Transcript: Episode 238: Knuckle Sandwich Bride
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[00:00:00] Susan Barry: This is Top Floor with Susan Barry, episode 238. You can find the show notes at topfloorpodcast.com/episode/238.
[00:00:15] Narrator: Welcome to Top Floor with Susan Barry. This weekly podcast ride up to the top floor features tangible tips and excellent stories from the experts and characters who elevate hospitality. And now your host and elevator operator, Susan Barry.
[00:00:32] Susan Barry: Welcome to the show. Chris Russell is a hospitality executive with decades of experience building and scaling hotel management companies. Starting his career in the restaurant world, after graduating from the Culinary Institute of America, Chris quickly realized his passion extended beyond the kitchen and into the broader hotel business. He transitioned into operations and rose through the ranks at Bristol Hotels, where he spent 15 years helping the company grow from a handful of properties to over 100 hotels. From there, Chris played key roles in launching and expanding multiple hospitality platforms, including Prism Hotels and the in-house management company at Goldman Sachs. He is now president and CEO of Spire Hospitality with a portfolio under management of more than 20 hotels. Today, we are going to talk about career paths in hospitality and the future of talent in the industry. But before we jump in, we need to answer the call button.
Call button rings…
The emergency call button is our hotline for hospitality professionals who have burning questions. If you would like to submit a question, you can call or text me at (850) 404-9630. Today's question was submitted by Fatima and she asks, what is one of your favorite hotels you ever visited as a guest? I love to ask this question of people like you, because I'm sure you have favorite hotels that you've worked in or with, but what about purely as a guest? Any favorites?
[00:02:27] Chris Russell: Yeah, it's a good question. There are so many different types of hotels as we know, but I am probably more on the simple side of things. A couple of years ago, my wife and I took our first vacation in several years. For lack of time and things like that, we finally got away and we ended up going to Montana, Whitefish, and we stayed in the hotel downtown. Walking distance to the bars, the restaurants, the social thing. And it was just a very simple, nice boutique hotel. And I just really enjoyed that much more than I do, the high-end luxury properties that's just not me or us, I should say.
[00:03:11] Susan Barry: I know what you mean. I have a tendency to be drawn toward vacation rentals and places like that because I can't relax at a hotel because I'm constantly like, you should be doing this, you should be doing this. What are you doing? Why is this wrong? You know what I mean?
[00:03:26] Chris Russell: Even at that hotel, I found myself, we went up to the roof for afternoon cocktail, and the banquet team was setting up for a wedding, and you know that I couldn't sit and have my cocktail. I got up and actually helped them set up for the wedding. I spent an hour.
[00:03:43] Susan Barry: That's crazy. That's like the joke about hoteliers that can't go out in public without picking up trash of which I am definitely one. Well, what first drew you to hospitality? I know that you went to the CIA to the Culinary Institute of America. Was there a specific thing that made you wanna be there or was it just, well, a random choice?
[00:04:06] Chris Russell: It was not. Well, I tell you what, so when I was younger, 15, 16 years old, I had worked in a restaurant a little bit side by side and doing some different things. Very much like everybody else, washing dishes, washing pots, doing whatever I took. I really wanted to be a police officer. That was my goal. My dad was a cop, he was a detective. I thought that was really kind of neat career path. Looked into different schools that would offer criminology and things like that. And I had a talk with him one day. He looks at me, he goes, you don't want to be a police officer. I said, like, why? He goes, great career, love it. Wouldn't do anything different. But he goes, you gotta think about it. The nights, the weekends, the holidays. He listed all the perfect reasons not to get in hospitality theater. So I just started talking to different people that resources through friends of friends and friends of the family. And met somebody who had actually, he had been at West Point running food service at West Point. He was a culinary Institute grad and he introduced me to that and from there, 16 years old, I had already applied to school and got accepted. Everybody else was applying to all these different colleges. I had already been accepted to the LA Corner Institute 'cause I knew right away that's what I wanted to do, which is part of what I wanted to open up my own restaurant at the same time, but plans changed. Life changed.
[00:05:38] Susan Barry: Okay. So speaking of which, you're not a chef, so maybe making that decision at 16 was a little early to make that call. Was there anything specific that happened that you were like, Ooh, hold on a minute. I do not wanna be a chef or was it just career progression?
[00:05:55] Chris Russell: Once I get outta school a couple years later. I went down to Houston and I worked at the Four Seasons Hotel, and that was my first quote, unquote checks job that I was working at french restaurant, it's called Low Reserve. Went in there and it felt like for 40 hours a week or 50 hours a week, whatever it was that my job was initially to take potatoes and carrots and carve them into little footballs to vegetables. And that's all I did for the first couple of weeks.
[00:06:27] Susan Barry: Is there a chef title that's like Chef Torney?
[00:06:31] Chris Russell: Well, I know. I looked at it and I was like, there's gotta be a machine that does that. I mean, surely, there's more than just doing it by hand. And eventually I became a line cook and it was like the restaurant. I really enjoy it. And then one day, there were a couple of folks that came into the kitchen. They were wearing suits and they worked the front of the house. And I went up to my executive chef at the time. I said, Hey, I am thinking I'm all sweaty and hot and everything. I said, how do I get their job? I didn't even know what their job is, but they look like they're having a lot more fun than I am.
[00:07:04] Susan Barry: They weren't sweating, that's for sure.
[00:07:05] Chris Russell: No. And he looks at me and goes, you don't, go back to work. So that pretty much convinced me. So I started looking into that and that was pretty much the day. I don't know if it was the day that I decided, I said, there's more to being a chef for me, 'cause again, it's a great career. But to do it for those several years, you've gotta really love it. You've gotta really do it successfully. And there are so many great chefs out there. It's a passion. And I don't think I ever really had that passion as much as you needed it.
[00:07:44] Susan Barry: Well, I think you have to have it in order because there is a certain element of hazing that has to happen behind the line. I mean, Tornado D, how do you say that word?
[00:07:59] Chris Russell: Tornado. Yeah. Don't have a machine today.
[00:08:03] Susan Barry: Yeah. That's crazy, though. That's an amount of work that no one should have to do.
[00:08:08] Chris Russell: Oh, I could tell you that's probably know the whole show. I could tell you stories about my cooking days and the crazy things that you do or that I did back then, especially in independent restaurants. You can get away from it. As you very well know. I wanna own my own restaurant also. And I think that I needed the front of the house skills in order to do that, 'cause I was very focused on my own restaurant and still at that time. And it just kind of fell into the front of the house.
[00:08:34] Susan Barry: Well, it's interesting that you wanted to start a restaurant. You've ended up helping build multiple companies from the ground up. What do you think there is about building something new that's exciting or inspiring for you?
[00:08:51] Chris Russell: I think I've always said this, I think there are builders and I think there are maintainers in life especially in our business. And I think there are people that want to build, like myself, I love building things, getting it up to like an 80 to 85% level. And then there's people that love to take it from an 85 to a hundred or 105, whatever it is. I'm the type that likes to do the former, getting it up to that level where I can say, okay, the infrastructure is in place, we've got the right people in the right place doing the right things. But the attention to detail, to take it from a 90 or 85, 90 to a hundred is just very, very different. You gotta look at it differently. I think the building a little bit more strategic, where the other year, yes, you're strategic, but you get excited about the business differently than somebody like myself does, which I like to build that. And I've always surrounded myself with both. And it's the detail of it that is exciting to people and I love seeing the final product. I feel like I've contributed my career as much as the person who takes up 95 to 90.
[00:10:17] Susan Barry: So when you think back, sort of on the path from the culinary to where you are now at Spire Hospitality, how much of your career would you say was intentional moves versus opportunistic moves? Like, did you have a plan? Were you like, okay, I'm gonna do this, then this, then this? Or did your career come about by saying yes when opportunities come your way?
[00:10:46] Chris Russell: Yes, and one thing, I've never taken a job for money ever. I've never looked at anything and said, I'm gonna make X number more dollars by doing this. I always said, if I take this opportunity, what can I learn over the next one to five years if I stay here? Or what can I learn over the next one to five years if I go there? So I've always looked at it as an educational thing. I've lost a lot of money through the years by making some decisions, but not taking that extra money. But I've never been one to focus on that. I've just really focused on the opportunity. And you're right, I have been presented opportunities and been overstretched in many cases, and I've been lucky that I've worked with some great people. That had given me those opportunities that I probably wasn't qualified for, but probably had the right attitude for. And, I think that that's given me where I am today because of those opportunities. Keep your head down, work real hard, take a chance, take a risk. Don't make it about a thousand dollars a year or $10,000 a year. Make it about what you can learn. And that's always been my thing.
[00:12:04] Susan Barry: It's interesting, hospitality has, you're such a great example of this unbelievable upward mobility. You are washing pots and now you're a CEO. But I think our industry still, or maybe newly struggles with the perception that people think that it's this horrible, subservient, miserable existence when it's truly like the American dream come writ large. So I'm curious why you think that disconnect exists? What do you think is missing to help people see, Hey, your dishwasher today, but every single CEO in our industry was a dishwasher or a busboy before.
[00:12:52] Chris Russell: I think there are a couple of things. One, I think the hours, the perception of the hours and the length of the hours that people see, say, oh, why would I want to go do that for 50, 60 hours a week when I could work 40 hours somewhere else and maybe even make overtime, right? So I think hours. And COVID didn't help that either when we kind of all went through that six years ago and there were very significant layoffs very fast. So you have a large population that lost their jobs because of what was going on in the industry or the world. And then the people who did stay at work ended up having to do double duty or triple duty because they were missing a lot of teammates. So I think the perception of hours. And I also think that there's such a great opportunity in hospitality outside of just cleaning rooms and checking people at the front desk. You got accounting, IT, HR, sales, wedding planning, front desk. And I don't think most people don't realize that it's such a career path opportunity or your typical person that wants to be in hospitality. And it's not, we don't sell it well for one, as a business, as an industry. I don't think it's just realized by many that you could really do anything that you want. You can have an accounting degree and be successful in the hospitality field, and people don't think about that.
[00:14:22] Susan Barry: And there's the whole array of things that happen outside of the doors of the hotel that people who are day in, day out, operating hotels have no clue even exist. Whenever I talk to students or recent graduates or whatever. Always try to make the point that, like, don't freak out, don't spend all your time just getting a degree that you think checks the job training boxes, because the job you're gonna spend the majority of your career in probably doesn't exist yet. And that's so true in hospitality, too. So like, come on in, do a couple of years behind the desk, and the sky's the limit.
[00:14:59] Chris Russell: Right? And you get exposed to so many different things. And if you ask if you're around the right people and you get those opportunities and you can take 'em. Then you know it is one of the very few industries that gives you that opportunity to just move around and take chances and be exposed to different things. I think it's just great business to be part of. Do we have to sell it better? Or promoted better or something like that.
[00:15:29] Susan Barry: You know, there's something else too. This has come up with so many guests that I've interviewed on this show that they watched the TV show Hotel when they were younger. And that was like made it seem so glamorous that they ended up wanting to go to Cornell or whatever because they wanted to be in the hotel. We don't have anything like that anymore. We don't have a sort of cultural touchstone, except for the white lotus and that shows everyone's dying all the time, so it doesn't make it look great.
[00:15:59] Chris Russell: Right. Even when I went to school, not to date myself, but being a chef wasn't exciting. I mean, that was like a good job, but then all the celebrity chefs came out and became and had the TV shows, and it became part of the culture, part of the norm, and that's when that even got exciting. Now you've got the bear on TV, which I love because it kind of reminds me of my 16, 17, 18-year-old, back there washing pots, whatever I was doing. And then you're right, it's not part of the cultural norm to be in the business.
[00:16:35] Susan Barry: Well, and the Bear is an amazing show because it's so true to life. But it doesn't it do us any favors. Like, you need to take Xanax to watch that show. It's insane.
[00:16:45] Chris Russell: Yeah, I know. But that was real life. I mean, there was so many different things about that. For some reason I was excited about that. I'm the guy that was cooking lunch on a Saturday while my friends pulled up. I worked in a restaurant on the dock and on the Long Island sound, or I'm sorry, in Con Bay at home, in my case, Long Island. And they would come in from the war skiing all day. They would come in and have their lunch and leave, and I'd just stare at 'em, leaving, say, see you. So the sacrifices that you had to make, then was very different from the sacrifice I think you have to make today. I don't think it's nearly as bad because I think there's a lot more. I think it's a lot more streamlined. There's a lot more technology that is just a different job, I think, than it was.
[00:17:36] Susan Barry: The industry has maybe had to mold itself to Canada expectations a little bit more. I'm curious if you think that our industry has changed the approach to hiring, developing talent in a meaningful way over the years, or do you think there's some makeup work that needs to happen there?
[00:17:59] Chris Russell: I think technology unfortunately has replaced the personal interaction. Growing up in the business and interviewing people and hiring people, your first screen would be how do they look in terms of their sparkle in their eye? Or are they happy, are they confident? And you would see that, and maybe take a chance on somebody that may not have that experience. But had the right attitude, they could project themselves well. Where now everything gets screened by bots. And part of it's state law, part of it's a lot of different things you have to conform to, but you kind of lose that initial wow factor when somebody walks in the door. So I think that has changed and I don't see it going away. I think it's gonna get a little bit more difficult, especially with AI and some of these other things that might be putting a layer between the hirer and the hiree. So we're gonna have to kind of figure out how to get that positive attitude back.
[00:19:08] Susan Barry: It's interesting that the adage, hire for attitude, train for skill. How do you do that if you never meet a person?
[00:19:16] Chris Russell: Exactly. And that's one of the challenges I think that we have. And I'm fortunate that I've been in the business a while enough and know a lot of different people and I know people that know people. And having been in a lot of different states, a lot of different hotels, and a lot of my team does too. But you know, how do you get to that person who is willing to work hard, who has that positive attitude, when you've got this bunch of technology in the way? Again, it's good in many ways, but it does get in the way too. There's gotta be a workaround somehow.
[00:19:53] Susan Barry: I think you believe this. I know many hotel executives do that they attribute their success to sort of saying yes to everything that crosses their path, even when it's outside their job description. So, for example, helping to strip rooms on a tight turn or something like that. Do you think that you can be that kind of person, that kind of like, yes, I will pitch in, I will do whatever it takes, even if it's outside my job description, and still have work-life balance. Or is it something that you just have to shut up about for a while?
[00:20:31] Chris Russell: No, I think you absolutely can. When I think companies realize that more today, over the last five to seven years, that you gotta be able to provide an environment. That it is a good work-life balance. It's more important to everybody, right? But I do think that if you're that person and you continue to say yes, say yes because you truly want to be part of it. And if you're a lawyer, then make sure you provide those opportunities. 'Cause I've got people on my team that work real, real hard. But then they get their time off, they're really good at it. They're there for their sons or daughters, piano recital or school event, or sporting event. And as an employee, you have to make that balance. And listen, I'm a father, I've got kids. I knew what it was like, and you've gotta be able to provide that environment and it's absolutely can. And I still say yes to everything.
[00:21:40] Susan Barry: Yeah. Obviously, if you're getting a banquet job in Montana while you're on vacation. We like to make sure that our listeners come away from each episode of Top Floor with some specific practical things they can try either in their businesses or in their personal lives. So I wanna ask you, what are some common mistakes you see younger professionals or early career professionals make when they're starting out their hospitality careers?
[00:22:14] Chris Russell: Yeah. My personal opinion is, again, this is very general because everybody's different but I think sometimes I see people changing jobs too early, too often. And I think that you'll be able to see that there's a lot more opportunity within the job that you're doing or the company that you're in, if you just communicate that. I know that I'm doing an X job, but I'd really like to learn that job. How can I do that? What's the best way that I can approach that? And I know that I can't do it today, but can you help me establish a career path in order to get there? Because I believe I'm interested in this. I think that communication is not only on the employee, but it's also on the employer. Make sure they have that open dialogue, and when you bring people in, have a continuous dialogue with career development. And I think that I see a lot of people who don't have that conversation. They see they're gonna get a couple of dollars more by going across the street or going down the road or going different company. So have a little patience. Don't change jobs just because you think it's gonna be more exciting across the street without bringing somebody into that conversation. If anybody ever came to me, they have gone through their life and said, Hey, listen, I'm really interested in doing this. I'm really interested in going somewhere else. Can we talk about it? And I give them free listen, I'll give 'em career advice. And sometimes that advice is, yeah, I think that's a great opportunity because we're not gonna have it here. Or the other advice, I didn't realize he wanted to do that. Let's, let's talk about that.
[00:23:52] Susan Barry: And more often than not, I thought it's the latter, right? Like, how would I know I don't have a crystal ball and there's one of you and 800 other employees. That makes me curious. I think this happens. I know that it happened in my early career that I was sort of sitting there waiting for somebody to notice me, versus saying like, Hey, I wanna do this. I wanna try that. I'm so interested in this. I was like, oh, if I do a great job, then eventually they'll figure it out, or they'll come and ask me. Do you think that's the job jumping issue, or is it something else?
[00:24:31] Chris Russell: Well, I absolutely think that there's a lot of that. I do. And I was like that. I did that a lot. Like, okay, I'm gonna keep my head down to work hard and somebody's gonna notice me. But you gotta sometimes raise your hand and say, hello, not talk about the 10th great things that you're doing, but you know exactly what I said before. Just have that dialogue and communication. Say, I'm interested in doing this. I think if you just do your job. That's all that you do, you don't get noticed. And I think that everybody's gotta kind of raise their hand to some degree and say, Hey, what's the best mate for me to be able to do this? But you know, I'm guilty of that myself and I could probably in a different place today. If I had done a better job of raising my hand at times.
[00:25:20] Susan Barry: I started thinking about this recently, this whole idea of like self-promotion. I think it feels icky to most people, but if you don't start doing it early in your career, you don't have that muscle when you need it. Later in your career, there are fewer jobs to choose from or fewer companies to build or whatever the case may be. So start working out muscle now.
[00:25:43] Chris Russell: Yeah. And so promotion would do it the right way. Don't just say, Hey, listen, I'm great and I wanna do this, but just ask. And I've told people this too, if you wanna raise as an example, don't say, Hey, I want, you know, X number of dollars. Go and say, listen, I am really interested in making more money. How can I improve my performance in order to make more money? It's all about delivery. You could be confident without being obnoxious.
[00:26:10] Susan Barry: Some of you can. Maybe you can. Yes.
[00:26:13] Chris Russell: Well, yeah, that's a good point. That's a good point.
[00:26:16] Susan Barry: Is there anything like any belief that you had about success in hospitality or in life, I guess, that you have changed your mind about over time?
[00:26:29] Chris Russell: Because of the way I grew up in the business and the restaurant and the hours and giving up, the school, I think that I always thought that he needed to put in hours to be successful. And I think, I am a product of what our industry has done for years is work people to death. And see how they survive, who see who survives and give 'em a promotion or a raise. The ones that don't go to work somewhere else. And I don't think that's as important at all. I think it's not about the hours, it's about the contribution and the things that we were talking about, the confidence and the contribution to the team. I always said that the way I look at my life and my job is that I'm one slice of the pie and I've got a whole bunch of people that work around me. Everybody's got a responsibility, and everybody does their job. And I don't believe in the bureaucracy. I don't believe in the whole hierarchy. And in fact, it's kind of a turnoff for me. But just come in, be part of the team, contribute. And I think that goes a long way, and so I think the hours are probably the biggest misnomer. In today's world.
[00:27:46] Susan Barry: Listen, I hope every single sales manager at every one of your hotels is listening to this interview and taking note that being there for 70 hours a week is not necessary anymore, ladies and gentlemen.
[00:28:02] Chris Russell: And the second question is, why is it taking 70 hours a week to do your job?
[00:28:06] Susan Barry: Such an excellent question and an excellent point. And I know that if I were answering that, it would be because I was running my mouth all day long.
[00:28:18] Chris Russell: Yeah. And, listen, there are times that you gotta put the time in. Absolutely. It says 24-hour, seven-day-a-week business. It's not like you're making widgets and then you can punch out at five o'clock. It's so unpredictable. You walk in and that's what I like about the business. What I love about it. It's different. Like every single day is different, and we have to do a better job of getting that word out, showing people.
[00:28:43] Susan Barry: Well, we have reached the fortune telling portion of our show, so Chris, you have to predict the future, and I will let you know if you got it right. What is a prediction that you have about the future of hospitality careers?
[00:28:56] Chris Russell: I think technology is gonna be ever more important, and I think that we're gonna all have to continue to embrace technology, embrace AI, and do so many more things. It is gonna be more than just the old-fashioned way of growing up in the business as I did of just checking people in smiling and working real hard. I think that technology is gonna play a big role in how people use technology, how people use AI. But at the same time having that balance of it not getting in the way of providing good old fashioned hospitality because people want to be taken care of and there's enough technology in their day-to-day lives. Sometimes people just wanna unplug from that too. So I think that's gonna be a big difference. So I think you have to be a little bit more tech-savvy. I also think about the business, I wouldn't be surprised if you see more third-party support. I mean, right now, we'll pretty much all be relying on third-party labor. What else is gonna be out there that you might have a traditional job that third party companies are popping up all the time. Think about the booking business and think about get service. And there are so many different things right now that are popping up that might also be an avenue of opportunity for somebody for a career.
[00:30:22] Susan Barry: I have a good friend who owns a third-party sales enablement company. They do sales on behalf of hotels and it's a huge business.
[00:30:31] Chris Russell: Yeah. And you wouldn't have seen that 15 years ago.
[00:30:34] Susan Barry: Yeah, exactly. Well, if you could wave a magic wand and change one thing about career development and hospitality, what would that be?
[00:30:42] Chris Russell: I think that we've gotta be very aligned with the universities, and there's a lot of great schools out there and things like that. But I think if I could figure out a way to be a better ambassador as an industry with schools to show that it's an exciting career path. I think that would be fantastic. And I think that we've gotta also figure out a way to kind of get the business fun again as opposed to the grind, if you will.
[00:31:16] Susan Barry: I think so, too.
[00:31:17] Chris Russell: And instead of being a staging area, like a holding area, as you think about Hollywood and or New York City, where people are waiters and waitresses until they get their acting gig. I kind of feel like we're that for hospitality sometimes.
[00:31:30] Susan Barry: That's how I started.
[00:31:32] Chris Russell: Yeah. Yeah. You come in and you come in hospitality and you hope that it's a short-term step before I do something else in my career. And there's so many people that end up staying in hospitality, saying, well, why would I want to go do this when this is so much fun? And I think we've gotta kind of get back to that point again.
[00:31:52] Susan Barry: I think your point about putting the fun back in is not something I've heard other people say and is absolutely the truth because it is so much fun. It's insane. Yeah.
[00:32:06] Chris Russell: Oh, I mean, except for the last five or six years. It's been a blast for my career. I mean, that's why I'm doing it. I'm so much happier that I chose this career than being a police officer, and I love the police. I've got that all over with my brother and my father and the whole bit. But to me, I don't think I can get away with half the stuff, and as a police officer, as I do.
[00:32:34] Susan Barry: Well, and you still get the absolute pleasure of working 24 hours a day. So Congratulations, you made it happen.
[00:32:40] Chris Russell: The holidays and the weekends, whatever.
[00:32:44] Susan Barry: Okay, folks, before we tell Chris goodbye, we are going to head down to the loading dock where all of the best stories get told.
Elevator voice announces, “Going down.”
[00:32:56] Susan Barry: Okay, Chris, speaking of fun, what is a story you would only tell me on the loading dock?
[00:33:03] Chris Russell: So when I moved to Texas, I'm a northeast guy, a New Yorker, grew up and moved down to Texas and I knew things that would be different down in Texas, but I just didn't know how different they would be. So I moved down in one of my first jobs. I started doing catering sales and meeting planning and things like that. So I moved down, left the restaurant business, came down, and in order for me to sell catering down here, I shadowed another catering manager for my first couple of months here. And then sold and the whole bit, how you do it. So I think it was my first weekend and I'm hearing about the differences, right? In the Northeast, where you grew up, at the time, everybody had full-service dinners, it was a five-hour event. Then it was just very different, bands and the whole bit and the kind of weddings that I grew up in, and even catering in. Well, down here, there's some subtle differences. Some I'm looking at them, having my first wedding and the reception, and it was very, very different. It was standup. It was cocktails. It was two hours. It was just very in and out. Quick one. That's fine. It's an interesting difference, different from New York
[00:34:21] Susan Barry: And so like hors d'oeuvres, not like a seated dinner. That's how I grew up.
[00:34:25] Chris Russell: Right. That's what it was. Okay. Maybe not a full bar. It was just a very, very different experience than the way too long experience in the Northeast. And by the way, much less expensive. By the way, which, to me worked. But I'm there and I'm shouting at this wedding. And I noticed that in the room, the bride was very particular about where the cakes were. And we moved the cake like three or four times. We moved the chairs and tables around the cake. There was a groom's cake, there was a wedding cake. It kept going on for a while and she wanted the lighting and then she wanted people to stay in those certain places, like this girl's really into this cake-cutting ceremony. In fact, it was even in a separate room than the reception. She just wanted a separate room. And I'm sitting there saying, okay, whatever you want. Then I noticed the father-in-law goes over the bill of Brian's dad, goes over to the banquet manager and says, Hey, can I get some ice? Okay. And can you bring me some towels? Okay. And I'm looking and the banquet manager's looking at me like I've been on a job like a week. And the banquet manager's looking at me like, okay, I'm saying, is this part of the Texas thing? She goes, I've never seen it before, but I'll go get it. So she comes in and Brian and Groom come in and they go up. And the rep cutting the cake and they do the whole ceremony. And all of a sudden, the bride hauls off and punches the groom as hard as she could. The groom knocks him down into the groom's cake. He falls into the wall. He could tell things were not perfectly staged. I'm like, what's going on here? This is Texas. And she looks as he's laying there on the ground, she looks at him and she says, if you ever cheat on me again like you did during your bathroom party, it's over. And then she walked out.
[00:36:26] Susan Barry: No way.
[00:36:27] Chris Russell: She walked out and then the father-in-law walks up, throws the towel in ice and says, if you ever do it again to my little girl, I'm gonna hit you the next time. Then they walk out.
[00:36:43] Susan Barry: Is this Texas?
[00:36:44] Chris Russell: Yeah. I was like, I didn't know whether to pack my car and go back to New York or say, Hey, I wanna see more for this. And full disclosure it was a nice hotel. It wasn't like it was this low-end hotel.
[00:36:58] Susan Barry: It wasn’t a cheap wedding.
[00:36:59] Chris Russell: They just took advantage of it. And I just remember looking around and saying, wow, this is pretty interesting. And again, I confirm, is this normal down here? No, that's not part of the ceremony. Okay. I'll never forget that.
[00:37:13] Susan Barry: What did they do? Like, did they just end the party?
[00:37:17] Chris Russell: No, they left together. Oh. I mean, everybody finished up. They looked and like you could tell, all the bridesmaids and everybody's like, oh yeah. He had it coming and the groom's like, oh dude, I'm glad it wasn't me, kind of thing. It was the weirdest thing that I've ever been part of. Anyway, that was my welcome to Texas. Welcome to Texas Weddings. Here's what I wanna do.
[00:37:39] Susan Barry: I promise you that is not typical of the South.
[00:37:44] Chris Russell: I've been here long enough that I would actually love to go to a wedding like that again.
[00:37:51] Susan Barry: Chris Russell, thank you so much for being here. I know that our listeners got some great tips and hopefully some great encouragement to join the hospitality industry, and I really appreciate you riding with us to the top floor.
[00:38:06] Chris Russell: Thank you so much. I really do appreciate your time. Thanks for including me.
[00:38:10] Susan Barry: Thank you for listening. You can find the show notes at topfloorpodcast.com/episode/238. Jonathan Albano is our editor, producer, and all-around genius. He even wrote and performed our theme song with vocals by Cameron Albano. You can subscribe to Top Floor on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you like to listen, and your rating or review will go a long way in helping us give you more of what you like.
[00:38:45] Narrator: Thanks for listening to the Top Floor podcast at www.topfloorpodcast.com. Have a hospitality marketing question? Reach us at 850-404-9630 to be featured in a future episode.