Sam Knoll: [00:00:00] Cool. Well, let's see. I just wanted to get you on and go through a little of your story, a little of our history, you know, Kind of get the, uh, the Rick Marcel background here. Rick Mersel: [00:00:17] Yes. Sam, I'm telling you what happened. Okay. Sam Knoll: [00:00:22] You still there? Yeah. How many years have we known each other now? We're 35. So Sam, Rick Mersel: [00:00:27] when did, how long, when did you start off the Academy? Sam Knoll: [00:00:30] I started in eighth grade. So that was what? 80. Two 83, I think Rick Mersel: [00:00:39] 74. Sam Knoll: [00:00:42] No, that's not right. Yeah. Rick Mersel: [00:00:45] Yeah. So I know you're for about 39 years. Sam Knoll: [00:00:47] 39 years. Yeah. Can you, we're coming up on 40 years. I didn't. Rick Mersel: [00:00:53] God, wait a minute. All right. That's it. We're done. Sam Knoll: [00:00:55] I know. Geez. [00:01:00] Rick Mersel: [00:00:59] Almost 40 years. Sam Knoll: [00:01:01] Yeah. Rick Mersel: [00:01:03] Yep. Sam Knoll: [00:01:04] Yep. So it's a, you're smart. You got out of hat. Well, you don't have as much gray as I do. Um, you know, yeah. Here's, this is, uh, this is a Rick Mersel: [00:01:15] haircut. Thanks to my wife. Sam Knoll: [00:01:17] There you go. Cool dude. Well, you know, I'm, I'm doing this book, which is. I'm going to break into to our thing here. But, um, um, I had this idea to do a book that was kind of sharing stories from friends who worked in restaurants, bars, and food service. And I know it's not what you're doing now, but I know you worked in restaurants, you ran a nightclub. You, you know, you've, you've had numerous businesses and even your current business that you run now. You know, as has got the nightclub element. Rick Mersel: [00:01:58] Yeah. I've always been surrounded [00:02:00] by food. Never really involved in food directly except. Sam Knoll: [00:02:03] The South Rick Mersel: [00:02:04] Carrollton deli in new Orleans where I was head sandwich. Boy, I could definitely tell you stories about Sam Knoll: [00:02:10] that. That's why I pulled you in. Okay. What do you want Rick Mersel: [00:02:14] to hear a couple of those stories right now? Sam Knoll: [00:02:16] Yeah. All right. So, Rick Mersel: [00:02:18] so, so I was, I was in new Orleans. Um, it was, it was towards, I guess the end of the, the, uh, end of the summer and I was bored, so I figured I needed to get a job. So they had the South Carrollton deli. Uh, which is located at the end of st. Charles, uh, at uptown square, I believe it was, or there was another, it was next to chameleon grill, which is a, uh, which is an institution in new Orleans anyway. So I told the guy I had experience, um, my experience was eating deli sandwiches. Yeah, exactly. Not, not making them, but, uh, the head sandwich, boy, it was my job to steam, the [00:03:00] meat. So, so I was gonna take the meat, take it over to the steamer, put it on the steamer, close the lid. The meat would be steamed. I'd put it on a sandwich and then I'd throw the cheese on. Which would slowly melt and then all the condiments and lettuce and all that stuff. Well, my big breakthrough moment was I decided I was going to put the cheese in the steamer with the meat so they could meld together. So I think I invented that also Sam Knoll: [00:03:30] would have all the restaurants do that now. You know, Rick Mersel: [00:03:33] I think that was me. The other thing I invented was, so we had this guy who was from California. So you had avocado, he had sprouts, he had eggs. This is stuff that was not typically on sandwiches back then. Now it's totally standard stuff, but no one saw an avocado in the eighties. Um, they just didn't exist. There were only in Mexico. So this guy had avocado sprouts, eggs and stuff. So I decided [00:04:00] I'm going to put all this stuff together in a pita. So it was sprouts. It was avocado, it was egg, it was onions. It was cheese. So I think I had been at...
