Chili's 3 with Eva Anderson

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Project 985.

It either sounds like a meaningless, generic corporate initiative or an order from Emperor Palpatine, but it was in fact a massive, transformative investment in Chinese higher education launched in May 1998, the 985, by then-President Zheng Zeiming.

It's typical of China's 21st century expansion of its public sector, just as the U.S.

accelerated its ongoing goal of fully dismantling its own in favor of private sector graft.

One of the 39 research universities given billions in funding via Project 985 was Nankai University, where computer science students Zheng Yeming and Liang Ruba were college roommates, beginning a long collaboration that would culminate in the founding of ByteDance in 2012.

By 2017, Byte Dance launched its signature product, TikTok, which ultimately transformed social media worldwide, a yes-and of the earlier vine that allowed for both pithy videos of big asses shaking and more expansive videos of some beardo explaining some bullshit like a real fuckface.

As TikTok became both a cultural moment and a political flashpoint, Yaming and Rubo remain largely out of the spotlight, a contrast with Western tech CEOs who seem determined to become celebrity Nazis with their own space programs.

And it was their innovative Chinese video platform that indirectly resuscitated a stayed American chain restaurant.

In 2024, Yankee TikTokers began posting en masse about a 50-year-old Dallas-founded Tex-Mex concept known for its big mouth burgers and baby back ribs.

Motivated by nostalgia and or novelty, influencers gravitated toward promoting the Triple Dipper appetizer sampler, according to parent company Brinkers International CEO Kevin Hawkman, after this triforce of apps went viral, quote, the Triple Dipper accounted for about 40% of the chain's sales growth.

Hawkman and company savvy embraced virality with surprisingly non-cringy corporate social media and a traditional media campaign focusing on the sit-down chain's price competitiveness with drive-through to wild success.

The Chinese ascendancy over American platforms and social media is mirrored in the fast food sector, where Chinese upstart Mixoue has now usurped American companies McDonald's, Starbucks, and Subway to become the largest chain in the world.

And whether or not the 21st century is in fact the Chinese century, it's clear that with the U.S.

embracing police state fascism, laying off thousands of government workers, and allowing the rise of smartless mobile, it won't be the American century.

But at least we've got Nashville hot mozzarella sticks.

This week, on the 500th episode of Doughboys, we return, once again to Chili's

barbecue sauce.

Welcome to Doughboys, the podcast about chain restaurants.

I'm Tiger Weiger, along with my co-host,

Double Stuffed Wario

and Mike Mitchell.

That's fun.

I do feel double stuffed today.

Oh my God.

You're telling me.

And

I'm about to get the new cart, Wigs.

The new Mario Kart.

That's right.

Mario Kart Whirl.

Well, your Switch 2 is on route as of this record.

You're waiting for it to arrive at your domicile.

A friend of ours pre-ordered extra Switch 2s.

We can shout him out.

It's

Henry Gilbert from Talking.

Henry Gilbert is an absolute prince of a man.

And he offered us Switch 2s, and you and I both said yes.

And then I cursed your delivery, and now my delivery has been cursed.

You already have, yeah, just fucking

fire.

Yeah, I guess that's you said, like, you wanted mine to get shipped to the city dump or something like that.

No, no, I said, no matter what happens, just send me the better one.

That's why I said that joke because it's the same thing.

And then, and then, and then, wait, no, then I said I wanted yours to get shipped to the city dump.

That's what it was.

And then that's what happened.

So, and you've experienced no karma for

500 episodes long.

Yeah, 500 episodes.

Mitch, what is there to say besides this is Sparta 500.

Yeah.

Jesus.

Was Switch 1 even out when we started the show?

Yes.

2015, we launched the launched Dough Boys.

The entire Switch 1's run is contained within the Dough Boys podcast.

How about that?

217?

2017, the Switch comes out.

Okay, so we started.

What came out the the year we started, Mitch, two things launched.

First of all, I was using a Wii U when the show started.

Wii U.

We were playing the Wii U like a couple of assholes.

Wow.

The year we started, two things launched, Mitch.

Donald Trump's presidential campaign

and Disney Star Wars.

So how about that?

And you know, at least one of them ended.

That may be my monthly podcast trilogy.

Yeah, yeah.

You know what?

I would happily have the Star Wars continue on if Trump was done.

Hey, Mitch, speaking of milestones,

our video producer, Casey Donahue has a mouse of his own, wrapped his movie.

How about that?

Congratulations, Casey.

Thanks, guys.

He did it.

Since last time you were in studio with us in the main feed, you shot a feature film that you directed.

Congratulations.

That's so amazing.

That's good.

Thank you.

What was that like?

Because you had like a, you know, it's a, it's a, it's a low-budget feature, indie feature.

You had a super compressed schedule, I know.

But it seemed like what the footage that I saw, the stills that I saw looked really, really cool.

Yeah, it was

kind of daunting at first.

Yeah.

Trying to shoot a whole movie in 13 shooting days.

And

I'd say like after the first day,

it became pretty clear.

The pre-production was great.

We were planning for this and everything went really well.

So

we like.

There's one day where it rained and we were shooting outside and

set us back like half a day, but we made it it up.

It's kind of like an incredible crew I was working with, and we, I think we made like a pretty cool movie.

Last night, we uh uh just had like a couple pickups to do uh with Mitch, uh, and he was there for the last shot of the movie.

I was, I was there to close it on out, and you know what?

To quote William Hung, she bangs, she bangs

the movie,

the movie boy,

don't you?

Oh, no, Deus,

Thanks for getting the heat off of me for that 300 reference earlier.

Iosauron is on you now.

It's a banger, why?

Because the movie's a banger.

I'm very, very excited for it.

That's awesome.

You can't bring out William Hung.

That was my nickname for my dad.

She had a big dick.

Yeah.

Hey, William Hung.

And he's like, just call me dad.

Call me Amber Motor's name.

Where Sam.

Whammer Sam.

Oh, Waymer Sam.

We're talking about Wamer Sam.

He works for the LA Sheriff's Department now.

He does.

Wait, really?

Yeah, there was a

William Hung does.

He was on Jamie Loftus's podcast,

16th Minute.

It's a very good podcast.

And she interviewed him, and he worked for the LA Sheriff's Department.

Oh, my God.

Fucking wild.

Yeah.

He's a crime, he says, crime analyst for the LA County Sheriff's Department.

Oh, my God.

One crime you should analyze, his singing voice.

Oh, no.

Isauron's gone.

Yes,

with the protest downtown, my Switch 2 is affected by that, which is one of the most important matters.

Thank you, everyone.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

If you can send me some thoughts and support.

Switch 2 is in a UPS warehouse.

It just gets vaporized by a printer drone.

It's weird that you called downtown LA the city dump earlier.

The hell wags?

Wait a minute.

Wags, I want to say how to how to spoon dation to happy 500.

And

well, isn't that special?

Alrighty, then.

We used to do those.

We used to do those.

I thought I would do it for the podcast.

Keep bringing back stuff we discontinued for some reason.

I think I just played.

Did I ever do them myself or no?

You did them yourself.

I did them.

You did some of your stuff.

And then you started playing them off your phone.

Then I started playing off my phone.

Okay.

All right.

Well, I wanted to give a little.

I love it.

I want to give a little throwback.

Yeah.

Alrighty, then is a very funny line.

It is uh

he came up with that on his own, right?

He had to have a smart man.

My understanding of the Ace Ventura process, and as part of this, some of this I absorbed from our Buddies of the Blank Check podcast, but was that that was another script that existed that he put a lot of Jim Carrey into.

He kind of just made it was like more of a

pet detective is like the joke of it.

And then he more made it like, I'm going to make this weird character on top of it.

I think the IRSORAN is going to split into two and just watch both of us the entire episode because,

you know, it's 500 and we're bombing, baby.

Oh, well.

And it was so exciting when we started.

Amelia was dancing like the Six Flags guy.

And we have hats.

Why?

We have hats.

We have little party hats with minions on them.

How about that?

I was not expecting any sort of spectacle here.

I don't know if I'm very nervous about putting this on my head.

I'm putting my hair through it.

I'm very nervous about this.

Yeah, I'm definitely feeling for audio listeners, these are like conical birthday hats with minions on them to celebrate this milestone.

It's the strength.

Does it make my head look smaller at all?

Weirdly, no.

Yeah.

If anything, the size comparison of the head makes your head look bigger.

Kind of exaggerates the mass.

Look like Little Face from Dick Tracy.

Or you have a littler face on your face.

I do look, and who's the one that has a square flat top?

I feel like very similar to flat top, too.

Yeah.

Prune face?

Okay, it's so scary as shit.

Yeah, Prune Face was scary as hell.

And then wait, was it no face turns out?

Well, no spoilers, but.

It's breathless.

Breathless Mahoney.

Breathless Mahoney.

Breath of Mahoney.

Yeah.

Breathless Mahoney turns out to be

faceless.

Who's the guy with no face?

No face.

No face.

Wait, that's what it's called?

No face?

Yeah, yeah.

I saw that movie with my dad in theaters.

Why does no face sound wrong?

You could be right.

It is no face.

It is no face.

I believe you.

I trust you on the Dick Tracy cannon because I know this is a thing that

you're really plugged into the Tracy Zooms In special.

Yes.

Oh,

the extra special where you had to keep the rights to it?

He does.

Yeah, he did it twice.

What's the other special?

They're not both Tracy Zooms in.

First one is called Dick Tracy Special, and then it's Tracy Zooms In.

And he has to do them every eight years or 10 years, 12 years.

He's just to squat on the rights.

Yeah.

I love it.

So no one else can beat Dick Tracy.

Watch them are on YouTube.

They're really, really good.

It feels like Dick Tracy needs some sort of reboot at this point.

Everything else.

No, they can't.

He owns the rights.

Warren Baby Squat Not.

He released them.

Yeah.

But does he not, does he like, does he not want to give up the rights for, like, I thought he just wanted to make money off of it?

I think he wants to be Dick Tracy in a new Dick Tracy movie.

He doesn't want anyone else to be able to be.

Yeah, he doesn't want anyone else to be able to do that.

They should make a new one with him.

I think that would be great.

I know he's 80-something at this point, I guess.

Still, he's, I saw him not too long ago.

He looked great.

Wow.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

When Gary Shanley passed away.

Okay.

That's like a decade ago, maybe?

10 years ago.

Oh, yeah.

Well, he looks great then.

Almost an entire Dick Tracy special ago.

Emma, let's hit him with a drop.

In front of a shower stands a tall Quincy man, jacking his dick with a wet, white hand.

Is that you?

Is that you?

Steve

Hold on, what's that mean?

Was that the whole video?

I think that sounded like DK to me.

Wow.

Wet White Hand by Mitch Cave and the Sad Seeds, featured in Wes Craving's Scream, Come and Comer.

What?

Scream, Come and Commer, and used as the theme song for

No Peaky Blinders.

There's a lot of jokes in that sentence.

Sorry, Mitch.

And congrats congrats to you, Weiger, and the whole crew on 500 episodes.

Cheers, DK.

Wow, the drop.

DK, was that original audio?

You laid down some vocals for that.

I thought it was you.

I had no idea.

I think that was DK.

That was DK?

What the fuck, DK?

Wow.

I love it, Wags.

Thanks, DK.

500 eps, wow.

500 episodes.

I didn't shout out you, Mitch.

I didn't shout out the

roaster, I'm realizing.

Submitted this one a few times.

Still think it is great.

Food and video games.

It's perfect.

Happy eating those from Paul C., roast at birdfuck.com and drops at drops at birdfuck.com.

Mitch, 500 episodes.

We have a great guest.

The only guest we could do this episode with.

I want to introduce in one second, but I have a real quick thing just for my dad, because we covered Randy's Donuts with Gareth Reynolds a couple weeks ago, and my dad texts us about it.

I'll just read this.

You should have told me you were doing Randy's about 50 years ago, not that long ago, because it's Bobby Brother.

He's not that old.

There were a bunch of these shops with the huge donut signs, and we lived in Gardena about a block from one.

This was before Nick, me, but I'd occasionally put Nate in his stroller and walk over and buy a dozen for $2 to $3.

It's gone now.

My dad walking over to the big donut, the big Randy's donut with my alpha brother Nate as a baby in a stroller.

Yeah, buying a dozen donuts for $2.

How about that?

That are fucking rules.

Wow.

Yeah.

I love it.

Yeah.

And I love a little history of your alpha brother Nate.

And you know what?

Your dad and your mom, they both support the podcast, even though I think you would, I feel like sometimes you would rather them not even listen to it.

I mean, it's, you know, it's weird.

I love it.

I love that they do.

Shout out to Mr.

and Mrs.

Wags.

Yes.

God bless them.

And Nate, your alpha brother Nate.

Wow.

We started the podcast 10 years ago.

Yeah.

How do you feel, Wags?

Are you ready for it to end?

Bad.

I don't know.

How do you feel?

Yeah, bad too, I guess.

But I'm really happy that we have our guests back today.

Our first ever guest in our first ever episode.

And the guest on our only lost episode, Eva anderson is here hi eva hi guys 500 500 let's go crazy we've we've lost another episode before we lost we lost some

episode we lost the first half of it but the rest of that episode still went out so i technically don't consider it lost but we also lost 10 years i know that's right where did they go

what happened to us

where did our lives go we've lost 10 years of our lives yeah jimmy was jemmy nut was not even born 10 years ago probably not we think she's about seven or eight.

Oh, man.

She's a little dog sperm.

Same with Wally and Irma, a little cat crim.

They didn't exist.

That's crazy.

Isn't that wild?

That's crazy.

New life has been created.

I'm sure plenty of it.

Lots of it.

Yeah.

There's a little 10-year-old running around right now that wasn't there when we first started.

Just like all the babies that were conceived while listening to

what?

The scale?

Specifically?

Eva, you were in Vegas recently.

Yes, I was in Vegas.

I just wrapped up working on this Apple show and we shot the last four days in Las Vegas.

And

I wanted to tell you guys that I was walking around.

Well, first of all, there was a whole new Guy Fieri restaurant I hadn't even known about.

Wow.

It's the sports bar in kitchen that's inside of Caesar's Palace.

So that's

Guy's sports bar in kitchen.

Also, there was like a standee of guy.

That's fine.

And he got skinny guy skinny guy skinny interesting that's not fun he's slim and then he wasn't always the biggest guy like you know he did there's maybe uh that little bit of a belly on him but he was kind of a guy that you you know you felt like you could grab his shoulders and mess around a little bit yeah streamlined but then um there's a jimmy kimmel comedy club that's kind of behind the link

and I went in there to get a drink and I was talking to the bartender and I was like, she was like, I was asking her, like, what are the good comedians?

And she was telling me some names of people I just never heard of, but they're really funny.

They come in from out of town.

And then I walked up to the front to be like, oh, look at the schedule of who's there every day.

And these people that and women that he, that she had mentioned were there.

And then like Wednesday, Thursday, every single week, Carlos Mancia

headlines this comedy club.

He has a residency at the Kimmel in Vegas.

Yeah.

Wow.

It was wild.

That's crazy.

I didn't know what he was up to.

Yeah, I guess he's doing that.

And then I was thinking about the person who got him in trouble for do you remember who it was joe rogan joe rogan and how those two men's lives have diverged yeah where one of them is the most powerful person on the planet yes and the other one is just performing at this comedy club in an alley

right dear god in las vegas on not the marquee nights not yeah wednesday thursday i think so anyway that blew my mind that is crazy i remember when he like took mencia down i like i was like that's cool that rogan did i was like I liked, I liked, and he took him down over stealing jokes from Louis C.K.

Wasn't that what it was?

It was Ari

or Ari.

I think he stole from like multiple people.

Yeah, he stole it from a couple people.

That was it.

But it was just blew my mind.

Wow.

Guy Fieri only makes trash can nachos now.

Every different place.

They used to be a bunch of different types of nachos in the various restaurants.

They all are just variations on trash can nachos, which is fine.

Yeah, I mean, like, as an exercise in branding, it's like donkey sauce.

Trash can nachos sits with you.

Chicken guy.

Yeah, I get it.

I get it.

The Italian, the guy talion nachos at the New York Times Square were the, we weren't the best.

Yeah.

And also guitalian, I feel like, is kind of a strange portmanteau.

Sasabi nachos.

It used to be at the Las Vegas kitchen.

Pretty good.

But now you just get trash can.

That's all you get.

Anyway.

Is that Times Square one still around or no?

No, that one closed years ago.

No, it closed years ago.

I think it closed like right after you guys went.

You think you closed it?

Um, the same might be true for the planet Hollywood we just recently went to.

You know, it's still open, also.

And I just wanted to go into it, but it didn't time out.

Heart attack grill.

Wow, that place is still hanging out.

It's still there, yeah.

And it still has a big scale you have to step onto to go inside.

And they give you a hospital gown.

What is the threshold for a free meal now?

Because I know they raised it at a certain point.

I don't know.

It used to, I think it used to be 300 pounds or 350 pounds, and now I think it's like 400 plus.

That makes me feel better.

Yeah.

But

they've gone woke.

So they're actually trying to get you to have a heart attack

while you're there.

That's like the joke of it.

And then didn't someone actually have a heart attack?

Yeah, people have died at the heart attack girl.

There were people,

the waitresses are just like doctors.

Right, yeah.

And then you're just like a patient.

And then everything has like, everything's fried in like beef tallow and stuff.

Which is better than seed oils, man.

so there's like a there's like kind of like a horny aspect to it too right

a little bit yeah gross anyway i i want to i want to try when we we we uh i mean we should do an episode on it probably we were talking about about we were talking about doing chilies 2 2 at one point yes which we did in vegas i i think we've never done like vegas proper but we could do things like we could do the guy fiery sports bar we could do certainly do the heart attract heart attack grill i'm really interested in that taylor sheridan steakhouse oh yeah

and then and then i think that's isn't that where the fucking awful netflix restaurant is yes So I mean it's probably a thing we should cover.

There's like multiple Vanderpump restaurants.

Right.

Yeah.

That's a world that is completely a black box to me.

I don't know anything about the Vanderpumps and I know some people, it's like they're obsessed with it.

But another weird update, I don't know if, because you guys know on another podcast, I covered the Chris Angel restaurant, Kablip.

Oh, yeah.

And one of the things about that place is that when he, when he opened it, he had to close right away because there wasn't enough refrigeration.

And so there's these giant mobile refrigerators that take up most of the parking lot.

Oh my God.

When you go and you notice.

Their food is just sitting out in a refrigerator in the parking lot.

Yes.

But then Chris Angel was having a warehouse sale while I was there.

And

John Daly, the very funny actor and comedian, was there as well.

And so I didn't get in time, but John went to the warehouse sale.

Wow.

He was selling a bunch of like

magic props and curtains and lights and stuff from his show at Mystica that closed.

But he was selling the two refrigerators from Koblep,

which means nothing is being refrigerated properly at that restaurant.

That's insane.

That's fucking crazy.

Remind us what Kublep stands for.

It's Chris Angel.

Breakfast, lunch, and pizza.

Right.

The three meals.

Kablip.

Yeah.

He's also making his own Italian ice now, and he seems to have cut out Mike Gambusa, who used to be the mastermind iceologist.

He's not on the website anymore.

Oh man.

And now Chris is having a commercial for his own Italian ice, which he says has a magic trick in every single one, a QR code to the bottom.

But then when you click

how where to buy, it says coming soon.

So you can't buy it anywhere.

And he made a whole commercial for it.

I don't know what he's doing.

What I don't understand is that,

and I, you know, I think this is the original sin of Kablip is that opening at, what, a 45-minute drive outside of Vegas.

Hour and 15 minutes.

Hour and 15 minutes.

The map on the website is a lie.

And that's just like kind of because that's where he lives, right?

No.

It's not?

No.

He doesn't live there.

It's just out.

I think I have theories about why it's that far out.

Just you guys remember that car wash and breaking bad?

Yes.

Okay.

Anyway, that's it.

But it's so hard to get to.

One time I had to take a cab there and it cost $300.

Jesus Christ.

$300.

And And I had to go to Kablip.

And I had to give the guy cash up front to prove that I had it.

Oh my God.

Or else he would not have taken me from the strip to Kablip.

But I mean, the thing is, like, you go around the strip or even just like a little bit out off strip.

Like, there's so many vacant, like, you know, storefronts where it, like, if you had a Chris Angel-themed restaurant in Vegas proper, he's enough of a draw, enough of a name, where people would be like, oh, yeah, let's go check out the Chris Angel restaurant just for the novelty of it.

Instead, it's this thing where you have to make this exodus to get there.

He bought and took over the only restaurant in town, which was called Sugars.

This is in Overton, Nevada.

Yeah.

And infuriated the locals by making it into a magic-themed, Chris Angel-themed restaurant.

And when you're there, the woman who works there is like, we just keep telling people, like, Sugars is not coming back.

So stop asking.

Some like 70-year-old man who's lived there his whole life and would go there for like a stack of flapjacks and a cup of coffee.

It's one of his only joys.

Now you have to go

to go look at like photos of Chris Angel on all the walls.

And there's like a weird, creepy animatronic hanging from the ceiling of one room where he's in a straitjacket and his eyes are shifting back and forth.

Oh my God.

People have no shame.

We've talked about this, but it is fun.

Like, that can't.

That has to, it must be losing.

That place must be losing.

Well, he's selling the refrigerators.

Yeah.

So he does, I don't know what's going on.

Anyway, that is my update.

My dispatch from Vegas.

But I do love that.

This is the kind of thing, though, like I like, I find that so much more interesting than being in an ad for a phone, you know, which Chris Angel could also do, and maybe he will do at some point.

Because it's just like, oh, that's just old school, eccentric celebrity crazy.

Just like, there's no reason for you to have this money-losing restaurant in this remote part of Nevada.

Like, this is a completely dumb thing,

an act of pure self-indulgent hubris, which is kind of fun

in a sense.

People just a way to launder charity money.

Yeah, it could be that.

Allegedly.

Allegedly.

And

people just always try to cash.

Whatever.

Cash in.

It's a sad thing.

But anyways, the Doughboys 10-year anniversary shirt is now available.

Check it out.

KinshipGoods.com.

We do have a 10-year shirt

available.

It's a burger and a spoon.

It's a nice little design.

It makes a 10.

It's a great design.

Thank you, Kinship.

Yeah.

I just was,

but also, I just want to quickly say, Carlos Mencia seems the best of all of

all the people of that time, Joe Rogan, Louis C.K., and Dane Cook.

Dane Cook was the one who stole, I guess, from Louis C.K.

But

Carlos Mencia seems like the best man of the bunch.

Man, I don't, boy, I don't know if I want to

go out.

Why bother?

Why bother trying to litigate Carlos?

You know what?

It's a good point.

I don't know what Carlos Mencia has done.

Didn't you on the podcast defend Jared Fogel before he got in trouble?

No, I hated Jared Fogel.

You're thinking of me.

And after.

No, Mitch actually weirdly said Jared Fogel's a weird guy and maybe even called him a pedophile.

Like a weird bit of sooth saying before the allegations surface.

Yeah, yeah.

It's almost like he knew too much information.

I did not see him on the same boards or anything like that.

There was nothing going on there.

You were going to his Indiana University dorm room to rent porno.

You're hiding in the big pants.

I've never seen the pants.

I've never seen the pants at all.

You know that

he had like, he like rented, he had his own porno collection that he rented out of his dorm room.

Oh, friends.

Of course I know about this.

It's so funny.

Like, dudes would come to him to get like good, like, good porn from Jared.

He was a fucking freak.

He was a little fucking freak that ate, like, lazily ate Subway for his only meal.

And I was like, hey, I'm losing weight from doing this.

He sucks.

I hate Jared.

His biggest sin is being a fat guy sellout.

Wait,

talking about your, because

while we're on your travel log,

you were telling us you recently had an encounter with the aforementioned Drop King in the water.

It's so fucking weird.

So I,

the immersive show that you guys came to in LA called Shape of the Night, we had a run.

Thank you.

We had a run in Seattle at this place called the

steam plant, which is like a decommissioned power plant from 1902.

And it was really cool.

It was, they let us take over the entire building and it was like three stories of just like industrial spaces.

It was like a sonic level steam plant zone.

It did feel like a video game.

Wow.

Like

you're in like a CDI

Phillips Magnavox CD-ROM game or something.

The way it was all lit.

But anyway,

I created this new character who is the guy, the keeper of the history of the plant, and he was like a foreman.

And he

played by this actor of MJ Sieber, who's awesome.

But anyway,

he wanted a pocket watch, and I was up there for the weekend helping get the show together before I had to come back and do the job here.

And so I was like, I'll go find you a pocket watch.

And someone suggested this antique mall in another part of Seattle.

So I took like an Uber out to this antique mall and I was like looking for it on the street.

And then just like someone screamed my name out of a car and it was DK

just on the street.

DK.

He's like, I'm the drop king.

And I was like, oh my God.

And then he had fish in the back of his car.

Wow.

So I never met.

So I got to meet.

I just was like, hey, guys, this is very strange.

And

that was it.

They're like, bye.

We had, Emma and I had a moment the other day where we finished an episode and we walked outside and DK was just in the parking lot of head gum.

And we're like, DK, what the hell?

He's like, I didn't know you guys were recording today.

So he pulled up.

DK, is everything okay?

Between the drop and all of this information,

we're nervous about you.

We love you, DK.

Thank you for

being a part of that 500 years and still being a part of it.

500 years.

Jesus Christ, Mitch.

It feels like 500 years.

No, we've lost 10 years

of our lives.

Imagine 500.

Imagine, though, if we find the singularity at some point in our lifespans and

this

self-replicating AI or whatever the fuck figures out how to iterate and figures out how to make us live for centuries.

That's what happens.

Yeah, yeah.

Like what we could conceivably be doing this podcast for 500 years if it continues to be a source of income.

I just feel like we'll be so confused.

We walked in here.

But isn't that a thing of just like, oh man, wow, you could live for centuries.

And they're just like, wait, but I just have a job?

I'm just going to keep having a fucking job.

Yeah, it sucks.

It's just like purgatory.

Yeah, exactly.

This just never ends.

Yeah.

Yeah, I guess death is some sort of nice release.

Yes, yeah.

Oh, there would be the new video game systems you could keep getting.

It seems nice.

Wow, that's a great point.

I didn't think about that.

How far video games have advanced, even in our lifetime.

But maybe, maybe in heaven, or what maybe there's an afterlife.

Maybe you can get any console in heaven, I guess.

What if in heaven you're locked into whatever the last console was?

Oh my god,

that's so boring.

And they do they stop making games for it?

Yeah, they stop making games.

So you just got you have an existing life.

And then God's like, you think that's bad?

And he has a cup and ball.

That's when God died is when the cup and ball was around.

God died in the depression?

Yeah, I don't know.

No matter what happens, if we celebrate 500 years, we came in here and everyone was clapping for us and I thought they were doing an elaborate bit.

I had no idea what was going on.

The entire office was clapping.

We walked into head gum.

Everyone, weirdly, people are here.

They're all clapping.

Yeah, I didn't know what.

I thought it was a bit.

I had no idea that it was about 500 years.

I knew what it was.

I had no idea.

I didn't get that it was 500 years.

We didn't talk about it at all

where we just were.

Yeah, we didn't i i did eventually i was like oh uh the 500th episode like i didn't get i said that to them before i went in here wages did not address it i think he came in here directly uh eva i want to say you were traveling i was also traveling wages i was down to bayou that's right i was down to bayou and um

I uh I played, I stayed at this great uh hotel.

It was called the No Gators Inn.

It was like the super nice hotel.

And I was there and I was about to go outside the hotel and I see this guy standing there, this Irish gentleman.

Okay.

And he has a fiddle and he's like, hey today, why don't you invite me into your hotel?

And I was like, wait a minute.

And I was like, I've seen sinners.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

Right, right.

I've seen sinners and I know that like I

look, I don't agree with

its oral sex dance, sinners, but I, it taught me a few things about

inviting things in.

I said, you're a vampire knocking in by your head.

Yeah, right.

Yeah.

And he's like, do you you have a clove of garlic?

And I said, Well, actually, I do.

And I did have a clove of garlic.

And he's like,

just for snacking and stuff like that.

Sure.

I believe that.

And he was like, well, here, I'll prove to you I'm not a vampire.

You ate the whole clove of garlic.

And I was like, okay.

And it came in.

So that's enough for you to be like, all right, I can invite this guy.

He's not fucking.

I can invite this guy in.

And then he was like, and he had his fiddle.

And he's like, how about I make a little wager with you?

And I said, okay.

He said, I'll make a little wager with you if I can play my fiddle so great.

You love it so much, you suck me off.

And I said, I don't know.

And he said, Well, if I don't play it up to your liking, I'll suck you off.

And I said, Okay, but that's fair.

Yeah.

So he plays this fiddle and he's playing away, and it is fantastic.

He does a great job.

He's done.

Yeah.

And I say, you know what?

You're right.

I was impressed.

I'm going to suck you off.

So I get down.

You're on the sky.

I get down on my knees.

I go, I start sucking him off.

Yeah, sure.

Between his legs, I see a tail.

I see a tail between his legs.

Wow.

And I say, wait a minute, the only thing Irish about you is that you're green.

You're a Gator.

And do you know what he said, Wags?

What's that?

He said,

I ain't a Gator.

I'm a Gampaya.

I said, I.

Yes, this is good.

This is good.

Mike, zoom in on the Gator's face here, please.

Just zoom in on the Gator.

I'm a vampire.

Some call me a vampter, a gator vampire.

And now you're under my curse, and you can suck me off whenever you like.

Whenever you wait, so it's like

you can suck me off whenever I like.

Okay.

And that's the end of my bayou story.

And I want to introduce this little gator head to the episode, Wags.

Wow.

Jimmy liked it.

Yeah, so for our audio listeners, you remember a little baffled.

Mitch has a, this is a piece of, like, what, like a plastic spire attached to a gator jaw that animates open and closed as you pull a trigger.

Did you get that in New Orleans?

I got it in New Orleans, and I did get up kind of for Fran's birthday.

And I did, so I tried to come up with the Gator story, which was very bad.

I liked it.

This was my unique character.

Also, I got to say, the story doesn't.

I love this.

He was smooching smooching the gun i love i truly love this

he loves it too his face afterwards he's loving it

also i gotta say he's whack

he is white he is whack yeah wow yeah wait where did it so the green story part of the story doesn't even really make sense you pick this up at a novelty shop yeah and i was gonna i was gonna ask amelia to to uh tape white teeth to it for like a vampire teeth, but then I thought that the story won't be funny anyways, and it's going to be embarrassing.

I didn't even think about him having a Dracula fangs on top of having gator teeth.

Yeah.

I guess they probably should have that.

He is an albino alligator, like the movie directed by Kevin Spacey.

Yes, that's right.

Oh, my God.

So this is a Kevin Spacey reference, this toy.

It was supposed to be our 500th guest, but

wait, how many, it?

Was it just Albino Alligator and the Bobby Darren movie?

Did he direct anything else?

Beyond the Sea?

I'll believe it as true.

I mean,

look, it is fun talking.

He appeared in some short films.

One where he plays a ventriloquist.

Another one where he's a dentist for pirates.

And a third one where he is an immigrant from Russia.

Wait, is this real?

Yeah.

Wow.

Yeah, I've watched all of them.

Yeah, his only directorial credits are Albino Alligator 1996 and Beyond the Sea in 2004, where he plays Bobby Darren,

who died, I think, at age 27.

But he plays.

But he's like 48 when he's acting in the movie.

Yeah, it's real funny.

And he's talked to a child version of himself, too, where he's like, Bobby,

you as a child.

And they tap dance together.

A lot of fun.

He's coming back.

He'll be back.

He's back already.

He never left.

Do you think Jemmy will care at all about this?

Odd Dea, Jemmy.

She is slightly scared by it.

She's probably unsure.

She's like, what the fuck?

Is it talking?

Is it moving?

Is it alive?

That's a great question.

Wise, what do you think?

You like adding this to

the background here, our Gator friend?

What are you doing?

Yeah, if we can find a spot for him, why not?

Add it to the top level.

We'll throw it away.

You can probably wedge the stick between the cushions on your chair, and his head will just float there.

That's pretty good.

I like that.

Yeah, there you go.

Wise, are you looking up Kevin Spacey facts?

Yeah, I'm still buried in Kevin Spacey's IMDb.

He has an upcoming film, apparently in post-production, that he directed called Holly Guards.

In a divided future, ancient hollyguards and statyguards fight secretly for humanity.

A woman discovers she's born to rival leaders at a statiguard, plans to attack Paris and unleash the prime.

This sounds like a little sci-fi.

Stars Kevin Spacey, Eric Roberts, and Dolph Lundgren.

What a cast.

That's a great cast for 1995.

That's my dream cast.

I want to get in a movie with those guys.

How do we feel?

It was Gampire.

Look, I can't break down the bit.

Vampire.

Gampire?

Gampire was pretty good.

I didn't know if I should.

I saw I just used both.

Vampter or Gampire?

What do you think is better?

Vampter.

I'm trying to think.

Is there some alligator?

Oh, like a Dracula.

Draculator or something like that.

Draculagator.

Draligator.

Yeah, fuck.

Whatever.

Look, it's past.

It's perfect.

It was perfect.

Thank you.

Thank you, Eva.

And you know what?

Wags, we actually, this is today,

we went to Chili's twice, Wags.

Vampino alligator.

Okay.

Dracodile?

Dracodile is pretty good.

It's not a crocodile, but it still kind of works.

Yeah, Dracodile is probably.

Dracodile is pretty good.

Look, anyways, we don't have to break down the bit anymore.

Chocodiles?

Do you ever have a chocodile?

Those are all good.

What were they?

Were they ice cream or were they?

No,

they were like basically a Twinkie that was chocolate covered.

Oh, right.

Yes, I had.

And they've rebranded them as something else, but they used to be called Chocodiles and they were a lot of fun.

Oh, right.

Maybe I had the version of those that were, that was the later version

after that.

But wax, we went, we visited.

This is such a big episode.

We went twice for today's for chill.

What's going on?

Just there's not a lot of letters in common between vampire and ally.

Jesus Christ, I know.

So it's kind of tricky to craft.

Yeah, so

vampire is fine.

Vampire is fine.

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We went to the restaurant twice, Wags.

It was such a big episode.

We went twice.

That's right.

We're returning to Chili's, which was founded in Dallas in 1975.

The first chain reviewed on our very first episode.

We also returned in 2019 with Eva to review the Airport Chilies 2 for our 200th episode.

So that was a milestone 300 episodes ago.

Wow.

And in 2020, Mitch, during the pandemic, this was our other canonical Chili's review.

We went with

our buddy wrestler Joey Janella.

Oh, right.

Yeah.

And it had Chili's we're revisiting partly because it was our first episode, but partly because it had a recent resurgence on social media because of nostalgia and also value.

Kind of the flashpoint for this was apparently TikToker Dylan MacArthur and started doing these triple dipper milk bangs that went viral.

And then a bunch of other influencers started going to Chili's, making Chili's content.

The Encino location, in fact, where we dined in at, is where Chili's corporate social media shoots their own TikToks.

So they make their content from the Encino one where we went to originally.

And so it's basically,

it's the mozzarella sticks that have gone viral, right?

It's the mozzarella sticks as part of the

triple dipper, which is the appetizer sampler platter.

But those in particular...

Isn't it so much about the cheese pole, though?

Yeah, I mean, I think the cheese pole is a big part of it, yes.

So a mukbang of,

it's like a 3,500 calorie meal, right?

If you just eat the appetizer triple dipper, maybe more.

Yeah, if you're taking that whole motherfucker to the dome, yeah, for sure.

That is, that is a day's worth of caloric and change of caloric input.

I got a question for you.

Yeah.

Who do you think the first cheese influencer was?

There's Urkel as an option.

Urkel.

Urkel did like cheese.

Mickey Mouse.

Yeah, that's all.

I almost, I feel like you gotta go older.

Did Mickey Mouse love cheese?

He must have loved cheese at some point.

I feel like Tom or Jerry, whichever one is.

Jerry.

Yeah, Jerry, the mouse.

Yeah.

He likes cheese.

He's always like running with a wedge of it over his head.

Yeah.

I don't know if Mickey likes cheese.

But just by being a famous rat, it's like, hey, this

is a rat.

What the hell?

Whatever.

What do you mean, whatever?

He's very much a mouse.

Yeah, he's a mouse.

Yeah.

Cheese influencer.

But you have that association that he's going to like cheese.

Yeah.

I don't know.

It's a great question, Mitch, and it's a bit of a stumper.

Yeah.

I wonder if it is.

I wonder, I mean, mean, Urkel was big, and I think some sort of like a mouse character.

Like, I think you might be right that it is just Jerry is the first cheese influencer.

Jerry cheese influencer.

Cheese influencer.

I feel like there's some like his like character from like literature or something that was a famous like Scrooge or something.

Was he eating?

Well, I don't know if it was Scrooge specifically, but that kind of, like, I feel like there was some sort of maybe gourmand or it might have been Scrooge.

A cheese fan.

Yeah, who's someone who really likes cheese and like an old, like, does like some some boring ass victorian guy some bridgerton fuck yeah

would that be i just i'm googling did scrooge like cheese no he likes goose he likes roast goose yeah i think that's more that's you know what that's what it is it's like it's like you think of like the old rich guy affectations there were things like pheasant under glass or whatever like who's like who likes likes to smell smelly cheese

that's there there are definitely characters like that by the way scrooge did like cheese he did i he liked what is what on what authority are you when he when he sees Jacob Marley, he says, you may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese.

So he does say cheese, though he is only saying he ate a crumb of cheese.

So

yeah, how is that evidence that he likes cheese?

It says that he referenced cheese as he said.

He doesn't think he likes cheese.

I don't know.

Oh, this is kind of crazy.

Okay, AI overview.

The first thing they say is Jerry.

Wow.

It's Jerry.

But this is a good one.

And this is what I was thinking of.

Wallace.

Oh, Wallace from Wallace and Gromit of Wall Wall.

It's like there's a British guy that really likes cheese.

That's the answer because he's so cheese-focused.

Yes, that's good.

He likes cheese more than grommet.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's good.

Chili's has, you know, there's a bunch of pieces about how Chili's made a comeback.

There's a, you know, a lot of this, Kevin Hawkman, the CEO of Chili's parent company, Brinker International, has kind of like focused in their strategy a little bit more on, you know, following these social media trends, but also, or capitalizing rather, on their social media cache and then also leaning into value.

For instance, the Chili's Three For Me meal, which is what I got today at

the Monrovia location we went to for lunch, is the same price range as a fast food combo, and they've done a lot of marketing about that.

He seems to get it that way.

He seems to get it.

From a 2024 CNBC piece about this, quote, same store sales, a key metric in the restaurant industry jumped 14.8% in its fiscal fourth quarter.

So it is on a bit of an upswing.

And we went twice, like you were saying, Mitch.

We went to the Encino location for dinner nearly two months ago on April 14th when we were originally going to record this episode.

We're now recording on June 12th.

We had to shuffle some things around.

So as such, instead of just operating on that memory, but we will talk about it.

We also went again for lunch to the Monrovia location.

So both of these kind of in LA excurbs, a little bit removed from the city limits, because there is not a Chili's in LA proper, unfortunately.

And I feel like this is a thing

I would like to say.

There should be like a Chili's in Times Square.

Why not?

There should be like a Chili's on Hollywood Boulevard.

Like, have some chilies in big touristy areas now because this is becoming a thing again.

Especially because

I, it's, it's gotten kind of good.

Yeah, sure.

And especially that, that Tarzana location, really, it's like, like, it felt like a cool, we talked about it, like, it felt like a cool gas rope pub from 10 years ago.

100%.

But it's, but it had nice vibes.

It was packed with families and just people after like work getting a drink pretty packed for a weekday lunch today as well Yeah, but both times it was like I don't know today today was I was shocked by how packed it was when we walked when we walked in the door there it was it was a full it was not a full house, but it was it was it was it was popping there were a lot of people and and it swelled even more during the time we were dining there and it's the same one we went to 10 years ago at the time.

I think 10 years ago it's kind of gross.

They've upgraded it a bit.

No, they've redone the the interior

except there is one fixture that at the time we thought was like a a harbinger of sorrow.

Uh, they had the ziosk tablets that the pay stations that are under each table.

I was like, man, this is a bummer.

And they've somehow survived.

And Ziosks are bad.

I mean, they're, they're, they're thriving.

They've never gone away.

But the thing is, like, they're basically just for one function now.

They're, they're just there for you to pay at the end of the end of your meal, which I kind of don't even understand, but maybe it was just sort of like

dummies waiting for us to, we were waiting to check out and we didn't realize we could just check out on the zios.

You could just check out on the ziosk.

But other than that you're dealing with human servers like as much as you ever were as much as you would be at any any restaurant but it seemed like back when we went originally back in 2015 they were trying to direct us to order on the ziosk because they were trying to hopefully go in that they were they were i guess aiming to go in that direction yeah i don't like that kind of me neither service where you order everything and pay on your phone and then they just like drop someone silently drops your food to you i don't like that there's a there's a there's a chain of sports bars in la 33 taps there's one a stone's throw from headgum And that's their, there's their whole thing is scan on a QR code, order on your phone.

You never talk to a server, and then someone brings it to you.

Now it's a bar, so we can kind of understand that that's like a more efficient way to do it.

But it is, I don't know, to me, it takes away some of the fun of going out.

Yeah, it's impersonal.

And it also just takes away like the potential for those people to make a tip because they are talking to you and creating a relationship with you.

It's just like a lot of it.

It takes away like some of the more fun parts of working food service.

Like in my experience, you know, pulling a chair out from under a woman while she's sitting down and she falls on the floor.

That's in the CBK episode.

She's holding a baby and she falls on the floor.

And then your boss lies to her and defends you.

And then he gets fired and then you quit.

Oh, my God.

Did he get fired because of that?

Did he?

No, he got fired for showing up drunk.

Oh, smoking a cigarette.

Was there, I'm trying to remember because

you told us some CBK tales.

And again, thank you for your service.

But like, was there, am I misremembering that there was a guy jacking off there?

No, it was the it was the waitress it was the hostess that was that

when she quit yeah i found out even though i've been standing next to her the whole time that her entire purse was full of like tiny lubes and she would offer to jack every single person off

what

i talked about this on on the podcast but staff i

all the bus boys and all the kitchen staff and she'd be like

and she never mentioned it to me but she told every single person in the restaurant about it they were like all sick of hearing about it.

And I was like, what?

And she just was like silent, stare at me and then like stare at the wall.

And

I was like, and then I got offended that she didn't tell me about it.

But they called her the handsha hostess.

How many

I'd forgotten the depraved details of this, but I like how many do we have a count of how many like workers there said yes to this arrangement?

I don't know.

Or where right?

Because I feel like that's also a thing where someone could just be offering that and everyone's just saying no, because like this person's insane.

Based on restaurant kitchens that I've worked in, I'm going to guess most of them said yes.

Yeah, they're like, yeah, why not?

Who cares?

They go to the parking garage, she'd do it, then they go back to work.

I'm going to, I'm filling out an application online for CBK.

The Cyclops from Homer's Odyssey liked cheese.

Interesting.

The Cyclops liked cheese.

That's what it said.

Also, I put in, I was writing, is Scrooge?

And then it auto-filled to is Scrooge McDuck dead?

I don't know why it's, I don't know why it's, I don't know, why is there canonically dead?

Did they kill him with a family?

There are DuckTales comics.

Does he die in The Last Duck Tales?

He maybe dies in The Last Duck Tales, but that came up there too.

That is, I mean, that's an insight.

Wait, will you auto-fill that and hit search?

Sure, yep.

We got to find out if Scrooge McDuck is dead.

Is Scrooge McDuck?

Okay, so now a lot of things are coming up.

Okay.

Is Scrooge McDuck immortal?

What's happening?

Yeah,

pick a lane, guys.

Is Scrooge McDuck Scottish?

All right, you fucking idiot.

Is Scrooge McDuck gay?

Is Scrooge McDuck a Zionist?

Is he my dad?

Oh,

according to Don Rosa's unofficial timeline, Scrooge McDuck died at the age of 100 years after a life of adventure.

So Scrooge McDuck,

canonically, I guess, is dead.

Jesus.

Yeah.

I don't like that.

Poor Scrooge.

Okay.

A good life.

Rest in peace, Scrooge.

So that means Huey, Dewey, and Louie like age.

Like they became adults at a certain point.

I just can't understand.

Yeah, they're probably dead, too, I guess.

They're all dead.

Yeah.

But he's 100, yeah.

Maybe, maybe Huey, Dewey, and Louie died over the course of the 10 years of Doughboys.

Who knows?

Well, he is their, like, he is their great uncle.

Are Huey, Dewey, and Louie dead?

They're ducks.

I don't think ducks live super long, right?

It's really sad to think about the last surviving triplet going to like his brother's graves.

What the fuck?

How?

What?

Oh, Huey Dewey is like,

Dewey is like.

I just thought that came out of your life.

AI, AI, Dewey,

no, Huey Dewey, and Louie Duck are not dead.

Okay.

They are fictional characters.

Created by Disney and continued to be featured in various Disney media.

While their parents are not mentioned in their story, they are alive.

The parents are alive.

Okay, so Scrooge's niece and nephew, I guess, are alive.

They are not orphans.

Okay.

All right.

Okay.

Yeah, being your last triplet to Diewags is sad,

I guess you could say.

Got to be one of them.

So we went to the Encino location.

We went for dinner.

I got a watermelon lemonade.

Mitch, I think you got the Patrol and Strawberry Margarita.

Is that correct?

I did.

Yeah, but you got frozen.

You got a skinny marg.

Yeah.

And we also were charged for a Zios game pass, which we'll get into.

We were?

Yes.

That was on the receipt.

No, not today.

But that is a whole other thing, Mitch, which we will also get into.

We will get into that too.

How much is a Ziosk Game Pass?

I think it's like a dollar.

Okay.

Yeah.

But I think it's like

it costs money to play games on the Ziosk, I guess.

Did we play a game?

You did today.

You picked the most curious cat.

I will just let you guys know.

Alright, hold on.

This is insane.

This is all insane.

So you pay, you pay.

The Ziosk is like a tablet that is on a stand that is on each table at Chili's.

If you've been to a Chili's, you've seen this.

We asked to pay today.

The server was like, Oh, yeah, you can close out on the Zios.

Go ahead and hand me that.

It's by Mitch.

Mitch grabs it, and as he's going to hand it to the server, there's a trivia question.

He starts playing the cat quiz on the Zios.

And then the guy's like, Oh, I got to exit out of this.

Sorry.

Like, because you're going to get charged for a game pass.

It was like the whole thing.

He tried to save me quickly.

And I'll tell you what the question was.

It says, Calico cats are known for being, and it said, like, oh, male something something and then lucky and i pressed lucky

which is clearly not right

and that guy was like quickly like oh i'm

sir sir but that's to me that is insane if you just push the screen and it charges you to to play the fucking game without being like

how many kids have accidentally like charged their parents for games that like they had no idea that's fucking crazy my guess is this is the kind of thing that corporate put in that is just like a massive inconvenience for people working there because, yeah, kids are always doing it, and then parents are complaining about it, and then the managers are having to come over and go through some rigmarole to take it off.

I got to tell you, first of all,

the first time I went to Chili's was a while back now, and I don't remember too much from the dinner.

I have the full list, so we can go through it real quick.

But in my mind, we didn't bring up this game thing, did we?

Like, that didn't come up afterwards.

I don't think I played any game.

I don't remember doing anything in the Zias.

It seems, to me, it seems illegal.

I got to take this fucking hat off.

You bailing on the hat?

I got to bail.

It's just hurting my head.

The string really

does.

Yeah, I keep pulling it.

I'm gonna bail at a certain point.

The, the, the, uh,

the, the, just pushing, seeing a thing and then pushing it and getting charged.

It seems illegal.

It's, it seems insane to me.

Whatever.

It just seems insane.

It seems insane.

It seems insane to me.

You just tweet it.

Whatever.

You tried that.

You tried to balance the hat on top of your Celtics

hat and it didn't sand string for a second.

Immediately fell off.

Immediately fell off.

All right, let me go through the list of what we got from Encino.

We got a triple dipper.

We got the boneless wings with Buffalo.

We got the Nashville hot mozzarella sticks.

We got the Southwestern Egg Rolls as our triple dipper.

We also got the Dip Trio, which is a different triforce of apps, which is a

corn tostada tortilla chips with skillet beef queso, white queso,

fresh salsa, fresh guacamole, your housemade ranch.

You get three of those five.

We went with the salsa, the guac, and the white queso, which I I believe is server rack.

I got the quesadilla explosion salad.

Mitch, you got the bacon rancher burger.

The stupidest name for food.

This is the thing.

I love the name of the quesadilla explosion salad, so I can't not order it.

So funny.

Mitch, you got the bacon rancher burger, and Eva, you got the Santa Fe salad, and then we all shared a skillet chocolate chip cookie.

What I can say as Mitch keeps kissing the vampire Gator.

I'm going to give him 500 kisses before the episode ends.

I did have a great time at this meal.

I did that.

And I also will say, of the two sauced mozzarella sticks, the Nashville hot are the way to go.

We got the other option today with our triple dipper.

You could also just say putting any sauce on the mozzarella sticks is ungopachka.

You don't need it.

It's fine just to take them and dip them in marinara or ranch or whatever the fuck.

But I do kind of like the concept of putting it on Nashville hot sauce.

It is also notable that each one is 500 calories.

Yes.

Which is insane.

Yeah, it's just so gross that that's how bad those are for you.

Each stick, you mean?

Each stick is 500 calories.

I also feel so salty.

I feel very salty after this meal.

A thing that I noticed from both restaurants is that

the food came out very fast at both restaurants.

And then a thing I didn't notice at one restaurant and I noticed today was that the door handle was a chili.

Yes.

Which I think it is.

Is it at the other restaurant or not?

I think so.

I think that's a standard chilies feature.

And I also just want to say that I was like, the door handle's a chili.

And Wags went, it's cold?

You thought I meant that the handle itself was cold like you just an old man be like the handle is cold

here's the thing

i understood that it was a chili i thought you were saying that it was chilly like like it also like it felt chilly sure so i thought that's the same thing for me to say to you but then eva noticed it too so it did it did it really stuck out for whatever reason

it is cool i like it um our table was a little wobbly when we got there wait are we talking we're skipping ahead to any thoughts on incino no incino i enjoyed my meal Did you get a dessert?

We did.

We got the

skillet chocolate chip cookie.

We just doubled it in an ice cream and hot vodch.

Yeah, I mean, it's their attempt at a pizzuki

at the

BJ's dessert, the signature dessert.

And it's just, I mean, it's not on the same level, but it was still all right.

I love the apps and the chips and dips.

This is everything I wrote down.

We got chips and dips, and the chips and dips were good, and the apps were good.

Yes, that is the dip trio.

Wages, my burger was unga pachka.

Bacon rancher burger, two beef patties, six slices of bacon, housemade ranch, American cheese, sauteed onions, and pickles.

No real sauce and kind of a grease bomb, but the quality was good.

I didn't know what to get, and the waitress suggested two burgers to me, and I felt like I should get one, but I regret it, but still good.

And then I wrote, the cookie was oily.

That's what we all said about the cookie was oily.

And then I had a giant chocolate stain on my sleeve when I got home that Emma accused me of being shit in the group chat.

That's all I remember from this event.

But I think we had a positive, I think we all had a positive, a nice, fun, it was a good celebration of 500 episodes.

It was really nice.

It was very nice.

Yeah, yeah.

We all bailed on the hats.

We bailed on the hat.

I'll take my hat off.

It just hurts after a while.

It does hurt.

Emma and Casey have kept it on.

Amelia's.

Oh, Amelia is on.

I didn't see it.

There it is.

Sliding.

It's attached to the headphones, so.

Oh, if you're not.

It would be a pain in the ass to take off.

All right, so Casey's keeping it on, but he's pissed off.

And Amelia,

I think you're, it seems fine.

I'm happy about it.

I think you might have the smallest head, not to give you a complex, but I think you have the smallest head of everyone, which is a good thing.

It's crazy not to give you a compliment.

I put mine on Wally.

Oh, that's cute.

Yeah, it's covered.

It's cute.

It's good.

I thought about putting one on Jemmy earlier, but she'll hate it.

Dogs don't like those.

The quesadilla explosion salad is basically like a, you know, kind of generic Southwest salad with citrus bossal mech, but then it's, it's, the, the, the titular explosion is a quesadilla basically is a garnish on the outside.

So you're basically getting a quesadilla with a full-size salad.

And I, I don't know, I, I've gotten this one a number of times when I go to Chili's.

I just kind of like it because I'm eating a salad, but I'm also eating a quesadilla.

And I get to say a quesadilla explosion, which is a lot of fun.

I think it's a great order.

Yeah.

It's a great order.

I almost got it today, but then I looked at the calories on it and it is close to the sandwich I got, so I just decided not to get it.

You're eating a fucking quesadilla with a salad.

It's like you're not saving any calories.

It's just a cheese quesadilla or is it a chicken?

It's a cheese quesadilla.

Yeah.

But you do get a protein with the salad.

So you can

add chicken or whatever.

And even any memories of your Santa Fe salad?

It just was what you got without the quesadilla.

Yeah.

It's kind of boring, but it was fine.

I was, there was so much going on with the appetizers.

I just, I wanted to try those.

I mean, that's part of, that's, that's a big part of the reason you go to one of these places.

It's interesting what you're saying about salty, Mitch, because I feel like that is a commonality with a lot of these sit-down chains, these bigger sit-down chains is food that's very salty, but isn't very seasoned, seasoned, if that makes that distinction makes sense.

There was a very unseasoned meal today.

I had a very much similar,

I have an observation about that for today.

So we went to the Monrovia location.

We got a

near next to Arcadia, California, which is where my grandparents on my mom's side lived for many years.

So I'm familiar with the Monrovia, Arcadia, and there's another city there that I'm familiar with those,

that sort of area.

The skinny marg

Eva, you got uh, Mitch, you got a strawberry lemonade, and I got the Arnold Palmer with mango.

So, you can get a mango lemonade with your iced tea.

Here's what I'll say: just way too sweet.

Like, like, this was this was one where I really could have used the Nick Weiger, the perfected ratio, where it was a bit a bit more iced tea, a bit less of the, the lemonade mixer.

Um, and I could have followed Mango himself's advice to not touch the mango.

Yeah, the novelty of having a mango iced tea, or I'm sorry, a mango lemonade in an Arnold Palmer, like, I couldn't resist that.

But I think it was just like, it was just like a little tacloingly sweet.

The strawberry lemonade was kind of bad, surprisingly.

Oh, what a bummer.

Because I love their strawberry, their strawberry margarita, but it was just like a, it's kind of cheap tasting strawberry lemonade for, for you think it would have like chunks of strawberry and it would be like a more naturally,

if you told me that was from like a soda fountain strawberry lemonade, I would believe it.

It was kind of a bummer.

Skinny margarita both times was nicely minimalist.

Yeah, I think that's a tough drink to mess up.

Yeah, sure.

It is also like one of the also, this is the other thing when you're looking at the calories on this entire menu, which they show for everything.

The skinny margarita is like, okay, I can drink that.

And it's not like a 400-calorie drink, which there's so many.

It's like 150, 100 calories.

Yeah, which is not for, it's not bad for chilies.

Yeah.

It's kind of amazing that they did, they did that, what, however many years, that was part, was that part of the ACA

putting calories on menus?

For chains.

Yeah, for chains.

So that's been around for over 10 years at this point, 15 years.

That's just been policy.

And it doesn't seem to have done anything for the obesity epidemic.

Because I don't think, like, there's just something of just seeing the number in a vacuum.

Maybe it doesn't like.

guide people's decisions really or you're just sort of like well whatever in for a penny in for a pound maybe there's even an effect of hey i'm i'm it's 800 calories for this sandwich it's 950 calories for this burger fuck it i'll just get the burger.

What's the other 150 calories?

I wonder if that, if it's almost counterproductive.

Yeah.

I don't know.

Do you say, don't show them?

I don't know.

I just don't know.

I don't know if it has, it doesn't, certainly doesn't seem to be having any sort of positive effect.

No, it definitely gets, they get in my head.

Yeah.

It freaked me out.

I mean, thinking about the thinking about the mozzarella sticks being 500 calories each makes me not want to eat a whole one, I guess.

So that is.

Yeah, you get half one, and they still destroy my digestive system.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Just even three tiny bites yeah 100

just ruined yeah i want to bring up something from the first episode okay on the first episode wages

you

uh with your original rating you said the food made us feel sick and we deducted a full fork score off of it for that reason wow which is like simpson season one you took a full fork score off for not for making us feel ill after eating this so funny yeah which

just went away was it four forks was Was it like a Four Fork restaurant?

I think it went out of Four Forks because

it made you feel full afterwards, which just does not exist anymore.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Everything makes us sick.

Whatever.

Yeah.

I know.

It doesn't matter.

Truly, it doesn't matter.

Unless you give one of us food poisoning like Taco Johns did to Emma.

Like it's just like whatever.

That's just part of the ballgame.

You're going to get sick.

Yeah.

You're going to feel like shit.

Yeah.

Yeah,

that will not affect our fork score today, though I do feel very salt.

I feel like my hands and feet are bigger than they were when we started the day what is that you know when like you're like a salt right doesn't it like make your extremities inflate or whatever edema edema you're falling you're filling your body with more water i'm feeling yeah yeah yeah yeah i can feel you could you not feel that today or no adding water to your insides my buffalo chicken so i

feel on it there was two things that were super salty to me yeah one was the cheese

The cheese, the cheese stick was super salty, I thought.

And the sauce, it was like so salty to me.

Second one was kind of of the the honey chipotle fried mozzarella sticks were kind of a dud so okay yeah let me let me go through the menu real quick so we got the triple dipper the triple dipper was the the burger bite triple which is they they're they're basically um sliders uh we got and the sliders are really minimalist they're just they're just a beef cheese and then and like a grilled onion it's it's kind of like a white castle uh can i say upscale white white castle they kind of suck you didn't like them i thought they were like nothing they're they're like uh they're so They're so nothing to me.

I think they need a pickle.

I think they need some sort of crunch.

Pickle would have plussed them up a little bit.

Yeah.

We got the, yes, we got the mozzarella sticks, which were honey chipotle.

This is the kind of thing of like the triple dipper, the mild frustration of it.

You get three of you only get two of the sliders,

even though it's called the Burger Bite Triple, I guess.

It's the Burgerbite Triple because it's a triple dipper portion, which is a smaller portion than the normal Burger Bite.

So you only get two.

The mozzarella honey chipotle sticks, we only get two of those.

And again, we're a party of three.

And then the country crispers, which were like chicken strips, tendeys, we did get three of those.

So we each got to have our own.

We got some house barbecue.

We got a chipotle honey and a Nashville hot sauce.

Where are you on Nashville Hot in general?

I know it's kind of played out.

Oh, I had not even really tried it until I went to Nashville last year.

Wow.

Because I was a little scared it would be too hot.

Then I started low and then I ate.

Nashville hot chicken like eight times.

Wow.

And I got hotter each time.

And at the end, I was like, I love it.

I have not had it since coming back.

Yeah.

I do like Nashville Hot as an approach.

I do feel like it's kind of, now that it's just like at every chain,

it's not really like what it once was.

You know, it's kind of lost some of that

esteem.

It's so delicious.

It is.

You get like a proper Nashville hot.

It's, it's, uh, it's delightful.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Any predictions about the new, the new sauce will be?

Then there'll be any sauce?

Well, I mean, hot honey is, is like, it is, is the one of the moment.

And that's so, yeah, it's so played out.

The next sauce, what's coming after that?

I don't know.

Yeah.

I feel like I'm seeing like a spicy Caesar around a lot.

Oh, interesting.

Okay, spicy Caesar.

Spicy Caesar is good.

I like that.

There's a lot of places that make the Caesar chicken wraps.

They'll do like a Calabrian chili Caesar.

Oh, right.

Yeah.

And so it's zippy.

It's a little red.

I think spicy Caesar is the next sauce.

That's a great call.

I wonder if we might

see like a Gochu Chang or something like that.

Like just like, you know, one of those sauces kind of.

Gochu Chang Mayo.

Yeah.

Like in the same sort of way we saw that happen with Sriracha a few years back.

I don't know.

I could also see a

like, I feel like there was a moment where it would seem like everything seasoning was going to become everywhere, and then it never really passed the, like it's kind of a novelty.

I could see that finally reaching critical mass where we're seeing more, we're seeing like, you know, KFC as an everything seasoned, you know, a chicken strip or something.

Like they have lemon pepper.

Yeah.

Everything.

Yeah.

That's cool.

I don't know.

I think

my prediction is ketchup's going to have a bit, it's going to come back around.

Ketchup is going to have a, people are going to be ketchup renaissance.

A ketchup renaissance.

So what do you think of that?

Come back to ketchup.

What about curry ketchup?

Curry ketchup is fun.

Curry ketchup is fun.

I like that.

That actually, that is a, that is like a sauce that exists that people, like,

is that big in the UK?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I feel like that's a, that's like a, a good one to take off in America.

Curry ketchup.

Ask AI what the, what the the next big sauce is.

All right, I'll ask AI.

Okay, great.

And is it dead?

Is it dead?

Hold on.

I'm asking.

Okay, great.

I'm asking AI.

I wonder how much water we'll waste by asking this question.

I know.

What are we doing?

Can't do that.

Next big

sauce.

I also don't use A.

Napping.

It's very cute.

Let's see here.

All right.

There's an answer coming.

Yeah.

Predicting the next big sauce involves looking at current culinary trends, consumer preferences,

innovations.

Okay, so they give some ideas.

Swicey sauce.

This sucks.

I hate AI.

I didn't realize that it was going to, I should have realized the hyper-regional global sauces.

Are you using the Google AI overview?

Yes.

Yeah, that's the best.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's the gold standard.

It just did the.

Carrot-based hot sauces?

That's carrot-based hot sauce.

Swicey is sweet and spicy.

I see.

I have never heard swicy before.

Oh, so it is just a term.

It says fruit.

It's a, well, when I Googled it, it says the AI overview says the next big sauce trend is likely to be a fruit and spice pairings, building on the popular spicy, sweet, swicy.

Got it.

So that's that hot honey is a swicy sauce.

But wise, Yuzu sauce is the bottom.

Oh, Yuzu, that's a fun one.

I get to see Yuzu kind of making some inroads.

It's, it's, to watch the, because I've watched the full course of Google like over my lifetime.

Like, I remember when like we were using Alta Vista and Yahoo, those are the search engines of choice.

And then Google comes and he's like, wow, this is such a better search engine.

What a superior product.

I can't believe how much easier it is to browse the internet thanks to Google search.

What a cool novelty.

And then to watch it slowly erode.

Like it becomes ubiquitous.

And then it just keeps getting worse and worse and worse.

The information is less and less reliable.

So now we have an AI overview, which is just straight up wrong.

It just gives you like false information.

So now

we've just seen the service become useless over the course of its internet life.

In the 10 years we've done Doughboys, the world has gotten worse.

Every single thing is gotten worse and more annoying.

This just happened between us.

The show I was just working on.

Nick Offerman was on the show that I was just working on.

The opera show.

He's awesome.

But it's also a David E.

Kelly show.

And so we were on set, and he mentioned, he was like, I was on an episode of The Practice when I was in my 20s or whatever.

And I was like, oh, cool.

Do you remember what episode?

He's like, I'm not sure.

So I Googled Nick Offerman, The Practice, and the AOR you said, Nick Offerman was never on the practice.

And I showed it to him and I was like, sorry.

And then he was like, I was.

I was like, no, you weren't.

But that just, that happened like live.

I was like, that's great.

God.

And people and like government officials are making decisions based off of that.

Anyways, that's fucking horrible.

True toilet earth.

Guar was right.

Earth.

Okay, so the triple dipper, we got the, yeah, the, the, I, I don't think the mozzarella honey chipotle worked.

I don't think the sweet and the cheese makes any sort of sense.

I thought it was kind of actually kind of putrid.

The country crispers were fun.

By the way, can I just quickly

give a follow-up?

Yeah.

Sauces can't die because they aren't living organisms.

They're food products made from ingredients like tomatoes, herbs, or cream.

It goes on about that.

The humorless basilisk.

They can go bad, but that's not dying.

It's just decomposition.

I've confused the AI, basically.

It wants me to clarify.

Let's be Zizians.

Do you know about the Zizians?

Tell me.

They hate AI and they murder people.

They're a death cult, but they're an anti-AI

in the Bay Area.

This is a new movement.

Yeah, they killed so they stabbed a guy with a katana.

Oh, shit.

Yeah.

Google the Zizians.

You'll never stop reading about them.

The Zizians.

The Zizians.

Because I know the Luddites from back in the day.

No, the Zizians are current.

Like, a lot of their ideology comes from the show Steven Universe.

Great.

Wait, really?

Yeah.

Yes.

It's great.

Yeah.

Are we Zizians by the time we end the show?

They post StarCraft memes and they talk about Steven Universe and they kill people.

I've never seen Steven Universe, but some of that seems fun.

They mostly are on Tumblr.

Wow.

They're Tumblr-based death cult.

I know Tumblr was still going.

I don't know.

I guess so.

For just for death cult purposes.

Maybe like, yeah, if you're organizing some sort of fringe, you know, murderous movement, it's maybe easier on a platform with less eyeballs.

But they're really scared of this concept, which is a short story called Rocco's Basilisk.

Okay.

Which is an idea that if there's an AI

one day that's so powerful, that's immortal and all-powerful, that it would maybe torture anyone who tried to stop it from coming into existence or who didn't help it come into existence and go back in time and torture them.

And then just by hearing about it, now you're part of that.

So now it can torture you if you don't help it come into existence.

Because I told you about it.

It just doomed us.

I doomed us.

Do it's on the recording.

And

these people got so scared of that idea that they killed people.

Jesus Christ.

Well, they sound like idiots.

I've not, I don't use AI.

I just use that for that bit right there to just use the Google AI.

Oh, God, I'm in trouble.

I fucked up.

I just infected all your listeners.

Yeah, everybody.

Now they all know about it.

And now they have to help the AI or be tortured for all eternity.

I've used AI like,

honestly, I can put it on under, I can count under 10 times the times I've used it.

Maybe the three times you did it?

Just now?

Yeah, just now?

Just now puts it close to 10.

But does that even count?

And then I made Tina Faygo

so she looks like insane clown posse.

That's one I did.

And then I used it like one other time.

I've never used it.

Does it even count though?

Because you can't, can you even opt out of it on Google?

Like if you just type anything into Google, the first thing you can do.

No, I don't think so.

Maybe you can't.

Maybe there's a flag you can put in.

Maybe some search operator to say no AI or whatever.

But

I don't know.

Does that count as using AI in the same way that I don't, I don't think so.

We're fucked.

Anyways, we should be, let's get back to the game.

It doesn't matter.

Chili's.

Chili's.

Chili's was.

Okay.

Okay, so I think the, yeah, I think the, I think the Triple Dipper kind of underwhelmed today.

Whereas

I do think the sauced mozzarella sticks in theory are fun.

I did like the Triple Dipper we got in Enicino with the boneless wings and the southwestern egg rolls, but I also think those are just like better

apps than the sliders and the regular tendies.

The chicken crispers are fine.

They're fine.

They're totally possible.

Chicken strips.

I also want to say that we came in and we had a wobbly table.

And I think you and I just wanted to move, but then our guy did.

He fixed the wobble.

You were in the bathroom.

Yeah, our server was good.

He was nice.

Yeah, he's a nice guy.

Hey, what was his shirt?

Oh, yeah.

It was like hanging at the ranch or something.

It was a cup of ranch on a ranch.

Yeah.

And I told him I liked the shirt.

It was good.

He's like, they're new.

You like, you didn't really.

I mean, it's his work shirt.

Yeah, he rightfully didn't care too much, but I did think it was a legitimate shirt.

Yeah.

I wonder if you can buy it.

Yeah.

I'll get you one.

You don't have to do that, but I would really love it also at the same time.

I'm going to get you one.

People think you work at Chili.

I would love that.

That would be Stolen Valor.

Neither of us have worked at a fast food club.

No, I've never worked at a food service.

I worked at a theater, which is the closest I got to working like food service as a golf club.

We got a, I mean, it's this way.

I did do a stint at a CPK as the hand job host.

I really was with you all the way to the last few weeks.

You did.

You never told me?

Holy shit.

We got a, I got a, I got the three for me combo, which you get a, you get a, you know, it's, it's like,

One of the three is your drink.

So my beverage was included in the three for me.

Um, I got the, the burger I got was was the Big QP, which is their quarter pounder with cheese, simulacrum, and what's their advertising as a QPC killer.

A big QP for the Big QT.

Oh, Mitch.

Good thing to say.

That's so sweet.

And a cup of baked potato soup, which was a server recommendation.

And it also came with a side of fries.

Mitch, you got yourself a,

it was the Buffalo chicken sandwich, correct?

Yeah, the Buffalo Ranch sandwich.

The Buffalo Ranch

Ranch sandwich.

And then you also got with a side of fries, and you got a house salad with the avocado ranch dressing.

And, you know, avocado ranch maybe could make in-roads.

Maybe they can give me another one.

That's

a cool global.

And then Eva, you got the Pickany 3 fajitas, which you got were with shrimp, beef, and chicken.

Yeah, it was like the classic, the classic trio is what they called it.

Classic trio, yeah.

So shrimp, beef, and chicken.

Sizzle and fajitas are like one of the things along with baby back ribs that chili became known for.

Like it was back in the day.

And as we said in the first episode, when customers would hear the sizzle,

the sales of fajitas would go up in the dining room.

It's true.

Yep.

And we, and we've said this, we've said this on other episodes too.

There's the behind the scenes thing of them making the baby back rib song.

And it's like, we've been saying it's like seeing the Beatles or something.

It is like very, it's fantastic.

It's really cool.

That's cool.

I don't know if you've ever seen it.

It's a great behind the scenes little

YouTube video on that.

I will say that when the sizzling plate came out, it sounded fun to hear.

It was,

but I don't know how,

I'm not sure how successful the fajita plates were.

They're not good, they're not good fajitas, but just knowing that you could go to any Mexican restaurant anywhere in LA and get good fajitas or better fajitas.

They were, it was what you were saying, they were salted but not seasoned.

Oh, yes, yeah, and it looks, I was saying it looks like almost like

it looked like industrial kitchen, it looked the most like industrial kitchen food.

You know, I know that that is what this place is, obviously.

But you can sometimes really tell, like, oh, okay, this is like a Cisco chicken breast exactly from a bag.

Yeah, it just sort of, and also just like, I've made fajitas, they they have to have cumin and some spices on them and these are just unspiced and like so

um my salad my avocado wrench salad was good and it has a cheese on there i was enjoying it i like the chilies house salad i've gotten the dinner salad before it's good uh the sandwich itself

one the fries were way over salted and then also that buffalo chicken sandwich i thought was very salty wags what did you think did you i just had the one bite i i don't know it was working for me It was okay.

Yeah.

It could have just been

that individual bite, you know?

Yeah.

It's hard to judge a full sandwich by one bite.

I want to say that the whole experience compared to the first time we went was worse, like all around for me.

Everything was not.

You mean Tarzana?

Yeah.

But not 10 years ago.

No.

No, this particular visit.

I mean, like, we went twice.

I think it was actually the Encino location, but same difference.

And the

Yeah, I definitely felt like it was like a better meal overall, like all around on that first go-round, but it also could have been been we were getting our first choices and you were like, okay, I'll try something else.

And maybe honestly, like for me with that burger, the one I picked, I was like, which I thought overall worked.

I thought I was like, this is a pretty good quarter pounder with cheese replica.

And, you know, also just like kind of a classic sit-down chain burger.

And I like the chili's big mouth burgers.

I think their burgers are pretty solid.

There was mustard on that bad one.

There was mustard on it.

Yeah.

It was good.

It was good.

And it, it was, and it did have pickles, Mitch, which did help it quite a bit.

But I got that because I was like, oh, well, this is a thing they're advertising a lot.

It wasn't necessarily like the thing that I was craving as much.

The baked potato soup, I thought, was quite toothsome.

I was enjoying that.

It was a good wreck.

And yeah, and I think the burger was working.

I don't know.

I maybe had the most successful meal of the three of us, I guess I'm learning.

I didn't find the fries overly salted, but I was also dipping those bad boys in ranch, which was cutting the salt a little bit.

Okay, yeah.

That maybe was what it was.

I don't know.

I was salted out today on

this trip.

There's too much salt going.

There's a lot of salt, a lot of sugar, a lot of of salt.

You're doing some ocean swimming?

I did.

I was just in the ocean right before I came.

Maybe that was what it was.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You meet me there.

You come to suck my dick.

There's only one thing I'll do you now.

Aww.

You Mitch married to Gator?

That is the saddest I think for me is I marry Gator puppet.

I drove by you on the road and I was going to hold it up and like make it talk at you on the road.

And I was like, he'll think I'm insane.

I would have just gotten in an accident.

Intentionally?

It's like you're just like, no, I've seen everything.

Blow your brains out.

Oh, boy.

And we opted for no dessert.

I mean, I guess that's the whole meal, right?

Yeah.

Anything else?

Anything else notable?

Service good at both locations?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Service was great.

Yeah.

Both times we went.

They were doing a great job.

It feels like Chili's is very much back.

Chili's is back.

I would go back to Chili's.

I've been telling people to go to Chili's since our first meal.

No, this is the thing.

I had a fun time at both meals, even though I think this meal was maybe less successful food-wise.

Yeah.

I still just had a good time.

Chili's is back.

Chili's is back.

Chili's is back.

And it's the cheese influence, the cheese polar, you've done a good job.

You know, like, it's true.

We're very mean to

the younger generation, this TikTok generation, but

they've brought chilies back single-handedly.

Congrats.

I mean, I think

there's some successful strategizing that's going on in the business side as well.

I think, again, just really leaning into value was smart of them.

And also, enough time has passed

since the pandemic where I think people are just eager to go out.

It took a few years for things to really normalize and for people to really get comfortable going out and being in large groups now.

But now people are like, oh, yeah, this sit-down dining experience that we swung so far away from in favor of delivery, maybe that's the thing I actually crave.

And maybe that's actually a thing that's part of it beyond just like the food itself.

I hope so.

It's actually like some, you know, having a sense of community.

It's a vibe.

It's a vibe thing, yeah.

And the vibes of chilies

are good.

Yeah, they're good.

I agree.

All right, we should get to our final thoughts on this revisit to Chili's.

Eve, you know, the shell, we'll each go around, give her a closing argument, if you will, and give this a fork score from zero to five.

You're our guest.

We'll begin with you.

Are we going to take both visits into consideration?

Yeah, I think so, right?

Chili's is back.

Wow.

Chili's is back.

I

want us to go up from, because it's better than it was 10 years ago.

And most things don't get better.

They get worse.

Do you want me to look up where we are

10 years ago?

I think three and a half or three years ago.

Is that three and a half was that where we were?

Wise, you're the one who knocks out in the Golden Play Club.

Are you sure about that?

I'm pretty sure.

I want to know where we were 10 years ago.

Okay, we're also confused.

We didn't understand what the scores meant.

That's also true.

Yeah, we didn't have a baseline.

Neil was about to give Pizza Hut one star.

Is that what happened?

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Make everything really weird.

Yeah, he did.

He did.

He did.

He did.

He changed the game.

Neil Campbell changed the game in the Doughboys world.

So it says Nick gave it three forks, Mitch gave it four, and Eva, you also gave it three.

I'm going four.

You also got a skinny margarita back then, too.

I knew my order.

I'm doing it for

because Chili's is back.

Wow.

Four forks.

Yeah.

Wow.

All right, Spoonman, what do you think?

Wags,

look,

there's been some bumps in the road as we've done this podcast.

It's been bad, mostly bad, the entire time we've done it.

You feel bad.

We feel bad.

We've, I mean, when, when we first, when we look at old pictures of ourselves, which I thought I was big then,

we got much bigger.

Yeah, for sure.

We increased in size, which also, I guess, is probably just natural aging stuff, anyways.

But to some degree, to some degree, I don't know.

It's pretty good.

It's probably like a 60-pound swing at least.

But we've been very lucky to have the show and have the listeners we have and have our wonderful, funny guests and friends on.

And we're lucky to have you.

No, well, I don't know.

It's true.

Do you remember the Gator bit from earlier?

Why are you clapping?

I

look, we are lucky to do this show, and it's fun to see this place after 10 years, 10 full years of doing the show.

And I think things, it has gotten better.

I think from our first visit, I think I did enjoy these last two visits more.

But I'm going to stick around the same fork score.

I'm going four forks, Wags.

Wow.

Actually, you know what?

Four and a half forks.

Four and a half forks.

Wow.

I think Chili's, you know what?

A place that's getting better and they're good at what they do.

You know what I mean?

They are.

Yeah.

They're, they're, they're, they're, what Applebee's is, Chili's is a better version of that.

They're trying to.

I'm up in my score to match Mitch's.

Four and a half forks.

Four and a half forks.

Wow.

Wow.

Four and a half.

Yeah, I guess that is

it's kind of those three, right?

It's Chili's, Applebee's, and TGI Fridays when you think of the classic sort of American sit-down chain restaurant, even though they're all doing slightly different things, I feel like that's like the, if you're just thinking like in a vacuum of a generic chain restaurant, you're thinking of some approximation of one of the three of those, right?

So that's really what's competing against.

Yeah, and the Chris Angel.

Kublip.

And Kublip, yeah.

Kublip is the other one I think of.

Yeah, Chris Angel's breakfast, lunch, and pizza.

As I said on our pilot episode, and I have this written down, quote, as far as chain restaurants go, Chili's is one of the main ones.

Wait, this is from the first episode?

I said, as far as chain restaurants go, Chili's is one of the ones.

One of the main ones.

Man, your writing has gotten, your writing has gotten even better in 10 years.

Wow, that was off the dome.

Pen was not put to paper for that one.

I think this is...

I think 10 years later, I can say that take is vindicated.

I think it is one of the main ones.

Yeah.

People think a chain restaurant.

Oh, yeah, Chili's.

It deserves to be.

It deserves, it's earned its status.

I think it's very often top of mind.

Damn, actually, you know what?

That was really good writing.

And I had a great time at both of these visits.

Some things were really working for me.

I do think there is some deserved virality to the Nashville hot mozzarella sticks.

I don't think I maybe necessarily dwelled on that enough.

I'm a bit of a heat seeker.

I thought those were nicely spicy, and I think that just like the marriage of the Nashville hot and the breaded mozzarella sticks and the cheese interior all sort of comes together quite nicely.

I thought that

is insane.

I mean, I remember

it's just a lot.

I did like each one is as big as a deck of cards.

Yes.

Yes.

Yeah.

It's crazy.

Which

Chris Angel should have like a deck of cards, mozzarella sticks.

Yeah.

I thought that was, I mean, that was great.

There were some individual bites I really enjoyed.

I did like my fake quarter pounder quite a bit today.

And again, yeah, I just like the vibe.

So do do I want to be within the hand-holding club and say four and a half forks with Eva and Mitch?

Ultimately, I think that's a half fork too aggressive.

I'm gonna, but I am gonna say, welcome to the Golden Plate Club to Chili's four forks.

Whoa!

Oh, no, Jamie.

Chili's back.

Are you gonna, are you gonna deduct?

Uh, are you still gonna deduct a point for

hurting your stomach?

Do I bring that back?

Yeah, do you bring it down to three?

I mean, look.

No,

You know what, Mitch?

That was the previous 500 episodes.

The next 500 episodes were starting fresh.

The next 500 episodes?

We expect our stomachs to hurt.

10 years.

We'll be 50.

We'll be in our 50.

I can't do it.

I can't do that.

When do you want to quit then?

When do you want to stop?

Pick an end date.

When should the Doughboys

when should the doughboys we have to end no matter what can we end on my 50th birthday yeah sure okay but i mean you better start planning now mitch because that's coming up that's coming up if you think about it eight years yeah think about i mean they more trump presidencies

dear lord what's your contingency for turning the money spigot off

Stop talking about it that way.

No, seriously, I mean

the listeners spigot.

Yeah, AI overview that comes up when you Google when should the Doughboys quit is unreal.

It's unreal.

There's so much information.

It's like about one of the hosts, Mike Mitchell, has openly discussed the physical toil that frequently eating fast food takes on his health.

The calculation of health concerns, format changes.

Don't believe that the amount of fresh chain restaurant content available for review is dwindling.

This has more information than I have.

It's more than I know.

Did this change after you mentioned the AI thing to us?

Ultimately, the decision of when the Doughboys podcast will end is up to the hosts, Mike Mitchell and Nick Weiger.

That's where they resolve.

Wow.

Yes.

Wow.

What do you think, Wags?

500 more episodes?

I can't do it.

No.

If you include the doubles, we're closing in on a thousand episodes.

Yeah, if you include the doubles, but the doubles don't count.

Hand drop host.

I do recognize you.

Time to go back to the old meme, the Bugs Buddy meme with the guns.

I can't wait to come into Headgum and be like, there's a host of Headgum now.

Nick's there.

What studio will we be using today?

All right.

Right this way, Mr.

Conover.

Trying to show you my version.

You jack off his hair.

Imagine that's something about Mary.

Spike would be scraping the ceiling.

Okay.

Thank God.

Thank God.

Thank God Conn Irvor wasn't in something about Mary in that scenario.

Thank God he wasn't in that scenario.

Can you imagine?

He's got a kid.

How high is it?

He uses, keep his hair tall.

Jay and Diaz would be like, oh my God, just raising his hair to the ceiling.

He apologizes for letting his hair get so tall.

He takes full responsibility.

Oh, by the way, yeah, the AI answers I looked at were from the orb.

From his eyeball?

It was from his eyeball.

A shard of his eyeball.

From a shard of Carnivor's eye.

Hey,

for the first few episodes of Doughboys, and we started this with the very first one.

This next feature, this next segment was a fixture, but it was quickly discontinued with calls.

We have one more thing.

Oh, before I get to the segment, we're going to do this now?

Okay.

Jemmy, Jemmy, don't leave the studio.

Jemmy, you're not off the clock.

Oh, my God.

Oh, my God.

Wow.

Happy 500.

Wow, look at that.

Jemmy, don't eat the chocolate cake.

No, it's hard to get it.

Amelia's so sweet.

Amelia's walked in a cake guy from Porto's.

Cake from Porto's.

Some Parisian chocolate cake from Porto's.

Wow, 500 candles on them.

How about that?

Are you guys going to blow it out?

Not 500 candles, like a 500.

Amelia did it.

Just 500 candles.

I just made a sheet cake and put 500 candles in it.

And I was like, I don't know if it's even been candid.

Wow, the Wigger movie is locking in.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

As well as Katie Menga.

Thank you, Anya.

Katie.

Thank you, Ania.

Thank you, guys.

Is this actual champagne?

It sure is.

I'll take a bastard apple.

Perfect response, everyone.

Thank you.

Is this actual champagne?

I'll take a pass for now from Weiger.

Wigs, hey, to 500 episodes.

Amelia laughed.

Amelia's gone.

Anyway there's the only thing we're gonna do.

I I heard her say, I'll drink his as she walked out.

You guys, you have to blow it, make a wish.

Happy birthday to

the show.

Oh, we're going dough.

Okay.

Oh, wait, you.

Oh, chew.

I thought chew was an asshole.

Hold on, we'll start again.

Happy birthday to Chew.

Happy birthday to Chew.

Happy birthday, dear Dough.

Doe boys.

Happy birthday to you.

We sang the song to ourselves.

Cheers.

Make a wish for the next 500 episodes.

Singing that song gets

this episode demonetized on Spotify.

There you go, Amelia.

Think about it.

No, I think it's public domain now.

You should help us blow it out, too.

We did a parody.

Parody.

Ready, Wags?

The three of us should blow it.

Wags, I think each of us get a number.

Headgum springing for Corbel.

Okay.

Ready?

One, two, three.

I think each of us did blow out our specific candle.

I thought I'm joking.

Wow.

That was fun.

A lot of fun.

Thank you guys.

Does someone want to subdivide this cake?

Actually, this would be a good bit of business to do while I, because I got a good amount of reading to do.

For the first few episodes of Doughboys, we had this feature called an Unsatisfied Yelper that we periodically like to bring back.

And I thought I'd do another edition of An Unsatisfied Yelper for global chilies.

Chilies has over 1,600 worldwide locations, and these are one-star reviews from International Chili's.

Amazing.

All right, first up.

I have a question for you.

Are we funnier than we were in our first episode?

Specifically, you and I.

We don't have to include the guests.

Our guest is always funny.

I don't know if our definitely louder.

Yeah, I don't think our first episode.

I don't even know if we made any jokes in our first episode.

You were so polite.

We were very, yeah, we were very.

We were funnier in our first episode.

We were kind of NPR-y, I think, in our first episode.

Watch out if Jemmy's got her eyes on those cakes.

I actually just put one of her bison bones on the chair there in case she's trying to get at someone's cake too much.

She can have a bone instead.

All right.

This is a one-star Yelp review from the Banff.

Alberta, Canada Chilies.

There are three chilies in Canada, Mitch.

We spent a little bit of time north of the border.

Sure.

Two of the Canadian chilies are at airports.

I believe this is the one that is not in an airport.

Tracy B from Calgary, right?

I can't see exactly.

It's a photo.

I'll read it and it'll give us some context.

The headgum needs to update that software on the TV.

The software on the TV is never being updated.

We'll get that pop-up every single time we power it.

All right, Tracy B.

from Calgary writes: We dined in at the Banff Chili recently.

We were sat in the lounge area.

There's a high-top table in the center of the lounge, and on top of the table was a grimy cleaning bottle and a large dirty rag.

This was in full view of everyone dining and was certainly a terrible eyesore.

There is nobody who wants to dine and look at dirty cleaning supplies in the center of the place.

We moved the bottle and rag down to a chair, and three times a different waitress and the bartender went out of their way to put it back up on the table.

We talked to our server about this, and she agreed with us and said it was a forced rule by the manager.

All I can say is what terrible management.

Nobody wants to dine and stare at a filthy rag and cleaning supplies.

I will also let the health inspector know.

I have told a few friends and one sent me, I have told a few friends, and one sent me a photo of this filthy rag and bottle on top of the center table tonight.

Gross.

Oh, so this isn't, he didn't even take this.

No, he didn't write the review.

Tracy B didn't even take this photo.

A friend took this on a separate visit.

So this is just a thing that every time you go to the the Banff, maybe some of our listeners have been to the Banff Chilies.

There's just a dirty rag and a water bottle, a spray bottle up on one of the bar tables.

Can I just say I would hate to be the guy who's just in the background of that review?

The guy who's just sitting there, like, it looks like he just

ate a mozzarella stick or something.

Is it snowy outside?

Is that what we're looking at?

Yeah, it looks like it.

Snow kids.

Snow kissed Christmas lights in the trees, too.

Wow.

Snow-kissed chilies.

Did Scrooge write this?

P.S.

I hate cheese.

Oh, Scrooge hates cheese.

Yeah, this does seem like a bit of a Karen, I would say, right?

Like, I mean, like, I mean, look, that is gross.

That is gross.

I don't know.

I don't know if this is a care.

Like, some of these reviews rise to that threshold.

This seems to me like this is an insane chilies.

Like, if this is a manager's policy that a cleaning supply bottle has to be in full view of the customers at all times.

A cleaning supply bottle should be nowhere near where your food is going to be.

Like, that looks like a table that you could, in theory, get sat at.

And a dirty rag.

Yeah.

That's pretty nasty.

The rag is the worst part about it.

I I think if I saw a cleaning product on one table, I'd be like, whatever.

I don't think I would care that much.

I guess the rag is worse.

This cake is delicious.

Is it good?

It's really good.

And why, because we're probably in a part where we got just as we were preparing here.

Yeah.

We did not have dessert at chilies, and I was thinking about doing like a lava cake, but this is so much better.

This is a one-star Yelp review from the Guam Chilies from Jen Bradford C.

of Belmont, California.

Surprise, they are still open.

Please come and waste your money on microwavable food.

I recently went here because Crapplebees had its famous 35-minute wait to get a round of draft beers for my friends and I.

Let's cut to the chase.

The staff still seems to be uneducated in the basics of customer service.

Guess they are too busy trying to snipe each other on Snapchat.

Either that or too busy taking

either that or too busy taking stupid selfies with a dogface theme features, putting things like hashtag workgrind as the title.

Literally saw a staff member do this while I was waiting 15 minutes for a glass of water.

You would think having such an empty parking lot would encourage the staffer managers to come up with better cross-selling strategies or at least beef up their service, but no one lets the same pre-made, no one, no, let's offer the same pre-made crap we always have, not to mention the prices haven't gotten any better.

I'm about eight drinks in.

Eight chilies drinks?

That's like 4,000 calories.

And 16 shots of liquor.

It's the staff to lower the prices and come up with new menu items.

I mean, Guam chilies?

I don't think this guy knows how this industry works.

Doesn't Guam have a military base?

Yes,

some of these locations are near or on military bases.

I'm about eight drinks in, and this quesadilla still tastes like it came out of an extreme lunchables pack.

You know, one for teenagers where you get a Capri son and a can.

I think I hate my friends more than this place for continually making plans to eat at these cookie-cutter corporate fast casual dinners.

This dude is fucking miserable.

Also, the local menu is junk.

Improve prices and re-educate the staff on proper etiquette for a workplace.

This guy's a piece of shit.

This guy, this is a character.

This guy sounds like an American who went to a foreign country and expects them to treat him like they would in America.

And has like no understanding of local cultures and stuff and how these things work.

It's funny because

I read a lot of these reviews, and

we won't get to all of the ones that I read, but I went through dozens, and so many of them, I say most of them, are Americans complaining about a foreign Chili's.

It's just like, you're on vacation and you're going to a fucking Chili's and then complain about how it's not as good as the one in Oklahoma.

Yeah.

Or that the service isn't, they don't treat like servers aren't the same in Oklahoma as they are in Guam.

Yeah, of course they're not.

It's a completely different place.

I'm just thinking about more how this

soldier is eight drinks deep at Chili's,

raging out and saying that he hates his friends more than the restaurant.

Just got deployed to downtown LA.

I know, yeah, absolutely.

I was just shocked that the review wasn't for.

We'll bleep that out.

Here's a one-star advisory advisory.

Remember, we found that person's,

remember, we found their yelp, but it was insane.

Oh, yes, yeah.

We found their yelp, but it was insane.

Here's a one-star trip advisor review from Tunis Tunisia by Matt T.

Very poor quality.

We came with a party of eight, and everyone agreed it was the worst chilies ever.

We regretted going.

Tunisia?

I consider myself a chilies connoisseur, having had chilies in many U.S.

states, Puerto Rico, Paris, Singapore, Ecuador, Morocco, and other countries.

Chilies in Tunisia is so substandard that it should be closed.

The boneless wings are crappy McNuggets.

The sliders are pieced meal on stale buns.

Because they got shipped from the states.

There are no tostada chips and salsa, a must-have item.

Worst off, they wouldn't even serve us beer.

They claimed it was impossible to get a beer in a restaurant across all of Morocco, Tunisia, and Egypt during Ramadan, which simply isn't true.

Most other restaurants and all alcohol served alcohol during Ramadan.

Bad service and even worse food.

This guy is going to change.

Don't go to Chili's in Tunisia.

What the fuck are you doing?

He's going to Chili's in Tunisia during Ramadan.

What is he doing?

He's just ragging about how he's been to all of these foreign countries that have wonderful food and you chose chili.

But also, like, it's a Muslim nation during a holiday that is about fasting and like where the whole, the whole religion has one of its principles abstaining from alcohol.

And you're angry that during Ramadan, you can't get drunk at a chili's.

Just like coming to the stage and being mad that nothing's open on Christmas.

Yeah, the sense of a tile was amazing.

All these people have been fasting all day that he's yelling at too.

I know, exactly, yeah.

This is from this is a one-star Yelp review from Yokosuka Naval Base in Japan from Roberta S.

of San Diego.

The worst chilies I've ever been to.

Inconsistent, clearly poor and careless management, mediocre food.

Yesterday, we went in the afternoon and were served by a gentleman who should not work in the service department.

He kept on shaming my teenage daughter for her food choices and for overeating.

When she ordered her meal,

he told her nobody tends to eat the whole plate and he would bring her a to-go box with it right away.

Who does that?

Then when she ate most of it, he told her he'd never seen anyone eat all that food before.

And this is the first time not bringing a to-go box.

Then we ordered dessert, which we split in three.

We started eating and when he stopped by 15 minutes later, he made a comment on how we had snorted the cake.

Unbelievable.

I guess he enjoyed the pointless shaming more than serving because he only refilled our drinks once because we asked and after our empty cup sat on the table.

I had to drink my daughter's leftover soda to quench my thirst.

Top this awful service experience with mediocre food.

My burger was dry and overcooked.

Fries were clearly recycled, and the lava cake was still frozen in the middle.

Still, no lava came out.

I will never go to this place again.

It would be nice to have a taste of home in a foreign country, but first, the manager and a few employees need to get fired so they can hire someone who actually cares to be in the service.

I was going to say, as an adult,

writing an angry thing that said, no lava came out.

That is so fucking pathetic.

I also like, look,

he should not have shamed a 13-year-old girl

in a way that probably will give her a lifelong eating disorder.

That was very bad.

But it is kind of funny just to make fun of some big fat Americans or Japanese guy and to be like, oh, I'll eat fucking pigs.

Also, be like, I've never seen anyone eat the whole plate before.

That's disgusting.

Also,

him saying it's nice to get a taste of home in a foreign country.

It's like, why?

What are you talking about?

Yeah, is that part of your experience of traveling is eating, getting a taste of home?

I do understand the novelty.

Look, I'm not well traveled, but I do, but like we went to like McDonald's, Canada, and I was like, oh, I like the idea of like, hey, let's see what the Canadian McDonald's are.

I understand that.

There are variations on things.

Yeah, so I kind of understand that from some reason

from a certain standpoint.

But I feel like you kind of have to go in with a little bit of curiosity and like an open-minded mindedness and not the expectation that it will be exactly the same as your version at home.

Yeah.

Is this like someone who's stationed there on this military base?

So they're like looking at it as like their piece of home while they're stuck there?

My assumption is that, yes, it was either someone who's stationed there or someone who was visiting a relative who was stationed there.

All right, one more.

This is a one-star trip advisor review from Doa Qatar.

This is a

Dr.

M.

Hussein left this.

Chile's Hyatt Plaza threatened to take us to jail.

Crazy.

Hussam the manager called the police because they overcharged us on the bill and we were disputing the charge with him.

It related to the use of a coupon and the rules around it, which I disputed with him.

He said, if you don't actually pay the entire amount, I will have no issues to call the police.

The police showed up and I asked my family to leave because it was so embarrassing.

He was explaining to me and the police that I should have read the rules, which we did, and none of them made sense anyway.

He also was so worried about paying the extra amount of 30 rials from his own pocket.

Chili's in an international company.

I do not think they would charge him, but he kept arguing and he was so scared about paying the 28 rials.

My children were upset and embarrassed by the police presence.

On top of that, after I agreed to pay the bill because of the intervention of the Hyatt Mall manager, this is a Hyatt Mall location, Chili's, Mr.

Ahmad, nicest guy ever, Mr.

Hussam added another 18 rials to the bill for no reason.

I disputed it with him and he started to scream at me again.

He even threatened to detain me.

It was really an insane type of moment.

Anyways, at the end, I paid the bill and added a 15% tip for the waiter.

Also, to tell Mr.

Hussam, it is not about the money.

It is about the lies and the false marketing campaign.

campaigns.

And we, as a customers, end up paying the price.

I have never seen a manager that horrible threatening and insecure in my life other than that burgers were good

one thing i uh fajitas were horrible one thing i noticed is there was an atmosphere of fear in the place

every time the waiter or hostess wanted to do something they would go in the back and ask the manager the staff seemed frightened and really scared i was scared he called the police imagine the people working there i was scared why was he scared they called the police on him oh well i mean yeah he's acting insane no the guy is not i don't know if the guy is acting insane.

I think the managers may be acting insane.

Even if the manager says they're going to call the police, maybe just let it go.

Yeah,

exactly.

I mean, like, this guy wouldn't give up this coupon thing.

It's what happened.

That's fair.

Yeah.

I was imagining this was all about the Ziosk game pass.

I got charged with a cat quiz game.

I just clicked one thing.

What is the special thing about calico cats, though?

They're not.

I'm lucky.

They're all females.

They're all females.

They're all females.

I was scared.

He called the police.

Imagine the people working there.

Horrible place.

I hope Mr.

E.

Hobb, the district manager, will do something.

I will call him.

Wow.

Okay.

You could have just called him and not posted.

Yeah, that's true.

You were

scared.

I was going to yell from you about how you got scared.

He was scared.

Everyone was scared.

And then his children were embarrassed by him.

And it embarrassed him.

The police came and that embarrassed my children, and they should feel ashamed.

It's like the police came because you stayed.

Yeah, you stayed and didn't give it up.

I don't know how much, how much is it?

It was 28 reals.

Yes.

I don't know the conversion rate.

Let's find out how much 28 reals i am

no yeah cotter qatar however you say it

how much is one real is point zero zero zero zero two four dollars so can you put in 20

okay so we're talking about this coupon that changes the price in u.s

less than 50 what less than in a pen

i mean again is this is this a is is this the qatari real is there are there different

currencies that are real

conversion rates i don't know

I mean, I also could see the psycho arguing over something less than could be, yeah, could be.

It's highly possible.

That's man.

Look, I think everyone loses in this scenario.

Especially the staff.

Anyway, that was an unsatisfied Yelper.

It's time for our proper segment.

I've got a food stuff we're going to decide if you should put it in your mouth.

It's Snack or Whack.

And Mitch.

Wow.

I got us.

The Selena Gomez Oreo cookies.

Oh, wow.

These are a limited edition that I ordered from Oreos Online.

I'm going to circulate.

I get two

bags here.

I'm going to circulate these.

Let me read the copy here.

I pre-ordered these.

You had to get a two-pack to get them shipped to you.

These are orchata-inspired sweet snacks featuring a layer of chocolate and cinnamon flavor cream atop another layer of sweetened condensed milk flavor cream with cinnamon sugar inclusions.

Sandwiched between two Oreo chocolate cinnamon flavored wafer cookies.

So this is like a chocolate cinnamon Oreo, basically.

That's delicious.

I got

other signature Oreos, and I'm trying to remember who it was.

I'll remember.

Selena Gomez is my crush.

Yes.

I have a crush on Selena Gomez.

Did you see her Instagram post about this?

Do I crush on her?

Oh, no.

Yeah, if she was here, I would definitely try to do that.

Asking her first, but

I had the post-Malone Oreos.

Post-Malone.

They're very good.

I didn't try those.

At a drugstore, and I gave them, I passed them around.

Selena Gator.

Fuck.

Selena Gator Mez.

Fuck.

Oh, fuck.

I liked it.

I dipped below my first episode funniness.

I'm fucked.

Mitch, I was actually reading the wiki for our first episode, and there's a quote section of the wiki.

Do you want to know what your quote for the episode was?

Yes, let me hear it.

Oh, man, that's my first bomb on this podcast.

What's next?

Next was

he's talking about dismembering a small man and eating him for sustenance.

They're talking about mini-me.

Yeah.

And then yours was about pulling the chair out from under a woman while she's sitting down.

Yay!

I can't say it's my 500th bomb.

I've bombed so many times over the course of 500.

Don't shake your head.

No, it's not a man.

You keep

my phone to speaking.

Wager actually had two quotes in this one.

And the second one was, coincidentally, I was on the Jared Fogel Wikipedia page recently.

And then it says FYI, this app was three months before Fogel's Unspeakable Crimes came to life.

We just talked about all the same stuff as nothing changed.

Yeah, here's the issue.

We have kind of just repeated ourselves on the show.

Life is a herald.

Okay, so there are six signature.

I'm sorry, five signature designs here.

Wait, okay.

Yeah, so we have Selena's Sound, Hot is My Heart, Play Your Heart Out, Selena in the Studio, and Write or Die.

So you can see that.

Oh, wait, there's just different designs.

Different designs.

So if you look at the cookie, like you see, this one is the

play your heart out design.

It's got a little heart on there.

You got hot as my heart.

You got hot as my heart.

Yeah.

And is there one about having a crush on Selena?

I mean, hot as my heart feels like that qualifies.

Should I have it?

Thank you, Eva.

I got to say this.

Let me, wait, let's go.

Let's hand those over to the producer's desk so the deus can have a taste.

I still haven't had my cake, but I'm going to go into this cookie.

I'm going to say this.

I

Selena Gomez has got a crush on her.

Mibella.

Etc., etc.

But eating these cookies after this cake is tough because this cake is also fancy.

This is a big-time snack on this cake.

Oh, I mean, I've never had anything from Portos that I don't love.

The cake is so good.

And so now we got these Selena Gomez cookies, which

uh-oh.

I kind of like them.

Oh, I kind of like that.

They're just working for me.

Yeah.

I could definitely crush a sleeve of these.

Okay.

It's reminding me of something, and I'm not sure what it is.

It'll come to me.

You ever do one of these?

It's like a chocolate graham cracker.

Twist the sunbitch open.

And then.

Are you asking if you've ever twisted open an Oreo before?

What's my technique?

Just take the cream off with your bottom teeth.

And then you just have dry cookie.

Yeah.

You don't need to worry about these.

I'll be like, there's two different creams on this.

Save it for the hostess stand, you freak.

These are like honey grams or like teddy grams.

Yeah, it's teddy grams.

Yes, that's exactly what it is.

Like the chocolate teddy grams.

They're very much like teddy grammed.

I need a,

do they make these in double stuffed?

I need to try more cream.

I haven't seen them in double stuffed.

Yeah, make your own double.

No, no, no.

We're not calling licking the cream off the cookie the Weiger method.

Yeah, you can try more clean.

You could put two together and make your own double stuff.

But there's two different types of cream in each one, right?

So would that be like a quadruple stuff?

I guess so.

I got to say, I like these.

These are working for me.

Very interesting.

I just tried the Wager method and it's very fun.

Don't

say that.

You knew the method.

I didn't know what it was called, though.

Now

we have the Wagger method.

Look at that.

Look at that.

Look at the Mitch method there.

Look at that.

How about that?

Nothing left on that, bad boy.

That method kind of looked like the Wager method.

Jay-Z.

it's true

it was fun being there wrapping your movie last night remember

these are a big-time snack for me i think these are great i think they absolutely work they're better than post malone i'll give them a snack what was the post malone flavor obviously it was salted caramel cream

and something else going on with the cookie I buy, because

I watched some of her Instagram posts and I read the caption of everything.

I buy that this actually comes from a place of like, A, I like these flavors.

Cause sometimes these celebrity Italians, it's just like, like, Anthony Davis doesn't actually give a fuck about jalapeno lime ruffles.

Like, he does, I like, I don't buy that he has any connection to this, you know, I mean, and I like Anthony Davis, uh, Laker, great, but it's just like, I, this, this is just like they told him this was going to be his ruffles flavor, and he was like, Yeah, sure, put my face on it.

Well, Sudigoma has like a cooking show, so it makes sense that she'd like make her own little flavors.

Yeah, I buy that, like, oh, she like at like orchata, it seems like that's a, that's a flavor she likes, and and uh, this seems like a like a good

uh combo of the celebrity and the flavor profile.

I don't know.

This works

from that standpoint, but also just tastes fucking good.

I think the cookies are a snack.

I think Selena's a snack.

Yeah, I think she should ditch this.

Should I not say that?

Was it weird?

No, keep going.

Oh,

say more.

Was saying Selena's a snack?

Was that escalate?

Escalate.

I think she should ditch the goon and get with the spoon.

And

this makes me like her even more.

She made a good Oreo.

A good Oreo.

I mean,

I love you.

But yeah,

I'm turning red.

I'm a fan.

I'm a fan of Selena Garland.

It's great.

Yeah, I think these are working.

I mean, I thought that movie was bad, but not her fault.

Wait, what movie?

The fucking one that came out last year that was

dog shit.

Oh, right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

What was that called?

The Netflix movie?

I even forgot that it was nominated for an Oscar.

It was awful.

Amelia Perez.

Yeah,

I want to call it Vicki Barcelona, but that's not it.

That's part.

That's part.

That's part of the Woody Allen, Vicki, the

Woody Allen title.

Yes.

Different movie.

Yeah.

Penis to vagina song.

The penis to the vagina.

That movie's fucking awful.

It truly might be the worst movie I saw last year.

Yeah.

Really bad.

I'm not saying that with hyperbolically either.

I saw Red One last year.

Don't start.

Don't you start.

You love Red red wine?

She kept that going.

We thought it was a bit.

And she really liked Red Juan, apparently.

Whoa.

What's the consistency from the Deus about the Selena Gomez Oreos?

Slam dunk.

Slam dunk.

Wow.

I would eat a whole sleeve of those for sure.

Real good.

Those would be good in like a cookies and cream, but with that instead of like a regular Oreo, like in an ice cream.

I think it's a good dunk.

Yeah.

I think the cake didn't help on top.

The cake is delicious.

I still haven't had my cake.

I'm hopefully get to my cake while we're talking about about the feedback.

Hey, just like a restaurant value feedback, let's open to the feedback.

And hey, we went back to Hank Friedman for this one, our very first emailer from our episode one feedback.

Amelia, you were saying he lives in Germany now?

Is that correct?

He moved to Germany.

Wow, how about that?

Yeah.

So

I used to.

I was an intern on Comedy Bang Bang when he was an editor on it.

So I reached out to Hank.

And yeah, he's a good question from Germany.

We all work with Hank and knew Hank, and I think that's why I emailed him for the first episode.

I know Hank as well as you, but

that's a great

Hank.

Thank you for.

We reached back out to Hank.

Thanks, Hank.

Hank,

listener from year one that's still alive.

It's a great song.

Yeah.

I've lived in Berlin and traveled around Europe for almost two years.

And the rules for tipping here in the old countries are different, especially at restaurants not accustomed to filthy American tourists.

The waiters are so thankful for even a 5% tip.

At a cafe, people sometimes fork over like 25 Euro cents, and the workers show genuine gratitude.

It's weird.

What would it take to get that sort of thing going in America outside of a complete collapse of society and a rewriting of the Constitution?

Thanks, Hank.

It's an interesting question because, like, we, we, Mitch, you and I did having this podcast that depends on, you know, the work of people in fast food chain restaurants.

Can I be honest with you?

Yeah.

I zoned out during the crisis.

It doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter.

We'll recap.

We tip generously to our service workers, but also U.S.

tipping culture is an abomination.

It's fucking horrible.

And now

these pressures that exist on people to tip at places where you didn't previously tip, where again, we're probably management now is like, well, we're going to pay you less because you're a tipped employee because that's part of the scam of American capitalism is that there are laws where you pay someone sub-minimum wage if they're a tipped employee.

And so their work is their pay is supplemented by the customers.

But now all of a sudden there's an expectation that wherever you go,

they're going to to

flip the toast screen around on the tablet and you're going to have to pick a number to add a little bit of a percentage tip on absolutely every transaction.

Like that's out of control.

The thing is, as far as what we can do, there's nothing you can do.

That's just baked into how we do business in America.

In fact, I expect it to get worse.

When we have a new law that says there's no taxes on tipping, I feel like that's just going to lead to even more of this, right?

Are people going to tip less?

Are people going to tip less?

Or actually, what I think what will happen is this just like service workers will be paid even less and they'll have to rely even more on tipped tips for their compensation yeah or more things will become tips more things will become tips and more jobs that weren't previously tipped jobs will become things where there's some gratuity expected i'm gonna eat some of this chocolate cake that's a good question i i don't i don't uh

i mean i mean exactly like only in tip culture like restaurant culture is just like what can you do while you're at a restaurant to like make them feel special the people that are serving you as opposed to the other way around or is it specifically tip

i think hank's question was

how do we change tip culture in America?

I think that's generally more what he was getting at.

Pay everyone a living wage.

Yeah.

And then tip

won't be something that are such a big deal.

And that has to be mandated by legislation, which would be turned over by the Supreme Court.

So it'll ever happen, Hank.

Right.

Make menu prices exactly how much

like labor costs, like put everything into the amount on the menu.

Yeah.

Which is already overinflated anyways.

I mean, like we were just, we talked about a thing earlier today about how Pizza Hut pizzas were $20 per pizza.

Yes.

Restaurants have tried that, Amelia, and it is a good pitch, and it feels like a solve, but restaurants have tried that, and customers rebel because they see a higher price in front of them.

They're like, I'm not paying that.

Right.

They seem to like it better if they see a lower price on the menu, but then a thing at the bottom that's like, you, there's a 3% back of house charge and then an 18% front of house service.

And so then you end up still paying the same amount.

It is, but people are dumb.

Yeah, that's, Emma's right.

People are dumb.

That psychological aspect is important, and that's what people are habituated to.

So I think that, yeah, unfortunately, it would be nice if that was a soul, but I did like how you were like, it's systemic, and it will only change through legislature as you were just eating a piece of cake.

This cake is good as hell.

It's very, very good.

I mean, that's kind of where I land is just kind of retreating into simple pleasures.

You know, I mean, just like, like, yeah, the world is fucking horrible, but I'm enjoying this piece of cake.

I mean, a place like Portos.

I don't know how Porto's does it, but their prices are still fairly low.

Like they're into it.

Like that cake was $30, which is maybe a lot for

one in one stream but that's a huge

yeah exactly that's a huge cake we all had some and there's more than half of it left like you could do that for a whole party and it's only 30 bucks that's like that's not bad like you can get a croissant for three dollars like it's not it's like i don't know how they keep their prices low event it was your episode One of your another one of your great episodes you've done on the podcast over the years.

You've been so generous with your time.

We went to movies and it was on your episode where over the price of the cock smoker chicken sandwich, I

uh exclaimed, like it costs $30.

And I'm realizing now in a few years, that'll just be like the cost everything.

Everything we've ordered today costs like $27, $36, $27.

Things just cost $30 now.

Lunch is just $30.

It's no longer even notable.

And that was just a few years ago when $30.

Who did $40 a day?

Was that Rachel Ray or is her name just rhyme with $40 a day?

I think that was Rachel Ray.

That was Rachel Ray.

It was Rachel Ray.

Hey, good rhyming by her.

But the $40 a day feels even more impossible now.

If you're not tipping,

if you're not tipping something.

You're living on $40 a day.

Yeah, she's just like, I'm going to try to eat breakfast, lunch.

Like, she would eat a whole day's worth of stuff for $40 a day.

It's like, that's impossible.

That show does not exist anymore.

That show is bullshit, right?

Yeah, it's probably bullshit.

It's fair.

Fuck you, Rachel Ray.

She was sneaking in a granola bar or something.

She wasn't existing on $40.

You had

your pocketbook was filled with fucking granola bars.

That's fucking bullshit.

She bought them yesterday.

It doesn't count towards this many dollars.

Yeah, that show, I think, was just bullshit, but it was a fun.

It was fun to watch.

Yeah, I don't know if there is a way to fix it.

And I overly tip, and I think sometimes we talk about this and people are like, that's crazy that you tip so much, but we're lucky to have make money from this show.

And

I try to tip like always at least 30%.

It's such a clear...

for us specifically.

We have a podcast about chain restaurants and we make good money off of it.

There's no reason for us specifically to not be overly generous when we're tipping people, but the whole system is rotten.

No one should, like, like tipping should not be

like what people were saying earlier, people should be paid a living wage and should not be reliant on tipping to, you know, make ends meet.

And it should be a thing that, yes, is optional for exceptional service, but unfortunately, it's expected for any service.

And now it's the sort of things like, hey, someone gave me shitty service and they were,

you know, like, like, everything about this experience sucked.

I'm still giving them 20% minimum because I know it's like, it's like you're in an Uber driver who you have an Uber driver who endangers your life, and you're still like, well, I'm giving them five stars because I don't want this person to lose their job because that's how all these things that's horrible.

Maybe you don't give up five stars.

I think a server could call me a dumbass tiny dick and I would give them 20% tip no matter what.

I think there's like, I mean, I probably

could call the police.

And And you could put the dirty rag on the table.

I gave $20.

I went to Del Taco Wags and I gave the guy at the drive-thru $20.

And he went, huh?

And he was like, What is this?

And I was like, it's for you.

And he goes, why?

And I was like, it's just for you for doing what you do.

I mean, I think people at drive-thrus never tip.

Yeah.

Especially cash.

And well, he came back and he was like, do you want like a milkshake?

And I was like, no.

I wasn't trying to bribe.

I wasn't trying to like win a milk.

It was like very nice that he offered.

I could have gotten a milkshake if I wanted a milkshake, but I was just trying trying to, but he like truly didn't get it, which is a bummer.

I mean, like, uh, you know, that it

that fast food windows, you're not going to get tipped anyways.

Yeah, probably dealing with the worst of the people in the world, but but it's only a matter of time before you're at a fast food window and they got the tablet and they're like, Hey, we can just gonna ask you a question right there.

And they turn the screen around and all the stuff.

Starbucks, they'll like handle a little thing out the window, and they're like, Here, it's just gonna ask you some questions, and it's like the tip of a curious

thing.

She won't, she won't eat it, she won't eat it.

Phew, Jimmy, you're too.

it's going to ask you some questions.

It's going to ask one question.

I know what it's going to ask.

Do you like me?

Yes, no.

Also, what do I present?

Wow.

If you have a question or comment about the world of chain restaurants, you can email us at feedback at birdfuck.com or leave us a voicemail at 830Godo.

That's 830-463-6844.

Our producer is Emma Erdbrink.

Our associate producer is Amelia Marino.

Our supervising video producer is Casey Donahue.

Our video editor is Mike Dorfman.

Mitch, since this is our 500th episode,

there is someone we should shout out that we haven't talked about on the podcast for a while, but was a part of the first episode and was a part of how the show started and helped bring this show into existence.

So

just want to say a thank you to our original producer, Dustin Marshall, for being a part of the show and for helping us launch Dough Boys

those first couple of years.

Doughboys apparel and merchandise available at kinshipgoods.com.

And you can get the Doughboys double at patreon.com slash Doughboys.

Eva Anderson, thank you so much for coming back.

Thanks for having me.

What a hoot.

Anything you'd like to plug?

Abolish ICE.

Get the military out of downtown L.A.

Fuck Trump.

Fuck Dr.

Phil, who's doing ICE raids for some reason.

What the fuck?

Oh, yeah.

Just all these ghouls.

Fuck Stephen Miller who went to Stan Mohai.

Fuck him.

Yeah,

get the federal government out of fucking downtown L.A.

and stop deporting people and leaving their kids alone.

And

yeah.

That's what I wanted to plug.

Yeah.

My Switch 2 is on the bottom of that list,

to be clear.

Do you have any final thoughts, Wags?

500 episodes.

Uh, the

uh, thank you to all the listeners that listened to the show.

Uh, thank you for all our guests over the year, Eva, especially.

Yeah, and thank you, Wags.

Well, thank you to the Deus, uh, to all three of you guys

and Drop King and Fish, and everyone who is uh, uh, Vinod, everyone who has helped with uh, with with the show uh over time and, and, uh, for people listening and to such a dumb show.

And we're very lucky to have it.

And yeah, I'm lucky to have you too, I guess.

Well, I'm lucky to have you, buddy.

Any thoughts?

That'll do it for this episode of Dough Boys.

Until next time, for Spooner Man, Mike Mitchell.

I'm Tiger Wager.

Happy.

Wait, wait.

I have a couple old friends that I, that, uh, that, that, this is a little throwback.

I have a just a message from in a moment moment of meow.

Irma, 500 episodes of Doughboys.

What do you think?

You think it sucks,

Irma?

Wally,

what do you think?

You like it, but you're an incel?

That's it.

That was a head gum podcast.