Topeka's Newest Wine Bar And Scratch Kitchen | Board & Barrel

Cold Open On Scratch Cooking

We're one of Topeka's few scratch kitchens, so everything's made in-house. I heard it's kind of like an experience. It was 2,000 grapes of wine just in Italy to say I don't like wine is to be like, I don't like food.

But you went to like wine school. We all love going out to eat, so it's just like how do we pour that passion into this place? This podcast was made brought to you by Choose Topeka. If you're thinking about making a move, choose to Pika can get you up to $15,000 to relocate.

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Welcome And Meet The Founders

All right, welcome back to another episode of Topeka Insider. Today we have the co-founders of Board and Barrel Wine Bar with us today. But before we get into them, you're probably realizing that my uh my Batman Johnny isn't here today. Came down with a sickness this morning, so we didn't want to have to reschedule with these guys. So you just get me today. But hey, we have Nathan, Dalton, and Trey, co-founders of Board and Barrel. Thanks for being here, fellas. Thank you. Thanks for having us. Dude. Okay. Give me the quick 20, 30 second intro on each of you guys. Uh, how did you guys meet? Who are you? You guys grow up in the city, or maybe we'll start with Nathan.

Yeah. Uh grew up here, born and raised, uh, went to Washburn, played football there, got my accounting degree. Um, serial entrepreneur. Really just if I see something I like, I I go for it and figure out how to make it work. Yeah, you got a problem. Yeah, it it's a uh it's an issue and it's an addiction. I'm trying to stop. But uh Borden Barrel is is taking up our time now and uh met Trey because his cousin is was my college roommate at Watchburn. Uh, he catered my wedding, uh, started doing some accounting with him a long time ago. And kind of the same story with Dalton. It's been professional relationships first and then uh kind of blossomed into friendships and and now we all own businesses together. Yeah, heck yeah.

Dalton? Uh I uh grew up in Overbrook and Topeka, so kind of bounced back and forth from there. I uh went to Shawnee Heights high school, graduated in 18. Go birds. That's right. It's a good day to meet T-Bird, maybe. Um Nathan and my sister um kind of hung around the same friend group, and that's really how we initially met, and then he did some accounting work for me and pulled me out of some tight spots, and then uh that's when our friendship really started, and like you said, it was professional first, and then it kind of we became bros.

Yeah.

Um, and then yeah, he asked me to be a part of Specs Bar and Grill, started managing that. Um, and then Board and Barrel came across the desk and he was like, You want to do this with me? Yeah, sure, let's do it. Heck yeah, sweet.

Trey, what's your story? Yeah, so same. Grew up here in Topeka, uh, went to Shiny Heights, graduated in 2010. Uh I did a dual culinary thing while I was in high school. Yeah. So when I graduated from Washburn Tech,

What Board And Barrel Is

I kind of just took off running. I worked at the Cansan Grill, which used to be a poor Richards. Um kind of ran that at 14. It ended, but I learned a lot, so kept taking that experience. Uh always wanted to do the food truck thing, so we eventually did that. That took off. Um, and like Nathan said, I've known him for a while. I've also known Dalton. You know, he was a busser at Carl Kelly's from way back in the day. So I mean, we've we've all kind of you know grew up around each other and seen each other in that, you know, restaurant space. And then uh yeah, Nathan was my accountant and we sat down, talked about business together, and it just blossomed. Okay, so you're a chef like by train. You went to culinary school. Yeah, dude. Yeah I I guess I have a hard time ever thinking of that because that's not something that is on my radar of like a career at all because I'm so not a cook. I I tell people that the only reason I have a kitchen is because it came with the house. Yeah. I wouldn't have one if I didn't, but that's sweet. Nah, it's uh like I've been cooking since I was a little kid, so it's definitely something that has been on my mind for my heart. Okay. Um I'm maybe just gonna keep going down the line here. But uh okay, so give me a little bit of a rundown. If someone doesn't know, what is board and barrel? You had your grand opening yesterday, someone wants to go, what are what are they in for? What can they expect?

All right, yeah, board and barrel is a wine bar, uh, and it's also a restaurant. So we uh had a lot of misconception when we first started. Uh, can people only get wine? Can they can they get beer? Can they get cocktails? Uh it's all the above. So uh you can get cocktails, beer, wine, um, and a meal. So we serve lunch and dinner. Yeah. Uh everything's made in-house. So we're one of uh Topeka's few scratch kitchens, so everything's made in-house. The only thing we don't make in-house is our facaccia, uh, which is our bread, and that is made by HA Sourdough Bakery. Yeah, yeah. So a little shout out to them local. Um, they're just opening a storefront here in uh Fairlong Plaza here soon. But they're trying to keep up with our demand, and and it's been great to kind of partner with them and take some of that pressure off of us with bread, because that can be a sensitive thing. Um, but yeah, we do pastas, salads, sandwiches for lunch, and then dinner. Uh we take away the sandwiches and we add steak and a couple other entrees uh as well, some appetizers and things like that. So yeah, we've been focused on old world wine, and that's um Spain, France, uh Italy. So most of our wines are from there. Yep. We do have some new world, which would be like New Zealand, uh Chile, Argentina, US, um, some wines from there. So cool.

Yeah. Okay, Dalton. Someone comes into Board and Barrel and they sit down and I don't know if you're the manager, what you're what you're doing there, but they ask you as one of the co-founders, hey, what should I have tonight? What's the answer?

Really, I'd tell them they could throw a dart at the menu, and whatever they hit, it's gonna be amazing. I like that. This guy and his crew in the kitchen, man, they're doing some great stuff. Um, but I don't know, my favorite's probably the rigatoni alanorsina. It's really good. What is that? I'll have to have Trey break that one down in more detail.

What is what he just said? So the rigatoni ala Norsina is an old world pasta. It actually comes from the Umbria region, and uh what they're known for is their black truffles and their sausage. So our Norsina is made simply from the cheese, which is a peca romano, the sausage, and some cream, and just simply mix that together. It's very simple. Uh salt and pepper, and we're making our house made noodles as well. It's good. All right. Yeah, it's delicious.

Building An Intimate Dining Experience

Um someone told me, and I don't know if that's just the the tasting menu or what it's gonna look like after your grand opening. I heard it's kind of like an experience. Absolutely. It's not just a you come in, you order what you want, you're in and out in 45 minutes to an hour. I heard it maybe takes a second. Is that just the tasting menu, or is that the idea behind the whole business? So I would say more. That was the tasting menu experience. And then we'll do private chef experiences within the restaurant. Um if I was to say, what is WordBell? If somewhere you can come have an intimate dinner, anniversary, birthday, special dinner for you and your co-workers, you know, uh very uh we hold about 30 people, so a very intimate spot like to be just does not have that yet. You know, so we're just trying to bring that to the city. I was just getting ready to say I knew your uh I don't know, max capacity was smaller. It's a smaller place, more intimate, which is really cool because I think oftentimes businesses launch to the, you know, we can host 100 people, and it's like you're never gonna have a hundred people here. Yeah. I uh I'm not even comparing board and barrel to this restaurant I'm about to name, but in the capacity sense, I am. Have you guys ever been to Jorge's? Oh yeah, yes, I I Jorge's Mexican joint, uh, it's awesome. And the funniest thing about it is it's always packed when you're in there. Yeah. And I was telling my wife, I was like, just looking around, like it's I love it, but like it's not because there's so many people here, it's because it's just smaller. Right. But it always feels like this is the spot. Right. Versus if you had a hundred person capacity, it's like it'd feel empty. So I think that's cool. When you guys open up, it'll be it'll feel like it's always full, more intimate with your 30.

A lot more controllable there from cost standpoint as well. We we really uh I mean, we had a small space to begin with, so uh, but we've been playing around with the the layout of the tables, maybe thinking we can add more people because there is a lot of excitement and people want in and uh we want to be able to accommodate, you know, every night. And uh, you know, more tables mean more turns and um you know can be great there. And we yeah, so it's been it's been interesting trying to figure out uh how to lay out the lay out the space.

Yeah. And I'm sure I mean, just like any business, it's a constant it's a constant learning. You know, what happens? I was like, oh, something new every day. New solutions we gotta come up with every day. So which is hard as business owners because when you you know you launch and you have your opening, you want it to be perfect, you know, because you don't want to get a bad reputation from someone's first visit, but it's just the reality of it. You don't know what you don't know, and you're gonna learn. Um so with that follow-up, what is something that you guys have learned over your tasting menu and your as you've been launching that you've been tweaking and evolving ever since?

What They Learned While Launching

Prep is everything. Everything. I mean, that that makes the night go so smooth, whether it's lunch or dinner, uh it's it's crazy. The amount of um like stress that relieves having everything already done is is awesome.

What is what is prep in the restaurant world? What do you mean? So in the culinary world, just I mean, just having everything from your garnishes prepared to your sauces to your dressings. I mean, nothing should be, you know, being made on hand in a true scratch kitchen. So just getting the staff and getting them up to part of you know everybody being on the same page. I feel like we have a great crew, we have a great group of leaders, everybody's learning so fast. I mean, if we really look at what we've done in three weeks, four weeks, it's amazing. Yeah you know, and I mean a lot of people can't get a restaurant off the ground in six months. So I've got to pat ourselves on the back for that. Yeah, and our crew. It's okay. Give me the rundown. We talked a little bit about how you're you're the culinary guy, you're the chef. Um walk us through maybe you got three of you guys involved here. What do you guys bring to the table? Like what do you uh your background that you feel like's been helping you lead up to this, or what's your current role in the business now?

I mean, for me, I'm just a people person, so I'm really good at like doing a like just talking to people, um, managing them, I guess, to my best abilities. Sometimes I can do good, sometimes it's a little dicey, but because you manage uh specs right now, right?

Yeah.

Yep. So that just involves I mean, specs is a little different, two completely different worlds. Um but just being able to communicate with everybody, you know, keeping everyone on the same page, um, like just doing the legwork, running to the store, you know, just doing whatever needs to be done.

Yeah. Heck yeah.

On the doer. He can he can fix anything and pretty much solve any problem that's a good idea. Which is a skill within itself. Okay, people don't realize that.

For the longest time I didn't even realize it like was a skill. I'll just do stuff, you know. And then yeah, no, these guys definitely give me a bunch of praise. So it's fun. Heck yeah. What do you bring to the table, Mr. McAlite?

You know, besides accounting and payroll. Besides the counting, payroll, and good looks. Uh exactly. Exactly. Um, I think it all kind of started back when I was very young. I my first job I ever wanted to be was a Kiku chef. It was uh Kiku chef. Well, I wanted to work there specifically. So I thought it was the coolest place in the world. It was so awesome. Um slowly realized um that probably wasn't the career path I wanted to take uh with my my giant family I have right now. So uh accounting was a great, a great second. But um this all started because I we we had the building and we needed to do something with it. And

How The Co-Owners Divide Roles

um, you know, I really wanted to I started to get into wine and wanted to do kind of a high-end liquor store, go buy wine bottles at auction, sell them, kind of a tiny bottle shop you kind of see in bigger cities. And we couldn't be a liquor store because we were too close to a church. Kind of a strange rule. Uh Department of Revenue pointed me in the way of you could be a drinking establishment. And so we were gonna do tastings, still sell the bottles, um, and do kind of charcuterie. Yep. And it kind of blossomed into a restaurant. And so uh we've been able to hone in recipes and uh I've gone to restaurants and just kind of watch them and how they operate and see if we can take things and emulate them uh the way we see this place going. So kind of the brains behind it all. Um, and I think I'm I'm good at decision making. You know, I can I can narrow things down to either a couple decisions and somebody else can make the decision, or if you narrow it down to like three things, I can pick. And I can be very decisive and uh good about essentially how do we implement something and the steps that take to get there. Yeah. I think the organization, um, I think Trey is very creative, and that's kind of what chefs are, and they have this willingness to kind of try different things, and I'm kind of that person behind it saying, all right, let's hone in here. I like this, and let's go forward with this, and this is how we implement it and do things.

Wine School And Picking The List

So you hinted at it, and I want to ask you further. Uh I know dangerously little about what I'm about to ask you about. But you went to like wine school. I did. What what is that? What there's a word for it. I'm not even gonna try and say small yeah. Smallie. Okay. What is that? What does that mean that you went to wine school? Yeah, smaller.

Uh so I went to two different schools um in wine. The two main ones are W set, which is wine and spirits education training. Uh so I did level one and two there, and then I went to a level three boot camp in Napa uh for six days, and it's you know, you're drinking wine, so it's fun. Uh it's also one of the hardest things I've ever done. Uh it's all geography and viticulture, which is uh the study of uh growing um the vines, and it's extremely difficult. Uh you have to know about a certain mountain range and a place you can't pronounce and how the weather patterns affect the grape growth there and why it tastes like how it tastes. Um and so W Set has four levels, uh, one through four, and then you graduate from that, and there is another program where you can get your um master of wine license, which would be the coolest thing to put on your accounting door in the world. But um, you know, that takes years and years and years, and people who work in the restaurant industry get to drink wine every day um and have a little bit of leg up there. I don't do that in my accounting office uh very often. So um what is wine school?

What is being a smollier help you with?

Yeah, uh essentially helps me uh help helps me identify wines and so and know the quality and you know a bottle that costs fourteen dollars can be just as good as something costs a hundred dollars um just by the tasting notes and people's preference and things like that. There's no reason why um Screaming Eagle is you know two to six thousand dollars a bottle and a vineyard Screaming Eagle.

Screaming Eagle is one of those.

So if you ever get your hands on that, it's pretty awesome. Okay. Um never had it. Hopefully in my lifetime I get to try some, but uh you know, there's a vineyard in Napa um that grows it, and then across the street, there's another vineyard.

Uh-huh.

Very similar locations, but their bottles are hundred, hundred dollars. So what's that difference? It's just prestige and uh longevity that they've they've been a vineyard for a long time and uh kind of brought that price point with them. And so being able to identify wines and and choose from the wine list and know what wines should be on that wine list is kind of my job and what I learn. Um learning why you people like certain wines, and you know, I used to only drink sweet wine and you know, it tastes like juice. Like that's what I wanted. Uh now I've kind of graduated into I like all wines, you know. There's a reason why it tastes the way it tastes, and uh, I have a preference for sure, but um it's being able to figure out that and then help people be introduced to wine as well. I think you know, maybe, maybe I could take anyone that says they're not a wine drinker and make them at least find something that they would enjoy. Okay. That's the challenge I'd have.

My experience with wine was like stealing my mom's francia in high school, you know what I mean? Um but he I went to Napa with him, and uh it's crazy how intricate like everything is, down to just how they grow it, where they grow it, the whole process. And I like the dryer wines. The dryer wines. Yeah, I found that out. He helped me find that out. So it's fun.

Would you say that board and barrel? I guess is some of this because you guys aren't there every night and you won't be as it get it gets going. And uh would you say board and barrel is a place where your uh waiter or waitress could help take someone who's not into wine and get them there, give some recommendations. Absolutely. Okay.

Uh I feel like in due time, I mean, they're learning just as much as we are. Um it's there's definitely a process to it, just serving alone. But when you're trying to create that experience, you know, you gotta know your stuff. Yeah.

Um and we're trying to give them the tools.

Is there like a wine tasting option,

Helping Beginners Find A Wine

like where you can taste different wines? Is that I'm clearly I'm not a wine guy. Is that how that works? Or is it like I gotta buy a bottle, figure it out, I don't care for that.

Uh so we have buy the glass list, and then we will do some flights as well. So um that's been you know something we've been I've been working on a little bit, uh, just to have you know a little bit of option there. And then the best thing I would recommend is when we have our dinners that we have plated dinners, you're gonna work with wineries or uh our chefs will be able to essentially present a dinner for themselves and we'll sell tickets for it. There's gonna be wine pairings with each of the dishes.

Yeah.

And that's a great way to you know try five, six different wines in one night and really get you going.

Yeah, it's a fun time.

Uh but you'll learn kind of like, oh, I like that one. Um and you know, I I just think it's there's so many wines out there. There's 2,000 grapes alone just in Italy. And so you know nobody can even name them all. To say I don't like wine is to be like, I you know, I don't like food. And it's like, well, you you don't like some food, but like you may like this food, yeah. Um, in my opinion.

That's a good way to put it. I never thought of it that way. I've always been a guy that said, I am not really a wine guy. Maybe I'm just getting the cheap cheap stuff and I need some screaming eagle. Yeah, right, right.

Well, price doesn't always uh price doesn't always allude to qu uh quality. Okay.

So that's coming from the guy who's got a degree in wine.

So we we tested this with our servers uh when we first started teaching them. I, you know, we tried five or six different wines and I'd ask, you know, what do you think the price is? They're all like, oh, eighty dollars, hundred dollars, whatever. I was like, this is 12 bucks, you know, yeah for the bottle. So and that, oh, this is great. And I'm like, yeah, it's that it really doesn't mean anything. Like, you know, a lot of people talk about when does wine stop becoming a quality thing um price-wise. So when you're looking at a list and you go to one of these restaurants that have thousands of bottles on their lists, you know, where is that price kind of fall off where it's like, all right, you're just trying to show off now if you're buying it. Uh and it's probably about $250 to $300. There's not really a huge difference. And there is a difference, but it's not a gigantic jump on like some diminishing returns.

So you're saying it's anything over $250 or $300, it's like, all right, yeah, you're just flexing your money buying that. It's not necessarily getting that much better.

Right, exactly. And it's then it's just a preference thing, too. Like some people like smoother wines. When we were in Napa, there's a winery called Ayonair. I loved the wine, it was it was great, it was fruit forward, it was you know, it was dry, but it was very velvety. It's kind of what they call the tannins. Um, and I loved it, it was great. But my brother-in-law hated it because he kind of likes that sharper, grippier tannins. Um and I'm just like, well, it's just a preference thing at that point because it's still a $200 bottle of wine, and he's like, I hate this. Yeah. And I bought a case. So yeah, you know.

And so then do you guys obviously restaurant wine bar, you sell bottles of wine if they want to take them home. So someone could come to the restaurant, learn what they like, and then go buy a bottle of it and bring it home. Yep. That's that's been kind of like one of my favorite things to see. Okay. I walk out of the kitchen, I see a couple sitting there and they got their bottle on the table, and it's just like, you know, people were traveling to Kansas City for that. If we can keep that money here, like that's amazing. And just seeing it in live in action is beautiful. Yeah, oh, that's super cool. Yep. Uh when did this idea come about? I mean, because I know just being friends with Nathan Dalton, this has been in the works for a minute. A long time. Uh how did this idea come about? When did it first come about? And I mean, you're open now. Hey, quick heads up if you've been thinking about moving to Topeka, choose Topeka, we'll pay you a To $15,000 to relocate. Through partnerships with local employers, the Choose Topeka program will help you get settled in and moved right here. You belong in Topeka. Apply now at ChooseTopeka.com.

Then likes to call it his baby and it's true.

Told me about it maybe three years ago. I think it was three years ago. It could be coming up on three and a half years.

And we met over at his office, me, him, and um.

Yeah. We so we started the architecture plans. So it's all kind of started. I kind of run through the whole story. We needed to move the bathrooms upstairs in my parents' flower shop called Custom Border Florist. And Custom Borders are still open, by the way. Um they are next door to us. So my mom was mad at me because I said I didn't say they were closed, but I just said we're in that building. And I was like, no, they're open. They're just next door to share. Yeah, we share the building.

Um buy a bouquet on your way to our next slide.

Please, please do it. Um but yes, it we wanted to move the bathrooms upstairs. We had some um rainwater getting in the basement because we had an old greenhouse got knocked down in the back, and it was an absurd amount of money to move the bathrooms upstairs. And so I had the idea, hey, let's do another tenant. Um, you know, I have uh a couple cigar shops, like let me put one next door and it'd be great. Uh I did not like the idea of putting a smoke shop next door to the flower shop. So I was like, well, I'll think of another idea. And then it came to you know the bottle shop, and uh I was like, that's really cool. And then we looked at the loan cost and was like, that's probably not gonna make enough money, so let's, you know, I've then I talked to Trey and said, hey, I always kind of talked to him about doing a brick and mortar, and he's like, No, I like my truck, I like doing events, whatever. I don't know if the twins had anything to do with it, but Trey just had twins about a year ago and was like, maybe a brick and mortar is a good idea, you know, it makes more money. Yeah, uh, so we you know we've started kind of designing a menu. What did we want it to look like? Uh we went to this restaurant called Zero Zero in Kansas City. They they're kind of similar to us, a little more limited. They started as a pasta shop and unbelievable food. Very small, very, very small. Um, and I'm like, man, this would be so awesome to have like in Topeka. And you know, all of us have kind of our own things, Dol Neo Specs. I have our accounting firm and Trey is Flavor Wagon, and we kind of like we can bring something really cool and we all bring different things to the table and just create something cool in Topeka because Topeka needs it, and uh, we want to be, you know, we're all gonna be here the rest of our lives.

So if we can make something cool, it's gonna get turned over to us eventually, you know. Yep. Our generation. So yeah, absolutely. We might as well start now.

I think uh I like what you just said there. You found a store in Kansas City that was very similar to what you guys have now. And I think entrepreneurs really get in their head about what they want to start. Uh I always tell people I am a master at RD. Rip off and duplicate. You know, uh, I see something I like, I put my own twist

How The Restaurant Idea Started

on it, and then I'm gonna make it mine. You know, I'm not completely, I'm not duplicating someone else, but you're ripping it off, you're making it your own, and then you duplicate it. I mean, I tell Gabe, our studio, what we have here, not my idea. Right. I saw a podcast that I liked, I watched it religiously, I'm like, let's just do what they did. They have red curtains, we're gonna do blue, right? We're gonna do this setup instead of this setup, and then you just make it your own. And not every great idea has to be completely original. Yes, exactly. Uh we love going to steakhouses, we all love going out to eat. So it's just like, you know, how do we pour that passion into this place? And hearing the feedback of people saying, Oh, I just went to the Capitol Grill, or I just went to so-and-so, and you guys are hitting that mark, like that's amazing. It's crazy. It really is. So it's just like, okay, how do we take it even further? Yeah. What's the next step? Uh I have uh I want to give you guys some applause, and then I have a follow-up question for each of you. I have always heard that uh the number one way to go broke is to open up a restaurant. 100%. It's so hard. It's so hard. And so this is my applause that you know, shout out to you guys. You're making it work. Uh, I'm super excited to see Topeka come behind you and support you, and you guys have done it before. It that's someone who knows maybe too much about the restaurant industry and just how difficult it is. Shout out to you guys. That's super cool. Thank you. Here's my follow-up question. Um we'll go down the line. Someone wants to be you guys, they want to open a restaurant in Topeka, they want to make that jump. Maybe they love food, maybe they love they want to be a manager, maybe they just love accounting and want to get into the restaurant business. Uh don't what is something that Topeka is missing on the restaurant scene that if someone's wanting inspiration, you would say, Hey, someone should open up this. We need this. You don't got to give away your secrets if you guys got stuff cooking. But I would say, you know, more bakeries, maybe, um, just more simple sandwich shops, you know, stuff. Stuff that's small scratch kitchens, you know what I mean? Uh for especially for kids to get out of culinary school or high school. That was my biggest thing. Where am I gonna go work? Yeah. You know, there wasn't a lot of options. Yeah. So uh just more places for people to use their skills. Cool.

I don't know, man. I uh I get a lot of excitement about like the entertainment side of things, you know, providing that experience, that's entertainment.

Okay.

Um, so I'd like to see more like venues as far as like for music and food and just kind of I don't know, more spots for entertainment, I guess. Cool.

Entertainment with food on the side.

Yeah, cool. Yeah.

What do we got, Miko? I don't know. I don't act like you don't know. He's just trying to decide what to say.

Well, we have an idea cooking, but uh for another time. For another time. Yeah, it's for another time. What I really love to see and whether it could be supported in Topeka, um I I have no idea, but we I I love the idea of a downtown. And I think if they if the housing was more dense there and they had more people downtown, I think one of those corner spots by the Capitol doing like a high-end steakhouse would be one of the coolest things that you could ever do in Topeka. And it wouldn't be that hard. I mean, it's we have some steakhouse style menus uh or menu items on ours, and if somebody did it extremely well um and just made it you know look super cool, kind of the high-end bar, um, I think that's what Topeka's Topeka's missing in the downtown. You maybe you walk out and you're right on the Capitol. Um I had this vision uh a long time ago. It's like, man, if I ever if I ever make it big and I want to start another restaurant kind of on a larger scale, like that's kind of what I would look at doing is like a steakhouse downtown and like an 801 shop house kind of. Kind of like an 801 shop house style. And you walk out, and you know, my vision is like, oh, it's sunset. You walk out, sunset's behind the Capitol, and it's like that'd be the coolest like thing in the world to me. He's had a dream dream. It's been it's been super cool. I had a building actually I was looking at a long time ago. I was like, this would be a cool spot for it, but um it was a bank or something like that at the time, so you couldn't even do it. But it that that's what I think Topeka's missing. Like, you know, I think North Star is I mean, that's probably the most known steakhouse in Topeka. Yeah, I mean it's so far up north. I mean, we need something that's why I like our location a lot. We're central. Um I think 29th and Wanamaker is gonna be a good location depending on what they do there. Um, you know, you need something central so you can pull pull in all sides of Topeka. And I think that's really how you make it work, uh especially in a town like this where it takes 10 minutes to get anywhere. Yep. Uh it's not like Kansas City where you drive 45 minutes to go from Olatha to Leewood or whatever it is. So um, but yeah, I like that. And I like the like the trendy taco uh places. Yeah. Uh but like serve more drinks and and things like that. Like that's what I thought Kava was gonna be when I first came. I was like, that would have been a cool place to do that.

I feel like those taco places, they're just it's uh it's a bar with uh with the taco front. Right. You know, it's it just gets you in the door as you get a little get some food.

There's so many cocktail bars in Kansas City that I wish, you know, I don't I don't know if Teka just is really likes their kind of uh main main bars that they go to on the weekends, but like the dive bars. Yeah, kind of dye bars and you know they got bullfrogs and skinnies and all that. But it's such a cool thing to go to Kansas City and you go to this random hole in the wall cocktail bar and it's full. And that's such a awesome thing.

What's the oh I'm drawing a blank. What's the cocktail bar we have now over in Westboro? Um uh is it Salute? Salute, yes. Um I wasn't I've been to Salou once,

What Topeka Still Needs Next

and I'm not a big cocktail bar guy, but that was a fun night out, and I think Topeka needs more of that. It was packed when I went. We just went with some Freds, played some cards, and had some drinks. That was awesome. Yeah, shout out to the Thursday Club, some coffee, yeah, more spots like that. I mean, like like David just doing cool stuff, you know, and just people just need to try cool things. It might not work. I think just can't be scared to fail. Yep. It's gonna happen. We uh we interview a ton of entrepreneurs on this show, a lot of business owners, and we just hear over and over and over again that if you don't give up, it's gonna work. Yeah. If you're con if you're willing to pivot, you're willing to tweak things, make changes, go a different direction, if something's not working and you just don't give up. That's I think that's the biggest thing in having a solid team. You have people like Nathan that if you are kind of going askew or something's happening, you have somebody like him that's watching the numbers, like, hey man, we could change this, or you're not you know what I mean? So that's important, like just having a good team and then we trust. Yeah, yep.

Trust is everything, communication and trust is huge. Yeah.

Um, okay. Final question, we'll maybe maybe switch over to some rapid fire about Topeka. Sure. Um, some of you guys know me better than others. Not a big drinker, but I I love my my fruity drinks. You know, if it I I tell people my coffee and my alcohol, if a high school girl would drink it, there's a good chance I'd like it as well. There's a good chance I would like it. So you're pairing me up. I'm going to uh board and barrel for the first time. Naturally, I'm gonna get some wine because it's a wine bar. Right. What kind of wine would you would you give me?

So I would uh I'm gonna take you through a couple wines. Okay, yeah. Yep. So I started you with something sweet. Okay. Uh right now, um, I don't really like to start with Moscato, but that's an easy sweet wine. But uh, we have a Riesling that's off-dry. So the sweet to dry spectrum is uh it's sweet, and then you have off-dry, and then it kind of goes into the different levels of dryness. So one level below sweet, uh Riesling is a fantastic introduction. Tastes like an alcoholic apple juice, in my opinion. Yeah, um, an alcoholic apple juice. Yeah, it's served cold, it's it's great, it's crisp. Um and then I would, you know, once you kind of get used to the acidity, because I think that's what people don't really um understand, like they might not like that. You know, your first drink of wine after maybe you haven't had any water that day or whatever, uh, that acidity can really bite. So if you kind of ease into it, uh it's how you kind of get into these other wines. And then I would probably either recommend a Pinot, we have a great Pinot Noir, um, so you're getting going from white to red, or we have a Beaujolais, which is a French wine, and the grape is gamet, but it's very lighter. So the grapes are thin skinned, and so the tannins are very, very soft. Um, it's a kind of medium body on the wine, so it's not like you're drinking something really heavy. Yep. And then depending on how you feel about that, you kind of get either into um kind of a nicer cab depending on what you're eating. Uh, but those are the two wines at the beginning where I would kind of point you towards to don't drink a lot of wine is you know, start with the breeds. Start with something sweeter, something that's not gonna um, you know, bite very hard, and then go into kind of a lighter reds. We have some Italian reds that are that are pretty awesome too. Um, you know, someone told me a long time ago the reason why Europeans drink so much wine is because the water system always sucked over there. And so they make sense. Yeah, they uh drank a ton of water. That actually makes you pull yourself up. Um you know, I I kind of wanted to touch on something we talked about earlier, too. Yeah, far away. And like the pivoting aspect of of things. I tell these guys all the time that you know, 90% of what we're about to do is not gonna work.

Right.

Yeah, because we have the idea, like this could be great. We're trying all the food, this is gonna be awesome. Everybody has the plan. And then 90% of it fails. Yeah, and then that 10% that you're really good at is what you gotta focus on. And that's what we have been trying to do with board and barrel and and trying to take it to okay, uh we like this stuff, but other people like this stuff. What is the general population of Topeka looking for? And I think we've kind of found that 10% we want to go after and and really trying to execute it well. And now it's training and and you know, we can do it all very well, but can somebody else that we've taught do it the same way? Yep. Um but yeah.

That's funny you say that. I've uh you guys are familiar with Alex Ramosy at all? Uh business guy. He's got this saying, he talks about how in the beginning, when you're launching a business, you launch with this uninformed optimism. You don't know what you're talking about yet, but you're excited about it and it's gonna go well. And then you hit the informed pessimism, where it's like, hmm, now I know a thing or two, and this is not as exciting. This is hard. And then if you can battle through, I think he calls it like the valley of despair, if you can battle through this low point where you're informed now, yeah, you're gonna have informed optimism on finding that 10%, finding what's gonna work and leaning into it, and that's how you crush. And you just have to be willing to suffer through a little bit of the unknown and power through because it's not an if, it's a win. Right. That that's gonna happen. It happens every single time.

Yep. You know, there's there's a reason why you put structures and procedures in place, it's just figuring those out and figure you're gonna have to find out what doesn't work first. Yeah, yeah. That's just how it is. Love it.

All right. We're gonna transition to some rapid fire questions and get you guys out of here. But usually when we have one guest, we just kind of point and they give an answer. I'm gonna make each one of you guys answer. Okay. And they're kind of rapid fire, don't have to think too hard first, and then it comes to your head. Okay. How many potholes did you guys hit on your way over here today? I probably hit five. Five. Four. I'd say five. Five. You know what's funny is we had uh a guy on from the city of Topeka, his name's Dan Garrett. There's an app to uh report them. Report potholes. No way. And he says that they fill like 600 potholes.

Pivoting Until The 10 Percent Works

Was it a week? Like it was like 600 a week. It was something crazy. It's like it just kind of put in perspective like how big Topeka is, if that's how much they're filling. But um Lowe's, you're doing a home project. Lowe's, Home Depot, or Menards. Menards. I don't really know why, but I I like it. Okay, Menards. Menards, 11% repay, baby. Yeah, I'm gonna say menards as well. That's three votes for menards. Our boy Johnny isn't here, but we have an ongoing feud between Home Depot and Menards. Gotcha. And here I'm gonna test this theory one more time uh with all three of you guys. Who actually does their own home projects, or would you probably hire it out? Oh, I'm terrible at distraction. It just depends on what it is. Yeah, I'm gonna say it just depends. Okay. Our ongoing theory is that people who would actually hire it out go to Menards. Oh, okay. People that do their own stuff go to Home Depot. I mean, that's about right. If I hired it out, they're going to Menards to pick up the stuff. I'm a Menards guy through and through, and uh, I don't know where my contractor goes, but I'm sure he goes to Home Depot. But uh Okay. Um if you could bring any restaurant from not Topeka, you know, Kansas City, across the country, if you could just bring it here, whether it's realistic or not, you're just like, I want that here. What would you bring? That's a good question. So I would uh bring there's this place in Mexico City called El Khalifa. Okay. It is uh it's a taco bar, but they do like live art and live music while you're eating. So it's just kind of like a really cool vibe. Uh really good tacos, Michelin starred place. Okay, yeah. Great.

Yeah. I'm a sucker for some cheesesteaks, dude. I don't know. Yeah. Some sort of like a quality cheesesteak, not like a fast food one.

Well, do you is Cheesecake Factory considered quality? Cheese steak. Cheese steak.

Like a Philly cheesesteak sandwich, yeah.

Ooh, okay.

We don't really have an awesome one here, do we? There's the one on uh Pepper Jacks, but yeah, that's more of a that's a chain. I want something like quality. I want to see them chain.

Yeah, yeah, do it by the way.

I mean, you can go to Specs to get affilly.

Yeah, I know.

I've gotten affiliate specs. This is a loaded question. I know I feel like I should have got this question before we're gonna be able to do that. I told him beforehand we asked the hard-eating questions.

I know a bunch of good restaurants. Um was the last one that blew your mind? Oh, there was this one in San Francisco called Prelude. And I did this tasting menu, and the first thing I noticed on the tasting menu was a chicken wing. And I was like, huh, interesting. This is like a $200 meal. Why is there a chicken wing on my menu? Um but they deboned it and like stuffed it with something, and it was one of the most unbelievable meals I think I've had in a long time, and uh did the wine pairing. So, you know, it's not really necessarily one restaurant.

Rapid Fire Topeka Favorites

I would love to just bring more scratch kitchens like here, or just people that have kind of that uh culinary expertise that they want to be kind of a drill sergeant about it. Um I think that's just awesome, and it's cool to see creativity come out. So uh we got a lot of chefs here in Topeka. I mean, we've employed a lot of them. Yeah. Yeah. So just kind of having having the background to open their own thing and and let creativity shine through. We want to teach all of our chefs there that at board barrel. We want to give them the opportunity. Um, you know, if they want to start something by themselves, we want to give them the tools to do it and the knowledge. Um, because we know we're not they're not gonna work for us for 50 years. Like that's just unrealistic. So um, but yeah, that's that's what I would do. I mean, I just I like food. So love it.

Um go to coffee shop in Topeka.

The one I go with you at Circle Coffee.

Yeah, we go to that place.

7 a.m. on Fridays. Yeah, I'm more of a white monster kind of guy. Okay. Okay.

I'm gonna shout out two. I'm gonna shout out Milk and Honey and Circle Coffee. Dude, milk and honey underrated. Uh if you're on the southwest side, uh you don't go over there very often, but I grew up T Bird, and so that was we when I was in school, we didn't have milk and honey. And I was just always wanting a coffee shop on that side of town. Never had it, and as soon as I graduated, went in. That's where Nathan and I had our first meeting ever. Okay. Milk and honey shout out.

Milk and honey. Yeah, Americano. Yep. Higher Grounds had an awesome breakfast. Uh I've been there a couple times.

Higher Grounds is awesome, right? They're on topics.

Sometimes when I think it's Circle and them are not open on Sundays, and yeah, that's when I want to.

They have one in Farallon Plaza too. Uh Classic Bean. Classic bean. I think. Yeah? Yeah. With the like green awning downtown.

I think it's for someone who hosts Topeka show, you'd think I'd know how that sounds good.

It's right by Hazel Hill.

And then it's the Helicogy. They have like a huge breakfast menu. It's amazing. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. You used to work there.

Uh golf course. You guys got to go to golf course in Topeka? Pika Country Club. Topeka Country Club. Cyprus. Cypress. I'm about to say great life 29th and it's in the neighborhood of the story. Absolutely. High Crest. Shout out to High Crest, out the scent. Yep. Yep. Uh okay. Uh go to if you're gonna have a date night in Topeka, you're going out with your spouse. Board and barrel. Board and barrel. No, you didn't love me. That was a softball. That's on that's on me. That's on me. Go to date night. No board and barrel, no specs, no flavor wagon. Okay. What are we doing? What are you doing? Doesn't have to be just food, but what's going on? Okay. Okay. So we'd probably go get margaritas somewhere. Um I'm not gonna say where exactly. We'd you know, switch it up wherever we go. Um and then maybe dinner. We're gonna go dinner, uh, Jorge's cantina. Always delicious. You're always talking about jongs. So jongs, like us, super booked up. Like so hard to sit down and I love jongs. If I'm going there, we're eating dinner at home. You know, you know, we asked we asked this question to every guest. Yep. 50 some guests now. Probably 50% of them have said jongs. That's my favorite. I've never been there. I've never been either. My favorite, but it's literally if if you ask me, it's the best food in Topeka. Um it's authentic. Uh, they really care about what they're doing. I mean, and if you go and get Thai food anywhere else, you're gonna see what we mean. I mean, Topeka is so lucky to have somewhere like Jong's Thai. Like, seriously. That's a that's high price. I'm telling you, it's it's consistent. I mean, they're booked for a reason. Um, I've talked to Nathan about how they do their because I talk to them all the time. They're really good friends. So they open their books in July and January. That's it. Really? Really? They're done booking for the year. Fun fact about Jongs they are the only guest that we have asked to come on the show that's turned us down. Really? Just a fun fact for you. So if you got a plug and you want to give us a good name, that'd be awesome because we'd love to have them on. Okay. But uh we asked them, and I think they said they were concerned about the language barrier. Um, sure. But uh yeah, fun fact for you. Okay, date night.

My girlfriend really likes margaritas. Um I like the amigos on South Topeka Boulevard. Yeah. Right down the road from my house. And I mean, you know what you're gonna get. Yeah, it's good every time. Yep. Um and then I don't know, probably I don't play pickleball, so um golf. Okay. I like it. Day night, it's good.

Thinking hard over here. Yeah, you think about it. I got three kids, so night without the kids. Yeah, well, so we haven't been out to many places in a long time. Uh we opened businesses periodically. So um I would say we had a couple awesome double dates, which I'd like to go there for uh uh like a just a date night is Taco downtown. I just love the elevated dining experience. Um like going on the third level. It is a unique experience. Yes.

If you've never been to Taco, it is a cool experience just eating up and having that view. Yeah, I haven't been there. No, it's one of my one of my low-key favorite bars to go sit at. And I met him on like the third floor. Yeah, we have such a random. I was like, come up here, man. Come on. Why are we meeting here? But uh, and I was like when they first opened, I was there like sitting at the bar by myself for probably months just watching basketball, and I was like, Yeah, Nathan, come pull up.

Yeah, yeah.

Heck yeah.

Yeah, I I I can't think of anywhere else because we we usually cook at home right now, and then we've been doing so much menu testing for the past like year. Yeah. Just be like, I'm making something we're making at the restaurant. Right, something new. Yeah, you know, but we we're we live you know 20 minutes from Lawrence, so it's super easy for us to just hop on the highway and go there. But my uh kind of friend in wine, uh Michael Kirkendall, owns Panavino in Lawrence wine bar. Okay. Unbelievable food, awesome wine list, uh, taking a lot of notes from his place. So uh that's it's such a it's such a cool place to go to. So that's my favorite place.

Cool.

Reservations Plus Clubs And Subscriptions

Final question. Uh someone wants to check out the menu at Board and Barrel, wants to see, you know, openings, different things. What's the best way to follow Borden Barrel? You guys on socials or Facebook?

Yeah, Facebook, Instagram, uh, you can book reservations uh through a link in our bio. Cool. Or on talk. Um, that's the reservation system. Yep. And then we will be releasing our website uh hopefully around when we open, and that'll have a couple different things on it. We have a pasta subscription, so we'll actually give you guys pasta uncooked, and you can either pick it up in the restaurant. Uh, we'll have a delivery service, but we'll drop it off at your house. And so you can uh we'll give you a little tag with our recipe um or a certain recipe of the of the month, and uh we'll you can cook the pasta at home, and then we'll have charcuterie board orders on there as well. So we'll deliver those. Uh we can pick them up and they'll be small, medium, large. Uh, then we also have grazing tables, which is you know, if you've never seen a grazing table, go look at Flavor Wagons profile. It's a probably like an eight-foot table full of cheeses and different snacks, like kits. It's pretty insane. Um, so we'll we'll do that as well if you have corporate events or gatherings and uh weddings and things like that. And then we'll have the thing I'm most excited about. We haven't come up with our recipe yet, but we're working on it is our lasagna society. So we will do a you know, scratch made lasagna for you, and our red sauce will take about four hours to make, and then we'll deliver one uncooked once a month to you, so you have your own lasagna. Nice. Um, I think it's just a cool, cool thing to kind of keep our food uh present in somebody's head. And um, it's a big quality product too. Yeah, yeah. I can't remember if I'm missing anything else. So there's the pasta, there's the charcuterie boards, there's lasagna. Oh, and then we have a wine club. Yeah. Uh so you'll be able to pick up boxes. Lots of clubs, yeah. Lots of things.

I mean, we're trying to, yeah, just create that family feeling. You know, oh, which I think is really cool because the I feel like the reality of a wine bar and fine dining is, you know, that's not something you go to every week. Right. And so it's like, how can you guys, you know, get some money, get into homes, yeah, give them that uh that tasting, you know, more than just whenever they go out for a date night. So that's super cool. But to clarify,

Final Thoughts And Closing

Board and Barrel Wine Bar is officially open as of when this is released. So go out, book your reservations on their website, social media handles, go try it out. Nathan, Dalton Trey, thanks for being here, guys. Appreciate you guys. It's been awesome. Heck yeah.