 Welcome to the podcast on today's show. We're talking to the founders of LaCoupe. Thanks for joining for people who don't know Tell them what you do. Well, my name is Craig Walker. I am the chef co-founder of LaCoupe I'm the guy behind the fried chicken my wife's the The woman behind the hospitality aspect and the brown butter chocolate chip cookies. Oh that too. I haven't People don't know I was introduced to you guys not too long ago You're in the sort of up-and-coming area of Melrose Hill here in LA I had never had first of all coleslaw That I liked in a long time or pickles ever and then you guys had a sandwich a chicken sandwich With coleslaw and pickles and somehow you made me a believer in all of the things and the chicken was like decadent really beautiful And I'm not just saying that because you're here. It was like unbelievable It was like a religious experience and you have other food items also, but it was amazing Why obviously you're both talented why this white chicken why a chicken sandwich YLA? Give me a window into sort of the journey. So so many things, you know, I think everything happens for other reasons Even when you have things planned out. So this kind of happened all out of I guess COVID in the sense of The concept we we started and we actually met in Aspen where the fried chicken was I guess conceived and We ran that as a as an entree at the dish for a main dish at 7908 and Gained a lot of popularity. So we knew there was some foundation with that. So we during COVID We lost both of our kind of positions as a private chef and her doing weddings So we pivoted and created a concept out of it And the sandwich was just kind of a byproduct of what we originally started with the bone-in thigh Because we needed more menu items than just the bone-in thigh So we the foundation was the bone-in thigh and we built upon that but the sandwich was like this this kind of Invention or creation that we wanted to have a bunch of different plays of elements like the pickles and the coleslaw And not the traditional aspect of just something that was taken out of a bag more of a just fried Yeah, yeah, that's why I avoided it because I'm like this thing just looks like fried stuff with stuff on it But it was like a discussion for a while if you were even going to have a fried chicken sandwich on the menu Like it was just going to be like the bone-in thigh and then other menu items And we started to realize like everyone loves a fried chicken sandwich We're like let's just debone it and not a sandwich on the menu Yeah, and since the bone-in thigh was a was a large portion. So that was one of the kind of the leading Concepts of it and it kind of will touch on it in the sense of like my key word of being la nyap Which is a little bit extra and so when you had the sandwich la nyap a little bit extra It's kind of a cage-in-term that we we kind of live by at the restaurant where we do a little bit extra in the sense of service We do a little bit extra in the sense of sourcing ingredients We do a little bit extra in the sense of giving you a worthable portion When you first see the sandwich, I wish we had a like a a cam on everyone because it's this Oh shit, this thing's huge, right? People are afraid to eat it. Yeah, and and people have their own little way of doing it The one thing I won't do is cut it because I think it's just you know, I've get pushed back all the time Why don't you cut it? What's the thing? Yeah, it is and you know when I was in the cloud kitchen when it all started I would write would Picasso rip his art in half, you know So you would write that on on people's to go orders like would Picasso write a sandwich and have any We just send it out full but so many people ask us like we had like a Michelin star chef He did a restaurant this past Sunday, and he asked me was like what do you think they would mind cutting it in half for us? And I just had to like sadly like I'm sorry like he's not And the thing is I'll bring you the knife, but it's it's it's you bring you a knife from the kitchen Like it's the presentation, right? You know, it's such a large sandwich if I go and cut it There's no way that I can stabilize and give it to you and still have the same form of visual Stimulation right and I think that food has a lot to do with how you you know We're so caught on visual stimulation now that I think that people kind of forget about the actual food aspect Right, and so we wanted to have the wow factor of when you see it You're like oh wow this is exciting and then once you bite into it There's kind of a play because it sticks out the side So you get to eat a little bit of the chicken on the side Then you get into the pickles and the slaw and the honey mustard There's a lot of different elements to it from crispiness to the vinegar when you guys were doing this during COVID What did you see in terms of like so there's a jump from feeding the people and making people happy during COVID to like? Oh, let's go start a restaurant. Yeah, what point did you guys have like enough? I guess there was a pivotal moment where this all started where We started doing dinners and meals out of our house in Newport Beach. We lived waterfront We had this little walkway that we had herb garden on the front and on Friday night We would post a menu based on a Monday through Friday schedule on just things that we would want Kristen would take the schedule. We had a phone number and email if you would like to order you We would ask you how many orders would you like? We would give you a 15 minute slot that you would have to come pick up people would line up in the alleyway We would have friends over it became fun We did crawfish boils fried chicken all kind of different dishes, but the fried chicken was just the When are y'all doing it again? Yeah, so it became a kind of every week thing and that's when we knew okay Let's let's focus on this and build around it, but someone else really started it for us So when we lived in Newport, it was a lot of air B&B is on the peninsula and so there were these two women from Chicago They were sorority sisters and they did this trip every single year COVID happened they decided to just extend their trip stay in the house And so we were you know setting up the table I was making like the flowers and the putting out the wine and he was cooking the dinner so we were going out on the dock and You know they would just watch us every night and after like four or five nights They're finally like that looks really good like would you mind just cooking two extra plates for us? And I will will pay you for like your you know the cost of it And we're like yeah sure so we just started cooking you know instead of for two for four And then you know they just sat out on the beach every day and just started telling people and we're like We can probably just feed a lot of people in the neighborhood this way and that's when we put the menu out And it just became you know a business, but it was I mean the best restaurant Operation ever I mean we operated Monday through Friday four hours And at the time you know me grocery stores were kind of on this like crazy lockdown where people were buying everything But I still had my ability to get from purveyors So I was able to get product you're helping them out and yeah, so it was this this whole kind of Helping the neighborhood out getting something out there, and it just turned into a business So it was it really we weren't trying to create a business But it was the fried chicken was such a popular item We're like you know what let's give it a shot and the fact that it's something different You know we saw this like kind of rise and you know Popeye's throwing a chicken sandwich and going through this like crazy Like hype zone of chicken sandwiches, and I just think it's you know people love comfort food always find that Comfort food gives them a sense of happiness right and so fried chicken I think allows people to do that and I think that chefs are kind of taking their own Vantage point. I think that you know I'd had a gourmet burger restaurant for almost eight years and That kind of was a big crave in the early 2000s where chefs were like okay We're gonna take a burger and reinvented in multiple different ways And I think now is the fried chicken sandwich highlighted, you know, there's there's fads with food that come and go I don't think the the fried chicken is here forever It's it's been a you know an American classic favorite Forever, but there's only been a kind of a handful of guys on a national scale that get recognized and you know, we want to Grow this business obviously to multiple locations But we want to do it with the integrity of the product and the ingredients that we're sourcing How did you guys arrive at the first location so the jump from going from your backyard? Let's say I would give thanks to Our in the cloud kitchen. We were neighbors up with Giada So Giada's Italian deli that's in the same building facility when the guys from Giada Had mentioned that there was an opportunity at Melrose and Western that they were possibly getting involved in they wanted me to go check it out Initially when I first went check it out. I was a little bit hesitant based on we're in the middle of COVID I don't know this area. My wife and I live in Orange County. We just didn't have enough confidence in what The actual situation might be It was about six months after that I was in a Los Angeles for a private event that I was doing and I said, let me go check the boys out We get a sandwich and I'm like man these guys are crushing it and there was a lot of you see There was a lot of construction a lot of change and you can kind of feel the the energy of things changing around there so We we had another conversation with the owner of the building and he said You know the the deal still stands so the only problem is is the Available unit is a furniture store and it's going to take some time So you guys are gonna have to be patient on the build out aspect And were you involved in the bill that aspect like the design and sort of the kitchen? Oh, yeah Yeah, it was a gift and a curse in the sense of we were involved But we weren't kind of the people making the decisions. We were just kind of giving the suggestions and like what because they were paying for it Because they were paying for it So it had to make sense from their aspect had to make sense from our business aspect The beauty of it is we got a brand new kitchen and the pride of people and if you've ever been in our kitchen It's super clean. It's immaculate. It's it's a hundred percent of the cleanest fried chicken joint in America Without a question and the picture of Anthony Bourdain you guys have on there is amazing, too Yeah, he's been an inspiration So I think those little tidbits of you know my road in the history and where I've gotten and just You know having a little bit of fun in the industry when it comes to restaurants One of the things I always recognize with if with like different chefs that I speak to I don't know how you guys do this But it's basically some of them are like artists They're legitimate artists in the sense of they really could care less about anything financial Like they don't have that in them and they're so good at creating something that brings the the eater To this nostalgic place that reminds it takes them somewhere, right? And so that like that's their genius to some extent and then the other side of it is like the business side of it Which seems to be less it's like there's less chefs that have the business side of it. Do you consider? Do you think you get your yes, so much of the both of it? You know, I just I just grew up in kind of an entrepreneurial Family, you know my with my father and his successes. So I just kind of was in a Always thinking mode, you know every as a kid, you know, how can I make it better? How can I make it more efficient? How can I make it the best right to be the best you have to practice it being the best, right? And to really expose yourself and to understand What's the best bread? What's the best ingredients? How can I source the best things because even if I can create a dish? It's not about just creating that one dish It's about creating a thousand of those dishes every single day and be in having the same experience for you as for others So if you look at our menu Our whole menu was geared originally for to-go packaging because we opened up in a cloud kitchen So the beauty of our food is that you can order it an hour You know and in an hour still have the same experience the way that we fry our chicken and then Toss it in chili honey. It really locks in that crispiness. So from a longevity standpoint It's like we can have food that lasts a lot longer than typical food because we tried it We put it in bags for an hour and we like okay, this still is a good product So we focused on items that we could do that I won't cook french fries because I can't give you that same experience I can make you the best french fry, but you have to eat it immediately. You have to eat it in front of me So, you know, it's a lot of pushback a lot of people are like wear the fries I mean they you know they come in and I want a fried chicken sandwich and fries And they're like why you don't have fries. I'm like well if I offered fries The process of doing it properly, I would have to have a whole nother business for that So I only do things that I know that I can actually replicate and See going forward scalable right now when I think about like Los Angeles I get calls every day from different brokers and they're like, you know, these restaurants Copy shops going on a business this that and the other Here where we're in West Hollywood. It's got the highest minimum wage in the country now And so a lot of restaurant tours today, right post COVID interest rates are really high lending is slow Are like less eager to take the jump from your perspective. How do you look at it? You're in it right now So you just launched you're hiring in Los Angeles. Yeah, what is it? And I hope it's like a hopeful message But like what's the message that you can give people today? I think that from an efficiencies, right? The labor issue is never going to go away so There has to be a balance of supporting what you're doing and also making sure that there's not too much On the books, right? So if There's too many jobs if there's too much work to be involved to create something. They'll never be a profit margin. So understanding the efficiencies of what we're trying to create kind of helps the concept and that could be by layout The way you lay out a kitchen can save a bar same thing Exactly. So there's always opportunities in down times, right? And we are definitely, you know, facing a downtime in the industry with higher wages and stuff like that But from a concept strength standpoint, I think it shows the value of what we're doing if we can make it work here It can be, you know, it can be replicated anywhere, you know, so it's uh, I think it's an opportunity I don't want to say it's a down size It kind of like pushes you to see What you're made of, you know and to try to look at those numbers because you there isn't a lot of excess Like other businesses, you know, the restaurant business runs on very very small margins So you have to take all those things into account If people are wondering, give them a sense of what else is on the menu. So you have like this fantastic cornbread Yeah, so uh, the the main three things we manufacture all the chicken and house. So we bring in a bone and thigh We french it for the bone and thigh that we we make a carving of the meat around the bone But the bone is still intact. So you can actually Eat it like fred flinstone like caveman style. That kind of gives you the traditional like fried chicken experience We serve that with a fried chicken chicharron, which is a chicken skin that we blanch and fry Sell that as a side as well. So that's the traditional as a fried chicken portion The chicken sandwich is obviously like a complete meal in itself And then the tenders were kind of a byproduct in the sense of We didn't want to have any waste and in the world of buying chicken every chicken's different size So there was a lot of chicken that was not fitting the specs of the sandwich or the bone in So then we created another dish by default and the tenders have been just an absolute whirlwind because it's It's kind of more of an elemental like intro into chicken if They just want to taste the chicken, right? It's it's it gives a little bit more ease to that So those are the chicken dishes that we create and then we have three salads that the the watermelon salad has Just been an absolute hit sold that at another restaurant. We can press watermelon Serve it with a basil. How do you do that? How do you compress watermelon compressing melon? We take all the the skin off. We put it in a vacuum bag and we put it under pressure and what that does is Collapses the cells and intensifies the sweetness and color without doing anything because you're just making it more intense Pro tip. Yeah, so we I'll never do it, but that sounds I'll leave it. So just kind of the full circle of that all the trimmings of that We use for watermelon juice. So there's kind of a zero waste Concept behind that. So the watermelon salad we do with the basil pistachio dressing Australian marinated goat feta really just a soft great cheese And we do pickle fresno's for a little bit of heat and then we put a little test tube of balsamic reduction A little dropper. Yeah to give the customer a little interaction That was really just because uh when we used to do a lot of deliveries If we put the balsamic on ourself the darkness with the green pistachio dressing just kind of Sure You know, I always feel like great ideas are just Unnecessity. Yeah, out of necessity and just you know, okay. How can we figure out this this issue, right? Then we have a wedge salad where we do bacon lardons, baby lettuce roasted cherry tomatoes Pickled red onions and croutons. Simple salad. That's the one thing we didn't get. I gotta get there Yeah, the simple salad. I think the sleeper, you know, and it's I'd say it's probably the Lease ordered item and I think it may be the name or whatnot But um, it was actually an experience in Chicago that we went for the food show and we went to this fantastic Michelin star restaurant And the most like unassuming dish of the whole night was this salad and it came out. I'm like, man This looks like crap. Well, they kept bringing us out courses and they all looked so like Yeah, and then they brought us this and I was like, well this is like wet lettuce with a couple croutons and candy He took a bite and this dressing was just like, holy crap. This is amazing. So Anyway, my buddy was the kind of middleman of it and the the chef was like, oh, here's the recipe You know, I'd love for you to introduce. So that was kind of a cool experience and um, That was this it's it's a simple salad, you know, it's butter, lettuce, candy, walnuts, apples and this French vinaigrette, which is a miso mustard vinaigrette. So there's miso and mustard like east and west meats So it's a really a lot of flavor a lot of umami and Really good just profile of flavor in a salad. So and then the supporting cast of the dishes we have The blue cornbread, which we have brown butter duck fat and then we serve that with a whip steins butter steins as a Louisiana product Made from sugar cane. They take sugar cane juice boil it down into this thick consistency We whip that with butter. So it's a total non traditional cornbread We sourced the corn flour from ants and mills in South Carolina. They work directly with chefs I'll call them say I need, you know, 25 pounds. They'll grind it to order. So it's not like something that's been You know sitting on the shelf for years and that I just think those small elements kind of fit into The whole concept of what we're doing Uh, next would be the corn ribs. Uh, we take crack a corn My version of an elote a playful fun version that you can eat with your hands Split them in quadrants fry them toss them in a chili lime mayo that we make in house case of fresco In a bit of cilantro You just eat them like a corn like a rib. We've had a lot of customers that were ex meat eaters that come and thank us that say they get the same feeling of Eating a rib the lady who cuts my hair I showed her a picture of them and she was like, oh my god that and she's she's vegan Yeah, and she was like i'm going for that. She's found love. Yeah, there's mayo in them though. Yeah, there's mayo on teller Everyone cheats a little bit. Yeah, absolutely. And then we have the the coleslaw we sell as a as a side item In addition to the puff chicken skins, which is a garnish for the bone and thigh And a traditional southern potato salad and then for desserts. We have vanilla bean cheesecake Crème brûlée traditional crème brûlée southern bread pudding with a strawberry compote And her famous brown butter chocolate chip cookies. Do you guys eat this? You guys both seem pretty fit. Do you eat this every day? What do you eat? You know, thank you for the compliment You know, it's uh, I always say chefs don't ever eat, you know, we're just picking so it's I'm always quality assurance You know making sure that everything tastes right, but um Yeah, it gets old. We were understaffed one day in our front of house guy He finally at like maybe like fourth already almost five. He was like guys I've been waiting for hours for you guys to take a food break Yeah, so we go we I don't really eat during the day So, uh, it's just one of those things that if I start to eat it slows me down So I just you know Stays throughout the day and I snack on the chicken skins all day Yeah, those are so good. Just kind of make sure they're it's quality assurance. Sure Let's talk about the area. So I was talking to my wife on the plane here today and she said we should we should buy a play She said in mel and melrose hill. Yeah, and I was like, oh, that's where you guys are. Yeah And someone some famous architect just bought a house there somebody just bought a house there I don't anything about this But it's like tell us about this area that's up and coming it seems there's a lot of cool restaurants coming I mean from When we first, uh, checked out the area, I guess would be three years ago to now I mean, there's obviously a lot of motion going on. There's a lot of creative offices Yeah developer who bought a ton of that block. I'm pretty sure Yeah, we have our landlord and then them but they kind of work together About six new businesses that are about to open, right? I mean they have a Kind of a higher-end grocery store. I think it was comparable to like airwan Something like a super food grocery store that's supposed to be opening There's an italian restaurant opening right next to us in about three months a coffee shop opening this month Giada was first and cuya lord and we're also going to expand the the back area of our restaurant to do Outdoor seating as well. So that's also in the plans. When does that hit? I mean, that's kind of like just working with the city Six months It's the last three years though. I mean the change has been significant It went from like, I don't know about this area to like, I think we're we're on to something and we got here first, which is great Yeah, that is pretty amazing. The parking is is bad. Yeah, the parking the parking is an issue You know and I don't I don't think there's any way around it My philosophy is that you know if there's the proofs in the pudding if if the product is good enough people will find it And you know, I think sometimes they'll catch us at a downtime, you know, they'll sit there eating and they're just confused Like where's the line out the door, you know, and it's we're still trying to get known You know, even though we've gotten some really good feedback and great recognition, you know It's uh, it's one of those places that I feel like in LA everyone's kind of like on their own route Right, so we have to break that route in order for people to see us How do you have you guys stumbled across like a fun customer journey where the first time they go They get the chicken sandwich. I imagine the second time all the time. What's the third time? What does that look like? What's that journey look like people do work their way through the menu Last time I got this this and this and a lot of people come in groups to try everything because our menu really is Meant to be shared like a lot of people can't finish the whole sandwich And I feel like there's so many people that are that are coming from some people can't yeah There's so many people that are coming from far distances like a lot of people from san diego A lot of people from further south and up north like santa barbara So the word's getting out there and people that really are like honed into like trying really great fried chicken They're you know super stoked. We had the the writer a full house He became a huge fan at first he was you know He didn't know about the concept of what we were doing and like the fried chicken and once he had it He now called us to have a you know asked if we did reservations And it's kind of funny when people call for reservations because you know, we only have 16 seats So it's like we can reserve it but you know, we push chicken so quick It's it's not like we need to reserve it And are you getting approached? Are you thinking about franchising this or you thinking about going other places in california and the country? We uh, we've been approached numerous times uh on the idea of you know I think we hear it four or five times a day you guys would crush it on you know Westside or the hills or whatever, but it's really about honing in what we're doing now In order for those next locations to be successful. So making sure that a we have the staff we haven't taken a Personal vacation since it's opened So we've been there every kind of second that the operation has been in in motion So in order for us to move on to those next steps We want to be able to watch the place, you know run by itself and yeah That takes time outside of the product when it comes to like a restaurant just having an amazing product What is like the the key number two thing is it marketing? Is it like what's the thing that can set a restaurant on fire? Maybe specifically to la la operates a little bit differently Obviously word of mouth helps, but what's the thing that can set it on fire? You know, I think that there's a couple elements that are changing right now. I think tiktok's huge You know, it's not something that that's past my I don't even I don't have it. I don't know how to tiktok I don't know how to do it You see like a probably seven-year-old man come in and like oh, how'd you hear about us? And it'd be like tiktok and you're just like blown away like what like how did you see this? It's a thing, you know, I think it's hitting all age realms So I think that's a huge part of social media the new social media I think that word of mouth that was really huge for word of mouth and it snowballs into different things Where you have a great experience and you might have a buddy that like, you know likes fried chicken and you hit him up like yo I got you got to go check this out and then that kind of snowballs into other events But you know, it's about kind of keeping the pressure on in la. There's so many moving parts in the city It's such a fast moving city that you kind of Keep pushing on your elements because the you know, the gas will We'll go down, you know the fire will go down if you don't keep fueling it. Yeah That's that's in what we're focused on doing now is keep pressing keep Pushing what we're doing involving ourselves in these events that are coming up like the la food bowl and Some of these other larger style events for exposure, you know, I think that once people try it It's like it's like crack, you know, they they they want more They keep coming back. So I don't refer to it. It's a drug element, but you know, it's addictive It's addictive. Yeah, look tell people where they can find you tell people how much it is so they can Save their coin and go. Yeah, so we're located 709 northwestern in the corner of melrose and western and our sandwich is 1550 but at the end of the day, you're not going to have anything You're not going to want anything else. It's just a matter of, you know, how much can you eat? You know, it's a complete meal. We wanted to offer value. I think that, you know, now you go to mcdonald's and you get a value meal It's 12 13 bucks. It's food's expensive. Yeah, it's it's expensive these days So we try to offer value and a quality product You know, we wanted to when developing this concept as a chef and being in fine dining and all these different realms of Work that I've involved myself in I wanted to be able to offer a customer High quality meal that they didn't have to get dressed up for that. They didn't have to have all the fuss to get to right They could enjoy it at their house They could order it online or they could experience at the establishment Also says like I know on all of our real estate projects There's this real thing that we always focus on where we I personally want people to come in and have a good time for 40 bucks And I used to call them first date spots and then I'm working with how we change that like it wasn't first date It's just like anyone in the community can do that and so you can be any worker at any level And of course if you want to spend $200 you can do that too, but the idea is like you can go and it's like it's approachable It's for everyone. It's not a Michelin star per se, but what's interesting is like we're working with Now some really amazing chefs that could easily go into the fine dining space if they wanted But I think there's a beauty in doing sort of what you're achieving here Where it's you can have these decadent meals that are so thoughtful But you price them in a way that anyone can have it And there's a magic to that, right? I don't know if it's like a cultural shift that's happening in terms of food Where it's like maybe the white tablecloth has is like going away. I don't know But to me from a development perspective It makes more sense Right and so it's like you can keep this amazing talent But they can make something simple, but it could simple and like, you know, it's not this Sourced crawfish thing, you know, it's like it's like simple in the sense of like a burger or a fried chicken sandwich But it's still so amazing like you guys have that background It's like a blessing and a curse though because like first of all like finding employees with that like like you're saying like They want that like fine dining fancy like notoriety and they have these egos where they want like the fine dining restaurant behind them But what we're doing is we're doing that similar food in like a very non-pretentious very fast casual setting So it was hard for us to find the right chef for that exact reason is a lot of them They want to be in that like cool flashy restaurant. They want the accolade. Yeah interesting So we finally found a chef who is our sous chef now and he's come from michel and star restaurants who didn't want that pressure and Yeah, that was that was actually what enticed him because he there's so much pressure involved in fine dining You know whether it be from The executive chef down The you know the margins of everything. It's just it's a lot of intensity and it's not really Understood by the common public, right? It's kind of this I think that the new Show the bear has really kind of highlighted on a lot of Real actual points and fine dining and it's kind of it's I think it's one of the reasons It's a very popular show at the moment And it'll continue to be because I think people have such a connection with food, right? And so for our background and being in fine dining and high detail We wanted to offer that in a to-go box, you know, there's Take the pressure off, but still have the great food, right? So we have a lot of fun with what we do and at the end of the day We're not carrying caviar and truffles, but we are doing the same techniques and the same sourcing and the same aspect and Quality of quality assurance of food that the same guys at Michelin star restaurants do we brought that into la coupe too Like for example from for myself I worked at buccane and palm beach which was under chef clay connolly who is a james beard award-winning chef and a fine dining Super high service a lot of pressure and it was my job to really connect with the customers As soon as they walked in the door and make sure their experience was great And I feel like we carry that on to la coupe I don't think a lot of customers who walk in to our particular restaurant think that they're going to get Served at their table and their plates cleared for them and be checked on all the time And uh with the food, yeah I'd say it's it's this element of when you walk in you're like, okay This is you know, this is cool. Whatever a nice menu. I mean you get the food you're it's overwhelming That because it's unexpected the experience elevates it. Yeah, and so we like to Carry that out through the whole process And even though we order at a counter service We still have the mindset and mentality of making sure that you like it making sure that you're having a good time Making sure if there's anything you need we're available to assist you because I think that uh You know it makes you feel good, right? And there's so many little things that can set you off if you don't have a napkin or if you're fork or Whatever, um, it's nice to be able to have that level of service and I think people are super appreciative of it as well It's kind of funny because when we were trying to conceive the name We had all these different, you know, we were writing them out and this and that was on the list Oh, there was so many. Well, we got down to the coop to think that we mean we were really bored I mean this was like after weeks in the house. We're cooped. Yeah, it's so crazy Finally, it's like I like jumped up and we're cooped up like it's la coop No, we were just going through things and we're like, well It's like the cut the chicken the bone and because at this point It was just the bone and thigh on the menu. So we're like the cut. I was like, look, let's cut. It's french We're frinching the bone. Let's call it le coop, right? Le means the and coop. It's coop, right? Well, little did I know that was just my You know my if you google le coop, it says the cut in french, right? So we're like, oh perfect Like this is what we're doing like sign the paperwork like le coop And then when we were doing the construction here in la this woman was riding by on her bike And I wasn't there at the time I think it was like staples printing something and she's like verbally accost Yeah, because it's supposed to be la coop. She was like it's la coop You know, I I tried to just charm her and say look I'm from south, Louisiana. I'm still learning the english language You know, it's just trying to you know, give a little highlight to the french culture Given the fact that you know, I went to the court on blue. So I have the experience of that I have you didn't say all this to her so she comes back into the restaurant once we're open And they're all in the back working I'm in the front by myself and this lady comes in like very hostile And I'm like, hi, how are you welcome in and uh, she's like I just still don't understand why it's le coop And I'm like what like and then I'm putting it together. This is the same woman who like wrote her bike passed And uh, she's like, you know, it's la coop. It's feminine. And I was like, oh, I don't I don't know Like she's like, why would you call it that and I was like it's the cut in french She's like it's not it's la coop And I was like, well the sign's already up. So like we're sticking to the best part about it though Is now she's our biggest fan doesn't give a rat's ass about a birthday Cheers less about the day You turned her yeah So there's like, uh, you know my background being from Lafayette, Louisiana You know french culture so now we wanted to create you know creme brulee. There's a lot of like french dishes You know, maybe not the corn but Well, thanks for coming on the podcast guys. Thanks for sharing your start Absolutely If you made it this far, I bet you loved the episode so you should join our youtube channel membership for only $2.99 a month This gets you access to one the whole on a bridge conversation Two you get the episodes on monday one day earlier three you get two additional entries to our giveaways Check out our instagram to see what we've given away and four you get access to seasons one through three That's over a hundred episodes of wisdom and life changing advice. What are you waiting for join?