Restaurants Are Going Through A Lot But Why? | Biz To Biz Podcast

You are now watching the Biz to Biz podcast with Allen and Justin. Yo, what's up everybody? It's Justin live from B2B Vault, the Biz to Biz podcast sponsored by Nationwide Payment Systems, hosted by this guy, the Andrew Huberman of Payment Processing himself, Allen Kopelman. What's up, bro?

Who's Andrew Huberman?

You should look him up.

I got to look him up now during the podcast.

I mean, Andrew Huberman is a great— he's He's a doctor, neuroscientist. Uh, he just, he just knows his stuff. He's very smart and intelligent. So it's the first thing name I had. I've watched his podcast all the time. So first name that came to mind was freestyling this one.

Okay.

Been freestyling it a lot lately, man. How are you doing?

Doing okay. Kind of a long day today. Went down to this, uh, restaurant roundtable discussion in Miami. Oh yeah, I was pretty shocked about a couple of things that were going on there.

Enlightened people.

Enlightened. So basically they put it on, it was the city of Miami, so put on by the mayor's office, Mayor Cava, shout out to her. And, you know, they talked about different grants that are available to restaurants. Obviously, you have to pay whatever, you know, for improvements on your property. But then a whole discussion came up about— there was two restaurant owners there. I don't want to say the name of the restaurants, but they're down on Bird Road in Miami, which is, you know, an older part of Miami. And Byrd Road kind of changed into like a highway sort of road, like 441.

I don't know, I don't spend time—

much time. No, no, but I'm just— I'm not from there. Well, you know where 441 is over here?

41.

But it's kind of, you know, whatever. It's a main— became more of a main road. And back in the day, like when you had a restaurant, you know, 50, 60, 70 years ago, right, you didn't have a grease trap. They used, uh, septic tanks, right? And then, you know, if you have—

that was standard for everywhere, right?

That was pretty much like standard. So now they pass some laws and they want all these people— because now they're laying in, you know, all this stuff on the highway— they want all the restaurants down there and restaurants all over these older parts of Miami to put in grease traps. And also like dry cleaners have to put in special stuff. The cost of putting this in can be $300,000 to $500,000.

If— I'm sure there's cases where it could be into the millions for sure.

And apparently they also were talking about that if you had a grease trap, let's say you had a restaurant, you went out of business and the place was vacant for more than 12 months. Now that grease trap that was there has to be recertified, and if it's not up to code, then the new person renting the space would have to, would have to redo the grease trap. And they were just talking about like that, you know, how that's impacting restaurants. And there was like one guy trying to open up a restaurant and his consultant was there, and it's been taking over a year because of different things going on with the code.

It's gotta suck to try to be like in that industry.

No, and I felt bad. This lady was there, and this restaurant's been in her family for 75 years, a pizza place, Pizza Spot.

Why do they need a grease trap?

Every restaurant has to have it. Yeah, for what? Because you have food and grease going into the sink. Going into the sink. I guess. I mean, pizza's greasy, frying stuff in a pan. I mean, it's not—

sure, right, right, right, right. I mean, when you think about it, yeah, I'm just thinking of like a brick oven pizza spot and like whatever.

I mean, today pizza spots, like a pizza has everything, right? So that—

so the lady cheeseburger at a pizza spot.

So what they brought up was why can't they— that's what's—

wait, real quick, that's what's wrong with pizza spots, right? Yeah, they try to— they— I get it, they're trying to get— they're trying to get a buck and they're trying to make some money, but they forgot to focus on the pizza, the pizza pie, man.

Yeah, it used to be like you would go to a pizza shop, they would have pizza and maybe like a chicken, some french fries. No, like a sub, the meatball sub, that's it.

Or like an Italian beef, right?

That's it. They wouldn't have a whole—

they wouldn't have chicken parm and pasta, chicken tenders for the kids, for sure, and all that.

But I'm just saying, they wouldn't have this full—

but, and almost everything was going in the oven. Yeah, only like maybe if they had— they had like a small fryer for some french fries or like some fish on a Friday or something where I'm from. Yeah, but like that was it. And you would go to those places and man, the pizzas It's just a pizza spot. There was a pizza spot. I grew up on the north side of Milwaukee and my house was like 8 houses from the alley in the corner. And on the corner it was one of those, it was a bodega, but it was also, you know, they lived upstairs in the whole corner.

Yeah.

On like wraparound was one building.

Right.

So that house, like 7 businesses, right? So there was a corner store and then there was the pizza spot, bro.

Yeah, so that—

so, oh man, I love that pizza spot.

And another guy were saying, why doesn't the— why can't the city come in and go, okay, this is— all these restaurants need to comply on this road, right? And then like they do in many other areas in Miami, you'll go out to eat sometimes in a certain area. I'm not going to start mentioning where, but like Gulfstream Racetrack is an example. So there's a good food they have. No, but I'm saying when you go to eat at one of the restaurants there at the Gulfstream, it's okay, but there's a bunch of restaurants around there too. But when you go to eat in one of the restaurants, there's like a Gulfstream like assessment tax on your bill. It can be like 80 cents, a dollar, whatever. It's a percentage. I don't know what the percentage is. And there's other areas in Miami too.

What's the— I mean, I feel like I'm backtracking, but what, what is the reasoning behind them not having the septic tank in the ground? I guess it's like leaching. Is it like—

I guess they don't want it to leak into the, into the groundwater.

But it's like, to me, it's mostly all like organic stuff. I mean, I'm sure there's some cleaning shit that's into the septic tank.

Well, you can put like, you know, live bacteria.

That's what I'm saying.

And stuff in there to eat it up. But I mean, whatever, they're changing the laws.

But I'm just saying, like, what is the— it's an environmental thing?

Yeah, it's an environmental thing.

I— that sounds like a crock of shit.

Well, so they were—

it seems like a tactic to get these old buildings to shut down because people who run these family-owned restaurants aren't going to have the money to re-plumb.

Well, that's what they were talking about. And the city told the lady, she said, "Oh, well, your land's worth like $5 million, right?" So sell it. Right.

Or just put in, you know, refinance the land, put a loan out on it.

It's not easy to—

That's not as easy said as done.

Right. But the thing is, is what they were saying was—

Especially when it's been rolled over 5 times already.

What they were saying was if you have all these restaurants that need to comply, instead of having them all do it one by one by one, the city could come in and do it all and then just have a special assessment tax. When the— when people come in to eat in the restaurant, there'll be a tax and everybody will pay in and that'll pay for the project.

Or what about like buildings that were built before like 1980? They want everybody to grandfather in or something.

Yeah, but they want everybody to— apparently this is a big thing. They got this whole website of all this.

I really, I really want to know who put all this shit together. I bet she was some asshat that just got— had a bad experience and said, what do you mean you don't have a grease trap? I mean, then how do you clean this?

There was another— there was another group there and they were talking about how long it takes them to get their CO and, and all these certifications that you have to have. I didn't even know all this stuff. I was like, wow, I was in the restaurant business 20-something years ago, and I remember it was a, you know, a big deal where there was a whole bunch of different licensing and all this stuff that you had to go through. But it's getting very difficult in there, down in Miami-Dade County for that. And they were just— they made a good suggestion, and I thought it was a great suggestion. Suggestion: just put a tax into the area, and all the businesses in the area that have— that are going to be impacted Because if I have to go— if someone has to change all their plumbing out to the, you know, and put in a grease trap, they're going to disrupt all the— everybody's water in the area when they're doing all that.

It's going to be a— that's just something, right?

So straight up, that's just pretty crazy.

So, man, rest in peace to James Earl Jones, bro.

Oh yeah, I had that on my list.

Darth Vader, man.

He had that voice, especially that voice.

You know, you're 93 years old, man. My granny lived to live to 93, man. So that's a, that's a good long life.

Yeah, I mean, I mean, you know, like he was always the like narrator like for a lot of movies, you know, he had that the voice.

I mean, for obviously Star Wars for sure. Like as a kid, I didn't even know that I, that that was James Earl Jones, Darth Vader, until I was a super adult. Oh yeah, like I'm talking, this might even have been only like 10 years ago that I found out that he was Darth Vader, and he was something else too. Anyway, but my favorite movie of his was, what's the movie with the baseball movie?

Oh, he's in the movie.

Field of Dreams.

Field of Dreams, yeah, I was just watching that. On the news, my daughter's TV station is near there.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

And they're doing a big project there to build a permanent stadium and they approved a course and a hotel and all kinds.

I don't know about the golf course shit. Like, why, why do people have to put a golf course on everything? I don't know. Shout out to the people of Florida who convinced that developer to pull his plans out because the people were not having it to put golf courses inside of our state parks. Did you see that?

Yeah, that's just weird. I mean, first of all, they want a golf course. There's one right near my house and someone needs to buy it because the guy wants to put apartments on it and we're not gonna allow that.

Well, whatever they do, I don't care about—

dude, not in the parks.

I don't care. I'm not saying I don't care about your neighborhood. Listen. Yeah, I'm talking about our state parks.

Yeah, we don't need a golf course in the state.

That's why you go to the state park, bro. Yeah, to get away from that. Like, you don't want to— I'm not trying to go to the state park and there's a giant hotel in the middle of it, fam, with a golf course. That is not the— just because you rich folks can't go out there and deal with the heat and, and, and, and actually camp and get in tune— I want to go to nature.

Yeah, but they got the—

get your ass out of here.

No, they got glamping at most of these places. That's—

but it's still glamping is glamping. It ain't like having a hotel to go take a shower.

I don't like that.

That's, that's the shout out to the people, man.

Okay, here's a, here's a news story, and I know Justin's gonna hit this button on that, on this news story. Viral Olympian Raygun was just ranked number 1 breaker in the world by the sports governing body, the DanceSport Federation.

I don't care because it's not— so, you know, it's funny. Yeah, it doesn't— yeah, that's some bullshit for sure. I mean, who cares though? Like, I had read— not read, I watched a video from Crazy Legs from the Rock Steady Crew who was in like Breaking, Wild Style, like all these, like everything, right? And he was just saying like, what you see on TV and the culture is just two totally different things. And you know, like he's basically like said, let them have it. Like if that's what they want to call that, we know like people who like are a part of the hip-hop culture, you know, understand Like, breakdancing, DJ, MCing, and graffiti writers are the elements. And some say knowledge is the fifth element of hip-hop. Shout out to KRS-One, the teacher. But yeah, man, I mean, at the end of the day, y'all can have that. I don't care. I still like, there's a song, LL Cool J just dropped an album. Allen Kopelman, and he's 55 years old or something like that. Like, he's like— wait, he might be in his 60s actually. Yeah, I don't even know. Maybe.

I don't know.

I don't know. Anyway, like, he dropped the album, right? And on the album he was talking about like breakdancing, you know, like the vinyl, pulling out the vinyl to go breakdance on, you know. Like, I mean, to me that's the essence of hip-hop and breaking and in general, you know. Shout out to all the— he's 56. Yeah, I mean, shout out to the b-boys and b-girls out there that represent for real. So, but I mean, this lady is eating up that, uh, Raygun. Oh, she's getting all the media, bro. So, you know, I mean, shout out to her too, I guess, you know. I mean, if she dances, she dances. I actually watched a couple of videos of her like trying to get in into the culture. And I don't know what happened, like why did you go this route to like this contemporary way instead of you staying into the essence, you know, whatever.

I don't know, there's been a lot of like people mimicking her and stuff. In other Olympic news, viral women's rugby player from the United States who got the bronze medal in the women's rugby, 7-on-7. There's this girl, Alona Marr. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, the one that runs people over. Yeah. And, uh, she's going to be in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition, and she's going to be on Dancing with the Stars.

Good for her.

Yeah, that's what I say. Good for her.

Yeah, man. Yeah, I was, uh, watching something the other day. Did you see the new Will Ferrell PayPal commercial?

No.

So PayPal launched like a big ad campaign recently for their cashback program.

Okay.

So, you know, they're trying to just get people to use PayPal at stores and shit, like Target. You know what I mean? Like, you've been able to pay with PayPal at Target for a long time.

Well, they have the PayPal card and you can pay.

No, I'm just saying like when it shows on the little whatever, you know what I mean? On the terminal. And so in a commercial it's just talking about like all the cash back and the rewards and they give you 5% cash back plus, you know, like you can pick certain places that you frequent to get more cash back at that place if they have a partnership with PayPal, right? Yeah, so I just thought it was hilarious that they had Will Ferrell in there. That's just like another, like, testament of how out of touch these companies are, because Will Ferrell is funny, but I don't know for certain that these Gen Zers really even know who the hell he is, or even give a shit about Will Ferrell. Yeah, like, I don't know if that resonates with the younger generation like they thought that that commercial was gonna do, or if they were aiming at more people my generation to use PayPal. But people my generation sure as hell ain't getting paid on PayPal. And if you are, come and holla at me because you need to stop.

But anyway, no, no, I'm saying like Will Ferrell, like some of the funny stuff he's done, like Old School. That was like a crazy movie with Will Ferrell in it. And then there's the classic thing he did on Saturday Night Live.

Step Brothers is the only step brother.

It's funny, but Saturday Night Live, more cowbell. That's like the craziest.

I think that's more—

that's like my jam. Yeah, man. So look, I need more cowbell.

I mean, I listen to Saturday Night Live, but I was a kid for that.

Sure. To me, I could get in trouble if you stayed up that late to watch that shit on Saturday.

Sunday's the thing.

Any other good news stories?

Uh, I don't know. I mean, I was, I was going to talk about the Google shit, you know, the antitrust, anti, anti, antitrust lawsuit.

Well, now it's turned into two. Now it's turned into another lawsuit.

It's not— it's just a— they're just poking the bear, bro. And like, they're trying— what the DOJ wants Google to do is they want them to sever their Google Ads business completely from all of their other services.

Yeah, from the search.

No, from their services. Like, they want them to separate Google, all the other, you know, suites that they have, and, you know, software that they have, and then Google Ads, like, stand alone. So it wouldn't be Google Ads, Alphabet Ads, for example, right? They would have to— so that would be separate on its own. And I— and they're, they're saying that that would give— what would their— what was their words? Once Google separates manager services from their Biz could level the playing field. I don't know what that means. In what way? Who else?

How? Because they're accusing other—

what? You can't run an ad on Google if it's not Google Ads.

So they're running— so they're saying is, is that— but I'm—

Google, you see what I'm saying? I know, but they're not using— if you're running an ad on MSN or Microsoft Edge, you're not running that ad on Google. I know, running that ad on Microsoft. I don't understand.

I was watching the thing about it, right? So what they're talking about is that everybody— that they want people like to— that if you're surfing on the internet, they say Google is taking that data, right, and using it in the ad platform, right? And they say that's unfair because only—

how are they supposed to learn who to show the ads to then?

I don't know.

I'm just saying, you old shit. I'm gonna start cursing you out. Y'all don't understand nothing about how the internet works.

I know, I'm trying to—

I'm not explaining to you. You. I mean, you, you kind of, you kind of don't. We, you know, we get—

no, no, I'm trying to tell you what they're meaning in the lawsuit.

No, I know what they mean in the lawsuit, Allen Kopelman, and it doesn't mean shit. It's not gonna level the playing field in any way because you're— there's not gonna be— all this is gonna do is, is open the field for more, uh, shitty people to be like, yeah, I can run ads on Google. But, and then it's not gonna do nothing for people in general. Like, I don't understand. Like, okay, so the only thing that— of course there's a pay-to-play, right?

Well, they want to eliminate that.

Where?

In—

eliminated in Google? Yeah, bro. What about everywhere else?

I don't know, dude, but I'm just saying, this is so stupid. They already lost the same lawsuit. In Europe, so they're in big trouble in Europe.

But are they in big trouble? I don't think really Alphabet at the end of the day gives a shit because no one else— you're not like, listen, no one else is going to any other search platform for shit. Like besides a certain age group, no one is using— what is the shit that Microsoft Edge and Bing— no, that's all built into MSN, right, to Edge. It's all built in there. So it's like, if you think for one second the younger generation, yeah, is not using Google, bro, you tripping. They use Safari. Yeah, because it's built into their phone and that's the only thing they ever see to Google. And that's my point. Okay, it goes— the search browser is straight to Google, right? So what are they— how does this level the playing field? I don't know any way.

They want somehow for—

they just want to regulate this to— they just want to regulate, regulate, regulate, man.

No, they want— they basically saying like, you see what—

don't expect because it doesn't even matter. There's— they're saying that they just don't like that Google runs shit and that Alphabet shouldn't be able to, to monetize. They get basically 36 cents off every dollar that you run on Google. So if you spend $100, I don't know the math, They get $36, $36, $36 of $100 goes back to Alphabet.

Okay.

So, I mean, is that what they're saying?

I have no idea. What they're saying is, is that smaller businesses can't afford to advertise on—

How is that going to stop that?

I don't know. That's what I'm saying. Like, they, they, they, they pick a symptom, right? But then they don't have a solution.

There is no solution to that. They can't afford to run ads because those businesses have run up the cost of the ad. Well, they get— what, bro? I don't understand this shit. Anyway, did you also see— we were talking about, um, um, like censorship and shit like that, right? Did you see X had an update and now like everything is adult content? Really, bro? And it's ridiculous. I think he's trolling super hard, right? Because if you go, if you go on X right now and you click the hashtag adult content, yeah, there'll be a whole bunch of like videos that shouldn't be, uh, on there that should be labeled adult content, but they're not. And all the other ones are like, you know, uh, a picture of, you know, some guy with a dog. This is labeled as adult content. It's pretty hilarious. Anyway, I just put it in.

There's a whole bunch of weird stuff. Crocs, why is that adult content?

That's what I'm saying.

Oh, and then people are making fun of it. Why is adult content trending? Are y'all creeps?

Freaks.

Freaks. Well, here's a news story that I kind of liked, which I didn't really— so Amazon has decided that prices of food is too high, and they're going to compete with Aldi, Target, Walmart. Huh?

No thanks.

They're gonna, they're gonna add grocery discounts to Prime members. So shoppers at 50 Amazon Fresh stores and online can expect price cuts on more than 3,000 items. But they're all going to be like Amazon items. So typically you get 10% off, but you can now get up to 50% off 8 to 15 gross items that they pick out each week, including fresh produce and meat. And they're going to have 1,200 rotating grocery items discount from popular brands discounted, uh, 25% or more. And Prime members get an additional 10% off their new lineup of Savor products, which I guess is like whatever frozen vegetables that says Amazon on it.

So gross.

It's probably made by the same people making the other stuff. But I mean, I don't know if—

I don't know. I've seen some wack-ass shit the other day about how Whole Foods gets its frozen vegetables. Yeah, from China, and they're labeled organic.

Yeah, they're not organic.

But the— geez, man. Yeah, exactly. Like, the way that the— they— it's not China, it's Japan.

Oh, Japan.

Yeah. And the— their regulations, um, on what is considered organic, right, it's nothing. What the regulations and standards are in America to be labeled organic, but that's how they beat— that's like, that's, that's—

they like under the radar, supersede the regulations by doing that.

So that kind of, that really just, uh, I haven't really— well, anyway, I don't even want to talk about it. Yeah, it doesn't matter. Whole Foods sucks, man. Yeah, man, so, uh, that's the pod. That's the pod, I guess. I mean, he's— Allen's wrapping it up. He's ready to get done.

He gave me the sign, 5 minutes left, a few minutes ago.

Yeah, so thanks for watching. Hit the subscribe button. See you next time. Peace out.

Carpe diem.