About This Episode
In this special holiday episode, we sit down with the people behind Miami’s most iconic holiday experiences.
From the business of Christmas events to the food that defines Miami’s holiday season — this episode takes you behind the scenes of how Miami celebrates, cooks, builds, and brings the holidays to life.
Manny Alfonso:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mannyalfonso8/
Kiko Suarez:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/querikoconkiko/
Eduardo Moya:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mr_moya/
Follow Us! - A Day in Miami:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adayinmiami/
Listen on Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/show/20WEys6jxiliBCLoo9iSID
________________________
Produced by: Ben Schwede
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/benthecreatorrr/
Richard Estrella (Estrella Insurance)
0:00 Intro
2:13 About Estrella Insurance
4:20 Race to the Bottom
9:50 You Should Shop Around
12:03 Do People Buy Insurance in Person?
13:34 Do Insurance Company Look For Any Reason to Deny Claims?
15:04 No-Faulty State
17:26 Hit and Runs
18:34 Hialeah Has the Most Accidents
19:13 Franchising
19:47 Partnership with Christmas Wonderland
21:46 Advice to Pay Less for Insurance
Bradley Delgado (Chef Brad) & Carlos Gazitua (Sergio’s)
23:03 Intro
24:43 Toy Drive
25:25 Pig Roast
26:54 Sergio’s in Pinecrest
28:58 Upscaling Sergio’s
30:32 Viral Iced Coffees and New Special Coffee
31:28 Making Hard Recipes Simple
33:37 Dishes for Christmas
37:53 Helping People Learn How to Cook
39:41 Best Sellers in Sergio’s
41:25 Hardest Part of Doing the Events
42:34 Plans for the Near Future
Tony Albelo (Loud and Live)
44:54 Intro
47:19 Deciding to Take Over Santa’s Enchanted Forest
51:46 Holidade Section
54:03 Tony’s Favorite Display at Christmas Wonderland
56:04 Ticket Prices
57:23 New Year’s Eve Countdown and Fireworks
58:42 Trying Santa’s Favorite Cookies
1:00:15 Favorite Foods
1:02:04 Peacock Foodtruck
1:03:14 Team Behind Building the Events
1:04:25 Is it Tony’s Best Production?
1:05:02 Biggest Challenge + Coquito From Santa
1:07:30 Aha Moment
1:08:46 Silent Nights
1:11:08 Ronald McDonald’s House
1:12:21 Thoughts on Coquito
1:13:07 Chef Brad’s Favorite Dishes
1:14:27 Most Requested Dish
1:15:12 Favorite Song to Cook To
1:17:18 Until When is Christmas Wonderland Open?
1:18:20 Getting Flooded Night Before Opening
1:19:39 Plans for the Future of Christmas Wonderland
1:20:49 Outro
Joshua Pascual (Josh’s Premium Meats), Hansel Lopez (BrandsMart), John Ruiz (Loud & Live)
1:21:05 Intro
1:23:03 BTS of Running Christmas Wonderland Every Day
1:23:45 BrandsMart Sponsoring a Ride at Christmas Wonderland
1:26:43 Holiday Season at JPM and Inflation
1:27:54 Alternatives to Wagyu
1:29:16 Favorite Cuts of Beef
1:30:55 Top Selling Cut
1:32:12 Starting JPM Locally
1:34:56 Top Sellers During Holidays at BrandsMart
1:36:08 John’s BrandsMart Story
1:37:37 Josh’s Premium Meats x BrandsMart Collab?
1:39:04 People Copying Josh’s Concept?
1:43:53 What They Cook for Christmas + BrandsMart Wishlist
1:46:53 Josh’s Premium Meats Specials and Store Details
1:47:29 John’s Recommendation When Visiting Christmas Wonderland
1:48:24 Their Thoughts on ADIM Podcast
1:49:07 Top 3 Restaurants by Josh
1:50:50 Best Holiday Deals at BrandsMart
1:51:41 Outro
Transcript
Auto-generatedOh, guys, I am excited about this one. We're back. A beautiful night in Westchester, baby, at
Hey, wait, hold up. This is Westchester or Olympia Heights?
No, this is Westchester. Which Westchester?
Westchester.
This is Tropical Park.
This is Tropical Park. The
beautiful winter touch.
The beautiful Winter Wonderland. We got Ricky Estrea from Estrea Insurance in the house. Hey, what's up, Rick?
What's up? What's up, guys?
We got our return amazing co-host, Marcos El Cavayo in the house.
I can't believe I forgot this is Rick.
Yeah.
What's up, brother?
And of course, and of course, my partner. What? Did you guys like deal drugs together when you were younger or
Oh, wow.
Yeah. Right off the gate. Godamn.
Right. You might you might as well have [ __ ] placed them at the mutiny. [laughter]
Long the mutiny. Oh,
not old enough.
You weren't even born at that time.
Yeah.
You weren't old enough for that one.
You weren't either.
I wasn't old.
Oh, wow. Those are Manny stories. Me and Rick, I think.
Yeah, it was Matt. That was Manny.
56. That's Manny.
M6. Rick, you look good.
Yeah, you look good.
Totally. He looks He looks like a a good uh thoroughbred American. Yeah, like a good anglo.
You know, you know, I did some time in the army. Uh, and I think it might Americanize me a little.
All right. This is that'll domesticate the [ __ ] out of anybody. Baba.
Yeah. How is the holiday shopping and stuff going for you guys?
What?
Yeah. Look at all this food.
Hey. Hey, listen. But to get back to what I was telling you the Anglo-Saxon,
I'm telling you that listen, I I I deal with it too, but on a less on a lesser scale. Well, listen. I'll go to a gas station and the cashier, she'll inherently want to talk to me in English.
Ah,
right. And and I know she's going through trouble. I know she's going through trouble.
Yeah. Then you bust out,
"Hey, which one did you want?" And I go, "Mama." No, no, bro. It's in English. Oh, okay. Very good.
They want they want to practice. You have to face that all the time. I had a lady tell me, "No, the issue is that I'm allergic to the gate." And I'm like, "I go por what?" But she kept she kept the English, dude. You're right. It's amazing. So, I I want to I started off the right way. Okay. So,
I'm relatively young. I guess 37. I've seen insurance everywhere all over this city for my whole life. Yeah, man.
My grandfather had insurance. My my family always had insurance. tell us a little bit about yourself, your story, right? And um and the way you're supporting Christmas Wonderland, I think is wonderful. Yeah.
Okay. So, tell us a little about that.
Yeah. So, you know, at the end of the day, we're we're local, right? We're we're Cuban. Um my brother is actually the founder of the company.
Oh, wow.
He started uh selling health and life in the 70s, mid70s. And in 1980 is when E3 Insurance was actually incorporated and the first agency took off. And uh to be honest with you, it was really based on there was a need. There was a void in the market. There was nowhere for Atos to go buy insurance in in 1980 that it wasn't some bucket shop or go to the tag agency and and get scammed or or something like that. So there was a void
and and he said, "I'm going to fill that void." And that's how we started. And people just started coming in, man, and bringing us the mail, you know, helping us because we would would translate and and that's how it blew up. It became it's a very community oriented. All our agents are from here.
They're all Cuban.
Most of them, a majority are Cuban. Uh yeah. And and most of them are local.
How many locations do you have right now?
We have 230 right now.
Only South Florida.
No. In And so we're in seven states right now.
Amazing. Yeah. Yeah. We have 200 in Florida. Uh 70 something just here in Day County.
They're only they don't only insure Cubans, Papa.
That's right.
That's amazing, man.
Yeah. We're not your grandfather's insurance company anymore. We do full lines. We do commercial. We do health. We do the whole thing. We do, you know, Obamacare, ACA. We do it all.
You do do health?
Yeah, we do health for sure.
Oh, nice.
We do commercial. We We We do it all.
I sold I sold health back in my time.
Yeah, it's a it's it's a rough one. I sold life insurance.
Listen, it Yeah. Now being a health insurance agent is almost equivalent to being like a realtor.
Yeah.
There's 40 of them for every every networking event you go to.
Estaso. every time you see an insurance agent be and I'm telling you that was 15 years ago when I did it. So I can just imagine now.
Yeah.
You were saying something to Kiko earlier when he was asking about potential raids etc. You it's always something that
you said race to the bottom. It's a race to the bottom. You want to like clarify?
Let's talk about it. Let's talk about because I I
I know insurance nobody wants to be an insurance agent. Nobody wakes up in the morning and says you know or is growing up and says I want to be an insurance agent. Right. But but there's some there is some beauty to to this. It is some a little bit of art, a little bit of science. So, let's get to the nitty-gritty of what's happening in Florida. The truth is, and let's let's just put it out on
Put it out there.
Give it to us, Ricky. You're the star.
Hit them with it.
You know, we are in a very very ligious society. Like, we all know it, right? You just look around. You got every other billboard is an attorney. Every every other, you know, uh sign that you see it it is a latigious world. And almost every single accident now is turning into a litigation.
Yes.
So the amount of litigation that has that that just blew up was was it's just unbelievable. Finally, after years and years of us trying to to talk some sense into the government. Um they finally made a move. Finally. And they when was it recently?
It was in it was at the end of 2023. They made a they made several legislative changes. I I I want to be clear about, but let's talk about the important one, the one that's really making uh the the difference, and it's the oneway attorney fees. So, think about this. You're going to in the old before if we had a case and I got I got video evidence or or whatever. I have a strong defense that that you created your own accident. They we know we got we got a guy with you. You're putting a holes in
fraud. Yo, ex's there crashing into you. Everybody, I get it.
So, you're trying to fight cases that you think are legit. But here's the the the kicker.
If if we lose the case, we have to pay the settlement and the attorney fees of of the other person.
Yeah.
But if we win nothing,
we don't get to recover our losses for defending something that we won.
Got you.
And that changed. And that change has been drastic. Now you you're seeing that a race to the bottom. What I meant by that is that insurance companies are trying to to fight themselves to lower rate for several reasons.
Yeah.
One,
if you make too much money in our business, you get what's called an excess profit tax.
I don't know if you guys have seen the news, but Progressive has to give back $1 billion to Florida policy holders. So, everyone who has an insurance policy with Progressive is going to get So, you're going to get a check back.
When is this check coming?
I don't know. I don't
This is This is This is a by This is a byproduct of the new legislation.
No, no, no. That's That's old. That's old. So, that's a rule. But, but based on the legislative changes, insurance companies are doing better. But if you do too good, you got to give money back. So,
does that benefit the consumer?
Of course. Of course.
So, is that good?
Rates are dropping huge.
So, would you say that's good? This is a good thing, too.
Yes. Yes. And I want to get a check.
What I what I tell everybody is you need to be
you you need to get a quote. Like go out there like if you've been with someone for 6 months, a year, it doesn't matter who it is,
get another quote.
It'll be low. It'll be lower.
It's going to be lower. Like competitive competitive basically before the system incentivized the fraud. You're you're saying?
Well, well, not not incentivized. It's just that it didn't give you a fair shot. Like you all you want is a fair shot. I understand.
Listen, one of my buddies right now is uh studying to be an attorney and the only reason why and he's going to be one of his accident attorneys, right? And he told me his father-in-law is one and he has an office and he looked at him in the they're having drinks and he goes, "I literally have a license to steal."
That's right.
Right. I go, I get a case, I show up, they settle, I don't do nothing. I get my 33% chiao next. And it's just like,
wow. Why do you think that you see all these advertising and all this money being thrown in? I mean, look, Morgan and
it reflects it reflects in your [ __ ] insurance premium. I'm sorry.
Yeah, forgot about that.
You're 100% right. Like, that's that is the issue.
So, there's no real litigation anymore. They're just settling.
We Everybody Everybody knows that this state was carrying about $300 or $400 per policy extra because of this that they just fixed. So, that's going to go down. And I could tell you that I see it like I see the average premium in the state go from 1840 to 13 something.
Now is that uh auto, commercial, home, everything across the board?
Auto everything across the board. But auto lines, all of the other lines are going to take longer because there's more tail to all of the stuff. Those cases could go 5 years, 10 years. The auto is a little different. They're a little faster. So you're seeing a a a super fast reaction to the market. But I'll tell you this, not not I'm the president of my association
and I always fight to figure to keep our association fees real low
and we had like a $40 my my association company came in. Hey, we got to increase by $40. I'm like no way. We got to lower that, cut this, cut that. And I'm like, where's it coming from? Go look at the line item of insurance and it skyrocketed. It's like three times as much. So we had to get we had to charge we had to pass that that cost along. Apparently now that's going to be rolled back and we're going to be able to lower it again. So that's what you're seeing in the future.
What I'm saying is shop right now. Right now the the consumer has the advantage now and and I'm going to tell you I I was just telling Kiko.
Yeah.
The the rate there's a rate drop that just was just announced by one carrier and we we have like you know we we have dozens and dozens of carriers
cuz you guys are a broker.
We're brokers. We also have our own carrier but we're also a broker. We have we have a lot of companies and I get a notification constantly. I just got one two days ago. A company is going to take uh lower the rate. There's one that's going to lower the rate Monday. That means that other carriers are going to come the first quarter of 2026. So this this rate drop will continue throughout the beginning of 2026. It should settle sometime in 2026 and then things will
So what you're saying to me is if someone wants to lower their insurance for their vehicle, etc. to call you. Call, call, call.
So, I should check my rate like insurance.
And you should do it all the time. You should be proactive about that because it's going to continue to go down.
What do we tell them to lower it? They got to lower it or we're gonna move.
No, no, no. You shopping.
Do you want to do we threaten shopping?
Does gigo threaten them?
No. No. For real. I have progressive I have progressive check your rate. I I think I'm I'm in the 300 somewhere monthly. If I if I check the rate marketing go if you don't check your rate.
I'm going to tell you what I would do.
What are they going to tell me?
I I'm going to tell you what I would do. I would reate it again. I would just go in and and rerate it.
But what does that reate mean? Like call my own number?
No, no, no. You you it'll help my driver.
Who Who are you insured with? Aggressive auto direct or through an agent?
Direct. Yeah, direct. I have the app on the phone. Direct. Yeah.
Okay. So, you want direct? So, so here's what I would do. I would, you know, I would call the agent I told you about, I'll I'll hook you up with them. You you can call us, you know. Um
I don't know if you want kiko on your policy. He's always texting and driving. But listen, that's going to that's going to make the bell curve.
So So I should just flatten that bell curve.
No, but check it. Check it if you're going to get
Listen, you have to continue to shop. There's too many carriers and there's too much competition. We are in a market now where this is a heavy heavy competition. People are lowering rates to be competitive in this market. If you don't sell, you die.
Damn.
So you have to be selling. How do you sell? You lower your rates so that you get clients. Uh, do we still I mean we're obviously, you know, a little bit more techsavvy. Do we still or do you still see consistent people showing up to the actual locations to enroll for insurance?
Yeah, that's a great question. I get it all the time, especially from our franchises that, you know, are opening and and this is this is the simple one I tell them. I say, "Look, here's what happened. Insurance is not going to go the the way of travel because anybody can get on the internet and book a plane from Miami to Atlanta and back and and it's pretty easy. But if you do your own car insurance and you get in involved in a car accident, you call an insurance company and they say, "No, you don't have that coverage." Who are you going to yell at?
I would like
denied to the underwriter.
So, so what you got to do is I find people going back to agents and so you could do you could do what we do, right? So, you can call your agent and I'll do everything over the phone for you. You don't have to come to the agency. I'll make it easy for you, but you have someone to talk to, someone to say, "Hey, do I need this coverage? Are you do you really think you need compet collision on a 1979 Toyota Corolla?
And are you paying for that? Cuz you don't know what it is. You You're like, "Oh, collision. That means if I Correct."
So So why are you going to do something so complicated and you're really not saving?
But why is insurance so complicated?
Because it's lit. It's litigation, dude. It's what it is. I mean, at the end of the day, you're buying coverage to protect yourself against something that hasn't happened. Bono boncho. I have I have buddies of mine that have dipped out of the insurance um you know world and industry and then they had their own little brokerage and they told me brother it's a mission now because most insurance carriers are looking to see how to deny you and once they deny you you're getting the phone calls and you're getting the brunt of like the situation.
You know what though? That's not the case.
Okay.
If you you like I'm sitting with you right now and I'm telling you that any of those things are going to reach me and I'm telling you that that's not the case. If you write and you're professional and you use good companies and you do your job right, you're not going to get that back. Like people make mistakes, but
like I told you, I I sold I sold health insurance when I was 25. It's my family business.
He's absolutely right. Like that's that's [ __ ]
It's it's exactly like a car insurance plan. Health insurance is like that, too.
Whatever is in your plan, it's up to you. You're responsible to understand what it is that you're covered for. If you show up one day, you know, insurance companies are bound to what they give you in your contract. So, it's, you know, exactly what he's, like he's saying, you
you have to understand and and the way you do that is by having human contact, somebody guiding you the right way.
The Department of Insurance is a very good pro-consumer advocacy agency. They're the ones that regulate us.
And if you start denying claims, Alolo, you know, like you're going to get shut down, dude. You're going to get bad faith claims. You're you're they're going to shut you down. And this is a bad faith like floor. You you avoid bad faith as much as you can here.
All right. So, I got a couple more questions for you.
What the [ __ ] does Sorry.
Damn. So, I no fault state mean. I still don't understand what being in a no fault state means.
Great. Great. So, let's let's learn a little bit about the state and the crazy.
I want the facts here.
So, here here's the issue. A long time ago, the state figured that it has an issue with uninsured drivers,
particularly because
issue as in there's too many of them.
No, that people are just showing up to the hospitals to to, you know, Jackson and they have no insurance,
health insurance.
Yeah, health insurance to protect itself. Not even that.
And the state figured we got to do at least something about that. There has to be a way for us to be able to mandate people to at least have some type of basic coverage so that if they're involved in an accident, we can try and and relieve some of that um some of that
lit litigation that's going to start filling courts and it's going to just it's going to go it's going to go crazy litigation, right? Yeah.
So So what do they do? They said, "Okay, we force people who register cars to get health insurance. However, if you're involved in an accident, your insurance coverage has to cover you whether you're at fault in an accident or not at
for the vehicle and health or just health.
That's your personal that's personal injury. You have to get health insurance.
No, no, no. Personal injury protection. PIP.
So, that's what that that covers the injuries that you sustain. You the driver sustained in your car.
Understood. Because if you're involved in an accident, we should all agree that you cover your medical cost. I cover my medical cost.
Not vehicle, right? No questions. Right. So, so this is the beginning. Then then they started having another issue, which is people were having accidents, but there was no no help in in getting the car fixed. Bunch of cars people. So, they added PD property damage to that. So, then anybody who registers a car has to at least minimally buy a PIP, personal injury protection.
That's 10, right? 1020,
which no, that that's not that that that's just that has a deductible of $1,000. That's your personal injury.
Then you have to buy PD, which is property damage. This is the damage you cause to someone else
crash to a house or something.
And you have to at least have $10,000. That altogether comprises that what what you could put under the no fault law, right?
Gotcha. Do you get a lot of hit and runs? Do people call you a lot for that? Do you see a lot that h a lot of that happening or
Yeah. Yeah. The the the problem with the hidden run is that
you have nobody to blame.
People are coming. Okay. We we definitely have a big issue with that, right? And we have a big issue with unity to blame.
So,
you told me you did a hidden run the other day.
Yeah.
What was it called?
Out there, bro. Jesus.
Like, even if
I would prefer that if it was realistic. [laughter] That's the truth is that right that that
uninsured motorist is actually a medical coverage right it's not a it's not a property damage coverage that that falls under collision and comprehensive right so that's what what's going to cover the damage to your car and that's another thing that we hear we hear people come in and say something about uninsured motorist or oh I need coverage for that but it's it's that's why I tell you that's why you have that that's why you have that
that's why you go have to go see an agent
can I ask you something that that thing you mentioned earlier is that something that they're trying to do attach getting health insurance to getting a car?
No.
Oh, okay.
No.
Okay.
Last question from my end.
Insurance is boring, but Ricky, you seem like a fun guy.
Yeah.
All right.
What your What's your favorite club?
No. I'm assuming that the most accidents happen in Halia.
You can look that up, by the way. You know, you can look that up. 27th Avenue in
Cor. Here's here's what's not fair. What's not fair is that we have a lot of offices in Halleia and we have a lot of customers in Halyia. So by default we're going to get
political political. He's good. He's good. He's been media trained. He's highly trained. Listen the thing is
that's why I we opened the first off is in in still in the heart. You know anybody they know how to drive.
Anybody who wants to open an insurance and and be part of the franchise. Is that still a possibility?
Yeah. Yeah. We we still have franchises available you know and and again it's now we're in seven states. So it's not awesome something you have to do.
How much are we talking about? How much I got to put down to be a
Yeah. You know, we're talking 25 to 50,000 is is probably the initial investment.
Are you in Are you in any heavy Anglo states? No way. Right.
We're in Texas, Arizona, Colorado,
but like El Paso, Texasa.
Yeah. Yeah, we're in a lot of Latinos.
Yeah, that's Dallas. We're in Dallas.
All right, let's move on to your Kentucky.
Let's move on to the the participation here at the park that Estraa has.
Yes. Because first of all, it's the first thing you see when you come in. Talk to us about Holidayade. And I love what you guys have done of highlighting different parts of our city and our state and and explain to little who came up with that concept because I think it's amazing.
I I would love to take that and say it was me, but it wasn't. Uh we we have a brilliant staff that that came up with the idea. Obviously, we we have to, you know, give it the the okay, but I got to tell you, this was a no-brainer, guys. Like if you're if you're from Miami and you're like you're like me. I grew up here. I this you know I went to Rockway.
Me too. Summer camp. I went to Rockway Summer Camp.
You know like at the end of the day this is we all came here dude. We all we all we all came here and and and this guy they came in and they fixed it up you know and they sketchy you know and look at it now. And we're like we got to be we got to be you guys got Halia factories. You got KVK lighouses. You got the swamp feature. That's right. And it's all related and it's the first thing you see I think.
Hold on. What do you mean factories?
Yeah. He's got it all here through here.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. They did a great job there.
That's right.
Is it the first time you guys work?
This is our second year. We were we were you know title sponsors last year and uh and again it's it's
I don't know man. It's
the last time I came. I was a loss for words the last time because it sucked. It was I don't know about you guys, man, but I used to come
my kids, my daughter, everything.
And I I stopped coming, man. I
But now now now what he's done with Wonderland. Look at the floor. You can't even find a piece of garbage. Santa beautiful l the ring of fire. When it was Santa's, I saw it come loose once. [laughter]
The ring of fire.
I'm telling you. I'm telling you fire goes. I don't believe you.
You listen. This is the best holiday experience in the city by far. I know you got that rinky dinky Ripley's thing going on and stuff like that. This is not that. This is like family oriented. This is the place to be.
It's hard thing too, man. It's our thing.
Ricky, before we let you go, what can you um advice can you give like for somebody like me that wants to make a change that now understands check, check, check, right? Get the quotes.
Listen, I'm telling you right now that you have to you have to quote. Look, I'm This isn't I came here because I I wanted to talk to you guys. I I see you. I I love this guy. I'm always seeing him on on Instagram. We love funny guys.
So, I I just want I'm not even here pushing. I'm not doing any of that. Here's the truth. Call me.
Wait. We're pushing for you.
I know. Call me or not. It doesn't matter.
You need to quote your insurance. Your all your insurance is right now. You have to do it. They're coming up for renewal. Get 30 days ahead. And by the way, if you shop early, there's a huge discount that people don't understand exists and it's called the early shopper. So if your policyy's coming up and let's say it's 10 days, call now.
Listen, by the way, is there is there a certain time of year that's better?
No, not really.
No, that's not true.
Listen, you're going to have a guy that's going to show up soon. It's called Chef Brad. Do not insure that guy. He's always causing fires in his house, man. Do not insure that guy. Okay.
Ricky, thank you so much, bro. And I'm going to call you and definitely use you.
Yeah, man. You got it,
Ricky Estrea, baby. Thank you.
Appreciate you.
Great picture, brother.
All right.
All right, we're back. We're back. I checked out Ed for an allstar panel.
Boom.
Here right now. I got I got all my peeps here on my left.
Sign us Miami Heat, baby.
Spons, my partner from all the pig roast and toy drives and everything. Our
event coordinator/Mr. Everything
owner of Sergio's Galia. How are you, buddy?
I'm doing great, man.
You're doing good. I got you on again. We got Brad
Paka baby like I never left.
Brad, how are you guys doing at the formerly known as Santa Enchanted?
He just got a new phone, so he's stressed out about getting that [ __ ] to work.
It's okay. It's okay.
What do you guys think about the park? Huh?
If you have epilepsy without walking in trigger, baby, bro, this is Wonderland.
The youngest guy in the panel used to come here or
No, no, no. Yes. I I I literally used to come here all the time and they would sell these like giant balloons, you know, like Scooby-Doo, bro. I'd leave with them. The tism was tis. [music] Let me tell you, they've done a beautiful job. It's when it's
No, no, no, no. See, see, see, literally this this feels like uh No, no, no, no. This is awesome.
What do you think?
Yeah. No, I agree. It's it's a lot cleaner. I'm actually You hear Christmas music instead of like hip-hop or rap that back in the old days.
Power 96. Good. Me and Louis came the other day with our families and we had a great time, bro.
Oh, no. No.
We had a great time.
Definitely family. Beautiful.
All right. I want to start out first with my partner Lewis. I know he's a little stressed out. We got a toy drive tomorrow cuz
how you doing that? That's
right. We're doing great here. Our 14th year.
I'm going on a mission. I had two phones today. So,
it got disconnected, but but I'm still here. It's all that matters. So, yeah. As Kiko was saying that tomorrow is our our 14th annual holiday tour drive at the Builmore Hotel. uh an event that we started from day one. My son was born in 2011. Right after that, we launched the pig rolls and uh it's a great charity event. It brings everybody together is the coolest by far tour drive. When you think of a tour drive, you think of an event that people come and like the kids are there, but our event is more of a think of a gala but more laid-back cocktail. People can have fun, be themselves, [music] not so uptight, right?
Uh how do you get in? It's we have a host committee. So, it's kind of like a
secret society. You guys are both invited, by the way. You're on my list.
They're all on secret.
No pressure. No pressure.
Louis, you just we just recently had an event.
Music, which was by the police, which is our pig [music] rolls that we're super proud of.
You're wearing one of our shirts now. Um I know how it went, but tell the people how it went for who
it was. It was a fourth annual Pig Rose Bowl series. Uh South Florida PB8 law enforcement edition. Uh benefit and the love fun.
The judge.
We got to do him. That's what I said.
George Kalo was busy, but he's been he's been on before. Well, you had representation from Sergos.
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Chef Raul, shout out. He came for for
as a as a matter of fact, you've been supporting us from day one when we first started the pigs go in farmhouse.
That's right.
100%.
You guys competed.
So, yes. So, like Kiko said, it was a very special event. Uh it's been a rough month the last month for our law enforcement community.
Uh Sergeant Cahuzo, may he rest in peace to him and his family. You know that we're praying for them. And Deputy uh Deon Haram, you know, wear his his band. uh the Miami Day County Sheriff's Office. So, it was an event that we brought the community together, our law enforcement community and and give them the respect, give them the honor and give them what they truly need, you know, our support. Uh so, yes, you know, events that we do, we have a bridge, we bring community together with Keo, our team, and everybody else. And, you know, we're blessed. You know, God gives us that strength, gives us the faith to be able to do this and keep on pushing forward every day.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's amazing. He lo is a not an ex-Marine, a marine. I found out you don't say
once a Marine. I was a Marine.
So he's passed a few law enforcement and charity and I'm I'm very proud to marine.
Kito, you got news coming, bro. I'll get to you in a second. Brother, we grew up going to Sergio's [ __ ] I'm overweight because of your restaurants and uh [laughter] you've been my brother more than 10 years, but you got something going on, brother, that's huge, that's been in the making.
You want me to tell them or you want or you want to say it?
Oh, you can say it.
Pinrest is finally getting a Sergios. And not only are they getting a Sergios, they're getting Tell us tell us about the Sergios because the Sergios has history, the outdoor court. Tell us.
Yeah, this will be uh we'll be opening up at mid to end of December uh this month. So that's right around the corner and we'll have the the first ever window in Pinerest. So the first Ventanita, which was a big deal for Pinerest,
uh an outdoor terrace and an outdoor bar
um there. So it's it's exciting stuff that's going to be happening in Pinerest. you know, we're really making a difference in terms of showing the Pinerest community what can happen for other restaurant tours to come in and and do it and and but it takes a takes a village, right? It takes actually the village of Pinerest and and the mayor support and then it takes also the landlords to want to do it. So, shout out to the Navaro family that's that's our property with them on doing that and then and then Sergio. So it takes it took three, you know, organizations to come together to show to Pinerest, you know, we can bring some good food, good talent down there to the Pinerest community.
What's up with that?
I I have merch. So these are Coretta fish. So if you go to Sergios, you all know, you all know your Cata fishos cuz you know, you know what a good ketta tastes like.
And uh it's all about golden moments. So golden moments in golf and golden moments at Sergio. So we're all about making golden moments, man. Brad, you make a mean croc too the other day. I love croet.
Talk to us about growing up the ser you've gone.
Oh my god, it is divine. Crocetas for sure. Divine crocettas. Those aa whenever she didn't want to make them and everything else. Sergios always go.
I think Alito has a world record for the biggest.
O biggest from the waist down. Hey,
I've seen I've seen circles in the last like couple years kind of like I don't want to talk about get like more like like say more fine dining, but I seem like it's gone a little bit more like
feno.
Yeah,
feno feno.
Is is am I crazy or what?
No, I I think it's an evolution. You know, I think we are the spirit of Miami and as Miami's grown and people have grown with us, we want to grow with Miami and we want to make sure that we're still authentic but that we still step up culinary. Uh there's a lot of more chefs, you know, in the community that continue to bring their, you know, identity to Miami, which is making Miami really one of the top culinary scenes um in the United States. And we just want to make sure that we're doing our part, still staying with our culture, still staying with what we have, but making sure that we upgrade and everything possible, right? So that's all that's what it's all about. It's like upgrade it, upgrade it, make sure that you know there's there's never a reason. I had a lady come in today in Pinerest and she goes, "When are you opening?" And I go sooner. She goes, "Well, do I can't wait cuz you guys are the uh Cuban Flanigans of our community that you can't go wrong." And and so that's
I thought about that. I think better than Fan. I'm not a big fan.
Cuban Flannies.
And so, you know, you give a credit say like people people trust us. That's what it means. You know, people go to us and they and I want to keep stepping up our culinary game all the time cuz, you know, I'm one of those restaurant tours that we eat their breakfast, lunch, and dinner, man. So, you know, I got to I got to make sure that
that breakfast is is like it's for me it's it's very special. I've had a lot of breakfastes at Sergios
Sergios is an anchor in the community.
Yeah.
And we're we're launching also um our first um in Pinerest. We'll be launching um our first uh our iced coffee went viral.
I saw that.
And manaw like we've been
What's up with that? What's up with the coffee? Like like is it something special?
Yeah, man. You got to you got to check it out. Like
I mean you you guys really went viral with this [ __ ]
Yeah. It's been all over Tik Tok. It's and I created another version now coming out. So I'll I'll say it so no one no one knows about this but in the next you know couple weeks we're coming out with our our beauty lattes. And so we're going to do Cuban coffee
beauty lattes
protein collagen on on the top of the coal foams with turmeric or lavender. And dude, when I'm telling you it's fire, you're gonna have lavender. I saw you.
I know. I always carry Pepsi.
I always carry Pepsidin. I love a good cafe.
Let's get to you, bro. What's um I know you got huge fans, brother. I'm one of your biggest huge fans pound for pound.
I love my people. What's what's what's what what are the the the recipes that hit? What are the ones that that get requested?
How do you pick your content? Like how does it
truly? It's how I pick my content is how I feel that day, but also the music I hear within like when I like wake up, you know? So like if I hear a song and I go, "Oh, I feel like I could have a moment with this where I could like le like like, you know, no, come back." You know, pero it's it's this thing where I just wake up and I feel it and I go to sav let's just put on a show you know like we all like o whenever you're
you're not only a chef you're an artist brother no try you know per it's this this thing where it comes from the passion of the food porqu my Cuban Lebanese roots like I always say o your favorite sand cuban baby toy and let me tell you having those roots and being able to make like a baklava right? Where you could just break it down where it's like, oh yeah, it's just fo dough, a little bit of butter, some pistachio, but it was how you layer it and then you just add it at the top. Bake it to this dish that seems so hard. Somehow I find a way to just simplify it and I'm going to keep doing it so we become better home cooks. You know what I mean?
Classically trained chefs. You're not just an influencer.
French technique. And that's what I tell everyone. If you want to really learn cooking and like you you will get to the Asiatic cuisine, you will get to the crazy Spanish cuisine. Tambien Pero, the first thing you need to do is start with French technique poke and that is the base of everything.
Yeah, they're in the game. Do you know any Nicaraguan recipes?
Oh my gosh. Oh my god. I there
you only say nothing Nicaraguan so far. I think we do a collab. I see Pig Rose Command. I'm the only one in the Pig Rose Cuban.
Oh my gosh. Maybe collabo.
What about a fancy croet? A fancy fancy lavender freaking foam. I
I'm going to go I'm going to go one by one. Louis, um, what are we eating for the holidays at your house? Being that you're Nicaragua, I mean, I've known you for it, but for the people that don't know,
a typical Nicarawa dish for Nicarawas is gina rea.
Yes.
Like like stuffed hand, you know, you have like a stuffed turkey.
Uh, and it's it has like a a blend and a fusion of of of Asian, you know, a true It used to be an a Chinese,
they were actually Nicarawa. It was called Chsui. And you order them, you order them like like for the holidays like like Oh my gosh.
The hen delicious like pineapple fruits.
What else? What else? What else is stumbling tradition?
Oh, you know what? That's like
you grow up on that. That's like
tortilla.
Oh god.
You being a restaurant owner, are you working that day? I know you're not working anymore cuz you're the boss, but
are you guys serving holiday stuff? What do you have at home as well?
And we we're very big on holidays in in the restaurant. So, our c we usually close at 3:00.
You guys never closed that way.
I know. It's crazy. It's like
we we we close at 3:00 that day, but we'll do tons of catering. So, we'll do to you know, lechon tomorrow to big platters, right? Because a lot of people don't want to cook. Or they may say, "I want to cook the the big meal, but I don't want to do I want to fry." That's a big one. So, maybe they'll order from us the marikita loto, the catering packages, and then they say, "I'll I'll do my maybe main entree at home." that whatever they feel that they culinary culinarily like they they feel like they have the heart or they want to do, right? Cuz
to do the entire meal
at your place can be exhausting, right? So So you so you want to focus on what you do best or what you want to try for your family and then you got people like us that we have a whole culinary team that does that. You know, one of the things people don't know about is that we have our even our own USDA facility. So I I we cut our steaks, we cut our chickens. Yeah, we do a lot of things for for us to to to supply our our
How many stores
operations?
How many restaurants?
We're we're about This is going to be our seventh full service, but in total units that that we operate or sell to or do this is like 48 units right now.
Yeah. And what are they making at home? What what's the family making at your house?
Oh, well, we're going to do le we're going to do lechon, you know, yuka, you know.
You cheat a little bit and get your chefs to make your food.
I I reached out to Ro. I have a lot of secrets. I do. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I got another secret. Yes. Yes. Keep it easy. I keep it easy. Well, from
Imagine, bro, if your game is food all day, the last thing you want to do is
last. No, let me tell you.
All right, Brad. And for you, what are we making? Let me tell you, is mom still cooking and are you doing it or what?
So, so let me tell you, for the past like couple years, I've been cooking the Thanksgiving and the noas. this past Thanksgiving, you know, where I was like, "Bro, no." Everyone got lazy and then everyone just just started like standing around and I go I go upstairs for an hour and I say, "Can someone just put this this this in the oven?" Poke, by the time I get down, I'll finish it. No one did anything. So, I come down, I go, "Cono, you're all saying dinner's at 5 minutes. We need 40 for to don't worry. I'll get it out in 15. love a good Thanksgiving for Noa. It's same same old Cuban tradition. We do a congre, we do um unleong, we do a hambo America. Yeah. You know, you know, the honey baked hams are phenomenal. The leftovers are the pies, you know. I I don't think we do stuffing. We we just do more like rice, beans, marigas, bread. When you're not recording, are you really cooking a lot or you like I
know it's it's it's so funny. So, I do cook a lot and then when I don't record it, I actually stream it on either Tik Tok or a Twitch or something there. So, so it is so much fun to do it with everyone. Okay, some of my like Tik Tok peeps like I come on in like the middle of the day and I'm with you for like 4 hours of the rest of your day. So, it's what I always say. Oo, I'm your favorite kuanito that doesn't need batteries, baby. Just hide me in the desk. and the boss will be there. We're here. Whenever I don't film or do something, I still try to either cook, but if I'm not cooking, I either am doing a good old American watching some wrestling or um either just watching a good movie or playing some video games.
Do you think your videos have helped people learn how to cook? I I do and I hope that they have, you know, but a lot of people have come come up to me and there there was this one that that was very like prominent to me. We went to the good old boogies, you know, bugilas in South three days ago. Shout out to Boogies, baby. Baby, that's it. You walk in there, baby. Oh my god. Pero, you walked into Boogies and this woman, she she she was probably in her like mid like 50s or something, I see, right? comes up to me balling her eyes out, right? And I go, he probably hit her kid or something. You know what I'm saying? And then she walks up to me and she goes, "You have brought so much culture into my house." My parents came here 50 years ago, didn't teach us any cooking, didn't teach us anything. But I sat down and I watched your videos. I now can pass that to the next generation of my kids. Raano Carneaba, all these videos step by step. You know, it's very chaotic. Hey, baby. The world is chaotic. We have fun and and it's it's more of a thing where I just want you to forget about your day for a good minute and a half, you know. So, at at the end of the day, I I will bank on it that my food will give you the one thing that every chef wants. It's a flavor memory. Try to cook it. Make it your own. I give you the base of the recipe. Add your family's favorite flavors. You know, if you don't like garlic, take out the garlic. If you don't like ghetto, put another flavor. That is the magic of these recipes. But it's the Cuban tech like way and the French technique that will lead you to that. So you could do anything. Just believe in it and just cook it, you know. How we do it, baby.
This question is for you. Uh, what's the most sold item or most popular besides the gada? Cuz we know the gadget are fine.
Yeah. But like what's like one dish that will never go off the menu? One dish that won't go off the menu will probably be like for sandwiches is our pan. That's always top top seller, you know. Um, la vakafita. I think we have probably the best vakafita.
Is it better than
I think our vakafita is fire, man. I have and I even have
like I I think our vakafita is awesome, you know. I put it up I put it up with anyone.
Put it up with anyone because it just we should do a bakafita competition.
We got to do a bakafita. I really want to try the bakafita, bro. I love bakafita. It could be chicken. It could be carne. Oh my god, I love bakafita.
I did one recently with a lechon vakafita that we have in our menu. People just came out recently where we get lechon and then we get le chicon after we've pan siri and we put the chicharon is crumbles on top with a seoita kosina and then a little bit lime that that you'll I think you'll really enjoy that experience.
You see you see what he said. One of the things that we'll be talking about obviously I think we're getting we're getting to be known in the community has we've been trailblazing this space about competitions
and it's not about just competition it's about bringing everybody out
and and and creating and creating that special
engagement that community gapping and everybody comes out cuz food brings together you guys that work
and it's not about a pig rolls. So, one of the things we're talking is like that the like the pig rolls where the the pig like a pig food world, right? Like a whole like like a whole bowl of food
because everybody say I got the best like you name it. It's it's food and it brings us together.
Little [ __ ] talking as well.
It's culture.
Lewis, this question is for you. We I do two events of you. You've do come from events and all that stuff. What's probably the one thing that's been the most challenging in in any of your events where you really think like man once I get past this I'll be all right.
I've been in sports entering the team my whole life. Uh some great great friends, great mentors that they are they doing a lot of businesses and I think by far the most challenging in the event world is trying to sign up all this big girls team [laughter]
trying to get the time with the time.
Yes. Yes. Yes. You got you got to get Ricky involved because shout out to Estraa Insurance by the way.
You know, he said it was in Colorado. You know, they don't they're not saying Estraa Insurance in Colorado. No, they're saying uh Stratatella in Colorado.
That makes that makes Have you guys brought your families to uh Wonderland?
No, no, not yet.
Well, no, no, no. I I I brought one one of my friends and his little daughter. She's here somewhere.
I highly suggest you guys come. Give it a walk around especially if your family
have already been there. All right, guys. Before we go, you got 30 seconds. You are staying.
Louis and Kalito got to go. Let people know what you got going on in the next couple months. Where can they find you and everything?
I'll say that we're going to close out 2025 in a
big way. But a big way. You know, tomorrow's our Georgia, but this year the Pig Rose Bowl, I'll give a shout out to the Pig Rose command, all of our team, all the generals.
Uh this year we're closing that with a bang. We have the Pig Rose Bowl. We got the Pig Rose Bowl series, military edition, law enforcement. We launched FIA with President Denny Nunes. Amazing. And we have a lot of things coming up in 2026. We're here to stay. We're here for the long haul. We're going to be doing a lot of collaboration with the community. You know, we're blessed. We're thankful to be here.
Uh, these guys are going to be our judges for sure again.
And this will be my third year
doing a roasting box.
Yes.
My third pick. So,
you can make kacos, bro.
If I try to taste my last year's pick, I would have won something. Sure. for sure.
All right.
I live for the best. So,
yes. Thank you, Louis. And you, Kalito, let everybody know about the new stores coming and all everything you got to know.
Man, I think uh 2026 is going to be a great year where we're about to launch off 2026 with Pinerest. Um again, we've been trying to get into Pine Crest for about over 20 years.
Um it's super difficult to get in. And
that banyan tree, right? Talk to us about the banyan tree in the middle. You took it down. [laughter]
Did you cut that tree down?
Actually, we're putting more oak trees around all around. We're going to light it up. It's going to look beautiful outdoor. Uh it's going it's going to be the only outdoor terrorist alcohol
with alcohol. Now I will tell you it takes about 45 days to get an ordinance for a hearing in in Pine
Cresting. That's a permitting problem in in Pinerest.
But give me give me a call. Throw that
but but so we'll we'll have to do something like you know welcome drinks. Uh but eventually we'll we'll have a full liquor bar there. And again it's just
going to open exactly. Um we're hoping for the soft opening for the week of December uh 15th. And then again, we have a bunch of exciting things uh lined up um in 2026. Again, guys, I think 2026 is going to be a great year. Gas is down. I think the economy will pick up and I think people are going to be very excited about 2026. You got uh some opportunities to to really uh make yourself better and um and cheers to everyone and their family and health and happiness.
All right. All right. I want to thank you guys for being here. Look at Josh doing a great job here. One of the goats.
Thank you guys for being here. Happy holidays and I wish you all the best. God bless you all.
And God bless America.
All right, I'm back. I'm back. We're back. This time we have I like to call you uh the architect. Is that okay?
That's fine.
I know you're an engineer, too, and everything like that. And I got I got I got two uh celebrities over here for our for our interview right now with you. How do you feel?
How do you feel about Mirao and El Cabay?
I got to be honest with you. I am a little bit intimidated being next to these two professionals with hundreds of thousands of millions.
We don't have any followers and they got the whole world.
No, no, no. Like, yeah, but
they're they're intimidating to be next.
Oh, yeah. Mama. Hey, Tony.
What the looks like now versus what the park looked like.
Yeah.
Preu.
Yeah.
And Bingao, I I commend you on that, bro. Admiral. Little little shout out to Tony.
The Look, man, it it's it's not it's not only it's not Tony, right? It's it really is a team. So, we have uh designers that literally worked on Broadway that do set designs for Broadway and we have carpenters and and like everything like if you look right behind you, Marco's Mountain Retreat. Marco
is actually
So, we put this here just for you. But like Marco is one of our partners, Marco. And you'll see Nelson's night cap. Nelson's my other partner. Where's Nelson? Nelson, is your bar better than Tony's? Is it better than Tony?
Have you sold more? Come around here real quick. No shout out.
Tony takes all their credit, but you do all the work. Come away.
Get away from Get away from the mic.
This is Carlos, Tony's partner. Tony,
that's why I don't come on. Why is he a portalita and how long you've been putting up with his portalism?
Look at look at look at this clothes. Well, he does he he does work, you know. Well, he loves the little uh you know attire, the Christmas, the fashion.
I I do get into
put my bar in a in a worse spot, but we still So,
so whose bar sells more? Yours is.
Oh, for sure. Nelson's bar.
This guy doesn't believe in the holiday season.
The numbers the numbers and Tony, thank you for having us.
The the numbers would say different. My bar out sells Nelson's bar about 30%. All right. I I I want to ask I want to ask a couple questions.
Millionaire beef.
I want to ask a couple questions before my two uh superstar guests take over the podcast completely.
It's been three years, right?
No, no, no. You know, I'm your biggest fan.
I love you. I love you.
You're three.
What decided or what when did you come to like let's be honest. Let's take get Santa out of here or Santa's over. Santa sucked, right? Everybody knows the best Santa. You're going to have 50 50 parents call a park.
No. Santa's enchanted. You're going to have 50 parents call a park. Talk about hey this guy just pencled Santa.
No. No. So
Santa's enchanted. When did you decide I want to I want to make this better? Cuz you you actually have turned it 100 fucking% around.
Well, look, the the truth is that Nelson on his own and me on my own, we have both done our own Christmas events in here in the city of Miami before while Santa's was going on. And we always knew that that we again individually before we were partners, we had we had pursued Christmas events in other in other parts of the city. And then when uh when Santa's was denied their their um renewal of their permit in 2019,
were they denied or did they run out of their
I I I don't know. But let's say they they didn't get another run at it and then CO came. It kind of uh and then this part was being used for CO. There was always rumors that there was a 20-year contract going to come out, 20-year RFP. So, we threw our hat in the ring when when that came out. And
was that you and Nelson or just you?
No. No. Nelson and I we my partner.
No, no, no. But you guys were both passionate about bringing this back.
Yes. 100%. Uh both of us and not only us, but our entire team was passionate about it because
Oh, my bad. My bad.
No, I was just going to say we we knew, look, Nelson lives in this area. He's a Miami homer. I'm a Miami homer. And we knew that we wanted to do something that we could be proud of. And I know it's going to sound corny, but for the community and everything. And when you look,
we have a lot of security, a lot of janitorial. Uh, all of our all of our our staff is has background checks. They have ID badges. They're uniform.
It's a completely different place. They're
uniform. It's something that one of our one of our north stars of many northstars when we first started developing it was at the time my daughters were 14. at twin 14-year-olds and I said I want to be able to drop my daughters off here not be with them drop them off. So think about that when we're doing whatever it is that we're doing and uh that's was one of the the guiding forces behind the development of of what it is.
I can't find a piece of garbage on the floor. I've tried
it's like a Disney. It's like a Disney.
What do you guys think? Cuz you guys grew up coming
again. The only thing I can say is that in comparison
to what it was as the former park,
Papa, it's night and day. Even just again, look, you know what it is that these people had this park for over 20 years, 30 years, and all they did every year was wrap
Yeah.
Wrap the trees every year. Same thing. Yeah.
This you got walls of light. you came in, you obviously came in life with somebody that had, you know, a a professional vision, a creative vision. You and you hired them and and what I wanted to ask you is
you also you believe in Christmas, right?
Of course.
I think that's why this park is it has more spirit now,
right? And and look, we
you actually believe in Christmas.
We we we at the beginning we were thinking about calling it Holiday Wonderland and Christmas Wonderland were the two names. And at one point I remember I was me and Nelson were talking about it and I said listen man let's let's stick to what again nothing wrong we do celebrate all religions of all and everything here
but we said let's stick with the core of what Miami date is about and we're going to go hard on Christmas and we call decided to call it Christmas wonderland. It is about the season and and that's it and I commend you for that.
Listen before we move on
I commend you for that.
You went to the other park the other day. How is the comparison? Listen, I look I'm not
we're not going to mention the park, but you went to another park. Is it
Listen, I'm not gonna you know.
No, no, we're not asking. We're not asking.
What I can tell you, we're not asking.
In comparison to its former self, this park is night and day. You You did a fantastic job. And most importantly, not most importantly, but most visibly aesthetically.
100%.
Same.
Yeah. the the again it's like not not just the names but like if you look at Holiday that section where we have a little bit of a nod to every section of Miami uh and you look at this the like the story lines like there isn't a photo op here that doesn't have like like a development board like a story behind it like every it's not just I'm going to go buy something from Home Depot or from some commercial supply house and pop and pop it in there. These things are built and painted.
Tell us about a couple of them that people can expect to see. I heard about the Did I'm sorry. Go
ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead.
Did our former our previous guest from Atraa, didn't he say that he has a whole section themed after Halia?
Yeah. So, well, not a whole section, but like a little holiday.
So, yeah. So, here's a funny here's the genesis. We we we wanted to have a couple of photo ops that had something to do with with uh with Miami. So, the first one we thought of was like a toy factory, and we said, "Oh, we'll call it Toy Factoriia."
Right. Factoriia. Right.
So, so from eight and then what happened is we said, man, we can't just focus on Halia. What about other parts of Miami? And then we started, yeah, we have the, you know, we have the Everglades. We have B Harbor. We have Coral Gables, Kiscane. There's a lighthouse out there with a paper big paper boat. It's really cool. And then we have about 13 or 14 different scenes that represent 14 different areas of Miami.
Salute. And that's just it. And by the way, that's just one section. And then that section name is Holly Dade like like like B- A like the county holiday.
Yeah, that's uh that's
and speaking of you see all the lights and like let me tell you back
what's your opinion on this whole thing. Let me tell you man, my mother always used to tell me right now here. This is a different breed, baby.
This [ __ ] always hits you with the with the random
oneliners. Look at the beautiful wall. Look at how many families are here just enjoying not only the creativity. Baby, I saw the I saw you.
No, you didn't see the You saw Kiko. down. And look, there's amazing corn. Do you like it,
Brad? Do you like the corn like in in like like kernels or like you like it in the barbarian? Just in case once back then when we were leaving, we had to use the corn as the weapon, baby. here.
Tony, Tony, what's your favorite feature or your favorite creation that you have here? Um,
like your little favorite area?
I look, I I know it's going to sound stupid, but I I like our new video walls. Um, I love the expressway cuz you can see it from video walls.
I mean, I don't even know what to call a video wall, video curtains, but this I mean, think about it.
It's 2,000 ft of lights, and then every section has its own. And then uh every half hour there's a show that takes over the entire 2,000 ft of lights. And it's it's really impressive.
To me, that's the most impressive thing I've I've experienced here
thus far. And I'm sorry.
I can't help but think and just walk back and forth.
I I would say I would say you're the level is redlining. We went from kids having a good time to shrooms.
Look, the the dongo number one, we have a chef here. That's what I wanted to incorporate.
Turn it into a burger.
But look, the [ __ ] a shiakei mushroom.
Hey, Brad. Chef Brad is too heavy heavy. Uh, you want to talk about your concoction?
Oh my god. But not look, it's not. And again,
watch for the kids. I wanted to say that like yes, you could come and have a lot of, you know, take pictures with your I mean, I think we counted like 90 places to take photos just in this section. No, it's gorgeous. Um, but also for like the teenagers there, we have the rides. It's unlimited rides. Uh, we have the dome. I don't know if you guys have been to the dome. Hold up. The 360 dome.
When you say unlimited rides, just just so I understand. What do you mean?
Come on. Like we
walk on for kids.
Yeah. Like like like a ferris wheel, roller coaster, the crazy mouse, uh, the big giant. Yeah. You have to pay for those. Remember that?
Yeah. Say cuz I used to buy tickets.
No, no, no, no. Fair.
This is unlimited everything. You buy your ticket, take as many pictures as you want. How do they say?
For people that don't know, how much is the ticket to get in?
So, our regular price tickets are 39 bucks plus taxes.
What does that include?
Uh, it's an unlimited you, you know, access to the entire park, uh, unlimited rides, the 3D dome, everything that you have there. the the smart people or not the smart people, the people that can get away during the weekend during the weekdays. We do have like today's uh uh twinkle Thursday. So we have like a three-pack for 79 June. Hey
talking about twinkle Tuesday that's two for 49.
That's yeah tinsel tr Tuesday is 2 for 49. Tinsel Tuesday. Then we have wonder Wednesday which is 4 for 99. So family pack
and today which is twinkle Thursday 3 for79. Yeah,
it's it's great. Okay, back then every like you would spend $50 just riding a ride, a ferris wheel, a couple things he told hold on. You spend $50 at the door
and then you come and then you got to go to the other little ticketoo
do I want to ride the gravitron
or do I want to ride the zipper? you're down three 400 bucks on a gallon. But Santa,
Santa's coming. Santa's coming.
You know, um, again, like we we we are like a family first event.
Um, and then one of the things that I remember from when my daughters were younger. You you you have kids. You have kids, Brad?
No. No. No.
And you? Any any that you know of? I don't think so.
None that you know of, right?
I don't think so. Uh but um
but what happens like New Year's Eve you go out and you know your kids are little and you can't stay out late, you can't do so we're doing something new new this year which is called New New Year's at 9:00.
So uh on on the 31st the kids are going to get the same, you know, party favors and noise makers and hats and confetti and everything. And the countdown is going to be at 9:00.
But was this you or no?
Um I'm not going to I'm not going to take all the credit, but it it was me. Um, and we're going to do we're going to do new New Year's at 9:00 and then we're going to do a countdown and fireworks and everything at 9:00.
Oh,
yeah.
Oh my gosh.
Yeah. And every Friday we do fireworks.
All right. We're sitting every Friday. Oh, that's a Hey, so you got a fireworks fireworks. Fireworks, bro. Who does it?
All of Hay Ali is going to be here on the pome if you promote that. All of Hali is going to I want to give a shout out to Tropica that we have here in front of us, which is an amazing beer by the way. That's the main That's the main beer here.
As a matter of fact, I'm I'm a little thirsty. I don't know about you.
You want one?
I a cold one.
I think I got a diet.
We're We're sitting here in front of Nelson's Nightcat Bar. There's another Tony one.
Tony's Tree Farm.
Is that a competition or is that like an old
It is. It's a It's a little bit of a friendly competition. Uh
a little bit of a friendly.
Yeah. Look, I did give myself a better a better position. Um
I think your bar's a little nicer now. Or
it has more seating. It's It's nicer. has a cooler name. Uh, and it's about 30% better.
So, how who who sells more beer? Yours or his?
Uh, 30%. I'm up 30% year-over-year.
Oh, look at this. Oh my god. Thank you.
Oh my god.
Look at this beautiful elf or Santa's helper.
My god. Hey,
you're going to feed these. Thank you so much. Have you Have you tried these?
I'm going to try right now. No, listen. You know what? Brad has a problem. He He cooks a lot of stuff, but he's got stomach issues.
The nickname The nickname always joking.
All right, let's try it simultaneous.
Hey, listen. The nickname of this cookie is Santa's favorite cookie. Also Tony favorite cookie.
Marco, everybody wants to be on Marco's Instagram. I know. I know. I do. Here we go.
Let's try it together. Shout out to Pillsberry.
It's a dough boy.
I think I've eaten maybe like he's in your fridge and you don't even know it.
This is a sugar cookie. Everybody ready? Tony's having problems.
All right. Hey. Hey, Brad. Tell me.
You going to do this while you Is it Is it or what?
For for for the moment. Okay. Once I get my hand on that corn that you mentioned that, this is obviously amusement park style.
What's your favorite bite? Like when you go
Oh, wait, wait, wait. Better better. I mean, would you go carnival food or like food truck food? If if like like when you're here
for me it's I I like a good
What happened to Gaw's cooking?
Dirty carnival food. I love it. A good funnel cake.
What happened to like borito?
So funnel cake. Funnel cake is you
funnel cake your number one.
Corn funnel cake.
What about corn dogs?
Corn corn dogs. That's my thing. I love like like see it's hard. It's it's it's hard to pick.
I love the corn dogs.
Fiddle corno. It's cuz like carnival food. Like there's so many.
What about you, Marco? What do you What's your favorite thing?
I love it. I love too many
bro. It's like I wouldn't say I'm the leader of God gang.
Sweet. You have sweet tooth. You got a sweet tooth.
I pounded that cookie.
So those corn dogs I go ham. I deep throat those corn dogs.
More cookies. Please cookies.
Those corn dogs elephant ears.
Elephant ear.
They remind me it's like the American. Well,
not cake.
Churro. Right.
So in panada. Yeah. When I was younger, I played baseball in Flagami. They would do the big, you know, the empanadas that they're big and fried, but then they have like a little pocket here of either G or
Wawa.
I know exactly what you're talking about.
I always, that's what I always associated with these things. They're just the American version.
How about you, Tony?
Uh, me I, you know, I I like I don't get a lot of it. So,
you have to inspect all the food that you put in your part.
Oh, man. I I I do. I've had it all. your job.
But I I got to go carnival food first and then after I'm tired of like and my my sugar levels are through the roof with I mean I got to agree with Brad.
You got the funnel cakes, the corn dogs, the corn like you can't go wrong with any of that. Turkey get a a turkey leg.
A turkey.
Can we confirm Can we confirm something?
Are they really turkey legs?
See son hamo on a plastic bone. That's what the rumor is. It's ostrich. Listen, but I I asked not because I'm trying to be inquisitive, but because I'm trying to make a sales pitch.
Well,
I want to offer peacock. That's
right. We both I'm going to tell you what you should be. Are you Are you in on this?
So, peacock with with those invasive species.
That's what we have to do.
They are an invasive species.
Marco, what about dog food out of him? You start catching them and you make
talking about opening up my my own food truck. It's called
because that's what all these people that's what they call them.
The people that are in favor of the peacocks, they go, "No, no, no.
Your flowers are gone. Your flowers are gone because of the peacocks.
I know you're busy. You're probably the busiest guy I know.
Do you come to the park every day or your days your wife says, "Bobby, stay home."
He's a Cuban walk.
I I come to the park a lot most days. Uh
I walked in today and you were already here. I, you know, I I I I put in office time at the office and I got to take care of things, but I do have a great team here. Our our event managers, our production team.
Well, I'll tell you, in order to to build out the park, we ramp up to about 80 people.
Um 80 people are working here cuz it's it's a short time frame to get it done. But we put together
frame for it to be like, okay, open.
We put this together in six weeks.
Six weeks. Now a lot of the assets are built in our in our production facility and then you know we bring them and assemble them here and it takes us six weeks but we do have uh two shifts of of production and builders and then when we're operating like this of our internal staff we have a staff of about 10 plus ticket takers scanners janitorial about 30 security about 30 we have about 12 to 20 uh Miami Dade's finest sheriffs here every night uh also fire Um, and we don't we don't mess around like we we want to make sure that it's you know even though there's open carry. We it is a private event so we don't allow
open carry it.
I mean we don't allow any kind of firearms on the property. We have uh we have bag check. We have bag check. We have scanning. Like it's it's a it's although there's open carry allowed in the state here.
Absolutely.
Here you can here you can.
Yeah. Tony, is it your best production so far? I know you're passionate.
Uh I I have to say this is the one that I'm I'm most proud of. Um, especially the the new lighting system that we put in. Uh, the different assets that we build every day. The team's very proud of it as a Miami Homer and and and again, I could say that and I've been to other Christmas events around the country and this is as good as any of the top ones and better than most.
There's I haven't in fact I haven't seen anything in the United States that I've been to and I' I've traveled to all of them,
all the big ones uh that that can compare to this. I got two questions. The last one is the one I always ask you. The first one is what's been your biggest challenge
here
this year in particular.
Um the biggest challenge here is always the the time frame that we have to build it out because of other things happening in the park.
It is a monster. Um
coming from Halloween straight here.
Yeah. So that the Halloween so we have Yeah. So we have House of Horror end. House of Horror ended on November like 2nd or 3rd and we opened here November 13th.
So that's a that's a 10day window. do
uh of breaking down one event and doing the other one. So that that's probably the biggest task.
Oh my god.
What's up?
It's Santa.
Is that is that a coito from Santa?
Oh, thank you Santa.
Oh go from Santa.
What?
And it's the real Santa. You got me excited for a second.
Oh, it's snowing.
It's the real Santa. Santa, you Santa, you want to come say a ho ho ho? Ho ho ho.
Are you ready for the kids, Santa? I think it's starting to snow now in Winter Wonderland if I'm looking.
Oh, no. See,
thank you so much for the Santa.
Thank you. Thank you. Bye. That was the first time I remember.
Cheers for the Goito, guys.
Shout out to the Goito. And we got this from Nelson's Nightcap Park. Just FYI.
Gigo, stop ignoring the fact that we just heard the Cuban the first Cuban. Ho ho ho.
We did. We did. [laughter]
I didn't want to say anything.
He was trying to figure out what we were saying. What do we mean?
Guys, we're drinking coito. Any cookito recipes that you prefer?
The thing you were talking about all of the 2,000 ft and now there's snow. the electrical
and snowing on my producers's computer. Tony the question I feel like I'm on a Macy's holiday.
Shout out to Nelson's bar. Hey, hi everybody.
Listen, we always I always ask you, have you had your aha moment?
Actual water
that you always say you're pouring over.
Oh, so it's going to be shut down in 20 seconds.
These guys these guys, we're still we're still here, guys.
There there's there's two shows. You're pouring actual water over the [ __ ] equipment.
There's two shows.
It's okay. Have you had your What's your aha moment this year for for for Wonderland?
I'm going to tell you. Um, look, there's a again, you're going to think this is like a like a sales pitch, and it isn't.
But we have um on on December 15th, we're doing Heroes Night. I know you guys are super involved with the police and the PBA. Big roast.
Talk to us about that. all police, fire, first responders, they come in for free on December 15th.
December 15th, first responders.
First, free. So, that's a day that we are instituting this year and we're excited about that.
Another thing is I I you know, I'm a I'm a dog guy and I have uh three dogs and one of them, our most recent one is a rescue and we partnered with Miami Date Animal Services and we've been open about 2 weeks and in two weeks
admirable.
And in two weeks, we have had 12 dogs adopted right here. For real?
12 dogs? Yeah. Serious.
Yeah. 12 dogs.
Hey, you got to clip that Tony. Tony,
just to change the mood here for a second, what's your favorite Christmas movie?
Um, it's got to be Die Hard.
Bruce Willie, man.
That's a Christmas movie.
Die Hard is a Christmas movie. Oh, cuz it's set in
Yeah. Yeah, man. It's a big debate whether it's a Christmas movie or not, and it is. And it is one of the best. I want to mention one one thing. So, last night alone.
Well, no, look, last night as a parent, Kiko, you could you could relate to this. So, last night was the second time we did this. It's called silent night. And what we do is for families that have family members or friends with uh that are neurody divergent, that's um conditions like autism. We turn off the music. We turn off the lights from 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. So that share
so that those those families can come out. And there's a lot of families like them here. be a problem right now,
right? this would be a problem because I mean for certain for certain for certain people
over we did it the first the first day we did it a couple weeks ago and it was very popular and a lot of parents that couldn't come emailed saying man we missed it we want to do it again so we did it last night again and as a parent of two you know great daughters I I I I appreciate the challenge that parents of of of you know special needs kids have and uh and that we were able to provide a night where they could come and be with, you know, and and I have like that pressure of what happens if, you know, freak out if they if anything happens and um and it was and it and it's great and and I I think that's kind of like one of my aha moments where it didn't matter about the number of people at the gate or anything. It mattered that that there was people as families as diverse as they are uh enjoying it. And I and I mean it sounds sappy, but as a dad you guys don't understand, but you got to understand that.
Tony Tony Tony hold ahead Marco. Whatever if you clip that, whatever you want me to repost about that particular night,
say less. I promise you that.
That's awesome.
I will do it without a doubt. That's it. Thank you. That's great. No, I honestly think that the community
No, and and you know, the thing is that you like I was here last night and I I asked a couple of parents that were walking in. I said, "Hey, how important is that the lights are dim and this?" And some of them said, "You know, that's not that important. What's most important is that we know that the other families that are here are families like our ours. And if one of our kids has an episode for any reason, we're not we're not we're not like like embarrassed. Like we know that they understand what we're going through and we feel the what the guy said was we feel free
and that really as a dad it really it really affected me.
That's got to be your aha moment.
Yeah.
One more thing. One more thing before we throw Brad in here in the mix. Talk to me about Ronald McDonald. Working with Ronald McDonald. Uh so Ronald McDonald House has been a partner of ours for for many years. Again, it's a it's a charity that we contribute to uh financially and with tickets and and and we have a Ronald McDonald House down in in Tinsel Trail. Uh and then we host all the families that are that are part of that that program and and so you know is that when their kids are sick and they don't have a place to stay,
Ronald McDonald House is a place for their f for their family to stay at while their kids are getting treatment. We do that with the local operators here of McDonald's. And uh again, it's one of those things where, you know, thank God my my my children are are are healthy. But if I if I did run into a situation, I it's good to know that something like Ronald McDonald House exists that can support and you know, like that support system is important and and we'll we'll be their partners as long as they'll have us and and we love it.
This is a personal question. When was the last time you slept eight hours?
Um my wife will tell you never. I don't sleep a lot. I really don't. She thinks I'm going to kill myself
like a vampire.
Uh I I go to bed at, you know, 11 12:00 and I wake up at, you know, my my team will tell you my emails come at 4:00 in the morning a lot.
I see you pick up my phone every time. So you
have I'll never not pick it up.
Brad, what's up with the coito? What are you thinking?
If I drink up to here, I'm going to start crying. It is good. It is strong. It is good. Thank you, Santa. Shout out. You better not be driving that slay down.
No. Santa Mark, you have anything else you want to say real quick?
Yeah, but I need I need Brad to myself right now.
I need, you know,
go for it.
Floor is yours
cuz you went full Barbara Walters there with Tony and I floor is yours.
So, I only have a few minutes here with you. Byebye.
I mean, like I said, I'm excited to meet you because someone get us an extension cord and whoever does not have power, you will have power for the next 15 days with us. Listen. So I I need to I need to
hit me.
Just say
on top of being a chef.
See,
I know that you are also a an entertainer, Baba. And that and I can respect that because it's what I do. So
you you are
I love it
to an extent. Me Renaissance man if you can if you can paint
the Cuban Ray man, baby.
But listen, I I need to know something.
What's your favorite dish? Your favorite dish personally? favorite dish, goto dish. It is either like a chicken schnitle or most people know it as like a chicken katsu. Delicious. You know, a nice breaded breaded goto whenever I'm cooking like I I have two and a half hours to cook. Aba, are my three like like ah
Okay, sounds good.
We're going to we're going to circle back. M. Okay. So, dessert wise, flang is your
flang is my go-to. Um, if I'm feeling like a good leche none of that almond extract, you know, like some people put almond extract whipped cream. I'm like extract that little thing.
They may find each other a hint.
What's that supposed to replace almond extract?
Nothing. I have no idea why there's almond extract. Just keep it to sugar. Powdered sugar. It's delicious.
Next question. What is your most requested dish by your audience?
Most requested dish, which it's already up there, is a ravo in circle back cuz it's it's a great dish and it's, believe it or not, it's so easy to do. You just need to carve out. If you don't have a pressure cooker, you know, pressure cooker, I am prone, right? I'm going to go, "Oh, look. I'm going to attach it." Bata done. Woo! Chef Brad,
right? That's the only sound that I remember from walking into the kitchen. No, no.
What about you, Tony? What's your favorite? I
I got to go with some of those, man. But hold up. All
sounds good. Marco, you see Kiko has this tendency.
No, no, no, no. Go for it. Go for it.
He know he can't help himself.
We're talking about food. Bring bread. Your favorite song to cook to. Oh my gosh. That is question. It's got to be from the Alba. From the ABBA.
No, no, no. Believe it or not, it's all in the mood, right? So if it's if it's past 11:45, the first song I play is Night Shift, right? You know,
and then I go to Reasons, you know, and then maybe I'll do Fantasy if I'm feeling a little frisky with Earth, Wind, and Fire. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. And then we hit some Berry White. Baby Poke. You'll never find Baby. If I could be if I could be in my robe. If I'm cooking bacon, you have to have a shirt on. Poke. That hurts so bad. You know truly it's all like 60s to like 80s. That is where I land. Hey, how old are you? How old are you? 29.
You're 29. You know that baby.
Oh, you're different. Trust me. You're different. Hey, last last question. Last question. PG everybody. Guys, last question.
I'll if you guys want to go out on a date together, I'll I'll pick up the
number one. Yeah. Me and Tony. What's up? Me and Tony. He makes me deal and then I give you my last question. Last question. Last question.
Hey, calm down.
No, no, no. Go ahead. I'm going.
So, look, my my thing is I I told you earlier, bro, we need to find a dish
that we can do together. But,
we could deal 2.0.
Marco, why don't you do your your peacock thing? There's got to be a way to cook peacock. Bro, you got to get the only way I'm going to peek up is if I if I get banned. We got these people.
How am I going to get banned?
Bro, we both live in Palmetto Bay. They're going to hunt you down.
I ran over one by mistake. It's all
road.
It's road kill.
It's there for the taking organic.
Shout out to the Miami community. Shout out to this amazing amazing park. Let me tell you back then. Back then a different breed. Back then it was Santa forest. Now,
to Wonderland Christmas,
you got the floor. Tell people
to So, when are you running and how can they get in?
Listen, all I all I all I say is is uh it's not there's no AI here. There's no Photoshop. This is legit. Like, you come out here and you feel like you're in an AI thing. Uh everything is for real. Um we put a lot of care and energy.
You feel like you're in an AI
an AI thing. Yeah.
An AI portal.
Yeah. Wait, so what does it run to?
But no, man. It's it's something you got to experience. Come with the family, come with the friends, have a good time. And um
and nothing. It's it's good.
I concur. I concur.
It runs until what day?
We're going all the way through uh uh January 5th.
January 5th.
Just in case you celebrated after
crazy story from Tony.
Tony, we we we talked about some stories.
The last time in court.
Oh yeah, we did.
Those were the best performing video.
It's only been three years. I don't think he has a crazy one. Any crazy story? Well, I'm gonna tell you
streaking through the park.
No, the there I mean, look, the there's only been three years here, so I I haven't hasn't been that crazy, but I can tell you that
we've had um like the very first day that we opened, the first day of the first year, there was a a water man broke here.
Oh my god.
And this whole thing was flooded. And the thing is there's like 20 mters 20 water meters in this park and nobody could find it. And I'm like, "Oh, I'm just running
and it's just this thing was all flooded. This thing was all flooded."
How sewage was it?
No, no, it was it was it was fresh water. So, it was the water hill and uh and we literally had to go, this is all like overnight.
Had to ask somebody to go to the county to go to find somebody that worked at Water and Sewer that could get into the server that could look up the plans, see where the meters were, see where the the underground and like all of this was happening the night before we're opening. And uh luckily enough, we found where it was that we could shut it off. We found the hole. We plugged it up. We fixed it and and we were able to open and we had to like get out of the water. It was it was madness. But we
Nobody ever knew.
They got a lot of [ __ ] about the last year.
There's some guy over there.
Yeah. Yeah. This guy maybe join the podcast next time.
Hey, see you know someone's yelling at us and it's not our mother
mediator without the money.
Yeah, that got leaked. There was 25,000 people.
Our teleprompter broke down. So this guy has to tell us what to talk about.
He has to yell at us.
So last year um you know we we do this thing where through certain groups we we do a free ticket for opening night and uh but it's it's kind of it's very limited like we pick you know Miami date police groups and like it's a very focused thing and somehow that got out into we don't know where Reddit or something.
I am I am I am old Reddit or something. only go find the Craigslist.
It got out into Reddit and uh and next thing you know like 20,000 people showed up here. It was it was um it was rough.
It didn't happen again.
For the record, I'm always on Reddit, too.
Yeah. Yeah. So, this year it didn't happen. We we kept it very very tight. We kept it controlled. We set some limits and uh we had 10,000 people, which is our capacity, so that was good.
But we we didn't have 20,000.
So, we're looking for the future year four and five coming up soon. We want 40,000.
Um, we're going to continue um getting leaning heavier into technology to like I don't know if you've seen the singing reindeer, but you should check them out.
We're going to have reindeer where down here
and uh and they're they're pretty cool. We're going to do much more in the on the technological side of things.
All right. All right. All right. I'm going to let Tony go. He's a busy guy. I want to thank you for coming and having us here.
Tony Abello, the architect of Winter Wonderland. Thank you. Merry Christmas everybody. I love you guys. Oh yeah, baby. Dammo more than anything. This is beautiful for the community.
And we're back.
And we're back.
And we're back, ladies and gentlemen, here at Winter Wonderland for our final uh sponsored uh podcast. Here we got uh
my man uh Heavy hitters definitely. Eddie, the guy's been feeding me protein for I think like over five, six years. Josh
from uh Premium Me. How are you, sir?
I'm here. I'm good. Thank you. Thank you for having me on.
How are you? And I'm very grateful to Body Bike Eco here to be sponsoring.
Yes, bro. You you you have the best uh beef in Miami. I have no problem saying that. And and uh part of uh
part of Listen to me, guys. I'm honored. There's children around. Everybody knows what I'm talking about. And my mini me smaller version,
Hansel Lopez from Brandsmart.
Nice and smooth. Thank you for having me back.
Thank you for being here. And the man that makes everything happen that Tony takes credit for, John Ruiz. the director of operations here at Winter Wonderland and of Live and Loud. How are you guys? Everything been getting good.
Good.
I kicked out Moya now. So, I wanted to have three guests of my own.
I'm having this little merry margarita situation.
Yeah. How you guys liking your goitos? A little shout out again
to Nelson's night cap bar. Giving me the goitos. They're fire.
Oh, it's delicious.
I'm going to go down the line like I did the last time, guys. We'll start with you, Josh. Josh, is this your first time at Winter Wonderland?
It is my first time. I meant to come last year, but unfortunately worked out too crazy. But I'm here this year, and it's amazing. It's it's beautiful. I love the way it's spaced out. All the vendors are great. Um, I mean, they they've really I think stepped it up from I'm not going to say what it used to be.
It used to be Doctor. Say it, Josh. You can
Oh, you know, I don't I don't want to be negative, but
it's it's their third year, and you're right. Santa's was a different thing.
They're no longer totally different. You had a chance to walk around. Yeah, I I walked the entire park and this is a total another level. I'm super impressed here and I recommend any family that has not been definitely come check this out before it closes because I think uh I think it's going to be a great experience.
John, I think uh pat on your on the back there. Hans, give him a little pat on the back.
Yeah.
Blood, blood, sweat, and tears this one.
Yeah. Before we get to Hansel, John, um what's what's the dayto-day like here, brother? Being in charge of everything.
Well, other than relieving the trauma of building this as we walk by.
Yeah.
Um listen, man. like at at this point it's very much um I mean I don't want to say it's it's kind of on autopilot, right? There's a lot of things that happen throughout the day, power going down, things happening that we have to basically address every day. Uh but it's really much just maintaining the guest experience, you know, talking to the from the parking to the security to the ticket takers, making sure that we keep the experience at an elevated level, making sure that the Christmas Wonderland brand is um it's felt before you even walk into the the doors. Yeah, I think in year three it's kind of like stampified that this is the place to be now.
I think so. Yeah.
Hansel, let people know a little bit about who you are. I know you also have some deals with the park and uh
some sponsoring.
So, VP of marketing here uh at Brandsmart and I not my first time at Christmas Wonderland
or on the podcast
or on the podcast. Hey,
you're a veteran.
But, um it was it was Listen, coming back the second year from the consumer side, it is amazing. I was left in awe of the improvements. It keeps getting better. It's one of those things where uh like a like a good movie, like a good sequel where it blows your expectations. So, it was awesome. But I have the distinct pleasure of this year being actually a sponsor. So,
tell us about that.
We're sponsoring the 360 Dome Ride uh out in the back. Um and we have our furniture line. So, we have furniture uh all inside the recliners. Yeah, the recliners. You get to sit and then take in the virtual ride. But you're sitting when you go in there, come sit in the ride. It is all brand smart furniture and you get to kind of be comfy. Maybe you take a quick, you know, load off after being in some of the
Yeah, it's more of a relaxing thing than a ride.
But um what is amazing is a little plug is that we're giving away 50 $50 gift cards for everyone who rides the ride.
Right now we on we go away.
I mean, no, no, listen.
I got the GIFT CARDS IN MY POCKET.
All of a sudden, everyone's rushing to that ride right now. Look at the crowd. It just left just to go to that ride. Wow, that's amazing.
We're doing basically $50 $50 gift cards every week if you scan in the ride. You scan, you enter and 50 winners every Monday. You get an email with a $50 Brand Smart gift card.
That's generous.
Wow, that's amazing.
It gets you your entry and then some.
Yeah, that's amazing. The perks stop coming. They don't stop coming. Huh, John?
And we're and we're beyond grateful for that. Let me tell you, we have this amazing LED furniture. You know what I'm saying? You had to put your neck like this kind of thing. Now, when you're lounging on the Brands Mount furniture, you're like, "Oh, let me enjoy the ride. I'm not gonna pass out right now."
I went the other day. The AC cranks, the seats are comfortable. I love it.
Better than home. Better than home.
Listen, and what I what I will add about that last thing is that
what we're doing with Christmas Wonderland, which is near and dear to me, is that the furniture will then take that furniture and actually give it to a family in need. Wow.
So, that's going to be pretty awesome. Keep an eye on that. We at the end of the season, um, we actually then can use that and and continue the spirit of it going forward. So, it's it's pretty cool.
We're beyond grateful, man. Thank you again for
I love that. I love that. And both of you guys are my my boys, so you guys are doing good. I love that. Let's get to the meat guy.
The meat.
Hey, let me see your meat, Josh.
Hey, listen. I know you had a little baby the other day.
I did. I did. Uh tell us baby Ka. Um I
Is that the new meat though?
No, [laughter] she's the meat princess.
I love that.
I love that
she's the meat princess. But yeah, she's uh she actually just turned two, so she it wasn't just yesterday, but
uh best thing that's ever happened to me.
I remember when you were a little kid, now you're a man.
Yeah, it happened.
I have I have history with Josh. I used to buy food out of his garage.
Yeah, with the meat trap.
Not sure that it was too legal, but it was delicious.
It was the meat trap. That's where it all started.
Supreo, I'm so proud of you and I go to your store. I was just the other day. You gave me some sweet vaso churaku. Does the holidays crank up big time for Josh Premium meets? I mean, the holidays is definitely uh the best time for us because it's when people have the most time to get together with their families and that, you know, they start to wind down and the weather gets really good. It's not so hot outside.
It's not hot out here. We both we both suffer from heat and we're okay,
but uh it's definitely the best time I think to start grilling, especially like brisketss, panos, those longer smokes.
Yeah.
So, it gets a little easier.
How how's the market now with all the inflation, people complaining about pricing? I know your food, your meat is not cheap because it is a high-end product. What what's the response been like? How are the numbers?
So, I think uh it's a real thing, right? Right now, inflation, but it's challenging. We get through it. We're we absorb a lot. That's, you know, the things that they don't, you know, our clients don't see, the things that we do on the back end to make sure that it stays as affordable because I know that there's a certain threshold that we all have to protect and and we still want to make it affordable and approachable. So, it's a it's a constant battle that we're always doing when we're speaking with our farms and whatnot and just finding ways to continue to provide just value and and and consistency.
We've talked about that. We've talked about that. We we we talked a lot on the phone with each other and you know, the product is an expensive thing. What do you feel about you have an opinion that you talked to me personally on the gouging of Wagu and and the lies and all that stuff. How do how do you stay above all that? Um, well, first of all, we've made a better effort to become, I think, more approachable in the sense we're bringing in a lot more Prime and and other items that aren't Old Wagu because I I completely understand not everyone wants to eat Wagu every single day.
I'm over the Wagu a little bit cuz
No. Hey, look,
you gave me some Prime the other day. It was fun.
Listen, I'm going to need some education because in my mind, right, like lay consumer, I'm like, wagoo biggest thing in the world, right? So, like that's not the case.
Well, I mean, yeah, go ahead.
What should I be buying? So, you know, it starts with Japanese being the richest and the most rarest wagu you can bring in. And then it goes into Australian, which is a little beefier, domestic, and then it goes prime and then prime dry age. And we've been my palette, like Geekos, has changed throughout the years of being exposed to this. So much exposure. I am becoming more of a like I like a beefier. I still like tender and I still like, you know, like nice marble, but I like dry-aged. I like, you know, just different flavors.
It changes it. It's not bad.
I don't know. Maybe in 5 years it my problem going back to that wagon. our our heavy hitter is still Australian Wagu, which is like the middle ground between Japanese and and domestic uh pro, you know, prime, but um everyone's pallet's different. I think it's fun to come in and have a huge selection to kind of mix and match.
Yeah, cuz it's more than just wager. You have so many other things.
Yeah, we have a ton of things, but uh I'm having fun creating that menu.
What about you guys? What's your What's your favorite steak or cut now that you got the the meat guy here?
Honestly, man, anything medium rare. I'm in. But I actually My favorite cut prime rib, man.
Really?
All All day. Yeah. What about you, Hans?
Listen, I don't know if I have a favorite cut, which is why I want to get educated. We may have to do a little tasting. But what I will say is what I did try to cook for the first time and failed miserably and I've been trying to learn is picana because it's so fatty,
right? And then like the [ __ ] went up in. Oh, wa. Hold on. What am I doing?
Josh, you can explain it. Help him out there, Josh.
I [laughter] mean, Kiko knows when you're cooking picana, you have to be ready for the grease fire. It's part of cooking pana and it's
But there are techniques. Explain, Josh.
No. No. Yeah. I mean, look like you could score it on the top. You know, you definitely want to score it and uh you could slow cook it. You could cut it into steaks. It's so versatile. You could even do the skewers. You know how they do it like in the rotisserie and then you just So, it's But um it's definitely I don't know. Uh I think it's the second best beef that I like to smoke.
Interesting.
And yeah, after brisket.
Well, I listen for someone who have ne I've never smoked so I'm I'm trying to get into grilling myself, right? Um, what would be the entryway into smoking? A in meat or equipment, right? Like how would how would I
Good question, handsome. Yeah, it just depends, you know, how much time you have, right? So, I always tell people, what are you into? Because you could buy a green egg and and crush it or you could buy a Trager and do pellet grill and the pellets, wood pellets, and it's awesome. It's super efficient. There's not much to it. You set the temperature, you put your meat thermometer in, and it's anyone could do it, and it leaves really good flavor. So,
that's awesome. Um, it just really be How much time are you willing to put into it? But yeah, Green Egg or Trager.
What's the top top cut that you sell?
Our number one. And I think
I know what my favorite is before you answer.
And I think it aligns with ours. I think it's the culture in Miami. And it's it's never going to change. I think it's Churasco. Number one seller in our store. It's so fire. This [ __ ] guy. You can't mess it up.
I have the
And hey, it's okay. Churasco still wins in Miami because it it renders for the whole family. It cooks high and fast, you know. It's a couple minutes a piece.
And the vasio that you told me about the other day was pretty good. Why don't you change my house in the house and I need
was a game changer for us. We had a
better part.
Yeah. [laughter]
Listen, I'm trying to figure out what equipment I got in the back that I can start cooking with.
You know, it's funny. When I started when I started my company, I never thought that I I was cooking on a $80 Weber grill that was like up to my knees and cooking a $100 steak on there.
And I was embarrassed to take pictures of it. But I Hey, you could start with whatever. It does not matter. Just get a fire going, cast iron pan, and you can't go wrong.
I'm going to have I'm going to have to have you come to the store and give me like a tutorial of like medium, pro, novice, and we can start kind of gauging. I'm going to have to bring the fire department for you. When you do that,
we're going to do the Brandsmart JPM collab right now. All right,
John. I actually got a question for you. Go ahead, John. I got a question cuz I'm a big believer that, you know, you should be getting your local pro you should be getting your produce locally, should be getting your bread locally and your, you know, your local butcher like how how was it for you when you entered the market to kind of to kind of break through that or to kind of educate people because I feel like we know it now, but you've been in business for how long
now? Uh we're going on eight years.
Eight years. So, how how were you able to do that before people even really kind of caught on to that, right? Well, I agree with you. Support local. I went to my local butcher shops when I was on my quest to find, you know, the best beef in the world. I And believe it or not, I went to
um Kik, not Kiko's, his name is Kiko, but Johnny Jones on Kendall. I went to Johnny Jones. That old man's been there for a long time. He's a legend in what he does. I give him a lot of credit cuz he was a mentor for when I went started.
But I went to him and I went to a lot of guys and I said, "Hey, do you have any wagu?" And they're like, "Josh, no. when it's too risky for us to carry here because if we don't sell it, we could lose a lot of money and we're not in a position to lose money here, we're in the position to sell to the masses. And I quickly understood that if I was going to do this and and focus on the high-end meats that it was going to be risky and I was going to have to find a certain clientele that found the appreciation that I also had.
And little by little, spreading the good word, Geeko and guys that were in the food scene,
love the product, bro. created awareness and yeah, it was expensive, but it was still better than going out to dinner at the time. And when you tried it, you're like, "This is not a meal. This is an experience that I just had at the house."
And all your friends are like, "Where did you get this? And how do we get more?" It was we were like, "Holy shit."
All right, we're we're on to something.
Yeah. No. And and and it wasn't it wasn't until I started making like third tier, fourth tier, fifth tier sales that it was no longer me or my face or the valid. It was coming from people that was like third, fourth validations that were like, "Guys, I got the plug for something you've never tried. You have to try this."
But it's also like the the body knows the difference, right?
Yeah. 100%.
It knows the difference that fresh [ __ ]
Yeah. And then everybody started fighting over who knows Josh Moore and [ __ ]
That's another story.
Josh got the meat.
Real quick, Primo, now that we got Mr. Brandmart here. You have any funny old school Brand Smart stories for you, Josh? [laughter]
Any stories of Brandmart? We've been going to Brandmart since anything funny waiting lines or
I know. I've been to Brandmart so many times. playing the radio too loud in the in the main hall.
Honestly, that's the one thing. I'm like looking at a laptop and all a sudden some guy like walks in like, "How loud does the speaker go?" They just blast it and you're like, "All right, is it loud enough?" Cuz I can't hear anything. Like,
listen, what I'll say is shout out to the Hay Miami like production team because when we were shooting in the store, it happened multiple times and the audio quality was crisp,
but you could tell.
It was, man. So, so no funny stories, but you know what? Shout out to all the guys that are hustling there and working their ass off cuz when you walk in, everyone there is fighting to work and and help you out. So, you know, just a lot of a lot of credit to you and your team.
My question is to you, Hansel.
Holidays is your department.
Yes, sir.
Now, jingle jingle.
I know what my favorite items is. What are people's favorite items? What's the go-to thing that you sell the most? And do you still have to wait an hour to get your [ __ ] outside?
That the beauty of it is that you don't. And it's because listen, no, all jokes aside, it's crazy. I was literally the day after Black Friday. I'm on Saturday. I'm in the office and when I show you where there's rows and rows of TVs. I mean, listen, I already have multiple TVs in my house. I don't know where people are fitting these TVs, but the TVs are flying off the shelf. I know that you've been eyeing
I have multiple TVs, but I love [ __ ] TVs.
But it's been awesome. And then listen, I just know that uh there was a deal made, you know, about shaving and a TV. There was something there.
I'm just I thought he let it go.
The internet never never forgets is all I'm saying.
Josh told me, "Don't do it."
I know. [laughter] Your beauty gives you a nice jawline. I don't know.
It hides my papa.
You're going to look like you're going to get that after this.
Wait, what? What you listen? What you don't know is that what you don't know is that he has that trademark kind of like when JLo's ensures insures her butt. Like he had that insurance. He can't he can't let that go. He's nice though cuz [laughter]
John, this question is for you. Give me a good brand smart story. You're a production guy, engineer guy.
Bro, I don't know if it's I don't know if it's a good story, man.
Oh, give us a one.
You know, it's it's it's going there with the pops, going for the going for the deal.
And I'm there [ __ ] waiting in the scorching sun like, oh my god, when's he going to come out? And then he comes out and he's got the little ticket and we're like, when are we going to get this [ __ ] I want to hear the sound system. I want to hear the TV. And I don't know how many hours pass by, but that's just kind of more like shopping trauma. That's not so much like a good story other than having a badass product.
Said they clean that up. They clean that
Listen, but what I will say is I think that that for your formative years like I think everyone should take their kids to Brandmart and make them haggle. It's a red listen how about you go and negotiate with that salesperson when I look at this TV come back to me with a better price. You can't that that's education right there is all I'm saying. No, the good the good story is coming home with an amazing sound system,
putting in that first track, and just being like,
"Right."
All right.
To me, one of the funniest things is the amount of times I've gone there and left thinking that it was going to fit in my small little car.
Hey, I I bet you if you get a live cam of that parking lot, you're going to see these things of guys just like tying they spend a bunch of money on this TV and then they're risking it on the highway, you know? Listen, all jokes aside, we should start carrying like like the twine ropes in the back. It was like, "Oh, come back. I got Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Like Publix in the trees."
Listen, before I answer the comments in the in our in our post, is there maybe a Josh Bransmart collaboration in the future? That's possible.
For all intents and purposes, even personally, I just want to be like, "Look, can I just can I just bring you in?" But 100%. I mean, we're going in.
You guys got great grills and stuff. Listen, you got to start prepping now for summer grilling season is all I'm saying.
I don't know. I think we should uh we should keep these customers or yours wellfed while they're walking the store.
What do you think? Like steak bites.
That's the idea.
I want full credit by the way.
Yeah. [laughter] Yeah.
Or sales or team member appreciation. You know what I'm saying? We got the sales
slice of wagu as you come into brands.
8k and 12k looks good when you got a little piece of chakra in your head.
That's amazing.
I do have a quick question.
Yeah. Go ahead, Hans. So, you know, Josh, if you were to give us in the table a a code name, a meat code name, what meat would it be? Right. Wagus, uh, uh, prime rib, like, what would you give everyone at the table a quick little code name meat meatwise?
Oh man, that's a good question.
I'm putting you on the spot heavy, but I just think it would be hilarious.
All right, this is a this is an odd question.
I know. I know. What nickname What nickname do you want me to have for you?
I don't know, bro. Like, you know what I'm saying? Listen,
has anyone called you any like funny meat names or
No, I mean listen, I wish there was like a nice Dominican cut kind of vibe, but there isn't. I don't know.
Like like I don't know. [laughter]
Guys, there's kids. There's kids.
Listen to me, Josh. Uh question that I got to ask you, brother.
Go ahead.
We started eight years ago. There's been a lot of copycats. I don't want to mention their names.
You know what? I'm I'm going to stop you right there. They're not copycats. They're people that have been influenced and also spreading the good word of highend stakes. They are they are helping our industry and they all work their ass off. So whether we help each other, work together or just on the same mission, I give a lot of credit to the guys.
I love that. When are you running for office again?
No, man. [laughter]
That's not what our phone conversations are like. You know,
very in the very beginning. I love that attitude, bro. When the whole I wish we should do a podcast on when the meat game started, right? because it was actually an explosion in the beginning and I was I was one of the easier like earlier pioneers that was part of that movement.
In the beginning I did not I didn't know how to handle that. Now I love it. I think that everyone here is doing a good job and in their own lane and and they all do it differently but it doesn't mean that it's worse or
worse better or worse, but it's just different.
It's all ships.
A rising time is
I don't go to the same Italian restaurant when I want Italian. I go to different places and sometimes I go to one and it makes me appreciate the other one even more. So that's my perspective.
What about when your good meat lands in the hands of a bad chef, though?
Hey. Hey. I mean, that the idea is to sell good enough meat that even a bad chef can.
Let's go, baby. How do you
I still have a I still have hope.
How do you trust some of these guys that have influencers just saying everything's delicious, everything's great, and or the you know, the Wagu stuff? Like not everybody's selling the real shield.
No, I mean, look, hey, I I can't speak to them. And I can tell you that we, you know, if you come to my
buddy Eddie Moyers bought some false wagon. What do you say to those guys?
I I just wouldn't go back. It it
I think the wagon craze is
is over
like a false marketing.
Ah, yeah.
It tastes good.
But also, how much wagu are you actually supposed to have, right?
Well, it it depends because when you say wagu and you think Japanese, you only want a little bit, right? When you go to these high restaurants.
But but it's it's high in fat content, right? And and I I can't eat more than 6 ounces of of Japanese wagu that he has.
But and and no one really is doing that. You're eating that more when you're having niris or you're going to makas stuff like that or you go to like a high-end place like Nou, whatever. But the Australian stuff eats like a four, five, a 6, seven, eats very similar like a prime.
And uh you can have it more often than you can a Japanese steak. And you could have it as much as you eat a prime or even a choice.
So uh for me, I love steak. I eat probably more steak than I should. I eat probably steak four times a week.
Listen,
I don't think you can eat too much steak, man. To be honest,
I'm I'm a big, you know,
producer.
We have a question from our producer.
Boys that said they're addicted to the Denver wagon.
The Denver state.
You know why the Denver It's It's
We went through that Denver phase, me and you.
Yeah.
It was like Denver, Denver.
He's a big fan of
You know what's cool? You know what's cool? That eight years ago, no one knew what Denver cut was.
Nobody.
And now everyone's like, man, I love the Denver. So
I I feel like I don't know. It makes me happy that Miami, we put Miami on to like awareness and we're good steak. We go places nowhere for we go outside of Miami and we know our [ __ ] when it comes to steak.
Listen Josh,
what I will say Josh to you is at the end of the day quality rises to the top. So at the end of the day,
regardless of what everyone's doing, we know the good quality stuff will shine on its own.
Just let it just give it time.
Yeah, for sure. For sure.
I cut you off on the question. What was your original question? What about about the wagoo?
Oh, I didn't know either.
Oh, about competitors and stuff like that.
Oh, I didn't know that.
You're over that already. We moved on to that.
But you know what? I do have
You used to get mad before though. I remember.
No, [laughter]
we would talk [ __ ] to about Yeah, we didn't.
It's all right. You know what?
We're older now. It's good.
You know what I've noticed? The guys that are the guys that are real, the guys that are supposed to be here will lost. And the ones that are doing it for money grabs that are just here because they heard it's the new quick hustle, those guys fade and they move on to the next thing that's making money. So the guys that were supposed to be here are still here.
And the guys that faded out and lost interest,
they're gone, too. And there's some of them that are gone.
They get blown away because this is hard. Instagram makes it look easy and fun and sexy. But on the back end, you pay you pay influencers.
We do not pay influencers, but
you give them meat. You meet me.
We work with them.
You know, you can pay me with meat. I'm straight with them.
No, [laughter] we um I think it's a it's a win-win when you can take like, "Hey, I want you to take this, cook it the way that you enjoy it, and give your honest opinion
and give me your honest opinion." And luckily we haven't had any negative reviews on the quality.
So, you know, it's always been a fun relationship with a lot of the people that we work with. You had Chef Brad on here. I love working with chef. I love that guy.
You know, we were working together and then he blew up and went on TV and became super famous. [laughter]
Yeah.
Like you, [ __ ] Don't lie. Like you
I still haven't got I don't I don't
Shut up, Josh. I haven't I'm not on TV network.
No, but you got a TV face.
No, [laughter] you have a TV.
But I might make it on Brand Smart. I don't know if I make it to Brandmart. Maybe that's like a new level. I got two questions for each of you guys ready.
So lucky. Hit me.
Um Josh, one is uh what do you make for the holidays if you're cooking?
If I'm cooking
steak or you getting away from steak?
No, I'm going to keep it I'll keep it real. We're making steak.
We're making steak.
So, and it's a believe it or not, what I'm making in the holidays is the same thing. I I Well, not same thing. But now, look for uh Noa, my mom has asked me to make a a short rib that she does in a that she likes to make it in a red wine reduction.
You're making me hungry. So, it's Yeah, it's I made a short rib that's on the bone. Longer. That's what I like.
I love that. Even though it's $75 a bone. Okay, so uh second question. If you're going to Brandmart and you're getting something for the family, what are you buying?
If you can have anything, my man sitting right next to you.
Santa may be coming through. I don't know. Let me know.
Anything you want from Brandmart, what is it?
I'm trying not to say TV.
No, but I got too many. I got too many.
Everyone wants a TV,
you know? I don't know why. I'm going to go with like the 5-year-old inside of me. I want the I want the racing car uh with steering wheel with a chair and in the in the stick shift. I want the whole F1 setup like in in my office. I don't know. We're going to put it somewhere. But I'm going to go with the 5-year-old in me that takes a couple race cars like sitting down.
Good answer. Good answer. Mr. Ruiz in the far end. What are you cooking for the holidays? Second question. If you're going to Branson, you can get whatever you want. What is it?
It depends if I'm in the Cuban side with my family or with a Venezuelan wife in my family. Whatever it is, it's either going to me if I'm going to make it, it's going to be a lechon, man.
All right. Just as
what are we serving? What are we serving withongria? There's going to be some there. Going to be going to be a nice fusion. You know what? It has to be.
All right. All right. And if you had something you can get at at Brandsmart,
bro. Any any video game, any accessory. Oh, you're a gamer.
I mean, as I don't have time for, man, but that's what I like.
You look like a gamer when you're not working.
Yeah, bro. I mean, if I laugh when I can, bro. When I can.
I'm going have to get his name tag after this.
And Mr. Lopez, last one. What are you making at the crib? Listen, what I make is a flanco.
What the hell is that?
I'mma put you on game. So flanoocho is um half flan half chocolate cake on top.
Oh, I seen that.
You know what I'm saying? Actually, a client of mine who's Puerto Rican put me on that cuz I used to make a good fla and she was like, "Let me put you on something. She showed me how to do it." I have a
What about savory protein? What are we making?
Protein?
Yeah. Is it lech?
I'm trying to learn from Josh, MY GUY. DID YOU not hear the conversation?
I'm going to put you on this Christmas.
I got grease fires for protein. You know what I'm trying to say? I'm trying to I'm trying to get educated.
We're going to come back with that panya.
That is foreign.
We're going to nail that picana.
Yeah. Yeah.
Awesome. And then what are you getting yourself at Brandmart? If we can
What are you stealing from Brandmart?
What I'm getting from Brand Smart is after all this shopping. I need a dual sewn uh wine cooler so I could just have rack that up with some wine and after the holidays I could be like,
you fancy, huh?
You know, pinky's up sometimes. Your pinky's up sometimes. You know what I mean?
Where do you Where do you grab it from? From the stem or from the
No, no. Stem stem. You know what I'm saying? You have to keep it keep it chill, you know.
You just gave me an idea. We got We got to come up with a collab
cooler. There we go. That's like
dry age your meat
right there. That hasn't been done yet.
No. One more thing before we go. Uh any specials for the holidays? How can they reach you? All that.
All right. So, we are located in South Miami on Sunset 57th Avenue. Uh if you walk into our store, it's a family store. You'll meet my mom, my three cousins, myself. It's it's a great store. We have a ton of things, desserts, charerie, uh meats, seafood, but um we'll be running definitely some specials on prime ribs, some tenderloins now for the holidays.
On the Instagram.
Yeah, pass by Instagram. Um leave us a DM or you know, check out the page. We have a ton of items that we post and uh you could also visit us inside the store and we have home delivery. So if you can't make it, you're busy, call us, text us, we'll take care of it.
Everything before Hans. So John, what's the one thing they have to see here when they come to Wonderland?
Man, this amazing tinsel trail and these lights. This is year one. It's very much in its early infancy as far as the designs and the light show. We're going to take it to the whole next level every year that comes, but you got to come see this, man. Come and see Tinsel Trail. Enjoy Christmas Wonderland. We're here till January 4th. Happy holidays, everybody.
You know what I love real quick? I want to just double down on John. I love that the admission
the once you pay the admission includes the rides. Put away the wallet unless you're going to consume some beverages or something to eat, but you won't have to worry about tickets and like, "Mom, I don't have enough." No, you get to ride everything
as much as you want.
And and the rides are actually really like they're really cool rides. They're not they're not like these raggedy rides that you're like, I don't know, this one might fall. Like, no, they're they're actually really nice, clean rides. So, John, a lot of
What are we riding now, man?
Oh, I don't know.
I just ate a turkey leg and like some [laughter] fried Oreos. I don't think I could I could ride something too intense.
John, I mean, John and and and Josh, what do you guys think about the pod so far? I mean, you've guys heard it, you've seen it. Were boys being on What to the World on the street? I need some feedback myself. I was waiting to be asked what are my favorite three places to eat. All right. [applause and cheering] Cuz I Hey, not for nothing. Hey, not for nothing. Your podcast lately have just been super I think engaging, especially the one with uh with Mo.
I did not like that one, too.
I felt like it needed like a second, third, like chapter. Um and you've had some other really good, you know, talent.
One one of your one of your boys is is is busting balls about that podcast. I'll tell you later. No, it's okay.
He's one of your boys.
It's okay. It's all right.
Huh?
Get him in.
N I don't want to get him in. Josh, give me your top three restaurants that you like to eat.
Oh, man. Let's go before.
All right. So, I'm going to go with number. You're next.
I'm going to go with number one.
Yes.
Daniel's Steakhouse in South Miami.
Oh, I've heard of.
Oh, it's actually Coral Gables.
Coral Gables. South Miami. Yeah, we've been on that. By the way,
is is your beef on that menu?
It is on the menu, but but I'm not the one cooking it, right? I All the credit goes to the chef. and and chef, you know, in the owner Tom. I'm going to go to I'm I'm telling you my favorite places that I enjoy to eat with my wife and my family. So, there's tons of good places, but these are the ones I love.
All right, number two.
Number two,
I'm going to go with my daily. It's my lunch spot. It's my my go-to. It's Subies in South Miami.
Subbies.
So, yeah, which is subbing now, right? We're waiting for Subies to sub. What happened with that?
You know what? Um, it was actually if you want
he's got a Josh Premier meet sub on there. Well,
yeah. No, but they squashed it with pebbies.
Yeah,
there's no beef there.
No, but that was fun banter.
Yeah, there's no beef.
Yeah.
All right. Number number one.
Um, so one was Daniels and two Subies. And then three
three. It's a tie. All right. Because I'm a pizza guy and I love Vice City Pizza.
All right. So, my boy
Georgie Brown
Georgie in South Miami. And then when I want some good Japanese fusion and I want to be a little bit high-end and my wife wants to, you know, be taken out.
Zezys. Zezys.
He's a member. He's a member. Josh has money.
No, no. I just know people. [laughter] Josh is rich. Josh, what do you mean? I gave you I I two of your spots. Nobody can afford. All right. I didn't want to answer. I gave four. I love you. I love you. I love you.
No, but thank you. Thank you for having me on.
Hansel, you're last. Tell everybody what they can expect at Brazar. What are the deals? Everybody, now is your time.
Listen, right now, what I would say is the biggest deals for the holidays are all the TVs. We have TVs as low as $169 anywhere, any size. Come check them out. And actually, we have phenomenal appliance deals in financing. No interest until next year. So, come check it out.
It's amazing.
And coolers. You can't Anders. Oh, you can't figureate the cool. Listen,
coolers to keep your steak in.
Not only do we have the coolers, we have the deep chests in case you need to chest size for the garage.
Look forward to the brandmart Josh collaboration.
Yeah, dude. Camping uh hunting.
You You say it all joking around, but I was going to grab I was going to grab Josh after this. I'm like, we need to drop a little uh
You're going to ground by his meat. You're not going to grab by his meat. All right, [laughter]
guys. I want to thank you for being on. It's getting late. I know John's got to go back to work. Hansel, you know what I think about you? You're the man. Josh, I've been in love with you for almost a decade,
my man. Thank you.
I wish you all the luck and happy holidays. Look for them if you want to meet John. I think he's got some free drink tickets if you can find them. [laughter] And my man Hansel's got a TV coming if I shave my beard. I love you guys. Thank you so much. A day in Miami here in Winter Wonderland. Thank you. It's a wrap, buddy. Yeah, boy. Thank you.
Watch all episodes on YouTube
Subscribe and turn on notifications
Keep listening
More Episodes
1:12:30
The HOA Attorney Exposing What Most Residents Don't Know | Erik Perez
19 mar., 2026
35:55
The Truth About Competitive Dance No One Talks About | Adrenaline Dance Studio
18 mar., 2026
1:31:47
The Vision for Coral Gables' Future with Its Mayor | Vince Lago
17 mar., 2026
38:01
The Man Behind the Most Viral Cheese Shop in Miami | Mario Naar
17 mar., 2026