Christina Barnett

00:00Here's another Cali Sober story. Our paloma spritz totally bring in the citrus vibes, man. It's like a fizzy grapefruit party in a can. And it's going to be your new partner in crime wherever you go. From the pool to the mall. To the window. To the wall. To the sweat- Oh. Grab one and dive deep into the chill THC vibes. Because they're waiting for you. Then at the bottom of every can of paloma spritz. Enjoy responsibly. Welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio. The tastiest hour of talk in Music City. Now here's your host, Brandon Styll. Hello. Music City. And welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio.

01:01My name is Brandon Styll and I am your host. We are powered by Gordon Food Service. And we are really excited to bring you this episode today. With Christina Barnett. Christina Barnett is the owner at the Legendary Milkshake Bar. Downtown right off Commerce Street. Right behind like where the Demas used to be right there. And they are doing some amazing milkshakes. The out of control milkshakes. You see all over social media that are like a foot tall. With all kinds of stuff sticking out of them. She came on today to tell us all about. How that idea came about. And how she did it. And it was really interesting and inspiring. And hang out after the episode. Because I want to give you some more thoughts. And I really love it. Hope that you, hope that this is the last weekend. Dry January.

02:01Hope that you have made it through. Hope you're doing great with it. And if you haven't it's okay. Jump on. Finish strong. You can do it. I'm really proud of you guys. We're going to jump in this episode. Because we are. I don't have a lot to talk about today. But I do want to tell you. About the Chandler James retail team at Lean Associates. If you are out there. Now there's unfortunately this time of year. Or this time right now in this economy. This climate. We have some real estate available. There is some availability of retail shops and restaurants. And if you are in the market. If you're somebody who's an entrepreneur. You have a restaurant. You would like to have another restaurant. Or you want to open a retail shop. You need a broker who has their finger on the pulse. And Miller Chandler and Leanne James are Nashville natives. Lived here forever. And they are with the Lean Associates.

03:03They're downtown in the Batman building. They serve all of middle Tennessee. And they can help you find and negotiate the terms on your next restaurant location. They represent both retail tenants and landlords in our market. And they're amazing people. And I want to tell you about them. And if you want to get a hold of them. Here's how you do it. You can give Miller a call at 615-473-2452. Or you can send him an email. At mchandler. That's m-h-a-n-d-l-e-r at lee-associates.com. So here we go. Let's jump in right now with Christina from the Legendary Milkshake Bar. Super excited today to welcome in Christina Barnett. And Christina is the owner of the Legendary Milkshake Bar. The OG downtown Nashville.

04:06How are you doing, Christina? I'm great. Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited. Happy New Year. Happy New Year to you. This is exciting. It's winter time and we're talking milkshakes. That's true. It's never a bad time for a milkshake, though. Well, you know, because everybody just did Dry January. This is the last weekend of January. So everybody has been doing the Dry January. And I wonder, because one thing that people don't drink, they want to eat ice cream. I don't know what it is, but it's like people that stop drinking, like all of a sudden they turn to ice cream. Oh, is that a thing? Is that a thing? Have you noticed any of that happening? I mean, people just love ice cream in general. I guess it does help you get through. It's a comfort food. So if you're going through any kind of challenges or you're trying to get over something that's hard, it's a comfort food. Ice cream. I've tried ice cream in hard times. Yeah. Well, ice cream is just delicious anyway. Any way that you look at it. So I want to get into all of the things, all of the things about it.

05:08But when it comes to what you're doing, it's like I love Bloody Marys. I don't love Bloody Marys, but let's just say that I do love Bloody Marys. Somebody took a Bloody Mary and then they put like a crab leg in it and they put like a full steak. I love these crazy Bloody Marys. You did that with the milkshake. That's right. Yeah. Tell me where this idea came from. You know, that's crazy that you asked me that. I knew you were going to ask me that because that's the question everybody asks. It's a standard question. Yes. That's the number one question I always get asked. And I wish that I had a more exciting, like different answer for everybody so that content could be fresh and new. Well, maybe we can create one today. Oh, I'm very creative. I'm in the business of creating. So yeah, I guess that's a good segue into how I came up with this is just I'm a very creative person. Naturally, when I was a kid, just super creative. And then my dad, my mom stayed at home. So she was a stay at home mom and stay at home wife.

06:10And my dad was the only one that worked in the household and he owns his own business. He's owned his own business since he was 18. So I grew up in a that's just what you do. You own your own business. You work for yourself. You have full control of everything. And that's that's just how I grew up. That shaped my mindset. So add creativity coupled with an entrepreneurial, I guess, childhood and upbringing. And so when I went to college, I knew I wanted to own my own business one day. I just knew it. So I got a business degree. I double majored in marketing and advertising. Where did you go to school? University of Alabama. Real tight. I'm going to get in trouble for that one. Why? Where you went to school? We're in Nashville, you know. But yes, I went to UA, double majored in marketing and advertising. And that was just fun. I don't know. That was the creativity part. Marketing was like the the business and the financial and the operations part. And then the advertising was the creativity and the fun and just all the colors and all that kind of stuff.

07:14Part of it. So I feel like I was got a very well rounded education when it came to business. And then after I graduated school, I wanted to get some real world experience all the while knowing I wanted to open my own business one day. I just I've never worked in the real world before. So I worked for an advertising agency in Birmingham where I got to utilize my skill sets that I learned in college, get some real world experience behind all that. And then. So can I stop you right there? I worked for this advertising agency. What did you do for them? Because there's a lot of different things you can do. Did you find the clients to or did you did you do the creative side of like creating content for companies to advertise? I don't know what you did. My title was account executive. So I kind of worked with the clients and kind of I scheduled, you know, their I met with them, figured out what they wanted to do, helped them figure out what it was on the solutions to the issues that they had or the challenges that they were facing and what they wanted to do.

08:18So figuring out what they really needed, working with our graphic design department. So I wasn't a graphic designer, but I worked with them a lot. I was kind of the liaison between the agency and the client, helping them understand both sides, helping both sides understand what it is that they wanted to do. So let's say I have a restaurant and I go to this advertising agency and I say, I want to create an ad campaign. And then you create the ad campaign with the agency and then you take that to the news or you take that to Channel 2 or you take that to the Nashville scene or the Tennessee end and say, here's our ad. Yes, essentially. So a lot of the times businesses will come to advertising agencies and they'll be like, I want I want an ad campaign. And, you know, I want it to be centralized around this idea, but I just don't know what to do. I don't know what that's going to look like. I don't know what to say. So we sit them down. We have a whiteboard session in the war room and we ask them all the right questions and basically pull out of them all the information that we need to come up with an incredible advertising campaign that meets all of their requirements and, you know, provides a solution to their challenge that they're facing and just does everything that they want it to do.

09:33And then graphic design work, of course, you know, what's your company colors, what's your logos, what's your brand suite and fonts and all that kind of stuff. So it was an incredible experience. I loved agency life. I really loved my job. I got to work with all all different kinds of creative people. And we're in our 20s. Everybody's in their 20s and they're so we're so hungry. We're so driven. We got this fire in the belly and just all the creativity. It was really fun. And I worked directly with the business owners of this agency. It was kind of a small boutique advertising agency. So they had three partners and I worked directly with them. So I got to absorb like a sponge what how they ran their business, what it was like for them to run their business. And so I got a lot of experience, not just like creativity and, you know, advertising kind of experience and working with clients and guests and customer service experience, but just like how to run a business. Well, you get to sit and have all these intimate conversations with these business owners and you're you're asking where how do you want me to frame your business and what are your core values and what are the things that I need to.

10:41And you're hearing it from multiple different angles so you can kind of formulate your own. Oh, I see the really successful people do these things, these things. Exactly. When you watch the Super Bowl, do you just watch the commercials and are just like, who thought of that? What is going on here? Big parties. Super Bowl was like just a huge party. Everybody got together in the agency. We would throw and have all the food, have all of our friends and family come together. The agency would do that for the commercials. No one cared about football. I mean, I guess I'm from Alabama. You know, you have to care about football. We care about football. It's in our DNA. But there's a lot of people, you know, you get people on the creative side that they don't really care about football that much. We are there for the commercials and just just talking and fellowshipping. I don't know if that's the right word, but just doting over these commercials and analyzing and tearing them apart. And it was just a big it was a big deal. Well, that would be a lot for that world. That's like that's your Super Bowl. It is a Super Bowl for us, too.

11:41Yeah, I mean, watching that, just the geeking out on what I wonder who thought of that. And you see how they did that. You see how they did that. OK, so I'm establishing you have a very creative mind. Yes. And you are not just going to open an ice cream shop that's two scoops here, two scoops there. Yeah. You want to make it a full experience, full experience. Yeah. So the idea of and I stopped you were in the middle of telling the story of how you got here. And you said, I'm in the marketing. I did marketing. And I said, stop. Tell me about the marketing. So after you left marketing, let's go there. OK, so I worked there for about three years. And my dad, who is my my hero, he's my best friend. He's actually my stepdad backstory. He's not even blood related to me. But blood couldn't make us any closer. We're you know, he's just my hero. I look up to him so much and he was like, hey, we're from Huntsville.

12:41I live in Birmingham at the time. And he was like, hey, do you want to come work in the family business with me and learn how to run a business and maybe take over the family business? Because he's owned his own business for 30 years. What is that business? Custom home building. He's a general contractor. So the construction industry, which is a different industry than I've ever been in before. But I was like, at the time, it's Chip and Joanna Gaines. It was fixer upper. That was that was the thing that swept the nation. Everybody loved Chip and Joanna. And I was like, this could be so cool. We could be like the father daughter duo. Chip and Joanna Gaines style. Like, let's go fix up houses and sell them and do all this stuff. I could be really creative with it. So I was excited about it. I moved back home. It might have been just a ploy to get me to move back home. He missed me and I missed him. But I moved back home, worked with him for two years. I learned a lot, mostly that construction just was not my jam, which is OK. That's OK. You try different things and you learn a lot along the way.

13:41And you can figure out, you know, what you're passionate about and what you're not. I came into it little a little like high energy grasshopper. I was just like so excited and had so much drive. I wanted to make it work. But along the way, it's just like it presented a lot of challenges. I'm I'm in my 20s. I'm like 26, 25. And you're in a man's world. Construction like I'm working with the plumbers and the electricians. And I still got all this enthusiasm. But you're just like a little whippersnapper in their world and nobody wants to really listen to you. I imagine they thought that it was a little bit of a joke. But back then, but it's it presented challenges. And also, I just didn't feel very passionate about it. I was excited about the back end. I learned a lot about business, not even just construction. But I did the books. I kept the books. So I learned a lot about QuickBooks and the financial, like how to run a business from the back end of it.

14:42I learned a lot about how to treat your customers and how to treat your vendors and your subcontractors and how to treat the people that work for you. You can catch more flies with honey, you know, that kind of thing. Just general professionalism and business. Respect for other people and what they do and how you can partner with people, how you can. Yes, partner. That's a good word. How you can partner and collab with people. So that just opened my eyes to just business and you couple that with creativity. And again, like marketing and advertising, you have the business part and the creativity part. Like this was just like I came from the advertising agency, which was a lot of creativity. And then I went to construction, which was less creativity, but more business. And so I felt like after two years of working with my dad, I came to him and I was like, hey, this isn't this isn't what I want to do. I'm sorry, but this isn't just it. And he wasn't upset. He was like, I'm glad that you know this about yourself now. So he's like, what is it that you want to do? So then I was like, OK, well, now I got to think about hard about what I want to do.

15:46So I had a lot of business ideas. I mean, so many on my notes on my phone. I still have them. It's funny. I'll look back at them and be like, whoa, what are some of the ideas? Oh, I can't say. Oh, come on. If you're brainstorming, obviously you didn't do them. But I mean, like, where does your brain go? A school. I wanted to start a school for not like a private school, but not a not a government funded public school. But I wanted to start a school. That was one of my ideas. But we just couldn't figure out logistically how that would make money. It's got to be lucrative, you know. And I know schools can make money, private schools can. But why would you want to start a school? Did you see a flaw in public education and you wanted to be able to offer something that children could work? Did you want to do middle school, high school? Did you want to do K through 12? Like, what were you thinking? I don't feel like I got that far with it. I think it was just like a general school idea and probably just younger school, probably, you know, just elementary school.

16:46But not that there was a flaw in public education, more like there was I could see a demand. So in marketing, you know, my business, my brain from school is just like you find the demand, find where there's a gap, find where there's demand and create a business that meets that demand and that business can be successful and lucrative. And so I just I started seeing like in my research of like, you know, what what cool business, you know, what what business ideas are there? You start doing Googling and stuff like that and you're trying to figure out like where there is a gap in markets. There's so many markets out there, but where there's a gap and where you could meet a demand. So a school was one of them. There was a lot of like different food ideas, you know. But, yeah, eventually I came to this milkshake idea and was like, this could be really creative if we just took like your standard milkshake, but made it like bougie as hell and like really big and beautiful. And I saw some other like places that did a similar concept to this.

17:48So we weren't the first, obviously. But but I saw some other places that did a similar concept and was like, OK, so people are really excited about this kind of concept. And there's nothing like this around Nashville yet. So why don't we open one up in Nashville? I'm from Huntsville. So our target audience and all of my I get my when I put the business plan together like you, you know, you kind of determine what your strengths and weaknesses would be, who your target audience is, just all the things I learned from school. You know, and the target audience would be tourists just because of the labor intensive work that would go into making these milkshakes and just the price point that we would have to set for it. Just locals aren't just going to spend this much money on a milkshake all the time. So we need to go into a city where there's tourists. You always want an ice cream when you're on vacation. So we decided to open it up in the nearest largest city that is growing Nashville. And this was five years ago.

18:48And Nashville has just boomed in five years. But five years ago and I was like, I want to get as close to the tourists as I can. So location is very important when you start a business that has a brick and mortar like super important to have a great location. So we got a location in downtown as close as we could to Broadway. It's just like two blocks away. It's right there by on commerce, really like one block away from Broadway. And so I had the location. I had a really good vision of what I wanted to do. Had my business plan. Everything was ready to go. And I was excited because I was going to get to work with creative people. I knew that I was going to get to work with like college age kind of like closer to my age people, my generation. It would allow us to be super creative with these milkshakes. And basically it's like art if you've ever seen them. I mean, they're like milkshake artistry. It's incredible. It's it was perfect for my personality. It's fantastic for Instagram. Yes, I mean, it works really well on social media.

19:48People posting these creations and it's just in the summertime for me. I mean, I look at I go, God bless. I want one of those. Doesn't that make your mouth water like you want one? It does. That's funny. You mentioned social media. That was a huge it was and is still a huge tool for my business. And one of the biggest reasons I feel like my business has been successful is social media. And knowing that on the front end, I guess just I don't know, my my dad never used social media for his business. So that wasn't something that, you know, he was privy to. So the social media for this business, I just knew from college and from working in the ad agency, like they have their own social media department. Social media at this time was a huge deal. It's a huge tool and it's free. It's free for the most part. Yeah, now it's not. Now it's not. But five years ago, you get away with it being free. So all you got to do is make an account and post about your business and stuff and people will follow. And it, you know, indirectly turns into sales later.

20:49So before we even started the business, I'm talking like several months, I would make these milkshakes in my kitchen and like take pictures of them in my dining room and post them on social and be like, hey, guys, we're coming. We're not open yet, but we're coming. And I would post like every other day about it because I didn't want to open my doors and it just be crickets. I don't want to open my doors and it just be a dud. I knew that I had to get in front of it and get some excitement going so people would come. You know, I would have some business when I opened. So I did. And what I ended up doing just I was trying to be proactive and trying to make sure we had some customers when we opened. But what I ended up doing was generating so much excitement. I sent out press releases. You know, we're on the news and that kind of stuff. And I generated so much excitement using social media mostly that when we opened our doors, it just it's like the floodgates opened. And I was ill prepared for how much business we actually would get.

21:49I thought it would be like, here's your milkshake, you know, one customer at a time. And it wouldn't be like, you know, we would line up the door. All of a sudden you're in the weeds and it's like, how do I produce 15 milkshakes every 10 minutes kind of a thing? Yes. And it's a good problem to have. It was a wonderful problem to have. We're extremely blessed. But at the same time, it was a problem because I was like having to adjust very quickly to my environment and my challenges, not having any experience owning a business really at all. My dad funded this, but he was like kind of going back to my dad. I pitched this idea to my dad and he was like, let's do the milkshake thing. That sounds awesome. Like I had this whole presentation. I was like, this is why it's going to work. I'm really passionate. You like a shark tank deal with your dad? Basically. You have like a whole. Yeah. Here's your sharks. I want to open the greatest milkshake shack and all the land in a booming town like Nashville. Yes. And you found the location and this is what it's going to take. Do you want to be part of my success? Exactly. That's really how it went.

22:49Except for I didn't find the location yet. He helped me out a lot with that. But I was like, here's our target audience. This is what our price point needs to be. This is where we need to go, Nashville. I've already, you know, started the social media accounts like I can already tell you that people are excited about this. I've already made the shakes, you know. Where do you get your ice cream? Bluebell. Shout out to Bluebell Creamery's. They are fantastic. Okay. So all your ice cream is from Bluebell? Yes. Bluebell Creamery. They have like a peppermint bark, peppermint, some kind of a holiday ice cream. Yes. We just had that in our Christmas shake or peppermint reindeer shake. I was obsessed with that. It's good. It's like if you find it, there's like one thing at Publix and they have like one and then it's gone. Oh, you can always find it at Legendary during the holidays. It is so good. It is good. And we mixed it with chocolate. So it was like a peppermint chocolate kind of shake and it was very popular. But yeah, so I did kind of like you said, you know, pitched it to my dad. He was like, let's go. I'll fund it. You do everything else, like everything else.

23:50I mean, he helped along the way with some things, but it was basically we'll open and you run the store. You do all the hiring. You do the website. You do the social media. Everything. You do it all. And I was like, OK, you know, I'm ready. I'm so excited. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity and I was not going to take it for granted. So I gave everything I had to this. And so going back to social media, I because I was so gung ho about it, I started social media early, like really early before we started and got quite a bit of followers. I don't remember how many followers I had, but I generated a bunch of excitement when we opened our doors. It was just like I was ill prepared. I didn't have enough staff to meet the demand. We didn't even have enough chairs for everybody who came in there to sit down so that people were just waiting for other people to get up. And as soon as they got up out of the chairs, like they would sit down lines out the door down the street. It was insane. And I was I was on the register for we were open from 11 to 11, even back then.

24:52So 12 hours open to the public. But then you got to come in early and set everything up and then you got to close. And we weren't getting out of there until like two thirty three in the morning. We close at 11 p.m. and we weren't getting out to like two thirty in the morning. My husband was scooping. My dad was in the back doing dishes like you buy a place here in Nashville. I did. I did. Because you can't commute. I couldn't. No, we knew that on the front end. So we got an apartment two blocks away. So I lived here, my husband and personal background story. I'm kind of all over the place with the story, but I had just had my first child. So I was a mom for the first time and my hormones were all over the place. I was so like, you know, high pressure. And anyway, so my husband and my dad and my daughter, everyone lived back in Huntsville. So I stayed here at this apartment and I ran the business working 16 hour days open to close with minimal staff. And I couldn't I didn't have enough time to to hire anyone.

25:56You know, we were closed on Mondays at the time. So I had one day where I could do the schedule and schedule my staff. I had one day on Monday where I could like do phone interviews, where I could hire people and try to get more staff. But yeah, I guess I could have been closed more hindsight. I could have like closed the doors instead of, you know, being open six days a week. I could have been open just five days a week and give myself more time. But I don't know. That's not what entrepreneurs do, though. That is not what you do. That is not what you do. You make it work. You stay open. You make the money, right? Like if the money's coming in, why would you? And I say money. But if the customers are coming in, why would you close your doors? In hindsight, I could have. But I was just grinding. I was hustling. I was just grinding it out. Hardly sleeping. Definitely not eating. I was lost 30 pounds, which is fine. I just had a baby. I had 30 pounds to lose, but it was it was a wild, crazy experience. It was the hardest time of my entire life.

26:56We're going to take a quick break to hear a word from our sponsors. Sharpier's Bakery is a locally owned and family operated wholesale bakery providing bread to Nashville's best eateries. They've been operating in Nashville since 1986, providing high quality, fresh bread daily for restaurants, catering companies, hospitals and universities. Their bread is free from preservatives and artificial additives. Learn more at Sharpieres.com. That's C-H-A-R-P-I-E-R-S dot com. Or you can give Erin Mosso a call directly. Her number is 615-319-6453. That's Sharpieres Bakery. Well, today we are talking, as always, about SuperSource. And you know, one cool thing about SuperSource is did you know that they develop most of their cleaning products and chemicals in their in-house facility? They're environmentally conscious and only use dyes that are safe for the employees and the environment.

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29:10Campo Bravo is actually truly farm to bottle tequila, meaning our fifth generation agave farmers meticulously control entire production process from the farm to the bottle to give you the highest quality handcrafted tequila. Order through best brands and please remember to drink responsibly. What does your husband do? He was a paramedic at the time. Now he works for us. Now he's all in on the business. Yeah, he's in on the business. He works for his wife. I get to see him every day at our corporate HQ office. He keeps the books. He's kind of like my financial guy. So he keeps the book. He pays the bills. Where is your corporate HQ? It's in Madison, Alabama, right around the corner from my house. You still have the apartment here in town? I don't. I'll let that thing go. Okay. But I did have it for like two years though. So if you opened five years ago, let's see. You opened. I'm just timeline. Yeah.

30:10This is the story is coming into play now and thank you for going through this whole thing. I'm sorry if it was long winded. It's just important to have the backstory. I loved it because it shows. It kind of tells me your entrepreneurial spirit and that, you know, some people grew up and their parents worked for a company and they got a paycheck every month or every week. And that was just what they knew. You didn't know that you knew you own your own business. That's what you do. And that's kind of where your sights were set. And I think there's that there's a mindset there. There's an entrepreneurial spirit that just happens with that. And that's that follows through when you open it those 12 hour days and the 16 hour days and you just do it because it's your baby. And you put that work in and you built it to what it is. We are four years removed in March from a pandemic. Well, from the beginning of the pandemic. So you open this thing and you hustle and you get the thing going and it's it's it's great.

31:13And then March 2020 because I guess you open in 19. Yes. Well, I opened in 18 July 2018 in Nashville when all the kids are out of school. And that's why our doors just busted open. You know, we opened right in the middle of summer. It's a perfect time for it. It was great. Great time. And so you go into 2020 and I kind of stalked you a little bit on your LinkedIn page to kind of see. I wanted to get some more information about you. That looks like you had your second child right in the middle of the pandemic. So you go from owning this new business. It's a it's a ton of work and you get the thing going. And now, hey, look, we're going to have our second child and global pandemic. How was that experience for you running a business through all of that? Yeah, I mean, that's a second year of owning your own business. That's trial by fire. That sure is.

32:13It presented another challenge, which, you know, business owning. You always have the challenges. There's one thing I have learned about myself with the first challenge of when we opened and having my my daughter and not being able to see her and just grinding it out with this business that was relentless and demanding is that I just came away with so much confidence after you kind of let the dust settle and you look back and you're like, wow, I did all that. I never gave up. I know what I'm capable of doing now. I had just so much like so much confidence in myself. I still do. I know that I can grit and I can hustle. And I know I have those capabilities because I've done it before. But in the pandemic, I was pregnant. I had my son in June 2022. I was pregnant. 2020. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. 2020. Right. Yes. Well, you said they're saying I had the kid in 2022, like as in TOO. But it was 2020, right? 2020. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like 2020.

33:13Well, I was looking back on your Instagram and it was like baby shower on like March 17th, 2020. And it's like, oh, they don't have that. It's about to change. It is. The world's completely different in that time. The pandemic was it was interesting. And I think everybody all the businesses out there were just trying to adjust as we went along because the rules kept changing and, you know, oh, it's only going to be for a little a little while. And then it's like it ended up being a really long time. So in the beginning, what we decided to do as a business was a lot of the people that worked for me at that time, like when you're a small business, I think that you have just a stronger appreciation for the people that are working for you because they're they're working for you, helping your business generate money. And the money that you make goes to your children, you know, goes to ballet slippers, you know, it goes to stuff like that. It doesn't go to my second home, you know, in Colorado or Miami or whatever.

34:13It goes to like things that actually help. I don't know, my small little life. Yeah, to live with my children. So I just had so much appreciation for my team that was hustling and grinding. So when the pandemic hit, I didn't want to lay off anyone. I didn't want to stop their funds. And if we had the capacity to do it, I wanted to keep them on because it wasn't supposed to be that long. So what we did was we kept our team on for four weeks without being open with I think it was four, maybe it was six, somewhere in there, four to six weeks, we kept our entire team staff on payroll. And then it got to a point where we were like, guys, I just like we can't we can't we're not we can't do this anymore financially. We don't have the capacity to keep paying everybody. And we don't know how long this is going to keep going because the rules and the forecasting of how long this is going to take. And I say going to take, you know, I don't know how long the pandemic is going to last. Well, we're all in that scenario. We all tried to keep people.

35:15I want to do the right thing. And then for us, I mean, just to take over here for a second. Like for us, we kept people on in our restaurant. We realized that we were hurting them by keeping them on. Because if we laid everybody off, then they could all go on unemployment and they could all start making this the subsidy that was given out to people that were laid off for. Like people were angry with us because we stayed open and we were just trying to pay people to do things like just close so that we can just let us go so we can go make this money. And it was like, OK, OK, we'll do that. And that makes sense. And all of a sudden it was we were trying to do the right thing. And then we realized that we're kind of not doing the right thing, that we should just lay everybody off so that they can go make this. I think the pandemic was just on the daily. You just have to assess every day what's the right thing to do. It was very hard for everyone. My employees weren't angry. Maybe we didn't keep them on that long for them to get angry. But we eventually did close and lay off everyone so they could get unemployment, which was good.

36:20And then it was good because it lasted like several months longer. We didn't end up actually opening back until I think June or July as soon as we could open back up as soon as we could. Following all the restrictions and all the restrictions and all the rules, we opened our doors and I we made it through. Because as soon as we opened our doors back, people came. I mean, we didn't see a huge dip down in customers, even though it was excuse me, even though it was the pandemic. Just because, like I said, ice cream is comfort food. And then people are kept up in their houses and they're just looking for an opportunity to leave their house and go do something, get out. So ice cream was there. We were there basically, you know, to to serve the customers and provide them with a family experience. It's a it's a family friendly environment. So we actually made it through the pandemic, not as not as hurt as other businesses around us.

37:20And it broke my heart to see all these businesses that I had came to know and love in the Nashville community that didn't make it for whatever reason, for whatever reason, whether it was our location or just our business concept or the fact that it was ice cream or the fact that people wanted to go on a weekend getaway to Nashville downtown. You know, we made it through and other businesses didn't. And I just it was very heartbreaking. I felt a lot of guilt and a lot of like heartbreak for those other businesses around us at the time. But then we bounced, you know, everything kind of started to get back to normal bounce back. And now it's kind of like back on the on the same path. But Nashville is growing, which you would think you would think would be like really great. And it is really great because there's a lot more people coming to Nashville. So there's more tourism than ever. There's a lot more people coming. But then there's also everybody knows that. So there's a lot of other businesses that are opening in Nashville.

38:20So it's like now you're competing not with other ice cream businesses or similar concepts. Now you're competing with other businesses for people's time. It's like they only have a limited amount of time when they come to Nashville. What are they going to do? What's on their list of things to do? So it presents another challenge, you know, because that's easy, is it? No, but that's OK. You know, easy isn't all that fun. There's been several other concepts that have opened up that are doing similar things to what you're doing. Yes. You were the first one, though. We were. And I think that helps a lot because we were the first ones to the market. People are loyal to our business. I know a lot of my customers that come back. They're not repeat customers like they come every week or they come every day. Our locals try to avoid downtown like the plague. I have learned that. So they don't. Our customers aren't exactly locals and they're not exactly repeat customers like people that live around here come. But it's like the tourists that come every year with their families. It's become a tradition.

39:21So now they'll come to legendary milkshake bar and, you know, try another shake that they didn't try last time. And we're always changing our menu and updating like we do three new shakes every single month. So we keep it interesting and we're trying, you know, we're staying relevant with the time. Now, speaking of staying relevant, you're the legendary milkshake bar. Is there alcohol? Can I get alcohol in my shake? No, we still want to keep it a family friendly environment. I think once you add alcohol to it, you have a different clientele that starts to show up. And one of the things I really pride myself on is we came to Nashville. And that was one of the big reasons why we wanted to come to Nashville is because there wasn't a lot of family friendly things to do at the time. There was a lot of honky tonks, a lot of bars. You go down to Broadway and you can bring your kids, but you can't bring them into the bars or you can bring them into the restaurants. But the kids are like there's nothing for them to do, nothing for them to experience with you. So we opened Legendary and it was like all these families just started coming in.

40:23We're right across the street from Escape Games, which was a very complimentary business to be next to because we share customers. And you had Demases that was right next door. That was helpful, too. Because they brought a ton of people, families and they sure did. And they would eat dinner there and then they'd come to us for dessert. And Demas was a great shout out to them, too, because the people that work there were so nice to us. And they would give us like free spaghetti and let my team come in there and get sweet tea. And they would tell their customers like, hey, if you want a good dessert next door is like really great. Like they would send people our way. Nice. Yeah, I love businesses that help out other businesses. It's not about like competition per se. It's like we can all do well. Is anything going in that space? Yes. I don't think I'm allowed to say. Why not? I don't know. Just say it. Well, there is a restaurant going there, but I won't say which one. Is it a local restaurant? I don't know much about it. Probably not. Yeah, I don't know much about this restaurant. It's not a restaurant that I've ever eaten at before. So but I'm from Madison, Alabama.

41:23You know, it could be a big chain restaurant. I like the Cotton Row. Yeah, I do like Cotton Row. Commerce Kitchen is wonderful. That is good, too. That's good date night. You know your restaurants, don't you? Well, it's Huntsville. I want to do like a go down there for a week and interview a bunch of the restaurants down there. Just kind of like I want to do. I did an episode where I went to Destin and interviewed a restaurateur who owns Beauchamps. If you ever go to Beauchamps before, it's a fantastic seafood restaurant. But I want to do some more day trip fun places in Nashville and educate people on where to go that's locally owned and operated that, hey, if you're going to Huntsville, check these places out because these are where the locals eat. And if you want that experience. But Huntsville's fantastic little town. It's because most people don't know. Yeah, I mean, you said it. You're kind of a unicorn there. My wife's unicorn for Nashville, but nobody's from Nashville. There are people that are from Nashville. You're from Huntsville, right?

42:24I'm a native and so born and raised Huntsville. And like it's crazy because I was telling you before we started, like all the transplants that come there because they work at NASA, they work on the arsenal, like they're from anywhere but Alabama. And they move there. So engineers galore. Oh, yes, galore, which is fantastic. It's great for our city. It's booming. But it's just funny because when you meet someone new, it's the first question you ask is like, so where are you guys from? You know, you're assuming that you're not from Huntsville. When I'm like, I'm from here, people are like, really? Wow. Whoa, you're like an OG. I am an OG there. There's a there's a place called the Bridge Street Town Center. Is that what it's called? Yes. And it's a little place there. It's a neat little it's like an outdoor mall. And around the Christmas time, they decorate the whole thing. But there is a movie theater that like anchors that whole strip. There's like a Monaco, the Monaco. Yes. That was the first theater that I've ever went in that like they have an upstairs VIP area that's like adults only. Yes.

43:27And they have the big comfortable chairs, but they have like a full bar. They have like a wine system up there. You can do wine by the ounce and it has all these different wines and you have a full bar and they serve you food. You can order shrimp sushi restaurant downstairs. And it's like you go and you just sit in this whole VIP experience upstairs and have food and drinks while watching a movie. And I was like, this is really this was 10 years ago that you had. That means probably longer. But 10 years ago, when I first saw it, I first walked into the Monaco. I was like, what is this? Now we have stuff like that in Nashville. But that was kind of ahead of its time. That feels very similar to like legendary milkshake bar. Like when I first started it, that was the feel. It's like this place is doing these crazy milkshakes. I took a milkshake and like it's a whole experience because you go in and you it's not just a milkshake. It's like this beautiful presentation of milkshake art. And we want to take a picture and post it on social. And that was another great thing about the business is like social media was so helpful because people would take pictures.

44:29And I come from a marketing background. So I know like you put that logo on the front of the jar. And when you make that milkshake, you decorate that milkshake to that logo in the center and make sure it's beautiful. You don't put chocolate sauce on the logo because you can't see it because it's dark. So, you know, just everything was so strategic and so intentional. Intentional. Intentional. Yes, great word. I love the way you brought that back to the conversation to the milkshake bar too. Great job. I'm really good at this. Great job there. Thanks. I guess going off on a tangent about Huntsville and you're like, let's bring it back to the milkshake bar. Oh man, was it that obvious? I was trying to be subtle about it. You did a great job with that by the way. It was really nice. But it's true though. Like I feel like the same mindset that people have about the Monaco and like things that are different. That's a different experience. You've never experienced that at a movie theater before. It was the same kind of mindset that people had for our milkshake bar. And now you said now theaters do that kind of stuff all the time. They're everywhere. They're in Nashville and stuff. And now there's places that do milkshakes that are similar to ours. And they're, you know, all over the place.

45:31So you're a trendsetter. Yeah. I mean, it is a trend, but I don't want to be a trend. I want to sustain. I want to last. I want to, you know, grow, you know, through the tests of time. So it's that's another, you know, great thing. Well, you're expanding. I mean, you've got it. You've got a second location in New Orleans. It looks like you're about two, three blocks off of Bourbon Street in the French Quarter. Yes, we are in the French Quarter. Again, location. Very important. You want to be where the tourists are that are it's very convenient for them to just walk by and come have a milkshake. So how's that business going down there? It's going well. It's going well. We're we're new eight months in. I keep thinking it's like six months, but it's more than that. Now we're eight months in. We're coming up on our first Mardi Gras season. So I'm really excited about that because we opened in April. So we missed Mardi Gras last year. But man, we're coming up on Mardi Gras. It's starting to get busier. Yeah. And I'm really excited about it. And we got some fun things, you know, coming out for special shakes that are Mardi Gras. Like a king cake.

46:31We have one on the menu. It's called the king cake shake. Yeah. Nice. So we have that on the menu, but we're, you know, we're going to have some some more Mardi Gras themed, like exciting things going on for Mardi Gras. But yeah. And then we also have like a banana foster shake, which is a New Orleans exclusive shake. That's kind of a French kind of dessert that's very popular down there, like banana foster, king cake. You got your bread puddings, like things that are just very New Orleans, you know. So that shake does very well, too. And so, Mark, you've got New Orleans and then coming soon, I imagine this summer. Oh, are you talking about Miami Beach? It's about Miami Beach. Oh, coming soon. More than the summer, like a lot sooner than that. We're I'm hoping for this month. We're finishing up construction. And if, you know, construction, you know how that goes. But there's always delays. But I'm hoping for the end of January or early February for Miami Beach.

47:32And yes, that's our third location. I'm really excited about that. So since it's January 29th, we're probably pretty close to that right now. Yes. Yeah. Yes. Record a couple of weeks before this, but it's OK. I'm sorry. Edit that out. No, it's OK. We. So you might have it open in time for people to take their Valentine. Yes. We're going to get a legendary milkshake. Take your Galentine's. Take your Valentine's. Yeah. It's a perfect place to go for Valentine's Day because it's just a little different. It's not like something that it's not your standard run of the milkshakes. It's it's a different experience. And it's something like for birthdays, Valentine's Day. Like it's something great to do with. You want to make it a special occasion. You know, what is your favorite of your go to absolute favorite milkshake? I get this question a lot, too, especially when I'm on the register. And it's like, y'all, these are my babies. Like all of them are my babies. Created them in and just I love them all.

48:32It's hard to pick flavor wise. Dang, this is hard. While she's making up her mind, we're going to take one more break to hear a word from our sponsors. Fat Bottom Brewery just released their Daisy Hazy IPA six point four percent alcohol by volume on the 26th, which was National Daisy Day. Y'all, I know we just had a ton of snow, but we are moving closer to spring and the Daisy Hazy IPA is here to break us out of this cold and move us into the spring. And they have it right now available for you. You can try it at the tap room over in the nations or you can order it right now from debt distributing. This is their seasonal release Daisy Hazy IPA from Fat Bottom Brewery. At What Chefs Want, they deliver the seven most needed product lines to meet the unique needs of chefs and restaurateurs.

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50:39Listen, Robins knows how hard industry professionals work every single day. They also know how devastating accidents can be. Be it a grease fire that damages the kitchen, a severe storm that cuts off power, or a customer slip and fall incident. But with the extensive experience and the savvy to create a policy that protects your business from accidents like those, you can rest easy knowing that the work you've put in will not be for nothing. Visit Robins website at RobinsINS.com to request a consultation or call Matthew Clements directly. His number is 863-409-9372. Protection you can trust. That's Robins. OK, my favorite. I'll give you a little a little tip here. My favorite is the sweet and salty cheesecake, which we are taking off the menu. I'm doing a menu revamp, so I haven't really announced that yet. Go get it now. Get it now while you can. We're taking it off just because the sweet and salty cheesecake, of course, it has a cheesecake on it.

51:40But what makes it truly unique is it has like potato chips around the rim, which people are like weirded out by because it's like potato chips on a milkshake. That's weird, but it's delicious. It is. If you think about it like fries and a frosty, I was about to say, think about it. French fries and a frosty like it's the closest thing you can get there to like french fries and a milkshake. And I love the sweet and salty combination. That's just the way my palate works. So I love that one. But just because I love it, it's been five years. It doesn't sell very well just because of the weirdness of it. So I'm taking it off and kind of add something else that's a little different. But I think people will like more. Do you have any secret menu items? So like like if I'm in the know and I want to come in like I like it like it in and out like the animal style or something like, do you have anything like that? Of course we do. We certainly have a secret menu and it's exclusively for our followers. If you follow us on social media, we post about them all the time. So you know what the secret menu is if you follow us on Instagram, TikTok, you know, all the things.

52:44And also there's a link to our secret menu on our website. On the website, there's the standard menu, but there's also a hidden link. If you find it, you can click on it and see our hit our secret menu. So it is kind of fun. It's exclusive for just the followers and the people that are loyal to our business. So you are you are into TikTok. Yes, well, of course. I mean, I'm not dealing with it. It's so funny because like I feel like it's such a medium that people are everybody's on, especially that a certain demographic of people. If you're not on there, you're just missing out on a ton of it. And you see a lot of these restaurants businesses start to get on there. It's almost like what Instagram was 10 years ago. It's like, oh, that's for the kids like it's it's growing fast for everybody. People have to understand that the kids grow up and they start making money and they start making decisions on where they want to spend that money. So you have to you have to get and I don't mean kids like, you know, 10 year olds.

53:47I don't like want to try to like market to them. But, you know, the kids, the teenagers, you know, one day they're going to be making their own money and they're going to be choosing where they want to spend it. So never, never too late. Start branding to them. It is never too late. No, if you haven't started to talk, I really I believe that you should. It depends on what kind of business it is. If my dad, you know, he's in the construction. But yeah, he's in the construction business. So I don't know how well to talk would go over for him. You know, his clientele is a little bit older. You're building houses, you know, that kind of thing. But we're a fun, energetic, super creative business, and that just aligns really well with like that demographic. So when they see our content, they get excited about it. They want to share it. They want to follow it. They want to engage with us. I like to talk for a business. It's a great tool. Personally, I don't have one. So I have that like that like battle, that internal like battle with like what I do personally and what I do business is different because I have my own like personal feelings about social media in general.

54:57But then I also love social media for my business because it's such a great tool for business and getting in front of people and, you know, recall and recognition and all of that. Just letting generating awareness about your business. But you have to use social media. That's where everybody's that's where their attention is at. People aren't really watching TV anymore. They're not reading the newspaper. They're not listening to the radio. They really fast forward through ads anyway. Yes. So like exactly. So you have to go where the people are putting their attention and that is TikTok right now. What do you think the biggest mistake small businesses can make right now when it comes to social media? The biggest mistake that they can make. Well, I feel like the biggest mistake is just not having a presence at all on social media. If you're starting content or not having content, not having content. Yeah, not having. Yes. Yeah. Not having a presence on there. I have a friend, my best friend in the entire world. She is the manager of a restaurant in Virginia, and they're not really active on social media.

55:59And I tell her all the time, I'm like, girl, like, you've got to get on social media. Just well, I want it to be perfect. I want my post and my content to be absolutely perfect. And I don't have the time to make it perfect. So I just don't post. And I'm like, it's not about being perfect. It's not even it's it's not even about intensity rhythms. It's about consistency. You consistently post. It doesn't even have to be every day. But if you consistently post every other day or every two days, but just having a presence on there consistently and having the people that do engage with you engage with them back, like talk back to them. People ask questions. People make comments. And I think that's another business mistake. You know, you rest on some businesses out there have a social media presence, but they rest on their laurels. They just post stuff. And then people, their followers are like commenting or they're asking questions or they're engaging in some kind of way. And you don't write back to them. You're not you only just did half the job like the other part of the job is engagement. It's going to make them feel like you're their friend, you know, in social media.

57:04That's what it's all about. Like a business needs to engage with their customers to make them feel appreciated, make them feel heard, make them feel special. Like, wow, this business wrote me back. Of course, we're going to write you back because without you guys, we don't have a business that's engagement. It's engagement. So it's like a mutual beneficial thing. You give them what they need, which is, you know, attention. Unfortunately, social media, a lot of people come at validation, but you give them that and then they feel good about your business. And in turn, they'll want to come visit you. It's just it's just logical to me. It's it's a thing. I think another thing is review. Like when people leave reviews, replying to those reviews, whatever avenue, whatever medium they're putting them on, if it's Yelp or if it's OpenTable or Google is a big one. Yeah, we respond to every Google review that we get. If we get a review on Facebook or something like that, we'll respond to that. Unfortunately, we're not able to like respond back on Yelp. But yeah, I don't know why that is.

58:04Yeah, I don't know why that is. I have a marketing director who helps me out with all of this. So she responds back to all of our reviews and she helps generate the content and the posting on social media and all of that. So that's another like level up, you know, in a business you cry in the beginning, you're grinding and you're hustling and you're doing everything yourself. But as you grow, getting a team to help you helps scale your business a lot bigger. You know, you can grow more. We can go to New Orleans. We can go to Miami because all of my time is not contributed to just social media and responding back to the reviews and all that. I have a person that can help me with that. So my time can be contributed to growing the business. So like as you're going along, it's important to grow and bring in trustworthy team members that can help you grow your business. It's not just I learned that along the way. It's not just me. It was all on my shoulders there for a little while. But, you know, I have a really strong team behind me.

59:04My managers, you know, I don't have to manage my business anymore. In the beginning, I did. I was the general manager for like nine months. I lived in Nashville away from my family for like nine months. I didn't have a manager. I started the business. I was the manager. And the reason why I strategically decided with intention to do that is because I didn't know how I wanted my business ran. I had never ran it before. So I think it was really important for me to figure it out myself what was important in the business so I could train somebody else to do it the way that I wanted it to be done. That's the whole reason you have a business is because you want to have control. I'm kind of a little bit of a control freak. So you train them the way you want it. And then and also it gives you that like, I know what it's like to have to clean the dumpster because I've done it myself. Like when they're complaining or when they're like having a struggle with something, you're like, I know I've been there. I know what it's like to not have as many employees as you need. I know what it's like to struggle with people not showing up.

01:00:04Like I've been in the trenches myself. You can relate to them on a different level than if I would have just if I would have just hired a manager out the gate. I wouldn't know personally any of this stuff. So it's really important for me to like do it myself. And then I hired managers and I got so much easier. It got so much easier after I hired a manager. And then, you know, social media, it got so much easier for me after I hired somebody to help me with that. So bringing people on your team that you trust that can help you grow this business is really important. Well, I have thoroughly enjoyed learning all about you and your business and the intentionality behind it. It's inspired me. I think it's if you have a goal and you work really hard and you're very specific and intentional and you you don't accept no for an answer and you just get it done. You can you can do anything. I think you really can do anything. So, I mean, I think there's a lot of people out there who are chefs, line cooks, sous chefs who want to open their own restaurant.

01:01:06Like, I don't even know how to do it. And I think you hear a story like this. You're like, put a business plan together, identify what you're going to sell, how you're going to do it, project out what this is going to cost. Find an investor like do that shark tank presentation. Rabbit hunt this whole thing out and put that business plan together. Google how to put together a business plan if you don't know. Yeah, there's templates everywhere. Just fill it out. You know, it's it's a thing. But I love your story and I really appreciate you coming in today to tell your story. The final thing that we do on the show exciting is we have the Gordon Food Service final thought. OK, which is you get to take us out. So whatever you want to say, as long as you want to say it, you're speaking to the entire audience. You get to kind of surmise whatever we've talked about or just say whatever you want right now. Oh, that's exciting. Are you sure it's for as long as I want? Because I can go forever.

01:02:06I really liked what you just said. And I think I want to I want to kind of piggyback on what you just said about chefs or, you know, people in the restaurant industry or just anyone out there, anyone out there that's listening to this. If you feel inspired and you want to start your own business, go for it. I think speaking from personal experience, I was nervous. I was scared. I was young, so I was driven, but I was nervous. I was scared. And I was like, man, you know, maybe I can't do it. How do I even start? You know, and because you're so scared of the unknown and you don't even know how to how to start it, you just decide, you know, well, I'm just not going to I'm just going to keep going the way that I'm going and knowing all along that that's not what you really want. Life is short. We only get one life. You have to you have to go out there and and take what you want. You have to make it happen. You're in control of your own life and the way that things go. So you can actually create the life that you want if you just go out there and do it. Take the first step, which, in my opinion, if you want to start a business, just do a business plan and see what that's like.

01:03:13Figure it out that way and then just keep continuously going. It's not about intensity. It's not about getting it all done in one day, just consistency. So you just take the next step and then the next day you move a little bit closer to that goal and a little bit closer to that goal. And one day you will eventually get there and just keep growing like me right now. I mean, like I've accomplished one could say I've accomplished the goal of opening up Legendary. But then after Nashville, we opened up a second location. And after we did that, we're like, let's open up a third location. You just keep going and keep growing and be consistent and just go after it. That's that's really all I wanted to say. That's really it. That's all you had to say. I hope every I hope people feel inspired by this. I really do. Well, good. Well, I am. You have one right here sitting across the across the table from you. And thank you again for for making the trip up here to have this conversation. And I cannot wait to go in and eat over there and check it out and do the whole thing.

01:04:18Get your milkshake. Yeah. And if you're you know, if you're going to continue on the dry January thing and that's if that's something that you're doing into February, ice cream is a great thing to do instead of going and drinking. So you can continue on and still go out and have fun. Go get some ice cream. You're downtown on Third Avenue, right next to where the old Demas used to be before the new restaurant that's coming in that we're not going to say no is going in. I don't even know the name of it, if I'm being honest, but I know it's a restaurant. But yeah, it's there at Commerce and Third Avenue North in Nashville and New Orleans. We're in the French Quarter. Miami Beach will be on Lincoln Road. So location is very important. Crushing it. Thank you. Christina, thank you for joining us. And best of luck in the new year and your new locations. Thanks for having me. I had so much fun. And we had so much fun, Christina, having you here on Nashville Restaurant Radio. I said to hang out after the show, kind of hear my opinion.

01:05:19And this episode really inspired me. Let me tell you why. Let me tell you why. Because I was listening to it while we were having the conversation. I was thinking, man, this isn't the I grew up. My grandmother made ice cream and I've always had a passion for ice cream. So I decided to start the legendary milkshake bar. It wasn't that story. It was very strategic. And it was I wanted to find something I want to do. Nashville had a growing tourism and it was a really hot spot. And you're at Huntsville and this is the place to do it. And we found the location. And I thought it was brilliant how she said, do a business plan. So if you're out there right now and you want to open a business, you want to be your own boss, you want to be a business owner, write a business plan, Google it, figure out what you want to do, start doing some work, figure out what it is and go do it. She is living proof. It wasn't easy for her, but she made a plan.

01:06:21She executed at a high level. She was determined. Made it happen. And I was just like, hell yeah. It was really, really fun and inspiring because you know what? You can do it. Anybody can do it. Just get up there and hard work. Be strategic. Be smart. Have people you trust. Give you good advice. Get out there and make it happen. So hopefully this episode you got some of that out of it. And I'm so excited to learn more about her. And we'll do a check in once she opens her third location. And thank you for listening. We hope that you guys are being safe out there. Love you guys. Bye bye.