Building PDC Meal Prep with Brad Miller

Episode Transcript

[00:00:08] Andy Blechman: Very excited to kick off today's, um, late August coffee chat as we. Get together here before the end of the summer. I suppose that Brad and I are both in the South.

So it's a cool 96 degrees here in Atlanta today. Sure. I'm sure it's nice and hot in Dallas as well. I couldn't be more excited to have Brad with us. Brad from Punch Drunk Chef joining us today runs a phenomenal meal prep business out of the Dallas Fort Worth area. We've become, gotten to know each other over the last year or so and just absolutely respect everything that he does, both in the kitchen, but also the energy and the way he thinks about his business and he thinks about life in general is just so energetic.

So happy to have you here today. Thank you so much for agreeing to do this and for joining us really just want to spend today digging into your background, talking about your business, learning a little bit more about, the things that drive you, we call these chats, the Bottle Coffee Chat, and we have named our community, the Bottle coffee community.

And really, this is a community for. Food entrepreneurs and specifically meal prep entrepreneurs to connect and learn from each other and we're up to 200 members. It's really starting to grow and it really feels nice to start to see the benefits of the community. It's a way for you to get back.

I'd be remiss if I didn't ask. What your caffeine ritual is. It I can't even imagine, but maybe do you drink coffee? I think I might've heard

a monster before on a pre show. The local cold brew. Yeah, you gotta have your water and there's mystery beverages. Okay. Awesome. I love that.

[00:01:45] Brad Miller: Who's, who is the local cold brew?

Local cold brew is LDU. It's a, an Australian guy who started here. He's got four or five locations now. And it's literally the best cold brew and drip coffee around. It's just awesome. Awesome.

[00:02:00] Andy Blechman: That's cool. So I'm curious, and I think this is always interesting when I ask chefs this. Do you, in addition to coffee, do you have any sort of morning routine or morning ritual and what are your mornings look like?

Man,

[00:02:10] Brad Miller: really it's just get up, go hit the ground running. Oh, I got to be there in 30 minutes out the door. And then grab your snack bar, start the day. Figure out food along the way. So it's kind

[00:02:20] Andy Blechman: of, and it's be there. Are you, is the first place the kitchen or the gym or where do you head?

[00:02:23] Brad Miller: Yeah, usually the gym. And then, it goes, it's 95 degrees on the cool morning here. And you take a shower there and then find your way up to the kitchen. Awesome.

[00:02:32] Andy Blechman: And what's your kind of, I know you, you work with a lot of fitness professionals, but I'd be curious to hear what's your relationship with health and wellness and,

[00:02:40] Brad Miller: Where my name started uh, punch drunk.

So when I was in culinary school, I was a amateur boxing. I made a lot of food and I took a lot of punches. So punch drunk chef. So it's always been more like the extreme fitness kind of style. So then after that, I started doing century bike rides. And then I got into the CrossFit community and I've been here ever since.

So

interesting.

[00:03:00] Brad Miller: Why boxing?

[00:03:01] Andy Blechman: What made, what,

[00:03:03] Brad Miller: I've always been into like martial arts and it's just, it's the aggression and, after, entering a sparring round, having four or five rounds, a couple minutes each, it's there's nothing in the world that can touch you. There's no stress.

There's no anger, no energy, like everything just gets released and it's just, it's the greatest cardio on it. And it's fun, not getting punched and also punching back.

[00:03:23] Andy Blechman: And and is that something that you've always been interested in? Have you always been into athletics and, combat sports or is that new for

[00:03:30] Brad Miller: you?

High school was military school. It's a bunch of guys trying to You know, outman each other. So judo in high school, juujitsu in college, and then kickboxing Muay Thai and post-college. Or culinary. Amazing. Yeah.

[00:03:42] Andy Blechman: And are you still doing that or are you no.

[00:03:44] Brad Miller: I turned 40 this year.

I don't take 'em as well. ,

[00:03:45] Andy Blechman: so what'd you do to end up in military school? I saw that in your background.

[00:03:48] Brad Miller: You know it's a good question. Moved around a lot and I moved schools a lot. I was my, my folks were always, we were physicians, so always working and you was finding the right schools and whatnot.

And I voluntarily went to military school because I was at a point in my life. I did the summer camp and I was like, I hate it. I don't want to go here. My dad's are you sure? And I had this weird just mature moment in my life where I'm 16 years old, 15 years old, and I was like, I need some structure, I'm not becoming what I want to become, I'm like looking around my friend group and we're all just getting in trouble and just, really rebellious and just, I needed, I knew I needed something to set me on the right path.

So I was like, You know what? Let's do it. And that first year was the hardest year of my life. And then after that I adjusted, I fell in line with the system and it really matured me by a decade compared to where I was going in. Yeah. I just, I needed that direction.

Cool. Interesting. That's awesome.

Sounds like it was a positive experience. It

ended very positively. Yes. So yeah,

it was in

[00:04:55] Brad Miller: Harlingen, Texas. So you think it's hot in Dallas? It's twice that down there.

[00:04:59] Andy Blechman: Okay. Nice. Nice. What was like the, was the idea that most people would go into the service? I didn't see. Were you, did you serve? A lot of

[00:05:06] Brad Miller: people.

No, I did not serve. A lot of people did go into service. My original game plan was to follow my parents footsteps and become a physician. So my undergrad in college was actually biochemistry. And upon leaving military school, you're, it's a Marine based academy and Marines don't have their own doctors.

They use Navy docs. And so we were indoctrinated to Oh, nobody wants to go Navy. So then I was like, you know what? Hey, let's go to Texas Tech. And I just opened up the floodgates for me.

[00:05:30] Andy Blechman: And why how was biochem? That's a pretty complex, that's a pretty challenging major.

[00:05:34] Brad Miller: It is a very challenging major. Just, I guess the way my brain works is I don't think like linearly, I think in puzzles and just like different ways of thinking. I'm like, so mathematics and science really came fairly easy to me. And, obviously you're being further into biochemistry gets much harder, but.

That's just, I, where, how I'm wired, how I'm built and it just clicked for me. So like organic chemistry and stuff like that were like my favorite classes because they're literally piecing together like molecular puzzles that just, that you can't even see. You just have to visualize.

That's funny.

[00:06:07] Andy Blechman: I've heard that organic chemistry is basically where you find out if you're going to be a surgeon or a psychologist, the surgeons can get through and the psychologist go back to the liberal arts. It is no offense, any psychologists out there,

[00:06:20] Brad Miller: but, it's how I apply it to food though, cause like you have to, you take your common ingredients, you look at it in a different way and you got to think outside the box and essentially figure out the puzzle to create a new recipe.

Like a lot of my recipes. are very mathematical. Very four of this, two of this, two of this, half of this and are based on ratios. And so like when we come up with new recipes, like I can visualize what I want and the recipe and we nail it on, usually by the second try max of, it's all people don't understand how much science and math goes into cooking and creating cool recipes.

And that's where I get to play the best of both worlds.

[00:06:58] Andy Blechman: Very cool. Yeah, so what, like, how did you find your way into food and walk us through your culinary background? And obviously there's some passion there around the math and science.

[00:07:07] Brad Miller: It's all about passion. And without that, I wouldn't be anywhere here today.

I'd always been in the service industry, whether it's, my 1st, Waiting table job as an IHOP. And then we had a place called trail that steakhouse where they cut your ties off and it was real goofy. And then, but I'd always waited tables and been in the industry. And then, during college, I would cook for my friends, I wasn't very good at it, but I was always trying new things and experimenting and just, I really found a passion in it and just the service side of things, because, you're able to make people smile, you're able to create something and what, not only fulfill them, but bring them together, bring them around.

Have a moment of silence while they're eating, have joy and laughter while they're not. And it's just, so I figured the end of my college career, like it wasn't meant, that was not meant for me. And the culinary school was the next step. And so I, I did that and luckily I had my undergrad.

So I got to focus strictly on culinary school. And I didn't have to take any of the extracurriculars or anything like that. And so all I did was focus on cooking and honing my craft. And from there, I worked back house for my first line position. And that was a major learning experience that they don't teach you in school.

And, from there, I worked management, front house, back house, open restaurants, closed restaurants, been, GM all the way down to busser, all the way to line cook, all the way bartender, just chef, everything in between. And, finally it came to a point where Or, I'd spent my entire life building someone else's dream and, how I started this is I joke that, I got fired for the last time, but really what it is.

I had been spending my entire life building someone else's dream and making other people smile for other people's ambition. And it was time to build my own. It was time to live with my own purpose. And, so I set out with, all the hopes I could, a couple of friends and a credit card.

And, I was able to apply my personal mission statement. To my business and that's to be an advocate of positive change in the lives of those around me. And, it, after I left my last official job, I went to New York for a week and a half, went to a food and wine festival and just got fired and inspired and came back.

And I was telling my friends out there, I was like, this is what I'm going to do. And, they came back down three years later and like, Holy cow. You're right here. Yeah, it's all about passion. It's all about, finding other ways to make people's lives better, finding other ways to make people's smile, finding other ways to make just spread joy and happiness throughout your community.

And I'm able to do that with little boxes of meals.

[00:09:30] Andy Blechman: So cool. Thank you. What made you come up with your own personal mission statement?

[00:09:34] Brad Miller: Great question. Hold on. If you haven't read this book, oh, it's upside down there. You got success principles by Jack Canfield.

It it's a life changer really because I spent a lot of life, just what I call skateboarding or coasting where, you go from one job, you start firing passion, then you just cruise and firing passion, then you kind of cruise. It's finding purpose and our industry is an industry built on passion.

And if you find yourself burning out, cause there's a high burnout rate in our industry, then it just, it robs you of the joy of life. And, I don't, I can't remember exactly how I came across this book, but I read it and I'm just like

blown

[00:10:08] Brad Miller: away. And it literally is titled how to get from where you are to where you want to be.

So back in 2016, I think it was, I went and saw Jack Canfield speak and, I'd just gone through, a life changing experience and, was lost in my own world. And so I went by myself and I'm sitting on the front row and I met this lady next to me who barely spoke English. But we're doing a thing together.

He's like, all right, grab a partner. We're going to go through some sketches and within 10 minutes, I'm bawling, like uncontrollably bawling. And then she is as well. And we can't even really understand each other, but we understand each other. And through that little seminar. You do these worksheets and you narrow it down.

And my purpose got outlined. And in that seminar, that stuff, the notes, it was to bring people together of different walks of life. To share meals, share stories and have quality time. And that eventually turned into my mission statement of the advocate of positive change. And it took me a couple of years after that, cause I didn't start this till 2018 to really apply it.

But from then, from that moment on, I knew I was meant for bigger, for better. And I was knew I was meant to spread more joy in this world than what I was currently doing. And so that's really how I attribute to finding my purpose and finding my true passion. And Yeah, I couldn't more highly recommend that book.

It's yeah, that's awesome. We'll put that in

[00:11:30] Andy Blechman: the show notes. It's a really inspiring story. Yeah, you hear a lot of like sports psychologists and self help. People talk a lot about mission values alignment. So I'm interested, obviously you have your purpose. We haven't really gotten in yet to your business. You run a meal prep business.

High level, but we'll talk a little bit more about that in a second. But I'm curious, like at that inflection point, you said that was 2016. You went to the Jack Canfield event. Was that the point where you started to think, what you do today, running a meal prep business, impacting people's lives the way you do is that, was that the point where you thought this is what I, this is what I want to do?

And I'm curiously how what you do ties into your mission. Like, how do you what is it about running a quite sizable meal prep business like yours that really Absolutely. Um, Fuels you and does fuel that mission every day. Cause yeah, I'm sure it does, but I'd love to hear it.

[00:12:22] Brad Miller: And I love that because like back, when I did the seminar and, I started developing my purpose of why I'm here. I still had no clue. I still went another two years with no real clue. My last job, I opened up a brewery here. I was the general manager and, saw this thing get built, helped, design everything about it.

Two weeks before we opened, the chef quits. And then this was like hit the ground running. And so they're like you're a chef. I'm like, yeah, but I'm also the GM. I'm like congratulations. You're both now. And so within two weeks, I developed this. Pretty well, I was proud of it menu and we do a photo shoot and this and that and we're like, all right, we're about to open.

And then our PR lady is cool, you ready for the brunch photo shoot tomorrow? I'm like, brunch menu. So it's really like thinking in the moment and really just figuring it out as you go. And that's how I really built this business because once I left that job, I still didn't quite know what the next step was.

And then, I'd done meal prep for myself in the past, especially during my boxing phases and, you gotta eat really clean, really lean to make weight. And I was like, that's it. That's I've done it for myself. I've done it and for friends and I've done it and I was like, and it makes people's lives easier.

And I knew that was it. And I went to New York and I ate at every single place I could. And I was just like, there's way more out in this world, way more flavors, way more profiles than I'd ever been exposed to. And culinary school was great and it exposed me to worldly cuisines, but then really seeing it in New York City.

Like for food was, a lot of chefs argue food is not art, but I believe it is, and it's inspiring. And I get to use that to, we don't do any marketing or advertising my business. We only do word of mouth pop ups and stuff like that. So we get to know a lot of our clients firsthand.

And we've got about. 200, about 200 active clients right now. But we send it out to about 800 people on and off, and we can tell them first name basis for way over half of them. And a lot of them, they come in, they pick up from the kitchen rather than delivery because they want to say hi, they want to build this relationship.

And you just engage them. And it all resorts back to passion and, feeding your community and feeling the people. And that. Five minute window once a week that you meet with, Gwen and Greg and they tell you their stories and their vacations, their travels, and then you share their stories and you hug.

And this is it's. It's a meal prep business, but now it's beyond that. It's bigger than that, and it's, you are more impactful and we're able to just not just physically feed the community but proverbially feed the community, and it's just, it's so rewarding to just be able to use this Avenue as not only a way to, to extend our reach of spring positivity, but to give back to our community, so a lot of our works and what we do, I might be getting off topic here, but we give, we, we do a lot of it.

Engagement in our community. We do, we're doing a Thanksgiving event with the Boys and Girls Club where we're going to feed 150 kids. We did a basketball camp with an NBA player where we just went out and fed 300 kids. And it's these things, it's we didn't set out to make a million dollars.

We set out to make a million dollar community. And that's really where, I wake up every day and I go to sleep every night knowing that we're doing positivity and we're spreading joy. We're spreading happiness. It's amazing. Thank you.

[00:15:39] Andy Blechman: Going back to the New York trip. I have a bias.

I lived in New York for over a decade.

[00:15:43] Brad Miller: Yeah.

[00:15:44] Andy Blechman: Um, Where were some of the places you ate? What inspired me?

[00:15:48] Brad Miller: See, okay. So that's a long one. Cause I was like six years ago, but it was, let's go top three inspirations. I think the one place is called Dead Rabbits. Now this wasn't necessarily a food place, but it was like a, they're known for their number one.

Irish coffee, right? And so you're thinking, okay, cool. An Irish coffee, I've had that, but the way they do it to the level of art of perfection. And I think it's in this Jack Canfield book. It's no matter what you do, whether it's taking out the trash, whether it's making Irish coffee, do it to the level of art.

Now I'm probably misquoting it a little bit, but it's seeing that and like seeing, I just walk and I wouldn't have any destination and I was going from A to B, but then I'd stop at C, D, E, F, G, H. And sometimes I wouldn't even make it to my destination because I'd stop and have a bite here and have a bite there and everything is just.

was to the next level and it was so much more elevated than I was used to, and I just left a brewery where I created the menu, but it's still breweries diet food, it wasn't, your tater tot kegs and your, your smash burger and your this and that.

It was everything to the next level. And I was just, I got to go back to my picture because it's a very reminiscent trip. But then we went to the food and wine. My family met me that weekend and we went to the food and wine festival. And it's every major restaurant there was displaying little one biters.

So you get to essentially tour the entire city within a convention center. And. It's just, I just came back with notes and recipes and ideas. And just like I have, I don't have it on me, but I have a little book that I always carry with me. It's my little black book. I'm on my second one, but it's just got everything detailed out.

And it's just, yeah it's a crazy city. That was my first time to go. So I was very

[00:17:22] Andy Blechman: cool. We should go together someday. I actually, funny enough, I remember I worked the food and wine show. Yeah, gosh, it might've been 2009, 2010. I got assigned to one of the top chefs. Like a top chef, someone who had one top chef, she was number two.

I think her name was Nikki. I can't remember. So I worked her, and I had really didn't come from a hospitality background, so I worked her booth. I must've handed out like 400 quinoa something,

something,

[00:17:47] Andy Blechman: And I just, what is it? It's a quinoa. Chicken and, Curry and yeah. 4,000 times I said that.

It's a great show. Yeah. Getting onto to on topic, 'cause I'm sure there's a lot of people here who really want to hear about nuts and bolts of meal prep. Tell us a little bit about your business. You mentioned you went to New York, you aligned, you have your mission, you really have built community.

But talk us through the process of going from. I have this idea. I figured out my mission. 2018. I'm going to do meal prep. What happens then? What are the steps for, from zero to your first meal out the door and then from your first meal out the door to your, first now 200 clients, but your first 10 clients I'd love to hear the early days story.

And then we can talk about some tips and tactics as well.

[00:18:28] Brad Miller: So it all started with a dream, and. I had about 10 or 15 friends and family that I went to and I was like, Hey, this is my idea. This is what I'm going to do. And it's really funny, sad in hindsight. They all tell me years later, it's yeah, nobody thought you could do it.

Nobody thought. And I was like, that kind of fuels me even more because it's just no, I have a dream and I'm going to do it. And when you're left essentially with nothing, but with nothing left, but just fire and passion, you make it work, you figure it out and you pound the ground until you come up rising, from the ashes, rise the Phoenix.

So I had a small group of friends that, I, I was, delivering out of my own car and like just going to, if y'all don't know the area, but like 50 miles this way, 10 miles that way, 20 miles that way, outrageous amounts, just doing everything for these, small. test crew And eventually, it's all about relationships.

And well, then all of a sudden, one of my old boxing friends was like, Hey, me and my family would like some meals. And then he put his brother onto it. And then, my other friend put his neighbor onto it. And then it's all word of mouth and just. Going out there, not only making the best product you can making the best impression you can and then, in 2020, we actually that was the year that changed everything for us.

So how big were

[00:19:43] Andy Blechman: you at that point? You were was this still 10, 15 customers or were you a little bit probably.

[00:19:48] Brad Miller: Probably yeah, probably about 20, 25 consistent customers. I was still doing pen and paper. I was doing where we, you need to look at these old books. I have check marks of or hash marks of like how many each meal I didn't make.

If I had to make 50 of one meal, I was just like, how am I going to do this? It was crazy. And now we're doing. 250 of one meal. I'm not even batting an eye and it's just, it's craziness. So 2020, it was obviously a weird year because of relationships. So I was at this gym in our area and one of my gym mates, he was running a comedy club right down the street the comedy clubs owned by this truck yard, which is what the bar is called, and they were building out a commissary kitchen.

And they needed someone to help open it because, they're busy running a very successful establishment. And this was one of my original prep lists, if that makes any sense to anybody, probably not.

[00:20:44] Andy Blechman: It looks like the notebook from The Bear. If you need some PTSD or. If we have a bunch of food people and you haven't seen The Bear, you really should but that's certainly reminiscent of,

[00:20:54] Brad Miller: yeah, it's a little PTSD for me, but it's a good show.

And because these relationships, the owner of that building was like, hey, we're opening this. Commissary, we need someone to help. And so then, he put me in touch and I opened this commissary, which is essentially like a shared kitchen for food trucks. And they gave me like cut rate, be like awesome, like connection of, to be able to use this kitchen.

So I had my first official kitchen and then, the pandemic starts happening, we're like, what's going on? This is crazy, and so my idea was to get an old mail truck. And to turn it into a food truck. So I had this, I was thinking very small minded then because my business is very small where I'd roll up to gyms, sell meals, roll up to the next gym, sell meals.

So here I am flying from Dallas to Wisconsin, never been to Wisconsin. And I buy this old mail truck. It just, it's stripped. Like USPS truck? Like little or like a big, it's a big one. If you look up workforce P 42, that's what it's okay. Okay. All right. You don't have a picture of the bompo do it?

Yeah. If y'all look at my Instagram, you'll see plenty of pictures of it, but it's a lot different now. But it's a wild truck. If it's the one on your Instagram, it's like a, it's a wild truck. It looks like a psychedelic adventure. Yes. So here I have, and the guy's really pressuring me to buy it, and I get it for, pennies on the dollar because it's beat up.

Family bought it from the government, turned it into a little camper. They had a fold down bed and a little refrigerator. And then I buy it. And then the next day, the world shuts down. Every restaurant closed, every city closed, everything. And we're just like, what is going on? Stay at home, all the protocols.

And so I'm driving this beat up brakes, barely working mail truck from Wisconsin to Dallas. Going through Chicago and yeah, there's a fun photo of it. Y'all can see that's the old school. That's the old one. Yeah. I'm thinking like, I just spent my last dollars and did I make a mistake? What is going on?

Like the doubt and the fear and the the fear of failure starts sitting in. And it's all the things that, an entrepreneur doesn't want to feel, but feels on a daily basis. I'm starting to think, my business is okay. We're doing 150 meals, a hundred, a week, which is still, And he's on the dollar and we get back to Dallas and I'm like, crap, and then everything shut down and then everyone starts cooking and everyone realizes, Hey, we're going to be chefs now.

And we're at home. So we're going to focus our craft. And we took a hit, we took a major hit. And I went from I think it was 30 customers to, I think back down to 10. And I'm just like, what do we do? There's nobody's hiring. Nobody's if I fail, then there's nothing left. And I knew that didn't matter.

I knew that I had to keep pushing through. And so all of a sudden being Dallas, we love going out. We love people cooking for us. It's a city of food and drink. It's awesome. I love this place. Everyone wants to start ordering out again and nobody was in restaurant. So all of a sudden we go from, Oh shit.

So now we have a private kitchen and an old mail truck that we got it, put a window in and eventually some refrigerators. And the generator went up and now we're delivering. So people are like, Oh, y'all deliver. No gyms are open. No, nothing's open, but people are starting, wanting, fresh cooked meals, and so then we started delivering and then we started.

Increasing the business. And then eventually we got the truck wrapped and once we got wrapped that's, that was the game changer because now we're a mobile billboard and people like, what is this? And, with no advertising marketing, you gotta be loud. You gotta be proud. And if you see our trucks, like it, they're very eye catching.

And, and from there we just continued to grow and grow, but a lot of roadblocks along the way, from that point, We're now roughly eight times the size that we were. And that was in 2020 to 2024. And it's just been natural organic growth. And with the obtaining vehicles, it's really just, it extends, people want it brought to the door, but then also, that adds another variable where it's who are your drivers?

Are they're the last representation of who you are, so who drives for us as our friends and, stuff like that. And honestly, a lot of our drivers come to us because they're clients and, It's just built, like I said, building those relationships. People like, I love this product. I want this product.

I want to be a part of it. I want to help spread the joy. And if you see our kitchen, everyone is just happy, and it's just a great environment. And it's really about the culture you keep, cause let me, sorry, go ahead.

[00:25:09] Andy Blechman: Yeah. I was gonna say, I'd love to come back to culture, but I'm curious Let's talk so there's 2 things that stuck out to me there 1st.

I want to hear about both the guerilla marketing that you did with the truck in that journey. But before we do that Hannah, 1 of our other customers is curious and I have my notes here. Let's talk about your dishes. I want to hear about. You mentioned some of your process, but let's hear about the names that created the creative part.

Yeah. Let's hear. Tell people about the names. Tell them about how you think about the dishes. And in that, I'd love to, maybe you can share some tips around, early day procurement. How you source ingredients all the way through to like, how do you think about sourcing now as you get bigger?

I don't just I don't think this trade secret. You do have your own kitchen. Now you went from commissary to your own kitchen, which we can get to in a little bit if we have some time. But yeah, talk about your meals. You're, your most popular meal, the names, how you think about it, how you procure.

I'd love to hear that.

[00:26:02] Brad Miller: Okay. That's actually a really good question. In culinary school, I remember this one, one quiz we had, and I was still a rebel, I'm coming in from, biotech degree to culinary school, and, I still had This ego about, Oh, I know more than I do.

And that ended up biting me in the ass, along the way, but learning from it. So I remember taking one quiz and it's multiple choice. And it's what are the traits that a chef needs to have? And one of the answers was ego. And I was like, being cocky and young twenties. I circled that one and it was clearly the wrong answer, but, I'd like to argue and I pleaded my case and this and that.

And so when I first started, I had my classic culinary, like everything had to be, classic technique and this and that I made a bolognese that we still one of our most popular dishes. We call it Yolo bolo and it's just, it's a great dish, but I was, Grinding my own tomatoes. I was, like just everything along the way.

And I realized that's not expanding. And, when we're looking at some of our classic recipes this week and just laughing at some of the techniques that I was using, it's really what it is take the ego out of it because inspiration comes from everywhere. Somebody is always going to do it better.

And so a lot of my dishes, and here's where we get a lot of free play is we take. Like we're putting a butter chicken on the meat this week, but obviously we've got to make a meal prep. We've got to make it healthy, but we're getting inspiration from everywhere. One of our most popular dishes is a Buffalo pulled chicken dish called bad mother clucker.

And so sometimes the dish comes first. Sometimes the name comes first, and so we come up with, it's like crazy ideas from places we eat. So me and my chefs would go out to eat. Oh, and I'm being reminded of one of our we do a bone broth chicken noodle soup type dish, and it's called "Send Nudes" and we want to be catchy.

We want to be edgy. We want people to be like, that's funny. How did you come up with that? And every meal doesn't just have the ingredients. It has a small story behind it. Most everything on my menu has some sort of story. This week we have a hatch chili dish called chili or Chili's because my friend from New Mexico where hatch Chili's come from, was like, it's pronounced chili and I'm like it's pronounced Chili's and so that's where the name of the dish comes from.

And it's everything. Just put a little passion behind, put a little story behind it. And, we now are fortunate these days where we have such a good team that we can, one chef can go out of town. I can go out of town. This other chefs go out. Traveling is a big part of the inspiration.

I had the opportunity to go to Japan two years ago and best talk about mastery, like absolute best, absolute mastery. That's the greatest place in the world. If you ever have a chance to go and just want to blow your mind culinarily. Go there culturally as well. We get inspiration from there from other local chefs, from the connections you make, go to restaurants, talk to the staff, meet the team, dive into the food and get inspiration from everyone, and yes, there's cookbooks and there's Pinterest and there's all these things, but really experience it, develop like a passion or story and then put that into your meals. Um, like a lot of our stuff we have, I'm a huge Ninja Turtle fan from back in the day, right? So we have one summer salad we do.

It's like strawberries, blueberries, strawberry vinaigrette, but it's shredded cabbage, shredded carrots, shredded this and that, and it's called "The Shredder", based off of the old Ninja Turtles. And then we came out with a counter dish called what was it? The TMNT the artist formerly known as TMNT and it's a combination of Prince inspired and Ninja Turtle inspired, not only colors, but flavors.

And it's got like a pizza pulled chicken type flavor profile, obviously not pizza because it's healthy, but it's just find that inspiration. And if you can tell a story with it that's what sells. And just sells it to the people before they even try it. Because one thing I learned, not only in culinary school but from our experiences, is people eat with their eyes first, way before you ever taste it, way before you ever smell it.

When you see it coming to your table when you're at a restaurant and make it visually appealing, have multiple colors, have a variety of ingredients and like especially sourcing greens is very important. We have a company here called Chef's Produce and Richard Torres. He's the owner of it.

And he's just a great guy. And, he helped me start my business. We, he wanted meals and I needed produce and he has the best produce in town and. It's so we bartered, right? That's how I got started. Cause running something off of, like I said, a credit card earlier it's a little scary sometimes.

And, you build these relationships because I've been in the industry, I've worked at restaurants that we use his company and he loves, just like I do, helping someone get started. And so now I'm in a position where I can help others get started. I can help, our friend who's going to be doing dumplings and we're going to partner with her and she's trying to get hers off the ground.

She's very successful and has made sauces and won awards, but needs that next step. And it's we have, we share a kitchen with a coffee roaster, our guy, Ryan of Lemon Drop Coffee, and he was around since our first kitchen. And now he's back in our kitchen and it's just about. Building those relationships, finding, sorry, back to topic, finding the inspiration.

It's like some of our most popular dishes is that buffalo pulled chicken. Something simple, something classic, but it's nostalgic. The sides on it are mirepoix or carrots, celery, onion, and mashed sweet potatoes. And so how I got that inspiration was literally eating at Buffalo Wild Wings. You got your buffalo wing.

You got your carrot and celery and you got your sweet potato fries, but you can't sell it like that. You've got to make it healthy. So sweet potato mash, roasted veggies. And so you can get inspiration from anywhere and you can turn anything into a healthy meal prep version of it. And so really it's amazing.

It's just getting out there. One of my, one of my personal favorite dishes is called Dr. Girlfriend. So Dr. Girlfriend is the name of my motorcycle. And it's based off of a character from the Venture Brothers. And it's this beautiful statuesque arch villain lady. And she's got this really low grumbly voice.

So hence where my bike's in it, but she's got beautiful, delicate features. So what this dish is, it's a turkey burger with our house seasoning on a beautiful, delicate, feta sun dried tomato spinach salad with a lemon vinaigrette. So it's got the mean hearty patty, but the delicate features. And it's just based off of something I was inspired by.

And like I said, that's from a cartoon. It's from a motorcycle. Like anything can be inspirational.

[00:32:14] Andy Blechman: Awesome. So how, I'd be curious of the, they mentioned the pulled chicken dish is one of your most popular. How many are you doing? How many meals you typically have on your menu a week?

How are you here? How many, do you rotate your menu? And like, how do you handle production from like a large scale perspective in terms of organizing your meal prep business crew for all the responsibilities? Yeah, we'll come back to the responsibilities one, but let's start with how many meals are on your menu and really how do you how do you think about the variety of your menu and shuffling the meals around?

Okay, that's I

[00:32:49] Brad Miller: love this question because it's, there's three parts of being a chef. There's creativity. Can you come up with something cool and creative? Can you hire, train and keep staff? And then can you run numbers? Can you have a good food cost, have good labor costs? And so without all three of those, you can't be a good chef.

You can't be just creative, make a good menu and then walk out the door and not be able to perform. So when it comes to my menu, it involves all three of those. So we only do seven meals a week. So seven different options. We do, we just increased breakfast from two to three. So essentially now we have 10 items to choose from.

And so that helps you want to have cross ingredients. So if you're bringing in broccoli, have broccoli on your bulk menu, have broccoli on one dish, maybe a second dish. If you're having bell peppers, come on and it's good bell pepper season. Have that on two different dishes. So that way you can control your food costs.

That way you can, you're not trying to do too much, your menu is concise, it's got enough variety on it, and when we do chicken dishes, we have four to five chicken dishes. So we're getting, 12 cases at a time. When you do, your beef dishes, cross pollinate that with one of your breakfast has beefs.

If you have one item on multiple dishes you've just drastically controlled your food costs and reduced your waste because now you can flex. One thing, especially here in Texas is corn. We, we have corn from Mexico, corn from Texas, and it's just great product, but it's very seasonal.

Sometimes it's 50 cents a year. Sometimes it's a dollar 50 a year. And that way, if you're selling 11 meals, you're losing, you're losing your butt if you're not controlling your food costs. So rotating we rotate week. So the menu changes every week. Now, not all seven items. So usually two or three items will come off two or three items.

Come on. I actually had the opportunity of sitting down with a former executive of Territory back when they were. So I don't know if y'all are familiar with them. There were national meal prep brand. They had fridges and all the gyms, but they would keep a stagnant menu for I think four to five weeks at a time.

Nothing would change. And, that's how they would major food cost control. But then you're losing clients. I know what I tell people is I get bored of my meals. I know somebody else's and they're going to stop buying them. I want to have something new, fresh, exciting every day of the week.

And it's, I'm a little more to the extreme of that, but, there's something between. Eating the same thing every day and eating something different every day that you got to find that balance. And that's really what keeps you fun, fresh and exciting. And, I had the fortune of talking to a lady in New York about her business and she rotates weekly as well.

And it's, that's what you have to do is to keep people engaged because the second someone thinks that healthy is boring, you've lost the battle. We're here to make people's lives better, make people's lives healthier, eat cleaner, eat leaner, eat meaner. You don't want to get bored of it, so keep it fun, fresh, exciting, but keep it concise.

Keep it, if you do too much, you're gonna, you're gonna drown. You're gonna draw yourself too thin. You're gonna end up with, $500 of extra produce or waste or this and that. And then you're doing yourself no good by carrying all that extra product.

[00:35:49] Andy Blechman: There's a question about your team and you mentioned culture, and I wanna come back to that in just a second.

But I want to circle back to this idea of the meal that the food truck and the guerrilla, what I would call guerrilla marketing. So can you talk, are you open to sharing a little bit about, like, how you approach growth? Cause you've obviously built this amazing meal prep business. We have seen you grow even in the 6 months that you've been on our platform.

So much you've talked about relationships and how much they matter to you. And we've also seen that and getting to know you. And. Knowing how you text with customers, how you message with customers. Can you talk a little bit about, what your growth kind of strategy is at a high level?

Trade secrets here, but yeah, what are some of the things that have really worked for you to grow your business, to build those relationships? You obviously have a very magnetic personality, but Beyond that, what are the things that you've done to build your business and grow your business?

Maybe talk a little bit about the food truck and partnerships and customer relationships and how you think about, and then maybe a little bit about, what comes next for you? What, how do you think you grow into the next stage or what are your ambitions for the next stage in terms of growing your business?

[00:36:57] Brad Miller: Awesome. I hate to keep repeating myself, but it's about relationships, right? And so small story when I first started when I was just getting off the ground when i'm still like No idea what i'm doing. I had my head coach at the time priscilla And her look up her Instagram syllable below, and she was always an inspiration and she works, what coaches have to do is they have to work in multiple jobs to make ends meet or multiple gyms, excuse me.

And, so what I did is you establish one, your home base gym, and then you talk to this other gym, you talk to other gym and he's Hey, honestly, if my biggest piece of advice is give out your food. Give out your food. Once people try your food, they will buy your food. I am, I'm assuming a lot of the people on the chat here are also meal prep companies.

And you're doing pretty, some great stuff, so hand it out, just let them try it. You can give discount codes or promos or stickers or flyers all day, but it's just like a business card. The chances of me using that 50 50. If I actually have something tangible in my hands to enjoy, especially a meal where you get all the senses, you see it, you hear it, you smell it, you taste it, and then you just.

You have increased your ability to turn that into a longterm client exponentially. One big thing we do is so with that head coach and also a good friend Priscilla, she's a part of what we have here in Dallas called the fitness ambassadors. And it was started by a lovely lady named Maylynn and what they are, it's a group of.

of just fitness enthusiasts that are trying to build their own personal brands and go around and help gyms and spread community. And that's been because of her is now a later in life relationship. So now we get more access to other gyms and pop ups with them and social media. Really it's just been.

Build those relationships, go to your CrossFit gym, go to your the gyms that have a culture, not to say anything bad about big box gyms, the gyms where people go just to work out by themselves with their headphones on low retention, it's a lot of people, a lot of foot traffic.

But low community, you want to have your culture aligned with the culture of meals aligned with the cultures of the gym. Because if you've been a part of,

A Crossfit gym or F45 or fill in the blank, it hits gym, anything, it's about everyone's there, doing an individual workout, but as a team, as a community, as a culture, so engage your community, go out to gyms, say, Hey, I want to feed you guys.

How many are in the noon class? 15 people. Here's 15 meals. Here's, set up in between a four 30 and a five 30 class. That way you catch two classes coming in and coming out and then just take it to go get their numbers if you can to put into Bottle, but get out there, pound the pavement. I tried once early on an Instagram ad, got nothing out of, gotta be seen.

You gotta be, you gotta be heard. You gotta be And so once, once you once you get them to actually take the meals, cause if you hand me a business card, it's going on the desk. If you hand me a meal, I now have to do something with that. I, and I'm going to eat it, yeah. Give them lots of cookie and they're going to want some milk,

[00:39:58] Andy Blechman: I think I read my kids that story last night.

Great book. Cool. I do have a question about culture and then I also want to, I want to make sure that we don't miss talking about your, how you think about delivery, but on the culture side, talk about your staff, how you. How you've grown your staff, how you've hired I think you're, 1 of your amazing staffs.

I think Ariel might be on the side over here even helping, even helping you while you're doing a coffee chat. I

love it.

[00:40:24] Andy Blechman: You guys, but yeah, how do, how do you divide responsibility? How do how do you staff up, staff down? I, let's mainly focus on kitchen staff, but also you did mention a little bit about your driver staff and that will hopefully parlay a little bit into talking about how you handle delivery.

[00:40:39] Brad Miller: So it's all about culture, right? And Chef Ariel, who's my right hand is helping me build this business arguably more than, Anybody else in the world? She was working at our friend's restaurant, the, and, I was bartending across from my first kitchen and, I'm sitting there at the bar, like figuring out staffing and figuring out this, and then I think I had two prep cooks helped me out at the time, still a very small operation.

And then, our friend Austin, the owner comes on and he's like, well, we're shutting down tomorrow. Like every other restaurant had to. Yeah. She's like, well, I'm out of a job. Uh, Yes you did. I look her dead in the eyes. I go, you need a job. My kitchen's right over there. And she's sure, I'll show up tomorrow.

And really is about the culture. So you don't have to have it right away, and as she will tell you, and as I admit is one taking the ego out of it, we talked about that earlier is because you don't know everything right now, eventually it comes to you, it's part of the growing process.

And as long as you allow yourself to grow and allow your team to grow with you you're going to keep people. You don't have to have it figured out right away. The dynamic between Ariel and I at the beginning was, I'm still figuring it out. She's still learning and it's like, what are we doing is much more high stress, even though we're doing.

Fraction of the meals you're doing now. And because of that, it's just allow yourself to grow. Don't be too hard on someone. They're going to learn. You're going to learn. Just roll with the punches. You're going to have daily challenges. You're going to have a storm come through and knock the power out.

You're going to lose some products. You're going to have, a delivery truck go down. You're going to have all sorts of issues pop up. Be patient, be cool, be calm, be collected. One thing about with staff. Let them make it make, let them make mistakes. We've, I've made some major mistakes where I've lost a lot of product and allow your staff to do the same.

If it's, if they learn from it, it's a lesson if they don't, it's a mistake and always preach that always preach, we're continually growing and and because of these relationships, that's how you get more better people. Then they'll tell their friends or, a lot of the people that have worked for us have either been gym mates.

Clients, friends, and it's been different phases of business. And, we have another chef chef Sean, and he came to us, he was, working in Austin on his way through town to, I think, Oklahoma and his sister in law actually helped me start this business as well. She's my best friend Hoyt and gave me every Sunday, the very beginning.

There's volunteer to help me figure this out. And, he's coming through town. Hey, can I work a weekend? Yeah, sure. I'm, I really don't know the guy, but he came in, he's got some experience and he worked that great. Oklahoma really didn't, didn't have a lot. I think it fell through in some way, but then I was like, Hey man, because of these relationships, you want a job?

And he's yeah, sure. And then with him, with me, with her, now we're at this place where we're a three chef team. And because we've established a culture of caring, of concern, of genuine passion for people, allow people to make mistakes, allow people to succeed, allow people to have the flexibility to not be micromanaged and do their own thing.

Then you keep people. And then when you keep people. They pass that passion down and that happiness, that joy to your staff. And when you're hourlies, everybody's happy, the heart. So is it's

[00:43:52] Andy Blechman: a, it's three of you in the kitchen, just curious about some logistics. And then do you have some people who come in hourly a couple of days a week and help you with five.

[00:44:00] Brad Miller: Yeah, I think we have five hours. So it's an eight man cook team, and like I was saying like one of the hardest positions to staff is the dishwasher, right? And everyone pulls their weight around here But that's the thing is like you have to pass your passion down to everybody in the kitchen.

There's no one Too high. There's no one too low. There's no one that doesn't deserve the culture that you create. And when you have that type of environment, people want to work for you. Like our, I'm so blessed these days because our staff wants more hours. They want more days. They don't want a second job.

They like, it's being meal prepping we're weekend warriors. And it's so rewarding when they're like, I want to work for you. For me it's just, it really, it's just heartwarming, and so when you express that to your entire staff then that's when you maintain people like we've, knock on wood, but you get major attention then and people stick around with you.

They fight for you. And then, and when the clients come in and let's say we're running a little late and you're still cleaning up or something, and they see everyone just happy and working and. You want to see that you don't want to walk into a restaurant or a bar or anything and just see upset staff, like nobody,

[00:45:03] Andy Blechman: you

[00:45:03] Brad Miller: know?

Yeah,

[00:45:05] Andy Blechman: absolutely. Let's, we could probably go for another hour. We are approaching the hour. So I think there's a couple of questions that hopefully we, maybe we can bounce, stay a little bit over, but yeah, no, you're great. Keep going. But I would love to hear about talk about delivery.

Yeah, how you think about delivery the path from how you handle delivery at the beginning to how you handle it. Now, you're viewpoint on what types of vehicles to have and how you really thought about that. Because and how far you go. I think that would be very helpful for some folks.

[00:45:36] Brad Miller: All right. Narrow your delivery path. If you're in a highly populated area, narrow your delivery path. My early on mistake was I was like, I'm going to deliver to Los Colinas. I'm going to deliver almost to Arlington, which if you don't know, the DFW area is probably 15 mile radius, narrow it down, keep it simple people outside your radius, if they want your product, they'll come to you, right?

And it also gives you another chance to engage the client. But. Keep it in there.

[00:46:03] Andy Blechman: When you say that

engage the client, like it gives you if someone comes and picks up at the kitchen, it gives you a chance to interact with them.

[00:46:08] Brad Miller: Cause I was, I used to on delivery route when I only had the one vehicle I was delivering.

Cause, you got to keep cold food, cold, very important food safety. That's our number one concern as food safety, keeping cold food, cold. But I, my delivery route when I was just doing it myself would be eight to nine hours and I would be delivering from two till, Oh. Almost midnight. Sometimes nobody wants to get a delivery at midnight.

That's just, but I extended myself too far. And then, luckily we were fortunate enough to get a second vehicle and, narrow that down, but really take it easy, expand when you have the ability to expand, we just expanded our delivery rate is to about six, seven miles from the kitchen now, which is a big area in Dallas, but like we have four trucks now and they're all refrigerated and it makes a lot more sense now, but.

People, there's enough mouths to feed in your area. If you're going to deliver don't go too far. Once you are big enough, once you have the ability, once you have locked in drivers and locked in vehicles, yes, you can do that. You can do hot shots and personal vehicles as long as it's under 30 minutes and not Texas heat.

But you want food safety to be your number one concern. We've gone through a series of vehicles, old mail trucks, old Ford Transit Connects, new Ford Transit Connects, new Mercedes Sprinters. One actually burnt down. That's a whole nother story, but what we found is best. So our fleet now consists of the mail truck.

If you look on our Instagram PDC Meal Prep, you can see all these trucks. The mail truck is awesome. It's our show pony. It's our party wagon. It's for events. The Mercedes Sprinter is great. They're expensive. They have warranties, which is awesome. But they're large and in charge and to get a fridge box form look cold tainer or cold cube.

Or convoy cube, cold tainer or convoy cube. That's what we have. They're a little more expensive these days, but the bigger ones, they're great, but they're not as efficient as the small ones. The vehicle of choice for us is the Ford transit connects. I've got two of those. I've got a new one, luckily warranty and an older one it's on.

Maybe it's last leg, but you get one of the smaller boxes and it can survive the Texas heat. You plug that truck in for a couple hours. It gets down to 40 degrees. And then now you extended your delivery. And the biggest part is one of the I guess one of the hardest parts of owning Vehicles and doing your own deliveries is insurance and trusting people to drive your trucks They're your brand, they're very expensive and it's a key part of your business.

So you want something that everybody can drive. The Sprinter, only a few people can drive. The Transit Connects, everybody can drive. The Bomb Pop, which is the mail truck, there's like me and one other person that can drive it. So really you want to make it accessible for your people. So you don't have to have the biggest flashes thing.

And that was one of the things I had to learn. The hard way when we bought, the two Sprinter vans, one year, one burned down, luckily insurance, get fully insured please get fully insured. Luckily insurance took care of that, but it's also that's the vehicle that's been dinged or backed into another vehicle or this and that.

And it's great because we do our own shopping and we can load everything into it. But as far as delivery goes, Smaller is better. Smaller is better. Interesting. So you do all your own shopping. So you guys go to we use companies like Chef's Produce for most of our produce.

We use, like Restaurant Depot, this and that. Because, when you're selling an 11 box, you can go with a big company that brings it to your door. And you're going to pay 3 a pound for chicken. And then, chicken's crazy right now, or you can go to, the pick it up yourself, Restaurant Depot type stores, or, chef stores or stuff like this, and you can get it for much less, you've got to watch your margins, it's about your food costs, quality and cost, so as long as they have a good product and you just go shop it yourself, you're going to save some money. You're going to pass that quality onto the clients, and then you're not going to go under because you're having to make a 15 case minimum when you're just getting started.

So what is what is your philosophy on food costs and quality?

And how do you think about that? Or is it all, do you manage it mostly in the way you just talked about where you're like buying the best quality you can, but also maintaining, a price point that you think will make sense. What's your general philosophy?

So now that we have a chef team it's, our chef, Sean, he's, that's his thing as he goes through and prices out.

Our people to say, Hey, who's chicken is the best or XYZ, cause once you figure out the quality of the product, like always maintain a high quality, but, just cause you're ordering from Benny Keith and it's 4 a pound, but then, you have. Restaurant depots to lockdown, like really managing that.

And so it goes back to keeping your menu concise. So with the rotating of the menu, it's not just keep things fun and fresh all like that. It's also keep things seasonal. And when your produce is in season, you're going to see the price drop. Like when bell pepper is out of season, I'll be $60 a case.

When it's in season, I'll pay $20 a case, and it's just like really keeping a wide variety of meals of flavors of colors. If you do it that way, you're going to see your food costs just consistent, over the last two, three years, we have not seen our food costs jump more than a point. And it's just because of due diligence, check your pricing, check your vendors, check everything, it's and keep it seasonal.

The more seasonal it is, the better the quality and the better the price.

[00:51:16] Andy Blechman: Very cool. We have two final questions that I do want to get to, and we're almost at time here. Hannah from On the Road Meals asks about wholesale accounts. Are you doing any wholesale? And if so, has it been worth it for you or good question?

[00:51:28] Brad Miller: The short answer is no. I've not done any wholesale. I have talked to a much larger meal prep lady in upstate New York, and that was a great conversation. She does wholesale. We just got a fridge called Byte Technologies, B Y T E Google that. It's a vending fridge. So you stock it, they swipe their card, they pull it out, it detects what's pulled out and close it.

That's the only like offsite sales we do. Um, being meal prep, our numbers are tight. Everyone knows that, our margins aren't, we're not making a million dollars. Like I said, we're doing this for passion and, profit as well, but that comes second.

So no wholesale as of yet, we have dabbled with the idea, but just haven't locked anything down though. I know a lot of. Other companies I've talked to outside of my competing markets will partner with hospitals and they do stuff like that, but really what it is just, it's about partnerships.

So we have drop locations where we I'll give the gym owner and head coach a discount, but then I just set up a fridge there and use as a drop location. I stick away from profit sharing. I stick away from wholesale because it's just it's harder for us to really make that make sense. You take $2 off your price tag.

Then what are you left with,

[00:52:35] Andy Blechman: on the, the the gym front, are you do brand those and wrap those fridges or do you just kind of do like, cool.

[00:52:43] Brad Miller: So this is the door of a fridge. We just lost. But it says come to the prep side, Jedi with a meal. And then there's you can't, Oh, they took, cut my dog off it, but all the branding, it has my dog as a Jedi as well.

And yeah, he's my little mascot.

[00:53:00] Andy Blechman: That's awesome.

[00:53:01] Brad Miller: You want your name on them on there because it's not just a fridge for a drop. It's your branding. I learned that from actually Territory, which is a former like national brand that didn't survive the pandemic, but they had in every gym, branded fridge and it makes you look like what is that?

Be loud. Be proud. Get your name

up. Yeah, we could do a whole nother session on branding because I think you've done a masterful job on your brand. I'm going to let Dave close it out with a very simple question and then we can final kind of remarks. But he wanted to know what's your ratio of pickup to delivery.

So how much delivery

since we have our own storefront now storefront kitchen? I would say it's probably 2 to 1. Mhm. Yeah, two, two to one pick up to delivery. So we're seeing, we get about 175 to 200 orders a week. And on delivery, we'll see 60 of those. Yeah, that's over two days. So we deliver Sunday evenings and Monday lunch.

But yeah, we'll see 125 of 'em as pickup clients, but we have the capability of doing that though, and it's 125 is delivery or pickup? Pickups.

[00:54:03] Andy Blechman: Pickups oh, wow. So 75 delivery and 125 pickups? Yes. So you're doing more pickup than delivery? Yes. A lot more pickup. And when you say pickup, does that mean pickup at a gym as well, or does that mean pickup only two?

Oh, no,

[00:54:13] Brad Miller: that, that's just at the kitchen, so that's not Wow. So it's because, in our delivery is only $5. I only charge five bucks to cover gas. And that's, and a part of that goes towards the drivers as well. But it's people like picking up because, Oh, one thing I would recommend if you do pickups offer something.

So what we do every week is we make popcorn. Handmade popcorn. We make our own seasoning blend. Every week we change up. People get excited for that. They're like, man, I only pick up because of the popcorn and it's something fun and extra and nichey that like people just enjoy. It's one other, Level of engagement.

If I, one last point ABCD, always be collecting dots. So Danny Meyer quote from Setting the Table, that's just another way to collect the dots. So collecting dots is bits of information because then you can use that to talk to this guest, talk to this guest. Oh, this person's a dentist. Oh, this person's a dental hygienist.

And then you connect them and then they start a relationship. Always be collecting dots. Popcorn collects dots

[00:55:09] Andy Blechman: amazing. I think that's a good place to end it. I will Danny Meyer setting the table is probably the reason I'm sitting here. I read that book on a bus ride from New York to D. C. and decided I want amazing book.

Highly recommended. So we've got 2 book recs. I think this is the 1st podcast where we've actually had 2 book recs come out. That's great. And yeah just amazing conversation. Brad really appreciate it. So proud to have you as part of our team. Platform on bottle and appreciate everything you've done for us and for the Dallas community and I really appreciate you taking the time.

So

I

[00:55:39] Andy Blechman: think we've answered all the questions from what I can tell. And. Yeah, this is a great chat. Thank you everyone for joining and we'll have the recording posted soon.. Any meal preppers

[00:55:50] Brad Miller: out there that ever want to chat, just, shoot us a message on Instagram. We, I love telling my story. I love hearing your story and just keep selling great food, build your community.

Amazing.

[00:55:59] Andy Blechman: We'll end with that. Thanks, Brad. Have a great day.

[00:56:01] Brad Miller: Thank you. Have a great day.

[00:56:01] Andy Blechman: Alright Bye.