EPISODE 48
Why Your Supplier Relationships Matter More Than You Think
Listen: ON SPOTIFY
Watch: ON YOUTUBE
It’s three degrees outside. The fire’s burning low, and there’s a glass of Michter’s 10-Year bourbon warming the chest. Inside, TK and Pete dig into a part of hospitality that most people never think about—the suppliers.
The folks behind the scenes, hauling, shipping, farming, brewing, and gutting fish, whose work ends up on a plate or in a glass without anyone knowing their names. This episode isn’t about the spotlight. It’s about the gears turning quietly in the background.
The fisherman who shows up at dawn with coral trout still in rigor mortis. The wine supplier who remembers your name because you paid an invoice on time during COVID when no one else could. The farmer who hands you a box of ginger shoots for half the price because you drove out there yourself.
These aren’t transactions; they’re relationships built over years. They’re handshakes in carparks, quiet favors, and a kind of trust you can’t fake. We talk about:
Why the best restaurants don’t chase the cheapest price—and how quality always wins in the end.
The quiet grind of auditing invoices, stocktaking linen, and catching those two-cent discrepancies that snowball into thousands.
Coconut cream shortages and how global markets blindside small restaurants.
Fishermen racing each other to get their catch into the kitchen, chefs who respect it enough not to screw it up, and how restraint is often the highest form of skill.
The unspoken rules of rare wine allocations and why some suppliers hold grudges for decades.
Why booze costs double here compared to Europe, and how beer taxes are crippling small breweries.
Building supplier trust so strong that when the phone rings in a crisis, they pick up—because they know you’ve always been good for it.
This is a raw, unpolished look at the underbelly of hospitality. It’s the late nights when you’re counting tea towels, the early mornings when a farmer meets you halfway down a dirt road with a truckload of beans, and the quiet gratitude for the people who keep your doors open, even when no one sees it.
If you’ve ever wondered what separates the good operators from the great ones, it’s not just talent or taste—it’s relationships. It’s the ability to pick up the phone, call a supplier you’ve known for twenty years, and solve a problem before it starts.
So pour yourself a drink, lean back, and settle in. This is hospitality stripped bare—no frills, no fluff—just firelight, bourbon, and the unglamorous but vital work that keeps this industry alive.