YouSaid · the spoken record

Dave Anderson

lines on the record: 97
first: 2022-12-05
most recent: 2022-12-05
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Right at the very end, they pull a surprise. You've got 20 minutes to cook something out of tofu. What's Telfu? In all my years of cooking, I had no clue what tofu was. And today I know there's like a firm tofu. There's like a silky smooth tofu. Medium. Well, they gave us a silky smooth and I lost $50,000 because I could not cook tof”
2022-12-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Famous Dave's: Dave Anderson (2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That Stave Anderson, the founder of Famous Dave's. Earlier this year, the restaurant's parent company was bought by a Canadian franchisor in a deal worth two hundred million dollars. And last year, Dave was inducted into the National Native American Hall of Fame. And by the way, some of you may remember that several years ago, Dave competed in a food network barbecue challenge called Best in Smoke, and he made it all the way to the Fidals until”
2022-12-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Famous Dave's: Dave Anderson (2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I don't know about luck. I wish I had been lucky. You know, I think luck is created when you have a dream, you're willing to work for that dream, you're willing to work hard is a byproduct of you just being 100% devoted to never, ever giving up.”
2022-12-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Famous Dave's: Dave Anderson (2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And getting into Harvard University, who would ever known that from some Indian kid growing up on the west side of Chicago?”
2022-12-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Famous Dave's: Dave Anderson (2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, first of all, I don't think I've ever worked to get a paycheck more than I've worked to be a positive difference in the lives of other people. Worked really hard to be good at what I do. But more than that, Guy, I think if anything people remember about me, I've been able to build something and give jobs to families and create opportunity where there was none. And a lot of people sometimes say, God, would I wish I was in your shoes? I have to laugh and say, I don't think so. But the one thing I can share is that I am grateful. I live a life of gratefulness. I live a life of sobriety, and I live a life that I am so fortunate to be living in this country because the things that I have done, it doesn't make sense. There's no rhyme or reason that I was able to get a bank loan on my signature alone, much less having a 1.98 grade average in high school, no undergrad.”
2022-12-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Famous Dave's: Dave Anderson (2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Hauling the test of time. And as much as we shoot ourselves in the foot, as much as we've made our mistakes in growing, is that people have always resonated with my food. And so, yes, we've had our tough times at famous days, but look at what we've also accomplished. Our barbecue products are big box retailers like Target, Sam's Club, Costco. We are all over America. It could not have happened if things were easy. So, you know, I think my story of my struggles and overcoming my ADHD, overcoming my alcoholism, overcoming the tough times in my life is no different than the story of famous Dave's.”
2022-12-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Famous Dave's: Dave Anderson (2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Know guy, I struggle, I think, every day sometimes thinking that I wish I could do things differently, but you know, the reality is I really have overcome a lot of adversities in my life. I have done things in my life that I wish I hadn't done. I should have been dead three times. I've been broke three times. But every time I've always come back stronger, you know, I often tell people that life is not always on top of the mountain. It's the valleys and it's the struggles down there that you have to come back from where you learn things. I think that's how you grow. And so if you're not out there on the edge making things happen, how do you know what's possible? But one of the things I go back to is that the food of famous days, my original recipes are still...”
2022-12-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Famous Dave's: Dave Anderson (2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Famous Daves really is built on what's basically picnic food, barbecue travels and it travels really well. When you look at our menu, when you're serving barbecued ribs, pulled pork sandwiches, beans, coleslaw, that's the type of food that travels. The famous Dave's restaurants are built for takeout. We have our own dedicated takeout doors. And that's why I think famous days for the first time in a long, long time is on the road to recovery. So we're actually able to thrive unlike a lot of restaurants who are struggling.”
2022-12-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Famous Dave's: Dave Anderson (2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, the company's still publicly traded. I think our stock is around three bucks. So, you know, the only place you can go is up.”
2022-12-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Famous Dave's: Dave Anderson (2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Today there's without a doubt Jeff listens to me. Jeff is the first CEO that actually brought me back to the board and said the board needs to hear your ideas, Dave. Because after all, I'm one of the few barbecue restaurant owners that was actually inducted into the National Barbecue Hall of Fame. I am a celebrity judge at all of the big barbecue events, I live in this world of barbecue games.”
2022-12-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Famous Dave's: Dave Anderson (2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think one of the things that makes Jeff so special is that he grew up eating famous daves in Chicago. He loved famous Daves. He was the first CEO who actually called me up on a regular basis. I mean, Jeff and I talk all hours of the night. He'll call me up at 11 o'clock and we'll talk till one in the morning. This is how passionate this guy is. Jeff reaches out to the franchise partners. You'll see Jeff in a restaurant actually pushing a broom when we're doing a remodel on one of the restaurants. Jeff was there with a paintbrush. I had never seen any prior CEOs actually get in a restaurant and want to work.”
2022-12-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Famous Dave's: Dave Anderson (2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, one of the things I think the company realized is that there was some franchise owners who probably had enough. There was a number of management changes over the years and they kind of got disenfranchised with the not having the passion they once had. So one of the things the company realized is that the only way they could write the ship was they probably had to buy back some of the franchise reinvest in them, get back the training programs that we used to have, and just kind of reinvent ourselves and bring back the basics, getting back to what made us famous in the beginning. We needed to be devoted to making people happy.”
2022-12-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Famous Dave's: Dave Anderson (2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So you start to, I guess essentially consult with a company to help them do a rebrand. And one of the things I guess you kind of suggested was to kind of bring back the classics, right? The Cajun chicken sandwich and the brisket burgers and other things, but also, I guess, at that time, this is 2016, even to this day, famous Daves started to buy back some of its franchises in order to kind of retake control, I guess, of the business?”
2022-12-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Famous Dave's: Dave Anderson (2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I was in tears I thought I would never hear that again. After Mike left, my wife and I talked and it was really a tough conversation of what do we do? Famous Dave's has really been such a love-hate relationship where I love the food I created. I loved being with our guests. And the reason why I came back was my wife and I came to an understanding that it was really the people that we cared about. It was the franchise owners. It was the people who came to famous Dave's who loved the food. And I think it was for that as I knew I had to come back.”
2022-12-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Famous Dave's: Dave Anderson (2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Never be another time if there was ever a time that you come back, you got to come back now because Ed Renzi's not going to be around. The company really needs you. There's new leadership. We need you back.”
2022-12-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Famous Dave's: Dave Anderson (2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So I'm kind of out of famous Dave's and one day I get a call from Mike Wright who was running the famous products retail line and really Mike was a good friend and he called me up. He said, Dave said, I'm in the area. Do you mind if I stop over? So Mike shows up in my house and he said, Dave, he said, there's some things we got to talk about. He said, the company misses you, all the franchise owners miss you, your customers. They miss you. People who love famous Dave's are missing you. You've got to come back. And I said, well, I don't think the leadership wants me. He said, that's not true. He said, people want you. They want you involved. And I said, well, I am out of famous Dave's. I'm not going back. And he really laid a guilt trip on me. He said, Dave, if there was ever a time in May.”
2022-12-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Famous Dave's: Dave Anderson (2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So consequently I lost something that I had worked all my life for. And, you know, I wish I had attorneys that had given me better counsel in the early days because, you know, I'm a Native American. I don't have a community of people around me that could give me good counsel. And if the attorneys really cared for me, what they should have said was, Dave, you shouldn't go public. You really have something special. You should really keep this in your family.”
2022-12-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Famous Dave's: Dave Anderson (2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, you know, one of the things I didn't realize is that when the company went public is you don't own your name anymore.”
2022-12-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Famous Dave's: Dave Anderson (2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I didn't have much stock left You know, what a lot of people don't realize is they may think I had a lot of stock. Well, over the years in the beginning, you know, like any business, you have your highs and you have your lows. Well, there were times when famous Dave's had its lows where I put up my stock as collateral and there were margin calls and by time things were where they were there wasn't much left.”
2022-12-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Famous Dave's: Dave Anderson (2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I wasn't going to listen to some guy who ran McDonald's tell me how to be a barbecue pitmaster. I had barbecue sauce running through my veins. I wasn't going to stand for it. And I just said, look, if the board at the time wanted to have somebody like Ed Renzi, if this is what you're going to do, I'm not going to be part of it. And so I basically emotionally, legally, financially was separated out of famous Dave's.”
2022-12-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Famous Dave's: Dave Anderson (2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“My family just absolutely loves the garbage can lid with all your barbecue on it. Where'd the garbage can lid go? There's a lot of things that just was being the heart and soul of famous Dave's was being ripped out.”
2022-12-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Famous Dave's: Dave Anderson (2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“He tried to turn famous Dave's into a McRib Got rid of a lot of the history of famous Daves. There was a lot of fun antiques that were part of the decor. He started pulling the stuff off the walls. He started getting rid of our honey buttered cornbread. He thought it would be easier to take the honey butter off the top of the cornbread and just put it in the cornbread. But there's, you know, one of the most interesting stories of famous Daves was in the beginning. I didn't have money enough to have a smoker. I used a garbage can lid. And so our All American barbecue feast is served on a garbage can lid. Well, Ed Renzi got rid of the garbage can lids and tried to put it on some type of stainless steel platter. And I can remember people just coming up to me and saying, Dave.”
2022-12-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Famous Dave's: Dave Anderson (2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Was devastated. devastated everything that I worked hard for all my life, my ambitions just like shattered. It was like, this was my dream. I had worked hard all these years in my kitchen working on. And I look back and I think, how can they do that?”
2022-12-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Famous Dave's: Dave Anderson (2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, that's one of the unfortunate things of publicly traded companies. They felt they didn't need me. But you were still shaking.”
2022-12-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Famous Dave's: Dave Anderson (2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I think what happened when I went to Washington, D.C., all of my entrepreneurial spirit got lost in the politics of being in government. And I should have listened to people who counseled me and said, Dave, you don't want to go to Washington DC. And I said, but I really believe that I can make a difference. I wanted to encourage entrepreneurship within the tribes. I really had some great ideas. But when I got there, boy, did I get an awakening that, you know, change doesn't happen in Washington, D.C. like people think. And as an entrepreneur who's used to getting things done, I was stifled here. And I was really frustrated. And, you know, it just seemed like every turn of the road, everything was gridlocked.”
2022-12-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Famous Dave's: Dave Anderson (2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, the reason why I left is I had to. When you accept a job as an assistant secretary or any high level government job, you basically have to sign away all of your rights to any of your business interests. And so as much as I wanted to stay involved, I couldn't. I had to, if I was going to do this job for the president and serve the White House, I had to sign away all my business interests Looking back, I wish I had never did that.”
2022-12-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Famous Dave's: Dave Anderson (2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You know, I think that's a struggle with any growing business is I think they thought of me, even though I was the founder and I was the creator of all this, they sort of thought of me as the entrepreneur. And they thought that, you know, the corporate people needed to take over and that the entrepreneur just sort of messed things up. And today, I wish I had fought harder and I had trusted my gut more because I would have stayed to these smaller footprints and I would have stayed to a smaller core menu.”
2022-12-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Famous Dave's: Dave Anderson (2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think for the most part the only thing I regretted was the company building these bigger boxes. And, you know, barbecue is a type of thing that grows slow. And it's slow smoking. I think that tried to grow too fast. I think that was one of the problems of being a publicly traded company. Now it seemed like we were being run by the quarterly earnings report. And if we were to miss earnings statement by one penny, my God, the stock got slaughtered. And as a Native American, I didn't have a lot of people around me that could counsel me. You know, I was sort of at the mercy of people that knew how to run publicly traded companies on Wall Street. That's what I think I didn't feel comfortable.”
2022-12-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Famous Dave's: Dave Anderson (2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“After the company went public and you kind of found an outside CEO and then there were other kind of corporate folks who were brought in to run the company, did you feel like you were losing control over the business that this idea that you had was kind of slipping away from you?”
2022-12-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Famous Dave's: Dave Anderson (2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And then I also created a train the training program. And so we spent a lot of money on training. In fact, people would look at famous Dave's and they say, wow, you guys spent a lot of money training people. What happens when you spend all this money training and they leave? All I had to do was look at them and say, well, what if I didn't train them with the best training I could do And they stayed.”
2022-12-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Famous Dave's: Dave Anderson (2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Ready aim fire, people remember things in threes. So the original famous days menu was really pork, beef, and chicken, coffee, milk, and pop, coastal beans, and potato salad was all in threes. And even how we trained people, we would season, smoke, and serve. Now there might be several steps underneath, but everything was done in threes. And I think that speaks to going back to that 100 best of the best things that I wanted to accomplish was I wanted to have the best training program in America. So in the early days, I spent about $2 million developing my training programs. And I created this leadership from the heart training program that actually focused on building up the people. The second thing I did was I created Hog Heaven University. I wanted to create”
2022-12-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Famous Dave's: Dave Anderson (2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I think that's one of the things that's hallmark about famous Dave is that we never really lost the quality of our food. My original menu was actually inspired by Jimmy John's dad, James Leot, who, he said, Dave, he said, first of all, you want to keep everything simple. And the second thing, you always want to do everything in threes. And he said there's something magic about threes, whether it's the Holy Trinity, it's the three little pigs, the three amigos on your market set go.”
2022-12-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Famous Dave's: Dave Anderson (2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But to me, the franchise model was going to be tough for famous Daves because it was your recipe, there was a whole technique, and you're kind of handing that off to franchisees, and you risk giving up the quality, right, when you turn to a franchise model.”
2022-12-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Famous Dave's: Dave Anderson (2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think I was always supportive looking back though. I wish we had kept it within the family. But you know, we had some good franchise partners, but I think one of the problems early on was they tried to get rid of the lines that we had around the block. And so they thought that the way to alleviate that was to build bigger boxes.”
2022-12-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Famous Dave's: Dave Anderson (2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The one thing was that they tried to run famous Daves as a casual dining company when really we were a barbecue company. We sort of lost our heritage of being just barbecue and people were trying to turn it into something else.”
2022-12-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Famous Dave's: Dave Anderson (2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, one of the things I was told by the Wall Street guys was that I was just a barbecue guy that I needed to hire Wall Street savvy. Casual dining executives.”
2022-12-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Famous Dave's: Dave Anderson (2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, you know, I'm very open about it. I think that was one of the worst mistakes of my life going public because I didn't realize that when you go public, you don't own it anymore. But we went public and we actually oversold. We were supposed to open up at $6. We ended up opening at $11.”
2022-12-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Famous Dave's: Dave Anderson (2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes. You know, treatment sounds like a tough thing, and I think it's one of the reasons why people who are struggling kind of don't want to have anything to do with it because it sounds like something people do to you. But today, I am so grateful 25 years this April been sober that today I look at treatment as really recovery and recovery is a gift.”
2022-12-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Famous Dave's: Dave Anderson (2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“One morning, my wife came to the bedroom. She said, Dave, you got some friends downstairs. You better go down and see them. I said, I didn't remember inviting anybody over. She said, well, they're here. And they say you're friends of yours. I'm all confused. I have no idea what's going on, so I go downstairs, and sure enough, there was people that I knew, and it didn't take me too long to figure out what was going on. They were doing an intervention on me. And that was a tough thing. You know, nobody wants to admit that they struggle with alcoholism. Nobody wants to admit that they need help. But here I was listening to my wife, my son, and some really close friends tell me how much my drinking was taking a toll on the family. And when they said, Dave, you got a choice here. What are you going to do? And I said, you know, I...”
2022-12-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Famous Dave's: Dave Anderson (2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I'm pretty open that my life has had some very dramatic transformations. I do think sometimes that our Native American folks struggle with alcoholism. I know my mom's side, it was in the family. I know on my dad's side it was the family. But you didn't talk about those things. And so I wasn't really aware that something I needed to watch out for. And, you know, over the years, it just kind of built up where, you know, I couldn't wait till Friday so I could party and couldn't wait till Saturday so I could party after work. And you know what I didn't realize was that pretty soon I was partying on Sunday and it wasn't too long after that I was partying on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. I was parting all the time. And”
2022-12-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Famous Dave's: Dave Anderson (2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You know, it was like word of mouth on steroids. I have no idea, but people were telling friends and friends telling friends, you got to try the barbecue. But you know, I think that's what speaks to famous Dave's is that I went through all of the things it took to make great barbecue. I slow smoked our ribs until they were tender. I flame charred them so we were able to caramelize the sauce on them. But more than anything, guy, it's America's food. Barbecue is how America celebrates. You know, if you want to have a good time, you tell your friends, come on over. We'll have a backyard barbecue.”
2022-12-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Famous Dave's: Dave Anderson (2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We're doing phenomenal numbers. I can't even keep food and stock. I had to get a refrigerator truck to park next to my little restaurant just so we had food to cook.”
2022-12-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Famous Dave's: Dave Anderson (2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Oh, seriously, we're out in the middle of nowhere. And even though I never advertised, it wasn't but months that the word quickly has spread throughout Wisconsin. And even as far away as Iowa, we're serving 6,000 people a week. And as I'd be walking through the restaurant, people would grab me and say, Dave, you got to open up one of these in my town. I said, well, where are you from? Well, we're from Des Moines, Iowa. We drove all the way up here. We heard about your barbecue. We just came all the way up here just to eat. People actually demanded us to have famous staves. And so the first famous Daves outside of Hayward was in Minneapolis. I found an abandoned gas station. It was only 2,900 square feet. We only had fifty seats. And we opened up, again, without any advertising, but within weeks, I've got a line around the block. Wow.”
2022-12-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Famous Dave's: Dave Anderson (2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Wasn't just the bathrooms. I think it goes back to my best of the best list. For instance, my music, I personally inventoried every blues song that was played in a famous Dave's. I had something like 6,000 blues CDs back then. I knew the difference between jump blues, pushbeat blues. I didn't want any old blues. Sort of Chicago Jump Blues. So, when people are sitting in a famous daves, I almost wanted it to be sublimally. They had to start getting in this groove and they felt good and they were bopping around. So that was all the experience. I wanted to touch all five senses from the smell of the wonderful wood aromas of meat smoking in my pit to them feeling good because of the music and then the visuals I put a lot of antiques in my famous daves. So everything about famous daves was really sensory overlord.”
2022-12-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Famous Dave's: Dave Anderson (2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I believe that I'm the first one that coined the term bathroom marketing. I think that's one of the things that people talked about was my bathrooms. My ladies' bathroom had imported rose painted basins in 24 carat gold faucets on a marble base. I had wrought iron around the mirror. I had crown molding. I mean, who puts crown molding in a bathroom? But I could remember when we first opened, I got a call within the first week. Some lady said, Anderson, write me down for 8.30 on Thursday at your women's restaurant. I said, what? She said you heard me. 8.30. I want your women's bathroom. She said, I'm going to hold my next cocktail party in there.”
2022-12-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Famous Dave's: Dave Anderson (2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, the road to famous Dave's, not only are we in a small town, but I was also eight miles out of town and on the road out of town there's like Dave's guns, Dave's antiques, Dave's boats. So I was going to name my place Dave's famous barbecue shack. We're getting ready open. I get my business cards and it said famous Dave's barbecue. I am mad I can't believe the printer messed up my business cards and my wife and all her wisdom said they've calmed down, why don't you just leave it? You know, we're about ready to get open, just leave it. So famous Dave's the rest is history.”
2022-12-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Famous Dave's: Dave Anderson (2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And then there's different forms of sweetness to it. You've got your brown sugars, you have your honeys, you've got your fruit sauces. There's a lot of nuances to making great tasting barbecue sauce, and I think especially when you're creating robust flavors, that heat is very important. A lot of people may not realize this, but every menu item at Famous Dave's is hot. My coastlaw has a bite. My beans have jalenos in them. Yeah. That heat opens up the taste buds, and that's when you really can enjoy the full flavor of my cooking.”
2022-12-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Famous Dave's: Dave Anderson (2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I can remember even back then we were the first family on our block that had a charcoal grill. And so I started learning how to grill foods and then I wanted to smoke things and we didn't have a smoker. So I took an old trash can. I cut a hole in the bottom. I took rebar, put it across so I could put my ribs on top of that. And so by time I opened famous Dave's I actually had been working on my recipes for twenty years because you know the ingredients that you use to create the sauces, the seasonings, barbecue is not easy, it's hard because to make a good barbecue sauce, you know, it's almost like Chinese cooking. There's a lot of flavors involved in making a good barbecue sauce. It's sour. It's got a robust spiciness to it.”
2022-12-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Famous Dave's: Dave Anderson (2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Before I even opened the doors, I had already determined that I was going to have the best ribs. I was going to have the best honey buttered cornbread, the best barbecued baked beans. I had this list. And, you know, I started out with my dad's recipes, but I visited every barbecue joint every time I was going anywhere. I always look at who had barbecue joints in town. And I learned things. I liked how somebody did their cornbread, or I liked maybe how they had one type of sauce or how they were doing their briskets. And Guy, I know you've been all around this country, and if you were to tell me that you know for a fact they have better coastal on Anchorage, Alaska, I will be on a plane today. I will be flying up to Anchorage, Alaska, and by tomorrow night I will have stolen that recipe.”
2022-12-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Famous Dave's: Dave Anderson (2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“As I was building my barbecue shack, people would drive by and they'd say, hey, Anderson, what are you doing? I said, I'm building a rib shack. They literally would laugh at me and they would say, are you crazy? Hayward, Wisconsin. Why don't you go down to Memphis or Kansas City, Nashville, someplace down south where people really know barbecue? You got to be nuts.”
2022-12-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Famous Dave's: Dave Anderson (2020) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT