Food Fight: The Combative Relationship at the Heart of the Chain Restaurant Review Podcast Doughboys

They’ve gone from recording at Mitch’s dining room table, to recording in-studio after being picked up by a network (from the disgraced Feral Audio to now being on Headgum), to doing a full three years’ worth of socially-distanced episodes in the wake of Covid. They’re back in the studio now and hitting their stride. The long-distance episodes were still great (a lot of credit is owed to Erdbrink for making them sound as natural and fluid as they ultimately did), but the show has what feels like a born-again vibrancy, a newfound sense of gratification from Nick and Mitch as they’re once again able to feed off each other’s energy in person. Fittingly, they’ve also introduced video versions of episodes on their YouTube channel, and are wrapping up an east coast tour where they’ve sold out venues like Palladium Times Square in New York. There has never been a better time to be a Doughboys fan. 

It may be an obvious statement to make about a podcast that the appeal of the hosts is what makes it great, but it feels doubly true for a show like Doughboys. There’s an accessible concept—two non-food-expert comedians debating the merits of fast food chains—and a wide-ranging, eclectic ensemble of guests—including LA comedy stalwarts like Scott Aukerman, Lauren Lapkis, Nicole Byer, and Paul F. Tompkins—but Nick and Mitch are what give the show its unique perspective. The pair ground the podcast in a strange and surprising emotional pathos if you keep up with it for long enough. 

There’s a candidness the two bring to the table, regarding both their relationship with each other and how the state of the entertainment industry has led each of them to be financially reliant on a podcast that the duo constantly insinuate feels actively detrimental to their own health. It’s not uncommon for the topic of quitting the show to come up on-air, and there was a time when Doughboys seemed like it had an expiration date. But as a working-class writer and actor, it’s hard to let go of a steady source of income others of their position likely wish they had. Nick and Mitch, in a refreshing change of pace from so many lukewarm neoliberals or flat-out bad actors in the entertainment space, are persistently clear about their solidarity with the laboring class.

Both have trouble reconciling that their podcast partially relies on the work of underpaid wage workers and, with Nick a WGA member and Mitch a SAG member, both have been seen walking the walk on the picket lines during the current writers’ strike. Nick has suspended his usual scripted intros of the show in solidarity with the strikes, instead offering a “Neat-O Fact of the Week,” which is typically related to how studio executives keep taking home more and more money while the working writers keep getting less. It sounds like a joke, but there’s good reason to designate Doughboys as the podcast of the people. 

But really, it’s Nick and Mitch themselves that have taken the podcast both to its closest breaking point and ushered it into consistent success with a considerable listenership. The two bicker constantly, their clashing personalities coming to a head regarding what the construction of the show should look like, or over how Mitch is always late, or how Nick is too nitpicky. Their annual year-end episodes are ostensibly a yearly review of Steak ‘n Shake, but often see the boys assessing the state of the podcast and their relationship with it. Back in the day, this kind of episode turned exceedingly fraught with conflict: Their third visit to Steak ‘n Shake in 2016, sometimes known as “The Blow-Up,” resulted in maybe the harshest publicly available Doughboys episode, and at the time seemed like a clear signpost that the two were too incompatible as coworkers to make this show work. But even then, such as now, the episode saw them exonerate themselves of their grudges and burdens, exorcizing the bitterness from their discord live on-air.

The two sync up in pleasant harmony much more consistently now, and besides, the show has never been purely defined by full-throttle arguing that you may imagine it be after reading about it up to this point. On the contrary, the podcast is at its best when Nick and Mitch are able to lock in together on a particular stupid bit or tangent that goes on for way too long, veering the course of the episode entirely off-track in a manic sense of goofy inanity. It can be absolutely joyous nonsense, and also frequently insightful about the state of both the food and entertainment industry. But their intermittent quarreling gives the genuine displays of a friendship a much more fascinating texture because you intrinsically know that you’re listening to the conversations of two men who frequently put in active work to make that friendship function. 

Right now, the podcast isn’t showing any signs of slowing down, and 2023 has seen the output of some of their best-ever episodes. They’ve been walking a confident tightrope between concord and playful antagonism—which occasionally still slips into actual vexation. But that dichotomy is what oils the Doughboys machine, and what keeps its listeners invested in these two men. 

In the most recent annual review episode, in which the show goes into the most bluntly self-reflective mode it’s seen since “The Blow Up,” Mitch recounts a recent conversation with Nick that they had after finishing a meal at Fazoli’s for the show. Mitch asked Nick: “Are you done with the podcast?” To which Nick responded: “I’m in a good place with the podcast. I’m in a better place with the podcast than I’ve ever been.” Nick’s sentiment continues to ring true with each passing week, and Doughboys is more of a delight than ever.