How Rickey Booker Built Breakfast Brothers From the Ground Up

0:00Rickey Booker: Hey everybody, I gotta tell you, we're gonna talk about Built. Built Hospitality. Millions of people use Built every day, that's right, every day to earn rewards on housing and in their neighborhood. But now, now it extends to your restaurant. That's where Built Hospitality comes in. Built Hospitality shapes how guests are recognized and taken care of. Built's restaurant-facing platform is designed specifically for dining operators to drive loyalty with their guests. It combines reservations, guest preferences, VIP management, and payments all into one platform alongside an agentic concierge. That's right, an AI concierge that thoughtfully designs and executes experiences around your guest tastes.

0:47Rickey Booker: Using the latest and greatest in AI technology. When a guest walks in, your team already knows what they like without digging through notes. Built Hospitality works across the entire guest journey. That's right, the entire guest journey from delivering a complimentary course at the right moment, just the right moment, sending a personalized offer that brings them coming back again and again and again. That's right. That's what Built Hospitality is doing. It is allowing you to communicate with your guests and keep them coming back over and over. Make every guest feel like a regular every time, not just their first time, every time.

1:24Rickey Booker: They're a regular. Built Hospitality is available now for restaurant groups everywhere. Learn more at BuiltDining.com backslash hangout. That's BuiltDining.com backslash hangout. And check out what Built Hospitality is going to do for you and your restaurant.

1:41Hospitality Hangout Hosts: And I kissed your ass, and I don't know if y 'all are recording that, but...

1:44Rickey Booker: You can kiss Jimmy's ass. He likes that.

1:46Hospitality Hangout Hosts: But we need this, man. And we need people telling the realness and the ground level of what really happens in the restaurant industry.

1:56Rickey Booker: Live from the Spot On Studios in Chicago at the show, it's the Hospitality Hangout Podcast. I'm Shatsy the Restaurant Guy. And today we are super excited to be chatting with one of the most amazing hometown heroes, Mr. Ricky Booker. the CEO and co-founder of Breakfast Brothers. Jimmy, let's get into it. Ricky Shatsy found this voice a little ways ago, and he's never given it up since. I love it.

2:24Hospitality Hangout Hosts: Before this show, I gave him a couple dollars to make sure I had it.

2:26Rickey Booker: Yeah, you're getting Shatsy Vegas. Tell him how good looking he is, I get a couple more, right? You're getting Vegas. All right, I have the privilege of welcoming you all more formally to the Hospitality Hangout. Hospitality-focused podcast where the founders of Brandit bring technology, innovation, and brand leaders are making things happen in the industry we love. We are fired up to be at the show. We are doing this hometown heroes. It's that restaurants, no matter how big they are, they all start with one. It all starts with one. McDonald's, you know how many stores they got? They got a few.

2:57Rickey Booker: They started with one. How many they started with? One. They started with one. Some of these stories grow up to become large companies. Some of them grow up to be franchises. Some grow up to be multi-unit, multi-franchises. But at the end of the day, they all start with one, and it's about their roots and the local roots that they've established. I love that, Jimmy. Those are the hometown heroes, and we're excited to share their stories. Today's guest is, you know, let's see, he started the drive-thru lane, okay, ended up feeding an entire stadium, not one, not two, magic number, three locations.

3:32Rickey Booker: Three is the magic number, Jimmy. Plus a food truck. Plus a food truck. Okay. Well, that would be four, and that's not the magic number. And one of the most talked about catering operations in the great state of Texas. Everything is bigger in Texas, Jimmy. So welcome to Hospitality Hangout, Mr. Ricky Bookman. Now, Ricky, let's jump in, okay? Okay. You're from Oklahoma City. Yes. Your first job was at Pizza Hut at 15 years old, right? So you are not just a hometown hero. You're a hospitality hustler because you got into it early on. You worked at Pizza Hut. You worked at Wendy's. You worked at McDonald's.

4:04Rickey Booker: So you grew up in this business. What was your first job at pizza? What were you doing there?

4:09Hospitality Hangout Hosts: I was actually playing around. And this is the reason why I don't eat mushrooms today. What kind of mushrooms? Mushrooms. I don't like the texture of them. So we had to get the mushrooms out of the can and put them in jars. Prepping systems. Right. And I didn't really enjoy that part of it. So they moved me to making the dough. So in them days, I was processing the dough and making a piece of dough. And it was pretty cool. That was the first job. That was my first job at pizza.

4:33Rickey Booker: And what was it that you were like, so you got this job. What was it that said, you know what? I like this. I'm going to go and continue. I'm going to get another job in the restaurant business.

4:42Hospitality Hangout Hosts: I cooked all my life. I started cooking at nine years old. I was making, I call peanut butter and jelly sandwiches cooking because you had to take some crafting to make those. Nine PB &Js are cooking. Yes. That's cooking.

4:51Rickey Booker: Can I ask you something about your nine-year-old cooking experience? Crust, yes or no? When you were nine.

4:56Hospitality Hangout Hosts: When I was nine.

4:57Rickey Booker: When you were nine. I got a nine-year-old daughter. She's no to the crust. I like the crust. I eat the crust.

5:03Hospitality Hangout Hosts: I love the crust. I even used to take what I used to tell my sister, don't leave the booty for me, the end of the bread. I call it leave the booty for me. So I love the booty and the crust. So I was a crust guy.

5:14Rickey Booker: So tell us how you got from pizza to Wendy's to McDonald's. And that's all in Oklahoma? That's all in Oklahoma City. How did you get to Dallas?

5:23Hospitality Hangout Hosts: I found myself in Oklahoma City back in them days as I grew up. I don't know. Maybe I just had a – it was too slow for me. My mind was – Oklahoma's too slow. It's not anymore. Right, but no, it's going back a few years. And my mind was just moving. I always wanted more. I just kept getting involved and always was doing something. That's the reason why I was jumping around. I was trying to find myself. I always cooked, but I had different jobs. And when I finally got out of the restaurant business, I moved into the office interior business where, back in those days, it's called a modular furniture where you move in.

5:54Hospitality Hangout Hosts: So you got out of restaurants.

5:56Rickey Booker: I got out of restaurants. And then what happened? So at some point, so you're in this other business doing some modular or whatever the heck you just said. but somehow it pulled you back in.

6:05Hospitality Hangout Hosts: Have you ever been to the point, especially with you two guys doing what you're doing, it never was enough. I never settled. I never was comfortable with doing something. If I feel like I capped out, I went into another business.

6:17Rickey Booker: So you felt that this, whatever you were doing with this office modular thing, I can't even say it. It sounded terrible. You said it was terrible.

6:25Hospitality Hangout Hosts: I was a project manager, and I was the youngest project manager that ever come through that company. But it wasn't fulfilling. It was fulfilling. and we had fun because everything that I went into, I went into like I ran and owned the business. Right.

6:37Rickey Booker: I got something working here. Can you say that again about you never capped out and that's why you continue? Yeah. Because as you were describing that, I was hearing the Peter principle. The Peter principle is that people get promoted to their own level of mediocrity and then they're done. They're done. Because they got promoted to a level and they're not good anymore. I think we just heard Ricky's rule. Ricky's rule is as long as you're staying inspired, As long as you're still learning, as long as your curve is steep, you ain't going anywhere because you just keep getting more interesting. I think we just established Ricky's rule.

7:09Hospitality Hangout Hosts: Peter's principle, Ricky's rule. I like that. I really do because that's kind of the way I'm still that way. And I create streams of revenue when we get to the point to talk about Breakfast Brothers and what I do there. If I get comfortable, I make myself uncomfortable. So let's talk about Breakfast Brothers.

7:26Rickey Booker: How did you, so you love cooking, you started in restaurants, you hate mushrooms, you're playing with dough, and you didn't like this whole modular thing. Tell us the story about Breakfast Brothers. How'd that start?

7:39Hospitality Hangout Hosts: When I moved in, I was real big into the entertainment world to where I managed hip-hop artists and I was in business, had nightclubs. I done a lot of promotions and promoting parties in the community. Ended up having a nightclub and they didn't have a kitchen. Okay, here we go. So we wanted to have food there because, you know, a nightclub. You get a little drinking in. You want a piece of chicken or something. Something. So we put a little black trailer. We bought a trailer out of East Texas from a guy that was using it for barbecue. And he said that he'll sell it to us for$3 ,000. And I said, man, we don't have no truck to come get it.

8:15Hospitality Hangout Hosts: You know, we was all driving BMWs and I'd have to rent a truck. I tell you what, I delivered. Give me$3 ,500, I delivered. $3 ,500 I delivered. $3 ,500 for the little black shack. Right, the black shack. The black shack. A little black shack. And brought it down, and I got an electrician to come in and put a 220 plug and station it in the back of the nightclub. So now we've got the black shack, Jimmy.

8:35Rickey Booker: Let's go. Let's jump into it. We've got the black shack. And by the way, why don't you ask him about the permits that Ricky had? I don't have to because you're going to ask him about it. Yeah, because by the way, there were no permits. No permits. There were no playbook, okay? All he had, by the way, was the most important thing. Was the black shack. He had the black shack and hungry customers coming out of that nightclub, lining up to enjoy what Rick. What were you cooking?

8:55Hospitality Hangout Hosts: We had pork chop baskets, catfish baskets. We had weaned baskets with all the flavors. So you were frying. Who's frying? Nothing was frying. Ain't nothing. You get through getting drunk, drinking tequila. You got fried food. You got fried food.

9:08Rickey Booker: Fried everything.

9:08Hospitality Hangout Hosts: Fried everything.

9:09Rickey Booker: So as you can imagine, the popularity and the notoriety that developed caught the attention of some city officials. I would imagine. The fire department, the police department. So they raced over. They raced over with the paperwork to get Ricky's company all signed up. No, they did not. No, because you know why? No, they did not. Because they tasted the food. No, what they did do is shut them down. They shut you down? They shut them down. I thought you knew all these guys.

9:32Hospitality Hangout Hosts: What happened is, I'll put it in this way. The most fanciest thing about the Little Black Trader was our menu. I had real UVA glossy 5x7 with 10 items on it with the logo. Nobody paid attention to no logo, nothing. They paid attention to that little trailer and what the food was coming out of there. So we were in the HOA in the middle of that. So these two little old ladies started complaining to the city about the traffic. They didn't know we was cooking food. They just thought we had a bunch of illegal activity going on. Right, right, right. The city came out several times. And this particular time, he went out the back door.

10:07Hospitality Hangout Hosts: And as he was standing there talking to me on the stairs, he said, what is that? I said, oh, man, I was all proud. I said, man. That's the Black Shack. Thanks for noticing. That's where we sell food out of. You got permit for that. I was like, no. I didn't know you needed one. He went in that trailer and was in there like 20, 30 minutes, came out. Violations at the Wassoa.

10:27Rickey Booker: But that's what I want to ask you, okay? You start in the back of a nightclub. You get shut down. Most people, or certainly a lot of people, would pack it in and say, I'll figure out what I'm going to do next. Instead, you take that inspiration and that little fire, and you open up three locations. You got your food truck now, and you're creating a catering department that's feeding guests, I don't know, at Texas Rangers Stadium. Yeah. Okay? So what kept you going, and how did you know the little black shack, how did you know you had something that could be expanded to what you built?

11:01Hospitality Hangout Hosts: I didn't know until the city shut us down because the numbers declined at the nightclub. People was coming. I said, well, man, they were coming for more than just the alcohol and hanging out and dancing with the girls. They wanted the food. They wanted the food. They had nothing to do with the ladies. No. And so I said, man, we need to focus on that. I don't know how we need to do it. And at the time, my girlfriend, which now she's my fiance, she tells me, I know this nightclub has got a kitchen. They're going to shut it down. So I went and talked to the owner. And he's been in business at that time 35 years.

11:36Hospitality Hangout Hosts: Went to talk, called him. And he told me, yeah, come by and see me. And I came out and said, hey, man, I want to sublease your kitchen. He said, what are you going to do in it? And I had my little menu. I said, we want to do that. He picks it up, looked at it and said, will I be damned? That you? I've been hearing all about this place. Yeah, let's do it. What do you want to do? Told him how I want to do it, put my own POS system in it, and I'm going to use your waitresses to serve the people inside and we'll use your cooking in the kitchen, you know, in your kitchen cooking. He said, done deal, let's do it.

12:06Hospitality Hangout Hosts: Increase this business about 30%, about 30%. Took off. So after that, transparent, I got a call from a guy named Dean. I always mess his last name up. He like a Dean Ryden. And he's the vice president. I don't know if y 'all know who the hospitality firm called RCI. RCI owns Foxy's, Onyx, Silver City, Bombshells, all the Rick's Cabaret brands. Okay, got it. Okay. They the strip club moguls. Yeah, they the strip club. The OG of strip clubs. That's right. They own the new restaurants called Bombshells and different things like that. So he called me and said, hey, I want you to do the exact same thing.

12:45Hospitality Hangout Hosts: I was like, who is this? And he told me, I want you to meet me. I'll be in town. I want to meet you at one of my entertainment clubs. Went over there and met him. He said, yeah, I'm going to get you started in an urban. I went over there, looked at their kitchen. Their kitchen is this big, massive commercial kitchen. Sure. Because now we get into the big money. Yeah. So I went over there and assessed the place. And back then, that's when Clover was big. Okay. I guess I shouldn't be saying that. I didn't say that. No, that's a good segue. Great with him now. So you were with Clover, and you were with Clover.

13:18Hospitality Hangout Hosts: I set up POS systems in there. Got going, took off. So I'm in two strip clubs.

13:27Rickey Booker: Dean calls me back and says. And did you have a name for it? Was it like the Black Shack? No, we didn't have no name to it. No name.

13:34Hospitality Hangout Hosts: It still had the menu with the logo, Breakfast Brothers logo and brand. But at this point, we still wasn't calling it Breakfast Brothers. It was just good food that people knew to come to.

13:43Rickey Booker: Right, right, right.

13:44Hospitality Hangout Hosts: Dean calls me back about two months later and said, hey, man, I want you to do all the Rick's Cabaret's brand. Rick's Cabaret's brand was a - It's a lot of stores. It was a consumer brand to where they used to loft steaks and lobsters. So I said, well, we're going to do breakfast. But he said, no, I need you to sell steak and lobsters. I said, no, I'm not doing that. We're going to do this brand right here, Dean. Get that right. The chicken and the waffles. I said, man, this clientele base ain't going to like that. I said, well, you wouldn't be trying to hire me if they liked the steak and lobster.

14:16Hospitality Hangout Hosts: He goes back in his chair and says, I like you. You're a businessman. Let's do it. The Ricks Cabaret brand, the two in Dallas Fort Worth, took off. They loved the catfish and the wings and all of that.

14:28Rickey Booker: Right, right, right.

14:29Hospitality Hangout Hosts: So you got these old millionaires sitting around eating catfish, pork chops, and wings. They loved it. And they loved it. So he said, I'm going to give you Midland, Odessa, and San Antonio. Yeah, when it assessed all of those, getting ready to set it up, shot, pandemic hit, wiped it all out. Damn.

14:46Rickey Booker: Hard to do an adult entertainment club remotely. Yeah, during a pandemic. That's called Cinemax. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I guess, yeah.

14:56Hospitality Hangout Hosts: So I'm giving you out a real, raw, true story before we get to where we're going now.

15:00Rickey Booker: Yeah, let's get into where we're going now. That's what I want to get into, right, Jimbo? Right. I want to ask, you mentioned POS. You mentioned Clover. We know that group. People talk about the POS as the heart and the brain of an operation. And I love framing it that way because most operators, you know, many still think of the POS as a cash register.

15:22Hospitality Hangout Hosts: That's it.

15:23Rickey Booker: Okay. As a necessary piece of hardware. But the way you're describing it and the way we look at it, it's something completely different. Every transaction, every guest touch point, every data point running through the intelligent core. And you made that choice. OK. And it changed how you're running a business. It shifted, as I understand it, from you working in your business to working on it. Yes. So so talk about that. Can you share more about the philosophy of how you're working with our friends at Spot On?

15:51Hospitality Hangout Hosts: Spot On came about because I got to the point where I was doing all the cooking in these kitchens, as you were saying, to where I was finding I was spending my money, didn't know prime costs. I just knew that I wasn't making any money. It was all finding Danny was cool that I had 10 entertainment clubs and we had breakfast buses all in them, but I couldn't make sense of it because I wasn't making any money. So when I stepped out and looked and said, well, if I'm going to do this and do this right, and I want this to become a brand to diverse culture or massive, I got to start working on the business.

16:22Hospitality Hangout Hosts: And that's when I started looking in the technology and the research of figuring out my food costs, my pram costs, how to schedule, to find out the labor costs. And when Spot On came, I told them that I need someone that's going to be a partner. I can't just be a customer that buys equipment from you guys. And once they came to the point and started listening to what I wanted, we teamed up and they started actually doing those things. And they built software to around my business to other workflow. So once I understood the software and it works and it became solid for you to see reports and numbers and you can share with your management team to where they can look at something when something goes wrong.

17:06Hospitality Hangout Hosts: Right. It makes sense. So I dialed into that. It used to be it would never was a time back in the day that I could ever come and sit and come to Chicago away from Dallas and sit and talk about the business. I couldn't. I had to keep working in the kitchen. and that became almost like the silver bullet. Is he going to be the silver bullet or is I going to be a point where I'm going to be Superman and make this work?

17:32Rickey Booker: So now you've got three stores plus the truck. And literally working with Spot On, it wasn't like you just went online and said, send me my stuff and you plugged it in. They really worked with you to solve your problems, help you solve your problems. I mean, obviously not in the cooking, but really the things that maybe you weren't as strong on. Right. You got the great menu. You knew what your customers wanted, but they went and helped you in an area that you were probably less strong.

18:03Hospitality Hangout Hosts: And I will tell you, when you're building streams of revenue, it's like my newest location. It has a hotel boutique all the way down the block. It's a mixed usage program, and it's 29, 30 of them. So I wanted to start a bed and breakfast concept, and I couldn't start it unless the software was designed to have a QR code in each one of the rooms. Right. So I got what's spot on, told them what it is that I was looking for, and we created it to where if you in your room, you can scan the QR code. Jimmy, building 300, room 280, wanted pancakes and waffles, and it scans, pops in my kitchen, comes on the KDS screen.

18:41Hospitality Hangout Hosts: You can pick it up, or we can deliver it. Right. And when I seen that they can design a workflow around you to help you make money, then my mind just started going. I started doing QR codes for local businesses around me that don't have kitchens that wanted to entertain that same concept. I love it. It makes sense.

18:58Rickey Booker: That's why they're great partners. All right, listen, we've got a lot more to get into. We've got to take a quick break. Don't go away. Be right back with more. We've got the hospitality headlines presented by Spot On. Don't go away. We've got Hot or Not. We've got the branded quick fight. I've got a lot more to go, so don't go right away. Don't go anywhere. Be right back with the hospitality hangout by Spot On. Hold on. Hey, everybody. I got to tell you, we're going to talk about Built. Built hospitality. Millions of people use Built every day. That's right, every day to earn rewards on housing and in their neighborhood.

19:28Rickey Booker: But now, now it extends to your restaurant. That's where Built hospitality comes in. Built hospitality shapes how guests are recognized and taken care of. Built's restaurant-facing platform is designed specifically for dining operators to drive loyalty with their guests. It combines reservations, guest preferences, VIP management, and payments all into one platform alongside an agentic concierge. That's right, an AI concierge that thoughtfully designs and executes experiences around your guest tastes. Using the latest and greatest in AI technology. When a guest walks in, your team already knows what they like without digging through notes.

20:13Rickey Booker: Built Hospitality works across the entire guest journey. That's right, the entire guest journey from delivering a complimentary course at the right moment, just the right moment, sending a personalized offer that brings them coming back again and again and again. That's right. That's what Built Hospitality is doing. It is allowing you to communicate with your guests and keep them coming back over and over. Make every guest feel like a regular every time, not just their first time, every time. They're a regular. Built Hospitality is available now for restaurant groups everywhere. Learn more at BuiltDining.com backslash hangout.

20:50Rickey Booker: That's BuiltDining.com backslash hangout. And check out what Built Hospitality is going to do for you and your restaurant. We are back. We are back. And Ricky, are you ready to jump into a new segment here?

21:06Hospitality Hangout Hosts: Absolutely.

21:06Rickey Booker: Ricky Booker, CEO, co-owner, Breakfast Brothers, three headlines. Two of them are completely real. That actually happened in the food and beverage space, Jimmy and Ricky. One of them is made up. Can you spot the fake one? All right, here we go. Jimmy, you chime in any time you want to. Okay, because I'm not sure how to play this, but I'm going to give it a shot. All right? Headline, here we go. A restaurant in Japan serves ramen designed for quiet slurping. KFC, KFC released finger-licking good nail polish, or Steakhouse introduces a meat sommelier to pair cuts of meat with your food. Which one is fake?

21:51Rickey Booker: So one is fake and two are real. One is fake. Ricky's going to guess and I'm going to guess. Restaurant Japan, Quiet Ramen, KFC, some finger-licking good nail polish, or Steakhouse introduce a meat sommelier to pair your cuts of meat with your mood,

22:04Hospitality Hangout Hosts: which is the fake news. I think the fake news is Japan. Even if it was dry ramen noodles, he still makes a sound trying to slurp.

22:13Rickey Booker: Okay, he's being very analytical there, Jimmy. What would you like to say? I am going to agree with Ricky, and my thinking is the following. I believe the slurping is an important part of enjoying ramen authentically. I think that is the fake headline. Well, I got to tell you, you are both wrong. You can't spot s*** from a mile away. You're both wrong. I can smell it. Steakhouse introduce a meat sommelier is completely fake. Oh, wow. But apparently the ramen and the nail polish is. And you know what? I got to tell you because you can't spot a fake headline, either one of you guys, okay? That's why you, but I see it for me to spot.

22:52Rickey Booker: You know why? Because I got it right here. And you know what? I love the meat sommelier idea. I think that's genius. I do too. But you know who else could spot something, Jimmy? Who's that? I got to tell you. Spot on. does for operators every single day. You know what they do? They, real-time POS reporting, it serves your best and worst performance, AI-powered profit analysis that flags where the money is slipping through the cracks, labor tools, Jimmy and Ricky, to keep your scheduling and tip management on target, commission-free online ordering so that every sale stays with you. Spot on doesn't just help you run the rush.

23:31Rickey Booker: I mean, I got to tell you, this is loaded with good looking at all this, right? It gives you the data to see around the corners. No fake headlines, just real stories. That is another one there. By the way, you take all that that you just read. Take it all. I'm exhausted. And you filter it, and it comes down to one thing. What? Spot on's a partner. It gives a shit. Yep. Oh, I thought it was love to me.

23:54Hospitality Hangout Hosts: That right there is absolutely correct. Right on. Right on. See?

23:59Rickey Booker: There you go. Oh, here we go. Okay. All right, Ricky, it's time for Hot or Not. Are you ready? I'm ready. This is Hot or Not. This is the most famous segment of all podcasts in the world, okay? You just tell me what's hot or not, okay? Ketchup on hot, though. Is that hot or not? Ketchup on hot. It's hot? It's hot. Mocktails, hot or not? Hot. Protein everything. Not. It's not. My kids are eating protein like a pickled flavor everything. Not. Dipping fries in a Frosty. Hot. I just feel like Ricky just likes that. He doesn't care if it's hot or not. I'm a fat boy. How could that not be good? It's hot to Ricky.

24:37Rickey Booker: He's like, I've always found that to be hot. I worked at Wendy's. I'm telling you, when they had the real french fry. Ever since I was a little boy, that's been hot. Yeah. Private dining clubs. Is that hot or not? Private dining clubs with lots of naked women. Hot or not?

24:51Hospitality Hangout Hosts: Man, I've been in those with Breakfast Brothers so hot. That's very hot.

24:55Rickey Booker: I hated the naked women, by the way. Yeah, okay. Music festivals turning to food festivals. Is that hot or not? That's hot. Hot. Jimmy, I've got to tell you, he's got a lot of hot stuff. Everything is hot. Ricky's just happened to be alive. He's like, everything is hot except for pickles. He's got an aversion to pickles. He crushed the protein. He crushed on the, not interested in the protein, not interested in the pickle flavor and everything. No. Everything else was hot. He's hot, yeah. You know, we've been debating this ketchup on hot dog things. So I've got to ask you, I'm a libertarian. as far as I'm concerned.

25:28Rickey Booker: You do you, and I don't yuck on someone else who's young, but there are places that frown upon putting ketchup on a hot dog. Especially in Chicago. We happen to be in a city that is one of the great frowners upon that, so you're seeing it happening.

25:42Hospitality Hangout Hosts: So you're seeing it. But you like it? I love it, but check this out. If I'm in Chicago and if I want ketchup, I get back to my... Even if I'm in there, I take the tomatoes they put on there and mush them and give me some ketchup.

25:54Rickey Booker: My bad dedication. That's that easy. You want to give me ketchup? I'll make my own ketchup. Unless the tomatoes.

26:00Hospitality Hangout Hosts: Joe, have you got, since you've been in Chicago, have you got a hot dog here? Not yet. I got here last night, but I usually go to Portillo's.

26:06Rickey Booker: So I was going to say, if you go to Portillo's, they have no ketchup there?

26:08Hospitality Hangout Hosts: No, no.

26:09Rickey Booker: They got no ketchup? What do you got to ask for?

26:11Hospitality Hangout Hosts: They will give it to you. They will? Yeah, but on the side, they're not going to put a ketchup on their hot dog. They won't put it on there. That's sacrilegious. No.

26:18Rickey Booker: All right, well, there we go. All right, though. All right. All right, listen, Julie's very happy we got that ketchup thing out of the way. All right, let's go to Brandon Quickfire. Ricky Bobby, are you ready? See, I want to add a little Ricky Bobby. A little Ricky Bobby. Because if you ain't first, you last. Yeah, I'm jacked up all like a spider monkey. There you go, right? There you go. He's watched that movie a couple times, right? Spider monkey. He's watched that. All right, time for Brandon Quickfire. Lightning round. This is the fastest moving segment of all podcasts. Here we go. What is your go-to dish at breakfast, brothers?

26:49Rickey Booker: Ricky. Chicken and waffles. Chicken and waffles. I mean, Jimmy, I didn't even say it. He got it out, okay? Yeah. So when you go, when Ricky Booker goes over to Breakfast Brothers, you're just getting chicken and waffles. Mm-hmm. Favorite food city in the world for Ricky? Chicago. Wow. Chicago? Mm-hmm. Have you been to Chicago a lot? Yeah. You like Chicago? Just to the show.

27:11Hospitality Hangout Hosts: And when I'm here, I'm eating. Really? What, you have a go-to place other than the Portillo's? I go to the Italian, the other Italian beef restaurant. I forget what it's called. The black and yellow logo. And what about the pizza?

27:21Rickey Booker: What do you think about pizza here?

27:22Hospitality Hangout Hosts: My girlfriend loves Uno's. I like Uno's, but I like the Italy Italian. I forget the name of that, but I just know where it's at. So you're all right with that?

27:32Rickey Booker: I'm all right with that. What's your Uber rating right now, Ricky?

27:35Hospitality Hangout Hosts: My Uber rating? Yes. 4.5, almost 5. That's very low. You shouldn't be proud of that. I'm higher than you, and I'm a terrible Uberer. I don't.

27:45Rickey Booker: You don't use Uber? Uh-uh. But I use it at my restaurants.

27:49Hospitality Hangout Hosts: Me personally, I don't use it. Oh, you don't use it.

27:51Rickey Booker: Okay. So we'll put a pass in that, Jimmy. We'll put a pass. How do you take your bagel? How does Ricky Booker take a bagel? Cream cheese.

28:00Hospitality Hangout Hosts: That's it? That's it. Just cream cheese? Yep. What kind of bagel? I like butter on it, too. Just a plain regular. I like the blueberry and a plain one. Jimmy, you see what Ricky just said? He likes the blueberry.

28:10Rickey Booker: You have a problem with that. I'm not going to. No, I'm not going to. Jimmy has a problem with that. He has a problem with blueberry.

28:15Hospitality Hangout Hosts: I love the blueberry with the butter on it. respect.

28:19Rickey Booker: Oh, you do you? You do you. Oh, I got to tell you, he does not like people that like blueberry and strawberry cream cheese. He has a real problem with also. Jimmy's getting angry. Yeah, Jimmy does not like that, okay? I got to tell you. We don't leave that one alone, dude. I want to see the two of you having, like, I want to see the two of you breaking bread because I'm not sure you guys are jiving on ketchup on hot dogs, blueberry bagels, cream cheese and butter. Yeah, yeah.

28:42Hospitality Hangout Hosts: But look at Jimmy. Oh, okay. He's a lot leaner than me, too, so. Take off your shirt, Jimmy. Let's see.

28:47Rickey Booker: I'm a fat boy. He wears Spanx, by the way. Man, how do you know about all of that? Because, dude, I know. I thought y 'all were just podcast partners. No, we share a room when we come to Chicago. We share a room, and we don't even get two beds. We get a king, one king size. That's another segment.

28:59Hospitality Hangout Hosts: That's another segment.

29:00Rickey Booker: I know. I get a king size, but a mirror on top. Don't let me call Jerry Springer back down here. Like the Dallas Gentleman's Club. You know, we get the queen size bed with the mirror on top, right? Jimmy gets the jiggling going. I put the quarter in, right? Jimmy's getting more angry. Jimmy's getting angrier. We get that. Yeah. What's the last thing you Googled? Why am I doing this podcast? Myself. Yeah. My name.

29:27Hospitality Hangout Hosts: Oh, you did? I said my last thing. Where'd you come up?

29:29Rickey Booker: No, I'm messing with you.

29:30Hospitality Hangout Hosts: Oh. Last thing I Googled was just here in Chicago last night, a pizza spot. I said pizza near me. And we went to. Was it good? It was all right. So you did pizza near me and you went with that? You went along? You didn't do more research? In the south of Lubas, Carl. But when I looked at it, you know, it's been around. Of course, they're marketing. Italians forever. Yeah, I don't know. It's a restaurant guy. Rossetti's. Rossetti's, that's where we went last night. I thought Rossetti's was good. I heard good things. Not so good. It's 1 o 'clock in the morning, and you got people that work in there that don't really care.

30:03Rickey Booker: They were like, they're like, I cannot believe I had another guy walking in right now. Yeah, you definitely make it up. Okay, let me ask you this. What is the greatest point-of-sale system in the world to you?

30:13Hospitality Hangout Hosts: Spot on.

30:14Rickey Booker: Thank you. Okay.

30:14Hospitality Hangout Hosts: If I didn't answer nothing else, you should have took that.

30:16Rickey Booker: That was spot on. Okay. If you were to challenge Jimmy Rye to NFL trivia night, who do you have better odds of beating? Are you like a really good NFL trivia guy? I'm college, but not NFL probably. If you had to challenge Jimmy Rye to an NCAA college football trivia, who could you beat? Better odds of beating. Jimmy Rye.

30:37Hospitality Hangout Hosts: I'm going to be scared. I'm going to say you because Jimmy. You could beat me. Because right now I'm on his bad side with strawberry cream, blueberry bagels. Jimmy's a very good sport.

30:45Rickey Booker: Give me a good sports trivia, Jimmy. Let's ask college sports trivia for Ricky. College sports trivia for Ricky. Yeah, you got one? I'm putting you on the spot here? I'm putting my spot here. Spot on, Jimmy. You're on the spot. On the spot with spot on. He's got nothing. I got nothing. I can tell you. I'm going to give you two. All right, here we go. Here we go for Jimmy.

31:07Hospitality Hangout Hosts: Who was the college football player that created his own hot link? His own Hotlink? Uh-huh. Sausage. Jimmy D. I'm going to give you another hint. He went to UTA. He was a Longhorn. Greatest of all times. Vince Young? Nope. Earl Campbell. Earl Campbell. Oh, Earl Campbell. I got one more. Two brothers that played college football. They created their own barbecue sauce line. Two Longhorns created their own barbecue sauce? No, OU Sooner Faint. OU Sooners. Two brothers. Two brothers. They created their own barbecue sauce line. The Dickey Brothers. Nope. The Salmon Brothers. The Salmon Brothers? No.

31:51Hospitality Hangout Hosts: I probably am saying it wrong. Salmon. Their last name is Salmon Brothers. Salmonella. They both went to Oklahoma. Salmonellas. They created their own barbecue sauce line. Really? Look at that. Julie, we need to check that out. But, you know, of course, this is in the South, and everything is branded in NYC. I love it. All right, listen. Jimmy got to wrap it up over. I didn't yell that.

32:09Rickey Booker: Yes, we want to thank you so much for joining us here at the Spot On Hospitality Hangout set. Thanks for having me. In beautiful Chicago, here at the National Restaurant Association, The Big Show. The Big Show. A guy who started, you know, at a pizza hut at age 15, parked a food trailer behind a club in Dallas, got shut down by the city, and then came back, launching locations, food truck, catering operations for the Texas Rangers. Ladies and gentlemen, Ricky Booker. The Black Shack. Breakfast Brothers, the hometown hero, doing it his way. Where's the Black Shack now? Is the Black Shack still around?

32:42Hospitality Hangout Hosts: It's just parked at the church until we actually buy the property and land.

32:46Rickey Booker: When we build the Berkens Brothers, I'm still... Just yell at them. I just asked you that question. I thought you were going to kill me. I cannot believe you just asked another question. I want to know where the Black Shack is now. I can't be. All right, we got to go, apparently. All right, listen. If I want to go check out four... No, three brothers. Three brothers? How many brothers are there? Two. Two brothers? Two brothers. We just got brothers. We just got brothers. How do I find? What's the URL? What's the website? Breakfastbrothers.com. We've got three locations in Dallas.

33:12Hospitality Hangout Hosts: If I want a burrito, where do I go?

33:14Rickey Booker: If I want a burrito, do we go to Breakfast Brothers? Pretty soon you're going to have a good one. We've got a new breakfast. All right, cheers, everybody. Cheers, everybody.