Link to episode HERE.

In this powerful and unfiltered conversation, I sit down with Mark Johnson: a hospitality veteran, sommelier, educator, and now national sales director for a cold-pressed juice company.

Mark’s journey is a masterclass in transformation. From a music student waiting tables to managing top restaurants in Nashville and Santa Fe, studying under legends like Doug Frost, and mentoring future wine professionals. You’ll hear how one man dedicated his life to service in the deepest sense.

We explore the hidden philosophy of hospitality, the brutal beauty of the sommelier exams, and what it really means to be of use in the world.

Whether you’re in restaurants, obsessed with wine, or just someone searching for meaning in your work—this episode is for you.

Expect to Learn:

• Why Mark taught a free wine class that changed lives
• The behind-the-scenes truth about the Court of Master Sommeliers
• What it’s really like to serve a $1,400 bottle to Doug Frost
• Why great service is a form of spiritual practice
• Life after restaurants: cold-pressed juice, national sales, and fresh starts
• How perfectionism and humility coexist in wine culture
• Music, midlife reinvention, and starting a band called “Second Chance”
• Why some of the best lessons come from failure and recovery

Links:

• Check out his band ⁠Second Chance⁠ (link to his facebook, best place to find the band)!
• ⁠Verde Food⁠
• ⁠Court of Master Sommeliers⁠
• ⁠Mark’s Youtube⁠
• ⁠Life is Beautiful⁠

Service starts now.

I talk to people in and around the service industry space, and people that I wish I could have heard from when I was coming up in restaurants. Altogether I am trying to make sense of this wild, beautiful mess of a life, and help others that are feeling similarly confused and/or lost. You can find more of my work at⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠my blog⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, and all my social links are at the bottom of that page.

Classic Episodes You May Like:

-#3:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠My 1st and Most Powerful Conversation with Shane Alexander⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

-#10:⁠⁠⁠⁠Nat Harry, cocktail expert!⁠⁠⁠⁠

As always, I’m just here taking notes, trying to figure out what it all means.

Cheers

That’s the weird alien voice. It’s always a strange, strange intro, but. That’s what you do with aliens. I don’t think it’s what they sound like at all. Maybe, maybe not in New Mexico. And then that’s too much. Uh, no, no, it doesn’t look too bad. All right. Cause you can see through it. You’d be looking right at Los Alamos and, you know, according to my friends up there, if they didn’t cloak those ships, you would see them traveling mostly between Los Alamos and Nevada, cause you know, Los Alamos is kind of the headquarters in Nevada is where they do most of the physical work. You know, like you’d see in the drop, and as you see commercial airliners, there’s all kinds of different ships coming out of there every day. But they. One of the things I missed from New Mexico. Yes. Los Alamos. Where’s my position on earth? All right. Mark, thanks for coming on today. I don’t know how about that start, but yes. Um, so I wanted to talk to you because a lot of my origin story actually, it actually centers around you. So I look back on my life and so much actually comes from this one random free class that one gentleman taught way back in the day. And so I wanted to ask what, what led you to teach that free class? Like where, what inspired you to be an educator in the wine world? Two things really one was when, when I first decided to start studying it down that direction and becoming better at that, there were a lot of guys that were in the quartermaster some way that spent a lot of time with me. Um, of no charge. Sometimes it a charge to themselves, um, to, to mentor and benefit me. And so it was kind of a pay it forward kind of thing. Um, and, and honestly, something, something taught is twice learned. You know, you learn something. It’s great when you educate something, you really know it when you can articulate it to someone else, it really helps you solidify as part of your knowledge base. So that was always very helpful. And the other reason is when I moved home from Nashville, uh, back to, to Matt, to New Mexico, you know, when I would do stuff with a cord or I do stuff with different people from around the world, all these great chefs and everything. And I always say, Oh, you know, I’m from New Mexico, San Jose is kind of my hometown. Even though I grew up in artesia, but you know, I always consider Santa Bay, my hometown. Um, and they’d be like, Oh man, some great food, beautiful town. Service is terrible there though. Oh, I don’t mind you. You know, they are some of the best food in the world. But I tell you what, those servers and I was just like, I gotta do something to help kind of make our name better. It was something I kind of took on personally. So those are two of the big reasons. Oh yeah. No. Um, yeah. So remind me, cause when I first met you, you were at a restaurant called a Mavi, but I don’t know if I know your full trajectory. So how like you said you moved to New Mexico. Can you kind of run through your career a little bit? Where, where you are? Yeah, sure. Yeah. I’ll give you the elevator pitch. Um, we’re raised in a little town in southeast corner of our state, Arteja, went to college, loved music, studied music, uh, went to college and studied voice and music theory and piano. Um, and as you do when you have a, an education in music, you become a waiter. Um, you know, you, you study music to get in the restaurant business. I always make that joke, but it’s, you know, it’s a lot of truth. Um, and I studied a lot of opera, love the opera and, and played a lot of different types of band. Um, you know, I’ve always been kind of attacked a part of Santa Fe, even though we grew up in Arteja, I used to spend most of my summers here because I was always a camp, a counselor at a camp out there called Camp Stoney, which, but don’t get the wrong idea. It’s an Episcopal church camp. Um, named after Michael Bishop, Michael Stone. Um, so I already spent a lot of time, I knew Santa Fe, uh, moved up here, you know, when I finished at New Mexico state, um, started bartending to make ends meet and had some bands played around here, um, ended up meeting some, uh, bartending. I met some famous country people and they’re like, you got to be in Nashville. You’ll never get discovered here. So I picked up and moved to Nashville. There’s a bar on music row right between Warner Brothers and Stoney records. And I thought, well, there’s a good place to, you know, meet the right people. So I walked in and said, Hey, I’ve got some bartending experience. And they said, these bartenders, they make a fortune. They’ve been entertaining. Nobody’s moving along, but our general managers walked out the back door. Can you run a restaurant? And I said, well, yes, of course I can. Yes. I’m a 27 year old restaurant manager. So I took over Sammy B’s per couple of years. And then after Sammy B’s, I moved to a restaurant, very, very famous restaurant called sunset grill. And the one thing I learned about sunset grill was we had a really, really, we won best wine program in the country in restaurant wine magazine, just previous to my being hired there. And we had this enormous library in the dining room between two huge big bottles of wine that were open for some event. And I started realizing, you know, about a thousand bottles then that he knew the wine list the best. Who was, you know, the person who made the most money. So I had the first book I took home from the library was Clive Coates guide to France. And I read through that another bit advanced for a first book. So then I bought myself a book and it was exploring wine by Mike. Yeah, I know. But exploring wine by Michael Weiss. And then one night I was in the wait station in this waitress. She goes, oh my God, this table order, 1400 a bottle of wine. I can’t, too nervous. Can’t open it. So I was like, I’ll go open it. So I went to the table and I began presenting and one of the guys at the table says, Hey, what if a master, some way I should, you had opened that bottle. And I said, would you coach me through that and help me? And we’ll say, yeah, yeah. Fair enough. And I say, you’re a master of somebody who’s no, my friend here is. Okay. Again, sir 1994, DeMond, Romani, Conti, Latache. That’s, that was a bottle I’ll never forget. And the guy goes, well, what if a master of wine shows you had to do that? And I said, well, listen, I just read a book. I don’t know how accurate it was. It’s probably changed since, but it said only three people in the history of the world have ever been both an M.S. and an M.W. And he said, yeah, the other two are really good friends. I’m Doug Frost. Ah, it was Doug. It was Dougie. Yeah. And so by the end of the night, we got to be pretty good friends and they’re like, get a glass. Oh, we got another bottle. We’re getting two and you can have some. And I was like, yeah. So I ended up drinking with Dougie that night over the bar and they were actually doing a lecture on spirits for Diageo the next day. And I went to that. Uh, and then, uh, kind of kept in contact. Doug said, reach out to this friend of mine named Bob, Bob Bath, and they were doing a thing in Calis. I thought it was like an educational weekend. So I showed up. They were like, go to the thing, show up in and turned out it was the first level class. Uh, and nobody naturally even had a first level. So I took my intro and I got a, I scored really high. And then I kind of got to be friends with Bob and Doug. And, and they, I kind of made a deal that, you know, if they were teaching or doing a class in Nashville or anywhere, straight Louisville to Atlanta, you know, be there a little, uh, you know, their little wine guy, I’d be there a little, you know, go for guy and I’d go and fill the glasses and I had upgraded the test a couple of times. So they mentored me a lot. And then I got to know other guys like Joe Spellman, um, Fred name, you know, some of the other guys. And so they kind of helped me along. That’s kind of how I got into it. So, uh, yeah. And then I, I’m not a bad apprenticeship. Yeah. That’s chilling around. And you know, they’re always like, Hey, everyone, there’s a new chef and we got to try his food. Come on. And I never had to pay for a bill and everything got opened. I got taste and so it was a lot of fun. Uh, and then, you know, less than that girl after nine years, opened up a wine shop in Nashville. That was kind of short lived for a couple of years. Um, then it was time to move home. So you know, like San Fe and got the job managing a Mavi for my friend and thought, you know what, and I used to do a little thing in Nashville for the lot of the waiters there. I have a few hundred kids go through that. And I was like, I’ll just keep doing it. And anybody was show up on a Thursday. Let’s do it. And what did you, I mean, there was Aaron Brooks, who’s now writes for wine advocate, the head of fine wine for wine.com. Last time I checked on it was Ben Needleman and he was, Ben was there and you were there. And yeah, pretty established group of people. Oh, man. Yeah. I went with, uh, was it Brian Sinserbo? Uh, yeah, Alan Deem, who never actually got his, uh, intro, but I’m the old punk rocker, man. He’s wonderful. Yeah. Uh, you know, funny enough, I ran into Doug Frost here. He came out to taste. He’s working on a project in the Pacific Northwest, but his favorite used bookstores out here. So if you go out to Omaha, Nebraska, Jackson Street, booksellers, it’s awesome. He told me, I’m playing right now. I get out there. Yeah. No, he told me to go and I didn’t know what to expect. And it’s walls and walls to the ceiling of old books. No two of the same. It’s, it’s awesome. So that’s perfect. Doug, he’s, uh, because that’s an audio file too. Like you go and study wine with him and he’s got this enormous collection of records and stuff. And he’s an old, so it’s like, Oh, let’s study, you know, Grand Cru, Jebus, chamber 10, the nine, Gronk, who’s an, an atrecious chamber, 10, quote, a best chamber, 10. And, um, what are you thinking, man? Who’s gonna do or sub-humor? Oh, everyone knows Bob Moll goes with Burgundy. It’s gotta be who’s gonna do and all right. Monk Rock and Burgundy, you know, it’s fun. Oh yeah. I could see the, uh, the bar now. You got an idea for a wine bar. You mentioned the intro. So you got that back of the day and kind of got tricked into that. How, how far along did you go? Did you go for the advanced? Oh, no, I went to, I went to advanced. I took my advanced. Um, and you know, they, they put you aside. They don’t tell your grade. They give you a personal consultation. Um, and mine was from Spellman and according to Spellman, if I remember correctly, um, he was like taking it once before and failed miserably. I actually got pulled into the hallway and yelled at by Brian Julian, the oldest master, something alive. Um, cause I’d made a joke at the table during service exam on champagne cause I got nervous and that’s how I deal with being nervous. And, uh, so he took me the hallway and says, Mr. Johnson, I did not find you as funny as I find you flippets. Uh, and so I was like, so the next year, uh, according to Spellman, which I was, yeah, yeah. Well, I, so I went back home and for one year, I, every table I went to, I didn’t care if it was a bottle of Beringer white then or the 1962 mature. I decanted, I did, I did every step of service required for that bottle every single time, um, regardless of value, regardless of the table, just drill it in. And then the next year when I took it up, he said, you know, you’re a perfect score. We never get those. It was your flawless this time. So, so I just made sure every table I went to for a full year and that restaurant was slammed all the time. I made sure I was on point. You know, they say, don’t wear it. You wear a suit and tie every day you’re here except the day of service. Where were you wearing your restaurant to be comfortable? And so I did and I didn’t wear a tie. And that’s another thing. Brian said, I noticed you didn’t wear a tie. So I wore a tie come hell or hot water. I was, I was. Did everything required for that exam for, uh, for almost a year and a half. Cause it was a little longer than that cycle and went back to Cincinnati and took it there and, and got a perfect score on that. When I passed it, when I was totally past blind, I said, they said, you might have passed it for master as well. You, but, you know, you, which, you know, master levels, five, right? All five criteria. Um, but the one I got wrong, I really got wrong. So I might not have passed it. He said, it might be well and I would buy nothing, but he’s like, yeah, you got to be at least in the right hemisphere on the wrong line. So I guess I really, they didn’t tell me which one it was, but so in that theory is what kind of kicked my vibe. I just had a bad day on theory. So, uh, yeah. So, so in the last couple of years, they’ve decoupled theory. So you take theory and then you take the other two portions only if you pass theory. So it’s interesting. It used to be the other way around. They’d be a couple of blind and then fails theory, the advanced and blind at the masters, what they say. Yeah. So apparently the only people that statistically pass are the ones that also pass the theory. So if you, if you fail theory, you’re almost certainly going to fail the rest. So they figured make that the intro and actually it’s all remote now. So you go to testing centers and you all do it at the same time. And if you pass that, then they let you come on to taste and service. So it’s, it was, it was nothing. There wasn’t a certified the first time there wasn’t a certified. You showed up for two and a half days of lecture and the lecture was basically like, I remember with board of lecture, it was for two hours on a morning and it was Brian going, this is all the Grand Cru class A and Grand Cru class B of Saint-Mélyon. If you don’t have these memorized by now, you probably shouldn’t be here. This is, and that was it. And then next slide, you know, when you’re like, you know, that was it. So, you know, it was a, it was a, they kicked your ass the first time, but then the second time you’d be ready for it. So, yeah. Right through. Yeah. This, this is something I’ve wondered about a lot. Why do you think, you know, people like me, people like you, why can’t we just sit back and drink wine? Why do we have to study it? Yeah. It seems like there could be a simpler way into this, but maybe I don’t know. Your face says I don’t nerdy people. Yeah. Yeah, or nerds. I mean, there’s so much more than just wine that we studied. I mean, one of the passions of it was like, when I was doing the WSCT and looking at the MW, I was thinking of my thesis being on the wine at the last supper, you know, and I started doing study for history and, and, you know, you read books like the history of the world in six classes and you study about champagne during World War II or, you know, all these wonder, I mean, so it’s anthropology, it’s biology, it’s botany, it’s geology. I mean, it’s just, it’s an amalgamation of so many other things and we’re the kind of people that’s kind of, we want to know everything. You want to say John, right? And I kind of how that works. It is, it is, but we’re like, the best songs. You and Needleman and Ben Sobel. Oh, good Ben Sobel. Yeah, that’s right. Yeah. So, but Johnny did well. We just, we could never just sit back and drink the wine, I guess. I don’t know. Yeah. Even partying, you know, it’s the same thing. I just, I’d always wanted to learn more, learn about the history of the cocktails. And I started getting into the imbibe book and the punch book and looking into David Wondrich and going down the rabbit hole again and again. One of the best books I required was a pre-prohibition book called The Great American Cocktail Book. You know, just right before prohibition started and the vernacular and it was amazing, the speech and the way it talked about the history of alcohol and drinking in the United States. And it was, it was a joy to read. It was so wonderful. And then when I, when I finally quit drinking, I love that book so much. I thought there’s only two people I could give it to. So I made a promise to share and I sent it off to Dale DeGraw. And Dale supposedly give it. I don’t know if you ever did. He was supposed to give it to Doug when he finished. So Doug should read it because they’re both like, oh, I don’t want to read that book. You know, and they had so many great recipes and so many amazing stories. And so I, I hope that Dale has followed through and given it to Doug. I don’t know. No, and Dale, if you ever get around to it, he’ll do it. That’s kind of how Dale operates. Yeah. He’s good at paying that forward for sure. Yeah. That’s DeGraw. You know, he’s, he’s the king of the cocktail, baby. He’s the man. So, yeah. So, so we kind of traced your history up to a Mavi and then we stopped because I wanted to jump in and start talking about the certification. I believe a Mavi closed, right? And then I remember you before I left at dinner for two. Right. And a Mavi was where Cezanne is now, which of course is James Beard award winning chef Fernando Lea, wonderful, wonderful restaurant until Moli’s Moli. Um, dinner for two is, uh, you know, very old school. We did a lot of table side service, that sort of thing. I ended up at La Posada and they had a wonderful wine program as the food and beverage and that’s where I kind of, that was the end of the, you know, just breaking and working 80 hours a week that I had to change my life. And so I, I went out, but that was wonderful, wonderful, you know, a place in program back then. So. Sure. And I think that may have happened after I moved. At my timeline is a little messy there. The pandemic kind of messed up things with a little punctuation mark on that. But when, when you were you, I did, I moved about 10 years ago or so. Okay. Yeah. Cause I believe that was seven, seven to eight years ago. I was at La Posada, La Posada. Um, and then, and then that was the end of that. And then I kind of got out of the restaurant business and then my friend Kelly called and, uh, you know, she was making bear day juice, which was a fresh squeeze cold press special kind of juice and she was selling at grocery stores and said, would you be my salesperson? I also worked at national distributing for about, for several years as the fine wine guy for Northern New Mexico. And, um, Kelly said, why don’t you come sell my juice? And I was like, okay, well, I know how to get retail and do merchandising and, you know, get shelf based. I did not realize that she had gotten a grant from the state and was actually going to purchase a $3 million machine that makes 87,000 PSI for three minutes. And as a new technology and we’re the 30 person in the United States and that we would start making fresh, fresh cold press juices that, you know, have a six month shelf life, but that was about five years ago. And we’ve got the facility finished about three and a half years ago. Um, and Albuquerque and now I, you know, the national sales director, uh, for fair day juice and every cocktail you have with the Venetian is made with our juice to the lemonade’s a D on to just got, um, done talking to, uh, went to Dallas for the first time and, and with several big groups there about, um, doing cocktails and lemonade and stuff like that for them. So still selling it just, you know, before the boots gets put in there. Yeah. What a, what, what is it like selling non-alcoholic juice? The big differences? There should be, but they’re in. So I think that might be why, because you know, it’s a national, a national sales program is based on the Gallo sales program, which Gallo is the largest in the world, uh, when it comes to selling wine and, and, and whatnot. So, so there’s this whole ABC I focus, you go into an account, you find the buyer, uh, you know, you start with an interest gaining statement. And, and so that’s kind of how you’re trained to do that. Well, I took some of that. And so, you know, I don’t, you’ve worked in restaurants long enough. You get people coming in sometimes and like, here’s a free side of beef for the chef to cook with to see if you like our beef. Um, but I’m going in like, like, at the liquor, like I’m a liquor sales rep, but I’m showing, you know, sweet and sour, and I’m showing bramblenics and I’m showing, you know, fresh squeezed cold breath grapefruit juice. Um, to bar managers and chefs and people like that and lime juice, of course. Cause we’re in the back to go. So distribution in Nebraska, we need some grapefruit juice. Actually, I’ll let you say that. Yeah. That’s why we use it. I was like, that’s why I need to go to Nebraska. Cause if I get an anchor account, we’re in Cisco, Shamrock, Benny Keith and US food. So I’m sure. Okay. We use that’s why we can Dallas with was be gay. Guys, this is a good guys. They do a good job. They, they’ve got a good operation. So they have been solid with me here in the next to come. I’m looking forward to the relationship that we’re building in Texas with them right now, you know, we’re in Vegas, but that’s mostly with the broadliner. So that’s Cisco in us, like everything at Venetian is US foods. Caesar’s is looking to probably sign a purchase agreement that’ll be with Cisco. So if we get up to you guys, it’ll, if you guys got Benny Keith, that would be I’m loving them. So that’s easy. They ship to us twice a week. So that’s perfect. Yeah. So what, what does a national rep do? Just, just curious, like, is it a lot of travel around and shaking hands or. Excelsior traveling. Yeah. We, we have brokerage ships. We actually have a broker that manages their brokers. And then our brokers manage sales people. So, you know, a lot of mine is, you know, my, my, my heart is wanting to get the account and show why we can give you first-geese land juice. That’s as a six month shelf life instead of five days. Yay. Fresh land juice. Cause you know, you write the side work list and you put someone on lines. They walk in and like, what the? What did I do? It’s like, yeah, I’m done. Lines in a week, bro. It’s your turn to do lines. No, man, I just, I got a hang out. And no, she’s done lines like three times over the weekend. It’s your freaking, you know, I’m tired of that fight. And now you can have fresh lime juice. So, you know, get excited about that. Um, and, and, and so it’s, it’s, it’s very similar. Like I said, it’s the long, the same lines and we’re just providing a service. So selling to the, that’s what I really want to do, but I ended up selling to salespeople more than I ended up selling to accounts. So I always make sure I go eat at really cool happening places while I’m there. And I invite the reps to go with me and I’ll buy dinner, but that way I kind of like, Hey, what are you pouring back there? Hey, you know, I make that and you don’t have to use it anymore. So I make it fun. The cool guy, cool guy at the dinner. And then it was a cool guy. Yeah. I’m the dorky guy at the dinner and I was like, Oh my God. The juice. The wine that got held the berry. And it’s a younger, no, it’s an older elderberry. Shut up. Just want to break it. You know, I did want to ask you the band. I was, you know, I see all these posts about the band on your Facebook. So what’s going on with your band? What’s that like? Midlife crisis, but it looks like. That’s my name. The band’s second chance is two old parts was already taken. It’s just me and an old friend. Art Martinez from Espanola. And if Garth Brooks and George straight had a baby, it sound like art. It’s got a wonderful voice. And like I said, I studied voice opera in country, of course, very similar. Their cousins in the musical world. And so, you know, it translates well. And, and we just play hotels mostly because, you know, clubs, you play till two hotels, 10 o’clock, they’re like, yeah, man, bartender done. Cut it. They finish it. So, you know, we’re old. We don’t want to play till two in the morning anymore. Um, and then we just play whatever we want. And, you know, if we want to play Hank and Willie and, and Wailin and Merrill, great. If we want to play some rock and roll, we great. I’m going to play Morgan Walmart. I mean, Morgan, Wailin and great, you know, a lot of quests. It’s just, it’s, it’s so much fun. And I still do a lot of songwriting and stuff like that. So, you know what I mean? I, I, I, like, I got a song about working on called get your tongue out of my mouth because I’m kissing you goodbye. That sounds a lot like you. You’re a big hit. So how many, how many years altogether were you in service? The food beverage industry just curious? Oh, it’s got to be, I started as a, my first service job when I was 22. And I’m 50, almost 56 right now. And, and I still do things like I, like there are times I go to places and give lectures and help teach and do service education for people working on their classes. I’m working on one right now with a group down in Albuquerque called the Alvato hotel group. And, um, so I still do that. I still do wine and chili dinners, um, for rush months. I like, I, I don’t drink it. I still smell it to make sure it’s sound going out. I won’t put it in my mouth, but I’ll still smell it to make sure it’s good. Make sure the glasses report correctly. Make sure that everything’s going out correctly. Um, so I’m not entirely out of it. Um, to be love it, love it, love it. I love being of service to others. It’s the whole reason we’re having this human experience is to learn to love and serve other people. So it’s kind of the, it’s kind of the highest calling on, on the planet. Um, so I still do it. So I guess since I was 22 to now, now when I quit doing it, it was, you know, 48, so you, you went to St. John’s, you can do them. I’m an egg. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I’m just wondering, you know, a lot of people I’ve talked to who’ve worked service do eventually get out and most people get out sooner rather than later. And so I, I, in my mind, I was wondering, was there something special about you that gave you some longevity? Was it that love? Was it that you had these side hobbies? You had your music on the side. You had that passion for studying or, or who knows? Like I said, I really, you know, not to get too deep and philosophical. Oh, why not? You went to St. John’s, you know, looking back at it, it is, it is one of the highest calling on earth. And, and I don’t think people appreciate it, but I, I’ve never seen them, the movie, it was Roberto Benini movie called my beautiful life. No. Wait, is that the one they play in? That’s not the one they play in Christmas. Is it? No, no, no, no, no, I’m thinking it’s a wonderful one. The one you had me wore back in the 90s. Wow. Yeah. Where you played that, a Jewish guy that goes to a concentration camp. But before that, he falls in love with a woman before they send him the concentration camp, whose father is a server at a very, very fine, uh, uh, in Italy, in a very, very fine restaurant. And, and his father-in-law is giving me advice when he gets his first job, working with him in this restaurant. And he says, we have the greatest job on earth because we serve people as, as God serves us. We are being as a God. And that’s always, always stuck with me. If you had a chance, it’s a wonderful, one Academy Award, one of the best movies you’ll ever see. But, uh, but, uh, that line always stuck with me out of that movie. And, and, and I’ve always thought often about that. As I’ve, you know, gone through my career of, of, you know, being able to do this with grace, it really is a, it’s a higher calling. Yeah. I do think there’s something special to it too. There’s so much of life almost happens on autopilot, but I think from what I can tell the service industry is one place where you almost have to see the other person, even if it’s just briefly, you have to get their order. You have to, like, you can’t impose on them what you want them to get. There has to be some sort of exchange. Like so much else of life is just automated and repetitive. Maybe that’s just how I feel. You certainly, I mean, well, we’ve all shown up to work in that state where we just kind of are phoning it in. But we also know that they don’t make as much money. Yeah, exactly. I mean, to do it well, you have to have that human connection almost. Yeah. Yeah. So to do, to be, to be friendly without being too familiar, to show, you know, that kind of compassion at a table or at a bar that you are able to ingratiate upon them without, without overtaking their experience. And then adding something to, I mean, you see what, 20 to 40 people in front of you every night and to add something to their life. I mean, it’s, it’s a pretty, it’s a pretty special time. I can’t lie. I do miss that part of the business, but the late nights and, you know, the lifestyle for sure. And I had to get out of that. Yeah. I guess the musician, it translates across a little bit too as well, because I’m a performer and we are, you know, you’re performing at your table, you’re performing at your bar. So, yeah, you’re always on stage for sure. Yeah. I was on my bars the stage. There was always a mess, man. I don’t care how hard I try to keep it clean while during my shift. I could never do that. Clean as you go. It is not something I live by very much. No. Uh, is there anything you would have done differently in your career? Anything you know, not anything. Wow. There’s some things I might not have said. I mean, I’ve gone back and made my amends. There’s definitely some relationships I might have handled differently. Um, you know, the man I worked for in Nashville for nine years, he passed away recently. And, uh, one of my great regrets, I actually didn’t fly out for his funeral, but I did talk to everybody from the sunset girl afterwards and they, they said there was over 1400 people that it’s signed into the book. They had the reception at a restaurant called Irving Grub over by where my wine shop used to be. And they, and, and Craig, who was the general manager, I was like, kind of a system manager, some way, a guy. And Craig was like, dude, I had, I talked to him after he was like, I had probably three or 400 of those people walk up and ask where you were. I was like, Oh, I wasn’t there. Well, you know, working for Randy Rayburn, uh, who was not, he was so important. The, they named the culinary school in Nashville at Tennessee tech, uh, the Randy Rayburn school of culinary arts. They named the school after him. And, and so he was, he was a pretty outstanding man, but he, he really encapsulated that grace at the table. Now behind the table, remember, I don’t know about you. I had one of those dads on my friends like me and your dad’s the coolest ever. And I’m like, he’s not your dad. If he was, he would not be so cool. That’s how Randy was. Everyone was like, right. He’s my best friend. I love that man. And I’m like, work for him. He was changed. You’re, he was a hard, hard work for nine years of it. Yep. He was a thrower. He’d throw plates across the dining room and screaming. Yeah. What the old school love. Yes. The old school love that. Cause if you got thrown in the poke per DUI at four in the morning, his ass was out and he was picking you up. You know, he’d, he’d come and get you, one up your lawyer and take care of you. But at the same time, boy, if you did something wrong at a table or embarrassed him, he’d take you out back and just drill it into you. Oh man. Why do you, why do you think we love the service industry with things like that? Not, not many people would smile hearing that. No, they wouldn’t. And see if some of them, if I took it was that there was times it was abusive. There was some abuse there, but at the same time there was love there. So I don’t know why do people stay in abusive relationships? You know, this conversation’s gotten way, way, way for me. Sorry. What’s, what’s, uh, what’s coming up in your life? Anything new or exciting with Friday? Anything we should be on the lookout for or anything you tell us about? We are still, you know, like I said, we’re just making cold press fresh sweet juice. Yay. So if you have a bar and you want to, one fresh lime juice and you don’t want to juice it, then you know, call me, we’ll come and do it. We’ve got a, you go to veryfoods.com. There’s a whole section on food service and what we provide. I mean, we still make the blends that we started off with it, like whole foods. I don’t remember when you were here and there was some, we started with cold fresh juice bars. Oh yeah. Yeah. And so, and then Kelly, the owner decided she didn’t like the public very much. So I don’t know why she, I’m kidding. Yeah, she’s going to see this and go, don’t say that to people. But yeah, she just found that the retail was the way to go and that kind of product doesn’t last more than five days. So we got a, it’s called HPP high pressure processing. And so we have a $3 million machine makes 87,000 PSI and you know, it’s in Albuquerque. So not only do we make juice, but it gets rid of a lot of evidence. I was going to say no one’s stolen it yet. That’s amazing. That would be great. Yeah. Yeah. About six times. I hope they don’t man. I know that they took 20 guys to put it in there. But yeah. Awesome. It’s a funny thing. What do you think about the state of the hospitality industry these days? Post COVID just in general or any specific angle or just No, post COVID. Post COVID. Post COVID. You know, it’s interesting. I think that a lot of restaurants suffered a lot during COVID. I think it was a pressure test. I think there were a lot of restaurants that probably were propped up on low wages and false hopes for a lot of employees that ended up closing down. The ones that were just right on the edge. It’s hard to say. It changed the labor market a lot. The restaurant I work at, a lot of the really tenured and experienced servers ended up taking off. A lot of them not by their choice. So we’re dinner only. And so the older employees that actually had kids for a while lost their child care. And then it just kind of became an easier decision to retire. I can’t tell how much of the changes in the labor market and service are just coming about and accelerated. How much of them are related to the rise of kind of the marijuana scene? Because I think that pressure has pulled a lot of the talent pool out. It’s tough. It’s hard finding people that are qualified and show up and are sober. It’s interesting to think that a lot of the level of mentorship left during COVID. A lot of that angry online scene, a lot of the people in the wine industry that the Me Too movement came after, it wasn’t a good look. And it kind of fractured some stuff. One of our go friends, Erin Brooks, even mentioned something about how she wasn’t sure if she wanted to be close to the quartermaster Psalms anymore because they kind of had a bad rap at the moment. Some of the guys I just mentioned were part of that purge. And I know. Yeah. That was part of it. You’re kind of in the club and I had a little falling out with some of the guys in the club because they did some things and used some language that I really did not appreciate. And I made a point of saying something about it. That did not go over well. I was just like, you know what? I know it’s all sitting down and we’re sitting at the bar and having a good time, but I don’t say those things. And then someone got a little mad. We got into it one time at a bar because I was like, I hate that word. I do think though, on the balance of things, I am a big supporter still of the quartermaster Psalms. Our restaurant blocks. They got independent and they audited and then they took care of the people that were the problem. Exactly. They dressed it in fiction. I mean, they made their immense. Yeah. No, and I get those emails too with all their diversity outreach and all the town halls I do. Yeah. I think on the balance, they’ve done a really good job at taking what could have been a really explosive negative situation and at least salvaging and growing from it and doing something better, honestly. Yeah. I still send most of my servers when I can. I encourage them to go and we actually pay them back if they work for us for six months. So like. Did you take the exam? Yeah. Well, if they take it and pass. Yeah. Of course. That’s part of the deal. It’s like, if you don’t pass, you don’t get your money back. Sorry. You know the thing is, you don’t pass that first one. I think the pass rate went, last time I checked. 90%. I prayed for level one was 95%. Level two was in the high 60s, low 70s. Level three, you know, advanced was in the was 32%. And then level four, master was 3%. And that was a few years back. So it may have changed. That was back when it was still ranked as the world’s most difficult exam. Now I think I looked at it the other day. I think it was ranked third on Google. I mean, it’s easier. Yeah. Well, I think they realized they were being a little too exclusionary. So it got to the point. I’m just like, let’s see what we do to ruin these people’s lives and kick them out. Yeah. I mean, last year for the advanced theory, they said it was about 250. So I think it was like, 50% of the test was in the test. And then it was like, 55% got through the theory part. So that is about 25%. But I don’t know. Where did you come in? You need 60% to pass. I got 59%. I don’t know. Two years ago. That’s what I feel. They don’t tell you score, Spellman goes, I’m not gonna tell you score, but if you had gotten a handful more questions right, we’d be talking about you’re taking master at the next sitting. I am. So two years before that, I actually passed the theory and the service, but I felt blind. I got nervous on line four and I took too much time. Didn’t finish. Oh, shoot. Yeah. No, I got my head. There’s no point where you just gotta move on, man. You gotta move on. Oh, yeah. Well, I even got down. I sat down and I looked in front of me and I had four master songs, two who were learning and two who were judging. Proctoring, whatever they say. And I practiced and I practiced in front of people, but I nothing prepares you for when you sit down. And I even said in that moment before I started, I was like, I’m terrified, but I’m going to go. If you could tell my hand was a little shaky and yeah, it’s a thing. You know. Well, the first time I took it down, there was a master’s only this was at the White Hole Hotel in Chicago. And there was a master’s only there who sat at the bar and opened up a case he should believe and set or another grand cruiser of leaning. So, calm down and have a glass before you go up there. Find yourself, get yourself ready, get rid of the jitters. And so everybody’s having a glass of wine before they went and did their blind. I don’t know if they allow that kind of stuff anymore. You know, there was a time where, you know, during the exam, you go out with the masters and get pretty wild. And I think that time in Chicago was when they decided there’s too much fraternization and too much because we came into one of the three days of the two and a half days of lecture and we were all so green. We were hurting because we had so much fun the night before and they’re like, all right, there’s enough. Enough. You guys got to quit hanging out together during exam week. Wait till the end. Wait till the end. I think that’s where the impotence of that competition. So, yeah. Yeah. And look, it was a great time. And I wouldn’t trade it for the world, you know. Sometimes people are like, don’t you miss it? And I’m like, you know what? I was there for a 61 tasting where we had every 61 Bordeaux and 59 Bordeaux and 47, 48. I’ve been there for verticals of 72 vintages of patruist and lethites and Codestranelle and pedal the latat through the Montrachés. And no, I’ve runk on other people’s dimes generally better than 99.99% of the whole world, whatever will. I’ve got no regrets. I was really, really lucky and blessed. And now it’s time to move on and work in other things, but I don’t regret it at all. It was a really, really wonderful time. So, the ones that the world, they can only imagine owning. You got to try. So, yeah. I was there the last time they opened up the 61. Quintrenaval makes up the Quintrenaval Nanceanal. And they were like, this is the last thing. And there’s only a couple of balls each of these left and the guys that don’t own them don’t like each other. So, that’s probably the last time this would ever happen. And I was there. And it was fun. And the people were in good spirits. I mean, good jokes and a lively atmosphere. And they were like, oh, it must have been so snooty. There were times where the snootyness just, you can cut it with a knife, but more often than not, there was just revelry and happiness. And like I was used to saying it, I remember I had my radio show and I’d say, wine’s only as good as the company sure it was. And we, and I was lucky, very, very lucky in that area. Well, Mark, thank you for coming on my show. Oh man. Thank you. That is an hour. It was an hour. Yeah. No, thanks for repaying my favor. I went on Mark’s show way back in the day. So. Yeah. When I was sharing, that was a fun show too. That was fun. You’re on my best guy. Right up through a tail. Oh yeah. You’re got down on a 30 minute tie rate about his favorite cocktail Christmas preparations. I wish I’d listened to that. Yeah. No, I just want to say, you know, so much of my life, it came downstream of one random class that one gentleman taught. So that was you. And so I started studying wine and I ended up in a job where I met my wife and went and moved to a new city. And I found a job where I got into management because I knew about wine and then they moved me up here as a general manager. So so much my life just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, randomly split off from that one free class so many days ago. So thank you. Yeah. You’re going to make me cry. I’m so proud of you guys and you and Aaron and Ben and Ben, the other Ben and I mean, just all the bands. You made it for, yeah. Yeah. It’s, it’s amazing what you guys have all accomplished and just to get to be a little part of that, a positive part of you guys’ life is definitely a good reason to have been here on this planet at this time. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much, brother. All right, man. I’m coming up to Brassville. You’re going to come home to visit. Uh, someday, someday. All right. You’ll probably get it up here before I go down there. We can get over to Market Street. Try down from there. I got a guest room at our new house. Oh.