London's Most Famous Sandwich Shop's Wild Story & The Secret to Happiness - Max's Sandwich Shop "Max Halley"

39:09They are having more conversations than most people. Right. And, and, and when you start getting into it, I bet you if you did this with Milkman, Yeah. whatever, you find out that, oh fucking actually Milkman are the most interesting people in the world because it's actually, everyone's fucking fascinating. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They just, most people don't, you know, you don't get a chance to speak to most people. Yeah, yeah. And also, like, just prizing out, like, there was a bloke I met, well, just, like, I was getting a cab the other day, and he was from Romania, and turned out, like, he was eating, like, I think a chocolate eclair, which kind of just made me kind of, and an orange juice.

39:47Yeah. I was like, this is kind of weird. But he was fucking hench, right? And anyway, got chatting to him. And it turned out he does bodybuilding and stuff. This was one of his cheat meals. And I was like, they're fucking disciplined to do that. And like, yeah. Fascinating. Anything is so like, I think curiosity is just this amazing thing. And actually, when you're on that fucking thing, the blower, it just... It gets rid of it. It's like a snake. Yeah. Well, because it persuades you that you're being curious, right? Yeah, yeah. Like, oh, I'm checking the news or I'm fucking... Someone's messaged me about some shit on Instagram or whatever.

40:22but it's but it's like fast food curiosity it's not like wholesome curiosity yeah you know what i mean it's like it's fucking yeah it's so interesting yeah the um what so with the um hunter s thompson stuff so in your in your picnic book which is amazing yeah you did the hunter s thompson picnic hunter s thompson and mary berry and mary berry together yeah yeah like why is he like you know he's not he's on the toilet you've got a yeah we've got an amazing letter we should I get that. It's so funny. Where is it? Yeah, it might... James, did you put the letter back in the shitter, or did I? I did, no.

40:58You did? Ah, brilliant. Yeah, it's got velcroed at the top, Dan. I'm going to pull it up. It's got velcro in it. Yeah, like a velcro... Command strip. A command strip. Okay, yeah. Okay, command strip. Yeah, one of the greatest letters anyone has ever written. Yeah, so this is in the... Yeah, if you want to read that, so that's August 17th, 1973. Yeah. And Woody Creep, that's where he lived, wasn't it? Yeah. Yeah, and I love the idea of Woody Creek, a kind of, I guess, a sort of big estate, a big compound that he had in, that's in Aspen, I think. And in his garden, he had a billboard-sized picture of Jay Edgar Hoover, and he used to sit on his porch and shoot it in guns.

41:39I was like, the guy's a fucking lunatic. He's a lunatic. A fucking lunatic. Have you seen his, I don't know if it's fictitious or not, but have you seen his writing process? Oh, the thing that's his calendar for the day. Yeah. And it's like, wake up, do a line of gear. Yeah, like, bottle of Chivas Regal. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 60 cigarettes. And then, like, nap. More drop acid again. Yeah, and then it gets to, like, 12 and 12, and it's like, start writing. Start writing, yeah. It's amazing. Unbelievable. Yeah, read this, because I think it's interesting. Yeah, this fucking letter. This was a letter that he wrote to Anthony Burgess, the writer of Clockwork Orange.

42:17who had submitted, from what I understand, had submitted Clockwork Orange to Rolling Stone when asked to write. Wait, so he submitted it as to, like, I guess as an article, I guess. Okay, interesting. Like, I don't know, but that's certainly how it's implied. Anyway, I'll read the letter. It's so funny. Dear Mr. Burgess, Herr Venner has forwarded your useless letter from Rome to the National Affairs Desk for my examination and or reply. unfortunately we have no international gibberish desk or it would have ended up there what kind of lame half mad bullshit are you trying to sneak over on us when rolling stone asks for a think piece god damn it we want a fucking think piece and don't try to weasel out with any of your limey bullshit about a 50 000 word novella about the condition humane etc got work orange a 50 000 a novella about the conditions you made, etc.

43:14Do you take us for a gang of brainless lizards, rich hoodlums, dilettante thugs, you lazy cocksucker? I want that think piece on my desk by Labor Day and I want it ready for press. The time has come and gone when cheap jack scum like you can get away with the kind of scams you got rich from in the past. Get your worthless ass out of the piazza and back to the typewriter. Your type is dime a dozen round here, Burgess, and I'm fucked if I'm going to stand for it any longer. Sincerely, Hunter S. Thompson. What I would love to find out is what did he then submit? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know. I wonder if we could find that.

43:53Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It may be that date, August 17th, 1973, we go through the Rolling Stone archive. That might be worth an email to Rolling Stone magazine. Yeah, 100%. And saying what was published by Burgess after he'd received, when he got his lazy, worthless ass out of the piazza and back to the typewriter. But yeah, look, Hunter S. Thompson, I'm sure, I'm sure he did not smell of roses all the time. But he was, I just respect the kind of anarchic sort of fuck you, I'll go my own way. He's got a quote which I love, which is when things turn weird, I turn pro. Right. Which is like, and it kind of leads to that whole Maya thing we've been talking about.

44:34I wouldn't recommend drugs, alcohol and madness to anyone, but they've always worked for me. Yes. And like he's full of them. I mean, if you read, he had one of the most extraordinary things I ever read of his was he did a kind of, I guess, like a rudimentary blog on ESPN about sports. and you can read what he wrote after, I think just the first plane had flown into the tower on 9-11. And he's like, what would now be like live tweeting or whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And it is fucking extraordinary. Like, treat yourself later to Google that and read. What did he write? And he talks about how this kind of religious war is going to begin and, like, America's going to fucking go on a crusade.

45:29And, like, all this from... There was no idea. We didn't know who had flown those planes or anything in this moment. And you read how he perceived what was... How he foresaw what was going to happen was fucking wild. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Anyway, but, yeah, I just always liked, A, I think he's funny, and, B, I just liked the whole fuck you-ness of him. Is that why that's in the bog, then? Yeah, I just think, and there's a picture of him there in my patented gaffer tape picture frame, which I'm sure you can show a picture of. What's the what, sorry? What's the bog called? It's currently called the Gary Pussy.

46:12After the great Gary Boosie. Not that he's dead, he's still alive. What other ones have you had? We've had City Crapper when it was covered in maps. We've had Club Plopacana. What else have we had? Oh, we've had so many. The Acienda. The Acienda. That's the one. Yeah, there's been shit loads. Coming up with stupid names for shit generally is one of the most fun bit of mine and James' job here. Like we have a sandwich on at the moment called the Bargy Smuggler, which is one of the great sandwich names. And I remember years ago, I had to design a sandwich for walkers and it had to involve pickled onion monster munch.

46:56And I did a sandwich where we blitzed up the monster munch and used them to batter a piece of fish. And we were going to do a battered fish sandwich based on a Baja fish taco and call it Knowing Me, Knowing You, Baja. But sadly, sadly rejected by Pepsi. So that one never saw the light of day, but I think about that all the time. The ones that slip by. Opportunities missed. When have I had any moments of true, spiritual, deep unhappiness? When knowing me, knowing you, Baha, was shot down in a hell of... That's hilarious. Yeah, fucking hell. We had to sing that song at school once. I went to some 20th school, but they did that house singing thing, and that was our Dabba song.

47:47No. And it's been like... And then we had this weird South African, and like he would start taking it I'm like mate you're a rugby coach why are you getting so competitive about singing he's like sing the fucking song mate alright alright knowing me knowing you are burnt yeah yeah yeah literally it is it's like it's been burnt into my synapses it's fucking funny but yeah knowing me maybe we should just do a Friday fish special sandwich yeah and why the fuck haven't we done that already why did you do all the sandwiches that got away that's your great idea a massive ships that passed silently by at night Like, unseen by anyone.

48:24Oh, that's so jokes. So, yeah, so it's his kind of just stubbornness, weirdness. Yeah. How does his view of the world, like, relate to yours? Or how does it relate or different? I don't know.

48:43Certainly the stubbornness, I guess. And I don't know. I guess I largely think I'm right about stuff. or that my ideas are sound, which I certainly share with him. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Where's the stubbornness come from? I don't know. I don't know. Deep inside me. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I love people who are stubborn. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. I just, yeah, I think, like I said, I do think that things generally turn out to be all right, and so it's okay to stick to your guns on shit because it's probably going to be all right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And also, if it isn't all right, you fucking jack it in and do something else.

49:30Yeah. That'll probably be all right. What's the most stubborn you've had to be in where it's really tested your stubbornness? Well, I mean, look, I seem to only be giving examples of stuff in the sandwich shop, but it was on nights in that first year when we were doing two or three covers, it was so tempting to close. And, but we did just take enough money to stay open. Like, and it looked pointless. Like, if it had carried on like that, it would have been a thankless task. But I did just carry on anyway, you know, and it probably took six months. And then I knew that I was going to win that award, this Observer, Observer Best Cheap Eats, which I won in 2015.

50:16and at the time yeah that was a game changer because then that winning that award was such a vouching for that it was like you know i'm a potty mouth guy and i'm shouty and all this stuff and i think it's easy to to like miss the seriousness in a maybe you can't see the wood for the trees and like what do you mean by mr seriousness that that like maybe me being so shouty front of house and such a show-off actually detracted from people realizing how good the sardis were maybe or like how much effort had gone into i'm like we don't we make our own bread here for example what no there's no sign saying did you know we make our own bread because i don't want to say that i want like you know if you ask we'll tell you but we don't there's no need to to boast about that it's just like for me that's just what a good sandwich shop should do yeah yeah you know it's like we buy our ice i'd have a sign saying did you know we buy our ice um and yeah so i think it was there was yeah stubbornness manifests enormously in sticking to my gun it's in continuing and waiting i lost my train of thought there i wasn't actually talking about that was i don't worry i jump around loads but yeah i think it's the it's what i feel like i'm repeating myself no no you're not but i think it's the it's what you were saying is about that just that grinding it out in those first few periods and then that that observer thing the seriousness of the observer oh yeah it's like then it kind of that that was really then all of a sudden people were thinking about the sandwiches and like not coming here because they've got some good bants with me but coming here because that ham egg and chip sandwich was genuinely fucking amazing yeah and like one of the things that pleases me most when I'm working a shift here now is like let's say me and James are working a front of house shift here together we both notice how many people ask me if I'm Max and ask James if he's Max and like obviously my ego wants to think oh everyone in here must know who I am uh you know bought my book or see me on the telly or like whatever but it happens all the fucking time people are you Max and what that means is that I am nothing to do with why they are here.

52:58They are here for that sandwich. Yes. And that it's not me PR-ing the business. It's the sandwich. And, like, that is fucking amazing. That, yeah, like, that's an extraordinary thing, that it has come to that. Whereas I would have thought like at the very beginning, where I was obviously, I was working every shift and stuff. It probably was that at the beginning. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's the evolution of a business and a brand. Yeah, that now, yeah. So many people in here haven't got a clue who Max is. They wonder if even, is Max a real person and all that. And like, that is where something's gone fucking right there when you've ended up, when it's ended up like that.

53:46Why is sourdough the spawn of Satan? Yeah, look, I have said many potty-mouthed things about sourdough, but sourdough is not the spawn of Satan. Sourdough's a shit for sandwiches. Why? Why? So, firstly, untoasted is too fucking chewy. Toasted is too brittle. It cuts your gums. It rips too easily. Like the really crunchy outside and the really soft inside just tears too easily. And in its nature, it is made slowly. The fermentation, bread is just a product of fermentation. The fermentation is slow. So there's a long time for the carbon dioxide to build up inside the dough, creating those very large bubbles or gaps, if you call it that.

54:48And when you bake it, those holes stay. So if you've got a slice of bread this big, you know, like all over it in 10p pieces or 50p pieces or two pound coins, whatever the fuck, is holes where you can't put mayonnaise and where shit can fall out of. And like, that's rubbish. Like what you want with bread to make a good sandwich is a tight crumb. so we use yeast from sainsbury's because it always performs the same it's very predictable it is uninterrupted largely by climate changes in climactic conditions so in the summer and the winter our bread is if not the same extremely similar and it ferments really quickly it proves really quickly so what you end up with is were it a chocolate bar it would be an aero like and that's what i want in the bread like i'm trying we it is like we we call it focaccia it's got some sugar in it olive oil all this sort of stuff um that uh that's will mcsweeney um it's got um yeah the ferment is real fast so what you end up with is loads of tiny bubbles and what that means is and a crust so you can fill it up with really fucking juicy things and loads of mayonnaise and And it can soak it all up without a loss of structural integrity.

56:16And it's also why I said early on in opening this place that sourdough could go fuck itself. Which for sandwiches I fucking still totally stand by. Then when I opened, there were people making these kind of like artisan sandwiches. And they were always in fucking sourdough. And that just boiled my piss. Because it's shit. I've talked with Rory about this at length like there's in the cathedral of carbohydrates yeah it may not be saint in this sourdough is not Gaudi Gaudi did not design it yeah but it's not like it's got too much street cred for what it's actually I think fucking bagels are way better I think sliced white is great even though I actually quite like brown bread it's got something about it Everything is, everything, a bit like all people are interesting, right?

57:16Everything is good when applied correctly. Yes. Like there is a moment and a minute. What is sourdough good for though? Toast. Yeah. Look, if I have a huge pot of chicken liver parfait, I want to be slathering that on sourdough. If I'm making a tomato salad at home, I want to eat that. I want that on a piece of sourdough. like anything with a really high liquid content is going to turn tighter crumbed bread to mush. Easy, Willie. All right. You all right? No, you were down. Oh, were you just randomly walking past? Oh, brilliant. This is my manager, the great Wilmer Sweeney. Yeah, we've met before.

57:57Yeah. You guys are having a beer. Do you want one? Maybe in a bit. Yeah, we'll have one with the sarnies. Yeah, yeah. We'll have one with the sarnies. Perfect. perfect um where were we at yeah sourdough tight crumbs all this like yeah i think that a bit like everybody is interesting like especially when you ask them the right question that you know there's merit in nearly everything when you apply it correctly that you know make yourself a saturday morning hungover sausage sandwich in sourdough is dog shit the in you know in the cheapest hovis technically a worse bread made by the chorley wood process you know like a brutally industrial process um that bread is then absolutely fucking brilliant even though it's like nutritionally moribund they have to add all the vitamins to it and it gives you gluten intolerances but applied to a sausage sandwich a bit of butter and some brown sauce or ketchup it's absolutely perfect it's a game changer yeah so what's the in terms of going into this sandwich philosophy yeah just just sink into that a bit more especially before we're gonna have these so like i first i did i wanted to talk about um just like the epiphany i had that led me yeah that led me to actually coming up with the because the way the sandwiches what is in the sandwiches here, even 14 years later, I still don't believe is really comparable to the stuff between two bits of bread in any other sandwich shop in Britain.

59:36And so I got the keys to this place and me and my friend Willie built everything together. This was a... This was a Kenyan, largely chicken restaurant called Chickadees. Chickadees. That had failed prior to me having it. It was all orange. You had the Savannah painted on the walls. And me and Willie. And it was owned by a friend of mine and Willie's dad. And the restaurant had been closed for ages. And his dad, you pay more business rates when a place is shut to discourage closed places. and his dad was desperate to not have to do that anymore. So he let me rent this place off him and Willie and I did it up together, painting it.

1:00:27These tables are the original tables that were in here. They're from Ikea. And I just, if you see, they've all got a line in the middle and you feel underneath. So I just cut all the tables in half and removed a plank and then joined them back together to make them smaller so we could fit more covers in because the tables were like this wide originally. me um and so i was able to get 28 seats in and the previous restaurant only had like 17 or something um anyway willie it was the capable one in terms of building stuff yeah yeah and i was useless and i've been boring him to death about oh why don't we move that bit of wood over there or whatever and he told me he was like look if you want to get open it at the end of next week you have to fuck off and leave me alone and i just i was so anxious before and i hadn't thought then i'd be being too busy finding pallets to cut up and put on the wall or whatever i hadn't really thought about what the sandwiches were going to be and it suddenly dawned on me like shit i've got a week to figure out what is my sandwich mantra what how am i gonna how am i gonna sell sandwiches at night when everyone thinks they're for lunch?

1:01:39How am I going to persuade people that these things are meals, not convenience foods? And what the fuck am I actually going to sell? And at that time, I'd only really thought as far as, like, deli sliced meats and fucking mozzarella. Yeah, what sandwich shops were like? I'd had chicken. 12 years ago. It's different to what it is now. Yeah. What was the landscape of Sarni? There was, like, salt beef bagels on Brick Lane. There was pret and pret. There was greasy spoons, chicken escalopes and sausage, you know, fry up stuff. There was a thing called Fernandez and Wells in like a deli in Soho doing quite deli stuff, but really nice.

1:02:21And Brindiza, the Spanish food importing company, had a little stand grilling that they still have now, grilling chorizo, fresh chorizos and putting them with a pepper and some rocket in a bun in Borough Market. Yeah. Yeah. And as far as I was concerned, that was it. And so like being rash, I thought like, fuck, where's the capital of sandwiches in the world? And like, I'd heard of the muffaletta and the po' boy. And so I just spent, I spent the rent money on flight, like really rashly on flights to New Orleans. And the next day, I just flew to New Orleans. I went there for five days while Willie did the kind of what they call snagging, right?

1:03:04Like the finishing off of everything so that I could actually open a restaurant. And I just thought, like, this is it. I'm going to go to New Orleans and I'm going to find out what sandwiches to sell. And like a tourist never leaving Leicester Square, I just only stayed in the French quarter of New Orleans. because that's where the taxi had taken me and I got a cheap hotel there. And all I ate for like five days was basically variations of po 'boys, i.e. breaded, fried things, oysters, whatever, with shredded lettuce and tomato and muffalettas, which was kind of deli meat sandwich with a sort of olivy salsa and stuff.

1:03:50And on the last day, I was in the depths of despair thinking this place was going to, the fucking sandwich mecca was going to answer all my questions about what to do. And it hadn't answered any. And on the menus of all the sandwich shops I'd been to, it had said roast beef. And I didn't order that. You know, I was like, I'm from England. I don't fucking, I don't need, it's a busman's holiday. Sure, sure, sure. Yeah, I don't need to eat a rare roast beef sandwich. That's not going to give me any fucking ideas. And so I just didn't order that. And then on my last night, I got really pissed in this pub and played pool for hours with one of the barmaids.

1:04:33And at the end of the night, she said, had I been to Verdi Mart, this sandwich shop in the French Quarter? And I had. And I looked in my notebook and I'd had a sandwich there that had been delicious but hadn't given me any real inspiration. So where was it? It was in like a... In the French, it was like a really good sandwich shop out the back of a shit shop in the French Quarter. Yeah, and French Quarter's at that side there. All that kind of classic, close your eyes and imagine New Orleans. There's raw iron balconies and all those beautiful houses with shutters on the outsides and all that stuff.

1:05:13And she said, have you had the roast beef sandwich? Go to Verdi Mart and get the roast beef sandwich. That's what we all have. and I was like oh fuck it you know I don't fucking need a roast beef sandwich she was like just just get it so I'm like okay so I go to the shop I order a roast beef sandwich it's like four o 'clock in the morning by this time I get my roast beef sandwich and I go back to my hotel which is like two minutes walk around around the corner I sit on the bed and straight away the sandwich was hot and I was like that's weird why is the sandwich why is it hot I didn't expect the roast beef sandwich to be hot i think of it as a cold thing and i i unwrap it and it's all like soaked in grease all the paper i was like the fucking why is roast this roast beef mad greasy yeah yeah and i i get it i get it out and i realize that in new orleans at least i don't know in america in the wider context i don't know that when they say roast beef they mean what i would call braised beef like stew okay basically stew and i took a bite and it wasn't very good but that was the moment where i was like a fucking stew sandwich and i was and that was where i was like jesus christ yeah i have totally under thought what it is possible to put in a sandwich they're like these guys are putting stew in there and it was like and then when and this is all like six hours before i get my flight back to england and i've still got all my all my fucking notebooks from decades and i i looked in there recently and it says in that notebook it's full of all just like crap but written in there is anything can go in a sandwich and hot cold sweet sour crunchy soft that i've sat on the plane and thought about and that it was like having that stew sandwich and it not being very good it being like really one-dimensional just some soft gooey hot meat that was what made me think like how do you make that better that's what we linked you know what we're talking about earlier about increasing your surface area of luck yeah it's like meeting the bird playing playing the pool fucking having a bad time yeah yeah yeah yeah and it's like bang so when that when that kind of like the lightning bolts of just clarity came yeah so you're on the plane back you've got this i've had all the way so i don't understand that you go from stew and asani to this hot cold because all the crunch like where did that begin to bubble out of that because straight away i thought what would make how can i keep the stew because i was thinking like hey if i if i do deli meats you know i need to buy a fucking yeah five gram meat slicer or whatever and there was chickadees had left the oven and a grill and all this kind of shit in the kitchen that i'd taken over and so i was thinking like how can i make the fillings for my sandwiches with the equipment i already have because i opened the sandwich up for 11 grand and uh i you know i had like a thousand pounds to spend on everything for the kitchen to open the restaurant and I so I thought like the stew was just genius because you could cook it overnight and in the morning you could come in and all your meat would be cooked for the day that's fucking amazing yeah as a way to construct a hospitality business that is just amazing that like in the moment when someone orders it all you have to do is heat it up yeah yeah it's so simple and so i i realized like that is what i should be doing is braising shit for the sandwiches but then the sandwich i had being so one-dimensional was like well how do i make that more interesting and that's when i started thinking like well that is like really soft so i should put something really crunchy and i should put fucking crisps in and then like uh that's all like crisps and crisps and braised meat like there's no acidity there it all feels like flat or sweet and rich like i need acidic things and like so really quickly i snowballed into this hot cold sweet sour crunchy soft and thinking that i didn't invent anything there like yeah yeah any good chef should be thinking about contrasts like Like, you know, a bowl of vanilla ice cream is delicious.

1:09:48A bowl of vanilla ice cream with hot chocolate sauce is super delicious. You know, chocolate mousse is delicious. Chocolate mousse with some passion fruit is really delicious. And, like, so I knew straight away that I wanted contrasts. And that is, like, all hot, cold, sweet, sour, crunchy soft is, is three contrasts. And like that if you're if you and a sandwich being built in layers allows your allows you to get every one of those things in every bite. And that's so it's really easy to make it really delicious because you can have like on a plate, hot, cold, sweet, sour, crunchy, soft. It's difficult for me to get that all on a fork.

1:10:34Yeah. Yeah. What I want to go into is like, again, now you're so synonymous with this, with sort of changing the sarni landscape. But back then getting people in at only opening at, I think what we're talking about before we hit record is actually defining yourself by what you don't do. Yeah. So like not opening for lunch. Which was when you didn't do lunch. And it's like the whole Dishoom thing of getting people in for lunch and turning, changing the consumer's perception of that is by doing an amazing breakfast. By doing breakfast. Yeah, exactly. You almost did the opposite. You did hot sarnis late at night.

1:11:04Yeah. and actually like I think you were saying is like how did you convince people that this isn't just a it's a meal essentially it's a banging meal what were the challenges of that of like the opening yeah you know getting that so I I the the first thing I did once I'd had my like sandwich epiphany or whatever in New Orleans um was I I never thought about sandwiches again initially yeah yeah yeah that I thought of plates of food that have just like groups of things that are really delicious together. Yeah. And then try and turn that into a sandwich. Because I think if you think about sandwiches...

1:11:45That's that whole Maya thing, isn't it? Most acceptable yet alternative. Yeah, exactly. Mad but not too mad. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's that fine line. Unexpected but not too unexpected. Yes. And like all of that, yeah. And that if you try to think about sandwiches, I think what you end up with is you just end up with like prawn mayonnaise with prawn crackers in it or like egg mayonnaise with miso in it. And you just like tweaking already existing things rather than actually doing something creative. and that the so yeah the the first thing I do not do is think about sandwiches I think about delicious groups of things a plates of food and then once I've arrived at them I try and turn it into a sandwich and like something as well that I all one of the things that I love about this place that is the things I found out about deliciousness.

1:12:50So when we, here, when we've come up with the things that are going to go in a sandwich, that adhere to hot, cold, sweet, sour, crunchy, soft, we will then make that group of ingredients in the sandwich in different orders. And we'll make the sandwich over and over again with different things in different orders. So say same sandwich, but different layering. It's in a sandwich, but yeah. Okay. If you assign a number to each item that's going to be in the sandwich and then mix them all up and you find like mayonnaise on the bottom, mayonnaise on the top, crisps in the middle, crisps on the top, whatever.

1:13:27Like all this shit. Yeah, okay, what have you found out? And I found out that the order has an enormous impact on the flavour of the sandwich. And there's this big thing at the moment is people talking about like air in sandwiches being a big thing. and that is right. That is true. So yeah, like why crisps are really good and why shredded lettuce is really good is because you're getting height in a sandwich and you're allowing air in there so that when you bite, your thing can pack. Yeah, that's what I was going to ask you. So the Big Mac shredded lettuce. Shredded lettuce. I was always going to ask you, what is that?

1:14:08Adds height. Adds height and air. Helps with height. If you have a burger with just fucking lettuce in it. It's all like flat shit, isn't it? It's like a sort of toasted sandwich rather than an untoasted sandwich. And Chris, and like deli meats. Like why a well-made deli sandwich? Meat should be like ruffled into it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that isn't bullshit. That's real. And when you cut the sandwich in half and you look at it, you can see the height. If you put that meat in in layers, it's just like it just becomes like a slab of protein not a flavored delicious thing and so the air in sandwiches thing is real like that that is again why crisps are so good because it allows for the compacting and like pops of flavor to happen rather than like chewing through a slab of something but also order like the order has a huge one about order of things just the every all the sandwiches are different and they always work different in different orders but here we go again with like everyone being interesting that the order you put things in makes every sandwich different and and of course here we're lucky that we're we're putting a lot of things in a sandwich like many elements so we have a lot to play with obviously you can only put tuna mayonnaise in a sandwich one fucking way but like if you've got six elements of your sandwich you you can play around with the order and it just changes the eating and it's like that again is another thing that i've tried to do here is to always think of the eater and to be an eater to be a customer like the reason this shop is here is because i i've been working in restaurants for fucking years by the time I opened this place.

1:16:03And lots of them had closed, right? Like the failure rate on restaurants is bleak at best. And I'd seen lots of restaurants close that were good. And, you know, their whinness was good. Their cooking was good. Like whatever, like all the individual elements of their business were good, sometimes even excellent. And yet still they had failed. And I wondered, like, what? Why? Why would somewhere good shut? And the reason for that must be that despite it being good, no one there wanted it. So what they had done wrong was not the food, not the wine list, not the fucking whatever. It was just being in the wrong place.

1:16:57that's what they'd done wrong and so i thought because i was i had my 11 grand i thought how the fuck you know i'm putting i'm gonna put all my eggs in one basket what can i do to minimize my chance of failure and i thought that i knew the sandwiches were going to be great i knew that i was fun and i could make a negroni or whatever yeah and so i wasn't going to fuck that up but what I could do was be in the wrong place so I looked at where I lived which allowed me to view my business from from a like a for real from the perspective of a customer because I fucking lived here yeah yeah and so I was able to think like do I as someone who lives here would I come here yeah you know would i come here would i pay that much for a sandwich would i want this drink or that drink would i think that that was too loud for music whatever and and so by opening where i lived i was able to eliminate or no eliminate no but i was able to minimize the chance of my reason for failure what was the wrong place it's interesting is that reese the guy from the savior that was telling you about his whole thing you know i've had loads of beers with him it's like and he's made loads of mistakes at the one site, lost loads of money.

1:18:21So he's got a good litmus test for what works. He goes, you've got to put the right thing in the right place at the right time. Yeah, right. You don't get those three stools to the bar. Then how's anyone going to think it's great? If you're in the wrong time. So what stuff were you eliminating then? What do you mean? As you say, I eliminated stuff because I live around here. I eliminated the chance of me being in the wrong place because none of us are the interesting individuals we might like to think, right? Actually, we all share loads of shit with each other and that I know that if I think something good, it is probable that other people think that's good too.

1:19:08That if I think it's okay to sell a sandwich at night, that other people will think so too. And that if I think this is a good place for that, from the perspective of someone who lives here, then other people will think so too. So it's back to all that bullshit of suggestions. Yeah. And other people outsourcing your own intuition to some fucking... Yeah, fuck that. Yeah, like consumer survey. Exactly. But actually, listening to yourself isn't vanity. It's sensible. that like you you understand your own thought process at least your decision making processes at least better than you understand other people's and and so if you can do things that rely on your own decision making process that's a very good thing because you are extremely unlikely in, you know, you might be able to do it if you, in like mass you know, like I'm sure Nando's are really good at knowing what people want.

1:20:13Yeah. But at my scale of like one, like I'm fucked if I try to think what does anybody else want. I should, you know, whereas I know what I like and... There's Joe Rick Rubin, the music producer. Yeah. He's got, his whole thing is The Audience Comes Last. Right. Which I've, you know, he's produced Red Sugar, Sex, Magic fucking everything from death metal to folk music he did Johnny Cash Adele and his whole thing but his other thing as well he also says that he's not a musician doesn't he? he says he's not a producer he's a reducer so I think it was maybe a run DMC album instead of saying produced by Rick Rubin it was reduced by Rick Rubin so it's interesting so he says audience comes last but then he also says you need to go out in the world and consume all sorts of weird shit and that's how you develop your taste exactly because you never know what leads to what yeah exactly so what other stuff are you interested in I don't know I'm fucking peripherally probably interested in everything how else do you spend your time I rule out very little I like looking at trees yeah yeah

1:21:26I like looking at trees I like looking at trees. I like the sunset. What do you like doing to the trees? I just like looking at them. You know, I like sitting on a terrace, getting pissed. I like enjoying myself. I like hanging out with my wife and my children. I like being happy. What do you like about trees, though? I just find them, like, truly extraordinary. Yeah, they are mad. There's something bonkers about trees. They're just so slow and beautiful. There's a bee at the speed of trees. There's something I've read about that. They are slow and extraordinary. And I don't know. I find, like, a walk through the woods is like, has man made anything that beautiful?

1:22:08You know, like fucking sunlight through the trees, the dappled jade, whatever. An enormous... No, like, you know, have we made anything that beautiful? I don't know if we have. Yeah, it's so true. And I think, yeah, I like beautiful things and wonderful music and delicious food and love and happiness. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think it's like absorb yourself in those things and then it develops your own unique sensory things, I guess. Yeah, I guess I yeah, I like things that feel great. And. Yeah, I like things that, you know, satisfy. Yeah. that evoke thought and feelings. So what are some of those, in terms of looking at meals first, and then how does it go into a sandwich?

1:23:03Yeah. What are some of the ideas that didn't make the... Oh, fuck it, there's thousands of things that didn't make it. What are some of those? I don't know, I was trying a lot of things with rice that were total disasters. Really? Yeah. I don't know why, I could never quite get it right, and I've never figured out how you do that puff rice. Are they? How the fuck do you do that shit? is that uncooked or cooked rice I don't know yeah but like yeah so the two the two rules about approaching new ingredients here are can I blend it up and mix it into mayonnaise and what will happen when I throw it in the deep fat fryer and that those two things have led to many many of like my greatest culinary discoveries what's the pork pie mayonnaise Port-pipe mayonnaise.

1:23:51Fucking A, what a reference. That is, so Claude Bossy, chef, two Michelin stars. He had, what was it called? Hibiscus in Ludlow and then on that street in Mayfair. Then he had Bibendum, which I think has gone out. He's got those Cafe Josephine restaurants. Proper serious, swanky, two Michelin star mega chef. he used to have a scallop dish that had a pork pie sauce. And I remember eating that and just thinking like this fucking guy. Pork pie sauce. Was it with like a mayonnaise or was it? No, I think it was. He kind of blitzed it up whole pork pies with apple juice, I think. And it was like a sauce to go with scallops.

1:24:48Um, and I wanted to do like a plowman's, I got a job, I can't remember, like a corporate job making a sandwich for a brand. Um, and I wanted to do like a plowman's, a take on a plowman's. And I wanted to put pork pie in the sandwich. I was like, I didn't just want a slab of pork pie because that just feels like a fucking plowman's. and I was like oh my god I remembered having this lunch at hibiscus where Claude Bossy had blended up a fucking pork pie and so that's what I did and I blended up a pork pie it um and uh heated it up in capella apple juice and mixed it into mayonnaise and it was just outstandingly good and still like it's also it's like always weird when you're eating something with the flavour of something very familiar, but none of the texture of it.

1:25:45Like, that's quite weird. Say that again. Well, like, a big part of eating a pork pie is the actual act of eating the pork pie, right? Like, you bite through the meat, the jelly, the feeling of the pastry and all that. And it's a really weird, discombobulating experience when you eat, like, mayonnaise, but it tastes like a pork pie. It's fucking wonderful. And anyway, yes, that's how that came about. And another thing that's one of what has become one of the signature moves of this restaurant is gravy mayonnaise. And I believe, hubristically, I'm sure, that I invented gravy mayonnaise. And about, so we're 12 years into a sandwich shop, there was gravy mayonnaise on the first day's menu.

1:26:29And it was like four years later or something that KFC registered gravy mayonnaise as a trademark. Gravy mayonnaise. Yeah, because you couldn't register gravy mayonnaise because it's too loose and anyone could have that. But they got gravy, gravy, gravy, it was like bastards. But gravy mayonnaise and like that kind of, you know, necessity is a mother of invention or whatever. Yeah. I remember when I'd saw it, I'd had my braised meat epiphany and I came in in the morning that the sandwich shop was going to open and I figured out a sandwich. I was going to have this braised beef in it like I'd had in New Orleans.

1:27:09And when I came in in the morning, I got the tray of beef, braised beef, out of the oven. And I used what's called a spider, like a big, kind of like a giant version of a slotted spoon. It's like a spiral of metal, like wire on a handle. So you can lift shit out without getting all the liquid. Yeah. So I'm lifting all the beef out of this big metal tray that I've cooked the meat in the oven overnight. And I left and I've got all the meat that I've put in tubs to use later in the sandwiches. And I'm looking at all this gravy. It's like, fuck, I paid for that gravy. how can I put that gravy in a sandwich without doing a french dip and like doing a sandwich served with gravy on the side and I didn't want to do I wanted to do different sandwiches not thinking about sandwiches I don't want to do a french dip because then like there's millions of french dips already in the world and anyone who's eaten a french dip is going to compare my sandwich my french dip to their french dip and you know if they're on their honeymoon or whatever I'm never going to fucking win, am I, no matter how good my French dip is.

1:28:17So I'm looking at all this gravy and thinking, how can I put that in a sandwich without doing it in a pot on the side or turning my sandwich to sludge? And I thought, reduction. Reduction is how. And so I just boiled the gravy down and down and down into this goo and I could then mix it into mayonnaise. and it has become one of the signature moves of here where what happens when you're like, what's actually going on? You're just removing water. No, no, I understand that. But when it's, why would you make mayonnaise out of it versus say mayonnaise and then... No, I'd add it to mayonnaise. Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

1:28:59You know when you're talking about the air of the... Yeah, so what's actually happening? Well, adding things to... If you try to spread mustard on a piece of bread, go home and try and spread some mustard on a piece of bread in an even layer. It is practically impossible. Like, it gets caught in all the crags. You can't fucking, there's more mayonnaise here and less mayonnaise there, blah, blah, blah. It's a total fucking nightmare. So how do you get mustard evenly into a sandwich? Mayonnaise. You mix it into mayonnaise and you spread that on because then you can slather and you can slather in an even layer.

1:29:40And so if I tried to spread the real gooey gravy onto the sandwich, getting that in in an even layer would be essentially impossible. And I want every bite of my sandwich to be in. I want every element of my sandwich to be in every bite. And so how do you do that with the gravy? you know mix it into mayonnaise and it's cool it looks like fondant mix it looks like if you baked it it would turn into a chocolate sponge um but it's then really easy to spread the gravy evenly throughout the sandwich and it doubles down on the flavor of the meat you've gone to all the trouble of braising this meat in delicious shit soy sauce and orange juice and blah blah whatever it is you've chosen.

1:30:26The idea that you would then discard that seems wasteful and sad, whereas boiling it down and mixing it into mayonnaise allows you to serve that as well and not deviate from only doing sandwiches. What's the thing about putting cheese in sandwiches? I'm just not into it. Because? But I'm not into it. I don't eat much cheese at any rate, and like a cold slab of cheddar fills me with fucking dread. Disgusting. it's like eating wax why would you want to do that do you eat wax no right the end um and also i felt that when i opened here that cheese was like the default vegetarian sandwich option and so i didn't want to do cheese because it just felt too much like all the other vegetarian sandwich i'm gonna fucking put some cheese in that and it'll be you know and it's veggie and And I thought, fuck that.

1:31:22And here I've tried to be more creative to think. I think it's weird that there's... We always have a vegetarian sandwich on the menu, but we don't write a V after it because it puts meat eaters off. Yes. Vegetarian, if you're vegetarian, you're going to find out which fucking sandwich is vegetarian, aren't you? You're not going to order a meat sandwich. You're not going to run the risk of ordering a meat sandwich. The vegetarian doesn't need to be told which sandwich is vegetarian. They can find that out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But the meat, people who eat meat never order the veggie option. That's so bad.

1:31:56And so we don't do the V because, and still now, it's like all the time people get like, was there any meat in my sandwich? And it's like, no, no. And they're like, oh, my God. Because they didn't think about it when they read the list of ingredients. And we always do like spring rolls, we pickle the veg and make spring rolls with pickled veg and do a kind of MSG, glutamic acid fest, mayonnaise with boiled down soy sauce and all kinds of shit. And, yeah, so it all... But I wanted... I felt that when I opened here, there was this kind of chef or restaurant-led insinuation that just because you don't think killing animals for meat is cool, that what you want is a fucking salad sandwich.

1:32:48Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's like you still want something naughty, you still want something deep fried, something rich, you know, all that. And so I always try to, you know, to really go all in on the vegetarian sandwich, every bit as much thought, if not more, than the meat sandwiches to make them interesting and every bit as satisfying. And obviously using MSG is great for that because it adds such richness. But you know, as I was saying, Rory Sullen could have a wank over some of the stuff you come up with. You know, those little, like, the removing of the V. Yeah. I think his whole thing is, like, these little things that can have a huge upside.

1:33:28Yeah, and all the cliches in restaurants, not using the pound sign and fucking shit like that. But the V thing's really interesting. And then I also think the copy of, like, the, you know, Hot Sandwiches and Booze. Yeah. Like that and booze. I think words are really important. And that has a completely different... It changes everything. I was literally, local pub by us, or my parents did, it was called The Plough. It's literally got new management. And instead it says, like, The Plough welcomes you. And most of those, it's on like the little mini roundabout, the pub's down there. And all they've done is just change, like, Sarah and James welcome you to The Plough.

1:34:06And it's like straight away you think... You're in there somehow. Yeah. Yeah. And I think the word boots is such a different feeling. And that was very deliberate. Like I said, sandwiches, when I opened here, it's so lunchy. Like there was salt beef bagels on Brit Lane, pissed off your face at three o 'clock in the morning or whatever. But sandwiches were very lunchy. And so I was really centered on like, how am I going to change the perception of the sandwich from what is arguably a lunchtime convenience food to dinner, to a meal. You know, the fucking meal deal, like the insinuation that the sandwich requires a packet of crisps and a bottle of Coke to be a meal.

1:34:52Like I wanted to fucking, you know, stab that to death. Like how am I going to kill death to the real deal? But that, and adding the word, And at first I did the sign, hot sandwiches, thinking like, you know, does that, that implies something more. But then I was like, nah, booze, like it makes it, you can kind of see it as like you can imagine, you imagine what's going on inside the place differently when you read hot sandwiches and booze. And the truth is, we're not really doing anything beyond hot sandwiches and booze. It is an excellent description of what we're doing here. And it also, there's something about booze.

1:35:42Oh, mate, the word booze is like... It's quite nice to say, it sounds good, and it is sort of a bit... It's a naughtier word for alcoholic beverage, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like a boo... And it's funny because... And it feels... Wait, it's a noun. Noun's doing, isn't it? It feels like you're boozing. It's like a more of a... Yeah, no, a noun is an object. A verb is something you're doing. I feel like you're, again, this is really like, but these things are fucking important, I think. Yeah. Like I could talk about it for, there's... Yeah, the language. The language. Descriptions. There's a guy called Mark McCulloch who does a lot of marketing stuff.

1:36:18He had a call with this company called, it was like, I think it's Chaiwala, which is like chai, it's like a chai cafe, but also does like food as well. And he was on a call with him and he basically said, Rory said this is like a hand of God of marketing. You know, it was like this genius movie. He said you need to change the name to Chaiwala, Chai and Cafe and just put the word and in it because everyone just thought it was a place that just served fucking chai tea. And suddenly as soon as they put the word and, people started thinking, oh no, there's more, they serve food as well. There's other stuff there too.

1:36:52There's other stuff and it's like these little things. That is so interesting because something that's been on my, James, who I owned a sandwich shop with, him and I were talking the other day because I was talking to a guy who had a coffee shop that was struggling in a town outside London near where I live. And he just quite simply did not have enough customers on any day. Sure. And he was only open, I think, like Thursday to Sunday or something like that and he spoke to someone who said open every day and he was like no no no you know i'm fucking losing i'm losing 500 quid a day or whatever like whatever his losses were that um he he was like reticent to do that it was like absolutely and at first he was absolutely not like why would i go from losing a grand a week to losing two and a half grand a week or whatever But anyway, and eventually he thought, like, fuck it.

1:37:57I'll give it a go. And almost overnight, his business was transformed. And I was like, why do you think that is? And he says, he's not quite sure, but he thinks it's like just something about people knowing you're definitely going to be open. Kind of makes them willing to go more. And so James and I were talking, I wonder if if we open the sandwich shop like for we have forever being closed on Mondays and Tuesdays and we are extremely fucking reticent to open on Mondays and Tuesdays because it means everyone who works here still gets two days off in a row every week. Yeah, for example, and there are, you know, I'm sure Miri had other benefits to being shut on a couple of days a week.

1:38:48It just makes life easier. um but i do wonder like you know would it would we be like caps's fucking deli busy if we opened all day as i'm sure caps's deli is open all day every day and anyway yeah i don't know what i'm saying really but i just thought that was so interesting that goes back to the whole like the little tweaks you can put in place and that he didn't change anything about his business his offering remained identical he literally the only variable he altered was opening times and that in just that transformed his business that's amazing the thing rory gave at the supper club was uh it was hilarious because there's actually someone from tacle bell and in the audience he started going on one about tacle bell when they launched in the uk and they apparently launched in green or something yeah they'd done all this fucking research and all this stuff and then they'd come to the conclusion that there was no market for taco bell in in the uk no one was coming in and then i think ogilvy had done some work and they looked further into it and basically they just realized no one knew where the fucking door was no and so it's like the design of the outside yeah it's just like make yeah anyway so like and it's like they just made a sign i just find those little things yeah yeah and it can just change like yeah it's mad because it's like i remember like here we have a sign, Negroni shots, written on the wall.

1:40:12And I remember years ago when I was working in other people's restaurants that there's like how things that you can do to change. So if you go, right, you've come in and sat down. If I come over to take your order when you first sat down, If I say, hello, would you like a drink? You're likely to say no. Because it's like, you know, you're not sure yet. You don't know, I haven't looked at the drinks list yet. You know, you've already been given a water. But if you say, hello, can I get you a drink, a beer, a gin and tonic? so an extraordinary percentage of people will order either a beer or a gin and tonic and it's like you can do anything you only know a negroni a fucking whatever like i don't know you've given them a choice that you yeah and it's that it's in that presenting i guess it's just clarity you've made you are making a situation lacking in clarity clear yeah and that makes it so much easier to function within it it's um that's like availability bias it's like that when you give people two options it make that makes it easier for them to say yes whereas all the options no idea no idea yeah yeah yeah it's like that's it's um mate i love this this is stuff i love yeah it's like the word booze or like you know any other little bits like that and well and that's why like some something that it's not so true in this in the context of this place because we the truth is we don't sell that much wine we like most people are smashing beers here to be honest naughty sandwiches go extremely well with beers um but when in restaurants that i used to work in kind of posh restaurants front of house central london blah blah blah yeah um where it's all about selling wine and i like the other waiting staff used to obsess about like getting people to order more expensive bottles of wine and all the shit and i used to concentrate on selling cocktails because it's it's much better service so the reason people think there's a suspicion about the aperitif that is totally unfounded and unfair and i think when you sit down in a restaurant and someone you know says would you like i don't know a glass of champagne or a fucking martini or whatever people are a bit suspicious of that that it's like but no we're just all just the wine thanks and it's seen as a thing like to try and upsell you to spend more money yeah actually that's total fucking bullshit the reason you have a cocktail before you order your food is so that you order your wine after you order your food like otherwise you might end up eating ceviche with a bottle of red wine that you do not want to do.

1:43:18And if you'd just had a margarita, you'd have then ordered your food and you could order a wine that goes appropriately and deliciously with the food you've ordered. Isn't that such an interesting thing? It's not some cynical thing. It's like, that's why, yeah, I probably haven't led into that very well. No, no, no, it makes total sense. It's like there's little, it's those little things you can do. that improve your own experience. The other thing is the, which I spoke to Will Goddard about, which is placing a really expensive bill at the end of a meal. Oh, yeah. So what was it he said about how you deal with that?

1:43:55So, well, he basically comes along with, so you see 11 Madison Park, I think. Yeah. Puts the bill down. Obviously, it's really spending. And it's like 10 grand. Yeah, yeah. And it's like, how do you kind of appease that? And it basically says, if you give them the bill and they don't want to be sat around waiting because that's really fucking in the way. You wait for some time and the bill's really expensive. That is infuriating. The other thing is you don't want to come with a card machine because you're like, well, mate, you're trying to kick us out. We've just spent 10 grand here. So what you'd do is you'd come, put the bill down and put a bottle of cognac on the table and say...

1:44:27Get stuck into that. Get stuck into it. You can say for as long as you want or as little as you want, here's like four glasses. That's so cool. And obviously most people would obviously pay, you know, unless you're a proper twat, you're going to drink the whole thing. You're probably going to have one. You'll probably have one and leave. But he said, just change the whole framing of here's a really expensive bill. Yeah. That's so clever. I always find the car machine one interesting. Because it's like, if people come with a car machine, you're like, that's really. Yes, it's kind of final, isn't it?

1:44:51Yeah. Now you've paid, we're done here. Yeah. And it's like, I think that's a really interesting moment of how you can. Yeah. And so much of that is like, I remember somewhere in Islington, years ago, a restaurant opened where you could pay whatever you wanted. Oh, really? Yeah. How's that going? I think they found that people generally slightly over-egged the pudding. Where people were like, you're afraid of looking stingy. And so you actually pay a bit more than they might have charged you. That is fucking fascinating. Is there still one? There's a jazz place that does it. And they actually give you an amazing amount of food.

1:45:31And you feel you end up paying like 35 quid a head. Yeah, what's it called? Or whatever you want. it's not the one that's on Gillhead Square it's like there's another one we'll have to find out what that is but that that is fascinating like I mean I wonder what we would get if we if we didn't charge people for the sandwiches I don't know pay what you want pay what you think the other thing is with the books yeah tell that story because that's clever as fuck the well which one well as in the the signed yeah signed 16 quid 17 quid Yeah, I just want everyone to buy a signed book. And it was like, well, how can I make sure that everyone wants a signed book?

1:46:13And be like, charge more for the unsigned ones. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So smart. So we sell, like, I mean, all the books, I think, are different prices. But at the moment, we're flogging my new sausage book, which is£16.99. So we sell signed ones for£16 and unsigned ones for£17. No,£16.99 for signed and unsigned for£17.99. Consequently, no one has ever fucking bought an unsigned one.

1:46:41So funny, mate. So, well, how are we doing? Do we want a sandwich? What time is it? Fucking hell, time flies. 3.30. 3.30? We better have a sandwich. You'll have a sandwich, yeah, mate, definitely. Can we have a sandwich, James? Yeah, what do you want to start with? I'll have a hamigan chips, please. Dan, do you want to look at the menu? Well, I'll just have a beer as well. If you want a pint, I'm going to have to... I like that, but I can, yeah. I said easily. I can drink every fucking day. Me too. Oh, shit. It is easy. No, it's so easy. Just take my... To be fair, my parents drink every day. Yeah, so, yeah, my too, on principle.

1:47:18Yeah, but I don't think... I think we've got to this age now where it's all this high-proximisation bullshit that's making people scared to have a fucking... Scared to have a fucking bevy. Yeah. Oh, no, it's terrible. I love these iced glasses as well. again another little thing little touches yeah and yeah i've like i've used the phrase before but there's this wonderful seamus heaney poem um shame is who's he seamus heaney great irish poet dead now dead um and he he wrote a poem i think it's that the big poem is called in memoriam but there's a part of it called all when all the others were away at mass and he's his mum's died and he's remembering this time with his mum, now that she's dead, where they, while all the others were away at mass, when him and his mum were at home peeling potatoes, and he uses this phrase that he remembers when the potatoes fall from their hands, and he's talking about the water, the potato hitting the water, and he says, little pleasant splashes, and that, I really latched on to that phrase, and like pleasant splashes.

1:48:28Where were you when you were reading that poem? I don't know. I don't know. How long ago was it? Many, many years ago, maybe 20 years ago. And I met, I played pool with Seamus Heaney in a hotel bar in Hay-on-Wye. Fucking hell. And talked to him, like drank Guinness together. Wait, so when did he die? I reckon he must have died 15 years ago. Right, okay. And maybe it was like 2002. something like that, that I would play pool with him. Anyway, Little Pleasant Splashes is something that metaphorically for me has come like one of my life mantras, one of my things that I apply to my own life, that like this glass is a Little Pleasant Splash.

1:49:19But like it's only a little thing, but it transforms that beer. and that if you can find, if you can fill your life with little pleasant splashes, that's more like achievable goals. It's like achievable joys that, like, instead of having your beer out of this glass, have it out of this glass. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, like, those, and the sandwich shop is full of those. Like, serve tap water but put ginger in it. What other stuff? All these kinds of tons of things, putting fucking crisps in the sandwiches, like having a liberal attitude to mayonnaise. Like these are all little pleasant splashes, things that enrichen the experience that aren't massive.

1:50:06And it like, that add like lots and lots of little things. Like I'm always on the guys who work here about like, what we should do as a business is rather than looking for giant things that we can change to make the sandwich shop as a business better, what I try to get everyone to do is every week you should try and spot one thing that saves£10 a week. That's it. And if you've got five people finding, you know, all of a sudden you've saved£25 ,000 a year. So what are some of those little things? No, I don't know. Just like, oh, initially we would be putting ginger in the water because it's way stronger in flavor than cucumber, which we've been using before.

1:50:57So you use like a tenth of the amount of ginger that you would cucumber. The water is more interesting. Cucumber have become a bit ubiquitous in water and fucking gin with Hendrix and all this stuff. And ginger is cheaper. So you found a clever way of every glass of water costs us a fraction of a penny less than it did before. And how this whole business operates is everybody who works here is trying to find little tiny things that save us£10 a week. And consequently, we have quite a tight little splashes. Little pleasant splashes. Little pleasant splashes. So little pleasant splashes in terms of adding to the experience, but also little pleasant splashes in terms of reducing costs.

1:51:40Reducing costs. Yes. And the ginger in the water, I fucking, I love ginger in the water. And it has led to one of my favorite moments ever in this sandwich shop. So you sit down and we give you a water. Like I said, we don't try and sell you still or sparkling or whatever. Well, that seems to have got less now when more and more people are doing like free still or sparkling water. But here, 12 years ago, it was like, I was, you know, if you owned a restaurant, want you had to get your staff to say can i get you some water still or sparkling four pound 50 on the bill um and and we just gave tap water immediately no no questions asked you just get a water so it begins the transaction begins with a gift rather than a transaction um anyway so the ginger has quite a strong flavor in the water and so i i'd i was working here i poured some waters i took them to a table when your water gets low we come to the table and fill it up and i get to a table holding the jug with the ginger in it and i start pouring this guy some more water and he's looking at the jug like real intently and he goes oh and i was like what and he He said, can I just say, this potato water is delicious.

1:52:59I don't know why. It just tickled me so much. Like, why the fuck? It's not potato water. Can you imagine how weird it would be if we were serving fucking potato water? You know, do you see that someone tried to, well, I think that has actually a brand called Spud. They tried to, you know, they had like oat milk fucking, they created a brand like potato milk. Potato milk. Far out. Far out. That's the Maya where it's too weird. Yeah, too weird. Potato milk. It's like loads of farmers. You want a glass of potato milk? We all drink here in Erephanture. Honestly, mate, it's like... Far out. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1:53:36Because, like, I don't know if this is a... If everyone says this, but... Isn't oat milk just gruel? Like, you know, in all of a twist of, like, please, sir, can I have some more? Well, it's essentially like gritsy porridge, right? Isn't that, it's gruel. It's just oats in water, isn't it? Yeah, I think it is. And like, so oat milk, oat milk is gruel. They've rebranded gruel, but put vegetable oil in it. Yeah, it's mad. It's a mad, that blows my tiny mind. Like, as a guy who sells delicious things for a living, or tries to anyway, the oat milk blows my tiny mind anyway never mind never mind that so i love that like um uh again i'm gonna it's gonna escape me but the irish poet that you're playing paul with seamus heaney what other stuff did he write about like he wrote beowulf uh or he did a version of beowulf for translation i guess i don't know um he won like the fucking nobel prize for literature or something i can't i can't end up playing pool with him oh so i was working in a hotel in hay on y where's that that is on the just across the border into wales and there's a famous book festival there one of like the world's great book festivals and my friend owned a hotel in the town called the swan and years in advance the place was booked up with um like famous people who go to there to give talks about their books and shape that's what Seamus Heaney was doing there and he was staying in the hotel and I finished work after lunch one of the days and he was just in there in the in the bar in the pub bit of the hotel and I fucking played pool with him and talked to him yeah and then and I I knew who he was but I hadn't read anything he'd written or anything like that I think I was like 21.

1:55:38And then years later, when I found this poem, when all the others were away at mass and found it just, that's like, I always thought poetry was fucking bullshit before that. It's not like the most fucking middle class thing I've said this week, but poetry was just bullshit before that. But it was fucking extraordinary. And my mum died and I read that poem at her funeral and it really means a great deal to me. And that little pleasant splashes I just find to be so descriptive of joy. What a beautiful way. And what he was describing was amazing. It was like in the poem he says like all the others were going hammer and tongs at prayers for the dying when his mum died at home.

1:56:25And everyone's trying to talk about like really big serious shit. And he's just sat there remembering peeling potatoes with his mum and how nice it was. Yes. And like, what a lovely message. What a lovely thing to tell you that it is like, you know, I think we do, we do get caught up, especially it's easy to get caught up in thinking that you're meant to like do things of great significance with your children or your husband or wife or whatever. but actually like he's saying what stands out is that moment you had when you were just peeing potatoes it links your thing of achievable goals they're like if you found did you find any real fulfilling tenderness with your family when you went to fucking disneyland no was it stressful as fuck yes like whereas actually if you'd all stayed at home and fucking potted peas together and made peas for lunch you probably remember it forever they in a joyful way it's um achievable goals that is yeah yeah any other like writers you like or read dress thompson but um other than those i don't know many many what's some of your favorite books some of my favorite books um i love love the darling buds of may books by h.e.

1:57:56bates beautiful stories about about achievable goals it's about a very happy family living in the Kent countryside who are

1:58:14Who are fulfilled by things like the sound of nightingales singing in their garden and eating delicious things for lunch, cooking a goose. And that, you know, maybe I had not really thought about that before. Maybe my achievable goals philosophy on life comes from reading The Darling Buds of May as a kid. So how long, when did that? I read that when I was about 12 or 13, something like that. I would think it was written probably in the 60s. Right. In the 50s or the 60s, I would guess. It was turned into a TV series with David Jason as Pop Larkin. The family are called the Larkins.

1:59:02Yeah, I love those books. I'm going to read them again. Isn't it funny how when you try to think about it, I can't think of anything. Yeah, yeah, your mind goes black out. I don't know, but I read quite a lot. I don't know. I've been just churning through, like, chef biographies or the autobiographies recently. Oh, really? Like, Jeremiah Tower was a very interesting one. I see all, like, Bourdain's shit. I read Marco Pierre White's recently. Anyway, yeah. That's Devil in the Kitchen, isn't it? Yeah. White Heats the... White Heats the cookbook. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. yeah that's interesting where i get where i booed my two two well actually you know the pub that i said was which was only two staff and it felt like you know you can only understand this stuff in the negative when you look for it you know there's two people at the bar and it was like this is awful but that's on that bellevue road right so and i always think it's so interesting going through wandsworth common you just see like there's so much shit happening in that building yeah and i'm like that harvey's i mean change the fucking game didn't i'm just like it just And it's such a, like, kind of just sweet, innocent little road.

2:00:12Yeah, yeah. And what a restaurant Shea Bruce is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What a restaurant. It's mad. So you did ancient history, right? Yeah. What periods of history, like, really? If you could go back and just to understand whether it's the little pleasant splashes of shit or whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What period would you, like, if we could drop you there, like, where would that be? I don't know. the roman i spent a lot of time studying the fall of the roman republic that was a very interesting time where rome switched from what so give me some i don't so that's like the a close to year dot maybe we're like 50 bc something like that where julius caesar has essentially become the first roman emperor like officially his son or adopted son octavian who would go on to be called Augustus, was really the first emperor.

2:01:05But this was like the end of the Republic, arguably, of the democracy. So what happened? So Julius Caesar just fucking takes over and rules the roost and crushes everybody else. Yeah. Alia Yachtar Esti crosses the Rubicon. He's been away with lots of troops and a powerful army of his own. He's offered them land when they retire, paid for with his own money. and he has therefore allied his troops to himself, not to Rome for like the first time ever. And he crosses the Rubicon. So what was Rome like pre him? It was a republic. So lots of different... Well, arguably more of a, loosely speaking, democratic.

2:01:46Right, okay. Or run by committee. Maybe democratic's the wrong word, but more run by a committee than a committee of one. Oh, fucking James, you legend. Here we go. Oh, you're smuggler. Yes. Fucking banging. Thank you very much. Kitchen roll. Right, let's get involved. Right, where's Rich? Oh, he's having a fag. He's having a city. Right. Perfect. Do we need to clear? Should I clear this thing? If we... And then get stuck in. Get stuck in. Where you want to begin? Like hammock and chips, where it all began. Maybe we begin there. Let's begin there. Or maybe we have that last. The bargy smuggler first.

2:02:26Come on. Let's do that. Let's do the veggie one. first. I haven't eaten much today, which is perfect. Perfect, thank God. That is not Bombay mix, that is London mix, which is much finer. London mix. Yeah, so get tucked in. Hope you like coriander. They are coriander. Good. People say it's soapy, don't they? Some people just don't like it. It's a gene, I think. Good. It tastes really bad to some people. so like I was saying it still feels naughty it's a bargy it's got a deep fried thing in it like it's still got crisps in it it's as naughty as the meaty sandwiches so good coriander and peanut salsa mixed with yoghurt pickled onions they're going to carrot and onion bargy how many iterations will you go through to get this many what layers have you changed try everything has moved around and ended up here.

2:03:30Like putting this underneath that, smearing the yoghurt onto the bhaji versus putting the yoghurt underneath the bhaji, you know, et cetera, et cetera. Herbs underneath and on top, pickles underneath and on top, all these kinds of things. And then we have arrived at this and save us enough room for the others. Is this your first Matthew sandwich? Mmm. Yeah. It's a revelation, mate. Mmm. Now, how long have you guys worked with each other? Quite a while, isn't it? Quite a while. Quite a while, but we have a much longer history. Yeah. Yeah. We've known each other for years, because Will's brother, Tom, worked here for fucking years.

2:04:13Eight years? Eight years. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, amazing. Now he's moved to Norwich. It's actually all very incestuous, because James actually also used to sleep in the same room. Oh, he used to live with Tom. Yeah

2:04:32Yeah Yeah Yeah It's mad It's mad how everything just links together Whoa Now this one Oh shit We have We have James This one's gone all sloppy I mean quite frankly We can just get tucked in Yeah mate This is the lasagna sandwich Which has Oh, fuck. This is so naughty. Fuck. He's had this sitting there too long. That's one of those that you hear and you're like, in your sandwich, you dirty bit. Yeah, so naughty. So it doesn't have lasagna in it, but it's meant to taste like lasagna. The crunch. So clever. I like, what is the crunch? So I'm going to be the... I'm going to sound like a twat now. but like to say we eat with our ears but there are like different forms of crunch there's there's front of the mouth crunch that you really hear loud when you eat like crisps very very brittle pringles all that stuff very front of the mouth and brittle and for me a lasagna particularly the crunchy bits of it, like the corners or whatever, the burnt bits, they have a real, like, back of the mouth crunch.

2:05:56Yeah. Like a molar's crunch, not whatever your front teeth are called. And I wanted to get that into the sandwich because it felt redolent of lasagna. So that's Charles Spence's whole thing. You know, you're doing the different, like, baba and kiki. Yes. How things sound. I mean, I thought he was turning into, like, a parrot. Yeah. He starts doing these mad noises. So we cook pasta. We let it cool. Then we deep fry it. Then we blend it into a powder. And that's what goes in the sandwich. Oh, nice. And that's what gives it that deep crunch. Yeah, the... Like the back of your mouth, not the front of your mouth.

2:06:41Yeah, he's got some mad studies, that Charles Spence guy. He discovered that the sound of the airplane he looked into why does people buy loads of Bloody Marys on planes yeah people think oh it's a holiday thing they did this massive research I think it was with loads of airlines and basically he found out that the sound of the engines increases your umami taste I'll send you his study on it it's fucking mad I like that shit what all the shit our brains are up to is extraordinary isn't it that's delightful yeah so like one of my guilty pleasures is the day after I've made lasagna putting a slab of lasagna in a croissant and cooking it in my toasted sandwich machine and here I wanted to do a lasagna sandwich but without actually putting lasagna in a sandwich and this is what we've ended up with I saw you talk about I think it was on the Virgin thing the Pret-a-Manger you know the croissant they do Yeah.

2:07:44That is fucking good. That is so good, like the full English version of that. It's so fucking good. That is one of the nicest things in that book and not very difficult to do. Shop-bought puff pastry and the shit you'd put in a fry-up. Yeah, so talk to me about the book, Bangers. Just fucking, I think that, look, maybe sandwiches were a bit maligned when I started with them and I've got to fucking be in my bonnet about sorting shit out or whatever. I don't know. But I feel like sausages get a really bad rap. And that when you talk about sausages, like I was saying before, that it's kind of easy for us to exceed customer expectation here because no matter what people have heard about the place, you're still thinking about tuna mayonnaise and egg and bacon or whatever when you come here.

2:08:36And actually you get something obviously like more than that. But I think there's sausage. there's something about sausages that when you think of sausages you think of shit sausages you think of herter frankfurters and richmond's and that and like actually sausages you know a well-made sausage cooked right it can bring you every bit of joy a phillips steak can it just like i love sausages mate i love sausages too and so i've written that book to try and i don't know do something for the sausage to make the sausage be taken a bit more seriously. Would you have like a bangers shop? Yeah. I fucking absolutely I would.

2:09:17That would be sick. Like I would love, I'd love a hot dog shop. I think hot dogs are fucking amazing. And my friend Owen Barrett makes the best emulsified sausages. Would you apply the same sandwich philosophy to hot dogs or would it be different? Probably. I think probably. I think it works just, hot, cold, sweet, sour, crunchy, soft works just as well with toppings as it does with fillings, I think. but like something I've been thinking hot dogs harder though because it's like there's less there's less space yeah exactly you need or you can use less of the stuff as well but like something I've been thinking about is ice cream like ice cream really fits with hot cold sweet sour crunchy soft yeah yeah well that's what you're talking about you know you said the example of vanilla ice cream and hot chocolate sauce and then you add some crunchy bits crunchy put crunchy nut cornflakes like like those ice cream is good Ice cream with hot chocolate sauce is really good.

2:10:13Ice cream with hot chocolate sauce and crunchy nut cornflakes is really, really good. What would you put, like, a cherry or something? It could be, like, Morello cherries or whatever. It could be pomegranate molasses. It's amazing on ice cream. And you can just buy it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Pomegranate molasses is a miracle thing. There are not many things that are as delicious on ice cream as they are on salad. they I think I read that was one of your ingredients that you just like we'd use it here as so much stuff it's like invariably there's something on the menu I'm sort of salivating I've charged through that that was so fucking good give this a little whoop whoop whoop it's actually mental though everyone's a part of this family Yeah.

2:11:06I've been eating these for like 13 years. Yeah, that's Matt. Yeah, so is your brother, that was kind of the link into it? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, this is like, yeah. I used to wake up, so this used to be open until like midnight. Yeah. Someone would get home. Probably be up or not or fucking whatever. Sometimes I wake up in the morning, you have a beer after work, and there'd just be a ham egg in paper outside of my door. Yeah. So I'd take it to work. that's sick it's wonderful and it's so good the next day where it's all kind of like become one and it's so nice and it is funny like outside your door where like I remember people asking if we were going to try and make the sarnies be like meals why didn't we serve them on plates and I was like fuck it because we wrap them up it's a fucking present it's so good and it's funny like after all these years you know I had one just the other day but every time I feel like I forgot what it tastes like and it's really good

2:12:16Because you've been coming on lunchtime

2:12:33I know not many places that I know. No, I'm trying to think. Yeah, where was you? Yeah. But, yeah, you can. I'm trying to think. Where do you go in London for a hot dog? I don't know. And Owen's hot dogs. Yeah. My sausages are amazing. Yeah, do you know? I don't really know. That's incredible. That James Knappett, where he had bubble dogs on Charlotte Street. Champagne and... Champagne and hot dogs. But didn't that... I thought that I'd, like, moved to a hotel. So you might be able to get one of those. Anyway, yeah, I don't know where I'm going on the product. I'd come here on a Wednesday night.

2:13:15Yeah, so what's the lunch menu? Same sandwiches. The thinking behind it for... You know, we were talking about not changing. Yeah, so the thinking behind it was we'd never been open for Wednesday, Thursday or Friday lunch. We only opened at five or six, I can't remember. And so I was just really paranoid that when we did open, at first we did Fridays, then we did Thursdays and Fridays, and then we did Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. But when we were opening for Friday lunches for the first time ever, I was really worried. like why no one's going to know that we're open for Friday lunches we've been open for 10 or even 11 years and we'd never been open then so I was just like was terrified it was going to be quiet so I thought let's do different sandwiches on that day so that if you know people who want a fried chicken sandwich or a BLT or something like that that they could come here just on a Friday lunch and get something and get something like that and then that would help fill fill the seeds which it has done extremely well and there are these specials that are different are extremely popular the fried chicken stuff and like we do a coronation fried chicken sandwich i like loads of stuff right um and we do the same we also do the specials on a thursday and then only on Wednesday lunch times, we do hot dogs.

2:14:57Because my friend Owen Barrett, who I believe is the best artisan sausage maker in Britain, makes these emulsified sausages, like hot dog sausage, frankfurters, basically. Right. And we use his sausages to make hot dogs. And that's it. But we only do them on a Wednesday lunch. So you want Max's Sandwich Shop hot dog, you have to come on a Wednesday lunch where, and those things work. It means, you know, it does. So you have different, essentially different product, different offering for different times. Yeah. How come you wouldn't put them all together? Oh, it's just too much for the kitchen.

2:15:40It's tiny back there. When we film our making sandwiches video, you'll see how little it is. I mean, it's not tiny, but it's not a big restaurant kitchen by any stretch of the imagination. and we can also I guess it keeps it fresh for the um for like but yeah it just punters yeah exactly and I think it's nice like I a little bit like sticking to one's guns I believe that a bit of awkwardness is no bad thing that like well just that trying why offer everything all the time um you know i don't think there's anything wrong with saying look if you want to see how we do this you have to come at this time and not at this time and i think that those actually conversely that that awkwardness kind of drives engagement almost well it's the scarcity of it isn't it yeah so you can have it on this day but you can't have it on that day it's another one of those weird little um like the like the booze like one word like again there's probably some behavioral science behind all this shit yeah which i don't know they're not the answers to but there's a if you're open for a certain time um the demand what's the restaurant isn't there a restaurant that's only open monday to friday sweetings i believe isn't there what no this begins there's another restaurant my mate was talking about the the other day.

2:17:14But anyway, not open on the weekend. And it's like, that sounds to me crazy. But it's so boss. So boss. So boss. I wish I owned that restaurant. It's in Farringdon. Oh, you're not talking about the fucking Eagle. They don't do it. Do they? Do they not do the weekend? My mate, my mate went the other day. I text him. Yeah. I don't know what that is. You know a restaurant? Yellow Bitten. Oh yeah. The Yellow Bitten. That's what it is. It's on Caledonian Road. Yeah, they only do Monday's Friday. They only do lunch. Now they have started doing dinners. You can only email or call. You can book by postcard.

2:17:52It's cool as fuck. In the sausage book, there's a recipe for Dublin coddle. I saw that, yeah. And I don't know. I wanted a Dublin coddle recipe, but I don't know nothing about Dublin coddle. And Hugh Corcoran, who is one of the owners of the Yellow Bittern, I've known for years, from when he was the head chef of my friend's restaurant in San Sebastian, um gerald's bar and so i went to the yellow bittern for a day and he taught me to make coddle and the recipe in the book is like me it's like an article about learning to cook doubling coddle through which the recipe is given i'll give you the book before you i've got i've got all the books in the book yeah yeah yeah read the doubling coddle recipe on the tube yeah yeah it's lovely it's um yeah no it's it's it's mad so just i wanted to quickly go back into the Roman Empire stuff so I found that stuff fucking interesting.

2:18:45Oh yeah, yeah. And actually anything else you learnt from history? Yeah, I mean very little. I did a lot of what we might politely call extracurricular activities at university. Netball. Yeah, netball and that, you know. Squash club.

2:19:07Yeah. Yeah, so sorry, the Roman Empire stuff you were saying that was so Julius Caesar. So I think that the fall of the Roman Republic, that period where we switch from a republican system of government to essentially an empire governed by an emperor, is a fascinating period of history. Like, even just how he did it. And I think of Julius Caesar in those times. He's like the first superhero. that, you know, in your mind's eye, when you think of Rome, it's kind of like, you know, dudes in white togas or whatever, right? And Julius Caesar was walking around, like, knee-high red boots and a purple cape.

2:19:54Just stop, like, fucking Superman. Like, what the fuck? I would just love to see that in the flesh. 50 BC Superman. Extraordinary. That's hilarious. Wait, so was he the first? like that was he first to sort of break that to yeah to end he ended the republic the group of a rule by committee or whatever you want to call it and essentially became the emperor and then his son or adopted son became the first like proper emperor yeah and then that's when they went on to do all the yeah i mean i think they were already expansionist yeah yeah yeah but yeah it went wild Interesting. Yeah. You know, I find that stuff, like, just sometimes those periods of time, you can, like, it wasn't just that whole thing we were saying about leaning into weird, or just being a little bit, if everyone's wearing a fucking toga.

2:20:46Yeah, and you're wearing knee-high red boots, you're dressed up as Superman. Also, I love the idea of a guy wearing a toga with, like, pants on the outside of it. Yeah. It's hilarious. Talk to me about writing the books. Like, how did that come about? What was surprisingly hard about that? The time it takes. Yeah, so how would you fucking do that? It just takes so much time. And writing is a weird thing. Like, Dorothy Parker, do you know Dorothy Parker? No. Kind of great American wit of the 1920s. You might have to fact check me on that. Founding member of the Algonquin Society and all kinds of clever shit.

2:21:29But anyway, she said, I hate writing but I love having written and I feel like that about it while I'm writing I feel riddled with insecurity like I'm not funny trying to be clever shit uh etc etc um but then when I read it back I'm like oh that's quite it's quite good actually and that's quite a clever thing It's quite a good joke, actually. Yeah. So I find actually writing to be a soul destroying endeavor, emotionally belittling endeavor. But I find having written to be a very satisfying and wonderful thing. And, you know, look, a bit like I said, all I wanted this place to be was delicious and fun.

2:22:22and I feel like getting to write a book about blending up pork pies and mixing them into mayonnaise or, you know, whatever the fuck it is, putting wild shit between two bits of bread is delicious and fun and that I find that to be an enjoyable thing to do. And did you go to, how does it, I don't know anything about this, but so did you go to a publisher and be like, right, this is my idea? Yeah, so I... Or what was the... I started getting, because I was quite early in the sandwich game, right? Yeah, yeah. So I, or in like the new wave sandwich game or whatever. Brave New World of sandwiches. Yeah, whatever you want to call it.

2:23:04Brave New World of mayonnaise. And I started getting emails from publishers like, are you interested in writing, you know, would you write a book about this? And I'd never done anything like that before. and I, so I asked my friend Ben Benton, who I wrote my first three cookbooks with, if he would do it with me and if he had any idea how to get an agent. And he was like, I've no idea, I'll ask my dad if he knows. And his dad, thank God, had a friend called Araminta Whitley who was an agent and she represented us. so that goes back to the whole thing of saying yes to the meeting saying yes to stuff and she agreed to represent Ben and I we thought we would write the book together because I didn't want to do it on my own it was all too daunting and literally that was it I think I or Ben and I I can't remember one of us wrote a little proposal very short, two page a bit like this, a bit like that, blend this up deep fry that whatever araminta took it to publishing companies and yeah a company bought it we were off book is like a brand thing you know we're talking about the brand and stuff yeah who's it the um do you know bold bean coat the brand oh yes amelia amelia's a really good friend of mine right and basically everyone said you're fucking crazy for trying to write a book yeah like it's it's only beans yeah it's only beans it's like it's all like everyone's everything's now on socials like basically everyone was saying no and she was like the reason i want to do it is because it will still kick around in 10 10 15 30 years these are still in you know one of the other ones in your you know still they're in my bag yeah exactly they're these little like stamps of brand yeah that can be passed along yeah and that that whole book alone has just got a room with like got a mad amount of like press press the listings things you'd have had to pay a pr company a lot of money to generate yeah yeah yeah yeah how long did it take you to write the book about a year fucking hell and then what do you start with like i just find this i write a lot but so do you write like the this is what's going to be and then fill it in or is it more of a write and then you write a proposal that you submit then the publishing company buy the book off the back of that proposal and you hope that they don't want to stick to it too rigorously because the truth is it does like anything i guess it does change and become other things while you're writing it and like you know i'm sure there's i've heard a lot of musicians saying that like record companies are a fucking nightmare whereas like they want an album like this and you said it would be like that and then it's not and it like and it can all go to shit but i have been blessed with relatively forgiving publishers who seem to not mind whereas i actually think it would be better if we change this to this and like and so you've got a hope that you you are able to get away with that well it's the stuff we were talking about like if Paul McCartney used Claude to write Here Comes the Sun, it's like mate you've got to fucking leave some stuff alone It would be called What is the Weather Yeah

2:26:29Don't forget your rain hat That's hilarious Mate we're going to have to wrap that up because you've got to get back and survive but we could go on, we'll have to do another one and get beers in next time Absolute joy mate, thank you so much Thank you very much Thank you so, so much for listening to the podcast. I really, really do appreciate it. If you liked that episode, only if you liked it, please do give it five stars, subscribe, tell all your friends, families, foes, next door, but one, cat, dog, whatever. Please tell everyone about this podcast. It means the world to me. And I really want to understand what your pain points are as the new wave of Challenger Food and Drink Brands.

2:27:12Please do hit me up on LinkedIn, search Dan Pope, and hopefully we can together create a more meaningful and powerful podcast for the next wave of challenger food and drink brands thank you so much