 Well, here's the thing. My projections had me saving up probably like $100,000 for rainy day fund. Turns out that rainy day fund is just what COVID is called. Chicken breast, beef tenderloin, salmon filet are all everyday ingredients that makes for a great meal. But the true testament to a chef's skill and creativity comes from their ability to put unique ingredients like beef heart, bone marrow, and pig ear into a delicious meal. Today I'll be bringing you to Straight and Marrow where we get to see how Chris puts a spotlight on everyday forgotten ingredients. Let's go behind the scenes and check out their secret sauce. Straight and Marrow is located in Vancouver's East Village, an industrial area home to many breweries and unique restaurants. They open Wednesday through Sunday from 5.30 pm to midnight and their main clientele are those looking for delicious cocktails and a chef-inspired fine dining experience all at an affordable price. Hello Chris! Thanks for having me. Very, very well. Thank you, thank you for having me here again. I really enjoy this place. It looks beautiful. Absolutely wonderful. Tell me, tell me what is Straight and Marrow? Straight and Marrow is just my baby over here. Realistically it's just the restaurant me and my friends have always wanted. So we're just doing yeah, food exactly how we want to do it. We're doing cocktails how we want to do it. Everything a little bit outside the box and I think the main thing that we're going for is the fact that a lot of restaurants here you know you're like Italian French or Asian Japanese you know what I mean like it's they're in kind of a box that they have to follow and so we never really like that like me and my bartender you know we've always worked in places where they put a limit on what we could do because you had to keep up with this theme or their clientele so we wanted to build a place where anything we think of you know we want to do a Spanish dish we want to do a Mexican dish we want to do like an Asian dish like let's go for it you know like we don't want anybody telling us what we can't do and then we're going to build our own unique clientele that will kind of enjoy coming here to experience those things and never know what they what to expect right right and you have a philosophy nose to tail what is that well nose to tail I think a lot of chefs use it like it's just their concept is you don't waste anything you use everything like when you get a full cow in our full pig it it doesn't have the head usually it doesn't have the tails it doesn't have you know all the organs so their nose to tail is using all the cuts but those are still traditional cuts so my nose to tail is things that I grew up eating you know like we have hot pot you know we pork kidneys it's one of my favorite things so it's trying to introduce a lot of those flavors to the general population um and just honestly not wasting anything and our butchers right now love us for we're taking everything that they don't they can't get rid of you know I'm like go we'll take it we'll make something delicious out of it show me why don't you show me behind the scenes now when it comes to the menu Chris takes that nose to tail philosophy and create some truly amazing dishes combining unique and creative ingredients with fine dining flavors and flair but what's truly amazing is that their average order value for stray and merrill is only around 45 to 55 dollars where you could be easily spending hundreds for similar food at other establishments so yeah so i'll show you my favorite dish which is the sweet bread dish what is sweet bread sweet breads is actually a pancreas gland or thymus gland of an animal so either in the neck or somewhere in there so I was always taught that a good piece of sweet bread should kind of taste like fried chicken so I made kind of a fried like a Korean fried chicken dish um so here we have just these are the fried lamb sweetbread just fried in a little bit of tapioca starch and then we have some fried brussel sprouts which I tossed in fish sauce and lemon juice so going for a little little asian-y flavors there so is it really difficult and it takes a lot of like r&d when it comes to coming up with uh with all these recipes for unique ingredients because it's not like your typical chicken breast that's probably the hardest thing is the fact that like there are like there's a book called the flavor bible that every cook lives by that gives you all the flavor combinations that work yeah when it comes to a little bit weirder things you can't google anything you just have to try so that's kind of what you do you just put yourself in the in the kitchen you just go ham things that you think would work as a chef and then you kind of go for it something I was super inspiring when I was here last time and I was really really impressed was your plating like I'm trying to make sure that people you know will eat our food the first thing is your eyes so you got to have it looking nice it's beautiful every single dish it feels like I'm in a five-star hotel is this a skill like that you've learned throughout your whole culinary career well I think everything you kind of grow in whatever right like I've I've been cooking now for 12 years yeah so you pick up a little bit here and there and you know you put it all together at some point everybody has to become their own head chef and you don't have anybody to kind of tell you what to do anymore and you have to kind of come up with your own theories and strategies of how you want what you think will work um so here's my dish it's um lamb soup breads there's um garlic puree and this is just a little bit of brown butter powder right so this is just yeah it's just um how can you how can you make this so effortless it's like so beautiful like I tried something like this at home and it just looks like a mess you know it's not hard it's honestly like it it's like I have a little six-year-old kid at home who I'm teaching the plate now and yeah he might be better than me so we'll see so this is one of my best friends in the world just Chad he's he's also my bar manager and pretty big genius in the cocktail world so yeah see what he's up to thank you hello Chad nice to meet you all right what are we making today um I'm gonna run you through a drink that we named after the restaurant it's called the straight and marrow cocktail and it is pretty unique we use bone marrow in the process of creating the drink wow yeah um so this bottle here is mongrel it's produced by odd society spirits just down the road it is a 100% rye spirit that 50% alcohol right and it's perfect for infusions so things that are high alcohol they'll draw the flavors out of whatever you soak them with right so right here I have some the guys in the kitchen saved me some drippings from their bone marrow you can actually help me with this it's very satisfying so we're just gonna dump these in here this looks like I'm at a high school party so bone marrow has a sweet flavor and I thought it would be cool to incorporate that into a cocktail so you cannot actually like taste it yeah the hint of it yeah yeah it's actually pretty intense like the pure spirit is pretty intense but in a cocktail we can balance those flavors so this guy we're gonna let it sit in the fridge for a couple days and then we pull it out and put it in the freezer yeah so my freezer uh because all of the fat from the marrow will freeze and the alcohol will not so then we can run that through a coffee filter and you're not drinking fat you're just drinking the flavored spirit wow that's cheese and you invented this uh well it's a technique called fat washing and I know that some people have done it with marrow before yeah but no one has done it in the type of drink that I'm about to make for you please yeah this is a special technique when you're shaking uh every bartender does their own thing a different way I try to hit as many make the ice smash against the edges of the tins as many times as I can before I bring my arm down throw it around I mean I love doing stuff like that but Chris doesn't like that doesn't right you break too many glasses yeah yeah that's a thing and this is not quite the finished product you know it goes well with beef and marrow salt salt yes for sure that's there's some salt in the beef stock but we're going to pair that with red wine and that's going to settle out so uh the red is on top and it's orange underneath so just like with Chris we like to make the drinks pretty first and make sure that the taste is as good as the looks yeah and this is definitely the weirdest cocktail I've put on a menu I've never done something with beef or marrow before yeah and this this one's not going anywhere this is our signature cocktail here in straight America thank you thank you appreciate it pleasure normally when you think of fine dining restaurants and bars you probably be thinking of expensive over the top the court and huge investments but by leaning into a niche clientele and creating a small intimate space filled with character Chris has been able to create his dream restaurant for just around 300 000 it's truly inspiring to see people with such unique visions going out on their own and making their dreams come true and I'm certainly excited to see where Chris and the team of straight and marrow are headed in the near future wow it's really good yeah I can actually taste the marrow in here beautiful that's our signature dish so straight and marrow yeah actually speaking of which straight and marrow what does it even mean uh so it's kind of play on words on uh what living your life on the straight and narrow means you know like usually you live your you know you're pretty straight edge and everything will work out for you if you have good morals and everything's good so the idea is it's just you know like I like eating all my friends like eating so you live your life on the straight and marrow it's just like eat lots of bone marrow eat lots of good food and life will go good I love it it's like a really it's a name that's uniquely you that you're like you know what I like this I don't care what judgment whatsoever it's for you your friends and and everything and that's kind of like the concept behind this place right like it's just a hangout spot for you and your friends that's what you wanted you created it yeah exactly like honestly like I think the harshest critiques of the critics of this city are probably all my friends who are all restaurant industry people right so if I could create a place where we'd all be happy to go and that's where we would spend our hard earned money we did something right and that's all we were after have you always knew that you you've wanted to build a restaurant well I've fought it for a long time to be honest I you fought it what do you mean well honestly the restaurant life is not the best for everybody you know like it's very demanding hard hours you don't really get paid well you know and you just have to love it there's a lot easier ways out there to make a buck you know so you have to look to do it and that's kind of like why I'm super inspired by chefs like you that you guys have so much passion you guys spend so many hours here R&D cook the food and then you still need to deal with the business side of everything it's it's really admirable thank you thank you yeah and especially for you you're like taking it in god mode you have to like cook beef year beef heart bone marrow and these are like really unique ingredients that are very tough well I think that's what's also what is fun for me is the fact that there's a lot of things that I wasn't allowed to play with in other restaurants you know like I I'm working at this like fine dining restaurant hey I want to like throw some like you know pig feet and maybe like we can like do some you know like this organ or this and they're like no that's not going to sell you know it wasn't even allowed to try so now that I'm my own boss I have my own restaurant like anything I want you know like we sit around having a beer and we're just like what do you want to play with next week you know what do you want to order in and we do it and that's the thing and it's it's super fun and that's that's probably like the my favorite thing about this place is how much fun we're all having because there's no limits you know and the fact that people are loving it it's even better yeah so I guess like when you were building this place like roughly how much did you have to like invest in this place well here's the thing my projections had me saving up probably like a hundred thousand dollars for rainy day fund yeah turns out that rainy day fund is just what COVID is called now you know so so realistically you know like my plan was to put 200,000 into it and then a hundred thousand kind of saved up for and that's what causes restaurants to go under is they don't they don't prepare for GST payments PST payments you know they don't pay they just don't prepare for things that come up like this breaks down you need to repair it and that was me being smart thinking I had all this money backed up yeah but in a way it did work out because a lot of places couldn't open up during the pandemic because they you know weren't prepared for what it took as a new restaurant we didn't receive any subsidies you know no rent subsidies no wage subsidies so I bought this place last November I've been paying full rent you know like I've had to pay wages like and all my utilities so it's it's a pretty pricey proposition right now but you know we're here and we're happy so it's so difficult and it's so admirable that you're going through with it you're opening through COVID and especially for a concept like this it's so difficult and it must be such a big struggle for you wasn't it scary honestly I think my attitude in life is very similar to what I have in the kitchen it's what makes me a good chef is that I don't really get rattled I I worry about things when they happen you know I don't worry about things that are gonna happen so all this stuff you know what there's no point freaking out about it you deal with it as it comes and so we're gonna open you know like no matter what that was the plan yeah it was either that or go bankrupt right so it's like you know what we are gonna open and we're gonna try and you know at least we went out doing something we loved you know right plans obviously not to go out ever no but you know I mean like we have something to show for here that we're proud of we're really happy that people like it you know and we're gonna continue doing it and it's that's the entire deal and just basically here hanging out with my best friends and having fun so what was the toughest part throughout this whole journey honestly it's being a first time restaurant owner you know like working with all my best friends is great but I'm also in charge of all their livelihoods now you know so having to you know like when you're out with your friends and they're like oh I can't afford to go out I can't afford to buy this yeah that's one thing when they're working for somebody else when they're working for you that's an issue so it's making sure that all my friends are taken care of everybody's happy you know and that's probably the biggest struggle yeah so I guess like what was the first taste of success for you I know like you guys are like your regulars are coming yeah we're very new um I would honestly just say that you know like when a patron shows up you know like like a sweet bread dish or beef heart dish like your wife you know like our server will like joke with them you know like oh what is a sweet bread like how about you eat it and then we'll tell you later like and it's just like and they eat it like oh I want another plate what was that and then they say like oh that's interesting that's not something I would have ever thought that I would eat you know but they love them they come back for more that makes me happier than anything like so your regulars are coming back like 15 times yeah already within a span of like a month or two that's like what is that secret of success for you guys like or secret sauce that like it draws them back here honestly I think it's just us being genuinely good people and like our focus here is you know like not making money we want to survive of course but honestly our number one priority is to provide that dining experience that a lot of people haven't had you know and we don't want them to pay for we don't want the stuck upness of fine dining we don't want you know like just you don't have to dress up to come here you want to come and have a cocktail and like you know like spend under 20 dollars you can do that like and it's just a good place to hang out and it's just that's the main draw I think is that people realize that we're not out to get them you know we're not out to like oh you know like we're going to throw this like tuna dish on because the suppliers are like you know they're overstocked and they're going to like toss it our way and we can sell it to you make a lot of money no we're putting out all things that we would personally like to eat drinks that we would like to drink and you know like that's it's very it's there's nothing complex about it you know it's just caring about your customers and caring about the restaurant nice yeah and it's a quality food quality drinks that you if you were to go out and get it like you said they gouge you for money and well that's one of the other things I wanted to make sure that we're doing here was that people are getting value and so a lot of dishes like I was honestly a little bit worried about like undercutting some restaurants of them getting mad at me you know because we've had chefs come in here and they're like you got to charge more for that what are you doing exactly you know and but the thing is we care more about the exposure you know like we want people to be able to experience fine dining you know on our level at least and leave feeling satisfied I've been to some of the you know three mission star restaurants in the world you know like the food's been incredible yeah but at the end of day you look at your wallet and you're like well it was really good but I don't know if it was like yeah not that good so that's the thing we want everybody come you know like leave happy feeling like they got a good deal and yeah just generally like love our restaurants so I love that philosophy that's amazing so what's the big plans for you guys what are some of your goals um honestly it depends how COVID goes that's a really big thing we wanted to launch brunch but it's kind of dangerous to hire more staff right now and then the other thing that we really wanted to do here was the original idea was to do we were always closed on Monday Tuesday so we wanted to do pop-ups to give you know other chefs other bartenders an opportunity to kind of like use their voice and what kind of things they're coming up with and what they want to do you know um but again with COVID that's not the best thing so we'll see how COVID goes and then at the end of day hopefully all that stuff can come to fruition thank you thank you for showing me what you can do with stuff that I usually don't eat no worries thank you so much for coming thank you so there you go guys the secret sauce behind straight and marrow Chris's philosophy is simple be honest to yourself and don't be afraid to go and chase your dreams thank you for watching this episode of the secret sauce I'll see you guys in the next video