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September 3, 2024
Join Brad from Punch Drunk Chef as he takes you through his journey of building a thriving meal prep business in Dallas-Fort Worth. With a culinary arts and
Andy Blechman: Very excited to kick off today's late August coffee chat as we get together here before the end of the summer. Brad and I are both in the South, so it's a cool 96 degrees here in Atlanta today. I'm sure it's nice and hot in Dallas as well. I couldn't be more excited to have Brad with us. Brad from Punch Drunk Chef runs a phenomenal meal prep business out of the Dallas Fort Worth area. We've gotten to know each other over the last year or so and absolutely respect everything that he does—both in the kitchen and the energy and the way he thinks about his business and life in general. It's just so energetic. Thank you so much for agreeing to do this and for joining us.
We want to spend today digging into your background, talking about your business, and learning more about the things that drive you. We call these chats the Bottle Coffee Chat, and we've named our community the Bottle Coffee Community. This is really a community for food entrepreneurs, specifically meal prep entrepreneurs, to connect and learn from each other. We're up to 200 members and it's really starting to grow. I'd be remiss if I didn't ask about your caffeine ritual. Do you drink coffee? I think I might've heard a Monster before on a pre-show.
Brad Miller: Local cold brew. You gotta have your water and there's mystery beverages.
Andy Blechman: I love that. What's the local cold brew?
Brad Miller: Local cold brew is LDU. It's an Australian company that started here and has four or five locations now. It's literally the best cold brew and drip coffee around.
Andy Blechman: That's cool. Do you have any sort of morning routine or morning ritual? What are your mornings like?
Brad Miller: Really, it's just get up and go hit the ground running. I've got to be there in 30 minutes, out the door, grab a snack bar, and figure out food along the way.
Andy Blechman: Is the first place the kitchen or the gym?
Brad Miller: Usually the gym. It's 95 degrees on a cool morning here. You take a shower there and then find your way up to the kitchen.
Andy Blechman: What's your relationship with health and wellness?
Brad Miller: My name, Punch Drunk, started when I was in culinary school. I was doing amateur boxing and made a lot of food. I took a lot of punches, so Punch Drunk Chef. It's always been more of an extreme fitness style. After that, I started doing century bike rides, then got into the CrossFit community and I've been here ever since.
Andy Blechman: Why boxing?
Brad Miller: I've always been into martial arts. It's the aggression. After entering a sparring round with four or five rounds of a couple minutes each, there's nothing in the world that can touch you. There's no stress, no anger. Everything gets released and it's the greatest cardio. And it's fun—getting punched and also punching back.
Andy Blechman: Is that something you've always been interested in? Have you always been into athletics and combat sports?
Brad Miller: High school was military school with a bunch of guys trying to one-up each other. I did judo in high school, jiu-jitsu in college, and then kickboxing and Muay Thai post-college.
Andy Blechman: Are you still doing that?
Brad Miller: I turned 40 this year. I don't take them as well.
Andy Blechman: What made you end up in military school?
Brad Miller: I moved around a lot and went to different schools. My folks were physicians, so they were always working and trying to find the right schools. I voluntarily went to military school because I was at a point in my life where I needed direction. I did a summer camp and hated it, but my dad asked if I was sure. I had this mature moment at 15 or 16 years old where I realized I wasn't becoming what I wanted to become. Looking around my friend group, we were all getting in trouble, being rebellious. I needed something to set me on the right path.
That first year was the hardest year of my life, but then I adjusted and fell in line with the system. It really matured me by a decade compared to where I was going. I needed that direction.
Andy Blechman: Was the idea that most people would go into the service?
Brad Miller: A lot of people did. My original plan was to follow my parents' footsteps and become a physician. My undergrad was in biochemistry. Upon leaving military school—it was a Marine-based academy and Marines don't have their own doctors; they use Navy docs—we were indoctrinated to avoid the Navy. So I went to Texas Tech and opened up the floodgates for me.
Andy Blechman: How was biochemistry? That's a pretty challenging major.
Brad Miller: It is very challenging. The way my brain works is that I don't think linearly; I think in puzzles and different ways of thinking. Mathematics and science came fairly easily to me. Obviously it gets much harder further into biochemistry, but that's how I'm wired. Organic chemistry was my favorite class because it's literally piecing together molecular puzzles that you can't even see. You just have to visualize.
Andy Blechman: I've heard that organic chemistry is where you find out if you're going to be a surgeon or a psychologist.
Brad Miller: I apply that thinking to food. You take common ingredients, look at it differently, and figure out the puzzle to create a new recipe. A lot of my recipes are very mathematical—four of this, two of this, two of this, half of this—based on ratios. When we come up with new recipes, I can visualize what I want and we nail it, usually by the second try max. People don't understand how much science and math goes into cooking and creating recipes. That's where I get to play the best of both worlds.
Andy Blechman: How did you find your way into food and walk us through your culinary background?
Brad Miller: It's all about passion. Without that, I wouldn't be anywhere here today. I'd always been in the service industry—my first waiting table job was at IHOP, then at a steakhouse called Trail where they cut your ties off. But I always waited tables and was in the industry. During college, I cooked for my friends. I wasn't very good at first, but I was always trying new things and experimenting. I really found a passion in it and the service side of things—being able to make people smile, create something that fulfills them, brings them together. You have these moments of silence while they're eating and joy and laughter afterwards.
By the end of my college career, I realized this wasn't meant for medicine and that culinary school was the next step. I did that and luckily had my undergrad, so I could focus strictly on culinary school without extracurriculars. I worked back of house, front of house, management, opened restaurants, closed restaurants, worked as a GM all the way down to busser, line cook, bartender—everything in between.
Finally, I realized I'd spent my entire life building someone else's dream and making other people smile for their ambition. I joke that I got fired for the last time, but really, it was time to build my own and live with my own purpose. I went to New York for a week and a half, attended a Food and Wine Festival, and came back inspired. I told my friends what I was going to do, and three years later, they couldn't believe it.
Andy Blechman: What made you come up with your own personal mission statement?
Brad Miller: If you haven't read "Success Principles" by Jack Canfield, it's a life changer. I spent a lot of life what I call skateboarding or coasting—going from one job, firing up passion, then cruising, firing up passion again. Finding purpose is critical. Our industry is built on passion, and if you find yourself burning out—there's a high burnout rate—it robs you of the joy of life.
Back in 2016, I went to see Jack Canfield speak. I'd just gone through a life-changing experience and was lost. I sat on the front row and met a lady next to me who barely spoke English. We did exercises together, and within 10 minutes, I was bawling uncontrollably. She was too. We couldn't even understand each other, but we understood each other. Through that seminar, I did worksheets and narrowed down my purpose to bringing people together from different walks of life to share meals, share stories, and have quality time. That eventually turned into my mission statement: to be an advocate of positive change.
It took me a couple years after that to really apply it when I started in 2018. From that moment on, I knew I was meant for bigger things and to spread more joy in this world. I highly recommend that book—it's all about how to get from where you are to where you want to be.
Andy Blechman: At that inflection point in 2016, was that when you started to think about what you do today? How does running a meal prep business tie into your mission?
Brad Miller: When I did the seminar and developed my purpose, I still had no clue. I went another two years with no real direction. My last job, I opened up a brewery here as the general manager and helped design everything about it. Two weeks before we opened, the chef quit. I'm like, you're a chef, so you're both now. Within two weeks, I developed a menu I was proud of. Then our PR lady asks about the brunch photo shoot tomorrow, and I'm thinking about a brunch menu. That's how I built this business—thinking in the moment and figuring it out as I go.
I'd done meal prep for myself during my boxing phases. When you're eating really clean and lean to make weight, meal prep is essential. I realized that's what I wanted to do. It makes people's lives easier. I went to New York and ate at every place I could. There's so much more out in the world—more flavors, more profiles than I'd ever been exposed to.
We don't do any marketing or advertising. We only do word of mouth and pop-ups. We get to know a lot of our clients firsthand. We've got about 200 active clients right now, sending out to about 800 people on and off. We can tell them by first name for way over half of them. A lot come to pick up from the kitchen rather than delivery because they want to say hi and build relationships. That five-minute window once a week where you meet with clients, hear their stories about vacations and travels, share stories, and hug—that's it. It's a meal prep business, but it's beyond that. It's bigger than that. You're not just physically feeding the community, but proverbially feeding it.
We do a lot of community engagement. We did a Thanksgiving event with the Boys and Girls Club feeding 150 kids. We did a basketball camp with an NBA player feeding 300 kids. We didn't set out to make a million dollars. We set out to make a million-dollar community. I wake up every day and go to sleep every night knowing we're spreading positivity, joy, and happiness.
Andy Blechman: Going back to the New York trip—I have a bias; I lived there for over a decade. Where were some of the places you ate?
Brad Miller: This is a long one. My top three inspirations: Dead Rabbit. It wasn't necessarily a food place, but they're known for their Irish coffee. The way they do it to the level of art and perfection—someone in the Canfield book says no matter what you do, whether it's taking out the trash or making Irish coffee, do it to the level of art. I'd walk without any destination and stop at different places. I wouldn't even make it to where I was going because I'd stop and have a bite here and there. Everything was elevated, so much more than I was used to.
Then we went to the Food and Wine Festival. My family met me that weekend, and every major restaurant was displaying little one-biters. You essentially tour the entire city within a convention center. I came back with notes, recipes, and ideas. I have a little black book I always carry—I'm on my second one—that's got everything detailed out.
Andy Blechman: We should go together someday. Funny enough, I worked the Food and Wine show around 2009 or 2010. I got assigned to a top chef and handed out quinoa something 400 times.
Andy Blechman: Let's talk nuts and bolts of meal prep. Tell us about your business. You mentioned you went to New York, aligned with your mission. But walk us through the process from having the idea to your first meal out the door and then to your first 10 clients.
Brad Miller: It all started with a dream. I had about 10 or 15 friends and family that I went to and pitched the idea. It's funny and sad in hindsight—they all tell me years later that nobody thought I could do it. That fuels me even more. When you're left with nothing but fire and passion, you make it work. You figure it out and pound the ground until you rise from the ashes.
I had a small group of friends I was delivering to out of my own car, going 50 miles this way, 10 miles that way—outrageous amounts just for a small test crew. It's all about relationships. One of my old boxing friends wanted meals, then he put his brother onto it, then a neighbor. It's all word of mouth.
In 2020, that's when everything changed. I was at a gym and one of my gym mates was running a comedy club down the street. The club owner was building out a commissary kitchen and needed someone to help open it. Because of relationships, he put me in touch and I opened the commissary—essentially a shared kitchen for food trucks. They gave me cut-rate access, so I had my first official kitchen.
Then the pandemic started. I decided to get an old mail truck and turn it into a food truck. I was thinking very small-minded then—roll up to gyms, sell meals, move to the next gym. I flew to Wisconsin, bought a USPS P42 truck for pennies on the dollar. It was beat up but I got it. The next day, the world shut down.
I'm driving this beat-up mail truck from Wisconsin to Dallas through Chicago. The brakes barely worked. I'm thinking: I just spent my last dollars. Did I make a mistake? The doubt and fear of failure start sitting in. We were doing about 100-150 meals a week, went from 30 customers down to 10. I thought, what do we do? Nobody's hiring. If I fail, there's nothing left. But I knew I had to keep pushing through.
Being in Dallas, people love going out and having people cook for them. It's a city of food and drink. All of a sudden everyone wants to order out again, nobody's in restaurants. We had a private kitchen and an old mail truck. We got a window in it, some refrigerators, a generator, and started delivering. Once we got the truck wrapped, that was the game changer. Now we're a mobile billboard. People ask, what is this? We have no advertising or marketing, so you gotta be loud and proud. Our trucks are very eye-catching.
From 2020 to 2024, we're now roughly eight times the size. It's been natural, organic growth. With vehicles, it extends people's reach—they want delivery to their door. But that adds another variable: who are your drivers? They're your last representation. A lot of our drivers are clients and friends. Our kitchen is full of happy people, and it's about the culture you keep.
Andy Blechman: Let's talk about your dishes. Tell people about the names, how you think about the dishes, and how you procure ingredients from early days through now.
Brad Miller: In culinary school, I took this quiz about traits a chef needs. One answer was ego. I circled that one, being cocky and young. It was wrong. I pleaded my case, but I learned that lesson. When I first started, everything had to be classic technique. I made a bolognese we still do—Yolo Bolo—one of our most popular dishes. I was grinding my own tomatoes, doing everything a certain way. I realized that wasn't scaling.
A lot of my dishes come from inspiration everywhere. We're putting butter chicken on the menu this week, but we have to make it healthy meal prep. Inspiration comes from everywhere. One of our most popular is Buffalo pulled chicken called Bad Mother Clucker. Sometimes the dish comes first, sometimes the name comes first.
We want to be catchy and edgy. We have Bone Broth Chicken Noodle Soup called Send Nudes. Every meal has a small story behind it. This week we have a hatch chili dish called Chili or Chilis because my friend from New Mexico kept correcting my pronunciation.
Put passion behind it. Put a story behind it. We're fortunate now with a good team where chefs can travel for inspiration. I went to Japan two years ago—it's the greatest place in the world if you want to blow your mind culinarily and culturally. Get inspiration from other chefs, local connections, restaurants. Talk to the staff, meet the team, dive into the food.
I'm a huge Ninja Turtles fan, so we have a summer salad called The Shredder with strawberries, blueberries, strawberry vinaigrette, shredded cabbage and carrots. We came out with a counter dish called TMNT—The Artist Formerly Known as TMNT—a combination of Prince and Ninja Turtles inspiration in colors and flavors. It's got a pizza-pulled chicken flavor profile. Find that inspiration and tell a story with it. That's what sells, before people even try it.
People eat with their eyes first—way before taste, way before smell. Make it visually appealing with multiple colors and variety of ingredients. Sourcing greens is very important. We have a company here called Chef's Produce, owned by Richard Torres. He's a great guy and helped me start my business. He wanted meals and I needed produce. He's got the best produce in town. We bartered because running on a credit card is scary. You build relationships because I'd worked at restaurants using his company. He loves helping someone get started, and now I can help others get started.
Some of our most popular dishes are simple, classic, and nostalgic. Buffalo pulled chicken with sides of mirepoix (carrots, celery, onion) and mashed sweet potatoes. I got that inspiration eating at Buffalo Wild Wings—buffalo wings, carrot and celery, sweet potato fries. You can't sell it like that. You have to make it healthy. Sweet potato mash, roasted veggies.
One of my personal favorites is Dr. Girlfriend, named after my motorcycle. It's based on a Venture Brothers character—a beautiful, statuesque arch villain with a low, grumbly voice. So she's got beautiful, delicate features. The dish is a turkey burger with house seasoning on a delicate feta sun-dried tomato spinach salad with lemon vinaigrette. It's got the mean hearty patty but delicate features. Inspiration can come from anywhere—cartoons, motorcycles, anything.
Andy Blechman: How many meals are on your menu a week? How do you handle the variety? How many rotations?
Brad Miller: Being a chef requires three things: creativity, hiring and keeping staff, and running numbers. You need good food costs and labor costs. Without all three, you can't be a good chef.
We do seven meals a week. We just increased breakfast from two to three, so we have about 10 items to choose from. Have cross ingredients. If you're bringing in broccoli, have it on multiple dishes. If you're having bell peppers, have that on two different dishes. Control your food costs and reduce waste. You're not doing too much—your menu is concise but has enough variety.
We have four to five chicken dishes, so we're getting 12 cases at a time. Do beef dishes and cross-pollinate with breakfast. If you have one item on multiple dishes, you've drastically controlled food costs and reduced waste.
In Texas, corn is very seasonal. Sometimes it's 50 cents a year, sometimes $1.50. If you're selling 11 meals and not controlling food costs, you'll lose your butt. We rotate the menu every week. Usually two or three items come off and two or three come on.
I talked to a former Territory executive. They kept a stagnant menu for four to five weeks to control food costs. But then you lose clients. I tell people—I get bored of my meals. Someone else will too and they'll stop buying. I want something new, fresh, exciting every day of the week. We're weekly rotators like a lady in New York I know who does the same thing. You have to keep people engaged. The second someone thinks healthy is boring, you've lost the battle.
We're here to make people's lives better and healthier. You don't want to get bored of it, so keep it fun and fresh but concise. If you do too much, you'll drown and spread yourself too thin. You'll end up with $500 of extra produce or waste. Keep it balanced.
Andy Blechman: Talk about your growth strategy. What have really worked for you to build and grow your business? Talk about the food truck, partnerships, customer relationships, and your ambitions for next stage growth.
Brad Miller: It's about relationships. When I first started, I had my head coach Priscilla. She's always been an inspiration. Coaches have to work multiple gyms to make ends meet. I established one home base gym and talked to other gyms. My biggest advice: give out your food. Once people try your food, they'll buy your food.
You can give discount codes, promos, stickers, and flyers all day, but it's just a business card—50-50 chance I'll use it. If I have something tangible to enjoy, especially a meal with all the senses—sight, sound, smell, taste—you've increased your ability to turn that into a long-term client exponentially.
One big thing we do is work with fitness ambassadors started by Maylynn—a group of fitness enthusiasts building their personal brands, helping gyms spread community. Because of her, we get more access to other gyms, pop-ups, and social media. Really, it's about building relationships, going to CrossFit gyms and gyms with culture—gyms where people work out together as a community, not just by themselves with headphones on.
Align your culture with the gym's culture. Engage your community, go out to gyms and say, I want to feed you. How many are in the noon class? Fifteen people. Here are 15 meals. Set up between a 4:30 and 5:30 class to catch both. Get their numbers for Bottle.
I tried an Instagram ad early on and got nothing. You gotta be seen and heard. Once you get them to actually take the meals—if you hand me a business card, it goes on the desk. If you hand me a meal, I have to do something with it. I'm going to eat it. Give them lots of cookies and they'll want milk.
Andy Blechman: Talk about your staff. How you've grown your staff, how you've hired. How do you divide responsibility?
Brad Miller: It's all about culture. Chef Ariel, my right hand, is helping me build this business arguably more than anybody else. She was working at a friend's restaurant when I was bartending across from my first kitchen. I had two prep cooks helping at the time. Austin, the owner, comes to me and says, we're shutting down tomorrow like every other restaurant. She says, I'm out of a job. I look her dead in the eyes and say, you need a job? My kitchen's right over there. She says sure, I'll show up tomorrow.
You don't have to have it all figured out right away. As she'll tell you, taking the ego out of it is key. You don't know everything right now, and that's part of growing. As long as you allow yourself and your team to grow with you, you'll keep people. You don't have to have it perfect from the start.
The dynamic between Ariel and me was: I'm figuring it out, she's learning. Even though we're doing a fraction of the meals now, it's much more high stress. Allow yourself to grow. Don't be too hard on someone. They're going to learn. You're going to learn. Roll with the punches. You'll have daily challenges—storms knocking out power, losing product, delivery trucks going down. Be patient, cool, calm, collected.
Let your staff make mistakes. I've made major mistakes losing product. Allow your staff the same. If they learn from it, it's a lesson. If they don't, it's a mistake. Always preach that we're continually growing. Because of these relationships, you get better people. They'll tell their friends. A lot of people who worked for us have been gym mates, clients, friends, in different phases of business.
We have another chef, Sean. He was working in Austin, came through town, and his sister-in-law actually helped me start this business. She's my best friend Hoyt and gave me every Sunday in the very beginning. He came in for a weekend, had some experience, and worked great. I asked if he wanted a job because of these relationships. He said yes. Now it's me, Ariel, and Sean—a three-chef team.
Because we've established a culture of caring, concern, and genuine passion for people, allow people to make mistakes, allow people to succeed, allow flexibility without micromanagement—you keep people. They pass that passion down to your staff. When your team's happy, everything's happy.
Andy Blechman: So it's three of you in the kitchen. Do you have some hourly people who come in a few days a week?
Brad Miller: Yeah, we have five hourly staff, so it's an eight-person cook team. The hardest position to staff is the dishwasher. But everyone pulls their weight because you have to pass your passion down to everybody. There's no one too high, no one too low, no one that doesn't deserve the culture you create. When you have that environment, people want to work for you.
I'm so blessed these days because our staff wants more hours, more days. They don't want a second job. It's so rewarding when they say, I want to work for you. When you express that to your entire staff, that's when you maintain people. They fight for you. When clients come in and see everyone happy and working, they want to see that. You don't want to walk into a restaurant and see upset staff.
Andy Blechman: Talk about delivery. How you think about delivery from the beginning to now. Your viewpoint on vehicle types. How far do you go?
Brad Miller: Narrow your delivery path. If you're in a highly populated area, narrow it down. My early mistake was delivering to Los Colinas, almost to Arlington—probably a 15-mile radius. Narrow it down, keep it simple. People outside your radius, if they want your product, will come to you. It also gives you another chance to engage the client.
When I was only doing one vehicle, I was delivering for eight to nine hours, from two till almost midnight. Nobody wants delivery at midnight. I extended myself too far. Luckily we got a second vehicle and narrowed it down. Now with four refrigerated trucks, we deliver about six to seven miles from the kitchen, which is a big area in Dallas. But there's enough mouths to feed in your area.
Food safety is our number one concern—keep cold food cold. We've gone through several vehicles: old mail trucks, old and new Ford Transit Connects, new Mercedes Sprinters. One actually burned down. What we found is best for us is the Transit Connect. We have two now. You get a smaller refrigerated container that can survive Texas heat. Plug it in for a couple hours, gets down to 40 degrees, and extends your delivery range.
The hardest part of owning vehicles is insurance and trusting people to drive them. They're your brand and very expensive. You want something everybody can drive. The Sprinter? Only a few can drive. The Transit Connect? Everybody can drive. The mail truck? Just me and one other person.
You don't have to have the biggest, flashiest thing. That was a lesson I learned when we bought two Sprinters—one burned down. Luckily insurance covered it, but the Sprinter gets dinged, backed into, and it's great for shopping because we can load everything. But for delivery, smaller is better. Smaller is better.
Andy Blechman: So you do all your own shopping?
Brad Miller: We use companies like Chef's Produce for most of our produce and Restaurant Depot for other things. When you're selling 11 boxes, you can go with a big company that brings it to your door. You'll pay $3 a pound for chicken. Chicken's crazy right now. Or you can go to Restaurant Depot or chef stores and get it for much less. You've got to watch your margins. It's about food costs, quality, and cost. As long as they have good product and you shop yourself, you'll save money, pass quality to clients, and won't go under because you're making a 15-case minimum when starting out.
Andy Blechman: What's your philosophy on food costs and quality?
Brad Miller: Now that we have a chef team, it's Chef Sean who prices out our vendors. He checks who has the best chicken, and we maintain high quality. But just because Benny Keith is $4 a pound doesn't mean that's the best option when Restaurant Depot locks it down. Managing that is key. It goes back to keeping your menu concise. With rotating menus, you keep things fun and fresh but also seasonal.
When produce is in season, the price drops. Bell peppers out of season? $60 a case. In season? $20 a case. Keep a wide variety of meals, flavors, colors. You'll see your food costs stay consistent. Over the last two to three years, our food costs haven't jumped more than a point because of due diligence. Check your pricing, check your vendors, check everything. Keep it seasonal. The more seasonal, the better the quality and price.
Andy Blechman: Do you do any wholesale accounts? Has it been worth it?
Brad Miller: The short answer is no. I've talked to a larger meal prep company in upstate New York who does wholesale. We just got a fridge called Byte Technologies—a vending fridge where you stock it, they swipe their card, pull it out, and it detects what was pulled. That's our only off-site sales.
Being meal prep, our margins are tight. We're not making a million dollars. We're doing this for passion and profit as well, but profit comes second. We've dabbled with the wholesale idea but haven't locked anything down. I know companies partner with hospitals and do that kind of thing, but for us, it's about partnerships.
We have drop locations where I give the gym owner a discount but set up a fridge there as a drop location. I stick away from profit-sharing and wholesale because it's harder to make that work. You take $2 off your price. What are you left with?
Andy Blechman: Do you brand those fridges?
Brad Miller: Absolutely. We brand everything. This door says "Come to the Prep Side, Jedi" with a meal, and we have my dog as a Jedi mascot as well. You want your name on the fridges because it's not just a drop location. It's your branding. I learned that from Territory, a former national brand. They had branded fridges in every gym. It makes you look like what is that? Be loud. Be proud. Get your name up there.
Andy Blechman: What's your ratio of pickup to delivery?
Brad Miller: Since we have our own kitchen storefront, I'd say it's probably 2 to 1 pickup to delivery. We get about 175 to 200 orders a week. Delivery, we'll see 60 of those. We'll see 125 as pickup clients.
Andy Blechman: So 125 pickups and 75 delivery? Much more pickup than delivery?
Brad Miller: Yes, a lot more pickup. When I say pickup, that's just at the kitchen.
Andy Blechman: That's interesting since delivery is only $5.
Brad Miller: Right. I only charge five bucks to cover gas. Part of that goes to drivers. But people like picking up because we offer something special. Every week we make handmade popcorn with our own seasoning blend that changes weekly. People get excited. They say, I only pick up because of the popcorn. It's something fun and extra and niche that people enjoy. It's another level of engagement.
One last point: ABCD—Always Be Collecting Dots. That's a Danny Meyer quote from Setting the Table. Collecting dots is bits of information you can use to talk to different guests. Oh, this person's a dentist. This person's a dental hygienist. Then you connect them and they start a relationship. Always be collecting dots. Popcorn collects dots.
Andy Blechman: I think that's a good place to end. Danny Meyer's Setting the Table is probably the reason I'm sitting here. I read that book on a bus ride from New York to D.C. and decided I wanted to build something amazing. Highly recommended. So we've got two book recommendations—Success Principles by Jack Canfield and Setting the Table by Danny Meyer. That's great.
This has been an amazing conversation. Brad, I'm so proud to have you as part of our team on Bottle and appreciate everything you've done for the Dallas community. Thank you for taking the time.
Brad Miller: To any meal preppers out there that want to chat, shoot us a message on Instagram. I love telling my story and hearing yours. Just keep selling great food and build your community.
Andy Blechman: Thanks, Brad. Have a great day.
Brad Miller: Thank you. Have a great day.