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Unglossy

Chris Shepherd: Houston, Hustle, and Taste

Unglossy

Bun B, Tom Frank, Jeffrey Sledge

Entrepreneurship, Business, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.9 • 917 Ratings

🗓️ 26 September 2025

⏱️ 73 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

James Beard winner Chris Shepherd pulls up to Unglossy with Bun B, Jeffrey Sledge, and Tom Frank to talk real kitchen life—no foam, all flame. He traces the glide path from Tulsa dishwasher to Houston icon, why cooking clicked when school didn’t, and how using all five senses beats any recipe card. We dig into Underbelly’s whole-animal, write-the-menu-daily chaos; the gloriously unhinged One Fifth experiment (five concepts in five years); and the way Houston’s Vietnamese community reshaped Gulf flavors—from crawfish boils to kimchi on a “Chinese-Korean” menu. Bun and Chris revisit the night they wrote wine notes together (“that tastes red” is canon now), we adjudicate the great gravy debate (brown on almost everything; white strictly for chicken-fried), and Chris breaks down how Eat Like a Local can take a chicken-fried steak from 50 orders a week to 400. Most importantly, we go deep on Southern Smoke—emergency aid, mental-health care, real safety nets for hospitality workers—and how you can help. Come hungry, leave useful. 🎙️ Tap in. This is Unglossy."Unglossy: Decoding Brand in Culture," is produced and distributed by Merrick Studio and hosted by Bun B, Tom Frank and Jeffrey Sledge. Tune in to hear this thought-provoking discussion on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you catch your podcasts. Follow us on Instagram @UnglossyPod to join the conversation and support the show at https://unglossypod.buzzsprout.com/ Send a text Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

Last week on Unglossy. Everybody, let's celebrate. Celebrate every single day you wake up. If you wake up, your eyes open, you got your faculties, you're alert. Celebrate. And in that moment, you're happy. In the moment of celebration, you are happy. Yeah. We're simply happy, right? Unless you got the less negativity out there, because we can't change nothing else out there.

0:22.8

We can change what's in here, though. We can change our

0:24.6

heart feels. We can change how we feel here.

0:26.9

Let's do that. Let's work.

0:28.2

Let's work on that together. Everything else.

0:31.1

Yeah.

0:31.7

It's all right.

0:38.5

From the top.

0:40.0

I'm Tom Frank.

0:41.3

I'm Jeffrey Sledge.

0:42.6

And I'm Bud P.

0:43.8

Welcome to ungloss.

0:49.7

Real stories, unfiltered dialogue, and the voices moving culture beyond the gloss of hype and headlines. So buckle up.

0:51.0

Unglossi starts now.

0:54.0

All right, fellas, we are back for another unglossi. We're rolling at this point. This is old hat to me now. Oh, you got it down. Yeah, I feel like I'm here now. I'm here fully. I got the beginner, the beginner episodes, you know, out of my system.

1:12.2

I feel like I'm raring to go.

1:13.1

You're ready to go.

1:14.8

Yeah, yeah, I'm feeling good, man.

1:26.2

And I'm getting some good responses, too. Like, people are like, yeah, this is pretty dope. B.I.C. They're coming. Mm-hmm. And I like it, though, but I like it. And again, you know, this is just what we're doing at Anglossi.

1:28.9

We're doing a lot of other things at Merrick Studios as well. Absolutely.

1:29.9

Please stay tuned.

1:31.2

Right. And again, you know, this is just what we're doing at unglossi. We're doing a lot of other things at Merrick Studios as well. Absolutely. Please stay tuned. We're trying to onboard some new content. And I'm excited about the future. I really am. Yep. Yep. Yep. I like that people didn't see it coming. Yeah, people know I'm a very reserved kind of guy. You know what I'm saying? I'm definitely not the guy that likes to hear himself talk. But I love to talk. You know what I'm saying? Especially with like-minded people. I'm in the stage now, obviously, just want to learn everything I can find under the sun. Absolutely. I'm a sponge. I'm just absorbing knowledge right now. And this is a great place to gain knowledge. It's a great place to seed out knowledge as well. So I think we got it. I think we got stuff there, guys. I think we do. I mean, it was something when I got here, but I wanted to make sure I'm helping to bring this thing to the next level. To the next level.

...

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