Name: Jimmy John Liautaud | This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von #314
Uploaded: 2020-12-23T14:00:24.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Jimmy John Liautaud | This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von #314' from Theo Von on Comedy Buff. Published 2020-12-23. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Jimmy John Liautaud | This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von #314' from Theo Von on Comedy Buff. Published 2020-12-23. Transcript available.

Jimmy John Liautaud | This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von #314

Today's episode is brought to you by Gray Block Pizza, 1811 Pico Boulevard in
Los Angeles on the
way to the beach. Gray Block, get that hitter. Today's episode is brought to
you by Magic Mind
as well. You know, flow state now comes in a bottle. A lot of times procrastination
gets you.
Well, change that. Coffee's not doing it for you. Change it up. Magicmind.co
and use promo code
Theo for 10% off. Today's guest is entrepreneur, business owner, creator, hard
worker, and human,
Mr. Jimmy John, Leah Toe.
Shine that light on me. I'll sit and tell you my stories. Shine on me. And I
will find a song.
You got started. My mother's from outside of Peoria, Illinois, but you got
started in Illinois.
And so take me through a little bit of how Jimmy John's got started.
Oh, okay, cool. So I graduated in May or in June of 1982 and it was about March
and my dad said to me,
he's like, hey man, he said, Jimmy, what are you going to be doing after high
school? Because you got to do
something. You can't live at home. And he said, you need to start applying to
college. You got to
start figuring out what you're going to do. And college really wasn't an option.
I didn't do,
I graduated second to last in my high school class. So at-
Who was last? Do you remember?
Yeah, Craig Schumacher. Great guy.
He was last?
Yeah, Craig Schumacher.
The love master?
Craig Schumacher.
Oh.
Yeah, he was a classmate of mine, Craig Schumacher. So-
Not the comedian.
No, not the comedian.
I'm thinking of Schumacher.
No, okay, different guy.
Wow.
So anyway, long story short is my dad was an entrepreneur and he said, look,
you're not going
to college. You can't live at home. Start a business, you got to do something.
So I said,
well, I kind of would like to open a Chicago hot dog stand. I love a Chicago
Portillo hot dog
and a tamale and a French fry. And I said, love to open a hot dog stand. He
said, I'll
tell you what. He says, I'll lend you 25,000 bucks and we're pretty good deal.
He says, and
here's the deal. He said, you get 25 grand. If it makes it, I own 48%. If it
fails, you
go to the army for two years and you don't have to pay me back. He really
wanted me to go
to the army. He fought the Korean war. My big brother, Greg drove a armor
personnel carrier.
My little brother, Robbie was a ranger out in Fort Ord, California.
And so you were, you're the odd duck, total odd duck, total odd duck. All three
of those
guys are fighters. And every time I got in a fight, I just got the shit beat
out of me.
I didn't know what to do in a fight. I just open up a concession stand. That's
what you
do. That's what you do. You open up a sandwich shop. So anyway, I graduate high
school and
so I go to visit hot dog stands. And in two weeks, I visited 50. I knew what I
had to have
on the menu. I knew what equipment I needed to have. And I made a list. I made
a menu list
and my equipment list. And it was easy. I went to the library and got yellow
pages. We didn't
have technology. We didn't have Google. And they had the yellow pages in the
library. And
I Googled restaurant equipment and then used restaurant equipment. And I found
places in
Chicago that had it. And I drove my car down to the city. And I found a section,
which is
now the West Loop, which is the hottest area in Chicago, but storefront after
storefront
of entrepreneur owned little used restaurant equipment houses. Right. So I had
to list some
equipment for my hot dog stand. And the cheapest price I got was 43,000 bucks.
So I drive back
home to Cary, Illinois. And I say, "Pop." He said, "Yeah, what's up?" I said, "I
need
more dough." He said, "What are you talking about?" I said, "I need 43 grand
just for the equipment.
I got a fryer, a steam table, a hood. I got a grill. I got a flat top. I got a
milkshake
machine." He said, "Hey, dude, it's 25 grand." Damn. And I'm like, "Oh, the bus
stops
here, huh?" I'm like, "Dude, you're serious." He said, "I'm serious as shit,
son." He said,
"So this is like mid-June." And so just, it was random, but I was going to go
visit a buddy
at Southern Illinois University that next weekend.
The Salukis, right? Is it?
Yeah, it is the Salukis. It is the Salukis. So I drive down there and I'm partying
with
my buddy. He says, "Let's go get a sandwich at Booby Sandwiches." I'm like, "Well,
it's
a little sandwich shop. It's great." So I go to this little sandwich shop. Theo,
literally,
it's got a refrigerator, a Coca-Cola refrigerator. There's vegetables in it,
there's meats in it,
and there's beer in it, and there's soda in it. It's like Coca-Cola gave it to
him, but
he was using it.
All in the same fridge.
He had a little make table, half the size of your desk, a little refrigerator
make table,
a meat slicer, and he was making, and it had bags of bread and a cash register.
The guy's
making sandwiches. So I just came from fryers and steam tables, milkshake
machines, and all
this shit, all this equipment. And here I'm like, "There's a refrigerator." I
said, "I
do sandwiches." Wow. So just like that. So before that, it was hot dogs. And
that moment
just changed it for you?
That moment changed my head. I just came from 18, 20 pieces of equipment for 45,000
bucks.
I knew I could get a used refrigerator for 400. I knew I could get a used make
line for 500.
I knew I could get a refrigerator for 250 bucks, or a cash register for 250
bucks. And I knew
I could get a used meat slicer for 600, 700 bucks. I just been through every
restaurant
warehouse in Chicago.
Oh, and I bet. Especially in that area, you're going to have probably the best
opportunity
because of so many restaurants in Chicago of even getting into that kind of
stuff. Here's
a video question that came in right here. We'll go to one early that came in
for you, John,
right here, actually.
Yeah, go ahead.
So this is a question for both of you, Theo, Jimmy John. You guys are two very
successful
business owners. And I just want to know, what is it that motivates you the
most, that gave
you that drive, that gave you that edge? I'm looking forward to your answers.
Either
way. Merry Christmas. Happy holidays to both of you. Gang, gang. Jimmy John.
Thanks, baby. Gang, gang. And I'll tell you this, and I'll kind of add into
what I was going
to ask, and thank you for that, young man. And yeah, because I was going to ask
you, so
to go from, to switch from hot dogs to sandwiches, so it wasn't really about
the, was it still about
the product as much, or was it about, because some people are like, I'm selling
hammers, that's
it. And if you show them a screwdriver, they're not going to change to that. So
was it about
business? Like, did you realize at that point, like, oh, I just want to do
business,
or is it just food business? Like, because that's kind of a pivot. I mean, that's
a,
you know. That was a real pivot, but it was a critical pivot, but my homework
was done.
And when your homework is done, the answers were obvious. I knew how much I
could buy used
equipment for. I knew how complicated the hot dog stand was. I knew how many
items were going to be
on the menu. And when I saw refrigerator, meat slicer, cash register, boom,
three pieces of
equipment, man, I knew instantly that I could do that.
Especially when that third one is the cash register, you're like, okay, this
all makes
sense.
Absolutely.
Because that other list probably didn't have a register on it, and that's the
one you need
the most.
Absolutely.
So that's interesting. So then, yes, suddenly you're like, oh, this is a pared
down kind of,
did it feel like, okay, this is a more pared down version of what I want to do,
or this is?
No, it was another option. And so what I did is I just pivoted, and I went and
looked at other
sandwich shops that were, and even at that time, Subway wasn't baking in their
own stores. They were
getting bread delivered one or two or three days a week. So they weren't baking.
So I went, and instead
of just looking at hot dog stands around Chicago, I went to Milwaukee, went to
Madison. I started
looking at other sandwich shops. And I found a sandwich shop in Milwaukee that
baked their own
buns, and they baked their own bun, and you bought your sandwich on this
homemade bun, and you got a
soda pop and a 16-ounce returnable bottle. When you gave them the bottle back,
they gave you your dime
deposit back. That was before your time. But the best thing about it was the
bread. And so I,
after visiting enough sandwich shops, I'm like, damn, I got to figure out how
to bake bread. So I'm
right back to the library. It's now July. I'm right back to the library, and I
got books on baking bread.
I bake bread in my mama's kitchen and figure out how to bake bread. And then I
had, then I figured
that out. So that was the next step.
Okay, so you get to your bread. And what are your parents doing during this?
Are they,
are they kind of impressed? I mean, they must be impressed with your desire,
huh?
You know, my parents were, I don't know that we were raised. I think we were
basically fed. You
know, my dad was working. My mom did. I mean, she, we got four kids, and we're
all 13 months apart,
and there's four of us, three boys and a girl. So they, we weren't really, it
wasn't really,
you know, we didn't have sort, any sort of traditional raising. Well, there's a
lot of
love in the house. We just didn't have, there just, there wasn't a lot of time
to nurture. So
I was really on my own. The feedback was, you know, what's this guy do? You
know, I think they
were probably shaking their heads, and my dad was just hoping that I would just
hang it up and go to
the army. I think that's really what he was hoping was going to happen. I mean,
like when I think
about it right now, I think that's what he was thinking about, man.
But were you like, so I got, let me get a little bit more of what you were like
then. Were you like,
cause you weren't a, you weren't a dumb, you, you did not well in your, in your
grades and stuff,
but you weren't a dumb kid. No, I wasn't a dumb kid, but I, I couldn't read and
comprehend.
So I'm, it's called dyslexia. You've heard of it. Oh yeah. One of my best
friends has it. Good.
So I just can't read and comprehend. So, so even now married to Leslie, like if,
if, if something
comes in and it's a letter, somebody wrote it to us, even a Chris, Leslie reads
it to me. I close my eyes
and I listened to it and I can take it all in, but I just cannot read and
comprehend. So I was
sharp enough to do stuff. I could, I was good at math, but I just, yeah, I just,
I couldn't read man.
And, and I think it pissed the teachers off too. And I think, I think they got
angry because I thought
they, they probably thought that I, I should be able to comprehend. And because
I wasn't, I must've
been, you know, Oh yeah. Screwing around. Yeah. Screwing around. And I wasn't,
I just couldn't
comprehend, you know, it's like dance son. Well, I can't dance. Well, then you're
a shit head. No,
I'm not. I just can't dance. Yeah. Yeah. And then they think if you're not
dancing,
you're just loitering or something else. You're just doing something. Yeah. You're
kind of ruining
the vibe then. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I was, but then when, what happened then, I
think teachers got
a little angry. They would rib me a little bit and be angry and be pissed at me.
And I was sharp
enough to be, to, to stick it right back to them. And I think that's probably
what pissed the teachers
off and made them angry because, because I, I could see what they were doing.
And I, I didn't know why
they were angry at me because there was no, but when they were ribbing me, I
would give it right
back to them. I, I was, you know, that's just what I did. Were you funny in
school? Were you like a
funny guy? Yeah. I was, I was funny. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, yeah. Yeah. I had a
good time. That's
cool. For sure. For sure. Were you goofy funny or were you taught like word
funny, like saying stuff
that was funny? Or would you like, were you like truffle shuffle funny kind of
guy or like just say
