Taste Network Founder Brady Lowe on Food, Innovation & Community

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This is the Beyond the Story podcast, a show that goes way beyond the story. And now, Sebastian Rusk Brady Lowe, welcome to the show. Hey, that rhymes. And Doing great, man. Doing great. We were just chopping it up for the interview that we ran into each other randomly, the grocery store in Miami while you were over the weekend with some clients and started chatting about Dan Martell. And next thing you know, here we are eight months later. And it's been one of the best decisions I've made Well, to date, I think so. Thanks for that. That's a big win. That's a big win. Yeah, dude. We're just getting started, man. I I guess it's like, well, I mean, if anyone's going to help them That's true. This is true. This is true. So you and I go way back to a past life of mine. the social buzz bow tie days of which I would rather wake up in the morning, punch myself in the face I had a little bit. You know, denial's not just a river in Egypt. I was... And after a while, I said, you know what? Let's just even her all out, you know? Rocking the stash lately. You know, we're mixing... Got my braces off.

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We're mixing it up here at my ripe age of 46. Feeling 26, baby. But, yeah, I remember seeing... I remember seeing... I don't know, a flyer, an advertisement, something for an event called Cachon 555, three pigs, three chefs, three wineries. And at that time I had my show Foodie Buzz and we're doing dines before everyone and their brother were eating food in their car. Way back when I hit you up and I'm like, Hey man, I wear bow ties. I create content. let me run around and eat food and hang out and I'll give you the recap video and you tell everybody about me and I'll talk about you online. You said, um, Oh, okay, sure. Sounds great.

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Kind of looked at me like I had 10 heads and boogers, but, uh, I think we did it for a couple of years, actually. One of my, favorite foodie events that I've ever covered and done. It was so well orchestrated, produced the quality of the food, the people, the venues, D all of the above. And I don't say that as fluff. I get legit was like, when I ran into you, you're like those the time of the past now. And I was like, no, bring it back. But yeah, stellar job with those projects, man. I know you do, you guys 20 cities, 20,000 guests. Yeah. We, we pushed the envelope. Nobody had seen anything like that. This was like a real Imagine three local chefs, three local pigs. Five chefs, My math is absolutely deplorable. You're exactly right.

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Duh. Cachon, five, five, five. I just said cachon, five, five, five, and then three pigs, three, yeah, okay. Five, five, five, that's right. And, um, We were at, we were on South Beach, my very first taste of it, pun intended, of, uh, of the first night. Cause you guys do like a kind of casual Friday night and then do another, another venue Saturday night. And then Sunday is like the big hoorah at a hotel convention room type, type deal and kind of tie it all together there. But pub belly, I remember pub belly on a Friday night. And I was like, what is this food? Is this even real life right now? And the chefs came out and they were explaining and they were trying some of the food and some of the whiskey, of course, in true chef style. But yeah, man, good But it was decades of glutton. I mean, that's exactly what we were teaching people is how to enjoy luxury sustainably, but Yeah. You know, I, uh, you, you guys just do them up in Sonoma. And that was one place that I've never visited. And I was like, gosh, well, you have like the fire pits and there'd be the winery in the background. I'm like, now that is the spot for five pigs, five wines and five chefs. My good.

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I'm of course, every city you did him was awesome. But I remember, I don't know why So I mean, we crushed it. I mean, again, like we had just every single cool individual. I mean, we had such a good place for like we had a we had a thing called the triple D rule, which I don't know if we can swear on here, but it was like that was that was the rule, man. Like everyone was like, how do you build a community?

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I was like, just stick to the triple D rule. no divas, no dickheads, no douchebags. And everybody who came to the party was always introducing people that were cool, who were down to earth, who really had like drive, passion, purpose. Like it was just all the same community. And you do that for 10 years and it really starts to compound. So that was, you know, we get, we get to meet and we're So let's back up before. but you and I When did you start with all that?

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2001, I started Taste Network as a basically a wine and cheese experience agency before anybody was doing anything experiential. And I was teaching people about wine and cheese and helping them understand like these big cases of cheese were showing up in these whole foods and people were like, what the hell is this? You know, and like, so I had a bunch of winemaker buddies.

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I had a bunch of cheesemaker buddies, and we did that for about six or seven years. I wanted to be like the educator who took big stages of like food and wine classic in Aspen and be the guy who was talking about wine and cheese pairings. And then 2008, the economy took a dive, of course, and that's when we pushed on. tiny dip, you know, but that's all my private clients disappeared. Everything is evaporated. Um, that was like 2006 was the first year I was at the food and wine classic under invite from a brand. And that's where I wanted to be. And then 2008 happened. I started Koshavaya five and that became me as a, you know, big fish, little pond building something that nobody's ever seen. And we built that brand within a calendar year, which was like And I had a stellar run with it. So you've since sold off the project and, um, onto greener pastures with your, is it, I want to say culinary consulting slash marketing firm that you've got for culinary brands, liquor We're like an identity and kind of an Ascension ladder branding agency. So we help people find like their three and five year marks, right? So we work with three or sorry, like 450 wineries out of Spain, two regions. And when they came to us, they didn't really truly have an identity. They were using stock photography. And we changed that entire system around in three years. And as everyone goes the opposite direction with, you know, sales and market every year, like we're slowly ticking in the right direction against the normal. So we help brands build legacies and You gotta get trust, man. It's all about trust. People gotta know you, trust you, like you, work with you. They wanna build a legacy with you.

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They don't wanna be ghosted. It's everything there. And I think that's kind of the space today that people are, sadly, putting way too many juniors between you and the client and the end result. I don't want juniors running around talking about my brand who don't really care about what they're doing. They just care about going out at night.

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I want people who are really, really care about me, my product, my service, my clients and everybody around it.

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So that's what hospitality means to me. If you have an Well, yeah, I mean, you're, you're, you're kind of the main character, which has its ups and downs. It's, you know, it's positives and negatives to it as well, because it's only just, just you, but at the same time, it's your expertise. It's your ideas. that you're bringing to the table at the client. But it's also, it's like when I, when you and I ran into each other in November, like you literally had Friday afternoon, I almost ran you over pulling into the garage. I was like, this guy's walking too slow. And you kind of looked around like that guy trying to run me over. And I got downstairs. I was like, I think that was Brady. I almost tried to run him over. You have like nine pizzas You were, you were literally in the wine aisle, like four o'clock on a Friday afternoon. And you're like, I'm here with my clients, like literally in the wine aisle, looking at product, looking at product placement, having conversations. You guys were in there for like an hour. I I wish I was that cool. I was definitely not worried about any of the placement. So I remember Gary Vee saying sometimes it's not, selling the wine is Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's the money that takes the, it takes the placement, you know, it's a lot of work to get something in the right door. I mean, yes, that's true. But if you have good So what's, what are some of the things you're doing for, for these culinary brands and Yeah. I mean, I think, The best way that, I mean, where I'm at right now is helping people understand how to become relevant in social media and how to continually like show up when other brands are not, you know? So I think that's kind of what my big megaphone is all about right now is how to help brands be relevant in a space where there's a lot of noise, right? How do you just ring the dinner bell So are you going to, are you doing outreach to brands and identifying blind spots that they may not be aware of and then obvious solutions that you can go and help with? How does, what's the process of identifying Um, that's a good question. I mean, for finding new clients, for me, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, uh, it's community, right? Like when I started Koshawn, you know, 17 years, 16 years ago, whatever that is, 15 years ago. That became my top of funnel. For you to come into Taste Network and work with me directly, you needed to sponsor or be part of one of our community events. At that point, I would evaluate you, your team, your company, your product, your service, your USP, and what you delivered on an experiential level to your guest, right? And that was my guest. If I had to like hold your hand too much, then there's maybe an opportunity for us to work together. If I didn't like your team and you fell in the triple D rule, then you definitely were not gonna be recorded. So the more we liked you, the more we, so I got very lucky in building my own funnel, but I had no idea what a funnel was then. You know what I mean? It was just like, it was just, I just had a rule and that's how the rule came to be the rule. And, you know, after, you know, 20 some years, you start to figure out like how this all starts to really work to be where you are today, you know?

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And so to get into the, to get into the, the, the conversation or into the room, We're looking for things that we really deeply believe in, that we know that we can make an impact with, and that we know that we can help you grow your business. There's no reason to give you a new pair of glasses if you're not gonna see any better if you can already see well. Like, I wanna find someone who has slightly impaired vision and give them a new pair of glasses where they feel like I can now see what I was not seeing before. And that means they put money into something and they get a return. Like, literally, I give you five bucks, how much do you want in return? 50, you know what I mean? Like 10% rule. If I go to the gym for an hour a day for the next 100 days, I want to see an impact. Otherwise Yeah. What do you think sets like, I'm going to use some examples here in Miami. Cause you're a familiar, very familiar with the market. Like it, Dave Grutman is undeniable in the hospitality world down here. Groot Hospitality has been running the show both for entertainment now, that's grown vastly over the past 10 years in culinary. What separates them from the rest of restaurateurs or hospitality brands out there? Because now it's not just Miami. Now it's also become like a global thing. I mean, mainly national thing with Vegas Dallas, et cetera, because I'm still fascinated by that because it just looks like everything they touch turns. I mean, they might have had one failed project that I'm familiar with, maybe two in the past, like five years. Maybe there's more that we're not aware of, but like brand new stuff that's out there. You look up Komodo and Brickle. How long has that place been running? And now it's in Dallas and they did a collab with Terry blacks. I'm like, what the hell is going on here? It always fascinates me. But from an expert in the space, someone's been there from, from, for a long, long time. I'm always curious They're dedicated. You know what I mean? Somewhere they found that kind of persistence and their commitment to their craft and their goal. And, you Yeah. Yeah. I mean, well, that was the commitment, the persistence, right? Like they got to their craft. They got to a place where someone else recognized in them that they wanted to do work with them because they believed that they had that persistence and commitment. And then they were like going to put their money behind it. So they built that trust that somebody else wanted to fund. And, you know, but there's also a lot of luck to it. Like, You know, if you go out and you drink and you get arrested nine times, your luck is gone. You're out of the picture. Right. You know, I mean, there's only so many times you can get busted before your entire system falls out around you. So, you know, these guys play by the rules. They do a great job. They stay to social norms. They. They're, they're creative, you know, they're smart, they're quick on the feet and they got access to capital and access to capital and the right people is, is people know what open doors is as a, it's like the way you're supposed to have a doctor as a friend, a lawyer as a best friend, you know, a millionaire as a best friend. Like if you have all these things when you're 25, your life is going to be a little bit different than if you hang out with a bunch of, you This is true. I remember Grutman saying years ago, we figured out early on that if we could get in touch with a star's publicist, celebrity's publicist, and say, when they're in Miami, we got them. Soup to nuts, they're good. And then I could pick up the phone and call Grey Goose and go, we got Lil Wayne in town with his whole entourage for the weekend, and he's playing on Saturday night, want to sponsor it. Next thing we know, Grey Goose is not only providing product, but picking the tab up for the entire weekend. So we're not off the hook. And that started to take off. And next thing you know, when you come to Miami, you don't think about anything else, you know? But again, that was 15 years ago before influencers were influencers, you Yeah. Well, and, you know, I mean, that's a, that's a spotlight story, but how many times does that really happen? You know, I mean, like we use these great stories as kind of like, this is how we ran our business, Well, I mean, ourselves and I mean, I've been there. Like I'm, I'm going to use my best examples to, to, to drive more The restaurant business is no easy task at all. And then mastering it and then taking it to the next level and scaling it as a whole completely different conversation. That's why I say that's why I find what you do so fascinating, because as you know, doors could open today and be closed in a Well, let's let's segue to that. I mean, that's something that I think is very important to me right now. And I can tell everybody, even you, like what the differences that can change it for hospitality, because I see the same thing. Hospitality is getting beat up. Right. But the one thing that I think that everybody can do that this can change the game for them. And it's even the same thing for you, man, and for me, like our brand is built on people who take a minute to take notice of us. Right. They follow us. They say hello, they like something from us.

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And then three years ago, I was in the habit of like, cool, I just got more followers, vanity metric. But that's not really the thing. You have to make people be seen. And hospitality has failed at that one card. That's the most important card. And if you just want to do one simple thing, is hire somebody at $10 to $15 an hour out of your hospitality group. who comes in, who doesn't feel seen themselves as a member of your staff, and give them access to your social media and let them to say thank you to every single person who follows you, likes you, hearts you, comments you.

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Start a compliment and just compliment them on something on their grid. The compounding interest with that will create revenue, reservations, interest in PDRs. It will create goodwill. And that is, And I, you're exactly right. Cause I don't care who you are.

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If you're at a restaurant and you take a picture of your mango cheesecake and you tag the brand and they reply back and say something to you, you feel singled out and awesome. Like they're only talking to you, which they are, but they're also doing it right. I even feel that way. And I've been in the game for a minute and I understand how important it is for brands to be socially listening and interacting, but you're exactly right. How many restaurants and brands out there? are not talking to their people with simple things like, hey, thanks Have you been in lately? Do the quick math. How many restaurants have you followed in the last six months? Or brands have you followed that ghosted you? How much, like Every time there's a new foodie going, hey, I'm trying this. Shitty engagement, free. It's the world of engagement sucks right now. And people... need to change that.

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So that's like the one thing, like I, if I'm batting 10 out of 10, can you, can somebody please fix that and make me feel I had a buddy of mine still got the company today called casual Fridays. Um, Tyler Anderson, great dude, uh, lives in Dallas. Now it was originally in San Diego. He said, what would it look like for us to create a social media agency that works on behalf of every single hotel brands, customer service, so they outsource it. We act in-house, we're all hands on deck from check-in to check-out, any challenges, thoughts, ideas, concerns are all handled through us, and his brand exploded, and every big brand got on board because A, they weren't doing it, B, they needed it, and C, it was more cost effective to outsource it, but have them act like they were in-house, and the brand exploded, and this has been, Gosh, it has to have been almost 15 years ago.

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I wonder how much revenue they've found in that system.

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You know what I mean? Yeah. where there was none, now there is a lot of stuff. Like, what is that? Like, Right, right, exactly. I mean, it's, and same thing with brands. I always use American Airlines as an example. I fly American 95% of the time. Every time I have a hangup, had one in Dallas on Friday, my 7 o'clock PM flight getting pushed back, and I'm like, I got Morgan Wallen tickets, I need to get back to Miami. There was a 550 flight, hopped on Twitter, I'm giving away all my trade secrets here, hopped on Twitter, Said, here's my itinerary, can I hop on the 550? Of course, it's Dallas to Miami, pretty common route. And can I sit in row 17, exit row on the aisle? They replied back, your wish is our command, Mr. Rusk. Everything's been taken care of and we kept your second flight just in case. Happy Friday. I didn't talk to a human on a phone, I didn't chat, I didn't email, I didn't police hold, I definitely didn't get in line at an airport, which people are still doing in 2025, blows my mind. But there's so much opportunity for brands with social listening, customer service, just Let's start there. You know what I mean? Quit ghosting 97% of your audience and only going after the cool kids with vanity. Right.

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Right. Like, Hey, everyone else. So here's the, here's the math that I love. Right? So imagine if you take out of these 10 out of 10 accounts that we all followed recently, right?

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And we got ghosted. Now let's take an audit and download all of their comments that they ever used in the last six months as part of their social media lexicon that their social media junior is running for them. Now let's take that and take that entire database of language. And that's all their restaurant can use that night. It just be a lot of like, like me, follow me. Thank you. Like, It's all canned bullshit. People will walk out of the restaurant being like, where the hell am I? I'm in some weirdo zone. You know what I mean? That's the difference between front door, and your digital concierge. You Well, I've even had, um, big brands, which I don't do a lot of chain restaurants. There's a cool, there's a couple of Darden's I still get down with. There's a yard house right by my house. So I always get down with yard house. I think they got great food. I don't care what anybody says. Uh, and a great happy hour, Monday through Thursday. Anyway, they talk back What, the, for, oh no, no, the actual yard? Yeah. No, but I learned years ago at the original yard house in Long Beach, California, that was started by those two dudes that, I don't know if they were brothers or buddies or business partners, whatever, but it's that one downtown right on the water. I learned how to drink a yard there. And I'm like, oh, you don't just pick it up and chug it. They're like, no, you can't. Cause you'll have beer all over you instantaneously.

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You've got to twist it very slow as you drink it. And then you can kind of, chug it if you choose to. But if you take a yard and you just bottoms up, you will be soaking wet with beer. So, fun fact about that. No, I don't know. I always post when I'm over there. They're happy hours, three to six, you know, a couple of discounted cocktails, half off appetizers.

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They're smart though. No one's in there from three to six on a Tuesday. So it does kind of help, but I always post something. Their food presentation always looks good. They always reply back. They always share the content. They always thank me profusely and they're now a large brand. They know they're on the same family of, you know, Olive Garden, true Italian food. Oh, they're I love the Tiramisu. You know, I always shit on those brands, but you know, Capital Grill still has a decent steak. I mean, if I'm at a gig or I'm in another city and that's where the dinner is that night, like I get there and I'm not like, oh damn, Capital Grill, you know, so they still exist. But I think larger brands are finally, it took them a while to get on board and actually give a shit and start listening. All right, we're out of time, but if you're listening to this, you own a culinary brand, a restaurant, Spirit Brand, you're in the world, in the space, and something triggered you, you need to reach out to Brady. All of his contact info is gonna be in the show notes. That's the description of today's podcast episode. Tastenetwork.com, tastenetwork.com for more information on what Brady's up to. Send him a DM, say, hey, I heard you're on Sebastian's show. I'd love to learn more about what you got going on. Brady, any final thoughts for our listeners?

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Yeah. I mean, there's, if you want, I built a whole playbook around that engagement, right? Like if you want to like uncover a ton of cash in your system between web, social and PR and get money back, just DM me the word Rev on my Instagram, which is bradylow75. That's the 35 page playbook on our website. There's a whole visionary playbook as well, but the DM, the word for that engagement, that's really the big uptick Done. Rev. DM him in the word Rev. We'll include that in the show notes as well in case you're driving or you forgot or what did he say that word was?

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We got you. It's going to be in the description of this podcast episode. Brady. Always great to see you, my brother. Love what you're up to. And I can't wait for the next, you know, some sort of foodie adventure coming down with George is a hell of a good place to get peaches, I hear. Let's go. Thanks again, brother. Appreciate you, man. All Thanks so much for tuning in to this episode of the Beyond the Story podcast. We sure do appreciate it. If you haven't done so already, make sure you're subscribed to the show. This way you'll get updates as new episodes become available. If you feel so inclined, please leave us a review. We sure do appreciate it. Signing off from the podcast, launchlab.com studios.