40% Of what we grow, produce, and distribute in America ends up in landfill. We can literally solve food insecurity and hunger by reclaiming a percentage of what we throw away. Feel to burn baby? Oh yeah. Is a slam dunk. Absolutely breathtaking. In today's podcast, we're going to be visiting Boulder, Colorado, where I stopped at four different restaurants along my bike ride. My guest today is Chef Daniel Asher, owner of River and Woods. But before I get into that, I want to take a moment to thank our sponsor. Plus, for the support of the Bike Debits podcast. When your tomorrows are built on technology, you need to partner with Superior Insight, with expertise in cutting edge innovation across ai, security Cloud and workplace transformation. E plus is on the frontline of today's modern enterprise e plus where technology means more. I want to take a little bit to talk about our Boulder, Colorado episode. Boulder was a phenomenal city to go visit as a cyclist, it has something for everyone, whether you're a beginner or somebody who's more advanced, cycleways bike paths, marked bike lanes on almost every major road in the city. You want to go off road and do some mountain biking. They've got that. The views are incredible. It starts at an altitude of 5,000 when you land 5,000 feet, and from there, it can only go up. And we did, and it was a blast. We stopped at four places along our route in Boulder, Colorado, and our first stop was the Moxie Bread Company. I sat down with Laura and Rick, and that was an experience. We got the sample, quite a few goodies, chocolate croissants, king egg quiche, queen Aman, apple, Crescent, Danish, butter croissant, sourdough bread. I mean, it just went on and on. It was a great carb load when you're starting your ride. So it was the perfect place to start our 18.8 mile route through Boulder because lots of carbs to sample there, and we got to try a lot of them. From there, we moved on to Black Belly Market, where I sat down with Jeff Foster and Kelly Kechi, who's the butcher there, and great place. Really fascinating in that it's a butcher shop, it's a market and it's a restaurant and in the morning, but until about 11 o'clock, you can go and they serve the most unbelievable breakfast burritos. And we got to sample some of that. And then of course, we continued on our experience with them after the breakfast burrito with a Cuban sandwich, which was, I tell you, I've had great Cuban sandwiches in Miami. This one put those to the test for sure, a charcuterie board, which was made fresh at the butcher shop that's right there on the premises. And then of course, you cannot come to Colorado and not have fresh Colorado lamb. And it was incredible. Moved on from there to a place called Wild Pastures Burgers, where I sat down with owners, autumn and Chaz. And what's really, really cool about this place is everything is, it's an ecosystem into itself. They raise their own cattle for the burgers that they're serving at the restaurant, all organic vegetables. They're a scratch kitchen, everything down to the mustard and the ketchup is made from scratch. It was quite the experience and the burger was pretty delicious. And after we left Wild Pasture Burgers, it was back on the bike to continue our 18.8 mile ride, and it was quite a challenging ride. There were moments where it was a little tough. I think the maximum grade was like a 6.7%, but it was worth it because when we got to our final destination, I got to sit down with an old friend of mine, chef Daniel Asher and Chef Jeremy in the kitchen, putting out the most unbelievable dishes at River and Woods. We had a heirloom tomato barta salad. We had a farmer's market salad that Daniel made himself because he loves vegetables. And this salad was loaded with many, many of them. And then the nochi that they've been serving at the same location for over 40 years. It's a recipe that Daniel kind of capped after they took over the ownership from the original owner there, and of course, the braised short rib with homemade linguini. It was a phenomenal experience, and we were super excited to kind of cover all of that ground in what I would consider to be just a great, great city to go visit Boulder Colorado. Joining me today is Chef Daniel Asher of River and Woods in Boulder, Colorado. He's an incredible chef, and I'm proud to also call him a friend, chef Daniel Asher's obsession with local agriculture, authentic hospitality, sustainable sourcing, and food justice has been at the heart of his three decades in the restaurant industry. I'm excited to get into it with Daniel. So without further ado, I'd like to welcome our guest chef Daniel Asher into our studio. He is well-known throughout Boulder, Denver. I mean, let's just Daniel call it Colorado, right? Sure, of. Course. Well, let's just call it beyond Colorado. You've got a national reputation. I don't want to undersell you. Thanks, Garrett. Thank you for joining us. I. Appreciate that. Thank you. It's great to see you. It's great to be here, and I'm honored to be part of the podcast for Bikes to Bikes. It was such a tremendous experience, and I'm really excited to continue the conversation. Yeah, well, me too. And the great thing about this podcast is that we get to dive a little bit deeper into some subject matter that you can't always cover when you're doing a half hour television show that features four different restaurants. So I figured this would be a great opportunity for us to walk down memory lane a little bit on terms of our experience together in Boulder, and also to talk about in greater detail some of the things that we talked about in our interview that might not have made it into the show. So this is exciting for me. There was an article in Travel Boulder that quoted you as saying, well, two things. They described you as that chef Daniel Asher doesn't like to take the easy route, right? Sure. And then they also said that you said that food is your love language, so not taking the easy route and food being your love language. Let's jump off from there and talk about why those descriptors are attached to you. Wow. Yeah. Okay. Let's look at you with the due diligence there, Garrett. That's awesome. I would embrace the idea that food is my love language in such a deep way. That is my earliest childhood memories with my parents. My sister was all rooted in expression of food. So for me growing up, the kitchen was the heart of our home. My mom is remarkably talented in so many ways, but specifically with the culinary side of things and her process that things she learned from her mom, this idea of elder knowledge being passed on and having this experience where you're teaching someone how to understand the process of something and you need your hands, you need all of your senses, you need a full immersion. That knowledge being passed on from mother to daughter or mother to son or father, a father to son, that wisdom forms us. I think when we're young with different things that we're exposed to, and what we learn is what's right, what's wrong, what feels good, what doesn't feel good. And for me, being in the kitchen with my mom was my safe space. That's where everything made sense to me. That's where I felt complete. That's where I felt like there was a process that I was responsible for. There was a start, there was a finish, and the finish for me was seeing my sister Ella, my dad, who passed away four years ago now. But his legacy is tremendously powerful, and the satisfaction he would get from sitting down for dinner, he was an obsessive workaholic. So thanks dad for that. That part of my. I was going to say that runs in the family. DA structure. Yeah, exactly. He would just go nonstop 16, 17 hours a day. He didn't know when to stop. And my mom would help guide some of those boundaries, but he would always pause for dinner. That was the one time I would see him take a deep breath, actually sit and eat, and then he'd take my mom's hand and literally kiss her hand and say, thank you for such a beautiful meal and for nourishing us so well. And geez, I'm getting Wow. Yeah. Your great food memory right there, that dear to your heart. I could see. Those are moments that formed my childhood, some of my earliest memories and connection points with the transformative power of food. And these are things that I picked up on 5, 6, 7 years old Garrett. This was when I was coming into my own sense as a human, as a being on the planet. So that was my foundation. And sitting on a step stool, rolling meatballs with my mom, she showed me how to emulsify a vinegarette in a mason jar. I think I mentioned this when we were talking at the restaurant, the science and alchemy that's involved, taking two liquids and doing a process of motion that unites them into one smooth emulsification. Seeing that at six years old was magic, literally. Now. I have a question. So at this early stage where you're having these experiences with the falling in love, with the making of something with your mom in the kitchen, the observation of the appreciation and the love that your father felt for the effort that your mom went through to put this meal on the table for him and the family. Yeah. Was this the moment at that early stage of your life, did you see it yet that this is what you wanted to go and pursue? Or was there some more evolution to that story that took place before you ultimately got the bite to say, I want to do this, this is what I want to do. I'm wondering, because these are really early influences that you're talking about, and they're powerful, clearly, like they're talking about it, they still sit front and center in your heart. Yes, completely. No, and that's a beautiful thing. So I'm wondering, is that the beginning? Was that the beginning? Where of the flame for you? Yeah. If we talk about the idea of an origin story, for me, that would be it. Seeing such a powerful force of dynamic energy as my dad being captivated for some limited moments at the kitchen table. I wanted in on that. I wanted to know how I could harness that, how I could provide that to people that I love and that I care about. And I just started cooking nonstop. I obsessively, as soon as I got home from school, elementary school, there was no food network that didn't exist. That wasn't even a thing. There was PBS Channel 11, and I'd watch Julia Child, Jacque Pepin, Jeff Smith, Jan Con cook, obsessively. I had a notebook. I'd scribble down, they'd flash a screen with the ingredients, and I'd have to write so fast to get 'em all down. And there was an internet. You couldn't Google things. It was just you were watching it, you were impacted by it. You wrote things down, and then you went, my mom would go to the store, I'd go with her to go shopping. That was one of my favorite things to do. And she'd let me wander down an aisle and grab my own ingredients and bring 'em back to the cart. And I'd say, this is for things I want to cook. This week, 7, 8, 9, cooking dinner for the family. My sister and I, we were latchkey kids, so we were home after school. My responsibility that I fell into was prepping, just cooking when I was 14. That was at the time, the legal age to be in a commercial kitchen. And I jumped in. That's what I needed to do. That was literally my first job officially. At 14. Other than shoveling driveways, shoveling snow for 15 bucks a driveway. So you jumped into the kitchen in your first job at 14 years old? At 14? Yeah. That was, do. You remember where that. Was? That was washing dishes and peeling potatoes. That was fud ruckers in Northbrook, Illinois. And I was mesmerized. There wasn't even a dish machine. It was a three comp sink. I teared open the packets and filled everything up to the line and prepped, prepped the potatoes for the fresh cut fried program, cleaned them, scrubbed them, peeled them. So that to me was the beginning of my love and obsession with commercial food service, stainless steel, the tick of the printer, the plates clanging. Those were noises as a soundtrack that defined who I was. Isn't that funny how you talk about stimulating all of the senses, right? That what you're describing right now is what you were hearing in the kitchen and it was becoming rhythmic for you. It was becoming something that just got you either motivated or made you feel like you were in your place. Right. The place that was, And it's funny, I can relate to that because when I ride and I'm on my bicycle, I don't listen to music. Some people do, you don't. I don't understand it because to me, I don't want to hear anything but the natural sounds of what I'm experiencing when I'm on that bicycle riding 20, 30, 40 miles and just hearing the crunch of the gravel or the road under the little bits of the asphalt under my tire and the chain moving and the gear switching and the noises outside some nature area that I might be passing by. To me, that makes me feel like I'm in my comfort zone. And it sounds like that's what you're describing about how you were beginning to feel about those sounds in that kitchen. A hundred percent. Yeah. There's sensual to it. It's about being fully immersed. The sounds in a kitchen are let you know elements of safety, let you know elements of what's happening on a stove. You smell something and you're like, oh, that's almost done. That's about to actually catch on the bottom. I got to go turn that down real quick. You're listening to the way things sound when you're making a sauce, when you're searing something, all of your senses are involved. You can't be half in, you can't be semi focused when you're cooking. You can't. It just requires full attention, not just from the technique element, but from safety. I mean, you could get burned. There's high risk things in a commercial kitchen. There's sharp knives and open flame and all sorts of things. So. What's interesting, Daniel. You have to be alert. You have to be engaged. I'm listening to you talk about that. And there's a chef that we featured in our Philadelphia episode, chef Christopher k from a restaurant called Forsythia. And his story, his story was very, very interesting in that when he was 16, very inspired like you at an early age with going into becoming a love and passion for food and growers and things of that nature. He got in a terrible accident. I think he had over 65 surgeries to rebuild him. And in the. Process, oh my. Gosh. And in the process, he lost his sense of taste and he lost his sense of smell. And so for him, all of the other senses and the food memory of what he knew how to do when he was doing it before the accident kicked in. And he's considered one of the best chefs in Philadelphia. And it is amazing to me about how talking about these senses and how we use all of them when we can, but when we can't. Every part of our senses are important when you're doing what you do. Because clearly if you lose one of them like he did, the others take over and compensate for what it is that needs to be done. And you're describing all these senses that you have in a kitchen, and it makes sense because they all play together. And like they say, when you lose a sense, others overcompensate for it and take the price of what you've lost. And it's just interesting to hear how senses all of them come into play in a kitchen and when all of them are not available, others amplify to make up the differences. So it's pretty amazing to hear you talking about. Yeah, that's so intense. Wow. Very was able to do. That's remarkable. When you come here to New Jersey and come visit me, I will drive down to Philadelphia. There's a bunch of places I want to take you to, but you absolutely have to meet him. And he's just fascinating. And what I would love it and what he's putting out is incredible. Be great. Yeah. So that'd. Be. Amazing. I'm sorry I'd digressed to our Philadelphia episode, but. No. That's amazing. You said something about the senses and it clicked in my mind about how we use all of them in what we do. Even in what? I'm in a restaurant. I'm not just relying on what I'm tasting, what I'm smelling, it's what I'm feeling. Texturally. And also, and we'll talk about this later as we get into your restaurants, it's also about the environment, right? Feeling the environment. Oh yeah. The lighting, the music, the way you're greeted when you walk in, how the door feels when you open it. These are all things that demand constant attention and reflection as to what the guest experience is going to be and all of those touch points that create hospitality in its finest form. So you knew you wanted to do this, you knew you wanted, and you got the flame. Then you knew you wanted to do this. You talked about wanting to recreate the experience of what you witnessed in your own upbringing for. Others. The definition of hospitality, wanting to make people happy, right? Yes. Exactly. And so where did it go? You were a latchkey kid. I was a latchkey kid. So you'd come home, you'd be in charge of certain things in the prep, in the kitchen, putting out these meals. Mom would let you go and pull ingredients out of the shelves at the shopping market. And when did it elevate from there? You were going into high school, did you think, okay, this is what I want to do. I want to be a chef. I wasn't even thinking in those terms. That wasn't even being the word chef. It wasn't this thing that it is now. It wasn't even like a persona. You were just cooking. It was just cooking. You just cooked. And I'd see these personalities on tv, but it was also, it wasn't what it is now with media and putting everyone in these spotlights and stuff. It very, it just felt very real, and it just felt like amazing people that worked really hard and had a tremendous amount of knowledge about food and technique and how to make things delicious. My mom did everything from scratch. We gardened tomatoes, cucumbers, and fresh herbs, and I'd literally stainless steel bowl and a pair of shears and cut lettuce for salad for dinner. I mean, it was biting into a tomato, an heirloom tomato in the middle of summer, warm and amazing, just sitting there in the grass and taking a bite of this tomato and the scent of it. And the flavor was so impactful and something I'm always chasing. You don't get that with commodity vegetables. You don't get that with mass produced large scale agriculture. In many ways. It demands focus on local, intimate connections and knowing who's growing your food, having relationships with your farmers, your ranchers. I was once in this farmer's market in Italy. We were in Tuscany and went to this farmer's market, and the guy had the stand with all these fresh tomatoes and look, we'll joke, because Jersey has, in my opinion, some of the best tomatoes ever in. The summer. Since you've said that, I've been researching it. There's this whole thing. About Jersey cult tomatoes. It's a cult following. It's a cult following, and it's amazing, and you're going to have to come experience that. But I will tell you, when I was in Italy and I was at the farmer's market, the guy that was selling these tomatoes, I'm looking at the tomatoes, they look, the smell was amazing. They looked beautiful, bright red and just luscious. And so he cuts one open and cuts it in half, puts a sprinkle of little salt on it, takes a little salt, and he hands it to me and he goes, try that tomato. And I try the tomato, and it was like nothing I had ever had before. I mean, it was absolutely, and again, the taste, it's the care that he took to pick the right one out and just cut it for me and then sprinkle it with a little salt for me and hand it to me and say, try that tomato. Exactly. When you're up listening, you talk about you and going into the garden, biting into an heirloom tomato or picking and chasing that. You chase that. Yes, chasing that. Exactly. It's the constant pursuit of those moments of flavor and delight that I need everyone to have as often as possible. That's what it's really right here. A hundred percent. And you have been, and we're going to get into your career. This has been at a focal point, a centerpiece, if you will, of you and what you've become known for and what you're all about. Fresh fruits and vegetables from local farmers and purveyors. This is the drum that you beat all the time. And when I see you light up, we went, you and I, when we were together in Boulder, we went to the farmer's market. Yes, that was great. And you picked up a bunch of things, but then we were back at the restaurant and there was a big delivery from the local purveyor of mushrooms. And you held them up to me. They were in a big steel bowl, stainless steel bowl. You had 'em in, I think that was what you had them in. You held them up and you beamed. Your smile was like ear to ear beaming over, like, look at this bounty, look at this. And it was this sense of pride, and it was this treasure. It is. It is treasure. And this has been at at the heart of who you are as a chef, as a restaurateur, where did that, you started to talk about it came from mom initially and the garden and picking these things, but how did that continue to grow within you? I think working in so many different kitchens when I was younger and really processing the idea of what comes out of a box, what's delivered to the back door. And as you're organizing the walk-in cooler and everything gets assigned a task and seeing the difference between what some of the larger chain style spots we're utilizing as ingredients, and then what smaller scale, more neighborhoody, independent spots we're using for ingredients and seeing the differences in that and really wanting to connect with the story of where that carrot came from and why that journey is important to the final dish. I started realizing that there's all this focus on, when you look at marketing dollars and media in the food service industry, it's like 80% chef, chef this and chef that. And it's funny because we're, as a cook, it's like I'm at the tail end of an equation that is so complex and multilayered and has so many tiers of human beings doing things that they have a high level of drive and intention about. And what's their story? How can I honor that? It's not just about laying down a dish of roasted carrots with lona and beautiful micro herbs and having a conversation about, look at this dish with such inspiration, the flavor profiles, and tell us more about your carrot dish. And it's not my carrot dish at all. It's a village. It created this carrot dish. And it's not just about the culinary theme in the space. It's about the farmer and their team that put seed soil five months before that dish was even a figment of anyone's imagination. So that wouldn't even exist if it weren't for those carrots that were lovingly grown and sewn and nourished properly. What's so funny, what's so funny about That's what it's about. It is. That's what it's about. And what's funny about that statement is I think I share that same philosophy because years ago when we were nominated for a James Beard Award for a one hour special that we did for Food Network, people were coming up to me and saying, oh, congratulations on your James Beard nomination. And I would turn to them and say, and it happened. We had gotten two Emmy nominations for another show, and I'm not doing this to brag, but the comments were always the same about, oh, congratulations on that Emmy nomination, or Congratulations on the James Beard nomination. But the reality is it's not mine. And I would turn to the people that would say that to me. I go, do you know how many people it took to make what you actually are seeing on that screen right now? I'm just a small little part. Granted, I'm a conductor of an orchestra. Yeah, maestro, right? But. In that particular case, but the orchestra is beautiful and everyone has their part that they play in making that happen. And if you change any one element, any one element of that, you come out with a different outcome. And it's kind of like what you're describing with where the dish, the dish is the final, the dish is the final. In my case, it's the final show. But what did it take to get to that dish? And it's all those parts, it's all those players, it's all those craftspeople. Yes, it's a craft. There's a tremendous amount of labor. People that aren't in the industry or haven't worked in food service don't understand the actual amount of physicality that is involved in creating a dining experience. It is perpetual. It is endless. It is never complete. Things are always falling apart. Things are always breaking. It's a very hard working environment. Equipment, compressors, condensers, fans, there's so many things that are working literally nonstop in a kitchen to hold things at a safe temperature for the cold chain and to have things at the right steer level of execution on the hotline. And there's so many, the temperature of the water in the dish room and the most. That's just describing important parts. That's important parts. That's just describing what's in the kitchen, not even what happened before it even got there. You know what I mean? That's not even the ingredients. Exactly. That's just the mechanism of it. And it's your first point of contact with the host when you walk in, what are they giving off energetically? And then the dishwasher, what are they seeing as far as what's coming back on the plates? If you're involved in your restaurant organism and you're not spending hours in the dish room, not just helping, but observing what's actually coming back from plates, and you get so much data from the host stand and from the dish room, those are the bookends of the entire experience. You learn so much about what's actually happening in the process that is completely removed from what's going on in the kitchen. So this is how it started for you. You started in this environment. You started in those early roles climbing, climbing up within your knowledge base, if you will, how the food service industry works. And it started to influence, you started to see things that started to influence who you were going to be and what you wanted to accomplish. So those were very, very early influences for you. How did, how did it go from those early influences to ultimately, you were connected with some of the most exciting restaurants in Denver. You and I first met years ago when I produced a show called Good Food America. And we. Featured one of your restaurants in which you were the executive chef. Was it linger? I think it might've been linger or root down by memory. I'm going to have to go double check now. It was one of those two. It was one of those two. But that's where we met. We met in Denver when you were running those restaurants and all I could remember leaving you after we first met was like, your artistry with vegetables was just insane. Carrot dish. You were talking about carrots earlier. There was a carrot dish that you made that sticks in my head. It was delicious. It was sweet. It was, but not too sweet. Do you remember, you've got a couple of signature carrot dishes. I do. That I've done over the years. Oh my gosh. I'm trying to remember the, and I love root vegetables. I mean, that's my favorite. Beets, turnips, radish, carrots, parsnips. I mean, those are all, to me, potatoes. These are the expression of, they're grown deep in soil. They take on the expression of the ground and the earth. They're humble, they're affordable. You can feed your family with them on a tight budget. To me, that category, you can coke so much flavor out of them. And there's this underlying content of sugar and sweet and some bitter and some earthiness, and all those things combine. And you have this opportunity to really make vegetables a craveable and delicious. And I always say this when people say you've always been, I always also a vegetarian for 12 years, when you talk about my connection to ingredients, I was against feedlots before that was even an expression. Now people are cafo, combined animal feedlot operation. That wasn't even a thing. I knew the difference visually of cows on pasture in a giant field versus living in a steel enclosure. So I had serious issues with what was going on within. The agriculture, dust industrial complex. System of mass produced agriculture. So I went vegetarian. I didn't want to support what was happening to animals. I went vegetarian for 12 years. I was vegan for two. I explored being a raw foodist and really diving into the essence of raw, fresh vegetables and fruits, sprouting legumes and grains, and really resonating with that style of cuisine. And in that process, I extricated myself from what would be considered the normal food service channels. And in that process created so many amazing relationships And I was working in Chicago, but I was bringing in lamb from Colorado pastured Lamb. I was bringing in bison from Colorado. I was bringing in a lot of amazing things. I was one of the first in the city of Chicago to use all compostable packaging. This was 20 something years ago, and it was eco products who'd launched in Boulder as the first commercially available packaging that was made from, or would be able to biodegrade and compost. And I changed all the packaging over to that. I was using alternative. We didn't have a normal, even for the bar, I didn't even want to use standard sodas because they had caramel color and corn syrup and all this junk. This was before people were even talking about any of this stuff. It didn't feel. This is while you were. In. Chicago, right? You were in Chicago during this. Time. Blue Sky was a company that was doing cane sugar, sweetened sodas. No artificial colors, no, it was just sparkling water with an organic flavor and cane sugar. And that to me was, if you're going to serve soda, that's what you should be serving people. So I started making all these little decisions in so many ways that inevitably impacted the final product and the guest experience. But for me, it was just doing what was right to the planet. I mean, to me, it was just, what can I do to have an equation that is helpful and contributes to philosophy of wellness for everyone involved? And for me, that was no chemicals, nothing I could pronounce. If it wasn't in my fridge at home, why would it be in my fridge at work? It was about feeding people according to what my standards were for what we should be taking into our bodies. How old were you at this time when you were in Chicago. Cooking at that time? Gosh, that was after I cooked my way through college. I was trying to figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up. And the whole time I was cooking, probably early twenties at this point. In Chicago. In high school, I'd friends over, I'd have throw a party or whatever. I made hor. I mean, it was the running joke with my friends. It was just like, oh, what are you going to present us with today, chef Daniel? It's. It's amazing. The light bulb still hadn't gone off for you yet, that that's what you wanted to do. It was just like, I'm just cooking. I'm just cooking. I'm going to college. I'm trying to figure out what I want to do. And meanwhile, there's all this talent that is within you that is kind of growing, and you're not having this epiphany yet that, oh, I think maybe I should be a chef. Even. It brought me so much joy. It was a hobby still at that point. Amazing. I still had to figure out what I was going to do for work, because work is a separate expression. I didn't even realize, how can you live your greatest love and passion? That to me was like, no, you figure out what you need to do for work, and then you have the other side of your life. When did you make the connection between the two? When did that happen? I was 22. I was 22. I was the sous chef for a big catering operation. We were onsite at a very high end wedding event, and the executive chef had a wellness crisis, I will phrase it as. That. And left in the middle of the event, just he hit his wall, whatever his story was, I'd worked with him at that point for less than a year. So you had to jump in. Yeah. Whatever was going on in his life at that particular moment, at that particular event, there was a few pieces of salmon that had been overcooked. There was a sheet pan that had gone into the oven, and the person that was responsible for it didn't pull it out in time. And that sheet pan, we were plating for hundreds of guests, and he saw that and he snapped. That was it. That was the trigger. He just lost it. And he basically was like, I'm out of. Here. Call this. I'm out of here. I'm. Out. Yeah, off. And that was the catalyst. You're now in the hot seat. You're the number. It's like the general had just been the general had just left the battlefield, and now you're there. Okay, what's my game plan? How do I attack this situation? And what did you do? I mean, the owner from across heard the commotion and came in and saw what was happening. And he took off through his apron down and left. And I got the pointing from across the room and basically looking at me saying, you got this, are you ready? And I was like, yeah, let's do it. Just another day. Yeah, this is what's happening. And that was it. Finished orchestrating the whole plating of the entree, and then went into dessert. And at the end of the event, I became the executive chef of this catering company at 22. And that was. It. I was like, okay. And I remember talking to my parents and I was like, I don't know. I majored in business. I don't know what I'm going to do, but this is what's happening. And they were like, well, you, you supporting yourself. You're making a living doing what you love. This is what you're doing, what you should. Be doing. Yeah. This is your career. And I was just like, okay. I guess that's what's happening now. You. Stayed in Chicago for how long? After that? I traveled, also, traveled a bit, wanted to explore other cuisines and cultures and connect with food. But I left when I was 30, left Chicago when I was 30. So you were there for eight years, and in that time you traveled, did you travel the world? Where did you go? Where did you derive influence? I wandered around quite a bit. I left, I actually, I traveled through 17 different states. I had a Volkswagen camper that I loaded up and took off working in kitchens all over the place and traveling. I went and visited my family in Israel and spent some time there and really connected with Middle Eastern cuisine and elements of that style of cooking regionally and the global melting pot that region of the world is, and what that expression of cuisine is. And that influenced me quite a bit. And that's also vegetable heavy cooking. That's not center of the plate, 10 ounce ribeye. That's not what that is. And I think being in the west, the expression of animal protein is the center of the plate. That's the foundation of, I think, how people perceive eating or dining out. But that's not the mentality of how to feed your family affordably. My dad was an immigrant from Eastern Europe. It was about utilization of everything, and it was about how to make a stew and feed a large family with a small amount of protein, but a tremendous amount of vegetables. It's all rooted in efficiency. It's. Funny, you own a restaurant in Denver, Ashra, right? Which is, I would consider it. To be Middle Eastern. Israeli, Eastern. The Lebanese Persian. Moroccan influences. Yeah. It's vegetable forward. Oh. Yeah. 70% of the menu is vegetarian. Yeah. So it's interesting. That wasn't your first concept. That came later, right? When that. Came later. Yeah. Maybe I'm fast forwarding too fast, but you were in Chicago, you've been traveling around, you were in your camper van going through 17 different states around the United States, going to Israel, gaining all these influences. Now at 30, you leave Chicago. Where do you go? At that time, I was overseeing a restaurant group that had five different concepts spread out over, I think eight or nine locations. I was doing a staff training at three o'clock, lineup at one, then running three blocks down in the city to the other spot. It was a lot. It was a lot. And it was, it was cement and trench coats and umbrellas and bitter cold and block heater to have the car even function in the morning. I mean, brutal winters. And I reached a point where I was trying to educate folks on where I was sourcing things from, and it felt at the time, everyone was in such a hurry. It's a city that is in such intense motion. Which city are we talking about? Which city are we? Chicago, downtown. Chicago. Okay. We're still in Chicago. And. Everything's cement. It's all cement. It's all manmade, and you don't have the ability or the luxury to connect with land and nature. And I was involved with the Green City market, which is one of the best farmer's markets in the country. I was running a stand. We had microgreens and locally grown vegetables. There was a lot of urban farms. I was getting things from Wisconsin, from rural parts of Indiana, Michigan. But I wanted to be somewhere where I was living in the center of the agricultural experience. I didn't want this to be sourced, brought in, and I really wanted to be somewhere that had a very powerful backdrop of nature where it's humbling to be around mountains, because we didn't make those, we didn't do that wasn't a project or blueprints that we set up. So there's this profoundness. That wasn't cement the. Majestic. That wasn't cement. The majestic beauty of what that power is of standing next to a river, what that does to you. I needed that. I was craving it. And I also felt like people weren't receptive to my philosophy of wanting to talk about how I got things. It was like, yeah, yeah, okay, whatever. I don't need to know where the lamb came from. I'm in a hurry and it's good. It's fine. Thank you. Have a great day. And I wanted to have these conversations. So I started thinking Northern California, Oregon, Colorado. I started, where are the wild lands at? Where can I go that has that opportunity to live within a region that has a high level of beautiful local agriculture and majestic beauty of nature and the power of that. And then I got offered a position at a restaurant in Boulder to kind of take over the helm, and it was kind of like a consulting project that was supposed to be for three months. I loaded up, I had a refrigerated van I used for catering events. I loaded all my possessions in the van. I sold off 80% of my things on Craigslist and drove to Boulder, 1100 miles to the west. With no place. Didn't know anyone. No place to stay. No, just literally showed up. I had a loose agreement for a sublease in an apartment for 90 days, and that's it. And I just showed up, didn't know anyone, not connected with it, but I just knew that I needed to start pursuing this and see where it went. And then that 90 day consulting project ended up, that restaurant orbit was all organic. That was the other side of it was was all locally sourced organic. I got listed in Vote Epie Magazine, six months in as one of the best vegetable forward menus in the country, top 10, Andrew Nolton. This was 2007, I want to say. And that was it. I was in here. I was in Boulder, an awesome culinary scene working with the coolest people I'd ever met, the most amazing farmers and ranchers. Everything was within a 70 miles, a hundred miles that I was working with. I met the lamb rancher. I met the bison rancher. Folks that I So your first restaurant in, or your first experience in Colorado working in restaurants in Colorado, was in Boulder? Yeah, north. Boulder. So this was before you then ventured into doing something in Denver? Yeah, exactly. So Boulder came first. Boulder came first, and it was all obsessively sourced food, and it was exactly what I needed. It was magical, and it was perfect, and it was the exact expression that I had been craving all of those years. And here I was waking up. The Rocky Mountains are one of the greatest elements to have close by, and that was my backdrop every day, and it was unbelievable. I really reached a point where I needed to strip down everything. It's funny you talk about my living situation and what I, after that sublet was up, I wanted to be so removed from what life was like in a big city that I worked out an arrangement with a local organic farm that had a teepee. And I moved into this teepee was literally. After the 90 days, 30 years old, and you were living in a tepe. Living in a teepee on an organic farm. It was a flat rate, and then an exchange of 10 hours working on the farm a week for living expenses. You must been in heaven. It was the greatest thing ever. It was unbelievable. So I was working in this beautiful, locally focused organic restaurant, and then living, going home at night to a teepee, sleeping on basically sleeping bag blankets. I mean, this was through Colorado winter, 13 degrees in a teepee with a wood stove. That's cold. Chopping wood carrying water, headlamp huge dumps of snow and. Loving every minute of it. To me, it was amazing. It was the core essence of being a human and taking care of your needs and surviving and finding contentment and finding warmth. So I had to strip everything away from the city elements and really connect with what it meant to just be completely immersed in this very kind of primitive expression. I was just about to say, you basically peeled back all of the layers of you as a human onion. And. Said very well said, I'm going to start from the seedling and build myself back to make. Hundred percent. Yeah. The person in the career that I want to make. I wanted Remove all elements of comfort, remove, ego remove. It was literally about getting to the core essence of what it is to feel content within oneself without that responsibility being anywhere else but on oneself. And it was really about going inward as deep as possible and building these elements of how can I provide joy? What can I do to provide nourishment? What decisions can I make to have the most positive impact on the world around me? And I started rebuilding things with that perspective and that knowledge, and it all was connected to our food system. It all was connected to what's being grown, what's being produced, animal husbandry, stewardship of land. And I saw the direct effect of that on this organic farm and how beings were being treated from human to animal to plant. And that to me was the place I wanted to live spiritually, emotionally, and physically. That led to that. Then the economic, this was now late 2008, the huge economic implosion unfolded. The investors of that restaurant needed to just get out and saved themselves. So that restaurant unfortunately closed. Closed, and then the Denver chapter began, and that's what led to Root Down. And then four restaurants after that, which became the Edible Beats Group, linger down at DIA at the airport. We won Best airport cuisine. Now. During this time in Denver at these restaurants, you were the executive chef. You were not an owner in any of those, correct? Or no? No. I was just overseeing the kitchen, really focused on sourcing, really focused on how things were being communicated as to what we were doing with ingredients. To me, that was the most important thing. And you did that. You built a stellar reputation at those restaurants in Denver. When did you then get the itch to say, you know what? I think I'm ready. I'm ready for prime time. I'm ready for my own. Gig. Yeah, that was five openings in seven years, complete whirlwind. And a couple of those spots we're talking about huge venues, lingers on three floors, 500 people at one seating, seven people deep at the bar during happy hour, 1200 covers for dinner service. I mean, this was at two kitchens, 35 feet of hood. This was crazy volume, but high integrity sourcing. And it was awesome to be able to take those principles and express them in a way that was impacting so many people at one time. But it was a lot. I was bouncing between, I calculated at one point, I was spending 18 hours a week traveling between all the spots to connect with the staff and do trainings and to do tastings and menu changes. And it was a whirlwind, and it was amazing. At this point, I'd also started dating and falling madly in love with my wife, Steph, and it was not a sustainable equation for a family. And I realized, Hey, the band is great. We've cut some amazing albums. I would need to do a solo project. To do a. Solo. I want an acoustic guitar. It was just like, I'm going to go Bob Dylan, this shit. It was just like guitar and harmonica. Yeah. So what was that for you? So what was that for you? What was your solo album? It was River and Woods, that's what it was. I wanted to find the smallest place possible, going from 400 seats to 40. That was my goal. I just was like, I need a small house. I just want a tiny little dining room. I want to be able in one glance to get knowledge of what's happening. And that became Reverend Woods, this amazing space that had been John's. That was your. Years. That was your REM moment, right? He started in Athens, Georgia, and then just as this independent artist, and look what happened. It blew up just like River and Woods did, right? Yeah, it was great. I wanted the complete opposite of high volume. I wanted intimate. I wanted deeply connected. I wanted small. I wanted to be able to run the entire line with two people basically, and have, was it a 10 foot hotline? It almost was like, it's like a little food truck in there sometimes it feels like, which is great. And. What was really exciting. You just turn and pivot. Everything's there. What was really exciting for me was because for this episode of Bike to Bites, where we featured River in Woods in the Colorado episode, what was really exciting for me was that I had never eaten at this gem that you were describing, this solo album. I had never been there before. I had eaten at your places in Denver. I had eaten at Ashkar in Denver, which is the other restaurant we were just talking. About. But I had never been to your restaurant in Boulder. So for me, I was super excited, and the best part was that it was the end of my 18.8 mile ride through Boulder by Design. I ended it at your restaurant. And what an incredible culinary adventure and experience that was. Chef Jeremy, obviously, who had worked under your direction. So talented. Very, very talented. And those dishes that we tried, and we'll talk about them in greater detail in a second, but the heirloom tomato barta salad, the farmer's market salad that you personally prepared that night that I ate there, that salad you actually did. I wanted, because it was all your favorite veggies going into the salad with organic greens and wildflower honey and chickpea croutons. And it was loaded with all of that. Exactly. And then the nochi, and I jokingly said. Ohn. Yeah. And I jokingly said, my wife will be very, very sad that she was not here. And shame on her because it's her favorite dish in the whole world. And that was stellar. I mean, phenomenal. And then of course, the braised short rib with homemade lui linguini. That was an incredible adventure that you kind of had me go on at the end of a ride and chef Jeremy, and you could just, the attention to detail, the vegetables being as much a part of the headliner as anything else in the dish. Completely. And it was a phenomenal experience. And so for me, it was very exciting to finally, having known you all these years, to be able to go and have that experience with you at the table, you and I together talking. It was so amazing to have you and to have you in Boulder and connecting on a bike to what that place is and how impactful it is, and the backdrop of what that part of Colorado feels like and smells like, and looks, the imagery. And. Daniel, probably some of the best, it's unbelievable. Some of the best cycling in the United States, in my opinion, in terms of whether you're a beginner, somebody who's just starting out, or whether you're an advanced cyclist, Boulder. Boulder has something for everyone. I mean, the cycleways, the bike paths, the bike lanes on the roads throughout the city, the mountain biking trails that you can go if you're a mountain biker. It was quite the, and for me, you're at altitude, right? So landing in Boulder, you're at what, 5,000 feet elevation. Or something like that? Yeah, exactly. A hundred percent. And then up in Boulder, you're at some parts, seven, 8,000, 9,000 feet, depending on where you're going. So I went on this one road as part of my ride, and you'll know it baseline, right? Baseline. Of course. Up to the state park. And you start at a 5,300 foot elevation at the bottom of the baseline road. And then you ride, and you're almost at 6,000 feet in like a mile, right? So you're going up almost like a almost. A thousand. And that was Chautauqua, right? So which was absolutely breathtakingly beautiful, unbelievable. And of course, when I do these rides or when I do these routes, I ride the whole route. People always ask, do you ride the route? And I go, not only do I ride the route, sometimes I have to ride it more than once. And that baseline was a section that my team, our production team, had me do three times because they're grabbing shots from outside the car. They're grabbing shots from the drone that's up above. Oh my gosh. By the time I was done with that and I couldn't wait to get to you, it made it all worth it. Which is great. Amazing. But Boulder is an amazing city. Amazing. It's. A special place. It is. It's a very special place. And it's magical, and it's amazing. And there's nothing like it. I mean, it's my favorite place. And you were very instrumental in helping turn us onto some of the other places that we visited. In the episode we went to Moxie Bakery. Oh my gosh. Yeah. And I know that you used some of their freshly ground milled flowers in the pasta dishes that we ate at your restaurant, but we went to Moxie Bakery. Phenomenal. We went to Black Belly. Black Belly. And we met with Kelly. We met with Kelly and Jeff. Kelly had just been given a huge accolade from hel. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Huge. And you were talking about lamb before Colorado Lamb. I kid you. Not. Daniel. The best lamb I think I've ever had in my life was at that black belly restaurant. Yes. Amazing. It amazing. It was phenomenal. And then of course, we went to wild pastures, and they've got a very interesting story, and I know your son had worked for them at some point. Yes. Yeah, Morgan, yeah. He was running the kitchen and Yeah, exactly. Everything made from scratch there. Everything. Pastured proteins, they make their own ketchup, they make their own mustard, they make their own cheese. Who does that at a burger place? It's unbelievable. The process. And they're raising their own cattle for that restaurant. Yes, exactly. Which is, and doing it correct way. They're all about regenerative farming. And I want to talk to you switching into that for a second, because This is at the heart of who you are as a chef. You are all about doing things sustainably, doing things locally, doing things with a conscience and socially responsible and helping solve real issues that affect our communities when it comes to food insecurities. Let's dive a little bit into where that, I mean, I know where it all stemmed from. It stemmed from early on. You saw the preciousness of where this food comes from and how the care that had been taken to create some of these raw ingredients. But where did your passion within these sectors that we were just talking about really kind of take root where you said, okay, I need to start educating and helping people make a difference when it comes to how they perceive food, how they're utilizing food, how they're discarding food, all of that. Right? Yeah, I think I've always been very dialed into impact and the results of decisions. And for me, working in commercial kitchens, the results of many decisions in certain kitchens is a lot of waste. It's just food being thrown, not even in compost, just in a garbage container and generating a tremendous amount of waste, A lot of, on one hand, from a food cost standpoint, restaurants have to be the most efficient they can possibly be and eke out every possible element. A potato peel needs to be turned into something, stems from herbs, needs to be turned into something. There's this necessity that drives ingredient utilization. But then there's other kitchens where it's just about the beauty of the final product. And it doesn't matter that you need to waste 60% of a potato to get this beautiful turned gemstone of a Yukon gold potato, and the rest of that is trash, so to speak. So food waste at this point, I think is at 40%. Something like that, is what's been officially designated. 40% of what we grow, produce, and distribute in America ends up in landfill. We can literally solve food insecurity and hunger by reclaiming a percentage of what we throw away. We don't even need all of it. That to me, is shocking and pervasive and something that demands immediate change. And it's a responsibility that we all have as citizens, the way we shop for our families, what our refrigerator looks like at home, all the way up the supply chain, how manufacturers are handling their products and what suppliers, importers, back to restaurants and cooks, and what you're utilizing and how you're structuring your menu and what you're doing. To me, food is this polarity between survival and luxury. You've got kids waking up that don't even know if breakfast is going to show up, and then you've got these $400, a person, 16 course tasting menus all happening at the same moment in time. So a kid going to sleep not knowing if breakfast is going to happen, and then 50 people sitting in this gorgeous theatrical space, having this ridiculously ridiculous immersion in the luxury of food. So you've got, it's a great equalizer. If we don't eat, we all die. You can't escape that. You can't buy your way out of that concept. If you don't eat, you die. So living in the realm of food service in this framework where there's so much luxury and there's so much survival happening at the same time, how do we make sense of this? And to me, food security should not be weaponized based on income bracket and level of success. To me, having access to clean, healthy, nutritious food is the right of any human that is on the planet. That's what we should at the very base element be able to do for ourselves and those around us is be nourished and have this awareness and confidence that the physicality and my nutritional needs will be met. And that's a collective equation and a responsibility that we're all a part of. So for me, on the culinary side, how do I make decisions that contribute to that positively And a lot of that it's not just food waste, but it's also the entire process of chemical exposure. It's what's happening to groundwater runoff from a huge feedlot operation, what that's doing to soil and preventing soil from providing the right level of nutrient density to food. These are decisions that go back so far. This is interesting to bring up because this to me, when I go out to eat, which I rarely have time for and I just don't do, I'd like to do more. It's just time and money. It's a challenge to create the space necessary to go enjoy a meal. We've got three kids under 10, so it's complete circus anyway, to have to go out. It's just complete anarchy and I love cooking for the family. Anyway, so. I had the luxury of going out with you when we were in Boulder after we were done filming and your daughter joined. Us. Yes. Oh, that was such a. Good meal. And that was an incredible experience, which we should talk about at some point. We should talk about that here because it was. Phenomen. It was great a hundred percent, but when I'd go out, I'd connect with folks that are doing really great work on the culinary side and all these literally a blackboard on the wall with where everything comes from and all these farms that are being supported, and then all high level of attention and integrity. And then I go to use the bathroom and there's just this crap toxic soap that you use to wash your hands. And I'm just thinking to myself like, wait, you put this much thought into your stewardship of the culinary expression. What about what's happening when all your guests go to use the bathroom and they go to wash their, so they're bathing with chemicals in the bathroom and then they're coming out and enjoying this organic sustainable meal at the table. That doesn't make sense to me. We need to be everything we need to do. If you're going to go down that road, just go down it, do it properly. What are your chef coats made out of? Is it recycled? Is it recycled? Is it organic cotton? What fabric are you supporting? Where are the garments made? Who's making them? That's the uniforms that you're using for your team. What's the cocktail program? Are you using beautiful distilled spirits but you're using a crappy bottled, artificially colored flavorings and syrups to make a drink? Or are you doing everything from scratch? Are you really thinking through the ingredient sourcing for your bar program? What are you supporting? Are you supporting local distillers? Are you supporting local brewers? What are they doing with their spent grain? It's about asking questions endlessly. Who's doing this? Why are you doing it? What is your purpose? What is your process? And you collect all these amazing human beings, great meaningful work, and you put them in one space. One ecosystem, one. Ecosystem, one ecosystem that's made up of hundreds, thousands of little micro decisions from an amazing tribe of human beings that are wanting to make a positive impact and create a moment of joy and nourishment and love. And you put all those things in one place and magic inevitably unfolds. It must and it has to. Now you have three restaurants. You have River and Woods, you have Ashkar in Denver, and you have Barrio 75 in Idaho, right, in Ham. Are you doing this 360 degree approach that you just described in each one of those restaurants. Relentlessly trying to, well. Because it's like it's constantly contextually. Challenging. You're always trying to perfect, right? You're never fully. There. Right? Yeah. That's the process. It's a journey. Chasing that is what the journey is really about and really thinking how can we be better and what can we do? What process can we undertake or who can we support? I'm always researching ingredients and producers and having conversations with people locally about who's doing great work. Where are they getting their things from? When I travel, when I do an event in another city, the first thing I do is find out who's involved with sustainable food systems, who's really doing things that are connecting very important dots, like what is happening as far as the politics of food, and then the beauty of delicious. Things. To enjoy. None of this matters if it's not delicious, Garrett, at the end of the day. It's got to be good. You can have someone talk about their mission and their philosophy, and that's awesome, but if you take a bite of something and you're like me. That's matter. Complete failure matter. Doesn matter in the entire equation. Correct. It's got to be delicious. It has to be craveable, it has to be memorable. It has to make you feel something that you want to tell other people about. Yeah. And you're pretty, what has to transpire. You are pretty fortunate in that you live in a part of the country in Colorado, in Boulder, Denver, the Western slope where all of the goodness is right there at your doorstep. I mean, you are very, very, I mean, talk about that. I mean, Colorado is a pretty unique place when it comes to farming, when it comes to where you derive your raw ingredients from. I mean, you don't have to look that far beyond your borders. Correct. There's so many things that are grown here within a couple hundred miles of where I'm sitting is some of the greatest ingredients I've ever seen. When I'm involved with the James Beard Chef Action Network, I'm involved with slow food. I'm involved with zero food print, which is basically an opportunity for restaurants to include 1% of your sales that goes to local projects that are all provides funding for farms that are trying to be better or improve systems around regenerative agriculture. The idea of carbon sequestration in soil and using no-till or low till methodology in regards to farming rotational grazing with cattle on pasture where their waste as an expression of their normal experience of having to poop creates this rich, robust food and fuel for the soil that then gets nourished and then that land is healthy and vibrant. So it's about how animals and vegetables and minerals all live in harmony together and connect and create an opportunity for vibrant soil, not depleted, mono cropped exploited soil. That word of extraction is the total opposite of the word regeneration. So it's the way that those equations can thrive and work well together and being engaged with these conversations on the ground around soil wellness, human wellness, access to food, the Farm Bill, there's a bill involving cover crops and how powerful cover cropping can be in so many different ways. And these are conversations that we have in the community here with folks that I work with and that I know and love that are making decisions that are based on the principles of stewardship and wellness and access for all, and having that be an expression that's rooted in fairness and having the right level of nourishment. And if you're not fed properly, your brain doesn't function properly. You can't even approach your equation of life in a balanced way. If we're plants, we need to be fit and watered. We need sunlight to thrive. So these are elements that are essential in our equation to be happy, impactful people on the planet. I know this, to me. The. Most important thing. And I was going to say, I know very, very much that this is what drives you every day. This is what has made your restaurants so successful. People know your ethos. They subscribe to it, they try to live it. You guys live it every day at the restaurants that you have. That experience that I had sitting in the back outside underneath the cover, eating that unbelievable meal at River and. Woods. With, and then our trip that you and I took together to the Farmer's market where we got to see some of the bounty of the. Boulder County Farmer's Market. Amazing. It's one of the best. It's amazing. Amazing. And I tell you that. You said that dish, the space that River and Woods is in was John's chef, John Bizaro, amazing legend of the food scene in this region. He opened John's restaurant in the seventies, and it continually operated as John's for four decades. I mean that those types of culinary legacies are so hard to find now. And this little cottage, this little house that he turned into a restaurant in 1973 was like the little engine that could, and he raised his family there, his wife, Nancy, there are landlords now. It's their space. They raise their kids in that kitchen. He taught his daughters how to make pasta at the same table where a couple of my little ones have worked with me and that made things. Was that Nochi? That's just, that's his gnocchi. That's it's called John's gnocchi. That's literally his gnocchi Verde that was on his menu. Eating it in the same place that he had operated for 40 years, but now operating under your stewardship at Riverwood. Yes. So that dish has basically been continually served years. Something like, because we're year seven, seven and a half. Well, well worth. Where do you get that anymore? Doesn't exist. Have that. What that means. Where you go cooked, you know where you get it. You get it at River and Woods in Boulder, Colorado. And that's where everyone should go and venture to amongst some of the other places they should experience that you are part of. And of course, all of the places that we've visited in Boulder are worth getting on your bicycle, taking a ride around, seeing this great city that you live in, experiencing the great tastes, flavors, smells that Boulder has to offer. And Daniel, I can't think of a better way to have experienced Boulder than to have experienced it with you and all of the people that you brought to the table, literally all of the places that we visited, you kind of guided me as I was doing my research as to where I wanted a ride and all of these names kept coming out, and the more I researched and the more I looked into what these people were doing, pretty phenomenal. And so I can't thank you enough for joining me today. Thank so much. We have so much more to talk about, but we. Know we need another couple hours to, we need. Another couple hours. To cover all the. Things, but that just gives us a reason to come back and do this again. Completely. I couldn't agree more. Garrett. Congratulations on everything you're doing to bring attention to not riding a bike is the most impactful form of transportation. When you talk about sustainability to get on a bike and ride, you're powering yourself, and inevitably you're connecting with the world around you in so many different ways. And then you're using that as an expression of independent restaurants and a connected food scene that's based in communities that sustain one another. So the work that you're doing and the attention you are bringing through bikes to bites and the ability to highlight folks that are working so hard nourish people and bring places in the community where people can sit down and feel connected and feel safe and feel loved is one of the most important things we can do for each other as an act of service. And I want to thank you for what you are doing and what you're bringing to everyone that's involved in culinary ecosystems all over the place. So thank you, Garrett. It's a pleasure to know you, and it's an honor to be a part of this journey. Well, Daniel, I can't think of a better way to wrap up my visit to Colorado than spending some time with you here in this podcast talking about all the great things that you are doing at all of the restaurants, and for those that are listening and watching, where can they find you and all the goodness that you're attached to? Oh my gosh, yes. So I got to keep it all straight, but working. Title Food Group is working title food.com, barrio 70 five.com, a river in woods boulder.com, skara denver.com. Then my space on the web for projects and culinary work and advocacy work is eco Chef culinary.com, and I'm working with an amazing food service technology company called Cut and Dry, cut and dry.com, which has an amazing food service platform to create better opportunities for streamlined communication and enhanced dialogue with food sourcing and procuring ingredients between chefs and independent food service distributors. Awesome. So robust network of being able to be a part of the supply chain from the technology side down to the throwing food in a hot pan side. Awesome. Awesome. My work from AM to pm. Oh, there you go. All those great ways to connect with you, and I encourage everyone to do so. So Daniel, thank you so much. I consider you not only a great chef doing unbelievable things in Colorado, but also a very, very dear friend, and thank you for joining me today. Yes, thank you. Thank you, Garrett, for the opportunity. It's always a pleasure to connect with you. We need to make time to sit down and enjoy a meal again together and break bread. Absolutely. Well, that was amazing. I have to say so much great stuff was covered and such a rich story behind this great chef who quite frankly was responsible for really helping Colorado blow up on the culinary scene. Really enjoyed my time with Daniel. Lots of great interviews that we've got in this podcast series in our Bite to Bites podcast series. So check them out. We dive deep. We talk a lot about the history of these chefs and their early influences and their stories, as well as the great food and experience of riding our bikes through these cities afforded us while we were there. So be sure to check that out. For more information on this episode as well as other episodes in this series, head over to our website at Bike to Bites podcast.com. You can also find us on YouTube at Bike to Bytes. Be sure to give us a like and subscribe while you're there. And if you're listening on your favorite podcast platform, we would appreciate a five star rating and a glowing review. It really does help spread the word. Check out our instagram@biketobites.tv and be sure to follow my personal Instagram at Garrett Abe, where I post shots of my daily rides in interesting places I visit. If you're interested in watching the Bike de Bites TV show, please visit bike de bites.com. We also have some really cool stuff of Bike de Bites, apparel and some other things that you can check out. While you're there, I want to take a moment to thank our sponsor. Plus, without them, this podcast series wouldn't be able to happen. So we are very, very grateful. Plus helps organizations harness the power of technology for truly transformative results from AI and security to cloud and workplace transformation. Plus brings you the right solutions at the right time, in the most efficient way. Plus is at the front line of today's modern enterprise. So check them out@eplus.com. Until next time, pedal, eat, repeat.