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.
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.
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.