Chat Suansilphong (07:17.816)So rewind a little bit too. Cook in Thailand, right? I came here when I was twenty two. Did no not it's not like cooking, cooking as a chef or cook or anything. I like my dad has restaurant here and there, close open and close and open and close and he would teach me he loved cooking, so he will cook for the family. And I pick up here and there. So basically cooking is it's just part of life.
Joshua Sharkey (07:24.174)You cook your entire like
Joshua Sharkey (07:46.638)But he was was he is your dad like a as a career a chef? Was that his job?
Chat Suansilphong (07:50.53)He loved to cook. He was a chef at some point. He was a cook like working in the restaurant at some point like ten years. Right. But just growing up, seeing him cook, ki I kinda like pick it up from there. Came to USA, work, you know, like every position possible. Went to CIA, put myself through school, graduate, work at like those my dining restaurants, Michelin star, two star, three star, not for long. Right after graduate, I pick it up
the job for like six months to a year and kind of realized I was at like the three Michelin star at the time, but like I was nobody. So I went to John George, right? But everyone started from Nugadine at John George with like the best man.
So like 12 years ago, 12 years ago. And 14, I don't know. I don't remember. But that and also like collegium sons, right? Externship. After six months, I do realize that I would never I have a dream of like opening a restaurant before I turn 30. And I graduated at like 27, 26, 27, when I was 27 years old. I was like, there's no way I'm gonna be in a restaurant before I turn 30.
There's no way in hell that John Joy will partner with me and you know I tried to do so amazing. Let's open restaurant together. I kind of realized that. So I I quit. And I was like, How do I how do I open restaurant? I don't have money, right? I do not have experience. I don't I don't have anything. It's right, freshly graduate from cooking school, which there's a thousand of them that graduate every two years. Right. So I was like, How do I get
To find a stepping stone that kind of like different than other people. So like, how about Thai Restaurant Group in New York City? Who is the biggest at the time, which is where we met at Obaro? I think they they own like what 10 plus restaurants back then. I feel like instead of being like a small part in a big company, I think there must be some restaurant owners that kai kind of can use my knowledge that I went to like cooking school and this and that. So I started applying to like a couple
Chat Suansilphong (10:00.236)restaurant group and this one owners like took me in. That's why I met Chen.
Joshua Sharkey (10:06.968)think you talked about like hiring non Thai cooks. I'm curious, like are are they trying to hire Thai people in general for all the all the roles?
Chat Suansilphong (10:17.038)Don't think they care, right?
Jenn Saesue (10:19.138)Don't think they care, but because the way they set it up, it's almost forced them to just hire Thai people. Because I think that when you have such a strong community and like it's hard for another race to kind of infiltrate that and to stay for a long time, right? Because they all are going to speak Thai now. Yeah. They're all going to listen.
When Obau, before Obau became Obau, when I started working there, it was called Ember Room. And this is like, you know, we hired everyone. It's all mixed, you know, very like very diverse. But then we changed it to Obau because Ember Room wasn't doing well anymore. And the first Obau was open on 53rd Street. And remember Michael Bao? He actually partnered up with Michael Bao to open 53rd. And then he I was like, that's already working, guys. Like, like.
Everything runs super well there. All your chefs are and cooks are Thai. Like they know how to make that food. I remember when it was Ember Room, they were trying to do like brunch. My chef and cooks don't like they don't even know how to poach eggs. So how? How does that make any sense? So I was like, you should change it to obao. You should change it obao. It took them a while. They did finally change it to obao and they did amazingly well. But then
You slowly change that culture of just now I have all the staff that are very diverse, but now you're just injecting more Thai people into, you know, onto the floor, into back of house, front of house. Now you create kind of like the majority of the people are Thai. They're gonna speak Thai. They're gonna, you know, like they're comfortable speaking in their own language. So other people that are coming in, you have to be really open-minded to be in that environment, right? Like so.
I think a lot of the Thai restaurant, it's not that they don't want to hire non-Tai, but because majority of it of the people that are working there are Thai people, it's hard for people to come in and say, Hey, you know, this is where I want to be. Like you're always gonna feel kind of left out. Yeah. That's how I kind of see it. Like, you know, and that's how I also like kind of lost my staff, like when it was transitioning from, you know, one one concept to the other.
Joshua Sharkey (12:34.69)So but then you actively chose to try to hire non Thai cooks for
Jenn Saesue (12:38.828)Yeah, because I feel like, you know, why would I pick from a pool of people that are super small when I live in a city where everyone wants to try to work, right? Like that's a bigger labor market. Why would I put myself in a position where I have to pick from only a a small population of people that are living?
Joshua Sharkey (12:57.974)It makes total sense.
Yeah. Yeah. It's funny, most Thai spots you see or d are to your point, it's all like Thai cooks. I remember pretty sure Pak Pac was like a lot of there's a lot of white white
Jenn Saesue (13:10.774)Yeah, I think it's a mix, right? Like
Joshua Sharkey (13:13.046)Yeah. I I wanna talk a little Thai food, but but before we get to that, what's the deal with the fish market and how that kind of like created what is the inspiration for then fish?
Chat Suansilphong (13:22.89)I think the fish market type of restaurant is everywhere in Thailand. We I don't know about your family, but my family, once in a while we go, let's say you want to get a little bit more fancy meals, you go to this type of seafood. Seafood considered like a little bit high price price, price pie, and a little bit better. So we go celebrate at this type of seafood restaurant where you can go in there and they have like catch up today.
And they will roll around the cart. So like, hey, there's fish. Or you sometimes you go to the counter and you say, like I want this, I want that. I want this is how I want it cooked. I want soup from this fish. I want like grill for this. So I think that's the f a favorite restaurant, Asteria seafood, that I like to go in Asteria. And high people love to go there. I will bring this gym seafood, which is the green sauce that we're serving at Fitchy, to kind of like pair with whatever this restaurant offers.
And I I told Jen I was like, you know what? How about we do something like this but sin thai? And like, you know, like sometime when I bring ideas to Jen, you can see. Like sometimes she was like, I don't know, I'm not like I don't but like when she gets excited about like ideas, like you know you kinda know like, this might be a thing.
Joshua Sharkey (14:38.198)Yeah. And w was the or was there a plan to like sell fish too, or was
Jenn Saesue (14:43.502)I think in the beginning, I was like, yes, I I want it to be different, period. Right. Like I I didn't want for me, I didn't want the back in the day, like that traditional menu where it's like noodles, rice, curry, stir-fried, the really like sectioned out kind of menu. so I told him I was like, Hey, like I want to be intentional. I want this to be a small menu. I don't really care what we're serving, but I want
Everything to be super intentional. I want it to be super tasty. It needs to taste like Thailand, right? Like, or as close as Thailand as possible. We're not dumbing anything down. We want it to be like on point. And he was like, What about the seafood thing? I was like, What actually that's sick. Like, that's amazing. You know, like it's almost like there's no concept like that here. But I think with that comes with space issues, right? Like
To have something like that, you have to have a bigger space because you almost have to have like aquarium, right? Like fresh seafood, like pick and choose whatever. How does that work? So we were like, man, like how? Like I don't know, but I I still like the idea of seafood. I still like the idea of like everything is focused on seafood. So I think that's when we kind of slowly tweak the concept.
Chat Suansilphong (15:58.958)were to get the spares maybe in Brooklyn, yeah, in Green Park or in Queens that we can afford to pay for like four thousand square foot restaurant. Yeah. That concept might happen. Yeah. But because we're getting we were getting like spares in Soho, in Noho, and it was a thousand five hundred square foot. And Jen was like, there's no way we can put that fish mark
Jenn Saesue (16:16.674)Can I put a fish tank or how can I put a display and then also have like enough space for like tables? You know, like it doesn't make sense.
Joshua Sharkey (16:24.844)Sounds like there is potentially one of the cards for in the future though. Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, by the way, y who doesn't love like walking to the restaurant and you have like the you know, the
Jenn Saesue (16:34.51)It's like a Milos of it all. But look at the look at the size of Milos. It's insane. Right. It's huge. But I'm like, we couldn't afford that like ten years ago and we were like, my God, like how? Like we were bootstrapped. We had to do everything ourselves. So we were like
Joshua Sharkey (16:48.814)Yeah. so what's the what's the deal with the no pad tie zone?
Jenn Saesue (16:54.446)Again, I think it goes back to the fact that like, hey, everyone does it and they do it well. So why are we doing it again?
Joshua Sharkey (16:59.544)So is pat tie actually a thing? Is there actually pad?
Jenn Saesue (17:02.742)Yes and no. I think yes and no. It's it is a well-loved dish in Thailand, but like do people eat it all the time? Not really. Like there's other things.
Joshua Sharkey (17:10.894)Is there is there like tons of variations of what pad tie is or is it actually when is it always the tamarind and the in the
Jenn Saesue (17:18.53)I think it's all on. There's no variations really.
Chat Suansilphong (17:21.134)Then it's only dry shrimp, not even shrimp and chicken and scrape. Like like Thai people, I never s I never have a friend that eat patae every day or every week. Like everyone will eat patae maybe once every three months. Once every like once a I eat once a year.
Joshua Sharkey (17:35.544)Yeah. How did that become such a ubiquitous like dish?
Jenn Saesue (17:38.798)Listen, there's a lot of like discussion and I don't know, concept around it. They were saying that like Thai government are pushing it so that it's like become like an international, like, you know
Chat Suansilphong (17:50.03)I think at some point as the prime minister that tried to promote Thai food and pick Pakai and then keep promoting that.
Joshua Sharkey (17:56.962)Makes sense. But but there's like a few dishes like that that are like you see on every menu and they're
Jenn Saesue (18:01.934)But the thing is, like if you actually want to talk about like which one like Thai people eat the most, pet grapow, pet grapow, like that I can eat that every day. Like, you know, like the stir-fried with like holy basil with like fried eggs on top with a side of rice. That actually Thai people eat that I think every day. You can eat that every day.
Joshua Sharkey (18:22.878)Cowsoy every day. Yeah. That's really good. Especially when it's when it's good. Yeah. What are the like what should we know about Thai noodles? Are there are there tons of different variations? What are your what are your thoughts on like what's what's a good one? Do you make them or do you buy them? And if you buy them where? You know, what's a what makes a good Thai noodle? You because all you ever see in the in the vr in the store is the thick
Jenn Saesue (18:41.154)noodles. I mean again in Thailand there's like different types, right? There's like the egg noodles, there's the sun mi is like which is like the like real
Chat Suansilphong (18:48.383)But and just and do share hair and do hair and sorry.
Jenn Saesue (18:53.61)Noodles and then there's like it's it's called like a really thin one and there's like a small noodle, which is like the patae noodle. Yeah. And then there's a thick noodle, which is like the but like the broad flat one that like you know you find it lomain and stuff like that. Pasio. That's what we use it on. I think pat thai is like usually dry. It's dry noodle.
Joshua Sharkey (19:14.83)But generally speaking, like with the noodles that you guys use are is there a is there
Jenn Saesue (19:18.52)We the for the flat noodles we use Chinese sun. They're the best.
Chat Suansilphong (19:21.646)Chinese Chinese.
Joshua Sharkey (19:24.309)yeah, okay. Yeah. That's not great.
Chat Suansilphong (19:26.966)large flat noodle I think all Thai restaurants using it from Chinatown or from Chinese vendor. Yeah. Where they make it fresh every day.
Joshua Sharkey (19:36.568)So I wanna talk a little bit about like the palette of like Thai people and Thai food and then what we get. Yeah. Because you know, you kinda have to ask for spicy or otherwise you don't get it. But like other than that I
Jenn Saesue (19:49.378)Yeah. It's starting to. Yeah. I think it's changing
Joshua Sharkey (19:54.05)Now. But what is the like is the I mean your y I think your dad came to to the restaurants for a while and was like in the beginning and tasting food, probably busting your traps a little bit. And you know, is his palate very different from, you know, what your customers
Jenn Saesue (20:00.035)The beginning.
Chat Suansilphong (20:07.902)are like funny because my dad was cooking in Virginia in a Thai restaurant for like ten years.
Joshua Sharkey (20:14.122)Virginia.
Chat Suansilphong (20:15.854)Sterling. Yeah. Yeah? Okay. So he was cooking there. So he's used to Americanized Thai food to serve at the restaurant. Even though when he cooked at home he cooked like Thai flavor. But at the time when he was telling food at Fitchy, he was concerned. I was like, Are you really serving this to all these people here? Are they gonna eat it? You know you think it's too spicy? So he was concerned a little bit that we were trying to serve authentic original Thai food that we would eat at home.
Joshua Sharkey (20:16.844)I'm I'm from there.
Joshua Sharkey (20:43.8)It works. I mean I I mean fish cheeks is not you're you're not holding back. Like it's spicy. Good.
Chat Suansilphong (20:49.56)He was kinda like brought it up to me. It was like, you see this all customer keep returning all the food that you may you sure, you sure. Back then, beside Pop Pac, I think we the only person, the only one that doing like there's no customize in terms of spiciness at all. There's one type of spicy if it doesn't if it's not meant to be spicy, you can also request spicy. Like crab fry rice, we serve as these. You can't just be like, can we add medium spicy? No. So I think we were the only one back then besides PogPoc that doing like no customized thing.
Joshua Sharkey (21:18.83)Maybe Uncle Boone's still.
Chat Suansilphong (21:20.247)Uncle Bunsk.
Jenn Saesue (21:21.716)It's not tie tie.
Joshua Sharkey (21:24.194)Yeah. Hold on. Tell me about that for a minute.
Jenn Saesue (21:26.07)Love them. I think what they did for us, like as such Thai cuisine, is amazing. I think they elevated it, but it that wasn't Thai food, Thai food. Like that was like, you know, that was
Chat Suansilphong (21:37.17)Yeah. And then kinda like mix with Western Yeah. And then the technique of where did they go? Like per se or Elimas Park? I think if it's not
Jenn Saesue (21:48.78)Made beautiful food. And like I think also they opened that door, right? Like I told Chad, I was like, look at them. Like they can start this is like, yes, we don't agree that like this is not Thai Thai food, but look at the way they're presenting it and look at the way they're doing it and look at the way that they like can have a business model about like, you know, like on that concept. We can do the same thing. And we don't have to stick with this like
60 70 item menus where it's like, my God, we literally have to kill ourselves making so many things, right? Like and give so many options. fry rice. Do you want fry rice with chicken, beef, shrimp, tofu, vegetables? What do you mock doc at one point, right? It's like, do we need to really do that? Like, or can it just be treated like any other cuisine or any other food, right? Like
Chat Suansilphong (22:35.31)Think we look it into this to a restaurant back then and Kyle like follow their steps too. That they can just come up with one thing and just hey, let's not substitute with 10 different types of protein. Yeah. I think Uncle Boone is doing amazing job back then. And then Pop Poc too. Yeah. Right. But when we we were doing it, and my dad was like, You see, people keep returning your like shrimp into a crab sauce, which is like marinade, raw crab, raw shrimp, raw shrimp. They return it.
Jenn Saesue (23:00.878)No right.
Chat Suansilphong (23:03.34)at least four or five times a day. Mm-hmm. And I insist keeping it on. We insist keeping it on. Along with other things, like crab curry, coconut crab curry, there's a lot of return. And my dad was like, Yo, son, you can't do this. This is like why don't you go back to do things that other people is doing?
Jenn Saesue (23:19.544)No, I remember like before we opened, we were talking to our friends that are like restaurant owners and stuff like that. And we show them the menu. And they were like, What are you doing? Are you stupid? And we're like, What do you mean? Like they're like, You know that if you put like noodles like on the menu, it will sell, right? Like you know that. That's money. Why are you like trying to do all these weird things where it's like, But are you sure that this is gonna work out? Like we what
And we went back to look at our original menu. It was so small. Like it was so small. I think that we only have like twenty less than twenty items.
Chat Suansilphong (23:55.576)Yeah. We have four appetizers. Yeah. Five appetizers.
Joshua Sharkey (23:58.4)I mean part of it is you gotta have a little bit of faith in people.
Jenn Saesue (24:03.79)My mom said something before we opened. She was like, Listen, the whole entire freaking country loves this food. What are you talking about? Like, why is that different? Yeah.
Joshua Sharkey (24:12.35)And it it really but like the difference between, you know, getting pad thai at your standard little, you know, Thai restaurant and eating it with like fish cheeks, it's it's kinda night and day.
Jenn Saesue (24:22.146)And like I think we because we want it to be super intentional, now it's working out that way. And like in hindsight, looking back at it now, we are able to like sell really fresh seafood every single day. Like we go through Brenzino like 80 to 100 like pieces per day. Like per day. Like our steam fish is insane. Like, like on the busy day, I think the highest on just that one dish was 120.
Joshua Sharkey (24:49.87)That's wild. That's crazy. What about blu the so boo crab is like my favorite food of all time? I would I wish I could just live next to your restaurant and eat that raw blue crab every single day. But how do you is it seasonal? Are you doing have it on some of the some of the some of the year?
Jenn Saesue (25:06.158)Is our vendor and Steven's amazing and he's able to source it for us like throughout the whole entire year. I think when we first brought that dish on, we're like, my God, like is this gonna be a seasonal thing? Like, can Steven like find this for us all year round? And he he's able to. So
Joshua Sharkey (25:22.05)What are like some of the like like hard ingredients to find, that you have to that are that are a bit of a struggle here here in in the States that are like critical to the I think
Jenn Saesue (25:31.256)Like, you know, selling different types of fish, right? Like we want, we want to actually use a lot of different types of seafood, but it's hard. And like we work closely with like people like Steven, like Aquabest, to source those ingredients for us. Like, we want what is it? Like Dustin is putting on like this a new thing on the menu. It's like whitings. In the beginning, like what two months ago, we tasted the dish and whitings are like this big. Now.
This is a size of whitings now. And we're like, my God, what do we do? Like this is like this is not a small fish anymore. They're growing up right before our eyes. Like, so what do we do? So I think, you know, to keep things exciting and to keep on having new dishes, like we we like to explore a lot of new new d ingredients and new seafood, new types of seafood.
Joshua Sharkey (26:07.618)Why?
Joshua Sharkey (26:23.968)Which fish sauce do you guys use?
Chat Suansilphong (26:26.048)Sauce. Uh-huh. That's the name comes from shrimp in three crab sauce. So shrimp, raw shrimp in three crab sauce, fish sauce.
Joshua Sharkey (26:35.042)Really? Gotcha. What's your thoughts on Redboat? Listen, I think
Jenn Saesue (26:38.968)I think that we like off sauce. I don't think that there's one that's better than the other, but I think there's one that
Chat Suansilphong (26:47.318)We like. Yeah. I think before Fit Chicks opened we did this. my brother come from Thailand. Right. So he has like very like particular flavor that he likes from he was working at Nam, the very famous, you know, like first Thai restaurant that ever get Michelin Tsar. And he very like particular on like each ingredient. So he came here, has no idea what we have here. So I think we go through almost seven to ten different brands of fish thaw.
Joshua Sharkey (27:14.75)Chat Suansilphong (27:15.468)And we test it one by one. We by the way, we do that to odd ingredients we using. Like palm sugar. We test it and we're like, does it not round up? This is too sharp. Like a year of testing, when to feed seafood market, when to like grocery store buying everything. We picked this because I think we like that the flavor is not too too strong. Like the smell and everything else, it's more like well rounded.
Joshua Sharkey (27:40.428)Yeah. Yeah. I mean are there other types of ingredients that are tough to get a hold of? I remember w it was always tr I I love like yeah, Rao Rom is Vietnamese, but but and I don't know if they use it in Thailand, but so it that's probably hard to right? Yes.
Jenn Saesue (27:51.394)Holy basil.
Chat Suansilphong (27:54.348)That's everything. Whatever.
Joshua Sharkey (28:00.086)No, they don't annoy I know. Why do they fucking cut it out so I know it?
Chat Suansilphong (28:01.558)Dirt.
By the way, whatever like you like most people think cilantra root is not. You see like a little bit like white thing that's not a route.
Jenn Saesue (28:11.894)Like the little like the little stub, like that's not enough for us. We want the whole We I mean, I think now it's still kind of like hit or miss, but we work again, we work with our vendors and we're like, Hey, we want it. Please keep it for us, right? So
Joshua Sharkey (28:15.257)So how do you get it?
Joshua Sharkey (28:27.288)So you have a vendor that keeps it for you? Yeah. Max.
Jenn Saesue (28:29.506)Like mask gets gets to launch our roots a lot. And like we fish steaks like we're kind of like, All right, like we don't mine a little bit of stuff. Like it's fine. We don't need the whole entire thing. But people don't keep it. They they think that's it's like trash. It's garbage. And we're like, no, that's gold.
Chat Suansilphong (28:45.836)Takes it takes a lot of water, it takes a lot of time to like wash that
Joshua Sharkey (28:51.214)Yeah. Yeah, but you and you said caffeier limelies. Are we allowed to say caffeine? I got yelled at We call it Lime Leaf because I got yelled at last time for saying I say maybe one of my favorite ingredients ever. You can only get them frozen typically, but which is Really? Yeah, we worked You know, it's I w And she shipped it to us. When I was in Austin, I was so blown away. Some friends of mine have some restaurants there and like in their backyard there was like all these citrus and they had
Jenn Saesue (28:56.67)If we're
Chat Suansilphong (29:05.1)So we were catching.
Joshua Sharkey (29:21.292)Cafe or lime well it's Lenoir's the restaurant, but but I was like, dude, there's fucking lime leaves in your backyard. He's like, yeah, they're they're all over the place here. Yeah. It's like what? And then I started seeing them on the streets.
Chat Suansilphong (29:31.916)Yeah. I think this is a secret of good food too. Everyone has recipe. Right. If you not try to keep a secret and then the owner has to go to the basement and maybe you know pace every day. If you let people make it, recipe will leak. Right? It would take sooner or later it will go somewhere else. I think our like secret is to kind of like keep sourcing the best product.
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'Cause I totally agree. First of all the recipes they will leak it also but work here, then they leave. You can't control it. No, and it's yeah and I don't think you should either because I think that's just how we get better. Yeah. But to the point I you could give somebody the exact same recipe and if they don't take care of that, you know, if they let the kafrew limes get brown, they don't source good ones and they have, you know, old lemongrass, whatever it it it it it matters.
Jenn Saesue (31:07.64)And it's it's crazy.
Chat Suansilphong (31:25.538)I think we feel like investing in people, like me and Chef Dustin, we go to Thailand every year and he's like, Hey, can we go twice a year or C those are like investing in people to like, hey, this is how much we care about food, about knowledge and then now he can teach everyone else that working for him the same way too.
Joshua Sharkey (31:44.91)Why we not do this podcast in Thailand? Fuck, we should have just traveled through part two.
Jenn Saesue (31:49.618)Part two. You would have a lot of fun. I don't even go because I'm like, this is too much. I can't it's
Joshua Sharkey (31:54.862)You know, when I when I first started Mies, all my developers were in Vietnam. Their business was in Silicon Valley and they moved the whole business to Vietnam 'cause the 'cause the founder was from Tenang, central Vietnam. And I wanted to meet all of them so I flew to Vietnam like the first like three months and I spent like two weeks that they took me everywhere and I could live there for sure. I mean I've not I actually haven't been to Thailand though, so I'm gonna go back there. Next time. Next time. Next podcast Mike, we're gonna do a podcast where we just go to Thailand and we'll
Fly to the
Jenn Saesue (32:25.93)I mean I think you guys will have a lot of fun. Like
Chat Suansilphong (32:28.822)It's on the island, remorted island. It's not that crazy, but like Samui Island. But it's in the part where it's quiet and then not a lot of tourists. So you basically get to experience the beach and all those island vibe and also get knowledge at the same time.
Joshua Sharkey (32:44.782)I know Thailand is a it's a it's a very like broad set of cuisine too. Like in the north it's very different from the south, right? do you are you partial to one? Do you try to use No
Jenn Saesue (32:53.176)I think because fish cheeks like focus on seafood, we pull from all the regions. Like again, like people try to say that like or ask like, Hey, are you regional? No, not at all. I think any dish that works kind of like with our menu and like it makes sense to be on the menu, we're okay with it.
Chat Suansilphong (33:10.254)Just happened to be a lot from the southern part because the southern part is surrounded.
Joshua Sharkey (33:14.666)Yeah, no, that makes sense. I mean, what do most people fuck up about Thai food when they make it? Like if you're not Thai?
Jenn Saesue (33:22.742)know if it's like a fuck up, but I think like he said, I think it's the ingredients. Yeah. Because like some dishes like doesn't require a lot of things, but it's the ingredients that like makes the difference, right? Going back to like Grapao dish, like in Thailand we use holy basil. That's it's it has a very distinct flavor. But because like we don't holy basil is not easily so people substitute it with sweet basil.
Joshua Sharkey (33:40.578)Yeah.
Joshua Sharkey (33:44.43)Hard to get.
Jenn Saesue (33:47.662)Sweet basil has a completely different profile. It tastes completely different. So it's not the same thing. You could probably try to actually have farm one grow it for us in in the beginning. And they were able to, but I think that we were using so much of it that they couldn't keep up. So like we kind of have to stop like our partnership with them. But also
Joshua Sharkey (33:52.962)Grow it and it grow lights, right?
Joshua Sharkey (34:09.2)So do you use more holy than Thai basil?
Jenn Saesue (34:11.926)It again, it depends on the dish, right? Like the group dish, we use holy basil. So we have to source that from out out of state because like it doesn't really it's not available in the tri-state area. Like we want it to be available, but it's just not. So we, you know, we reach out to like farmers in other cities, like you know, Facebook is a great place to to find things.
Joshua Sharkey (34:30.917)that's interesting. I love Thai basil. I I I always grow Thai basil at home. Yeah. Because not just for food, but like so good in cocktails. Yeah.
Jenn Saesue (34:38.797)Chilies. There's like a million types of chilies, like dry chili, small one, big one, like
Joshua Sharkey (34:44.194)Okay, let's let's do this. Top ten ingredients you must have to cook good Thai food. We're gonna assume that it's the best ingredient. Cilantra root?
Jenn Saesue (34:55.406)I like.
Joshua Sharkey (34:56.942)Okay, how about this? Top ten ingredients that people don't typically use in the States. In the States? Yeah. So cilantroots one. Right. And then Chili. But
Jenn Saesue (35:04.896)Lime leave.
Jenn Saesue (35:08.546)And then what else? But like like a bird's eye chili. But like over here I feel like there's only like one type of bird's eye chili. It's not really like the bird's eye chili.
Joshua Sharkey (35:19.914)really? Who hold on, tell me about that. What do you mean? It's like not as
Jenn Saesue (35:22.38)Because like birds eye chili, there's like literally different types like picked in da, right? Like there's like different variations. Pick in, yeah. Like there's like different variations and like you can't even find the variations here.
Chat Suansilphong (35:28.931)No.
Joshua Sharkey (35:36.086)Can you bring the seeds and it's grow?
Chat Suansilphong (35:38.412)be looking for that for like the past ten years, but I think we if we really do want to make it happen, we'd be able to. Yeah. But it's required a lot of no like no one done it. I don't know what route like what route do we have to go.
Joshua Sharkey (35:44.972)I
Jenn Saesue (35:52.382)Because it's also like if we're asking farmers to grow it, like is that does that make sense for them to grow that for us as well?
Chat Suansilphong (35:59.362)We might have to look into doing a farming ourselves. Buy some land in Florida.
Jenn Saesue (36:03.83)No no no no no no.
Joshua Sharkey (36:05.186)No, no. You you could you could produce a lot in an acre. Yeah. You know. Yeah. Just tell me what you eat. I'll I'll grow it up in our place. Perfect. Okay, so cilantro root, kafir, I'm sorry, macroot lime, Thai bird, and various types of Thai bird chilies. Lemongrass? Lemongrass?
Chat Suansilphong (36:20.126)Those are the classic the Thai all Thai restaurants. I I wanna mention about like the fermented fish fish what is it called fermented fish juice
Joshua Sharkey (36:30.145)Yeah, well.
Jenn Saesue (36:30.71)It's like a fermented fish juice.
Chat Suansilphong (36:32.59)But you use the juice or you use the fish, depending on the dish you're cooking. Not a lot of people using that because it's like heavily on like the northeastern part cuisine of Thailand.
Joshua Sharkey (36:36.75)Gotcha.
Joshua Sharkey (36:45.838)Is that a typical kind of fish they use for that?
Chat Suansilphong (36:49.07)don't even have that knowledge. Yeah. It's I think that's like passio pasai. I don't know what that is, like small little fish. But some it depends on the city too. Some city like use bigger fish. Sometimes I don't even know what they are. Shrimp?
Jenn Saesue (36:54.401)Yeah.
Joshua Sharkey (37:01.326)Yeah. Shrimp face a big
Jenn Saesue (37:03.15)Paste like all the base for all curries, right?
Joshua Sharkey (37:05.91)Is there a are there is there like a really good shrimp paste if you're allowed to say that you get that we can't find? 'Cause I only find like there's like two in this store. I know.
Chat Suansilphong (37:16.578)There are more than two. I I we also did a lot of testing on that too, but I d don't recall I don't remember the brand the name.
Joshua Sharkey (37:23.918)All right, shrimp paste, tamarind or something. Tamarind, yeah. Same. There's the paste and there's concentrate and there's basically there's like something that's
Chat Suansilphong (37:31.63)The block is the best one.
Joshua Sharkey (37:33.878)There's like one brand. Yeah. And they have a monopoly. They those I don't know what that family is, but they must be billionaires 'cause
Jenn Saesue (37:39.322)Listen, it's okay. Sometimes you just have to accept that like they do it best, so just use it. Right.
Joshua Sharkey (37:44.954)I wonder if it's like a patent that they have. Because I don't I don't you don't see like anybody else doing the at least I haven't seen any. It's just like that one that one brand.
Jenn Saesue (37:52.92)Sometimes it's like in Thailand, like when you get so big, like other people almost like don't really want to compete with you, you know. And all the f small farmers, if anything, would probably sell their product to that brand.
Joshua Sharkey (38:03.714)Gotcha. Yeah. Okay. So we got Tamrind.
Chat Suansilphong (38:06.168)Sugar. Yeah. That's like one of the most like there's only like a few, a cup of brand that's it's it's standard.
Joshua Sharkey (38:12.046)Pain to work with. What do you do? Do you like grade it with
Chat Suansilphong (38:15.918)Depends on the military.
Jenn Saesue (38:18.626)Yeah. Pounded. You like papaya salad, you just pound a damn thing. You know
Joshua Sharkey (38:23.67)Yeah. Actually yeah that's true. You know, have you ever tried Pilancillo? It's like a Mexican palm sugar. It's really good. Really? Yeah. I wonder how that would be in time cuisine. Okay, palm sugar.
Jenn Saesue (38:34.402)Try it, yeah.
Jenn Saesue (38:38.392)What else is there?
Chat Suansilphong (38:39.232)Nut milk.
Joshua Sharkey (38:39.906)Yeah, fish sauce. What's the deal with guard gum and coconut milk? Is that okay?
Jenn Saesue (38:45.666)Listen, we've been wanting to try to make our own coconut milk for the longest time. We even look into like machineries, like hydraulics that press the the coconut, but it's so hard to get like consistent quality of coconut here that it we kind of have to be forced to use.
Joshua Sharkey (39:04.627)Yeah. There are a lot of brands. I like the what's it's Choco, is that what the brand? What's the one that's got like it's kinda like a brownish cane?
Jenn Saesue (39:11.176)L I D. So the in Thai the the Thai brand that we use is L I D. Like that's like kind of like the key to
Joshua Sharkey (39:15.084)Yeah King of coconut milk in Thailand too. Yeah. SEA is a good market for that. Yeah. Do you guys want SEA? Yeah. Hi Kevin. Okay, cool. That's a good list. All right. Well, you were talking about machinery. Yeah. And when we were chatting, you were in Canada. Canada, somewhere in Canada, looking at a dough eater for your bakery. So there's some sort of propensity for finding, you know, manufacturing possibilities.
Jenn Saesue (39:23.886)It's amazing.
Joshua Sharkey (39:43.446)Well let's we're gonna talk about the bakery next, but like what is that? Are you guys always thinking about like okay how can we do this at scale? Yeah, like
Jenn Saesue (39:49.334)I think how to do it scale easier for our staffs, right? Like anything that can cut down like time and like is not going, you know, it's not gonna really take away from what the dish tastes like. Like why I I don't think that we're opposed to making things easier for people at all.
Joshua Sharkey (40:04.342)Why not?
Chat Suansilphong (40:09.762)Matter of fact, I think we make it that priority to you watch the Founder Donal. Right? Like have the like the crazy system that they do. I think we try our best to like one step extra cut. Because you take one step extra to the left to grab this thing, I would rather you don't take the step at all. Right. Like that adds up to how many steps per year. So we we try to look for like the easiest machine. Yeah. That's what we I think we're aiming for. I think that help us retain people.
Better too when they have this real life. Listen, work is hard already. Like why did you make it harder?
Joshua Sharkey (40:45.4)Yeah. It's funny, like I remember when I was starting after I I like left find outing and started this sort of fast casual restaurant and we were looking for the like ways to cut a hundred pounds of like a hundred cases of of red peppers for a relish. And I like, I gotta find a machine for this. I remember like my friends being like, What are you talking about? You're not doing this by hand? And I'm like, No, I'm not fucking doing this by hand like shit for it. It was almost like the stigma against it. But I love now that like that's actually no, no, this is like
Jenn Saesue (41:07.849)It's crazy.
Joshua Sharkey (41:15.362)Focus on the things that matter and the things where you can actually get scale, do it. Mm-hmm. There's nothing wrong with that. No, there is nothing wrong with
Jenn Saesue (41:22.136)Think that we really do not think that there's anything wrong with that. I understand that there's a stigma behind it where it's like, everything should be handmade. It should go through people. Why? Not everyone's gonna come like into the store, perform at a hundred percent level every single day. People have not.
Joshua Sharkey (41:40.334)It's also, you know, it's just a well it's also kind of myopic because you you know, like there's plenty of things that like you're not making your own fish sauce. You're not pulling fermenting fish and crap. There's I mean you're not like like drying your own salt. Like there's a lot of stuff
Jenn Saesue (41:43.862)It's unrealistic expectations.
Jenn Saesue (41:55.788)Listen, also like everything is reflected in the price point, right? Like if I am charging you like a crazy amount of money per head, 1000% you better believe that I'm making my own fish sauce. I'm probably gonna go catch my own fish, right? Like if if if anything, like yeah, but I think, you know, in terms of like our business, we look at it in terms of like, okay, well, if we can afford to use the best, this is like what what is it that is like the best quality of what we can actually afford to make this make sense?
We'll do it.
Joshua Sharkey (42:26.082)Yeah. But I think that's it's really is just a it's like where does the line get drawn? Because yeah, you wouldn't make your own fish sauce 'cause somebody's doing that really well. And like you want to partner with them and you're not gonna grow all your own food because someone's doing that really well. And that's part of the beauty of like this thing. Mm-hmm.
Chat Suansilphong (42:39.842)think end of the day me and Jane very like we we love food, right? We eat we eat we eat out eat out a lot. And then we I think food is we have high standard of food. End of the day like food. Like if we use machine and we make it out from the this let's say the dough sheet or machine and it tastes good enough for us to be like, this is good. Like
Jenn Saesue (42:52.91)Hypercritical. Right.
Joshua Sharkey (43:03.864)I can't tell the difference. Yeah. All right. We're gonna transition because for some reason you went from a Thai restaurant to a gluten free and all kinds of other free bakery, which Okay. So let's talk about buns 'cause
Jenn Saesue (43:19.916)It's my it's my husband. So I call my husband Bubs. He has a lot of food intolerances because he's also diabetic. he was on like kind of like the craziest like dosage of medication. This is like 10 plus years ago. And doctors were kept on prescribing him more and more medication. And his mother basically was like, This is not okay. Like I I like something has to change. So she sent him to like a wellness center.
They did like a full analysis, like full breakdown, body analysis of what his body is reacting to. And it came back that he has crazy intolerance to gluten, soy, dairy, eggs, some nuts. so he cut all of them, started exercising, start changing like the way he lived his life, right? A year late later, he is completely off medication. And he's been off medication for now like 10 plus years.
He never went back. Again, listen, he he is never going to react normally to like sugar, rice, food, like the way that we like react, right? His sugar level will always spike, right? He always have to kind of maintain it. But now
Sometimes has like a sheet day, you know, he'll have a pizza, but like everything is super controlled, right? But the fact that he's off medication, that's insane to
Joshua Sharkey (44:42.762)Yeah.
But so much of so much is is that that we just you know, we we can have such a big impact with the things that we eat.
Jenn Saesue (44:51.758)Yeah, but like I feel like people like doctors here just keep prescribing medication.
Joshua Sharkey (44:55.898)You make a lot more money of describing medication than telling you what to eat. Yeah. I mean, that's let's be real. I remember I did a I did acupuncture and they told me these things. I didn't actually go and get a test, but they recommended, cut gluten, sugar, dairy, alcohol, and caffeine. Mm-hmm. And I was like, sugar's on me. So I did that for six months. Yeah. And I felt amazing. Yeah. It was like for the first month it really sucked. And then felt amazing. But then I went back and now I'm like, I couldn't
Like I like I had like a Uber sensitivity to all those moving forward. Yeah. And I think it was because my body probably could never should have been having those things. And when I went back to them it was like I had this huge sensitivity. So I'm really impressed that your your husband just like stuck to that because it's really hard. Yeah. Sugar's the hardest one.
Jenn Saesue (45:42.12)The sugar is the hardest part. I think he's very good with it, but at the same time, like you know, I think everything is moderation, right? His is a little bit more of the extreme case that he has to eat super clean all the time. But when he does want to eat something that it's like an occasion or like we're a celebration, will he have that like piece of cake that is like definitely loaded up with sugar, like gluten? He'll have a couple bites, right? He's not gonna go.
Like completely without it. But is he going to get affected? 1000%. Like his bot he'll like shuts down immediately. He's like, I gotta lay down now.
Joshua Sharkey (46:16.214)Okay, let me ask you this question for your partner, because I do that too. Mm-hmm. And my wife knows that I'm gonna feel like shit and I'm gonna complain. And then she just busts my ass. She's like, dude, come on. You knew you were gonna get sick and you still ate it. I don't feel bad for you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You like that with your husband?
Jenn Saesue (46:32.142)No, because he's super strict. Listen, like I am okay with him like cheating here and there. If anything, he's actually more strict than I am. He's always like, you have gluten intolerance. I was like, no, I don't. I'm Asian. I don't believe it. He was like, I look at you. Look at you. You're on the like on the couch now. And I'm like, I don't want to hear it. I don't know what you're talking about.
Joshua Sharkey (46:50.222)So let's talk about the bakery because when I heard it I was first I was like, There's no way that you guys started a bakery that's gluten free and all these other, you know, how could it be good? Mm-hmm. Turns out it's really good. Yeah. So let tell me about tell me about the bakery and then why, you know, why that usually sucks and why doesn't with what you build. Well, I mean I I came to him
Jenn Saesue (47:09.838)And I was like, this was like after we opened Bangkok Supper Club. And I, you know, felt, wow, like we did this. What else can we do? Right. Like what other things can we explore? And it was almost like, do we want another Thai restaurant? Not really. Like, I don't really want to open another Thai restaurant to do what compete with ourselves. Like, and fish cheeks in Bangkok Supper Club is so different, right? What am I gonna offer? Like, what's another one that I'm gonna offer that's Thai? So I I didn't really want to even think of that.
But I kind of thought about this because I was like, okay, I'm ready for a new business. And this concept has always been around me because of my husband. So I told him, I said, Chad, like I think that like I have a new idea.
Chat Suansilphong (47:54.926)goes like this. Hey, this this idea has been like I've been sitting on it for a long time. I was like, wow, good. You just share to me now, huh? And she goes like it's a million dollars idea. I was like, I was I was lifting at the gym. I was like, let's put it out right now. I was like, let's go. Let me hear it out. And she started to go like what if we can make a cake or bakery that it flee up everything. I lost interest right away. I started again.
Joshua Sharkey (48:07.096)She's
Jenn Saesue (48:23.342)Like, what are you talking about? I was like, no, listen to I was like, listen to me. Like it's always like celebration, birthdays, treats. It happens every day. Kids love treats. People love treats. Like dessert, right? Like if we can do something that can go like 100% like allergen free, I feel like there's a market for it. Right. And again, like
Joshua Sharkey (48:45.868)Yeah, totally.
Jenn Saesue (48:48.94)My mother-in-law and my husband literally goes crazy for these things, like spend exorbitant like is exorbitant amount of money on anything that tastes relative slightly good. Right. So I'm like, what is happening right now? Like this makes no sense to me. Like she literally spent like a chocolate ball, like from the farmer's market because it was like dairy free and gluten-free. And it was like,
How much is this? She was like, No, no, no. It's not about that. It tastes really good. I was like, no, no, no. For me, I want to know. Like, can you just tell me what it is? He was like, No, no, no, don't worry about it. Just taste it. It's really, really good. I was like, Yeah, I know. Can you just let me know what did you spend on it? And I think she spent like close to like 16, 17 for like little, you know, those like little chocolate balls. Like, yeah. And I was like, What? And she was like, Yeah, but it's so tasty. And like, I can eat this and I don't feel bad. So I kind of like that.
really stuck with me that I was like, wow, like this is insane. Like people would literally spend this kind of money on like shitty product, right? Like I'm sorry, like for lack of a better word. And so I kind of told him about it. It was like, hey, listen, like I think if we can do it and if it in the perfect world, if it can be really good and if it can be comparable to the real thing, I feel like there's a crazy business opportunity here. Right. Not into it at all.
Joshua Sharkey (50:08.994)You were skeptical.
Chat Suansilphong (50:11.47)Until a week before we open. really? I like, Jen, I'm scared. Like we already saw we about to open in two weeks. I'm scared. if this thing doesn't hand out, what is the what is the like the plan B? Let's just do a regular bakery and do croissant and all those things.
Joshua Sharkey (50:15.566)Even after tasting of
Joshua Sharkey (50:31.832)So I mean what what what makes it like what did you do? What's your approach that
Jenn Saesue (50:35.566)I think we just like RD a lot, like a lot, a lot, a lot. Like we like meat every single week. And I think we taste every single week. And we again, because he doesn't really care about it at all. He said, You have to make me care. Like, I'm not going to settle with like, this is good enough for gluten free. this is if it tastes like shit, it tastes like shit. Right. He's like, I don't care. Like, I want to be able to walk in. And that those things are secondary. Like those things are not forefront that, like, hey, we're
It has to taste good. So if I don't even know that these are allergen free and I taste it and I'm said, Hey, it's so good, that's where we want all of our products to be. Like
Joshua Sharkey (51:14.167)It's what it should always be. Yeah. So what I mean, is it like are you using like tapio yoga starch or rice like what what's what what do you do in the
Jenn Saesue (51:21.142)It's a commendation. I
Chat Suansilphong (51:22.85)White rice flour, brown rice flour, silly hus, hapioca, anything at all.
Joshua Sharkey (51:28.16)Yep. Those are I mean, those are really I love using those. So I imagine it was a lot of testing of like a combination of those things. So wait, did you like hire a baker? Were you just doing this yourself? Yeah. So
Jenn Saesue (51:38.808)We actually got connected to this lady Melissa Weller. She was like a headbaker at Per se and she was at Roberta, Sadell's, all these things. And she was also a food scientist. So, you know, we partner up with her and we basically said, like, hey, this is what we want to do. But again, extensive amount of R and D. Like we like literally see each other every Friday for two years before we actually open.
Joshua Sharkey (52:02.932)She I I remember when she was working on Tedos. Yeah. is she still involved with Yeah. That's great. How long has been? it hasn't been
Jenn Saesue (52:11.03)long but it feels forever but we open in September of last year it's on three two five Lafayette so it's it's still around the Noho area like away from the the first
Joshua Sharkey (52:15.298)Where where is it?
Joshua Sharkey (52:21.128)gotcha. A block away shakes. So how often are you eating gluten free pastries now?
Chat Suansilphong (52:28.628)Not a lot. Not not much anymore. The first three months every day. I got acne as everywhere. Because not just eating it, I guess every like every batch should come out. Yeah. Yeah. And I have to like kinda spit it out because it's gained like twenty piles from
Joshua Sharkey (52:33.57)Really?
Jenn Saesue (52:44.414)He jumped in. I'm not a baker, but it was like, you know, the demand is there and we got super busy. So he jumped in. He called him he called himself a cinnamon king.
Joshua Sharkey (52:45.291)He was like,
Joshua Sharkey (52:53.528)Mm-hmm.
Chat Suansilphong (52:54.07)No li nine no no one pressed me. I pressed myself. I'm just monkey now. I learned like two days before we opened how to mix in one row and I like kinda scaled it out.
Joshua Sharkey (53:03.246)Dude, a good cinnamon roll. Mm if it's gluten free, I'm going there after this. Yeah. I love I mean I'll I'll eat dessert all day long. I eat dessert before dinner and after dinner. my god. And I have to eat it like literally right after dinner. Like I have to have it ready. Listen, people have like a lot of people have sweet tooth. yeah. I got I got a huge one. But but how often are you two actually in the same room? 'Cause you I'm sure you're running around a lot. Really?
Chat Suansilphong (53:23.562)A lot. A lot lately. Because we also have an office that we have all the meetings from all the concept that we have to attend. Yeah. So once every two, three days.
Jenn Saesue (53:32.768)Trying to be better, you know. I think we were all over the place before. We're kind of like, whatever, we'll do whatever, like whatever it is that we need to do from wherever we need to be, right? Like, but I think now that like the team is getting bigger, we have to be a little bit more intentional. Like we're learning also like to be like a professional person. Like we're we're kind of you know, kind of rolling with it.
Joshua Sharkey (53:53.826)I wanna I wanna talk about that before we but before we do, what was the biggest takeaways from all this R and D? 'Cause if if ninety eight percent of gluten free, dairy free, all this stuff, you know, baked goods are terrible, which they are, then what were the biggest takeaways of what works?
Chat Suansilphong (54:10.38)I have to be okay with it. Like I have to
Joshua Sharkey (54:13.47)Okay, I know I know the green light part of it.
Chat Suansilphong (54:16.194)For me that I don't even care about artists. If I eat it was like you know what, I'll come back and and buy it again.
Joshua Sharkey (54:22.124)Or the things that you learned about the actual like process or the ingredients were like, that that you'd like w were a surprise, like, that
Jenn Saesue (54:28.514)Yes and no. I think that because we're involved with it so much and the past two years, like you even hi, my gosh. He's from he's from built hospitality. He's regular they just move off. But I think, you know, like for us, like we see the ingredients kind of like the progress of the ingredients within the past like two, three years, like since we start the technology and these
Joshua Sharkey (54:39.48)cool.
Joshua Sharkey (54:43.18)Yeah.
Jenn Saesue (54:58.252)like ingredients are crazy and like so even okay, just egg, right? Like the brand just egg. In the beginning, we were like, we have to like we were using it and we were like, this is amazing. Like it gives great consistency. And I think my husband overheard the conversation and he goes, Jen, you know just egg has soy, right? And I said, What the fuck are you talking about? He was like, No, it has soy. Like I know because he use it and he's like, It has soy in it. There's soy less than in it. And I said
No fucking way. Like, no way. Because we looked at the ingredients and we saw everything. So like we went to like on deep dive. And when we were using it, there's no more soy. But from the time that my husband was using it, which is literally like months prior, just months, a couple months prior, there was soy. So within those couple months, the company themselves took out soy less.
Joshua Sharkey (55:51.192)So what did they I that's like an emulsifier, so what did they put in his place? My faith.
Jenn Saesue (55:54.082)Have no idea. But it's listen, I I just I just read the ingredient list that they have. This is safe for us. We are good to go, we can use it. but there's so many companies like that now that are so aware of the allergens and know that, like, hey, there's a market for it. And if listen, like if you look at Whole Foods, if you look at that aisle of like the non dairy or like the no gluten, those aisles are expanding. yeah, tremendously.
Joshua Sharkey (56:00.044)And it's like hey.
Jenn Saesue (56:21.772)Right. Like you have new products coming out like every other week. So I think for us, like the takeaway is that, like, hey, there's definitely a market for it. People are affected by it. Seeing it or not, that's a different thing. Right. Admitting that, like, hey, you are you actually have gluten intolerance. Maybe I do. I don't know. I'm not admitting to it. There's a market for it. There's a demand for it.
Joshua Sharkey (56:44.182)Even if you don't have intolerance, it sits with you more. Yeah.
Jenn Saesue (56:46.936)And the thing is like we live in like the city, right? Like we live in a metropolitan area. We have access to those things. I I for me, I don't believe that if you go out to like like a different area that those things goes away. Yeah. I think people are getting affected, but we just not. We're we're not.
Joshua Sharkey (57:08.45)Yeah, and even if you don't even if you're not allergic to it, it just it feels better when you're eating that kind of stuff. So, all right, so you're scaling now, you've got an office, you guys are actually together more. Like what what are the things now that you're like delegating that you're kind of not feeling comfortable at delegating? Because I imagine you have to start pushing stuff off to your team more. We
Jenn Saesue (57:27.214)Do. I think we got to a really good place that we're we trust them to run this, like all the restaurants the way we want them to run. It took a couple of years, you know, like with the new team, like with the new, with new people in place. But at the end of the day, I think that they're doing a better job than than us. You know, we were running around like crazy people, like we were doing everything. We can't focus on one thing. But
The people that we hire, they have specific roles and they are there to focus on those things that they're supposed to focus on. So I think it actually is better for us.
Joshua Sharkey (58:05.102)Are there like things though that you haven't given handed off yet that you know you should that you're like,
Chat Suansilphong (58:11.106)We're pretty much hands on on a lot of things, even though we have very amazing talent people working for us. But me and Jen is kinda like oversee everything.
Joshua Sharkey (58:20.086)I think.
Jenn Saesue (58:20.43)We still want the final say, but we want them to present it to us. So like I think meetings are super important. We have like an ongoing, like ever like a weekly meeting with like, hey, management team. And then like, you know, like with the hospitality team. Like we have meet ongoing meetings every single week that like today, after this, I have to go to fish cheeks because that's the management meeting. Whatever it is that's happening or will happen will be discussed in that meeting. And again, I don't
Really have to be there, but I'm there because if they need me to say yes to something, I'm there. Right. Like, and again, like with Dustin, tomorrow's Tuesday. That's when we meet with him every single week. And if he has new dishes or if if he has something that he wants to put on the menu, we sit down and we discuss and we dissect it. Right. Like again, not saying that like he's not good enough, but I think that three people, three different palettes. Right. So what is it that?
Joshua Sharkey (59:19.702)Even for like a special for like a cliche one, AI. You guys using AI at all? Is it as in impact with your business?
Jenn Saesue (59:30.162)Yes, I think that we we are trying to find a way to work with AI. I think there are platforms that makes like, you know, back end easier, like phone, I guess. Like that's AI now. But I I think we have to move forward. I I don't think that we should be so closed off to change. I think things are changing. We have to change with it. Again, if it's easier, if it makes our staff's life easier, why not? I I I truly believe that.
you know, anything to make their day easier and not having to go extra steps for pulling information. I I am accepting of that.
Joshua Sharkey (01:00:11.052)Is there anything right now that you're doing or want to do or been thinking about?
Jenn Saesue (01:00:15.566)I mean, there's other companies like I guess like Built Hospitality, right? Like they built this amazing kind of tool. This is like no sponsor. You should sponsor me. But but again, I think it's great because now it's almost like a it's almost like AI for your company because it's pulling from your own data. Right. So if my if my manager wants to say, Hey, who's our regular? Who's in today? Blah, blah, blah. Yeah. It's there. Yeah. Just with like literally one question away. Yeah. Right.
Joshua Sharkey (01:00:43.82)That's the most important step every company should make. And and there's a way to do it the right way because you have to have permission access and make sure everybody can can't ask questions that that get an answer that you don't want them to but the the ability to like, you know, consolidate all your data across all your disparate
Jenn Saesue (01:00:58.944)Listen, I think lot of people ask me this all the time where it's like, Hey, what is like your your dream scenario for like the platform? For all the for all the platform to live in the same ecosystem. Right. Like currently, nothing lives together. Yeah. Everything is like a separate thing, even though we're trying to integrate everything together. It's still hard. It's still hard to find information and pull information that like
Maybe my director of marketing wants it, but can't have it because now she has to do a deep dive in Rezi. And it's like, what is happening? And the hours that she has to spend on it is astronomical, right? Or like my director or Bob is like, hey, I want to know who is coming in the most and who is, you know, who's our like best regular. Rezi is here. Toze is here. Do they talk to each other? Lightly. Not a lot. Yeah. So
Joshua Sharkey (01:01:54.242)Yeah, and then you should be able to pull that data and put it into a database and query it and that's it's critical. Yeah. I'm really passionate about it. We we w obviously we do it with with with my company and I have it personally for all my I mean, I connect obviously all my company data and then I have all my personal data and my therapy calls and my you know, every note and and text message from the last fifteen years. It's literally it's all consolidated so that when I I mean
Jenn Saesue (01:02:18.518)Chat JPT his best friend. Yeah.
Chat Suansilphong (01:02:21.056)Listen, I use a lot of AI for my own research. We get a lot of like machine in Canada that we went that was AI. Mm-hmm. Right. I like I use that as a tool to get me more information about things that I don't know.
Joshua Sharkey (01:02:34.552)Yeah, I think, you know, the the the idea that like it replaces people. I mean, there are places where it does what for the most part, you can just, you know, ten X or a hundred X your ability to to make decisions better. Imagine if you remembered everything that you possibly could remember about anything you've ever done or heard or said or talked about on top of the external information and have that all, you know, at your fingertips at any time. So you ask a question about the regular that comes in, but you also have context on 12 people that were similar to that person and what they said and
Yeah. It's it's really exciting. So what's next for fifty five hospitality?
Jenn Saesue (01:03:08.236)We are expanding.
Chat Suansilphong (01:03:12.44)Much can we say?
Joshua Sharkey (01:03:14.606)well at it. When does this come out? We have probably we're we're in a queue, so this is probably this is probably six, eight weeks. I mean we can wiggle with it, but there's a there's a backlog, so
Jenn Saesue (01:03:26.414)We are expanding outside the city area.
Joshua Sharkey (01:03:28.846)outside the city but within the state? Gotcha. Outside the state but within the country? Yes. Okay. This is like twenty questions. Okay. are there farms nearby where you're going?
Jenn Saesue (01:03:33.568)No.
Chat Suansilphong (01:03:46.914)Yeah. How what is nearby? Maybe. Yeah.
Joshua Sharkey (01:03:49.644)Within twenty miles.
Okay, gotcha. Can I drive there or must I fly there? You can. Okay, I can drive. Okay, gotcha. Gotcha. Would I need to stop Would I need to stop for gas in order to get there if I Okay. okay. Cool. All right.
Chat Suansilphong (01:03:58.798)Yeah.
Jenn Saesue (01:04:09.464)You'll find out more. I just don't wanna say it yet because like we literally just start
Joshua Sharkey (01:04:12.962)Completed construction.
Chat Suansilphong (01:04:14.254)This is another thing I learn about, you know, growing bigger too, that I can't say anything I wanna say anymore. That's a big learning curve for me. I like, Jen, I can't be myself anymore. It like, Yeah, you gotta do what you gotta do.
Joshua Sharkey (01:04:26.466)But why why is that by the way? What what what's your is it a
Chat Suansilphong (01:04:29.134)I just think that you say a thick more than just you. It used to be like well, like two years ago I could say whatever I want. I can be whoever I want to be. I can joke, I can be a joker. Yes. I can joke around, I can be like stupid sometime now. I can't.
Joshua Sharkey (01:04:43.746)You can, you know.
Jenn Saesue (01:04:45.27)still can but you just have to watch, you know? Like the people are listening to you and like they are basing their decision on your on what you're saying. So it's like you just have to
Chat Suansilphong (01:04:54.474)I feel like five five you know five five is ha ha in high toy ras last time, no? I don't remember. So five five hospitality number five and five, high people say ha, right? So it's it's ha ha. I don't feel like we are ha ha anymore.
Joshua Sharkey (01:05:08.497)You are coming.
Jenn Saesue (01:05:09.474)We are, we are, we are.
Joshua Sharkey (01:05:11.606)Yeah. Well, it's really exciting. Congratulations on all the growth. I'm excited to see what's next. I will drive a car there to get there. Maybe it's closer to me because I live outside of the city. We'll see. but this was awesome. And I I just again, like I had such a good meal at Fisher Cheeks that I can't wait to come. Come back to Bank Center Club now. I will. I have to bring my my wi my wife and I get the city once every three months now. Cool. All right. Great.
Jenn Saesue (01:05:27.039)Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Jenn Saesue (01:05:34.252)It's a perfect spot for a day.
Chat Suansilphong (01:05:38.89)Thank you so much.
Jenn Saesue (01:05:39.854)Chaos.
Joshua Sharkey (01:05:40.866)Thanks so much for listening to the show. If you liked this episode or any other ones, you can actually check out more of this at getmes.com slash josh. That's G-E-T-M-E-E-Z slash J-O-S-H. I have my podcast there, the Mees Podcast, plus some other shows and interviews. Starting to write some stories and blog posts, some recipes, recaps, things like that. So I think you'll enjoy it. Again, it's getme's dot com slash josh, G-E-T-M-E-E.
Double Easy.com slash J-O-S-H. Thank you very much. Very grateful for all of you.
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