The LoCo Experience EP 259: Restaurant Veteran Paul Pellagrino Takes us on Tour - Gelato & aMore

0:00 In today's episode, I sat down with longtime Northern Colorado restaurant veteran Paul Pellegrino. I first met Paul over 20 years ago when I was a banker and his catering business was still called All Occasions Catering. And we got reacquainted this summer when I started adding his Italian food specialty store, Gelato in Amore, to my regular lunch and boutique grocery experience. Paul did not disappoint, bringing in specialty drinks and cheeses and treats from his store, which features all of his favorite things from his history. from the Chianti that was hung in the ceiling at Pesetti's, to the Jersey ham and Italian favorites that he grew up with, to my favorite Italian coffee, La Vazza, and many take-and-bake options.

0:40 All this and amazing gelato and amore. Oh, and a whole catering business I've rarely mentioned that caters at all, Northern Colorado Catering. Paul takes us on a tour of his life in Northern Colorado, starting with working at the Beaver Meadows Restaurant in the way back, before he met his wife, who has been his partner in food ever since. There are twists and turns, ups and downs, Anita Crisp Cracker business, COVID navigations, catering for the Dalai Lama, a kitchen fire, and so much more. So please tune in and enjoy my conversation with Paul Pellegrino. Welcome to the Loco Experience Podcast. On this show, you'll get to know business and community leaders from all around Northern Colorado and beyond.

1:21 Our guests share their stories. And through it all, you'll be inspired and entertained. These conversations are real and raw, and no topics are off limits. So pop in a breath mint and get ready to meet our latest guest. Welcome back to the Loco Experience Podcast. My guest today is Paul Pellegrino, a man who needs no introduction in northern Colorado. But I'll introduce him here as the owner-restaurantur of the market where the Gelato Cafe is. What's the market called? City Park Gelato. Okay. And Amore. Amore. Small a, large M-O-R-E. And Amore. And Amore. Not so much Amore, eh?

2:02 Like love, even though there is that. But we're so much more than gelato. So much more. Yeah. And your gelato is amazing. But when I really started returning was when I realized how many products you have there as well. So, and you are also the owner of, uh, is it Northern Colorado Catering? Northern Colorado Catering, 30 years. 30 years. Yeah. Dang. How do you, uh, how do you spend your days? Pretty much, most of them repetitive with definite changes. But, you know, lately I'm up at five, stretching my feet and toes and knees and getting ready for the day.

2:45 Okay. Take my nutrients and... Start thinking about the day, turn on the local news, see what the weather changes might be or the headlines as I'm getting dressed and ready to be at work for 6 o'clock. Okay. And I start my day at 6 and it goes some days I might get out at 2 or 3 and some days 7 or 8. And so it's very inconsistent and as needed. And you're managing different production areas, kind of, because you bake a lot of stuff, you make a lot of stuff, you make a lot of to-go meals over there. We do. We, you know...

3:26 I am of a food family from generations. And, you know, my, I heard my uncle put frozen raviolis and manicotti and stuffed shells in the supermarkets. Oh. Decades and decades ago. Yeah, yeah. And back East Coast. His product or stock? Yeah. Angelo's frozen foods. And, uh, but from there, my father, um, entered into the food industry. He, uh, of course, as a young fellow was, uh, uh, you know, the depression times in the East coast, but, uh, He would deliver ice.

4:15 He was a fruit and vegetable peddler under my grandfather's guidance, horse and buggy. My grandfather would... Oh, so we're talking what... 30s 40s yeah yeah yeah and uh so he would sell watermelons and peppers and my grandfather went by the nickname of joey peppers and uh and then in the fall uh he would uh take the horse and buggy down to penn station and pick up the grapes that were shipped out from uh, California. And he would be the, um, the community distributor of all the wine grapes. Grape broker of sorts. Yeah. Yeah. So a lot of Italian areas.

4:56 Oh, so they would make their own wine, get fresh grapes brought in. Yeah. Uh, and you were saying you need to show me how to properly open up a bottle of Italian wine. Do you want to get started with that? Uh, I'm eager to both learn and taste that. You're always looking to make a ring almost all the way around, but you want to leave a little connect. So it's going to produce, let me see, there's two parts of this. So I'm going to, and one happens on the top where I cut out the top. So I can pull the cork. Okay. And so I find where the bottle and the cork is by facing it out.

5:42 And you can see I'm just turning the bottle. I'm not touching the knife. Right. And so I remove the cap as evenly as I can. And so now you can expose the cork. But you want that foil to be interrupted when you're pulling the cork. So if you can see that, the glass is exposed around there. Okay. And then I'm going to cut around the outside here, and I'm going to leave a little bit of a hinge. So I got to remember where I start so I know where about where I want to finish.

6:26 Sure, okay, yep. Okay, and so giving myself a, every wine bottle is going to be a little bit different as far as how much you have. But do you see how I'm moving that cut around? and see where you're coming to, where you started. Yeah, so I have a little bit more. My old age and my declining vision, I just want it to stop. Otherwise, I wouldn't stop. I would just keep it going. Everything going okay, I hope with sound, and I hope I'm doing all right. Yep, should be okay, yep. Okay. I'm going to turn my beeper off on my phone.

7:07 So foil doesn't take that hard to cut through with a decent knife, so I'm lifting this up a little bit, and we're going to lift this up, and we're going to hinge it over. See that? Yeah. Okay. But I wonder why still. Okay. Good. I'm keeping suspense, right? So this is deemed not needed, but you want to be careful at this point. So anyway, what I always do is I always take the point. And I make sure that point lands in the center. It doesn't matter. It doesn't have to be straight now. So you get that point as center as you can.

7:48 Okay, see? And you think like you're going to be off, but you're not. As long as that point's in the center, sometimes, you see, I have weak wrists. So I'm turning the bottle instead of the corkscrew, which is fine, you know. And you want to make sure you get down there deep enough to... Because you only get one shot at doing this right as far as you start tearing up corks and stuff, right? And you want to pull that cork all the way up, right? You don't want to get stuck halfway. Then what do you do? Well, there's a way. And so now I brace my finger up here and I use under to lift up.

8:29 Very nice. All right. There you go. No spill. Okay. So now you're going to take this. And you're going to take your cork back. Now, the whole thing in presenting wine is you want to see the saturation of the cork, right? Yeah. Okay. So now you're in here and you just pinch it and you can pour wine. And you're exposing the quality of the cork and the saturation of the cork. And you have a place to keep the cork in the meantime. And that's it, right? Do you want to pour it for us? Sure. Would you hold it? Yeah, you could set it down.

9:10 Okay. And, uh... Okay. And these Chiantis... And you can fill mine fuller. Okay. Fullerer. Fullerer. Thank you. Um... So these bottles are basket bottles. And if you take this off, it's a rounded bottom. And it makes a wonderful olive oil bottle or something in the future, right? Yeah. But I like leaving them on. Does it still sit flat on the bottom or wobbles? Wobbles. Oh, so you've got to have a little carrier. No, it's a little flat, but it's not as secure. Yeah, yeah. But... If you remember the local Bassetti's restaurant, and they had all these Chianti bottles hanging from the ceiling in that one room.

9:56 Oh, my gosh. And that's my tribute to Bassetti's, is carrying and cooking with this wine. Oh, is that right? That's right. That specific wine is what they did all the time. And hung, and I'm starting to hang all the bottles in my store. You've got so many other kind of tribute items over there. You've got what's the Jersey... Oh, the tailored ham. Tailored ham, you know, and just kind of elements from your childhood to your time in Fort Collins. My brother, it's funny that my brother always tells me. Salute. Salute. Cheers. My brother always tells me, you know...

10:39 It's no fun for you anymore. You get everything that we used to wait for all year long made by my grandmother, my aunt, my mother. And you have it at your disposal every single day, you know. And, you know, so I guess that's my man cave, you know, my heritage and living through, you know, the food, you know. And being raised in a household where my grandmother, my aunt, my mother, my older sister, you know. all cooking their own way. You know, who cooked Sunday dinner, who cooked daily dinners, who did the holiday baking, who did the specialties. What would you say was the count at the largest weekly dinner?

11:22 Oh, for family? How many people were there at the largest weekly gathering? Well, on a regular weekly gathering, we'd have four siblings, mother and father, grandmother and aunt. So we had regularly an eight-person, and everybody had their seat. Yeah, yeah. My brother... was to the right of my father, and I was to the left. And at the dinner table, my mother would tell my father problems through the week. So this way, my father and my brother did something wrong, boom. You were within arm's reach. Yeah, and I did something wrong, boom. And my sisters were down. He never hit my sisters, right?

12:05 No, but I had a very good father. He wasn't like that at all. But that's what he always says. I want you close to me. I want you close to me. Let's set the stage because a lot of people have heard of the Gelato Cafe or maybe been by for ice cream, but you've really developed quite a broad menu and offering over the years. Can you set the stage of what do you all do from that locale? And don't go through every menu. No, no, no. I wouldn't do that. I know you've got a dozen different take and bake meals that you can pick up there. Being a caterer and a chef pretty much my whole life, and being a chef sometimes in small restaurants or big resorts, I always had the talent to make use of space, to make things happen in spaces that were very confining.

12:59 Yeah. and um so we do a lot in a very small space yeah certain things have to be done at certain times of the day so we can do other things in that area or arena and another time of the day so it is orchestrated you know pretty tight yeah and um so that is um you know but we do grab and go items so Basically, it started, the place that I took over near City Park was supposed to be an overflow kitchen or a new kitchen for our catering company, Strictly. Oh. And we knew the owners of the property. We were friends within the community.

13:41 Oh, it had most of the kitchen gear there from a... No, but most of the electric and the plumbing and the important items. It was by your home catering kitchen. Yeah, it used to be a Little Caesars, which moved over to Prospect and Shield. So he expanded. And I knew the manager. Her name was Naomi. She used to work for me a decade ago. And so we were always friends, and we knew she ran that. And so she says, you know, um. Yeah, they're going to be relocating to Prospect and Shields. And I said, what are they going to do with this space? And I said, I don't know. So I talked to my wife. She was with me. We just came from Lapita's Mexican restaurant right next door.

14:21 We used to go there once a week. And so we came, stopped in, said hello, da-da. And I says, oh, all right. Well, how can I get in touch with the owner of Little Caesar? So I talked to him. didn't know at first that we knew the owners of that property. There were doctors in town. Okay. And two generational doctors. Wow. And so found out this, that, and through this and that, we had an opportunity to meet, and we submitted our plan and was approved, and... by the ownership. And so we started it as a catering kitchen. And so we're standing around and we're talking, maybe before we actually took it over.

15:04 And I said, my wife, look at this. We've got to serve at least a meatball sandwich. Right, we're right across the street from the park. Right from the park. We've got to serve at least a slice of pizza maybe. My father comes from, my father has started a pizzeria in Nutley, New Jersey. Okay. And it's called Ralph's. And I encourage you to go on YouTube and David Pinoy's evaluation of Ralph's Pizza in Nutley, New Jersey. It's so funny. I'll check it out. And he's like... Yeah, Dave Portney or whatever. Yeah, Portney, right? Something like that. So he rated the highest rated pizza. Oh, really? Okay. I'll write that.

15:44 And he says, here we are in Nutley, New Jersey, and this pizza's so hot it'll burn your nuts off. Who names a town... nutley and he goes on just bashing it but he wound up uh um scoring it an 8.9 nice nice nice and uh so we're proud of that situation so did you offer ralph's pizza slices then well we offer a pizza made in the style that ralph's pizza is in nutley new jersey so we make it in a pan okay So, we don't call it- So, call me this. So, you're getting ready to open your new catering kitchen. Is this pre-COVID? Is this after? Oh, pre-COVID, 2017. Okay. Yeah, we started, took over in 16, got open in 17.

16:25 And so, it's funny how I got into the gelato. So, and I'm thinking about all these things and the design of the store and- And then all of a sudden, I'm friends. Not all of a sudden, I'm friends. But I'm friends in the community with a fireman who's been a fireman for almost 40 years or more than 40 years. And he knew this chiropractor that came from Italy. Okay. Studied 15 years in Italy. His name is Curtis Westlow. Okay. And he has a practice on Oak Street. Okay. East of college. Oh, yeah. It's called Interbalance. Oh, yeah. I've seen that. And so he's American, but he studied 15 years, knows Italian, Italian food.

17:09 He married a beautiful woman, Italian woman. Three great kids, Italian, right? And so he brought this gelato store back from Italy when he moved from Italy. Oh, okay. And he brought all the equipment back and he put it in storage. Like just like freezers and stuff. Did you make it there too? No. No, he was just planning on opening a gelato store. Got it. And his wife said, no, I don't think that's a good idea. She shut him down. She's a realtor. Okay. And she's also a lawyer and an accountant by trade. And he's a chiropractor. Right. Although now he's building electrical cars.

17:51 Oh, that's true. But anyway, they decided that they shouldn't start the gelato. but but this guy's a foodie you know uh curtis westlaw but you should start yeah and uh so anyway from the mutual community connection from the fireman to the chiropractor who had the equipment um somebody i think ray said to some you know i know this guy who has all this gelato equipment are you interested in meeting him yeah Sure, you know. And that's funny because it actually became ultimately your brand, you know, gelato. Gelato, yeah. Or a more. Yeah, yeah. My wife wasn't happy about it.

18:32 She just wanted to stay with the catering. Right. But I have to have – Well, because you've had restaurants as well. I've had ones of everything. I've had different restaurants. I've had food truck. I've had event centers and catering. Sure. And now this takeaway. Yeah. Well, takeaway and like, I don't know what you have, 30, 40 items to takeaway, but then you've got a dozen items just that are kind of ready to go for lunch anytime. Yeah, grab and go. Yeah, we call them grab and go. Yeah, I had the Kraut burger the other day, the Italian, what do you call the Italian sausage sandwich thingy? uh well we call them guidos uh some of them are like a calzone but just a sausage roll yeah it's so good yeah and those are kind of east coast things that just came back we used to always make sausage rolls let's make sausage rolls yeah but the kraut burger is funny we made the kraut burgers around thanks um thanksgiving not uh around um like st patrick's day sure yep and uh cabbages on sale yeah we've made them in the past in catering like we'd get an uh somebody who wanted to you know order kraut burgers and my wife she's off the charts uh she's um a big part backbone of the company but she's also outside the the box okay great baker cook You know, just fortunate.

19:54 That's a whole other story I can share with you if I have time. We'll come along to her, yeah. And so we made kraut burgers based upon what she had, the recipe for the dough and the filling, and researched it, and we made one. So we made it just for St. Patrick's Week. Oh, sure. Never stopped making them since. Because people, you took them off the menu the next week, and they were like, hey, don't. Yeah, this was back when we were back open in 2022. We opened after the fire in 2022. And so that was June and St. Patrick's Day. So June, July, August, September, October, November. so 8 months later we're making these things so since 2023 we've not stopped making kraut burgers it's not Italian but they must move we always tease people that St. Patrick's was Italian and you've also got I'm buying my coffee there now because you've got that Lavazza coffee lots of cheeses do you want to take us through a little bit of this Yeah.

21:02 Selection of goodies. And I know this is... Sure. You must have 200, maybe 300 market items too? Everything from fancy olive oils to... Vinegars and olive oils and fusion oils and pastas. Pastas, noodles. Yeah. And a whole cooler full of sliced meats that you can get on... Lupini beans, anchovies. I mean, you know, everything somebody would want to take home and make their own little platters. Yeah, I love it. But it's funny, in the beginning, everybody was excited about it, but how maybe the Italians started showing up and the East Coasters started showing up. Okay, yeah.

21:42 The West Coasters even, because very similar eating Italian backgrounds on East and West Coast. Oh, I didn't realize. Yeah, yeah. Um, so, um... It just got a good recognition. Yeah. Do you get catering business because of the cafe as well? We do. We do. We always sell trays of lasagna and chicken piccata, some of those common loved dishes, baked rigatoni and ravioli. I bet the cafe gets business from your catering clients as well. They learn that you have that cafe. Yeah, they bounce off of each other a little bit. Yeah, stuff like that. Yeah, so our catering may not want the level of catering we do as northern Colorado catering.

22:31 We turn and offer them – One, four lasagnas and some garlic breads. Yeah, right, that type of thing. So it's nice to have that dynamic synergy, I guess you could say, that kind of feed off each other. Did you call these wine cookies? Yeah, yeah. So the Turales, these we make. Oh. And so it's a yeast dough. And the common basic one is made in our hometown. I'll try one of those. Is that easy to open?

23:11 Oh, yeah, they're fabulous, especially with wine. Yeah, well, I got wine, so... Now, the originator... I can try to grab it if you want. Yeah. Focus on talking. I'll put this away from my microphone. The most popular Torale maker in the area was Razziopi's. In Belleville, New Jersey, which is the next town over from where we were in Nutley, New Jersey. Okay. And so they have different flavors. They have a hot pepper. You can, but I would try it without at first and experience, you know... Right, how crispy it is, but yet tender, right? It's not a teeth breaker. It reminds me of the Belvitas a little bit that my Italian exchange student would eat.

23:57 Those are cookies, not crackers. Right, right, more on the sweet side. And they're quite addictive because they've got fennel and black pepper in them. Some of them have red seeds in them. Some of them are just garlic. And you'll see they come in... Because they're so delicious, it makes you drink more wine. You want more wine? You want to work with the back and forth? I used to consider it. I'll say when I was in my lower 40s, I would think that a dinner party for a man, you should drink about two bottles of wine. For a couple of guys? For a female, one bottle of wine. For a man, two bottles of wine. Oh, I'd have gone that far. You get a little messy.

24:39 I'd be pretty messy these days if I did that. Yeah, I mean. That used to be the math with one of the couples that we would have dinner parties. I'm usually proud of myself if I finish a bottle with somebody, you know? That's not what I would use, yeah. Especially if it's an empty stomach or before dinner or something and get in trouble, you know? So those are delicious. Yeah. That is very yummy. Yeah. So we make those and you steam them first. Oh, I wasn't supposed to eat it like that. Oh, no, no, no. Oh, how to make it. You steam them when you're making them. Yeah. You steam them and then they raise like a bagel and they freeze at a certain level and then you brown them in the oven. Just for a few minutes probably. And then you open air dry them for a couple of days. Huh. Huh. Oh, that's quite a texture.

25:20 Yeah. Isn't it? Yeah. Very cool. And you used to make Nidacrisks, too. Nidacrisks, yeah. That was your crackers. Yes, it was. That I used to cater with when I was back in the business. Yeah, Nidacrisks local company, owned now by the owners of cheese, what's it, Welsh Rabbit. Oh, is that right? Yeah. Okay. Wonderful family. Cool. When 2020 hit, we had a partnership going. And one of our partners, unfortunately, had a degenerative disease that took his life. And I wasn't able to run. I mean, we were distributing these crackers nationwide, you know?

26:02 Yeah. And I had a choice at that time. Do I stay in the... catering and the gelato business or do i drop that and go to the cracker business gotcha because your partner was focused on that part yeah yeah absence and uh so um so in honor of uh steve landry was his name and uh um he uh he brought the company to you know another level but the original recipe Came from a 1967 Washington Post ad. And it was a cracker recipe that contained butter in it. And my wife can't have butter and dairy. So she revamped that recipe to make these crackers.

26:44 The owner of that cracker recipe was the owner of our original catering company, which was originally called All Occasions Catering. Yes, absolutely. Oh, you weren't the founder of All Occasions. No, Dean was the founder of All Occasions. Oh, I didn't realize that. Okay. And his wife, Diane, and his two kids are still in the area. He passed away. He had an aneurysm. So we got the business as All Occasions catering, and then when the internet started really impacting sales and marketing, we were advised because we were getting calls – Hi, I'd like to book a catering. Is this all occasions catering?

27:25 Yes. We'd like to book a catering. Come to find out into the conversation, there's all occasions catering in Ohio, Missouri. Oh, dang. Interesting. You're being found by these random ones. Yeah. So, you know, our internet advisors at that point. said, you know, you need to tag yourself so that you're identified. Yeah. You know, not as all occasions catering. And you didn't want to be small ball like Fort Collins catering. Right. But Northern Colorado catering. Northern Colorado catering kind of regionalized us. Sure. Yeah, yeah. And so the, you know, the punchline, you know, the words that you used, what do you call those?

28:05 Search engine optimization. Search engine word, right. Back in the day. So you have catering, you got Northern Colorado, you got... You know, things like that. So we also kept the domain all occasions catering because all catering, all occasions, all of those words were useful. Yeah. So with that, we have inquiries that flow into our company daily from the internet. Even still. Interesting. And we're at the top of the search engine because we've been in business for so long. Right. Right. So we're at the top. Well, and nowadays it's not even search engines. It's AIs. Yeah. You know, and AI thinks Loco Think Tank, for example, is really cool. It doesn't quite understand what Loco Think Tank does, but it thinks we're great.

28:49 It's figuring it out. Yeah, it's figuring it out, and it thinks we're great. That's the most important thing is it thinks we're great. You know, probably the same for you. Yeah. So I don't know where I left off. We were starting to get into some of the variation of products. We've got a little salami or something like that. Is that what that is? Salametti. Salametti. Yeah. But they're... Dried salamis, saprasata. Oh, yeah. I've had that before. Yeah. This is a saprasata. And saprasata actually means pressed. Oh. So the true saprasatas are flat. They're not really round. Oh, is that right? But it's also seasoning. So for two different reasons, something may be called saprasata. Oh.

29:29 Oh, I see. That's actually a spice or a combination of spices makes it a saprasata. Yep, yep. I see. Probably the traditional blend for that sausage, too, that used to be flattened out. Flattened. Like if this was made, it'd be soft like a raw sausage. And then they hang them. And it just dries out and dries out. Yeah, but if it was done differently, it could be flattened out and dried out, and then they're hung in a way. Okay, sure. Yeah, absolutely. But this is fantastic. And people say, oh, it's all that white. It's all mold. And it's not mold. It's salt. Oh. Okay. Oh. It's sodium. Part of what keeps the mold away. Yeah. Sodium metabysulfites and sodium types of sulfites that are used.

30:13 You know, a lot of it, some people today won't agree that they're the most healthiest things to eat. But, yeah. You know, they sure are good. They sure are good, yeah. It's a treat, you know, not a daily. Yeah. You've got a couple cheeses there, too? Yeah, I've got a Cacioca Valle. Cacioca Valle is a wonderful cheese. It's... almost made like a mozzarella, but it's dried. And that's a wonderful eating cheese. Yeah, whereas the mozzarella is very wet. It just kind of lets it kind of... Yeah, as this dries out, the salt content increases. Sure. And there is a milk fat in there, so the butteriness keeps it soft.

30:57 It's not like some of your other provolones that are crumbly. This one is soft, so it's more desirable. Fair enough to me. When you're eating a lot of cheese. Years ago, my wife and I went with her parents, and we took a week to drive across Italy. We went to Venice, and then we rented a car and drove to Milan, and then Florence and Siena and down to Rome. And Italy's amazing in that it's kind of like parts of California, where if you drew a 50-mile circle around a region, you've got... Pigs and crops of all sorts, and you've got cows, and you've got just everything you need within this one small area.

31:38 Yeah. You know, from an agricultural productivity and just flourishing of little farms. What they specialize in. Yeah, there's specializations all over, but there's 100 different specializations in a 50-mile radius. Yeah. Now, I'm going to say something that I'm a little embarrassed about is that I've never been to Italy. Oh. Yeah. But I've had so much Italian around me, my two sets of grandparents and relatives. And, you know, all my family has been to Italy except me because I was always busy working. So when I had the money, I didn't have the time. And when I had the time, I didn't have the money. Well, let's plan toward getting you a special guest. time when you've also got the money.

32:19 Well, I plan on it. My mother died this past January, and she was all about family. She was so proud of all of her children and our relationships together. But she left a small stipend for each of us, and so I vowed to use mine for a trip to Italy. You know, I think usually January is a pretty slow time in the catering and restaurant industry. You're not selling much gelato yet. Yeah, I want to see what the best season is then. there. Yeah, fair. You know? Fair. Yeah. And so my brother went to... What part of Italy? We're from the southern part, Calabria, Consenza. I think it's always where I'm there, kind of. Well, you know, my brother, he's been there a couple, a few times, and he has a lot of knowledge of the area and a lot of knowledge of the family.

33:06 And, you know, he's also been... He grew up in the food business. He's retired now, and he thinks I'm crazy that I'm still working. Yeah. you know but uh i don't i don't have any hobbies i don't have any you know i don't golf i don't wooden fishing lures or something like that you know so uh so getting up every morning going to the store having some good coffee and You know, staring at the pastry. Maybe someday I could start eating pastry again. But I vowed to myself and my wife to really get my weight down at this point in my life. Yesterday was the first day in like two or three months that I was under $1.85. Well, good for you. I'm surfing in that 190, 192 range most of the summer, which is usually my winter weight.

33:50 And so I've been working. I don't know if I'm working. I get on the scale every couple of weeks. Less day drinking for a while. I'm either happy or I'm not. If I don't gain anything, it's a win. If I lose something, it's a super win. Yeah, I dig you. It's harder as you get older. Yeah, and I always, if I lose weight for that week, I will indulge. Oh, you get one cheat meal or something like that? Yeah, or cheat day even so I can have a couple things, you know. But then I bounce right back on and I'm convinced that, you know. One day is not going to set you back. You just get right back on the bandwagon. But if you stretch that one day into two days or three days, you're in trouble. You've got another cheese here, right?

34:31 Yeah, it's the Taleggio. This is a soft cheese. It's a really nice cheese. Um, and, um, um, it's just a softer cheese. Both of these are kind of things you'd use with a cheese and crackers, a platter kind of thing. Yeah. The telegios come in big squares. Oh. So this is a retail pack, you know? I see. Uh-huh. Uh, so that's the problem too, sometimes getting things and, uh. And you were eager to tell me about the Piedmontese. Well, Piedmontese cattle... Sorry, let me shut this down. I didn't mean to have that... Sound off.

35:12 Okay. So Piedmontese cattle is a combination of the Latouris cattle and the Zebu cattle of Pakistan and the Latouris from Spain. And they settled in the hills of Piedmont, Italy over 2,000 years ago. Oh, interesting. Okay. And so they're... Their musculature is much larger in the upper part of their bodies. Okay, so they're buff cows, basically. And they're born with a myostatin gene, which makes this the healthiest beef known to man.

35:57 So it's a leaner. It relies. And what that means is that the meat itself... is juicy and tender. It doesn't rely on the fat. Oh. Oh. To be... Interesting. ...juiced. Wagyu is probably the most desired... Right, because it's so fatty. ...the most expensive, right? Yeah. Yeah. But it's not, by any means, the healthiest beef. Sure. This is the healthiest... It beats, believe it or not, in... It beats salmon. It beats chicken. It beats pork. In the areas of cholesterol, fat...

36:39 protein, and there's one other. I can't believe this is grass-fed and finished. Yeah, grass-fed and finished. But because it's so flavorful, you would expect there to have to be more fat than a grass-fed and finished cow has to bless that much flavor. Yeah, it's very, you know, I'm trying to think of the other cow. It's fat, cholesterol, protein, and calories. Calories. So in essence, people with heart conditions, that can't have beef, their doctors say stay away from beef, stay with chicken and salmon. Piedmontese cattle is leaner than chicken or salmon.

37:19 Interesting. Even though the lipids and stuff. Could we raise them here? Do they have to be? They are now raised in Kimball, Nebraska. Hmm. Under strict guidelines, yes. That's where this is from, you know? Yeah. Oh, that's wild. And so I wanted to have this, and so I found out that Lucky's Market carried Piedmontese. Okay. So I piggybacked on their freight. Right. To get the place into local. Pick up a couple of cases once in a while. So I was buying it from Piedmont Farms. And so the freight helped Lucky's as well as it helped myself. Got it, got it. So we converged in that to obtain it.

38:02 And then Lucky stopped carrying it for some reason. Oh. Um, so my source got thin, I can order it direct and they ship it, but it's very expensive to get it. And, uh, you know, I mean, your pricing isn't, well, this one is a, of course this is jerky and, and stuff, you know, three ounce package for $9. That's not terrible. Yeah. Almost. Well, all my groceries. I put on the shelf not to make a killing on it. Okay. So whatever my cost is, I mark it up 50%. Okay. So I buy something for 10, I'll sell it for 15.

38:42 Yeah. You know? And- I just put it out there because I want – I get something out of it, but there's minimal handling. Yeah. And it decorates the store. Yeah. Well, and then you get to have it there too. You get to have it there. So when you want a martini – what was the coffee soda thing? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Manhattan Special. Manhattan Special. Yeah. When you want one of those, you know, because you sell some of them for 1.5x. Yeah, it is. It's a sales, you know. So if I break even all the way around, if I give some away, if I use it, you know, whatever it may be, it has a... Well, honestly, now that...

39:23 Like, I've only really kind of recently rediscovered. But now when I'm low on coffee, it's like, okay, well, it's Wednesday. Let's go over for the sausage roll. Roll. And pick up a pound or two-pound bag of pasta while I'm there, too. Yeah, good. You know, it makes it an easy decision by you having that level of variety. You know, and if I had – my wife and I don't really eat bread very much either. Right. And so the rolls and the pastries and stuff aren't really – what you go after yeah but but the like your deli meats and stuff like that and some of the to-go meals yeah stay away from the carbs yeah trying to yeah that's the way to go right it's the way everybody's eating but for a cheat day i can you know have a lasagna from yeah yeah i want to you could share one let's talk about those those sodas a little bit yeah these sodas um we'll get into the life story here once we get through the inventory I came across these sodas after I'd forgotten about them.

40:24 So these were popular back east, and I thought just the company probably went out of business. Sure, Coke. But it's a family business that's been doing this since 1895. Oh, wow. And they're still doing it, and it's only made in New York City. Okay. And they call it a Manhattan Special. Okay. And to get them, when I order these, sometimes, you know, it takes a while, but I get them. But every bottle is wrapped individually in bubble wrap. So I sell these are $8 bottles of soda. Oh, dang. you know that's wild but you know people pay big money for coffee but their cost to me with freight and the product itself is just a baseline of 450 yeah to me without freight on it yeah you know and then a little markup on it right and sell some it's a lot you do I sell a lot, and I put the price right out there in front of you.

41:24 I don't want to sticker shock you at the register, but this is it. It's a freaking $8 soda, bitches. Yeah, but this is it. It's really good. It's twice as good as the last $4 soda you had. You don't have to buy it, but there it is. I dig it. So we have all the other Italian drinks, the San Benedetto iced teas. aquapanas and the san pellegrino sparkling water and all the all the uh sodas and bitters and oh the bitters selection yeah yeah too yeah yeah so all of that i do have an american line of uh soda that is east coast you know birch beer and root beer and grape and vanilla cream and orange cream These are all the flavors of, you know.

42:07 There was only six flavors. Yeah, East Coast type of thing, you know. Yeah, yeah, dig it. And so I do carry those as well. But most people go for the Aranciata or the Lemonada as Pellegrino sodas. They go after that. Yeah. More so, you know. I agree. Yeah. Finally, let's hold that box up on the end there with the pastries. Oh, yeah. Is it pastries? Is that what you... Well, these are cookies. Cookies, I guess. Not cookies. Yeah, these are one-pounders. Oh, dang. So we make two. We make one in a green. You make those? Oh, yeah. You make all those cookies? Every cookie in here. Oh, damn. Yeah. Okay. And so... I want to eat one. Which one do you recommend? Well, the most popular one is about all of them, but mine is the seven-layer cookie.

42:48 This guy right here. People call him as a Christmas cookie. Yeah, I've had those before. So there's seven layers in those cookies, believe it or not. So the bottom layer is chocolate. You got three layers of almond paste, a green, a white, and a red. And in between those layers... is apricot preserve that keeps them stuck together. So you got three colored almond pastes. You got two orange, you know, apricot glazes and two chocolate layers. That makes it a seven-layer cookie. So that's always moist. Better than a seven-layer burrito. Yeah. So, yeah. And then...

43:29 So your bakery is just cranking out cookies on a regular basis. Cookies, all of our desserts, our cheesecakes, you know. And so our cheesecake, it's a Zambuca cheesecake. I was inspired by that cheesecake from... an Italian outfit in New Jersey, a wedding outfit. He's actually a family, distant family cousin of my father's. It was called the Chandelier. Okay. A very, very popular wedding facility, and they owned a diner. and you know old east coast diners sure you know greasy spoon style and you know the cheesecakes were this tall like cheesecake factory type you know and they always had that zambuca cheesecake and uh that was probably you know the most popular and that's always stuck in my head the cheesecake i always compare to yes is the zambuca cheesecake so many elements of your of your operation in your business that are just inspired by this thing that caught your eye yeah i want to do my best growing up and then you tell your wife to recreate this thing yeah help me make this better help me make this yeah yeah so that's our uh that's our uh story on our cheesecakes and so um and then also there was a restaurant in our hometown of uh nutley that was called uh santini okay And those guys were from Italy.

44:54 They had pizzerias, different than my father's. They were New York. They were good pizza. But they had an Italian restaurant. And I remember one of the brothers, there were twin brothers out of maybe four brothers. One of them were, two of them were twins. And they made this cheesecake. And it had a regular, you know, almond-y, yellowish color cheesecake. But then it had this white... Oh, you know, good thickness on the top of it. Almost like a frosting-ish kind of thing? Almost, but what it was was pure cream cheese. Oh, I see.

45:36 Interesting. And that had the Zambuca in it. So you had your off-white, yellowish-colored cheesecake with this white... Just... Cream cheese. Yeah, yeah. You know? So you want to talk about cream cheesecake? Probably hit your mouth a really different way. So, and that's what we do with our... And they did that too with their chocolate cheesecake. But they put chocolate into that. So, you know, so those were all things that, you know... Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, as a young culinary, you know... I mean, I've held... Some of the highest paid positions in the Caribbean. And I've been able to work at some of the classics.

46:19 I was at the Brass Rail in Hoboken, which is a very famous place. Um, uh, upstairs was a, uh, a bistro and downstairs was a, you know, Italian kind of, and, uh, and a guy who owned a market out in Hoboken, his name was Charlie Caprasso. And he left many, many impressions in me. And with food, this was after my father died and the business was taken over by somebody else. I was just jumping around like a maniac and learning and learning and things like that.

47:02 So you got thrown into the fire, your father died, and you kind of took over his food business? No, I was too young to do that, unfortunately. Yeah. Pascual took over his business, who was one of his employees. And he still owns it till today. Oh, cool. He's retiring, and his daughter, Gabriela, is ready to take it over as the owner. And she's been involved in the business a while. So there's so many stories. You've got to keep me going in here. Yeah, we're going to jump in the time machine in a little bit and kind of get a little more of a timeline element. But before we do, like... I think you told me already, but you're in your 60s. Yeah. And you love your work.

47:43 You're 66, but you love your work. And your friends are teasing you, like, Paul, when are you going to retire or at least take that trip to Italy, take a little more time for yourself and stuff? Like, what do you hope happens with Northern Colorado catering and gelato and Amore? Well, my real hope is that I can always keep it going. I mean, we help so many of our employees with their needs, their dependencies for work and their dedication to the job. Yeah. And their needs. So you're committed to your team. Like, you've got to keep it going because you don't want to.

48:24 It's for them. Yeah. yeah you know because there's too many good employees there are good employees and um you know um and one of your employees want to buy it from you someday or is that an opportunity well it's too much for one person to handle but what i do want to do is make it employee owned and maybe i'll just stay on as a you know um you know a director board of director and You can still go there and have coffee in the morning, but you don't have to actually make the meatballs. Yeah, we've got to make sure we're selling the business. We've got to be selling the catering. Sure. We've got to be performing the catering. You can have one of those more flexible I work when I want, call me business development kind of guys.

49:09 Right, right. And I'm at a point where I know all the pressure points in the place and where we are each time of year. And then eventually have the employees gain profit share and ownership in the company to... Moving along to the next generation. Yeah. I think that's a great point. I mean, I can do what I want with the business because it's mine, right? Right, right. And I don't have to ask anyone to come up with money. What do you – Keep me on the payroll. You said you ran some of the biggest kitchens in the Caribbean and you worked in some fancy pants places over time and probably made a bigger paycheck at times even comparably than you have later years.

49:51 But which do you prefer, the humble place of mine or working for the man in a fancy pants situation? Well, put it this way. I wouldn't want to be working in corporate right now at this age and demanding. At the time, it was kind of awesome. Yeah, yeah. I was young and I was a brute. And I can do that. Working 60 hours a week wasn't a big deal. No, no. I felt like I had to. Um, but, uh, um, so for where I am now in my life, of course, if I were to sell the place, um, you have a lump sum of money to walk away with who knows how much.

50:31 Yeah. Right. And, uh, so, and then what do you do with it? You just diminish it and hope you die before the money runs out. That doesn't seem like all that compelling of a... Yeah, so I've never been too worried about money. Yeah. You know, not that I should be worried about money. And I am worried about monies and profits and things like that. But I don't care how, you know. Yeah, I want the business to be successful and to be reliable. You know, that's more my concern. Be sustainable to give money. keep those good jobs for your key people that have been with you for what's your what's your long-termers how many years uh 20 years some 20 15 yeah eight you know i have people that have worked for me 25 years ago that are still make themselves available for me right we did walker manufacturing uh in september it was um how many people was that um two thousand three thousand two or three thousand oh my gosh yeah Yeah, so, you know, it's big truck.

51:37 You don't have a big enough crew to run that kind of a... But I pull in the veterans. Yeah, yeah. We get together and we knock it down. Right. You know, and it's so nice to, you know... What was that event? They don't have that many employees and stuff. It was a family event. Dang. It was a monumental, like they sold their 250,000th mower. Right. Some big party kind of thing. Yeah, they had helicopter rides. Oh, dang. I mean... That was a real serious thing. It was a to-do, right? That's quite a party. So you call in the veterans. And what was your menu for that? Oh, you know, barbecue-ish. But going around, you know, we had barbecue chicken, hot dogs, hamburgers, corn.

52:18 Potato salad, beans. You know, potato chips, brownies and cookies and watermelon. Yeah. And then the beverages. But... you say that oh that's a simple menu well not for man you get into two thousand truckloads and truckloads of stuff when do you get the food in where do you store it how do you prepare it and hold it ready to go Rental trucks coming in the place. Make sure you don't kill anybody with food poisoning. Right, right. All that kind of stuff. Well, you showed me your backyard where you've got, in your catering kitchen, where you've got freezers here and there. All kinds of transport stuff. Transport stuff, hold stuff, transport stuff.

52:59 The grill you got there was big enough for a crew. Yeah, we did something for the Dalai Lama up at the Shambhala. Yeah. And when they were first... Oh, the Shambhala Mountain Center? Yeah. But they had the Dalai Lama there? Yeah. Oh, twice. Oh, no shit. That's crazy. So we did 2,500 people there. Wow. And it was crazy. We had all militia armies in the shrubs and the trees with, you know, like snipers. Right. You know? Wild. And we had to feed 2,500 people. Was it a special menu too? No, it was almost box lunch-ish. Okay, gotcha.

53:39 But it's still, again, you're talking about assembling 2,500 sack lunches. Well, we brought in the Boy Scouts, the Girl Scouts. We don't discriminate. Volunteers of America. You've got two hands and you can wrap some food. We need you. Whatever organization was willing to contribute, They came in, and then I made a donation because I couldn't go out and hire all these people, right? So I needed hands on deck. And then I would make donations based upon the amount of employees that they contributed for the day, and they were able to earn money for their organization. We do that with the Rotary Club sometimes when you volunteer for an event, and they basically donate back to pay you for that labor.

54:22 Right. And, yeah, and the same ones who pour beer at football games. Sure, all that, yeah. For organizations, right? Yeah, same kind of thing. So, same concept, you know? Cool. That's flex labor right there, yeah. And then we did another one where we had to, everybody had to work barefoot, you know, couldn't walk on the... on the floors, these special wood floors that they had. Okay. So we had them all walk barefoot, and that was one. And then we did another 2,500 people at the equestrian center – in Overland years and years ago. I played it $2,500. Oh, dang.

55:03 And talk to me about the math of those kind of events. 2,500 people. When I have a regular catering event, I expect nowadays to pay anywhere from... 30 to 60 dollars a head for for any kind of a proper catered cater service things like that kind of thing right yeah um is the pricing kind of stay the same at scale or do you even get more at scale because it's so freaking hard or do you get less scale once you can recognize your fixed costs right you know in the that particular event because of where it is and certain types of things then then it's a it's a matter of uh seeing what that looks like price per head gotcha And are you talking to food, food and this, and food and this and this?

55:54 So then you start building it in cells. Yeah, okay. And what do I need to make money on? What do I need to cover cost on? Right, right. You know, so not everything you make money on, but there might be a service charge just for calculating it and supervising it. You know, rentals, the rental company. Oh, right, because you've got to rent a bunch of stuff for people to execute this thing, too. Right, so we don't mark that up. No? Even though you go handle it and stuff? No, we don't handle it. Oh, I guess not. Yeah, they deliver it there for you and stuff. You know? Yeah. So things in that nature. That's fair. But if there is handling that's involved, then we will put a service charge on it. Interesting. So, you know, it becomes... You know, the food industry, it's math, it's science, you know.

56:36 Sure. Yeah, craft. It's art, you know. Negotiations. Yeah. So, but. You know, I'm going to propose that we take a short break and then we'll jump in the time machine once I've got a fresh bottle of wine. Sure. And head back to Jersey. Okay. All right. All right. We'll be right back. This episode is sponsored by Loco Think Tank. Loco Think Tank provides peer collaboration for business owners. We build smart, safe places to help business leaders navigate every stage of the business journey, and we love what we do and who we do it with. Our model features gift-back-minded business veterans in the role of Loco facilitators, And we're always looking for abundance minded individuals to add to our membership, facilitated team, local community, or to feature on this podcast.

57:20 Listeners of this podcast who go on to become members of Loco Think Tank get their sixth month of membership for free. Just mention the Loco Experience podcast on your application. To learn more, visit our website at locothinktank.com. That's L-O-C-O thinktank.com. And we're back. And we promised a trip into the time machine. Yeah. I will try to only chase 10 squirrels on the journey. Okay. So never been in Italy. I wouldn't have been surprised if you were, like, born in Italy and brought to America as a youngster. But were your parents first generation? No. They weren't either.

58:00 They were second generation. Second generation. Okay. So my grandmother and grandfather's last names on one side was D. Michael or D. Michelle. Either way, it was... Right. And then on the other side is Pellegrino. And, uh, so, uh, my grandmother on my father's side, um, uh, she came over and she used to, uh, have a job cleaning the home of, uh, uh, a mobster. Oh. Jimmy the Boot. Okay. And my brother corrected me. He thought it was somebody else, but I grew up knowing that it was Jimmy the Boot.

58:41 Interesting. And, you know, back in the days of the, you know, the mob. And that was the Italian mafia. Yeah. It was pretty much kind of... Yeah, not the New York mafia, which was a lot harsher. The New Jersey mob, although there was a lot of levels of... of varying levels of badness yeah badness but mostly the mafia was designed for goodness oh you know uh and it was protecting um wives mothers and families um and uh and it it got distorted yeah And so they would raise money or get money, however they did. Yeah, yeah.

59:22 You know, gambling was their big thing. Sure. That's what it was, was lotteries, small little community lotteries. Oh, interesting. And taking bets, you know, moving into professional sports and, you know, and that sort of thing. Well, then it became a lot of lifting of trunks and stuff like that. And it became drugs, you know. Drugs, yeah. And wherever, you know, somebody had the idea of making money, you know, they would follow. Man, I was like, Las Vegas is down like 8% this year from last year. And it's just like it used to be a place where you could go and have a cheap weekend and, you know, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.

1:00:04 But now it's like super expensive because they tried to lure you there with cheap hotels and good food and stuff. But then, you know, corporate took it over. Anyway, I saw a post the other day. It was like, Vegas was so much better when the mafia ran it instead of the corporations. It was actually more just. It was more reasonable. It was more interesting and more fun. Right. So anyway, nobody's calling to bring them back. So take me to your family, your first grade year. What's the dynamics? Well, you know, I was born in Newark, but I was young. I'm probably only a couple years old when we moved to Nutley, New Jersey, and grew up in a very, you know, pristine area of Nutley.

1:00:50 You know, it was a four-story home. Okay. Well, really four. Count the basement, it was three. But you count the basement, it was four. Sure. And one of my sisters and my aunt lived in the very top floor, bedroom, bathroom, store, you know, closet, storerooms. And then the next one was my aunt. grandmother, me and my brother's room, and my parents' room, and then my brother and I split into our own rooms. But there was four bedrooms, six bedrooms, six bedrooms. Oh, so when you're talking about the family of eight eating meals regularly, everybody was there under that roof. Yes, yes.

1:01:30 And then the main floor was two living rooms and a big dining room. moderate size kitchen and uh and it had stairways one into the kitchen and one into the front lobby area so but um and that's the days when the fuller brush man would come knocking on the door and you know and uh so my father had the pizzeria going and we used to have bread delivered to our house every day oh And we'd have a big flour bag, empty flour bag with all fresh baked bread dropped at the door. The doorbell would ring. We'd run to the door, drag the bread in the house, take two to four loaves out of the bag, put it on the kitchen table.

1:02:16 That's our cut. And then my father would take the rest to the restaurant to use for the day. Meatball sandwiches and stuff. So, you know, Zinacola Bakery. And the guy was so big, he had one of those big trucks, and the steering wheel was... All so big, but it'd still be cutting into his belly as he's driving. You'd see a dirt market on his t-shirt for the steering wheel, rubbing it the whole day. And he's still wearing the white clothes from, I guess, baking the bread, right? So, you know, grew up like that. Yeah, yeah. And we had a garage, a two-car garage. And in the middle was my father would buy, you know, skid loads of tomato products and stuff and keep it in the garage.

1:02:58 Yep. So you give my archery, you know, you have to go out in the garage. Okay, go load in these tomato products into the car. Right. Right? So I'd have to go in the garage, load them into the car. They're going out to the restaurant. They're going to the restaurant. Interesting. Let's talk about your, like, early school experiences and things like that. Take me into the maybe teenage years. Yeah, Nutley, New Jersey, you know. How big a town is this? What's that? How big a town is this? I can't. Tell you the truth. I just don't know. It's not a very big town, but predominantly Italian. Yeah, okay. And went through school. I was a good kid. Junior high, started getting influenced, you know.

1:03:38 And, yeah. once I realized how good looking a guy I was at that age and uh you know and all my friends and uh you know cars and girls and the whole east coast guido you know thing was really you weren't really a mobster but that was everybody right right right you know whatever yeah it was just like you know when I was a kid I dressed up as Michael Jackson and uh but I wasn't a pop star, you know, whenever I wasn't into that necessarily. But that was kind of the culture of the day back then. Yeah, bell bombs, platform shoes, you know, your hair, whatever, you know. Yeah, yeah, dig it. So, and then going through junior high and high school, Nutley High School, Nutley Junior High School, my principal at the junior high school lived across the street from us.

1:04:29 Oh. And the head guidance counselor lived next to us. So it's the days I used to come home from school and the principal and the guidance counselor are sitting in the backyard with my father drinking a beer. And I'm like, a little uncomfortable here, you know. You weren't too much of a trouble though. No, no. Not compared to some of them. No, because it's kind of pinned against the wall. What was the early out of high school for you? Did you work in dad's restaurant and stuff? I did, I did. I was young enough and old enough to experience working with my father.

1:05:10 Yeah. My father had heart conditions, and he was in the hospital. I had quadruple bypass. Oh, so he was in and out. In and out. You know, but he would always still have the place, you know, and have a place. And he wouldn't quit either, you know. And so he had rheumatic fever as a young fellow. So he had calcified heart valves. Oh, okay. You know, a lot of complications there. But I did have the honor and privilege of working in the kitchens with my father. And, you know, sometimes I can remember not wanting to be there. Sure. Because I wanted my mom to come pick me up because I want to go hang out on the avenue with the other friends and the girls.

1:05:54 The girls, yeah. And the girls, yeah. So, and he'd get disgusted with me and he'd call my mother. Right. Hey, Jerry, come pick him up. He's being a pain in the ass. Yeah, he's not working hardly at all. I think about his girls. So, um, uh, things like that. But, uh, um... So I did have the enjoyment of working with my brother, my older brother, seven years older than me. Oh, quite a bit. He was older. He had more weight on his shoulders with the family business. And he carried the business through some difficult times. Yeah. Because your dad passed, but not right away. He didn't pass, but illness, you know, kept him, got a hold of him, and he had to come in and, you know, kind of save the day for a while.

1:06:42 Gotcha, gotcha, okay. So. What was your path from there? Well, when he passed away. Which you were early 20s or something by this time? Yeah, definitely early 20s. And my brother had been – he moved out to Colorado. I kind of followed him out. So my father passed away and – I remember my mother walking in the room to tell me, you know, I knew he was in the hospital. He always used to go in and get treatments. He had water in the lungs, and they do this and that. But one morning she came in my room. It was early, and, you know, she was sad. She told me that, you know, Dad had passed away. And so I sat up on the bed, and I'm like, wow, what am I going to do about work today?

1:07:28 I've got a busy day today, you know. What should I do? And she says, well, your father would want you to you know, go to work and carry your responsibilities. Yeah. Nothing you can do for him right now. Yeah. Until the funeral, you know. So I got out there. That's what that was. And that must have drove my, you know, drive and commitment to, you know. Talk about your mom a little bit. Like, that must have been a strong person to both – Sounds like your dad was quite a personality while he had the restaurant and stuff, and then he spent the most part of a decade kind of mostly sick. Yeah, my mother caring for him, and we sold it when he was sick, so that's why I was working for somebody else.

1:08:12 Sure. Yeah, she was loved so deeply by the whole family because of her inspiration. Oh. Just so much inspiration, you know? Leave it in God's hands and, you know, that sort of thing. Yeah, yeah. It's a quiet faith kind of thing. Yep, yep. And so she would go to the hospital. She worked as a bookkeeper for a publishing company. The guy treated her well. And she would work Monday to Friday. After work, if he was in the hospital, she'd be there. She had to go home, and she'd be there and do everything.

1:08:54 I can't believe I'd come back and think about, how did she do it? So, but... So he passed away, and she spent 35-so years without him. Wow. You know, so she died at 97 years old just this past January. Wow, never really married, never found love again. Yeah, and I got to say, her funeral was a joyful one. Yeah. A life well lived, sounds like. Yeah. And she had nothing but happiness and praises and very willing to throw in the towel. So, Circa Me here, you're kind of released from responsibilities. Your brother has moved by now to Colorado?

1:09:34 Oh. When is this? At this point? But how long later after your dad passed on? Oh, yeah. My brother was 19. He jumped in a laundry truck, modified a laundry truck, threw everything he had in there and Came out to Colorado. Boulder, a friend of his was going to school out there for engineering. So he worked and he did some sprinkler system work. But he wound up getting involved in a restaurant called Berardi's. And Berardi's had one in Boulder. They had one in Denver. And then eventually they had one in Fort Collins. So my brother, I worked and lived with him in Boulder.

1:10:15 So you moved out. Tell me about the circumstance. Yeah, I changed. I got to chase my brother. My big bro's out there doing this and that. Okay, it was just like that. Yeah. You drove your... All the girls are together. Yep. You know, my father's not around. And, you know, I think the brothers should hang together if the girls are going to hang together. I don't know. I just, the way I thought at that point, you know? And, um, so, um, so I came out and, you know, That's how you found your way to Fort Collins is with that expansion of that operation. Yeah. Yeah. And I was back and forth a little bit cause I would work the boardwalks in the summertime and, you know, go visit my brother a couple of times before I wound up actually settling in over here.

1:10:59 And, uh, yeah. And is your wife in the picture yet? No, you're out here. Yeah, my wife's coming into the picture now. I came out to Colorado and looking for a job, and I wound up at Beaver Meadows. You know where Beaver Meadows is up in Crystal Lake? Sure, yeah, yeah. We go camping up there and eat at the restaurant there pretty regularly. Yep. Well, there was a job opening in there. Okay. High society up there for a Jersey kid. Yeah, absolutely. They used to call me the Jersey jerk. And so I went up there, and on my way up there for the interview, I got stuck in the snow. Oh. And two old women tooling by in a Jeep that have a winch on their Jeep.

1:11:41 Yeah. I'm telling you, these women have to be 70s or better, right? And they pulled me out of the winch. With the winch, they pulled me out of the ditch. Love it. Love it. Love it. And, uh, so, okay, now I'm a little nervous and a little scared to get the rest of the way up. Yeah. I got the way, uh, well, it was just an interview. Oh. And, um, so I got the job, probably the only one who went up there to interview. Totally. You know, yeah. So I spent time up there and got to know their family, and they were wonderful people. They owned, you know, all Crystal Lakes. You know, I mean, Glacier View, I mean. Oh, they owned a bunch of Glacier Meadows, too. All that was their property, and they would develop those lots and, you know, homes and built those homes.

1:12:23 Oh, I didn't realize that was the same. The Beaver Meadows was the same as the Glacier View. Yeah. Interesting. And so... They had some big vision up there. Yeah. And did your wife... No. Running you up there? No, she was still coming. So springtime came. Okay. And not much to do. So you spent one winter up there? She was still in the Philippines. My wife's Filipino. Okay. She was in the Philippines, and I went to the first aid squad in Red Feather. I knew some people because I knew them all from the resort. Well, it's a small town. Right. You know, if you know 300 people, you know pretty much everybody. And so I used to go to the, they had a singles club at the first aid squad, like once a month or something.

1:13:03 And as soon as you walk in the side door, there's a big cork board and has all people from all over the world that you can write to. So, you know, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do. Ooh, she's cute. Ooh. She's this age. Oh. So I picked her name, got her information. Really? Yep. It was like online dating before there was something. It was, yeah, mail order bride, I guess they used to call it. Like she was willing to interact with people or whatever. Yep. You didn't just order her up. No, no, no, no. Yeah, yeah. But you wrote her a letter. Wrote her a letter. And then after six months, I gave up. But my letters were going out there airmailing.

1:13:46 She'd come from a poor area, sort of. And so her letters came back to me by land, sea, and land. So you were taking three months and yours were going there in a week. Yeah, exactly. And so we went on like that for a while. Interesting. And then at one point I wanted to talk to her on the phone. So I had to write her a letter and give enough time for her letter to get back here to say, Find a phone number and a date and a time that I can call. Right. So we had to take all the time changes into consideration, the distance of the letter traveling out there and me getting it back to make this call.

1:14:28 Well, you're finding somebody that you can – because it's going to be like a $2 a minute call at the time. Right. Probably more. Yeah. And so I dialed the number. Dring, dring. Dring. And somebody says, hello? You know, it's the Philippines. And I says, is Nanita there? And so I hear the phone. Nanita, America, America. Sure, they recognize you right away. Right. And so... That's when our first conversation started. Interesting. And she knew some English, I guess? Yeah, she was definitely proficient in English. Okay. As all Filipinos are.

1:15:08 Yeah, Filipinos are, yeah. You know, and so, you know, with that, we start calling a little bit more often. Our letters, we have a book this thick that has our corresponding letters. And so we wrote for about a year and a half, and I planned a trip out there. and uh um you just bring her home then no it's not that easy but okay went out there and we had a civil wedding oh and um Then I came back and petitioned her papers. Right. And then got her here. And then a couple years later, we had a church wedding here in Fort Collins.

1:15:49 Yeah, yeah. So we were married. We've been married for 37 years. Congratulations. Congratulations. And, um, and, uh, so she's probably going to correct me. It was only 36 or it's going to be 38. I don't know. It's about 37 years. Wow. Yeah. And I want more. Yeah. So we got married. We didn't have a lot of people. Uh, they were in faraway places. So we invited the town hall, the judge, some of the secretaries. And we had our reception at Max's house of chicken, which is, uh, A fairly nice restaurant. Okay. But it is just a fast luncheon place. But upstairs they had a catering room.

1:16:31 Piano player. White glove piano player. We had a reception for about 40 people. As top end is what they consider top end. Yeah, yeah. With a tip, I walked out of there for 75 bucks. I love it. The most affordable wedding ever. Right. And then we traveled the Philippines together. We went to Cavite and Boracay, which is the number one beach in the world. Yeah. you know, um, what a neat experience, you know, yeah, just traveled and got to know each other a little bit. And then I came home and, um, you know, I got to tell you a story.

1:17:12 She probably won't like me to tell you this story, but she'll forgive you. I ran out, we're on this island of Boracay. So to get to Boracay, you have to take a plane, land on a dirt airstrip, ride on a tricycle. Somebody pedals you on a tricycle with your luggage about 30 minutes to the coastline. Oh, dang. Then you get on a pomp boat and you take another 30-minute ride to this island. Oh, dang. That doesn't have any fresh water. You know, I bottled fresh water. Oh, I haven't heard of Barbora. Oh, my gosh. Talking about, you look it up.

1:17:53 But anyway. So where was I going with this? I don't know. You go to this island, I guess. So I ran out of money. Okay. So I had to fly back to a main line and get on the phone and have my credit card. Limit increased. Limit increased. And so I did. And so when we left and, you know, my trip is coming to an end, I had to come back to the United States to petition her papers. Okay. You know, go to immigration once a week. You had established, I guess you already had the civil ceremony and stuff. Right. So we had marriage. Were you leaning toward that already, like through your letters and stuff?

1:18:34 You're like, when I come there, we're going to get married? Yeah. Yep. Yep. Okay. Basically got engaged when I arrived in the Philippines. It was like all these militia armies and stuff like that, crowd of people, you know, a bunch of Filipino Tagalog language didn't know. So I'm walking through the crowd hoping that I recognize her. Some arm reaches in through a crowd of people and pulls me through. Yeah. And it was her. Uh, And so she had a very special job. She had a driver. She worked for a transportation company, a Chinese transportation company. And so her job was to go around to all the rice markets and collect money.

1:19:20 Oh. Collect the money from the – She was a tax collector basically of sorts. Like a tax collector, right? Yeah. And she had a bodyguard and a driver. Yeah. You know, so she knew how to haggle. She knows she's a tough chick basically. Right. Yeah. And, uh, but in America it was all new. So she walked gingerly at first, but now, now she's a tiger, you know? I dig it. I dig it. Well, she's been a big part of your journey as well. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it was good to see her, that, that strength in her, you know? Yeah. Yeah. So when I went to go leave, um, the Philippines, it was the night before I had to pick up that flight and, uh. I ran out of money again. So we pawned her wedding ring.

1:20:04 Oh, dang. And I told her as soon as I get back to the States... I'll wire the money so you can get it back. And she thought I was going to... She thought you were going to show up again. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Had a fun weekend, baby. Yeah, right, right. See you later. Right. So anyway, that's a story that's embarrassing on one. But it was the... It was young love at the time. And I think it was a proof of my love and her trust. Yeah. Right? Yeah, yeah. And it still carries for today. That's sweet. Yeah. I love that. I love that. Anyway, that's... I don't know where we are in the timeline. So you came back here, and you got a new Filipino wife. You don't want to work at the Beaver Meadows Resort anymore.

1:20:46 No, no. I'm thinking. No, she came. I was in New Jersey, back in New Jersey, living with my mother when she finally arrived. All right. And so I picked her up from the airport. We went to Rockefeller Center. I rented a limousine, and she was shivering. It was December. uh yeah i've never experienced anything like that you know um and uh so when i got home my mother opened the door and she says get her in here she's freezing you know get her in here and uh so we lived uh in my mother's house uh for a little while not too long i would say a few months a And I was an executive chef of Radisson Hotels at Newark Airport at that point.

1:21:33 I was selling diapers out of the back of a van to convenience stores. And I was working at the Brass Rail. I was selling diapers out of the back of a van, and I was selling meat for Omaha Steaks. Ah, nice. So I was doing all that. I was a real go-getter, right? Yeah, yeah. And so then when I was working at the Radisson, they had a position open up in the Cayman Islands. Mm-hmm. So they had qualifications that you couldn't have children over this certain age, which I only had a newborn kind of, and so forth.

1:22:16 So once they hit five years old, you have to leave the island because there's no schools in the island. Mm-hmm. So you'd have to ship her to Miami. Yes, you'd have a window of opportunity kind of with this corporate gig. Yeah. So it was kind of over. But we had some great learning experiences. I was this far from Prince Charles and the Queen of England a couple of different times when she visited. And we were going to cater for her in foul weather. Yeah. That had to be quite an experience for your wife to come from kind of a poorer region of the Philippines kind of background situation. And now all of a sudden she's hanging out at resorts in the Cayman Islands. Right, right.

1:22:57 And even in New Jersey, the Radisson there was probably pretty fancy, right? Yeah, yep. And she was, so I was working and she was getting bored. So she took on a job at the local bakery which produced Captain Morgan's, Tortuga and Tortuga rum cakes. Are you familiar with? Yeah, I've had rum cake before, but not that particular brand. Yeah, well, Caribbean rum. Yeah, yeah. Caribbean rum cake is very big. Oh, yeah. Come in metal tins and, you know. So she was the only one who had the recipe besides the head baker. Interesting. To make the mixes and stuff. So we sell rum cake in our catering because, you know.

1:23:40 We have the recipe. We have the recipe. I like it. So how did you find your way together, I guess, back to Colorado? Well, when we were finished in the Caymans and we knew we were, we had, where are we going to go, sweetheart? Are we going to go back to New Jersey? Yeah. What other choices we have? Well, I lived in Texas a part of my working career, too. I was in Texas, and it was too hot there. Yeah. And New Jersey was, eh. And then, well, Colorado. She had been to Colorado before. Oh. We, one of our little escapades before. It's fair. This or that, yeah. Before you went and married her up. Yeah, so she knew the looks and the feels of Colorado.

1:24:23 Yeah, we rented a house up in Vail once. The ceiling opened up, and there was living trees that held up the house. It was really, so a group of us had rented this house. And we did a cook fest and, you know, this whole thing. And there's a wine club up there. And Cerro Chillo is his last name, Patrick Cerro Chillo. But he has a construction company that goes by Churchill because Cerro Chillo is Italian and it's not well taken. So he changed his name. Churchill sounds more English. Yeah, yeah. But anyway, he started this wine club similar to one that featured down the road when I bought my house over here with her.

1:25:06 I have some pictures maybe I could share with you, but I also would make wine in my garage to the tune of 20 barrels a year. Oh, okay. So you weren't just a great broker back in the day. That's where I was thinking I was going to start making wine in Colorado, but they had such guidelines with... Colorado grape availability, and you have to have a certain amount of grape percentage in your wine to be a Colorado wine. So I was buying all my grapes from California. I was the only stop from Lodi, California, going heading east to New Jersey. Oh, is that right? They'd come down off of Route 80, and they'd drop off about six pallets.

1:25:47 Yeah, yeah. So in Vail is where you moved to? No, but Vail had a similar wine club to what his brother had in New Jersey, which is similar to what I was building. So did you guys come and land back in Fort Collins then? No, the other winemaker, Patrick, he's still up in Vail. But yeah, we wound up back in Fort Collins and bought the house that we used to. Well, we bought the house and then started the wine club. Oh, I see. The wine manufacturing. Oh, so that was your first kind of... Yeah. Yeah. entrepreneurial pursuit yeah thinking that i was gonna you know make wine yeah and sell it and have a club and what happened there too much uh the taxation room they call it and um it was just too much um Well, it takes a while, right?

1:26:35 Yeah. Also, it's got to age for a while. Right, you've got to put up the money, you've got to age it, right? Yeah, buy all this equipment and stuff, and then it paid off real slow. Yeah, but those wines aren't meant to really age. Oh, that's fair. They're meant to drink in a three, four-year period. Yeah, but even still, that's a lot of... sitting around right well my basement was floor to ceiling i used to carry about 1700 bottles of wine right in crates in my basement and i used to carry up and down the stairs yeah you know and i'm wondering why i had c fusion in my back c2 to c8 l2 to l4 and why my hip was replaced three times and why my knees were replaced right these are all contributions to why you know Um, so you shut that down then after a couple few years kind of thing.

1:27:25 And then it's funny. Uh, we had to renovate our garage to the bakery kitchen, the catering kitchen. Yeah. Right. So we had to start the catering. Yeah. That was to start the catering. So what we did is we took this out on the road and I have a friend, uh, that has a mortuary. Okay. And we were making wine in the back of his mortuary. Um, But we felt that that wasn't a good place. It feels a little weird. A little weird. Yeah. And then I had another friend, Fred Lombardi, Italian guy, loved the culture. He had a window store. If you know that building, it used to be an old agricultural building on the southwest corner of Timberline and Mulberry.

1:28:15 It's a cova sack. Yeah. Where R&R Electrical used to be. I know where R&R is. So he had a window business successful. And he had a lot. He had big walk-ins that used to be agricultural walk-ins, hanging beef. So it was all USDA. Oh, wow. Interesting. You can hose things down, drains in the floor. Heck, yeah. So we started making it over there. Okay. But it was just too much, you know. And I couldn't have a growing business in catering, try to make this thing happen. Yep. You know, I didn't have the connections. I had that back in the day. I was running a local think tank and also trying to build investments and insurance kind of business, you know, because I had left the catering business, the food business.

1:29:02 And I was on a motorcycle ride and stopped in a brewery with a buddy. And he was like, you know… I've only, I've heard that you should pick one thing and be the best in the world at that one thing. Like I've never really heard of very many people being the best in the world at two things. Yeah, master at one. Even very good at two things. Jack of all trades, master one. I mean, Elon Musk might be an exception, but he's quite a bit smarter than me, it seems like. Well, you know, so the equipment I had hanging around, my last little go, Dan Eccles, the owner of Real Tech. Sure, I know Dan. Okay. Well, he did an event at his house for the Junior League one year.

1:29:43 Yeah. And we made wine for that event a year in advance. Okay. And we brought the wine, the bottling equipment... To his yard. Okay. And while this event was going on, we were catering, we had an assembly line, gravity feeding, filtering and bottling this wine, putting a label on it. shrink wrapping the tops, and everybody left with a bottle of wine. Was this legal? Yeah. Okay, good. I'm just checking. I didn't know if it was a licensed kind of operation. Well, we didn't sell it.

1:30:24 That's true. It was a gift. I dig it. So, anyway... I love it. I think that's an awesome operation. That was our last really hurrah with winemaking. Yeah, very. Well, you got rid of a bunch of old inventory. You got rid of those bottles. Well, just the wine. No, but I still had the 1,700 bottles of wine down in my basement. Oh, gotcha. We gave it to CSU for an equestrian symposium that they had at the equine center one year. Oh, yeah. So we donated it to CSU. I guess, yeah. And that was the 2,500 people. That, the equestrian arena had 200...

1:31:08 250 tables of 10. So picture 250 tables of 10. Dang, that's like two football fields, basically. It was big, right? Intimidating. So we cut the room into quadrants. So we serviced 600 or so per quadrant. Yeah, 125, 125, 60 tables at a time. That's still a lot of tables. Right, right. So we had four plating stations. And that's when we had all the... Yeah, it makes sense. So, I mean, monumental stuff I've done in town, you know. Do you still take on big projects? Well, you said you just did the Walker Mowers. They don't come around as much, you know. Yeah. You know, they're not there. Big cities, you know, Denver. Yeah.

1:31:48 You know, I don't know, you know. We were doing, in the beginning years of Timnath, we did three events a year for the town of Timnath. We did their fall festival, which was a street festival. Yeah. Their Christmas tree lighting. Yep. And then a summer barbecue. They used to be a lot more intentional. Maybe they still do those things, but I noticed them before. They must have promoted them harder. Yeah, well, you know, I think they cut back on... Just doing those kind of things. They're doing a lot of food truck rallies. Little rallies and stuff. And they're sharing the wealth amongst... Let those guys mess around with feeding all those people and entertaining all those stuff.

1:32:34 But we were successful for them at least... four years in a row. Yeah, cool. You know, and then people just come up for a change. Patterns change, and a whole bunch of stuff has changed since, like, COVID days and stuff like that. I feel like we could touch into COVID days. We've kind of brushed against it with Nanees a little bit and stuff. And I want to make sure I get some of our special segments included in this conversation. This one's our purpose-driven questions. Let me make mention, if I can. Please do, yeah. Cut it if you have to. We've got time. There are a couple of things that happened since COVID that are pertinent to... my existence sure let's uh let's dip in dip in okay 2020 of course covid sure you know losing help to people who rather collect a little bit of unemployment sure and not have to work we got busy Because of the curbside service.

1:33:32 Okay. But then we had a fire in July 26th of 2020. Oh, wow. So I had two knees replaced in January, scheduled for a hip, had the fire. The fire took us down. And what happened with the fire? I don't know. It was an electrical hot wire in the wall that climbed up the wall, turned into smoke, heat damage, burned holes in the ceiling above the dry ceiling. Then they found asbestos. All over the place. So the place had to be gutted. It took two years to rebuild while COVID was around.

1:34:13 So getting plans reviewed and approved and getting contractors and material. Material was growing by the week. I kept having to go back to insurance companies to ask for more money because of the... Sorry, that $40,000 you said for this is actually $65,000 now. Sorry. Yep, exactly that. And then during COVID, too, there was a need for feeding for homeless. Sure. Sure. So we were approached by Catholic charities, both locally and in Denver, that was giving a bunch of money from the government. Yeah, I've been part of Focal Cafe.

1:34:55 They did a lot of that stuff during that time, too, just basically becoming a kitchen. Yeah, we were feeding 150 people lunch seven days a week. Wow. And I was working with the head of the health department. We supplied hand wash sinks and kept them stocked. Mm-hmm. for a lot of hand washing that had to take place before people can come in. Sure. So we had a big involvement for... So that's how you... You had a secondary kitchen there outside of the gelato, and so you could just keep that place humming while you're trying to navigate the contractors and insurance and landlords.

1:35:35 Because the landlord's like... hey when you're gonna pay rent you're like hey well no you know they were fine with it so their insurance company kept them paid gotcha they had their own insurance they kept that pay gotcha so everybody pressure was off of that function at least you could just kind of wait that out as far as when the gelato shop was coming back around and and then i uh designed or had the thought of these gelato tricycles peddling around town oh yeah to to sell gelato all right trikes i don't know if you remember i don't remember those at all yeah so did you sell some uh yeah it was good for that but then it faded away and i didn't want to get into farmers markets i tried them they weren't really doing Yeah.

1:36:22 Great, you know? And so... That's an entrepreneur, man. You try stuff, sometimes it works, you do it more, sometimes it doesn't, you do it. Yeah, I still have those trikes. Okay. If anybody wants a trike with... Owner-operator, it would be good, but for, to me, to hire a level... of employment to do it. Hire a person that you can trust to go out there and take care of it. Yep. Gotta sell a lot of scoops. Yep, exactly. And the kids that were doing it were young. They weren't very accountable. Right. They maybe were selling... uh, ice cream to their friends for free. So that's like an extra, you never really know, right? There's no controls when you're out there.

1:37:02 But it just wasn't, you know, uh, not easy. Yeah. Fair enough. And, uh, so that was a part of that during COVID until we got, so that kind of kept you busy enough to work it through. Plus whatever other opportunities. Yeah. And then we were ready to get it ready to open and they start this major project on Mulberry street. Perfect. that you know cut us off from traffic yeah for a time period but they did work hard they did get done ahead of schedule good and i did get a small grant i think it was seven thousand dollars from the city to say it's safe to help with something. Sorry we damn near bankrupted you, but we'll try to do better next time.

1:37:43 Right. You know, that happens. So, yeah. So those are some significant... Those are some pretty big milestones. Paul, I'm sure there's so many more chapters we could. Yeah. We'll still chase some squirrels along the way. Okay. I'm just going to grab a couple of these kind of sponsored segments so we don't... Go ahead. ...write around out of time for them. The Purpose Driven Questions is sponsored by Purpose Driven Wealth, one of our sponsors. Thank you to Purpose Driven Wealth of Thriven for sponsoring our Purpose Driven Questions segment. At Purpose Driven Wealth, they believe financial clarity leads to a life of contentment and purpose. Their mission is to help guide clients using a values-driven, stewardship-based approach focused on provision, contentment, and enjoyment.

1:38:27 With more than a century of experience, Thriven helps individuals and families navigate life and business transitions and prepare for the future while creating space to live generously and give back in meaningful ways. To learn more about purpose-driven wealth, please call 970-330-7411 for a complimentary initial consultation. And now, on to the questions. And they're all about kind of, you've exhibited a lot of generosity already just when you talk about what you want the future to hold for your business and your employees and things like that. What's your internal compass? You've mentioned kind of faith things and stuff a little bit, but talk to me a little bit maybe about your faith background.

1:39:14 Is it? Well, my faith background, you know, I was born, I was a cradle Catholic, brought up in old Italian, you know, traditions. You're not kind of allowed. What's that? You're not really allowed to be not a Catholic if you're Italian. Italian in New Jersey, right? Yeah, I didn't think so, yeah. But even the mob, right? They go to church on Sundays. Yep. But, yeah. Yeah, and then, so, you know, that's my faith, and of course my faith was shaken for a while, and, you know, moved away, and then, you know, maturity, aging, you know, whatever it may be. Yeah, sometimes. Just circled back around. Talk to me about, was that your wife came to the Philippines?

1:39:57 Is that? Yeah, my wife came as a Catholic, of course. Catholicism also, okay. And that's what I wanted. I wanted to have a wife and a family that was, you know, similar to me growing up. You know, faithful. Yeah. Family oriented sounds like a lot of things like that. Yeah. Cool. I dig that. Fair enough. Let's talk about like investing in people. Like you've got some leaders that have risen up within your organization over the years and stuff and some long-term employees. Like how have you seen some of those people change over time and have you influenced them over time? And is there any special stories in that?

1:40:39 Oh my gosh. So many, so many, um, you know, I had alcoholics stories that I could tell you that, um, people winding in and out of the halfway house and jail that are now living multiple, multiple years. I had one fellow that, uh, was divorced and, uh, Finally turned his life around, and they actually got back together and remarried. Oh, cool. And they have grandchildren that they care for and children. And he's one of the most inspirational people that you would ever come across.

1:41:24 Wow. That's one. I have another one that, you know, had a rough time drinking. And most recently, you know, she... I pushed her away from the company because she was so argumentative. And I just pushed her away. And then I started seeing her walking the streets towards St. Joseph's Church. And she was going to church daily. And I just... had to turn around and talk to her and say, Cassidy, I see you a lot. You know, you got a Bible in your hand. She just told me, you know, that's great. Really good. You know? And, um, since that, uh, she would fall away and closer to, but she was finding her ways, her way.

1:42:11 I wasn't leading her, but maybe, but she told me how inspirational I was in her life and blah, blah, blah. Yeah. But most recently she had a baby. Yeah. She got pregnant, wasn't expecting to, didn't know if she wanted to carry. She carried, full term, beautiful child. And she's going to church. Her faith is, you know, strong, and she's practicing it. And, you know, since that, she was able to secure the child. She's baptized. Her grandparents helped her with a car and some other, you know, living situations.

1:42:53 You know, we were waiting for her to be able to come back to work. Most recently, she's been returning to work a little bit. And she's a success story in progress. Yeah. You're kind of a place of second chances, aren't you? A lot of people have found their next traction. I think most of them have got more people that have been through the halfway house. Yeah. And... Whatever other challenges. Whatever challenges. Some kind of stuff. Yeah, and I think they just, a lot of them, they come and they go, and some of them have stayed. Yeah. You know, and the ones I have, I have one that I want to be the, basically, the administrative, you know, operations manager.

1:43:36 She's a mature gal, and she's got it in her. Yeah. You know, and she came to me. She started helping me peel onions and stuff in the kitchen. Right now, she... She runs the service. She knows about the gelato and all of that store. She came to you as a green pea and didn't really know much. She came to me through a recommendation of some other gal who was working for me. She says, I have a roommate. She's a really good cook. She cooks great stuff. I says, home cook. versus, you know, I don't know. Friends working together, I don't know. But I'm glad I reconsidered because she wound up being... One of your key people now. Yeah.

1:44:16 I think when we first connected, I told you I had just made a homemade tomato sauce and simmered it for seven hours in the stove or something like that. I think I earned at least a little bit of credibility despite only being a home cook these days. Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, food is... It's one of the big joys of life. What else is actually really more joyful than that? We are going to drift toward the loco experience here shortly. Okay. But before we do, we're going to try your hot sauce. Oh. Are you ready? Yeah. Should we use a piece of bread for that? No, I've got some tater chips here.

1:44:58 Tater chips. Yeah, just regular tater chips. If you wanted to get some bread, you sure could. And that one's sealed. We'll let you leave that sealed up for taking home. That's your gift for being here. I'll just give us a little. And I'll try to do a little kind of light do. Just put it on. Yeah, whatever you're going to do. I'm going to do a little drip drips. Beep, beep. Beep, beep, beep, beep. So what's the story on this? This is Crazy Ginger. This is mostly stuff that you could get out of Colorado here. That one's probably the lightest over in the corner there. It's a... Oh, you're going heavy. It's a peaches, bell peppers, and carrot base with a gob of habanero and a little bit of ghost pepper.

1:45:45 And you can get it at Matador Mexican Grill. They make it for us. Yeah. If you put it in your store, you'd be welcome to. It's got the little loco experience thing right there. Wow. A little crazy ginger. Yeah. Yeah. Got a lot of fresh ginger and garlic in it as well. Yeah. I have a couple of... Very not Italian flavorings. Our Italian exchange student was not a fan. I had a chef work for me, Steve Palmieri. He also worked at the Embassy Suites under another chef that worked under me, but we're very good friends. His name's Chris Cole. And he ate a whole ghost pepper at work one time.

1:46:26 And he was... holding on to the table, standing backwards, holding on to the table. Try not to pass out. Try not to pass out. And the chef, I heard this story through a second. He walked in the kitchen. Everybody's around like, Steve, you okay? You okay? And the chef said to him, what's wrong with him? He says, he just ate a ghost pepper. And the chef's like, you idiot. You dummy. But anyway. So what do you think? Yeah, they're good. You're going to enjoy it? Yeah. It is. Habanero is about my highest comfort point. So the habanero with the dust of ghosts was just a little... It makes me sweat. You can see I'm all sweaty right now. But I don't challenge myself with heat anymore.

1:47:10 Yeah, yeah. But I used to. There wasn't anything pretty much hot enough for me. Yeah. You know, and... I could always handle it in the mouth, and then sometimes the follow-through wasn't as pleasant even when I was in my 30s. Now my body tells me through excessive sweatiness when I'm pushing my limits. Yeah, and that's exactly my situation too. But it's got good flavor. It's clean. Yeah, that was kind of what I was looking for. A nice clean flavor and enough to catch your attention on the heat. Yeah, and, you know, it's where you use it and how much and why. But it's good. You'll have to tell me if you like the local mix there, too.

1:47:51 So, yeah, I'd be interested in definitely. And, you know, we serve hot sauces. Where do you obtain these? Directly local? Matador Mexican Grill. Oh, this is Matador's signature product. Well, it's my signature product, but they make it for us, and they sell it at their store even. Oh, this is your signature. Yeah, I give it to all my podcast guests. Yeah, I came up with the name and the color and the branding. And Paul just, not just, Paul made it delicious. Because I wanted it to be orange. With kind of some of those key ingredients as the base. The carrot, ginger, garlic was kind of my theme. And then he brought me a bunch of samples, and we tested those, and then we modified it a little more.

1:48:34 Paul Michelson. He's the owner of Matador Mexican Grill. Okay. And he's a foodie as well. Yeah. He loves sauces especially. He makes a bunch of different sauces, both for himself and others. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, so yeah, if you wanted to carry that in your store, for example, you could, you could just buy a local honey too. I do a superb honey. Oh, do you have Copacos or somebody else? Copaco? No, I have, um, McKenzie. Okay. And McKenzie is, um, has, um, um, he's a local, uh, beef farmer, but he started it. Uh, he was, he's a, um, retired HP executive. Oh, really?

1:49:15 And, um, yeah. If you've got three days, this guy will tell you about honey. I believe it. I just had lunch with Ben from Copacos Honey. And he just opened his second location downtown Fort Collins. We used to go when they were, you know. Just on the north side there. Yeah. Yeah, they're still there, but they opened a downtown location now on Linden Street just a couple months ago. So shout out to Ben. Yeah. Yeah, that's awesome. Because, you know, the more local... It is. The more medicinal it is. If they're eating local flowers, your allergies will go away. My daughter has crazy allergies. So we get her going on this honey like in February or March. You know, they sell bee pollen at Ben's shop now too. And that apparently is like way more effective even than the honey.

1:49:57 Yeah. At the allergen buildup. I've been putting a little of that in my coffee. Yeah. Put a little bee pollen in my coffee. Yeah. And the more local it is, the better. Yeah, 100%. So the local experience is our closer, and that is the craziest story that you're willing to share, the craziest experience from your career, your lifetime, that you're willing for your wife and your children and your employees to hear. Okay. It doesn't have to be business-related, but it might be. No, I got one. Okay. Bring the microphone a little closer if you want to. Earlier in our career at the Lincoln Center, we were doing a wedding, and I had a woman that exclusively was making wedding cakes for us.

1:50:38 Okay. And so we would call Kathleen was her name and get our cakes ordered. So when you booked a wedding, she did the cake and whatever. So we're setting up the Lincoln Center. And we're certain times, I wonder what time the cake's getting here. And so we call Kathleen. I said, Kathleen, what time are you planning on coming with that cake? She's like, what cake? I'm like, ah, ha, ha, ha, ha. You know, and this is like an hour before the wedding. So I break into a sweat, and I'm not a smoker, but I went out in the back alleyway of the Lincoln Center, and I think I smoked about two or three cigarettes trying to think about what to do.

1:51:24 So we're all set up. We're waiting for the cake to get set up. I go up to the North College Albertsons, and I happen to know the baker up there. She goes to the church. We went to. Do you know Bob Fancook? He was the manager of that store for years. Maybe by face, but not by name. Fair enough. So, you know, years ago they used to have all the wedding cake and the plastic cake, all the design, right? Yep, yep. So, and this girl had a tough cake, and it was lavender. Yeah. I said, where the hell am I going to get a lavender fondant wedding cake off the ground? So go up there. She had a lavender cake, but it was nothing like the shape that the bride.

1:52:08 Oh, so I asked her, I says, can I borrow that cake? You know? And she says, well, I don't know. I got to ask the manager. Manager comes out and I tell him, I'm with a catering company. I made a big problem. Yeah. I need a lavender cake. I need something to put out for this bride's wedding. Right. And he says, okay, so... pulls it off. It was all dusty and dirty. Cause it's up there, you know? So it took it back to the Lincoln center, put it in the dish hole, sprayed it down with the hose. Cause it's all plastic, right? Sprayed it down, you know, got to dry it up, put it out. Cause that's the visible. Yeah. Yeah. Can't have a wedding without a wedding cake visible.

1:52:50 Put the wedding cake in the Lincoln Center, in the room, right? Yep. Bride comes in, has no recollection that that's not her cake. Right. Because, you know, when you get married that day- That's the smallest concern. Right. Your head is in a fishbowl. And as long as it's lavender, she probably wouldn't notice. Exactly, right? So- Anyway, so what I did is I ordered a sheet cake or two. I forget, it was a lot of people. So when it came time to cut the cake... You can't have all these square pieces. Well, what I did is I set up the plate in front of the tier cake, and I had a piece of the sheet cake here.

1:53:40 And I says, cut from this cake. Cut from this cake. So they're like, oh, okay. You know what I mean? So they cut their first feeding piece from the sheet cake. Right? Sure. And I said, okay, great. So I handed this off to my assistant, took it back to the kitchen. I pick up this plastic cake, pretend it was heavy. I picked it up, and I walked it back to the kitchen. Ah. like i was cutting the cake right back there right pulled it out and then i started cutting the they already started cutting the sheet cake in the back right right and um and that's the way we got that pulled off she never even knew But my integrity.

1:54:25 Your conscience was biting at you. I called the mother of the bride the following day, and I told her the story. And she laughed and laughed. And I credited her. Yeah. The. Oh, you did? She was charged. Oh, for the cake. For the cake. Well, less the sheet cakes. Less the. Yeah. Right. But anyway, it was a small, small dime. That's. I think that qualifies, even though it was lavender, it qualifies as a white lie. uh, where it's not harmful. It's actually beneficial to pull it off in the moment. She saved, I forget how much money it was, right? I don't even, well, you save the day ultimately by running up to Albertsons and, uh, making it happen within an hour.

1:55:09 And that's probably the theme of a, of a hundred more crazy stories. I bet it's just making the thing happen that needed to happen. You can't have those sensitivities or important points fall. So, so, It wasn't like I took the plastic cake with me to get it in the room. I still had well over an hour to have her make those sheet cakes and somebody bring them to the kitchen. Oh, so your regular cake chef actually made the sheet cakes. No, no, no. Oh, just opened it. They did because they got cake, right? Yeah, yeah. All they had to do was do this. So you're actually coming back with just the plastic cake. Plastic cake to get out in the room. And somebody going up there shortly to pick up the freshly baked, freshly frosted sheet cakes. Yeah, within an hour to go get it and get it back down to the kitchen.

1:55:51 So... Dig it. Yeah. Is there any questions you would like to ask me? No, just maybe when it's going to air and sound. I'm sure a lot of people would like to see your one. Yeah, we're two to three weeks out. I'll have to check the schedule, but it's probably somewhere right around Thanksgiving or so. Well, I hope I gave you some good enough material. And I'll be honest with you, I probably only touched probably 25%. We could have done so much more. And as it turns out, People only like to listen for so long. Yeah. So thanks for the treats. It was amazing. Yep. You enjoyed them. And I can't wait to dig into more of these and for my next trip over to Gelato anymore.

1:56:32 Yeah. So nice spending time with you. Ben, thank you. Godspeed. We'll see you next time. All right. All right. Cheers. Over and out.