The Story Behind The Best Pie In The World.

all right mate welcome to the podcast so glad to finally get you here thank you for bringing all the [ __ ] food everyone watching this is only like not even a tenth of what he bought us um I am so full right now but thank you so much I'm so stoked to get you on here because hospital is my background um and I love content and I love all the stuff that you're doing so I'm really Keen to dig into this but if you you know give the little crowd an intro who are you where'd you come from g'day I'm uh Darren I've got two cafes I've got Ashby in Saint heliers and mint Cakery in Ellerslie uh and my Instagram and Tick Tock handle is

deserts cooked nice nice so um my actual first question is this is just because of my interest where did Ashby come from uh it's the street name yeah how simple is that that's actually a real good story yeah so when we when we first opened we had a name that we had taken from our first shot which was skybird yeah um and so when we first opened we opened as a pop-up got the neon signs where everything was labeled skybird and then a local business came round and spout differently they had like a keto cookie business oh yeah um and we pushed it right to the end we pushed it right to The Season's assist leader and eventually uh came back and changed to Ashby

because it was the street name that's funny so they went out the yeah it was it turned out her partner was a lawyer and it was um fun at the time until until it was potentially money involved fair enough fair enough good reason it changed now I like Ashby that's why I um I was asking because I thought it was cool yeah I think I like it more too anyway yeah it's really grown grown into it it's a great name I didn't realize that's the street that's kind of dumb Christian now but but actually I really love it like simple classic New Zealand yeah I think New Zealand yeah it's really good borderline polished yeah you know it's still it's a pie but it's not

just the pie you know it's like Borderland corporate yeah yeah I love it um okay I want to start off with because so as you know like my history is all hospital I love this world and I love that you have like conjoined the two things that I love like hospital and making content but I want to go back and I want to hear like what is the story tell me your hospital Journey where'd you come from where'd you train do the give me the three-minute Spiel of the CV sweet so yeah so Express TV in high school I worked in a Mad Butcher and I was there for six months cleaning mince just all of the all of the bad jobs and um so

I've always worked hard so I was there at 5 30 in the morning before school and then I would go back after school and clean down and all of that sort of thing so I was doing 20 30 hours through high school and just just pumping out pumping out work um and then when I was 17 that Christmas I moved to Queenstown and I worked at a small restaurant in our town called saffron yeah um for probably the angry Chef in the country it was it was it was nuts actually when I resigned from that job he grabbed me by my shift coat and threw me across the table in the in the front on the Front Street just lost it completely lost it um

oh that is so good it was oh it was nice I love it it just glossed over there I just threw me out that was it was normal for him my first my first shift Theory um picked up a hot souffle and hurled it at the at the dishwash area and it just shed it everywhere and it was um it was my first night it was New Year's Eve and it was my first night in a professional kitchen completely nuts holy [ __ ] I love it it's like and that world's changed like that you can't get around today anymore and good like good yeah it's so [ __ ] up um but yeah but yeah and so from there I went and worked at a restaurant called rata

in Queenstown which is still there it was um Josh Emmett yep and so I was there as a junior Chef um and a head chef named Helen Turnbull um she's got a great restaurant in Copley Coast called 50 50. okay really really good Chef awesome left there came back did a little bit of Consulting for a pub near the airport which was pretty crazy I was only 20 at the time so it was pretty crazy riding writing menus and stuff for other people but it was it was fun and yeah just kind of threw myself in the deep end edit and yeah bluffed my way through it yeah um and then I picked up a job at Clooney yeah which was in um Friedman's Bay

it closed three or four years ago yeah but yeah really nice restaurant beautiful restaurant was like the I don't know if you ever went but the inside was all dark and like chain mesh curtains uh yeah dungeone workshoppy and yeah real cool and then from there I spent some time in Melbourne and worked at a restaurant called the roving marrow which was like a fine dining European yum cha okay cool restaurant interesting and then yeah back to back to New Zealand and my business partner and I opened our first place when we were 22 which was in point Chev and it was about the size of this room actually it was yeah 20 square meters and we had less than 10 grand between us and

we kind of just signed the lease and hope for that hope for the best and um initially I wasn't meant to work and I was going to find another like fine dining restaurant job but just got busy and um so we ended up yeah opening another shop in remuera sold Point Chev sold remuera opened another one in Ellerslie what were they uh so the point Chev one was called mint Cakery and we sold it unbranded okay and then the REM Euro one was called table talk and it's still there okay cool still really really good yeah um that one was called an apartment above it uh so when we leased the building that was a big part of the risk taken out of it because

we just lived in the apartment downstairs yeah sweet um so yeah so that was really really cool yeah um and then yeah we've opened Ashby yeah uh the first weekend we're supposed to open so it was an old dairy so we full refit yeah and so our original plan was to do a pop-up in the front yep and we would bring food in from our from our hourly site and and sort of just have a barista there and sell a few baked goods while we did the renovations just to cover the rent cover the costs and all of that sort of thing our first weekend was supposed to be open was the first weekend of the very first lockdown oh um so that was quite

scary times because we you know we just put every cent we had into um yeah into fitting the place out and um yeah so but it worked out in the end yeah it's crazy looking back at that time because as business owners we were like oh that's our life over you know but in reality there were so much subsidies there was so much money there was so much um it was kind of silly to think that there would be cafes no more you know or they would that everyone would just be jobless you know like of course people are going to find a way to have jobs and yeah you know the world changes and you can move on yeah yeah I love that like

um yeah I love that attitude and I love talking about the subsidy stuff because I think we might dig into this I'll come back to it because I don't I think a lot of people like bagged out all the [ __ ] they'd have been over that time but as small business owners but like we were carried through like 100 characters because I was the same I started this business the start of lockdown yeah and we'll carry through so I'm going to come back to that because what I want to know is how old are you now 30. Justin 30. so 22 starting your first business what was that like tell me like how did the [ __ ] did you have the balls big enough to do that

um so the win we looked at it so originally it was meant to be my my business partners thing yeah um and so when we looked at it we were living with her parents yeah um we had no overheads we had no debts we had no um outgoings we had no kids we had nothing nothing like that at all that we needed to worry about uh the lease we found was Nineteen thousand dollars and it was a they were happy to give us a one-year lease cool um so we were like sweet if all right I think we had 10 grand of savings that we were going to use for the fit out which was nowhere near enough but we'll come back to that but

uh so anyway so we were like okay cool worst case scenario we lose 30 grand as half a year salary it's not a big deal yeah you know it's we can we can come back from that and even now I was saying to someone the other day who wanted to do like a he's doing like an alcohol distribution business and I was like man like we've got time to go broke three times yeah and still retire yeah you may as well take that risk and um jump in yeah give it a shot so it was it was a calculator risk because you're young enough you could come back from it and it wasn't an excessive amount of money would [ __ ] you for decades yeah it

was kind of like if not now win exactly I love that um I also like we talked about this yourself camera a bit about like how um you start well I talked about one menu thing and you didn't do that for a little while but we'll get back to that but like you started so small and I think that that's quite interesting like what made you know to do that not to like go too big or how did you know to stay small because it sounds simple when we're talking about it but you know as well as me how many kiwi businesses go all in big [ __ ] all at once and then they fail a year later so like well how did you know that

at 22 because that's actually quite Advanced thinking I think it's that risk appetite yeah you know it's I think if the whole fit out and everything was going to cost us 200 Grand yeah we probably wouldn't you know and and and now we're at a time where that probably would be okay you know we probably would have that risk appetite for it and we'd have the you know we have the the systems in place that we have now we've got almost 30 staff um whereas then it was just us you know so we had no staff we had no one relying on us we just had to make the rent yeah okay so um so it was just sort of born out of necessity really

yeah yeah that's interesting um and then as you came through so you you had the the first business and then the second one and you sold both yeah you still remember and punches yeah so Point shift we sold unbranded uh it's actually still a little French pastry shop okay and they've done really well it's so busy and then the pizza shop next to it's really good too oh yeah it's the landlord got it yeah um so yeah so they're yeah they're really good yeah so tell me about that sale like how old were you when you sold it we would have been 25 or 26. what made you sell or was it so basically what happened what we're talking about with growth right um and

so my business partner we were Partners at the time so boyfriend girlfriend at the time um and we had always planned to have table talk for two years and sell it so we saw we sold them at similar times yeah we'd always plan to have table talk for two years and sell it and then move into something bigger at the time I actually wanted to do something nighttime I could do something a bit more like um so I wanted to go down that road originally and so it was you know we did the table talk fit out for 40 Grand and we were hoping to sell it for close to 200 so it would have been a really quick turnaround use that Capital to do

a new fit out and cool um go from there uh what also happened is when we had three shops so having two shops for us is great because one of us can be in one and and kind of the way our business is structured as we sort of do 80 20 for each so Ashby I'm sort of there 80 of the time and Michelle covers me for 20 and you know it's sort of to be honest at the moment it's probably more 90 10 because you know there's it's a it's a lot more established and there's a lot better systems in place and all of that sort of thing so I'm barely there at all yeah um which is great yeah um and so yeah

so when we had three it was really really tricky and the point Chev shop actually lost a lot of soul you know because we didn't have we were doing all the cooking off-site and so there wasn't the smells the noises the um the general hum of a good Cafe and a good you know um Bakery and stuff like that and then because of it being on the other side of town it kind of got a bit neglected and it was you know like it was never quite what we wanted you know stuff like the plants weren't watered and all of that sort of thing that was just really hard to stay on top of um especially at that time we weren't as good at staff

management and stuff well we're still not that great at it but you know we're getting better kind of thing you know it's like I don't know if you're ever good but you know you're like you get you get better and you learn and all that sort of thing so you're young yeah like you're still super young for sure yeah and his [ __ ] age almost yeah so well that was that was the thing as we we had this decision so we were we were selling tell us what was going on the market that January right and so that December we had the choice to end our lease at Point Chev and so basically we had two options we could sell it for pretty cheap unbranded to

friends of ours which was little little French pastry yeah um so we could sell it to them for 30 grand and they would retain any good will because it was staying a coffee shop and all that sort of thing so it was a really good deal for them yeah well the other option was we had to go in and rip out all the all the equipment rip out everything do all of that work and you know probably would have been two weeks work as well it was a pretty easy decision just to yeah um you know that shop had fit it served its purpose and and we'd moved um mint cake reader Alice Lee at that point and um yeah it was we could have

done better yeah but we did pretty well out of it yeah yeah and then what about the room you wear a spot like why why that one so like when that sold how did you like so because because you sold them both at the same time right and so that one I know you wanted to do it for flip but like tell me about that sale like how did you I guess I guess I don't even know how to ask this question how did you have the confidence and like the know-how to know to do that that's what I'm trying to think it just seems like using you so much at 25. we'd copied um I kind of remember his name now I want to

say his name's David but he had dead voice and um little King and MILF Milford okay now um and now he does um Green Door Pizza and um I think he's part of gotchu and good dog bad dog hot dog yeah yeah yeah yeah all of all of those ones um anyway that was his thing his name would build up a build up a cafe get it running really really well and sell it but he was six figure sales that was a lot bigger it was a lot um a lot better at it than than what we were and all that sort of thing but I guess that was the um the model at the time and um it was just a good way to

to build capital and you know like we couldn't get loans we had no houses we had no as Hospital exactly so hard to get loans um yeah and it's not you know both of our parents were telling us not to open and you know and every time we do something it's like oh we're gonna bring on some stuff and it's like and they're like oh but stuff are expensive unless I know but I can't do it myself yeah yeah yeah um so yeah so it was uh and in the end same thing with table talk because of a few like accounting stuff that we we weren't 100 good at yeah we definitely left me on the bone at table talk like it would be worth

considerably more now probably than what it was um but at the same time we'd put so much time until we were done with it um there were so many like little things that needed to be done and and um originally at the time and this wasn't the reason but when Michelle and I split up it was kind of uh a good opportunity to be like okay cool well we've got all this cash now so do we want to stay business partners or do we want to like move on you know like and so that was actually an opportunity at the time as well which gave us both a good out yeah okay which was good for the business and tell me about the sale how

much would it end up selling for we sold it for 175 000. that's not bad and why'd you put in 40 40. yeah [ __ ] that's all right and how many years two two years yeah we took it we took a wage we took a wage the whole time as well that's [ __ ] epic and I say this all the time like I mean you hear my content but like I'm always talking about this like everyone in New Zealand when they're young like this guy right here wants to [ __ ] buy a house to get money and I'm like just do business like 40 200 75 until you can't get that return on property I mean I understand why you do property I get it there's like a

store of money and it's good but like when you're trying to scale Capital yeah nothing doesn't like business right no nothing no way it's you've kind of got to like as well I think like with anything there's no substitute for hard work too yeah and you can't you can't put that hard work into a house unless you're a builder yeah in which case you can make that Capital but yeah it becomes a business right whereas if you put that time and effort into a business you can build that Capital back you know like um and that was for us our whole goal was and so we spoke to a business broker about six months before we did sell it and our whole goal was to

get it to 16 000 a week in sales if you get 16 000 a week you'll get a better price and cool all of this sort of thing because we had a cheap fit out we ended up pretty much being misquoted on it a little bit but not not in a bad way like not against the business broker at all but for example we had no extraction hoods so there was no opportunity for them to put in like gas cookers to do like seeded meals or anything like that it's like as much as we call them cafes we've pretty much only ever done bakeries yeah bakeries is the best way to describe them yeah yeah okay and then um in terms of like table talker

we talk about that one because it was the bigger of the two exits um what was your profit margin on that what percentage-wise were you running at oh not very much so two or three percent two or three percent it was and I think that's interesting to talk about though right yeah because most people would think otherwise yeah they just think oh this faces are [ __ ] humming yeah if any Hospital business is doing 10 they're flying they're absolutely flying so when I was when I was quite Junior and um in hospital and this is before minimum wage went through the roof or anything like that I was always taught you want to run a food cost of 30 yeah a staff cost of 30 and

then everything else of 30 yeah and then that 10 is your is your fat yeah and then it's kind of like okay cool but as soon as you waste five percent of your product you know that's so five percent of 30 is yeah and you you end up losing that straight off your straight off your profit 100 yeah people don't really realize that and and you know what people who get into the thing I love is when corporates go oh I'm gonna cash out and go start a cafe and then they lose all their money I love it that's so funny there's something there's something cynical where I'm where I'm like there's there's and um like on on content on content too when someone comes

in and they sort of you know like they're like oh well maybe you should do it like this and it's like that's a that's an awesome idea like I can't wait to see your shop yeah um you know and it's it's I love it yeah it's yeah I'm uh I'm not very good at listening to it if I say like yeah and like and I think like most people it's like good intentions and stuff but like and I get all the time like there's a few guys on my Tick Tock always come and give me advice and stuff and it's like you don't know the whole story yeah like you're coming off on a 60 second highlight reel give me advice which is fine I

know that they're good intentions this is German dude Thor and like Thor shout out like just keep giving me advice but like they don't have the full information yeah and they love it because they're like part of the community and whatever and I get but I give them [ __ ] like yeah I can thought [ __ ] all the time about his [ __ ] ideas um they're not actually [ __ ] they're just [ __ ] for me yeah um but for you uh when we go back into this thing like that two to three percent is like peanuts it's nothing it's nothing yeah but that's that is good to know after my wage yeah of course I've always taken an hourly wage you know like you have to like you don't want

to get out of work and work for free you know even if it's your own business salary from day one yeah yeah um and that's that's really important to anyone opening a business if you can't afford to pay yourself then you can't afford to open yeah just you know like yeah move on and yeah or figure out how you can make it work for you yeah exactly if you're working in it yeah yeah if you're working in it you need to be paid otherwise your business is you need to be paid what you would cost to replace yeah yeah exactly yeah yeah yeah yeah exactly um so tell me then when if you think about like as your two salaries coming out of um tabletop

what do you reckon as a percentage that would be because that is still kind of profit it would be I'll do some I'll do some maths yeah it would have been 200. about 18 17 or 18 is including us okay cool so what 18 uh so profit would have been actually no that's wrong that's wrong it would have been about it would have been about nine or ten because I was gonna say because I was counting I was counting uh two two wages out of it but actually we had the other shops so if you take one wage instead of the two wages out of it yeah would it be nine nine or ten nine percent total yeah total profit yeah so then then you're

getting to your 10 thing and that's where it comes to play right um but as soon as you replace you back down to two to three yeah yeah as a profit margin yeah yeah I think that's super important for people to know because like people like get into [ __ ] Hospital businesses think they can do it even young chefs who didn't really look at numbers but the thing I can [ __ ] cook it's like there's so much more to running a business and cooking is not enough cookies it's not even the start no yeah no exactly um Okay cool so you sold out of that business and then you had Min Cakery and then how long ago into oh how long how much longer until Ashby came

along so we actually started looking pretty quick we um so yeah so originally we were like okay cool we'll go our separate ways um I was actually like thinking of moving overseas oh yeah I was gonna you know like go and work for someone again and just have a have a bit of a break and all that sort of thing and that lasted about a week and then Michelle and I like sort of met up and we were like oh I actually know like let's um Let's do let's look for another site and let's do something um together from there so then yeah I ended up buying back into buying back into the business and um we started yeah looking for looking for sites and

and all of that and yeah our number one thing we were looking for is cheap rent yeah we're just really looking for cheap rent that's why we're in The Burbs you know like yeah um like one day I would love to have like a ponsonby yeah like late night shop like a 24-hour shop I think that would be really really cool yeah um but at the moment being in the boobs and paying next to no rent is really important for the audience what is like uh for you a cheap rent per square meter what are you square meter you probably want to pay I'll have to do the math I even totally whatever you were so so Ashby is about 120 square meters yeah and

it's about 55 a year 55 a year so what's that like 5.50 per 50. nah fifty dollars yeah I think no maybe that's fifty dollars yeah fifty dollars yeah 120 times fifty it's five and a half no how much is it a year it is 55 000 a year okay let's do the mess Connor can [ __ ] cut out the meth 52 000. yeah fifty five thousand fifty five thousand divided by 120 yeah 458 a square meter yeah is that right that doesn't sound right let me let me mess up the um because mine is mine is hang on yeah and that is about right that is right yeah because we because we have like because that's the other thing as well because at the moment

we've been looking for like a studio and stuff right and so we have um because we have Frontage there to fix it a lot like the rent and stuff as well I was gonna say it is if 50 does I was like [ __ ] that it's good for Frontage like real good that's a quarter of ounce of Frontage that's so cheap for 100 twins I was like [ __ ] you do know how to get cheap rent um but you don't need Frontage for this next one and arguably we don't want Frontage you know like we'd love to do um hidden Oasis yeah and and even like uh my personal friend wants to do he's like cake decorating classes and then we can do like hins parties and

all that sort of thing and you know from there like we can even do like private dinners and stuff like that there's lots of lots of other spaces other uh non-staffed stuff we can do that would be great for Content yeah awesome and also great for like our profiles and stuff as well yeah no I love that um okay so it's pretty soon after you found Ashby and what year are we in now we are when you started uh 2020 yeah so okay yeah that's right of course you just told me that so we were [ __ ] yeah 2020. so it's so new and then when did this start now that we've got to the tech talks so they started started last October I think it

was the first time I got covered so I was like at home for a week and I was like 2022 October yeah um so I avoided it till then um was it the one where you're like 5 a.m opening up a shop was that early days if it was early days as well [ __ ] yeah because that's the first time I saw your content yeah so that would have been 2020 and so I was sort of not doing it seriously at that point my um again Michelle was way ahead of it on me and so she was started to do really well and I was like I want to get on on that and yeah what's your hand also is Michelle morphett Michelle Moffett yeah um

and so yeah and so so same thing we um yeah started doing that and and then the the way the pie started going which is when I started to go really really big was start of this year my friend of house manager was on extended holiday in January because January was always dead um and then my chef got covert the week we came back and so I was like oh well that's I'm not doing sandwiches I don't want to do any sandwiches yeah um and I was originally I said I'm gonna do it for two weeks and see how we go yeah and shots was yeah so it's so much easier yeah and you know and it's like the other thing with the sandwiches so

with the pies we bake them a day ahead yeah um and then so if someone comes in and buys a dozen beef chicken cheese I just heat 12 more yeah um whereas like with the sandwiches like let's say on a Monday we'd make 36 yeah uh someone comes in and buys six that's not unreasonable yeah you know you can't expect someone to pre-order six sandwiches but that's also you know like one sixth of my whole day and like has to be fresh so I've got no fillings left the bridge has to be fresh so I've got no bread left yeah there's just no way to capitalize on busy days yeah yeah that's interesting it's just so funny that I've seen it now Michelle now I

remember I was giving Michelle [ __ ] in one of my comments oh yeah I just I just made the connection like so I know her content yeah yeah but she commented about why does it always have to be about making money uh why do you sell products and then I was like oh but you sell a cookbook I was like I [ __ ] knew you were gonna say that and I was like whoa come on she's good she's put in so much work that's so funny it's such a good book it's so cool it looks epic I actually did a massive deep dive into it I was like I I hadn't even made the connection as you do yeah and that um no that's us that is

cool um I love that so okay so October 2022 you start putting out tick tocks yep when when was the first one when did it pop the first the first big one I remember was one of the my day ones yeah um where I sort of started putting and even I was putting like podcasts I was listening to about like NRL and all of that sort of thing and I was like oh I'm getting like NRL hits now as well as well as food hits and as well as like Bakery hits and yeah all of that sort of thing and trying to make it like really authentic and personal and yeah and all of that sort of thing yeah um and then the the first

video I remember popping was I did like this Fried Chicken Sandwich oh yes I was really disappointed because I did I did a whole series where I I broke down a whole chicken and I did like a dish with every part of the chicken and I was like of course the fried chicken sandwich is the one that's popular on here I was like I made this like delicious like chicken leg with like an orzo risotto all sorts of cool stuff yeah no just fry it and then yeah as soon as soon as I do a fried chicken burger everyone's like oh my god I've never seen this before yeah um and then so yeah then started doing the the prize yeah yeah keep going and

so the pies the pie is from end of last year the videos are actually I look at them now and I cringe because they're so low effort and I didn't do any of the recipe or anything like that and um and so they were uh what's the word and so yeah so they were really low effort but like they didn't really go in depth or anything like that and I looked back at them now and I'm like and they were so lazy you know like it was so so little effort put into it when I could have just done a little bit more work and got um you know got a lot more yeah see there 75 000 and the rest of like 3 000.

yeah yeah yeah um so yeah so I remember that one yeah so that was so that was really really good and then this year because I stopped doing the sandwiches I was like all right we have to do this yeah like properly and so I made some really cool specials because I just put all my skill and all my attention into them and the first big one was the um the chicken katsu yeah chicken Cuts I was gonna say yeah yeah everyone always comes back to that one and I kind of did like an annoying thing with the voiceover too where I was like what if we do this and what yes yes yes yes um it was like it gave me a real like

Charlie puth Vibes yeah you know like it's like what if the noise did this yeah yeah exactly I love it yeah um it worked though yeah no it worked because I was like oh yeah oh yeah oh yeah give me more give me more yeah and and the best thing about that as I was at that time the warriors were doing awful and I did that scene and in where I'm spraying the beer around and it's like what if the Warriors won the premiership and it was like no chance yeah it's like now they're coming now they're coming oh I love to see that one actually yeah yeah that was real good that one yeah yeah no I love that and then okay so tell

me um is they start popping off what starts happening like how is that in real life what was happening at the store oh the shop goes nuts yeah just all of a sudden you have people coming in and you can tell they've come from tiktok because they're looking around you know they're looking for me and they're sort of like they're they're not quite sure what to expect in the shop because you know even really show the shot well and even when you video things like even the videos you put up of here like I kind of had an idea nothing like it yeah you know like nothing nothing like it at all like it looks the same but like the layout the plan the size

all of that is so hard to tell from a video as to especially a vertical video that doesn't really give depth right yeah um and so and so with all of that people when they come to the shop they're often not too sure you know and not not 100 what they're after and all of that and that's the thing with the specials as well as generally these videos they're on the menu for like four days five days so if they see it and then come in on the weekends sometimes not there yeah and they're like that's even the same place like it's this way but I have to get something else um but yeah Shop's gone nuts like like sales have just gone yeah absolutely

mental for Ashby alone yeah uh by the 15th of June we've done the same as we did costume [ __ ] so it's just it's just huge you know I've got twice twice the workforce way more star cool man um and even the costs are a lot better like yeah the you know the wage cost is much better and the food cost is much better we've got a lot more control over our wastage and more consistent Revenue coming in yeah yeah yeah that's so important right like a lot of people in hospital don't realize how important there's like a fixed minimum cost yeah you're always going to cost you this much to get it open yeah exactly um so talk about that like growth so I mean

essentially double June right you've doubled or you're doubling that um tell me how does it um how is the gross trajectory do you see that to continue to increase further than doubling or is it sort of like you know what I mean like is that growth going like this or is it like a steady linear growth it's kind of like a I don't know if you'll notice I don't know if you can see it on there but when I do my videos I end up posting the Clusters so I'll post five videos in a week and then nothing for a week or two and that's because I post the five videos the shop gets really really busy because everyone sees them and everyone comes in

um and then I don't have time to make content for a couple of weeks and then we get ahead we get our system sorted um and then we're like okay cool this is our minimum now and then I go again and we sort of go up another level from from there so it's a real step change sort of stuff interesting how do you get it to be more consistent the content or the everything uh well I just one is content I need I need to cook this yeah I need to I need to be because right in your last video yeah you've got to do more marketing yeah yeah and I've got a bit Yeah be ahead of the curve and sort of you know

like one strategy I've thought about and it's so it's one of those things as well is because I make these because I make these videos I'm not I'm not cooking from a um from a recipe either yeah I'm I'm making it up on the lion so most of them I'll make one batch sometimes I'll make two and so I've often thought like okay cool what if I actually made it wrote The Recipe when I did it ran it for a month and held the content back and and you know and space that content out a little bit more and did um yeah well that was actually from Lewis that was Lewis's idea um shout out smart [ __ ] yeah too smart yeah um and and you

know so for example like the the beef chicken cheese pipe yeah I could do one video that's braising the beef and shooting it and making the sauce one video is that's making the Bechamel one video that's making the pies and then another video in this format that does and that gives me four pieces of content instead of three yeah yeah that's great yeah yeah yeah and so then you're more consistent but you're spacing out the specials yeah that's right yeah okay got it and so like tell me about like just as as for my knowledge when you've got a batch of Pies how long can they last like so the filling itself I generally keep for three or four days unless I freeze it so

if it's a big batch and I don't think I'm gonna sell it I'll freeze half the batch and pull it out and it comes back from Frozen yeah it's totally totally fine yeah um so it depends like for instance the breakfast pies I make one tray because it's like an egg filling so I literally only make 15 of those and then sometimes we'll go again and we'll make um four trays at once and we'll make 60 and then that'll last for two days and then we'll make four trades at once we'll make 60 again and then go from there yeah um so it all depends it all depends on the flavor it depends on the product it depends on how popular it's going to be

yeah like the fried chicken one that was that was a nightmare I kind of I was recruiting doing it about four days into it oh really and I literally I had one morning I had enough for like one day they kick the pie yeah I had uh yeah I had one one tray it's the potato top uh yeah it's up a bit further but closer to the top um and so I had um I had one tray worth of chicken left and I said to my managers this is the last one ever no never ask for it again I'm not I'm not doing it again that's that's finished I know I remember watching that one going [ __ ] I wish I could get out there yeah

I [ __ ] it's my two favorite things fried chicken and Pilots everyone's two favorite things yeah that's sometimes sometimes they're just silly like sometimes some of the flavors like I've only had one flavor that I tried that didn't work and then I didn't make it and that was for I wanted to do like a pancake pie oh okay interesting and so I made a brown butter custard yeah we did plums um flaky pastry base and then we poured pancake batter into it and cooked it cooked it like that so I want it to be like cakey yeah yeah when it came out the oven the first time delicious amazing really really good on the reheat delicious amazing really really good after sitting in the warmer for

an hour awful and it'll be really gross what happened to oh spongy yeah it was like eating a Dish box like it was gross yeah I love that you should just do like trying anything in a in a pie have you seen that guy who used to do it with the wraps that school teacher from Hamilton oh yeah audience so it's cool to see that it goes off and people come in because that means there's a lot of local audience what is the audience make up for you your channel you haven't ever looked at it do you know from like comments and stuff like are people mostly kiwis so from this one here that I did the other day I actually so in there I

said I've got people coming from all over Auckland oh yeah yeah and I've had probably a dozen comments of people going like not just Auckland I came from Brisbane or not just Auckland I came from Hamilton or you know like cool stuff like stuff like that so that's yeah it is a bit broader I get a lot of people asking me to open a shop in Australia yeah you know like kiwis over there Aussie pie is a garbage so [ __ ] yeah they're so [ __ ] yeah so bad awful they're not even pies they're just crap I always found they were always just held back on the gravy you know and the gravy's the cheaper give me the gravy they don't have cheese inside the pie all

right awful why the [ __ ] are you putting it on the top yeah like yeah like on the top but also inside yeah 100 yeah I know I've completely converted clear his Aussie to oh yeah because she's like okay yeah I get it I get it I understand why the first pie I gave her in New Zealand was a steak and cheese from the local Lee Bank Bakery which is like dollar sixty or something like shitty local yeah Bakery pie and she's like this is about this pie I've ever had my whole life and I was like I believe it I believe it and I was like this is one of the worst you can get in New Zealand yeah that shits on all of your

Aussie pies yeah that's so good now we do pies well there's lots of good pie makers around like um blue roast I think the masakai Foodies bring you guys some from Blue Rose uh lamb roast one yeah and that's it like they're very different to owls or even very different to like traditional pies but yeah so good so so good so nice because I was actually wondering that like because it pie like the meat pies like this are very Australian New Zealand thing like even the British pies aren't even like this they're not the same so do like Americans and stuff even get it I think a little bit I think I think when they when they're in New Zealand you know it's something you

do it's that's when you're when you're here you appreciate it and then you remember it fondly as like a thing you did in New Zealand yeah um I'm sure there would be like an appetite for it and like the states or in the UK and stuff but it would probably you'd rely on expats first yeah um to then you know grow into something because what I was wondering is like to go like Mega viral like say Lewis does or tears Tick Tock does or whatever like how do you because it's always Americans audiences that you usually catch yeah how do you get them to understand what apart because they don't understand what pie is like the general American population that's putting New Zealand in the

content yeah but like New Zealand they'll think yeah and I think they'll get New Zealand that's right that's true but like what will they think of as a pie because they think up as pie as like cheesecake or like you know like yeah it's it's dessert yeah they don't think of pies or pizza yeah because they call their big pizza the deep dish and stuff parties the slang word or something yeah I wonder what that wonder what they're like relevant thing is a relative thing is because like no now that you need to go big in that's what keeps me doing it you know it's like every time I get views likes comments like I'm as soon as I post a video I'm on my

phone I've got no notifications and so and the best thing about it though is when you open it you're like oh how many am I gonna happen it's such a dopamine headache that's awesome it's such a dopamine hair yeah it's so [ __ ] crazy like it's so funny how people like oh you know I don't do it for the vanity Matrix like [ __ ] off I do yeah you obviously aren't getting enough views you go get a million views 100 000 views or whatever it might be in it's [ __ ] insane oh there's nothing better when a video goes good and there's nothing worse than when you think you've got a good video Yeah it flops and you're like well man like yeah absolutely I had like we

had our last big one on tears I didn't even know had been posted I was out busy and Joni had posted it was like four hours later and I get a ring from UK from the guys I don't know if you've seen our tears ones but like we're having an agency wall for agency over in Scotland and he Rings me he's like bro this is popping off like people are on elk tick tock's like comments like giving us [ __ ] yeah I said what are you talking about he's like your last video I was like my last video was yesterday my Vlog it's like not yours no one watches yours all right then I saw it pop off and then that was it like for two

days yeah just like comments and comments and comments and um but it's such a dopamine hit like it's such a funny thing I never really understood it at all um I had a few on LinkedIn that blew up actually and would get like you know 500 comments or whatever yeah but then when it happened on tick tock hey just wait till it doesn't happen I used to have it happen in 2016 or 2018 every single video I post on Instagram and as soon as it hit to 2020 it just went boom just everyone and it was the saddest thing and you just saw everyone stop posting yeah I couldn't get the hits anymore I found Instagram's just had a big reboot though yeah in the

last in the last little while it's it's had a but I had it must have been about six weeks ago I would have had 500 followers on Instagram and now I've got seven and a half like it's just it's slower than Tick Tock but they're a lot more direct yeah I think so too and I think um it's the discoverability on Instagram's improved a lot because of reels because they're trying to copy Tick Tock yeah they have to of course they have to they have to yeah and it's so funny because like I don't know if you read um or you read a headline or anything about Mark Zuckerberg talking to his quarterly report he's like the more we put into reels the more engagement

and attention we're getting the less money we're making yeah it's just like it's good for having a better platform but we're gonna be broke yeah it's such a funny Dynamic he has to play with now and like tick tocks doesn't make money I think yeah I think you were speaking to Lewis about it um when he was here and like like you said tick tock's got to find a way to um to monetize it and I think it'll be I think it'll be exactly how you guys said where any sponsored content will be through Tick Tock and they'll clip the ticket there yeah it has to be really good for everyone yeah yeah it'd be good good for everyone if tick tock's doing well and

making money because then they'll push the sponsored content and that makes it worth more yeah yeah and Tick Tock shop is going to hit here I mean they're obviously trial in some of the big markets but like um that same agency and sociable that we're doing the um series with they uh Tick Tock shop agency and so they do it and they it's crushing yeah like they're like saying it's just like popped off really well because you don't even have to leave there if you just purchase it so I imagine if I can order six of your pies just like in the video it looks [ __ ] awesome boom can we do that yet here no no doesn't come here we'd have to go we'd have

to get a VPN open up a shop and we can't do it like this place around it like but you gotta it's just [ __ ] admin yeah it's just admin but also like you can't do it to our account at the moment either we're going to be over in the UK and also I guess like kiwis wouldn't be used to it right it's it's good and it's good in the markets that it's in because they're they're getting it every third video so they know what they they're familiar with it it's it's like the first time you use an Uber and now you don't even think about it exactly yeah yeah you got like you wouldn't do in New Zealand until it's launched properly yeah let Tick

Tock do all the heavy lifting um but can you imagine like can you imagine your sales oh [ __ ] go off and then you just got some real good shipping thing going on yeah it's boom you just would know you'd have days you'd get like a hundred thousand pie orders yeah we'll just imagine you just like you'd have to have limits on it you'd just crush your whole life yeah because you've got no cap on it you've got no you know it's a fresh product they're making more or less it's uh yeah it's like okay cool like you have to put like a kept at 100 and then I've got a hundred thousand people trying to win like three months wait for your pie yeah yeah

I I actually think like fresh food stuff like this and I don't think and actually unsociable Ben you should we should talk about this that I think no like Tick Tock shop aren't doing this they're not doing fresh produce stuff which is hard as [ __ ] yeah but if you can if you're like a massive commercial kitchen like someone a bit of capital and you found someone like you and you're just like come in yeah teach our team how to make this pie yeah and just let it go well that's yeah I mean that's that is the next step for us anyway as I do of course I'm kind of done with shop fronts yeah like the um like I've got an amazing team an amazing

team of staff and all that sort of thing but we're we're at the mercy of everything at the moment you know someone's sick um it pretty much takes me off content yeah um you know and it's like it's not unreasonable for stuff to get certainly get sick all the time yeah um and and that's where like if we didn't have a shopfront that wouldn't happen you know like their job would just get bumped you know and that would and that would be fine and then everyone would pick up a little bit more of the load for the rest of the week and life would go on yeah um and so yes I think we're going to move away from shop fronts and focus more on

you know like what are we bothering selling coffee for you know like it's it's you know we've done that for eight years now and you know it's not we're not playing shop in point Chev anymore it's you know it's time to yeah to scale up and level up and like say like get a warehouse like get get this thing content Studio commercial kitchen yeah the urine delivery system or whatever you need like that and then just pump content out yeah [ __ ] yeah that's so good I would [ __ ] love that business if you need to invested um like that is so [ __ ] cool and then like that's when you get into YouTube right because then you start documenting that whole thing yeah and you show the

full recipes of how to make stuff and all that sort of crap because you can't really do that here the same way right like you can't do like a I like to keep them under a minute and a half yeah you can't do it's not no one's going to watch a [ __ ] and even like half the time I find myself leaving out stuff that I think is really important so like every single video I do is at least 60 videos yeah um and I and I always find myself leaving out something that I think is important and like annoys me when people comment like oh what about putting this in it and I did I just didn't put it in the because I ran out

of time and I just you know like I really wanted to make this little joke halfway through and yeah so it was more important to me to do that um yeah so yeah so it's it's hard to do that when it's not as in-depth but I also don't know if anyone would want to watch you know 10 15 20 minutes of it and if that would be engaging not on Tick Tock I don't think like there is the ability to do long videos but I just don't think it's it's not why you go to tick tock no you go for dopamine hits and stuff like that skip them yep same I'm not in it for that the only time I get hooked in is the

[ __ ] movie ones oh yeah oh hey I'll watch a whole movie in vertical format and I'm like why did I just do I sometimes do that and that sometimes as well where you have to go to their pages and you're like but sometimes as well when you start that you start on part two and then you're like oh what's happening here but it's interesting yeah and you've got to go back and then you're oh that wasn't worth it but then you go to number three and then they don't give you the last part and you're like yeah I need parts it's like go to Netflix and watch the whole thing yeah I love that but like YouTube for sure like obviously we had a look

at YouTube before which you've done two videos with and whatever but like I definitely think you should be doing YouTube like the YouTube Shift shipping world is huge right yeah I mean look at like look at Babbage do you watch them yeah like he's at 10 million subscribers now like that's huge what does that even mean yeah that's ridiculous and I think I think your thing I I actually reckon this is you're going to be your issue growing YouTube and stuffers how to get the rest of the world to know what a pie is yeah how to make the connection because like you know you can travel everywhere people don't know what pies are no they just don't know what they are yeah no one

understands it that's Australia Australia and New Zealand and that's and that's 30 million people Max that's your total Market size and how many of those people actually subscribe to stuff on YouTube I wonder if I did like a series of uh national dishes you know like because then that instantly draws people in like gotta get outrage because they're not at all traditional you know and it's um I end up putting saline miso and everything because it's delicious um but uh that would probably that would probably do it as well yeah it's a clever way just to move move in that direction and or like um I'm gonna make a pie for every state of America yeah because actually you only really need the US once

you get the US you can get the rest of the world because it goes viral in the US because there's such the biggest users of social media and that'd be easy that'd be pretty easy to do like jambalaya pie they're beyond you know like Philly cheesesteak pie every yum yeah yeah New York hot dog pie that'd be cool and even if you got like real in-depth like because you know like all the things you're saying like things are famous for but if but you know you know as well as me that that's not actually the food the locals yeah they they do but like the real true like yeah if you can find that level of like what's the things that like every day people

eat yeah um because it's like it's like everyone thinks of like kiwis and Aussies oh you guys eat Vegemite toast and it's like yeah we do but like like that's not the national dish bro yeah once a year yeah nothing else yeah that's like my povo breakfast like but that's not the that's not the national dish so and that's kind of I think sometimes with like New York hot dogs like like people but like you know hot dogs they're [ __ ] everywhere but it's like New Yorkers are like yeah but like that's like pizza that's like a cheap shitty stuff like even dollar pizzas it's like they're cheap shitty meals it's like that's like us going to get a kebab at 3am after the club's like

it's just [ __ ] meals that's on my list for next week I want to talk about pie actually oh nice got a pretty good plan for that yeah like Kebab meat or the whole Kebab in the park meat I think that's something I'm gonna do cabbage uh I think I'm gonna do like shaved lamb shave chicken yeah um mixed grill mix platter one yeah yeah and then like I just I just want to do like a bit of hummus so it'll be like quite a dry pie but like um a bit of homeless bit of yogurt bit of hot sauce and just you know like do like a a real meaty another podcast next week or like even like um imagine doing that but then making

like more Garros and like having fries yeah I do want to put chips or like I don't know I don't have chips I think I think that'll be yeah yeah that'll that'll go off as well actually I really like that idea for you like on how to make that content more viral because I was thinking about that when I watched I was like I guarantee most the audience is Australian New Zealand yeah because we only get pies maybe UK yeah but then like how do you get it to go Global because it's when you go Global that your brain you can start having a Content machine that earns enough money to do all the other stuff yeah um well and that's the thing as well

like I pretty consistently get 50 000 to 150 000 like so that's I think a pretty good range you know I don't make many that flop but I get none really over 200. you know it's kind of that's my that's my cap at the moment you gotta get out to the states yeah yeah you've got to get to stating like what you know your 12 mil how much of that was States oh all come from States in UK UK is big on Tick Tock UK is massive what I actually want to do over the next sort of three to six months is because we already know we can get uh us and UK but I actually want to go after Asia I really want to

go after Singapore you know the one that um Elaine puddin the banana Rana one anyway there's like some other people in Singapore Philippines Indonesia that are real big yeah um and I really want to go after that market because it's a real good market for us as an agency to go after yeah because like everyone goes after the US and and like the proximity of Singapore's like way easier than getting to New York yeah um and so I'm real Keen to do that like and so how do you like tap into the psyche of those people because they don't get our jokes no they're different yeah the thing they do love though is that there's a young Asian girl taking on her older white boss

so we do have a big like Singapore is our fourth largest city yeah so we do have a big thing for that but they don't really get the jokes yeah they just get the dynamic yeah so how do you get the jokes and I think that's the same with you right like how do you get people to understand a pie I think like what a what what's like the American version of the pastry meat because every country has some sort of like yeah I guess theirs would be like pizza probably a pizza maybe maybe like sandwiches yeah maybe yeah Burgers yeah yeah just weird eh it's not quite the same eh no I don't have quite the same equivalent yeah and even then as soon

as so when they do burgers for instance like so for us the burger is anything in a bun yeah whereas for them a Burger's actually the Patty right and then everything else is a sandwich yeah and it's just that it comes in a bun kind of thing it's a Hamburg sandwich is what they originally were right yeah yeah um yeah that's really interesting um okay so like things are cranking at the moment you've got growth pains like that's something you're struggling with um where to what would be if this was a year from now because it's [ __ ] I mean six months has been posting very scary [ __ ] it's crazy so in a year from now what would you what in fact a year is too

far in the next three months what would you like to see happen in the next three months I would like to be cooking Less in the kitchen uh and making making more content um it's probably it's probably not realistic so a Content kitchen is probably not something we're gonna push hard for this year yeah um a we've got the book that's just come out uh and B my business partner's pregnant so she's okay due and I think October I can't remember yeah um but yeah I think she got the joke yeah she did she'll probably work the morning of the delivery anyway she doesn't stop um but yeah so without with all of that going on we're probably this year we're probably just like growing

up following growing our community as much as possible and just honestly pushing the shops as hard as they are like another another like infrastructure issue we had there's both shops only have one till yeah and so for instance on a Saturday it's huge but we serve with a 280 transactions last Saturday [ __ ] and that's realistically from 8 till 2 30. you know and so it's just constant you know it's what's that like one every two minutes or something like that and that includes you know like bagging the food and all of that yeah like it's Bakery okay it's not yeah yeah yeah yeah it's not like order and then go down there yeah so it's quite it's quite big and then you know and so

there's lots of lots of big orders on that and um getting that getting that infrastructure like okay cool like do we invest in the shop front do we reduce the size of the shop frame and extend the kitchen um and sort of move more online with uh look to like kiosks and stuff as well and like yeah yeah taking that labor side away from it I think would be quite smart you know like we we're personal there you know like we don't have to be as personal in store it's it's you know like if we've got kiosks then it means that I can come out and like this this is the crazy thing people ask take photos with me and I'm like oh man this

that's crazy like we have people coming and they're in their Warriors gear I love them and they're like oh can I get a photo and I was like yeah with me like it yeah all right like um that's so cool so yeah so all of that sort of thing is we can free up time for that as if we you know streamline processes yeah um I I want to move towards a model where we're less less staff more output yeah um what about satellite selling what about like going to like a [ __ ] bakery or Cafe in Tauranga and be like bro yeah you'll stock my pies only uh what I would rather do is still pop up and I go oh yeah you know and

I what if you launch it like that and then that just became like your distribution center yeah fulfillment centers right yeah and then you can [ __ ] sell on Uber yeah well I actually had a um so my parents live in taiwa yeah oh yeah cool and so they're quite they're quite well uh quite friendly with the guys who own the campsite and stuff down there yeah yeah and actually in summer before the road disappeared um I was talking to them and so this is at this point I was sort of playing with the idea of getting rid of sandwiches and just doing pies I hadn't fully committed yet but I the idea was in my head and um that you know the shift getting covered

the week before we opened was the Catalyst to actually rub the Band-Aid off um and so I was talking to them and I was like hey would you guys be interested if I did like a cold pie pickup Point yep um at the campsite you know and I was like and I'll pay for the fridge and I'll put the fridge in and then all you guys have to do is manage the orders and we can figure out the cut from there as to what their cut of it is and for me it'd be great like imagine Easter weekend and I go down on Easter Thursday and I take a thousand pies with me pre-order only all ordered online and then I'd get Easter weekend off

I work the Friday when everyone's coming through and picking up picking up their orders and yeah you know I get to spend the rest of the weekend with my family from there kind of thing why not just do that but like make a national what's National pie day uh I missed it I believe it I think it was March March something rather [ __ ] start your own one no but you know what I mean like you might take some coordination but what if you had like you went to all the big cities oh you went to everywhere because it doesn't matter yeah and you just took pre-orders and say wherever you are yeah this is going to be a pickup point from each of these places

you get those guys on board saying look you manage the whole thing I'll I'll Freight you the pies yeah Frozen and then you just like and then you just let it open yeah pre-sales only and then you know how much you've got to cook for sure that's yeah that's overwhelming I've got two ovens I can make 30 at a time like um commercial kitchen for the weekend or a week or whatever yeah or the other option would be to like um uh like to stagger it you know like as it could be like yeah the first of July is whangarei and then the second of July is Hamilton and the third of July is you know and like stagger stagger it like that and then

all I've got to do is make 200 a day or make 300 a day or make a thousand a day you've got to do it in a way where you don't have to do it yeah that's what you got to do yeah because like you can't scale yourself yeah but you can scale your recipe and that's and that's something you've got to do you know like I I put myself yeah put my hands over everything you know like I want everything to be perfect and you know like which is why your shit's so good yeah well I haven't I haven't not tasted a filling we make for a while since we opened you know so every single filling we've made I've tasted because I'm like

you know it doesn't doesn't always mean I'm 100 happy it doesn't always mean I'm there when it's um being finished um and to be honest as well like all of the fillings we're constantly adjusting like in Winter we make them thicker and richer and saltier and in the summer we make them lighter and more acidic and yeah all of that sort of thing but like that's cooking you know like that's you know I want people to eat the pies in summer yeah yeah I don't want them to come in and yeah that's crazy yeah um increase into that well and that's a nice hard thing to teach you know it's a it's a it's a it's a hard thing to expect from um the staff

I currently have and all of that sort of thing but it's a slight slow process they're good they get it they get it but it's still like then uh I can't do anything wrong with my business yeah like yeah so even even when I give myself feedback it's fine but when I give them feedback it's like well but I did it like this last time it was perfect yeah yeah yeah I know I'm sorry yeah I know um I'm the same here like always expecting more and it's like you're always moving the goal post with people yep but like yeah and my guys get it now like and they're pretty good icon is pretty good and the guys were like they understand that it's about

being better but like but like literally last week you said this was great I was like it was last week yeah I think he's got something to say no but that's that's true though like yes I I always think like a few if you're doing everything perfect why are you working for me you know like if you're doing everything perfect just go and you know like and you know I'll help you and do do what do what you want you know like if you've got everything perfect then that's that's great you know like and until until then like let's learn together and let's grow and it's like mistakes will happen we make mistakes every day every single day and you know like something happens and

something's not perfect yeah and you know like you look back at it and you go well like today actually when I was heating up the pies for you guys a couple of the beef cheek ones weren't quite as glossy as I wanted but I might stand in there with my like and now they've got to film these I've got to get them in there and I'm like fluffing about in the kitchen trying to you know make them a bit more like presentable and yeah you know went through three boxes trying to find the perfect one that they'd fit all snug in and all of that you know like and that's you know the stuff's probably going like that's how we send it every other day

you know it's like yeah I know but like we gotta we gotta make sure everything's perfect yeah yeah I love that um it's you know you've said that that thing about being overwhelmed like tell me about that feeling like where does that come from like oh it's it's a weird it's a weird word actually so overwhelmed in the sense of like man I can make a lot of work for myself yeah you know it's not that I'm it's not that I'm overwhelmed trying to struggling to get out of bed and you know it's not like I'm not feeling this pressure of work or something it's it's uh the more work I do the more work I get kind of thing and that's great but there's

also still a point of like not leading people down and not getting to um not getting to a point where it's not manageable we're not getting to a point where you are burnt out and and all that sort of thing and there is days like that yeah there are days like that where I just have to sit on the couch and take the whole day and do absolutely nothing and do the same um you know like I play Assassin's Creed yeah that's my that's my way mine's worse I just play rocket league right yeah yeah so okay um do you like in terms of your own growth and business and everything like where do you see that moving to like so you got I know

you said the production kitchen and all that sort of stuff but like what does that mean like where does that go to like how big does it become where does your life become those those goal posts keep moving I've got so I've got two really clear um dreams at the moment but they're like they're relatively new but also I had them six years ago and then they kind of drifted off and all that sort of thing so the first one is I want a 24-hour pie shop like on pump not necessarily on Ponce road but let's say on ponsonby road somewhere with traffic they can't sustainable yeah and somewhere with a nightlife and all that sort of thing yeah just like like the idea of

four o'clock in the morning and you can go and you can make pie faces in Australia yeah yeah um and you can get like a real premium buy and no it's so hard to get something to eat at midnight yeah and it's ready straight away you know and it's there and I've seen this thing at my coffee was showing me actually this thing in the Netherlands where they've got um you walk into a shop and imagine a big glass wall um with like glass uh glass like doors I guess right and they're all they're all numbered like a vending machine and they've got like chips and all of them fries and stuff right yeah yeah you're stoned off your head and then you go get

[ __ ] chips out of a cabinet yeah not that out of smoke weed but like that's what you do and then like yeah and stuff like that yeah and it's the perfect trap and imagine so same thing yeah but like glass doors on this Just Pies sitting in there you know so you go around if you open your door you take your you just get everyone out yeah oh you'd get everyone just a wall imagine walking past a pie wall yeah and then you just have the kitchen behind it and they top it up as they [ __ ] as they sell out they top it up from from there so you'd have the chefs working behind and so one of the issues I had with that idea

when I first had it was the safety of the staff you know and having people there until three four five six in the morning you know like but even in this model the chefs can finish at 2AM and go home yeah you know then and then the next chefs come in at six o'clock and restock it if it sells out between 2 A.M and 6 a.m I'm lucky too bad yeah um and so that's a really cool idea and then the other one I really want to do is I want like a somewhat Suburban um Pub that only does pies so like for instance imagine imagine there's six pies on the menu all right and so it's open open from 10 AM and it's got

a pie warmer in the front and you can come in and if you're a Trader in the area you can just buy a pie and you can leave and it's as if it was a bakery um but at night time on the menu you've got the pies and so from a service point of view yeah pie warmer in the kitchen you know and so you're not you're not you know you're not cooking to order you've got a really loud so you've got you've got a really low kitchen team and it's really controlling this service can't go wrong everything's hot yeah it's ready yeah um and then you've got two options so you can buy the pile like this and so they're 13 bucks same the

same as they are in the shop or whatever um or you can buy it with with garnish and so for instance the pork pie might come out with like a kimchi slaw and some handcet chips love it you know and then that'll be 23 24 and and you know like yeah um and it would be the only Pub in Auckland that would play The Warriors over the blues I love it so yeah so like and it's just just stuff like that and even like the sausage rolls would make good small plates you know and there's still good cheering plates and you can go and you know you just go to go to the pub with a few mates or after work and you get a

plate of sausage rolls and a beer like why is no one doing that already I don't know how is that not already a thing yeah yeah um have you done any collabs with the Warriors no no no I haven't I haven't yet I had a little talk with Lily world but it kind of fizzled out because they're all under spotless and stuff like that now we'll get it um so we'll deal with one yeah I've already been I've already we've already talked very good yeah good good good because I also I've been talking with so flavor hit me up and they wanted to do something as well so maybe even a little yeah because they're their partnership radio and stuff as well yeah yeah yeah

now because I already talked then we're trying to find a spot for Lewis as well um uh I was actually thinking one of my extra ideas was to get um one is it to pay for it but then you catered their home base love too yeah I was just gonna say that that's easy yeah yeah I can do it we do like a smaller size as well yeah yeah I'd absolutely loved it yeah we should do that because I got to pay for catering anyway yep so why not pay for the biggest Warriors fan in the country to [ __ ] cater their home base and then yeah yeah okay I'm we're going out there tomorrow good me and the guys from there have talked about it

because I was like we have to get this car like look at this guy like he's the biggest fan it seems it seems done with how many people have seen it but I always wonder like how much of it they've seen and like um so Del Monte is a listener this is a fun story actually I was doing a live one day yeah and he jumped on the live and he commented and I I had I had probably like 400 or 500 people watching it and I'm just cooking away and stuff and then I was like was that I said the real deal and I was like oh sorry guys I've got to go and I like shut it down and I'm on my phone

to my friends being like Oh my God Dylan just commented on my live and all of this sort of thing and I look up and he's like followed me and all that stuff he came into the shop actually last week oh cool it was a good lift for all the other staff and yeah and they're all so excited to see him and yeah I've got I've got a poster up and um my I've got a staff member and she's I better get it right I think she's well we'll say 50 something she's early 50s that'll be good she'll like that yeah um anyway um she was serving at the time and she saw him come in and there's a bit of a line we were

really really busy and she just turned around and pointed to the poster and goes oh is that you oh that's so good so that was that was good I love it yeah you know what I'm gonna end on this question because we've already gone it out I could honestly speak to you for two hours because I love this whole world but tell me about the Warriors thing the Warriors but like was it a conscious thing are you just such a big fan it just came out naturally like where did that bit come from it's Eric started as a bit of a joke okay like it was kind of just like oh I wonder what would happen if I if I wore a Warriors jersey in

the um in the videos and it started with the catsupai video because I wanted to do that like what if the Warriors won the premiership shout and all of that sort of thing and then when I started seeing that I was getting um Warriors Kickback and NRL followers and all of that sort of thing I was like this is cool this is a cool little like side hustle and side passion yeah all of that sort of thing to to put into it and to grow the following that way and grow into that community and yeah so just kind of had it happen by accident yeah but but then you realized that pretty quickly that you should stick with it like was that a conscious decision

I'm guessing uh yeah it was a conscious decision just to stick with it and now like even today like you know I know everywhere everywhere I go it says you know I'm wearing Warriors gear now and it's pretty much my whole wardrobe as Warriors gear now and and um yes it's you know it's almost part of part of part of me that it's yeah and it's great I love it I love it I love the Warriors so much I was on them you know like I said I was on them before they were any good this year and um the fact that they're doing better is even better like but even if they were coming did last it wouldn't matter it'd still be there that's

Warriors fans for you 100 that's Warriors fans um and I actually think it was quite cool because like I didn't know this obviously until I spoke to you about how even that you started at the Mad Butcher like yeah so that's the funny thing now so um Julie Julie Leach which is mad butcher's daughter she's one of my best customers two or three times a week so I want to do um I don't know if you've seen the sausage the carried sausage video so one of my best friends actually sent it to um it'll be a bit further down one of my best friends actually sent it to Peter Leach and it'll be up a bit um and so I'm actually gonna make it again

and it's gonna be it's gonna be the first video I make for a second time and I'm gonna shout him some oh that's so good yeah I thought that was so funny to like um uh it's a curried sausage and potato maybe you could down a little bit more I think the thumbnail is oh yeah there it is um and the oh this one yeah there we go yeah cool cool and so yeah so that's that's one was cool because I sort of put on his voice put it put on his voice at the start of it as well and then went to the local Med Butcher and got you know some dirty old midwich sausages and I love that yeah that's so good yeah

that's what I was thinking any as soon as even you said it I was like it's you give off that energy so much like him especially him in his early days like when the early Warriors supposed to be like the next people each other yeah yeah that makes me look it's so cool you know like I mean Warriors we should talk to them we should get like the guys to talk to them because like they need that like he was the mascot yeah every game yeah yeah he still lives the mascot but like that's what I mean like they didn't need another Miss God they used to have that guy run around the field and stuff The Mask I don't know if they still do

that but like he was the mascot yeah like I remember growing up like he was the guy because we were um I didn't really watch a whole lot of League these days especially in New Zealand because [ __ ] everything's on pay TV here yeah but um I we had season tickets like my whole child because my I played rugby growing up yeah Union but Dad was a league so he was like like we play league yeah but I played rugby so he'd got season tickets for the Warriors for the first eight maybe seven or eight years just to try to convince me that League's been like Luke it doesn't work I mean I didn't even really play rugby for too much longer but um but yeah

I love that and so definitely I love that you stuck with the bit Yeah like like and what I really like about them the reason I want to call that out for other people is like you listen to the community yeah you listen to the response and you're like you know what yeah let's stick it the bit well Warriors jerseys are a tax expense now it's great actually actually Warriors I'm gonna double check that tomorrow Luke Kimmy's comes on the podcast um that is so funny I'm gonna ask him how that works because like um it is something that people don't do enough of they don't listen to the people saying yeah the people coming through and it's like and I think like um in

New Zealand and if you're watching because come and work with us but I say to them like your content's great and you do really well but like yeah this is a one-way conversation that you're having you you don't have a community yeah they just follow you because like I don't know if people watch in New Zealand but they do like first traps of planes right they literally just get planes and like people love it like people like they just got all the content is just like um go to accounts um all their all their content is uh like like if you watch like even their first one even the first one or the second one yeah they're just like they literally do just their strips

yeah um which is pretty crack up and then that you get you get everyone in there if you go down oh look he's so handsome like they're just like people who just love planes they're all like playing in thesis but there's no two-way like there's no two-way conversation a lot of their replies about two comments and that was it yeah and their replies are just like thanks but there's no there's no Community there but I love what you've done yeah because that I love the bands I get from non-warriors fans as well you know and you get like so often in like a really jesty way I'll get like [ __ ] football team but the pie looks good yeah right I'll get or I'll get someone

coming and be like no way Warriors are making the final and I'm that's my favorite one because I can be like I'll save you'll see yeah I love it I love it [ __ ] are we so good if they do just for the cool back oh I can't go back to every single comment I have to shut the shop for October [Laughter] well bro honestly as I said it's already been an hour I could I could talk for ages about all your stuff this is so cool we have to um definitely get you back at some point mainly just to get more pies back in the office um but thank you so much bro I really appreciate you coming on and sharing all your story with

us thanks for having me cheers