Mark Tarbell: Achieving Culinary Excellence | On the Homefront with Jeff Dudan #88

Hey, welcome everybody to the home front. This is Jeff Duden. And we are thrilled today to have an Iron Chef America, a multiple Emmy award winning television host in the food industry, French trained chef and entrepreneur, Mark Tarbell. Mark, welcome.

Thank you very much, Chef. I really appreciate you having me on.

Yeah. And I, and I, and I'm not going to leave out the James Beard Award either. So, you know, but, but I had the, the great fortune to meet you out in Arizona a couple of months ago at an event. You were very gracious. You, you spoke to us as a group. And then the, the coolest thing was, which I couldn't believe it. Well, first, I couldn't believe that you were there. Second, that how at the end of the event, there was a food challenge set up and we went downstairs and there was about eight teams. There was tables of ingredients. We had some really good sashimi grade tuna. We had some lettuce, we had eggs, we had avocados. We had a whole table of ingredients. And we got, we had 30 minutes to present a dish to you and the other esteemed panelist judges. And I'm not going to miss the opportunity to say our team won that.

Well, Jeff, doesn't it feel good to win? For those that think that winning isn't everything, Jeff, I think they haven't won yet.

That's, that's right. They're still trying. Well, really, really honored and excited. I'm a huge foodie and a big fan of. I, you know, I think the best thing that happened to television other than the Discovery Channel, was the Food Channel and getting a look, you know, and with all these, with all the great chefs and getting a look behind the industry, learning like it just. I was in New York this last weekend and we always go to great restaurants when we're there, and now we kind of get a sense of what, what's going on behind the scenes there. So I really, you know, food's a, food's a cultural thing that people come together over all the time. And to be able to, to, you know, just, just share a great meal with somebody, there's nothing better than that.

Well, there's nothing better for the heart and soul to either cook for someone or share a meal with something. It's just so much part of our DNA. I believe that there's something that happens, an equalizing effect, a normalizing effect, a joy effect that happens when you're around food. And it truly is special. I'm very blessed that I was. This found me, I should say this business and Cooking found me.

Mark, would you share a little bit about how that happened? I know you first got interested in food in your early teens, and then, and then you got an early start in your career. You traveled to Holland.

Yes, I did. So, you know, there's a lot of headwinds. Being an entrepreneur. There's certainly a lot of headwind in the, in the restaurant industry. High rate of failure, very challenging, adrenaline driven, you know, very tough on everything. Right? Tough on your shoulders, your hips, your knees and ankles. But, you know, the bigger headwind for me was there was no food Channel when I started. There was no celebrity chefs. The Julia Child who's famous was off the air for a decade. You know, bam wasn't created. Guy was a dude that lived next door, you know, so there was, there was no notion of it being a career or a celebrity career. So not only did my passion drive me to it and, and, but I had a lot of headwind around my family and people just not understanding my choice, saying that it was a bad choice. Well, I'm still wondering if it might have been, but so I just left. I mean, my drive and passion created an opportunity for myself in Amsterdam as an apprentice. I did a full apprenticeship there. And that was when it exploded. I made a decision. I was going to open my own restaurant with no money, no prospect and no future. I made that decision and then I went to culinary school in Paris, wine school, and the rest kind of unfolded. But the headwinds have always been there.

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I worked in Amsterdam and I worked in Paris. I worked in a three star and a one star restaurant there as an apprentice and I worked in a lot of other places, both what they call front of the house, which is like management and wine training and wine education and things like that. And then back of the house, which is cooking. I learned enough, I believe at some point, by the time I was 30 and I was in Phoenix at the time, and I opened my first restaurant here in Phoenix 30 years ago, which in chef's years, that's like 100,000 years old.

All right. And then you're also a pretty good guitar player and an accomplished musician. So I can, I can only imagine the people in your life at that time saying, you know, don't pursue the food career, pursue the music career, which is more of a certain thing.

You know, it was a dual passion. I played when I was in high school a little bit, but I was really an acoustic player. I played classical and acoustic and finger picking and stuff like that. Electric. I just never could get. There were people in my friends that were better than I was. And then I just left it. Because when you go into my career, you're in 100%, 1,000%. And I picked it up again decades later and had one goal that I wanted, to play in front of an audience. And I, and I accomplished that very quickly, like in eight months of re. Picking the guitar up. And I've been scared ever since. I think I've done it so much, you know, I mean, I've played with like Alice Cooper, Nils. LAUGHTER from BRUCE Springsteen band on stage. I played with. I was on stage, just me as an accompaniment with a guy named Kris Kristofferson, who was the original Star Is Born and wrote me and Bobby McGee and a bunch of other famous songs. So I've had some really crazy experiences on stage with friends, but I still get up there and I'm going, what am I doing here?

Yeah, that's, that's, that's two incredible careers. So you're 30 years old and you've been hustling it in, in the back of the house, you've worked your way up, you, you got an education. Was it, was it just absolutely crystal clear that you, it was time for you to start your own restaurant?

It was sort of a burning desire. I've always been running like I'm late and I'm behind and my whole life and I still do that to a degree. You know, I haven't ever been able to solve that issue, but I always feel like, you know, just that something's on my back and chasing me and I, I gotta keep running. So I felt like, you know, the opportunity would pass if I didn't do it. And the was there 100% again, had no money in prospects. But I did have a 401k. I did have, you know, a car that I. Nice car that I bought and paid for when the career that I built and a little bit of cash and then I borrowed some money so I didn't have any partners or anything, but I just borrowed money. And that was hard because people like, you're opening a restaurant and you've never been in the business. First of all, you're opening a restaurant. The answer is no, I'm not loaning you money. Because 9 out of 10 fail independent restaurants historically or data around the country. So I had to kind of scrape it together myself and put myself out there on the line. And I was there every day during construction because my dad was in marine construction. So I did understand building to a degree. I'm not great at it, but I understood how to swing a hammer. So I was here every day. That was my job. And I pushed it along and helped put together the restaurant and know scrimped and scraped and opened it up.

How many seats did you open with?

144. I took two thirds of the space and built this oval semicircle bar, which back in 30 years ago was actually quite remarkable. And I called it a dining counter. And back then, people could smoke in bars, and I didn't let them smoke. And they're like, this is a bar. You should be able to smoke. And I'm like, well, it's a dining counter. What are you talking about? I mean, I have people yell at me saying I'm going to fail. No one's going to do this. And, you know, actually, for the first four months I was open, not one human being sat at my bar. Not one. Except the mad people that left because they couldn't smoke. And then I remember there was this guy named James and he owned an insurance company. And at the end of the bar one day, he sat at it and then he was like, this is really cool. And then he brought another person and another person, another person. Five years later, it was 3D. Yeah.

Now is that the location that you're still in?

Yeah.

Okay.

Believe it or not. Yeah. Yeah.

30 years.

You know, I don't reflect much on that, but, you know, I'm obviously intellectually understand that it's quite impossible what I've done. Being here in the same location for 30 years with no partners and no trust fund.

Right.

Yeah.

Very unusual. Even, even. Even the best of places need to change it up a little bit once in a while because, you know, so I'm in the service industry. And for us, you know, we keep built. You know, we. When we put people in business in the franchise, the first year slow, and the next year's a little bigger, the next year's a little bigger. In the restaurant industry, especially if you do one of some of These franchises like that first year can be big because everybody wants to try it, but do they come back? You know, and, and once people try it, and if it's, if it's, if it doesn't hit just right, then word gets around and you can't induce people to get back into the place. And I think you're, you know, you can see the writing on the wall at that point. How do you keep it? How do you keep it fresh and how do you keep people coming back year after year?

Well, Jeff, I want to touch on that because it's actually very true, and I believe that it's better to not have a hot burn early in any business. You do, you learn so much that first year. You make mistakes, but it's not as critical because you don't have as big an audience or a bigger pool of customers and you can communicate with them. There's so few of them, generally speaking, you can talk to them directly and learn from them and hopefully save them and those kinds of things. So I've really, I teach and advise slow burn because you're absolutely right. There's so much interest in trying what's new. But it's very, very, very deceiving because generally speaking, it's a big spike and then a big drop, and you have built all your dreams and desires and your business model on that big spike. And then all of a sudden, oops, you know, you went out and bought the Porsche or the, you know, the country place or the lake house, and based on your projections and how it's going, doesn't happen. So that's where a lot of restaurants fail in businesses, I think. But, you know, the other thing is, you know, that, you know, I think, what. How do I keep relevant? You know that. That's a really good question. It's actually, I'm rather simple. I wake up every day believing in my heart that I've opened for the first time at 5:00. And I have to believe like it's that first day I open and I, I look at every customer with gratitude and thanks. I listen to them. I don't ever read. I've actually never written, read an article that's been written about me. And there's been tons of Street Journal and, well, I mean, just a lot of New York Times, a lot of great stuff over the years, but I've never read it, been on TV a lot, never watched myself on tv. And so I think that's a part of it. It's not only part of who I am. But it's a discipline that none of that stuff matters. The day when I open tonight at 5 o', clock, no one cares. They don't care about that. That might have brought them to the door, but actually the expectations are even higher when you have accolades. They're coming in, up here and in their own mind, what up? They've made that up, that narrative. So you now are competing against a narrative that you didn't create, but it's created in their own mind. So you really have to work hard to blow them away.

How important is the front of the house to customer loyalty in a restaurant like yours?

Well, as a chef and chefs that may be listening, you may be upset, but I've been saying this for years. It's number one. Customer loyalty is driven by guest facing people, Salespeople, in our case, it's bartenders, servers, server assistants, hosts and managers. They are number one. Without them, your food. Well, first of all, if they do their job well, even if you make mediocre food, it'll taste better. But if they do their. Because everyone knows how they feel and how they've been treated. Not everyone knows the nuances, the subtle nuances, the last 5% of what they've eaten or tasted. So everyone knows how they've been treated.

Yeah, the places that we frequent, we, there needs to be good, crisp, honest service. It doesn't have to be, oh, you know, I don't need a mater d to greet me all the time. Although it's nice when they have a key person there that recognizes you by name. But the food, if you want to, if you want me to go back, you know, 20, 30, 40 times a year, like the food needs to be good. It, it's, and we, we have a little place right here by us and we, we moved to a new neighborhood on the lake. And I, you know, I always say, you know, one of the best things about it is I'm three minutes away from this restaurant because I can, I can swing by there on the way home. I can, I can get takeaway and, and it's always gonna be, it's always the same and it's not fancy, but I'll bring people there that are guests in from out of town because it's actually one of the best meals that I can get for them.

You know, you're speaking to me and it's like music to my ears. But everyone finds that place and it has a lot to do with consistency. It has a lot to do with comfort, has something to do with habit. But all those habits are formed because they know you and you know them, and it's a sure thing. And the fact that you feel trust them so much to bring your friends, because that's, That's a risk. You're probably not going to bring them to that new hot place that just opened that you haven't been to. And the friends are only there for one night. Unlikely it's going to happen. You might go on a Monday, you know, when it's a toss off night, try it out. And I always say, and it may be true in other businesses, but it takes at least three visits to change people's habits. And you have to just blow them out of the water in those first three experiences for them to change. Like, if I was moving to that lake community you're in, I would have to work so hard, and you know me, but I'd still have to work so hard to pull you away from that other place because you're already there. The only way I can win is if I overdo it and go crazy and really win you over. Or they lose, you know, they somehow mess up some night and I'm there to catch you.

That's right. Yeah. All right, quick fact check. You said Monday, Kitchen confidential. Anthony would say, don't order fish on Monday.

Yes.

Well, I don't know that. That's probably not a fair question. Should I redact that question, Mark?

I'd love to answer that question because.

Okay.

Obviously it very much depends on the sourcing standards and the integrity of the restaurant. But like, if you're in a city like Phoenix, where from both coasts, which would be Santa Barbara, Seattle, Gulf coast and Boston, where we have direct flights that come in every day, two, three, sometimes direct flights. What we've done is for seafood, for in particular, is we put it in the belly of that plane and then we go down and pick it up. So we're probably getting our fish order from that morning the same time the fish is being delivered in Boston. So. And that's a true fact because there's an 8 o' clock plane and with a time difference, you know, we get it about 11.

Yes.

So. And we order it as much as we can. You know, mostly it's three to four times a week. So. And you might think, well, there's, you know, what if it. I order it on Monday and I still have it on Tuesday, if it's properly iced and it's going to be fresher than probably most the restaurants in Boston or Santa Barbara. Um, and so. And then we only order enough so that we run out. So we always want to be in that deficit scarcity. So we're not going, oh my gosh, we paid so much for this swordfish. We have to do something with it. That's never been the way that a philosophy that I wanted to cook with. It's not uncommon. But we, we basically do. We, we run out.

Yeah, yeah. Well, and, and it's an upscale location and, and then these days, how many plates are you turning a night?

So it's, it's, you know, during season. So our season is pretty much eight to nine months a year. And then we have a little bit of. Because we're mostly built on regulars and local business. So we don't go in July and August. We're still busy, but not as busy as season. Okay, the winter, but during winter we'll do, you know, on the corner we, we'll do four to 600 meals, sometimes 700 meals a night. We're only open at night. And if you can imagine, let's say you're doing 300 meals a good solid night and you have an 11 foot stainless steel, what they call pass or counter, where the kitchen separates itself from the restaurant. And imagine people ordering three courses, salad, entree, maybe a dessert. So that's 900 plates in two and a half hours or three hours going across an 11 foot span with six people working on it. So that just puts kind of in sharp focus the complication and the dance that it takes to make that happen.

Yeah, and I love the thought of that. So I had an early experience in front of the house and back of the house. I was 12 and 13, I was in seventh and eighth grade. And we had a, there was a really popular Mexican restaurant in the, in outside of the city of Chicago called, called El Matador. And it was where my parents used to go. So they, they said, well, so Friday and Saturday night I get there around three in the afternoon and we would eat, they would feed us all. So the all, you know, family style enchiladas and all that. And then we would spend 30 minutes folding napkins, which I can still do, you know, at least 10aminute right now. And you know, fold them into little triangles and stuff and set them up. And then we'd. Yeah, that. We'd set up the tables and, and everything. And I would, so I was busing to get started and then the second year I actually moved into the kitchen. And I don't know what the position would have been called, but I was responsible for Appetizers and stuff and that kind of stuff. So I was on the line and you know, I'm 13 years old, I'm on the line and this fast moving, you know, I don't know how many seats we had. Probably 100, 200 seats in there, 150 seats in there. It was a pretty good sized place and just had a really, a great experience. I've heard you say that you must love hard, you must love repetition and you must love consistency to do what you do. How, how challenging is it today to find the kind of people like the, the like, like when I was, I just, I did whatever I was told, you know, when I was growing up, like I gent. Well, that's not exactly true in all cases, but I was a heart. That's actually, that's actually not true in most cases. But I will say that I didn't like to fail and I was a hard worker, I was hard headed. But you know, what's it like today finding people that want to go into that kitchen and really work their way through that career path?

Well, you know, I, so I have been open 30 years and I've had. And we. It's sort of a person. That business attracts a lot more youth. Right. So I had at least three or four, maybe five generations of X, Y, Z, whatever they are, generations. And for me, fundamentally all young kids are the same. There may be different ways you communicate, there may be different motivations, there may be different, you know, pressures of the time or a lot or dialogue or things that are happening out there in the world, in the news and their influences. But once it comes down to it, if you can get anyone to fall in love and find purpose and get reward and get growth and get challenged, like truly challenge and learn to love that. It's addictive. You know, I think it sounds like it was for you at that Mexican restaurant. You'd probably run through walls for them and you didn't mind the work, you just cranked it out and yeah, like you said, you can fold 10 napkins in 10 seconds. And that was probably a badge of honor for you when you could do that. Like, I'm sure you got reward. The owner liked it, people around you liked it. And when you were in the kitchen, I'm sure you were a mad, a mad fast. It's called gar manger in France. But the, the cold station, you did salads, you know, that's a fast station, especially if there's desserts and salads and appetizers. I call it you get crunched because you know when there's a turn of tables, you're doing apps and desserts at the same time. So it's like an apex. So you, you get it. But I have a, a great deal of hope and, and you know, it. We still only hire 1, 2 or 3 or out of 100 people we meet. It's been that way forever. It is hard, if you put it that way. Yes, it's hard to find people, but we're very particular and our process is very intense and it's not for everyone and it's very non restaurant. Most restaurants are like, oh, you can, you showed up, you're in, you know, and that is not a good plan. A lot of turnover happens when you do that. So I recommend really being patient, high or slow and move people on quickly. But yeah, I, I love the kids of today now during that period of time, we just all lived through the worldwide as pandemic. Yeah, a lot changed, you know, a lot changed and it, but it's all zipped back pretty quickly. People are back to work, they're loving work, they feel motivated, they want to grow, they want to, you know, have a career out of it, even if they don't make a career out of restaurants. We teach people leadership skills here. We teach them business, we teach them personal responsibility, we teach them what culture is, we teach them what good communication is. So I really take it very seriously that I want to make them better and more prepared for no matter what they do. We're a restaurant and it helps us for sure. But mostly we want them to be prepared for what's next.

Well, that's an incredible and very responsible and very admirable tact to take. And I take the same thing in our company. I do. I mean I have an owner's only call with all of our franchise owners. We're over 200 out there now and just pouring into. We're not talking about your business. I just want to give them, I'm pouring into them about being a business owner. We had health, I do, we did blood work, we do assessments, we do anything that just has to do with making them better as a per. Anything that they can take with them into their next life or whatever it is. And, and we also include all of our staff inside of that. Can you share whatever you'd be comfortable sharing about your hiring process?

Absolutely. I'm going to tell you the whole thing first. We make it one click easy to make an appointment with a director level person and that's really Important, I think that we don't want it. We lost a lot of people because they're just like sending in an application and getting no response and going through three steps to get an interview. So we do that right away and then we make it. We used to have a three step interview and we compress it in one day to respect people's time. It used to be like a week long of interviewing and a week long of discussion. And you know, there was a methodology around that. We wanted to see if people really wanted the job. So we made them come back and back and back. Today's world is one click. So we do it all in one day. We have all the key people there and it's always a trio. And we ask a series of. There's three pages of questions that each leader gets. It has to be the primary leader who they're going to report to and then two others, doesn't matter who else. And we believe that each person as they interview these candidates and ask these questions, and they could be random, like, what's your favorite TV show? What's the best experience you ever had? Tell me about your favorite boss. It's not unusual, but they're all really interesting questions. But there's a goal behind it. We want to get to know the person. That is the whole goal of the 1, 2, 3 interviews. And at that third interview, if everyone gets together, that trio, and says yes, yes, yes, three yeses, then we move forward to what we call the demo. Now, that demo could be a server in the kitchen that could be chopping or that could be following a server and clearing a table. That demo is when we tell them they're interviewing us. Because this is a very important relationship. Everyone that's in the interview process, both someone hiring and the person getting a job, both want to put their best foot forward. Usually it's a scarcity thing from the person hiring and usually the person interviewing wants a job. So they'll pretty much say and do anything to get the job on both sides. We remove all that and we make it very clear that we're interested in you. But you have to tell us if you're interested in us, if this environment works for you. And so we try to get it down to that human level very quickly. And then the first week is very much about making sure that everyone made the right decision, because it isn't about someone who has technical skills to do something as much as will they fit in with the rest of the people that we've hired, Will they fit in with our culture, will they enjoy it there? Will they thrive? Will they feel like they belong? Those are more important questions to us than anything. So we clear all that up through the interview process.

Fascinating. And very smart and very efficient. I've come to. I heard something last week that I've started to adopt a little bit, that complainers, creators don't complain and complainers don't create. And I've heard you say that. Are you. We look for people that are warriors, not victims, which is kind of two different ways to say the same thing. How can you tell if somebody is like your people when you're interviewing them? Is there, is there things that, that you've learned? Whether it's, whether it's backgrounds or adversity that people have faced or just their general approach and demeanor within the interview process? Any clues that you've discerned over time?

Yes. I mean, first of all, taking the lens of really being observant and making notes and asking open ended questions. We never talk about who and what we are because those are all tells and leads and also facial expressions, nodding, any acknowledgement of something that may be favorable or unfavorable. You have to be really, really neutral and just keep asking the open ending question like, oh, where did you grow up? Oh, I grew up here. What was that like? Oh, it was like this. What was your favorite part about it? Did you have a person you like their most tell me about them. You just keep going down that chain of questioning and eventually it exhausts itself. But you might find some interesting information about who they really are and what they believe. And that's when you know, you know, you talk about it, a challenging time they had with a boss and you go, well, why? And tell me about that boss. Did you learn anything from him? But so that's always the grace part, right? Even if it was a tough boss or a bad situation, ask if they learned anything and if they positively say, well, yeah, you know, it was really tough. But you know, there was one part of that after I left, I really reflected on. I got this, this out of it that was positive and it helped me in the future, even though it didn't work out, that shows you that they have resolve, they can pivot, they're going to shake themselves off and step it up and learn what's best and maybe learn from an experience and hopefully that's helpful.

Absolutely. And I think very, very, very wise. Mark, we can't get off the phone today without saying a few words about great wine. And I know that wine Is. Is a big part of the relationship with food. I know that you've got some interest in it. You have the wine store, and you also have a new venture called Cha Cha Moosh. And I would love to learn a little bit about your history with wine and then how that's, you know, how. How that. How that career has paired with your restaurant career.

Well, that's a great question, Jeff. Like most people, my relationship with wine started very awful. And I'll explain what I mean by that. There was a wine called Rionidi Lambrusco, and it was Rianidi on ice. And after my very first experience with wine, which was rianidi not pleasant, I call it, I renamed it ruin your nightie, and it did. So my introduction was, you know, everyone created this aura around it or this. This elegance or this. You know, basically, it had its own sort of status. You know, wine was very status driven. And I have to be honest with you, I went to wine school when I was 19 and Paris, and before that, I tried to taste wine and learn about it. Even my first few months at wine school, I had no idea what they were talking about. I'm like, this is bitter and it's awful. And they're going on, well, it has. If you were just a churn up with a delicate flower in the forest floor of this place in Tuscany, and that's what the aromas would smell like. And I'm like, are you. Have you lost your mind? Like, I had no idea what they were talking about, but I. But I'm not a quitter. And I just kept at it, and I kept tasting and I kept learning. And eventually what I can tell you now is very simple. It's like learning a language. Everyone, every single person, has the ability to be a master sommelier. You have all the tools you need. Some are a little bit more adept at it because they're more interested in others. But physiologically, we all have the tools to be a great taster. We just don't have the language and the words to put to it. And we're. The barrier is not that we can't put words to it. It's because we're afraid, because we don't want to be embarrassed. We don't want to say the wrong thing. We don't want it smells like my grandma's sock drawer. Because it does. And that would be accurate. But you don't want to be shamed at a table, right?

So, yeah, I would use the word canons.

Say grandma's sock drawer, and then you know, maybe eventually you'll talk about other words that might mean the same thing like forest floor or, you know, a little bit funky or, you know, degradation, degradated earth or fertilizer. You know, there's so many other ways it could be put. Anyway, a misty morning, which is mildew. So fast forward, you know, after all these years of trying to demystify wine, I always wanted to do my own wine project. In fact, I was just out there in California yesterday bottling my reserve Chardonnay and Merlot and also blending my ingredients, working on my reserve cab and Petit Ferdow. But most importantly, the best part of the day was I'm making a method champenoise, a true Champagne style wine in two ways. One with a grape called Pickpool, which is low alcohol, super fresh, really exciting, easy, no brainer stuff. And I finished the blend of the 20, 23 of that and then we're doing this long term project we won't be available for. It's been in bottle for over two years, probably won't be ready for another two. Making almost. I want to make, go head to head with true champagne, you know, and I've found a vineyard, an organic vineyard and a farmer that I love of Chardonnay. So it'll be point to blanc, Chardonnay based. And I'm going to go after those people in Champagne to say I'm passionate about it is true. To say it is part of life for me. Yes. Is it the most important thing? No. I still believe food and community. I believe friends and family. I believe who is around your table is more important than almost anything. And then food comes next and wine is just there to enhance. It's there to enhance flavors, to contrast flavors of food. And if you choose to try it in moderation, it's there maybe to bring some tactile, aromatic joy, interest to your life and maybe, hey, maybe you get a little happy too. But it's really just there to add value and enhance. It's not center of the plate.

Talk to us about Cha Cha Moosh and what the opportunities are for people to learn from you and experience some great products, some great wine. And what's your vision for that brand and what it's going to bring to people?

Well, it's a unique, very, very rare, you know, it's rare because I'm not making very much wine and it's really an opportunity for you to play with me, go into my playground, if you will, the world of wine. And I am going to be making wines from here. I'VE already made wine in France. I'm going to be making wine in other places with friends that I know very well that have excellent wineries. I'm going to use their wineries but buy all my own stuff, buy all my own grapes and make my own farming protocols and make these really limited production unique wines. And I'm going to share those experiences in the form of stories or you know, things you wouldn't thought of areas that you haven't, you've had wines from or heard about but never had wine quite like this. Now I'm going to make them delicious. I'm going to endeavor to make them delicious and not. That's interesting. I don't want to do that. I want to make like oh yeah, this is great. I can't believe it's from X or I can't believe this from Y. I've never had this grape. Try this out. And so I really want to take my 40 years of experience and bring it down to something that's super enjoyable, super easy and delivered right to your door. It's a membership based direct to consumer, direct to your doorstop model where you pay one fee every quarter. You get quarterly wines, six to at least six bottles. And then three times a year you get little treats from me, little birthday presents and that's my chef side. I'm going to be using my creativity and access to, to share with you some things three times a year, intermittently throughout these wine deliveries. So it's kind of a. It's a community. I want to know everybody in the community. I want to build community. I want to do events with this community and I want to be useful to this community. I can't wait.

Personally curated wine and food gifts by you. What could be better? So it's Chacha Moche. Is that a dot com or where can people find it?

That's a dot com.

So WW C H A C H A M O U c h e.com and sign up today. Available in 14 states right now.

Oh no. It's available in all 47 states that allow delivery. Okay. But we limited our first. We're taking. There's two reasons we're. We did a pilot and we have 14 states and we have a great group of members already. We're taking a wait list which we haven't quite set up yet, but it will be done tomorrow or the next day where I We're not going to do any deliveries in the summer for the reasons of heat, even though we do it with cold delivery in Coal trucks. We just don't want to risk it. So the next delivery will be end of September and we're taking a wait list because, you know, we don't have a lot of wine and we wanted just the right people. And we're going to accept more people from the wait list in August and September for our next delivery.

Well, the good news is, Mark, that this episode won't air for probably four weeks. So I will have, I will be in front of everybody who's listening right now on the wait list. But after me, feel free to pile in. But I, I'm not sure I signed up when I met you. I, I think I went to the website, but I, I do need to sign up for that and I'm very much looking forward to. Thank you. Sharing your experiences. Quick, quick question here. And you know, you've done all of these things and you've had multiple lives within a life and overseas and back here and, and musician and chefs and restaurant, very. But yet family's important to you and you've integrated any experience that you can share for. For entrepreneurs who are looking to not sacrifice their dreams, not sacrifice their careers, but also not sacrifice their family.

Well, I do, I'll just say what I believe and how I've done it. I was a workaholic, insane driven chef, restaurateur, until I got married and decided to have kids, which I did on purpose, by the way. It was a choice that put in a lot in my face, a lot of how I was living, how I was working. I didn't think I worked that much much. A 12 hour day was a half day for me. Like it was easy peasy. I could work, I could outwork anybody. And I wore that as a badge of honor. And what it forced me to do is threw it in my face. Some of the things I was saying yes to, some of the decisions I was making. And was I doing that for ego or pride or to be efficient? Was it the best way to live my life? And since I had kids on purpose, I wanted to be a great father and husband and I had to say no to a lot of things. And I had to reorganize my life, sorry, give up a lot of my ego things that really gave me a lot of self worth, ambition. And I told myself I was going to do this. It took about three years of transition. It wasn't easy and I'm still faced with a little bit, but I also see the Runway. My kids are getting a little bit older. I can see the start to accept different challenges. But I'm also doing them more thoughtfully because I do believe balance in life is maybe a better entrepreneur, a better businessman, a better leader. I really felt I just buried people because I felt I knew more than them or I could work harder than them. And I knew everything in my business, as I've learned, not so much. I don't even know what I'm good at now, frankly, but I try not to say stay in people's. Get out of people's way. Mostly at this point, the kids are.

A great grounding rod for, you know, your, Your. Your lightning and, you know, they. They bring you back. And. And I think, too, we're. We're also obligated to do lots of things, and we're obligated to push ourselves because we want to set an example for them and we want to show them what good looks like. We want to show them how to make decisions. There's one little story in my book that I wrote about going to a restaurant and the. With my young son. And we all recognized that the waitress didn't charge us for the second glass of wine. And, you know, I could see that he was watching what I was going to do with that. And, you know, I brought it to her attention. I said, hey, I don't think you didn't charge me for this, you know, because. So if you know what the right thing to do is, you should do that. And if it's clear what the right thing to do is. And those little examples that are set in those little moments and then the big examples that you set by pushing yourself to take, trusting yourself to take chances, going on television, creating a restaurant, doing a business, they will. They are watching everything that you do, and they will be much better off. Even if it doesn't work out. There's lessons of humility and failure that, that they can. That they can gain so.

Well, you've said it very well, Jeff. I mean, that humility and failure. We're very open about the. That we're not perfect. We talk about it when I've made a mistake. We openly talk about it, Sometimes serious, sometimes with. With laughter. But I have to share that I've got a lot of friends that, you know, in my time, we all started together that have become 500 millionaires or billionaires or 100 millionaires. And, and to a person, those that did what they thought they were doing, right, being a provider and working and traveling and not being home and not being there to pick their kids up or drop them off at School to a person. There are three of them that have bawled in private conversations with me just saying that they were not there and if they had all the money in the world, they wish they could go back. This is before I had kids. Yeah, they wish they could go back and do that over again because they literally can't get it back now. They try with their grandkids, but it's a different relationship and already their kids relationship with them is already locked in to a degree. And you know, it's the thing they carry around with great weight. I mean they have everything in the world, money, boats, planes, whatever. But they're sad. So I didn't want to do that.

Yeah, I have many experiences with people that have shared the same thing with me. I sacrificed a lot, a lot of economic upside. I coached over 30 seasons of my kids sports. I, I franchise my business because I, I was all over the Caribbean and Hawaii and California doing disaster restoration work and I was never home. And I made a conscious effort to sell all of my company stores under a franchise model so that I could bring people to me instead of me having to go to them. And it allowed me to be more present and it is the best decision I ever made. And you know, we still did. We do okay. You know, we're not eat, we're not eating TV dinners every night.

So I am.

Well. Hey, Mark, I know, I know you've got a bounce, but I've got my last question for you. If you had one sentence to make an impact in somebody's life, what would that be?

You know, you and you know, the right thing. Just trust that. Take a pause, take a breath and be very, very quiet and intentional about every choice you make. Because life comes from you, not at you.

Oh, perfectly said. Nothing to add. Mark Tarbell, Tarbell's restaurant. Are you in Scottsdale or Phoenix?

Phoenix is the restaurant.

Yes, Phoenix is the restaurant. It's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for taking the time to be on today. This has been Mark Tarbell with Jeff Duden and we have been on the home front. Thank you, Mark.

Thank you Jeff, my friend.