The meez Podcast

Introducing The meez Network

• Josh Sharkey

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🌟 Welcome to The meez Network 🌟

As hospitality professionals, your time is invaluable. That’s why we're thrilled to announce the launch of The meez Network, a curated content hub designed to bring all the hospitality industry insights you need into one convenient place.

📕 Our Journey: Inspired by the enthusiastic feedback from their podcasts and the industry's call for a centralized resource, Andrew Friedman (Author/Host of Andrew Talks to Chefs) and Josh Sharkey (Founder/CEO of meez and host of The meez Podcast) have combined their acclaimed podcasts into The meez Network’s premiere collection of top-tier hospitality content.

🎙️ Our Edge: The meez Network meticulously curates essential industry content, saving hospitality professionals the hassle of sorting through endless sources. We spotlight the best podcasts and information to ensure your valuable time is well spent.

💬 Our Purpose: We aim to create a community where hospitality professionals can learn from one another, share their stories, and connect over shared experiences and lessons. Whether you’re a chef, restaurateur, mixologist, or simply passionate about hospitality, The meez Network is here to support and inspire you.

🤝Our Collaborators: Our initial podcast lineup includes Andrew Talks to Chefs (Hosted by Andrew), The meez Podcast (Hosted by Josh Sharkey), Industry Only at The Cheese Store (Hosted by Co-Owners Dominick DiBartolomeo and Andy Wang), Restaurant Unstoppable Podcast (Hosted by Eric Cacciatore), and The Simmer (Hosted by Kristen Hawley of Expedite and Brandon Barton of Bite).

🌐 Join Us: Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Stitcher to stay updated with our latest episodes.

Where to find Andrew Talks to Chefs:

Where to find Restaurant Unstoppable:

Where to find The Simmer:

Where to find Industry Only At The Cheese Store:

Where to find The meez Podcast

00:00:00] Josh Sharkey: 


Hello everybody, this is a special edition slash announcement that I'm making with my very good friend, writer, very intelligent, hospitality professional, food lover, expert of all things chefs, Andrew Friedman. So this is a joint Mies podcast slash Andrew talks to chefs podcast announcement about something really cool that we're doing together.


[00:00:28] Andrew Friedman: 


Well, first of all, I should return the favor for my listeners who are listening to this. You're hearing the voice of Josh Sharkey. Josh is the man behind meez. Meez is now or has been our presenting sponsor. The presence of meez in the Andrew Talks to Chefs universe is about to become even more all encompassing.


[00:00:48] 


But Josh is an old and dear friend of mine. I've known him since he was a chef and a restaurateur. And we've kind of been following each other's paths. I've been on a kind of creative writing and broadcasting path. Josh has been doing The meez podcast, but that is an outgrowth of his hugely successful business meez, which as all of my listeners know, cause they've been hearing me talk about it in spots on the show for months now, is a recipe operating system.


[00:01:21] 


It's something that Josh created based on the need that he perceived back when he was a cook and a chef and it's been hugely successful and our paths now after years of gradually coming together through your support of my show and my guesting on your show are about to converge and become a unified path.


[00:01:42] 

Yeah. In one regard. It's your baby, so why don't you go ahead and say what it is. 


[00:01:46] Josh Sharkey: 


Well, what I'll say though is that you actually came to me with this idea, and I was ruminating on something like this, but serendipitously, you called me one day and said, Hey, I got this idea, which actually you tend to do every once in a while.


[00:02:01] 


You text me and say, I got this really crazy idea. None of them are actually as crazy as you make them out to be. But this one. 


[00:02:06] Andrew Friedman: 


Well, this one, I didn't give any contemplation time. I was driving with my wife. I had the idea and I just called you, that's how excited I was about it. I didn't give myself any time to vet the idea in my own head.


[00:02:20] Josh Sharkey: 


That's right, that's right. I love that we're building this up, by the way, but the idea has now come to fruition after longer than we would have liked, to be honest with you. We wanted to get this out sooner, but Andrew and I both have a deep love of the hospitality industry, of restaurants, of food, of chefs.


[00:02:38] 


And we thought that we should combine that love, those interests, and all the things that we're doing into a network. So we are very excited to announce the launch of The meez Network. And it initially started with just Andrew and I's I don't want to say just because, you know, they're, they're great shows, but we've added on a bunch of other shows as well, and we'll be adding on more and more as we grow.


[00:03:05] 


Some of those shows are Eric Cacciatore's Restaurant Unstoppable, Brandon and Kristen's The Simmer, Brandon's the CEO of Bite, and Kristen has an incredible newsletter called Expedite. She's a food tech journalist. There's a number of other shows starting with us as well. And, Generally speaking, the idea here is that there's so many stories out there, there's so many tips, there's so much advice, there's so much insight, and generally there's just an amazing community, and we wanted to centralize that in one place, and make sure that you could come to one place to find all the things that you need to know, to hear about, to learn, to become better, and to generally raise the bar for all of us.


[00:03:42] Josh Sharkey: 


In this industry. And that is The meez Media Network. So Andrew, did I get that right? 


[00:03:47] Andrew Friedman: 


You did. I should also add as we're sitting here recording one other show that is definitely officially on board for launch is Industry Only at The Cheese Store, which is an industry show. Out of California, relatively new show, but what I would add to what you just said, Josh, is that as everyone who consumes podcasts knows, if you go and look for, say example, chef podcasts on, let's say Spotify, and then you get an initial result of maybe eight or 10 little tiles of, you know, thumbnail images of show logos.


[00:04:20] 


And then if you hit see all you get a, it ought to be spelled S E A instead of S E E, because you get a C. of tiles. It's impossible to process. It's largely an exercise in, you know, like they used to say about the stock market, throwing a dart, you know, just at a board or trial and error or which title might catch you.


[00:04:42] 


And one of the things that we hope to to provide for people who start to follow the network and keep track of what we're doing. However, they choose to do that. Probably a lot of people will just follow us on Instagram and we have a website up that will feature all of these shows and how to listen to them.


[00:05:00] 


You know, we'd like it to be a place where we've gathered shows that we have vetted. That we think presents something of nutritional value. These are shows that talk about the industry, discuss issues in the industry. Some of them are deadly serious. Some of them are a little more lighthearted, but they're all shows that we think are worth listening to.


[00:05:24] 


And one of the things that we're trying to do is if you imagine panning for gold, like in the old days, during the gold rush, we're trying to be the pan. That helps you sift out the gold and not have to go around, you know, sampling a million podcasts to find the ones that work for you. And as we add to the network, you know, we hope to cover or offer shows that cover and address all different corners of it from mixology. It's a farming to, of course, restaurants and, and cooking all of these different areas.


[00:05:56] 


So, you know, each person may not necessarily listen to every show. Everyone's time is limited, but we believe that if you are in the industry, whatever part of it, that you will be able to find the right mix of programming to suit your educational and entertainment related needs as they connect to the industry.


[00:06:18] Josh Sharkey: 


There you go. I love it. Well, you know, I'll add on to that, they'll certainly and already are shows related to food technology as well. You'll learn about operations, finance, you're going to hear from CEOs from some of the biggest companies from chefs from all over the world to like Andrew said, mixologists and everything in between and all the things and the people that we like to talk to and talk about.


[00:06:41] 


So if you are one of those shows, by the way, hit us up. And we'd love to learn more and bring you into that work and share your stories as well. And this is starting with podcasts, though we do have a newsletter, Kristen Holly, that will be part of this as well, Expedite. And we'll be adding on lots of mediums that tell these stories, whether that's podcasts, it could be videos, it could be newsletters and everything in between.


[00:07:02] 


So we're super excited. And I'm also very grateful to be doing this with you, Andrew. So thank you for calling me in the car. While driving with your wife, hopefully you were hands free when you were doing that, but you survived anyways, so you're here. 


[00:07:15] Andrew Friedman: 


I was, and thank you for, you know, jumping right into it and being so receptive to it.


[00:07:20] 


I'm incredibly excited that what started in that like spontaneous five minute phone chat is coming to fruition. I really think people are going to get a lot out of it. I think we feel a real need. For people out there to find the shows and other content that will benefit them the most and be the best use of their limited time that they have to consume a word that I hate, which is content.


[00:07:46] 


But, you know, everyone only has X number of hours in a week and I think we're going to make it easy for them to find stuff that's worth consuming. 


[00:07:54] Josh Sharkey: 


Yep, by the way, you started writing again the blogs. I think you should put that on there as well. Just as a side 


[00:07:59] Andrew Friedman: 


I don't know how many people remember but before I started podcasting seven years ago I had a blog called Toqueland and I just this week started posting again for now.


[00:08:08] 


I'm posting every Monday With kind of a grab bag of ideas called the comment card of just observations about what's going on in the industry. And you're right, Josh, that'll be our first written content. 


[00:08:20] Josh Sharkey: 


Throw it on there. All right, y'all. Well, I'm super excited. I hope everybody else is. And Andrew, thank you again for bringing this to life with me and let's go build a network.


[00:08:28] Andrew Friedman: 


Yeah, thank you, Josh. And we should say. Check our show descriptions for a link to The meez Network website, where you can find out a little bit more about us, a little bit more about Mies and see the initial roster of shows. 


[00:08:41] Josh Sharkey: 


Boom. All right. Bye everybody.