0:11

Welcome to Vegas Circle Podcast with your hosts, paki and Chris.

0:14

We are people who are passionate about business, success and culture, and this is our platform to showcase the people in our city who make it happen.

0:20

On today's podcast, we're going to dive into the world of being a social media foodie and uncover the culinary gems of Las Vegas.

0:28

So welcome to the Circle. I'm a big fan of this guy man.

0:31

He's a social media restaurant marketing expert and consultant, mr Phil Zhang, better known as Las Vegas Phil.

0:37

Welcome to the Circle, my man. Thanks for having me.

0:39

Pocky Chris, great to meet you guys. Happy to be on.

0:42

So big, big fan of you man. You have just exploded.

0:44

I think probably over the last, probably what two or three years or so Excelled, you know, on the food scene as far as being a food expert and really getting your influence out there on the market.

0:53

But we just want to kind of jump right in man and just jump in head first.

0:56

So did you first start off with Yelp?

1:07

did so. So way back when, when my wife and I moved here in 06 07, I had a swing shift, a swing shift job, so I was looking for places, primarily to go for dinner after 11 pm and really yelp was the only place that had any reviews at the time.

1:17

So I started just coming through that and then I caught the writing bug and started writing reviews myself on places that we went and then as time went on, I became kind of Yelp famous in a way and that kind of went on until I discovered Instagram where I saw the original kind of circle of foodies that were doing it at the time like Unlocked Ryu Sauce Eat Me Las Vegas.

1:42

Happy.

1:42

Tummy, saverson City, all those guys.

1:44

So I loved how they were presenting food, because they didn't have to present the entire experience.

1:48

They could just present one dish that they loved or something like that and that really piqued my interest, and then that's when I started moving towards social media.

1:56

And you say you had like the writing bug. So how in-depth were these initial Yelp reviews?

2:00

Was it something that you kind of evolved and learned how to do a proper review of a food, or was it something that you know just like your gut instinct?

2:06

Did you always have a natural knack, for you know writing a pretty robust review style?

2:11

It kind of developed as time went on, as I became.

2:15

As soon as I became elite, I started seeing how other people were writing too and I wanted to make it more in-depth, more witty, more funny things like that.

2:24

And then back then the useful funny cool buttons were like the number of likes that you would get on Instagram.

2:31

Oh gotcha.

2:31

So if you broke like 100, that would be the equivalent of like 1,000 likes on a post.

2:35

Got it. So, that was like the cred that you would get.

2:38

So people were invested in what you had to say and things like that.

2:42

So I would I mean, at my peak I was probably I would draft up a review and then probably revise it three or four times.

2:52

Oh, that's pretty intense. I mean intense process.

2:54

Yeah, I took it pretty seriously.

2:56

Is Yelp still like a thing? I mean, I still look at Yelp for, like you know, food in the area, right, but is it still where people will go to?

3:03

You feel like it's mainly Instagram.

3:06

I think it's a great place as a referral to any social media posts.

3:13

A lot of times behind the scenes, you just don't know if the influencer was paid to say this.

3:20

A lot of people say this is the best. Blah, blah blah and things like that.

3:23

So Google reviews Yelp is a great place to go.

3:26

If it's four stars or more, then I think it's worth still checking out.

3:31

I mean, three stars is the same as two stars, to be honest.

3:33

Okay.

3:35

But I think it's a good place to refer to, I mean after you see a post and just to make sure, If it's like one half stars, then maybe some money was passed on.

3:44

Got it. So you're originally from New England. Right, you're originally from Boston.

3:47

Yep, spent some time in New York, so what brought you?

3:51

to Las Vegas. So I was playing a lot of poker back in the early 2000s.

3:55

Okay, I was kind of cleaning up on party poker, poker stars, full tilts.

4:00

Okay.

4:00

And I was living in Japan for two years. I was playing these big tournaments at like 3 am 4 am in Japan and I had saved up a ton.

4:09

I thought now's the time to try my luck at making poker a profession.

4:16

It didn't work out, but hey, it worked out anyway.

4:20

Well, especially in the mecca with Vegas and gambling.

4:22

That makes sense, being able to do that.

4:29

But do you kind of focus just on las vegas or I've seen you hit a lot of the markets like new york and things like that but is the primary focus to influence or to focus on being the influence of vegas?

4:35

As far as on the restaurant scene, sure, the prime.

4:38

My primary audience is in las vegas, and I do live here the majority of time.

4:42

Okay.

4:42

So that is the focus. But wherever I'm traveling to, wherever I go um, I will still try to find places that interest me and try to feature restaurants out there.

4:53

So, whether it's Japan or we're going to London, Sweden at the end of May, so I'm going to cover a bunch of places there.

4:59

And so, even though it says Las Vegas, phil, it could be anywhere, and and some of the followers are kind of upset when I am featuring places in other cities, but I mean, that's just my life, so it is.

5:14

Kind of digging that a little bit. How do you identify what locations you are going to?

5:17

How do you pre-plan them? Like you know, say you're going to London, you already have a selection of restaurants that you're like planning to hit and you know same Vegas like.

5:27

If you're trying to do some reviews or highlight something, how do you identify those locations?

5:30

So if it's personally interesting for me, that's why I go.

5:32

If I have a passion for the menu or it piques my interest, that's why I go.

5:38

A lot of restaurants do reach out to me and I look over the menu.

5:40

I'm just like hey, you know, I wouldn't willfully order this on my own, without social media, so why would I post it?

5:47

Yeah.

5:48

And that's kind of the the meter of how I choose when and how I go somewhere.

5:54

Is it like we were talking about over the phone, right, like being an influencer of food?

5:59

Right Back in the day, everybody looked at it crazy, like what are they doing?

6:02

Right Back in the day, everybody looked at it crazy, like what are they doing, right.

6:04

But what do you think are those kind of asterisks or whatever you want to say, of people not understanding that you can make a real business out of this, like yourself Can?

6:13

you kind of share the insights of that. So I felt like five years ago this was something I would really need to explain step by step.

6:18

But honestly, if you don't understand it now, if you don't see the success, that's going on on the strip or off the strip, then you're just living somewhere else.

6:25

Yeah, you missed it. You completely missed it.

6:28

Yeah, but I really feel like, especially in Vegas, it's still kind of wild wild west.

6:34

There are just so many businesses, so many different creators that have come into the space, whether they've moved in to Vegas or blown up just organically in the past couple of years.

6:42

It's been really fun to see on my end, and I'm always kind of looking for new accounts, ways that people are presenting things differently.

6:52

It doesn't have to necessarily be food to pique my interest and kind of reach out to them and see what their whole deal is.

6:58

To me now, youtube long format is really the most exciting thing, especially with food, because, pre-pandemic, there were no real las vegas locals doing youtube content in vegas.

7:10

I had no idea it was all like california or like some dude in toronto that just hammers out things for travels and stuff.

7:16

Yeah, um, so, and that, to me, has been the most exciting thing, and I can't wait to see what's going on and I'm I'm going to throw my head into that long format ring as well and see how that goes.

7:27

It kind of like. You know, the thing I always think about is, you know, when the food, you know uh, reviews or food critics, you know it's very like a subjective experience, right, it's.

7:36

It's some my personal experience in this.

7:38

You know environment and you know, for me, I alwayseter-totter with the idea, like I hate olives.

7:44

So no matter what you give me with an olive in it, it's going to be a one-stop.

7:47

It sucks. I can't stand olives either, so they're looking for guidance.

7:52

It's like I'm always going to review it with one star. How do you bridge that dynamic a little bit where you maybe something you don't personally enjoy, but do you still try to give it an objective?

8:02

You know interpretation of how it is, or is it you just?

8:06

You know review how you feel. Like if you don't like it, you don't like it?

8:09

That's a good question. So I rarely so I don't consider myself food critic, because critic means being critical.

8:15

And.

8:15

I'm not very negative in any of my posts.

8:19

If it's an experience that I did enjoy, I will tell the manager straight up.

8:22

This is what I didn't like and this is why I'm not posting and unfortunately that happens more often than I wish it did, Cause that's a waste of time for them.

8:29

It's a waste of time for me shooting all this video and then I finally sit down and eat the food, and the food sucks yeah.

8:36

And that's I mean past six months has probably happened maybe five times and that was that hurt to tell them, because you know they're excited I'm there, they're hoping, uh, the post will pump up business and things like that.

8:49

But you know I gotta be real and and as soon as I lose, you know, the, the audience loses their trust in me, then it's kind of over I respect that so much man because you're right, because you can see when it's forced.

9:02

You know what I mean. So, but when you're so, you, you don't put any of the content out.

9:06

Right, I don't put any of it out. Smart, yeah, but brand deals.

9:10

As time has gone on, as the following has gone bigger, I've had to be more picky about the brands I partner with and things like that.

9:18

And some of the money that I've seen come and go is kind of hurt, to be honest.

9:24

But yeah, I think in the end I'll sleep better if I, if I didn't take that deal.

9:29

Right away, I get it Integrity is everything. What do you feel about being especially like a market like New York?

9:34

I'm originally from Chicago, chris. Chris is from a Detroit area.

9:37

How do you feel about it? Are you excited about the food scene that's expanding the way that Vegas has, and how do you compare it to like a New York or even a Boston?

9:46

It's incredible. To be honest, in such a concentrated area you can have Carbone to Peter Luger, to whatever else is going on out there, and to me it's the most exciting place for food in the country.

10:01

Yeah Bar none New York.

10:03

A lot of people don't want to drive from flushing to hackensack or whatever, and it's just way more of a pain to travel around from spot to spot la.

10:15

I hear the same thing from a lot of the la foodies, like if they want to plan a saturday shoot and want to hit up like four places, that's going to take the entire day.

10:22

that was horrible. I lived in la for a while, so it was horrible to drive around.

10:26

Yeah, yeah, we considered la uh instead of vegas, but it was the traffic, that kind of yeah, I can't let you pass by peter luger.

10:34

So I'm actually going to peter luger in brooklyn this this week.

10:37

Nice, do you like it? I love it.

10:39

So, okay, I'm kind of I gotta ask that just to sidetrack just for a second.

10:43

So sure, so so living in New.

10:45

York City for 10 years.

10:46

I mean.

10:46

Peter Luger was like the place. And so I've been there many, many times and for me it's kind of like I don't know if it's nostalgia that's kind of like blinded me to what's going on, but to like the fact that it's like 15 minutes from my house, I don't have to take the J train or anything.

11:03

It's just incredible.

11:05

Yeah.

11:05

And I'm so excited. To me it's like the Raiders moving to Vegas, except it's steak.

11:10

Yeah.

11:10

Um, so I love it, but everyone has kind of not everyone.

11:13

But there have been a lot of critics, a lot of people who maybe don't understand or haven't been to the New York city restaurant and don't care, to be honest.

11:22

So, um, I'm I'm very biased, but I love it.

11:28

I've been there like five times. And you've been to the one in Brooklyn, or cause I think they have two in New York right and the one in Long Island and one in Brooklyn.

11:34

Okay, and then they actually have one in Tokyo as well, cause Japanese love American steaks, okay, awesome, but um, yeah, I think you're going to love it.

11:42

It's a very different atmosphere, less refined than the Caesars Palace one.

11:47

Okay, and I'm excited.

11:49

Awesome. I'm excited you're going to go. Do these restaurants know that you're going to be going there and visiting with them, or do you just show up randomly?

11:57

Is there any prep work that you have to do when you're going to handle these reviews?

12:05

So 80% of the time it's all set up okay beforehand. Okay, so they know I'm going to come in.

12:08

Uh, that's when I get the behind the scenes in the kitchen perhaps, or any of like the plating, uh to do the video.

12:13

Um, sometimes I just want to go where I want to go and I mean, if they happen to know I'm there, then great.

12:19

If not, then that's fine too so did it evolve into that where you had to kind of pre-schedule it, or is that something you've always done?

12:26

Because I know one thing, you kind of get mixed bag, or some people, like the fact that you're there shooting all these videos and you're promoting the restaurant and other people may not feel comfortable doing that.

12:34

Like, how have you navigated that a little bit?

12:36

So I feel like to. In order to have the best put out, the best video that I can put out, I need some behind the scenes stuff, so I will usually just ask them and if they say, no, that's fine.

12:49

Um, a lot of chefs don't want to show their secrets or what, whatever's going on.

12:53

Sometimes I they just tell me to cut out certain parts.

12:56

Um, but uh, for the most part now everyone kind of understands the deal and I don't really have to introduce myself or explain my whole deal.

13:06

And do they approve it like after you're done or it's like you're there shooting and then they just see the end product online somewhere.

13:12

So if it's like a paid partnership, sometimes the brand will want me to submit a video.

13:18

Okay, get a little taste of what you flavor, which before I put it out and they might like, for example, fleming's steakhouse.

13:24

I did a couple things for them and, yeah, they want to review the whole thing at least a couple weeks before I put it out.

13:30

But for the most part, if I'm a paying customer or if it's just me just dropping in and doing my thing, I don't really consult with them, unless it's a paid thing, yeah.

13:42

That makes sense. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

13:45

So are you eating out like every day, two, three days a week, five days a week?

13:49

Like how? What is your schedule, like I'm definitely doing at?

13:51

least five nights a week.

13:52

Okay, seven nights I'm jealous, by the way Seven nights is not unheard of.

13:57

Okay.

13:58

Um, and then when I come home, I get a Sharpie, I write down what's in the leftovers and hopefully gets eaten.

14:08

Okay, um, a lot of times, based on the schedule, if, if I'm sitting, if I have like 12 hot dogs I just shot, I'll probably find, uh, some homeless people to give it to or something like that awesome.

14:16

But I try not to waste food.

14:19

Um, at all. It really me.

14:21

A lot of times I have incoming influencers from other places going to my client spots and they shoot like 30,000 calories and don't eat anything, which is kind of crazy to me.

14:31

Um, and I don't know what to do at all with everything, but I managed to find a way.

14:37

And how long does it take you to go through this whole process? I know you mentioned earlier that some people shoot four restaurants in a day.

14:41

Is that kind of what your schedule is like Like you'll hit four in a day just to get the videos?

14:45

I don't do that anymore. I mean, they have to be really exceptional places for me to do like two or three in one day anymore.

14:52

I think Back in the beginning when you were constantly just chasing more and more content, especially if you're starting early on.

15:02

That's an important thing to do is try to get as much as possible so you have it later.

15:07

But you know dinner's like a calorie car crash.

15:10

Now I mean to be real. The only minus to this whole lifestyle is, you know, health and trying to balance everything.

15:18

So you know I'm done with two dinners a night, I'm done with the two lunches, things like that.

15:23

I mean I rarely do a lunch dinner, a lunch shoot and a dinner shoot in the same day anymore.

15:29

It's kind of hard because, yeah, I feel like when you go to these places and you're reviewing them, you see their menu.

15:32

They have 50 things on them, 20 things on them. You want to try a taste of all of this because you know that's part of the job of reviewing, right?

15:42

Right, so do you like limit it to one? Like you, I think you touch on a bit like you just focus on one specific meal that you're reviewing versus the restaurant or menu.

15:46

So normally if I go to restaurant, I'd like to feature maybe two or three dishes, because the post is only 30 seconds to a minute long anyway.

15:52

So, um, that's what I usually like to do.

15:55

Sometimes the chefs just start bringing stuff out, though.

15:58

Because they want you to try it Right. They want it yeah.

16:00

And then, next thing you know, I have like two shopping bags worth of food.

16:04

Yeah, I guess that'd be crazy.

16:06

Right, I'm not complaining, I'm just saying it's a great problem.

16:10

But how do you choose, like, the restaurants that you want to pay for?

16:14

Is it like you're focused on maybe a certain you know style of restaurant?

16:20

Maybe it might be African food, or it might be a you know food you haven't tried before that you want to kind of spotlight.

16:26

But how do you kind of navigate that? Anything I just that kind of piques my interest.

16:29

I mean there's, there's really no like system.

16:32

It's just like hey, this sounds amazing and I think the audience would be into it, so let's do it.

16:37

Or sometimes it just hey, that sounds amazing. I don't even care what anyone else thinks.

16:41

So, I'm just going to go anyway and spotlight it Awesome, Um, but a lot of times the places I pay for it's just like the day of or a day before, and I don't want to hit anyone up Like I don't.

16:55

I'm not hurting for cash, it's fine, so I have no problem paying.

16:59

I have no qualms about that at all for any place I go.

17:02

That's awesome.

17:03

Yeah.

17:03

Good stuff, man. How do you guys so? Did you guys build you?

17:06

And your wife is a, is a, are you me?

17:09

Okay, so you guys have built also a consulting company, correct?

17:12

That's correct.

17:13

So do you guys consult with restaurants on what to do better and kind of give them things that you've kind of seen Is that kind of your strategy too?

17:20

So it's primarily it's primarily social media management of the restaurant, and then as a bonus they have me or Ayumi to bounce off ideas for new dishes or what we thought about certain things, that kind of stuff.

17:34

And right now we have a roster of about 15 great restaurants around town that we manage social media for Nice and it's been it's been awesome.

17:43

Yeah, yeah.

17:45

And these are personally places that I just have a passion for.

17:48

Okay.

17:49

And so it just works out spectacularly.

17:51

To be honest, a lot of restaurants do want to work me, and, whether some reason or another, it just I just not interested.

17:59

Got it? There's a fine line between quality of work and quality of living, and I feel like I'm right at that line now.

18:05

Yeah, I get it. I get it 100%.

18:07

Who's doing your editing? Are you guys doing everything still in house?

18:11

Are you guys outsourcing?

18:13

So I do the whole thing on the phone. I shoot everything on the phone.

18:15

I edit the whole thing on the phone. I shoot everything on the phone. I edit on the phone.

18:18

I do my voiceover on the phone and the captions and everything.

18:19

Oh awesome yeah, so I don't have a real camera, so when people aren't yeah yeah, when people ask, oh, can you give me the breakdown of your rig, so the kitchen's aware, I'm like it's a handheld light and an iphone 14 and that's it right now yeah I love it.

18:32

Yeah, it's organic. I mean that's organic, yeah, yeah, and you just, and you can just edit it On the fly, on the fly, yeah I can do the voiceover in the car as soon as I get out of the restaurant.

18:43

Yeah, I get it and it kind of works out that way. So I get off on when people think I have a whole professional rig or things like that.

18:50

But no, it's from beginning to end, though, from like once I get all the, the shots and everything and go home and put it together.

19:00

Probably takes depends on how involved the video is, but less than an hour, oh, that's not bad definitely makes it easy to put a little bit more content.

19:09

So it's hard if you make it a whole production, it's gonna take you hours and you don't get as much content, for your viewership makes a lot of sense right, and especially in vegas.

19:16

I mean DSLR videos don't really hit on social like the phone does, for some reason.

19:24

It feels less organic. I feel like because if you're there, I just assume you're there eating food like versus a production.

19:29

It feels like it's forced. Yeah, right I think it makes a lot of sense and you keep a list of, like, all the restaurants you've been to, what's your number.

19:37

This is the list, yeah it's hard.

19:41

I don't know how many number of places I've been, I think according to Instagram, I maybe have 2,200 posts.

19:47

No, I don't know. 2,200?

19:49

.

19:49

Okay.

19:50

Let me look that's crazy.

19:51

I'm curious because I know that's one thing, because at some point you're going to hit all of them.

19:55

You're going to have to move. I have 2,600 posts, 2,600.

19:58

But, I usually remember yeah, I rarely forget a place I've been to.

20:05

And you got to go to places multiple times to make sure, like to try different parts of their menu and do different reviews at different times.

20:11

And how do you like say I went to this place today and do you have a time frame before you'll go back to that place, or could you hit the same place multiple weeks in a row?

20:20

Oh, I never hit the same place multiple weeks in a row.

20:22

It's so hard. There's so many choices. There's too much time, yeah and for me to be a regular at a certain restaurant.

20:27

I would consider me being a regular if I went three times in a year.

20:31

Got it.

20:32

That's fair. Yeah, that's fair. Yeah, that's fair for sure.

20:34

And so it really just depends on what I feel like doing, and that's the beauty of doing social media and being your own boss is just.

20:42

I can just do whatever I want to do anytime I want to do it.

20:45

So it's been amazing. Yeah, that sounds great.

20:47

That's awesome, man, and we want to transition to talk about your podcast too, so you got in the podcast space Las Vegas Phil's podcast, right?

20:54

So what is that all about?

20:56

What's what's the, the, the, uh, the backing of what you talk about on there, and guests and things like that.

21:00

Sure, the whole primary base of it is food and social media.

21:03

Okay, so in the beginning it had to just focus on my friends who are have gained such huge followings and had a lot of success and try to pick their brain on what's been going on and and what they see is like the trends of social media and food and things like that yeah and so this initially started.

21:27

I had a network that hired me to to do it from home and we would just do, like zoom, yeah, this type podcast.

21:35

And this is when tiktok was exploding and all these new creators like vegas starfish and vegas know-it-all, and talls and brandon from vegas, and all these guys were exploding and I didn't really have a personal relationship with them, okay, so this was a great excuse for me to pick their brain, just like you guys, you know and and learn all that I can to for myself to become a better creator selfishly.

22:00

I mean it fronted as a show, but it was really just to help me.

22:02

I don't blame you. I don't blame you at all. What's been one of the biggest lessons that you've kind of learned from other people, or what you've learned now that you've been able to definitely just?

22:12

I mean, honestly, the biggest thing is that you don't know everything and you never will.

22:16

So why don't you just ask the experts who really know what's going on?

22:20

Sure, and I'm fortunate to, I mean, the social media community in vegas is phenomenal yeah and I love that I can just kind of reach out to some of the the bigger people and and ask you how did you do this?

22:32

You know, can you kind of talk about why you went this way?

22:36

Yeah and the most recent posts and things like that.

22:39

That's awesome.

22:40

It's pretty cool. Yeah, that's exciting man. It's a small nit People.

22:43

I mean you know, just from being around we know a lot of the same people and it's you don't realize you do one person wrong, man.

22:48

It's just two seconds, man. It messes up everything for you Totally, totally.

23:03

I, I mean drama definitely happens, but I think a lot of ways, especially with social media.

23:06

I mean you kind of like create and connect your own dots that aren't even there sometimes and unfortunately.

23:09

I mean it would just be easier just to talk to that person or hammer it out and, kind of, you know, let that drama go away.

23:14

But some people just can't. It's toxic, toxic area.

23:17

Where do you see social media going, man?

23:19

You've been doing it for a while. We've been doing this for a while too, like, where do you see it going?

23:24

Because people either got to do the shock factors, like the Cat Williams of the world and different people that are doing crazy stuff, to kind of get the eyes on them, and of course, everybody wants eyes for the content.

23:33

But where do you see it going the next few years?

23:37

I mean, I think VR is a big space and it's just going to become bigger and bigger.

23:42

So I don't know if that's going to be TikTok or another format, but with those meta Ray-Bans and things like that, this is where it's going.

23:49

You're going to have like a whole experience where they're just going to watch it on whatever device they're doing.

23:55

And so. I think that's where it's going to go.

23:58

People are going to see me eating a gigantic ribeye somewhere and kind of like showing off the bite, I guess.

24:06

And if they can install Smell-O-Vision phenomenal.

24:11

But I feel like that's where it's headed.

24:13

For sure I don't know.

24:16

I mean, ai is becoming more prevalent, especially in food marketing, but I'm not sure if I'm not sure how it's going to work, if it's going to be some just random ai character telling you this is good, are people going to believe that, like I don't know?

24:31

Yeah, I like seeing people like you.

24:33

I mean you want to see the real people that are actually going there and taking you through the experience.

24:37

You know what I mean. I don't like the AI side of that, I know you probably do, I can't stand it.

24:44

I don't think it's real yet. I can trust it for a review, but I don't like it.

24:48

I saw some whack thing where some guy did AI Keith Lee Get out of here.

24:53

Yeah, I'll show it to you after Wow.

24:58

And this is like this is dangerous. We're acting like he was Keith Lee. It was a Keith Lee video, oh wow.

25:00

And then they, kind of like, picked the pieces of his voice to make it sound like he was saying something.

25:05

That's kind of scary, and that's kind of scary, that's crazy.

25:09

And, um, I'm I'm kind of worried about that for sure, and credibility and and all that kind of stuff but I guess it'll just kind of figure itself out.

25:27

But I yeah, ai vr, I think that's really the future of of just not just food marketing but just social marketing in general and I don't know, I mean, do you do a lot of vr?

25:31

oh yeah, chris is all over it. I'm definitely a big fan. I could definitely see myself doing that watching a review of you know you're doing a review and seeing it through your eyes, because especially people coming to vegas, where they don't get to experience it in person, and seeing it in photos isn't the same as watching it through a virtual reality experience.

25:45

So you can definitely see the reviews going that direction.

25:47

I feel 100.

25:49

That's where it's going yeah, it's gonna be crazy to see all the people walk into like a hotel with their yeah apple glasses coming out and it's becoming a lot more mainstream now that if Apple's getting in on it, they obviously feel strongly about it.

26:02

So you can see it getting cheaper, more affordable, and I think the hard part now is how do you video record in 3D with the technology that we have?

26:09

So you've got to wait for a camera that will essentially start having 3D recorders on it, but that's where you see it going.

26:17

Yeah, a couple of people have been fooling around with the Meta Ray-Bans.

26:19

I mean, the quality looks pretty good, especially in daylight, but I know it's only like one-minute clips right now and battery life is maybe three to five hours.

26:27

Yeah, that makes it a little more tough.

26:28

Pretty interesting. I might wait around to like 2.0, 3.0 and see what I can do with it.

26:34

That's amazing. You could buy those like nice little 3D camera, pod things, and they shoot all in 3D.

26:40

Do you set up on your table and just do your business.

26:43

It's unreal.

26:44

It's amazing, technology just gets better and better.

26:46

It really does.

26:47

It's unreal man. Well, someone is big on mentorship man.

26:50

I love mentorship and things like that. Who's kind of in your circle, that's kind of speaking life into you and kind of helping you kind of drive this consulting company and being a social media expert.

26:59

I mean, my circle is the. The inner circle is literally just one, it's my wife, I you me Awesome.

27:04

And you know, all the butter, all the lobster dunks, all the crab porn and all that stuff, that's her food styling.

27:11

Okay.

27:11

And really she has a lot of a better eye for just the overall look and layout of food and so I rely on her for pretty much everything.

27:22

I will always say I wouldn't have half the following if it weren't for her to be honest.

27:27

But beyond that, I mean the social media community here, especially the food one is incredible.

27:33

I'm fortunate to call people like Unlocked and Vegas Starfish and Hooked LV and all these guys friends, and whenever I need help or need advice they're always there to give me their point of view and it's been priceless.

27:49

It's been so valuable to just me and what I've been doing.

27:54

That's powerful, yeah, and what do you want your personal brand to represent?

27:58

Like, what's that, what's that actual brand?

28:02

Um, Hmm, I never really thought about that because I've just been in the trenches like day in, day out, like you guys or anyone.

28:11

Um, I think I want people to be able to rely on what I say and trust that this is how I really felt about the restaurant.

28:22

And if you, if you feel that way too, or if you, you know, if you're inclined to check it out because of my opinion, then then thank you.

28:30

And if you didn't like it, then like a lot of other people just DM me and tell me why you didn't like it.

28:35

Yeah, but you just want to be organic. I love that.

28:38

I love that about you is you want to be organic and truthful for kind of your walk, for sure, that's powerful.

28:42

Yeah, and then for business advice, right, we always talk about business advice, and what would you share for somebody?

28:48

I mean, you've transitioned, you've done a lot of different things right right of your of your career but what would you share for them, for business advice, if somebody wants to get into business for themselves or has some type of dream that they want to accomplish?

29:01

so I never thought this would be ever be a real job.

29:04

Yeah, um, it was always just I.

29:06

I was always so resistant to quit my job to do this.

29:11

But, um, you know, a powerful moment happened when one of my college friends passed away suddenly and, um, I was flying back from New York city and I'm just kind of like man, I should just do whatever the hell I want to do, because if she's gone we're the same age, I mean who knows, who knows what's going to happen.

29:30

So I think that's me just getting out of my own head and holding my my own self back, and and getting out of my own head and holding my own self back, and for anyone, that's really where it's at.

29:42

Yeah.

29:43

If you can somehow break through and get out of your own head, start something, do something.

29:49

That's. I mean, the first step is, is everything and so, and, and fortunately, um, you know, look to people who are doing it better than you and constantly and and kind of learn from them, whether it's just viewing their stuff or asking them directly, and uh, kind of take it from there.

30:08

But I mean, yeah, it just has to start somewhere, right, I mean, if you have a full nine to five, like I did, and you just post when you get home, or things like that, I mean it's just things to build off of and hopefully, I mean, something will happen.

30:24

I don't know. Yeah, for sure.

30:25

But consistency. I think a lot of your guests will say that 100% consistency is everything yeah consistency is everything and, um, there's just this innate drive to do it.

30:34

I mean, obviously, you guys been doing this podcast since 2018.

30:37

There's an innate drive, yeah, for you to keep going.

30:39

I'm trying chris crazy.

30:40

I love, I love it, I absolutely love it, yeah, yeah and so I mean people who want to do it like I get that dm all the time.

30:48

Hey, I'm thinking about becoming uh posting about food and things like that.

30:50

Yeah, just do it. Like I get that DM all the time. Hey, I'm thinking about becoming posting about food and things like that.

30:53

Yeah, just do it, because your 10th video is going to be better than your first, your 100th video is going to be better than your 10th, and then it's just, you know, keeping at it.

31:02

Yeah, 100%. And if you burn?

31:03

out, then maybe it wasn.

31:05

I say to everybody yeah.

31:14

To have this opportunity to literally eat for a living is just the craziest thing that's awesome.

31:18

And when I leave Vegas and see my old friends or try to explain it to relatives, it's kind of crazy.

31:25

That's when I realized like what am I doing?

31:27

Like.

31:27

What is going on, but since it's day to day and I spend a lot of time with creators, this is just kind of what happens.

31:32

It's powerful. But, yeah, it's been pretty amazing.

31:35

Good stuff, man, and I got to ask you this.

31:38

We ask every guest you know favorite restaurant in Vegas?

31:41

You got to give us probably at least one or three, but what's your?

31:47

Favorite restaurant here.

31:49

So here's the thing Like I don't, a lot of the restaurants I go to I get special treatment, so I don't get the actual customer experience.

31:58

And that is a problem, yeah sure.

32:00

But like places like Momofuku and Cosmopolitan I love the Asian fusion.

32:05

They got great private dining rooms and I love going there with a big group like eight to ten people and just uh feasting about yeah yeah, and just have a great time.

32:14

I love joel robuchon. To me that is like the ultimate in french cuisine and there's no other right, yeah, okay yeah, there's no other true joel robuchon restaurant like that, like there's a bunch of ateliers around the country, but like that level of cuisine and technique I mean you're not going to find that really anywhere else in the West Coast, to be honest.

32:36

And then I love Kame.

32:38

It's Omakase Sushi Restaurant.

32:41

Yeah, yeah, a little pricey. I think Penny mentioned that. I think Penny mentioned that on her I actually met.

32:45

Penny. The first time I met Penny was actually at Kame we were sitting at the bar together.

32:49

Yeah, her whole family's awesome Lotus of Sound. Shout out to Penny.

32:52

I think she mentioned that on our episode.

32:54

I'm sure she did she likes all the baller places too, yeah, not cheap.

32:58

It's like $500 per person.

33:00

Yeah, I think that's definitely the one that's definitely the one she mentioned, because we said I'm like damn, I'm actually going tonight.

33:10

Yeah, that's yeah At Ito. Yeah, oh yeah, Laura just went there recently.

33:13

Yeah, it was excellent.

33:14

Yeah, I'm excited, I'm excited. But yeah, a lot of people that go to Kame, I mean they're all like high rollers and things like that.

33:21

I mean 500 bucks is like the small blind in their poker games.

33:24

One of our friends was when I think her husband spent like $1,200, $1,400.

33:30

Just them two.

33:31

So you'll pay a penny-penny, but that's the cool thing about Vegas is you get the high end, and then you get these hole-in-the-walls that are excellent too, and that's what I'm loving about Vegas is you get a wide range of whatever you want.

33:43

Now it's awesome.

33:47

Yeah, you could have entered the Olympics of restaurants, to be honest, and and anyone who any restaurant that isn't on social media or not doing a consistent work on that, is really just falling behind.

33:55

To be honest, I did get an email from a recent restaurant that just opened and, uh, they had no social media presence at all.

34:02

I'm like, well, this is the problem, yeah you gotta be able to, you gotta get it out, yeah, at the very least just run facebook and yelp ads to get it going.

34:09

But uh, as far as for cheap places, I mean I like a lot of budget restaurants as well.

34:13

Strong Artisan Noodle I think Colin Fukunaga mentioned Ramen.

34:19

Hashi. I love that place too.

34:20

And other places like Hachi on Jones are all great spots.

34:26

Yeah, good stuff, man, you got some gems. Man, you got some gems.

34:28

You got to tell us how you like the restaurant tonight too.

34:31

What else are you focused on for 2024 and in the future?

34:34

So my focus is mainly YouTube and long format, I mean YouTube Shorts has really exploded.

34:40

It's kind of out TikToked, TikTok and I guess they're going to do a vote tomorrow on whether Congress House of.

34:48

Representatives are going to try to make.

34:50

TikTok illegal.

34:53

Like that's wild.

34:55

And then, if that happens, the YouTube is going to be the biggest benefit of that.

34:58

I think all of all of my clients um, with, uh you know, tiktok accounts, are going to just move over there and do like short and long form.

35:09

But honestly, I think for now, uh, my short-term goals are just YouTube, just, uh, trying to just become better at making food videos and and just kind of exploring just how how things are being done differently outside of Vegas.

35:24

Um, that's what I look for for inspiration.

35:28

And I'm glad you said that. As far as like tiktok right, like I know gary vandertruck's big on you know, you know making transition and and putting it on everything, yeah, not just instagram, not just tiktok.

35:40

Um, I mean, linkedin is is very good organically.

35:43

You know what I mean. But I'm glad you said that because it's powerful, because a lot of people's business is going to shut down because tiktok is yeah.

35:50

If you think about 15 years ago, like all the big time stars on Vine, you know all TikTok yeah.

35:55

They didn't have any backup because they thought this was going to last forever, and I think, a lot of TikTokers and people on Instagram, you know they need to diversify.

36:05

That's the biggest thing.

36:06

I mean whether it's YouTube.

36:15

I've been posting on Twitter for every day for the last 15 months I'm trying to get a following um Facebook, all that kind of stuff.

36:19

It's a lot of work, but I think it's necessary in order to stay relevant and I love that I have all these different avenues now, because if, say, my post bombs on Instagram, then at least hopefully it will do better on tiktok or youtube or something like that.

36:34

Yeah well, it's powerful man, las vegas phil man, it's absolute pleasure to sit down with you, man?

36:39

What's your social handles? People can reach out to you, sure they?

36:41

reach out to me at all the platforms. That at las vegas, phil f-i-l-l.

36:45

And uh, yeah, I appreciate.

36:48

Follow this man. I think you just hit a 400,000 subscribers.

36:50

I did a 4K on IG Powerful, pretty amazing.

36:54

Well, he's exploding. Man, I love your content. I'm going to continue to keep supporting you and I appreciate you coming out and checking us out at VegasCirclecom.

37:00

Subscribe with us, man.

37:01

So appreciate your time man, Thank you so much.