S1, E47: Hires Big H - Jon Hale

Ever wondered how a missed franchise opportunity could lead to a local dining legend? This week, we chat with Jon Hale, son of Hires Big H founder Don Hale, about the fascinating history of this beloved Salt Lake City institution. From the early days of Hale's Market to the creation of Hires Big H in 1965, John shares personal stories that illustrate his father's entrepreneurial spirit, commitment to quality, and the nostalgic charm that has kept customers coming back for decades. 

Join us as Jon recounts his father’s relentless work ethic and how fresh produce and quality meats from their own market laid the foundation for Hires’ success. Hear about the unique flavor of their ground beef, the famed Hires Root Beer, and the simple joys of growing up with such an iconic brand. We also discuss the evolution of personal health priorities and the enduring commitment to quality that has been a cornerstone of the Hires family legacy.

As Hires transitions to its third generation with Allie taking the helm, we reflect on the importance of family traditions and community impact. From the creation of Litza's Pizzas to the famous fry sauce and the meticulous process of upholding food quality, this episode is a heartfelt tribute to the legacy of quality dining. Tune in for an inspiring journey through the history of Hires Big H and the excitement for its future.

Please be sure to like, review, follow, subscribe and share the podcast with your friends and family! See you next time 

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Chapters

• 0:00 The Legacy of Quality Dining
• 9:14 Entrepreneurial Journey
• 21:11 Quality Dining Legacy and Family Business
• 30:04 Quality Dining Legacy With Fry Sauce
• 36:50 Origins of Litz's Pizza Legacy
• 40:04 Quality Food
• 47:33 Emphasizing Quality in Food Service
• 55:24 Passing Down the Family Legacy

Transcript

Jon Hale: 0:10

So my dad was an entrepreneur, from the word get-go. We have a grocery store, we buy fresh produce every day, we do ground beef every day, we do steaks every day. We do everything. I can just do this myself. I can open my own store. Because he didn't know if this was going to be a winner or not. So, anyway, he came up with a number of recipes and he said I'm going to open a pizza place. And he opened Leetza's Pizzas in 1965. And probably from 1965 to my dad, everything was about quality, and if we can't sell quality, we don't want to sell it.

Erik Nilsson: 0:48

What is up everybody and welcome back to another episode of the Small Lake City Podcast.

Erik Nilsson: 0:52

I'm your host, eric Nilsen, and if you've grown up in Salt Lake City, utah, there's a likelihood that you have had dinner at a very specific place, after either a soccer game, basketball game, family home evening, whatever it might be at a very specific burger place on 7th East and 4th South and, if you haven't guessed yet, it is a place that we know to be as Hires Big H, and so today we have John Hale, who's the son of Don Hale, who founded Hires, and we talk about how Hires was founded by his dad and the decision process around that, what John's up to today and then what is in store for the family as they move forward.

Erik Nilsson: 1:33

So lots of really good stories, lots of great wisdom imparted, and if there's one word to take away from it all, it is quality. Don and John, and now Allie, are focused on quality and making sure that they are giving the best products possible, and we'll talk more about what they're specifically doing to do it and some examples. But definitely a great episode, great person to learn a lot from, and I hope that you all enjoy.

Jon Hale: 1:58

Although I am addicted to Heier's hamburgers.

Erik Nilsson: 2:01

I mean, I'd be kind of worried if you weren't.

Jon Hale: 2:05

No, I've cut back on my meat consumption because just for health reasons, it's been beneficial. But you know, if I'm going to eat meat, it's going to be a Heier's hamburger. Gonna eat meat, it's gonna be a hires hamburger or a meatloaf made with hires ground beef so it's always the proof?

Erik Nilsson: 2:21

oh, it's not the pudding. The proof is in the pudding right that even if we're gonna make a meatloaf, we're using our beef?

Jon Hale: 2:27

yeah, because I can't. Nothing else tastes good to me, interesting, um, you know, I just would not order a hamburger out anymore just because it just doesn't have the same flavor to me or the flavor I'm expecting in a hamburger, and not all hamburgers the same, I hate to say it. Oh absolutely.

Erik Nilsson: 2:42

There was a article that someone sent me because, I mean, I'm a fan of a good burger, just like anybody else, and there's this article that someone came out with where they tested the ground beef from, I mean, every popular burger chain.

Jon Hale: 2:56

Right.

Erik Nilsson: 2:56

And essentially every single person failed, except for I think it was Shake Shack, where they're like oh, like, it's a good beef. And so to your point, if you're, I mean, your palette of ground beef and burgers is probably the most refined of most people. So I'm sure, I mean, you could do a taste test and be like, well you know, nope, that's not the one, that's the one. Here we are, and again, get it all dialed into what it should be.

Jon Hale: 3:17

Yeah, you get to an age that I'm at and you just want to eat things you enjoy and not things that it's just not food, because I ate just a lot of food growing up, just to stay alive and that's my biggest problem.

Erik Nilsson: 3:34

So I turned 34 this month and I feel, because I mean, you go through your twenties and nothing matters, anything comes in, you still stay lean, whatever, as long as you don't have, like, a health concern. But then all of a sudden, it's like my upper twenties. Every year it's like, oh well, there's, here's something else I have to get rid of, or here's something else I can't eat anymore. Just to kind of maintain that way, cause I'm a, I'm a pretty active individual, I'd like to, I mean, I like to prioritize good health, cause I want to have a, I want to live for a while, but I want my quality of life to last. So, and those decisions are made now, not when you get there, so it's yeah, I want that quality of life.

Jon Hale: 4:08

I mean, I don't when I pass away, I pass away, but I don't want to be drooling because I didn't take care of myself. So I started drinking green smoothies probably 10 years ago. I've been pretty religious about them and I've just noticed a lot of health benefits from it. Yeah, so it's just, you just do what you think's right and when it works, you stick with it.

Erik Nilsson: 4:29

Totally Because, yeah, I mean like, because it's funny, like it reminds me of my grandma, because she passed away in 2021, November, but she was the ultimate example of she just gets to the age that she just wants to eat what she wants. I'll never forget we went to the Outer Banks for a family trip. It was me, my siblings, my step siblings, all of the kids, and then there's probably, like probably around 10 of them and we're in this like beach house on the Outer Banks, and so I don't know if you're familiar with the Outer Banks, but there's this duck I'm sorry, these donuts called duck donuts that are phenomenal, really good, if you ever go out there, recommend. And so we get there and it's like someone showed up with them like oh, cool donuts, like you know, great you back and she has a pint of ice cream and a dozen donuts. I'm like, oh, grandma, thanks, like I think we still have some donuts. Like thanks for grabbing some more. And we kind of just nibble at it. And then the next day she comes back from the store with another pint of ice cream and a dozen donuts. Oh, like, thank you, like thanks for thinking of us, like that's so nice. And then the next day, like so every single day, she came back with a dozen donuts and ice cream and before she went to bed you just see her like freezer open and just eating ice cream.

Erik Nilsson: 5:45

Cause we have a joke in our family uh, is my mom's or that grandma's maiden name is Taylor, uh, from you in a basin in Bernal, and so we have this joke called the the Taylor gene, where if you have it, you are helplessly obsessed with ice cream. Like that's your favorite dessert, like I have it. I mean, I have a pint of Rocky Road ice cream in my ice cream drawer all the time, even now I had some good Tillamook Rocky Road ice cream last night before I went to bed. And so you get to that point like you know what, what does it matter anymore? We're just going to do this. And I mean obviously's definitely a point where you're like, what are we doing all this for if I can't enjoy the things I want to enjoy?

Jon Hale: 6:16

Well, if I'm in the mood for ice cream, so my go-to is a chocolate caramel malt. You know, we grew up on Snellgrove's ice cream or Snellgrove's malts, yes, and we they were on 21st South, and 9th or 11th had to be 9th. 9th, yeah, yeah. Uh, ninth or 11th had to be ninth, ninth, yeah, yeah. And you know, we would probably do a run, you know, twice, three times a week, where we older sister, my parents would take us down, we'd get malts, we'd bring them back to the house, we'd eat them there Sometimes, we'd bring them home sometimes. But here's the big thing we would take a ride down seventh East, they'd stop, they would get us an ice cream cone. You know, when we didn't have enough time, we drive down seventh East to hire drive-in and then we would park out front on seventh East. You know, totally, go back in those days, yeah.

Jon Hale: 7:07

And my dad would go in and work for an hour and we were to count how many cars went into D's drive-in, which D Anderson had set up a stand across the street from my dad. So he was awfully nervous about that. I mean, we were there in 59. He didn't get there until about 65 or later. I'm not sure where it was. But so we would kind of count cars and then he would come out an hour later and say take the girls home, I mean, take the kids home, put them to bed, and then come back and get me. So but it was kind of a way that, you know, we didn't mind it too bad because we got an ice cream on the way down and it was good, and we sat and ate our ice cream and counted the cars and then it was time to go home.

Erik Nilsson: 7:44

Everybody wins. Yes, absolutely. Oh, I love that no-transcript place to go and I and for the longest time I always thought that's how hot dogs came was between, like hamburger patties. It's just ice down the middle and I mean root beer floats, root beer freezes. I will always, when I go, get a mint Oreo shake and that, like that, is my hires experience and it's always been so great.

Erik Nilsson: 8:44

So I'm so excited for to hear the story from you about your dad, I mean, and you and everything that you're still doing, because it's, it's, it's, it's such a part of the Salt Lake culture that I mean so many people had growing up. So thanks you so much for coming on and excited to hear from you. I'm happy to be here, yeah, but I mean kind of what we talked about. I kind of want to start from the beginning and kind of hear I mean your dad's story of how he founded Hires, his reason and impetus behind it and all up until I mean you coming into the picture and, besides counting cars and eating milkshake, kind of your involvement at an early age.

Jon Hale: 9:15

Well, so my dad was an entrepreneur from the word get-go. He was 30 when he got married. My mom was 27. But he was just an entrepreneur and they had his parents owned a place called Hale's Market which is on, or was on, 5th East and 5th South. They're turning it into a Mexican restaurant now, but they had that Hale's Market for many, many years. So he would work in the store as a young kid and his parents ran it. And then he started running it and he opened a bar called the Viaduct Inn and ran a bar for a number of years. And it was a tough business being in the bar because to make money you had to keep track of the drinks and who was getting them for free and who wasn't, and all that kind of stuff. And he owned some car dealerships and some other things dabbled in cars. But he was fascinated by Bob's Big Boy. He just thought, wow, this is a great concept, it's fun, it looks good.

Jon Hale: 10:17

And Bob's Big Boy back in those days was, you know, kind of the raging thing. So he went to their headquarters and said I'd like to buy the franchise for the area. They said you know what, we just closed on that yesterday. And so he was kind of heartbroken. But then, as he's back home, he thought well, wait a minute. We have a grocery store, we buy fresh produce every day, we do ground beef every day, we do steaks every day. We do everything. I can just do this myself. I can open my own store.

Jon Hale: 10:47

And he did have the property up on 7th East and 4th South Back in those days there was a standard gas station right on the corner and then there was kind of a vacant lot and then some, well, there were houses there, little condos they wouldn't be condos in the day, but just little apartments that people lived in. And so he just thought well, I own this property. Seventh East was not a big deal back in those days. And so he started. He built hires because he knew he could, you know, make his ground beef down at Hale's Market. They did fresh produce every day. So they didn't start out with a big H, they started out with a hamburger, a cheeseburger, a hot dog, probably grilled cheese, maybe grilled ham and cheese.

Erik Nilsson: 11:30

It's nice because it sounds like, I mean, the Hale's Market played a big role in was like his worst investment, was like gave him that confidence to say, oh well, I have all the raw goods, right, I have this space, we can put both together and I get my own I mean Bob's big boy without having to deal with the Bob's big boy Right right.

Jon Hale: 11:47

So, as he's building hires, you know back in those days everybody's just out self-promoting, so he's building Hires. Some guys show up at the door one day and said, hey, we promote Hires Root Beer. And my dad said well, I happen to believe, or I know, that Hires Root Beer has the best tasting root beer here. He owns a grocery store so he tries everything that comes in. He says I happen to believe that Hires has the best tasting root beer, and so would you sell our root beer? And he said well, absolutely, can I use your name? And they said absolutely. And that was the end of that deal.

Erik Nilsson: 12:20

I didn't know that Hires root beer came before.

Jon Hale: 12:22

Hires Big Age. Well, charles Hires, who started Hires root beer, was like, I think, I believe, and I could be wrong on this, but I believe it was the first soft drink on the market before Coke. Really Wow, this was 1885. I don't know Someone's, I'm wrong on the date, but I believe that Charles Hirsch was the first guy that came up with the soft drink.

Erik Nilsson: 12:43

And was that higher space that he had? Was that just the renovated gas station itself, or did he build it Right, so he built.

Jon Hale: 12:51

the original building still stands inside same site as it is today, but the Chevron station was still on the corner. You know didn't take us a lot of. You know when you're starting out you don't need a lot of parking. Yeah, but you know we started out with car hops. Car hops were bigger back in those days and you know it was a lot of work because cute car hops and cute guys would pull in and you could lose a car hop for another 10 or 15 minutes because she's just talking and not taking orders.

Erik Nilsson: 13:20

Other priorities at the time.

Jon Hale: 13:21

Yes, absolutely so. Anyway, he was dedicated to what he did. He was a hardworking businessman and spent a lot of hours in that store all day. When it slowed down, he would go down and see his parents, who lived in at Hale's Market at 5th East and 5th South, and he would take his mom around on errands with him. He'd go down to the stock market and check things out.

Erik Nilsson: 13:44

I love how much he just brings people along with him for everything, which I applaud, because it's one thing to be like, oh, I'm so busy, I'll be home later, but it's like I need to go do this, let's go get a milkshake or ice cream. You come along, you're like, oh, I need to spend time with my mom, hop in the car, let's go do this. It's multitasking.

Jon Hale: 14:00

Yeah, it's just as a quick side note is that we he would try to take the kids on a trip one-on-one. So we flew to Las Vegas once and did some things there and we woke up the next morning after I did my like, woke up and did my homework because he took me out of school and then he said we're flying on to la, there's nothing to do here like all right, sounds, sounds good.

Jon Hale: 14:22

But when my dad was out of town he would eat four times a day. He would eat breakfast, and then he would eat between lunch and breakfast at a restaurant, and then we'd eat somewhere in a snack a day, and then we'd have dinner at night at a restaurant, and then we'd eat somewhere in a snack a day, and then we'd have dinner at night. And to this day, when I go out of town, I just want to eat. I can eat anywhere. Oh, that's Because it's just training.

Erik Nilsson: 14:44

Yeah, I mean it's nice that you get to do market research and be like well, there's a burger over here, we will go have that. I had Julie Freed on the podcast recently from the Freed family.

Jon Hale: 14:54

Yes, I heard part of that.

Erik Nilsson: 14:55

Yeah, it was great conversation, such a great woman and fun to get to know her. But it's fun. She's like oh, like me and my dad did a trip to Toronto to go do some market research, we'll go to Disney where there's a conference every year. I'm like you know, if I do market research I'm going to like a. I mean not nearly as fun of sitting in a conference room talking about spreadsheets and data sources. But so at this time when he's getting hires off the ground, working through all of this, is he still doing the market, the car dealership and everything else? No, he'd probably step back on some of those.

Jon Hale: 15:28

I don't know the total timeframe of that and when he had given up the bar or whatnot, but he probably got involved more in the restaurant and his restaurant was doing better. I think he got more into the stock market and stepped back from those other places because he would go to the market and he would buy the produce. He would work at the store and then he would do the lunch hour and then he would go back and work for a couple hours every night. So he would come home for dinner. We'd have dinner as a family, but then he would take us for an ice cream cone or go back to work for the store for a couple hours. So he was very dedicated and this is the success of hires is that there was someone there watching over it, making sure of the quality and, and, uh, making sure people were doing their job.

Erik Nilsson: 16:17

So it sounds like it was the thing that he liked the most out of all these endeavors and slowly just kind of started to focus on that Right.

Jon Hale: 16:25

Cause he didn't know if this was going to be a winner or not. But uh, but it just turned out that it was popular. It was the right time. Uh, you know, d's and Arctic Circle and all these other places were all opening restaurants and you know, I'd heard stories that people would borrow one from another restaurant. They'd call up Arctic Circle or, or I should say, the place down on 9th South and State Street.

Jon Hale: 16:53

Oh it's oh my gosh, I should have written this down beforehand. It was kind of an Arctic Circle type operation but they had a booth right in the middle of the lot and someone sat in that booth and watched every car hop that they weren't spending too much time at one car, but they would borrow cups from other people. They would call and say hey, I'm short on cups. Now, all these cups didn't have everybody's logo on them back in the day, it was just a cup. Yeah, I'm short, can you get me two cases of cups? Yeah, I'll pay you back.

Jon Hale: 17:23

So it was just kind of a fun community. Everybody knew everybody. It was called Don Carlos, don Carlos, and that became an Arctic Circle and that became an Arctic Circle. But Don Carlos had this great car hop service business over on State Street 9 South. So anyway, it was a great community and people were willing to help other people out. It wasn't total competition, it was like you're doing your thing, you're doing your thing, oh, you're short. Yeah, sure, I can help you with this or that or whatever.

Erik Nilsson: 17:48

And that's one thing I've realized a ton in talking to people, and it's prevalent across the art. In the art community, silicon slopes, the entertainment community is there is this underlying community that people are so willing to help each other, even if they're direct competitors fighting for the same business, which all comes back to, I mean the. The term Deseret that Salt Lake was was based on from the pioneers of. I mean, we are industry, we are community, we are all part of the same hive, and so it's so fun, as I've talked to more people, to see how prevalent that is through all different walks of life in Salt Lake that we are still so willing to help each other, even if it means I'm giving two cases of cups to my competitors and we'll make money off of that, it'll end up working out. But a lot of other places you wouldn't find that nearly as much, right?

Jon Hale: 18:32

So anyway, it all seemed to work out well. Wouldn't find that nearly as much, right? So anyway, it all seemed to work out well. Like I said, we didn't open Don didn't open Hires with a big H, which is our most popular sandwich today and probably has the most fame for.

Jon Hale: 18:45

But as he was going along, and I think Bob's big boy probably did have a sandwich that had we'll call it Thousand Island dressing on it, and so his mom had a great Thousand Island dressing that she would serve for salads and he said, you know he loved it. And he just put a bun together with a new bun from Hale's Bakery no family relation, but they make buns and it was called the sheep herder bun, so it was kind of dusted with flour on top. So he did that and put cheese on it and did this thousand island dressing on the sandwich and lettuce tomato and he thought, wow, this is a winner. Yeah, we're doing this. So he started you know it was just his grandmother's, I mean his mother's recipe for the dressing and it turned out to be a very good sandwich, I'll say I mean the amount of Hiires big H's I've had.

Erik Nilsson: 19:35

And also I mean obviously there's been iterations of it now, like if I go to hires, my favorite thing is a golden H, cause I love onion rings and put them together and that's my own um aha moment, similar to your dad had there Um.

Erik Nilsson: 19:48

But I mean it's so interesting to see this man who's this entrepreneur, who's done.

Erik Nilsson: 19:52

I mean his background of industries is, is is broad, but somehow finds himself in food but also continues to innovate, but then like partner with uh, I mean the hires root beer, and he knows that's going to be something good and can recognize that, but then also continues to to refine this and make this the best place it can be and the best product it can be, instead of just, oh, I'm going to go get some ground beef from the market, I'm going to grab these buns from Hale's Bakery and try to make something. But instead he's like I want to make something of my own, something special, right, especially when you think about how he once had this decision or wanted to partner with Big Boy Burgers to do that, and so it's fun to see how he made it work, did his own thing and obviously we know that it was successful and he's done well with that. I guess at this point, what was your involvement in this, or how often or when did the kids start getting involved in the business, if at all?

Jon Hale: 20:44

Well, so we, probably at the age of seven or eight, were stocking shelves down at Hell's Market. So the order would come in on Wednesday from Associated Grocers, which turned in Associated Foods. So the order would come in on Wednesday from Associated Grocers, which turned into Associated Foods. So the order would come in. We would go down in the summer and stock shelves and then we would haul garbage out or break down boxes or whatever, and so that went on probably until I was 11.

Jon Hale: 21:12

And at 11, about 1965, he decided that he wanted to open a pizza place. And there weren't a lot of pizza places around. You know, you had Pizza Oven up by the mouth of Parley's Canyon, you had maybe a Durat Skeller or a couple other ones. But so what we would do as a family is we would drive to pizza places, which usually was a drive because they weren't anything close. And he would talk to people, he would ask them for recipes, he would pay them for recipes and stuff that he liked. He just he and people were obviously happy to sell it because they thought, well, you know, he's the burger guy.

Erik Nilsson: 21:52

What's he going to do with this?

Jon Hale: 21:53

Yeah, 200 bucks in my pocket, how's this going to hurt me? So anyway, he came up with a number of recipes and, um, he said I'm going to open a pizza place because pizza was just kind of coming on. He opened Leetza's Pizzas in 1965. And probably from 1965 up until when I graduated in school in 74, I looked at Leetza's. You know, washing dishes start off, washing dishes, tending ovens, garnishing pizzas, rolling pizzas off and on. I mean, I had other jobs. That wasn't my only job, but so anyway, we just all the kids or all the family members kind of got involved in working at Leetza's.

Jon Hale: 22:36

And because it was new, you know, small was, it was great, food was fabulous. But it was all to my dad, everything was about quality. You know, he wanted the best mozzarella cheese and then he could buy his own vegetables and the lettuce for the salad and the dressings. He got one from his sister-in-law and, you know, came up with a great blue cheese dressing that he probably bought from Little America or somebody else. So anyway, it's just all about quality and he had a taste for quality, probably bought from little america or somebody else. So anyway, it's just all about quality and he, he had a taste for quality. You know, when he got the dressing together, if it didn't taste good, you know he would adjust it or just start all over again. But it was all about quality. So he always instilled that in us. That quality was, it was the name of the game and people, will you know, pay a little bit more for quality.

Erik Nilsson: 23:22

Yeah and I like how he kind of goes to all of these. I mean at the time was probably very iconic places around the Valley, but being like, oh, like, cause, to your point of like little America, like I like your blue cheese, let me buy your recipe for blue cheese, right, yeah, sure, 200 bucks. And like, yeah, blue cheese burgers, get my own ground beef. And just kind of, because, again, quality quality, because that's especially with the burger like there's a like one of my favorite shows, parks and rec, there's an episode where, um, one of the characters is vegan and he's trying to be like, well, let me make you this, uh, vegan burger that has this amazing garlic aioli and blah, blah, blah. And then the ron swanson comes in and he's like I'll make you a burger that's just ground beef on a bun. And so the guy comes in, you know, makes all, makes all these things, like, oh, that's really good. And then he's like you know, quality bun, quality burger, take a bite. And everyone's like, yep, that one, that's the one that we want.

Erik Nilsson: 24:11

And because so many people try to complicate things and try to make things I mean trendy or so fancy, but at the end of the day, I mean it's still today for your comments of I can't have any ground beef besides Kair's ground beef. So that legacy continues to go on. So all the kids kind of get involved. You start working at Leeds, as I mean, how long did that continue on for? I mean, at what point did you kind of say, hey dad, this has been fun, but maybe I'll go do my own thing?

Jon Hale: 24:47

Yeah, I mean family businesses are tough, there's no question about it, because you're, you know, you live with your boss seven days a week and even after I got married he would come over for Sunday dinner. We'd go to our Sunday dinner and he would want to talk business. So it was always tough. There was never a separation, you know. But so when he was in town, you know, it was always business. But when he went on a trip it was just trip, it was just nothing but trip. He would be up for anything, he would be up for eating anywhere. So we learned as kids that you just you had to try everything that he wanted to. And so we learned as kids that you had to try everything that he wanted to. So oysters, whatever it was, liver and onions was a staple at our house. Wasn't great, but you ate it, but he wanted his kids to try everything.

Erik Nilsson: 25:40

And all you had to do is just try it once. And were you and your siblings the type of people that welcomed that and enjoyed that? Or was it another? Oh, dad's trying to have us have something.

Jon Hale: 25:48

We were kids, okay, and you know, but we ate them. I mean, oysters weren't very memorable, you know, it just slipped right down. You're thinking it doesn't taste like anything.

Erik Nilsson: 25:58

Yeah, it tastes like salty goo. Yeah, right, Thankfully not in my mouth anymore. Yeah.

Jon Hale: 26:01

So anyway. So anyway, he would always make us try. So we'd go to new restaurants when we were out of town and he would try this and want you know, we'd kind of sample foods all the way around and let everybody try some and see what they liked and what he liked and whatever. So he was just fun on trips but he was all business when he was in town.

Erik Nilsson: 26:18

I mean it's nice that he can compartmentalize it, because the worst thing would be is like dad can never turn off, yes, even when on vacation yeah well, I guess to that point he's still going to restaurants to do like market research, but it was fun. Fun, market, yes, right. And I mean, were these trips and these restaurant visits, did any of these, this market research, come back to the restaurant at all, or um, that you can remember, or was it mostly just trying new foods?

Jon Hale: 26:40

and well, obviously, hires had been going since 59 up until 65. And so that was kind of established. I think we had the big H by then and so it was kind of just, you know, steady as she goes. It was a popular store, it was selling quality, so he was having good business. He could always he could just predict how much he was going to make every day, because it was that consistent Nice it was that consistent.

Jon Hale: 27:02

And from that time, um until 2000, I don't know, eight or nine there were probably three, three solid quality burger places in town which was hires crown and a training table. And then in 2008 or nine, you know, when the market crashed and everything went down, training table kind of went out away and, um, crown Burger were still in business. But we all struggled at that point. It was always hard. It was tough for anybody to stay in business at that point and after that we kind of got over that.

Jon Hale: 27:37

Back 2012, 13, when things started, came back in line. There was a flood of new burger restaurants. You know, in-n-out came together Five Guys, tony light. There was a flood of new burger restaurants. You know, in and out came together Five Guys, tony Burgers. Just a host of quality hamburger places. Not quality that I liked, but they were still Better than a fast food cheap dollar menu. Yes, so, so anyway, those things changed.

Jon Hale: 28:00

But you know, don, my dad, don's my dad's name and the grandkids always called him Don and Shirley. So it was never a grandma and grandpa. My oldest sister's kids called him Don and Shirley. So everybody called him Don and Shirley. And when I was at the restaurant I'd be working in the back kind of setting up orders. My dad would be out front doing seating people and everything. So I never wanted to say hey, dad, seating people and everything. So I never wanted to say hey dad, dad. So I we always called him Don, just so that it didn't. It didn't look like, yeah, it makes sense, yeah. So anyways, it was Don and Shirley were my dad and mom and dad.

Erik Nilsson: 28:38

No, that's like such a I don't know. There's something like endearing about Don and Shirley.

Jon Hale: 28:41

Yeah, no, it was done. This is very endearing.

Erik Nilsson: 28:46

Um, so you go through these. I mean hard time, obviously, if your dad opened hires in 1955. 59. 59, sorry, 65, 59. There we go, we got there. So I mean that's 55 years from then to when. I mean this 2010, kind of market changes. The burger market in Salt Lake changes drastically. I mean, was he still going 100% during this time or is with family start to take over a lot of the main operations?

Jon Hale: 29:13

No, he passed away in 2011. Okay so, and my brother and I had kind of taken over by then, but it was kind of like I was, you know, he was. His restaurant was kind of top of the heap up until then, and because there still weren't a lot of quality places around, I mean, I think we all did well, all three of those restaurants and it was. It was good times for everybody. Obviously, you know the story after 2009, how everything crashed and, you know, struggled to get back on, and we've had a number of downturns during the uh, 2011 to 2000, till now, uh, from COVID to uh, another downturn to whatever. Prices kept going up and up and up, and you know it's uh, it's been a struggle, but we're grateful that we're still in business and we uh enjoy what we're doing. I, we. To me, it is all about quality, and if we can't sell quality, we don't want to sell it.

Jon Hale: 30:10

Uh in fact. Well, just a side note, One time I was trying to say, dad, we need to sell fry sauce so people can dip the fries at us. So, employees, when they would get their um, uh, let their lunch meal, uh, the employees that would all get a cup of fry sauce and dip the fries in it and eat it. I said, dad, we got to do this. Dad, are you saying this? Everybody is doing, yeah, All the employees are doing it. He goes no, you know why. And I said why? He says because people are going to take our fry sauce and reproduce it and then it won't be special anymore Interesting. And I just, I just thought, okay, whatever, Like sure dad.

Jon Hale: 30:47

Yeah, yeah, just like you say to your parents, like whatever. And uh, you know, maybe six months, a year later, he said, okay, we'll, we'll do this. And so you know, we started doing fry sauce in the two ounce cups and the Olympic pin was patterned after that fry sauce cup. Yeah, arctic Circle, I think, gets the credit for maybe having the first fry sauce out there, but I think we were the first guys to really make it go big and for the Olympics to acknowledge that. And there's been other, I mean some dudes fry sauce.

Jon Hale: 31:21

I don't know if you remember that story. I mean he I don't know what his volume was, but he was selling like in five Western States before they ran into some kind of a issue and I don't know what the issue was, but it was, um, I don't want to, I'm not, I'm not, I'd be speaking off the top of my head, but anyway, it happened twice to him and they, they closed down, they just they got out of the market, interesting. But uh, and we had hires big eight fry sauce out there for a while, but after a while there was I could go to walmart and count seven products on the shelf of fry sauce. Yeah, oh not. They may not have been called fry sauce some of them were, but they all weren't. But it was just kind of all right, we need to step back. So we kind of step back. We still sell, sell hire's root beer extract on the open market. But you know, we've thrown a lot of stuff against the wall to see what sticks.

Erik Nilsson: 32:15

Yeah Right, I thought it definitely stuck for a little bit, yeah Right.

Jon Hale: 32:17

But it was good for us.

Erik Nilsson: 32:18

Well, it's funny because, like to your point and against your dad's point, he's like well, if we're going to do it, everyone's going to copy us. Which I mean eventually was true, but there was a long time. Like I mean, how many times did everybody go to any other state on trips with family and be like oh, can I get a side of mayo and a?

Erik Nilsson: 32:37

side of ketchup and then you'd sit there with your fry and mix it all up and like it hasn't been until I mean maybe the last five to 10 years where if you go outside of Utah and you go somewhere, there's some sort of fry sauce variant Right, and so it's fun that you guys are really like you know what, dad, actually I think you're going to like this one and he comes around he's like all right, john, you know what Fine you win.

Jon Hale: 32:57

I'm not sure he ever said that you win.

Erik Nilsson: 33:09

But he did realize he sold a lot of fry sauce in the stores. It's a man who can recognize quality and he saw it and made that happen. And then I know that.

Jon Hale: 33:29

so obviously the 70s slipcase. Oh, there you go, it was a power outage.

Erik Nilsson: 33:31

That was fun first time that's ever happened. All right, we're back um.

Jon Hale: 33:38

Okay, yeah, I thought we uh ran out of time, we're just sitting here.

Erik Nilsson: 33:41

Uh, still enough that the, the motion sensor, goes off. Um well, I also know that obviously we talked about I mean the 70s location being the first, and I mean most important. But then there were some expansions along the way. I mean, when did those happen? Or what were those conversations like?

Jon Hale: 33:58

Well. So we were starting to look at other locations. My brother and I were interested in expanding. Look at other locations. My brother and I were interested in expanding and at the same time, kind of the Department of Agriculture says you know, you cannot transport ground beef from Hales Market, two blocks up to Hires. It has to be regulated. You know, that's the law. And so we said, well, we're building this store out in West Valley, can we section off an area of it and call that our? We'll call it our commissary, but you guys can come and inspect us every day. And they said, okay, we'll, we'll do that. You guys have been in business a long time.

Jon Hale: 34:32

So so we built our West Valley location and we built a commissary out there and, um, so we produce our, we um our ground beef out there and then we ship it to our stores. But it's we're inspected by the, the Utah department of agriculture, every day. So they just come make sure things are done. So anything that we ship that has meat in it, like spaghetti sauce, the hamburgers, other products that we cook and ship chili has meat in it. They have to. It has to be regulated by them. So it's a very strict process and it's very annoying sometimes, but it helps us maintain our quality. And then if we have questions, we can go to experts and say, okay, what about this or what about this? And so we've always enjoyed our relationship with the state. It's not you know, it's just a good symbiotic relationship where we can ask them questions or tell us we're doing things right or our records up to date. You know, they just kind of keep on top of you and this is their job.

Erik Nilsson: 35:36

So anyway that one's got to do it. Yeah, government regulation can be a good thing, bad thing, both things right, all sorts of stuff. So that's that's interesting. I didn't think that's how the West Valley location came to be and I feel like, did every location always come with like a Hires and a Litsa's with it?

Jon Hale: 35:53

No Well, so we had the Hires location, litsa's downtown, right Side by side, so we just thought about this time. We thought, oh, we'll just put the two of them together. About this time, we thought, oh, we'll just put the two of them together. This will be great and you may not know this, but McDonald's started serving slices of pizza at one point. That's right I forgot about that yeah. And it didn't go well. But we thought, wow, we're onto something here.

Erik Nilsson: 36:14

We're ahead of McDonald's. We're doing it right. Yeah, we've got the curve here, yeah.

Jon Hale: 36:18

So anyway, that was just something. And so when we built our next location up at Fort Union, we included well, we didn't include pizza when we did Fort Union because it was a little cumbersome getting them out together, yeah, but when we had other burger competitions come into that area, we thought, well, there are no pizza places here, so let's put Leitz's into hires now and go forward. And that really helped Fort Union out too. People could come for the burgers, but also people come for pizza. Yeah, and that really helped Fort Union out too. You know, people could come for the burgers, but also people come for pizza. Yeah, and it really worked out well.

Erik Nilsson: 36:51

Where did the name? I don't know why this came to my head, but where did the name Litz's come from? Was it just a fun play on pizzas?

Jon Hale: 36:55

No, I have a sister named Lisa. Ah, all right, and so Italian, and it just came up with Leitz. It worked, it sounded Italian to him and it was good. And it was named after my sister, lisa.

Erik Nilsson: 37:10

Oh, interesting, I didn't know that part Awesome, Like I know. So I mean, every time I'm like thinking of a guest that I want to have, I'll usually like workshop it to a couple of people to see what they think.

Jon Hale: 37:20

Right.

Erik Nilsson: 37:21

And so my sister, who's one of my best friends, we usually get together every Sunday night to, I mean, just talk about the week, talk about what's going on, vent kind of whatever. And I mean, as I've had the podcast, she'll always say, oh, who's the guest coming up? Who have you scheduled? Recently I was like, oh, it's going to be fun. Like because again my family went to hires a lot, Like that was our go-to spot because we lived up on North Cliff, the avenues, and so obviously seventh East is the easiest way to buy street, to get there, and if we're coming from all over the Valley of soccer tournaments and sports things, it's the easiest place to stop, especially kind of where everybody on our teams tend to live Right. And so I like, oh, it'll be fun. I'm going to talk to um John Hale from hires and she kind of looks at me and she's like well, you know, he was my bishop when me and Andrew lived in the.

Erik Nilsson: 38:05

Avenue. So yeah, Andrew Swindle and Kirsten Swindle.

Jon Hale: 38:08

Oh, that was me. Yeah, yeah.

Erik Nilsson: 38:11

And so she's like, yeah, it's so funny, that should be like small Lake city. Every single time there's always something that comes through. And, yeah, once you start chasing that energy it goes from a joke to a little bit stronger of a joke and heavy handed behind it a little bit more. But it's such a small, small world and you only get smaller. Yeah.

Jon Hale: 38:30

We just ran across Andrew the other day. He was in Baskin Robbins with his kids.

Erik Nilsson: 38:34

Oh, those kids love again ice cream. There's some of my, my Taylor bud in there, like I went golfing with them. Oh shoot, I mean I guess it was like the end of last year because his young Scott, his boy, was playing a lot of golf and Andrew gets a little hard on him sometimes.

Jon Hale: 38:51

And so he's like.

Erik Nilsson: 38:51

Eric, will you go play with him? Because I mean, like we're golfing, we're having fun, we're not on tour, like come on. And then always because, like I want ice cream too. So I'm like, hey, if you make this, putt the green from here we'll get ice cream. And like it's funny, cause as we get closer to I think we were playing it uh, uh Nibbly that day and I was like, okay, if you get this, like the bets slowly get easier and easier, cause I want ice cream. But I can't just say, oh, you didn't do it to go, but uh, so funny. Um. So I guess, thinking about the future of hires, I mean outside of having this place where so many people get to have to bring people together, I mean push all the tables together to have 20 people sit along a line I mean where do you see it going from here?

Jon Hale: 39:35

Well, obviously my dad did the original store, my brother and my dad, we did West Valley, my brother and I did Port Union. We did a store down in Provo which we thought was going to be the gold mine and it was just down at as you dropped into Happy Valley. It was off to the left there but all the business was up on the boulevard. But we just thought, well, we're in Provo, kids are driving around, this'll be great. It just dawned on us, two years out of a five-year stint, that you know people were so price conscious down in Provo that, um, sometimes you're just not willing to pay for quality. Yeah, now we did have a good business and we ran it for five years and had months we made money and months that we didn't Um, but overall after five years it was um. It was kind of like someone came in and offered to buy it the property and all and building and we said, okay, we're done.

Erik Nilsson: 40:34

We're done here. We don't need to come down to Provo anyway. It's too far of a drive. I'd rather be in Salt Lake.

Jon Hale: 40:39

Yeah, so anyway we're. So I haven't looked at a location in a while and, as the valley's expanding out and all this change is going on in salt lake. You know salt lake isn't as vibrant as it used to be. I mean, it's still vibrant but it's just not like the mecca place that it used to be that everybody would go to and, um, and I think I believe totally that it's coming back, um, but it's kind of starting on the west side and those developments there and it's kind of moving our way. Yeah, but we're kind of starting on the west side and those developments there and it's kind of moving our way. Yeah, but we're kind of on the edge of it all now. But obviously we have a reputation of quality food and people are still driving to us so it's good. So we are looking at kind of growth areas that we could put in a restaurant and see, or we're excited about what we have to offer. We know what's quality and so we're up again looking at quality.

Jon Hale: 41:33

My brother and I have stepped back a little. I'm still involved in management meetings and you know buying for them and I make all the spices for the spaghetti and the chili and the pizza sauce. So I can make sure that. You know, I have to walk in there one day and say this doesn't taste right. Again, quality, yeah, that's right. Then someone would say, well, if it doesn't taste right, you're the one that made the spice, what's the problem?

Jon Hale: 41:57

I was in the store one day and he said, hey, I want you to try this out. And I said this doesn't taste good. And I thought, well, you know, maybe we've changed garlic one of our garlic, our spice makers and so we got a different brand and I said it still doesn't taste good. It's the butter. So we went back and tasted the butter and I said, wow, this butter just doesn't taste like the butter we used to have. So we had to go through two or three butters to find out which, which one we liked again. But you know, know, products change. You know people want to keep the price low, so they change their product so it works for them. But when it changes in our portfolio, we have to change our recipe and go back to find something that's quality and not something that someone put out on the market just to get them by.

Erik Nilsson: 42:45

Yeah, if they're making a little bit more margin, sure, great for them, right. But if it changes the flavor, and I mean the end product that you're looking for, it's like well, time to find a new supplier that tastes like it used to, right.

Jon Hale: 42:55

People may never know, but I can taste the difference.

Erik Nilsson: 42:59

Oh yeah.

Jon Hale: 42:59

And that's something my dad passed down to me, but you know, so my daughter works for us. Now we do a lot of collaborations, like with Bountiful Kitchen and Food Nanny and Taggy's, which is a lot of fun to collaborate with different people in the community, and so, like, our biggest collaboration came from Taggy's. We were doing fresh peaches and ice cream last year and we probably sold more of those than we'd sold of the others, although the in the Bountiful Kitchen we did the caramel coconut cookie. Food Nanny we did the Alfredo pizza with French salt, which they were both delicious. It's making me hungry, but anyway. So August 15th starts our peach parfaits, and they are. And my daughter Allie, who has coordinated all these, uh, the guy that uh taggies where we get our peaches from, uh, she tells me that he goes out and pitch peach peaches, um, you know, at the end of the shift and he uh, and we, we pick them up the next day. So we're going from farm to us, to the customer.

Erik Nilsson: 44:07

Yeah.

Jon Hale: 44:08

All within you know, 12 hours as few steps as possible.

Erik Nilsson: 44:11

Yes, like this is like my favorite time of the year because it's peach season, right, like I went to, I mean, harmon's and got, I mean four or five peaches and I had, I mean even for breakfast today I had I mean like Greek yogurt with granola, with peaches on it, and I mean it's my favorite thing. Yeah, chick-fil-a always has their peach. There's always peach something, and if it's on the menu this time of the year it'll be great.

Jon Hale: 44:32

Yeah.

Erik Nilsson: 44:32

Like even when I went on my, when I was on my mission, I was in Eastern Washington where I mean stone fruits grown chair, I mean so much of that Right no-transcript, and they're just so juicy like just dripping down your face and yeah, I'll have to swing by for a peach parfait. But I mean, does Taggies provide other fruit for a lot of the higher stuff or is it specifically the peaches?

Jon Hale: 45:21

No well, specifically the peaches at this point. Okay, so we just like to try to collaborate with different groups in the Valley, people that have websites. You know that they can promote us and we try to promote when we promote them. And it's just kind of a you know, we try to do what you know. Maybe 10 of them a year, cool, and just see how it goes, yeah.

Erik Nilsson: 45:40

It's the way to do it. Yeah, like we Deseret work together, we're all part of the same ecosystem. Might as well benefit from each other, and I mean, get quality peaches for a quality shake and they get the credit and the sales, but at the end of the day, everybody wins and comes out on top. Yeah, so I. Just one other thing.

Jon Hale: 45:54

I'd point out is that we've always been, we've always wanted to keep quality in there. So, you know, we were always buying Hershey's syrup and that was great. And then when I started paying attention to the ingredients in Hershey syrup you know high fruit, cord syrup and all this kind of stuff and I just thought, you know, I just this, this doesn't need to be. Why can't it just be sugar and water and cocoa? So anyway, we came up with, uh, we make our. So anything that we can make at this point with simpler ingredients, we will. So we have our own chocolate sauce, we have our own caramel sauce, which, I must say, tastes exactly like Snell Girls caramel sauce. Now, I don't know if you can remember Snell Girls caramel sauce, but it was pretty much divine. And so I've kind of reproduced that.

Jon Hale: 46:40

We've taken, you know, we do a gluten-free crust. We make our own dressings, um, anything. So anything that we we can take on and and make it our at our commissary, we'll do it. So we obviously make our own pizza sauce or spaghetti sauce or on chili. You know, we kind of want to do everything that we can and anytime we can, take high fruit, corn turns, corn syrup out of the equation and make it on our own. We will, because we do our. You know we just do. We buy frozen. I mean we do raspberries and make our own raspberry syrup, strawberry syrup, but just do to get away from commercialization and products off the market. We will because we just want quality. Yeah.

Erik Nilsson: 47:34

And I feel like that's something that's getting lost in translation these days. I mean especially as a lot of the motivation for people to start I mean restaurant food, I mean whatever it might be there usually tends to be a financial motivation, right. But instead, if you say, oh, I do want to provide an experience, I do want to try to provide the most quality product possible and use that as your North star, that's when a lot of these good things happen. And especially for your example of Hershey's syrup being like oh well, why? Why is this list of like used to be three or four ingredients, now a paragraph on the back of here.

Erik Nilsson: 48:03

I can taste a difference. I want to give my customer something better and to take it into your own hands. I mean even people who start today. I mean they go to their food distributor and it's like well, let me get a tub of your mayo, let me get a tub of this, and it's really just kind of getting delivered the same thing everybody else does from the same people trying to increase margin and really financially engineer all of these other ways to hit their like quote, like goals and KPIs, but at the end of the day, so many of these corners get cut until you're not the same thing you started with. Yes.

Jon Hale: 48:30

So that's what we are. I mean our chicken that we bread ourselves. We can bring the chicken and trim it up, then we bread it, cook it and then send it to the stores. So we're just to me it's all about. I want it to taste good, I want it to taste right, and if I can take something out that I don't agree with, like corn syrup or whatever it may be, we'll do it. Of course, we want it to taste good in the end.

Jon Hale: 48:56

We have a veggie burger and probably we started this. We started the veggie burger so long ago that I had to go to the Salt Lake Library and check out a dozen books to look up recipes to make a veggie burger. But we've been selling veggie burgers probably for 20 years now and it's, it's all vegetables and uh has about five vegetables, and we used to put, um, egg whites in it and that was the binder. But at one point the egg white delight became so popular at McDonald's that they consumed the whole egg white market, and so a bag of egg whites, 50 pounds, would go from $200 to you know, $700. And it's kind of like, okay, I can't do this, what else are we going?

Erik Nilsson: 49:43

to use here.

Jon Hale: 49:43

Yeah, so we came up with. You know you do ground flaxseed and put it in warm water, and you know some oats and other things. So we have a veggie patty. That's all natural, it's everything in, there's ingredients. We don't even have egg whites in it anymore and it stays together and I think it's one of my favorite sandwiches, since I've cut back on meat a little bit. When I'm not eating a hamburger, I mean, I'll eat a veggie patty.

Erik Nilsson: 50:12

Well, that's what my mom's favorite thing Like. As soon as you said veggie patty, I got this vision of my mother because she's always the I mean order veggie patty. If they don't have that, she'll take the turkey burger. I mean she's a marathon runner. I mean always been very healthy, a always been very healthy A pediatrician, always been very health conscious her whole life. So if I know, if we walk into, I mean, a burger place, especially hires, that's usually where she's going to go is that veggie burger?

Jon Hale: 50:31

Well, tell her she's right on, because it is just all natural. I think it tastes great and there's nothing you know artificial about it. Interesting Okay.

Erik Nilsson: 50:41

The more you know.

Jon Hale: 50:42

Yes, so we make. We also obviously make our own fries in the, in the, in the restaurant. You know, every store will, you know, can go through eight, 10 bags of 50 pound sack of potatoes. So we'll we cut them and, you know, rinse them, and then we'll we blanch them once so that they don't turn dark, and then. So when then we recook them, it takes a little less time to recook them, because if you take a potato and try to cook it straight through, it could take eight to 10 minutes, and that's just too long. So you kind of what you call blanch them and they're kind of hard cook, and then we refrigerate them and then bring them up and drop them again and it's just a French fry, it's just a Idaho potato.

Jon Hale: 51:33

So we did the same thing with onion rings. My dad went down to Little America one day and said can you show me how to make your onion rings? And they showed him, and I'm sure he paid him for it. But he came up and we started making onion rings, and the first day we cut 20 onions, whole onions, and then separated them. The next day was 60 and then 80. And then we were at one bag and now it's up to two or three bags a day that you're cutting to separate and have the early employees to bread them and dip them and have them ready to go for the customers. So then, on, your rings are fabulous, but something we do ourselves and, uh it, there's a difference there.

Erik Nilsson: 52:15

Yeah, yeah. I mean there's like I said, there's so many corners that get cut Right. I mean not just in food and burgers, but in general.

Erik Nilsson: 52:22

Yes, and so it's nice to have, I mean, john at the helm, keeping the legacy of his dad, big don, to say, hey, listen, like no, we're still going to do this right. We're still going to make everything quality, quality, quality. Something tastes different. We're going to replace it. No, high fructose corn syrup, yeah, um, where a lot of people would say the opposite. I didn't even know. I mean half of that about, I mean, the quality of the ingredients, everything that you go through to make sure that it stays that way, right? Because again, if you don't, then you're just kind of ordering off a menu from the same food distributor that a lot of other people can't.

Jon Hale: 52:51

That everybody else has Right, right and we don't. We don't want to be there, we want to have a better product, so we think our product tastes better and it's the difference that we have.

Erik Nilsson: 53:00

That's amazing, yeah, you know, the more you appreciate everything, which is why when you, when you want a burger, you go to hires, because you know the quality, you know the beef right and if you know best and you taste best, then why would you go anywhere else?

Jon Hale: 53:12

I know, I mean I just have frozen patties in my, in my freezer, because you know, when we I can't always run down to the store, but I can freeze it and pull it out and make the meatloaf or do the hamburger or whatever. So make the meatloaf or do the hamburgers or whatever.

Erik Nilsson: 53:25

So Well, that's one thing. I love that. I don't know when you guys started doing this, but you would have like the to-go packages where we would go up the canyon to the grill and I mean throw on the burgers, the buns are ready to go, Everything's there, and you have a big H. I mean halfway up a canyon with no cell service, and still enjoy it the same way you would if you were.

Jon Hale: 53:47

Yeah, People were kept out. Oh, I want a dozen patties and can you give me the?

Erik Nilsson: 53:49

lettuce too, and the sauce too, and this, this. So we just would start doing barbecue packs for people. Yeah, big fan of that. Yeah Well, john, before we wrap up on an end with the two questions I always ask every guest Okay, first is if you could have someone on the Small Lake City podcast and hear more about their story and what they're up to. Who would you want to hear from you story and what they're up to? Who?

Jon Hale: 54:04

would you want to hear from you? Know, I'm just kind of a, I'm not, I don't know, I can't think of anybody right off. You should have asked me that question first. Yeah, so I could have thought about it, all good, but I did listen to the thing about Lagoon the other day, which was fun to hear, because everybody's a fan of Lagoon and it's nice to know that the legacy goes on.

Erik Nilsson: 54:28

So what's your second question, cause I can't. Yeah, no worries. And secondly, if people want to find out more about hires, any future collaborations or more information, what's the best place to find that?

Jon Hale: 54:37

Yeah, I think my daughter, alexandra Foster, works at our office, which is out of our Fort Union store. Okay, they called Alexandra or Allie and asked for her. Or Christian Franz, who is the general manager now. He's been with us for 25 years is remarkable, with employees and a great source of buying food and working out contracts for us to get the best price we can. So, christian or Allie, if you just call hires, they can forward you to them or give you their number or whatever it may be, but they're fabulous and I'm just standing by on the sidelines making sure the right plays are being called, and pretty soon I won't be around to call the plays anymore, thankfully it's in good hands.

Jon Hale: 55:24

Yes, that's right. That's how we feel about it right now.

Erik Nilsson: 55:30

Yeah, I mean even in the conversation with Julie, cause she's the third generation of Freeds to now run and so now Allie is going to be the third generation, so no pressure just got to keep the keep the torch marching. But I mean, obviously I've been talking with her through all this and I, you're, you're in good hands.

Jon Hale: 55:41

Yeah, Excited to see where is.

Erik Nilsson: 55:43

Ali's been amazing and uh, every, every generation has their own vision and she's done wonderful things for us now Excited to have it still be the place where everybody can go after their sporting events theater, I mean, whatever it could be to celebrate it. Whether it's with your friends, your family or anything in between, it will always be that iconic spot. And I mean it's funny because even when I was traveling around the country, I mean in a van, even when I was traveling around the country, I mean in a van, even when I lived in Seattle, I mean pretty much everybody has their local burger spot and are a lot of them similar, yes, but they're all so special and so nostalgic to the communities that have so many experiences there. So I'm so grateful for everything that you've done for the community and had this place where I mean not just me, but I mean hundreds or thousands of people have been able to have these memories and be together through it all. So thank you so much for all that you've done.

Jon Hale: 56:32

Well, it's been a joy. It's been a joy to serve the community and do something that we love.

Erik Nilsson: 56:36

Absolutely, john. Yeah, thank you for coming on and excited to see what else is there, and I'm definitely going to swing by in the next couple of days because now