 All right you guys. Let's do that again. The door. The door. Blows off. Wait, completely off? Yes! Cilantro! Build a pan with whiskey? Yes. What? What? What? Hey everybody, welcome to the show. As always this is a show about failure. It's about screw ups. It's about the tenacity that it takes to start and run a business. Tonight we're going to be talking to Radiator Whiskey. It's a local place here in Seattle. Pike Place Market. And they are all about meat and whiskey. That's what I know at this point. But as always our resident bartender, mixologist, Mr. Jack Sanders. Jack, what do we got? I've got a cocktail called the Unruly Revival. It's a fall riff off of the old fashioned. Woodenville, Applewood, Finnish, 100 proof bourbon. Apple Brandy from Clear Creek. Muscovado syrup infused with bay leaf. Vanilla infused aromatic bitters. And black lemon bitters with tobacco. Hey everybody, welcome to the show. Our guests tonight, Lloyd, Hansel, and Sarah Rosales. They're from Radiator Whiskey. Let's do this. What are we going to do? Just cheers? Is that it? Cilantro. Yeah, cilantro! All right. Okay, first off, the name of the place. You have a couple places. Yes. But the one, Radiator Whiskey. So in my mind, I think this has something to do with prohibition. It does. Does it really? Look at you. I'm so smart. Really smart. Don't tell me about it. Exactly right. So when we were trying to come up with a name, we didn't know where to name this place. And you know, you hit Google and we know we didn't want to be a speakeasy type of thing. We wanted it to be kind of a throwback to prohibition. So just doing web searches of prohibition type stuff. We found people made spirits in their radiators to hide it from the cops. That seems crazy to me. So I turned to Radiator Whiskey and we're like, done. Done. Done. What are you hiding from the cops? We're hiding nothing. You're hiding nothing. So I had a friend that told me one of his favorite things about Radiator Whiskey is that he could eat a pig head or something there. Is that something you have to hide from the cops? You can eat a pig head. I don't think you have to hide it from the cops. I hope not. I don't know. Yes, that is one of the things we're known for. Half a pig's head. It's quite the thing when it shows up on your table and the pig is looking at you. So it's half the head. It'll feed three or four people. And it's just a smoke. And the teeth are still in there. What? In the whole yard. People want to come and see the pig head and have it come to the table. It's in people's neighboring tables. They're like, what's that all the time? And then they go to order it and you're like, I'm sorry, there's only four pig heads tonight. That's absolutely true. Wait, is it really that there's just limited number of pig heads? There's only, we only have one smoker. We're a small place. So as many as that smoker will fit is as many as we can do and we sell out almost every night. So now, had you done other restaurants or other types of things before this? I had not. No. So what's your background? So I worked at the Boeing company for about 20, just shy of 20 years. Of course you did. Why not? I'm in Seattle. You're in Seattle, right? Yeah, I did that for almost 20 years and then had the opportunity to do the restaurant. And the business partner who owns another restaurant called the Hats in the Market, which is an unbelievable place. Like also, was your partner at Boeing as well? No. He was a fish thrower down in the market for years. Really? Yeah, he was kind of the guy. Yeah. And as a guy, I've known him since I think the seventh grade. Oh, wow. So we grew up in the same neighborhood, known him forever. And he threw fish forever down there. And then he took over a restaurant called Mats in the Market in Pike Place Market as well. Yeah, Pike Place as well. And then when the Space for Radiator came available, he's like, dude, I'm like a man. So you gave, how long were you at Boeing? 20 years. 20 years. Yeah. I'm going to go start a restaurant with pig heads and whiskey and, like, why? That's a good question. I think my wife still asks that question. Yeah, I want to know that too. Well, I think after, Boeing was great for the first 18 and a half years. Yeah. I still liked all the people I worked with. It was a fantastic place, but I don't know if you've ever seen the Boeing plants. It was these massive buildings and you sit in the middle of them with artificial light for 10 hours a day with no windows. I mean, there's no windows. You get no natural light for going on 20 years. Yeah. You know, it's, no matter what you do, you know, they ask you to cut 10% and you do and they're like, why didn't you cut 12? You get the twitch. Exactly. Yeah. So why the restaurant? Is it because of your friend that you knew for a long time? He's called you up? Kind of. When he took over his first restaurant, he asked my wife and I to join him on that and he'd never run a restaurant. We'd never run a restaurant. You know, it's a lot of money, a big commitment. We're like, we're going to pass this time. Yeah. Even though I was like, I'm all in by my wife's side. No. And she was right. She was 100% right. But I'm like, hey, if you ever want to do this again, you know, hit us up and about four or five years later, I think it was, the space came available for radio to whiskey and I'm like, we're in. So where did the two of you meet? Was it in doing this and setting this up? Him and I? Yeah. Absolutely. Sarah was the diamond in the rough find at the Holiday Inn. It's right. What? Downtown Seattle. Yeah. Yeah. What were you doing at the Holiday Inn? Well, so I was at UW when I very first started bartending at the Holiday Inn. Okay. I'd never bartended before in my life. I'd done a lot of restaurant jobs. I'd been in the industry. Yeah. All, you know, all through my 20s and whatever. But Lauren had a bartender at the Holiday Inn, made horrible drinks for the first two to three years that I bartended or however long. And then started to get into the craft and started doing tons of research and then sitting in front of bartenders at bars like the zigzag and whatnot. And had a little kit that I used to keep underneath the bar. So in case anybody wanted to come in and get a real cocktail, I would be like, oh yeah, here, here, I've got some chartreuse right here. Let me. The Holiday Inn. Yeah, oh yeah. I love this so much. And I had a double-sided cocktail menu. One side of it was just like lemon drop style cocktails. On the other side was like nice and craft cocktails. Yeah. Dan Buggy had caught wind of me, came in, didn't tell me who he was. Now Dan was the business partner. He was the business partner. Yeah. Ordered a Manhattan, sat and chatted with me and then ordered a bartender's special. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Just said, make me whatever you want. And then he said, so I'm starting this new restaurant. What? Yeah, so that's how it happened. So he picked you up at a Holiday Inn. Yeah. To start the new restaurant. Yes. At a Holiday Inn. You're on board from the very beginning. Yeah. So you were before they opened the doors? Before we opened the doors. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I went in there and if you go in and the shelves on the back bar, I built those things. You built the shelves? Yeah. Our four original employees were Sarah, Tyler, Charlie, and Evan. And Evan. And Sarah, Tyler, and Charlie are still with us. Yeah. I could tell by the way you said Evan. And Evan. And Evan. You guys spit on the ground. Yeah. Now Evan's wonderful. We still have a picture of him on the wall. With angel wings actually. Yeah. You have angel wings coming out. Absolutely. All right. So radiator whiskey. Okay. What sort of like, what sort of mistakes have happened at Radiate? Wait, wait, wait, wait. You get to tell me. Yes. Yes. So I think one of the, this was one of my early, this was fairly early going in. And I'd come in, we opened at four. And I'd come in around five o'clock. And there was this calm around this, everyone, the whole staff. Everybody was just quiet. Something was wrong. Something was wrong. Your body senses kicking on. Everyone was just kind of, usually you walk in. It's everyone's kind of upbeat. And it's kind of, something was wrong. And I turned to, I'm like, what's going on? She's like, oh. So we were looking, you were trying to smoke? Our, our smoker gun broke. Our smoker gun broke. Okay. Yeah. Someone had the great idea to put in a pan. In the smoker. In the smoker. Wait, wait, shut the door. Turn it off. We were open for business, by the way. Full. Restaurant's full. Wait, wait, what did you put in the pan? Whiskey. Because I, oh, so sorry. We have a smoke. Whiskey in a pan. We have a smoked maple fashion on our menu. On our menu. Okay, okay. Our smoker gun broke. You need to, you need to smoke. And let me just, let me just preface this by saying that we had a server who worked at a different restaurant. I won't name any names, but he said, why don't you just use the smoker? We had, we do it all the time at my other restaurant. Absolutely. Wait, wait, wait. It's the smoker for the pig. Yes. Yes. And, and the, and the other things that we smoke at retail. Okay. Fill the pan with whiskey. Put it in the smoker. Close the door. It was about five o'clock. Five o'clock. Wait, wait, wait, wait. Fill the pan with whiskey. Yes. And then put it into the smoker. Shut the door. Oh, this is going to be amazing. Full restaurant. Was it 20 minutes later? About that. Yeah. The door. The door. Blows off the smoker. Boom. In the middle of, in the middle of service. In the middle of service. The best, the best part of that though was the entire restaurant jumped up and ran out. Oh no. But where the smoker is located, we have the smoker right here and there's bar seating right here. Right in front of the smoker. So like where this table is. Okay. And this is where the bar is. There was two guys at the bar. This is my favorite part of this. Who just thought that we were putting on a show for them. Yeah. The restaurant empties. They thought it was hilarious. They were just like, this is the best thing I've seen. I can't believe it. I was so glad I came to this restaurant. A bomb went off. In the middle of a packed restaurant. The door flew off the hinges. Yeah. Blew the door out. Wait, completely off? Yes. Completely. It was a bomb. I'm not kidding. How heavy is the door? Oh, it's heavy. Like an iron door. We had to get a whole new door for it. It's probably this wide and five feet high. Really? It's a metal. Just completely comes off the hinges. It happens when you put a can of whiskey in a smoker. This is like a cartoon. And then whiskey shot out everywhere and it was all flaming. Oh, because it's on fire. Flaming alcohol into the restaurant. And these two guys at the bar just sitting there laughing it up. They loved it. All right, so if you guys had like one piece of advice for somebody that's starting their own thing, they're completely scared. Honestly, I think I'm even asking for myself. They're terrified of like starting something and putting it together. What would you tell them? You mean as a business owner? Yeah, as a business owner or even like for you, you took the leap into something like that was unknown. It was the very beginning. It was unknown for me, but what I would say for people who are especially in the industry, I can't speak for anything else except for restaurant owners. Do not think that you can be a home cook and then start a restaurant. That's it. I mean, you have to have experience. You have to know how a restaurant works. You have to have years in this industry. You can't just say, wow, I know how to cook, right? I like to make drinks. I'm just going to go start a restaurant because you will not survive. If you want to, then go get a job in a restaurant. And you have to do it for a long time. Right. Just to figure it out. It doesn't work, right? Absolutely. And in that same vein, it's higher people that know how to cook. Know how to make great drinks. Know how to manage a restaurant and provide exceptional service. Like have a team. Like actual people that know better than you do on what you're putting together and make that happen. Like you don't have to do everything. No. Don't even try. Especially if you don't have the experience to do it because it won't work. You just don't know what does and what doesn't. I remember one of my college professors, economics professors, I remember one of the things he said in the opening day, first day of class, talking about going out and starting your career and this and that. And the number one thing he said is, don't open a bar. Don't open a bar. And he's right. Because I don't know what it is. The statistics are 90% of them fail. I think restaurants, more than anything else, because at least liquor doesn't go bad. True. I got you. But food does. I got you. I got you. I got you. It's been great. Awesome. Well, Lloyd, Sarah, thank you so much for being on the show. Yes. Thank you. Thanks for having the drinks. Of course. All the way through. Now it's the Rovina. Cheers. Thanks again. Thank you. Everybody, this episode is brought to you by GoDaddy, who if you didn't know, is on a mission to empower everyday entrepreneurs all over the world. They've got all the tools and services to make you successful and even better, there are thousands of GoDaddy guides all over the world, some near you that will talk to you, that will have a back and forth with you to figure out what you can do to be better. So if you have taken the leap and you think you can inspire other people with your story, we'd love to hear it. And hey, hope to see you on the show.