Fork & Hammer

♪ Jamie Brown> By far, of all the restaurants we've ever opened, this one was the most difficult.

♪ From the start of walking in the store to the day that we opened our doors, it was four years and we had so many unforeseen problems.

They put down the wrong tiles.

Jeff Tonidandel> We're kind of going to need that.

Jamie Brown> He had to let everybody go and nobody knew what to do.

I remember so well the space before we opened.

♪ And I'm just looking around the room like, how the hell are we going to do this?

♪ Major funding for "Fork and Hammer" is provided by the ETV Endowment of South Carolina, the proud partner of South Carolina ETV and South Carolina Public Radio, with the generosity of individuals, corporations, and foundations.

The ETV Endowment of South Carolina is committed to sharing entertaining and uplifting stories and series like "Fork and Hammer."

This series is made possible by Trust 20.

Trust 20 is a nationally accredited food safety training provider offering online training, certifications and resources for all areas of the food service industry.

Learn more at trust20.co Charlotte, from the refined to the unexpected, every bite, a memory in the making.

There's much more at charlottesgotalot.com "Fork and Hammer" is brought to you by Biltmore Estate Winery.

[crowd noise] [crowd noise] ♪ Jeff Tonidandel> It was the good times.

We were excited.

Haberdish was doing really well.

Colleen Hughes> for the first 18 months that Haberdish was open, we didn't go off a three and a half hour wait.

Jamie Brown> As we were growing as people and a restaurant group, I think our dreams were growing too.

♪ And we saw bigger things for ourselves.

Jon Rosenberg> This was an old church vacant for about ten years before we got into the building.

Jamie Brown> We had the building, and then we started just dreaming about what we wanted to do inside of it.

Jeff Tonidandel> This is the walk in.

This is dry storage.

This is where the wine storage is going to be.

Jamie Brown> We documented our journey of opening.

Jeff Tonidandel> Cutting some holes in our pretty tile.

Sounds like a pretty easy project.

Jamie Brown> Jeff and I are over here at Supperland, checking things out this evening, and they've put down the wrong tiles.

We're going to work through that one.

Letting the community know that you're working on something really special.

Today is our company meeting over at Supperland.

We had awards for various people.

[applause] Also announced this new living wage.

Jeff Tonidandel> Every single person got a bump in pay that day.

Jamie Brown> So here we were about to open this beautiful restaurant.

We had a lot of work to do.

Jeff Tonidandel> Painting the chair rail, beautiful wallpaper on all these walls.

We have the speakers in, we got the internet cable.

Jamie Brown> We knew there were going to be challenges to work through.

There always are.

But then there was Covid.

♪ News Anchor> Now, 48 counties are in that red zone with substantial viral spread.

Restaurants and bars in both North and South Carolina closing their dining rooms.

News Anchor> We know that these numbers continue to climb, but we know that they're also going to get worse.

♪ Jamie Brown> Hi, everybody.

I just pulled up to the restaurants here.

It's a Monday, and, we're all meeting together today at about noon to figure out our next steps and what our team is going to do.

Jeff Tonidandel> I remember getting the text saying that the restaurants had to close down.

15 minutes later, I'm crying, wondering where our staff is going to eat.

And, it was, it was pretty rough.

Jamie Brown> It was in front of our whole staff, and he had to let everybody go and nobody knew what to do.

I remember our dishwasher, Carlos.

He came over and he gave me a hug and he said, thank you, thank you so much.

And then, like, literally everybody was just disbanding and leaving.

♪ Jeff Tonidandel> It was amazing that months and months of saving the revenue, not spending just went up in the air.

Jamie Brown> We also had other restaurants that were like helping to fund the situation, and they were all shut down.

Jeff Tonidandel> It put so much pressure and so much strain on you.

Us.

[laughs] Jamie Brown> Us.

[buzzing of saw] Jamie Brown> I think it looks great.

[insect buzzing sound] Jeff Tonidandel> I got a big fire going in the grill trying to simulate our huge fire grill we're going to have at Supperland on a smaller scale for R and D. During the pandemic, we're all just by ourselves.

I got the crew coming over.

We're gonna have a fun time trying stuff out, messing around with fire.

Jamie Brown> When we come together and do these backyard cookouts, it was a weird, different, probably will never happen again type of situation.

It was.

It was just fun.

Chris, what are those?

Chris Rogienski> Those are apples stuffed with cabbage and bacon and mustard.

[laughs] Jamie Brown> Sounds amazing!

Just to have, like, not in a professional kitchen, us be able just to play around and really have fun was my favorite part.

Jeff Tonidandel> We got four fires going and everybody's prepped all their stuff on their own.

Chef> I've got some jumbo North Carolina shrimp just marinated in some harissa, which is North African spice blend.

Courtland Bradford> Then I'ma take these compressed apples here and make a fennel orange arugula salad.

Plan out some, you know, dishes, couple sides, a couple toppers.

We're just gonna, we're gonna try it out.

Chris Rogienski> And we would have themes, and we'd all bring different food that we made based on the theme.

Like, what's the most southern menu thing you could possibly think of?

Jeff Tonidandel> Sausage Gravy.

I love it.

Chris Rogienski> That's how we get the fried sausage gravy croquettes.

Courtland Bradford> I think this would go great with this that you made right here.

Maybe a touch more that.

Jeff Tonidandel> Oh, there we go.

Jamie Brown> Oh, that looks delicious.

Courtland Bradford> Trying to make something happen.

♪ Chris Rogienski> Courtland and I work really well together, just in general.

You ready to lose on TV?

Courtland Bradford> Ready.

Jamie Brown> Courtland and Chris are actually quite different from one another.

Chris Rogienski> I grew up in Hicksville, Long Island.

Courtland Bradford> I grew up in, Quantico, Virginia, and being from New York, me being down here in South, it was like two, two different worlds.

Chris Rogienski> My family could not cook at all.

Courtland Bradford> I learned from my grandmother, of course.

Chris Rogienski> I competed in a competition called Skills USA.

I got second in the country, which gave me a full ride scholarship.

Courtland Bradford> He's all excited about bagels and cream cheese and all that jazz and I'm like, dude, like how you so excited about a bagel?

I will never understand that.

We got barbecue down here.

There's a pig.

Eating down here is just like, it's different.

Chris Rogienski> You can take anything and just throw paprika and garlic powder and stuff on.

Doesn't mean you can cook.

Courtland Bradford> Yeah.

That's great.

You can throw things on it, but how do you know when it's enough?

You can have all the technique in the world, but then it's like, you gone put enough salt in it, you know, putting a pepper in it.

And you know, his passion for food matched like my passion for food.

And that connected.

Chris Rogienski> Oh, yeah.

We're playing real rules.

Courtland Bradford> Yeah, yeah.

Go.

And I knew that, that was going to be a start of a great relationship right there.

Chris Rogienski> Turbo putt.

♪ Oh, turn.

Yes, sir.

Oh.

So close.

Courtland Bradford> Thread the needle.

♪ ♪ Jamie Brown> These were the exact walls that it was when we walked in here.

Four years before we opened.

I whispered to Jeff, "Don't touch it."

♪ I remember walking through and Jeff and Jamie both looking at me and saying, you know, We just kind of like this."

Jamie Brown> That look is nothing more than drywall being ripped off.

Donald Peadon> There you go.

Wow.

What an amazing idea.

Let's try to keep that.

Jamie Brown> We saw this center aisle.

We have a dual stained floor.

So there is an aisle that comes up through the center.

♪ We have 120 year old pews that we brought in from Colorado.

Jeff Tonidandel> We got eight church pews here on the street.

Jamie Brown> A lot of people don't realize this, but there are hymnals back there.

I reached out to a local church.

I said, "By chance, do you have any?"

Knowing in my head that I needed 28 books.

And they said, "Oh, I've got 29."

I think really a lot of it is... Jeff Tonidandel> Where is the 29th hymnal?

[laughs] I had a huge construction day on a weekend and it's during the pandemic, so there's not a whole lot of other things that kids can do.

So these... [loud sound of saw buzzing] these cuts are easy because you can just cut... [loud sound of saw buzzing] So they came over and they painted all of the walls in the bar.

But behind the studs.

And then, a few weeks later the drywall got put up and covered all that stuff up.

But someday somebody will probably demo that space over there and they're going to see these crazy paintings that a bunch, <by children> little children did.

♪ The grill works.

14-foot fire oven we have as my midlife crisis.

A lot of people buy motorcycles and Ferraris, and I wanted this oven.

[flaming sounds] Jamie Brown> We really designed this main dining room around that fire.

Donald Peadon> We knew that, that was going to be essentially a show, a sort of theater on that side.

Jamie Brown> So, we've actually raised the kitchen up a step.

♪ So that you can see it from your eye level as you walk in.

Jeff Tonidandel> And in doing so, that actually allowed us to put the steel in the hold, a wood fired oven, and then a huge 14-foot steel grill.

Donald Peadon> And then bringing the seating bar right to it.

♪ Jamie Brown> We designed the expo area of the Supperland upstairs kitchen specifically for Executive Chef Chris Rogienski.

Jeff Tonidandel> My pandemic hobby was learning to 3D model.

So, I just started with these designs and kind of drew up this cockpit for Chris and just imagined him kind of being the maestro and the composer of this whole place.

Jamie Brown> He can just step up there and see what's going on across the fire, over at the fire oven, and then as food arrives up to that second floor from the basement kitchen.

♪ Jeff Tonidandel> One of your favorite things is when Chris stands up there and he puts his hands up and he starts yelling hands for everybody to come grab all the food <I love it> 'cause it's ready.

Chris Rogienski> So, what I do when I need hands, is I put my hands out like this, and if I really need hands, I'll shake them.

We don't want to be screaming and yelling, not in an open kitchen.

We try to be professional and if I'm up there shaking my hands, somebody better come get food.

[laughs] Family Member>Sorry.

Got to wait for it to spark out for you.

[sparkling sound] [sound of fireworks] [engine noise] Jeff Tonidandel> We got a, concrete truck here, got a pump truck, we're doing, the floor in the basement today.

It's a big day moving us way forward.

♪ We had the basement here, ♪ was just a dump, ♪ and we dreamed, "Wow, if we could do something cool with this space, what would we do?"

Colleen Hughes> I walked out on to Bourbon Street and I call Jeff on the phone, "I know we're about to build another restaurant."

I was like, "If there's any space in it to put a teeny tiny bar, that only does one thing, I promise that I'll make you the coolest cocktail bar Charlotte's ever seen."

♪ Then he did build me a teeny tiny little bar that only does one thing.

♪ Jeff Tonidandel> We created a speakeasy for Colleen and all the whimsy that goes with it.

♪ [silence] [rustling leaves] Courtland Bradford> There it is.

Chris Rogienski> Mulligan?

Courtland Bradford> Oh, yeah, I forgot we got mulligans.

Yes, During the time of Covid, I've heard of disc golf; never really played it.

Chris Rogienski> We started playing disc golf together.

It was such a huge thing because it was something you could do outside.

It's something you could do, distance, and it was free.

♪ Perfect.

Courtland Bradford> And I was like, alright.

Well, let's go ahead and play, you know, at another course.

Chris Rogienski> You're shooting for par.

I got to drop in par up there.

And it was just a really good bonding moment and just brought us closer as friends.

When was the last time you putt?

Courtland Bradford> It's been a minute.

[laughs] It's been a minute.

Jamie Brown> If you have that camaraderie and you have that, you know, cohesion, that relationship, I think it helps them work really well together when they are in the battle of service.

[silence] Chris Rogienski> Bogey.

Courtland Bradford> Bogey.

Jeff Tonidandel> Being an executive chef and a sous chef, it is a ordeal.

They treat it like they're going to war.

Chris Rogienski> So an executive chef is essentially the captain of the boat.

And it's kind of like a chain of command.

So like I talked to my executive sous chef, which is Cortland, and then we have three more sous chefs.

Jeff Tonidandel> You need to have your wingman.

You need to have your partner, your backup Courtland Bradford> Sous chef is basically the executive chef's right hand man.

Just really keeping it tight knit and making sure that everything's always in its place.

[sound of chains rattling] Chris Rogienski> Bogey.

Courtland Bradford> Bogey.

Chris Rogienski> Spar.

♪ Jamie Brown> The challenges of Covid ran the gamut.

Jeff Tonidandel> But, we're kind of going to need that.

Jamie Brown> Construction workers sometimes they just wouldn't come.

There were supply chain issues as well.

I mean, just getting things silverware, equipment, windows, it's just not there.

It's just delayed.

It's sitting in a container.

That's part of the reason why we started doing so many things in-house.

Tables are always fun for me.

And these were all made in our garage.

Jamie Brown> Our garage was just stacked, wall to wall with tables.

They built these 40 tables in there and then some extras, too.

these tables are all made from North Carolina Hickory.

So I love that little bit of a local touch.

[striking on wood sound] And it was a really beautiful experience because kids got to take part in it, too.

Isaac Tonidandel-Brown> I'm just putting some down.

Jeff Tonidandel> Okay.

We put some grass rails around the walls in here, and then we decided to add them into the tables.

♪ One of the things that we try to do is when you take a picture of our tabletop and it shows up on the internet, we know it's ours.

♪ The ceiling was a mess.

Donald Peadon> It wasn't like, this thing is beautiful.

I mean, it was, we can imagine this thing being beautiful.

How do we get it to that point?

♪ The way that the lighting works is super important.

Jeff Tonidandel> Just a lot of little things going on here, but a ton of work.

Guys in here, wiring all the lights.

Donald Peadon> You know, how do we place them in the space?

How many do we need?

And, of course, the architect's looking at him.

We always need twice as many as he wants to buy.

♪ Jeff Tonidandel> We have 140 lights up there, and we light up that whole roof line.

♪ Jamie Brown> In a restaurant, the sound of the dining room is key.

Between every single one of the beams up there, we've put in soundproofing.

Jeff Tonidandel> One of the cool things that Don added, he was really pushing us towards compression.

So when you come in the front door, there's a ceiling above your head and then the space opens up.

♪ It's like, you're going to love it and we do.

He nailed that part.

Isaac Tonidandel-Brown> Oh no.

[giggle] [sound of footsteps going up ladder] Jamie Brown> Please don't fall.

Jason Loughlin> I will do my best.

Jamie Brown> The chandeliers were a thing because I did not like these chandeliers.

Jeff Tonidandel> And I was like, these things are so cool.

Jamie Brown> I did not like them, but, they had a really good benefit of being very low.

And I loved the idea that the depth would be very shallow so that we could see the fire from the front of the building.

So eventually he got his chandeliers and I just let it go.

Chris Rogienski> Did I tell you my idea for the chef thing?

Courtland Bradford> No.

Chris Rogienski> A chef emergency hotline.

So, like, you're making dinner for a girl and you screw it up.

You could FaceTime me and I'll coach you through how to fix it.

Courtland Bradford> Alright.

Chris Rogienski> And you treat it like a phone sex hotline and be like, you know, 20 bucks for the first call, and like, five dollars a minute after that.

There you go.

Jamie Brown> Chris and Courtland have known each other for a very long time.

Chris Rogienski> The next holes up and around, Jamie Brown> They've grown over the years together.

They've created a menu here together.

Chris is like the steady chef.

♪ He's so stoic.

Chris Rogienski> So instead of yelling and screaming, I do "disappointed dad."

Courtland Bradford> The disappointed dad works the whole lot better than anybody yelling at you.

By far.

Chris Rogienski> You know, I'm really disappointed.

I thought we trained for this better.

Courtland Bradford> It's just a look where you just, you know, you dad's looking at you.

I know my dad when he, like, I'm doing something wrong, he just looks.

♪ Like, I know I shouldn't have done that.

Jamie Brown> Cortland, well, I don't ever see him get super mad but he definitely has a lot of heart and soul to him.

Jeff Tonidandel> And he can just hold it down cooking, cook steaks perfectly.

He can take as much pressure as you can put on a line cook Courtland Bradford> If you love what you do, ♪ it's never going to be hard.

♪ Jeff Tonidandel> Finally got our fire inspection, so it's time to cure our wood fired oven.

So it's a slow three day process.

Slowly bring it up 50 degrees every single time.

Three different fires that we gotta light, so we're just lighting a little fire tonight to start it off.

[ticking sound] [blazing sound] Jamie Brown> How's the temperature?

Isaac Tonidandel-Brown> At 1050!

Jeff Tonidandel> The fire cooking was like, let's like, get into this and what is our next evolution and how do we get better at our craft?

Jamie Brown> A lot of people think about fire cooking as being very simple.

Looking good!

There are so many intricacies to this, and our team works relentlessly throughout the shift to make sure meals come out consistently because fire is anything but consistent.

Jeff Tonidandel> Got some broccoli cooking here in this cast iron.

Chris Rogienski> We took six weeks to make the perfect broccoli until we figured out how to make it absolutely perfect.

Jeff Tonidandel> One piece, one piece.

Chris Rogienski> We try to treat all of the sides and vegetables as well as we treat the mains.

Courtland Bradford> I know this is good, but I know it can be better.

I know this is better, but it can be great.

I know this is great, but I know it could be excellent.

Jeff Tonidandel> We got some pot roast over here.

I made two different kinds of pot roast.

Jamie Brown> Oh my gosh that looks delicious.

Courtland Bradford> And then once we hit that excellence right there then, you know you got something.

You got something to work with.

Jeff Tonidandel> As you know, I spend a really good part of my life over here.

And every time I show somebody this place, they come in and they're like, "Jamie is amazing!

Like, what she's done to this place!"

And I'm like, "I spent 80, 90 hours a week here."

And they're like, "Wow!"

Jamie Brown> Jamie is doing a great job.

I'm just doing a great job.

Jeff Tonidandel> You're doing awesome.

[hands slapping sound] The granite's left the shop.

It's on its way here.

We're getting ready for it.

Can't wait to see it.

♪ Jamie Brown> We were trying to run practice for this restaurant.

Today is a very exciting day for us because the booths are coming in.

They are a beautiful purple color and I can't wait to see them in place.

We can only have small gatherings in spaces in North Carolina.

I remember so well the lights being down really dim and Chris is over there on grill cooking up and John is helping us bring out food to the tables.

We've got people every other table so that everybody had space.

It is tasting after tasting these days.

The menu is really making a lot of progress.

We're still trying to work through some kinks.

Courtland Bradford> It was tough.

I'm not gonna lie, it was tough, it was like, you know, a lot of nights where we're in here and we're like, okay, let's go back to the drawing board, try a different thing.

Jeff Tonidandel> You spend all this time building a restaurant and you don't know if people are going to come.

♪ Jamie Brown> I was scared to death.

People had said that nobody would ever go to a large restaurant again.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Jon Rosenberg> Halibut from yesterday has changed just a touch.

We have a halibut a la plancha.

Going to be about an eight ounce portion.

Specials tonight.

I bet the halibut would be good with some chablis.

If anyone needs a recommendation.

♪ ♪ Jeff Tonidandel> Every restaurant is so special.

And you feel the soul just kind of get breathed into it.

And then it takes on its own personality.

♪ Jamie Brown> There are so many elements that are coming together all at once, so many details threaded together that we hope create this experience.

But you really never know what it's going to be like until people step in the doors.

♪ The biggest thing that we are trying to achieve is a sense of awe.

♪ Jeff Tonidandel> Every time I walk in the doors and the ceiling opens up and the fire's going, [blazing sound] there's a lot of people having a really good time here.

♪ ♪ Jamie Brown> To see a chef standing there looking over expo, he's faced toward the fire, and he's just holding his hands up and he's asking for help.

He's asking for his team to come and get food out to the dining room.

Chris Rogienski> The thing I enjoy most about what I do is the look on your face when I feed you.

♪ Just knowing that I made that and I made you have that experience is something I love a lot.

♪ Courtland Bradford> You got to ride that wave.

And you know, as long as you ride the wave and you keep on cruising in that lane, you'll never fail.

♪ Jamie Brown> You've got these wide windows.

You've got these raw, broken down walls.

You've got plates that were hand designed.

There's the lift of the lid of the pot roast, and there's the scooping of ambrosia salad to your plate, and there's hospitality and people are laughing.

All of these things kind of coming together.

Hundreds of people gathered together in a great dining hall, and the energy is warm and inviting.

The feeling of the space is meant to be a communion.

♪ ♪ [rustling leaves] Courtland Bradford> Trash.

[Laughs] Chris Rogienski> Salt and pepper is one thing I'm not talking about like loading it all together.

Courtland Bradford> That's just a part of that spice life, man.

Chris Rogienski> Oh, so you're gonna put all these spices on a prime piece of filet?

No.

Come on.

Salt and pepper and good technique.

Courtland Bradford> You know what?

We got sage, we got crushed red pepper, paprika, garlic powder.

Spices is like, "Season your food."

Love thy food.

Major funding for "Fork and Hammer" is provided by the ETV Endowment of South Carolina, the proud partner of South Carolina ETV and South Carolina Public Radio, with the generosity of individuals, corporations and foundations, The ETV Endowment of South Carolina is committed to sharing entertaining and uplifting stories and series like "Fork and Hammer."

Thank you for watching "Fork and Hammer."

This series was brought to you by Trust 20, a nationally accredited food safety training provider offering accessible digital training at any time and on all devices.

Learn more at trust20.co Charlotte, a city shaped by storytellers, dreamers, and makers becomes a living canvas.

There's much more at charlottesgotalot.com "Fork and Hammer" is brought to you by Biltmore Estate Winery.