But that's great too, because even if it's a perfect way to do it, and that's a great lesson for anyone listening as well.

If you come with that question and now you know their motivation, not only can you help them achieve that goal in this job, but you're also kind of teaching them how to achieve that goal in a different career if they move forward in a different way. That's awesome. I think that that question, I think that our life burden from people that that question alone hasn't made them want to work for me. I know that if I kind of stop and I just think it's really important that we find out about that with our staff and that when people are asked to date, they answer honestly.

You know, like this is a relationship, you know, the manager employee relationship is a relationship like any other and it's just got to be based around honesty and trust. And like I said, if you just say that you're here because you need money or that you just need two days a week to patch your income because things are tight at home for next time on them. Then I understand why you're here and we understand a little bit more about what you want and I can help you get that. Right.

Yeah. And like these are the things I need to teach you to achieve that goal of making money at this location specifically, right? Like you can really target it that way. Yeah.

It's very smart. Yeah. You're no dummy. I'll explain.

In this one specific instance, I would say no. I'm going to ask one pretty basic question. Obviously with the organization involved with some of the listeners might have caught the some of the names. It's Matti Mathison is the celebrity behind this whole adventure here.

And when we see Matti on TV doing his cooking shows, it's like he's cranked it up to 11 out of 10. You see normal interviews with him when he's interviewed by other people and he's like a normal human being. I guess the version you probably see is more than normal human. What's he like when you get to be the person?

My version is somewhere in between. Yeah. You know, Matti's great. I love working for him and with him.

You know, he's just an endearing human being. We see eye to eye on things in hospitality, which is really great, which is something that's, you know, I didn't really know Matti from Adam when I got the position. So, you know, I don't really know him as just a brand. I've got to know him as human being as I've known the brand.

But, you know, he's so driven. He's ahead of trends in a really weird way. He's going to be the first person to tell me he hates trends. But, you know, he's sent things when we've been talking about stuff.

And I'm like, I don't know about that. Sure. Like, we'll do it. He's like, I like this.

I like, look at this. And then like six months later, I'll see something like a punch be like, this is the new thing. I'm like, how did he know that? Like, six months ahead of time.

He's like, I don't want to use this in like a randy sense that he's like some sort of like culinary messiah. But he's like a visionary in the true sense of the world where like he just gets this idea and he hyper focuses on it. And one of the things I love about him is when he's got this idea, I can ask him like what music are you listening to when like you're enjoying this dish at this place. And he's like, listen to this.

I'm like, what are the lights level? Like this? Like, you can just extrapolate everything. Like he's just got a very full picture of what he wants, which is great.

It makes it easy to execute with him. Yeah. He's great hearing. You know, anytime he's in the space and he's talking about hospitality and cooking, it's inspirational.

And when him and Colson get together, then you've just got, you know, two phenomenal culinary minds in the room. Bad ideas off of one another. It's just something really special to be part of. Cool.

Yeah, that's crazy. It was amazing to be able to experience it, especially considering the fact that you hadn't really no idea what's when you started working for it. Under the odds. Like, yeah, you really kind of fell into this awesome job.

I mean, obviously you're more than qualified for it. That's the real reason you got it. But like crazy that you moved to Toronto and I feel like this is the job that you get, which frankly, it seems like you're uniquely suited for. Yeah, it's pretty, it's wild idea.

Like, I couldn't be more happy about where I landed. It's really funny. You know, when I got the job, I was messaging people from, you know, a big group in all over the world because people, you know, I'm pretty fortunate to have an international friend base. And I was like, I got a job.

I was like, you know, this guy, Nanny Mathson, people were like, yeah, of course. And I was like, how does everybody know this guy? And like, I just didn't. But yeah, it's been great.

It's been really special. And, you know, you know, Matt is one thing, but also seeing Chef Colson, you know, in talk to us last year and see his journey and how passionate he's about food and his culinary mind is second and then. So it's been really a wild journey. Well, it's pretty cool.

And like I said, obviously you're the guy for this job because you're obviously, so friendly town and educated. So like, they got the right guy as well. Alex, is there anything you want to tell us about what's coming up with the group or if there's nothing specifically, maybe you just want to promote some social media stuff? Yeah, no, not.

Not so common. If you guys are in Hamilton, come check out the Iron Cow if you're in Toronto, you know, got a bigger Matty's Thaddies or if you want to have a sit down for an auto experience, come to privacy for thousands of us take care of you. And if you are in Fort Erie, go to Rizzos. If you are anywhere within a four hour drive to Fort Erie, go to Rizzos.

It's a very special place. It's, you know, Red Sauce American Italian, but there's something really special about that restaurant down at Crystal Beach that I really think everyone should should experience. But, you know, sorry for that. Nothing coming down the pipeline is now working on a couple of things.

In Vancouver for pop up in activations in April for North America's 50 best. So I'll be kicking around the streets of air, which, you know, I love my car is in Vancouver. And I'm at Black Tending on Instagram. So my last name is Black and it's like the word bartending.

So I'm so very clever. Oh, anyone else that they can get me on there? Well, that's awesome. I was, thanks so much for giving us the time.

You're obviously a pretty busy dude. So we appreciate you taking some time at the talk to us and to our listeners on the show. So thanks for everything and best of luck going forward. And we'll be following this, see what comes next.

Thank you very much, guys. It was a great time. Thanks a ton.