(dinging)
(upbeat music)
(classical music)
- [Narrator] I've always hated.
I hate the noise, I hate society telling me what to do.
You!
Bag!
So, I decided to reinvent.
Let's go.
To do something new, to do something exciting.
Whoo!
So, I started a [Bleeped] food truck.
(classical music)
I've always had business savvy.
- Price went up again?
- Chug my nuts!
Yeah, I been told I have an attitude problem.
But if the food's good, what's the problem, huh?
What's the [Bleeped] problem, huh?
(people chattering)
Can you wait a minute, you greedy pigs?
- [Woman] It's a bit of a stereotype in the chef community
that chefs are rude,
and Anthony completely fulfills this,
and many additional stereotypes.
(clattering)
- Not a spicy meatball. Get you [Bleeped] back
to Weehaken. Clean it up.
Tastes like [Bleeped].
- Anthony's always had a pretty negative attitude.
But most geniuses are like that, you know.
And I guess, that's what makes it okay.
- [Anthony] You know you hear these stories, these chefs,
they came from rough neighborhoods.
They lived such a tough life, but guess what?
I came from a very affluent neighborhood.
All right, so imagine how hard it was for me
to do crimes in a place like that.
- When Anthony was 18, he did stint in prison
for throwing a can of spray paint at a cop horse.
That experience changed him, you know.
It made him want to shape up.
Despite hating almost everything around him,
the one thing that grounded Anthony was cooking.
- [Anthony] Coming up like I did in Jersey,
there's only three ways to make it out alive.
You can run coke, you can join a family
real estate business, or there was the kitchen.
- [Man] Anthony's grandma and 22 older taught him
that cooking wasn't just a thing to keep him out of trouble,
it was something that he could do as a career.
They gave him the confidence to work through the ranks.
But of course, you'd never know that.
He's never hired a woman before.
- Food's about giving and nurturing and sustaining life
and that's a man's game, baby.
(rock music)
- [Pat] I worked under Anthony for ten years
and I thought we had a special bond.
But also, he's sort of crazy.
- [Philip] Cooking made him feel special, whole, important
in charge, maniacal, rageful, insane and complete.
- He thinks that because he makes a good sandwich,
he can be a jerk but that's not true, right?
- Took them this long to get me this award. Nice.
They're mothers.
- Right?
- Why are you looking at me? Work.
Jesus Christ.
- I grew up with Chef Anthony; I watched his rise
while I was just starting out as a critic.
Yeah sure, he can be salty, but he's also
just dedicated to the craft.
When you think it, what is the difference
between striving for perfection
and throwing a knife at someone for buying the wrong ham.
Everyone really opened their eyes to Anthony
when he left the restaurant scene
and started Cheese Punch.
(classical string music)
- [Anthony] It shouldn't take that long to get one person
a grilled cheese, guys.
Jesus Christ, get out of the way.
Here.
- [Philip] Cheese Punch was his message to the world.
You're restaurant walls shall not contain me.
Things were finally on his terms,
no more reporting to bosses or going to court.
It was just him, his ideas and the open road.
(door slams open)
- [Officer] Excuse me, take a look at your permits.
(rattling)
- Yeah
- [Philip] Things were really going his way.
- I'm mean, food trucks had been around.
He didn't invent them.
- Anyone could make a grilled cheese. Yeah sure.
Okay, if you say so, but Anthony reinvented it
with more cheese.
(classical music)
- [Anthony] Let's go. Let's move it.
- [Philip] It was genius,
I mean people had sold bread and cheese out of carts before
but they had never charged $15 for it.
- I guess, that's just an amount of money
that makes affluent people feel comfortable.
- Sure he has a bad attitude.
Sure he's stressed out of his mind
and has never once learned a coping mechanism for it,
yes he is turning a grossly high profit
by selling something who's base ingredients cost nothing.
Sure okay, I'll bite.
What? That's it.
- Make a line!
This is good stuff
- His food truck is good. So. You know.
What can we do?
- What you got to understand is
that no one was doing this at the time.
It was the wild west out there.
There were no rules. There was no script.
We were just flying by the seat of our pants.
- [Anthony] In the beginning stages, we tried to start big,
but sometimes someone just can't hack it.
So I had to fire my main guy, Pat.
- He fired me for showing up early.
He said I was trying to be better than him.
- And no matter how many people you fire,
or get deported, it never gets any easier.
All right, but I have to make those tough calls
for the sake of my business and my sanity.
It's the kind of thing you're never prepared for.
- Yes he was!
- For today's service, we got the Cheese Punch,
we got poppers. Let's push the Caprese salad, man.
That [Bleeped] Is going bad. Super sour.
What did you say?
You talking [Bleeped] To me?
We're firefighters here man. We're putting out fires.
Maybe you don't understand what it means to be a fireman,
okay, maybe I don't know what that entails, oh I'm so sorry.
You think I have time to talk to [Bleeped] Firefighters?
You do?
You think I have time to talk to [Bleeped] Firefighters?
You think I'm just waltzing around the city
like an arson, waiting for firefighters to come,
be like, 'What do you do today, sir?
What do you do today?'
Get the [Bleeped] Out of here. You're fired.
You're fired too, wait whoa.
I need you till the end of rush.
All right, you're rehired.
- Anyone who didn't see his vision was violently ejected
from the truck for standing in his way.
- Get the [Bleeped] Out of here. You're still fired, man.
You think I'm joking?
What, you want me to call the firefighter right now
and talk to him?
That's what you want?
Wow look how fast he's moving now, now that he got fired.
- If you can make a sandwich that good,
you can do whatever you want to me.
Your talent totally makes up for your personality.
It's a fact.
(crowd talking)
- Hurry up!
I'm touching the burner with my hands.
I don't feel [Bleeped].
- I know he's a perfectionist, all right.
But why did he have to fire me?
And why did he have to lie and tell everyone
I got fired for [Bleeped]
(whispering) in the sandwiches.
- [Producer] What?
- He said I [Bleeped] A sandwich.
- [Philip] Anthony's a rebel.
He's someone that could reinvent anything.
- He was never the type of guy to be happy.
I mean, happy with his product.
What did I say?
- He was never satisfied,
so he started to get more creative.
He examined his original grilled cheese recipe and thought,
'so what? What the [Bleeped] are you looking at?'
but what he saw that no one else saw was
what if we put more cheese on it?
- More cheese? How's that going to work?
What's that going to look like?
Is it even possible?
- I can't believe he did it.
A true king of the food truck scene.
- It was a rip off.
- It was a masterpiece.
(classical music)
- It cost $29.
- After Cheese Punch Supreme, Anthony thought,
'How do I top that?'
He hit a creative block.
- He's going through some personal things.
- [Anthony] My girlfriend at the time,
broke up with me for a job in Canada
(sighs)
Says she was tired of following me around.
She was my rock.
She was the only one who could calm me down from a rage.
Her career was the worst thing that could have ever
happened to me.
I couldn't think. I was getting panicky.
I was getting mad.
Except now, there wasn't anyone to calm me down.
- Some suggested he seek therapy.
- I was furious.
(sighs)
- He didn't.
- This was my girl we're talking about here..
My girl!
- He really couldn't innovate under
that kind of undue pressure.
- The culinary community was up in arms at his girlfriend.
He tried everything to win her back.
- Texting her, calling her,
showing up at her apartment unannoucned,
Mrs. Doubtfiring her,
Tootsieing her,
White Chicking her.
(sad music)
(screaming)
- [Frankie] But she had moved on.
- [Philip] The mad just wanted to innovate.
He just wanted to find the next stepping stone
from Cheese Punch Supreme.
How could the master reinvent the reinvention
when he was this sad, I mean,
didn't Blanche understand that his genius was at stake?
- [Frankie] He decided he just couldn't go on.
He couldn't innovate. He was washed up.
In a rut. Totally empty.
- [Anthony] I was so mad, I was just thinking,
'I hate Canada. I hate it.'
So what's the opposite of Canada?
Mexico.
Cheese Punch Mexcio. It was so simple.
I couldn't believe I was charging $34 for it.
And why stop there?
Cheese Punch Bangkok
Cheese Punch Guam
Cheese Punch that Indian place
I wanted Cheese Punch places as far away
from Canada as possible.
- [Philip] Anthony was experimenting with flavors
that were unheard of.
Chipotle, curry, turmeric.
Stuff literally no one was using.
I mean sure, Mexican and Indian people were using them
but Anthony is white.
So it's different.
By appropriating flavors from other cuisines
and exploding the margins on very inexpensive ingredients,
Anthony built his revolutionary Cheese Punch Empire.
- Food trucks all over the country, book deals,
television shows.
- It's pretty awful he can do that.
- Did we enable him?
- [Philip] Food is art and art is food.
And food is in fact, art.
And Anthony understands this. He has a vision.
- Off man, whoa gimme gimme gimme gimme
The next step? I'm going to keep being me.
I'm going to keep doing what I do.
No one's going to keep me down.
Cheese Punch is going to keep growing.
It's going to make room for the next thing
I'm going to reinvent.
I'm going to do a stationary food truck.
We're calling it a food place.
- He's creating a restaurant.
- It's got like walls and bathrooms, tables.
- A true visionary.
- There's a front door so if there's a draft,
you can close it.
- I think we created a monster.
- I've never [Bleeped] A sandwich. I promise.
(door closes)
- That's it for this episode preview.
If you want to watch the rest of this
go to Drophouse.tv and start your free trial.
It's free? Do it! It's free.
You get a free trial?
Holy [Bleeped]
What are you, nuts?
Giving this [Bleeped] Away.
- [Philip] I first met Jong Mi on a vacation
in South Korea.
I wandered into this temple and saw this unassuming woman.
Shaved head, gray robes and I thought,
'who is this woman? Am I the first person
to ever see her? Did I discover her?'
The food she makes tastes like nothing
and because of that, it tastes like everything.
- [Man] When I eat her food, I feel less hungry.
And that's magical.