Yeah. But they're, yeah. You know, like I'm writing 10 handwritten letters this year to people. Um, but these like little things that don't, kind of, don't, yeah. I do like I do every year. Um, but I do them more like holidays. This is just like random, you know, random letters for, for saying thank [00:02:00] you.
Mattew Conway: This may not or may surprise you, but I write a handwritten thank you for.
A vast majority of my restaurant experiences and I write a handwritten thank you to every winery I visit every year.
Michael Jacober: Wow. So that's part,
part
Josh Sharkey: of your doesn actually surprise me. Annoying you. But that's, that's cool.
Mattew Conway: I do a lot of people make fun of me for it.
Josh Sharkey: So you, every restaurant you go to, you, you write a handwritten, like,
Mattew Conway: not every restaurant, but like when I go to a nice restaurant that does nice things or just isn't good experience, it's usually just like a tippling postcard or in the past, like whatever.
And I'll just be like, Hey, thank you for a great evening. We, you know, everything was appreciated just because I think it's good to have positive reinforcement for the team when you're doing a good job.
Josh Sharkey: That's awesome, by the way. Okay. What's your take on bringing. A bottle to the restaurant. I still bring like a bottle, like a bourbon or something for the kitchen.
And then lately, like a co couple people on my team, we were in Chicago, I forget, we went to the [00:03:00] Smith or something and um, I was about to get a bottle of bourbon and they're like, no, you like, just in case they don't drink. And so we got like a bunch of candy and like snacks for them. They're like, what's the, do you still, do you, do you do that still?
Like bring a bottle whenever you go to a restaurant? I
Mattew Conway: mean, I never cared about the back of the house to begin with, so no, I never brought them anything. Anyway,
Josh Sharkey: Mike, you,
Mattew Conway: that's such a
Michael Jacober: back house thing was, I haven't done it in so long, but for me it was always, it was always beers. It was always like the nicest beers I could find.
Just, you know, a, a bottle. I feel like cooks at the time when I was like. Really engaged in that. Didn't really give a shit about wine.
Josh Sharkey: I mean, like bourbon, I would always get just like a bottle of bourbon. 'cause then everybody
Michael Jacober: could get a little bit, you know, I mean that, I'm sure that worked well. I'm sure that worked.
I'm sure you were. That was well. Well, well she you
Mattew Conway: pretty like. For lack of a better term, like woke douchey thing to be like, whatever you do, don't give them alcohol, because whatever they say, like if somebody doesn't drink, it's not a problem for the rest of the people who drink. Right? [00:04:00]
Michael Jacober: They just won't.
Mattew Conway: Thank it. Almost, almost like you're wheeling their dead mom into the kitchen. You know? Like, oh, don't do that. That's gonna hurt the Achilles. It's like, I think
Josh Sharkey: we went from bringing Barbara to Wheeling your dead mom in.
Mattew Conway: I'm just saying anybody who said that that could be offensive is taking of being offended too far.
Like, come on. It's bringing, yeah, in the kitchen. It's a nice gesture period. Do I do it? No. No, I don't.
Josh Sharkey: Well, I mean. I do it, you know, sometimes I do it now with a bunch, with some me swag. Just 'cause we have really cool swag. Yeah. We have like Kon spoons and, and um, like digital scales. The scale, same the
Michael Jacober: scale,
Josh Sharkey: but I still want to bring like a, you know, a bottle.
Then it becomes overkill. Like, I remember we went to Jeremy Fox restaurant. I had like three, we used to do 'em in little mini fish tubs, branded fish tubs with the scale. Did spoon a couple things.
Michael Jacober: Yeah.
Josh Sharkey: And it was like, and I think people brought a couple and a bottle. I was like, this is much. Yeah, it was like way too much,
Mattew Conway: I think.
Josh Sharkey: But I did think you should, I think
Mattew Conway: spoons are a way cooler gift [00:05:00] than beer. Those things
Josh Sharkey: last. Yeah. But you can't bring a lot of Kon spoons Sure
Mattew Conway: could give. I'm saying those things last forever. It's the greatest moon ever created. Yes. Like, it's just That's that's the gift.
Josh Sharkey: Yeah.
Mattew Conway: But
Josh Sharkey: yeah, when I started meez we bought a thousand of them
Mattew Conway: Whoof,
Josh Sharkey: and we've got a good deal on them and, uh, with, you know, the branded little thing and uh, and it's just, everybody gets a little note from me who
Mattew Conway: gets the royalties from that, Jimmy.
Josh Sharkey: Well, that's why I did it too, because, you know, they take it. Majority. It goes to it. It goes to them. So
Mattew Conway: good.
Josh Sharkey: Then well to Nicole and
Mattew Conway: Yeah, right. Everybody go buy a Kunin.
Josh Sharkey: They should. Everybody should go by a Kun.
Mattew Conway: Everybody should have Kun. I think if you're a chef and you don't know what a Kon is, you're not a real chef.
There you go.
Josh Sharkey: It is. It is. The beston. Hands down. Okay. We have a couple options. So one thing that I've been like ruminating on is this idea of are there experts anymore? Given how much information you can get online, is that just totally diluted? Because you can know so much about something. [00:06:00] What I wanted to talk to Jacob about was this idea of focus versus breath.
Jacob has, Mike has like 12 businesses and I don't know, whatever. I don't know how you fucking do it. But that's what I'd like to talk about. But, um, and here you hear wait minute.
Mattew Conway: I thought he was just a numbers guy. That's why I paid him money. You guys just Yes. You know, a jack of all trades. I thought he was the king of one thing.
That's what she's looking to me for.
Josh Sharkey: No, not at all. He just happens to be really good at that too.
Mattew Conway: Is this the
Josh Sharkey: problem? But, um,
Mattew Conway: he used to apply for a refund.
Josh Sharkey: Maybe he's a,
Mattew Conway: it's not what
Josh Sharkey: happened
Mattew Conway: to me.
Josh Sharkey: Maybe you're an AutoD deck. Could be that.
Michael Jacober: You asked me that a couple years ago and I, I didn't know what that was.
I looked it up and it, I don't know. I, I don't think so.
Josh Sharkey: Okay.
Michael Jacober: I think I, I, there, there, there's a part of my brain that like under, that can pick up, I can pick up things fast, but Matt mentioned jack of all trades. Like I, I kind of identify more with the jack of all trades. I don't consider myself like a deep [00:07:00] expert in, in one specific thing.
Josh Sharkey: Jack of all trades typically means like, you know, a little bit of everything and you happen to get really good
Michael Jacober: at, I can go deep at a lot of things. I can go deep, I get, yeah, I get deep depending on how much I enjoy the thing. I don't know.
Josh Sharkey: I heard, uh, Matt's not gonna care about this, but I, I was listening to Mark Andreesen talk about what is critical for founders moving forward.
It's actually to be a generalist because you have, I,
Michael Jacober: I heard this. I was so excited.
Josh Sharkey: Yeah.
Michael Jacober: I was like,
Mattew Conway: why not so
Michael Jacober: validated?
Mattew Conway: Why am I not gonna care about that? A and B, what a fucking dumb thing. What, what a dumb opinion. Founders need to be a jack of all trades.
Josh Sharkey: So he's, again, I say why you don't, why you wouldn't care about it.
Because maybe Will, but it, he's talking specifically about tech founders.
Michael Jacober: Yeah. On a go forward. On
Josh Sharkey: a go forward basis. Yeah. Just because you know where somebody's really good at, you know, technically like in a developer or really good, like, you know, at, at revenue growth and things like [00:08:00] that. But you can be very good at a lot of things, so you kind of need to be able to do all of them.
There's just so much more access to, you know,
Michael Jacober: I think that's the concept information
Josh Sharkey: quickly
Michael Jacober: think you have access to experts at your fingertips.
Josh Sharkey: Yeah.
Michael Jacober: And so you could probably move substantially faster if you're a generalist and you're just accessing your ex experts as opposed to, you know, needing to surround yourself with a team of them.
And dealing with opinions and dealing with personalities. I would think, uh, you know, you can move sub substantially faster as a generalist.
Josh Sharkey: Let's talk about experts for a second then, because. Matt, you sit down at a, at a, at a table, somebody, a guest sits down at a table, and then you have a wine list, like a menu, obviously the dinner menu.
And today someone might just snap a picture of that wine list and a picture of the menu, put it into, you know, one of the LLMs and say, help me pick the best wine. Here's what I like. Here's the menu. You know, and it would probably explain it, [00:09:00] act as the, you know. Greatest sommelier who understands in depth story and, and get probably a pretty
Mattew Conway: good, I'm already bored.
You already bored me today,
Josh Sharkey: but tell me what, but, but I'm,
Mattew Conway: how the fuck do you think you can replace the human element of that? You can't.
Josh Sharkey: Okay. So, but yeah, sure. So, but then that sort of is redefining a bit of what a sommelier is. 'cause Somnia is an expert in, in wine and there's a lot more to it than just the, the knowing what to pair it with.
But if you're just calling someone to be like, Hey, I don't know what to, what to drink. I just wanna know what to order. I don't know what, what wine to order. And let's just say there's only eight glasses of like buy the glass and I just wanna order buy the glass.
Mattew Conway: But you told, you told last week or last episode, you talked about the beauty of A BLT.
Like, uh, Holland Sauce is pretty simple ingredients, yet you've had so many really horrific and some very memorable Holland days, all from the same ingredients. The idea that a robot, whatever that robot is, can handle those [00:10:00] ingredients, doesn't mean they're gonna handle them with a human touch that makes it whatever that is to you, which is special, and everybody might like a different version, but just 'cause you have the ingredients doesn't mean you have the, the context to deliver them in a way that is, feels good.
Josh Sharkey: All right, I'm gonna push back here because Please, I am too. Yeah. You, you created wines by the glass. You already decided, here's the eight wines by the glass.
Mattew Conway: Sure.
Josh Sharkey: Right? Or the 20 right for a reason. Right. You decided that those are the wines by the glass, which probably means that they go with the food.
Do I need to wait for you to come over to tell me which red with the thing that I want to eat, or if I could actually just snap those two pictures and ask? I don't think the answer would be different from what I ask an LLM versus I ask you,
Mattew Conway: uh, man. I would say that most people don't really ask advice on buy the glass.
They know what they want to drink. Sadly, people are more, I'm gonna drink pinot noir. Whether it's good or bad, it doesn't really matter. They're not looking for a pairing. But oftentimes when people do want to connect with a wine, it [00:11:00] really doesn't, like so many people don't know what they want. So if they ask a, a robot for a sweet white.
That's what they want, which has been a common theme in the world of wine for 20 years, is people saying, oh, I'd like a sweet white when they don't want sugar at all. They want a fruit driven white, and yeah. Do you think you can teach a robot to pick up on those nuances? Maybe. But how is the robot gonna.
To be able to look at the person in front of them and use, you know, I've said for a very long time, I can't speak for the kitchen because they can't see the dining room most of the time. But for a sommelier like reading your guests, profiling people. Maybe some people want to hear a story about the back story of the producer because you can tell the context that they're on a date and they need a little somebody to interject, interject, and break up the awkwardness.
So they're more likely to go down that path to find the wine that they like because you're helping them feel comfortable with their guests. They don't know, [00:12:00] or you're looking at two people who want nothing to do with you, and you just want to give 'em the glass that you think is actually gonna appease them.
But if they asked a robot for a sweet white. They might actually end up with something with sugar, and they want nothing to do with sugar. So eat wines by the glass. Either you got somebody who says, I'm gonna drink pinot noir, whether it sucks or not. And they could ask the robot if they don't have pinot noir, what's the closest thing?
And it's gonna be like DMA, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And that probably will suit them. But if you're actually looking to drink something delicious, you'd probably want a human to to guide you in that trick.
Josh Sharkey: I'm gonna push back again and I'm gonna have Mike push back and then we're just gonna come at you.
So one, like, that's one instance. So I was at dinner with Regos, uh, the other night at Seahorse. Where'd you go? Went to Seahorse. It was great. It was just like, you know, a bunch of seafood, but you like raw bar to Yeah. And then we both got a, like, we got a whole bunch of stuff and then we both got an entre.
I got the trout and he got the tuna. It was like a tuna opera or something. We, we had already had cocktails, and so we just wanted a glass of white and there's [00:13:00] literally four glasses of white. And you know, there's a, there was a domain Flor, uh, sair. And uh, there was like a white bordeaux and a, and two others.
He was just like, what, which white should I have with this? I want a glass of white with my, I said, which one should I have? And, uh, he had a white someone come over and tell 'em. And same for me. I was like, okay, I'm of the trout of which, which, which should I have? What's best with this? There probably is a white on purpose that's best for that's there, but then we, you know, we waited two minutes, so fine.
Two minutes, but it could have been 10 minutes. But I don't think, I don't think there's any difference between those two. Also, if you have a good enough prompt and if there's enough information on you and you ask that question about like, I like Pinot and you see this, there would, there could be follow up questions.
Claude's really good. Without you even asking, having follow up questions.
Mattew Conway: So there's, so
Josh Sharkey: that you
Mattew Conway: get to the answer. Yeah, sure. That's great. Follow up question. There's two things immediately and they'll sidetrack me to something that I actually wanted to talk about. But first, if you're specifically talking about what goes well with this dish, uh, working for.
[00:14:00] Two chefs with great Koons and Mark Ford, Joan, who both adored tasting beverage with their food. You know, many chefs, there's this idea that som leers get to taste all the dishes and drink all of the wines and make the pairings, but a lot of chefs, especially in New York, don't allow their wine team to ever taste the food unless they like, every once in a while they come in for dinner on their own.
You have to making the pairings. I worked for two people who not only enjoyed it, but insisted upon it. And when you get into a dish. Short ribs and red wine sounds like a pretty good pairing, but when you have a horse radish baton or something that's pungent in the dish, it can start to change the profile of the paring.
A mark four Jones's dish was Hiam Masa Tar. Tar. Dude, you could drink that with any fucking dry white wine on the planet. It would be delicious. It had micro cilantro on it. If you take the micro cilantro off, it didn't matter. You could literally close your eyes, but the guest wouldn't know to put the prompt in to say, oh, it's here maar with micro cilantro.
So there's no way for that [00:15:00] robot to identify that little nuance on the dish that's gonna, well,
Josh Sharkey: unless it's set it on the, on the menu.
Michael Jacober: Or if you were to take, take a picture and give context based on your
Mattew Conway: image. Have you shown image you a program that you can take a picture of the dish that's at your plate?
You, you're already now waiting. For all this other things. So you'd have to have the picture of the dish. Yeah. You
Josh Sharkey: wouldn't be able to, that wouldn't make sense 'cause you would already have the dish. But, but if it said, if it's set on the menu,
Mattew Conway: if it said on the menu, it only program that you can take a picture of a menu and it said here in ma tartar, avocado citrusy dressing, uh, micro cilantro.
And that, that program is gonna tell you that you can't drink chardonnay with that dish because of the micro citro. Show it to me right now. There's no way. And maybe we'll get there.
Josh Sharkey: I'm, I'm,
Mattew Conway: and we
Josh Sharkey: probably are. I'm gonna try right now while we're doing this. I'm, I'm gonna screenshot a picture and put,
Mattew Conway: plug the G where we're talking really wanna go with this and I think this is even a better conversation with John.
Michael Jacober: Well, hold on, hold on. Before, before you do, I think it's important to distinguish the difference between, let's go back to the comparison, the BLT and, and a wine pairing, [00:16:00] right? Like, those are two very different skills. One is sort of still hand to hand. Combat one is, one is a craft. Yeah. Uh, as opposed to knowledge.
Right? So like everything that Josh discussed in his BLT example, like hands need to be on that. And it takes precision, it takes, you know, thousands of. Attempts to make a BLT before you actually, you know, make the idea. It's not just about I know the right thing that should go on this BLTI know that, uh, this goes best with this.
It's, it's actually having to execute it. I think, uh, when it comes to the, to the, to the som world, it really, it is a knowledge game, you know, and obviously knowledge comes from so many different. Repetitions. It comes from reading, it comes from tasting. It comes from so many different things, but that I think is much more easily synthesized into an LLM as opposed to a [00:17:00] robot trying to teach a robot how to make a BLT.
And so if I'm playing devil's advocate here, well I should, if I'm, if I'm actually. I do think a majority of wine knowledge can be synthesized through an LLM. What I will agree with you on is an LLM can't read the room. It can't read the occasion, it can't read the body language. Of two people at a table, also boring people.
And if, if there's anything that an expert psalm, uh, beyond just the knowledge of the wine, it's being, being able to read the guest like that is gonna be very hard to replace. So I do believe that there's still, you know, value in the, in that, I mean, I agree with what you're
Mattew Conway: saying with the, the, the knowledge versus whatever, but.
The idea of, of forgetting the level, even though you didn't make the wine using your palate to discern what's good and what's not. Like there are still sommelier that are working at great restaurants [00:18:00] that I will, uh, leave nameless, even though I know you wanna spray the pot a little bit. That think that fucking creamy, oaky, chardonnay, and sea urchin is a good pairing.
I, I would like choke that person out. It's vehemently wrong. To me to think that you want rich on rich crime, like you want acidity to cut through richness. So that takes a lot of experience of actually putting different flavors and textures, not just with wine, beers, cocktails, uh, straight spirits, non-alcoholic beverages in the context with certain things like, uh, for a long time.
Mark's father Larry for Joan, had a buffalo tar tar dish at am at an American place that was really popular and we ran it for a special Father's Day menu once or whatever, and it was a total happenstance, but we ended up drinking sake with it, and it turned out to be one of the better pairings. Not any sake, a specific style of sake that like.
We ended up running for probably, I don't [00:19:00] even know, nine months on the menu. And then we actually put, we never did pairings on like a normal, a la carte menu, but we actually put on the menu, we suggest with this sake for $16 a glass so that it would prompt people to ask about it. And putting things in different context over and over is really what cooking's about with a little bit more technique involved, obviously.
Um, but you're still putting things. Over and over through the same process with little twists to find what you think is perfect or what you think you want to deliver to your guests. So more or less, they're the same. Just maybe magnified as a chef because it requires the technique also. But where I was gonna go is how many people ordered their own fucking dish today?
Nobody. You just said I ordered my entree. He ordered his entree. It is so rare, even when you go out to places that are designed to be appetizer, mid-course entree type restaurants, or just appetize, old school, American appetizer, entree, restaurants, everybody shares now, and [00:20:00] usually there's somebody that grabs control of the table and says, Hey everybody, what are we going to eat today?
Let me, I, we're gonna do a little of this, a little of this, and as somebody with a severe food allergy, you can't get through a fucking meal at any restaurant where people order an appetizer and an entree. So find me a robot that can pair a dish. Wine with now seven different dishes because you have seven appetizers on the table for a five top, because everybody wanted one thing.
We had some fish and then they threw in some of this and some of that. And now you've got half the world's flavors on one table and that robot is gonna, and I say robot blanket as any program that we're talking about could eventually expand into things that we haven't even thought about yet. Right?
Like with technology. It's just something that's not natural. So I say robot, but like, they're not gonna be able to understand all the flavors and nuances of all seven dishes. They're
Josh Sharkey: tech. Oh, I, I totally disagree. I totally disagree. Yeah.
Mattew Conway: Wow.
Josh Sharkey: I totally disagree. Hold on. I'm gonna read you the response and you tell me if this is wrong.
By the way, I [00:21:00] dropped in a screenshot of,
Michael Jacober: so this was just a screenshot
Josh Sharkey: shot. I really just screenshotted the menu item and the wine list. What are you using, by the way? I, I use GPT. Uh, I, I could use Claw, but. Hia Avocado, pine nut, Saratoga chips, Schu one, uh, buttons. This is a deceptively complex dish. Rasa, pristine, slightly oily clean protein, avocado, creamy fat rounds acidity, pine nuts, you know, sweet resonance.
It's explain, explaining extinct. So you eat something that cuts the fat without overwhelming the delicacy has high neutral acidity is aromatic, but not loud. Can dance with Chuan buttons instead of fighting. It avoids oak sweetness or alcohol Heat. Both die badly here. So he, they went to the actual list that's there and they said the best glass is the best choice is the 2018.
I met Zoey Chaco because high acidity, slight effervescence scrubs the avocado and pine nut fat. The palate cleanly saline and coastal character mirrors the natural sweetness of hi masa. Low alcohol doesn't exaggerate the [00:22:00] numbing spice of the cron pepper buttons, citrus and green apple, I, I won't go all.
So basically. Chose that and why, and then said if I, I, I gave it some more prompt as well. And I said, if you want something non-traditional, I would recommend an ice cold feno sherry. Um, because it's extreme dryness and salinity. Anyways, it explains why the floor yeast helps. It says that a sake could work, but rice, sweetness, and oil can blur the dish.
So. That was one, but I bet even more so if you had seven different disparate dishes, it would be uh, like this would be way faster than someone else trying to figure out what wine to pair
Mattew Conway: and amatory or C Choco, I don't think it's an amatory whatever. Choco is definitely something that I would pair with that dish.
No question. So it got you to somewhere that you kind of wanted to be. We usually lean towards Gruner veer. But you, you could make an argument why Chaco is in that same vein of like green, et cetera, et cetera. Then I do [00:23:00] agree with some of the like little hint that they gave you there, but. They had a GR belt in around the menu too.
There's mind wants to go a million fucking places of where that robot's taking you. But the idea that you're now having a bunch of people who don't even know how to communicate with each other or stopping to screenshot the menu to put in what dish they want to have a, to have this regurgitated to them and then be like, what if there's no chocolate on the wine list?
Josh Sharkey: I think
Michael Jacober: that's,
Josh Sharkey: I screenshotted the wine list. I didn't
Mattew Conway: tell it to pick any random Oh, you screenshot their wine list and the dish and they matched. Yes.
Josh Sharkey: That's, I was just, I was iterating what I was Okay, cool. What I was saying, but like when you're at, uh,
Mattew Conway: we can, I would rather go back to sharing versus individual dishes because that's a hot topic for me.
But to finish on this, is that what you want everybody to do at dinner? Like you said last episode, that, uh, taking a picture of your food at the beginning for social media, basically you said it's dumb and that. I agreed with you, and then you said you did it when? When we went last time, we went out to dinner together and I agreed that [00:24:00] I did.
So now we're going from taking a photo of a food to now everybody's screenshotting the menu and whatever, and waiting for the answer of what they should eat and drink. I don't, well, first of all, that it wouldn't take
Josh Sharkey: that long. You could also build a prompt where it's very fast.
Mattew Conway: I just don't know if that that's a world I wanna live in.
I,
Michael Jacober: that's, that's not the, I think the point of the question wasn't necessarily about the experience. It was about is there value in the expert? Like, is there exactly, is there, is the expert then needed? So if the expert is the sum, obviously take the experience aside. I don't wanna live in a world where, you know, everyone takes a picture of the, of the wine menu and the wine and, and LOM is teaching me or telling me what I should be paired with.
But do, do, does a restaurant now need a, you know, a 20 year vet who. Has to have all of that relevant experience to talk about, you know, the specific pairings or can that person get a crash course, [00:25:00] uh, in, in snapshotting the wine list and snapshotting the menu. And, and
Mattew Conway: you would be shocked at how many people come into the wine bar.
And I would say this maybe the past 18 months and the topic, and I'm sure other people that work. Behind a bar. The the topic is that their job is gonna get replaced by ai and they're talking amongst each other. You know, they work in marketing and they're like, my job's gonna be obsolete in six months, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And I confidently tell these people all the time, I'll never be worried about my job getting taken over by ai. And I believe that because the interaction that I have with people. May be more about the art of hospitality, which is what people are truly seeking when they go out and spending money. They don't really care about the pairing.
They don't. And you can do that by serving people bad pairings, which I've had at some of the great restaurants of the world, and yet they're still considered three submission [00:26:00] star restaurants, et cetera, et cetera. And maybe that's because the sommelier doesn't taste the wine, 'cause the chef doesn't let them.
Who cares? Why? The bottom line is people are willing to spend a lot of money to go sit at great restaurants and have bad pairings because there's a human interaction that they. Either have been told or other people have experienced or they've experienced themselves, that makes them feel fucking good and no robot will do that.
I will.
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Mattew Conway: get a sweet deal on me.
Josh Sharkey: Well, but so I, I, I agree with that, but that, I think we're saying things I do too, because Yes, you, your job won't get replaced because you're talking about hospitality and how you make somebody feel being an expert
Michael Jacober: in
Josh Sharkey: hospitality that takes a human no matter what, like we, you, and that is a skill and that is very difficult.
And that is,
Mattew Conway: that is the signature of a great Soleil. It is bridging the world between,
Josh Sharkey: well, I would argue it's really just any business, any service actually what? Anything, you know. The, and this is more the argument that I'm making is that. Quote, unquote, an expert, right? [00:28:00] You can know a lot of information now, like a ton of information.
That doesn't mean that you will be a great sommelier, a great chef, a great
Mattew Conway: sure
Josh Sharkey: musician, a great, any, any of those things. I can, you know, I can look at a, a million different videos now and learn how to make duck home fee. That doesn't mean that I'm gonna make the greatest duck home fee. I might actually make a video that makes it look like I do, but there's a lot of, there's a lot that goes into it.
But in, in the same way as a, as a sommelier, I could know everything that you do about wine because of all of the information I have. I didn't walk on that vineyard and like put the grass in my hand. I think's
Mattew Conway: the least important part of it, to be
Josh Sharkey: honest. Uh, no, but what I mean, the point is more like there is, there is two things that like that can't be replaced.
One is. Passion and like connection, right? Because these are very like dispassionate answers that we're getting, right? And then two is hospitality and how you make people feel those two things can't be replaced. But I would argue though that like this answer is actually better suited for if, if all you wanna know is like, what glass?
Tell me what glass is gonna be best for this. I just wanna know that there [00:29:00] might be other things that will be helpful for me, but I do wanna know that. And that challenge of like all those variables. I think a, you know, an algorithm will know that better, but making somebody feel special about it. Or when everybody disagrees because they want this and I want red and you want white being able to solve that for a table that's very challenging.
Uh, but they're two, they're two different things. So like, the idea of becoming an expert is, is just different,
Mattew Conway: what I'm saying. Yeah. The expertise of crossing those two things though is like being an expert in hospitality while also having the expertise in wine and. Profiling people is so important. And I, I don't even wanna say this on camera, out of fear that my guests could, could, could run into this.
But it's like I teach my staff today here, you know, the most important part of our job is making someone feel genuinely good about spending the money that they just spent, regardless of what the price point [00:30:00] was, whether they. Chose it or we chose it or help them choose it. Like I walk in every day, like Friday night right now, like it's early before service.
I usually go home, whatever. I walk into service when there's, you know, the place is half or all already full and I walk around and go, oh, hey, nice to see you. Oh, what are you drinking here? Nice choice. It's making somebody feel good about the fact that they spent money on something that you could just get away with buying $40 bottles.
For the rest of your life and it's gonna check the box of a little bit of alcohol, a little bit of buzz, and something to go with your food. The reason why people go from 40 to 80 or 80 to one 20 or 20 to one 50 isn't because a robot told you the nuances are so much better. It's because you've built a relationship with a human that makes you feel good about taking that next leap.
And I have a collector that buys an astronomical amount of wine in dollars a year for me that I met. In New York City and he bought a $68 bottle of wine twice a [00:31:00] month. The same bottle of Christopher Creek, petite Zarah for two years, and now the guy's buying $4,000 bottles of Sini. Like it's nothing. He didn't get there because somebody told them that.
The sese nuanced flavors.
Josh Sharkey: Yeah, but I thi I just think we're talking about two different things. Nobody disagrees with that. Again, my point, and maybe, maybe I'm using the the wrong word. Let me, let me position it this way. So forget the word expert. My point is that information is now a commodity. Those other things
Michael Jacober: not, it says knowledge,
Josh Sharkey: knowledge, knowledge, information, yeah.
That is a commodity. Those skills that you're talking about, hospitality, that relationships, networking, those things, those are commodity are, that's actually what is more important than ever today. Right? Because I, I just believe that like information, knowledge and computation, which we do in our brains is all a commodity now.
And it is already, like I I I, I would argue that you can't already do a lot of those things, and it was only gonna get, you know, easier to do those things. But the point is [00:32:00] that like, if knowledge is a commodity, if information is a commodity, what isn't? Then what is the thing that differ that, that sets you apart?
And it's what you're saying, Matt. So we're like, we're kind of like talking about apples and oranges because you like to argue, but like, we're not, what you're saying is, or maybe I just positioned it wrong, but the, the point I'm making is that like. The amount of knowledge and information that you have is now sort of, it's just a commodity like that.
Anybody can, you know it, it was already getting there with Google and now it's just, you know, it really is just a commodity and how you can actually make people feel the, the, the number of people that you have those relationships with. Matt, in the wine world, in the, in the, in the restaurant industry, that's a hundred million times more valuable than somebody that knows.
More than you now about, about wine than, than you do, right?
Mattew Conway: Sure. And we, and that's Disapp point. That's when we had dinner together. We debated like the, the ad advancement of AI and, and technology in the, in the world, but also in the restaurants sphere, like pretty heatedly. [00:33:00] And I had a very strong stance.
I've watched a lot of the positions that I took that day. Already be proven wrong because as you said then it's learning so fast. It's learning faster than I can even grasp, and so what I thought was impossible six months ago, it's already been doing for a few weeks or months now. So it's like it's moving so fast that the idea that it can do a lot of the things that I didn't think were possible I know are going to happen.
I know that it's going to be able to blow my mind like in five years. I can't even fathom what's gonna be possible when it comes to using it. To replace the commodity of knowledge or, or an expertise in a subject. But like you just said, I, I think there's separate things and all I can hold onto is that the expertise that I would claim is not that I walked in the vineyard or that I know the yields here, the grapes allowed there, but it's that I have the expertise to be like, I know all of [00:34:00] that and I know how to make you feel good that you just spent 150 bucks on it.
Josh Sharkey: Yeah, I think the word expertise where we got went wrong, but I think we need a different word for it too.
Michael Jacober: Well, going back to, I mean, the con the whole thing started with the Mark Andreesen comment about, you know, founder of the future is, is really a more of a generalist than an expert in these specific areas or, you know, the co the, the makeup of the co-founders.
I think. We're all saying the same thing, which is, you know, the generalist, if you think about, you know, the restaurant the generalist is, is the hospitality expert. Right? And for that hospitality expert to be able to be successful in the past has had to surround themselves with other experts. Experts behind the bar, experts, you know, on the floor, knowledge experts.
I guess the point is that generalist can be so much more successful. Not having to [00:35:00] rely on other experts. Now that generalist can become an expert in wine substantially faster, multiples faster than they would've been able to, or even if it was po, was it even possible? You know, could Danny Meyer have become a master some, um, or, or at least present as a master som on the floor of Union Square Cafe when he opened, you know, however, 1982.
Today, if he were to open up that same restaurant being a hospitality expert, he probably would have substantially more wine knowledge than he would've had.
Josh Sharkey: Yeah. I think the point is really that, like back, and I don't know if generalism is the right word, but just the idea that relationships and trust are actually the, that's actually the most skill sets now.
That's the
Michael Jacober: currency. Now,
Josh Sharkey: you know, Matt, you're, you have a business, you happen to be an expert in wine. But you are very good at making people feel a certain way, picking up on things, reading people, your eq. So if you didn't [00:36:00] know as much about wine, the point is that you could still do this. And you know, a proforma in two years, you could probably also just say the thing that you need exactly and not buy a bunch of wine for somebody else and just get your proforma built for you.
And maybe not in two years, maybe in five, five months from now, and all the other things that you, that you need to get done in your business will be able to get done. Much, much. Much faster by you. And the thing that is, that is now like the, the, the most important part of a, of, of an entrepreneur is can you build trust?
Can you build relationships? Because that's actually the only thing that, that doesn't go away.
Michael Jacober: Mm-hmm.
Mattew Conway: You got you guys shares when you go out, you guys show everything.
Josh Sharkey: What do you mean when was
Mattew Conway: it not? Why, why is this so popular? One little bite. One little bite of something. Like you get a, you get double up.
That annoying gets like one little corner of it and where you, you get, [00:37:00] you get to catch up Pep Bay and like somebody gets one too many, one too many noodles on their for I'm so surprised who you say this. I thought sharing was just like the, if you're
Michael Jacober: like an old school, I want my app, I want my, I want my starter and I, my
Mattew Conway: arch
Michael Jacober: tray.
Mattew Conway: I wanna
Josh Sharkey: try
Mattew Conway: a piece of your cacho pepe. If I, if it's on
Josh Sharkey: the table, I want try. I'll try everything.
Mattew Conway: It's even more exciting when you do the the old school way and then somebody politely says, oh, I'd really like to taste that. And you're like, oh, cool. I wanna share a noodle with you. I don't wanna share, I don't wanna split 10 noodles, six ways.
I don't want to take one little bite of Oxy. I want, uh, I wanna taste the dish that I wanna get. You can still off. So I wanna understand what the chef was doing with the dish.
Josh Sharkey: So sometimes with entrees it's tough. Like, you know what, uh, the other night I thought this was, this was a, a good compromise.
'cause I'd share everything when Regos was like, yeah, yeah, let's, let's share everything. Yeah. Except our entree. And then, you know, we each got an entree and then we shared dessert. But we, and we shared all the apps before, but all the like, I want more apps. I wanna try everything.
Mattew Conway: I would way rather share all the apps [00:38:00] than get mad of an entree or than the other way around.
But in general, when you say, I
Josh Sharkey: don't mean that, first of all, that's an American thing too, because in a lot of cultures they just share everything too. Um, you don't just sit down with your own plate of something. There's, there's things that get put on the table and you pass it around.
Mattew Conway: You've worked at, you've worked at many restaurants before you got into tech where it was the common norm was for everybody to order an appetizer and an entree.
Michael Jacober: Yes.
Mattew Conway: It might have even been a prefix menu where you, everybody ordered one course, whatever. And there is in, there's a Daniel, um, opened a restaurant here in Charleston and we went for a Christmas party and it's a four course savory. Oh, no, sorry. It's uh, four course three savory. One dessert, prefixed menu.
Oh, baby. I was in heaven. Heaven. I'm so
Josh Sharkey: surprised that you, it's like, I mean, yes, that was the way, but like, also like it's kind of boring. Like you don't get to try everything else.
Mattew Conway: That is
Josh Sharkey: the way this, and then you like your app, you're
Mattew Conway: offering boring. Then everybody's like, you still have somebody this flavor on that spoon and it's going in that dish.
So now it's not even the [00:39:00] way that it was constructed because somebody puts their mustard spoon into the delicate. So
Josh Sharkey: first of all, I think it's a very different thing. It's ay
Mattew Conway: dish.
Josh Sharkey: It's a very different thing to say. There's a prefix and we're all supposed to get the, you just choose app entree and like that's how it's intended.
And then everybody's maybe in that I could, I could understand what you're saying, but like. Most of the time we're not like designing food for you to only eat that one thing and for to make sure you eat all. We're just like, I ac I would actually hope that you eat every, you share everything.
Mattew Conway: Yeah, we were and we were.
There's, it's just like, you can even go back to this talk about, at least in New York City where we're all more, more well versed about, we can think about the restaurants that started to change the way that looked. But I went out to dinner two nights ago in Hawaii and it's a pretty well-known place, I think nationally star noodle.
We were four top and we, I was one of the guys in my table ordered ramen.
Michael Jacober: I was gonna say the only thing, A bowl of soup.
Josh Sharkey: Yeah. That's nasty.
Michael Jacober: Or a bowl of, that's just that, that, that doesn't, that's [00:40:00] not designed for that.
Josh Sharkey: Yeah. But that's a very different thing. That's like,
Mattew Conway: okay, so now we're taking out, like
Josh Sharkey: you might get some backwash in there that mean that's a very different thing.
Mattew Conway: But they ask you yous if they had separate bowls so they made common, and then you look at that like. That egg in the middle, how do you split that egg of four ways? How are you splitting that egg equally? That's not the way that's intended. Okay. Okay. Now we're getting into really like nuance. You gonna share both?
No, you probably don't share
Josh Sharkey: both. Uh,
Mattew Conway: well, but what I'm saying is, yeah, but go, go back. You you mean to tell me that in whatever, 2005, what is that? Or sorry, 2010, 15 years ago in New York City, I think the majority of restaurants were designed, and I'm not even talking about super highend restaurants, but like the normal restaurants were.
The idea that you would order an appetizer, an entree, and a dessert. And oftentimes people would share a dessert rather than get their own. But the way the menu was, even at Italian restaurants, it was like, you know, preemie, this, that, whatever. They're all set up that way. Now it's like the server will come right over and be like, have you ever eaten here before?
We're designed to share everything on the [00:41:00] menu, and that's not how it always was. And I think sharing pasta as mid courses has become the norm. And I think that that was usually the idea was like having. One pasta flavor on the table. I think the idea of putting four pastas down for a six top and everybody slopping all those noodles together on their plate, I don't, is just does such a disservice.
If you sit down
Josh Sharkey: at a, okay, if you
Mattew Conway: sit down
Josh Sharkey: at a Chinese restaurant creator, all, they have a bunch of noodle dishes that come out. Those are all meant to be shared. There's no world where you go to a Chinese restaurant, you go to Grand Swan, and they have like the whatever doodle dish that, that, that's meant for one person ever.
So I, I, I got call BS on the whole, don't share pasta. That's it, to be honest with you. Yeah. I don't know how to say it, but like,
Michael Jacober: but it's, it's, it's the, it's the tablescape picture, right? That's, I, well,
Mattew Conway: I'm, I wouldn't,
Michael Jacober: probably was a critical. Uh, driver to this whole movement. Right. It's, it's the, it's the
Josh Sharkey: shock all.
I don't, I actually just think it's that, that
Mattew Conway: there's [00:42:00] more, I wouldn't conflate, I wouldn't conflate Chinese and, and house made, uh, possible.
Josh Sharkey: I actually just think there's a lot more people that are not just white, white dudes cooking food and that, that this type of food is normal everywhere. To eat this way, to just share.
I was gonna ask you about the, I don't even know how to pronounce and you're gonna make fun of me for saying the 2021 Blackney Crew, LA Peace. So the, I was gonna ask you to tell me more about, because I didn't know what it was, bla but uh, then I just put it in Chapu Chi and now, now I know about including the picture of the guy who made it.
Benjamin Lare Ru
Mattew Conway: Well, Benjamin Lare. Yeah. Mm-hmm. What's funny about that is it's Blaney can be white or red, but it's mostly white, or at least in my head. And the first vintage at bought of those bottles here in, in Charleston. I hadn't worked with the producer in a while and I bought some Bland Ye and took it home and I.
Had caught a flounder and I was making dinner for my wife and I was like, Ooh, well taste is blandy, which is supposed to be like, you know, high mineral white or whatever. And I have the fish all [00:43:00] sauced out with like a mnet style sauce red. And I pulled the, I pulled the cork on the wine and we had the one glass to sit there on the counter and I went to pour it out.
And I literally went, and I like, you're not lead. And she was like, did you just Yelp? And I was like, yeah. She was like, wow. I was like, I really thought that this was gonna come out white. It came out red. So even experts can be fooled. And I'm sure that, uh, whatever chat, GBT would've told me that that bland ULA piece was rouge and saved me the, the, the scare.
So there are people make mistakes, even even experts. But you say everybody shares if you. In French culture right now. Yeah. That's also, they still
Josh Sharkey: do
Mattew Conway: appetizers
Josh Sharkey: and on how the birth of, how cuisine they, that's what I'm talking about. It's like that's one style of eating and that then kind of influenced how we eat for a very long time in America.
But now we have everybody from around the world, uh, you know, influencing this. Cooks are great that are not just from that, that style. And so like that's why everything is. Way more shareable now, because
Mattew Conway: when you get a bite, [00:44:00] something really good when
Josh Sharkey: you, I know for me, I like a little bit of everything.
Don't you want more of it? I'm, I'm one of the, like,
Mattew Conway: don't,
Josh Sharkey: I like buffet because I wanna try everything there and I like have anxiety around not being able to try something. So I order too many things anyways because I wanna try everything. I'm, I'm there. I don't get to eat out that often.
Mattew Conway: I'm the exact opposite.
I the anxiety of not getting to understand I'm not as
Josh Sharkey: good of an eater outer as some other people. So like when I do eat out, like I wanna make sure that I'm making the most of it. And so I
Mattew Conway: listen buddy, I am no evidence on when it comes to eating out, but I try to stay up and do it as frequently as possible.
That's a good exercise to be in the habit of. And I think that knowing so many people like you. That worked so hard in the kitchen for so long to own a skill and craft to make excellence happen. The idea of sharing that 10 ways, I think just, I don't think so. I would want you to try more of my things. I would want you to
Josh Sharkey: try
Mattew Conway: like as many things as possible factory.
Michael Jacober: I don't know how we got here. We need to move. We need to move to the next, uh, [00:45:00] to the next high. I
Josh Sharkey: like that. We went on a tangent of about sharing. 'cause that wasn't even the cards.
Michael Jacober: That was not in the cards.
Josh Sharkey: But given we have about. 15, 20 minutes left. I did wanna talk to you, Matt, about how you, uh, Mike, about how you have 50,000 things going on at the same time.
But if we don't have time for that, we could talk about walk-ins, no reservation, restaurants, GLP ones.
Michael Jacober: I would love to talk, I would love to talk about GLP ones or walk-ins.
Josh Sharkey: So, funny fact about GLP ones is that. I was reading some, some stats from sarna, uh, before the call or not Yeah, a couple nights ago.
And, um, people are actually eating more than before on GLP ones. They have the perception of they're eating less. They're, they're, they're ordering different things. So 35 to 36% of people say that they eat out less and eat less overall, but actual spend data from the same, you know, cohort of people on GLP ones [00:46:00] shows that they're still downing out just differently.
They avoid fried apps, desserts, bread, pasta, pizza. But ordering more croissants, soft pretzels, fruit smoothies, hot tea, diet soda. So that's
Michael Jacober: weird.
Josh Sharkey: Technically, the, the T LDRs, like GLP ones are not killing restaurants. They're just changing kind of the landscape of what people are ordering. There's way more people on GLP ones that we all have friends on 'em, and then like they just eat less.
Right? It's like, I have that, like
Michael Jacober: you're just
Josh Sharkey: not, like, we would just crush like 30 things not on the menu and share it. And now we, we can't. But Matt, you. You of all of us run a restaurant that like has people come all the time, do you like notice it more people on Ozempic and things similar to that?
Michael Jacober: Did you say notably or did you say you're not noticing it?
Mattew Conway: It's not even in my wheelhouse of conversations or understanding of, I mean, I know through the back end of like personal life people that are. Playing with it, talking about it, but like [00:47:00] inside of the restaurant or, or wine bar, I, I can't,
Josh Sharkey: 23% of all US households have at least one person on GLP ones in America.
Michael Jacober: And that's only gonna continue to go up as, I think we should look this up. But I think there was a ca there's now a cash pay option for a majority of these things, which has greatly brought the cost down.
Josh Sharkey: It seems like it didn't really have any impact on like, the, the, the fear was everybody's gonna take ozempic and then restaurant sales are gonna plummet because people are going to eat less.
But that didn't actually happen.
Michael Jacober: But we're still in the early innings of this. I know it makes you look way less, we're still in the very early innings of, of GLP ones being able to be very readily available for a majority of Americans. So I think it's still too early to tell. Oh,
Josh Sharkey: scary.
Mattew Conway: So now we have people that are gonna be taking medicine.
To suppress their appetite. And then when they, first thing they do when they sit down is gonna be scanning the menu to pump it into a robot, to tell 'em what they should eat [00:48:00] for the little bit they they're gonna eat.
Josh Sharkey: Yeah. I mean,
Mattew Conway: look, I, man, take me back to that old school.
Josh Sharkey: I don't know if this is gonna be a fad that goes away.
The every, there's always like a new thing that's like, oh, this is what. This is what you're supposed to not eat anymore. It was, it was fat and then like, I dunno, fat's good for you. It's sugar. Maybe at some point they're gonna say sugar's okay for you. You know, everybody say eat tons of protein, which, you know, that seems good, but tomorrow they might say something different.
This might just be a be a, a fad. We did, there was this sort of scare that like, people are just gonna order less food. Sounds like they're not, it does sound like people are drinking less, but I dunno if that's because of, of GLP ones. I think they're, that's just.
Mattew Conway: It's definitely drinking less, and I don't think it's just because of that, but I definitely know the people.
Again, I haven't heard anybody discussing it in the wine bar, but of the people that I know are on them, the, they say that they, even if they want to drink, they, they are drinking less because it makes them feel worse or their side effects. I drinking, I think a little bit, it just makes them want to stay.
It's a little
Michael Jacober: taboo to sort of admit that [00:49:00] you're on them. I, I don't think people are talking about it as much as they, as they probably could be.
Mattew Conway: I've literally had dozens of conversations with people about AI replacing their job, like dozens recently. Just random people talking about that, like constantly.
And nothing about the ozempic that I've heard.
Michael Jacober: Yeah, I mean it's pretty terrifying to me if it does actually. Again, me personally, it's probably better for the world. People are, well, I shouldn't say the world. It's probably better if Americans are consuming less calories. I listen to Scott Galloway most days of the week and, you know, his whole rant is, you know, the junk food industry is in bed with the healthcare industry because, you know, we, we try to feed Americans a lot of shit and the more shit we feed them, the more medicine we can use to, uh, to heal them and so on.
And it's a, a [00:50:00] nice, you know. A nice profitable circle. You know, when you break that circle breaks if people are just consuming substantially less. But, you know, selfishly speaking, this is, this is a business that I've kind of grown up in and, and have decided to make my my career. What does it look like if consumption reduces by 30%?
Right? And the entire industry shrinks by 30%. What does that change? What does that look like?
Josh Sharkey: Here's one potential upside that could happen because mm-hmm. The expectation was that just people will eat less, but the, you combat that by just smaller portions, so they're not gonna order less dishes. They're just, you just have smaller portions, but I don't think you would reduce the price.
So maybe someone's going out to eat, but they're not getting a 12 ounce or eight ounce steak. They're actually getting a five ounce, but you're still charging, you know, 40 bucks, you know, and whatever you're charging for that steak. That, that could be an upside where like [00:51:00] portions just get smaller and that's just the norm.
Is that what you used to, you used to get what you, you were used to in terms of portion size now is just smaller.
Michael Jacober: It does, there's always trickle down to the supplier as well. The supplier also raise price, like ultimately if the consumer is smaller portions and prices stay fixed there, there's gonna be a trickle down to the supplier.
Like how, how do you, again, this is more of like a macroeconomic question, but.
Josh Sharkey: That's a little bit does. Yeah. If the, if the, if demand goes down, then maybe they increase price, but
Michael Jacober: Exactly. Yeah.
Mattew Conway: But I'll also say that I'm not an expert in macroeconomics, but apparently you guys are telling me that all I have to do is pick up my trusted phone here and it'll, it'll tell, tell, yeah, we probably tell me that I need to know.
We probably just
Michael Jacober: cropped it. But with that specific scenario.
Josh Sharkey: So Matt, uh, like when you say people are drinking less, but are, are people actually drinking, like going to your, to your spot and then ordering non-alcoholic things?
Mattew Conway: Yes.
Josh Sharkey: So what do you really like? What is it like mocktails? Is it like, what do they drink?
Mattew Conway: Well, you've definitely seen mocktails rise in. Percentage of [00:52:00] menu placements in the same trajectory as you've seen sharing food at restaurants that didn't used to share food. It's the same 10 year span, the same generation of people that wanna share everything, want to drink less or want more options that aren't alcohol.
We don't do mocktails 'cause we're a wine bar. We do. We have some non-alcoholic options, which oftentimes. Those disappointing people, but I don't believe in non-alcoholic wine, so I refuse to serve it.
Josh Sharkey: The alcohol is what gives you the, that, that like bite that you need and, and the same thing with the, like, I don't understand a mocktail at all.
You're just eating juice.
Michael Jacober: You're cocktail drinking juice. You're drinking herb or herbaceous juice. Yeah.
Mattew Conway: And the, the star noodle that I went to the night, they had a, a matcha that was tamarind.
Michael Jacober: Yeah. The margins on,
Mattew Conway: the
Michael Jacober: margins on,
Mattew Conway: on mocktails
Michael Jacober: are very
Mattew Conway: high. $14 for tamran. I mean, it's
Josh Sharkey: fine, but it's just you're drinking a juice, you know, cooking juice, like for most cocktails are, you know, you're, you got some, a lot of 'em don't have any, anything but alcohol.
It's like, you know, [00:53:00] bourbon and vermouth and some bitters.
Mattew Conway: Our customers, my experience, want to experience, like they don't wanna be left out if they're pregnant or if they're on a medication that they can't drink so that they want something so that they can feel festive. And like we do martinelli's, apple cider, like mini bottles, like the sparkling rose sucker.
So when it's like nostalgic for a lot of people when they were a kid and then you pour wine glass and it looks like bubbly, so it looks like champagne so they can feel a part of it. And I think mocktails, I agree that. It's silly, but for people who don't drink and they want to go out with their friends, it feels better than just having a club soda.
It feels like they're a part of the process, and I think inclusion is a huge part of the culture of people who want to be drinking less. I, I don't think that it's a bad thing for people to be drinking less, but I also just think there's people drinking less that don't go out and ask for a mocktail that just aren't going out or don't want to be involved in alcohol.
We had a. Employee here. And we went to a, a show together as a, like, we're all going to [00:54:00] see one of our coworkers at a bar show. It was a drag show. Uh, our burrito chef is a drag queen and he invited everybody, everybody wanted to go. And when she walked in, she was in college and she walked in and she sat down with another friend and my wife walked up and said, Matthew has a tablet, but at the bar you can drink whatever you want.
And she sat at the bar for like two hours and never even ordered a water or anything. And they like tipped. The drag queens and left. And the next day I was like, it's none of my business. And I really don't want to, like, don't answer if you don't feel comfortable. I don't wanna intrude on your privacy.
But when I, like when I was your age, I would've ordered a drink that just, so my boss had to pay for something because he was offering like, holy shit, my boss is offering me a free drink. I'll take it, let it sit there and let the ice melt, walk out on it. And she said, oh, it was Sunday night. And I just didn't really want it.
Like I'm either gonna have a few or none. And like it was Sunday night, I had class in the morning and. I was like, did you feel bad about not ordering alcohol at a bar? And she said, absolutely not. My generation doesn't think that's important.
Josh Sharkey: There's a Business [00:55:00] insider article that I read as part of this.
This was, this was a while ago. We were, we were thinking about this topic, but Heineken did a study in the US that found that while, I'm just gonna read this part because I just pulled it up. Like an increasing percentage of Americans feel comfortable declining an alcoholic drink with a simple no thanks, 72% of them, or opting for a non-alcoholic alternative.
At parties, 86%. The point they're make is that younger consumers say they feel more awkward when explaining why they aren't drinking and that like only half of Americans under 35 are comfortable drinking low or non-alcoholic drinks in public. This is, I, I'm just reading a study. I don't know if this is, like, I'm totally fine going out and just having a, you know, a, a, a bitters.
I like bitters and soda when I'm not drinking. 'cause it like also helps my, my stomach. But I think, I, I think the idea is, is drink something so it looks like you're drinking. Or even feels like you're drinking. Like what's the, it's either you wanna have a drink or you don't. Totally fine if you don't, but like, do you really need to do that to feel like you're, you're drinking?
Unless it's something celebratory where like everybody's like, cheersing [00:56:00] champagne. That makes sense.
Mattew Conway: I don't get it. But it's, it's again, and it's not my, maybe it's not my generation, it's not my gender, it's not my whatever. Like I don't fit into that category. I don't get it. And it definitely does skew to be, at least in my wine bar, females who.
Want to be having a non-alcoholic that feels like part of the situation. Is
Michael Jacober: there an age demo as well?
Mattew Conway: I think millennials, millennial women mostly. But I think it's funny. Yesterday I saw an, uh, I don't know if it was Instagram or an ad ad or whatever, but it was Elton John holding up a bottle of, of wine, like smile, like pimping the bottle of wine.
And the ad was like my new 0% blanc to blanc. Chardonnay from a hundred percent Italian grapes that's bound to make you feel fizzy without giving you the buzz. And I'm like, Elton is so fucking rich and so old. What the fuck is he doing? Pimping? No, I an [00:57:00] alcoholic pork and wine. And it would be one thing, like England is really coming up in the sparkling wine world, like English, sparkling wine, appellations, and.
Bottlings are getting more expensive and more world recognition than ever before. And not only is he pimping this non-alcoholic wine while he is already richer than shit and way closer to the grave than he's ever been, but it was Italian on the inside. I was like, damn, stab in the fucking well And Italian Chardonnay with no alcohol.
They'd make a buck at. He's like, he's getting up there in age. We saw him a couple years ago on the fairwell, it's just grape juice. He couldn't even stand up and slam the pan. It doesn
Josh Sharkey: Remind me though, that like, I forgot. Yeah. Now I, I need to order something like brusco. I missed lamb brusco.
Mattew Conway: Well, I mean, it goes through fermentation.
So they say that it's got more complexity than grape juice. Like ou obviously you cooked with ou so they say it's different than grape juice because of whatever, whatever fermentation, add flavor and characters. We all know blah, blah, blah. But like Elton John man making [00:58:00] $50 million a year in royalties.
Richer than dirt, like spare me the pimp, anything. He shouldn't be holding up a bottle of anything. He might as well, might as well have been Ciroc vodka, like now that P did had the picture, Elton Johnson says, drinks rock.
Josh Sharkey: Uh, well that was a good tangent. 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 get me.com/josh.
That's GET. M-E-E-Z slash J, os H. I have my podcast there, the Me 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 get meez.com/josh gt. M double e z.com/josh. Thank you very much. Very grateful for all of you.
