Speaker 1: It's Nightside with Dan Ray on WBS Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2: All right, Nicole, thank you very much. Happy weekend to you,
Speaker 2: and TGIF to all our listeners and callers. We still
Speaker 2: have four hours of Nightside. We will take you all
Speaker 2: the way to the cusp of Saturday morning, so stay
Speaker 2: with us. We have four interesting guests this hour and
Speaker 2: we are going to talk about the political story of
Speaker 2: the day. Seems as if every day it's a different
Speaker 2: political story. Yesterday it was the acceptance speech by Vice
Speaker 2: President Harris at the Democratic National Convention. Today, Robert F.
Speaker 2: Kennedy Junior, as had been predicted and speculated upon, has
Speaker 2: endorsed the candidacy of Republican former President Donald Trump and
Speaker 2: has just finished speaking at a rally that Trump is
Speaker 2: holding in Glendale, Arizona. So this is it's gonna be
Speaker 2: a really interesting race. Another little twist in the road.
Speaker 2: But before we get to all of that, let me
Speaker 2: remind you that Marita worked on today's show, and Rob
Speaker 2: is on top of his tonight ready to take all
Speaker 2: your phone calls, but not until after nine o'clock because
Speaker 2: we have four guests that we want to hear from.
Speaker 2: And I hope you want to hear from as well.
Speaker 2: Going to start off with Scott Alan Curly and Scott
Speaker 2: Alan Curley. Welcome to Night's Side. You're an expert on mindset,
Speaker 2: mind set and resilience, but you're also a former prison
Speaker 2: inmate now a self made millionaire in one of the
Speaker 2: nation's most unlikely and successful entrepreneurs. Sounds like you've got
Speaker 2: quite a story.
Speaker 1: It's well, first, let me thank you for thank you
Speaker 1: for having me, Dan, It's such a pleasure. And yeah,
Speaker 1: it's been it's definitely been a roller coaster ride, but
Speaker 1: one that I'm still on.
Speaker 2: Okay, Well, yeah, we all have roller coaster. We have
Speaker 2: ups and downs in our lives, and anyone who is
Speaker 2: able to get themselves squared away is a real asset.
Speaker 2: In my book, you wrote a book called Absolution The
Speaker 2: Dark Path to Light, and that does kind of say
Speaker 2: it all. If I could just ask you how long
Speaker 2: we inside.
Speaker 1: The wall, Well, my trouble started. I know we don't
Speaker 1: have very long, so I'll give you the elevator. Elevator
Speaker 1: pitch on that s Okay. My legal trouble started right
Speaker 1: after high school. Pretty much I lived really growing up
Speaker 1: was pretty pretty tough, and I started hourly right afterwards,
Speaker 1: and to answer a question all after it was all
Speaker 1: said and done, I spent about ten years in prison.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm glad you're out. You sound like a pretty
Speaker 2: sharp guy, and I think, you know, sometimes people don't
Speaker 2: realize how good they can have it until maybe they've
Speaker 2: experienced some tough times. And it sounds to me like
Speaker 2: you've survived and now you prosper. So the subject we're
Speaker 2: going to talk about is how many bad days do
Speaker 2: Americans have per month? When you're in prison, there's not
Speaker 2: too many good days. So you got a little expertise
Speaker 2: on this, my friend. How did you come to this
Speaker 2: issue determining a survey how many bad days to do
Speaker 2: Americans have per month?
Speaker 1: Well, my folks reached out to you regarding that, and
Speaker 1: I'm probably not it's probably not fair for us to
Speaker 1: have this conversation. And I say that song and cheek,
Speaker 1: because after you spent ten years in prison and have
Speaker 1: gone through the things that I've gone through, then it's
Speaker 1: very difficult for me to have a bad day.
Speaker 2: I hear you. I think we're on the same page.
Speaker 2: I kind of said the same thing in a different way.
Speaker 2: So yeah, but you've got it. You've got a perspective
Speaker 2: on this. What's the source of this information? Apparently there's
Speaker 2: some sort of a survey that took place. How did
Speaker 2: they do that?
Speaker 1: Well, I do have my pr Folks told me about
Speaker 1: the survey, and I believe they filled it out on
Speaker 1: my behalf and my'm understanding it correctly. But but yeah,
Speaker 1: my perspective on bad days are relative. You know, we're
Speaker 1: as humans. We all have some days or that are
Speaker 1: better than others. There's a saying that goes I once
Speaker 1: was sad because I had no shoes until I met
Speaker 1: a man who had no feet. So so you know,
Speaker 1: that may be cliche, but I really, in my heart
Speaker 1: and soul lived by that. There. You know, it's always
Speaker 1: it could always be so much worse, and so I
Speaker 1: try to live my life by just having what's called
Speaker 1: an attitude of gratitude. I say this to myself and
Speaker 1: remind myself of this. Also, which is my worst day
Speaker 1: out here on free ground is always better than my
Speaker 1: best day in prison.
Speaker 2: Well, it's interesting. I looked at this survey real quickly here,
Speaker 2: and I don't want to dive too deeply into it
Speaker 2: because frankly, I think you got and a more interesting story.
Speaker 2: They did a survey of two thousand general general people Americans. Okay,
Speaker 2: they they concluded that the average American knows that it's
Speaker 2: going to be a bad day by eight thirds six
Speaker 2: a m. Now, I have no idea what that means.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And look, we all had bad days, we all
Speaker 2: have great days. But I just think that for someone
Speaker 2: like yourself who was able to bounce back from this,
Speaker 2: I think, I think the flip side of your story.
Speaker 2: And I don't know if you're familiar with the case
Speaker 2: of Aaron Hernandez was a football.
Speaker 1: At the Patriots very much though, and I think I
Speaker 1: know where you're going with this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the point what I'm going is that you were
Speaker 2: born in some difficult circumstances and you did. You had
Speaker 2: a couple of mistakes. I don't need to go into
Speaker 2: them or whatever, but that happened, and you paid you price.
Speaker 2: Hernandez was blessed with talent, you know, a specific type
Speaker 2: of gift which allowed him to become a top player
Speaker 2: in the National Football League. But then he apparently a
Speaker 2: legedly called into turned into a cold blow to murder
Speaker 2: and ended up in jail. Threw it all away. I mean,
Speaker 2: if Aaron Hernandez hadn't made some really dumb and horrific mistakes,
Speaker 2: he'd probably be retired a couple of years and going
Speaker 2: around and the worst thing he'd have to do for
Speaker 2: the rest of his life would be signed autographs and
Speaker 2: be gain money for it. So, I mean, it's it's
Speaker 2: sort of the mirror image of you. You went from
Speaker 2: horrific circumstances to a much better place. He went from
Speaker 2: enlightened and wonderful circumstances to a place where he finally
Speaker 2: couldn't couldn't tolerate it, And allegedly.
Speaker 1: It was definitely a sad story, and it's one that
Speaker 1: we can all learn from. And in my opinion, it
Speaker 1: comes all down to whether or not we choose to
Speaker 1: be a victim, whether or not we're going to take
Speaker 1: the victim stance. We all have been victimized at one
Speaker 1: point in our lives. We cannot change that. We don't
Speaker 1: know what Aaron went through, But we choose whether or
Speaker 1: not we are going to be a victim. And I
Speaker 1: think that's the key and all of it. Some people,
Speaker 1: some of them, some folks unfortunately, just are kind of
Speaker 1: quick to you know, uh ta, you have pity parties
Speaker 1: and say woe with me, and when things go badly,
Speaker 1: you know, they kind of cover their head up. And
Speaker 1: we've all, we've all been been guilty of that. And
Speaker 1: but I encourage everyone that I speak with because this
Speaker 1: is pretty it's pretty hot topic and talking point. I
Speaker 1: travel the country and speak a lot about these type
Speaker 1: of topics, especially one like this, and that that it's
Speaker 1: it's all, it's all in the mindset. And I do believe,
Speaker 1: which may sound a little weird to you, I do
Speaker 1: believe that there are times when we it's okay to
Speaker 1: give ourselves permission to feel sorry for ourselves. I do
Speaker 1: believe that every now and then, if you just have
Speaker 1: to feel sorry for yourself, and if you need to
Speaker 1: have that pity party, then go ahead and have one,
Speaker 1: but put a but put a deadline on it. But
Speaker 1: then it put us put a start time on it,
Speaker 1: and a start and at a stop time on it.
Speaker 1: And when that, when your time has expired for that
Speaker 1: that pity party to end, and it's time to get
Speaker 1: back out there and take care of business.
Speaker 2: I couldn't agree with you more. I see that on
Speaker 2: your website you're the co CEO of a group called
Speaker 2: the finish line tax Solutions in LLC, and this organization's
Speaker 2: committed helping clients take control of their tax problems, and
Speaker 2: that obviously can be a can be a big problem.
Speaker 2: You speak around the country, how can folks, First of all,
Speaker 2: how can folks get your book? Because it sounds to
Speaker 2: me like this book absolution. Everybody at different times needs absolution,
Speaker 2: the dark path to light.
Speaker 1: Agreed? Yeah, okay, how.
Speaker 2: Can they get that first of all? And then how
Speaker 2: can they be in contact if they'd like to have
Speaker 2: you commit and speak to a school group, church group,
Speaker 2: or whatever type of groups just be or corporate groups spare.
Speaker 1: The book can be found on Amazon, Barnes Andnoble dot com,
Speaker 1: in STEM stores pretty much anywhere book books are sold.
Speaker 1: It's either going to be available in the store or
Speaker 1: they'll be able to look it up and get it ordered,
Speaker 1: or you can just order it on Amazon dot com.
Speaker 1: And I can be found on Scott Alancurley dot com.
Speaker 1: And I enjoy and love speaking especially to young people,
Speaker 1: and I kind of have a passion for young entrepreneurs
Speaker 1: and and and prisoners in me, folks who kind of
Speaker 1: feel like they don't see a way out. And that's
Speaker 1: That's that's where my passion lies. Because there's so much
Speaker 1: opportunity and and and uh potential out there and so
Speaker 1: many people sometimes they just need a little help to
Speaker 1: to find it within themselves, you know.
Speaker 2: Real quickly. And and I don't want to belabor this,
Speaker 2: but you you need to to realize what you are
Speaker 2: able to accomplish. I'd love to suggest a book to you, okay,
Speaker 2: just for the fun of it, I think you'll be
Speaker 2: interested in. It's called Basketball Junkie. It was written by
Speaker 2: a guy named Scott Chris Herron who was an NBA player,
Speaker 2: played grew up here in New England, played for the Celtics,
Speaker 2: got drafted by the Denver Rockets, and developed a bad
Speaker 2: drug habit. Okay, basically you know, was a heroin addict
Speaker 2: and washed out of the NBA. Went on to play
Speaker 2: basketball overseas. He played in three countries in China, Iran,
Speaker 2: and Turkey. And while he was in those three countries
Speaker 2: playing you know, professional basketball, but not making anywhere nearest
Speaker 2: the money, that near the money that he would have
Speaker 2: made of the NBA, he had to score a heroin
Speaker 2: every day. In China.
Speaker 1: Oh wow.
Speaker 2: In Turkey, he's got his life Squared Away. I had
Speaker 2: him on my show several years ago. Later that year,
Speaker 2: he spoke to the incoming class of cadets at West Point.
Speaker 2: I think you'd love the book, and I think that
Speaker 2: you connect with him. Great guy. You remind me a
Speaker 2: lot of him, A guy that really turned his life
Speaker 2: around for the.
Speaker 1: While heron author. And yeah, Basketball Junkie with Bill Reynolds
Speaker 1: looks like his co author. And yeah, I definitely I'm
Speaker 1: going to be ordering it as soon as we get
Speaker 1: off there.
Speaker 2: All r. It's gott pleasure to meet you of the radio,
Speaker 2: and I hope that some folks uh check you out
Speaker 2: at Scott Alan Curley A L L E N Curly
Speaker 2: c U R L E y uh and think about
Speaker 2: getting you around to some schools and uh in places
Speaker 2: where you can tell kids the road that they should
Speaker 2: not take. Let's put it like that. I really appreciate
Speaker 2: your time tonight, Scott.
Speaker 1: I appreciate you having you bet you Okay.
Speaker 2: Thanks very much, boy, that's inspiring. When we came back
Speaker 2: on the lighting up a little bit, we're going to
Speaker 2: talk about Secret Boston, an unusual guide details hidden Boston
Speaker 2: history sprinkled around the city with Kierennan Schmidt, author of
Speaker 2: Secret Boston, An Unusual Guide. We'll be back on night
Speaker 2: So I we're gonna learn a little about Boston from
Speaker 2: a local guy that maybe maybe we don't know. We'll
Speaker 2: be back on Night's. My name is Dan Ray. Listen
Speaker 2: to w BUS Boston's news radio ten thirty and your
Speaker 2: AM dial. If you don't hear us or can't pick
Speaker 2: us up on radio, you can just go to the
Speaker 2: iHeart Radio you app download that and you can listen
Speaker 2: to us any night, any well, any any day during
Speaker 2: the night when at night we do nightside, or during
Speaker 2: the day when we do covered news wall to wall,
Speaker 2: uh anywhere in the world. Back on Nightside right after this.
Speaker 2: Now back to Dan Ray line from the Window World
Speaker 2: nights Side studios on WBZ the news radio. They sometimes
Speaker 2: say that the city in which you live is the
Speaker 2: city that you often don't know a lot about. Many
Speaker 2: people who grew up in the Boston area never have
Speaker 2: gone to Plymouth to see the Plymouth Rock. They're never
Speaker 2: gone out to Concord and Lexington. You know, that's the story.
Speaker 2: A lot of tourists come to Boston and they see
Speaker 2: all the tourists headlines. They have headlines they see the
Speaker 2: Old North Church, Paul Revere's House. However, there is a
Speaker 2: Secret Boston, and that Secret Boston is the subject of
Speaker 2: a book, Secret Boston, An Unusual Guide, written by Kiernan Schmidt. Kiernan,
Speaker 2: Welcome to w BZ nightside. How are you this evening?
Speaker 1: Great? How you doing?
Speaker 4: Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 2: You're more than welcome. So tell us about Secret Boston.
Speaker 2: I've been in Boston virtually my entire life, and I'm
Speaker 2: certain there are some great places that I have never
Speaker 2: gone or never seen. Although I would like to think
Speaker 2: I've been everywhere, I know I haven't. So how did
Speaker 2: you get involved in this task of not only writing
Speaker 2: a book, but writing a book about Secret Boston. Tell
Speaker 2: us the background, the backstory.
Speaker 4: Well, I live in Somerville and I've been bopping around
Speaker 4: Boston with a few years out here and there since
Speaker 4: about two thousand and two. And I've been a traveler
Speaker 4: through a lot of my life. And there's this book
Speaker 4: series that I love called the Secret Guides. As you mentioned,
Speaker 4: this is now the edition for Secret Boston, and it's
Speaker 4: published by a French publishing house called Jean Glais Publishing.
Speaker 4: And what I always found was that their guides, which
Speaker 4: are huge in Europe and they're just starting to make
Speaker 4: their way into the United States, they always had these
Speaker 4: sites that you just could never find in any other
Speaker 4: guide book. And it would be areas that you would
Speaker 4: walk by one hundred times without knowing the stories, just
Speaker 4: behind the walls or just in that little corner that
Speaker 4: you didn't look at. And so I have a travel
Speaker 4: podcast called Out of Office where a friend and I
Speaker 4: give tips and tricks and talk about our travels. And
Speaker 4: I had Thomas john Lay, the founder of Genreas Publishing
Speaker 4: in Secret Guides on and I said, you know, I
Speaker 4: know you featured New York. I know you're working on
Speaker 4: LA and New Orleans, but I got to tell you Boston,
Speaker 4: having the great hit long history we have here, these
Speaker 4: world class universities, has what it takes to have the
Speaker 4: most obscure of obscure sites that the Secret Guides try
Speaker 4: to find. And he basically said, great, together a proposal,
Speaker 4: you got three fall write ups and then a list
Speaker 4: of thirty and that grew to about one hundred and
Speaker 4: fifty secret places in the guide.
Speaker 2: Okay, give us four or five here. We don't have
Speaker 2: a lot of time left. But give us four or
Speaker 2: five little bit of a taste of the book, which
Speaker 2: will hopefully basically inspire people to go get the book.
Speaker 2: Give us start or three that we might not know about.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, there's lots all around them. Just to name
Speaker 4: a few. There's in back Bay, on the sort of
Speaker 4: unassuming street there is a row house that you really
Speaker 4: wouldn't blink twice, and behind it is the National Braille Press.
Speaker 4: And this is one of the largest producers of braille books.
Speaker 4: And they offer tours, but you have to know who
Speaker 4: to write in and who to call. And they'll actually
Speaker 4: show you these enormous printing machines that they have that
Speaker 4: can produce twenty thousand pages of brail per hour, and
Speaker 4: they'll teach you about the art of brail bookmaking. And
Speaker 4: all of them are bound by hand, many by blind
Speaker 4: workers who are there. So it's incredibly moving, this hard
Speaker 4: work that goes into serving and these books go all
Speaker 4: around the world and they are printed right here in Boston.
Speaker 2: Is that a deezer? You gonna tell us the name
Speaker 2: of the street?
Speaker 4: Oh gosh, you know, I've got the book right here.
Speaker 4: I'm gonna have to look it up. I believe it
Speaker 4: is called Saint Stephens Street.
Speaker 2: Okay, there is a Saint Stephen Street. Give us a
Speaker 2: couple more real quickly.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Well, there's a shop that is an industrial part of Summerville.
Speaker 4: It's called Neon Williams. And this is one of the
Speaker 4: last shops in the United States that still produces genuine
Speaker 4: neon signs. A lot of the neon science has sort
Speaker 4: of been cheaped out and they don't have genuine neon
Speaker 4: in them anymore. And it's been around since nineteen thirty four.
Speaker 4: It nearly closed in twenty eighteen and was saved by
Speaker 4: an enthusiast of neon signs. And they have an enormous
Speaker 4: collection from all across the United States of great neon signs,
Speaker 4: from motels to bar rooms to chicken places. And you
Speaker 4: can go in and you can actually see them bending
Speaker 4: new signs today and it is just this warm, crazy
Speaker 4: artistic studio full of light and color and chemicals.
Speaker 2: Okay, let me let me ask you one more. Boston's
Speaker 2: a big sports town. Give us something sports related.
Speaker 4: Well, let's see. Well, there's there's the Ted Williams seat
Speaker 4: that is in Uh, that's.
Speaker 2: That's the red seat. Absolutely the red people.
Speaker 4: What I think is unique in my book. Is I
Speaker 4: dug up a historic photo of the guy who actually
Speaker 4: got hit in the head with that ball and he's
Speaker 4: holding his fingers through the straw hat that got a
Speaker 4: giant hole in and I don't think that's been been
Speaker 4: seen for decades and decades.
Speaker 2: That's a great one. I can I can also show
Speaker 2: you a street in a house on a little side
Speaker 2: street in Brighton, which is a very assuming street where
Speaker 2: one season Ted Williams lived.
Speaker 4: Oh, that can go in the second edition.
Speaker 2: You got it, you got it all right. Kieran enjoyed
Speaker 2: it a lot. Kieran Schmidt Again. The book is entitled
Speaker 2: Secret Boston and Unusual Guide. I assume available Amazon bookstores.
Speaker 4: What's the easiest, and it's in a lot of bookstores
Speaker 4: around town.
Speaker 2: Secret Boston, Unusual Guy and Unusual Guide. Kiernan, thank you
Speaker 2: so much. Pleasure to meet you, and uh, keep checking
Speaker 2: out and we'll do we'll do the second edition when
Speaker 2: it comes out as well.
Speaker 4: All right, awesome, thanks so much, Thanks.
Speaker 2: Kieran, appreciate it. When we get back right after the news,
Speaker 2: we're going to talk about bad diners. No no, no, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 2: you're taking that wrong. There's no such thing as a
Speaker 2: bad diner in my eyes. We're talking about diners people
Speaker 2: the ten most offensive things that people do can do
Speaker 2: at a restaurant. Okay, so it's the diners are great.
Speaker 2: It's the people in those diners that that we're talking
Speaker 2: about out back right after the news at the bottom
Speaker 2: of the era of My name is Dan Ray. This
Speaker 2: is Nightside.
Speaker 4: It's night on Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2: Thanks very much, Nicole. We are now delighted to welcome
Speaker 2: to the show, Shariff Mityas Shariff, Welcome to night Side.
Speaker 2: First of all, how are you tonight?
Speaker 5: I'm doing great, Thanks for having me right and.
Speaker 2: We're talking about bad diners. We're not talking about bad diners.
Speaker 2: We're talking about bad people who go to these diners.
Speaker 2: The ten most offensive things that people do in a restaurant,
Speaker 2: according to a survey. Who did the survey? Tell us
Speaker 2: about that?
Speaker 5: Well, yeah, I was the truegov dot com survey in
Speaker 5: the UK and they really I think they hit it.
Speaker 5: They hit it pretty hard in terms of what we
Speaker 5: don't like to see in restaurants.
Speaker 2: Yeah, my mind is running is running away with me
Speaker 2: right now. So these are British diners. So these are
Speaker 2: not American diners we're talking about. But I assume the
Speaker 2: bad habits of British diners a you know, coincide with
Speaker 2: some of the bad habits of American diners.
Speaker 5: Is that that they do? And you can imagine some
Speaker 5: of those things that you know you're you're not. You
Speaker 5: don't show up for a reservation, you stay too long
Speaker 5: at a table, you bring an outside food and wine
Speaker 5: to a restaurant. Those are things that are happening both
Speaker 5: in the UK and in the US.
Speaker 2: Okay, so this is kind of interesting. So you we
Speaker 2: have we have as you know, I mean, we have
Speaker 2: restaurants in America where where there is no liquor served,
Speaker 2: then you actually are encouraged. They may hit you with
Speaker 2: a corkage fee or something like that if you bring
Speaker 2: a bottle of wine. Of course, but I'm looking at
Speaker 2: this list here, uh so I want to hit some
Speaker 2: of them Flirting with the staff number ten? Who would
Speaker 2: be is there who's normally guilty of that? Is that
Speaker 2: something that I would I dare say, older men might
Speaker 2: do with younger waitresses. Who's who who forces with the
Speaker 2: staff is? Does this go across gender lines or is
Speaker 2: it more a male thing.
Speaker 5: It actually does go across gender lines. So you see
Speaker 5: it and obviouslyeeing some old gentlemen, but there's a there's
Speaker 5: a lot of women you'd like to sport with bartenders
Speaker 5: as well, Dan, And so that's uh that it plays
Speaker 5: on both sides of the fence. And okay, wow, No,
Speaker 5: while we always wanted guests to enjoy themselves, we always
Speaker 5: want them to be respectful.
Speaker 2: Got you, okay, occupy a table for an extended period
Speaker 2: during busy hours. How do you know that you are
Speaker 2: there at the table too long? If you know, let's
Speaker 2: assume that you're just oblivious. How do you get it?
Speaker 2: How does someone on the staff gently nudge you towards
Speaker 2: towards the door.
Speaker 5: Well, the best way to do it that we found is, uh,
Speaker 5: you know, the server to come up stable and said,
Speaker 5: we'd love to show you the kitchen, right, would love
Speaker 5: to meet the chef. Right, So we get the table
Speaker 5: off the table, right, We get the guests off the
Speaker 5: table because they're going to get a little special tour.
Speaker 2: That's that's a that's a neat trick, right.
Speaker 5: We actually get them off the table so we can
Speaker 5: turn the table.
Speaker 2: Okay, and then I tend to try to clean my
Speaker 2: table up a little bit. I know that that obviously
Speaker 2: that's part of what the waiter a waitress is supposed
Speaker 2: to do. But people leave a mess at the table,
Speaker 2: such as spilled drinks or food crumbs. I mean you can,
Speaker 2: you can, you can tidy.
Speaker 5: Up a little bit, right, Yeah, that's it's it's always appreciated, right,
Speaker 5: I mean, it's it's you know, think about it as
Speaker 5: if you went to someone's home, right, and you were
Speaker 5: having a dinner at someone else's home. You know, just
Speaker 5: just be respectful, that's all we're asking.
Speaker 2: There's another one here, which which to me looks like
Speaker 2: a scene out of a bad movie, snap your fingers
Speaker 2: to get the waiter's attention.
Speaker 5: So yeah, that's a no no right where they're not
Speaker 5: trained seals. Right, So we want people to get always
Speaker 5: you know, we obviously want our service to be attentive
Speaker 5: and sure that they're they're meeting their needs. But don't
Speaker 5: don't snap out our folks, especially you know, when you
Speaker 5: get folks that waive money at the bartenders, that's that's
Speaker 5: not helpful, right When we want to be there, we
Speaker 5: want to help and serve our guests. But let's do
Speaker 5: it in the right way.
Speaker 2: Okay, So here's number four. I'm doing these reverse order
Speaker 2: to stay past the restaurant's closing time. I mean, what
Speaker 2: do they do in that situation? I assume most people
Speaker 2: realize that restaurants close, you know whatever, they close at midnight,
Speaker 2: one o'clock or whatever it is. I would assume more
Speaker 2: of a problem with them with barrooms.
Speaker 5: It is, and right, and so you start cleaning up
Speaker 5: around them, right, So at some point you hope folks
Speaker 5: get the hints that it's time to go home.
Speaker 2: Wow, Okay, And then I don't understand this. You're going
Speaker 2: to debate menu prices with the staff. They give you
Speaker 2: a menu, and you're going to say, you know, like
Speaker 2: that burger h fifteen ninety five, that seems a little steep.
Speaker 2: You think we could do it for ten fifty. Is
Speaker 2: that what people are doing?
Speaker 5: Unfortunately, that does happen on occasion, and you know, you
Speaker 5: put the poor server in a tough spot. They're not
Speaker 5: setting the prices right, and so they're not obviously in
Speaker 5: a position to negotiate prices. We're not a bizarre right
Speaker 5: or an open market, and so yeah, that's pretty much
Speaker 5: found upon. That's probably the biggest no no on the list.
Speaker 2: I can't imagine anyone doing that. They allow the children
Speaker 2: to roam freely. Oh, I've seen that a lot. I've
Speaker 2: seen that a lot, and I would assume that sometimes
Speaker 2: if mom and dad have had a couple of glasses
Speaker 2: of wine, maybe they're not as attempted to the little
Speaker 2: ones as they should be. What do you do, I mean,
Speaker 2: if you'll last sue the kids or what can the
Speaker 2: restaurant do in that circumstance If they touch the kids,
Speaker 2: people are going to be a little upset with that too.
Speaker 2: Did they kind of like just guide them back to
Speaker 2: mom and dad's table and say, oh, recognize these little
Speaker 2: these little munchkins.
Speaker 5: Well, that's right, yeah, And part of that is is
Speaker 5: maybe giving them something right, so, you know, bringing out
Speaker 5: a little treat, bringing out you know, a little maybe
Speaker 5: if you have a cupcake or some kind of a dessert,
Speaker 5: obviously with a parent's approval, to get them to come
Speaker 5: back instead at the table is always a proven method.
Speaker 2: Okay, here's the worst, and I want to drill down
Speaker 2: on this a little bit. So someone comes in, they
Speaker 2: order a meal, they consume the dish, not the dish,
Speaker 2: but the meal. And maybe they remember the clean Plate
Speaker 2: club and at that point they say they don't want
Speaker 2: to pay for it because they didn't like what they ate.
Speaker 5: That actually happens more than you would think, and at
Speaker 5: that point it's really up to you know, the server,
Speaker 5: the restaurant, the manager on duty, and you know, we
Speaker 5: want to do right by our guests for the most part,
Speaker 5: but we also want to be fair, and so at
Speaker 5: certain points, you know, if there's let's call it repeat offenders,
Speaker 5: we know who they are, oh yeah, and we tend
Speaker 5: to nip that in the butt. But you know, for
Speaker 5: the most part, we're trying to do right. If someone
Speaker 5: did really like something, maybe we'll comp a drink instead
Speaker 5: of the meal and make sure that they at least,
Speaker 5: you know, we're giving them the benefit of the doubt.
Speaker 2: Okay, so let's flip the script here. What about you
Speaker 2: call a restaurant and you order a reservation for two
Speaker 2: people at eight o'clock or four people at seven o'clock
Speaker 2: or whatever, and you show up in the restaurant, the
Speaker 2: person the host or hostess, says, gee, we're running a
Speaker 2: little late. It's going to be a few minutes. You
Speaker 2: can have a drink at the bar. So you're in
Speaker 2: the bar and now it's a half an hour later
Speaker 2: and you're about to order a second drink. What should
Speaker 2: the restaurant talk about bad diners? Now that's a bad
Speaker 2: restaurant because they have overbooked or someone's that someone take
Speaker 2: your table. What should the restaurant do to make it
Speaker 2: up to the customer who showed up on time for
Speaker 2: their reservation and now we're going to have to sit
Speaker 2: and show for you know, fifteen twenty half an hour,
Speaker 2: maybe forty five minutes. What should a good restaurant do
Speaker 2: under those circumstances.
Speaker 5: Well, a good restaurant, any restaurant, should obviously pick up
Speaker 5: the drinks for those diners as well as bring them
Speaker 5: out a complementary appetiser. Right, it's not just giving them
Speaker 5: what they already had spent, but going one step extra.
Speaker 5: What can I extra do for you because of the
Speaker 5: inconvenience and because of I ruined your initial experience, and
Speaker 5: I want to make it better. So it can't just
Speaker 5: be give it up to what you already bought, but
Speaker 5: give me one more thing.
Speaker 2: Now, you know, I'm very impressed with your knowledge, and
Speaker 2: I see that you're listed as a restaurant industry expert.
Speaker 2: And I interview a lot of people on my show
Speaker 2: and I often ask them, how do you become a
Speaker 2: restaurant industry expert? A kid with people, I say that, look,
Speaker 2: when you were growing up and you were eight or
Speaker 2: nine years old, you didn't want you When someone said
Speaker 2: in school, what do you want to be when you
Speaker 2: grew up? Most kids are going to say, you know,
Speaker 2: boys are going to say, I want to be a
Speaker 2: policeman of firemen in the army.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: No one says I want to be a restaurant industry expert.
Speaker 2: How'd you find your way into that field?
Speaker 5: Treef Well, like anyone in the restaurant industry, you don't
Speaker 5: choose it.
Speaker 1: It chooses you.
Speaker 5: And you know, when you get in the restaurant industry,
Speaker 5: you kind of fall in love with it because, you know,
Speaker 5: feeding people is I think one of the most greatest
Speaker 5: opportunities you can have, right, nourishing people, giving them food
Speaker 5: and drink, giving them a great experience when they go out.
Speaker 5: I fell into it. I love it, I stay with it,
Speaker 5: and I find no better joy than ensuring people have
Speaker 5: a great experience when they go out and enjoy a
Speaker 5: meal with friends. And family.
Speaker 2: Did you, I seriously asked you. I mean, I know
Speaker 2: that there was some great hospitality schools around the country.
Speaker 2: We have a college up here in a little north
Speaker 2: of Busting, Endicott College which has a great hospitality of program,
Speaker 2: Cornell University School. A lot of people go there and
Speaker 2: come out. Did you when you say you fell into it?
Speaker 2: Did you just have an experience and say I like
Speaker 2: this or did you go to school for it?
Speaker 5: I actually didn't go to school for it, believe it
Speaker 5: or not. To your point, every you know, every little
Speaker 5: boy and girl had a different experience. I wanted to
Speaker 5: be an astronaut. Yeah, so I actually went to Boston University.
Speaker 2: Rights that's my law school. I'm a graduate of Boston University.
Speaker 5: I graduated in eighty nine aerospace engineering from BOS.
Speaker 1: Younger than I am.
Speaker 2: I want you to know that if you go ahead.
Speaker 5: But then I got a job later on in the
Speaker 5: strategy side of a restaurant company and ended up being
Speaker 5: in restaurants. I'm a big foodie. I love being in
Speaker 5: the restaurant in and now I have the honor of
Speaker 5: being able to run a restaurant group with eight great
Speaker 5: brands and three hundred locations around the country.
Speaker 2: I got to ask you one final question, and that
Speaker 2: is why is it that so many really good restaurants?
Speaker 2: And when I say good restaurants, I mean restaurants that
Speaker 2: serve good food, reasonable prices. They seem to be the
Speaker 2: restaurants that go belly up. And a lot of restaurants
Speaker 2: which are you know, a little I don't know, extra
Speaker 2: fancy or you're paying you know, eighty dollars for a steak.
Speaker 2: Not that those are those sort of restaurants I go to,
Speaker 2: but they seem to continue in business. Why do good
Speaker 2: restaurants go out of business? Because I can cite I'm
Speaker 2: not going to do it on the year right now,
Speaker 2: but I can tell you a good restaurants that have
Speaker 2: gone out of business, and I suspect you you know
Speaker 2: what I'm talking about. What happens I do.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's it's unfortunate. The restaurant industry is so hard
Speaker 5: because it's so competitive. I mean, if you think about
Speaker 5: all the places you can go to get a steak,
Speaker 5: to get a burger, to get a chicken sandwich, you
Speaker 5: could name hundreds, right, and loyalty is really hard. And
Speaker 5: if you don't have enough loyal customers, they go elsewhere,
Speaker 5: and unfortunately that's what happens. Yet, unfortunately people try you
Speaker 5: and they don't come back.
Speaker 2: And even I will mention one change which mystifies me.
Speaker 2: There was a burger chain that has been around, had
Speaker 2: been around maybe I don't know, fifteen twenty years ago,
Speaker 2: called funt Ruckers. Yes, I loved that chain. I thought
Speaker 2: it was the best burger.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: They had salad bar, everything you wanted. And I thought, Man,
Speaker 2: if I'm going to invest in a restaurant, this is
Speaker 2: a restaurant. Invested in this now I believe out of business.
Speaker 2: And I always think to myself, how did that restaurant
Speaker 2: not succeed?
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's tough be just there was nothing differentiating about it. Unfortunately, Right,
Speaker 5: there's so many other places to get a burger.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but oh the best burgers. I would stop if
Speaker 2: I was driving somewhere, I didn't care what time of
Speaker 2: the day was, I would pull into a fud Ruckers
Speaker 2: and they had everything was fresh. Anyway, some night I
Speaker 2: must do something on fud Ruckers. And I hope some
Speaker 2: of the audience understands. Sure, if I really enjoyed this conversation,
Speaker 2: thank you you most people who are coming on the show,
Speaker 2: they have a book, or they they're they're plugging something.
Speaker 2: Is there something you want to plug or have you
Speaker 2: just come on out of the goodness of your heart
Speaker 2: to share this this information with us.
Speaker 5: Well, No, one of my brands is actually Friendlies, which
Speaker 5: is in the Northeast, and I would love for folks
Speaker 5: to come and try Friendlies again. We're growing again. We
Speaker 5: have a one hundred plus restaurants up in the Northeast
Speaker 5: and the Eastern Seaboard. And yeah, everyone has a great
Speaker 5: Friendly story.
Speaker 2: Well, those a lot of great memories from Friendlies. I
Speaker 2: thought they had great ice cream. I buy Friendly ice
Speaker 2: cream at the supermarket because I love their ice creams.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 2: They went through bankruptcy, correct.
Speaker 5: We did, they did, and we bought them out of
Speaker 5: bankruptcy and we're growing again.
Speaker 2: Well, let me tell you, let me know and we'll
Speaker 2: have you back. If you get some some Friendlies open
Speaker 2: in the greater Boston area, let us know. I will.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: I think it's I think it's a great option. You know,
Speaker 2: it's a higher stirling, higher end and a lot of
Speaker 2: the fast food places. At the same time. A family
Speaker 2: can win there and they can they can have a
Speaker 2: meal with themselves or with their children, and they're not
Speaker 2: going to break the bank, so best of mine. It's
Speaker 2: good to know. So anytime you see your friendlies folks,
Speaker 2: and we we're heard it all up and down the
Speaker 2: East coast, think about my friend Sharif Mityahs and we
Speaker 2: talked about tonight. Thanks, thanks Sharief.
Speaker 5: Keep us posted, okay, thank you appreciate it, very welcome.
Speaker 2: When we get back, we're going to get a weekend
Speaker 2: weather forecast. The weekend weather forecast, I will tell you
Speaker 2: there is no snow in the forecast. It is going
Speaker 2: to be a great weather. Wen I'm only joking. ACI
Speaker 2: Weather meteorologist Carl Ericson will be joining us. This is
Speaker 2: going to be one of those perfect summer weekends, it appears.
Speaker 2: But I want to get a confirmed with Carl Ericson
Speaker 2: and then we will talk some politics. There was a
Speaker 2: very interesting development today. We'll talk about it right after
Speaker 2: the nine o'clock news on Nightside. Coming back right after this.
Speaker 2: Now back to Dan Ray live from the Window World
Speaker 2: Nightside Studios on WBZ News Radio. We've had a couple
Speaker 2: of fabulous days here in New England, and again New
Speaker 2: England's a bigger area. You look at the map, you
Speaker 2: say it's a smaller it's relatively small, but it's six
Speaker 2: states and forecasting, one of the forecasting in New England
Speaker 2: can be very challenging throughout most of the year with
Speaker 2: us as Carl ericson Carl, this doesn't look like a
Speaker 2: challenging forecast this weekend. It looks like a fabulous forecast
Speaker 2: literally for the entire area. I believe how you doing today?
Speaker 3: That's right, Dan, Hey, hey, thanks for having me. That's
Speaker 3: right and pretty easy forecast here this weekend. So we'll
Speaker 3: take this one. But it's been a pretty nice couple
Speaker 3: of days. I should continue here through much of this weekend.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I guess we'll get a little rain on Monday,
Speaker 2: but most folks are off on Saturday and Sunday. There's
Speaker 2: literally a we're going to I mean, we got six states,
Speaker 2: and obviously the main goes pretty far into Canada, pretty
Speaker 2: far north, and then you got different mountain ranges up
Speaker 2: in Vermont and New Hampshire, so the weather's always going
Speaker 2: to be a little bit different. But I'm thinking this
Speaker 2: is as good a weekend for the New England Chamber
Speaker 2: of Commerce as we will have any time this year.
Speaker 3: Right tomorrow is definitely the best out of the weekend.
Speaker 3: The entire New England region will have beautiful weather tomorrow.
Speaker 3: Low humidity, that's the key there. That humidity is staying low,
Speaker 3: so it's comfortable out there. Temperature so a few degrees
Speaker 3: above the historical average, which is right around eighty, well
Speaker 3: in the load to mid eighties for the most part,
Speaker 3: as seventies, a little bit closer to the coast, but
Speaker 3: just beautiful weather. Now as we go into Sunday, that's
Speaker 3: if you are traveling a little bit further north, that's
Speaker 3: when you could have a shower or two sneaking into
Speaker 3: maybe parts of northern New Hampshire ups into a northern Maine,
Speaker 3: but even that's going to be very very spotty activity. Otherwise,
Speaker 3: further south, much of a New England have another pretty
Speaker 3: nice day on Sunday. You might notice that a little
Speaker 3: increase humidity on Sunday, a little bit more stuffy out there,
Speaker 3: but for all intents and purposes, a pretty nice end
Speaker 3: of the weekend as well.
Speaker 2: I was away a couple of weeks ago. Carl I
Speaker 2: led a group of nightside listeners on a tour of
Speaker 2: Rome in the Mouthy Coast and it was hot. I
Speaker 2: know it was worn back here. I think it was rady.
Speaker 2: It was like that first weekend in August, August second
Speaker 2: to the eleventh, and it was ninety degrees or more
Speaker 2: every day. There were a couple of days into hundreds.
Speaker 2: We never really have that. We haven't. We haven't had
Speaker 2: that many ninety degree days this summer. I know we
Speaker 2: had some early, but it seems to have calmed down
Speaker 2: in terms of the really hot weather. Am I am?
Speaker 2: I correct to.
Speaker 3: That, well, at least across our area. It has now
Speaker 3: all that heat's pretty much been focused across the central
Speaker 3: southwestern part of the United States, pretty much a heat
Speaker 3: dome there. We've had these little ripples of energy more
Speaker 3: of a Northwest flow coming down from Canada here for
Speaker 3: much of the time. So that's so while it can
Speaker 3: heat up, it's difficult to get that prolonged heat and
Speaker 3: not kind of a setup. So it's still the pattern
Speaker 3: word to change. That's pretty much what we were out here
Speaker 3: for this summer.
Speaker 2: I know, isn't it we need three days of ninety
Speaker 2: in order to say there was a heat wave? Is that?
Speaker 2: Is that the proper phraseology.
Speaker 3: Right for our geographical area. Now parts of the different
Speaker 3: parts of the country maybe a little bit longer or shorter,
Speaker 3: but much of the northeast, mid Atlantic New England. It's
Speaker 3: three days in a row of ninety or higher for
Speaker 3: an official heat wave.
Speaker 2: And we've only had have we had one this year,
Speaker 2: and if we've had one, that that's about all we've
Speaker 2: had that I can remember.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we had we were trying to string a few together.
Speaker 3: We did have that one day we got up to
Speaker 3: ninety five ninety eight back in June.
Speaker 2: But it looks like you.
Speaker 3: Didn't have trying to find three in a row, they're
Speaker 3: just kind of scattered. I did a quick scan here
Speaker 3: through the Oaks three file.
Speaker 2: To put you in this bustle. No, no, it's fine.
Speaker 3: We ask more general one back in July July we
Speaker 3: have official heatwave there, we go have to be official here, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, we got to be official at nightside. So
Speaker 2: then here's the here's the question. I know that there's
Speaker 2: been some hurricanes, but we haven't had one up here,
Speaker 2: thank god. At this point, Debbie kind of went through
Speaker 2: western New England and eastern New York. But it was
Speaker 2: it was the shell of what it was was it
Speaker 2: was that DeBie. No, that was Burrow bur Okay.
Speaker 3: That was more of that long track a hurricane.
Speaker 2: First. How's it looking. I know that there's two or
Speaker 2: three that are kind of percolating off the coast of Africa.
Speaker 2: I know you can't go too far, you know, six seven,
Speaker 2: eight days maybe, do you think we might have a
Speaker 2: quiet year. I know that they were brought be forecasting
Speaker 2: was going to be quite active.
Speaker 3: Well, we're actually really concerned here speaking with our other
Speaker 3: acuather meteorologists of September. It's very quiet out there right
Speaker 3: now across the Atlantic base and the Pacific actually has
Speaker 3: heated up here with a couple of storms near Hawaii
Speaker 3: going into this weekend. But the Atlantic has been very
Speaker 3: quiet for a couple of main reasons. Increased wind shear
Speaker 3: which kind of rips the tops of the thunderstorms off
Speaker 3: any developing storms. But also there's been a large area
Speaker 3: of dry air, a lot of Saharan dust blown off
Speaker 3: from Africa and all that dry, dusty air in the
Speaker 3: wind here. Those are just hurricane killers. You really don't
Speaker 3: get much development that kind of a setup. But what
Speaker 3: we're concerned about is we head into September here just
Speaker 3: a couple, well just a week or two now that
Speaker 3: dry air is going to go away. Also, the wind
Speaker 3: here is expected to lessen, and you have all this
Speaker 3: tremendous heat across the ocean, a sea surface temperature as
Speaker 3: well above average. So the stages set, we're actually expecting
Speaker 3: here at Acua there anyway between six and ten named
Speaker 3: storms just for the months of sep September, so expect
Speaker 3: the tropics to really heat up.
Speaker 2: Across That's not necessarily six to ten in New England.
Speaker 3: No, No, that doesn't mean six to ten landfalling areas.
Speaker 3: We're mostly concerned from Texas, Gulf Coast, Florida and up
Speaker 3: across the Carolinas for landfalling tropical systems and hurricanes here
Speaker 3: going into September. But that's not to say once they
Speaker 3: make landfall, as we all know, they may race north
Speaker 3: into New England, so we could still get some of
Speaker 3: the wind and rain impacts from any landfalling systems further
Speaker 3: off to our south. So definitely want to keep an
Speaker 3: eye on the tropics here as we go in September.
Speaker 3: Can't roll out landfalling hurricane even across New England, but
Speaker 3: looks like the best chances of landfall impacts will be
Speaker 3: across the southeast US over toward Texas.
Speaker 2: Call you the best, I thank you very much. Hopefully
Speaker 2: we'll have you back, but hopefully for a nice positive
Speaker 2: forecast like for this, like you're doing for this weekend.
Speaker 3: Thanks you just focus on the short term. No hurricanes
Speaker 3: this weekend, just beautiful weather, so enjoy that.
Speaker 2: Thanks so much, Kyle, having everyone yourself. Okay, when we
Speaker 2: get back, we're going to talk about what was expected
Speaker 2: to happen today. Did happen? RFK Robert F. Kennedy Junior
Speaker 2: dropped his well, he suspended his presidential bid. He's endorsed
Speaker 2: Donald Trump. We're going to talk about it right after
Speaker 2: the nine o'clock news