Dottie and Kasi

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02:18You're listening to Nashville Restaurant Radio. The podcast that's not about food, it's about food people. Now here's your host, Brandon Styll and Crystal DeLuna-Bogan. Hey, it's Brandon. And it's Crystal. Welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio. We're back. We are back and you know what, we're back on a Wednesday today. On a Wednesday. You know why? Because it's National Farmers Market Week. It is and we have already done the interview today. This is directly after the interview because we didn't have time before the interview to do the intro. Oh my gosh. I'm so I'm excited because I've always like just have thrived as a chef off of like whatever's in season. Like that's just the kind of I know a lot of us are like that but like it really inspires me you know to whatever whatever is good when it's good that's what I want to work with. To know what our National Farmers Market managers are doing in town to like make it something for everybody to enjoy.

03:21You know like I'm really inspired as like a mom to like make sure that I'm bringing my daughter to farmers markets. It's an important thing. Our kids we go like I said in the interview we go every Thursday to the Bellevue one if I can go. My wife goes every Thursday to Bellevue with the kids. How's the Bellevue one? Yeah. There's a bit about the Red Caboose Park and they have a whole it's a huge farmers it's really awesome. They did that one. They do trucks you know. On Thursday? Yeah. Thursday nights. Okay. It's pretty cool. That's my local one. It's like five minutes from my house and so it's it's great. But I was so the passion that these women have towards what we're doing is so amazing and I just enjoy it. So this is farmers market week and normally we put episodes on a Friday but I was like you know what forget it. Let's do it today like let's put out today because I don't want to put it out on the last day. Yeah. So it gives people time to like get out there. Yeah. Get out there and go support the farmers markets. I mean this is a big deal. You know and it's hot right now. It's hot in Nashville right now but you know what it's it's more hot for them. They're like out there you know it's like I feel for them so much right now. The elements are working against everybody and they're they're showing up so we need to show up.

04:27I need a Cafe Cheesery update. Okay. We pushed the opening back two weeks. Okay. Okay. And yeah it was a big deal and there was a lot of people involved in that decision that we're not super happy about it. Why? You know because stuff just stuff you know just everything just you're working with so many different vendors and people that the tile needs to go on before the specimen machine gets put in and the water lines and the you know like it's all going to come together the same week which is like a miracle but it's happening and we also have had some just internal management stuff with like some health issues. Our GM's grandmother passed the day before this meeting and she's gonna have to go. It's just stuff. It's a life and we just you know Joseph and I my husband just we look to each other really just like this is like human issues that are going on right now like we are not.

05:28Why would we push these people that are on our team our core team to help move us forward. Why are we gonna push them so much hard like we have we really like internalized and we're like this is a family and we can't why would we push it like let's just hold it off a couple more weeks and then it'll give more time for the signage to come in. We were already pushing him to finish you know the LED line. It's two weeks is not the end of the world. It's fine. It's fine. But it's like you know when there's so less when there's so many people counting on you and we're inside of a you know a museum that is like counting on this for their patrons to come in and be I mean it is a lot of pressure it's a lot of pressure you know it's a lot of money and I mean it's like more weeks that we're not making money when we cost us a lot of money to not be open. We're trying to open Chagos. We we had too much electricity. Oh like the amperage was not enough for the equipment everything we double the size of the kitchen. Yeah. And so we needed more electricity and NES said you need a new box.

06:29We're like okay we'll come put a new box in you know they go no no no you need a new pole to put these things in and we're like what do you mean we need a new pole there's a there is a pole right there can you attach to that pole now you have to put a new pole in okay well can you do that do you have a pole you can put it and they said yeah but it's gonna take six months. Six months. We're like we don't have six months they go you can find your own pole so we they gave us the specifications what kind of pole they needed and then we bought the poles ten thousand dollars. Oh my god. We then you have to have it put in you know this gigantic pole so we put the pole in and then the guy comes to install it and he goes this is the wrong size pole no we said excuse me like what are you talking about story of every restaurant openings we gave them I showed the guy this is the specifications thing he goes oh yeah that's not the right one I don't know why they did that and I'm like who is they you are they this is NES NES gave us this it's not a well that's a different department I'm like I don't give a shit who it is like this is the specifications NES gave me and now you're telling me it doesn't work so we then had to have that pole removed you know how hard it is to get a electric pole removed it's not easy it's not easy and then to find a bigger pole there's no poles available so we had to find a pole in like Arkansas and then to bring this pole in on a truck and it was like more than the initial pole we had to put that in and he asked us like not our problem oh you need it faster it's on you and sorry we sent you the wrong spec but that's not our and it was just like that's not my problem anymore yeah and we've announced we're gonna open you're like we didn't know we needed a new pole like the getting all of that stuff done it's crazy like the stress because it's out of your control to the most it's somebody I'm gonna pull in a lot of things out of our control like you know we obviously are making decisions based on timing and everything but you know what your people also have other holdups and there's other elements that that you know they're working

08:30on other projects oh this project was extended we can't do it to this day it's it's just a lot of that and you know like I said this is like my fourth or fifth spot we've opened up it's not this is not new this is not shocking but it's still still stressful like it doesn't get any easier I don't know like it just you forget it's like having a kid you forget how sleepless you were and how how like you know how crazy it was and then you're just like we should have another kid like this is exactly this feels exactly the same thing like I'm like why did we do this you know are you trying to make it some other announcement today no god no oh my god you I would be on the floor if I had one more thing that's like you know what Dottie's gonna say Dottie Dottie is our social media manager and she manages the truck bookings and stuff and so she's with me a lot we work really closely together so she knows I'm like if there's just one more thing you know and just like random shit that people are telling me I'm like I cannot absorb any more of whatever you're saying like our food truck had to get fixed and the food truck guy was like texting me pictures of something I was like why are you texting this to me it's a stressing me out and I'm not even the one that you should be talking to about this you know but now it's like in my head and you know oh we did our annual meeting yesterday or our quarterly leadership meeting yesterday we have a facilitator we work on the EOS model from the book traction shout out to Justin Cook who is our EOS and Hunter the dude is amazing yeah I love him traction by Gina Wickman at the EOS process but we're there at 9 a.m. and we go until 4 well we hadn't IDSed everything that we need to IDS IDS is an acronym for identify discuss and solves how we issue resolve so we have this huge as we go the whole day we create all of these issues that are up there we don't address any issues while we're processing everything and say we drop it

10:30down so we go well that sounds like an issue cool let's drop it down we write it on a board at the end of the day we identify discuss and to solve solve all these issues well it's like you know 415 and it was like hey are we done Justin said I'm here till I have a hard cut off at midnight if you guys want to keep going you know and I was like yeah let's keep going but at 552 my brain felt like jello it's so much process and I just raised my hand I go guys I I'm done I just want to tell you guys like I have nothing left in my tank like I've been here since it's it's sick we've been here for 10 hours you know I am or nine hours of in a room with five people going over stuff I go I was here to stay till 10 but like mentally yeah I'm done like I need we need we need for me after this point is gonna be mush but I feel like I need to tell you you're not getting productive my brain is like jello we need to move on like so did you guys cut it off or we had two more things like an announcement we concluded the meeting we wrapped everything up and did the whole thing but at some point you just kind of got to go I'm done and don't keep trying because you're not putting your best that's not the best effort you can put forward so I feel like that every day around seven o'clock yeah oh I can't process anything because I've just been like you said I think we talked this last week you're talking to so many people and solving so many problems in quick time of like okay I got this oh I got to order this thousand decisions a day thousand decisions a day and you're just that point person me and Joseph are point persons on different things and so you know things are okay that's not working the right way let's fix that you know there's okay just so many things and then equally I'm testing so this week I'm testing the whole menu for cafe to three so I know where I'm eating lunch I know no it's not no not yet I want it's like it's like I these are from the page I have all

12:32the product in you know this is like from the I'm I'm all of the portions are getting worked out right now you know everything's getting weighed so like you know when you need a tester let me know next week next week because because it's like you know this is step one it's not and then I have some changes notes and so me and Joseph usually do that together alone so we don't have too many outside and then the third you know that the next time we bring in more people because then it's like I'm I'm proud of this product but what do you think you know like right now I'm like important this isn't this isn't hitting like I thought it was gonna hit on the page I thought this would be different so but there was some surprise ones that were like oh this is it and if I'm not like eating it and like walking around being like stop this is amazing this is amazing like if I'm not physically like excited it doesn't go on the menu well I will tell you that I had lunch at the grilled cheese you did and I had the El Pastor melt yeah the pineapple pepper jelly it's so good it is like the most delicious the crispy you know the crispy bread how it's cooked like and the staff was so friendly I said that I read the whole you're so Nashville if episode what are the whole in the Nashville scene I read the you're so Nashville if cracking me up neither you or I were mentioned so it's okay okay that is like the only time I'm like please we were mentioned like the second year we were operating like it was something where I was like is this the good or bad good or bad like you're so Nashville if you stand in line at the grilled cheesery and pay you know it was like you know I would I'm never gonna tell you if I go eat there because I know you're gonna offer to pay for it always and I'm not going to do that I'm going to come in I'm gonna pay for it and then I'll go hey I'm here cuz I don't want you to do that me and Sarah Worley from biscuit love have this ongoing joke that like I will sneak in and like cognitive if I want to order something cuz she'll be so she wants then mode me money like shoot it was it's like it's a joke it's a joke at this point cuz you know she's like no I'm

14:36canceling the ticket I'm like stop like you paid cash I say no she'll like go in and find my card and like I was like stop you know like so like we definitely don't tell each other when we eat at each other's place that's why I didn't tell you funny at this point you know like we all we're very like you know it's like we want to support each other's businesses stop I also don't be shamed because I'm ordering a hopscotch every time I'm like again like hopscotch just why don't you guys just get a bowl of vanilla ice cream like butterscotch is so good yeah and we make that from scratch like I like it's so good I love it well it's good it's a good one anyhow it's stressful opening a restaurant is stressful end of story but it is it is also like you know I'm finding those moments of like it's exciting and we're gonna start training and that's a whole nother bowl of you know fun in itself but I can't eat so what else is going on I will tell you that I think last week we talked about Randy Rayburn and the fact that Randy Rayburn passed away and there's gonna be a celebration of life it has been scheduled it is gonna be August 26th from 5 to 9 p.m. at urban grub okay and can anybody go I don't know the details on that I know that I imagine since it's you know a long time and he has so many people I think it's available anybody that wants to go who wants to pay their respects and I'm sure see it's gonna I think it's gonna be a zoo a lot of people you know at the Music City Center I pass it every day now when I'm on my way to the first and they have this big in memory like picture of him that flashes on that big screen so every day I'm gonna like I have a little thought so like just my quick Randy Rayburn story because I feel like we all have one you probably have a million of them but mine is that you know the grilled cheesery is in the old Sunset Grill yes it is and so it was really important for me

16:39when before we opened that he would come and eat before and I would get his kind of like stamp of approval so he did come in and he was so gracious and he was telling us oh in this spot was used to be this and that like he was just telling us like the lay of the land like how checking out the build out to you know the building and so he got to eat I forgot what he ate I don't remember but all I know is he just took so much time and sat with us and just me and Joseph he was just so gracious and just so lovely and would always come in and check on us and just was so happy for us and it was just like just such a like I felt like I got a stamp of approval that we were in this building that had so many memories and that was all that mattered to me I didn't really care I was like as long as he's good with it like yeah I can totally see that yeah I did my rehearsal dinner in the spot that is now the grilled cheesery that see that's in the back room of Sunset Grill is where you were and where that restaurant is like that's where we did our rehearsal dinner like right where your restaurant is was where I did a toast and all that stuff 2005 there's so many cool people come in or like I went on my prom pre-dinner yeah I was over there and I'm just like oh my god this is so cool like so many so much history I kind of feel like that building's haunted but like whatever but you know like what building is it haunted but you know we're all often we're like you know just like it's haunted like but I need I need some help we're gonna move on from Randy I love Randy but that is the date for the celebration life if you haven't heard that's when it is this weekend Friday and Saturday in your neck of the woods is a pretty big time hello it's tomato fest ah the tomato festival and since this is coming out today we can talk about it because it is happening it's I'd like to make it I'd like to make a confession you've never been I've never been I knew you're gonna say it's too damn hot and I don't like tomatoes I need to know the deets okay what is going on with the tomato art festival what is it okay there's

18:47nothing like it let's just say that there's nothing like it we've been at the grilled cheesery food truck has been at every single one since we've been business it's run by like the best people ever that are all East Nashville locals basically and they put on the it's grown from it being this tiny little festival right in front of Bongo Java where like Marche is and then restaurants would do was was Marche was and and Margot it's like that little center five points it was really just five points and some you know some tent vendors now it's basically like all of that East Nashville area like it's it's spread out so far that I can walk from my house to it and be a part of it and that's the whole idea it's like you can walk to it it's a community focus it's kind of quirky it's kind of weird everybody dresses like a tomato so there's like I would not be okay when I'm wearing today drag contests there's like I dress like a tomato contest I mean there's all these like weird dog there's a lot of why tomatoes what is the significance of the United are not the divider it's a fruit and it's a vegetable it's the and then people decorate their houses and there's like okay for like who like you get an award like East Nashville people decorate their houses like there's it literally looks like Christmas time in East Nashville right now about tomato so my son's birthday is we celebrate every weekend this weekend his birthday is the 12th and so Friday night we're doing zip lining in Bellevue at the Adventure Center so fun so we're gonna go do that Friday night and then Saturday morning my next turn I've got a wedding and then it's the day we do his party so it's always that Saturday I don't know if it's always that Saturday of tomorrow giving excuses as to why I haven't been because this sounds fucking amazing it's and it's weird you know like I love weird I'm weird it's still weird and there's like a there's a race is a 5k so like there everyone's like dressed like weird tomato things and like

20:49dressed and they're like running and then usually the food trucks will start serving so we're serving those people and there's tons of food trucks tons of food all the restaurants in East Nashville are doing tomato specials I mean I know I know Margo always does something cool she does tomato dinners like she always like she's the mayor of East Nashville in my in my heart so like you know she's always doing agree that statement yeah she's always doing something cool Hal's gonna Hal's doing something you know like we're all doing something the grilled cheeseery we're doing a blt a pimento cheese blt with porter road butcher bacon which is local that so we try to get real East Nashville with it I'm on the East Nashville I live in East Nashville so I have these funny pictures of me like pregnant like super pregnant just sweating just like in a tomato outfit just like I think the weather's actually gonna be a lot nicer this year it's just and then oh and last year this year I did a pickling tomato demo like chef demo a tractor supply hired me to do that and we gave out like free to like jars to every but ball sponsored it we gave out jars and people could pickle their own tomatoes it was really cool I wish I would have done it like I mean I'm very busy right now but like I wish maybe we'll do it next year well this Friday and Saturday the high on Friday is 87 and the high on Saturday is 83 stop with sunshine people have been like it's like fall fall weather fall weather for the tomato art fest this year is a dream I mean to the point where they aren't allowed like they're saying not to bring your dogs but now it's too hot yeah because it's too hot 83 as a high so I mean that's at three o'clock it's gonna be three four they were like warning people not to bring their dogs because the dog there weren't enough water bowls for the dogs to drink but this is amazing it's gonna be a beautiful week the high yeah it doesn't get above 90 again until next Tuesday that's so nice for the food truckers isn't that great so if you're if you're listening to this and you haven't looked at the weather yet this weekend is going to be amazing get out to a farmer's market

22:55go out to the weird east Nashville tomato art festival dress like a tomato wear your reds and your greens and by the way you can't buy tomato stuff like you literally people are making this stuff like I mean these are homemade costumes I can't just go to like JC Penny and buy a tomato costume I've tried to like buy tomato decorations for my house because I'm like I want to do it I they don't sell them like you have to like someone has this massive inflated tomato that takes up their hundred percent of their yard like I'm telling you it's like Christmas time it's like my skeleton in my front yard like you know the national lampoon's Christmas vacation version of like what's going on it's like ridiculous it's hilarious I want to do that so bad no it's like it's it's it's I mean I'm talking tomato fashion drag outfits it's insane it's so cool um is it like a morning thing through the afternoon is that a nighttime thing is there drinking what's going on oh god there's drinking I mean the Bloody Mary contests there's I can imagine yeah they're really really proficient on their Instagram you know they should art fest with all of there's so many happenings that they are you know it's so I know I think it starts at nine or ten and it goes to like seven on Saturday but on Friday it starts later it's like five to ten so okay like Saturday uh Friday it starts later it's like after work kind of thing and then they have like bands and I mean they close the whole street down you're really cool if they have like tomato dodgeball where you like these big tomatoes and like you have like teams and people are through tomatoes each other and you could be having a tomato champion or if you had like a tomato duel who had tomatoes and they had to walk 10 paces trying to chuck it at the other person and yeah I mean I'm not I wouldn't be surprised if this stuff was already happening you know I don't know if it is but uh and I know there were like chef demos one year and there's always like big sponsors so there's like people giving out free stuff like Publix last year was giving out free waters and stuff I don't know it's just like a whole community

24:56vibe it's great um but it's a I highly recommend it especially with the weather being this way and try to like kind of far like patronize a local restaurant and then like kind of walk in because the parking is insane over there it's like imagine or uber or uber I think there's some uber codes on the tomato art fest uh instagram they're giving out like codes and just schedules of everything so um definitely partake this weekend it's going to be wonderful if you're visiting I don't know if you're listening this you're visiting from out of town but um yeah I mean tomato art fest page is at tomato art fest yeah that's it's very simple to find yeah that's usually how I find out what's going on like what time to march over no pets yeah so they did say by the way no pets are allowed service animals are allowed now the difference between a service animal and an emotional support animal as a service animal is if you have to have the animal if you're blind and you're I mean I'm just saying whatever your disability might be if you have to have that animal to function if it's a part of your like a wheelchair like if I need this animal to walk that is a service animal if it's your cat that makes you feel better when he's around the cat at home the cat needs to stay at home yeah the dog needs to stay at home so no pets for their safety and then I think yeah also they were you know a lot of they were trying to like people were trying to put out water for them and it was just getting kind of like too much for them so there's full maps on here on the actual page it tells you there's more go here's people talking about it tomato tube there's a tomato tube channel oh yeah oh wow I'm looking now at all the people in their tomato outfit this is rad no I'm telling you it's like the weirdest coolest thing that I feel like when I first went to it I was like what is happening this is amazing and it just it it's just grown so much I mean they're like classes like schools like local schools in the area they'll

26:57have like all their class will dress up and like be a part of the parade that happens and you know like our little friends dressed up like heirloom tomatoes all the little kids dressed up like old people with tomato costumes on it was so cute like heirloom tomatoes it was really cute we have uh there's a Bloody Mary garden party at Lakeside Lounge at from 10 to 12 on August the 10th that I said this Saturday so that's a morning thing like from 10 to 12 Bloody Mary party at uh at Lakeside Lounge I mean that sounds this is really cool every and every restaurant I bet you go to in East Nashville is going to probably have a tomato special so you know I know redheaded strangers definitely doing something um ever you know fried green tomato this is your time to eat them 21st year 21st year isn't that wild this but I'm telling you it's officially of drinking age that they shouldn't they did they do anything the festival can drink the festival can drink anyways I don't know but it sounds really cool and um time to get out there this week yeah be part of community anything else happening you got any fun plans coming up besides opening a restaurant I mean Luna started school this week I mean your kids started school this week yeah I have fourth and fifth graders my last year of elementary school for one of them that's kind of sad is that for you like they're getting big oh you know what um they are getting big it's all part of everything I don't I haven't really taken I've been so damn busy too I haven't processed it I'm gonna be more present I'm like should I be more emotionally like upset about this I feel like just relieved that she's like busy and like having fun you know I have a I have a business coach yeah I know I'm jealous that I go to try to siphon all your business advice from you so I don't have to pay for a business coach well she said the other day I had this this this is something that just fucking rocked my world um I had I had to let somebody go the

28:59other day a pretty important position one of my restaurants and it was a black or white like situation where it was a policy procedure and it was just like it was a thing and I had to let the person go and I'm in this meeting telling her I'm like and this and I and this and this and this and she goes wow a lot of things are happening to you aren't they and I knew what she was doing she was like you sure sound like a victim right now hmm look at all this stuff that's happening to you it's not about you yeah and I was like well I have to she's like okay let me ask you a question she goes what part do you play in the result that you don't want so what part do you play in this situation that happened to you I went I how do I fix that she goes there's a role that you play in this there's a role that you play by your actions the culture everything around it what is your role that you play in the result that you don't want and man I haven't been able to recover this is like a like more intense than therapy oh it is oh and she will call you on your shit she'll say hmm no you're you're deflecting because you're refusing to face the fact that when you made the decision to do this the chain effect was that so next time it's all about learning from what you did and then next time so I had to sit and think and I'm like what is it and then my brain which is insane starts going into every aspect of my life where do I have results that I don't want and what is my role in that and how do I understand this this and this so I have tried to make a lot of changes based around that just in in in reflection in meditation and hey whoa what is the what is the process there like reflection change you know you know the one thing that I've learned so much from this coach is just emotional regulation and I talked this but like when you feel yourself getting excited or down taking three minutes yes and taking a deep sitting down or taking your

31:05shoes off and standing on grass yeah and just feeling the grass in your toes taking a deep breath feeling the sun on your forehead taking a deep breath holding it for three seconds and then slowly exhaling doing that three times while standing there feeling your breath and everything will completely regulate your emotions and you'll go back into whatever you are doing with a completely different perspective and I'm like oh my I don't have time to do that on a Friday night yeah but I can recognize when other people are like so what what part do I play not recognizing when somebody is at a point to where this is the thing that they need to do and how do I proactively connect with people on a better level and maintain those relationships to where they feel the trust to come to me if they're having a problem that's interesting because I know the situation and and depth of what you're talking about and I it's blowing my mind how you could have prevented that I could have if if there was a level of trust in that relationship that could have brought the person to me before the act was committed because they felt that it like the act that was committed was something that was clearly the person's not something's going on I don't know what it is but like I don't know what it is that's my fault how come I don't know that it's there's something greater and they came to this result because of that situation I totally hear that as a leader though what can I do differently in that scenario to prevent that from ever you're not gonna do it 100% of the time and it's fine I didn't do anything I don't feel like I'm not sitting over here going damn it I could have my fault yeah but what can I learn from this particular scenario that might prevent that same scenario from happening in the future yeah and how it's going to be a bitter distrustful person exactly so what can where can I connect with people better where can I do these things what part do I play in the result that I don't want and that's a that is that deep is your freaking I'm like I'm processing right like it's a whole happened to me last week where I was like I'm glad I had the time because if I didn't have the time to process that I would have probably ended in something I think most counselors or most people

33:10would say I'm sorry that sounds terrible wow what a terrible like that's really hard for you now you have to be the GM for the weekend oh my gosh therapists that do that I don't want you to like I want you to come back at me I want to get better and so this person her name is Debra Sunderland by the way she coaches if you're curious about this it is the 15 commitments of conscious leadership is the actual process around it and it's about being a conscious leader versus an unconscious leader it's a being above the line versus below the line and it's by you to you or through you things are happening by me which is of my own volition this is what I want they're happening through you which is it's a whole nother separate thing and then it's having to you things you can be a to you leader everything happens to me why this happened to me they use the word they a lot they did this they won't let me they were like well a lot of things are happening to you insert yourself into the solution find the answer and I wish this was like just protocol for having to be in a restaurant like you know what I mean like I feel so many of us are ill prepared and then have to come to this after the fact you know because this is like mentally what we need it's such a like the mental awareness like that we need yeah to be in these positions and be making all these decisions and you know guiding people and I just feel like god I wish everybody had access to this kind of information you know well you know it it you start feeling confident one day you're like I got this I'm doing great I got three restaurants I'm doing all these things and then you sit down you're like oh I have a lot to learn like even like I'll never stop that and it's to me like that's such a fun journey to recognize deficiencies in yourself or where you can get better and like I'm just constantly just thirsty for it like I just want more and more and more of that but it's emotionally taxing so draining to do that and so for me like I've really tried to intentionally find time and I have the doors on the top off my car and sometimes I'll just go for a drive

35:14notice that I'm like what happened to Brandon's car looks like a lego it's so fun it's like a atv I get to just drive around looks like an atv which is so cool it's really fun I got these little pegs that sit on like on this so when I'm driving like this you can't see me right now but I have like a peg now that I can put my foot up outside the door it's so crazy I'll show you when we're done I'll show you I just I'm just thinking like how would I put a car scene in here no car seats allowed yeah my car is the opposite of your car I have like snacks everywhere I have like you know oh well it's my wife's car backup clothes yeah it's fun though because when you have the top and the doors off the car like anytime we're going anywhere we're going out to dinner taking dad's car oh yeah the kids like love driving in the car with no doors and oh my I mean if my daughter saw that she'd be like oh my god all right I'd be like you're not you're still five like you cannot try okay well the car they they love it and they'll like put their feet out and I'm like hey don't do that stop yeah they're flirting with it so much fun driving to soccer games and stuff so fun shotgun it's just uh I mean that's the most that's so yeah you have dad has a fun car for sure yeah so you weren't so hip this week with new school I know uh just being around a lot of new like moms for the first time in kindergarten they were like real you know it was a lot heavy for them and I'm just like I'm so glad she's taken care of you know and her teachers and you know I'm excited for you and she was nervous and you feel those in her you know you absorb all their emotions and there's new schedules and there's a lot of um like what's app groups that I had to join for all the mom things and I'm I'm just like I am I this is a new world did you see my sister oh my god new we're best friends me and Stephanie still Brandon's sister our kids are in the same kindergarten class and your nephew is the cutest thing ever

37:16and he was so nervous but so excited he was like the first one to want to like walk in the door so yeah he's rowdy rowdy so he's um at the table next to Luna's and um they're gonna be their classmates they're little mangoes their classrooms called mangoes they're in a Spanish immersion class so they're gonna both be fluent in Spanish like very soon that's incredible and already like her pronunciation is like I'm like okay all right like like got it yeah I love it it's really really great and Stephanie is just so funny and she's just like I don't I mean I kind of knew her but now we like really know you know I feel like we're really gonna know each other and she's off she's also not like a I don't think I'm a super mom like there are some super moms that just like are on top of everything her and I are kind of at the same level of like it's a lot right like a lot of shit we have to know now my mom my wife is like not the president but she's like the leader of the board of the elementary school she would be like she does all the spirit and she's like she's like the chairman of something and like much respect for always has these board meetings and she's all over the place and organizing things and I'm like oh it's so overstimulating like I had a meet you just have to just you know and you're like new and kind of like want to not impress but you just want to let people get involved and hey look I'm well I also am like I have no free time right now so I can't do what you probably need me to do and like I feel really apologetic about it you know and and some moms are like the mom this mom who's like the head of the you know the the whatever the parent teacher organization she was like my husband's a chef I understand don't worry like he's a chef at the one hotel don't worry I get it just you don't have time because she's like I've been with my husband where he's opened a restaurant and he's not home and he's now you know like it's so it's a thing thank god she understands the lifestyle you know so Mike my my kids teachers I think they they feel like they win the lottery

39:20when my kids get in their classroom yeah yeah you bring all the the podcast stuff and all the restaurants well no but for yeah for like you know all of the for Christmas and all the different things because you have a gift card yeah yeah yeah we get the greenhouse grill guy in our class this is awesome the mayor bowl guys in our class I would so they all for Christmas get gift cards to the restaurants and stuff you know yeah like teachers I remember my mom was a Montessori teacher in town here and she was like oh did you know these their parents own this and I got a gift card I mean it makes like I can tell you we really appreciate these teachers are so it's the least they're amazing we can do yeah and I mean you know to invite them out to it's not like a hey do something special for my kid I don't it's not like I'm the guy it's a genuine appreciation and please come support our restaurants we love to have you but like yeah thank you for what we do totally do you know what you know what Stephen does and you'll never and I don't he'll probably mad at me for saying this on the podcast every year at Christmas time we go around and there's 25 schools that he goes to in our community for marable and greenhouse grill and we have to walk into the principal and we give them 25 25 dollar gift cards to 25 schools wow so we walk in and give them 25 20 year cards no strings attached one of our core values is we love our community so this is a use these for whatever you need if you want to throw a party raffles what is you have a parent that did something use these for no strings touched we don't want anything from you so cool 25 restaurants 25 25 dollar gift cards oh I mean that's a lot that's a lot that's very generous if that's your core value that like what he wants to do yeah and like I after I feel like it was you know we had a re you know buy back our business kind of thing last year and we're kind of recent like that is so where we're headed right now like we're we'll talk more about this when it's more developed where we're going to do pto Tuesdays and we're

41:22going to pick a different pto every week we do that on Mondays inspired by you yeah and I just feel like the parent these organizations are doing so much and they're so I mean these they're going to rally their whole families to come in and it's going to be great on both ends and I could bring the food truck to pick up line oh my god on Tuesdays the food trucks pick up line Brandon do you know how crazy the pickup line is no parents would freaking kill me they're like waiting in line for 50 minutes just to get through like oh I know if I know I know I maybe I'll do the like chick-fil-a thing and like go and go to the like hand out to the parent line it's so crazy because our pickup is at 350 right but the line starts at like 245 250 nobody talks about these pickup lines no one told me about this it's my favorite time of the week if I get to pick the kids up I never picked up but if it's stuff done in your car or what I have an hour to sit in my car to sit in your car and what do I do well I could just write emails and talk on the phone like and I have no distractions it's like I have to just sit in my car and do it that is not bad at all and since my car is electric I can keep my air conditioner on and because everybody else has turned their engines off they do because you can't just sit there and idle in the line like it's like a whole fume so they have to so I my car is electric so there's no so I can sit there with the air conditioner on and do all the stuff and I feel like oh wow my little special yeah popping doors off doesn't matter but so Luna is taking the bus for the first time and she is a freaking champion because that is scary oh yeah also there's multiple buses and this one kid like got off and it wasn't her stop and we had to like make sure and I'm just like now I'm terrified I'm like oh well my wife we we did the bus briefly my wife told me she said everything I learned about sex I learned on the bus oh and every cuss word I ever knew I learned on the bus and every fight I was ever in was on the bus and I'm like I'm pulling her off and when she's how old I mean like five no I'm just Brandon this is high school middle school I don't know but she was like I learned every bad thing I ever didn't

43:26know on the bus I get it when you're like eight nine ten eleven twelve like I get they're starting to wonder this stuff you're kind of by yourself really you know you're like you're around just kids there's no adults on the bus other than the bus driver who's obviously driving so you're kind of like in this little you know it's like your little little private space over there and so I get it so we won't do the bus at that point we're doing the bus now because it's like oh it's super helpful it's like the greatest thing in the world the bus is like far you know like it isn't it is a close school we chose the school because of the Spanish immersion you know part and it's such a wonderful school and you got to learn that stuff sometime anyway no random you got to I don't want it from other little like creepo kids like I wanted to learn it the right way we've had the come we've had to have the conversations because other creepo kids have explained them we've done it we've done it like when they're five six years old it's crazy okay so if you're listening to this 40 minutes into us just chatting um here's this is what it's like in the studio if we're not recording then we just this is like what our conversations are like so yeah we are actually recording this so we're going to put this out as an intro but we are going to jump let's just go ahead and do this we've got Casey and Dottie from uh the Taffam Tennessee Association of Farmers Markets the president and vice president this is a really fun episode sorry you had to listen to us chatter but it was good catching up with you and um we hope that you enjoy this beautiful rest of this week in this gorgeous weekend go outside go hiking do something cool go to the tomato art fest go support another local restaurant go to a farmer's market go do something fun and um let's jump in right now with Casey and Dottie super excited today to welcome in Dottie and Casey from the Tennessee Association of Farmers Markets welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio all right thank you welcome also our host today

45:32hi Crystal Deluna Bogan here how you doing good this is a fun one i'm gonna hand it right over to you it's my it's my show today your show today yeah um so in full disclosure um i do know these ladies very well specifically Dottie who works for us but this is not a we're not like in any part associated with the Nashville um farmers market you know a lot like we're not those that's their thing um so i might be extra favorable to them but it's only because there's long love there but um i mean this is so great so this is actually Nashville farmers market week we're celebrating right now it's national farmers market week so there was actually i think this is the 25th anniversary um there's actually a congressional um proclamation naming this week as national farmers market week so nice 25 years of that it's official yeah it's this official week yeah and that was Casey yeah Dottie that was Dottie see i'm getting i'm confused here this is Dottie and Casey whenever i know your voices so yeah right it's fine Dottie Casey yes i'm learning i'm learning you're learning yeah so what are you guys doing to celebrate so a lot of promotions yeah sharing about farmers markets um and really just trying to get people out to shop because that's what it's all about can you i'm so curious about you individually yeah like how did you get into are you a farmer i am not a farmer no i am neither of you are farmers when i started the farmers market no i lived in a subdivision so you started the farmers market in nashville not nashville nope i manage nolansville and west haven so williamson county farmers markets yeah um and then i serve as president of the tennessee association of farmers markets and i've been in that position on the board since 2020 so that was february of

47:362020 what a great time to start a job it was so fun wow just like two feet first so what's your what's your story what's your background did you grow up in is this do you go shopping at farmers markets is it like a thing for you like how did you get into this position yeah so really super weird story um oh i love super weird stories let's go this is gonna be a long one no um so my background is in hospitality management i had a focus in event planning in that degree where'd you go to school i went to uh vol state okay so community college wanted to just do event planning um right after college i started volunteering with the town of nolansville helping them organize their july 4th celebration their veteran's day breakfast and just kind of getting into the event space to throw parties yes it's a lot of fun and not not really like the parties you think about like not weddings that's not my okay not my things i like community events fundraisers that kind of thing why not weddings it's just a whole different ball game there's a lot of expectations that go yeah there is a lot yeah you're right mother-in-laws and brides yeah you're like oh it's a lot not my client yeah um we're gonna take a quick break to hear a word from our sponsors but we do want to start off and tell you hey if you're not listening to atlanta restaurant radio you can find it on spotify our most recent episode with ford fry is out now you can also follow us at atlanta restaurant radio on instagram this is the summer of giving and we are partnering with the giving kitchen our sponsors are partnering with the giving kitchen to give back to the restaurant community we're going to tell you about all-star fire protection guys this is your local fire protection company if you need anything serviced your fire extinguishers your hood inspections all of these things all-star fire protector can come in and help they also will

49:37train you on how to use all these things they want to come in and do staff trainings and how to use fire extinguishers they're not just here to to come in and do this work they want to help you and for every person that calls and gets a quote and gets the service done they're going to make a fifty dollar donation to the giving kitchen you gotta call rob bowman over at all-star fire his number is 615-865-8500 just ask for rob bowman super source jason ellis you know we talked about him all the time they if you come out and get a quote on a new dish machine and your chemicals jason is going to make a fifty dollar donation to the giving kitchen you can call jason at 770-337-1143 you heard at the beginning of the show robin's insurance and matthew clements that number is a fifty dollar donation if you get an insurance quote 8 6 3 4 0 9 93 72 cali sober and michael dean they want to help out restaurant workers if you bring on cali sober thc beverages are going wild right now they have three amazing flavors the berry ginger fizz paloma spritz and ranch water if you bring in any one of those products and sell it in your restaurant through litman brothers he's going to make a fifty dollar donation to the giving kitchen absolutely love that the chandler james team at leon associates miller chandler and leon james they are the broker that you need if you're looking to open a new restaurant any kind of retail shop these are local nashville natives they know the area they know what you're looking for and they want to help walk you through this entire process and if you call them and set up an appointment do an initial consultation you guessed it fifty dollar donation to the giving kitchen if you want to call miller chandler his number is six one five four seven three twenty four fifty two if you want to contact leon james her number is seven three one three three five eleven twenty one

51:38now the final one is for gordon food service our amazing title sponsor if you're a new customer and you make a fifteen hundred dollar order they're going to give two hundred and fifty dollars of that order straight to the giving kitchen and then they're going to give you two hundred and fifty dollars worth of free product in that so you make a fifteen hundred dollar order they're going to give you two fifty back they're going to take two fifty and give it to restaurant workers this is an amazing opportunity if you're looking for a new broadliner you want to call paul hunter his number is six one five nine four five sixty seven fifty three if there's ever a time to call one of these vendors you need to do it now because the summer of giving is coming to an end in two weeks and that offer is not going to be available so the time if you've been waiting until now do it right now now back to the episode so right after college helped do that started having babies decided volunteering was a little bit too much for our family and so decided to step away from the volunteer aspect stay at home and just kind of see where things went during that same time my husband was having health issues he started seeing a chiropractor that was local to our community and that chiropractor really just wanted to bring a farmer's market to nolensville and so in that i really thought this is not really anything i want to be a part of i don't really see this going anywhere like but you heard that you heard the chiropractor you're with your husband at the chiropractor appointment and he says you know i'd like to start how does that conversation even happen i want to start a farmer's market yeah just i wanted to bring this to nolensville just randomly chatting and said i'd love to bring this to nolensville and you said no no yeah good for you yeah so my my husband really took lead of it they had a group of friends from the community that really took off with it they

53:40developed the business they actually had someone hired to manage the market and then the month before the market was supposed to open she went a different route and so it was kind of like last minute you have this history like you can pull this together the ability and so i was like well temporarily until we find somebody else because there's just no money like there won't be any money for me and i need to find some way i can support my family in other ways money helps it does i've heard it does yeah so that's i took over and just absolutely fell in love oh wow what did you fall in love with that what what you look you're getting emotional right now it does tell me tell me about what tell me what you're feeling right now um um the community of people at farmers markets it's just yeah it's a big family it really is it really is brandon's gonna get you some tissues thank you sorry um thank you yeah it's a big napkin uh you know i feel that too as as somebody who's been a vendor at a farmers market we when we started the grilled cheesery 14 years ago the farmers markets were where we thrived like these were our people we felt welcomed we felt safe we felt like if i ran out of tomatoes i could hop off the truck and i can go grab them and it was not a big deal you know like it was just i felt to support it there and we did as many farmers markets as we could um because it was either that or late night vending you know which was really the only two options when we before we had any permits to operate in the city so farmers markets were just like everything so important so the market managers specifically were the ones that had to believe in the food trucks that were coming

55:42because this was not normal to have food trucks in a farmers market kind of situation like it was very different to have them there it was never usually food trucks and um tent vendors you know that was something that was contested in the beginning um oh and they're gonna you know kind of just be a part of the circle like no they have to be over there you know like it was it was definitely like we all had to kind of learn how to operate with each other and that was so long i mean it was like 13 years ago and now if there's not a food truck at a farmers market it's weird right like that's just part of the culture and it's because farmers market managers believed in that aspect of like okay well people are coming they're gonna they need something to eat so that whole you know kind of culture started um at the 12 south farmers market like yeah so long ago i feel like you got into this not knowing what it was and have no idea like it's a job i need to get paid but it's not gonna make a lot of money and then it feels like you got into it and you saw the connections and the community that was created through helping local vendors come together and then the community coming together and it sounds like it was way more than you expect it just from a community standpoint and now you're like this is everything to me yeah she just this is her 10th anniversary season at nolensville wow oh my gosh that's amazing so i mean every week do you do it weekly in the season yep how often do you when what is the season for it uh so nolensville is year-round we never stop oh wow yeah every saturday year-round we do take time off to allow the vendors time with their families during the holidays because if we don't tell them too they won't they'll just keep coming what do you what have you recognized about the the spirit of these local farmers and the local vendors that come like you said they'll be here tell me about their entrepreneurial spirit like what do you see in them does it inspire you absolutely i mean

57:46they're doing they're doing work for pennies on the dollar yeah to just feed their neighbors so that's incredibly special i mean that's that's what it's about and it's backbreaking work i mean it is yeah the what it takes for them to get there to market and then work the market working the market is like the kickback of it right like really it's like you get to socialize and i mean the kickback of it you know like for them to have gotten everything there set up signage their whole p.o.s system you know like everything they're changed they need for like there's so much that goes into vending that way and for it to be you know with all the guidelines that the market has that they need to meet and to have everything ready and then have to break it down i mean like when they're open that's when it's like the gold time right like they made it they have all their product there they're they're with their community so when you're there it's like i always see them like oh my god like just to get to this point it was like amazing you know that's funny silvia again you when she was on the show uh green door gourmet she said i said so farmers mark farmers my mother yeah she's everyone's mother she really is i said are farmers markets like the thing for you is that your big thing and she goes no they're not yeah she goes farmers markets are actually the hardest thing that i do and i go i wasn't expecting that answer and she said it's look if you come to the farm we have all this food you can buy but when you go to a farmer's market you have to pick like food grows the way that it grows like sometimes it doesn't look perfect and at a farmer's market people will pick through all of your stuff and pick out the one that they like that's perfect and the stuff that isn't perfect doesn't sell it still tastes the same but it's kind of a pain in the ass because i've got to get perfect i've got to call everything i have to get perfect product and then i set it there then people pick through it and they wanted to go it's like it's a lot harder than it seems it is yeah especially with a culture

59:47that started not too long ago because i know when i moved here as a chef 15 years ago they took me to the nashville farmers market at the time and before they kind of changed the whole local aspect of it i was like seeing watermelons in december you know i was like what is this you know and it's just a i came from california where it was like uber seasonal uber local you know and and i was going to the santa monica farmers market every week for our restaurant and i was like what is this like i don't understand this and they were like yeah you know like the chefs were all kind of just like it's not ideal and so you really had to connect with your farmers so that takes a lot of time it's so many different vendors you have to kind of like coordinate with so that you know people like you know alan of nashville groan you know like that kind of culminate them all together for chefs are like so important but like and the farmers don't necessarily want to deal with every single person they want to have it all kind of yeah they have to worry about their farm and like all their business they can't you know to the sales part of it that's that's every you know so much so if they can just be at a farmer's market have the pickup there their csa pickups have the chefs pick up their cases of things there that is so important for them to have that meeting place of like this is where i am come and get it if you want it you know and that was how it was like you just i always went to the 12 south farmers market to get my cases of whatever i ordered that week you know from whoever was there and that was just like what we all did all the chefs we all saw each other there tuesday you know and now we're so spoiled and people don't even realize how spoiled we are that we have so many great farmers markets um can you guys list off some of the farmers markets like you know i mean kelly yeah so i think monday well nashville farmers market is obviously seven days a week um so that's probably

01:01:49the only which is the big farmers market of rosa parks yes big farmers market offers a kind of a germantown area yeah um great um rosa parks in jefferson yeah that's been like really greatly developed over the last several years um like crystal said like probably you know 15 20 years ago it wasn't you know well 15 20 years ago i was selling produce i was the first managing partner for what chefs want or creation gardens wow and we had a doc that we used over to ellis jakes produce you know this is 2006 this was 18 years ago and every morning i would give i would have shorts right so i'd have 50 restaurants to order food the truck would come down and i would sort it all out and i'd go i'm short two cases of butternut squash and i would go okay well i'd run over to ernest williams which is now where creation gardens was and they had a big dock and you'd walk on the dock and scotty was there and and uh there it was rooster was there but you go on the dock and i need two butternut squash and they'd pull it up to you and you throw it in your car and you send it to the truck that morning at five o'clock in the morning where all the farmers market guys were buying the watermelons and they're just on the dock buying all the stuff ernest williams that they would go sell at the farmers market wasn't i mean smileys and there was some other farmers that were there that actually did grow their stuff with most there's a lot of supplementing going on from ernest williams yeah so i i will say that that's something that casey and i are pretty passionate about is that you know casey's market um all her markets when i was at manage 12 south um these are producer only farmers markets okay so that's a big delineate difference yeah meaning you have to grow produce make whatever you're selling um you there's no reselling so what you're talking about um that used to happen at nashville farmers market that got banned that was really controversial yeah it got banned because like you said chrystal it's you know people are coming to the farmers market they're not expecting

01:03:52some california hydro cooled squash they're expecting locally grown produce um so yeah so that's something that you know casey and i are both very explicit in in our markets that we manage that this is a producer only market you know um part of that is us being able to devote extra time and effort into managing that so like farm visits um you know there's like a significant application process you have to be approved you know so there's all these things certifications and things i know that gap certification is important and all there's a lot of things yeah so you know insurance requirements all these things that we you know as managers need to put in place if something like being producer only is important and for us it is for sure this has been dotty speaking right right on this one okay it's dotty speaking um casey i want to say thank you for sharing your story and if you would have asked me to guess a hundred times how do you think i started i would never have guessed a chiropractor said he wanted to do it so like with this great story dotty kind of same question for you like what's your background did you grow up in this or you tell me how you got into farmers markets also a super weird story it was a dentist though same thing but a dentist yeah um no so i gosh i don't even know where to start like um i worked in um banking and finance for like 10 years um like you know pretty much my entire 20s and then um just one day i was like this is not for me this is not the thing and so that would be day two of that job for me i would have like this is not the thing i mean it was kind of one of those jobs like

01:05:52i fell into it like i started as a bank teller and then you know they just kept promoting me and so then all of a sudden like you know i'm working you know operationally at the headquarters or whatever you know and so um it kind of happened slowly but quickly if that makes sense um so yeah so just one day i was like this is not the thing um and my husband was like you know if it's not the thing it's not the thing and we need you just need to figure that out um so something i was always interested in was photography um i had tried for years to be um a professional photographer um much like casey weddings were not my thing i did a few yeah isn't that interesting was not my thing um and i was really having a hard time finding like my niche of like what is my artistic style like what is my customer creatively um and i just was really not figuring it out like it was just really a low point and um i uh my mother-in-law actually told me that um she had some friends that were worked with the franklin farmers market and they were looking for somebody to come take pictures at the markets to like help promote the market and i was like yeah fine i'll do it same thing i went there and i was like i'm obsessed with this now this is my entire life now yeah especially that franklin market what was it about it like strong when you got there it's so cool there yeah it's just i mean god i don't want to start crying now um paper towel it's passion it is really a ton of passion yeah so much passion and i mean i've been in markets for over 10 years now and i swear it just never gets old to to know

01:07:59that somebody took a seed this big and put it in the dirt and then loved it loved it and cared for it and now you're eating it that to me is like like i have chills like it's it never gets old one of my favorite things uh andy little said um a while back i don't know where he said it i don't know if he said it on the show or not but he said um if you had to plant a seed and water and grow a potato for three months to tell the the size that it is and then you pulled it out of the ground he goes you'd respect the shit out of it yeah it wouldn't just be this thing like if you had to do that if you would respect your food if you had to nurture it and do that you wouldn't just you're like oh what are we gonna do with this beautiful thing and it sounds like caretakers well there's gratitude involved there it's not just oh i'm going to the store throwing this in a bag and coming home and cooking because i have to feed like no there there's a a whole beauty behind growing your own food and the sustainability of it it's really neat yeah and and like casey touched on earlier like the i mean the amount of work that goes into getting a from a seed to you know something edible i mean they're out in the elements every single day and to make it great and to make it taste amazing yeah look beautiful look beautiful i mean the heat index of 110 last wednesday yeah can't even people out in fields stand out nurturing yeah yeah i mean you have to imagine too not everything is perfect right so you have to go through you have to grow probably triple the amount of what you're actually going to end up selling just to have what people what the community expects that vegetable to look like yeah not only that but when you you know one of my favorite things to do as a market manager was to do farm visits

01:10:03and talking to the farmers in their arena they are just some of the most intelligent smartest people i have ever spoken to like you have to be like essentially a scientist no i mean you know soil conditions and composting and crop rotation and cover crops and it's a lot it's everything and understanding weather patterns and staffing and staffing that you know which isn't the most glamorous job no yeah all of it yeah all of that they have to essentially create these like ecosystems you know with like you know they're animals and the crops and everything and it's just do you have a mentor in this do you have somebody who's like taking you under their wing and like taught you back in the day like somebody who when you first started that inspired you who is that person if that if there is a person like that i know casey was kind of like there is for me yeah who's your person casey person um so when i first started and got in yeah got into um figuring out what it was that we really needed to be doing it was frank at hip donelson really yep frank at hip donelson can you elaborate on that a little bit um he was i don't even know like um he was in charge of the market we visited my husband and i would go around and visit different farmers markets in this like month and a half span before we were about to launch ours and um he was one of the only market managers that really took time and like talked to me and walked me around the market and was like this is what you need to do this is what you don't need to do this is who you need to avoid these are the questions that you should be asking and here's all of my rules here's my application here's our fee scale like just literally handed me the golden buck wow so he was amazing wow yeah and he's who brought me in to

01:12:08taffam like oh really he is yeah oh awesome yeah for for reference taffam is the tennessee association of farmers markets which you are the president of i am the president and vice president we have president and vice president yeah this is really cool i'm the president toddy's the vice president yeah yeah i love hearing your stories this is so i mean you know we live in you know that there has there has to be you know why because it's like thankless work right i mean it's not like you're doing this for a huge paycheck like this is all heart work right here like people don't even know a farmer's market manager is a thing that exists yeah i mean yeah i'm the one right now i was like there's a farmer how long have you been in this industry too right i mean farmers markets i've been to i go all the time we go to the belvey one every thursday night yeah but like there's a person that is running the show there and all of the vendors i just show up and i thought i thought all the farmers just like had a like a facebook group page that they said hey let's show up here at this time like yeah there's like a group text the chaos that would be yeah can you imagine what do you spend the most of your time doing not for the the association but like for your individual farmers markets what's the bulk of your time spent doing as a market manager communicating with vendors with just expectations like what they need to expect when they come scheduling what do you expect when you come okay so i'm a farmer yeah and i'm new to this place and i'm like hey i'm gonna be there at why are you i'm gonna be there at nine o'clock on tuesday talk like that i'm not talking like that i'm just talking like this try to because i don't know what i'm talking about hi i'm brandon i sell what time do i need to show up on on saturday what do i need to do no so everybody has the same load in time typically we have you know depending on the the site i mean there's just all kinds of different things we work with you know obviously i don't own the land that we host the farmers

01:14:11market on so we are renters of the property and so we have expectations of like we can only be here between these hours and so it's just a lot of explaining all of that and and sharing with them you know these are our expectations of this facility so you have similar expectations for us and it all comes down to when you have a good market manager it's they have the oversight of the entire market in mind and making sure that everyone is successful whereas vendors really just have that focus of i'm just need to make sure my day goes right right so they're not worried about if they're parking here they're in someone else's way and so that's just making sure that everyone understands the overall goal and to make sure that everyone has a good day and that we can all work kindly together yeah so i would i mean i would actually in having you know worked in the restaurant business with crystal for the last seven years you definitely can say you have definitely managed and worked in the restaurant industry yeah yeah i mean did she work with you yeah she worked with the grilled cheesery she was a shift lead oh at opening franklin you worked at hillsboro for a long time yeah yeah she has this great picture of her carrying like how many like six like six trays or trays yeah it's impressive yeah so but it you know running a farmer's market is not all that dissimilar from running a restaurant running a commercial kitchen you know you have a manager you have everybody in their stations you know and everybody has to communicate and everybody has to show up on time and everybody has to have everything prepped and ready to go when the doors open and it's like that for a farmer's market so and there's a runtime which is like your open time and then it's over and and that's it now we got to close you

01:16:13know closing time i mean everybody has their jobs so like um i managed the 12 south farmers market for the last seven years and last season was my last season um when i left when i started i think we had maybe 20 vendors um last year when i left the most vendors we had on a weekly basis was 88 88 a lot separate businesses separate businesses can you imagine so separate a personality separate so imagine if you at one week right that's one little businesses that 12 south worked out over the season that had to be over a hundred hundreds yeah and so imagine if your kitchen had 88 staff members you know and if you don't make money my labor was really high project yeah that like yeah you don't make money and up say it's rains or there was a big storm before what do you do that what do you do if it's like thunderstorm it's you're in rain or shine yeah but you still same process of having the same do everything but yeah i mean obviously we have like you know safety protocols and all that kind of thing um what does it cost to be a vendor like if i if let's just say i had brandon's widgets and i wanted to come in first i call you don't go hi they'd be like what time i gotta be there we don't need any you don't need widgets but thank you but if i would say hey look i want to sell my widgets there and i make them i produce them in my backyard how much does it cost for it's a good hypothetical widgets yeah how much would it cost for me to come set up a booth to sell my widgets is that a thing like it's just a fee that you guys charge so it's different at every market the the manager the organization over that market sets that so some markets it's everything from a set fee like it's just you pay the same amount every market regardless and then my markets operate off of a fee scale so if it is a rainy market and you come out and you only sell 50 you're not going to pay 500 thing as someone

01:18:18who sold 500 so you can do a scale based around what you actually sell yes yeah interesting which is actually very generous so they're yeah that's really incredibly generous is there like an average fee that it would i mean i'm curious if i'm a consumer watching this and i think oh these guys just show up people have no idea how it works yeah right i'm included so is it like five hundred dollars is it like a thousand is it so it's it's a reasonable price for the farmers to show up there so supporting them this is really good yeah i like it i think average like if you take everyone if they have a set fee to a fee scale you're probably looking average of well a range of probably twenty dollars to maybe a hundred dollars a market oh okay okay well that's that's super reasonable yeah okay that's good and the other side of that is that all markets are structured differently so like casey's market is a non-profit 12 south market 12 south farmers market is a small business so that's an llc so every single market operates you know nashville farmers market is part of metro davidson county okay so every single market has a different like business structure and that informs that fee structure whatever that looks like i love it it's really interesting like you know we talked a lot about farmers but the one other thing that and obviously we wouldn't be a farmers market without farmers but the other part of that are food businesses and so when we're talking to potential new vendors or people that you know maybe don't have a business yet but have an idea or they have they're just selling tamales out of their house for right now we always tell them like the farmers market is such a great launch pad for small food businesses as well as farmers because you have opportunities like you know with 12 south you have a set fee so you know how much food you should sell in order to make a good profit make your money back and then you know other markets with sliding

01:20:21scale you can kind of come in and just test it out it is immediate customer feedback on your product yeah it's great and you're standing right there you know interacting people i mean we had that too with the food truck like we were you know just little things you know and and we'd have specials because we were there and it was just so nice to be like symbiotic with everything going on there but like at the nashville farmers market that's what kind of launched the grow local kitchen right like that it was this kind of launch pad for these small businesses mostly minority-owned businesses that were able to come in and like do their very specific type of food and see if the community was receptive to it because there is a community there of like i'll try it you know um metro workers that are coming in just for lunch every day and it it's such a wonderful program that they've developed there that like is great and how have you guys have you guys worked with the nashville farmers market at all are they i know you guys hold your meetings there yeah yeah um we work with them a lot um heather hoke um who is in charge of the grow local kitchen is actually on the taffum board um as a middle tennessee representative and so um you know one this has been like a long labor of love for her um so i think when did tasha get that that was a 2020 grant that they got the money to build out the new commercial yeah uh the new commercial kitchen so the grow local kitchen was there before and it was a much smaller kind of incubator kitchen but now they have that commercial kitchen space where they are having food vendors come in and prep for markets there yeah they've been wanting that for so long it's been a very long process um one of the great things i love about it that heather does um she you know so so it's all set up businesses come in you know daily um and she has a different business you

01:22:24know every day of the week um and then she rotates so like last year she's not gonna have the same businesses she had last year as she's gonna have this year because she wants to give businesses opportunities to do that to get in front of their customer to get in front of people and so every day there's a new there's a different in that i think she might do like they rotate maybe twice a week or something like that but they they definitely it's a different rotation that's good to know if people are kind of like oh i want to try something new and local you know like that you could pop in any day and there'll be something yeah good there and there's just so many um connections that you can make when you are selling something at a farmer's market like i mean i don't even know how many vendors casey and i have you know hey i had this great vendor apply like you should reach out to them and then you know um then you know they're at like six farmers markets you know because just making the connections um so yeah so this week is this week right now is august 4th to the 4th through the 10th is national farmers market week are there features like what does that mean it's just awareness just awareness primarily there's a an organization a national organization called the farmers market coalition and they really um i think they started national farmers market week so they put out additional advertising just about shopping local find your local market and then taffam does the same thing about statewide find your local community market and just go shop yeah i normally i put episodes out on fridays but i'm going to put this episode out today i'm just going to do it early i'm going to put it out today so that people can get this and go because they're if you're talking about

01:24:24produce and local farming right now is such a peak season to get the best food um tomatoes i've told this story a bunch of times but how holden bach over at locklyn table he works with white squirrel farms uh chris at white squirrel farms and they do he chris grows the stuff for him to do but i asked him i said dude why are your vegetables so good he says i buy local produce at the peak of the season it's supposed to be grown in and then it always tastes better and if you're out there right now and you go to the grocery store you don't go to a farmer's market but this is the time if you like tomatoes if you like peas if you like some of these peaches right the peach truck is at these farmers a lot of times yes if you like watermelons if you like zucchini squash summer squashes zephyr squashes there's so many different things out there we could go on but this right now is that time this is the peak of the season and these are your local products that are being grown do not buy produce at a grocery store right now go get them at a farmer's market more expensive too like and it's from california yeah florida yeah right now it's peak season which means things are good and bountiful and plentiful so that means that things are going to be more affordable because these are right right now and they need a move and they need to get them you know well there's a sense of urgency but i was talking to somebody the other day about the peach truck um my eos implementer with um this we're talking about the peach truck and i said that business fascinates me because peaches only grow for four months out of the year yeah yeah so you got eight months out of the year you got nothing to do so you really need to strike while the iron's hot if you're the peach truck you got to get out there and sell this stuff and a lot of these farmers are the same way i mean not the exact same way because there are winter crops and different things but for the most part the bulk of how they support and sustain themselves happens in the summer because that's when they get to grow the most stuff so if your mind is oh i'll hit it some

01:26:26week like no go now like go now visit a farmer's market and support those farmers because they need that for the sustainability of the winter yeah it's really really important it's not just oh i'm going to get really good product at a better price it's these this is this is your community these are the people that are creating the food for your community and if you get out there today that's why i said i'm putting this out today i want people to hear this this week because like right now so they can take advantage of farmers market week and get out there and start supporting their farmers now one more quick break to hear a word from our sponsors at what chefs want they deliver the seven most needed product lines to meet the unique needs of chefs and restaurateurs from local to global and from staple items to gourmet rarities they have the variety of products to cover all of your needs produce seafood meats gourmet staples to go and dairy at what chefs want they're transforming food service by eliminating minimum orders offering split cases and providing daily deliveries with 24 7 customer support this means chefs have the flexibility to order what they need when they need it experiment with new ingredients and keep their kitchens consistently stocked with fresh supplies it's all about empowering culinary creativity while streamlining operations check them out at whatchefswant.com or give them a call at 800-600-8510 sharp yeas 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 sharp yeas.com that's c-h-a-r-p-i-e-r-s.com or you can give erin mosso a call directly her number 615-319-6453

01:28:35that's sharp yeas bakery hello this is jen heidinger kendrick founder of giving kitchen let me tell you a little more giving kitchen is a james beard award-winning non-profit that provides emergency assistance to food service workers nationally headquartered in atlanta since 2013 giving kitchen has served over 19 000 food service workers and awarded over 12 million dollars to food service workers in crisis giving kitchen helps food service workers that get hurt or sick lose a family member or suffer a housing disaster like a flood or a fire by offering financial assistance to cover rent and utilities if you know someone that works in a bar or restaurant that is in crisis tell them ask for help from giving kitchen by visiting giving kitchen.org slash help want to get involved and support giving kitchen dining with gratitude in october gk's month-long campaign where the food service community pledges to raise critical funds and spread the word about their mission learn more by clicking the link in this episode's notes giving kitchen.org slash dwg unleash the wolf with campo bravo tequila campo bravo is a 100% agave tequila with a bold smooth flavor perfect for sipping meat as a shot or in cocktails campo bravo is also certified additive free which means there are no artificial flavors or sweeteners in campo bravo like there are in many other brands campo bravo gives you all the bold smooth flavor you want in a tequila with nothing you don't campo 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 yeah and if you're a local chef also you know knowing knowing how

01:30:37do i implement this into my menu how do i you know because obviously like maybe going to a farmer's market isn't the most convenient for the time you need to you know that's why tuesday wednesdays are great because they're the beginning of your week but you know having those relationships with these farmers like what do you guys think is the best way if i'm like a new chef in town and i don't know like where do i get this local where do i get these local tomatoes like how do i meet you know like from farm and fiddle like how do i meet lauren from bloomsbury farm you know like is there like a central place that like i can maybe go to like know how to connect with these people for like my business you know because i say i want to use local but it's like how do i do that and it's so much easier to use a broadliner you know what you need for a slew of other things but to be connected with a farmer like how what's the best way to do that you think i i encourage you to reach out to the market managers like yeah instagram message the farmers market you're probably going to get the manager because we do everything yeah yeah um separate person for that exactly in unison everything yeah everything our team port-a-potty yeah arrangement yeah our team is my four different personalities i have to have throughout the day so a joke when i made it to 12 south a joke that was long running was people would just always walk up to me and say do you know where the bathroom is why are you the bathroom person i don't know i just looked like i knew where the bathroom was i guess and i was like i do actually know where it is they just were like she looks so smart there's a bucket in the corner right over there i think it was like the clipboard yeah anyone with a headset and the walkie talkie yeah it was like the clipboard knows where the bathroom is that person that happens to me at events that are not mine same same like never wear a red shirt when you shop at target right it's just a thing i've made that mistake yeah no but i also i've been guilty like because like yeah i'll just help you

01:32:40though yeah i'll show you exactly right over there i'll show you exactly where it is i don't work here but like i'm i do know so i love the fact that you guys are launching pads for food businesses and you can help food businesses i love that so much pop-up is like they've been they host a bunch of hot chef pop-ups well i mean you look at alebrije and uh you know um maize de la vida like how much richland farmers market like kisser kisser i mean like all these big places started there so let's talk about taffam for a minute because we're we're not nearing the end we're close we've been talking for 40 minutes which is crazy right current taffam projects snap doubling coalition the tennessee farmers market trail establishment government affairs and you have new advisory committees yes we got a lot to talk about here guys we don't have a lot of time to do it let's go down systematically through this the snap doubling i just took over see it i'm so sorry no this is her interview and i'm like tell me about that like i'm genuinely excited this is really cool you know it's a new school it's the first day about first week back school you know i have a kindergartener so you know my brain is like mush yeah thank you i have four kids she has four kids i'm just starting was it difficult to drop luna off at kindergarten no it wasn't dotty knows she's been coming you did show me quite a few pictures i slowed down the car a little bit when she got out but i wasn't crying i'm sorry if you were and i'm sure that some parents were i don't know maybe my meds i don't know i was not upset about it i was like you need to go now please yeah you have been like she takes her shoes off isn't it when she runs through the kitchen with no shoes i'm like i would never allow anyone to do that i'm like what is at the restaurant yes that's so well like at the new place oh no at the new place before you're not open yeah but we're not open yeah no it's just like i'm like get out of here like what are you

01:34:40doing she owns that place she really does own that place and to be fair like she's in the dining room and it has yeah so but she'll come in and i'm like why don't you have shoes on this is so dangerous like i'm just i was ready i was ready for her to go shouldn't you be in school yes you should yeah i'm like go yeah my wife went to cosco yesterday to get like they've been waiting for a couple weeks she was like oh it's i was like i'm gonna go to cosco and i'm gonna have my shopping experience alone it's gonna be amazing she was like and so did every other mom in the state she's like the line was longer than a sunday at noon i was like oh yeah a bunch of moms getting much of snacks it's just funny every mom is like the kids are gone i'm gonna i'm gonna probably like target target shopping yeah just a coffee and just don't talk to me just gonna walk around and look at bric-a-brac i don't want to answer questions yeah so casey is the person to talk about snap yeah yeah so a lot of people don't know you can actually use your snap ebt card at farmers markets obviously that farmers market has to go through a certification process through the state the government and some markets offer a double up program so if you come we take ten dollars off your ebt card the farmers market will actually give you twenty dollars to spend it's amazing and that yeah yes that double portion is typically good for fresh fruits and vegetables only but that original portion you can spend on meat eggs bread dairy whatever food wise is available at the farmers market granola yeah you know all these things and yummy things that your kids will love exactly and so it's the double up portion i feel like is just a barrier breaker yeah because we do know like like we were saying farmers work really hard to bring that stuff to market it sometimes is at a more premium price however if you compare grocery stores right now

01:36:41specifically with inflation oh it's probably cheaper to shop at a farmers market because farmers don't think about inflation what their costs are yeah yeah and so um the double snap coalition with tafom is um we're working with organizations across the state that work with ebt shoppers and health departments and and dhs to try and get a statewide budget to do this at farmers markets across the state so that way all markets anyone that shops at a market with an ebt card gets that doubled portion so we're just getting more fruits and vegetables into households um it's amazing i want to touch on something in it a little inside baseball here real quick you just mentioned that you could probably get it cheaper inflation all these things look you gotta imagine you're in california salinas wherever and you're growing lettuce or you're growing squash that squash they have to pay somebody to pick that in the field it goes through a hydro cooling process everything is put in a box and gets put on a truck that truck then potentially goes to a storage warehouse where then gets put on another truck and then it travels 2 000 miles across the country to nashville does it go does that that truck drop off at kroger probably not it probably gets dropped off at a larger produce company or a distribution center that ships to all of the krogers which is in bowling green and the bowling green they have to unload all of those things here on a two-wheeler and it's bouncing and it gets dropped off there and then it gets put on another truck and then shipped to a bunch of other krogers and then that gets stocked every time that happens there's an upcharge right so every time that i put it in the box and i put on the truck we'll freight on that is three dollars a case so then that goes across country that drops off at the distribution center the distribution center pays the farm the farm then gets money the distribution center has to make money so then they sell it to the krogers farmers are going straight from their field to you yeah none of that is involved so you don't pay three or four separate charges all the middlemen to get the

01:38:44product from california or florida or texas wherever it's coming from everybody gets a piece of that and the end the end result is the consumer pays for all of that because kroger guess what they have they have a markup too so at the end of the day when you're buying groceries from a grocery store that's been marked up four times it's not even just inflation it's the fact that that had to get here from 2 000 miles away and there's a lot of shit that has to happen for that to get there a farmer is growing the product they're the ones who are nurturing the seed doing all of that and then walking it over to a farmer's market you're getting a much fresher product and you don't have four markups on it so they could potentially even put the two markups on it and make more money and that's really helpful to the community i think there was not paying some big conglomerate right there's a study that came out that said the the eggs you buy in grocery stores were probably laid what like 15 to 30 days ago uh-huh eggs at the farmers market yeah less than a day typically yeah they're picking those probably that morning the day before yeah for produce for sure like they are getting up at 4 a.m to pick and then their market is at 4 p.m you know so like less than 12 hours and for chefs like when i ask lauren i need you know two cases of you know from loomsbury farms like she's telling someone to go pick that right like as me as a chef i'm like that's the peak of what i want in my restaurant because then i have to process it get you know and then do my thing with it like i don't want tomatoes that have been picked like so long gassed in a truck because they want them to be red you know like there's just those little things as people who consume food we have to just know like we it's not like oh it's so you know elite to know these things it's like we have to know how our food is grown yeah and we have to know how especially it's a responsibility as someone who works with food and purchases so much food to know this is it's going to be a little inconvenient to like order specifically from

01:40:47these farmers but it's like if i'm i'm ordering cases of things that could be like you know a really big difference in their in their overall bottom line and think about the customer service too like you're texting lauren yeah i need this yeah and she's like let me go pick it yeah you know if you need something and then also they say know where your food comes from that's the definition mine is know who your food comes from because for me as a chef like my relationship with sylvia i text her and like it's a monday she lives on her farm she was like me and howl were both waiting for strawberry seconds because we were making strawberry jam that day you know so like me and him are just waiting you know and she's like it's getting driven in from the field you know from the you know their little pick area that they have yeah like and it's like the seconds because a lot of people don't know seconds are the ones that people don't really want to they're not the beauties you know but like for me we're about to cut it up and cook it right now anyways doesn't matter if it's not pretty doesn't matter but it's cheaper they're going to sell it to us cheaper you know so if you've been listening to this and you love farmers markets and you're like oh my god i love my farmers market i love my belvey farmers market but if you're adventurous yeah and you have a car and you want to travel and you're like hey i wonder what farmers markets are like across the state is there some sort of a way is there like a a farmer's market trail that i could follow use the word trail funny yeah it's interesting like there's like a bourbon trail like a wine trail kind of a thing is there like a could i make a weekend or a whole week out of traveling how would i figure out how to do that such a good actor yes yes there will be what's it called so taffam has received a significant federal grant to establish the tennessee farmers market trail oh my goodness you didn't even know

01:42:53which is amazing so yes it's similar to the whiskey trail the wine trail so it's it's agritourism centered so we're in the piloting process of that right now which i think is going to launch in october november so essentially and this is where a lot of restaurants and food businesses come in so we want you know it's a tourism initiative so we want people to know where to go shopping at farmers markets locally but we also want them to know where to eat locally so we want to incorporate restaurants in tennessee on the trail so you know that use local ingredients use local ingredients so crystal at the grilled cheesery is buying locally and her restaurant is on the farmers market trail so the great part about this is that it's going to be supported by um statewide tourism um so is that like advertising that's advertising on like visit music city and um you know like the big um tourism groups so um yeah which we know is i mean yeah what is it billion how many billions of dollars are we making in tourism right now so um so that's really really exciting um so we're trying to right now like capture all the markets um we want all the restaurants who want to be involved to be involved who who would they contact to get involved like if i want to have a restaurant and i buy local who am i going to contact to get involved in the farmers the tennessee farmers market trail yeah you're going to contact us um the marketing division the marketing division um so tennessee association

01:44:53of farmers markets yeah so it's you'll just email us or go to our website tn farmers markets.org and you can contact us that way um we definitely want people to be involved in the trail um and to be involved in the process which is part of why we have established these advisory new advisory committees um we do have a trail committee we do have a farmers market trail committee so we you know and that's the other thing is we're trying to you want that no she should be you haven't poached me for that yet you need another job you need something else to do can we get you another job i was planning on asking her in like two months yeah probably a better idea um after we open the restaurant we because because you know being that farmers markets are about community that's what we want everything that taffam touches to be about so the trail is not just about markets it's about local restaurants and food businesses and the consumer and just another way to connect everybody to where their food's coming from so if you are restaurant owner who uses local products like please reach out to us yep please be a part of this trail it's gonna be awesome trucks too yeah that's so important you're using something i mean most food trucks do buy because they can't even get big accounts from you know these broadliners they have to shop at like these smaller you know kind of farm-owned places which is wonderful you know um so yeah be involved in it so you can get free marketing that's basically what i'm marketing yeah i mean um if you're already doing it that's awesome yeah um free marketing is good i love free market that's what we do yeah we're free that's what we do we're doing that right now yeah hey um what have we missed because we're we're we're this is the tastiest hour of talk

01:46:55in nashville and we're at that point and i don't i don't want this to end i feel like i've learned so much and i value everything that you guys do every single day i think it is so important and the passion and the care and the community that you guys build every day is so incredibly special and it's an unsung job like i didn't know that you existed so yeah the fact that i know that you exist now i'll open me if you ever need anything i'll give you my contact information for you leave i'm happy to help any way that i possibly can you guys are awesome point person like if you're looking like who has good i mean i asked dotty all the time i'm like who has good you know whatever rhubarb in the blank right now yeah maybe nobody yeah nobody because we're not you know we don't have that that's not a local thing but like yeah it's like you know we just to know that you know like i maybe i've moved from out of town i don't realize that you know oh man turnip greens are coming up real soon i better start planning my nobody's here from out of town or just like i'm just kidding nobody comes to nashville from out of town why would they think or i'm doing a pop-up or something i don't know like use our product if you're gonna sell in our city you know i love it i mean casey yeah casey and i between the two of us have for 20 years working in farmers markets and we've met a lot of vendors and a lot of farmers and i think you know i don't want to speak for casey but i think i can saying that like we pride ourselves on being that connector yeah the point person of things yeah um we love that like i love when you're texting me and say do you know who has whatever i'm like yes i do here's three options and she gives me the contact and it's like so helpful and then i take the ball from there and it's like good you know it just it makes it if i i could figure it out eventually but it's like also like what's she knows it's good you know she knows it's good she's like oh these people are great and you know i like the whole aspect of like supporting local and that connection i'm gonna make with that farmer you know and i think that when they come in yeah you know it's important

01:48:59for people to know that you know i think there's sometimes a you know like vibe around farmers markets like there have some like exclusivity like you know i think you guys have done a good job of taking that away because it's like like it used to be that way yeah i feel like it used to be that way like it was a little bit more it's expensive and it's like no no i feel like you guys have really done a good job everyone making it everything for everyone yeah so the final thing that we do on the show is the gordon food service final thought okay gordon food service is our amazing title sponsor and what uh what we like to do is like to let our guests take us out a final thought whatever you want to say it doesn't have to be under it could be run whatever you want you guys get the last word of this conversation and i'm gonna shut up it is your turn let's start with dotty oh gosh um final thought don't put me on the spot um casey has to think about it yeah i know um go to your farmer's market like it's so fun um most markets have music and food trucks and story time and activities and um you can bring your family there and dogs at some markets um and you just get to meet really great people and get great food and i mean what else what are you doing with your life like what else are you gonna do you know i mean what are the other alternatives uh yeah that's my final thought i love it thank you daddy casey um shop local wherever that is yeah just shop local and take start taking your kids now like making an experience um don't you know let the make sure that they experience that now so that they grow up

01:51:00and continue to experience that as an adult and it's the farmer's markets and small community grocery stores and restaurants are so culturally diverse it's i think just such a joy to see and experience yeah i love it well thank you guys so much for joining us on the show today i've learned so much you guys are amazing thank you for all you do for our communities and uh farmers market week is this week now it ends on the 10th but that doesn't mean that it stops at the end of this week every week is farmers market week go find your local farmers market right now and buy some local produce for sure thanks for joining us ladies thank you thank you for having us