846: The Birth of 'Hot Ones' and a Garage Full of Dead Restaurant Shirts with Justin Bolois

This Is TASTE

Justin Bolois, VP of programming at First We Feast, joins Matt Rodbard to discuss the evolution of digital food media and his passion projec

Key takeaways

• The 2015 pivot to video leveled the playing field between legacy media brands and new digital creators.
• The core thesis of 'Hot Ones' relies on using hot sauce as a 'truth serum' to disrupt traditional interview formats.

Main topics

• First We Feast evolution
• Hot Ones production

Notable quotes

Hot sauce is a truth serum.

Conclusion

An insightful look at how culinary history and modern digital media in

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:07) 2015, we all know the pivot to video, right? That is like a key juncture. The big pivot meant that suddenly the playing field was even again with all of these legacy brands that, you know, were in a league of their own. Felt like we were starting from the same starting line. This is Taste. I'm your host, Speaker 1 (0:30) Matt Rodbard. Speaker 1 (0:35) Justin Bolas has spent over a decade helping build the iconic First We Feast media company. From features editor to VP of programming and development, shepherding popular shows like The Burger Show, Tacos Contoto, and Hot Ones within the media empire. Off the clock, though, he's chasing something equally as cool. Vintage restaurant staff shirts, forgotten diner ephemera, and the last physical traces of beloved restaurants that no longer exist. This is Restaurant Relics, his part museum, part store side project that I absolutely love. On this episode, I speak with Justin about working on hot ones to the virtues of a well-worn JG Melon tee. I hope you enjoy this episode. Speaker 1 (1:21) Justin Bullis, welcome to This Is Taste. How are you, my friend? Speaker 2 (1:24) Very excited to see you. It's been a long time. Speaker 1 (1:27) Right? And I was looking at our old email correspondence from when you Speaker 2 (1:32) were writing feature stories for First We Feast. Some 10, was it 10 years? I Speaker 1 (1:37) would say maybe 14, 15 era. So a little bit over 10 years. Like this conversation is gonna be really fun for me personally. I really love your work. Thank you. Just what you've done with First We Feast. I mean, I met you before Hot Ones was, it was a hot one in the oven when I knew you. I mean, yeah, we were just, we were an editorial site. Yeah, you were an editorial site doing text on the page. Doesn't that sound Speaker 2 (2:03) quaint? Speaker 1 (2:04) It really does. Text on the page. Yeah. You know, so we'll talk a little bit about media and like, just like, you know, founding Hot Ones with Chris and the team and Sean. And then talk about, you know, Restaurant Relics, which. is an amazing Instagram account and retail shop selling some of the coolest vintage restaurant gear around. And you brought a bunch to share. I did. Before we get to all that, though, my friend, how are you looking with restaurants in New York? Like what's on the hit list? I know you come back and forth a lot, but. Yeah. So, you know, I Speaker 2 (2:35) don't live here, so I'm not able to keep up all the time, but I have my spots, right? So First We Feast used to be near Rock Center, right? And so someone put me on to Margone. bunch of years ago. So when I come to New York, I go to Margon. I love the cafeteria style tray service. And I love the oxtails. I think the oxtails are incredible. You go up, the service is kind of gruff or the old ladies will flirt with you. It's fun, you know, and the oxtails are excellent. So that's like check. And then for pizza, if I'm in Brooklyn, I'm doing LMB. My man, that's the one. That's the one. Yeah. And then when I'm in the city, I actually like Sal and Carmine's. Okay, cool. For like a classic. I love the owner, Luciano. I think he's hilarious. And then Kenji taught me this thing where Patsy's in Spanish Harlem is the only coal oven pizzeria that serves by the slice. And I think that's really great too. And then burgers, you know, I'm repping J.G. Mellon. So dates bought for my wife and me back in the day. And so fun. Yeah. JG. JG Speaker 1 (3:45) is definitely in my realm. I'm not a burger ranker myself, but I love JG. Speaker 2 (3:49) Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the last time I was there, I saw someone sitting at the bar. Did you ever see that Netflix series about the woman, like the art thief? Oh, yeah, completely. She was at the bar. Oh, that's like, that's JG. Yeah. Yeah. Speaker 1 (4:05) Yeah. Like definitely some schemers and criminals and media personalities. Speaker 2 (4:10) Absolutely. Yeah. And then, you know, got to shout out George Motes, Hamburger America. And I love that little corridor, that triangle corridor, whatever you want to call it. Hambam, Hamburger America, and then Dean's and King. I love Dean's. Speaker 1 (4:25) I just tried Dean's for the first time a few weeks ago. Love that place. I think for multiple formats, you can have like a long meal. You can definitely grab a beer and hang. Great scene, great energy. Yeah, love that place. Yeah, Speaker 2 (4:36) shout out Angelus, the chef there. Speaker 1 (4:38) Yeah, very cool spot. Great list. You're always back and forth, so it's probably evolving. Let's talk about media. I met you when you were launching First We Feast and, you know, I loved the energy from day one. I think it was really, really smart. That was like the thing about First We Feast that always drove it is the deep intelligence there, but like doing it with like the complex attitude, which I think is, you know, says a lot when you say complex, it's like a certain style of content. But like for you, I don't know this about you. Where were you before? Yeah. Speaker 2 (5:09) I can give you some context to like how I arrived at First We Feast. Speaker 2 (5:14) Yeah, I came from a journalism background, right? And so before First We Feast, I was a freelance writer, mostly focusing in like music, culture, arts, right? So the first story I ever printed was an LA Weekly, RIP. And it was about this enigmatic. Character who lived on Tom Petty's property and he made him all of his like bespoke suits and this guy did wardrobe for like You know the cover of rumors and anyway, so like there was a figure that was really interesting. I wrote about like Jason Jiggle who did the album artwork for MF doom and then my first Kind of food focused feature was about Jean-Pierre who was a chef at Chez Panisse for 40 years. He was retiring when I worked there and turned that into a future story. But freelancing is quite difficult. So that was coming to its logical conclusion for me. I couldn't do it anymore. And I was working for, I did some writing for Chow with John Birdzall, who was a mentor for me. I worked with Leslie Suter at LA Mag and met Josh Scherer. All of that was great, but yeah, I found it hard to sustain. And I always remember when I got the email from Chris about First We Feast because I was at this crossroads. I was up in the Bay Area, and I was doing a trial run with Theranos. Speaker 1 (6:48) Oh, wow. Speaker 2 (6:49) Like Speaker 1 (6:49) a drive-by, like an internship or something? Speaker 2 (6:52) It was like for some marketing position. Wow. And, you know, I never met Elizabeth Holmes, but I... You know, I think back now it's like, wow, what a, that fork in the road. It could have been like, yeah, Theranos or First We Feast. So thank God. So, but yeah, you know, when I started at First We Feast, it was owned and operated by Complex Media, right? And so just to like paint a little picture for you, that was a very special place because we had this edit bullpen, right? And so you had all these different verticals. You had sneakers. You had fashion. You had skateboarding. You had music. And so, you know, what happens is it's kinetic. And all of these conversations and ideas are bubbling up. And there's this osmosis effect, right? So, like, example, it's like, oh, Future dropped the new album. He mentioned Nobu. You know, how do we spin that into something? And so... Yeah, it was a really special time to grow up in media. And for me, you see a lot of those ideas reflected in the kinds of stories we were telling. Speaker 1 (8:11) Yeah, and I think this is like the really early innings for food culture being mass culture and monoculture with... you know not just like hip-hop artists dropping restaurant names but like folks in your office spending maybe a little more time talking about where they're dining out at lunch or at dinner you know a little bit more time about what they were cooking and like food was starting to really become part of this pop culture and you were at the crossroads there in that office yeah with like the throwing fits guys doing fashion you were doing the food oh yeah Speaker 2 (8:42) like james and lawrence i remember like There was like a Papa John's meme that was going around. I always associate them with that. And so, yeah, there was just there was this effect it had on our storytelling. So it's like, OK, we profiled Lil B at Chez Panisse. We talked about the connection between skateboarding culture and the Mission Burrito. We had Foster Kamer write these hilarious diatribes about SantaCon. Right. Like roasting people and, you know, Legend of the Chopped Cheese. Like so it was like who else was writing these stories at the time? It felt like we were behaving differently than traditional food media. Speaker 1 (9:19) Yeah, it was really refreshing. And as I said, the star is extremely intelligent, but not sanctimonious. And I was like a very tight needle thread. And you were doing it really well. Foster needs to come on the show, by the way. Foster's the like. I love you. I know. Me, too. I. That's on me, not on him, obviously. I love the lineup. And James, by the way, from Throwing Fits, sneaky food guy. I mean, probably back then, but he's been on the show. Definitely knows his stuff. Speaker 2 (9:45) Yeah, and just to put a pin in that, though, I think we always felt like we were the scrappy underdog because if you compared us to... like old guard legacy media it's like we we couldn't break stories the way eater could we couldn't we didn't have the deep archive of recipes so it's like what could we do oh we could tell it was food through the lens of pop culture right and entertainment and so yeah that's that's where we saw So Speaker 1 (10:16) how does the transition work? Because you launch Hot Ones kind of in a part of the First Week Fits the Universe, but eventually the scales, kind of the balance changes and Hot Ones becomes more essential than the writing and editorial. Well, Speaker 2 (10:32) yeah, I can talk a little bit about that. But yeah, so Chris Schoenberger and Sean Evans are the founders of Hot Ones, right? That's their baby. And so what happened is, see if I can give a bit of context here, like 2015, we all know the pivot to video, right? That is like a key juncture. And honestly, changed my life, right? I don't write feature stories anymore. I produce and I help develop series on our channel. And so, you know, the big pivot meant that suddenly... The playing field was even again with all of these legacy brands that sort of had, you know, were in a league of their own. Felt like we were starting from the same starting line. And I think with that, it gave us a lot of confidence to kind of double down on what we do best. And with Hot Ones specifically, I mean, it was like, how do you disrupt? the interview format, oh, hot sauce is a truth serum, right? Like you can't keep your composure when Speaker 1 (11:41) you're dying on Debalt. Is that in like the pitch deck for the show? Like hot sauce is truth serum? Or did you realize that later when you started trialing and piloting the show? Speaker 2 (11:50) I don't want to speak for Chris, but I believe that was his intention from the get-go. I bet. Yeah. I bet. You know, and then Hot Ones sort of grew, obviously, and that opened the doors for a lot of other Speaker 2 (12:04) like long form ownable IP on our channel. So, okay, you have Hot Ones, right, as the base. And then I'm talking about back in the day, Matt. So like, you know, we launched Sean in the Wild, which was like an offshoot where Sean was in the wild, right, experiencing different things, food related. We had the Burger Show. We had Feast Mansion, which was with the 88 Rising guys, right? Speaker 1 (12:29) That's a good crew to hang with. Yeah. 80 Rises is Speaker 2 (12:32) great. Yeah. Shout out to Jackson, Connor. And so, yeah, it just opened up the floodgates for more storytelling. And yeah, at that time, we thought of it as sort of like foods were different verticals. So it's like burgers, pizza, Speaker 1 (12:47) tacos, you know. And you're a showrunner currently for a lot of these shows in your current role. Speaker 2 (12:54) Well, Speaker 1 (12:54) actually, so. Speaker 2 (12:56) Yeah, I head programming and development. So I oversee now a creative team of directors and producers who are on the ground doing it, but I'm... I'm helping ideating and sort of building from soup to nuts when we have an idea and how to get it out to Speaker 1 (13:12) market. Identifying those food groups was super important early on. Yeah. Like really, really important. Like not like deviating and saying we want to do a new Anthony Bourdain. Yeah. Because I think like that is the instinct in 2016 is to like we want to do more like immersive travel doc. But like you're like, let's do a fucking burger show. And that's like super ahead of its time, I think. Speaker 2 (13:32) Thanks. I mean, and again, like. it wasn't just about burgers, right? Of course not. It was