Organized Mayhem Podcast
Join hosts Scott Hockfield, owner of Morea Philly and Wrap Shack, along with his sister, Kami Verne, and General Manager John Lupa for all things Philadelphia Restaurant industry and more! Welcome to the Mayhem!
Organized Mayhem Podcast
Table Service Trenches in Philly
Kami, Lupa, and Scott are stirring up the pot in this latest episode, serving you the insider scoop on the sometimes-humorous, but always flavorful adventures in restaurant management. They discuss the unpredictable impact of weather on dining vibes, the quick-step of pre-theater reservations, shifting social patterns of city living, a strange sports bet involving walnuts, and authenticity in cuisine.
---
Don't forget to subscribe + leave a review to be entered to win a $50 gift card to the Wrap Shack or Morea! Simply send a screenshot showing you subscribed as well as your review to organizedmayhempodcast@gmail.com.
Follow us:
Instagram @organizedmayhempodcast
Facebook @organizedmayhempodcast
Twitter X @organizedmayhempod
YouTube: Organized Mayhem Podcast
Visit us at www.moreaphilly.com and wrapshackpa.com
Welcome to the podcast Organized Mayhem. We're coming to you from 110 South 11th Street, which is the home of Mariah and the Rap Shack, and we are here to talk to you about all things Philadelphia restaurant business and everything in between. I'm Kami, here with my brother Scott and my friend John Hoopa. There you go, hello, and we are back on the latest episode of Organized Mayhem. I am Cami, alongside my dear friend Lupa and my brother Scott.
Speaker 2:Hi everybody. Boys where are you today? We are at Maria, 110 South 11th Street, next to the Rap Shack, 112 South 11th Street.
Speaker 1:Terrific, hi guys. Well, we're coming off a weekend. Today is a Monday and we're coming off of a weekend and it was a beautiful weekend and I wanted to see if weather impacts the restaurant business, so we can start off with this kind of weekend. What was this weekend's weather like and how does it impact business?
Speaker 2:Well, this weekend, first off, it impacts it especially at Mariah, nonstop having the windows open and everything like that. But sorry, I'm a little tired Not as tired as I was, and we'll go into that in a little bit but what day did we have the window? It was cold one day and it was hot another day, so one day we had the windows open, the doors open, and it was amazing. And then the other day we put the the doors open, even though everyone was freezing, but we didn't care, and then people complained so we had to shut them. So that day wasn't as good. But honestly, you have the windows open, the doors open, the music blaring outside.
Speaker 1:It's going to get people, yeah, and do you find that when customers are in a better mood because of weather, are they easier and nicer to deal with, or you don't really see that?
Speaker 2:No, fuck, no. Not only that the homeless are out and about too, but I was in a jolly mood yesterday. A lot of them came in to go to the bathroom.
Speaker 1:Okay, okay, sorry, so no problem. And then so when you say absolutely not, were there any problems this weekend that you want to report with unruly customers?
Speaker 2:Unruly, I mean.
Speaker 3:Let's hear the crab cakes.
Speaker 2:Okay, so this is just a coincidence I ordered a crab cake slider no, not slider benedict, which is really, really good, and then there's a table so what is a crab cake benedict? Well, it's a crab, it's a crab cake, and then two crab cakes, two poached eggs, spinach, hollandaise sauce, topped, topped with a little Old Bay.
Speaker 1:Do you put? It on a roll, or is it just on a plate?
Speaker 2:No, Benedict is on like a Thomas's muffin.
Speaker 1:Okay, okay, I don't need eggs Benedict. Okay, so go ahead.
Speaker 2:Okay, sorry, I didn't mean to like insult you, no, no, no, that's okay. And then, so two tables down from me, someone ordered eggs Benedict, a crab Benedict and a crab cake slider and I'm over here in the complaints and it just like again, just a coincidence. And two minutes before I just told my chef and it was the same batch, we just made it that day. I said this is the best crab cake Benedict I've ever had. I hear this table and they were just like I go over them, like everything. Okay, they're like this crab is not crab. I'm like, okay, I'm like, well, I'm eating it over here. It's like the best crab cake I've ever had. I just told the chef, so I'll just take it, you know, normal, I'll ask if there's anything else.
Speaker 3:But I could just tell they're just not not happy, whatever. I'm just like all right, we'll just drop off the check it's a it's a serious offense when people claim that like oh, this steak isn't 10 ounces, it says 10 ounces or it's not prime cut and you're like no, we pay for the product.
Speaker 2:Yeah, or someone tells us that the crab meat is not crab meat like I'm not, I'm not having, I'm not having that one of those things it.
Speaker 3:That's like we're not going to make you happy on this trip.
Speaker 2:If you think the crab meat is fake here nothing here and, like I said, I'm eating it as they're complaining about it. Listen, everyone has different taste buds, but to say you know, Well.
Speaker 1:I mean, I think that's the hard thing about being in like a customer service business where, like their mantra is the customer is always right, but in this case the customer is actually wrong, and when the customer is wrong.
Speaker 2:How to slow?
Speaker 1:that down and say how do you handle that? Right, Because if you you know the customer is wrong, so you can say like, oh, you know, I'm sure you have very discerning taste, but actually it isn't. Or do you just ignore it and give the check, Like, how do you handle?
Speaker 2:it. Listen to me I'm sorry to interrupt, but if they were like listen, I got the crab cake, I didn't know what the Hyundai sauce was, or just has no flavor or this and that, but to tell me that it's not crab meat, yeah, see you later. Yeah, I'm not doing that.
Speaker 3:We have all the time, ken, where somebody goes I didn't love the short rib ravioli sauce, or I didn't love this sauce, or I didn't like that sauce. Yeah, okay, we can sub it out. We can try to find something you like.
Speaker 2:But if you're claiming like there's no rib in the ravioli or something, or use fake short ribs. Yeah, cam, what am I going to do? The next thing? Because she said she likes seafood, so she's going to order the lobster roll, and then the lobster roll is not real lobster, I agree with you, but what did you do?
Speaker 1:So how did you handle it? And do you think that they walked?
Speaker 2:away. I picked up the plates immediately. I said here's your check. Okay, have a nice day.
Speaker 1:And did they walk out, huffy, or did they walk out fine?
Speaker 3:I never heard the end of that. Did they walk out, huffy?
Speaker 2:I walked away. I mean, honestly, it was so obvious that they didn't know what they were talking about that it was just like, okay and listen, I love my customers and we're not perfect, we'll make mistakes, but this is. And I and we're not perfect, we'll make mistakes, but this is, you know, and there's a way to complain about something.
Speaker 1:That's what.
Speaker 1:I'm saying it's not. When you know like yes. And then people in customer service business you know what to do if someone's just displeased and it's fine, but when someone's actually wrong, it is hard to take the high road and be like you know it is what it is Like. It is Like there's, you know, we know we're in the kitchen, we've ordered it, I know what I paid for. And also, like you have no idea whether the customer was showing off on a date that he knows what. You know good crab meat is like.
Speaker 2:Like you know, I mean like sometimes people are just idiots crab meat is like, like you know, I mean like, sometimes people are just idiots. Well, I mean, well, one of our funniest ones, our signature salad, the grilled romaine salad. People are surprised when the romaine is grilled it's called grilled romaine, yeah, so I mean, we get, we get that handle that, because you have again. It depends how they say it.
Speaker 1:They say it rudely, even if they say it rudely, it doesn't really, you know, like if the goal, the ultimate goal of being in the customer service industry is like someone's having a good restaurant experience they're coming back if you want their business right, absolutely.
Speaker 2:So we'll fix that for the most part, I'd say 95% of the time, if you explain it to them yeah, they'll try and go.
Speaker 3:Oh, it's so close to like it.
Speaker 2:Grilling romaine doesn't change the flavor, really, or they didn't realize, so we put it in the hole like right, it was stalk, but not and the whole head of romaine. So some people don't realize they come like that, so we'll fix that for them. Yeah, listen again, we are in the customer service business but I'm not going to be. People aren't going to insult what I'm trying to serve here.
Speaker 1:Well, it's a balance.
Speaker 2:We only do the highest quality and we get a lot of our quality from Cisco Foods, which is one of our, a good friend of ours and a good, a great purveyor of what we do here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely so yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm plugging them for a reason, by the way.
Speaker 1:I know they are going to be sponsors of ours, which is exciting. But before we get to that, you know it is. It is hard to be the bigger person in in any kind like, even with a fight with your spouse like or a fight with your girlfriend. Sometimes you know when you're looking at the goal like, what's your goal? Like, even if it's, if it's just say you were in a fight with your beautiful, perfect wife, sherry just say you were in a fight with your beautiful, perfect wife, Sherry Just say you
Speaker 1:are in the right, my goal is not to lose badly. Yeah, exactly, sometimes it's better to just say like, okay, I'm not going to win the you know the argument because of the larger you know thing in store. So in spring, a lot of times romance is in the air.
Speaker 3:Did you see a lot of couples on dates, did we?
Speaker 2:No, you know what we saw actually, which was kind of cool. We had a lot of private parties this weekend, a lot of big parties, yeah, we had eight tops, 10 tops, 12 tops. Yeah, yeah, so there was actually. I think with the nicer weather, yeah, I think you'll start seeing that a little bit more. I feel like this weekend we just had like eight tops, 12 tops. We had a private party and everything went really well. Everyone was really, really really happy.
Speaker 1:Well, I actually drove by Mariah and the Rap Shack Saturday night.
Speaker 2:Thanks for saying hi.
Speaker 1:You know what? I was tired, I'm an old lady. I was going home, I went to see the Walnut Street Theater and I saw the show Beautiful, and so on the way home I wanted to just honk and wave and you guys heard people there, but did you have a theater crowd? I mean, like what was that?
Speaker 2:Like did you have people? We always get a theater crowd Some sort of. They usually come around six o'clock. You can tell right away. Or they'll say to the server hey, we need to be out of here pretty fast, so we make it work. That's awesome work, that's. Sometimes you have the issue and this happened on saturday night happens every saturday night it's a lot of traffic in the city so there's a reservation at seven. I think the 12th time they came at 7 30 and then you know it pushes everything back and people just don't understand. But when we know that it's a theater person, we're just we'll bust it out real fast Because they're not looking for a prolonged meal, they want to just get in and get out and have a good meal, Yep.
Speaker 1:So keep those theater people coming. If you're going to the Walnut, the Forest or the Academy of Music, head on over to the Rabshack or Mariah so they can get you in and out and have a delicious dinner or go after for drinks and dessert.
Speaker 2:And now it gets a little bit more complicated. So we're in that time where it's we're doing private parties and then also the Sixers are on.
Speaker 1:Sixers are on the playoffs.
Speaker 2:So you know you want to be packed at the Rapshack side for the Sixers, but we also have a private party room that can moonlight for the private parties but it also can be for the Rapshacks. So just juggling that.
Speaker 1:How was the mood watching the game? I know we were lost by. I think it was a point.
Speaker 2:Seven, but that's close.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 3:How was the mood watching the game? They were up by 12 at one point.
Speaker 2:They were up by 12. And they crumbled and B did a great. Well, I have something to say to you. Ready for this one, ken? I'm watching. I'm home last night I'm watching. For some reason I'm watching. You just turned me off. I didn't turn you off. Well, now I can't. Oh, they just hit a three-run Hummer. He's talking his shit.
Speaker 3:Why were you able to watch the Braves? Oh, we're on national TV.
Speaker 2:But you know, I wake up this morning to my surprise guess who blew that wonderful lead?
Speaker 1:The Braves, Was that brutal?
Speaker 2:for you, Lou Was that brutal, no no.
Speaker 3:Listen, it season. We're a better franchise, we're a better city, we're a better team. I don't mind losing one. The happy part was that Scott was on the phone with me. He goes. The Braves just hit a three-run goal.
Speaker 2:We also had a bet yesterday, ready for this. This is some of the stupid things we do. And I won this bet. You gave me a dollar. I gave him a dollar, but it was a false dollar. You know how you get a bag of chips or you get anything. There's always a room in the, in the, whatever, the bag or whatever. You buy too much room, it bothers me. So we need walnuts here. We were running out of walnuts, so we go to mom's and they had a big container of walnuts and I was like they don't fill this all the way. And I was like I can fit 15 more walnuts, 20. No, I said 20 originally, but then we agreed on 15. You could fit four. So he's like what? Are you going to pour more walnuts in it, moms, and get arrested? I'm like no, I'm not going to do that.
Speaker 3:I wouldn't do that to another establishment we have some walnuts back there.
Speaker 2:So we came back to the rap shack. Just because I know he's a pain in the ass, I put a 16th walnut in, fit it in perfectly.
Speaker 3:Does it bother you?
Speaker 2:Is it me or does it bother you when you buy something and there's so much room in a bag?
Speaker 1:I think it does bother. Is it me or does it bother you when you buy something and there's so much room in a bag? I think it does. It does bother me, it does You're picking which one's the full.
Speaker 2:I don't want to wait, I want. If a bag is this big, I want that bag filled, that's it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but it's some poor guy back there with a scoop, scoop and bags of walnuts and just not everyone's going to be packed tight, it's air.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's the worst, you know.
Speaker 3:Oh so you agree with me? No, but chips are something that you're paying a single price for. That's in a bag you can't see through. You are literally paying per pound until you can see through.
Speaker 2:And you know what I like to think. I think about business all the time, but I actually think about Lupa all the time. So I'm walking to Reading Terminal for the fourth time yesterday because we were out of stuff, because we got pretty busy. Four different times someone as we've talked about this on the podcast many times a guy spit on me.
Speaker 3:It's your retribution, you Okay.
Speaker 2:And some crazy stuff was happening all weekend.
Speaker 1:Were you minding your own business and the guy just spit at you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, he was like we were like pretty, pretty equal, but like he just not one guy, like four different times, not the same guy, then not only that, if you remember seinfeld oh, this is this, this is good right under the tunnel of the redding terminal, a pigeon ran into my head.
Speaker 1:Oh no.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I called Lupe right away. I'm like ew.
Speaker 1:You won't believe what just happened to me. Ew.
Speaker 2:Like absolutely just ran into my head.
Speaker 1:Oh my God, Did you get hurt.
Speaker 2:That was a different. There was a reason for that. Going back to the homeless, they were feeding them bread and they were all coming after me.
Speaker 1:All right, well, and they were all coming after me, all right, well. I mean, like I'm going to tell you like okay, first let's back that up. This spitting on you, scott, specifically like Lupa, does that happen to you, or is it just unique to Scott?
Speaker 3:It never has happened to me, yeah.
Speaker 1:I don't understand. Like they spit at your feet and they spit at your face. Like I don't understand.
Speaker 3:No Like Also yesterday was like a windy cold day. You can get an errand spit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there was an errand spit.
Speaker 1:Ugh, all right Gross and in terms of the pigeon, pigeons are dirty too.
Speaker 3:I walked over a dog and peeing in feces all over the city and a little spit bothers you.
Speaker 1:Ugh. Well, it all bothers me. I mean, listen, I love this, I love the city, I really do. But you want to feel safe walking around. I certainly don't want to be spit on or hit in the head by a pigeon.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was a little upset about that. The picture was a little.
Speaker 1:I don't know if this has anything to do with it. I mean, you're a very handsome guy, but right now it's mating season, so, like in my house, birds are like thrusting themselves.
Speaker 2:This took a turn thrusting themselves like humping my window.
Speaker 3:We saw birds banging out here, I think.
Speaker 2:Oh, we did Yesterday in the street.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. Well, they're literally like there's. I mean, their sexual energy towards my house is massive, I think the one pigeon was eating the other pigeon.
Speaker 2:I don't think they were.
Speaker 1:I don't think they were. I was going to say like maybe that pigeon wanted to get with you, scott.
Speaker 2:Me and the pigeons. It's the wild hare.
Speaker 1:Exactly so. To all of our fans out there, where spring is in the air, whether it's a pigeon or a significant other, we are wishing you lots of fun springtime activities. Go into Moriah, go into the Rapshack, have a drink, enjoy the windows open and know, most of all, that these fellas are serious about their crab meat. It is authentic, real crab meat and if you order a grilled Caesar salad, it's going to be grilled Newsflash, newsflash. But most importantly, look, we can all make silly mistakes. We can all say dumb things.
Speaker 1:I will never forget when I was a young lawyer looking for my where to go to court and all my directions pre-navigation it said make a left at the junk handle. And I literally got off at a gas station and asked someone where Jug Handle Street was, and they all started laughing because there's no such thing as Jug Handle Street. It is literally just. I'd never heard of that expression before. So we can all say embarrassing things and the point is, at a restaurant, that they will minimize your embarrassment and not make fun of you for saying dopey things. We want our customers to look great, feel great and enjoy the atmosphere at rap shack and mariah I like your style all right perfect stuff, all right, all right.
Speaker 2:Well, no, no, hey, follow us. Sorry, sorry, you're right, you're right. Love it All right. Perfect stuff, all right, bye-bye. Well, no, no, hey, follow us.
Speaker 1:Sorry, sorry, sorry, you're right, you're right, I mean, you want to get off the air so fast?
Speaker 2:I mean, let's follow us somewhere.
Speaker 1:Sorry, I'm all of the horny birds. All the horny birds around me are getting me distracted.
Speaker 2:There we go Spotify, youtube, x, x. Where else are we? Instagram, instagram, that is right. So just follow us at your, at your favorite way of joining us, and then, right, follow, come here, 112 south 11th street or 110 south 11th street, and, yeah, you might actually see me start bartending. I might actually start cooking this week wow I'm killing, I'm trying, I'm changing, I'm changing my ways.
Speaker 3:Also, I forget we're giving a major plug. We are now open for lunch.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we are open for lunch Wednesday through Friday.
Speaker 1:Wow. So maybe go to see one of the wonderful shows that are right now in the city and go see a matinee and then go for an early dinner.
Speaker 2:Love it. I like your style. Love it Absolutely. And come watch the Sixers at the Rap Shack. Great specials tonight.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Alright, boys, let's hope it's a Sixers win. That is us signing off.
Speaker 2:Thanks for that. Thanks everyone for joining us today. Organize Mayhem. Pick us up on YouTube. Our website is rapcheckvacom. We'll see you next time Again, mattexpacom, and I hope you enjoyed it Again. Welcome to the next episode.
