-It's a trip to almost get
chicken coming out the grease at the same time
they're ordering the food, so that it's always hot. You rarely will come here
and see chicken just sitting on the back. I hate when people
have to wait. I love it when I get it
in your box and you still have
the bubbles on it. I love it like that.
-That's all we put in the name, always fresh, hot, and good.
-There it is, baby, it's the brand. ♪♪ -My name is Kermit Mogilles, and I'm one of the owners
and operators of McHardy's
Chicken & Fixin's in New Orleans. -And my name is
Alvi Anderson Mogilles. -All I wanted to do was chicken,
and I mean whole pieces -- legs, wings, breasts and thighs
and French fries, that was it. In any business, if you're going
to have sustained operation, you have to evolve,
so the things that we do now in terms of the menu
is really Rahman's creation. I guess we're -- we're partial
because Rahman's our son. But it is fascinating to me to
this day to see him orchestrate -- and use that word
very selectively, orchestrate
the operation. People come in
and just are in awe in seeing how he can control
the flow of everything. My name's Rahman Mogilles. I primarily do all the cooking,
prep work, a lot of the frying. This is my livelihood,
I love it. And I continue to do it. This is what we do,
this is what I do, I love what I do. And believe you me,
I've had a shit ton of fun. Gimme that neck, stat! My name's Alanna --
Alanna Mogilles -- I'm the daughter --
or the second one. These are our TVs
for the menus. My dad, he was going
to pay someone to install TVs and do all this -- I was like,
no, we can do this ourselves. My sister, she's the, like,
real technical one -- I just come up with the idea and my dad is the muscle part who's putting up all that stuff, 'cause I cannot reach
to put [indistinct]. -We've been fryin' chicken
since 2000. [ Crunch ] It's a home style fried chicken. We have more chicken
than batter. We take a lot of pride
in what we do with chicken. We serve a lot of it. You know, this is comparable to
what you would fry at your house,
just maybe a little better? But that's -- you know, because this is what we do. ♪♪ So this is like
a regular morning -- waking up,
getting to work. Good morning, Mother.
-Good morning. -[ Laughs ]
-They filming? -Yes, they're filming, baby.
-Oh, my gosh. -Say "Good morning."
-Good morning! -All right, so right now,
we have about 600-plus pieces
in this ice chest. So we just try
and keep the rotation, keep the chicken fresh,
keep it good. Ooh, I hate this part! You know, like we say,
the six P's, baby: proper planning prevents
piss-poor performance. She loves it when I say that. Legs -- one, two,
three, four, five... -Family businesses
are very difficult. You see, you oughtta
change your shirt. -I'm workin'.
-[ Laughs ] You are with your family
the whole day. I try not to think about 'em
some days, you know what I mean? -[ Indistinct ]
-Ah. Oh! He called me "mother." -I didn't?
I mean, I dunno... -And then, for all of those
out there contemplating
a family business... [ Snickering ] Think twice!
Three times! -Myself, my mother and my dad,
we are -- sorry -- are the only ones that really
know the exact increments. -I think I know a little bit
of it, but... I know the basics. -I like to start off
with the big pieces first. I don't like to put
a lot of chicken in my flour. My seasoning blend,
I blend it into the flour. I'm real anal about
the temperature of my stoves. I like to have my temperature
set at a certain level, certain temp. I fry a lot of times
off of feel. So, I've actually taken
the numbers. So this one will be
right at about... 295, 300. This one will probably be
around 325-ish. This one here will be on, uh,
a higher temp, which is where I get my crisp. Believe it or not, that'll make
or break your chicken. Temperature. You can either have banging-ass
pretty chicken, or you can have some dark,
burnt, ugly-ass chicken. Prefer the nice, pretty chicken. I need a hair net. -Thank you, love. -Like my trademark --
my hair net. My family hates it because I do
interviews with a hair net on -- I'm on the news, whatever,
I got a hair net on, they're like, "Daddy, why you
wearing a hair net?!" I'm like, "Eh..." Keeps my hair in. ♪♪ -About 20 years ago,
in a past life, I was a commercial banker. I got tired of going to credit
committee meetings and board meetings,
and so I said to myself, "Self, what am I going to do
if I don't do this?" I finally decided that
a passion of mine was food. Alvi came from
the educational system. This was not her passion,
but she joined me in this. -My first master's was before
he was born -- 1977, Tulane School of Public Health
and Tropical Medicine. 1986 I graduated again
from Tulane, but their executive MBA program. Since I was not always in this
business, I questioned myself, why in the heck
am I in here, you know? And when I first started here, both of them left and I
was still doing cleaning detail. And I'm like,
"Oh, my gosh, I have two master's
and I have to clean the toilet? What is this?!" -Grandma, she's the glue that
holds this place together -- no offense -- but she is--
-She's right. Hands down.
-She is the literal -- -That is the perfect analogy: she is the glue that holds this
bad boy together. -We are just the pieces of paper
that need to be held together. -Damn! Girl, go 'head,
I'm gonna use that! -I didn't even think I was going
to like being a grandmother. I was a career kind of person,
but love of family makes you do certain decisions. Um, I love my granddaughters and enjoy
spending time with them. I always tell 'em, I said,
"Nonni might bite during the day, but I'll enjoy
you when we come home." -Let's get some chicken
in the grease. Grandmother had a really banging-ass
fried chicken recipe. So we took that, and he had
the idea, like, We can make money off of this. -People would say to me, "Man, that chicken tastes
just like at my grandmother's." That was the concept. And to hear people reiterate
that is just unbelievable. -Well, when my dad started it,
I was in school. But then after I graduated,
you know, it was like, boom, we're gonna
get in there, we're going to make this happen. That's the no-salt fries
for Mr. Walter. It wasn't necessarily
my dream to do it, but it was that family thing that, you know,
"I'm gonna to help." -Rahman is truly a thinker
and an innovator. The difficulty for me
is that you have to listen to so many things,
some of them so outlandish, but the reality
is you never know which one is gonna
really work. -So these are
how I cook hamburgers. These are skillets
that we developed and made. I welded a stainless steel
basket inside of the basket. I use the oil
as a heat catalyst. It heats up the metal --
in turn, heating up the metal, now I have a skillet. Me and my dad,
we don't always see eye to eye. -He has a... a dictatorial type
of demeanor when it comes to this operation. -I'm the only employee that mans
the fryer station. My mother says,
"Y'all are just like." -And I feel like that's true,
like -- -Shut up.
-You are alike! -We're not!
-Like, sometimes we bump heads --
-Watch your tongue! -Sometimes we bump heads
'cause we're alike. I feel like we agree
more than we disagree. But then sometimes
we do disagree. -Us two, yeah, we agree more,
but me and my dad, we don't always agree. -I feel like
you're stubborn sometimes. -I'm very stubborn.
-And he's stubborn too. -He's extremely stubborn.
-I'm just not that stubborn. -But... -We're stepping back and he's
stepping forward by design. I've learned,
and Alvi has, too, that if it was going
to work successfully, only one person can call
the shots in terms of operation. That's him. -I've been in the restaurant
since I was like six years old, probably before that, but --
-I have pictures of her -- -Standing on a milk crate.
-Matter of fact, eye-height with the stove -- she couldn't even see in
the stove, she has a little hand --
-Yeah. -And I'm like, "If the grease
pops, it's going to hit you in the face, baby. -[ Indistinct ] I would say my plan,
as in for my future, is I do want to come back because I've been here
since forever. -I told you don't bring that
basket over that lip. -I am sorry! But my plan is to basically
bring it to the future. I want it to evolve and to make it
as big as possible. I want McHardy's
to be sure. Job wise,
I haven't figured that out yet. I'm 13!
[ Laughs ] -But she's going to be the star. That's what
she doesn't understand. This is gonna be her show. And I told her that earlier. Being able to pay for them
to go to college, to where they can come out of
college with no loans, for me to be able to do that
with them is what keeps me, like I say, in this restaurant,
day in, day out. That and a James Beard award,
hopefully. Hint-hint, everybody out there! -I've always felt that
the American dream was to own something, to create a business,
as opposed to working every day
for someone else. This is the American dream. You're only limited
by your ability to be creative, roll up your sleeve
and take the risk. And, um,
we've been fortunate. -One thing my dad said,
you know, starting this, is that, "You --
you pick one thing, son. Pick one thing
and do it better than anybody else" --
-Pick one thing rather than picking everything.
-See what I'm sayin'? But you gotta --
you have that one idol. So for us, it's chicken.
And I feel as though -- -And that's
what we're famous for. -Can't nobody fry chicken
better than me. You know, this is like
a non-stop show, and we put this on every day. Everybody have
they game face on. But at the end of the day,
everybody's still smiling. -It's because of the family bond
that we have, we support that
and it's blossomed. And for that,
we're very grateful. ♪♪ -For the most part,
my job is a babysitter: I babysit the chicken
in the grease. So when their parents
come buy 'em, I ship their
little bastards out. -For the most part,
my job is a babysitter, I babysit the chicken
in the grease, so... When their parents
come buy 'em, I ship their
little bastards out.
That chicken looks so damn good.