#1493 - Steve Schirripa & Michael Imperioli

Steve Schirripa (0:02)

Yes, sir, good to see you, buddy.

Joe Rogan (0:04)

Good to see you, brother, Michael.

Steve Schirripa (0:04)

Really good.

Joe Rogan (0:05)

Pleasure to meet you, man.

Michael Imperioli (0:06)

Thanks for having us today.

Steve Schirripa (0:07)

Yeah, really, thanks. It's been a while, I saw you.

Joe Rogan (0:11)

The last time I saw you, it was at the old studio.

Steve Schirripa (0:12)

Three years ago, but it looks exactly, it's eerie.

Joe Rogan (0:15)

Yeah, I'm gonna do it again the next place I move. I'm gonna rebuild this whole thing again. That's my move, just make it look like this.

Steve Schirripa (0:22)

Make it comfortable, you know, you like what you like.

Joe Rogan (0:25)

It looks like the same thing.

Steve Schirripa (0:26)

Yeah, that way you don't get confused. Yeah, this is great, good to see you.

Joe Rogan (0:31)

Good to see you too, brother. I'm bummed out, though, about your sauce.

Steve Schirripa (0:34)

Yeah, yeah, I was just bragging to somebody about it the other day. We grew too fast, but you have two of the last ones left.

Joe Rogan (0:40)

I don't know what to do.

Steve Schirripa (0:41)

That one? Inexistent.

Joe Rogan (0:43)

Do I let it sit on a shelf?

Steve Schirripa (0:45)

No, no, no. Listen, the sauce was good.

Michael Imperioli (0:49)

It's all natural and organic.

Steve Schirripa (0:51)

It was all good.

Just unfortunately, it grew too fast, and my partner, we had enough. He lost a lot of money, but not for lack of trying. Order product.

Joe Rogan (1:02)

No, the product's excellent.

Steve Schirripa (1:03)

Let me tell you the biggest fucking thieves. Bigger than the mob, bigger than any thief, these stores that you do business with, and the distributors, and then you have all these people with their hand in the pie. So we buy the sauce, it's our recipe, that guy makes it.

Now we gotta give it to a distributor. You can't go direct to Whole Foods and shit, so there's other hands in the pie. Now you give them a bill for 20 grand of sauce that you gave them, and they send you back a check for three grand. And they go, well, there was breakage, and there was this, and there was that, and you have to pay more money in the store to have it in the front and have it stacked.

Joe Rogan (1:46)

Oh, really?

Steve Schirripa (1:47)

You pay more? You are fucked. Just like a book.

I've had books, I don't know if you, I have books out, Barnes and Noble. To save Barnes and Noble, you had a book out, you have a book out, Barnes and Noble favorite. You gotta pay more for that. To have the book on the shelf turned this way, you gotta pay more for that.

They nickel and dime you, and they fucking kill you. They are the real mob, I'm telling you.

Joe Rogan (2:12)

Are they worse than funeral homes, though? No one's worse than funeral homes.

Steve Schirripa (2:17)

Well, they tug on your...

Joe Rogan (2:19)

Heartstrings.

Steve Schirripa (2:19)

Yeah, come on, they was a great guy. Aren't you gonna have the nice box?

Joe Rogan (2:24)

Did you start out doing this just through the internet, though?

Steve Schirripa (2:27)

You know, we started in the stores. We didn't really, you know, we came to Amazon later. My partner... The trade shows. Joe Scarpe, Joe Scarpe being a great guy. He was here last time. My partner, he put up the money. He's a builder.

He said, we're going to make 50 million. We're going to sell the company, and he's got 50 million. And he doesn't need another 50

And...

Joe Rogan (2:51)

Got a little greedy.

Steve Schirripa (2:52)

No, he wanted to go... Listen, he's not a small time guy. It's all or nothing. So I give him credit for that.

Joe Rogan (2:58)

It's such a good sauce, though. It kind of seems like you should just do it online.

Steve Schirripa (3:02)

Maybe they'll make a comeback, you know? And like I said, if we would have stayed small delis, you know... It was doing great. Staten Island, you know, the biggest Italian area, you know, the Guinea gangplank there.

All them Italians ate jar sauce. Even if they won't admit it, they fucking like that sauce, right?

Michael Imperioli (3:21)

It's a good sauce.

It's natural. It doesn't have that acid-y thing that a lot of jarred sauces have, you know?

Steve Schirripa (3:29)

I did all the press. We did all the shit. I said if I would have...

Instead of being a partner, I should have made $20 an hour. I would have did well.