Speaker 1: This is Red Pilled America. The revelations of doctor Fauci's
Speaker 1: diary have us all angry reliving the lunacy of the
Speaker 1: COVID shutdowns. We must never forget how COVID brought a
Speaker 1: taste of communism into America. While we're working on new episodes,
Speaker 1: this week we'll be playing a few episodes from the
Speaker 1: COVID era that we haven't replayed in years, including this
Speaker 1: one titled The Tipping Point, which was originally broadcast on
Speaker 1: December twelfth, twenty twenty. And if you want to get
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Speaker 1: com and click join in the top of the menu.
Speaker 1: Now on with the show. We live in incredibly polarizing times.
Speaker 1: Some say not since the Civil War have Americans been
Speaker 1: so divided.
Speaker 2: So this is just a warning to you trumpers, be careful,
Speaker 2: walk lightly.
Speaker 1: We ain't playing with you.
Speaker 3: Put your mask one.
Speaker 4: Does it bother anybody else that she doesn't have to
Speaker 4: wear a mask?
Speaker 5: All?
Speaker 6: Destroying property which can be replaced is not violent.
Speaker 3: All the Republican telling.
Speaker 1: Among our people there is no shortage of disagreement, but
Speaker 1: can anything bridge the gap? Is there an issue that
Speaker 1: can bring Americans together. I'm Patrick Carrelci and.
Speaker 6: I'm Adriana Cortes, and.
Speaker 1: This is Red Pilled America, a storytelling show.
Speaker 6: This is not another talk show covering the day's news.
Speaker 6: We're all about telling stories.
Speaker 1: Stories. Hollywood doesn't want you to hear stories.
Speaker 6: The media mocks stories about everyday Americans that the globalist ignore.
Speaker 1: You can think of Red Pilled America as audio documentaries,
Speaker 1: and we promise only one thing, the truth. Welcome to
Speaker 1: Red Pilled America. Even our oldest scholars agree that we
Speaker 1: live in the most polarizing moment of modern times. At
Speaker 1: no time since the Civil War have Americans been so
Speaker 1: divided on fundamental issues gripping our republic. But even in
Speaker 1: these vitriolic times, is there an issue that can unify Americans.
Speaker 1: To find the answer, We're going to tell the story
Speaker 1: of Andrew Gruel, a chef and an entrepreneur that grinded
Speaker 1: away until he achieved his American dream becoming a successful restauranteur.
Speaker 1: Andrew didn't set out to be a rebel, but when
Speaker 1: the moment arose, he took a stand and found an
Speaker 1: issue that should bring us all together.
Speaker 6: Along with his wife, Lauren, Andrew Grule is the co
Speaker 6: founder and executive chef of Calico, a Huntington Beach based
Speaker 6: seafood chop house celebrating all things land and sea. He's
Speaker 6: also the purveyor of a food porn newsletter called American Gravy.
Speaker 6: He knows better than anyone about the challenges of owning
Speaker 6: a restaurant during the never ending government shutdowns.
Speaker 3: Right before I got on this podcast, I'm looking over
Speaker 3: bills from agencies I didn't even know existed. Office of Tourism.
Speaker 3: Who knows what office they're trying to hit us with
Speaker 3: in the middle of a pandemic.
Speaker 6: That's Andrew.
Speaker 3: We haven't been able to open in one of our restaurants,
Speaker 3: but I'm still getting hit with all the ABC bills.
Speaker 3: So yeah, it's tough. It's tough in the restaurant industry
Speaker 3: and retail in general.
Speaker 6: With movie star good looks and an electric personality to match,
Speaker 6: he never meant to become the pioneer of a resistance,
Speaker 6: but Andrew became exactly that. Chef Andrew Grule grew up
Speaker 6: in New Jersey.
Speaker 3: I was the product of two working parents. Lash key child.
Speaker 3: If you will, you know they're working their butts off
Speaker 3: all day, every day until eleven of twelve o'clock at night.
Speaker 6: His upbringing did not exactly trigger his later passion.
Speaker 3: I make the joke I say, I'm the Sarah Lee chef.
Speaker 3: It was Microwave Sarah Lee and every now and then.
Speaker 3: We were fortunate enough when my sister got our license
Speaker 3: that I could go get McDonald's. So, you know, that
Speaker 3: was that was the height of my culinary upbringing. However,
Speaker 3: I realized at a young age I loved food because
Speaker 3: I used to skip school and I caught myself at
Speaker 3: home watching all those original this is pre Food Network
Speaker 3: PBS shows, Yan Khan, Cook, Lydia Bastianich, Jacques pa Pen
Speaker 3: those just real comfortable, dump and stir TV shows. I'm
Speaker 3: going to show you two type of omelet.
Speaker 7: I kind of country franch chimelet, which.
Speaker 4: Is basically the way we do it in America, and
Speaker 4: then a classic franchchimelet.
Speaker 3: So that definitely gave me the bite. And then I
Speaker 3: started reading a scoff Ya and like Joy of Cooking
Speaker 3: and all these cookbooks that my mom had at home
Speaker 3: making a mess in the kitchen when I'd skipped school.
Speaker 3: She'd come home. You know, hit me with the wooden spoon.
Speaker 6: When he was old enough to begin working, Andrew naturally
Speaker 6: looked for a kitchen with an opening.
Speaker 3: My first job was in a food service restaurant catering,
Speaker 3: and then proceeded to keep working food jobs while I
Speaker 3: was trying to go to college for other avenues.
Speaker 6: Andrew went to Bait College, a private liberal arts school
Speaker 6: in Maine, initially to study piano performance and philosophy.
Speaker 3: I went to a small liberal arts college up in Maine.
Speaker 3: I mean it was like fifteen hundred kids, and everybody
Speaker 3: was up there like studying art history and things in
Speaker 3: which you would never have any career path. I thoroughly
Speaker 3: enjoyed the intellectual gymnastics, if you will. But I realized
Speaker 3: right away, like I need to work. I mean I
Speaker 3: was working sixty seventy eighty hours a week.
Speaker 6: And that desire to get his hands dirty was driven
Speaker 6: by his love for the ocean, and he just so
Speaker 6: happened to be in the lobster capital of America.
Speaker 3: I always loved the ocean, right, so while I failed
Speaker 3: in science, I had a passion for a marine biology
Speaker 3: and understanding what was going on with the ocean and
Speaker 3: kind of the biodynamic nature of that environment and how
Speaker 3: it affects us. So it was certainly a passion that
Speaker 3: I never was truly able to galvanize from a science perspective,
Speaker 3: but being able to get hands on with it in
Speaker 3: an econo me right, I mean, because the main economy
Speaker 3: is driven by the lobstermen. I mean it's a true
Speaker 3: fisherman's economy, one of the few artisanal fishing economies that's
Speaker 3: left in the United States. I worked at a lobster
Speaker 3: restaurant right on the coast, and part of their their
Speaker 3: selling proposition and as well as their business model was
Speaker 3: they owned part of the supply chain, so they had
Speaker 3: lobster boats that would go out and I was able
Speaker 3: to kind of help haul, you know, pull up traps,
Speaker 3: do a lot of the basic things, not specifically with
Speaker 3: that restaurant, but with other lobstermen around the area. So
Speaker 3: it was always just about a couple extra hours here
Speaker 3: or there, you know, hands on stuff and learning the industry,
Speaker 3: learning learning seafood, really getting into the industry and getting
Speaker 3: my hands dirty. And said to myself, this is this
Speaker 3: is the career path I want. So it just bit
Speaker 3: me in the button.
Speaker 4: I left college only after a short period of time
Speaker 4: and then just hit the road working for as many
Speaker 4: chefs as I could.
Speaker 6: Andrew worked in every kind of kitchen you could have made,
Speaker 6: from fine dining restaurants and hotels like the Ritz Carlton
Speaker 6: to the midnight shift at Denny's.
Speaker 4: Every kitchen has its own personality, and that's the beauty
Speaker 4: of the kitchen.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's always a band of pirates. I think
Speaker 3: that it's become different nowadays because it got glamorized, and
Speaker 3: you know, Hollywood took over with the Food Network, so
Speaker 3: you started seeing every single kid go to culinary school
Speaker 3: for sixty thousand dollars a year thinking they're going to
Speaker 3: step out and become an executive chef. But I remember
Speaker 3: when I was going through the Ringer, you know, it
Speaker 3: was the days of the Anthony Bourdain type of kitchens.
Speaker 3: You know, bone in the throat, band of pirates, just
Speaker 3: a bunch of people who were outcasts in other areas,
Speaker 3: and everybody ended up in the kitchen together and that
Speaker 3: becomes your family, your team, and everything beyond. So after
Speaker 3: years of working in the industry, ultimately I landed back
Speaker 3: in Jersey, which is where I'm from, and I was
Speaker 3: running a few restaurants out there, huge restaurants, five hundred
Speaker 3: seats underneath the toke. If you will come to two
Speaker 3: thousand and eight. When the economy crashes.
Speaker 6: In the throes of the two thousand and eight financial crisis,
Speaker 6: restaurants got hit extra hard and it forced downsizing throughout
Speaker 6: the industry.
Speaker 3: And I said, you know what, this is an opportunity
Speaker 3: for me to step out and try and follow through
Speaker 3: on some passion projects of mine. So at the time
Speaker 3: I was thinking about opening my own restaurant, I held
Speaker 3: back on that.
Speaker 6: Instead, he went back to school to study food marketing.
Speaker 6: He also got a degree in culinary arts from Johnson
Speaker 6: and Wales University. And it wasn't long after that that
Speaker 6: his phone.
Speaker 3: Rang and just serendipitously, I got a call from hear
Speaker 3: Me out the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach, California,
Speaker 3: because they were headhunting. They got a grant from the
Speaker 3: Pacific Life Foundation to start a sustainable seafood program.
Speaker 6: Sustainable seafood works to create a healthy balance between harvesting
Speaker 6: the ocean and the financial needs of fishing dependent communities.
Speaker 3: The crux of their program was that they wanted to
Speaker 3: target chefs because eighty percent of the seafood consumed in
Speaker 3: the US has done so in restaurants, So they figured
Speaker 3: if they could train chefs to serve more responsible seafood,
Speaker 3: or at least have a more responsible dialogue about the
Speaker 3: type of seafood we're eating and the effects it has
Speaker 3: on the ocean, then they could target a larger number
Speaker 3: of people. So they needed somebody to run this program,
Speaker 3: a director of the program. They wanted a chef with
Speaker 3: marketing background and true culinary chops to talk to other chefs.
Speaker 3: So I was like, hey, let's back up. Remember I
Speaker 3: love this marine biology thing. This is like my dream opportunity.
Speaker 3: So I packed up. I mean, in this nonprofit right,
Speaker 3: this was not paying money, so it was like cash
Speaker 3: out all my savings come out to California, and the
Speaker 3: next thing I know, I'm working in the aquarium, spending
Speaker 3: half my time on like touch tanks, while simultaneously going
Speaker 3: out and working with all these chefs throughout Los Angeles,
Speaker 3: San Diego, Orange County, trying to engage them in the
Speaker 3: conversation about sustainable seafood.
Speaker 6: Andrew worked on the program for about three years and
Speaker 6: through the process an idea began to form over the
Speaker 6: years come to the realization that in the seafood world
Speaker 6: there was either really high end establishment or greasy fried
Speaker 6: Long John Silver type restaurants. There was no in between.
Speaker 6: A sweet spot wasn't being served. At the same time,
Speaker 6: through his work with the Aquarium, he was learning more
Speaker 6: about the supply chain of seafood, and.
Speaker 3: When the grant came to the end of its end
Speaker 3: of its time, I said, you know what, I'm going
Speaker 3: to put my money where my mouth is. I've been
Speaker 3: preaching this for two and a half three years. I'm
Speaker 3: going to do it.
Speaker 4: I'm going to launch a concept that's for the people,
Speaker 4: fast casual where we're going to serve the quality of
Speaker 4: fine dining seafood.
Speaker 3: At the costing convenience of faster food. Because I realized
Speaker 3: in the seafood world, you've got either high high high
Speaker 3: end or greasy fried Long John Silver.
Speaker 6: So in twenty eleven, Andrew tried to raise money to
Speaker 6: open a restaurant. However, in the wake of the financial crisis,
Speaker 6: he quickly learned that it wasn't going to happen. But
Speaker 6: as luck would have it, there was a new trend
Speaker 6: exploding within the food industry.
Speaker 8: Food trucks in cities across the country. These rolling restaurants
Speaker 8: are upping up everywhere, providing hungry lunch breakers and late
Speaker 8: night bar crawlers with a corner copy of Fast easy
Speaker 8: fuel and all on the cheap and running one means
Speaker 8: no office politics, just cooking and cash.
Speaker 6: Food trucks had been around in one form or another
Speaker 6: for well over a century, but they had largely been
Speaker 6: focused on fattening comfort food. The financial crisis presented an opportunity.
Speaker 6: Investors in new brick and mortar restaurants were nowhere to
Speaker 6: be found, while at the same time people were looking
Speaker 6: for bargain eateries to meet their smaller budgets. Food trucks
Speaker 6: provided the perfect vehicle to bridge the gap. The startup
Speaker 6: cost was much cheaper than that of a restaurant, and
Speaker 6: the savings could be passed on to the customers, and
Speaker 6: there were some real success stories. The Kogi Truck, a
Speaker 6: mobile Korean barbecue taco kitchen, was one of the first
Speaker 6: to show how this new business model could be lucrative.
Speaker 6: Andrews saw this new trend as a path to creating
Speaker 6: his first restaurant, albeit one on wheels.
Speaker 3: So I said screwed. I got as many credit cards
Speaker 3: as I could. I'd leverage myself to the brim. I
Speaker 3: went into massive debt and started renting food trucks.
Speaker 6: He found a guy selling tacos out of a truck.
Speaker 3: I said, how much you make on your rid? He
Speaker 3: goes four to fifty week. I said, I'll give you
Speaker 3: five hundred, give me the truck, and I'll buy my
Speaker 3: own stock.
Speaker 6: He then got on the phone with his old seafood
Speaker 6: contacts in.
Speaker 3: Mate started having those guys ship lobsters out to me,
Speaker 3: friends from decades ago, and selling lobster rolls and fish
Speaker 3: tacos at like five and ten dollars off the food truck.
Speaker 6: At first, he manned his mobile restaurant on his own.
Speaker 3: So I went out with a white truck and I
Speaker 3: had somebody print a banner. I sketched out the logo,
Speaker 3: which was slapfish with the hand, and we hung the
Speaker 3: banner on the side of the truck. I had a
Speaker 3: little bit of a social following, so I tweeted out,
Speaker 3: I'm doing five dollars lobster rolls, real main lobster. I mean,
Speaker 3: I'm losing money, but I was doing it just to
Speaker 3: get people in, you know, first hits on me. The
Speaker 3: pusher don't care. So yeah, people just start showing up
Speaker 3: and before I knew it, within like a week we
Speaker 3: had lines of people and it just blew up.
Speaker 6: He started making money. He invested back into the business.
Speaker 3: So we wrapped the truck. I created a dish called
Speaker 3: the Lobstacle, so the hood it set home with the lobstacle,
Speaker 3: but it was spelled backwards so that when you were
Speaker 3: driving and you looked in your rearview mirror, you'd read
Speaker 3: it the right way. And we went from one to
Speaker 3: four food trucks over a six month period. We had
Speaker 3: like forty five employees. It was really shooting fish in
Speaker 3: a barrel pun intended. So in that short timeframe I
Speaker 3: was able to build up a huge following.
Speaker 6: Things were taking off, but it wasn't long before the
Speaker 6: big hand of government came knocking.
Speaker 3: Another passion mine has always been politics. I volunteered all
Speaker 3: throughout high school.
Speaker 4: I ran our Youth and Government program and did a
Speaker 4: lot with various senators throughout New Jersey, so I.
Speaker 3: Was always aware of regulations. Got a passion for reading
Speaker 3: things like the you know, the federalist papers, et cetera.
Speaker 6: So he understood that government tends to find a way
Speaker 6: to make money on a profitable enterprise.
Speaker 3: When I opened up the food trucks, I said, we're
Speaker 3: driving through loopholes right now. Within four months, the government's
Speaker 3: going to catch on to us and they're going to
Speaker 3: have their hands out. We paid two hundred and fifty
Speaker 3: dollars for one business license when we started with the
Speaker 3: food truck. When I pulled the food truck up to
Speaker 3: its last stop in December of that year, I was
Speaker 3: paying upwards of three thousand dollars a month and fees,
Speaker 3: business license, etc. The government realized how to get their
Speaker 3: hands into that industry very quickly.
Speaker 6: With winter on the horizon, Andrew could see that he
Speaker 6: was under some time pressure to evolve the business.
Speaker 3: And then once the weather hit, I said, shoot, if
Speaker 3: we don't get into a brick and mortar by December,
Speaker 3: we're done. So I literally went around knocking on people's
Speaker 3: restaurants that looked like they were empty and saying, hey,
Speaker 3: can I buy a restaurant? Can I buy a restaurant?
Speaker 3: How much cash to get out right now? I found
Speaker 3: a guy in Huntington Beach wanted to get out of
Speaker 3: his bagel shop. He's like, give me seventy thousand dollars
Speaker 3: and you can have it. And so I went around
Speaker 3: and bowed money from friends and family and anybody I could.
Speaker 3: Thousand dollars here, five hundred dollars there.
Speaker 6: He gave them all equity in the business and began
Speaker 6: the transition from being a mobile to a brick and
Speaker 6: mortar restaurant. Like any small business, especially in the restaurant industry,
Speaker 6: Andrew was running on an extremely tight budget, so he
Speaker 6: had to do everything himself. Once he secured the bagel shop,
Speaker 6: he started to esthetically transform the space with his small team.
Speaker 6: But just as he was preparing to open in April
Speaker 6: twenty twelve, the pesky hand of the government came knocking
Speaker 6: on his front door again, and this time it looked
Speaker 6: like they were going to put him out of business
Speaker 6: before he even got started. All right, if you guys
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Speaker 5: Back.
Speaker 1: So Andrew was living the life of an entrepreneur. He
Speaker 1: saw a niche in the restaurant market that was wide
Speaker 1: open fine dining seafood at the cost and convenience of
Speaker 1: fast food. He started with a mobile kitchen, and his
Speaker 1: Slapfish food truck blew up so much so that he
Speaker 1: decided to open a brick and mortar version in Huntington Beach.
Speaker 1: But just as he was getting ready to open, the
Speaker 1: pesky hand of government came knocking. Opening a restaurant is
Speaker 1: not an easy task anytime you're serving food. There's a
Speaker 1: labyrinth of regulations that must be met and the process
Speaker 1: is not at all clear. But typically when you move
Speaker 1: into an existing space you skip many of the obstacles
Speaker 1: set for new restaurants. When Andrew opened his brick and
Speaker 1: mortar Slabfish by buying the Bagel Shop, he thought he'd
Speaker 1: avoided those obstacles.
Speaker 3: We were set to open on April twentieth, twenty twelve.
Speaker 3: I had marketed it. Everything we got passed through health
Speaker 3: department by having an above ground grease interceptor, etc. Etc.
Speaker 3: What was there this new pro they established called the
Speaker 3: Fog Program fats oils in Greece. They knock on my
Speaker 3: door on like April fifteenth and they're like, where's your
Speaker 3: grease interceptor? I said, we were grandfathered in. They said, well,
Speaker 3: in July there's gonna be new regulations that you need
Speaker 3: an underground one. I said, great, I'll open up, get
Speaker 3: some revenue, and i'll you know, we'll get it all
Speaker 3: set for July. And they were like, no, you need
Speaker 3: an underground grease interceptor now per what statute? I don't know.
Speaker 3: They're like, you're not opening.
Speaker 1: So Andrew had to scramble to borrow another thirteen thousand
Speaker 1: dollars to dig a hole in the ground to comply
Speaker 1: with this new, not yet enacted statute. But being the
Speaker 1: savvy entrepreneur that he was, he found a way to
Speaker 1: comply with yet another government regulation, a skill that would
Speaker 1: later be put to the test on a level he
Speaker 1: could never have imagined. Like his food truck, his Huntington
Speaker 1: Beach Slapfish restaurant was an immediate hit, so Andrew wanted
Speaker 1: to expand on the success.
Speaker 3: Well, the idea was to build this to scale. Right,
Speaker 3: the best effect I could have I thought was to
Speaker 3: get people to eat more of the right types of seafood.
Speaker 3: But we need to do that as scale in order
Speaker 3: to really have that secret. So we needed to buy
Speaker 3: in larger bulk, right, cut out the middleman buying bulk.
Speaker 3: The more bulk you can buy, the better the price.
Speaker 3: So we had to scale quickly, and we couldn't raise
Speaker 3: capital once again. You know, even though we were showing
Speaker 3: strong unit economics on a store level, they kept saying,
Speaker 3: come back at ten locations. All of them said, get
Speaker 3: to ten locations. Well, I figured the only way I
Speaker 3: could get there was through franchisinges.
Speaker 1: So in twenty thirteen, Andrew began franchising Slapfish.
Speaker 3: So we opened our next location in thirteen, then fourteen
Speaker 3: and started growing from there.
Speaker 1: It eventually grow to twenty seven locations, including Arizona, throughout
Speaker 1: southern California and Silicon Valley, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Maryland, South Carolina, Utah, Virginia,
Speaker 1: and even the UK. Slapfish was spreading. Andrew was also
Speaker 1: finding success in other arenas. His energy attracted Hollywood, which
Speaker 1: led to appearances on the Food Network, the Cooking Channel,
Speaker 1: and even the Today show.
Speaker 8: We're Just wrapping up our shrimp cubana that we did
Speaker 8: for you on the web, and now good to have
Speaker 8: you Andrew.
Speaker 3: Congratulations, we're gonna make it here.
Speaker 9: What are you gonna keep burger surfing turf.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we're gonna do a surfing turf burger.
Speaker 4: So if you want to grab some meat here with me,
Speaker 4: we're just gonna pack some of these patties up.
Speaker 10: Though, guys, Andrew got married this weekend.
Speaker 4: Congratulation, Thank you, thank you, really really grave So that's
Speaker 4: our honeymoon.
Speaker 1: He also met a woman. They fell in love and
Speaker 1: quickly married, and after just a few months they had
Speaker 1: a little one on the way. Andrew's entire life was
Speaker 1: falling into place. He had a successful restaurant and franchise business.
Speaker 1: He put his money where his mouth was by selling
Speaker 1: the sustainable seafood he'd been preaching for years, and he
Speaker 1: and his wife were growing the family. With three little
Speaker 1: ones under the roof and a fourth on the way,
Speaker 1: life couldn't have been better until the early days of
Speaker 1: twenty twenty.
Speaker 11: China has identified the cause of the mysterious pneumonia outbreak
Speaker 11: in Uhan City, and it's from the same family that
Speaker 11: caused the deadly SARS epidemic seventeen years ago. It's a
Speaker 11: new type of coronavirus.
Speaker 1: The word of a new virus coming out of China
Speaker 1: was slowly making its way into the news, But the
Speaker 1: first sign that trouble was brewing came to Andrew from
Speaker 1: a different source.
Speaker 3: You know, I'm really a cue into what's going on
Speaker 3: in the East because of seafood trade. So I had
Speaker 3: a lot of contacts that were in China and all
Speaker 3: these different spaces that were saying, look something's coming and
Speaker 3: just keep an eye out. It was affecting seafood prices
Speaker 3: and trade. So I was using some commodity index to
Speaker 3: kind of at least see what was on its way.
Speaker 1: Then whispers from another avenue corroborated what he was seeing
Speaker 1: in the market.
Speaker 3: Without naming names, We know some people that were on
Speaker 3: the inside and kind of gave us a little bit
Speaker 3: of a heads up what the framework was going to
Speaker 3: look like. I don't necessarily think anybody understood the level.
Speaker 1: In mid March twenty twenty, the Trump administration announced new
Speaker 1: guidance on the building coronavirus crisis.
Speaker 12: Over the next fifteen days, as we combat the virus,
Speaker 12: seats and every one of us as a critical role
Speaker 12: to play.
Speaker 1: It still wasn't clear how this would affect Andrew's industry,
Speaker 1: but the severity of the situation became clear a few
Speaker 1: days later when California became the first state to shut
Speaker 1: almost everything down.
Speaker 13: We need to bend the curve in the state of California,
Speaker 13: and in order to do that, we needed to recognize
Speaker 13: the reality. The fact is the experience we're having on
Speaker 13: the ground throughout the state of California, the experience it's
Speaker 13: manifesting all across the United States and for that matter,
Speaker 13: around the rest of the world, require us to adjust
Speaker 13: our thinking and to adjust our activities.
Speaker 14: Overnight, the governor of California issuing a strict stay at
Speaker 14: home order to estates forty million residents, warning more than
Speaker 14: half of them half could become infected in the weeks ahead.
Speaker 3: We shut down for a few days. We had to
Speaker 3: close and look, you know, you go into you just
Speaker 3: go into kind of muscle memory, right, what's your panic response?
Speaker 3: My panic response is how's this going to affect the family?
Speaker 3: And then what can we do to help?
Speaker 15: Right?
Speaker 3: Like that's our kind of family motto.
Speaker 1: So they regrouped and began to put their motto into action.
Speaker 1: As chance would have it. Being in the seafood business
Speaker 1: meant that he had some backstock of a product that
Speaker 1: was in high demand.
Speaker 3: We're using face masks a lot because we get a
Speaker 3: hold tuna and you want the face mask on. So
Speaker 3: I put a call out, like I had customers that
Speaker 3: were coming in and getting face masks from us. You
Speaker 3: remember when nobody could get one, So we were giving
Speaker 3: out face masks to customers. I mean, we turned into
Speaker 3: like emergency mode.
Speaker 1: They also began cooking food for their staff and others.
Speaker 3: Right when we did reopen a few days after closing.
Speaker 3: We right away we said okay, police fire emt all
Speaker 3: health workers eat for free, hands down, and then we
Speaker 3: just kind of went into help mode.
Speaker 1: And then, like any small business facing an unprecedented downturn,
Speaker 1: Andrew and his wife had to start making some tough decisions.
Speaker 3: We were trying to figure out, what's the avenue through
Speaker 3: which we're going to be able to support our team members.
Speaker 3: How many people do we have to let go? Can
Speaker 3: we pivot? How quickly can we pivot? So my wife
Speaker 3: and I she's incredibly involved in the business. It was
Speaker 3: just that spinning right.
Speaker 1: Most restaurants around the country were allowed to provide takeout services,
Speaker 1: but for many that wasn't enough to pay the bills.
Speaker 1: Two weeks to slow the spread came and went, and
Speaker 1: it was unclear when governors were going to lift the
Speaker 1: ban on in person dining.
Speaker 3: Brilliant communication strategy. Fourteen days to slow the spread, right,
Speaker 3: I mean why not? What's fourteen days? Oh, and there's
Speaker 3: a stimulus on the way. Twelve hundred dollars to every American.
Speaker 3: Sounds like a reasonable proposition to me. So I was
Speaker 3: on board with that. I think most people were, because
Speaker 3: it was kind of like, Nah, this isn't gonna this
Speaker 3: is no way, this would never you know, kind of
Speaker 3: trigger something bigger.
Speaker 1: In the state of his flagship restaurant. It wasn't until
Speaker 1: California started approaching day thirty that Governor Gavin Newsom began
Speaker 1: showing some sign of allowing restaurants to open for in
Speaker 1: person dining.
Speaker 13: But in this transition where we do see like at
Speaker 13: the end of the tunnel, where there is a ray
Speaker 13: of optimism and hopefulness that this too shall pass, it's
Speaker 13: also perhaps the most difficult and challenging phase.
Speaker 16: Of all.
Speaker 1: But the governor still wasn't pulling the trigger. As the
Speaker 1: two weeks shutdown turned to seven, a few restaurant owners
Speaker 1: on a desperation began to flout the governor's order. But
Speaker 1: if you own a restaurant, you're not just in the
Speaker 1: food business, you're in the people business, and the people
Speaker 1: were clearly polarized on the issue of whether or not
Speaker 1: to reopen. The few restaurant owners that took the leap
Speaker 1: and opened their doors to in person dining were getting
Speaker 1: some support from their regulars, but that was drowned out
Speaker 1: by the Karens and the media, who labeled anyone that
Speaker 1: didn't comply as super spreaders or worse.
Speaker 14: A San clement A restaurant owner who is reopening today,
Speaker 14: once again defying our states shut down orders.
Speaker 17: We're here at Nomad's Canteen in San Clementy. After a
Speaker 17: very popular reopening last week in which they sold out
Speaker 17: of everything. They are reopening again today, bringing those customers
Speaker 17: in for a dine in service, which of course is
Speaker 17: not really allowed under various state and county orders. But
Speaker 17: everyone appears to be looking the other after restalking, they
Speaker 17: are planning to follow strict guidelines inside the restaurant once
Speaker 17: again using social distancing with tables six feet apart. They
Speaker 17: of course, are getting a lot of attention for this,
Speaker 17: and it's not all positive, including death threats.
Speaker 1: Andrew was still trying to comply with the state's mandate.
Speaker 1: To do otherwise at the time would have been a
Speaker 1: risk that far outweighed the benefits. Most just weren't ready.
Speaker 3: The point at which I realized that this was that
Speaker 3: the fourteen days to turn to spread was kind of
Speaker 3: turning on us. Was everything just became so polarized. People
Speaker 3: started tattletaling on their neighbors. You know, on the one
Speaker 3: end of the spectry, it's like there's two options, right,
Speaker 3: You're either a denier or you're a communist. You know,
Speaker 3: there's nothing in between.
Speaker 1: It wasn't until over nine weeks after the two weeks
Speaker 1: shutdown began that the California governor gave the thumbs up
Speaker 1: to restaurants to accept in person dining, but with major restrictions.
Speaker 12: So Orange County settles into phase two of its reopening plan.
Speaker 12: Businesses continue to make adjustments to their plans try and
Speaker 12: keep employees and customers safe.
Speaker 18: We stepped inside Newport Coffee Company, which opened its doors
Speaker 18: fully to customers while still requiring physical distancing.
Speaker 4: If you're in a group of more than four, only
Speaker 4: one person can come in to kind of get your
Speaker 4: whole family's order.
Speaker 18: Welcome to phase two of reopening businesses and restaurants in
Speaker 18: Orange County.
Speaker 3: So, you know, obviously plexiglass all over the space. Redesign
Speaker 3: the architecture in the footprint of all of our restaurants
Speaker 3: so that we can avoid having too many people close together,
Speaker 3: you know, printing the stand here signs. You know, you
Speaker 3: kind of see the cut copy and paste across any
Speaker 3: retail operation. They're all the same.
Speaker 1: But as he prepared to reopen, Andrew was facing an
Speaker 1: unexpected dilemma. The government was doing out unemployment at a
Speaker 1: level that incentivized people to stay home.
Speaker 3: I had employees who I was trying to bring back
Speaker 3: and they were like, look, I'm making eleven hundred dollars
Speaker 3: right now not to work. Granted, I know I could
Speaker 3: probably make fourteen hundred, but I'd rather take the three
Speaker 3: hundred dollars loss to not work at all.
Speaker 1: Andrew took to social media just to highlight this phenomenon,
Speaker 1: and when he did, he was blast for simply conveying
Speaker 1: the issue.
Speaker 3: You know some people, their response is, well, you're not
Speaker 3: paying your employees enough. We pay our employees twenty twenty
Speaker 3: five dollars an hour right when the minimum wage is thirteen.
Speaker 3: Then they make tips. They can make upwards of forty
Speaker 3: to forty five dollars an hour with tips. That's not
Speaker 3: the point. The point is if you don't have to work,
Speaker 3: and you can make enough to cover your bills and more,
Speaker 3: you're not gonna work. Right, Like, I get it. I'm
Speaker 3: not calling those employees lazy. I totally get it. You know,
Speaker 3: I had employees who are like, hey, I've I've always
Speaker 3: wanted to read Moby Dick. I'm gonna sit home and read. Okay. Cool.
Speaker 1: The climate the service industry faced was daunting. They had
Speaker 1: to reduce their occupancy. Most California establishments had to limit
Speaker 1: in person dining to outdoors. All the workers had to
Speaker 1: wear masks and face shields. But like the thousands upon
Speaker 1: thousands of restaurants, nail and hair salons, gyms, and the
Speaker 1: like that were starting to reopen, and you and his
Speaker 1: wife were just happy to get things moving again. But
Speaker 1: as winner began to approach the red flags for a
Speaker 1: second shutdown began to show.
Speaker 9: You may have heard that California Governor Gavin Newsom, or
Speaker 9: first Comrade as I prefer to think of him, has
Speaker 9: issued a set of dict tots about how and with
Speaker 9: whom and for how long you may celebrate Thanksgiving this year.
Speaker 9: It's a sad list. First rule of this year's Thanksgiving
Speaker 9: for our California comrades, your free celebration must be held outside.
Speaker 5: These restrictions are getting out of hand, especially in California,
Speaker 5: and I think we're reaching the point where people are
Speaker 5: going to say.
Speaker 8: Stick it.
Speaker 3: I'm not going to live with this. I'm going to
Speaker 3: break out now.
Speaker 1: Up to this point, only a few restaurant owners disregarded
Speaker 1: the shutdown mandates. But then something happened. The dictators were
Speaker 1: getting caught disregarding their own orders.
Speaker 19: Tonight, while Governor Newsom is telling all of us to
Speaker 19: have Thanksgiving dinner outside, facing some new fallout for that
Speaker 19: fancy birthday dinner party he went to at the French laundry.
Speaker 13: I was asked to go to a friend's fiftieth birthday,
Speaker 13: and as soon as I sat down at the larger table,
Speaker 13: I realized it was a little larger group than I
Speaker 13: had anticipated, and I made a bad mistake.
Speaker 3: Instead of sitting.
Speaker 15: Down, I should have stood up and walked back, got
Speaker 15: in my car and drove back to my house. Instead,
Speaker 15: I chose to sit there with my wife, in a
Speaker 15: number of other couples that were outside the houshold.
Speaker 1: And Gavin Newsom wasn't the only hypocrite well.
Speaker 9: San Jose Mayor Sam Lecardo may have broken his own
Speaker 9: county's protocols by spending Thanksgiving with his elderly parents at
Speaker 9: their home in Saratoga.
Speaker 20: Just hours after Los Angeles County Supervisor Sheila Cule voted
Speaker 20: to ban outdoor dining at La County's thirty one thousand
Speaker 20: restaurants over COVID nineteen safety concerns. We visited a restaurant
Speaker 20: in Santa Monica where she dined.
Speaker 2: Outdoors for months. Austin Mayor Steve Wadler has taken to
Speaker 2: Facebook live most nights to keep the community informed about
Speaker 2: the spread of COVID nineteen and in fact, but as
Speaker 2: he issued this message on the night of November ninth.
Speaker 12: And then we need to stay home if you can.
Speaker 2: He was doing it from a timeshare in Cabo San Lucas.
Speaker 1: Within days of getting caught ignoring his own edicts. Governor
Speaker 1: Newsom made a mind blowing announcement just three weeks before Christmas.
Speaker 13: Today, we are pursuant to the blueprint we put out
Speaker 13: some fourteen or so weeks ago of pulling that emergency brake.
Speaker 13: We've done it sequentially over the course the last number
Speaker 13: of weeks, but we're doing it in a much more
Speaker 13: broad and much more comprehensive way. Today we are announcing
Speaker 13: and introducing a regional stay at home order in the
Speaker 13: state of California.
Speaker 3: And I kept saying it on social I said, watch,
Speaker 3: this is going to spread news. And God busted for
Speaker 3: breaking his own rules, and he's going to take it
Speaker 3: out on small businesses because we're the ones who are
Speaker 3: banging the drum loud enough. And he did.
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Speaker 1: Welcome back to Red Pilled America. So in late twenty
Speaker 1: twenty one, by one, politicians like California's Governor Gavin Newsom
Speaker 1: were caught breaking their own COVID shutdown orders, but in
Speaker 1: a mind blowing turn, Gavin Newsom made an announcement just
Speaker 1: three weeks before Christmas. He called for a regional stay
Speaker 1: at home order in California, and I.
Speaker 3: Kept saying it on social I said, watch this is
Speaker 3: going to spread. Newsom God Boss died for breaking his
Speaker 3: own rules, and he's going to take it out on
Speaker 3: small businesses because we're the ones who are banging the
Speaker 3: drum loud enough. And he did, you know, banning outdoor
Speaker 3: dining in Los Angeles. I said, it's going to happen
Speaker 3: in this day, you know, Garcettian Newsom. They're doing this.
Speaker 3: They're testing to see how far they can push things.
Speaker 13: Here's what we are introducing today. We are now mandating
Speaker 13: that we are implementing a stay at home order for
Speaker 13: three weeks.
Speaker 1: That was it. That was the tipping point that began
Speaker 1: the resistance of shut down two point zero. Andrew was
Speaker 1: one of the first to declare that he was going
Speaker 1: to defy the order. He took to social media to
Speaker 1: make his case.
Speaker 4: Okay, I've got everybody blowing up my replies right now
Speaker 4: saying I'm a grandmother killer. And that we don't take
Speaker 4: this pandemic seriously. So I'm just gonna address it all
Speaker 4: right here so that I actually don't have to individually
Speaker 4: go back and forth and box with every single one
Speaker 4: of these fake accounts.
Speaker 3: So here's the situation. Do we take the pandemic seriously?
Speaker 3: Of course we do.
Speaker 4: Am I saying that we shouldn't close outdoor dining?
Speaker 7: Yes, I am.
Speaker 4: At every single juncture along the way here, from the
Speaker 4: beginning shut down to today, we've listened to all of
Speaker 4: the advice from our government officials, only to be shut
Speaker 4: down over and over and over again and then not
Speaker 4: compensated for the elements that we put in place in
Speaker 4: our businesses in order to protect our customers. We shut
Speaker 4: down indoor dining, no problem. I got a warehouse full
Speaker 4: of plexiglass right now. Okay, we went outdoors, all right, now,
Speaker 4: that's getting shut down. I just put thousands of dollars
Speaker 4: into outdoor heaters. There is zero scientific evidence that proves
Speaker 4: that outdoor dining is contributing to a rise in cases
Speaker 4: related to this, all right, I am the only saying
Speaker 4: that we are going to continue dining outdoors because I
Speaker 4: can get on an airplane and I can fly and
Speaker 4: eat and do whatever I want, and don't tell me
Speaker 4: it's the hippo filters. Okay, because that's not the case.
Speaker 4: You don't turn those on until you get onto the plane.
Speaker 4: Before that, everybody's fornicating on top of each other. I
Speaker 4: can go into Walmart. Heck, I don't even have to
Speaker 4: wear pants. Nobody wears a masket Walmart. I can go
Speaker 4: get a pink cockatoo for my Christmas tree. But I
Speaker 4: can't go and dine outdoors at a restaurant. I can
Speaker 4: go to Target. Amazon's making tons of money. All big
Speaker 4: business is getting rich.
Speaker 13: Okay.
Speaker 4: Outdoor dining does not lead to any of that.
Speaker 3: Therefore, screw that we're staying open outdoors.
Speaker 4: It's that simple.
Speaker 3: I'm not an asshole.
Speaker 1: The governor is, and quickly after a trend that began
Speaker 1: in California.
Speaker 5: Gut wrenching video of a restaurant owner's outrage she's forced
Speaker 5: to shut down outdoor dining at her local bar and grill,
Speaker 5: But then she sees a production crew set up craft
Speaker 5: services just a few feet away.
Speaker 16: Mayor Garcetti and Gavin Newsom is responsible for every single
Speaker 16: person that doesn't have unemployment. That says not have a
Speaker 16: job and all the businesses that are going under and
Speaker 16: we need your help.
Speaker 15: Rep Reap restaurant.
Speaker 12: And bar owners protesting outside supervisor Sheila Hules House in
Speaker 12: Santa Monica today, angry that outdoor dining in La County
Speaker 12: has been shut down.
Speaker 10: Hello everyone, and welcome to day eight of my illegal
Speaker 10: walk in Los Angeles. And today I'm walking with a
Speaker 10: purpose because I'm.
Speaker 13: Walking to a peaceful protest at ten Horned Flatten.
Speaker 19: Saloon and Grill.
Speaker 3: It's a protest with burghers and payer.
Speaker 1: It wasn't long until the courts agreed that the government
Speaker 1: was overreaching. Eight twenty twenty, judge tentatively ruled against the
Speaker 1: ban on outdoor dining in La County.
Speaker 7: Outdoor dining is not to be able to come back
Speaker 7: immediately right now. What this judge is ruling because we're
Speaker 7: still under the state stay at home order. What it
Speaker 7: means is La County's official outdoor dining ban will end
Speaker 7: on December sixteenth, and once the state's order is lifted,
Speaker 7: outdoor dining can then returned to La.
Speaker 1: County with the case showed astonishingly was that the county
Speaker 1: officials ban on outside dining had no scientific basis. They
Speaker 1: just arbitrarily invoked it.
Speaker 3: If they took this as seriously as they portend, then
Speaker 3: why would they break their own rules. Wouldn't they take
Speaker 3: it seriously. We just had a newborn. We take it
Speaker 3: very seriously. My wife and I didn't go out. We
Speaker 3: were basically quarantining as much as we could. I was
Speaker 3: not going into the restaurant. I was following what I preached.
Speaker 3: They're not following anything of what they preached. So it's political.
Speaker 3: Now I can open a restaurant and have a membership,
Speaker 3: and I can be open according to the rules and regulation.
Speaker 3: So it's not the activity, it's the economics, which.
Speaker 1: Leads us back to the question, is there an issue
Speaker 1: that can unify Americans? The answer is tyranny. When our
Speaker 1: leaders demand we do as they say and not as
Speaker 1: they do, resisting their overreach should be an issue that
Speaker 1: unifies us. With the coronavirus shutdowns, many of our leaders
Speaker 1: have clearly not practiced what they've preached.
Speaker 2: Caught on camera, House speaker Nancy Pelosi seem getting our
Speaker 2: hair done inside a San Francisco salon.
Speaker 21: Denver Mayor Michael Hancock gave you the bird for Thanksgiving
Speaker 21: told you to stay home for the holiday during the pandemic,
Speaker 21: but then he got on a plane to go see
Speaker 21: his family out of state.
Speaker 1: The government can't our arbitrarily keep us from seeing our families,
Speaker 1: from making a living, to feed them, from just living
Speaker 1: life with all its risks, And they most definitely can't
Speaker 1: shut us down for no good reason while they disregard
Speaker 1: their own orders.
Speaker 3: Partisan politics has clouded the minds of so many people.
Speaker 3: Independent thought is the most important way through this. Look
Speaker 3: at the data, assess it from your own risk category.
Speaker 3: We all have a different risk threshold.
Speaker 1: If there's one thing in these polarizing times that should
Speaker 1: unify Americans, it's rejecting the hypocrisy of our leaders and
Speaker 1: resisting their overreach. We should we must enjoy the same
Speaker 1: freedoms that they afford themselves. And if we can't agree
Speaker 1: on that, maybe it's time to start thinking outside the box.
Speaker 10: I've referenced this, I've alluded to this a couple of
Speaker 10: times because I've seen others alude to this. I actually
Speaker 10: think that we're trending toward secession.
Speaker 6: Red Pilled America is an iHeartRadio original podcast owned and
Speaker 6: produced by Patrick Carrelci and me Adrianna Cortez of Informed Ventures.
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