Episode #156: Feeney Talks with Rino Ouellet

#BeAGoodFriend and check out episode #156 of #FeeneyTalksWithFriends featuring Rino Ouellet.

It was great to talk and eat Dirt Wings with my #friend, Rino! 

Rino is the Beverage Program Director and FOH Hiring Manager. 

We talked about:
The holiday season (minute 1)
Sagamore Rye Whiskey from Matt Whitney (minute 3)
34 years at J. TImothy’s  (minute  4.30)
The J.Timothy’s 35th Annual Golf Tournament on May 18, 2026 (minute 7.30)
Travel back in time to 1989 (minute 9.30)
Helping Plainville Food Pantry and The John Huey Scholarship (minute 11)
“Controlled Chaos" (minute 13)
Confirm or Deny: J. Tim’s sold 12 tons of wings during last year’s Super Bowl (minute 15)
Barry aka “Dirt” was the pitcher on the J. Timothy’s Softball Team  (minute 17)
Close-up view of The Dirt Wings (minute 20)
Jim Welch and Tim Adams created J. Timothy’s (minute 22)
Being on the Food Network in 2016 (minute 24)
BOH vs. FOH (minute 26)
3 Keys to the Beverage Program Director and FOH HIring Manager (minute 29)
Wing Tasting Time!! (minute 34)
The Bear, Waiting & Burnt (minute 36)
Rino’s Go-To Meal (minute 37)
In 2025, 430 tons of wings were sold and 80% were Dirt Wings (minute 39)
Only 5 Flavors offered  (minute 41)
50th Year Anniversary is coming up  (minute 43)
Does Dan Hurley really get free wings for life? (minute 44)
Alex Karaban and teammates showed up for a fundraiser at J. Tims (minute 48)
Congrats to Teddy from Martin Rosols for going from 2 children to 3  (minute 50)
Events: First, Last, Best, Worst (minute 52)
Volunteering at Plainville HS for 3 days during a snowstorm (minute 57)
Selfie pic of The Sunday Night Crew (minute 1.00)
@RinoEatsAndDrinks on Instagram (minute 1.01)
Rino’s favorite pizza (minute 1.03)
Rapid Fire Questions (minute 1.04)
Beers from New Park Brewing (minute 1.05)


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Creators and Guests

Host

Eric Feeney

After teaching for nearly a decade at his alma mater in Waterbury, in 2014, Eric Feeney began teaching at Wolcott Elementary in West Hartford. Shortly following, Sam Sohn, the father of one of his students, passed away suddenly from a heart attack. He left behind four beautiful children and a loving wife, Nancy Wallace-Sohn. Eric saw first-hand the toll this took on the family as they navigated their way through this unthinkable tragedy. The following year, Rashad Collier Sr., another father of a student in Eric’s class, passed away in Hartford as a result of gun violence. Rashad left behind two fantastic children and a loving wife, Denise Villegas. The impact of these tragedies weighed on Eric and motivated him to build an organization that could provide assistance for similar situations. With that, Friends of Feeney was born. In 2019, Friends of Feeney Inc. became an official 501©(3) nonprofit organization, allowing more funds to be raised and expanding the range of services provided to children and families in need. Today, over a decade since Eric’s idea to build a community organization dedicated to supporting our friends in need, Friends of Feeney has burgeoned into a reputable and recognized organization capable of providing financial and resource support to numerous families and individuals across greater Hartford and beyond. Through this work, an incredible community of children and families has been recognized, who care for and appreciate each other’s kindness.

Producer

David Chmielewski

David started his video career in the early 1990s working on video crews as an independent contractor for such companies as Martha Stewart Living, IBM and Xerox. After graduating Southern Connecticut State University with the degree in Corporate Communications, David continued his video production career and accepted a position at WFSB in Hartford, CT. Within a few years the news and production studios became his charge and David designed, installed and maintained the televisions sets for the various programs at the station. At the end of 2013 David founded DirectLine Media, a video production company that specializes in creating memorable and compelling video content for businesses.

Editor

Stefania Sassano

Stefania's acting journey began as early as the fourth grade, where she took on the role of Scarlett O'Hara in a stage production of Gone With the Wind. This early experience sparked a lifelong passion for the arts. With a background in musical theater fueled by her love of music and singing, Stefania stepped into larger roles, such as Fraulein Kost in Cabaret during her sophomore year at the University of New Haven. This performance earned her a nomination for the prestigious Irene Ryan Acting Award at the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival—an honor she would receive again in her junior year.

What is Feeney Talks With Friends?

Eric Feeney talks with #friends! Eric is the founder of the nonprofit organization Friends of Feeney. Their mission is to help children and families who need assistance after heartbreak and tragedy. www.friendsoffeeney.com

All right, all right.

Beanie talks with friends episode 156.

We're in a special place.

We're in Farmington on 258 Main Street.

In maximum beverage.

We use you film in maximum beverage,
but in West Hartford.

But today we're in Farmington
with a good friend.

What's up? Reno?

How are we doing? Reno from Jay Timothy's.

I'm here. Can you guys smell those wings?

Their hair
dirt. Wings are in the building.

I can't concentrate,
so I'm very excited to talk with you.

Where do you want to start?

Anywhere you want the holiday season?

Yeah. You talk about holiday seasons.

We can talk about,
how how blessed people are.

How lucky people are.
How matter of fact, how I got involved.

This seat
that I'm across from you right now,

like getting contacted
for a donation, for one thing.

And then it led to an email,
and it led to another email,

and it led to, okay,
well, we'll help you here.

And I'm like, by the way,

I got a golf tournament
in May of the next year or something.

You know,
you may get some connections for me.

You know, and then it was like,
you know, you want come on a podcast.

And I was like,
talk to my marketing person.

Like, what's that like?

And she's like, I'm just like, when
you go on TV, except there's no cameras.

Yeah, gotta talk to people.
Talk about topics you want to talk about.

You know, a lot of times
I'm talking about Super Bowl

more than anything with a lot of people,
or the history of Jake Timothy's

up on a case like this, you know,
like I said, when I first got here,

you know, I left the restaurant
that was busy.

And we're going to be busier tonight,

but, an hour earlier conversation,
you know, it's holiday season.

It's about,

you know,
not just what it's going on for us.

It's what's going on for everybody else,
you know?

So when you said you not going to sit down
and have a have a conversation,

you know, I went and looked up,

you know, friends with being
and see what everything's about.

And you know, spending
taking some time out to help other people

or to even send a story, tell a story,
you know, it's good for everybody.

Yeah.

I've been I've been at Jay Timothy's
for three plus decades, you know? So,

I've seen all the ups and downs and, and,
you know, the,

the people we've been able to help,
you know, the friends we've made,

the connections we've made, you know,
it's, I'm making a connection today.

I met 3 or 4 people here.

Yeah, I didn't know before
and didn't know your face.

And then, walked in here
and said, I'm looking for an Eric

guy, and,
you know, and I'm looking for friends.

Repeating the first guy's like, yeah,
the podcast is over there.

Like, okay, you know, no strangers
are just friends who haven't met yet.

Just, you know, I met met the owner
and I told myself, I stopped here.

I said, I live in South Windsor,
right on the way home from work.

I'll stop in over here, grab something,
and then I go home and that's.

I can hit something else on the way,
but you know. Yeah. Nice.

Speaking of Matt,
the owner, this is my, Alec Baldwin.

He's been on the most podcasts.
Matt. Yeah.

Alec Baldwin, you've been in the most,
I think episode

30, you were episode 20.

But again,

he's been

we comes in with celebrations, bring some

beer here.

And he usually
he doesn't come empty handed either.

That's why he always gets invited.

You're at maximum beverage.

Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of whiskey

and, but, what do we got here?

Tell us about this. Yeah.

So Sagamore
Rides. Guys are out of Maryland.

This is their cask strength,
seven year old, which is,

you know, the way whiskeys have been going
lately.

That's on the water side of things.

And we see a lot of 45 year
old stuff out there. So.

So right now,
you say you're on the bucket. Yep.

Someone's got to work.

Someone's got to work.

Nice and dark blue.

Those little,
nice little, rye whiskey here.

Beautiful cup to look at.

Maximum beverage
that's going to be for Dave.

Shout out to Direct Line Media.

None of this would be possible
Dave still here 156 episodes and counting.

It's Mount
and my guy Marty's in the building.

Marty. Party

hard right now.

Yeah, yeah, this one is.

I don't.

I mean, we're big on the proof here.

Well, I guess

give me a number. It's over 100.

Gas law by a lot.

One 2114, 123.

Yeah. Let's go.

Prices right, I win. That's a big.

But does it smell hard though.

No, it's it's going down.

It's like two shots at one you know.

Cheers to you.

Cheers.

The Jay Tims cheers to maximum beverage.

Here's to friends of Fini.

So I'm gonna go sit in the corner.

Cheers, Dave. Oh, can Marty have one?

I think Marty can already get one.
Yeah. You want that?

Yeah.

Beanie talks with friends.

This podcast was created thanks to Dave.

He did book behind the brand. He.

I came on
and talked about friends of Fini.

When I left, I said, hey,
can I do the questions?

And and here we are.

So this is fini talks with friends.

I use this podcast
to talk to wonderful people

in the community
that are doing great things.

And you've been in the community
for 30 plus years, 30, for

34 years.

How's that feel?

Old, old some days, other days.

Not not some old at all.

You know.

They say

find something you you love to do
and you'll never you never, you know,

never feel like you're working a day
like, sure, that's a great thing.

But I do love what I do.

Some days I just like what I do.
Other days are difficult.

I'm sure everybody's job,
you know, as much as they like it,

there are days they, you know, you go in
and you to do your job and that's fine.

And that's just human.

You know, there's no way, in my opinion,
you're going to love what you do.

Every single day.

But I like the job that I have.

I like the connection.

I've always been a food and drink person.

I like all the spirits I deal with.

It's my primary job.
They're beer, wine and liquor.

But I go hand in hand with our chef
on all special events.

Probably the biggest food
geek in the building.

I, I get all jazzed up
about meeting new chefs,

going to new restaurants
when I make connections.

Just like we're having, you know,
making a new friend here, like you said.

You know what I mean?

When I go to another restaurant,
I meet the chef owner

rugby manager over there I've met before,
let them know where I work and like, oh,

my goodness, you know,

I just I just did a gift card swap
in the restaurant they called up today.

They want to do that.

We've done a couple times in the past.

So I like people, you know.

Yeah, there are people in this world that,

you know, would rather be on a computer
and not be with people

some days, like I said, some days
you don't want the old people.

Teachers don't want to deal
with pupils and students every single day.

Lawyers, I want to deal with this
police and fire and everybody's got it.

Everybody's got a job,
you know, whatever it is.

But, I still enjoy what I do

nine out of ten times making people happy,
you know,

a little bit like your organization.

Ours is on a smaller scale,
so we only do one event a year,

but we help out with so many different
organizations and through activities.

But we do our, our charity
golf tournament every single year.

But I reach out to everybody and anybody.

You know, I used a long arm
of the Connecticut Restaurant Association

to say, listen, we're all just looking for
is this or this and this,

and I'm not looking for anybody
to give me $10,000.

You give me 50 bucks here and $100 here,
you know?

Yep. Adds up later.

You know, you how many years
has your golf tournament been gone?

I'm there for 30 for someone for 35 years.

35 years of your golf tournament.

Oh, amazing.

Well, 30. I'm sorry. It's be 35 years
this year.

I missed the very first year
I was not working there.

And then when you start
started was a small one.

So it's I think it's 35 years.

It's just there. 34.

Oh, I hope I get in trouble. Cheese.

Friends of Feeney's on our fourth.

Our fifth 1st September 12th, 2026.

When's your next one?

Do you got the date yet?

May 18th or 19th
is the third Monday in May.

Okay.

Hours at two hours
is that takes us on a Saturday.

Yours is on a Monday because of of work.

If I did mine on a Saturday June
it was going to be there.

That is interesting.
You're closed on Mondays.

What's the reason on that and why?

And how long has that been going

that only that only happened
to coming out of Covid.

Okay.

We were expecting closed
Monday and Tuesday.

Staffing issues, restrictions.

Guests were coming out right off the bat.

You know, we're not going to staff
that like we normally wouldn't

not have anybody in there
dining restrictions.

Yeah.

We adhere to to whatever the state
will say for guidelines.

And we had no problem that, you know this.

We want to get everybody safe.
We wanted to

try to get back into business,
but we want to do the proper channels.

Yeah. Now, you mentioned it.

Thank you so much.

Marty swung by and grabbed up a gift.

Grab the gift card
for our golf tournament.

You guys were very generous.

It was a huge hit at a raffle,
so we can't thank you enough.

Give me Marty.

Give me two weeks notice.

Next year,
I'm build a whole basket for you.

Not just a gift card. Yes, absolutely.

That's amazing. Thank you.

Yeah, we're here at Reno.

I'll let, take us back to 1989.

What happened then and why?

I just joined Jay Timothy's.

I was working at a place
called Branigan's in Southington.

The bartenders happened to come into

start to come in at the beginning
is every single Sunday night. Yep.

I was already going into
Jay Timothy's on Wednesday nights.

I was playing in a coed soccer league.

Just stop at Jay Tim's way home.

I lived in Southington at that time,
so that was just our stop on Wednesday.

So I got to meet the two bartenders
that were working every Wednesday night.

They found out I worked over Branigan's.

Slowly but surely.

You know, we make a good friendship.

Brady's was a very nice restaurant.

I worked there for just just about a year.

But definitely not doing the building
that Jay Timothy's was.

I guess they pushed me. And so, listen,
we got a spot open.

We got four shifts a week,

a couple shifts as a server
before shifts to the bartender.

September of 89.

The rest was all done.

I didn't leave them for a year and a half.

I went and worked for chain restaurant.

I was looking to get into full time
management.

Want to learn more and more
the numbers and get involved, you know,

not the day to day bartending. And,

but after I left and then I came back
and it was like from there

we just kept going and going and going
and growing and growing and growing.

You know, we've I've been through

seven,

six renovations,
two that were major kitchen

blowouts and full room
redos and shut down for a week.

I mean, a lot of restaurants do that.

It's normal to pick up,

pick a slow weekend,
whatever it may be for you and renovating

to the owners
have since we say semi-retired.

But they're not there.

And it's, you know,
if they hear this, that's good.

That's not there. They're not there.

That means we're doing our job
better than better. Yeah.

So that was 1989.

What happened in 1789?

1786 when it started the building.

Oh, okay.

So 1786.

So, we as a matter of fact,
we celebrated Jake Timothy's

celebrated its 40th anniversary

five days before Covid
shut the country down.

Oh, shut it down. We were on a Thursday.

They shut down on Sunday. Yep.

And one day when the basketball game
Sunday night.

Yeah, it was like 3 or 4 days before,
literally when they shut everything down.

I remember the NBA game.

Yeah, the NBA game.

Right now we have 20 people that are sick.

And the next day they came out
and started saying,

okay, everything's getting shut down.

But we had just done a 40th anniversary
where we closed the entire restaurant,

sold tickets for next month.

People donated everything.

Our main charity for us is to play
in the food pantry has been for the 30.

Is that where your golf tournament goes?

Yes. All year I say 90, 80%, 85% of
it goes to people food pantry.

We also have a John Dewey scholarship,
you know. Yup.

He was our original chef
and a small minority,

partner with Tim and Jim, two owners.

He he came with them out of, Pennsylvania
from Stinking Hill, where they started.

So John came over.

He was the original chef with them.

Unfortunately passed the cancer

on these terrible dates.

I want to say it's about 11 years now.

So once we started doing
the golf tournament.

Oh, yeah.

Okay.

Once we started doing
the golf tournament,

we started pulling out of the golf
tournament

and doing special holes to benefit
just a John January scholarship.

We took like a couple of par threes
and instead of, you know, doing it 5050,

there it's for the January scholarship
a little matching to the 5050.

So you pay $10. It's just for John here.

What you pay 2010 goes
for John at ten goes oh that's cool.

So most people just throw 20 out there
ten for charity, ten for the John Dewey.

Yeah.

You know we share it out that way
I saw that.

Yeah. That was great
that you do that, scholarship.

Yeah, we do it.

We we try to keep it to play adult
just because,

you know, we're we're in that town.

But I also have a lot of students,
high school students that go Southington,

New Britain, both Bristol Eastern,
Bristol, central, Farmington, Newington.

I get to choose your group of kids

that work at Jay.

Tim's that who you're saying? Yep.

Like, I get it seems like once
I get like one football player

from doing it high school for them apply
that they like the job.

Yeah. So they're friends.
Yeah. Word of mouth.

Yeah.

It is word of mouth.

It's a
I've always said it's a good first job.

Although if you're not a people person
it's a tough first job.

Yeah.

But you got to talk to people

that are clearing a table
or bringing food or stacking dishes.

You still got to talk to people. Yep.

A kitchen person,
a host person, a server person.

You know, they're
you know, we're 130, 540 employees.

Between the front, but between our kitchen
and our front of the house, staff.

So we're a big building,
you know, we we seat 370 plus people.

We're nine rooms on three levels.

So, you know, on a Saturday night, I have

50, 55 employees in the building.

You know,
I'll turn between this time of year

12 to 1400 people through the door,
you know, so that's,

you know, and they walk in the door, it's
prep people in at 7:00, wait staff

a 10:45, and by 12:00 where to wait list,
you know, and they're busy, you know.

So that's amazing.

It's a lot of our one of our favorites
questions

we've used it for
the longest time is controlled chaos.

You know, I always get every year
I get somebody to want to talk

about our Super Bowl and what happens
with the Super Bowl and how much we do.

That's a question

I got that random, remind me,
I'll tell you

my funniest joke ever to the Super Bowl,
and I will go to get to that.

I'll take that one.

But, you know, I tell everybody it's,
you know, we've been doing for so long,

it's like a system for any other job.

Doesn't matter
what job you have in this world,

you know, you have systems in place.

If you follow them,
usually things go pretty well for you.

We have controlled chaos. Yeah. We are.

We are busy throughout
three quarters of the day.

And, you know, we just try to maximize
all our time with it.

Let's go to the Super Bowl then.

Come on now.

True or false.

Confirm or deny that right after 2015.

You had

20,000 pounds of wings in 2015.

And then and then 2025 was 24,000 pounds.

Last year was 24,000
pounds of wings, 24,000 pounds.

But like that's 12 to 12 tonnes.

Yes. Absolutely. Yeah. 12 tonnes of meat.

Yeah. That's all I got right.

Yeah. So our biggest so our biggest.

Where do you store it.
How do you get it out.

Like there's so many questions.

Two tractor trailers that come to get two
deliveries are in the week.

We got one in the middle of the week and
one at the very end of Friday deliveries.

Never fun for our delivery guy.
He hates it because place is busy.

He tries to get there
as early as possible.

We actually bring in a refrigerated truck,

that we actually plug in to the outside

and keep the stuff in there,
keep all that product right in there.

Wow. And

you're

known for having bigger wings than places.

Can you share
where do you get these wings?

Or where's the farm? Who's the chicken?
Are they on steroids?

I don't know, man.

I only live with chickens.

I've never,

We use our one provider.

That's PFG.

Performance Food group.

Don't know the name of the farm.

Laughs.

And we were buying up a farm
in Pennsylvania.

We do have a spec just like almost
every restaurant does.

Is a spec in every,
you know, chain restaurant spec qualities.

Yeah.

You know, a ten, 12
which uses ten, 10 to 12 rings per pound.

So, you know,
if they're running a little small,

some places, you know, they're buying,
you know, 12, 15 wings.

But I'm just going to do shrimp
that people look at that says you 12.

That means it's hundred and 15 per pound.

So our wings in the
industry are considered a medium to large.

They're places that use bigger ones,
are places you want smaller ones.

But we have found that that size
and we did a lot of work with it.

But that gives us the best

meat to Christmas ratio on a chicken
and the chicken itself.

You know, some people say,

you know, they want a little less little
a little bit more, a little less.

That's fine.

Everybody's got their own taste.

You know what I've said?

Other people, other chicken
places in the state, you know.

Well, some people do.

Other people looking for a good job.

But, you know, not
everybody's as big as we are either.

You know, we're a we're a big facility.

That's why we do so much for people. Yes.

Last year was right on. Right.

Right below 12 months.

That was the number two right below it.

Cheese.

And are you still doing Wednesday buckets?

I heard that was like, what started did
that bring you after the softball games?

Is that why you went that.

So that's where things all started okay.

All right.

History lesson is so we used to do, bucket

night is he was putting the wings
in a bucket of rolling rock points.

Okay.

Nice ponies in a bucket of wings
on Wednesday night.

Here's the deal.

You basically got the beer
for, like, $0.02 per beer.

Just to generate
business in the middle of the week. Yep.

We were open seven days a week.

Yep. But.

So we were just looking for a way,

you know, other places do now that do Taco
Tuesdays are happy hour.

Thursdays are.

Everybody has promotions, you know.
Oh yeah.

We didn't do many of them.

But we said something like this
with in middle of the week,

on the softball team was our pitcher
name was very Virgin.

His nickname was dirt.

The reason being he was the oldest dirt.

Everybody on the team was not
because he slid in the dirt or anything.

He was old as dirt poor Barry,

I was, I it was my second year there,
so I was all 22.

I think the oldest guy on the team was 25,
other than Barry, who was like

38, is it that oldest dirt 38?

Yeah, okay.

But he was literally ten years
on the next hole.

This guy, you know, with high school,
college kids,

I had some some of my fruit runners
that were on the team.

You know, they're good athletes.

Did you play? I did play, okay.

There was a soccer player, so I was okay.

But back to back to Barry. Barry.

Yeah, but Barry was name was dirt.

His name was dirt,
but we call them beer dirt.

Oh, that was his nickname from day one.

Always had I when I first met him,
he introduced me.

This is dirt.

No, I actually knew I met his kids.

I, you know, his wife.

No one met her several times.

You know,
she's been a good friend of Jimmy's.

But anyway,

come back from softball games,
go to Jay Timothy's.

Get your get wings.

Barry was a smoker back then.

You quit smoking. Drinking
didn't stop the smoking there.

So he would eat some of his wings.

Go. Go outside.

Want a cigaret and say, listen,
you got to.

You know, my wings are, you know,

cold.

Gotta hit him up, you know?

So we're like, we could do that
with, like, throw them back into the oven

because, you know, he's already
eating on them.

You got to put it back on a plate,
cook them up again and then some.

So we start saying
this is a good way to do these things.

So we started working on a formula
to do this where instead of

I'm not going to have
somebody 5 or 6 wings

and then say cook them some more
from again, we do that for them now.

So our get fried sauce down

and then we're fry them
and sauce them a second time.

So we made them.

And he would always say people would say,
you know

I want the wings like I want those
because I want those dirt.

They were dirt wings.

Good old dirt.

Is he still with us?

Is he still around?

Does he get. He's not around.

I don't believe where he is now
because I've not seen him.

Does he any compensation using his like.

Like. Oh, he got
you got treated very well.

Image and likeness.

And I'll deal back then it was treated him
very good at the beginning.

So is this one the dirt.
Can we show them off?

That's your sweet red chili.
That's your buffalo dirt.

That's your drive over here. We got.

We talked all this dirt.

Let's get a zoom in on these dirt.

Wow. Buffalo dirt.

That's the buffalo dirt.

And what do you have?
This is a sweet red chili dirt.

Yeah. Okay. Gotcha.

You can dirt any flavor. Nope.

We don't got dirt to dry rub.

Oh, look at that.

Yeah. People love these.

That's crispy.

Yes. So it's double dip. Double fried.

So we basically you're frying the sauce
onto the skin. Oh.

So we're going to we should do.

That's the buffalo.

That's the honey barbecue.

Not sweet red chili. Sweet red chili.

And then I wanted to try a dry rub
if you want to try that.

What?

We try not dirt at all, but a dry rub.

Rub it all. Very excited.

We'll get into these.

Smell that from over here.

Marry us over there.

Now. True or false?

Is there ketchup in your sauce?

Not going to say anything?

Not gonna say anything. True or false.

Do you make homemade the,
blue cheese in ranch?

Yes or no?

So true to the blue cheese.

You make your homemade blue cheese

from scratch,

and you add a lot more blue cheese,
and people would get somewhere else.

Not asking the question. Yeah.

So everybody, you heard it here first.

There's ketchup in these wings
and they make their blue cheese

with extra blue.

No I'm kidding
I don't know no I'm very excited.

Dirt shout out to dirt.

Do you have t shirts
that say dirt wings or anything?

We do market the dirt I didn't have
I didn't have a t shirt.

Your like to sit dirt please.
Come on them.

What about j? Tim is in the back.

Says come get dirty with us.

Oh little innuendos.

Come on in the front says
come get dirty with us in the back.

Let's get dirty.

Yeah it's it's one of the, it's
one of the staff's favorite spots to wear.

Wow. You know tell no

the only wear that the bar
that we don't wear the dining room.

Like I said, too many people question
the innuendo when they're walking by.

Say, what's that supposed to
mean? Let's get dirty.

Yeah, exactly.

Wow. And, explain the J.

Tim's who's Jim, who's Tim?

So you've got Jim
Welch and Tim, Tim Adams. Yep.

So it was called Cook's Tavern
when they first had it.

Were you
did you ever frequent Cook's Tavern?

Okay.

I joined them about a year after
they went from Cook's Tavern to gotcha.

Back then, there used to have a,

Sunday, Sunday review of restaurants
and the people that did restaurant.

You reviewed them
and gave them a horrendous review.

Horrendous.

And people actually canceled events.

People at weddings booked their canceled.

They were so worried about it.

Obviously nowadays
we got influencers of every side.

Yeah,
but there's so many influencers back then.

There's only one food critic.

There was a, husband or wife back
then, gave a terrible review.

And the point
where they were like questioning,

should we continue down this road?

They were white tablecloth at that time.

It was.

It was fine dining, white tablecloth.

And they took a hard
look at it, said, you know what?

We're going to change our entire,

you know, business model.

And they were sitting around

discussing they had already known
what they wanted to do.

They want to become a tavern, approachable
for everybody, families

more than anything.

They knew being in Plainville
and the surrounding towns are like,

listen, we're not dealing with,
you know, city.

We're not dealing
with a lot of white collar.

We need to change this.

Especially that whole thing was happening.

And, they were sitting around
and one of our one of the cooks back then,

a guy named Gary was,
they were throwing names out,

and he threw out about Jake Tims,
and they're going, what do you mean, Jake?

Jake for Jim and T for Timothy J.

Timothy's.

And he's like Jake Timothy's.

And they're like,
wait a minute, Jake, Tim's or Jake? Tim.

And they said,
no, let's go. Jake. Timothy.

But yeah, I can't tell you how many times
I'm walking through the restaurant.

I hear people on the phone saying, yeah,
I stopped at Jake. Tim's.

I stopped at Jake, Tim's
I stopped the Jake. Tim's.

Oh, that's all I hear.

Yeah, some of these are people
from out of state that heard about it.

Just read the sign. Yeah,
I would get that. That was the the act.

The best thing that came out of Covid
for us.

I met people from Maryland, Maine,
Pennsylvania, Vermont, mass.

Everything within 5 to 6 hours
during Covid.

If you're allowed to come out,
they would just drive.

I remember meet at the film people and
only go with a six hour drive, he said.

We come up here, we're getting Jake.

Timothy swings Pepe's pizza,
staying overnight and going back home.

Hey, that's a day I'm going you know what?

That's amazing.
Yeah. Look, you're from Maryland.

They were just looking up things to do,
you know? Yeah.

And they said, you know,
you had some nationally recognized pizza,

a nationally recognized chicken wings
in the same state.

They said they literally
like, we love this 40 9:00

pizza.

On the way up, we hit New Haven.

Yeah, we went down to New Haven
a little bit, checked it out.

Are we stopping here for dinner?

We're getting a hotel room on the way
back. We're going home.

So beautiful day, babies
a boyfriend grew up in.

But they were they were

middle aged couple going, yeah, yeah,
you know, what else are you going to do?

You know, it was a Saturday.

Like, you stay home,

you can't feel like grocery shop
on certain days or stay where you were.

You always killing it with the wings.

Or did the Food Network show in 2016
really help

or were you was it on its way
anyway, or did that push you over?

Like, can you compare and contrast before
and after the Food Network anyway?

But my worry would be but

it blew it up in the sense
that after the Food Network show happened,

the very first sauce order we got for
an online, we always had online ordering.

We get people within the state
to get shots, sauce, chips them.

The very first order we got.

The first one was Alaska.

I'm like

the second one was Texas.

So and then I remember
our marketing person Nikki, saying,

look at these online orders,

eight out of ten.

We're well outside the northeast.

I mean, that's cool in the northeast.

Also, why these people?

She goes all through networking
and whatnot.

So you bottled the sauce,
the buffalo sauce and and the sweet chili.

Just a buffalo with ketchup.

Oh. Yes, sir.

Catch up. Now we catch up.

There's about nine ingredients in there.

I've never made the sauce.

Sugar. No answers,

no answer. I got inside sauce.

You can have inside sauces.

There's
there's there's plenty of ingredients.

So were you there?

Where do you want
to put the really nice back.

They have sauce in there and everything.
Yes. Sauces.

Some dry rubs.

Trust me.

It'll be a nice basket. I'm going to be
the one who puts it together myself.

Like, yes, I do. What about?

I do have about a dozen charities
that I hand work with,

that I've worked with
for probably 15 to 20 years.

Yeah.

Or other organizations
that have helped us out very much. So.

And that's when I was like,
I got carte blanche.

You want you want something really nice.

I'll make a basket.

So you need a rolling cart
to put it out there.

All right. Remember us.

Thank you. Reno, this is amazing.
Yeah, you're a good friend.

I knew this is going to be a great,
great conversation.

Learning a lot.

Let's talk about your role. So.

And I learned today f h

so f h and be a part of the house
and back of the house.

Yeah.

Everybody in the restaurant industry,
that's that's common

jargon.

It's like the word 86.

86. Yeah.

Everybody.
Everybody works in a restaurant.

Even once you learn that,
we'll start in the military, I think.

So, 86. Yeah. Okay.

See, so we have a couple of acronyms,
like everything else doesn't like.

But that's. So,

Heather said my role is defined.

Is beverage beverage director slash
front of the house manager.

I make sure my bar is already stocked.

Beer, wine and liquor.

But I also handling,
you know, all the hiring of front of house

staff, being waitstaff,
bartenders, hostesses, food

runners, my own staff,
we have a staff to just use.

It just holds for us.

How's that online I,

I application
they and you sit down to do interviews

with the kids to know it's all in person,
all in person, all in person.

We are still old school.

We still want to come in with a pen
and paper and fill out the application.

Oh, nice.

I like the I like the face to the person.

Yeah, especially because for me

it's we're an independent

and I want to know who's
going to be talking to my guests. Yep.

It's like one thing
I've instilled in our staff,

we don't call them customers.
We call them guests.

Okay.

From day one,
if you're having a house party

and you have like ten people
over to your house, guys here,

they come over and you're welcome
in your house, your customers or guests.

Agreed, I like it.

You're going to give them some drink.
Maybe.

Maybe going to watch a movie
and they're done.

You're going to give them a handshake
or a hug or something like that.

And off they go.

They're a guest of yours. Yeah.

We don't hug all our stuff. Guest

some we do shake hands with them, I do.

How many of them I've got?

We got lots of requests
for other people that come in

here, people
that ask for certain tables and nights.

We got plenty of regulars, which is great.

You know, you want those people,
but their guests, they have chosen,

if you're driving

from you're driving from West Hartford,
you can work or you drive to Jay.

These you pass 15, 20 restaurants.

You've chosen to spend your money
a good point.

You're a guest of ours.

I like that well, up anywhere you want.

You're you're kind of jumping the gun
because my next switch at three keys

that make you great at your job.

And I think treating others
as guests may be a great key.

It is.

I'm. Am I wrong?

And then, you know, we when we when I was
thinking about something of that nature,

the first one is caring.

Caring to me it's bottom line.

And like we were talking earlier,
like loving your job or liking your job

or caring about your job,
there's differences here there.

Like I said, there are days I love my job.

There are days I just like my job.

But no matter what the day,
I always care about it.

Yeah, I have to.

You got to care 140 staff.

You know, I have bad days.

I work human,
you know, sometimes my staff realize

when I have a bad day,
I can't wear, can't wear.

Got to leave it up,

you know, leave that motion off
your sleeve that leave in the back door.

But if you care about it,

that makes all the work a lot easier.

The other one is,

I get my hands dirty,
I don't know, I don't what word it is,

but if I need to be a busboy, my passport,
I need be a food.

One of my food. Water, no changing cakes.

I'm changing cakes.

So if I'm doing the job,
my staff knows I'm doing the job.

Yeah. Lead by example.

Never ask someone to do something.

You wouldn't do another military thing
except for a couple of crazy

stuff on the computer. Okay, I got,
I got a couple.

I got more than enough tech people.

Do you run the Instagram page? Yeah.

Absolutely not that she's she's a
she's one of my chief like tech person,

you know.

Or if I have to move a couple tickets
around and pull one drink

off of one thing, I got 3 or 4 people
that are whizzes with the computer.

I'll go get them in a heartbeat.

To be for it again,
because I'm just not as quick as them

or I'm just not savvy them.
I definitely got

a little bit of a dinosaur in me
when it comes to technology.

Okay, I'm here about at the restaurant,
you know,

so you got key caring,
leading by example and third key.

The word

I use, we use all the time is execute.

If I do my job training

somebody, give them the right tools
and they can do their job.

If my if my delivery guy receives the
product properly, it stores it properly.

My prep person can prep it properly.
My prep for food preparation properly.

Oh my goodness I prepping properly.

Yes my line cooks going to cook it
properly.

He cooks it properly.

But 200 to the table
which is order to properly.

You're getting the meal you want.

Yeah. You're happy to get in there.
Going to get 51.

They've executed.

If my hostess clears the table properly
and another person they're they're happy.

They're not waiting an hour
and 45 minutes for a table.

So everybody execute boom boom boom. Yeah.

Know your role.

You know, you leave room for little slip
ups here and there.

Sure. Always.

When the service industry deal
with people that there's there's so

many unknown factors.

But if I tell

people, if you just execute,
if you just do your job, that's faster.

And that means you're set up

taking care of your tables, your break
down, your side work, your cleaning

and stuff like that.

If it's a dishwasher, you know, stacking
silverware, white, there's there's

so many things that go on the day.

I'm sure you plan your day. Yeah.

You said you were a teacher.
My wife's a teacher.

And I don't want you to have a tough day.

Except I get home
and she's doing lesson plans

from the time I get home
until time she goes to bed.

I want a glass of wine.

I go up to you in a different room.

Smart man.

If I get home and she's asking what's
for dinner, I know what lesson plans done.

So I do the cooking in the house,
so that's okay.

Nice.

I can tell you know, I know
when the state exams are coming up. Yep.

You have prep work to do. Yep.

We have prep work to do.

I we came here today and I walked in
and this this whole area of this camera

can see you. This all gets set up.

I'm assuming he set all this up.
He sure did.

So someone has to prep this.

We didn't just have two chairs
and just with a little phone

to record ourselves and say,
we're gonna figure it all out later on.

It took some work done,
but this is lighting.

There's cameras or sound.

They can't have the tape,
which I do my mistakes.

I'm very, My hands are trying to
keep them down low at this.

Give them slap, Dave, slap them.

So I mean, that is all part of it.

Otherwise we exchange emails.
How many times?

Yeah, we got to text messages.
We got to set this up.

We got bad
weather. Had a cancel. Cancel once before.

We had one person that fits
the person isn't there.

Yeah. Stephania okay.

She's under the weather.

She's not getting the bad weather.
Under the weather.

Stephania misses out.

Could have been here.

Stephania
dirt wings are calling your name.

By I mean if she mentions me
and she's got.

Remember you might be who she is.

All right, next time you get the VIP
treatment, go see

Reno VIP treatment.

Just code word is be a good friend.

There you go. So, I mean,

you know,
if there's if there's a fifth word,

if there's a fourth word in this whole,
thing, all someone smells wings.

You smell him from far.

He's got a play, like you said.

Friends.

Friends are strangers. Come on, come on.

Yeah.

You know, I take a lot of stuff
from the friends that have,

you know, relationships
with friends like that through the state,

you know, be it like said chefs or owners
or other managers.

Great connections. Yeah.

And I'm making this connection here.

And we play to help each other out
in the future.

Both of their golf tournaments.
Absolutely.

As long as they're still going undercover
to help people out.

Yep, yep.

An organization I'm helping you
with the organization agreed.

Nothing wrong with that.
Being a good friend. Give me some of that.

I want to say that three carry keys

that was sponsored by a podcast sponsor,
New England Dawn security.

And I also want to shout out
some other sponsors. Maximum beverage.

Here we are in Farmington,
Direct Line Media, Brook Golf Law Group,

Keating Agency insurance, Sally and Bob's

Parkville management.

People's Bank.

Did I mention maximum beverage?

Matt. He's all right. He's a good friend.

Matt's here hounding us for the wings.

It's time for wings.

Shout out to the, buffalo dirt.

Sweet chili dirt.

Sweet chili dirt run the Irish ranch,

the ones that are not Mark
the blue cheese.

Get after it.

Get after there, too.

I couldn't wait any longer.

Guys,
I don't blame you. But now it's time.

Let's do it. I'm already get after it.

Maybe Marty will just rip up
a plastic cover for like. Oh,

yeah, I was going to

say we like to buy the nice ones
that are vented.

Oh, okay.

Okay, I like it vented to goes.

Three keys.

Oh, yeah. Can grab a few.

What is,

Any wild, funny

restaurant stories?

And have you seen the movie
waiting with Ryan Reynolds?

Ryan Reynolds I watch.

We're not going to share any Ryan Reynolds
waiting

story belts,
I think, you seen the movie, Burt?

No, I haven't seen that one.

But what's that one? Is it wait. Staff.

Okay,
which is a, three star Michelin chef.

Okay. In, London.

Okay, so that's a little crazy.

But I've definitely been in contact
with some crazy chefs

or some other crazy people.

Crazy owner that want to make sure,

you know, things got to be one way
or the highway type of thing, which

if something says works.

But in most cases, I find, you know,

my way or the highway doesn't always do
they say yes, chef?

Yes, chef.

Yes, chef.

We don't.

Or behind you, like in the kitchen.

Behind you.

Behind you. Behind. Just behind.

Oh, absolutely. That word is that word.

Because God forbid, you step back
and you spill everyone's plate.

That's from the beer.

That is from the throw that or that's
how I know that term.

You're watching the beer.

That's everything I would do.

You say corner two or oh yeah. Corner.

When you're coming around a corner corner
always the corner.

Then we say door
because in our case we have three levels

a door down the stairs, like the doors
go in and out.

So I have to say door because if you're
coming down with the tray,

even if it's on your left side,

you can put your right hand up
to hold the door

and someone else can't see it because
there's only one one line of sight.

So we always say door coming up or down
the stairs have to have two.

We've had a couple collisions.
We've had a couple.

Hold on. Couple for sure. Absolutely.

What's your go to meal at Jay Tim's

Reno can share three years.

There's not there's not one. Go okay.

Which top three?

We're going in. Marty.

Come on Marty dirt.

I've been eating a lot of these lately.

Sweet red chili wings.

I eat mine with ranch.

Okay.

I am, without a doubt a French dip guy.

Roast beef, cheddar cheese.

No issue.

Simply,

That I like it.

It's just.

It's just a classic,

try to ranch now that you said it.

Ranch with the sweet chilis. Mike.

That's my that's my go to. That's.

I only do that when I know
no one's going to bother me.

And I go hide the corners.
I don't eat my wings hot.

It's like a cold bacon,
egg and cheese. No one wants you to think

I've been there long enough.

They've had cold wings.

I don't want to eat. So I want you to.

Don't have a plate of wings.
I want to eat them hot.

I wanted to, yeah.

But that just after having it for so long

and no, I did that sometimes, like,
you know.

Aren't you sick of wings?
Don't you eat them every single day?

No, because I work there, you know.

So, yes, I have the.

I have the ability to eat wings
whenever I want.

So I don't eat that every single day.

No, I'm not saying that.

It just, you know,

sometimes I'll eat three orders in a month
and sometimes order for three months.

Wow. You know, just as the ordering.

But I said, you know, people travel
for an hour to get to the wings,

and I've got them 30s wake up sometimes.

Man, I mean,

come on, what's say a first timer
shows up?

Buffalo, buffalo dirt.

Cheers to the buffalo dirt.

We should. We'll do.

I'm gonna say right around 430
tons this year

if you maybe I don't think really hit 452
like a year to get that high. But

we'll be right on 430, give or take

80% of my wings
to go out the door or buffalo dirt.

So that leaves 20% for the
all the other ones,

because you can have your wings.
Not enough.

Just buffalo wings.

Some people don't like dirt.

They like they like this.
They're like, it's not dirt.

So you can have that's what lunatic goes
to jail terms and doesn't get dirt.

We got lots of dirt. Okay, it's too dry.

They say it's too dry.

Does it shrivel the wing a little bit?

I would say no.

I just think it tightened up
the skin better.

But there are other people.
It definitely makes it crunchier.

Oh, yes.

Is there anything worse
than a loose, sloppy skinned wing

to me?

What's that?

Dave thought that was fun.

Loose and sloppy wing.

That is no fun.

You know,
there are people listening to you.

We for years make fun of people,
eat chicken wings with their.

With a fork and a knife.

Yeah. Kick them out.

Yeah, well, they can't come back.

Everybody welcome.

You know, I'm a diehard Red Sox fan.

I make no bones about that.

And I got married in my wedding party.

That was four guys.

Two of them are diehard.

Yes. Are we?

We got to end the podcast.

Sorry, I, I had that friends that are.

I'm teasing.

I was he was in my body.

I was in his wedding party.

You know, I always make the joke of,
I don't know the organization.

Yeah I don't okay.
So I didn't even ask you.

He's got down.
Are you red soccer. You. Yep.

I'm a you come men's basketball game.
I'm going to the game tonight.

All right.

I see you there.
Are you going. Yeah. Oh, there you go.

Cool.

So I mean, but that's
where you make the friendships, where

if somebody's willing enough
to just watch the game.

And I hope your team loses 19 to nothing.

You have the same feelings that I do
because I.

You want my team to lose 19 to nothing.

But if we can have a beer
and share some wings, we're good.

We can still get along. Yeah,
we can play golf together.

We can. We can do a podcast together.

We can eat dinner together.

It doesn't, you know, that's where

you can't take something like that.

That's serious to say, you know,
how can you dislike somebody for the team

they root for?

I'm like,
no, it's, you know, so fork in a knife.

Not my first choice.

What about people
that leave meat on the bone?

They're lazy.

Pick them out or they get full.

Maybe they get full. They order ten wings.

They got through the first eight
in the last to the convention.

It happens.

Listen, I've seen some
I've seen some masterful displays

of winning teams, and I've seen
some very pathetic displays of winning.

Yeah. Do you ever have, like, a contest
of how many you can eat?

We did.

We did it once, way back in the day,
some almost 20 years ago.

But as the contest was going, I'm going.

Yeah.

This is opening us up to a lot of issues
with choking. And,

you got to ask
yourself, is the juice worth squeezing?

There you go.

Well, well, that wing isn't fully,
you know, cleaned up.

Oh, yeah. We only had about 15
people get involved.

What about the hot contest with hot,
hot wings?

What's your hottest wing on the menu? No.

Buffalo. Really? We're not.

We're not there to.

I don't know what I'm about to say.
We're not there to hurt you behind.

Oh, yeah. Burns on the way
in. Burns on the way up.

We don't want that, you know,
because I had some murder.

Hornet. Would you try any of these? No.
Thank you.

Would you try these, Dave?

Yeah. Murder. Murder and the reaper.

You down right now? No.
Anything with the Reapers, bat.

That means it's a Reaper pepper in there.
Nuts.

And it. Look, it's the guy.
What's his name? The grim reaper. Yeah.

You know what? The reaper
ghost Pepper used to be the bad one.

That was the Reaper and murderer. Win it.

We'll do those at the end.
Me and Dave. Yeah.

That was. I don't know.

No, I'm passionate on that now.

Yeah. So.

Yeah. No,
we we want our wings to be enjoyable.

Buffalo wings
should have some heat to it. It's design.

That's why you have the blue cheese
on the ranch that you want a little.

You know, we're not looking to scold him.

Oh, but make a lips vibrate.

You can't, you know, feel tingle anywhere.

So. Yeah. Yeah.

So it takes away from the flavor because
then you're sweating and you're burning.

We like to keep our,

flavors simple.

You know, people said,
you know, you can do these

and these these, like,
we've got five flavors.

That's more than I know.

That's amazing.

We've experimented
several others out there, here and there.

There are places with, like, 30 flavors.

Is that too much?

Like you?

You zone in and laser
focused on your flavors.

What it is, where you at, what you do.

You never want to do. Like a fudge?

Not fudge.

Fluffernutter.

Peanut butter wing
and all that stuff that people are doing.

I know that looks good.

I know other great place to place to do
very good wings.

They have lots of flavors,
and that's all more power to them.

You know,

we like that.

We've explored,
we played with a lot of other flavors.

And just like, you know what? We're good.
We're where we're at.

You know, if we execute them well,
that word again, you know.

So why

this was not for me.

You know, we've got other areas
we can add to and change with our menu.

We try to be seasonal.

So the wings
they already have their recognition.

And then congrats on 45 year
anniversary last year.

That's amazing.

What do we have planned for
the 50th anniversary?

Great question.

We have a fireworks party.

I've been and friends of
Fini get involved.

Maybe we can talk about that.

Does Jay
Tims want to be a podcast sponsor?

I mean this is a great questions.

Are you going to sponsor
our golf tournament?

I'm going to sponsor the golf tournament
for sure. Perfect.

I can run up the flagpole without,
you know, having friends and

activities through the podcast.

What if we did like a bartending
celebrity server event?

If we had celebrities like, you know,

maybe a couple athletes like Hurley.

Coach
Hurley comes bartenders at Jay Tim's.

Is this guy Dowling? Me?

He confirmed to be a guest on the podcast.

We we did we did an event with them.

We just to develop them.

Last year when we had the whole.

So the whole thing
when he was going to go coach the Lakers.

Oh that was awesome.
Yeah. Go ahead. That was cool.

Talk about that. That's awesome.

Vince, your marketing person,

just like whatever she just said,
you know, send out a tweet.

You know don't go to LA coach.

Yeah she's for life at JT.

Yep yep. Just to get it out.

Traction
traction traction traction traction.

We're also trying.

Yep Jake tends to give you wins for life.

We're giving you hot dogs for life.

Yep. Traction, traction.

Help these girls.
If Martin Russell's given hotdogs.

Jenkins. Can we.

Happy pizza.

Yep. Traction, traction, traction.

Killed. Call.

I said there's
a major work done at my house at the time.

I got a phone call from from contrasting
my podcast people I listen to.

What? Philadelphia.

Just put your show on the air,
put your name on the air.

We're talking about. Then I get it,
we get a message.

We got a couple of nice people
we know very well.

You know, just, you know,

Dan Leopard talk show just called.

You guys out.

I'm like, what is going on here?

So we start going on and

me and Nick, you're in the office,

and, Jason Fitz is a friend of ours.

That is Jason Fitz. And before.

But he had done some offense.
Yeah, him, blah, blah, blah.

This when he was working back from Nike
like. Yep.

With them.

So some of this is what they're saying.

The other Jason pizza shop he's on.

But that time is working for USA Sports
Talk.

Whatever.

So you're talking about this whole thing
with Dan

really dotted our local restaurant.

Well we have his number.

So Nikki texted him right away saying,

what you said is wrong.

So he goes on there
goes, oh, wait, I just got we got

we're going to go live.

I'm calling them now.
We literally calls us.

He says, all right, let's talk.

And the kids will be the poster.

No, I'm talking more.

What's up Jason? It's real.
Hey, how are you doing?

What is this thing? Wait,
you thought you said this?

Nikki said as well. But wait,
wait. Stop stop stop.

Well, you don't shoot the messenger.

He goes. No, no, I want some facts. No.

So we had this literally a one minute
live on his radio talk show.

That's awesome
going on about the whole thing about,

you know, Hurley, like,
we don't want to leave.

Why would I want anything to go
wrong with you? Come. Basketball.

Yeah, yeah, we're the tiny state,
and we are literally beating the

you know what?

Out of the other 48, 49, 49 states.

Sorry. Oh my gosh,
I don't think we ever play Alaska.

Did he ever take you up on the offer?

Has he been in for his free wings?

Hurley. He's a state employee.

He's not allowed to have free wings
for like, everybody

chimed in with negative comments about us
given, you know, gentlemen,

Scotty,
I don't know what the contract is now,

a couple million dollars a year,
and that's great.

Who? Hurley?

Couple. Yeah.

Try 50 couple more than a couple.

But us trying to give him free wins,
we're going.

Oh my gosh, there's
so many other needy people were like

we were just trying to I mean, it's
the last guy who needs anything free.

He doesn't need free weights.

He needs to come on this podcast. Hurley.

This will get you wings.

Free wings. You heard it here.

Free drinks, maximum beverage.

We'll get you free wings, free drinks. So.

And then Martin Russell,
there are future podcast guests.

Teddy Russell great.

Teddy. Yeah. They're so cool.

We love them.

They're great.

Good rapport with them.

Again I took a tour and saw
behind the scenes at the great product.

Yeah, that's what we buy his stuff.

So Black Keys
uses, Capital Grill uses, Martin.

Oh they're good. So this gives traction.

We get a call from,

I don't know their title that you can't,

but they are the fundraising person
in charge of the.

For the basketball side.

We get a call saying, got it out.

It obvious that the other thing.

I'm sorry Nike reached out to somebody
that she knew over there.

They call us back saying, listen,
this is great.

This is like
we've gotten so much good for nothing.

Nothing. This is national
attention came across this thing.

You know, it's a firestorm
for about 24 hours. Yeah.

Yeah, I remember this.

This is great newspaper.

Oh. Old place.

Yeah. Hartford current. ESPN.

I saw it on both.

So we said we want to get back,
so we said we'll do an event.

Any chance we could get, you
know, the players to come in on the call.

You want to think about that?
Do something.

We get a call back conversation.

Listen bounce caravan. He

does a podcast every week.

We'll do the podcast Tim come on.

It's great.

Don't you thought it was over
two weeks later we got a call.

Any chance you could host a team?

Whatever you want.

Get on the phone to Martin Russell.

Listen to teams come get in the call.
The Pepi's.

I had all these contact.
I don't know name.

I do apologize to her physical activities,
but she she reached out to us.

And if you guys want anything,
call her up.

The team's coming. Here's
what we're going to do.

We're going to sell I think was 70 tickets
and everything we sell.

It's all going back into the scholarship
fund at UConn.

They bring in the underprivileged children
to go watch basketball.

Oh yeah. Yeah, boys and girls.

They bring them there
for all the hockey games.

So the invite families in the paper,
whatever we raise, we'll give it all back.

Everything we collect.
And we had a donation bucket.

All right back.

We got double that in the media.

I mean, to have a nationally televised
daily leopard talk show.

Talk about us.

Yeah, yeah, it's nothing special.

Nikki might get mad enough.

Sorry.

She'll remember the 3 or 4 shows
that talked about us, but,

you know, we like this is all over the,
you know, it's all because of the hurley.

Yeah. For himself.

Because we just want to keep you
so the Caribbean do the podcast there.

No, they never did.

The whole
the whole team showed up podcast.

The whole team.

You guys got picks and stuff
and there was a whole bunch of picks.

A matter of fact, to this day,
we believe Dan Hurley don't get mad at me.

Is what Andre?

Yeah, because of what he said,

we're going to do it.

This is this is for good cause.

Oh, yeah, she's the boss. We heard this.

She lets them know. Yeah.

Never better. Don't know.

She's a wonderful woman.

I met her there. Met?
Damn. We talked a lot.

We talked to players.

I mean, that was kind of crazy,
you know, tons of pictures.

They were the.

They were the super nicest people,
you know, they were, you know, more happy,

I think, to have the pet, our food,
caddies, food, pet food.

But we gave them plenty of
and said we give them all care packages.

They sent out pizzas,
they sent entrees, a hot dog.

We set up buckets, a wing,
you know, these are these are it's 1920.

Yeah. They want to use the food.

Athletes two can eat.

They can throw down, down big time. Yeah.

So it was a that's so cool, so fun that,
all that happened.

Yeah.

One simple tweet that just, you know,
I don't know what's considered viral.

Yeah, that was nuts.

Actually. Text Teddy today.

He's coming on the podcast.

Congratulations.

Teddy's having a third child.

So I said, hey,
you were playing man to man defense

and now you're playing zone defense.

So when you go from 2 to 3, it's
man to man to zone.

So Teddy shout out to Teddy.

He's a great guy
and he's future podcast guest.

Be checking us out.

Hurley also I, I forgot to

mention float
41 is a podcast sponsor in the fix XIV.

Hurley loves floating.

Floating in a chamber of saltwater
because he's so fired up,

he just needs to calm down
and turn it off for 90 minutes.

And he talks very highly of it
all. Go, go, go.

As a matter of fact, he was,
I think, the first person to leave.

I remember when
he was getting ready to go,

I was talking to one of his players,

and two guys from the media team
or the the organization fundraiser.

Yeah, it was official. Yep.

We weren't allowed to do certain things
like news. What?

We had all the news media outlets there.

They wanted to come in and we were told
the first they couldn't come in.

It was, this was just for the fundraiser.

This is not for any kind of loading
or marketing.

Oh, nice.

And then afterwards they were told
they could come in and film,

but they couldn't ask questions

if they allowed them to do,
which I'm sure killed half the people.

But some of them came in and just built.

Yeah, that's fine, we left it.

It's nothing but one reason you weren't
asking the players any questions

you would ask me, coach, any question
you know, other than small talk.

But I remember when he left.

He's getting ready to go
and he grabbed a slice of the coach.

Let me get you a box. At least.

It's like, no, no, I got to go in like,

we got to go
because I'm recruiting tomorrow.

I gotta go home.
I gotta get my notes going.

Let me get your bag.
I just gave him a plastic bag.

Is it for a couple slices?
Please be a note if you don't.

Yeah. Shut the door.

Jeez. Yeah, he's all business.

He is all business.

But like I said, the players were super
nice, super appreciative.

You know, I'm sure they're told to be
on the best behavior.

Yeah, it's a big business, you know.

So we do a game on the best worst
first class.

Would that be considered
like one of your best events at times

when the players showed up
and best worst first, last

you remember your first event,
your last event, your worst event.

Something goes wrong or missing.

Sounds like this one's the best.

I don't know, that could be top,
but I'm sure it can be. We'll see.

Do you have an event that you could think
of that may top it the the

the Giants Patriots Super Bowl.

Oh yeah.

Just remember the Giants won.

What was one of our best
was our best Super Bowl ever.

But the hype that day for Super Bowl
Sunday

was nonstop off the charts.

You would have thought
I don't know how to describe it,

but I mean, all day we start serving
cold buckets at 10:00 in the morning

and everybody coming in
was like in the best mood.

Just fired up, ready to go.

So was either
you want Giants to destroy the Patriots

because you're anti Patriots
or you didn't want the IT you need.

I think the right mix of time
they got all the way into.

Yeah.

Did you know the so-called giants
to be featured.

There was just literally a perfect storm
so to speak.

Love it.

But that was a
that was a really, really big one.

Up for it universally.

We did it especially then again,
that was a wonderful event.

I mean, the people we sold it out
and Lucky Day and we had so many people

questions still coming up. You can't.

We're sorry.

The men's basketball team was great
having them there.

Absolutely. Yeah. That sounds so cool.

That was that was, you know,
that was this clinging

or, you know, dynamically
when you're fasting

after us, you just left.

Gotcha.

You just left.

So that was that was one of them.

Probably the worst for me.

I will not remember the year.

It's about

18 years ago, maybe 20.

We had moved our golf tournament
because of bad weather.

We moved it to September

and we had a horrendous day.

I think I played 8 or 10 holes
and just went inside and said, I'm done.

It was cold, windy and raining.

It was like,
you did it like the end of September.

Oh yeah. And it was just not nice,
you know?

And you can't keep people spirits up,

you know, that you're trying to get money
out of them for charity.

Yeah.

It's one thing you can't affect,
you know, the weather, Mother Nature.

You can't control
her any way, shape or form.

So that was,

a big you,

you know, moment
when this could be canceled again.

Yeah. There's nothing else
you could do at this point.

You know, I think we're supposed to have,
like, 150 golfers.

I think 70 showed up,

you know, and I think half that
it's the round, it's terrible.

So that's, you know, that's not a good one
to remember, that's for sure.

Yeah. You know,

first best, worst last.

One of the best.

Another best one.

We had the ice storm,

Halloween ice storm. Oh, yeah.

15 years ago.

I've been in South Windsor
for 13 years, so.

Yeah, about 15 years ago.

Yep, yep.

We found out

that the Plainville High School
was the hub for everybody to get meals in.

Donated in.

It was, one day we went over there
Monday afternoon

and found out
they had like, four people working at,

we were going to bring food to them.

And because we were going to dump

at least we were told were gonna be down
for at least three days. Yep.

Only lasted 24 hours. Refrigerated stuff.

$36 frigerator for 24 to close the door.

That's pretty standard.

We're going to lose it.

They had generators.
Let's give them all the food.

We had already touched

about the restaurants
given we talked to Nazareth and Cleveland

is if you stop by and grab some stuff,
you can bring it in.

You know we're done. You know we can.

So they're pulling in there.

With our other major credit partners
or general manager.

She was like five people I knew.

One of the guys, Scott,
from, Board of Education.

Rotarian,

who? They just finished cooking lunch
for everybody.

He's like, yeah, we we don't know.
We're doing this stuff.

The other thing, the town
health inspectors here, Marco's

America's our health

inspector for years, and people don't know
very well to inspect their place.

Very professional.

You can make a report of them,
keep the place clean.

It's how it works.

I look at myself that they need help.

They need help
that would be surrounded by people.

To them,

it was 3:00 in the afternoon and
they started cleaning up from the lunch.

Basically to go,
I'd like to break us a break.

I got an idea of what it was.

Let's take it over some.

You mean, I said, I'll take 3 or 4.

The kitchen guys.
I'll take 2 or 3. The prep guys.

I said,

I'll, I'll leave it up.

I'll said, I'll,
I'll get one of the other cooks.

He said, what else are we to do?

He's like, don't for at least three days.

Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. Yeah. Wow.

So I looked at the four people.

They were told, Scott, Scott, here's
the deal.

You know, I mean, you know,
I said I said, Michael, a blessing.

I said, you've got none of you
people are serfs.

They've certified all the people that are
come in here.

We're certainly a certified.

Yeah. I said, talk to us in charge.

The kitchen high school.

I said, you guys do breakfast.

They're basically just putting cereal
toast out for everybody in cut fruit.

I said, we got lunch and dinner
next three days, so I got Nestle's food.

I said, I got at the time right over here.

Yes. It used to be called
the Silo restaurant.

Okay. Here.
I need to get the owner over there.

He called me up, said,
what do you do with all your food?

I said, I'm doing any ideas? Come get it.

We, Saints restaurant come get it.

So for the next three days, it ended up
being about a dozen of the staff.

I say, listen,
the owner said, we'll pay you.

Everybody go over there. Take care.

So for the next three days,
we fit everybody the level.

But the first night.

Sorry, we got word.

They got word
that kitchens was cooking food there.

We're putting out, you know, nice man.

Oh yeah he called.

They want the stuff for their food.
Thank you Brittany.

All they want to get stuff to the food
bank.

Local law enforcement we call them
people saying we got guys come through.

Can we get doggie bags?

Yeah.

Once they hear Jay Tim's is in town.

So it was that was.

That's phenomenal man. Congratulations.
That's so cool.

That's being a good friend right there.

That was a proud moment that we and we
and to be honest we had a blast.

Yeah we had a blast

thinking outside the box and helping out
whatever food was brought in.

We were just cooking.

So all of a sudden we got in

30 pounds of frozen crawfish.

All right.

I never made crawfish.

Let's look up a recipe.

I'll get some rice and peppers and olives.

They sell little seasoning, some
some sausage, or we don't have to do it.

We've got hot sausage
from from this place.

Okay. Put this big giant kettle,
make it all up.

Put it the chicken.

She called it that. Boom!

We made it

wasn't wasn't looking to get Louisiana,
but it was really stinking good, you know.

And people were like, oh my God.

We with the second day we play with yard.

So I ended up having like
eight whole plays.

We put them down, we roasted them off.

We did slicing people like you got what we

it's like a wedding.

Oh but we had all the stuff
we had to use, you know.

So it was, that was

that was a big move.

They actually the town of people
kept Timothy's a key or placard for,

for that whole thing to the owners.

And you know, they thanked us which was,
which is a big deal.

And that was a

major feel good. Yeah.

No, you're giving back
actually that I'm sorry that

my kids were little.

Yeah. I was a good 15, 16 years ago.

My son is now.

Yeah.

My girls were in kindergarten
when we had no school for a couple days.

Yep. So no 17.

So yeah, you're about right.

So it was, it was speaking of those,

I don't if you put it in the best
or worst or whatever, but, that was great.

No, that's so cool to share that story.

A couple more questions and we got to
wrap up, but I think it's awesome.

I want to shout out some friends.
Jay, Timothy's put this out.

The Sunday night crew.

What do you know about the Sunday night
crew who put that up?

Erica took the pic bottom left.

And I guess there's the weekend
crew, the Sunday night crew of regulars

that come every Sunday.

A wonderful group
being served with our wonderful bartender.

She did a selfie on Jay Tim.

So that's really cool.
I just celebrated her 40th birthday.

She's not with us for 22 or 23 years now.

We'll put that picture up. Boom.

She's one of our longstanding bartenders,
and she has a Sunday group.

I worked Sunday,
so I never even see these people,

although I know a couple of them
because they come in all the time.

Yeah, it's just by chance. They all
started just coming in on Sunday night.

It's very cool.

It was like about 18 of them.

They all put a shirt on it, said
Sunday Night Crew.

Like it.

So when they when we put together

the surprise party for her,
they invited all these people in there.

So, you know, that's like, that's the.

That's the beauty of the restaurant. Yeah.

Crew building friendships.

Yeah.

The old softball team.

Yep. The pitcher named Dirk. Yep.

You know, we sponsored
little league teams, you know,

we the golf tournaments, the, the charity

events, the things that you can do that
you know, to help out the community.

It helps you. Yeah.

You want to have a good record
with everybody.

You know, you don't want to be the person
everybody talks about negatively

or doesn't talk about.

Yeah, you give back. No.

It's a great organization.

And, let's talk about quickly your
Instagram page at Reno Eats and Drinks.

I mean,
we don't even get to talk about that.

I got research you
I know people like, what is that?

Let's shout out. No, it's so that is just.

Wow. I'm not usually humbled.

I'm just. You been. Yeah.

I'm not at a loss for words.
I can definitely talk.

That's not the issue. But Bear's barbecue.

Tim's, max downtown.

Some places like lot.

I mean, I don't go out as often as I used
to, just.

I think that now I have multiple.

Yeah, that's the pork
belly bao buns at Mecca.

Maggi.

Oh, I saw a picture you posted.

That bear's barbecue.

Great spot, Max.

Tuna, the tuna, all the items.

So, yes.

Shout out to rhinos. Eats and drinks.

Come on, you're your influencer. Be proud.

I am not one of those influencers
by any means.

I don't have the time to be.

I did that because I get asked a lot

at the restaurant for recommendations
for other places. Yup.

And I always tell people you want to go
to a good Chinese restaurant.

I'll tell you where to go.
We lost our Chinese food. Yep.

So I'll say where my favorite place is.

What is it? What is? Tell us.

Oh, depends what kind of pizza.

I'm I love Camille's.

Do you love Camille's?

I got no problem with Pepe's.
I like puppies, but.

Yeah. Which one? It matters.

Well, no,
I go to New Haven if I want to, but,

yeah, I live right by the Manchester one.

Okay, but I'm.

I'm a very light, charred crust.

Okay. I want the very, like, charred.

Adam Greenberg Spiro pizza.

Great person. Great pies.

But then I got some
I want a good old school Greek pizza.

Every once in a great while.
I got Sal's in South Windsor.

He does an old school Italian.
Very fluffy crust.

So expensive.

Yep yep I agree every year

we close down after
what's the school starts?

We do a house party.

I give another one
and I'll give them a shout out.

Naples one. Yeah.

Coming on the podcast.

Absolute fantastic pizza. Love Naples.

I'm not driving from South Windsor
back to farms

like a pizza to go back over there.

Yeah, Naples. Good stuff.

A lot of people spawned off
in Naples, too.

Oh, he just insisted that so, yeah.

You know, but I tell people,

you go to go other places,
like the people that visit us from other

states are just in the area, you know,

you want to go see these attractions,
go eat these foods.

You know,

go down to mystic and see this or, you
know, yeah, you see this, do this like.

Yeah.

So everyone check out
Reno's Eats and Drinks on Instagram.

The guy's the man.

Just that's that is

that it was just,
you know, like I go on vacation,

you know, people said, where'd you go?

Would you eat? Here's where I went.
Here's why, you know.

Yeah, that's how I.

That's why I communicate it. Yeah.

I can talk to you for hours, man.

You're amazing. You're a great.

Yeah. Great talker.

You're a good friend.

You have some knowledge and experience.

You've been there for 36 years.

30, 34 years.

You took two years off.
I took a year and a half off.

Okay.

But around to to around to to 34 years
with them.

Gotcha, gotcha for 36. Yep.

And you're the program director
and hiring manager at Jay Beverage.

Yep. Fire program director program.

I was a program director at a camp.
So that just comes to my mind.

All my director.

So if they're looking for that particular
craft beer or something of that

nature, that's becomes

my rapid fire.

Then we're out.

Flats are drums.

Right now I'm on drums.

Meat. Mild. Medium or inferno?

Medium. Favorite shift beverage?

Alcoholic or nonalcoholic?

We'll do both.

I'm a big flavored seltzer guy.

Okay, I'll bring my own flavored
seltzer to work with.

Kind of nice. I like my flavored seltzer.

Stop and shop. Blood orange.

Oh, that's a good I like that.

I love my hazy IPAs.

Fox Farm
Brewery is probably my favorite right now.

No, no
disrespect to several others out there.

I've got friends
that that run the brewery.

I've got friends at counterweight,
friends at Back East.

I love these guys.

Ken Falls, New Park Brewing.

But Fox Farm

shout out to New Park
I podcast did my 150th podcast was.

They're great good friends with them.

Once we got their beer on
you do nice cloud scape.

I got a running line of theirs
all the time between clouds.

Double cloud scape,
double solid doing the cans.

Oh clouds keeping they rotate like
I had vortex and I had fragment last week.

I had had been waiting for that.

Shout out to New Park Brewery.

John and Tom love new parks blenders.

Oh favorite blend?

Which fruit?

Which one clicky?

It's the kiwi passion fruit.

I think it's mango.

It it drinks. The problem with that?

It's like a golf beer.
The problem is you're cutting the grass.

I realize I just had three of them.

Like, no wonder my

stomach is still turning and burning cause
I just had three salad in 45 minutes.

It goes down so smooth.

It's one of the most tastiest,
interesting, clicky.

I love it, without a doubt.

I put that right there with my forks
formed, layers and burst.

Those are my guys.
All right then. Last one.

The best seat in the restaurant.

Best seat in Jay. Tim's where we sitting?

Jay's best seat.

And then we got to go.

This is amazing.
It was so good to chat with you.

This is episode 156 with the great Reno.

All that

bar stool two, bar stool two walking in.

You don't know the restaurant though.

I'm in the restaurant.

I'd almost rather be upstairs
in the pub loft

relaxing in the booth.

I got the TV's there.

Yep. And I got plenty of walkway
to go through.

All right, you heard it here first.

Bar stool two.

They put ketchup in the sauce. He said it.

Favorite beers? New park.

Favorite pizza?

The the pizza at New Park
is really good, too.

From what I give everybody's credit,
you can get.

You can call it new parking.
Much? I've not had pizza.

And I know the recipe at every party.

Yep, yep. But

no. And you can call me anything you want
for favorite pizza.

Hahaha.

Now check out Reno Eats and Drinks
and go check out Jay Tim's.

It's a landmark. It's an amazing place.

I had a wonderful time
talking with you on three.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Oh, this is good tastic.

I mean, it's it's great.

I mean, and you brought wings.
I mean, you come.

You could be the podcast guest.

Every guest, every every episode.

Let's say be a good friend on three, one,
two, three.

Be a good friend. Nice.