00:00
I never even went back to cow's milk for the reason that I just felt that it was such a comparable product and actually I felt make me feel a little bit even lighter. You have even like these mushroom milks coming out. Whoa magic mushroom milk Hey, all right now we're talking now. We're getting radical Sign me up. There should be a program For young adults that requires them to go work in the restaurant industry

00:30
You're listening to the Radcast. If it's radical, we cover it. Here's your host, Ryan Alford. Hey guys, what's up? Welcome to the latest edition of the Radcast. You know, I'm hungry today, folks. I like talking food. I like talking plant-based. I'm here with Spike

00:58
What else can I call you Spike? All the acronyms. Dishwasher. I know a true entrepreneur. Yeah. I was just picking up trash in my office. I'm like, you know, we do it all when you own the business, right? Never stops. Well, good to have you on the show. It's great to be here, man. Great to be here. So are you

01:23
So wait, are you plant based? Are you a hundred? Are you flexed? Oh no, I like it. But I eat everything, brother. I mean, like, I haven't figured out how, like, I'm not a bodybuilder, but I do lift, you know, like five days a week. I mean, I'm more into the lifting side than the cardio side. And I haven't figured out the perfect balance. I'm sure there's a lot of people out there, I'm gonna get DMs now, like, hey, you could totally be plant based and.

01:49
Get all your protein and stuff. But I. People are not telling you to watch Game Changers. I know. But I haven't figured out that perfect balance and I haven't given up. We talked pre-episode about our caffeine kicks but I haven't figured out how to give up meat yet. Yeah. Well, you know, I'm not the, I'm a flexitarian myself so I'm not like really, although we'll get into it, although I own some vegan brands now.

02:17
I've always been a guy to preach balance in our food system, to be honest with you, and not only our food system, but in our own diets. I just felt like that's always the healthiest option. You know, too much of anything can't be great for you, I feel. So to me, it's always been about like, just figure out the

02:36
the right balance for yourself. Because our body all reacts differently. We all need different things, right? So we can't control that. Well, the great Abe Lincoln said, everything in moderation, including moderation. Everything in moderation, 100%. I try to definitely have moderation in moderation. Totally. No, I feel like I have good balance there, but I am trying to figure out, and maybe,

03:05
Maybe you can help me with this. How to eat healthier and on a time crunch and everything. I'm not a burgers and fries everyday guy or pizza everyday guy, but it's like, it's kind of confusing now. Like you've got organic and you've got vegan and you've got all this stuff. And I think for some people it comes natural, but it's like trying to make the right choices and also have some flavor in your life. Totally, totally, totally. I mean,

03:34
Flavor to me is everything because that's the only way you get people to adopt into any new food trend to be honest with you. To me, it's all about, again, we're going to go back to the idea of balance, but eating more plant-based nutrition in your diet does not mean you necessarily have to

04:04
early stage when plant-based came into the space, it was kind of the rhetoric, right? You couldn't find a plant-based cheese that melted well or tasted like an American slice. Look at milk, like look at the dairy market, look at the oat milks, the almond milks. I mean, that was an early conversion for me for like, I never even went back to cow's milk and for no reason at all that I just, I mean, for the reason that I just felt that

04:34
product and actually I felt made me feel a little bit even lighter, you know, so if it just makes sense, like why, why even, you know, indulge in anything that different. So you know, it's just small steps like this. You know, I have a company called Eat the Change and we, we did this incredible planet challenge and we did it for about 30 days. Um, and we're a CPG company. We have a like a mushroom jerky in the market, but, but the challenge was beyond selling jerky. It was about.

05:03
getting people to adapt small little habits in their lives and do some small little tweaks that can get them to look at the plant-based motion. And there were easy things. They were like, swap your junk food for plant-based junk food one day, right? Replace your cow's milk creamer with plant-based creamer for your coffee. And it was just these small little steps that you could take in your daily activities that would-

05:30
get you going and give you a little bit of confidence that you can do this. So, you know, I think it just takes time. Yeah. And oat milk was the first, like, I never liked, I don't know what it was called. I guess it's almond milk and all that. I was like, nah, not getting there, you know, trying to try do things, but then oat milk came out. I'm like, okay, all right, now we're talking. I'm drinking this ripple chocolate milk that's made out of peas right now. Oh, wow. Yeah. Is it good? It's actually delicious. It's absolutely delicious. So that's...

05:59
The milk ones, the one that's really like opened my mind up because you got the oats, the almonds, the pea milks. You have even like these mushroom milks coming out, you know, magic mushroom milk coming out. Hey, all right. Now we're talking. Now we're getting radical. Sign me up. But that's what, that's really what's exciting about the space though, right? It's like, it's wide open. It's like the, it's the Renaissance of the plant plant base movement right now. And it's.

06:28
It's just crazy to see everyone kind of adopting it. I know. I love it. Well, spike, we jumped right into it, which I love it. Um, but I do want to give everybody a little background. Um, I'm sure, you know, as I mentioned, meaning you're on top shelf and I know that story's out there and it's been a number of years, but maybe give everybody a little bit of that synopsis on you and you know, your history, uh, you know, building up to, you know, plant burger and everything you got going on now.

06:56
Yeah. So, uh, you know, we're going to go way back top chef days, right? Well, you know, I think at least for perspective, all these cookie shows are so damn popular, man. I mean, I, I couldn't believe it. Like I've had like Noah Sims for master chef, like a lot, you know, a lot of buds now like seem to be these come from these shows and I'm like, I gotta just like food. I don't know what it is. And they all of you guys seem so fucking chill. Like it, I don't know. I seem to.

07:22
you know, intertwined with that well. But yeah, I think it's, you know, part of your history. Yeah, Noah Sims is a vibe, by the way. I have to tell you, that guy, I love everything he puts out there. He is, I like it a lot, so. It's him though. I don't know if you've met him or know him. I haven't, I haven't met him yet. Dude, I mean, we're like brothers from another now. I always text like every other day. And you know, he's done a couple of charity events for me and different things.

07:53
Dude is that is him. I mean, he is a vibe. He is he there's no one I've ever met like him and he's the fucking coolest dude ever. Well, yeah, no. Yeah. Um, so yeah, so let's talk to that. Days. I mean, listen, I, I am cut from very deep roots in the restaurant industry. I'm from Montreal raised in a big Greek family and Jewish family. Uh, all my family members, uh, my Greek family members in some way.

08:21
are involved in the restaurant business and still are in Montreal. You know, the connection runs deep over there. I don't know if you've ever been to Montreal, but I have not been to Montreal. There's some, what an amazing eating, you know, food city. You got to go check it out. On my list. I'll give you all the places. But.

08:40
You know, and, you know, I always spent my life in and around restaurants, basically, you know, I always make a joke, I'm just a dishwasher that knows some things, because I wash so many dishes in my life at multiple restaurants, so. You know what, I have to say that, I gotta stop you right there, because my first job, I worked at a meat and three restaurant, I was 15 years old, and I washed dishes for eight months.

09:04
I think it made me who I am today. Like until you scrub macaroni trays and meet in three dishes with gravy, you haven't worked. You have not worked. You know what? There should be a program for young adults that requires them to go work in the restaurant industry. Like literally requires them, whether I don't care if it's dishwashing, cooking or waitressing or whatever.

09:33
but there's some grit that it ingrains in you. There's some humility that it puts on you that I think you can't teach that. You can't ball up and teach that in any school. And I highly agree. I mean, I look at that.

09:48
I have to say it made me who I am. So yeah, I mean like as I grew up in the industry, my parents started traveling all around the world. We went to Spain, we opened a ton of restaurants and then we landed in Florida. I'll fast forward to I decided to go to culinary school and then it was a culinary school that I got really like inspired because it was the first time that

10:17
I felt a little extra confident about a skill that I didn't really look at as a skill. I was mostly kind of at that point still ashamed of being in the restaurant business. You know, like your parents are, you know, in the restaurant business. Like, okay. So it was at school that kind of gave me the confidence to be like, oh, you don't know how to make a Bernays or a stock or like it was stuff that I like just grew up with. So that's kind of what set me off. And from there is kind of where I just went working, you know.

10:45
I went to France and worked for some of the best chefs in the world, the Rue Les Chateaux, three Michelin restaurants. I wanted to be a French famous, like three Michelin star chef. I mean, that was the trajectory. Like that's who I went to go work for. And along those lines, I ended up in New York City, basically working for Drew Niperon at a Vietnamese restaurant. I had gotten a little bit bored of French food.

11:09
and was looking for like something to inspire me a little more and Vietnamese is something somewhere I had traveled and really like took a liking to. And then the recession hit, you know, basically in 2008 and I decided to go on a Top Chef reality show. My sister was a fan of the show. I think it came out. It was right after Project Runway. So she just happened to get into the show and she says you have to go do this. You have to go do the show. And I.

11:40
wasn't really into it. I was like, what are you kidding me? I'm not, you know, I'm a three Michelin star pedigree here, you know, and, and, and, uh, soon enough, I saw one of my buddies on the show. I saw Marcel Vigneron on season two, and him and I were a huge buddies and big buddies in culinary school. And I was like, Oh, let me go, let me go do this. So yeah, I did top chef. I had no clue what I was getting myself into. Uh, I had never done any filming in front of the camera or never cooking in front of the camera. Um,

12:09
And it worked out pretty well for me. You know, I was able to like somehow come out of it with a really good edit, a really good, somewhat of a brand, get recognizable. I had like this fedora I was wearing and fucking with people the entire time on the show. And you know, it was the guy that took it not too serious, but serious enough. And that's kind of like, that's kind of what happened. And from there.

12:35
It just that that show just opened up all the opportunities, opened up all the opportunities too soon in my life, to be honest with you, which was interesting, you know, usually you have to work a little bit harder in the industry to get some of those those opportunities. And that show was special because it really just super launched you into getting all that kind of stuff. So that's, that's kind of, you know, that's, that's a little bit of Top Chef. I mean, I went on to do

13:03
Top Chef All Stars, Iron Chef America, Iron Chef Redemption, I mean every show you could think of I've been kicked off of, so. But you know what, a lot of people, I just call it normal people that have these opportunities. Maybe some people see it, but some people turn their nose up at it or think, but I preach in an ad agency and I tell clients attention is currency.

13:32
And anything you can do to hack the algorithm to get awareness on yourself, whether it's a TV show or opportunity, you get eyeballs in that reach of, you know, media's reach and frequency. And you get to go on a show where you have all this reach, millions of people watching, all the frequency, cause you're on every week until you get off or whatever, but it just, you get to shortcut the whole algorithm, like you said, of life and work and business. Yeah.

14:02
Yeah, you get to do it. But when you do get it and like, listen, you get you know, people talk about like you get these opportunities in life and you're either able to harness them and run with it for the good or you get swallowed up and spit out. Right. And, and I was very lucky because I had a

14:29
I had ingrained a business background, a restaurant business background and slightly, you know, some would say a hustle, you know, like my big Greek family in the restaurant business. You learn how to hustle. You learn, you know, you learn how to roll your sleeves up, go to work and get things done. You learn how to make noise in a big Greek family to get attention, you know. So and my sister actually also had a marketing degree. So

14:57
Right after Top Chef, I think the reason why we were able to harness some success and really run with it is that I kind of leaned back into my family. You know, we had been away from the business for so many years. I went to culinary school, my sister went off to college and like my parents sold our childhood restaurants that we grew up in and when the recession hit, my sister lost her job. You know, my two-star restaurant in New York City had folded.

15:25
and with Drew and my mother and father were driving us absolutely fucking crazy in retirement. So we all decided to get them busy again. And it's a really they actually they operate a lot better working than retirement. They still work till this day and you know, my father is almost 80 now. But we saw you know, we saw a unique opportunity in DC that was somewhat recession proof.

15:55
because it's DC. It's not pandemic proof. We found that pretty hard. But it was recession proof. And basically, we kind of ushered this idea of these guys that come off these Top Chef shows, reality shows, that they can follow up and run with it. And we used every ounce of marketing and publicity to our advantage at the height of Top Chef brand, season four.

16:23
whether Top Chef brand liked it or not, we definitely use that to our advantage, right? We get like cease and desist letters in the mail using the logo and things of that sort. But to be honest with you, like, listen, you know, like that's just, it's petty bullshit. I think Top Chef, I don't think they really understood what they really had launched, right? Which was like this massive like pumping of young chefs.

16:51
too early for their own good in the market with a ton of marketing publicity that are going to start to open a ton of restaurants. I think Harold from season one opened one real small fine dining restaurant, but I was definitely one of the first guy to go this fast casual route and make a ton of noise in a fast casual style like by selling burgers. We harnessed it and we worked hard and my family was involved and I think that's why we were able to be really successful. Good stuff.

17:20
Eatery was a immediate smash hit in 2008, I think was for a couple of reasons. We were in a recession, the Obama administration just got elected, and so there's a lot of influx of young people and entrepreneurs coming to the city. And burgers were, the Better Burger Movement was also happening at the same time. So, you know, that's kind of, that's kind of, we landed that whole thing, so. Yeah, that's cool. So we had Good Stuff Eatery, and then, when was We the Pizza, when did that come along?

17:49
So yeah, we the pizza was like, again, just trying to harness on, you know, strike when the iron's hot. We thought it was gonna, you know, we didn't know how long it was all gonna last, you know? I always joke with my mother, cause she says, oh, this is just a honeymoon period for Good Stuff Eatery. There's lines out the doors. This will go away in six, seven months. And 15 years later, here we are still with Good Stuff Eatery. And the idea with the pizza was like, we want to enter another fast casual space with a celebrity chef and a favorite food group.

18:19
We had real estate right next door to us on, you know, to get stuff eateries. So we said, we miss pizza from New York. So that while we bring you know, a little bit of New York style pizza to DC and we the pizza still kicks ass to this day. I mean, it's it's one of my favorite brands still, to be honest, out of everything that I've done. It's super delicious. And yeah, I mean, like that's, you know, that's what we started doing. How? What is?

18:46
I mean, owning these businesses, starting these brands, I mean, for people out there listening maybe, I mean, obviously you learned to hustle at an early age, being in the restaurant business, these aren't new business ideas to you. I mean, obviously concepts are new, but running and operating restaurants are not. But what, as an entrepreneur, has been some of your biggest learning lessons? Oh, you know.

19:15
Is that a where to start? Or is that a? Yeah, it's a it's a it's a you know. Well, my my big learning. In the business is and it serves me right. You know, I'd say I'm a pretty successful guy. I'm I'm not, you know.

19:38
you know, in retirement mode or like banking. But I've always been able to remain authentically myself throughout the process, for the most part, you know, on who I am. And people always say, Hey, Spike, you have a fantastic brand who works on it with you or spike you this that and it's all I've always really giggled about it. And and and

20:03
And now that my wife, you know, she always like, she sees it too. And she's like, it's so funny. You're so right. She's like, I've never worked or had like a session where I sat at a table and said, what is my brand? You know, like I've never, you know, and that was just me, you know, I'm not saying that's wrong, like people, if you want to do that, go ahead, do that. But I've never sat in and like.

20:24
What's the spike brand? Like, what are we representing? Like, what does it define? I've just always been able to get involved in projects that felt right for me at that given time. And, you know, it was a stepping stone or a pathway to my next project, but I always remained authentically myself. I never really, you know, felt like I, you know, I mean, that's kind of why I said, that was my biggest learnings. But the other important one is surrounding yourself

20:54
with good people and not being afraid to surround yourself with people that may be better in certain things in your business. Know when you're not.

21:08
the smartest person in that room on that subject, right? And don't let your ego, chefs can tend to have an ego because we're food and we're in kitchens and we're bad ass and we're rock, we're the rock stars and like, all of a sudden now we're fucking doctors and lawyers and politicians, you know? But the truth is, is like, you know, I found that I'm, you know, my approach has been really great because I love propping others.

21:35
up in that support, you know, what we do here. Like, there's a great team behind me that, and I have like two, three guys that have been with me for 15, 16 years, and I think it's really telling because, you know, we've all had such a good time in our lives for the last 15 years. We've gotten to travel around the world. We've got to eat delicious food. We've all got to come up with really great concepts. Yes, I'm the face. I get that. But I pay, you know.

22:04
There's a lot of work that goes into being the face, but there's also a lot of work that goes into setting up the kitchen and the recipes and the training and all that kind of stuff that I don't do. So there's a great balance and I feel very fortunate I was able to surround myself by some key members as well as my family at a certain point to help me do what we do. That's what it is. Don't take it all on yourself or think it doesn't exist without you because it's

22:33
It sure can. So how have you built, you know, as you've built these companies and, you know, I mean, I get like running the day to day of, uh, you know, restaurants, one thing building that team, but like, but your core team, like around you, you know, like, how did you, how did you go about that process as your personal brand and obviously your restaurants and other things and, and book and everything like that? I mean, how

23:00
What was that process? How did you go about building your team? Yeah, oh, you know, it's you know, I when you asked me that question, I think about the two guys that have supported me apart from my family, obviously, the most in my career. And it's this guy named Mike Coletti and Brian LaCayo. And these guys were guys that I met. One of them I met at Le Cirque.

23:23
When we opened the New Le Cirque and the Bloomberg Building in New York City. And then one of them I met right at my Vietnamese restaurant when I ran with Drew. And through thick and thin, these guys, me, we're not perfect. We made mistakes along the way many times. But loyalty and just being a good human and knowing that we're not perfect, I think is

23:53
has paid dividends in my life because it's hard to build that these days to have people that are around you that are loyal, like those do or die people in your life. You just don't get that right now that much. I think you got to be really patient with it.

24:23
It's, you know, being in the restaurant business is much like being in a relationship, to be honest with you, like being married or having a girlfriend or it there's there's emotion in it, there's struggles in it. It's it's very, very, sorry, I'm going to delete that one. But um, but yeah, I mean, that's

24:46
But listen, I have fallen flat on my face a million times in this business. People think, oh my God, how's this guy? Has he had a pretty good career, pretty consistent, keeps pushing it? Well, man, it comes from a lot of falling flat on my face, learning the hard way. I go back to the days that I got trained in France. I was one of the best.

25:14
American chef like out of 60 French chefs and I got like humiliated every day for three months like before they started respecting me at all like you know like that that builds grit in your life right that like lets you know lets you know that like you got a lot to learn out there and and um you know I I never I never took the easy path really so it just um I don't know it's building a team's it's it's for it's a forever exercise it doesn't stop

25:42
We're still trying to build a team now. Like we're in the middle of a pandemic and it's not easy. But guess what? The two guys that have been most loyal in my life are side by side going down this vegan startups with me right now, you know? So it's a place we never think we'd be, so. That's cool. I want to transition to Plant Burger, but before that, I mean, how often are you cooking every day still? I mean, like, I mean, I see your stuff and I know you do things and events here and there, but I mean, are you in the kitchen every day?

26:13
No, no, I mean, I'm not in a professional restaurant kitchen every day executing a service. You know, I made a big pivot in my life, let's say, six years ago. I felt like we were, you know, in our own bubble, our own restaurant bubble. And I felt our bubble was going to burst in a big way.

26:42
We were opening restaurants at the highest rate that we had ever opened restaurants. Food truck craze and every lawyer, doctor, career changer wanted to be in food business because it started to get celebrated. You have all these TV shows, you had all these celebrity chefs, you had, there's a big, in the last 10 years America's food culture has grown in a massive way, right? So I started to diversify.

27:12
my portfolio because I didn't want to only rely on having to run a restaurant to be my living. So, and what I mean by diversify is I meant I started getting into food policy, you know. I started getting into, you know, consulting, you know, for other people like for their brands. Yep. I started looking at the plant based movement.

27:40
because I thought we were gonna experience a massive shift in our food system, which we are, not only the way we grow food, the way we do travels, all the things. And I would have never predicted a pandemic would hit us the hardest and bust that bubble for us. I never would have predicted that.

28:06
But that's what ended up tanking our industry for a little bit here and popping that bubble. And it was only because I started to diversify my portfolio really that I was able to like survive the pandemic pretty well. So that's kind of what, you know, my thing. I opened a restaurant in a sports complex that was instead of, you know.

28:31
cuisine driven, it was driven off like three buzzwords, which was hearty, healthy, and hydration. And, you know, like, I don't know, I might be the first chef to ever have a restaurant next to two hockey rinks in a sports complex, you know? Yeah. I diversified, I just do different things that weren't just traditional opening up a restaurant in a, you know, in just a space, you know? And that's kind of what led me to Plant Burger, which I think is the culmination of

29:01
All my experience thus far in the business, I'm able to put forth a brand not only that really resonates and is very transparent, well resonates with the advocacy that I love to do now, the food policy part of my life, but it actually lets me be 100% transparent as an entrepreneur as well.

29:31
You know, as a chef, you're 100% transparent within your business. And what I mean by that is like, I had a bistro, I source local ingredients, but not all local, you know, that everything wasn't local, like sustainable, everything wasn't organic, right? So if you're a chef and you're like out there and you're, you're, you're, um, you know, doing advocacy on behalf of the farm bill.

29:54
for sustainability and you're doing advocacy for better food nutrition and food deserts and this and that. You'd like to feel that you're able to have those practices in your own business but the food industry set up as such that's often very much monopolized obviously so it doesn't really allow you to do that in a profitable way.

30:20
You know, so you're either gonna die by your own sword here or you're gonna decide to make money. So, you know, you do what you can. But with Plant Burger, what the most exciting thing for me is we were so smart about how we launched this. And again, it was not just me. It was, you know, we have Seth Goldman from Honest Tea and Beyond Meat that is our partner and his wife, Julie Farkas as well. We have Ben Kaplan, which is our CEO. And he has a Scarpaeta background. And

30:50
Barbara Lynch background and then we have Margarita, Hirdasio which is a young brands woman. So we have a ton of experience but, we decided to open up our first plant burger inside of Whole Foods. We wanted to basically do a proof of concept, right? And this was actually Seth's idea. He had relationship with Whole Foods obviously with Honest Tea and all that kind of stuff. So we opened our first plant burger in Silver Spring in a space that's a kiosk, no bigger than my dining room right here, 150 square feet.

31:20
very small space and we built a real brand behind it. We just didn't say, oh, it's a small little kiosk. We really built heavy, really well branded and we entered the market as a delicious indulgent burger, not a vegan burger, not a vegetarian burger. Our idea here is we're just a delicious burger like any other burger.

31:50
just like 85 to 90% of our clientele are not vegans or vegetarians. If that was a business model, we'd be out of business. Getting those people like you and I to have a little bit more balance in our diet, and others as well. If your cholesterol's a little too much, or if you're eating too much red meat and you need to eat a little less, you love burgers, and you said you're not too much of a burger guy, but there's a ton of other plant-based foods that you can enjoy. So we launched Plant Burger,

32:20
you know, out of 115 square feet, we were doing $6,000. Wow. So Whole Foods was like, holy shit, what like, everything based off the square footage, and it just so happened after our first restaurant success, the pandemic hit. So we had to take a step back and say, Hey, what's going on? Are we just going to fold our new startups? But we were lucky because as soon as like all these, you know, regulations started coming out, they were deemed essential because we were inside a Whole Foods.

32:49
The other thing that happened with Whole Foods is that their hot foods kind of folded due to the pandemic, right? So it's like, you know, we had this opportunity to just jump into all these different Whole Foods all of a sudden at very low cost, like no upfront costs. Like we're talking, you know, we opened up, we opened up 10 stores probably off 250,000 bucks. Wow. That's unheard of, right? So we were able to work through the pandemic and open up nine more stores. So now we have 10.

33:20
We have a fabulous business with Whole Foods. We've proved our concept. We're climbing out of the pandemic and we're going to go open our first New York city location, um, in, uh, in, uh, Union, Union square, uh, this December. So I live in Union square for two years. I know it well. It's an awesome location. Well, listen, now that we're going to have plant based burgers over there, man. No, when I go visit my friends, I'm going to, I will have a plant burger.

33:48
I'm kind of getting hungry as it is right now. What's New York to South Carolina? What's up with that? Oh, well, I run an ad agency and I cut my teeth at some of the largest agencies in the world. So I spent, I've been in the business for 20 years and 17 working for other people, radicals, three years old, but I worked in Manhattan for about five and a half years. So yeah. We both got some of our training in Manhattan. I know. He's cutting my teeth, brother.

34:14
The, uh, but I love it. So, but it's got to me. Okay. So we're, we're an indulgent burger. The plant burger. I'm getting hungry here. We're getting towards lunchtime. Like, hmm, plant burger. Where is there one in our whole foods here locally? I don't, I doubt it in South Carolina. Soon. I hope the, uh, but what did it, when you say it's, is that, is it indulgence more than, you know, uh, I don't know, like I guess incredible burgers are it, you know, Burger King or whatever.

34:42
Yeah, the impossible one. So yeah, so so yeah, I mean, so like, listen, you know, I own Good Stuff Eatery. I've been in the burger business for a while. I would have never opened up a plant based burger if I couldn't be as good if not better than good stuff, you know, like, so we did that, you know, and it was really, Seth, I was on a policy panel at GW and Seth was on the panel.

35:11
and he brought burgers and snuck them under my seat, right? And basically said, I heard you're the burger king. He's like, let me think about these. And I kind of laughed him off. I was like, oh, not another vegan. I was like, not another vegan burger. And my wife is vegan. So, you know, I've always struggled with making her this black bean burger, which sucks too much water, vegetable burgers. They always sucked. And she never really got to enjoy burgers. I took them home and grilled them up.

35:38
and like they bled, they seared. I was just like, whoa, like, wait a second, you know, I was taken back. So I immediately emailed Seth and I was like, hey, like, you guys really actually, you really have something here. Like, and I didn't even know who Beyond Meat was. Me, you know, obviously I'm so retarded. I was like.

36:02
You have something here, right? And they've raised like hundreds of millions of dollars. So, you know, but I think Seth really, you know, took a liking because the burger wasn't perfect. And I was able to give some critique on some stuff and stuff that they probably had already known, but they started engaging me on developing burger content. And, you know, whenever they had a tasting, for instance, with a company, they would get me to come there and make the burger.

36:32
And slowly but surely, I started developing this relationship with Seth. And so that's what we use. We use the Beyond Meat Patty because we think it's the best plant-based patty in the market right now. And lucky enough, like I said, there's this massive shift in our food system. I think it's for a couple of reasons. I think whether you can debate if you believe climate change is real or not, but you know

37:01
people when they hear climate change and they want to make a difference, I don't really think that they have so many opportunities to know how to make that difference, right? It's just a little loss. There's too much information out there about climate change and its effects. It's a little confusing, right, for your everyday person that's just like working and going to work and taking care of kids and what have you. But one thing that we found that really resonates with people is if you look at food through the lens of climate change.

37:30
Right? The choices that you make in your everyday diet actually can have a profound effect on the climate, right? Cumulatively as humans. So like taking the matters into, if you want to be the most effective, it's taking the matters into your own hands on where you put your money towards. So you know, hopefully the idea of putting your money towards plant-based foods is something that resonates with people and they see it as a way to help, you know, reduce their own

37:58
personal environmental footprint, right? And it doesn't have to, you don't have to only be plant-based. I just, again, everything in moderation, right? A little bit of balance in life. So that's kind of like how we come to the market. We have like this advocacy about climate change. This is the climate change fast food brand of the future. Right? The best burger for the planet, by the planet. And that's how we come at it. We have the best sweet potato fries that.

38:25
you've ever had with all the dipping sauces. We do oat-based milkshakes, right, oat tasties, you know, just like a frosty that you get at Wendy's. Our cheese is Follow Your Heart cheese. It melts, it's delicious. It's made out of potato starch. It's absolutely fantastic. We're also, since we use Beyond Meat, we're soy-free, GMO-free, allergen-free, and our whole brand is also Kosher, which is huge. And then, you know, I think we just,

38:54
We're firing at all angles here on this concept. And we're also democratizing plant-based foods, right? So again, this plays into a lot of the work I like to do in policy space where, fast food restaurants really targeted food deserts and people that came from,

39:24
poorer backgrounds, right? And very much the African American community and Hispanic community, all this, and you look at the rates of obesity and diabetes, and it's all happening the most in these underprivileged societies and areas, right? And it's because of what they're eating. So for us, a lot of plant-based foods are too expensive.

39:52
So again, they're not available enough. Sorry. No worries. For everyone. So democratizing plant-based foods is a big part of what we do as well. So, you know, that's kind of why we've positioned Plant Burger as the next big fast food brand, not fast casual brand. So. Yeah, I love that. Cause that's been the biggest, I think you hit on a lot of points there, a lot to unpack, but I think you really nailed

40:21
I think what's been the biggest hurdle was the affordability, approachability, you know, positioning, you know, to broader markets, you know, because it's one thing to be in whole foods. It's another to be in the fast food segment and really competing and making a dent in, you know, broader society. Yeah. And you're absolutely right. I mean, it is one thing to be in whole foods and what that brought to us was.

40:48
like a confident consumer because first of all, the Whole Foods brand really obviously amplifies what we were doing, right? There's a very strict rule book on the ingredients you could use in your brand and the ingredients you can't use in your brand. And what I loved about that exercise at Whole Foods was that

41:15
I came across stuff that I was using that I had no clue had this weird name chemical in it as preservative that we shouldn't use or things of that sort. So as a chef, it kept me so honest and transparent about what we were using in Plant Burger, that I'm completely transparent on what we do. The fact that we're kosher, the fact that we're soy, we have all these certifications and we're Whole Foods approved as well.

41:43
you know, our supply chain is pretty locked up pretty well. So that's something like we're really proud of. But then after we gain that confidence and we gain that confidence of our brand inside Whole Foods, taking it to the streets of New York City in a brick and mortar for the very first time is going to be the true, the true test of our brand. So that's, you know, we're gearing up for that. We're looking forward to it. I think we're going to smash it. I think you are too. Perfect time, perfect place. It sounds like a hit to me.

42:13
There's a little vegan burger wars happening in New York City right now. There's a couple, you know, five, six, seven brands going down there now in a big way. So we'll, it kind of takes us back. You know, I, I listened to this podcast called, um, I'm sure you've heard of the, the, business wars. Yeah. Yep. Right. So there's one called burger wars, right? That they do. It's about McDonald's and, uh, burger King, which was called burger chef back in the day. And there were,

42:41
Talking about how they were all very much competing for the same space and all these different marketing things that they did to compete against each other. And it was like a war. Like they were literally, you know, as an ad running an ad agency, I'm sure you understand, like, oh, yeah, they were going at it back in the day to develop. I feel like that's kind of where we're at right now with ourselves. So, oh, yeah, I've been involved in a few of those Verizon, AT&T.

43:06
Coke, Pepsi, Apple, Samsung, Motorola. I was part of it. I worked on a campaign. I worked on the Apple launch, actually, one of the first ones, but then worked with Motorola when they launched the Droid. If you remember that, that was like 2008, nine, the Droid smartphone. And we had a whole campaign that was, I can't do this. It was a good campaign. Yeah, yep. It was fun. Cool, man.

43:35
Let me ask you this, a random. If I'm someone at home making burgers, and give me your tips. We're gonna have the Radcast tips for at home. Radcast tips. Radcast tips for how can someone at home make a delicious burger? Yes. Well, here we go. Radcast tips with Spike Mendelsohn. Yes, I like it. This could be a new segment, brother. I mean. Totally. We're gonna fire this off. So first of all,

44:05
Okay. Yeah. You need good meat. Okay. It's fat based meat, you know, animal, whatever you guys are, are wanting to do. Turkey, chicken, get a good blend of meat in there. Okay. Now always pull it out of the refrigerator and get it to room temperature. Never take your protein out of the fridge and put it right in the pan. That's a big no, no for starters, right? Burger bun ratio. Let's talk about that. All right.

44:31
Guys, you can't be using these massive challah buns for burgers. It's too much bread. All right, make sure you get a bun that fits the size of burger that you're gonna create. If it's a thin patty, get a little bit of a smaller bun. If you're going for this big hotel grill star, you know, poolside burger, you can get away with a little bit more bun, but very important burger to bun ratio can make or break your burger. All right, salt and pepper.

45:01
All right, I don't want to see anybody stuffing blue cheese or butter inside their burgers. Please, guys, whoever started that trend, please stop it. Okay, just stop, all right? Just let the protein be the protein. Salt and pepper that stuff right before you're about to hit it in the grill. Don't salt and pepper too soon. You don't want to get all that water out. Water and oil do not mix. Make sure you have a hot, whispering, not smoking, whispering smoke.

45:31
of a pan, right? You wanna wait for that little whisper of smoke come out. Then put your burgers in there, set it and forget it. Flip it once, don't smash, don't smash. And then to where we pack all the flavor, toppings are everything in burgers, sauces, textures. Get some Funyuns in there, guys. Make some sriracha aioli, get some caramelized onions. Make sure you get toppings. And then of course,

46:00
cheese. All right. Don't be lazy with your cheese melting skills. Okay. Cap it. Cap it. You know, we all have those lids that we don't use for all the pans we buy. Find one of those lids in your basement, bring it up, make sure you top it. You want to, you want to have like this, again, whispering smoke of melting vacuum. The worst thing is just let cheese melt from the bottom heat up because then it separates and brings a whole different texture to your cheese. Guys, smiling cheese. We want

46:29
We want cheese to shine back at you. You should be able to see your reflection in your cheese. Just like I see mine right now in this computer. And that's it. I think that's it. I think those are them. I love it. First, that's gonna be a highlight clip in itself. We're gonna have a two minute highlight of how to make the best burgers at home. You got like two minutes for a quick rad or fad. I give you a keyword and you tell me rad or fad. All right.

46:59
All right, first, fireball, fire keg. They're making kegs of fireball. Rad or fad? Fad. All right. Food carts.

47:15
Right. All right. All right. Impossible burgers. You got to, you know, bad. Here's a layup plant based. Totally rad. I love it, brother. Where can everybody keep up with all things? Spike Mendelson, plant burger, good stuff, eatery, everything. Where can everybody keep up with you, brother?

47:43
Well, you guys can you can follow me at at Chef Spike on Twitter and Spike the Chef on Instagram. But mostly you can probably just go to my website, which is Chef Spike dot com. And you can see all the stuff that I've worked on in the past 10 years and what I'm working on currently. And you know, just kind of get a little idea of my what what.

48:11
what my brand is. No, just kidding. Get a good idea of who I am and what I like to do. And that's it, man. Like I'm in the DC area. If you guys happen to be in the DMV, please hit us up. Look out for my NFT project. I'll be launching soon. Yes, you heard that right? Right? They sent me into this NFT world. We're gonna see what happens.

48:39
I love it. You're in the metaverse brother. I'm in the metaverse. I can't get out. I love it, man. And, uh, if you're in New York, plant burger launching December. Opening up in December, we got three locations coming right behind it. I'm going to be in Miami next week at the seed food and wine festival. So if you're in Miami, come support the burger, uh, competition we have over there. And

49:06
Ryan, let's do this again, man. This was fun. No, man. I love it. And if I get to DC, maybe we can get together and maybe if I'm visiting friends in New York and you're there, we'll meet and have a plant burger. Totally. And you know what? I'm going to, I have friends in North Carolina, which I'm sure is not too far from South Carolina. There we go. I need a venture office in South Carolina a little bit. I've never, it's, I haven't been. So I'd love to show you around Greenville, man. So, uh, it's a good food scene here.

49:32
I think you jive with it and I really admire all you're doing with food education and the like. So love it brother, let's stay in touch and we'll meet again. Thank you Ryan. Alright guys, you know where to find us, we're at theradcast.com. Search for Spike, search for Plant Food. All the content from today is searchable on our website. You know where to find me, I'm at Ryan Alford on all the channels. We'll see you next time, the Radcast.