Is California planning on making their presence larger here in Nashville? Tennessee Pride, a sausage facility in Dixon Tennessee, has announced their closing in 2021. Plus, we’ll hear from the owner of Rise in downtown Nashville to tell us what exactly righteous chicken is. We'll talk about all of this, plus today’s events, on Nashville Daily.
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00:00 Hello everybody. This is the Nashville daily podcast. I'm Stuart Deming and I'm Erin Pennington and we are alive and rise at downtown Nashville. Absolutely. Is California planning on making their presence larger here in Nashville, Tennessee. Pride day sausage facility in Dixon, Tennessee has announced a closing in 2021 plus. We'll hear from the owner of rise in downtown Nashville to tell us what exactly righteous chicken is. We'll talk about all of this plus today's events on Nashville daily.
00:38 All right guys, as you heard, we will be talking with Spencer Bergen from rise, the amazing chicken place that we've talked a lot about here on the podcast. I think that this, we talk about rise as much as we talk about Amazon or hunting fire fire barbecue. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's one of those, it'll guarantee it'll make it into the show because at least once a week, right? Because we've eaten there pretty recently. I'm talking about things that happen on a regular basis. Let's say that. Let's just talk about traffic. You probably sitting in there right now, but don't worry. This interview with Spencer that we have will brighten your day. For sure. It's, it make you hungry, right? Yeah. I make you hungry at the same time. We'll always, that's a guarantee on here as well. And, and also at the end, don't forget about the very end of the show where we will hear we will hear from some of our local artists in Nashville.
01:30 You'll be able to hear that full song on here. We are excited about that as well. So some of the things that are happening in Nashville specifically at the Ryman tonight, we have smiles for life and they present the gift of music. Like I said, this is happening at the Ryman. Our normal start times in Nashville have gone back to a normal shift. This is at 7:00 PM at the Ryman. Again, this is the gift of music is presented by smiles for life and T pack is killing the game as well. Yeah, they have attitude, other voices and this is happening at 6:00 PM at T pack T pack is extremely busy. I say they've been almost as busy as the Ryman recently. And so attitude other voices is inside the ballet community conversations attitude. So basically it's learning about the different conversations and stuff with ballet and what's happening in the ballet world.
02:27 Interesting. You won't find me there, but you might find me here. This is a whiskey, this is whiskey jam happening at winners bar in Midtown. This is tonight at 8:00 PM. You might also find me here at street eats in downtown Nashville. This is today from 11:00 AM to 2:00 PM, so I'm sorry if you're listening to this at 8:00 PM a street eats, you can catch it next week, but that's every Thursday pretty much. In downtown Nashville, usually a along Diedrich street 11:00 AM to 2:00 PM. All the links for these events are in our show notes if you want to find out more. And then at the Skirball horn symphony, just down the street from the Ryman is the romantic wraps that he's, that's a show that's happening at screamer horn and that is tonight at 7:00 PM as well. And then happening at the Cumberland river compact, which I literally could not find their address when I was looking at this upset the bridge building.
03:16 I thought so. So they're having stories and lessons from an Antarctic adventure and they're bringing in a photographer. John Gilder Gilder a photographer and drivers guider. He boarded the a hundred year old three may, mass sailing vessel black ERP as part of a volunteer crew and sailed over 2,400 knock take miles to their frigid waters at [inaudible] and he took photos and he made a report about this. So this is happening at the river. That's really cool. They have some really, they have some really unique events. They do. And I really want to go to one sometime. Speaking of unique events, you want to catch this before it's last day. This is Zulu rumination. This is at the Nashville zoo. It is the largest Chinese festival of lights in the nation. This is happening only through February 2nd. So time is running out. It's everyday from five to 9:00 PM.
04:09 So make sure to go see Zulu nation. Also let's talk about things that will be coming to a close soon. One of them is Dixon's Tennessee pride sausage facility. They are actually set to close in 2021. Yeah. So initially when this article came out, I'm like, Oh crap, they're closing down Tennessee pride sausage. Like completely. And I'm like, that's actually some really good sausage and I think it's competitive to like Jimmy Dean's and all these other absolutely name brands, sausage companies. And so I actually read the article but just said they're closing their Dixon facility and they're moving their production over the Jackson, Tennessee. Okay. Not too far away. An hour away. Yeah, pretty good. Pretty much from Dixon. A hour and a half maybe from Dixon. And so they're actually not closing completely, but they're closing the facility in Dixon and they're ending the 350 jobs at the diction Dixon facility.
05:04 Right. So let's talk about some other things that are happening in the business world. You may have already seen this if you were paid attention to what's going on in Nashville and the business community. So this is, you know, it's hard to miss things like this. Cause this was probably in the headlines everywhere. Mayor Cooper, our of Nashville and governor bill Lee, they met with the Oracle officials last week. Now Oracle's I major company based out of California. Obviously California has had a lot of movement into Tennessee as far as corporations families, everything like that. You know, if you've, you've been in Nashville and met, you know, new people in, in this in this state or in this city, you know, California, right? Yeah, yeah. They're, they're all from California. But so they met with Oracle corporation and con on continuing negotiations for what could be a massive office hub for the software and it giant, again, this is coming from the Nashville business journal.
05:59 The meeting is a sign that Oracle remains an active prospect for Nashville and you know, but Cooper's administration has said that at least for Nashville you know, these, these kind of deals that they make with corporation tax incentive, etc. Are taking a back seat. But you know what, that doesn't mean that that's the same for the state of Tennessee. So there could be a couple of ways to help Oracle ease the move into Nashville. But if that recruitment is successful, muscle business journal said the oral Oracle office could rival Amazon's 5,000 person operation center as one of the largest economic development deals in the state history store. Where the heck are they going to put all of these people? So there's a few locations that they've been looking at, but according to the article, the, so this is found on the business journal, a national business journal, and according to the article they're looking specifically for 500,000 square feet of office space.
06:52 Where are they going to find? So I think there's two options. So there's that new building that's being built near the roundabout that's going to have 500,000 square feet of office space. Oh yeah, yeah. We always forget about that. What do we call it? Soco and SoCo. Yeah. So like South of the roundabout. And but then there's another area that we've talked about extensively here on the podcast. And that's river North and so 500,000 square feet. The thing I was reading though is Oracle truly likes to develop their own office spaces so they have control over that. So it's interesting like are they going to buy from a developer and develop, I have no idea. So they are looking for 500,000 square feet. Right. And so, you know, if if river North or this, this place South of SoCo doesn't end up landing, then you know, who knows that may, this may be the start of a, even a new development here in Nashville somewhere downtown or a cool Springs or some, I'm thinking somewhere North of river North or North of the the new Hoff area that we talked about. [inaudible]
07:53 Yeah, that makes absolute sense. So every single day we, if we can, we'd like to feature a local restaurant that we ate at and since we're actually here at rise, we AE that rise. Who would've thought that we, the place that we go to eat and you guys thought we were going to come here and not eat and not eat. So I had just a regular chicken biscuit with the cheddar, big surrogate and their tots. And the thing about their tots is they're cheesy and delicious, but there's stuff taught. So they're like the size of a finger, like larger, taller than your thumb, like wider than, I don't know. It's, it's interesting. They're huge and they're good. They're like mini corn dogs but taught, but they're stuffed and they're cheesy. Speaking of corn dogs, I think today is national corn dog day or something. Happy birthday.
08:38 Corn dogs, corn dogs. Yeah. Whatever. But how do you, I don't know how to celebrate that if you don't, if you don't eat the thing, how do you celebrate this? I all know. But you can come to rise and get some of their tots and then be like, Ooh, these tots are way better than corn dog. Yes. Oh, 100%. But yeah, we ate here. We you know, coming and checking this place out. It's, it's on fifth Avenue. You'll hear about it in the interview. So stay tuned for, for that. And that's going to be our tip of the day for explores Nashville tip of the day. Come downtown, grab a bite to eat at rise. They have extended hours now from seven to a 7:00 AM to 9:00 PM everyday of the week. So you know, there's, there's, there's almost no room for error and coming downtown to try and get some rise.
09:20 Yeah. So we also had them on the YouTube video, so if you wanted to check out our YouTube video top food of 2019 here in the city of Nashville, we introduced the rise as our first one, I believe on that video. So go over to YouTube X PLR dot Nash and watch our video on top restaurants in 2019 and if you're close to rise, that means you're close to marathon village, which is the home to our sponsor screened threads. This episode of Nashville daily is brought to you by screen. The threads screen threads is a Nashville CUREE shop located in historic marathon village. You use code Nashville daily, you get 10% off your next online order. Their website is screened, threads.com mentioned this ad in the store and get 10% off as well. All right everybody, we are in one of our favorite places in Nashville. We should put it on a Google map and like, like official state of our favorite, our favorite place in Nashville.
10:08 We are at rise and we are is, is it rise chicken biscuits. So it's rise biscuits and righteous chicken. And [inaudible] had a name change cause it was rise biscuits and donuts and donuts, which we kind of steered from not focusing on the donuts and the sweet side as much because the biscuits were really where it was at in here and some other friends on that little bit. And then w we, you know, we've incorporated more of the sweet side back into it, but we made the name change in the interim and so we just kept it. Yeah. And we are sitting here with Spencer Bergen. He is the owner, operator, franchisee, owner of rise here in Nashville. This is truly a gift to Nashville and is truly righteous chicken. And so we'll get into what righteous chicken is here in just a little bit.
11:00 You guys are going to have to wait until the end for that to hear what that is all about. But we want to get to know Spencer. We've known Spencer pretty much. I feel like since CQ opened like October, 2018, November 10th of last year, November. And I think, I think Stu, you weren't in the day of or the day after we recorded a YouTube video. You and I, I remember. Yeah, so we've, we've been coming to this place for a year and a half consistently. You guys are some of my oldest neighborhood friends and in, in the area for sure. Yeah. We, we stepped, we stepped in and like, we heard the angels sing and we do biscuits. And we knew that this was a special place, especially in the area that it's in. And we knew, we knew Spitzer was going to be a lifelong friend because of it. But a, a Spencer, you know, you've, you know, you've, you've been in Nashville for a little while and we'll talk about Nashville a little bit later, but let's talk about what led you up to this point of becoming a franchisee, owner of rise and where you are now. So what is, what are some of the things that maybe in, in college or something that you were interested in that has taken you to the point of where you are today?
12:18 Yeah, sure. So I, you know, I did the standard eight or nine year undergrad extended plan to actually get through school. But when I had originally moved out to salt Lake city, I went to the university of Utah my freshman year and I didn't really like it out there. I, I'm from Raleigh, North Carolina originally, so I only did [inaudible] well, I, you know, I saw ironic. I, there was definitely a nostalgia afterwards and I'd love to skiing and all that, but it was just, I, I moved far away from home and I, I was kinda homesick and I love Raleigh. I always thought huge cultural differences, big time, cultural difference. And so it was, I ended up coming back to Raleigh and I didn't really know where I was going. You know, at school wasn't really interesting to me. So I ended up just going to wait tables at a place cause I knew that was a job where I could make decent money without really any prior training.
13:08 So working in a couple of different places for about maybe a year or so each, I ended up finding my place finding, actually I found myself without a job. The restaurant I had worked at for a while ended up closing down and I really didn't know what I was going to do. I'd moved back in with my parents. I didn't have any money. And I remember at the time, I want to say I applied at 24 different restaurants of a span of like two weeks. And just none of them were really working out. I had a friend who had recently taken a position at a really nice restaurant that care to the Duke university crowd out in Durham. And I didn't know much about Durham. It was about 30 minute drive from where I lived by news, a great restaurant. And I knew that he was making really good money.
13:51 Oh, so for Duke fence a big time. Yeah. And well, I mean, if the place is still there to this day, it's still revered as one of the best places in the Raleigh Durham area. But he had, he had a spot out there and it was one of those places where it's tough to even get on and somehow people never left this place, but somehow in one fell swoop I wanna say three people were leaving at the same time. It was just really weird. So I was able to get an interview with the general manager and he put me on as a host, basically in the beginning, I think I had one back waiting shift and one waiting table shift, like a fine dining experience, but it's more, it's like, it's like getting fine dining food in your buddy's dining room that's super laid back.
14:35 Awesome. you know atmosphere with killer food. It's still my favorite place to this day. Awesome. So anyways, about five months into it, because I really didn't care, I was going to hang on as long as I could until I could wait tables full time there. Again for some odd reason. So my knowledge has never happened at this level again. Three other people left this less than six months later. Wow. So I remember kind of going up to my manager and going, Hey yo, can I possibly maybe get another weight shift? And he goes, Oh, you're going to be away or full time. It was just like, Oh, this is great. So I finished college over the next couple of years while working there, but that's really not only where I gained my knowledge on food and wine, which I still hold really dear to this day. But I, it's also where I kind of adopted the culture of what was happening in Durham at that time.
15:22 No, you gotta, you gotta jump back mentally about 15 years ago where celebrity chefs were just kinda starting to pop up on TV in a foodie, was starting to become a really cool thing, a popular hobby for people. And Durham was really kind of on the forefront of that. I mean, the place I worked at was not the only right place. There were other really good ones that had already been there and popping up. And so it just had this amazing food culture going on and people were coming from all over the place just so they could experience that. And so I not only adopted, you know, everything about the food and the wine, but also just my level of service and the pride that we take in that, you know, and that's, you know, something that I still hope dear with, with rise to this day, but any use.
16:03 So the guy that is the CEO of corporate who started rise is an old friend of mine. He was also part of the Durham crowd restaurant crowd. But somehow I have no idea how, but Tom and I never actually worked in the same restaurant. The restaurant that I'm speaking of that I worked at for a long time. He was chef cuisine there probably five years before I ever started there. Okay. Never crossed paths, but we always knew each other cause we saw each other and direct. All right. So anyways, he had a, had a couple of different places and he, I'm pretty sure it was just sick of working at night. He wanted to open a kind of breakfast, lunch place. So we opened one in South Durham and I really, I don't think he ever really thought he was going to do more than one, but it just got super popular.
16:43 Was it called Roslyn tops? Yeah. So that was the very first rise that's still there this day in South Durham. That opened like 10 years ago. This was in 2012. Okay. All right. And so he ended up doing another one and the company that franchises, five guys in Kadoka caught wind of them. It's actually a kind of a weird story. Wow. They were accepting Bitcoin in the restaurant at the time series back in 2013 2014 and there was no purpose behind it. He just thought it was kind of cool. And so he's, I think he said like one person every nine months or something. But because he did that, the company not located in North Carolina caught wind of what they were doing and they came to check it out and they loved it. So they signed rise on to to do this nationwide franchise. So we had caught wind, my business partner and I that they were going to franchise.
17:30 And so we, we got on board as quickly as possible because there were areas that were getting bought up by franchisees and we were lucky enough we couldn't get anything in North Carolina, but we were lucky enough to get the state of Tennessee, which I say lucky because one, I mean Tennessee to have the whole state. I mean, you got Nashville, you got Memphis, Knoxville, Chattanooga. There's several really primed cities to a restaurant like this. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, you've got Jackson and put one [inaudible]. Yeah. And so also we're only one state over. So getting back to North Carolina for anything, we're, we're super close. So also I knew that I would be wanting to move to a centralized area, which was Nashville, which I knew was going to be awesome. So I was all for the idea [inaudible] national silly city to Raleigh. Yeah. So like literally the publications and everything says Nashville and Riley Raleigh are sister cities.
18:21 So it just makes sense. They're incredibly similar cities to actually this. The two States have weird similarities. If you take Raleigh versus Charlotte compared to Nashville versus Memphis, they're almost exactly the same distance, same geographical location. One's the Capitol in the center. That's kind of more cultural and pretty oppressive. Where the other ones, the more, did you know that the founders of Nashville were actually North Carolina and so they actually came from North Carolina. So you have James Robertson and John Donaldson and North Carolina in the mid 17 hundreds actually sent them into this territory because North Carolina [inaudible] yeah, they own this land that was not what North Carolina owned all of this land. And then they sent them to this territory to like develop it. So after the revolutionary war, the military or the government was giving military grants for people to buy land in Tennessee, and that's where the city of Nashville has found the wolfs to North Carolina explorers.
19:13 It's just like my story 300 years ago. That's great. Candy. That's awesome. That's crazy. So did you get started with rise back in 2012? No. So we actually, we, this whole thing got into motion. Let's see. It was the beginning. It was early 2017. Wow. so not too long ago at all. No, the franchise started early 17, so it was five years as a staff signed all that. We signed everything on. We actually, we didn't, we opened our first location in Memphis, which is fine because we were dead set on doing our first one, Nashville. And I don't know if I've told you guys a story or not, but our real estate agent in Memphis called us one day and he said, Hey guys, I know you're dead set on Nashville for the first location. But with that being said, this spot opened up in Memphis, you need to come look at this.
19:58 In fact, you need to come tomorrow morning. This is DACA last. And he actually told us that if we didn't sign on the lease, then he'd pay for our plane tickets. Wow. So anyways, we go and I mean if you ever see the location in Memphis, it's, we share a parking lot with Apple and it's really, really nice shopping sites near downtown. Where is it? [inaudible] German town, which is more fun with the mix ups with the Nashville area. Exactly. But but no, it's in Germantown, Tennessee. Just East of East Nashville. So Bri or East Memphis. So right outside the Ikea and stuff is, yes, we're one exit before that if you're coming out 40 but then you still go into town about seven or eight miles. But but yeah, so we saw it and the location was amazing. So we ended up doing that one first. Is Memphis successful big times?
20:40 So Memphis actually became one of the most successful ones right out of the gate. We actually, we funny story about the opening day in Memphis, we knew what the record was for sales for any given rise for the last six years, and we're kind of watching the sales throughout the day about halfway through we're like this, this is not, we might actually get close to this. Wow. Anyway, so fast forward to the very end of the day, we just got killed. I mean, we're so busy and we were something like $7 short of the record. And so people were like, Oh, you should buy something real quick. And I wanted to fake the numbers. I was just happy to be in the same ballpark. But what I didn't realize is that we had a couple of credit cards that hadn't cleared just quite yet. So about three or four minutes later, it actually flipped over and we were something like 17 bucks over the record.
21:22 Then the next Saturday we, a week later we'd beat that by about a hundred dollars and then the next Saturday we'd be up by about a thousand dollars. So it just, it went nuts right away. Wow. so yeah, the, the original one that had mentioned, it was always, you know, King of the Hill and we Memphis this gave it a run for the money right away. Do you think it was D do you think it was just, it was just the right timing and Memphis was ready for something like that? Or do you think just just rise anywhere has set themselves up to perform? Like it is definitely both. You know what I mean? It's like you guys talk about how just loving rise. You know, I had the same epiphany when I was a customer at rise long before I ever even had any idea that was going to get involved professionally. But a great location, like I said, and it was just German town.
22:04 Tennessee was really excited to get something like rise. Nashville was too, but it was just super, super intense for Memphis. We we were, you know, I was out there for weeks leading up to us actually opening and my general manager and I, we'd be at Walmart just grabbing stuff for the restaurant with the rise hoodies on and people would stop us. They'd go, Oh man, we can't wait for you guys to open up. [inaudible] Oh yeah. It was crazy. Did they already do, they just didn't know about it. Yeah. You guys have like a marketing plan? Like did you guys blitz the market with like social media and like billboards and stuff? Yeah, absolutely. So we have our own, our own direct marketing company that was, that was putting the word out. But you know, my big cry, thanks. And credit to a saddle Creek shopping center, which is where it's located.
22:45 I mean, their marketing team is unbelievable there. They got the word out and people knew it was coming and it was great. Oh wait, that's incredible. So let's talk about the induction to Nashville. Sure. What led to, what was the time between Memphis and, and getting a store in Nashville? So we had, we had about nine months. So I had a busy 2018 to say. So yeah, we had gotten to a point where we had, we had Memphis running really well. We had that cruisy so I felt a little more comfortable coming back to Nashville, which was good cause I think my wife was about ready to go crazy cause I had already relocated to Nashville, located in Nashville. So we opened in March of 2018 in Memphis. We had, we had moved to Nashville about a month before my wife started working and I kind of said, Hey, I love y'all.
23:29 I'll see you later. Please don't kill me. But I was essentially, I was in Memphis for about 90 plus percent of the time. Four, six, seven. Okay. Anyways, so we came back, got everything ready for the Nashville one. We opened that one in early November of 2018 so yeah, it was, it was right on top of each other. So has has Nashville broken any records so far? Nashville has actually been the number one store on several weeks. Nashville is very interesting. You know, you guys being down here, different demographic, it really is. Do you know what I mean? It's great because you've got the food culture is just so intense here, which I love. You know, I'm, I'm right in my element. But you've also got the, the adage of what's going on in downtown Nashville, you know, if there's going to be a bunch of tourists and stuff like that.
24:18 So we have a competition of chicken. This is true. That's, that's a big competition time. You know, I, I definitely was humbled trying to open a chicken based restaurant in the city of Nashville, which I know our chicken stands up to it. I'm, I'm, I'm proud of what we do with ours. But yeah, I mean you got some amazing big time players that have such good chicken here. So but yeah, so we had a weekend, we had a couple actually like a SCC tournament when that was down at Bridgestone arena. I mean, this place was a match. It's coming back this year. I can't wait. We have the contract for the next five years. I had heard that. Yeah. So we had to with that. Yeah. Yeah. We have 2000 until 2025 I believe. Nashville's not having any trouble getting those, those extended contracts going at all.
25:03 That's great. And that's one thing I love to, you know, just the, the people that brings to the city, you know, I can, anybody that comes through I can say, Hey, you know, you, I'm from out of town. And then we ended up sparking conversation about, you know, where they're from. What I, what I didn't include in my story is that I had a nine year period in between finishing working at that restaurant where we are LA. We got our last company with my current business partner, which was automotive software. Oh wow. Actually ran all the implementation for it. So I went to car dealerships all over the country for about nine years. Oh. Several hundred car dealerships. That's a different business then. Big time. Wow. And and so I've seen a lot of these places, whether it be the big cities or you know, which guitar or something like that, you know.
25:46 So I luckily can speak somewhat intelligently with a lot of people that visit from out of town. We have, I've talked about the airport or something, you know, but it's one thing I really, really love about this location that is speaking of location, you guys are located along fifth Avenue. We are and what led to you guys located here in downtown as opposed to, you know, maybe in German town or in South Dashville or East Nashville or, you know, in the nations. Yeah, sure. So, so typically, well, I shouldn't even say typically 100% of the other rises that I've opened about two dozen to date are all in residential areas. We wanted to, we wanted to have went down in the, in the major metropolitan area where we could, you know, play into that tourism crowd. But also we we originally actually had a location in our sites for quite some time that was South of Broadway close to the country music hall of fame, which he thought was really cool.
26:43 And then that ended up falling through. And I remember being really bummed about that. But then we ended up with this location, you know, a block and a half North of Broadway. And as we started going and moving forward with this location, I started Dawn on me that there is so much just company business up here. Yeah. And it's actually worked out to our favor because we have such a huge business crowd Monday through Friday. And I mean our catering catering explodes at this location just because all the companies they want, you know, they want to cater either breakfast and breakfast or breakfast for lunch, which has been really popular lately. What breakfast for [inaudible], you know, with the evening hours to now we're seeing that breakfast for dinner is holding strong is as something that's popular now. So what are your hours here at rise? So every once again, every other rise they all close at 2:00 PM my Memphis store, we closed at 2:00 PM here.
27:28 We started back in late October of staying open until 9:00 PM and you're the only store, currently we are the only store that stays open for the evening hours. So has opening in the evening like bed successful big time? Yes. So it actually, I was a little apprehensive about doing it because one, the people that had actually tried the evening hours before, but they didn't change the menu at all. So I knew we had to adjust the menu somewhat. Even with breakfast for dinner being popular, we needed to put some stuff that was a little bit more lunch slash dinner friendly. So that's when we came up with a different chicken sandwich menus where we put the five new chicken sandwiches on. We put the sides of the maca cheese, the the grits. Jesus. Fantastic. Thank you. I appreciate, I'd love that. Love that recipe. And then you know, we just added the things that would make it a little more plausible to come in and have dinner.
28:16 So we're definitely seeing a lot of that. But the funny thing is, is that we're still seeing a lot of breakfast for people. We'll take the chicken sandwiches, then they'll go, yeah, that looks great, but you know, can't get on biscuit. You. Of course, you know, we got this gets all day. So, but we here at night, since you guys change, I think it's a dozen times almost. Yeah. It's been some, something like that for me. Yeah. And I hear the same thing everybody gets, I'll thank you so much for opening. I don't go to work until after two o'clock. So I was so stoked to see you.
28:41 Yeah. The thing I love about rise is your average price per sandwich is around six $57. About seven bucks. And then a side is $3, two $53. So you can get the entire delicious meal for under 10 bucks. You can't get that anywhere else near downtown. That's tough. Especially later in the, in the evenings. And you know, it's, it's funny that, you know, a lot of the other businesses, especially the, the arcade you know, they're shutting down at their business hours.
29:13 Yeah. That blows me away. I still don't understand how people leave work. Yeah. Okay. Could have such potential to be a nightspot big time. Yeah. And I don't understand how they pay their rent. That's all from Manny's [inaudible]. Yeah. Cause all those places are great. They're fantastic. But I, I've still even being in here for over a year, there's a handful of them I still haven't eaten at, cause I'm usually literally just the research on it. There's 27 eateries inside the arcade. Yeah. Yeah. I mean maybe I've done a half that maybe had four. Yeah, maybe five. Yeah. And I've loved everything I've had in there too. So we'll get there. [inaudible] Pizza. Yes. Okay. What are your thoughts there? I think it's great there. Those are buddies. They come in, they actually come in here. Oh yeah. Gumbos had had a loved that to fade into the Australian fish place.
30:06 Rich. I've had the one time and it was killer. Yeah. Grey fried fish. I love it. Yeah. Okay. So speaking of food, we haven't even gotten to the food yet, so I'll be righteous chicken. Where did, where did that kind of term come in? Righteous chicken and you know, how does that separate or, or how do you feel that the chicken at rise separates itself from, you know, other fast casual chicken places? Sure. So, you know, I get asked that a lot, where the righteous chicken come from. I actually, I've got everything from, you know, is it religious background and things of that nature. But the easiest way to think of why we chose righteous chicken is think of the fonts. You know, like fonts, what you'd say is righteous or something like that. You know, it's just, it's, it's a, it's a synonym for cool.
30:50 You're right. So but as far as how the chicken stands out you know, without getting too into the recipe, but you know, we, we put work into it before we ever serve it. You know, we, we, we've got a brine that we use a real, actual simple recipe for the brine, but it's one of the best I've ever actually used. And then you know, we've got certain oil that we use to make sure that we were cooking it in just the right time, just right temperature. And you gotta have the right dredge to, you know, you gotta have enough where you're getting some good flavor but not too much where you know, some of these guys, they've got 18 different spices in their dredge and you know, the flavors are fighting with each other the whole time you're eating it. You know, you want to go simple but as, as big as you can without overdoing it.
31:31 Yeah. One of the things that that I think Stewart and I both noticed that probably everybody else who walks in here is notice this attention to detail is something that is not overlooked. I'm sure that probably comes from, you know, your background in the, in the fine dining world and everything. Everything matters even in the automotive world. Cause that's all about detail. Big time. Yeah. You get, you got make sure you have your details, but that industry too. Do you see, you know, those kinds of things have, have made a positive impact on, on rise here in Nashville? Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, and luckily it's, it's stuff that I get to pass down to my staff to, you know, where I've been. I've been lucky in both locations to get some really, really great staff and you know, they, they see that passion that I have from, from where I come up from and what I, what I care about, what I want to put into the restaurant industry.
32:17 And they, they adopt that. It's great. Yeah. So, yeah, but by all means. So what are we'll get a little bit more personal with the food. What are your your go tos for eating here at arise at rise then? I have Frankenstein. So many of the other menu items my, my go to is always been a chicken biscuit, American cheese and pickles. That sounds super [inaudible] so good. We actually, we had it as a featured thing on the menu. It's the old deluxe and you know, we rotate through the, through the feature thing. So it's not on anymore. But you know, we always, we always make your own battles too. Or I, we don't make our own battles, but everything else on that is the cheese. They go to a farm down the street in Tennessee, you'll feel fine. Pickles for sure.
33:03 Yeah, I got a bunch extra time to actually start getting into pickling link too. And you know, you guys just came out with a new menu with this, with these new hours. What are some of the favorite things that you've seen either people really respond to? Are some of the favorite things that personally from this new venue? Well, it's to mentioned Mac cheese. I mean people just go nuts over the Mac and cheese. Yes, it's really good. But that's another one. You know, that, that it takes a while to make that, you know, with that, there's a lot of love in that Mac and cheese. So, you know, I, if you don't mind me asking, I assume there's about three different types of cheeses and that Mac and cheese. I, yeah, actually only have two. Only two. Yeah. That's awesome. So, all right, so we'll get into two Dashville real quick.
33:44 You know, you said you moved down to Nashville early 2018. What, what are some of the things that, I know you're probably familiar with Nashville, Nashville might not have been new to you, but you know, since being a resident, what are some of the things that you've grown to love about the city? May probably be faster to tell you the things I, I, I found, I don't love in Nashville. I, I am, I am a huge food junkie, you know, and, and Nashville, honestly, especially per capita has proven itself to be one of the better food stays in the country. Three years, a hundred restaurants. It's unbelievable. I mean, I have a laundry list. I've been at so many restaurants, we, the 10 days leading up to us opening. Yeah. We're just, I mean, we're in here for 15, 16 hours. We're just being right.
34:28 But we wanted, we had corporate in town too, so we wanted to go out and try some of the different places and I should've written them down. I could think of them if I had to. But we went for the 10 days leading up to opening. We tried 10 different places. I'm talking like husk four Oh four like all these really, really good places. I have never eaten that good and we can half in my Tyler. So I had this like kind of laundry list of of places and I've hit a ton of them and I still have so many that I'm dying to try. You won't be able to, it'll be like New York soon. You won't be able to keep up. I know. And I'm, well right now there's about 6,300 restaurants in Nashville that's including gas stations, fast food. And I've eaten that like not fast food places, but I'd eat in like at 700.
35:09 Wow. That's awesome. What was that step from New York that you so stat in New York is there's enough dinner restaurants alone. It will take 55 years to either every individual dinner restaurant in New York city. Sounds like a challenge, but that sounds like an extra third life goal. But then the thing is, is like you have so many restaurants opening, so that statistic like probably changes all the time. Sure. It's exponential, but yeah. Yeah. So, you know, obviously the food scene is here. Culturally. What are some of the things that you've, you've seen here? My other vices, like music. I mean, ever since I've, I've ever since I was a teenager, I've always, I've just traveled all over the place to see live music. Right now. The city's nuts, you'll, they'll, you'll have some band that never plays shows and they've got two world tour dates, you know, it'll be London in Nashville.
35:55 You know, Nashville is always the one that they make sure that they stop that right last, if you make it in this and you make it anywhere. Oh yeah. And I mean, and all just the different venues. You know, they, I live over in German town. They just put Brooklyn bowl up. I've already got two or three shows in the next three or four months. I want to go check out there. Yeah, we're excited about that venue. Oh man. It's gonna be great. What's another one of your favorite venues in town? Have you been to the Reiman several times. He actually rhyme. It's fantastic. I mean, yeah, so I've been to the Ryman, I've been to grand old Opry. I just went to the opera for the first time. It was, that's amazing. Such a cool feel. I was talking about this to somebody else's, the opera thing, because even preserving a style of presentation for music that is not found in any other places anywhere else as far as delivery with several artists and getting, you know, featured having, you know, the the normal band in the background, you know, the, and then the artists just hops up on front stage and goes for it.
36:48 I mean, that's how it goes down. You know, I, they, the week that we opened, I think Bob Weir was playing the Ryman and and John Oates just decided to pop up and say, this happens in Nashville. But yeah, I had, I had tickets to two nights of a, of a bandaid ascend and I couldn't go the second night because Elton John was playing. So it's like, I mean, only in this city, I can't go see one of my favorite bands the second night, this guy goes to Elton John. That was his last show ever. Right? I think he came back when would this last October. Yeah. And then I think he circled back around and he got did like a year and a half tours, but national I think twice. Yeah. Did in the beginning and then came back. He did it the second time on the, on the end of the tour.
37:31 So but yeah, and then I where else? So yeah, I've been to st VIN Bridgestone. I mean it's, it's unbeliev I think in the, in the year and a half I've probably caught a dozen shows at least. That's great. Yeah, it's awesome. You know, Brawley used to have this great fiber music scene and it kind of leveled off a little bit, so I really missed that. So that was one great thing about being here. Did you get the same, same kind of experience in, in Memphis? Just catching some of the, the bands along Beale street here and there. You know, they, they don't come to admit this quite as much as Nashville. I mean they don't come anywhere as much as Nashville, but yeah. You know, they've got FedEx arenas right down there where on Beale street. And I don't think I actually ever went to an official show at either FedEx or anywhere on Beale street.
38:16 Definitely went, caught the blues guys playing in the bars down. Sure. That's a great experience. Yeah. Do you do you eat barbecue? I love barbecue. Where's your favorite barbecue restaurant? So it's a kind of a loaded question, unfortunately, because I'm a North Carolina boy and I grew up on Eastern North Carolina, which I I, I, I shouldn't be saying this on a recording, but I've been known to actually take the barbecue and sneak a little bit vinegar on it. That's fine. Yeah, that's fine. There's no shame. Okay. I'm glad to hear you say that because there's other people that definitely don't feel the same way. But yeah. So in Memphis. I, I, you know, I haven't been to too much barbecue actually in Nashville now that I think if I've been to Martins. Okay. What we're worried about, I thought it was fantastic. Okay. And I also, what did the sleeper at Martins is their baloney sandwich.
39:00 Oh yeah. It's so ridiculous. Good. And they got the white sauce at Martin's too, which is great. Which you can't find everywhere. But then tops in Memphis. I don't know if you guys ever been to one. Yeah. You know, I mean they're, they're kind of, it's like they, they, most of the locations, they bought a burger King that closed down for something, turn it into the other three fast food looking and their barbecue is out of control. It's so ridiculously good. One right one that you need to check out with honey fire. They do have a little bit more vinegar based sauces I've heard. So that's in Bellevue one Bellevue place. It's my favorite barbecue restaurant. Yeah. And then my second favorite barbecue restaurant is B B's barbecue on a highway 96 and Franklin is a Jack shack. You drive up the guy who like takes your cash, also hands you your food and it's, it's amazing. That's awesome. Yeah. So favorite brisket is there, is it one of those places that kind of closes when it closes? [inaudible]
39:55 I love those places. Oh, it's fantastic. So you know, every question they'll be like to ask a guest, I know you haven't been in Nashville for too long, but what do you think nationals still missing besides transportation? Man, that is an interesting question. Some people have said theme parks, some people have said the beach. It just depends on your preference. Definitely the beach is low. I mean, I'm coming from growing up in a place where I had the beach two hours away from me, several beaches within a five hour driving distance. You know, what's the closest beach? Destin at about hours. Yeah. And then you, you get your your Daytona and everything like that are also about the same distance to Charleston in eight hours to, if I'm not mistaken, you cut down through Atlanta. So yeah, I've definitely, beaches are missing somewhat. You know, I'm, I love going to the beach.
40:47 I was surprised at the lack of convenient movie theaters. You're absolutely right. There's one coming into downtown [inaudible] a hundred Broadway right? Or the one next to it. The national yards. So it's going to be like a premium. I don't know if it's going to be Regal or AMC. But your closest theaters operate. Yeah. For bills. Yeah. I go that my go to is actually we, we typically go green Hills. Okay. It's excused state whole foods, which now we're going to have the top right next to the green Hills. Traffic is going to come downtown. How man, what's it going to be? Nice. It's gonna be a blessing. Yeah. You gotta love green Hills, but you adopt all of their traffic to get down there. Luckily they got another trader Joe's in, so some of that trafficking kit, go back to the West side a little bit.
41:27 We'll find you think too on Sunday I was at the trader Joe's, the green Hills one, and we've been using the other one also. And it was great because they opened the second and the green Hills was accessible. Yeah. Yeah. And so we go in on Sunday and it's just a normal, and actually you can actually park there now. The at the original location. Yeah. You kind of, it's still a little tricky, but but we, I ended up asking, the guy who bless his heart looked really tired. I said, you know, I thought it did slow down at all when they opened the new one. And he said, yeah, for a little bit. It's ramped right back out. And now it's trader Joe's for you. If you go to the trader Joe's, the one that's on white bridge pike, there's a restaurant in that parking lot called dolts.
42:04 They have some of the best milkshakes in Nashville. Cool. Like this Americana food place and they have the best Philly cheese steak in Nashville. Very cool. Now, you know I was Philadelphia resident for about four years so I can get into a whole conversation about good Philly. Yeah, me too. Nope. Don't adults does it the best in Nashville. Okay. But other than that, every other Philly cheese steak and Nashville sucks. I mean I take your recommendation too and I never, I never tried any of your best burger recommendations either. I just didn't get out [inaudible] I had not had Hugh baby. I was down at the new one in East Nashville about a month ago or something. We were just checking the news. I haven't been inside there yet, so we were checking it out and I didn't. It's a really cool place. I remember you saying Hugh babies, so I thought you had given me a new top burger restaurant.
42:48 I'm the first one in the video. Did we had this conversation right? Yeah. Are you a butcher town hall? Burger fan? Have you had their burger? I like butcher town halls burger. I just prefer their meat tray. I'll be honest, like just their meat Draper for over their burger. And there's a couple of things I prefer to purchase town hall, but man, their burgers, their burgers, they're street corn. Have you had the street quartz? That's fantastic. Their case. That was killer also too. Okay. So my favorite case, I took their case on, I covered it in their brisket. I love you so much. I swear it's the same brain. It's awesome. So Spencer, what something either personally or for rise you're looking forward to here in 2020 so I really want to focus on being the GoTo place for office catering, catering in general really.
43:33 But you know, I D the one real rewarding thing as far as I as feedback that I get from what we've done in the last year is everybody from the office is going, you know what, this was just perfect. This is exactly what we needed. You know, we wanted to either do this event or we wanted to just say thanks to the crew and the food. Everybody loved it. And, and it really just made the day for, for everybody who's getting, what's a catering package that you guys offer. So let's talk about that for a second. Well we got new one out cause I see this game day catering. Exactly. Chicken strips, 12 donuts and veggie chicken, right? Yeah, exactly. Well you could, you could sub the veggie chicken for it so it's not a gigantic amount of food. You know, you're looking at feeding about that, that 12 to 14 person range or so.
44:13 But I mean we run that in special for 60 bucks right now. So yeah, exactly. Chickens. Right. Exactly. Yup. So amazing. Yeah. So we've been rotating those out so they've been that one. That one's actually probably gonna go after the Superbowl, but we'll have another one in the place in lieu of it. But then the catering is kind of a little bit more towards like Alec cart. So just like you can pick and choose exactly what you guys want me to talk about that, that new kind of, you know, very custom delivery service that, that we had talked about before where, you know, somebody from the office could take a big order but everybody could order individual major menus. It's been great. Cool. Yeah. So our, our good buddy over at major menus just stopped in one day and he said, you know, I'm just going around to the restaurants.
44:56 I got this national based company. They are based, I think he's based out of Asheville. You know, I don't know the answer to that if they're national based or not. We don't have the option to in Memphis, I know that, but essentially what he's doing is he's kind of doing like an Uber eats grub hub type thing. But the restaurant is responsible for making the delivery, but he doesn't take the, the bigger cut that the Grubhubs and the [inaudible] take. And so what he does is he promotes your restaurant, puts your menu out, and the office manager, whoever just kind of goes around and says, Hey, who wants to have lunch brought to them today at the office? So you'll have some days where, you know, only five or 10 people order. And then, you know, I think ours today we've got 40 people watching two different offices ordering so they can order, we'll run it over to them.
45:43 And so that you have a full time like driving delivery. Do you walk in, do you guys take bicycles? Like about are delivering, what's your delivery? We're competing with that Jimmy John's bike guy. Although we do have some locations that we, that we go to, they're in downtown. But I, I went to Antioch yesterday. You went down there and you went to Antioch yesterday for a catering order? Yeah. Wow. Usually not that far out, but every so often. Yeah. But I mean, it's great though, you know, we get the word out, you know, I'll, I'll get the word out anywhere and we've gotten great feedback from it. You know, people, people say, you know, I hadn't even heard about you, but we actually, we, I had it in my office the last month and I'll go a major menus. We get major menus all the time. So yeah, it's been a great way just to get the word out.
46:24 Let's do something really interesting of parking in the five Oh five, right? Well we actually ran a promotional thing for a little while where we were doing two hours free parking in the deck that we're located at right next to the five Oh five [inaudible] on the weekends. On the weekends. Yeah. Somebody got that promotion the longer not currently know. We had that going for a little while. Okay. So, but I will say promotional was definitely give rise a follow on Instagram because you never know when they're going to throw a giveaway on there. We've got one going right now actually. So you know, I think that's, that's the cool thing about what you, what you do is you're not afraid to just get rise out there and make sure that it's known and tasted by everybody who, you know, I mean, look, I'll tell you built brands.
47:08 Yeah, exactly. I didn't look, I, I'm, I, there's an ulterior motive in there because I know just like the first time I tried it as a customer, if I, you know, it's almost like the weird crack dealer mentality. It's like, I'll give it to you the first time, but I'm going to see you in here a bunch for the rest of you. How much I talk about rise. You want me both and I'll tell you. So, you know, I just want people to try it and see how great it is and hopefully fall in love with it, you know? Absolutely. Where can people follow rise on social media? So a, where downtown Nashville is a, is the handle for for Instagram and then we are just rise biscuits Nashville on Facebook. Awesome. Yeah. Awesome. Well. Spencer, thank you so much for talking with us. We'll be in here again, no doubt, not only to eat but to record as well and we'll hear more from you and we're looking forward to what's going on in 2020. So thanks for coming on. Thanks guys. Appreciate it. Thank you guys
48:01 For listening to our national daily podcast episode with Spencer, the owner of rise here in Nashville. What an incredible guy. We can't wait to go back there. We are going to end today's episode with a local Nashville artist. Specifically. Today's going to be Patrick Carpenter and we are going to be playing his song coming back stronger. And we have the link for Patrick's music in our show notes and Patrick has been in Nashville since 2014 and I think you have the right to call yourself a local by now. People may disagree with me, but let's say, go ahead. You, you've been around for a while in Nashville now. Patrick's favorite restaurant. It's his Ted's Montana grill off of West end. If you are a fan of the podcast, you know that one of our favorite restaurants is really close to there. And that is Hugh babies. A huge babies has a Western location that's just steps away from there. And Patrick said he specifically likes their bison burgers there. So that's Ted's Montana grill off Westin. Again, we are closing our episode up with Patrick carpenters' song coming back stronger. We will see you guys tomorrow.