Small Lake City
Small Talk, Big City
Join host Erik Nilsson as he interviews the entrepreneurs, creators, and builders making Salt Lake City the best place it can be. Covering topics such as business, politics, art, food, and more you will get to know the amazing people behind the scenes investing their time and money to improve the place we call home.
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Small Lake City
S1, E52: Central 9th Market - Noah & Max
We'll take you behind the scenes of Central 9th Market’s bustling kitchen, revealing how Max and Noah, along with a community of local businesses, have cultivated a vibrant food scene. Listen to their tales of resilience as they navigated the complexities of launching a business during a pandemic and overcame obstacles like extended neighborhood construction. Discover how their collaborative spirit with other local shops has enriched both their menu and the community, making Central 9th Market a beloved staple.
Finally, we'll explore the ever-evolving menu and the unique atmosphere that keeps customers coming back. From mouthwatering daily specials to the quirky style choices of team member Max, there's always something new and exciting at Central 9th Market. Learn about their future plans and how guerrilla marketing and word-of-mouth have been pivotal in building their brand. Tune in for an episode filled with passion, creativity, and a genuine love for food and community.
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So we went from like talking about opening like a you know fine dining farm to table sit down restaurant with a cocktail bar attached to it, to like, okay, what the f*** are we going to do now?
Max:Neither one of us knew what the hell we were doing.
Noah:Our largest single ticket item is, for sure, sandwiches.
Max:I mean, you're doing things poorly, like failing. Failing teaches you so much.
Noah:I would put the food and beverage programs in that neighborhood against anywhere else in Salt Lake City. Needed a job and it's like jump back in the dish. Stay low, keep quiet. We'd been open and we got nominated for best restaurant in Salt Lake.
Erik:What is up everybody and welcome back to another episode of the Small Lake City podcast. I am your host, eric Nielsen, and today's episode is one that I've been looking forward to for a while. If you've been following along in the podcast or following along on Instagram, you know how much I love the breakfast sandwich from Central 9th Market. It's the recommendation I always give to anybody if they're looking for a breakfast spot or a really good meal in Salt Lake and thankfully, was able to sit down with Max and Noah, the founders of Central 9th Market, to hear more about how it came to be, some of the pitfalls that they came through in setting up the restaurant and getting the whole adventure started, how the breakfast sandwich came to be and a lot of the fun stories along the way. So lots of great stuff to learn. If you haven't been yet, make sure you go. It's such a unique place, such a great vibe, such great people. Make sure to support them for all they're doing in the Maven District, slash Central 9th area to make it as much of a great community in addition to the city as possible. So shout out to them and all that they're doing and all the other businesses in those areas to truly build a community around them. But let's hear from and noah and all that they went through to bring a great restaurant and space to salt lake city enjoy.
Erik:Um, because it's always because I love central ninth market, like there's certain places that I'll go eat and like cool, whatever restaurant food, do your thing, thank you. Moving on, but then there's places that you go into you're like what the hell is this and why do I love this so much? Because, so, the first time I went to Central 9th, one of my buddy, I had just come back from traveling around the country and he's like, hey, let's all go get breakfast, not a thing my friends do. Like it would never. Be like a Friday morning, thursday morning, let's go grab breakfast somewhere. Like, yeah, like I love, like that was one of my favorite things I did is anywhere I'd be, that was one of my favorite things I did is anywhere I'd be and look up breakfast sandwich, bagel sandwich and go get it.
Erik:So I'm like, yeah, let's go to this place. And he's like it's pretty good. And I was like, okay, like we'll see. And so we go and eat. And three of the four of us had never been there before. We all just kind of like stop like mid conversational eating or like, actually I just need a minute. Let me just just chew on this literally for a sec sec. And it was off to the races and I know I mean obviously, in that perfect segue into that, have something for you guys, but your commemorative best breakfast sandwich in salt lake city plaque to do as you want to.
Erik:I know it's probably the most important thing you've ever won in your life.
Max:Thank you I've never won anything.
Noah:Actually can't say that anymore so yeah, this is actually what uh started the friendly bagel beef between us and babies yeah, that was fun because I remember I like I opened up instagram and I saw it.
Erik:I was like oh, it's like, here we go, I'm throwing smoke for no reason, and then everybody like sends me, like, look what you did, look what you did. I'm like look what I did look what I did and it was fun because I mean the guys at babies are hilarious. I had, I've had them on and they're such a good group of guys, good dude and stuff and they're our friends.
Noah:They're dope. Yeah, I mean Kobe called me like a week ago just to like talk about, you know, business and shop and all that good stuff. He's good people.
Erik:Oh, definitely good people. Breakfast sandwich people are good people. Anybody who can like provide that much joy in the morning and get up that early in the morning you have to be Doing the Lord's work. Amen, cause I mean, yeah, central Ninth Market, I mean I think it's been such a fun place for a community. People get it, people know the routine. There's a few places that me personally I can go multiple times a week and feel like I'm not getting burnt out of something, and Central Ninth is one of those places. But it's also my favorite place because and this is probably a perfect anecdote for it, but again, I'm craving a breakfast. Sando, actually, no, I think this was a burger.
Erik:At the time it was a Monday and so I go in, order my burger, I'm waiting and Denzel Curry is just blaring and I'm like and I'm stoked on it, like that's my music, that's my people, that's my everything. And then all of a sudden I look in front of me and there's probably this couple had to have been in their mid-60s or more and the wife is just kind of like clutching her purse and the guy's kind of like looking around and I could tell or at least in my head I played it off as, like now, they told us this is where the good food was. We're going to do it. Whether we like it or not. We willing to go through this contradictive experience.
Erik:Everybody else is like head bobbing. Everywhere you look it's fuck around and find out. I mean, it's such a fun place and such a fun. Like everybody that works there is so excited to be there. So congrats on everything you've done. I'm stoked about it. I go there probably more than I should, but that's not stopping anytime soon and excited to sit down with you guys and hear more about the story itself.
Noah:Yeah, down with you guys and hear more about the story itself. Yeah, thank you, I appreciate that so I would. I would say when those folks come into the shop, we usually end up getting an email about half an hour afterwards talking about our uh, the volume of our music yeah, you're like.
Erik:You're right, we need to turn it up a little bit more yeah, it's kind of a whole thing but yeah, sometimes it gets us into trouble, but not that much.
Max:It's like whatever, what are they gonna do? Ask for the manager also, it's just because they don't like the song that's playing yeah if it was a really good song that you liked, you would ask us to turn it up exactly you just don't happen to like this song or like the song yet.
Erik:Yeah, maybe you just haven't heard it well, I was listening to this uh interview. I I didn't even know it existed until I was at Hires waiting because I did the car hop and I was waiting for my food because I did an episode with John Hale, the second generation owner. Because I always have to listen to every episode twice. I have to listen to it as I record it and then I have to listen to it as I edit it and if it's ever like a food episode I'll be like I need, like I'm editing this, like I just had the best pizza place in Salt Lake over the weekend. So on Sunday night I went to Central 9th or not Central 9th, oh my gosh Nomad East. And then yesterday, after Pizza no no 1, I went and I was like all right, we're good on pizza for a minute, but I finally scratched the itch, yeah. So I was in the car hop, there we go, and I was listening to.
Erik:I found this like one of my favorite podcasts is Revisionist History with Malcolm Gladwell. I like the way he thinks and I didn't realize that he had an interview with Rick Rubin, one of my other favorite people. So I'm like hola, like start going and he talks about how Rick Rubin's like when I first listened to Nine Inch Nails. I did not like it, I did not like this experience. But then after a while I started to realize that, while it's not my favorite music, I still realized it was really good music. The lyrics were amazing, the artistry of it was great. And then, after realizing and appreciate that, then all of a sudden I did start to like the music and appreciate it even more. So if you're going to complain about the loudness, at least enjoy the artistry and you'll come around eventually.
Erik:You'll figure it out Next thing you know you're blaring Hot On ones by denzel curry going down the street and everybody's eating a fucking cheeseburger, cheeseburger breakfast and oh, what have it? Yeah, um. But yeah, like I want to kind of get down to the nitty-gritty of, I mean, how this whole venture started, where you guys all came from. I know you're both from um or have roots in the midwest, from ne Minnesota. I mean, talk about how those roads first led you to Salt Lake.
Max:For me it was. I was I'm from Minnesota and then I was going to college in North Dakota and my mom had was living out here, so I had a place to stay and I had stopped going to college in North Dakota. And if you've ever been to North Dakota, there's legit no reason to be there.
Erik:I'm surprised you last like long at all. I would have been.
Max:I was there for a couple years and then, after I stopped going to college, I was just like cooking at Texas Roadhouse and I was like, well, there's legit no reason to be in this fucking place anymore someone from North Dakota is gonna like clap yeah, we're gonna, we're gonna catch shade.
Max:North Dakota, I get it, yeah, they know, but we're going to catch shade. Or they're like I get it, yeah, they know, but we're going to ain't there either. But yeah, and so I just I came out here and it's, it's great, I mean I love, I love it here.
Erik:Okay, so it was a little bit later in life for you. I mean well, so I mean Noah. You have roots from, I mean Nebraska, but it sounds like you moved here, migrated to the West a little sooner than um. But yeah, I mean, walk me through how how that ended up here from the Cornhusker state.
Noah:Yeah, so I was born in, uh, lincoln, nebraska. My dad was working at university in Nebraska at that point and then he took a job at Utah state university in Logan. So we moved to Logan when I was a little kid. So I was raised in Utah, just not born here. Um, grew up in Logan, lived there most of my life and then went to seattle for a handful of years and then came back. When I came back I moved to salt lake uh, and I've been here since.
Erik:so it's been about uh, 13 years now that I've been in salt lake got it because I was looking at I can't remember the article oh, it was like gnarly nutrition, oh yeah and because I, so I spent some time in seattle too. I moved up there after college for like my first job. I was there for four years and came back. But I mean, what was that experience like?
Noah:Uh, prior to that, when I moved back to Salt Lake I started doing property management work.
Noah:So as a maintenance contractor uh, you know plumbing and electrical work and sheet rock, you know kind of whatever, whatever somebody pointed at at that time, you know kind of whatever, whatever somebody pointed at at that time. Um, but I was doing that for a little over a decade. And then, um, max and I had become friends through a restaurant that he was working in in park city. I had a couple of other mutual friends that were working there as well. Uh, and then we became friends over the years, kind of started talking about potentially doing something. I mean, I was just kind of burnt out on what I was doing.
Noah:Max was kind of in the same position as well, like you know, working for other people and building up a business for someone else and then being on your way to the next one, and so it was like, ok, like let's put something together, started talking about it to actually get to a point where we were like, okay, this is, this, is this might be a real thing, yeah, uh, you know, trying to secure funding and find a space and all of the above.
Noah:Um, and then, kind of, while we were trying to figure out what we were going to do, um, that's when covid hit. Yeah, we got COVIDed decide what we would actually like to do, and that's when the idea for the market came up, we had looked at a couple of places that were sort of in neighborhoods, kind of surrounded by housing developments, and it was like, okay, like let's create like a little neighborhood spot where people can grab food from, but let's still stick to the farm to table aspect of it. Like we have these relationships through Max and the jobs that he was working at previously. You know, all of these farmers were aware of who he was already and it's like, okay, we have these relationships and let's build upon that, but, you know, do it in a format that makes sense for what's going on right now. And so it was like having a place that's grab and go counter service that we could operate regardless of whether or not people could sit down and dine. That was kind of the driving force for the market Got it makes sense.
Max:And like supporting local agriculture is like a huge thing for us and this was like a good way to kind of be an interface between the consumer and the farmer, which, instead of just having to go to the farmer's market all the time, we're like, oh, we could have like a little produce stand too.
Erik:That would be dope know, because everybody wants, I mean, good produce. There's nothing worse. I won't put them on blast. But there was this one grocery store by me when I first went back to salt lake, and like there was multiple times. I remember there's one time I went and got like, I mean, a pack of romaine lettuce and half of it was rotten. Just swag, yeah. And I'm like, yes, just swag. And it's so funny because then I go to, I mean, the farmer's market most weekends and I'll grab something that looks fun to cook with and we'll make it happen.
Erik:But I mean, at the end of the day, I mean, that's what you want. I mean good food is made from good ingredients. You can't make good food from shitty ingredients and think you're going to make something magical Like that's like fundamentally, like it'll break your brain. So, max, oh for sure. So, max, I like how you kind of come into this story where you're up in North Dakota. You look at yourself like what the hell am I doing in North Dakota? And you come here. I mean, did you go straight from Texas Roadhouse in North Dakota to working in Park City, or how did that work? Pretty much, yeah.
Max:North Dakota is super flat, so I went to the mountains. I went to, I got a job working at the canyons back then. Okay it was so I worked at the canyons and just did a bunch of stuff there. And then I went to main street in park city because I was having my first daughter. So I got a second job congrats working on main street. And then that's where I met noah and them so nice. And then I kind of fell in love with like fine dining and like all those things there. I think I really learned how to cook there before I was just cooking, just doing shit.
Erik:But so I mean, was there a point where you realize you're like this has gone from a job to a passion or something you want to explore more, or was it just yep?
Max:surge, surge was. I was like, yeah, surge, this dude that we both know uh, really kind of inspired me and pushed me to do things that I had never done and that kind of it kind of like clicked in my brain that, oh, this is some shit that I enjoy and I'm good at and I like and I can make into a career.
Erik:Crazy concept. It's nice when, like those things do click.
Noah:Yeah, and Serge is a hell of a cook like and for me it was that same kind of realization, but just on a different level, because obviously I wasn't working in the restaurant there, but I was spending a lot of time there and, uh, and just eating the food that serge was making at that point in time and watching him and the crew that he had with him was like quite inspiring.
Max:I mean, he crushes it one night I was working saute and I was just like I think I was probably baked and I was just like listing off things that I wanted to eat and finally he just goes, man, just shut up and make them, and I was like, oh, you can just make everything. You don't go to the fucking oreo tree and grab oreos, you make them and I was just like it like clicked, I was like oh, you can just do everything, cool, what that'll unlock your brain.
Erik:Yeah, quick, you're like, I can make I. The world is my oyster. I can do that, I can legit make everything.
Erik:Someone else can make it, I can make it yeah, so yeah, which is a huge thing to do, because I think there's a lot of people who just kind of get stuck in like because, like you were saying, now I like you work for someone else, you go through this, you get burnt, get burnt out. Nothing really makes sense. It's a job, it doesn't really align with your values or your purpose or your fulfillment and you just kind of just feel dragged. You drag your feet to work, you drag your feet home, you're tired because you're doing things you don't want to do, which is hard. But if you don't feel like you can get out of it or you have the skills to do it, then it can feel very trapping.
Erik:But once you realize like, oh shit, like A, I have a skill that I can learn that can provide a lot of value to people and B, these dumbasses have done it before. I can do this, you can do it, people do it, you can do it, and I think that's what unlocks for a lot of people. So I love that you kind of have these two things coming together and I mean you have this plan. You're like, hey, let's start this neighborhood market this restaurant and let's make this happen. And then, all of a sudden COVID comes in with the one-two punch, kind of go back to the drawing board a little bit, maybe not quite the fine dining experience, but in essence that's how Central 9th was born. I mean, what was that process like to get everything up and going? Because I mean before Central 9th really? I mean I assume I mean Waterwich, was there Water Witch?
Max:was there, water Witch was there, and then it was the Jade Market, but then there was nothing there for a long time.
Noah:Well, and so like, initially, like where Barn Gnome is now, that used to be Metatrina, which she used to be by the ballpark and then moved over to there when that building was developed. So it was Metatrina, water Witch, jade Market was in the corner where we are now um, and then it stayed like that for a couple of years and then both mediterranean and jade market moved out, um, and then that's when, like, no, moved in, we moved in. They started the second development with uh, where, like scion, cider and seasons are now um, and so when we came in, I would say like the neighborhood was still a little bit more on the quiet side, but it was definitely heading in that direction already see all the signs, for sure things were going quick yeah, and we, like you know, we signed our lease.
Noah:We got the spot open. It took us about a year to build it out and then getting permits. Getting permits during COVID is that's a nightmare.
Max:Oh, I can't even remember.
Noah:I mean, so they had everything that used to be an over-the-counter permit that you could go in and apply for and receive. It all went to an online system that they had never used before. So you're like we would email someone and then it would be like three weeks and you wouldn't hear anything back and you're like, okay, like every step of the process was like that. So it took forever to build that space out. Material costs were way more expensive than what you would hope for, and it was kind of just like we got towards the end where we were like throwing things together Like dude, we like we have to get you know we're paying rent on this space and all of the things, um, and then we open, and then one month after we opened, they started the uh, the neighborhood, uh reconstruction project where they tore out the street.
Noah:We had a one-lane road in front of the shop, no sidewalk, no parking. I mean, it was like like cool. This helps me exactly what you want when you're starting a new business. You know, and like we did know, that the construction was coming like it had been planned for years. So it wasn't like we were just like, oh my God, this came out of nowhere. But at the same time you were just like man, this is a little bit more rough than we thought it would be.
Noah:And also that project was, uh, not handled in the best manner, I would say about like those road construction projects in salt lake yeah, it just the it's still not done, the the deadlines continue to get extended further and further and further and like, granted, I am thankful that it's done now we have parking and like the neighborhood is walkable and the bike lane is great, like all those are great improvements. But it was definitely tough and I know that there are a lot of other small businesses in Salt Lake City right now that are kind of dealing with similar types of issues that we went through in that neighborhood. You know, I know Sugar House right now is just getting torn apart and people are having a tough time over there, areas of downtown as well.
Erik:Yeah, like Second South, like in between, I mean honestly from like Third.
Noah:West for sure state. It's all just a shit show. Yeah, definitely, and, and you know it's tough too because like the city just really doesn't do much for small businesses when it comes to that sort of thing. Like you know, they give you a little bit of a handout and yeah, like be on your way, like no one can park in your establishment, but like here's 20 gift card.
Noah:Well, and you're like yo that's not even like a day's worth of business. Yeah, we're talking about here, and you know, like utilities being shut off that are unplanned because they end up like hitting a water line yeah, you just have no road, you know, just like, oh man, okay, this is how I wanted to spend my thursday yeah, but you know, in the end it's like shout out to all the people that did show up for us because that got us through that first year.
Noah:Honestly, the first year was kind of rough on Max and I, anyways, like we were running a really small crew of people working a lot of hours. We didn't know exactly what the fuck we were doing, and so it was like there's a lot of learning for us to do over that first year. I'm kind of glad that not everyone in the community was able to show up for it just not yet let us, let us fix a minute man.
Noah:Yeah, but we had some like people that were like patient and kind of rocked with us through all of that.
Erik:Oh, yeah, when, um, I mean looking at that first year and the things you guys had to overcome, I mean, what were some of those learnings that you look back and either laugh or look back and cry oh man, there's so many.
Max:Well, neither one of us knew what the hell we were doing. We were just in there. We'd slap together a grocery store and a restaurant. We were like, all right, let's unlock the door. And then all of a sudden, oh, you have to do this every single day for 12 hours or 14 hours and people just keep coming, which is shout out to people for keeping coming, but damn it was it was hard, yeah, I think.
Noah:Um, we got non-verbal a couple times for a while oh for sure, yeah, yeah, like within that first year and a half like it. Yeah it definitely like pressed mine and max's personal relationship, like we had a really hard time. Uh know, we're both very different people, like everyone else's, and you know we're coming at things with different perspectives and sometimes he and I have a hard time communicating those things. We've gotten much better now, like it's smooth. We have a good relationship with one another.
Max:We had to do it wrong before we figured out how to do it For sure.
Noah:Yeah, and, and you know, at the same time, like a lot of our staff at that time was, like you know, dealing with us going through those growing pains as well, dad are fighting again. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, and much respect to all of them for, uh, kind of sticking around through that for those that did, um, but yeah, I think some of the biggest hurdles were just kind of trying to determine what exactly that food program would look like. That was probably our first major hurdle when we opened our doors. We didn't have, like we had, no bread dough recipe, no pizza dough recipe, like it was all just like okay, we're going to start making food.
Erik:We just don't know what to do.
Noah:Yeah, yeah, like, obviously Max had been cooking food for a long time, so it's not like he couldn't prepare food for folks, it's just like we didn't know what that program would look like. And I mean we went through all kinds of different iterations with the bread itself before we finally landed on the recipe that we're using now. Even then, that's changed several times over the last couple of years to you know, everything's all sourdough. So, like those dough programs change several times throughout a year, as you're dealing with, like different humidity levels and temperatures inside of the shop and things like that. Um, but of this 1600 square foot space that you know has a a limit to the capacity they can handle, and you know now, you know how it is over there. It's like that shop sells out by mid-afternoon most days. Oh yeah, you know, I think people oftentimes kind of question what we're doing and why we're selling out of food, and it's like yo look like it's because that's how much space that we have in our cooler to be able to handle. Like we're doing everything.
Noah:It's full, you can go look, might even be breaking a ruler, yeah.
Erik:I won't tell anybody, but yeah, I mean mean, let's talk about the menu and like how that all came together. Because, again, like just you start with the breakfast sandwich, which I mean the focaccia, I could eat a whole pan of it in a day and I'd probably still want more. Um, we mix with the, the uh kind of like I don't know what you call it like the chipotle aioli or chipotle sauce and that's actually shout out to firebirds, uh, or actually no, high mesa now.
Noah:High mesa now, there's a they got a speech in this dude over that one, but uh, brock over at high mesa. He's the one that does all of our hot sauce for the breakfast sandwiches. It's a roasted fresno sauce. Um, we used to actually use sriracha when we first started doing them, but there was that nationwide shortage on sriracha and so we had to kind of pivot and start thinking about like, oh, what should we do? And it's like well, why aren't we using one of our 15 local hot sauce vendors?
Erik:that we work with and go help the homies yeah.
Noah:That's when we started working with Brock and it's been great, he's awesome. But I'll let Max tell the story of the breakfast sandwich. Yes, cause that, to tell the story of the breakfast sandwich?
Max:Yes, because that actually wasn't on the menu. It wasn't on the menu we did it on. I think did we do it on Sundays just to kind of like have a mellow day? We just did only breakfast on Sundays and only till like noon and only till like noon, but we didn't really tell anybody about it either.
Max:Yeah, and then all of a sudden it was slammed. There was a while I did Sundays by myself because it was kind of mellow yeah it's a. Sunday in Salt Lake. It's a Sunday in Salt Lake and I would just put the cash register in front of the range and I would just take people's orders and cooking food. But then it quickly became not able to do that. Not chill anymore. No, it was super. Not chill a couple times.
Noah:We also had the worst POS system.
Max:Oh, dude, I was trying to remember what it was called this morning and I'm glad I don't even remember it.
Noah:Yeah, I'm not going to put them under the bus.
Max:POS.
Noah:POS, pos. Yeah, it was real bad. I mean like that was actually a thing. It was just like customers sitting and dealing with us, dealing with our POS. It's like man, thank you guys.
Max:Lots of learnings. I didn't. I didn't want to do breakfast at first because I wanted to figure out, um, how to make good bagels in that hearth, but then I just kept not having time and not being able to do it and like fucking it up that finally we were just like our bread's really good. We can just do breakfast on our bread and yeah, yeah, and then it just now it's a breakfast spot yeah, yeah, all day, every day.
Noah:For a while it was like, uh, we were just doing on sundays and just in the morning part of the day, but then, like people kept coming in and were just like, yo, this has to be every day because people would like come in on like a tuesday and be like what do you mean?
Noah:I can't get breakfast, and it's like we only do that on sundays and they're like dude, what, yeah, what? And at that point I think we weren't even serving food until 11. So we were open at nine, I think, but no food. That was prepared until 11 o'clock, and then we would kind of start lunch at that point, yeah.
Max:And then we would be open till nine at night.
Erik:That was a terrible that was burly, lots of learning yeah yeah. So I mean, I would assume at some point, like all right guys, we're gonna start doing breakfast sandwiches every day, and then we're gonna start doing breakfast sandwiches all day, every day, and still can't keep up.
Noah:Now it's by far our largest single ticket item is, for sure, sandwiches. I mean. Usually it's like 60% of our daily sales.
Erik:And it was like wild to me because, again, like there's, if I'm going to recommend something or tell someone to go somewhere, I'm not going to like give some rant. Oh you, oh well, you should maybe try this. I'm like I will put my reputation on this. This is where you need to go. Do not add first, do not substitute, do not change. This is what you get, just get it. And the breakfast sandwich is one of those things. Like I had a buddy in town. He's like, and I had to work, and he's like, oh, I kind of want to go get breakfast. I'm like go here, get this. He's like, okay, like is it like a market? Like don't ask questions, just go, just order it. 'm like you're welcome and I've yet to talk to anybody who's said anything negative about it. Like it usually when breakfast sandwiches come up, because in my life breakfast sandwiches come up frequently and it's always like, oh, you've been to central and so, of course, I've been to fucking central.
Erik:Like of course like what are you kidding? Like okay, sorry, didn't want to get my guy Um, and so it's so funny to have something like so ubiquitous. Like even when we did the um, uh, like funny instagram competition, like literally almost every other comment was like why is this even a competition? Of course it's central nine, like everybody else shout out to like the second, like the best loser, but it's still gonna go that way. So I mean I loved it. I mean hey, it's all quality stuff, quality ingredients, like we talked about. I mean kill the focaccia and then continue to murder the focaccia and that's such a good one. Oh, but then when I went on Sunday and you guys had the pie fight soda biscuits.
Max:Oh, the pie party, the pie party yeah the pie party.
Erik:That was one. I was like I was sitting in my car because I got the last one and I was like, oh, I thought, like I didn't know, like something could be as good as maybe better.
Noah:But I was like, all right, yeah, huge shout out to pie party, corey, corey Rich. Pie party is amazing. She makes incredible stuff, and so does her team now, for that matter, for a long time it was just her, and now she's got a few people that are working there with her as well. They'll be opening up their own brick and mortar Also. That's in the works currently. Um, it's well known enough now that I can say it. Uh, but she's amazing and she does biscuits for us every Saturday. It's a white cheddar and chive biscuit and she makes a really good biscuit.
Erik:Yeah, I, uh, yeah, I really enjoyed that one and it's and if they're the, the chocolate cake is ever there, or sure? I haven't said no to the cake, yeah.
Max:It's Bruce. Bruce Bogtrotter's chocolate cake is ever there, For sure. I haven't said no to it yet.
Erik:The Matilda cake.
Noah:Yeah, it's oh.
Erik:I didn't know, it was called Matilda cake.
Noah:Bruce Bogtrotter's chocolate cake Straight up.
Erik:No, now I'm not going to be able to look at it any differently, but it is funny to see how, like there's so many of these like bakers, especially like pastry chef, anyway, people, people make really good baked things, yeah, um, who start off like in such a small way, I mean like pie party, uh, dough lady, lady, dough, dough lady, the dough lady, yeah, the dough lady. And then there's like lady flower, yeah, lady flower.
Max:I mean chubby baker started the same way, so it's fun and then back when we originally started, our friend mandy at mad dough. She was making donuts during the pandemic pandemic out of her apartment and then she went to the market as well. I think like a lot of our original foot traffic came from Mandy Interesting.
Noah:That's definitely true. Yeah, she like she had a following before we had opened our doors and then, when we opened, like we would have all these people that would come in and not even buy anything from us.
Erik:Like I'm here for her.
Noah:I'm here for donuts and it was funny because it was like a standing joke. I said it yesterday. Yeah, like because you know what? Mandy was probably there for like six months, nine months, something like that probably almost a year, nine months or something. Yeah, and then like and she left, but then people would continue to come in yeah, you got any donuts today donuts and we'reuts and we're like dude, we don't do that.
Erik:That's not. We're in the wrong spot.
Max:I walked in the door yesterday and I yelled do you have any donuts? And the people that were working there did not work there then and they did not get it.
Noah:Bastards. Yeah, but no, she really did bring in a lot. Um, and yeah, it was an interesting dynamic in the shop at that point, cause like she would be there, you know, first thing early, before we would even show up for the day, then we would arrive and she's kind of like finishing selling donuts when we were getting there to start service for the day and uh, it was just. It was very different than it is now.
Erik:Yeah, and it's fun to see, like I mean, if you keep a pulse on the city and, like, if you follow, I mean if, honestly, if you just go and follow every account that is on small like city and you don't feel like you know what's generally going on, then shame on you. I guess, because, like, because, like one that comes to mind, my friend, peter Suval Bedlam bakery and all the cookies he's making and how much work he's gotten into so many bakers to get there has been fun to see grow and I see, like another baker I see doing great things and it's so fun to see how much of the community does revolve around it, cause I mean, just like I mean you guys in mad dough and baby's bagels and um, uh, becca, why can't I think of her Ladyflower?
Max:Ladyflower.
Erik:Thank you. I can usually remember that one, but not a real name, so it's fun to see how collaborative it is, how much of a community it is where they're like, hey, listen, I've had enough of a following where people will come, but I need more space and I would like to have some space with you guys, who people I trust, people I want to support and people I want to work with.
Noah:Right.
Erik:I kind of like how this is a place where that can work. I don't know how well it would work anywhere else, can't say one way or the other, but it's fun to see that work here.
Noah:Yeah, it's a good little test kitchen for people and you know we can be. We're pretty particular about the people that we'll work with at the shop. You know we get approached by lots of different vendors. So you know we get approached by lots of different vendors but at the end of the day, like you know, max and I and the staff will all talk about what we think is an appropriate fit for our program and what we're doing. Not everything is.
Max:It's got to be good.
Noah:Yep from the pandemic was. There was a lot of folks that you know were kind of looking for something to do and started operating small bake shops or food businesses out of their home kitchens, and I think that's a great thing and it should continue to happen. But it also just made it to where we had this you know laundry list of folks coming through the shop bringing things by, and it was just like I'm sorry, but this is not good.
Erik:This is not great. Nor do we have counter space for every single person that comes through.
Noah:Yeah, and we're always happy to talk with new vendors and even if it's not somebody that we work with, I've had times where I just kind of like try and work through what they've got going on and try and give them some advice to make it a little bit more approachable for you know, general customer base and things like that.
Erik:I mean those are the people that succeed, because it's one thing. If they come in they're like, hey, do you want to try my sticky buns? And you're like these sticky buns are disgusting, like that's one thing, but it'd be like hey, like listen, it feels like there's a little too much flour, I think if you added some egg, I think it's a little. Give constructive feedback, because, again, if they're the right person, they'll be like, okay, got it, I'll go mess with this, maybe I'll come back and give you another one, see how it works. Because it's kind of like you guys.
Erik:I mean the amount of times you kind of had to pivot, you've had to learn, you've had to refocus. I mean that's the way that people succeed. Imagine if you were still just as rigid as you were when you started, like no, no, no, we barmed a table and everything happened the way it was probably wouldn't have worked out the same story. Who knows, maybe it would have, maybe it would have been a better story. But the success that you guys have had is a lot of in part to your flexibility, pivoting where you've needed to, adjusting where you've needed to, and doing things poorly, like failing, failing, teaches you so much Totally.
Max:I was talking the other day I came up between conversation with me and Spenny. The first job I applied for was when I moved to Utah was TGI Fridays on Foothill and the thing that I came back to was fuck, dude, I'm glad I didn't get that job at TGI Fridays Things would be way different, probably Very different. Shout out TGI Fridays for not hiring me.
Noah:Well, honestly, I know that both Max and I are so thankful that we didn't end up opening the original food program that we had talked about, like it just would have been such a different work environment and, um, you know, I think that central ninth was exactly what the neighborhood needed at the right time, um, and it definitely kind of set the tone for both Max and my life as well. Uh, it's been great to be over there.
Erik:Yeah, cause I mean looking at that neighborhood now because again it has changed so much over the past four or five years and it's fun to see the people who have been there and stuck around like kind of like these, like I mean the, the, the backbone of it all, which I would say, like I mean central ninth is definitely there, the one holding everything, or I mean, but then I mean water which everybody knew about, water which in that area that was kind of what first brought people there, and then you have blue copper actually.
Noah:Uh, if I'm not mistaken, blue copper was prior to. Oh really, which?
Max:oh, I thought they had and it used to be um, what was the coffee shop that it used to be there?
Noah:uh, it was a different coffee shop and I cannot recall.
Max:I forget the name dang, I know the dude too. Joe, what's up? Joe, what's your coffee shop called?
Noah:yeah, well, and so that's the uh, the big tobacco building is what it's called. It's got this old plaque on it. Um, and atlas, no brow, no brow. That was the spot. That's the one, um, and so, like, atlas architects is in that building, and they're the ones who developed the building that we're in, as well as the building that scion and uh seasons are in, and they did a really good job of curating that neighborhood. I mean, it took a little while for it to kind of all come together. There was a few pieces that needed to be swapped out, um, but now it's like.
Erik:You know, I would put the food and beverage programs in that neighborhood against anywhere else in salt lake city, true, you know, against other cities outside of yeah, even just right there, I mean you have, I mean central ninth, you have lazies, you have barnum, you have water witch, you have blue copper, you have snowmobile pizza, you have the pearl, thank you. Uh. I mean romany, chisa just opened up and then, and even then, if you go out, just a couple more blocks yeah, fisher, I mean yoko taco.
Noah:You've got a laundry list of people doing good On's Kombucha. Their tap house is right down the street too, yeah.
Erik:Normal Club, I mean Heavy Metal Shop moved over there.
Noah:Shout out to Alexa at Normal.
Erik:Yeah, I was actually messaging her last night. So I guess by the time this is over, this releases, it'll be over. But I'm going to do a huge giveaway for my birthday, cool, where I'm just going gonna give away, like I just dm'd every single person like, hey, I'm doing a giveaway of, like my favorite things in salt lake, can you give a gift card? And like, yeah, and so I'm just gonna go be like here's the 10 places you're getting a gift card to and here's what I would do with each of them. Go have fun. And so I was dm, uh, dming, alexa. I was like hey, like can I, can I get, get a $20 gift card? She's like, yeah, I'm like also, you want to be on the pod. She's like I live in California. Now it's kind of a big round. But then I'm like again. I'm like Google, google, google. I'm like, ah, makes sense, but we might get Tatiana, the manager there, not Tatiana, yeah, I think that's her name. But yeah, I mean even five, six years ago.
Erik:But now are iconic, almost classics that everybody makes a part of everything. And just even thinking about that space of Central 9th Maven District, however people want to call it, is now a place everybody wants to go to, compared to a place that everybody used to avoid For sure, and you see that in so many different areas. I mean Sugar House is on the tail end of that. I think Marmalade is going to be another one that's coming up really soon. I mean Post District is a little different flavor, but that's a fun one to see. I mean anybody who can look at these spaces and say what can I do to make this a better part of the community Instead of being like now, how can I make an apartment ugly as possible? Go right here.
Max:Make some really expensive condos.
Erik:Yeah, that's what I'm all about, because things are going to change, things are going to grow, things are going to develop. But if we can do it in the right way, then everybody wins, compared to just some guy twirling his mustache in his corner office.
Noah:I love that the water shop held onto their spot.
Erik:It looks like the up building over there. Every time I drive by, same thing goes through my head yeah, I want to get them on the. I want to go be like so what the hell happened here?
Noah:They'll be like well, well, this guy came into my office and I was like hell, no, this is my water shop. Uh, at least that's how I play. That's exactly what I probably they took our jobs.
Erik:The world needs to know this is real hot button topic eric takes on journalistic, I mean investigative journalism um, but okay.
Erik:So I want to go through a couple of, like, the key items. This is probably my own selfishness and own intrigue, but when I think of Central 9th, there's obviously the breakfast, and, oh, there's smash burgers. On Monday, there's pizza, and then the weekend can be a grab bag of anything else, anything from, I mean like I've had, I mean the chicken salad sandwich, which was phenomenal. I mean there's any sort of amazing smoked chicken and I mean there's any sort of amazing smoked chicken and I mean some of those, but what have been? I mean, how did some of these come to be? Or what have been some of your guys' favorite dishes that you've put together?
Max:The OG is the mortadella sandwich. The deli mortadella sandwich was kind of the catalyst to get everybody hooked on mortadella again.
Noah:Yeah, that was definitely the start of it. It was the classic mortadella again. Yeah, that was, that was definitely the start of it was the classic mortadella deli sandwich. That was before we did breakfast. That was like our solid staple when we opened.
Max:We had a cheese pizza, pepperoni pizza, a mortadella and a salami. Those were the four things that were on the menu and we just and the mortadella was like gangbusters everybody's coming through for the mortadella.
Erik:they don't even know what they needed until they got it. Yeah, straight up, um, but yeah, I mean like. Also, like, I mean staff dinners on the weekend, I mean that's. I always look on the Instagram to see what's going on, cause usually I make a decision, um, if I'm eating, based on what I see there. I mean, how have those evolved? What have been some of your favorites or memorable ones that you've done in the past?
Noah:Yeah, I mean that kind of started as a. For a while we would just do Sunday suppers, because Sundays are always like morning is really busy through midday and then it kind of tapers off mid afternoon. You know, folks are heading home getting ready for the week or they're outside enjoying their lives, and so it was quiet in the shop and we're trying to figure out what to do. It's like, well, do we close early? Do we stay open? If we're going to stay open, what do we do to get people in here? And so we started doing Sunday suppers. It was kind of just like, you know, a container of food that you could take home, either eat it then or reheat it later if you wanted to. So it was always something that, like, you could easily reheat if you needed to.
Noah:And we did lots of different iterations, like we did, you know, short ribs and grits and smoked chicken was always kind of rotating in and out. And then that just kind of evolved into like, all right, well, now that we've got the staff to handle it, let's do something for Friday, saturday and Sunday nights. And that's sort of where the staff meal has been at. And even since we started doing it there's been lots of iterations. For a while. We were doing like a Friday night fish fry to kind of give a little tip of the hat to the Midwest, and then you're doing shawarma.
Erik:That was one of my favorite ones. Yeah, shawarma, that was one of my favorite ones.
Noah:Yeah, it was really good, for sure. Um, yeah, we were doing like sicilian pizzas on friday or on sundays, excuse me. Um, and then now it's been like a little bit more consistent program. It's kind of always smoked chicken and sides. Uh, the sides vary weekly and sometimes there'll be another protein option or two, but it's always kind of smoked chicken and some other things.
Erik:Yeah, yeah, always something to look forward to, and I've never gone like, well, that was a waste of time in my hands. I was like, even when I there's one day I was at I can't remember if I was at water, I was at water witch and I was there. I think it was like on a first date with someone and it was, it was fine. But I remember just like did not, did not go well, and I was sitting there having my cocktail and literally just kept getting distracted because I just saw people walking out of Central 9th and being like, oh, this is so. Oh, look, how good. Oh, my God, I'm so excited. I'm like, damn, I am hungry. I really would rather be there with this, but I can't, just beaming from your ear, smiling, um.
Erik:But I want to come back to something that you guys had talked about about, and it was mostly in regard to, I mean, bakers coming into your, uh, central ninth and saying, well, do you want to sell these here? And be like, well, no, but thanks for trying. Um, but talk about the staff, because I mean, it's a very unique group of people, because I also love, I identify more with the counterculture side of Salt Lake than I do with the more structured side of Salt Lake and I always feel that very strongly there, which again, like that's an experience that I like and enjoy and I always know that I walk and I'm going to feel it. I mean, how did these people come to be part of the trusted staff at Central Knife? Were they friends before? Were they people that just kind of caught the vibe and wanted to be a?
Max:part of it Both. So it was all kind of the same. And also, I think just people that are our age nowadays are just kind of. We're just a little goofy. Hell, yeah. Yeah, I don't want to work with you, lauren. Normal people scare me, man.
Noah:Well, and it it. It definitely started out, as you know, pretty close friends Like. In the beginning it was Max, myself and a good friend of ours named Bobby, and Joey was in and out for like a couple of days, but it was really just like the four of us. And then we kind of made it through that initial phase and got past construction and all that bullshit. And then that's when it like started that initial phase and got past construction and all that bullshit, and then that's when it started to pick up and we had to start hiring other people in and again bringing in mostly just close friends DeeDee, deedee, dev, danny, yeah, Griff walked in one day and I needed help and I said where are you working right now?
Max:And he goes oh, I'm not working anywhere. I said, okay, you work here now. And then he showed up the next day and he's been there for two years.
Noah:Yeah, and there's a few people that that's kind of a similar case. They just walked in and needed a job and it's like jump back in the dish pit yeah come like jump back in the dish.
Erik:Let's see how you work here.
Noah:Yeah, and now, like more recently, I would say that it's kind of attracted some people that weren't necessarily our friends prior to people that we maybe know in passing but don't know well, and I think a lot of that was due to the kind of friendship and camaraderie that had existed inside of the shop. People are like damn like I would like to do that every day for work and it's like, generally speaking, it's a pretty enjoyable place to work in. There's days where it can get a little bit rough when we get busy over there, but for the most part it's it's a enjoyable place to work.
Erik:I mean it's, it's addictive and it's contagious. I mean you walk in. I mean if I go in there, there's a 0% chance that my head's not like bobbing, or if I'm looking at everybody else singing along and like smiling Cause I mean there's going to be times where it's work and there's gonna be times where it sucks. But more often than not I feel like I've walked into someone's house and there just happens to be like five friends who were like oh, shit, are you hungry?
Erik:Like we can make you a plate and I'm yeah, I do want to play. That sounds delicious, like, and so it's again. It's part of that community, it's part of that energy, it's part of that vibe that keeps bringing people back, but then it gets validated. When then they eat the food, they're like oh and then, and then this matches that as well, for sure.
Noah:It's kind of dope too because, like when we first opened, our playlist was like Wu Freddie Gibbs, griselda, benny the Butcher, like you know, is like all these things on repeat, and now it's gotten much more diverse because we have way more people working inside of there. So our musical algorithm has like built off of all of the people that work there yeah and so now you'll hear all kinds of shit getting played, which is actually I'm becoming educated on doom rock apparently like I'm not doing no, just like growling doom, dude it's pretty dope.
Erik:I was gonna say, if you didn't know about mf2, that's interesting. But yeah, okay, that makes sense. I just imagine this like spotify, this one singular spotify playlist that somehow gets added to it.
Max:Our fucking playlist is deranged, so is it always just going?
Noah:it's actually not even a playlist. It's just we use what is it? Youtube, youtube music, and we don't actually build anything on our playlist. It's just like it runs, just plays you out. Yeah, people toss on a song.
Max:Pick a song in the morning and then it goes.
Erik:Because I always assumed it was like all right, flip a coin, whose turn is it, play whatever. But this makes a lot more sense.
Noah:Yeah, whatever, but this makes a lot more sense. Yeah, usually somebody like I mean if you got a song that you're feeling halfway through the day, pop it on and then, all of a sudden, all of a sudden the algorithm takes like a full left hand turn real quick and you're just like what the fuck happened like here we are yeah yeah, but it's, it's fun and we actually get people to ask us frequently about, uh, the playlist, and they're like is there a way that I can access your playlist?
Noah:so we've, we've talked about maybe putting together like a little central ninth public playlist.
Erik:I would be a fan of that because I'm thinking about. There's this one. I mean, his name is fat Perez, he's like a YouTube golfer, but he has his, and he has a playlist his bangers only. And then there's this one streamer I follow and he has a playlist.
Noah:I would subscribe to the central ninth playlist and I think it would be absolute bangers. Yeah, I feel like people would be into it. It's kind of fun, like and at this point, you know, like the shop is kind of known for loud music and you know we've had a few run-ins with unhappy customers because of it and, honestly, like that's probably some of the best press that we've ever had was people talking shit on how loud it was. Yeah, will you take this to Instagram?
Erik:and just go and be as mad as possible.
Noah:Yeah, the one star review heard around the world. Yeah, straight up. Sorry, Abby. Yeah, she got some smoke. I don't know you, but you got lit up over that one.
Erik:RIP Abby yeah up over that one. Rip Abby, yeah, yeah. So I mean, obviously become a cult classic. People love it. I mean, what's next for Central Minds? Anything you guys have in the wings for what to look forward to in the future?
Max:I mean hopefully something.
Erik:Agreed.
Noah:Yeah, yeah, no-transcript, take a step back and kind of look at the program from outside, and so for us currently it's it's kind of about like restructuring things a little bit and, uh, you know, kind of cleaning up some of the loose ends that we had, just because we had been so busy that we didn't have time to do, you know, this, that or the other, and now we actually have time to kind of review things and actually make it run like a business.
Max:Yeah, yeah, oh yeah, oh shit, we have to make food yeah.
Noah:Make things a little bit more efficient and hopefully, you know, make it to where it's a little bit more enjoyable work environment for everyone there as well. Um, but we've always got our eyes on the future and there's definitely things that we're working on. As max would always say uh, keep, what is it?
Erik:Stay low keep firing, stay low, keep firing, stay low, keep firing. No, I can get, I can get behind it and, at the end of the day, keep trying stuff walk around and find out fail a couple of times along the way, it'll come, it'll come around eventually.
Max:It'll work out, if you just keep stay low and keep firing.
Noah:You know ideas in mind, so we got to find it Stay tuned.
Max:Yeah, depending on the place, we find will be what we do, you know, perfect.
Erik:Yeah, I'll be there, ready to go. First one in line waited overnight, even though I didn't need to be like sir, do you need food, Are you?
Max:are you home?
Noah:I'm just, I'm just here for the breakfast, yeah, um yeah, and actually honestly lately over the past couple of months've been really busy with off-site catering stuff. We do a lot of like weddings and work parties and things like that, and outside of the shop being as busy as it is during the summertime, that's just been like double time for us. So it's just like it's one of those.
Erik:It's a good problem to have to have abundance of things, but it's also if you're like, oh shit, we of those. It's a good problem to have to have abundance of things, but it's also if you're like, oh shit, we have. We have a lot we got to do and we got a lot.
Max:All morning I was trying to figure out how we're going to do this weekend.
Erik:It's going to be aggressive so I mean outside of being, I mean in the kitchen in central ninth. I mean what else you guys like to do in the area when you're not slinging up sandals and burgers and pizza and more that's kind of what I do max just likes sandals I was fucking chilling my jesus pieces.
Noah:Dude, we'll take it nothing wrong with that max's rule is if he is not working, he is in sandals I don't wear socks like little prisons for your feet. If I'm not working, you have to pay me to wear socks I remember it was uh, I think it was the second year that we'd been open and we got uh nominated for best restaurant in salt lake, the salt lake city magazine awards, and we went there to accept the award and max is in a button-up and slacks with sandals on. I think. Birkenstocks, these birkenstocks. I was just like all right man love that.
Erik:Hey, it's part of who he is oh, for sure yeah, pay me to wear socks, man, I ain't doing it they invite you to some event like and, by the way, here's 20 in a pair of you put some fucking steve madden's on, please like. You got the steves, you got the socks, you got the money. Let's make up, and otherwise you're getting birkenstocks or slides yeah, yeah, we're good.
Noah:Everybody knows when we're doing something it'll be yeah, yeah you guys are pretty loud with it, which is good.
Erik:I mean, that's how I I like to know like. I always hate when there's like it. The biggest example for me is in um, like concerts and why I started like the newsletter. I did because I always hated when I'd check instagram. Everyone's at this concert that I would have wanted to go to but for some reason I it it was yesterday, yeah. And so, in the same way, like if someone's like, oh my gosh, do you know what they did at Central, I'm like what did they do? And they'll be like oh, they did this or this and they're never going to do it again because the ingredient I'm like cool, great no-transcript.
Noah:we had no money to pay anybody to run advertisements for us. Um, the one ad that we had was a print ad in slug magazine, because one of our partners is good friends with the people over at slug and you know they're I think it's still in there. I think it is still in there, it's still going, and, but other than that, it's like everything was guerrilla marketing. Like you know, mostly Instagram. We don't really fuck with Facebook because that's just kind of a black hole of despair yeah, no, boomerang, yeah, but yeah, so of despair. Yeah, no, boomer, yeah, uh, but yeah, it's a great birthday app. It was really like kind of a test case and like what can you do through word of mouth and honestly, it really surprised me seeing the types that's everybody for coming through.
Erik:Yeah, yeah, good things people talk about it, people share it and next thing you know, they tell people it's. I mean, that's, that's when you know you have a good product because, like, it's one thing to be, like I have a billion dollars to put towards marketing, and then people show up to be like all right, slug magazine, come on, come on. And then people are like slug magazine. What are you talking about, my friend? Even then it was like I saw abby's comment and I had to come it was like 200 or whatever, for that ad 200 bucks a month.
Max:And even then we were like I don't, I don't know about that dude, that seems like a lot of money.
Noah:Well, yeah, yeah, we didn't have any. Yeah, take a paycheck for a year.
Erik:I think that's more than I made in the first year.
Noah:Yeah straight up. Yeah, yeah, I mean I was. I was still working as a contractor while we had the shop open, just because we couldn't afford to pay both of us. It was like, okay, max or I were taking a check. I was like, all right, it's your turn to get paid this way. I was like you get paid. I'll figure this out, but now we can actually pay all of our staff on time the check's clear, somehow there we go.
Max:Yeah say hello, stay firing yeah, um cool.
Erik:Well, two questions I always uh ask all guests before we wrap up. Number one if you guys could have someone on the small lake city podcast and hear more about their story, what they're up to. Who do you want to hear from?
Noah:the water shop guy the water shop guy.
Erik:I'm gonna go knock on his door this weekend.
Noah:Listen, you have a story to tell and I want to hear you tell it it's funny because I could just walk one block away and I'm sure he would tell me whatever I had to ask.
Max:But it needs to be on now you got to publish the world. The world must know the first.
Erik:It'll be my first take on investigative journalism when building these apartments and you never think about the shop owner and the sacrifices they make. But tim's story won't take you like fucking lester holt dude exactly a more relatable get get part oh, that guy back in the day superdale.
Max:I didn't superdale, do shit like that I don't know.
Erik:We'll find out coming to a google search near me. Yes, um. And then, lastly, if people want to find out more about, uh, the market, what's going on, what's the best place to find information? Just come by the shop.
Noah:That's good, yeah, our website hasn't been updated in like a year and a half.
Erik:Yeah.
Noah:You know, even then it's going to be with more questions, yeah, and even then it's gotten to the point where, like a lot of specials and one-off stuff that we do like we know people are going to be showing up at the shop, so we kind of just let it be like just swing down and come find out, you know, like that, that was one thing that really like helped us a lot in the long run was that it was always like no online ordering, no phone ordering. Uh, swing by, put your order in, grab your food. Menu changes daily, you know stuff like that and people kind of got to where they embrace that and it's given us a lot of leeway and that's what I appreciate the way that we run things like even now I'll be like oh, it's burger night, but I think they have a special burger.
Erik:Let's go figure it out and yeah, and go find it and oh, people message us all the time on mondays.
Noah:What's the special today? It's like motherfucker, you need to show up, yeah also I don't know.
Max:I'd be like, wow, you got ideas, whatever joey's gonna make yeah, I'm not the one making burgers, exactly, yeah, so we'll get water shop guy.
Erik:Yeah, go swing by central ninth, yeah we always tell people like yo.
Noah:If you've got questions, if you want to place orders, whatever it might be like, feel free to come by the shop. You know it's like it's it's best kept in person. Oh yeah, it's. It's an experience that you need to have.
Erik:It's not just food it's, it's best kept in person. Oh yeah, it's. It's an experience that you need to have. It's not just food, it's it's everything in between, for sure. Well, god, well, thanks so much for coming down. I'm glad we could sit down and request, I mean sit down and record. I'm excited for I'm already looking forward to the next time I go to central ninth whether it's breakfast and oh, or staff dinner, or burger, or pizza or anything else, I know it's always something good and something I can have more than once a week, a month, whatever. And those are, I mean, the places that stay around, because there's places like, ooh, I can't believe that place is not a business. I was like when's the last time you went there, like five years ago? I'm like, well, no, duh, yeah, we'll be there forever. So I'm excited for more of Central 9th. Whatever else comes our way from you guys, just stay low, stay firing, and we'll go from there, all right.
Max:Hell yeah, thank you.
Erik:No, thank you guys.