A Round with Steve and Cole

Bird is the Word

Hey Y'all!

Welcome back to the show! We've got a good one this week with a very special guest: Chris Hannah. Chris' bar, the French 75 was recently honored with a James Beard Award for Outstanding Bar Program.

In this episode, we discuss how Chris got into bartending and eventually moved to New Orleans. We also get to chat about the evolution of the his bar and a bit about the people who have helped him along the way.

So, sit back, relax and enjoy! And as always, let us know what you think!

 

Cheers!

Steve

Beyond Compere

Welcome Back Y'all!

If I weren't such a nerd, I would apologize for the punny name of this episode. But I am, so there you go.

This week we are thrilled to be joined by one of the most talented and recognized bartenders in New Orleans: Abigail Gullo of Compere Lapin.

I'd like to think that Abigail truly embodies what it means when you find New Orleans and it becomes your home. Her style of hospitality is so reflective of the nature of this city that you would swear that she has been here all her life.

Abigail, in this week's episode, gives us some insight into her take on bars and how she came to be a bartender. We then have the chance to talk about the inherent gender bias that plagues not only our industry, but almost all professions.

Y'all. There's no such thing as "Girl Bartenders". There are bartenders who are strong, embattled women who try to make a difference through their passion and craft. Get with it if you're not already there.

Anywho, had a great time with this one. Hope y'all enjoy it, and let us know what you think!

 

Steve

Bar Famous

Welcome back everyone!

It's been a busy couple of weeks here in New Orleans for some of us bartenders! French Quarter Fest, Easter, and Jazz Fest always have a great impact on many of our businesses.

Besides that, we have also had a couple of great educational opportunities in the form of Lush Life's Bar Institute Econo Tour and the United States Bartender Guild Southern Region Conference.

The latter event gave way to the inspiration for this weeks' podcast. One of the seminars that was presented at the USBG SRC concerned how bartenders could better utilize social media to furter their professional brand. A large portion of that seminar concerned the lack of bar and bartender inspired programming on television and various other forms of media.

This lead to Cole and myself wanting to further explore this subject. To help us, we invited one of our friends Mike Jones to add his perspective. Mike is an excellent bartender from Atlanta who was in town for the conference.

Anywho, check it out as we talk about why chef driven shows are so popular, what it would take to make a popular bar show, and even a couple of pitches from each of us.

And as always, thanks for listening to the show! Let us know what you think and feel free to shoot us any ideas for future episodes!

 

Steve 

3 Peas in a Pod(cast)

Welcome back y'all!

This week, we welcome our good friend Bryan Dias as a guest to the show. Bryan is the GM of Pontchartrain Vineyards as well as the NOLADrinks podcast and radio show.

The inspiration for A Round with Steve and Cole was born in the same studio that broadcasts Bryan's show. It seemed only fitting to invite him on to talk about the process of creating and maintaining a successful radio show.

Like many of our episodes, this one takes a fair number of twists and turns. Amongst our topic at hand, we also get the chance to talk about criticism, journalism, and whether or not media exposure is vital to the success of a bartender.

Anyways, thanks as always for listening! We'll catch you next week with another exciting episode!

 

Cheers!

Steve

A Cure for What Ails You

Welcome Back Everyone!

The relevance and proliferation of cocktail bars in the city of New Orleans is due to one thing and one thing only: Cure. A bold project that became an anchor to a street left nearly vacant from Katrina, Cure for many of us is the reason why we decided to become bartenders. Plain and simple.

Even for some of us who had been bartending for awhile, going into Cure provided a glimpse at a style and standard of service that was not yet common to most New Orleans bars. Seeing the way Cure did things inspired many of us to strive to learn and become better at what we do.

Hopefully, I'm not overstating things too much here, but I want to provide some context to the way I feel about this episode.

This week, we get the chance to talk to Neal Bodenheimer (one of the owners of Cure) and Matt Lofink (one of the bartenders at Cure). With all that this awesome bar has accomplished, it is so refreshing to be able to hear how honest and approachable these two are.

We cover such topics as how Cure ended up on Freret, challenges they have faced over the years, and things they have done to improve their business. For anyone interested in turning their passion into a business, listen and learn.

So, thanks as always for tuning in! Don't get trapped underneath any ovens. And, of course, let us know what you think!

Cheers!

Steve

 

 

A Place of Our Own

Welcome back y'all!

When first establishing A Round with Steve and Cole, me and my co-host were determined that we didn't want to produce a podcast that solely focused on bartending and cocktails. There are already great shows out there that addresses that subject matter much better than I think I could.

We wanted to do something a little different. Something that would focus on our community and the world around us, but through the eyes of two New Orleans bartenders.

I think that this episode is a great step forward in that direction. After our first few episodes came out, I realized that in casual conversations, I tend to make a lot of assumptions.

One of those assumptions (expressed several times on past episodes) is that real estate is getting too high in New Orleans. I'm guilty of using the term "bubble" to describe the growth in our city and the subsequent rise in property value.

To be frank, I don't know anything about real estate or housing in New Orleans aside from my experience with finding an apartment and looking at properties for potential businesses. I think those experiences have given me an impression that is not an accurate view of the nature of property in New Orleans.

Cole is much better versed in this issue, having bought not only a business, but also a house. Aside from this, we decided to reach out to some local experts to get some further perspective on the real estate situation in our local community.

We are thrilled to have had the chance to talk to two experts on this subject: Katie Witry of the Witry Collective and Maxwell Ciardullo the Director of Policy and Communication for the Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Action Center.

It's impossible to properly address all of the issues that concern housing in New Orleans in a 40 minute podcast. What I think is most important is that this can serve as the beginning of an important and ongoing conversation. The lesson I'll be taking away is that I personally need to get more involved in my community. Learn more about the issues and make time to show up to the appropriate meetings.

For that and for taking the time out of their busy schedules, I want to sincerely thank both of our guests this week.

Anyways, to all those listeners out there old and new enjoy this weeks episode and as always, feel free to let us know what you think!

Steve

To Miss New Orleans

Welcome back everyone!

We have a very special episode this week featuring two amazing guests: Jonathan Shock and Bazil Zerinsky.

Our topic this time around concerns something that was covered by The Advocate last week. In summary, we are talking about moving away from New Orleans.

During this episode we discuss the reasons why people initially move to New Orleans, the ups and downs of life down here, and the tough decision of deciding to move away.

This is the longest episode that we have released, but throughout the editting process, I felt like it was important to not cut out too much of the conversation that we all got to share.

Anyways, thanks as always for listening! We'll be back next week with an episode a little less barcentric!

Steve

Haters Gonna Hate

Welcome Back Y'all!

On this weeks episode of A Round with Steve and Cole we are taking a full swig of hatorade! That is, we get to chat about why things get hated upon and whether or not it is justified.

This episode was a lot of fun to make. Much like our Jukebox discussion, we went off the cuff, and it's pretty interesting the various things that we ended up talking about. It was kind of like playing Six Degrees of Seperation between the band Sublime and La Croix sparkling water.

Rounding out his two episode stint as our first guest on the show is Michael Domangue of The Broad Theater. Great to get his expert opinion on movies as well as hear his take on Stargate as a sci-fi franchise. Spoiler alert, Stargate sucks. At least that's what me and Michael think.

This week is also pretty cool because we are now live on the iTunes Store. The approval process was a little bit tricky, but I'm very happy with how everything turned out with that.

Anywho, thanks as always for listening. Enjoy these ramblings about Nickleback, Long Island Iced Teas, and Man Buns. And as always, feel free to let us know what you'd like to hear about next!

Steve

One Night Engagement

Hey y'all!

Just in time for the weekend, here's our third episode of A Round with Steve and Cole!

On this weeks episode, we discuss our experience hosting and attending special events at 12 Mile Limit as well as around the city.

This also marks the first chance that we are welcoming a guest to the show: Michael Domangue. Michael is a manager at The Broad Theater and hosts our weekly Geeks Who Drink trivia night every Wednesday at 8 PM.

As always, thanks for listening to us and if you have any feedback feel free to reach out to us.

Cheers!

Steve

Jukebox Heroes

Hello Again Everyone!

This week we discuss the importance of music in bars and restaurants as well as get some insight into how certain music is chosen for the jukebox over here at 12 Mile Limit.

Now, before anyone jumps at us, there are a couple of pretty obvious mistakes made by me and Cole. The Flamining Lips song that Cole makes a reference to is "Do You Realize?" not "Summertime". Also, the Solomon Burke song I'm trying to reference is "Got to Get You Off of My Mind".

Pretty embarassing on my behalf, but a good demonstration of how we want to keep this show spontaneous and off the cuff. This episode actually came about because we had so much fun with the first episdoe that we decided to immediately record another one. We took about 5 minutes to write down our lists and hit the record button.

Also of note, this episode saw our first major sound edit in post production. Halfway through the episode, the phone rang and Cole had to get up to answer it. I didn't know how to pause the recorder, so there was about 2 minutes of fumbling and silence that had to be removed. I think it came out pretty good and is hard to figure out where the edit happened.

That being said, the sound quality is similar to the first episode. The mics are a bit unbalanced, but hopefully not distractingly so. We just recorded two new episodes and are hoping that some of those sound issues are resolved. We also have some new equipment that has been ordered that should help the overall quality of our recording process, so stay tuned!

With that, here's our second episode of A Round with Steve and Cole. Thanks for listening and sharing our show with your friends! I can't express how amazed I am with how many people have listened to us so far!

Cheers!

Steve