Open The Gate
Breaking down Sacramento Real Estate: Our Favorite People, Places and Mindsets
Open The Gate
Ep. 9: Grillin' vs. BBQ, Community, and Appraisals with Chris Hunt
The smoker is hot and the stakes are even higher as Super Bowl excitement brews on the horizon! Join us for a sizzling conversation with Chris Hunt, whose day job in valuations pales in comparison to his true calling as a barbecue virtuoso. Our tastebuds dance with tales of mouthwatering ribs and the shared anticipation of Super Bowl Sunday.
Around every pop-up barbecue, you'll find a community gathering, exchanging stories, and forging connections. And that's precisely what we celebrate in this episode—how food, specifically the slow-smoked variety, becomes a nexus for community and kinship. From the intricacies of meat cuts to the transformation of casual front yard gatherings into beloved local hubs, we unwrap the essence of dining as a communal act. We don't just feed you stories of potential brick-and-mortar dreams; we dish out the real estate insights and emotional tales that come with creating a place where memories are made, one plate at a time.
But the narrative doesn't end with the last bite of brisket. We take you through the personal journeys that shape our lives, from unexpected moves inspired by a quest for new experiences to the two-year plans that become permanent life chapters. Our guest Chris Hunt shares his migration tale, the real estate rollercoaster, and the challenges of carving out a niche in a booming marketplace.
Lastly, we extend an open invitation to Mr. Beast to join us for a collaboration that promises to blend philanthropy with the pleasure of great food. So, tune in, and let's share the warmth of community and the joy of a good meal, together.
All right Dan big week for the Niners yes, sir, super Bowl week, we are looking forward to it for sure.
Speaker 1:I saw something the other day that said you know talking about some posts from the Niners about like the comeback kings or the underdogs or something like that. Then somebody's comment was except for you've been favored in like every single game and the Super Bowl also, so I don't know how that makes you the underdog.
Speaker 2:But Well, they fall behind. They've been pretty good playing from behind in the playoffs. So the cool thing, the coolest thing about this Super Bowl is my kids were both born in Kansas City so we've got tons of friends and every connections back there. So there's been a lot of banter, maybe a couple of wagers with some of my Kansas City people made. I made them give me the game straight up. We're not even putting a line on it.
Speaker 1:Now are your kids Niners fans or Chiefs?
Speaker 2:fans. So my son is an absolute front runner, so it'll just depend on who's ahead. My daughter has a fully gone Niners and then Marina's Niners fan she is. She's actually tired of just seeing the Chiefs win, she said.
Speaker 1:How old was she when she came here from Brazil 17.
Speaker 2:Okay, so yeah, she's been here.
Speaker 1:Young enough to know like American football once you got here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, she knows to. Just she'll pay attention if there's a party in a group watching, otherwise she's pretty disinterested.
Speaker 1:Does she get pissed? If you call it football no. If you don't call it America Football no no no, no.
Speaker 3:It's not that, no, yeah, no.
Speaker 2:Okay. So you know, they say in Brazil, like whether they soccer is your religion and football is your religion, and then volleyball is really important there too.
Speaker 1:So Okay, well, that explains a lot about your family. I love it. I love it. Well, our guest today.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Your friend and mine Actually, we were talking before the show that I felt like I was sitting in his own house because all of this equipment he helped us get set up with. So when he asked where to sit, I was like well, I feel like you should sit wherever you want.
Speaker 2:That Pretty instrumental, Pretty instrumental in open the gate and the setup of the shoot and getting all that ready to go. So Chris has been just an awesome breath of fresh air. We met him. I met him probably about a year and a half, maybe two years ago through some family friends in the neighborhood. He was doing a pop-up barbecue with some friends. The food was absolutely delicious. Most people you're not gonna be able to see this because we don't run a ton of video on this podcast, but we've got some ribs and jalapenos.
Speaker 1:Oh, we got it all. I'm gonna have Chris tell us when he comes on here what all this is. I already ate all my desserts, so that's not a shocker for the people that know me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, dessert first, absolutely different dessert first.
Speaker 1:So we'll bring him out here in just a sec. But Chris Hunt is in the valuation industry. He is an avid barbecue guy. My kids actually said dad, who's on the podcast today? And I said, remember when we went to that pop-up barbecue, they said the barbecue man, the barbecue man and it's like yeah, it's just like being the ice cream man. You're pretty much right up there with Santa, yeah.
Speaker 2:So, and a Texas defector you know so much like us another common thread. He is not from Sacramento but has chosen to put his roots in here and fallen in love with the Northern California, Greater Sacramento area, much as we have, for probably a lot of the same reasons. So I'm sure we'll touch on that a little bit more as this conversation gets going. But with that said, let's open the gate, baby Woo.
Speaker 1:All right, Chris Hunt. Welcome to open the gate. Thank, you guys Very excited to be here, very excited to have her.
Speaker 3:Best band ever. Yeah, tell us about that a little bit.
Speaker 1:Best band ever, because we always ask somebody to pick their walkout song, and you pretty much immediately were like just anything from you. In fact, you actually even gave us a song, and I didn't even pick that one.
Speaker 2:So you didn't. I felt like I had to prod you a little bit. I was like, no, do we need to be a little more specific? We need one that actually All of it.
Speaker 3:Everything you Now growing up in Dallas I so I played drums for 30 plus years and guitar player in the band that I played in, we in gosh 25 years ago, 22 years ago. Hey, there's this band. They're called Muse. They're playing at Bronco Bowl, which doesn't even exist anymore in Dallas. It was like the best live music venue. Let's go see him and man was just hooked. And they. They're just everything that a arena rock band should be. They're too loud. It's like as many notes as you can possibly play lights for days, sound for days and that's just my, my musical and after a show your ears are ringing.
Speaker 2:for how many days?
Speaker 3:At least four and a half. Yeah just to qualify Uh-huh, yeah, and so no, they've just been. You know the all the cover bands I've played in and for years we've played a lot of their stuff and just there, and we've seen them 10 times live. They're great.
Speaker 1:Very cool, very, very cool. Yeah, that's awesome. Well, tell us really quick before we get anything. We've got, like Dan said, spread out in front of us here, and this is just one fraction of what you provide, but we'll kind of jump ahead really quick. What do we have here on the table in front of us?
Speaker 3:So we will talk a lot more about Oak House. Yes, here in a minute, but we had a big catering this weekend, so this is some goodies from that. We pickle all of our own veggies and and my wife makes just amazing homemade pickles that we're getting ready to bottle. That's kind of cool who? So our sauce and our pickles will be bottled and in stores in the next probably 60 days.
Speaker 3:So that's awesome, that's super cool, I've got some of our, our barbecue baked beans, which really are a top two top two or three sides, oh wow.
Speaker 1:I'm crunching one of these pickles right now. There's the pickle that is good.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and and some ribs, just some good old oak wood smoked ribs. Now what do?
Speaker 2:now, my background in barbecue, being from Kansas City. Oak is Oak is King in Kansas City. I know that you are a oak aficionado as well. What style of rib? What are? What are the? What are the Texas staples? What are the things that you, that you're not going to miss on in Texas?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So Texas, the style central, central Texas barbecue, rather, you know, in Lockhart, started in Lockhart and the Texas Trinity you'll hear a lot about, right. So brisket ribs, sausage and all the sausages homemade coming from the brisket trim, just a real good beef, beef sausage. And I think what really makes it Texas specific when you talk about Kansas City and the Carolinas or anything, is that it's it's salt and pepper. Yeah, no, that, no vinegar really about it as a, as a rub, right. So occasionally you'll get, you know, some seasoning salt, some garlic, some onion, a little things, but it's primarily salt and pepper and it's not just drenched in Vinegar-based sauce or sauce in general.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know, our whole thing is it should be good by itself. You know, we have a really good sauce, a couple sauces, but, but all of our proteins should be able to be, you know, consumed and enjoyed without completely smothering it. One, because it's already, it's cooked appropriately, it's already juicy and moist and tender, but but the flavor comes from the wood and the cooking process, not not in, you know fake wood, you know fake smoke Stuff being, you know, in the sauce that's just drenched all over it. So that's probably the biggest, the biggest, yeah very, very cool that was.
Speaker 2:That was one of the things that always resonated with me. The sauce was always on the side in Kansas City. Because I'm not a huge one, I'm just a pretty boy. I guess I don't want to get super.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it is wearing a white shirt as we're filming this, so yeah, but yeah, I mean, I want to be able to.
Speaker 2:I want to be able to determine how much of the sauce I want I put on it myself, yep. So how to break huge, huge, huge.
Speaker 1:Now riddle me this, because I got corrected about this years ago from somebody that was from Texas and I'm from the Northwest, but just the West Coast in general. I think people say, hey, what are you doing this way? We're having a barbecue, or we're barbecuing, or I have a barbecue outside, what? What does that actually mean? Because I think that, since it's not something that's from here on the West Coast, that most of Us that are native to here and use that term are using it incorrectly.
Speaker 3:That's that, how much time do we have?
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly right, did I just drop a grenade Right and I was told like okay, you know you're grilling, that's a grill, you're not barbecuing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think. I mean and you can go a million different directions with it Are you smoking meat? Are you barbecuing? Are you grilling? I think, out here, what, what we, what we quickly heard when we moved from Texas, was everybody called everything barbecuing, no matter what exactly you were, if you were smoking, if you were grilling something, if you were, you know, cooking it on a flat top, all of it was barbecuing if you were adding heat to it, it's like your barbecue and it wasn't top-romance, like barbecue it's like calling soda pop in the north.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh it's yeah, it's a generic term out here that is used very inappropriately. Yeah.
Speaker 3:I think the Texas connotation of it is really when you go eat barbecue, you're eating like smoked meats, right?
Speaker 2:Okay. So if you're cooking a steak, you're.
Speaker 3:You're typically grilling your grilling right. Yeah, you wouldn't be. If I'm cooking it on a Weber gas grill, my steak that's not. I'm not barbecuing my steak, right.
Speaker 1:That's so. Would that be a cookout like what if I was gonna say hey, chris and Dan, come over to my week this week and I have hot dogs and Costco frozen patties, we're gonna have a?
Speaker 3:Cookout cook out. Okay, or just to get together.
Speaker 1:I mean, oh, you could say barbecue.
Speaker 3:I don't think I mean the barbecue. Police aren't gonna come get you anything.
Speaker 1:I feel like there are some people out there that that might they just yeah, you're probably right. Yeah, cook out Cook out, okay, okay, good.
Speaker 2:So there you go I say we're grilling stuff, yeah.
Speaker 1:We're grilling and chilling. That's it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think there's. There's. The trend is coming around, but I think I think there's still more people. Well, there's certainly more people with actual, like gas and charcoal grills than full offset smokers.
Speaker 1:Yeah, not for long in California, I don't know. I mean, we had to learn. Yeah, they had, we had they had to learn.
Speaker 2:They needed enough people with enough experience to bring the knowledge out here, you know, because Santa Barbara is the home of the tri-tip. Yeah, so really. Um yes, yes, another story for another day, because I don't know it well enough to tell it.
Speaker 1:But but we've got some homework to do.
Speaker 2:But I do know the birthplace of the tri-tip is Santa Barbara. I love that, me being the son of a butcher, and all you know, so I think Chris and I connected on that as well early on. I think I think I've all and told my dad he was gonna make some sausage Because he's retired, he's got nothing else to do so.
Speaker 3:Yeah, santa Maria style cooking is a whole another thing too. It's great. It's fantastic. We didn't know any. In Texas you don't eat tri-tip like try to it wasn't, I mean I? The first time I ever ate tri-tip was seven years ago, when we moved out here. Wow, never had it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the only place, the only place we could get a tri-tip in Kansas City was at Costco, and that was because of all the California transplants that lived out there. They were just demanded. But yeah, outside of outside of the West Coast, it's not like a traditional cut of me Nope, it isn't and it's gotta be cooked right.
Speaker 3:well, yeah, cut right. Yeah, that's what I was gonna say. So it's unfortunately so poorly poorly prepared, a bunch of spots that you know my first, probably ten times eating I was like what is this? Yeah, it's not.
Speaker 1:I mean, that's crazy thing too. We get back to. This is like the same cut of meat is not necessarily the same cut of meat, and then the Preparation of that meat is is pretty crucial too, right, which is why people line up and drove to go to your house and eat food.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's, it's, you know, there's no shortcut and good smoked meat at all in time and prep and and you really can't do it.
Speaker 1:And that's actually how I met you, because a friend of mine had told me you were having this pop up and I brought my kids down. We live pretty close to Chris and so we hopped in the golf cart and rolled down there with my Kiddos and man, we did work and it was awesome and I got I have greasy little Ribs staying fingerprints all over there now, but yeah, it's, it's cool that something like that cooking and A real community vibe could bring people together that you know just happen to live next to each other. Because I would imagine Tell me a little bit differences California, the West Coast versus Texas. That seems like a very what I would picture, texas community type thing, it's 100%.
Speaker 3:And that's why we started doing it right, when we moved out here. I moved for my, my real estate valuation career with no, no, no interest at all. What even on the radar to cook, you know, to do any, anything barbecue related. And when we, when we moved and started started cooking what we couldn't find because good quote, good Barbecue really didn't exist for our, for what we were able to eat, and sure, in Texas, you know, at every corner next to the Starbucks, and when we started cooking for friends and and Neighbors and whatnot, it just kind of grew and grew and grew and so, yeah, the pop, the whole pop-up scene In Texas is huge. That's how Aaron Franklin, like the king of barbecue, got started. I mean, he was cooking two briskets out of his backyard, you know, and then neighbors would line up and then all of a sudden they got a little RV and another pit and pulled up to a gas station and before you know it he's like on movies and everybody claims that he's, you know, the best pit Smoke meat barbecue guy on the planet.
Speaker 2:Well, he has about a Ocast, so yeah, but that is so funny though, because one of the themes that that continually comes up I feel like it's come up on every episode of this podcast, you know, and all eight of them that we've completed so far is that collaboration and that that that's that spirit of bringing people together, where California has had this kind of reputation for everybody, kind of head down, going in their own direction, doing their own thing Not quite as bad as probably people would assume, like out of New York, but like a lot of people when I lived in the Midwest were like, oh, californians are just, you know, out to do their own thing, and not that, not that they're being rude or anything, it's just they have just a different way of life and I feel like it's become sacrament, becomes such a melting pot, and that pop-up and barbecue scene just reminds people to slow down and enjoy things and be community oriented and collaborate and networking things like that.
Speaker 2:So it's amazing how these simple themes can carry across so many different genres or ways of hanging out or bringing people together. It's super, super cool.
Speaker 1:I agree. I mean the food is fantastic, but it also just felt like a really cool experience to go and like with my kids and it just felt kind of like a really unique fun thing. And when I had heard about it it was like man, I better get down there. And you know, I did have that sense of urgency of, like man, I don't want to miss this. It was pretty cool.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and that's what we're leaning into is the whole experience. The food's got to be good, right, that's just kind of a we accept that. It's got to be consistent, it's got to be great, it's got to be the best barbecue that anybody's going to have when they get there. But it's the experience. It's country music, playing everybody, and when we've moved to pop up and I'll tell that story in a minute on why we had to do it's kind of funny. But now I mean we've got 280, 300, 325 people coming out.
Speaker 3:You know, the first, probably two hours before we even open the line, folks are there with chairs, they bring their dogs, they've got their coffee, you know they sit and talk and a lot of them like run into each other. The last pop up. So it's yeah, it's this whole community thing that there aren't enough restaurant establishments that really like pour into that. Out here there's a few that have started to pop up and where they've got, you know, really great patio scene, good food, people go they'll and instead of just going for 30 or 40 minutes and grabbing a meal and leaving, they're coming in, they're hanging out for a while.
Speaker 2:Stick around, have a few more beers you know like 100% the small plates have taken off of those things that kind of keep you there longer and it just really encourage you know my background being 15 years in fast casual it's like how quick can you get them out of the seat? Or really, I mean at the end of the career, when I was doing that it was like how heavily can we just encourage them to take takeout, because now we don't have to pay someone to clean the table, turn and burn do the dishes and the. You know the plates are going to break and you're going to have all these additional costs. Where it's it's, it's like I said, it's just a breath of fresh air.
Speaker 2:Going back to that going hey, let's slow down and enjoy ourselves again. And I don't know if that's an age thing. As we get a little older and mature, more you know, I don't know my 20s, I don't know if I cared to sit around and shoot the bull for two or three hours while just eating slow cooked meat. But but nowadays I do for sure like that's actually what I look forward to, because everything else in my life is going 100 miles an hour.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, the six of five and almost two year old, like. For me, the big draw is like hey, I don't have to get them to sit down in a booth, I don't have to wait for the waitress, I don't have to knock over the wire yeah. So we're going to go and they're just going to do what you do with barbecue and get messy and have fun and spill stuff and great time and we have friends that ask us all the time hey, why are you going to do a food truck?
Speaker 3:Like I do, is that bit, but the food truck is more to your point, it's just, you know, turn and burn right, you're pulling up at the job site for the lunch hour and then you're on to the next one.
Speaker 2:You got three of them a day that you're hitting at 11, 12 and one and you're in and out. There's no, there's no community building there. That's just a transaction.
Speaker 3:Yeah and we don't, and that's. That's the exact opposite of what we want to create from an experience perspective, right? I think ultimately, if things continue to go the direction they're going, you know, the brick and mortar could become a reality, where we find a really great spot that we can accomplish everything we want with the physical space having an outdoor patio, some space for live music. It becomes a hangout.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I could see that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and, and then you know people are hanging out there, they're staying there. Absolutely Just showing up and grabbing, you know, a couple of ribs and some mac and cheese and leaving, and you know, see you later. They're bringing a group of friends for lunch. You know they're staying and hanging out. They're coming after soccer games on Saturday and it's just a whole vibe.
Speaker 1:You know what I like. I just kind of popped in my head when you were saying this like I think that should be. You should make it happen. And then it should be the go to place, like, instead of like Paul Martins or somewhere fancy for realtors to meet. That's when you get to know people's get stuff all over you. You're going to have me I have snagly teeth man so you get meat in there. It's going to stick in there, and if you can see those people and then do business with them, like, that's what I'm talking about as opposed to, like you know, a nice little piece of halibut on some risotto.
Speaker 2:Oh, you know that that that new nugget going in and Whitney ranch might have some, some spaces in there If it looks anything like the nugget that they did over off of blue oaks.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Could be could be.
Speaker 2:Could be a pretty cool little local watering hole.
Speaker 1:I cannot confirm or deny this, but we might already be talking to some people over in that general. I love that. I love that that's close enough for me.
Speaker 1:Well, myself, as you have to walk or bike distance, Like I mean yeah, well, I want to get back to barbecue in a few minutes, but I kind of want to talk about it's interesting. So the three of us are all kind of transplants to here. I moved here during COVID from Washington. Probably I felt like it was the only person that moved to California. That's what people told me. You moved here from one of the states that ended up you know now, granted well before me, but one of the mass exodus states from California. Tell me a little bit about that, your thoughts on that. I'm sure that came up during the last couple of years.
Speaker 3:Oh, it absolutely had. And and came up the the month we were beginning to start to think about moving because the subdivision that we lived in in Texas, just north of Dallas, I'd say six of the eight neighbors that we could see had all moved from California.
Speaker 1:Oh okay.
Speaker 2:So they're like what in the world Are you two like? These guys are awesome. Let's move to where they're coming from.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 3:I had been. I had been involved. I'd been an appraiser by trade since the late nineties and happened to be in the right place at the right time when the housing crisis happened 2008, 2009,. And went to work for a little company called Fannie Mae.
Speaker 3:Oh I know her, yeah, yeah, she's done a lot for the, for the industry, and it was, it was. It was great and horrific at the same time because we, we were charged, our department was charged with pricing all of the foreclosed homes that people just walked away from from their mortgages during that time. We were, we were, we were, we were responsible for pricing those properties to resell them, to mitigate the loss and the risk against the investor. Sure, and so with that, I got to go around to basically all of the most heavily hit foreclosure areas across the country Detroit, miami, chicago, right, like the worst of the worst. See it firsthand. You guys have seen the, the movie the big short.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Okay, it's. It does as good of a job depicting what reality was like during that time of any you know book or movie.
Speaker 1:Really it's fantastic, Like the the ghost town subdivision.
Speaker 3:It's great. Well, yeah, and the alligator in the pool and like just people just being gone and what you know, I'm default on this.
Speaker 2:My landlord told me that we they were.
Speaker 3:You know all of that was happening times you know a thousand. So through all of that made a lot of connections and got had an opportunity to come lead a evaluation team for an appraisal management company that was in Roseville, truckee and Reno. So my wife and I moved, came out here and it was those three locations couldn't afford Truckee, didn't want to be anywhere near Reno, so Roseville it was. And our broker at the time was like hey, rockland is the place you know this podcast is pretty getting pretty good at shitting on locations.
Speaker 2:LA took it hard a couple of weeks ago.
Speaker 1:But yeah, just top for one second cause I gotta imagine, right, so you're looking at a job opportunity out here, but that's a big cultural shift, right? There's some things you know property taxes, if I'm not wrong, are a little more expensive there, but the house prices are way more expensive here. You got a state income tax, you've got beautiful people in sunshine and all sorts of stuff, but a big change, I would imagine, culturally. So how did that go for your family in terms of considering that?
Speaker 3:And that's. It was a huge, you know, decisioning point for us, because we we at the time we had a three year old and a seven year old and we are very much like the barbecue craziness that we're into right now. We're very much an experience based family. We loved giving experiences to our daughters, and my wife and I love to travel, and so we were like, hey, you know what we're? We're at an age right now. Our girls are at an age right now. We had a two year plan. We're like we're going to go for two years and if it sucks, or if we love it, or if it's just the worst experience ever two years, we're back home.
Speaker 1:I love that Mine was a one year plan.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, and here I am and we would get Kansas City five yeah. Well, but six months in we were like we love it.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Like we would. We would go to Tahoe, we would go to Napa, we would go to the Bay, we would I mean the Apple Hill, we would everywhere.
Speaker 1:And that's what. That's so funny, because that's so many people that we've had on here, so many like seven. They've all just said one of the coolest things about here is that close proximity. They love it where they actually live, but then, secondarily, they have this close proximity, so many other cool, unique spots.
Speaker 3:But what's wild is so many people that have grown up and lived here don't take advantage of any of that.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Like so many friends, they never. We invited some of our oldest daughters in last last summer to Tahoe and a couple of them who were born and raised here.
Speaker 2:Never been to Tahoe yeah.
Speaker 3:Not crazy, dude, it's two hours away.
Speaker 2:Well, as someone who's born and raised in a small town, that people really enjoy being from Half Moon Bay, it's the same. I mean it's you have all those things. And it's like you know, when you're growing up in that environment, like, oh, that's what the tourists come here to do, and you're like you're almost resented in that, in that realm, because you're like, ah, like I could do that on a Wednesday. Well, they come and screw it up for everybody on every Saturday that the sun's shining on the coast. So it's understandable. But at the same time, when you look back, I mean I'm still super nostalgic about Half Moon Bay. People are here like, oh my God, Half Moon Bay. I'm like, yeah, it was a little different in the 80s when it was flatbed trucks and hunting dogs, versus what it is now, but it's still an awesome town, it's still an awesome place. So it's funny, Like I totally like resonate with that, Like, yeah, like you just take it. You take for granted what you have in your front yard.
Speaker 3:Well, and you learn I mean, you nailed the point, I think what detracts people from doing it. You learn when to go, yeah, how long to be there, where to go so that you avoid the riffraff of you know, just 80 shutting down because nobody knows not to drive when they're shane control yeah. I mean, yeah, you learn, but we but that's we from. Like the second month we were here, we started taking advantage of all of that and our two year plan in six months turned into. I don't think we're going to go back.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know. If you want to see us, come here family and they have, and it's been great. That's awesome.
Speaker 2:And you're in Holly's Holly's in real estate. Was she in real estate in Texas as well? She was not.
Speaker 3:No, she was. She was a high school teacher, okay, and, and right before we made the decision to move out here, she had quit that and she was like you know what, I'm not going to not going to work for the first couple of years. Let's get situated, let's get the girls comfy, happy and, looking back, that was probably the very best decision we made to help our transition.
Speaker 2:That's awesome.
Speaker 3:Because she was able to just get them plugged into. I mean they're massively involved in musical theater and and and that kind of segues into a lot of the barbecue stuff with the partnership with that the Rockland community theater. But Holly's was was hugely involved in all that. But now now now she's a realtor.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. So you got a couple of real estate folks under one roof. We had Ryan Lundquist on our very first episode. A lot of people that listen to this know who he is. Residential real estate appraiser. Is that what you are? Same thing, Yep.
Speaker 3:So by license, correct, I am not a practicing appraiser anymore. I did that for about 12 years in the Dallas, fort Worth area and then when I, when I went to Fannie, I've spent the next 10 or 11 years now just on the corporate side of it, so at Fannie just running, you know, review and reconciliation teams, and then getting into what, what, what we had called vendor management, and now I run an appraisal management company. So so what Ryan does and the appraisers in the field 2008, 2009,. If you think back before that, the appraiser would have direct contact with the loan officer.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the good old days, and, and and and where you know a lot of collusion and unfortunate things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I wasn't in the industry then, so hence the no Mercedes in my driveway.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah and a boat and yeah.
Speaker 3:But yeah anyways. So when all that stopped, a lot of regulation came to play, a lot of changes. So appraisal management companies came into the fold and they basically sit in between the appraisers that are in the field and the loan officers, lenders and the banks that exist now. So we're kind of the the mediator, if you will, to make sure that the there's no bias, there's no collusion. Everybody can do, you know very you know, do, do do all the valuation work without the pressure of that existed when there was that direct contact.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and as a lender like I have, I have good relationships with our AMC's and the people there. But there is definitely, you know, I don't talk to the appraiser, I don't ever see them. They're basically a gatekeeper, kind of an intermediary between the, the field person and exactly right and as it should be, you know and it creates.
Speaker 3:I mean, there's a lot of negativity with, with appraisal management companies in the industry. You know you're taking the appraisers money and and and, and I get that. Surely, I've seen it from all different sides. But there is also a lot of regulatory work that the appraisal management companies do to stay in existence. We have to exist for the big, for the big banks that have to use they can't go direct to the appraiser and and we do a lot in making sure that the product that you're using, that lenders use, that loan officers use, the appraisal products are good quality appraisal products and they're not wasting time going back and forth and getting changes and corrections made, and so there's there's a lot of good that comes from from what we do, a lot of work too.
Speaker 1:And I'm, yeah, I'm sure, and I'm, you know, pretty junior relatively in this industry, but I can't imagine and there's people listening to this that were lenders well before that. I cannot imagine a scenario where that was not in place. I mean truly the fact that and we all know kind of the the big crash 0809, but just the ripeness for every kind of fraud and bending the rules and great, I mean it just seems like mob driven, almost like if you didn't have that in place to me. So there's frustration. Sometimes I've had in the past the evaluation didn't agree with and you'd love to have a conversation with somebody, even professionally and ethically, and you got to go through the MC, and so that can be a challenge, but for the most part I would say I haven't had that be an issue as a lender on my side. Sometimes it's can be frustrating because the clients are like, well, just talk to the appraiser, and I'm like, well, it doesn't work quite that way, but I would say like it seems to be pretty ironed out as a process.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think one of the biggest challenges that we all face in real estate is the the gap at times between what the customer thinks their home is worth and what true market value is yeah, I zillowed it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly Right. Or my friend said that this house three streets down sold for this. And why isn't my house selling for this? I have green shutters and two back doors. There's a whole lot of just misinformation shared and, again, just kind of a gap between what reality is, and I think sometimes, yeah, that's the easy answer. Oh, just call the appraiser, tell them that my pool actually has a higher quality water and that's not.
Speaker 1:Yours does, chris. Actually I know that for a fact.
Speaker 2:One of the things that I've said for and I've been doing this for 12 years now talking to real estate, about how, how we can benefit them on the inspection side obviously, again and again, we're another kind of almost required component of the transaction.
Speaker 2:But I've what I've learned over the years is, if we really step back and just simplify the real estate process and all of us are in the real estate profession, we make our living on that but at the end of the day, you've got someone who wants to buy a house and someone who wants to sell a house, and then in between all those people, you have all of us who want to make a couple bucks and not get sued ultimately.
Speaker 2:And if everyone just steps back at the real estate process and goes, okay, this is, this is the deal, and someone wants to buy, someone wants to sell, the buyer doesn't want to overpay, the seller doesn't want to give it away, that's how all that stuff happens and you get back to that kind of true, true capitalist environment where it should be, but again, because people are gaming the system, we all have pages and pages and novels worth of rules that we have to play by. Well, those all came about because people were doing bad things and taking advantage of the situation. So it's always interesting when the curtain gets pulled back on each of our industries, all the rules and regulations. It's like we know why they're there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, I mean, and the appraiser's fundamental job is to protect the public trust and to assess, you know, to estimate, a true market value for that piece of property.
Speaker 2:That's, that's which is super easy when a property has appreciated at 190% regularly for you know, 18 consecutive months and you're like hold on a second.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the math doesn't Well, it's easy until that trend stops. But then you, you know, then, yeah, it's, it's easy until it's not.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're all very well aware of the last 12 months.
Speaker 1:I'd say that's a huge opportunity for real estate agents. So that are listening to this, or you know, realtor in general is that you are, if you're doing your job well and you are providing the value that you should be and you can hear from Chris right here. You know they have a job that they have to do and there's rules and regulations and they base their valuations on something. You know Dan's team does what they do and as a lender, I do I do that as well. But the realtor really is the person that has the ability, if they're well educated, to give a good CMA, to tell you why your property is a little different than your neighbors down the street, to take some of the emotion out of it and help you see, you know, ride that fine line between therapist counselor and for better or for worse.
Speaker 2:You know, like that's, that's that conduit's job. The real estate, the realtor's part in that equation is, for better or for worse, they're going to do their best as a fiduciary to you. But if, sometimes, if that is telling you that, hey, your house might not be as worth as much as you think it is, and we actually have a feeling this, this is where the appraisal is going to come in like they're using their knowledge and it's not always the most popular conversation to have, but it's, but it's real. And I think that that's when we get back to having those more real, honest conversations around real estate. We might start getting away from some of these people that it you know, or homeowners or whatever, that are just so far off in their valuation.
Speaker 3:And you nailed it and I'll double down on it too. From the realtor perspective. Right, the realtors that are listening, get an appraiser that your buddy's with just just to bounce stuff off of Sure, absolutely, because I think you know there's so many methods that that our industry uses to estimate value. And when you talk about things like price per square foot and the different amenities that exist in the house, right, the appraiser is the one who they they have, they have gone to hours and hours and hours of school for how, to, how, to understand and make adjustments for pools, for finish out, for different things, and and those aren't just like oh, how much did you pay for your pool?
Speaker 1:Okay, 80% of that is the adjustment that, I that any of it so, or just it's price per square foot. That's what my house is, which would not be more further from the truth, right?
Speaker 3:And using that as a sole source of what is my house worth is so flawed in so many different ways. So I think it's you know and I'm glad you bring that up, I'm glad, I'm glad to hear you know doing the right thing and doing your job well, because one of the things that that that I think that you guys had asked in prep to come here is just advice on on getting into the business and and and and how to, how to thrive there. Specific to the real estate side dig in, learn, educate yourself, surround yourself with an, an awesome network of of very tenured and knowledgeable people, totally Because there there is some money to be made in real estate. We know that, whether or not you're on the lending side, the appraisal side, the agent side, all of the other services, we all feed our kids and and do that well Sometimes. Sometimes it's, it's a challenge, but there are a. There are a lot of folks that just kind of skim along the top and just learn a little bit just to get by Just enough to be dangerous.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and those, those, I, I, you know, dig in, man, dig in, get involved, get engaged, educate yourself and, and, and really you know, give it your all. Don't, don't be those top floaters.
Speaker 1:And I think we know who these people are. I mean, dan and I network up Fairmont in this industry. In fact, we just went to this Sacramento Real Producers event. That was a pretty a small group, a pretty intimate group of pretty high producers and was a panel of some of the highest producers in the greater Sacramento area, kind of talking to some of the other ones and more of a kind of an open Q&A, really sharing.
Speaker 1:They were all a little bit different, but if I think about a big value proposition that as a realtor if you're listening to this that you can take from this is I, you're, you can be hired on trust. You know how how much can your client trust you? Because, as you can see here, if you're trying to give advice on well, you know this is really why your house isn't worth this Well if you have not established trust. It's a very emotional process even for, like I mean, I've been in real estate. I sold my house in Washington a couple years ago. I was shocked at how emotional it was. It was like I delivered babies as a fireman until I had my own babies. That delivery was a completely different thing. I was crying and bawling more than my wife.
Speaker 2:Trust and integrity. Right, like yeah, because it is. It's an industry where people can exploit and make a lot of money in a short amount of time, but that long term tenure is going to be so often based on on on trust, integrity and gen. You know, being a genuine person, are you still? You know, I'd love it when people have been around for 10, 15, 20 years, like, okay, agreed, you've cracked the code.
Speaker 3:Yeah Well, but but trust isn't how many transactions you sold.
Speaker 1:Right, no, no, no, no yeah that's.
Speaker 3:I mean, it's earned in the sense that, like your integrity, your intelligence, you know how you solve problems, how you communicate. All of that matters, sure, and it's not just hey, I'm an agent and I'll do it for 2% Totally.
Speaker 2:And one of the best coaches I ever played for in baseball, and I know I referenced my sports background so much, but he goes. He goes, look man like. And at the time I didn't have to shave every day because you have to shave every day and you got to look in the mirror. And if that, but do you agree with that person that's looking back at you in the mirror? Do you make eye contact with that person? It's like, okay, cuz, if you can't, what are you? Are you hiding something? What are you not? What are you not sold on about that person? And that stuck with me for so long and I always think of it so simple. It's like, yep, every time I look at, I literally think every time, look in the mirror. Am I, am I being an honest, genuine, likeable person who's doing the right thing?
Speaker 3:Yeah, needs to be more of that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that.
Speaker 1:I mean just the fact that as a realtor you can add so much value by building trust with people so that when you have to combat the, the zestimate, or what red vins has, or what your neighbor sold for six months ago, that you have that in it like foot in the door already.
Speaker 1:Genuinely, if I trust this person they know this better than I do, I know that, like Chris said, they're, they're doing their homework, they're not just barely getting by, they're going to classes and they're digging in and they have a mentor. I'm gonna just trust them to do what they need to do, because it's hard. I mean, it's a super emotional big thing and everybody wants to maximize every dollar. But how many times, dan, have you heard and I'm sure, chris, you as well you know realtors that we commiserate with and they're like man, I've got this listing and I just the. I love these people but they just have no, they're so far off and what they think the house is worth and they're gonna fire me because of well, and that's tough, right, because they have that the agent has the pressure of wanting to do.
Speaker 3:You know what's best and and make the right decision but also not lose a potential client. Sure, and, and so many times that I'm involved in my current day, you know just valuation role in seeing where the appraisal comes in. Short, of the contract price, right, it's oh, the appraiser killed the deal, the appraiser killed the deal, right. That's what we hear, that's what appraisers have heard for years.
Speaker 2:I've said it, I've said it before, of course, yeah and and sometimes it's nice to know that's not always the home or two right inspector.
Speaker 3:But I think truth is is not always. You know, there, I think to your point, the pressures that exist on uneducated sellers and you know, agents that really aren't doing their due diligence and appraisers could be faulty too. Right, the the kink is somewhere in the line and it's not always consistent. But but again, you know, and I I love when I have conversations with with realtors, when they call, obviously my wife and in the household we have them a lot, but we've got a lot of friends that will call and, just, you know, pick my brain, hey, I've got this, we're, we're, we're here. The homeowner thinks we're here. Can we give value for this? You know, like and having those conversations Really important, really a good thing. Time adjustments, market adjustments, especially right now when things are moving as much as they have over the past several years, using a, using something that sold six, seven months ago, that's not what today is no, not at all.
Speaker 3:And the appraiser understands that and the appraiser can can extrapolate those differences and and put those into their appraisal just in the same manner that an agent would, would and should employ those efforts for CMAs and having those common Conversations with the, with the homeowners, that build trust and and really get that.
Speaker 1:I think one thing that I've had a couple clients this doesn't happen very often, but sometimes they say, well, we're willing to pay that for the house, we don't care what it's worth.
Speaker 1:Well, what they forget if they're talking to me is that they're not paying cash for that house, and so they might be willing to do that, but the six hundred thousand dollars that the lender I'm working with is going to give them is not willing to give them that money On a piece of property that someone who's trained and educated and and vetted is saying, well, it's. I don't think it's really worth that, and I think some people were far enough away from 0809, now that you have this whole Pleasure of of people that maybe that was a thing they saw in the news but didn't affect them, and I'm at the age of I'm members to having friends that were coming out from being underwater on that, and so I think you're in a time now where there's a lot of millennials or a dual income, no kids like younger and maybe in their 20s or 30s when they didn't see the massacre and the fallout from that and they're just like, well, I don't get that. Well, this is why that's in place more than ever. Spot on man.
Speaker 2:Well, I think, even like even today, like the, there's so much news about the dream for all program that's come back up and like me, but my wife and I, who've owned three houses and had three mortgages and refinance and gone through all that thing before, when she first saw that loan, she, or that she's like no way I wouldn't touch that thing with a 10-foot pole, like I'm not sharing my equity. And we've been fortunate. We've been equitable on all but one of the homes we've sold, which was an 07.
Speaker 2:So that's another story for another day, but but as Some, as someone who's gone through the process and kind of come out on the on the plus side three times, we're like looking at that dream for all program but like if we were in the position of the people that need to buy a home today.
Speaker 2:That's the only way they can do it. Yeah, that demographic just doesn't have a hundred or two hundred thousand dollars stuffed in a hole Waiting to be a down payment on a home. So it's amazing because the challenges and the way that the market shifts and that's what we always have things to talk about, because real estate is constantly changing and constantly involved, evolving, and so it's funny because I think that's that's kind of the next big thing. It's like, you know, buying, now you've got lenders that are or the state of California, I said essentially banking on continued growth and equities, and They've created a revenue stream out of that ultimately right, and it's ultimate. It's always going to come down to a business and dollars and cents. So just fascinating to see how that stuff changes and when you see the growth plans for around here too.
Speaker 1:The funny thing is you know I and you guys right here as well, but I got so much crap for, like you're the only guy in California what the heck you know politics, I go. That's really not that different than Washington and it's really it's a lot sunnier. But all that to say. Like if you look at the, the plans to continue to grow, and you look at Pickford Ranch and plaster one and everything that's slated here for the index handful of years, West Roseville.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this is a really awesome place to live and they're not making more land, and so I just feel like it's a basics of supply and demand. If you just just whittle this down and you know, take a praisel, and valuation lenders out of it like people want to live here. It's an awesome place to live. You got great barbecue now all of a sudden, and so I think that we're gonna continue to see this growth. And so if, as a you know, as a realtor, you're having a hard time combating the argument of like what if, once the big crash Gonna come, you say well, when the ribs are this good, this is a place that's gonna be when they run out of ribs.
Speaker 1:Yeah, when they run out of ribs, so I want to get back to barbecue a little bit, because, unless you got anything else there, dan, nope, okay, because I want to know too, coming from Texas, were you cooking like this in Texas, or were you just enjoying it so much that when you got here you just didn't really find anything like this and you thought, man, this is something I could provide for this community?
Speaker 3:Yes and no To the scale that we're doing it today. Not even close. Okay, you know, backyard, we both my family, my wife's family we both grew up in big families cooking a ton for, you know, whatever it is sporting events, just family get-togethers. But it wasn't until we moved out here that we started to really cook and scale. I'd cook a brisket back home in Texas, a couple racks of ribs for different get-togethers, but to your point, you know when I could go three minutes away from my house and pick up a catering order from you know, one of the top 10 barbecue places in the whole state. That's what we do.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we came out here. You know there was Lucille's and a couple. You know Lemus Basin does a pretty good job of it, but nobody was really, you know, I think, one of the keys to a true, like fantastic Texas barbecue joint. Nobody reheats meat there, right? So, like you cook, you know what they're cooking for that day. When it's gone, it's gone, right. You go to a place you know, locally around here you're eating like two-day old ribs or yesterday's brisket that's reheated and slathered with sauce, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, kansas City would do a little bit of that. Yeah, microwave and I was always so opposed to it. When I was the last restaurant piece I was doing in Kansas City was kind of a fast casual barbecue place and we reheated everything in a skillet. We had a little sauce because I just couldn't get past the what we were charging. And we're just throwing something in a microwave to reheat it, wrap them plastic, you know, and people loved it because it was, it was fresher, it was crisper, you know, it was just a better product. And again, I mean, it's like it's not, it can't be leftovers coming out of the microwave. So I totally, totally agree with you in that regard and you know I mean, but that was, that was your Texas itch right, like blue seals and and Loomis Basin they do a good product, but it wasn't Texas style, it wasn't, it wasn't home for you. It didn't, it didn't hit that. It didn't hit that that mark for you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and then we started. We started cooking that way and you know, I'll never forget I cooked one brisket on my big green egg out back when we moved out here. It was for a friend in the neighborhood's birthday party. I brought it over and was slicing it up and serving it to everybody and it was as if they were eating something like in heaven that they had never eaten in their entire life.
Speaker 1:Isn't that cool? And I'm like guys it's just.
Speaker 3:it's just brisket, like it's oh, we've never had, I've literally never had brisket.
Speaker 1:It's like somebody from Iowa seeing the ocean for the first time. They're like oh, I look at that all the time. Oh my God, it's amazing. Oh, totally.
Speaker 3:And it was eye-opening for us because then when, when that grew, I got our first custom smoker built, I guess now four years ago, from a guy down in LA, so I can take one brisket and now I can cook six and so, and then I could cook, you know, 12 racks of ribs now and, and, and then Holly, who's an amazing, she does all of the sides, all of the pickles, all the sauces, everything but the meat I'm the meat guy and she does everything else. And so we just started kind of compiling everything together and and one of my best friends had a, had a big birthday and had about 60 or 70 people do his house, and this was about a year before we really started doing pop-ups and we got, you know, we fed that many people and and it was a lot of work. But just to see the smiles and hear the feedback and it was like, okay, we, we should probably go like hardcore into this, yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, it's so funny because again another theme imposter syndrome comes up so much and it's almost like you sound like you were just a back, a backyard barbecue guy back in Texas and then you brought that here and I'm sure in the back of your head you're like am I, am I good at this? Is it just? Is it just my default teachings? Like that I've learned I would. You're obviously now proud of the product that you put out and put forward. You put your stamp on it, and so do you want to talk a little bit about that? I mean, did you have any of that imposter syndrome in in that space?
Speaker 3:I still do every day, Absolutely without question. Yeah, Because it's never.
Speaker 3:There's so many variables that are different with every single cook, you know now I've got now I've got a thousand gallon propane tank repurposed into a smoker and we brought it back from Texas over Christmas and all all. The very first cook that we cooked on here it was pouring down rain, pouring down rain and it was cold, and so, you know, 10 to 12 hour brisket cook. Now I'm in hour 14 and things aren't done yet and I'm like what, what is going on? So, yeah, every time I fill that pit up, every time Holly, you know, cooks one of her sides or whatever. We're both just like okay, like is, it's going to be as good as it was last time.
Speaker 3:Every pop up we have, we're a little nervous before we start slicing in the stuff. But I think one of the things that we're we're getting really good at is when you cook in this kind of scale, you anticipate all those variables right and you've got oh, I've dealt with this, or I've done with that, or I my. My wood that I got from my wood provider is a little bit smaller than it was last time, but I know what to do with that. You know, holly, when she takes everything to our commissary kitchen, well, maybe these ovens in this side cook a little bit differently than these, so we're learning like how to combat all of those different variables that ultimately help make our product as consistent as possible.
Speaker 2:That experience, right? Yeah, I mean I'm. I'm an artistic smoker Like it. I don't measure anything. It's going to be. I'll never be able to recreate the same thing that I've done. The ribs are always different and sometimes my kids love them and sometimes they just like them. They have never thrown one back at me and told me it was garbage.
Speaker 1:But yeah, but they're teenagers, but when?
Speaker 2:but it's funny because it's like you're saying, at the scale you're doing that. Consistency and again, we talk about consistency all the time on this podcast and how it weaves its way into importance in everything and, and you know again, being more more science than art.
Speaker 3:now you know well, and what's been really cool is that I've been able to take, you know, just the process and leadership and operational acumen that I have from my, my corporate side of things and and put them into all of our processes. For, you know, trimming brisket right, and it's just the foundational truth of consistent process and prep is true with everything that you do Totally Not it's cooking brisket or selling homes or any of that kind of stuff. So that's been fun for me to really, you know, as I start to kind of now train people that are helping us to trim and to cook this and to grill that and putting those processes together the most consistently that we can so that the product rocks is, has been fun and Dan has talked about this before.
Speaker 1:I mean this is a common theme through. We don't have a lot of like slackasses on the show. I wouldn't say so. People that are at least competent to really good at something. And it's been that theory of you know how you do something is how you do everything Right. So like being able to take the things you learn from one industry and apply them into a different industry or a passion or a hobby, or your marriage or your kids or whatever. It's really interesting to hear that again repeated over and over, is that people are taking the skills that they learned in their own somewhere else and then they're repurposing them for a different outcome in a different or a similar outcome in a in a different endeavor.
Speaker 2:Yep, for sure, very cool, all right. Well, let's change gears a little bit. Let's, chris, just tell us something that people might not know about you.
Speaker 3:All right, that's a good one. So I, my degree is in music education, which is wild because I used. I used that degree for like a year and a half out. When I got out of college I was. I taught the drum line at a high school in Texas and that's a big deal too, right down there. Oh yeah, it's huge. Yeah, it's like you say that, you say that you know, in some places it's like oh okay, band, band, dork, you know, in Texas it was. You know we had more people come to, you know, band concerts than we did football games at times in Texas.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that was that was fun.
Speaker 3:But I was also a baseball coach and played a lot of baseball in high school and my senior year, through a no hitter against the team Kerry Wood was playing on. So he, yeah, he, he went to school and the district that we did. He wasn't pitching that game or we probably would not have won. Well, he was probably in the lineup.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, he was definitely in the lineup and I definitely struck him out twice. Yeah, yeah, so that was, that was fun he was. He was probably still pissed off about that when he struck out 21 in his, in his rookie year, yeah.
Speaker 1:Damn you, chris Hunt yeah that dude. You were fueling that 21 strike out rage as he was wrapping up his. Then I made his girlfriend the most delicious brisket she'd ever had just to put a knife into it. So yeah, no the baseball thing was.
Speaker 3:Was was a huge part of of growing up and being in sports and and and probably one of the one of the first times that we, you know, really ever was was introduced to. You know, texas barbecue was just all the, the baseball tournaments and all the cooking that would go on and and just eating stuff there.
Speaker 2:We need more good barbecue at some of these baseball tournaments.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know I'm a stick. It's funny you guys say that because I was just thinking about when, when you were talking through this and the community, and you know I don't love to go to live sports maybe, like youth stuff aside, I'm not a big, you know spend $500 and go and being, I guess, being for Washington yards, going to some kind of sporting event in the rain and it's cold, but I love to go to the tailgate and that's like the most fun part. So, man, I think there's a big opportunity there to to lean into how much people in this area love youth sports. And I remember going to a swim meet for my daughter earlier this year and there was, you know, a hot dog stand and a shaved ice thing and I said, man, this is, you know, it was okay, it was something to eat and you're going to sell it.
Speaker 2:You're like. You know I'm at a sporting event.
Speaker 1:But man, what if you were like dude? I'm going to go watch this nine hour swim meet, but I'm going to. I'm also going to have like some legit food when I'm there. That would be pretty sweet.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, we've been. We've been asked by by both high schools to get involved in some of their like football games you know canner and stuff, so we're we're toying around with that you know, it's a lot of again. It's not like short order cooking. So it's not like just grilling up some burgers or what not or even try tip for that matter. But but yeah, that could, that could definitely be.
Speaker 2:Well, what's so funny? You touched on this and when small worlds get smaller, right Like you and you and one of my good buddies from high school have the same that have that your, your barbecue pits were built by the same guy and we actually had, we had met and we kind of knew each other. And then on a social media post, my buddy's got breakwater barbecue, which is just north of Hapmabay on the coast, and it's gotten and he's just been killing it right, and he posted the picture of his new pit and Chris Tagbill and Chris Comedon and I was like, wait a minute, how do you guys know each other? It was just, it was just so cool man the power of meat Dude it is.
Speaker 3:I'll tell you what man the. The barbecue circles are very, very small. All the all the big time guys in Texas. I mean there's probably five, five barbecue joints in the state of California. Most all are from breakwater or south right, but they're all buddies with all the guys in Texas. Everybody knows everybody, everybody talks, they see each other at, at, at you know different events around the country, like it's a very small world.
Speaker 1:That's cool. It's almost seems like they like the artists and breweries or the. There's just this big push. I think honestly, a lot of people want good stuff and they're willing to pay for it and line up and spend and have it be not just the food I'm getting, but like this experience, like when I brought my kids there, like I said it was. It was a really fun, cool homie family thing and it was a lot of fun.
Speaker 3:Well, speaking of lining up and paying for it and trying it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, where can they find you?
Speaker 3:the 18th of this month. So, February 18th, yep Next, not this Sunday but next Sunday um Finn Hall in Rockland, um right off Rockland road I think 4090 Rockland road. Um we will be doing our next pop up.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 3:So full menu. What time, uh? We started 12, 12 PM, hi noon, hi noon. Uh. I would highly recommend you get there no later than 11. I know that sounds crazy, but there'll be probably over a hundred people in line at that.
Speaker 1:We'll be like a Taylor Swift concert a little bit, but we'll have music.
Speaker 3:We're gonna run the line faster. I'm doing two giveaways. So the first 50 people in line We'll get a ticket to win lunch for four, and then we'll also do another drawing for a bunch of B&B and Western charcoal Product that will give away in line there as well. But our whole menu brisket ribs, pulled pork, homemade sausage, turkey pork, belly. I'll have beef ribs there as well. Nice, I'm doing pastrami brisket as a say, as a special, and then we'll have our hatch-grain, chili, mac and cheese, cornbread, casserole, baked beans, our jalapeno slaw, banana pudding and some other goodies and let's hold off for one second.
Speaker 1:There, the banana pudding.
Speaker 2:So before we start to hear already down this Flakes, weakness is the banana.
Speaker 1:Oh it's so good, it's so good. I'm like a pudding custard guy in general, but like this is pretty fantastic. It's not like the slop that you had in the the cafeteria line or it, you know, at Old Country Buffet. This stuff is really good. So if you guys don't even like meat, just come down for the diabetic coma on the back end just just down the pudding.
Speaker 3:Yeah, pudding and country music and it'll be good awesome.
Speaker 1:So August 18th, be there February, february 18.
Speaker 2:Sorry, see, I'm already got with all this rain and my residence day weekend. Okay matter of fact.
Speaker 3:So yeah, so yeah, we did it last year on Super Bowl Sunday and we were like, oh, nobody's gonna be here and it was nuts.
Speaker 2:Both people like I'll take 15 orders to go you know they were just we just getting it all to go back.
Speaker 3:So we we opted not to go Super Bowl weekend.
Speaker 2:So you're out of you're out of food.
Speaker 1:So this weekend you go to pizza factory and then next weekend you can come see us at Ocows barbecue next Sunday at or Ocows BBQ Instagram, facebook, wwwocowsbbq.
Speaker 3:All the info is on there.
Speaker 1:Okay, we'll put link to it on the show notes here.
Speaker 2:Yep, absolutely, and, chris, we we were so appreciative of your time and and really, really enjoyed this. The the last question we have for you. We asked every single guest who comes on here, dead or alive. If you could be anybody for a day, who would it be and why?
Speaker 3:Okay, so this is wild and weird, but my kids are massively in love with this dude and Mr Beast right. I know who he is, yeah so he's a YouTube phenomenon, phenomenon, fun, yeah, phenomenon, and he makes just Crazy amounts of money and they do these outlandish videos. But he gives so much of it all back, like he'll buy a hundred cars and the whole game is, hey, let's give these hundred cars away, and 24 hours, if we can do that, you know, then we'll buy another hundred and we'll give them away.
Speaker 2:So yeah, I think he's one of the most followed people on YouTube. He's just massive and it's it's Unbelievable, just shocking, all stuff that he's given away. He'll just stop people at random and be like, oh, here's a car in the mall, like, and there's been so many spin-offs on YouTube of people that do it on a smaller scale, but he was the original guy, that's that's not that new of an idea, though, because I had a Nigerian Prince about eight years ago.
Speaker 1:Send me an email. Yeah, it was millions of dollars. I'm still waiting for it.
Speaker 3:Well, I just think in in today's, like just social media quote influencer madness that for him to do good with that.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:To give back to the extent that he could. Man, if I could just Walk in his shoes for a day and just fill people's cups up and and just you know man, I think that'd be a lot of fun that guy probably doesn't have a very hard time looking in the mirror every morning.
Speaker 1:He's not a shave, no, he's a good good dude. But he probably doesn't have a great barbecue place to go to.
Speaker 2:So come on out here next week. Mr Beast, we were. You're always welcome here, my band.
Speaker 1:Yeah, if you come out and visit us at Oak House, then we will do a live stream from there and we'll get. I'll give away one car.
Speaker 3:We'll grow his fan base by point zero.
Speaker 2:We exactly. I'll even let you pick the color.
Speaker 1:Well, chris, thanks so much for joining us today. Can't wait for some more of this food, and actually I can't wait to Press on record here so I can eat some of this.
Speaker 3:Yeah, thank you guys again.
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