Le Dame d'Escoffier June Table Talk Hosted by Jennifer Justice

00:00Welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio, the tastiest hour of talk in Music City. Now here's your host, Brandon Styll. Hello Music City! Welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio. My name is Brandon Styll, and I am your co-host today as I am, we're broadcasting Le Dom des Scaffiers, June Table Talk edition, and this month is a really cool one because it is going to be talking about starting launching your food business, right? So if you have a bunch of ideas for a food business, whatever it might be, today we've got a fantastic panel that's going to be talking about what they did and how they did it and hopefully can answer some of your questions.

01:02Jennifer Justice, who is an author, a freelance writer, she's also the marketing and event manager at the Nashville Food Project, is going to be your interviewer today. She's going to be interviewing Bailey Spalding, who's one of the owners at Jackalope Brewery, who's the owner at the pasta shop, and Cordia Harrington, who is famous Crown Bakery's, the Tennessee Bun Company, and they're going to be talking today about how you can launch your food business, some of the best tips that they got, how they did it, why they did it, really, really great interview, and obviously we are so honored to be airing this episode of the Le Dom des Scaffiers Table Talk series. A really cool thing happened when we started doing these, I had to say, I just wanted to be part of whatever Le Dom is doing and I'd love to raise up their voices in whatever way that I could, and I had a couple of my sponsors, Cytex and Super Source, Jason Ellis and Ross Chandler both contacted me and said, man, we love what you're doing.

02:09We would love to support Le Dom des Scaffiers as well. We love working with you. How do we get involved? And I said, dude, I'd love to do this. Let's do this. So they have all, we've all gone to Le Dom des Scaffiers website and we've donated, and this episode generated $500 for Le Dom des Scaffiers in the names of Super Source and Cytex. I could not be more honored to do that. I encourage you out there, if you wanted to help Le Dom des Scaffiers, go to their website, go to their Facebook page or Instagram and click the donate button. Go in there, donate, help them out. They're doing some really, really amazing things for this hospitality community. We have a little bit of housekeeping here to do. We have two brand new podcasts coming up this next week and they're going to be on Sunday night. So you've been hearing me talk about Brandon's Book Club. Brandon's Book Club for the month of June and the beginning of July was the five dysfunctions of a team by Patrick Lencioni.

03:13We're going to be doing our Zoom call Sunday, July the 11th at seven o'clock. If you go to Brandon's Book Club in Facebook, there's a group called Brandon's Book Club. Go join that group and you will find the link to the Zoom call. We'd love to have anybody who's read the book. We're going to be talking about it as far as how it relates to restaurants. And like I've been mentioning, all these new teams that we've got, so many people have new teams and we're trying to learn each other. And this book just really nails it. I've yet to have anybody read this book and say, oh my gosh, this isn't happening on my team because it is unbelievable. And once you know which dysfunctions are really getting your team, it's so easy to fix. So I'd love to have this conversation with you. Please jump on the Zoom call. I would love to hear different perspectives. So super fun. Even more fun, in all honesty, is going to be Talkin' Shift. Talkin' Shift is going to be on this podcast. It's going to be on the Nashville Restaurant radio podcast.

04:15However, it's going to be live. It's going to be live on Facebook, live. It's going to be live on YouTube live. And you've got to go to Talkin' Shift podcast. There's a group. I'm going to post the StreamYard link. Here's what I need. If you have a crazy restaurant story, a celebrity story, if you've got a story of just whatever guests, whatever Karens you have encountered in your restaurant, crazy orders, I don't know, everybody has stories. Servers go out. We drink after the shift. We talk about this stuff. We're just going to be talking about it live on a podcast, directly after Brandon's Book Club. Brandon's Book Club is going to be from 7 to 8, and then from 9 to 11, Sunday night, we are going to be talking shift. I've got a couple of co-hosts for this. Brian Rickenbach and Mikey Corona from The Mockingbird are going to be joining, as well as Jessica Benefield and her husband Trey. They're going to be our co-hosts for this. So if you want advice, something you need to know, we've got restaurant owners, we've got chefs, we've got me.

05:22Call in. We're going to have the link. You can come on the show live and talk to us. We are so excited to hear your stories, to discuss them, to answer any questions you have. Feel free to bring them all. All right. We are ready to jump in to this Table Talks series with Ladombe Descoffier. Thank you so much for listening. We hope that you have a wonderful 4th of July holiday. We will not have a brand new episode coming out Wednesday. We will have two more, hopefully, episodes coming out the rest of the week. It's going to be a big one. Here we go. Awesome. Well, thank you for having me. My name is Jennifer Justice. I am a freelance writer in Nashville, Tennessee, here in Nashville. And I also work as marketing and events manager at the Nashville Food Project. And I've had a ton of business ideas and have launched zero of them. So I'm so thrilled to learn from you all today on how you make that happen.

06:23So to start, I thought it would be great if we could just, if you could introduce yourselves, tell us briefly about your business and then share the best piece of advice that you received when you were starting out. And we'll start with you, Bailey. Sure. Thanks, JJ. I'm Bailey Spalding. I'm the CEO and co-founder of Jacklope Brewery in Nashville. I'm actually up in Vermont right now. We drove up, it was a nice 21-hour drive and got here yesterday. So it's good to be talking to you all. So yeah, so we started Jacklope. I would say the best advice I ever had was actually when I was in college and trying to figure out what I wanted to do. And a friend of mine who was a double PhD Falconer told me, find whatever you love to do and con someone into giving you money to do it.

07:28It was, you know, maybe a crass way to say it, but I thought it was really good advice. Awesome. Thank you. Who would like to go next? I'll go, I guess. I was hoping Courtney was going to say, I'll go. I'm Carrie Aaron. My company is The Pasta Shop. My husband and I started this, co-founded this business 27 years ago, which is so scary to say when we were kids, basically, but we're a specialty food manufacturer focused on dry pasta. We sell to through many different sales channels, grocery, online, we have a fundraising division, we export. I have a little show and tell. We're mostly known for our like fun shapes, pasta shaped like a dinosaur, pasta shaped like, you know, hearts and that kind of thing. But we basically are, we make healthy and happy pasta for families. So we do, oh, the best piece of advice, really, I think, and it's still to this day, I'm not really sure it's advice, but basically, every time you hear a no, don't be afraid of the nos, embrace those and look at them as opportunities.

08:36All right. And both of you have such delicious products. I'm Cordia Harrington, and I'm the founder and CEO of Crown Bakery's. We are formerly Tennessee Bun Company, but we rebranded during COVID. And the best advice, and I've gotten a lot of great advice, but I think from the CEO's standpoint and growing a business, the best advice would be to work on the business, not in the business. As a leader, we've got to have the vision communicated to the people that are trying to help us reach our goals. And so working on it instead of in it would be advice I need to listen to more often. I was about to say, I think that's hard, but it's true. Awesome. So next, I'd like to talk about transitions, because I feel like that's a hard part.

09:40No matter what sort of business you're in or what kind of work you're in, transitions are always can be messy and can be hard. So I'm curious what you were doing before you launched your business and what was the impetus for the change and how did that go? We'll start. I go first. Go ahead. Yeah, it was pretty different. I had a fairly non-linear path to get here. I actually went to Vanderbilt Law School before I started the brewery. And in law school was actually when I started home brewing and decided that what I wanted to do was start a brewery. And I think for that, there's probably a lot of people who didn't understand or thought, there's a lot of people who are like, I'm afraid to be a lawyer. I'm just going to go do this thing and don't take you seriously. But so I think for me, it was, OK, what do I need to do to be taken seriously about this? So writing the business plan, all the things I could show people that it wasn't like, I'm just going to start a brewery because it sounds cool.

10:50I've actually put thought into this. And for me, the time was great because I was in my 20s and just graduated law school. And if I messed it up, I guess I could be a lawyer if I was desperate. Baby, what year did you start Jackalope? Let's see. I graduated law school in 2009, and we opened in 2011. So we had about two years of writing the business plan, getting investors, kind of putting all the pieces together, which at the time felt like a long time, but it was actually a pretty fast transition. So yeah. So did you know, you knew when you were in law school, I'm going to do this? I did, yeah. I would say probably pretty early on in law school, I was like, oh, I don't think I want to be a lawyer. And then probably about halfway through law school, I was like, this is what I want to do.

11:53For me, I was really interested in kind of community involvement. And I thought I wanted to practice environmental law. And then I was like, eh, lawyering, it's not my bag. And so this was kind of a way, I figured out running a business is a way that you can really be involved in your community in a very kind of tangible way. And so I was like, well, this is something I love to do. Nashville, at that point, didn't have much of a craft beer community. You know, Yazoo was the only distributing brewery when we started. And then, you know, it seemed like it could all come together really nicely. And luckily, it did. Portia, how about you? So prior to starting the bakeries, I was a McDonald's franchisee. And I owned three McDonald's restaurants. And I was making a ton of money. I mean, it was like printing cash.

12:56But I had 215 to 17 year olds running my five million dollar business. And I always felt like I was one manager away from having to live back in the restaurants like I did in the early days. I was a single mom and my three sons, I mean, truly on the way to church, on the way home from church at night, it didn't matter. I was always in my restaurants. And when I learned that McDonald's wanted to have diversity in their supply chain, I was sure that was for me, not because I could make a ton of money, not because of any other reason than those bakeries I had visited while an owner operator. I saw professional people working in the plant and the leadership had a normal life. And for me, I had never had a normal life as a mom.

13:56I had a real estate company, which was nights and weekends. And I bought the restaurant thinking I would be off, but it doesn't work like that. If you're good at running a restaurant, you're always in the restaurants. So my motivation was lifestyle, was spending more time with my boys. And by then they were in junior high, the end of elementary school. And, you know, I just I got tired of carting them up to the restaurant and trying to think of things they could do. Well, I did what I had to do in the restaurant. So getting into the bakery was a lifestyle change. Did you know anything about baking? Not a thing. And what about you, Carrie? So I had graduated. I went to the University of Vermont, actually, Bailey, I love Vermont, New York City after college to work, you know, corporate America, great sales job.

14:59What I'd planned to do, met my husband up there and basically we were super young. I mean, in my early 20s and we did we both had entrepreneurial spirits. We love to work and we knew we didn't want to stay in New York and have a family there and whatnot. So we just quit. Our parents are like, what, what are you doing? But we quit our jobs and and started kind of searching for what did we want to do? So we looked at franchises like Cordia. We looked at other businesses for sale. We looked at all kinds of things and ended up along the way discovering pasta. We went to Italy on our honeymoon and whatnot. But and that was an inspiration. But we decided to start this manufacturing company and we did not know anything about making pasta. But we just jumped right in. And when you're young and you have you know, you're excited, you'll just do it. So we just jumped in. So I have a question about that, too. How do you know when how do you know when it's time to launch?

15:59When do you kind of that seems like such a big hurdle for a lot of people. They'll maybe have this idea that they work on and then just never get it launched. Or maybe I'm talking about myself. But so how do you and we'll just continue with you, Carrie, like how did you you just did you just went for it? Or can you talk about that a little bit? Yeah, I think I'm sure, you know, we were ready to make a make a change. We had a goals for our family. It was kind of a lifestyle thing, too, to say we have to do this. We were just excited about the opportunity to do something on our own. And that was really motivating to us. And I think we were young and naive, too, which helped. You know, we didn't have to we didn't have two years to write the business plan or anything like that. We just dove right in. So I don't I think now it would be it would be different. But back then, we were just ready to do something on our own. And then what about you, Bailey? Yeah, I mean, I think it was just for me, it was like little little steps.

17:00And then you're there. It was like if you focused on. Everything you were trying to do, it almost became too overwhelming. Whereas if you could be like, OK, I'm like, I'm going to do that. I'm going to focus on this part. I'm going to focus on this part. OK, you know, we, you know, we wrote the business plan. We, you know, is terrifying to then show it to people to try to raise money. You know, like, I think this is a good idea. What if they come back and and say it's not? And, you know, what's the worst that can happen? I think that's what you kind of have to get past is the worst that could happen to me is you never even try. And so for something that you're really passionate about, you know. And so for me, I was so passionate about it. It was like, OK, now we're going to show it to people. OK, other people think it's a good idea. Great. Like now we're going to find find a place. Maybe we can do it and then we're going to find some equipment. And then you just kind of focus on the little pieces.

18:00And then one day, one day you're there for us. It wasn't necessarily that. One day we were like 100 percent ready. And so we just opened the doors and everything was super smooth and easy. It was more like, OK, we've now gotten ourselves into the place where we at least have all the things lined up that we can. Do business and we are also paying rent. So we must do business. And so that's where it was like, OK, you know, in those first months, it was a little bit of, you know, how are we going to how are we going to do this? Because a business plan is in my mind, super important and great. But it also goes, you know, a large piece of it goes out the window very quickly. So that I think that was, you know, we launched kind of out of necessity in a way where it's like, well, we're we're paying rent. We have all our licensing. We don't have our equipment wasn't even there.

19:00But it was like because it was seven months late. But it was like, what can we do to actually pull this off? Harry, did you all have investors early on? Bailey just said she did. We did not. We had our parents support. I say not with no money, but just that that was also something that helped us is just having people who said, you can do this. You can do anything you want to do. You know, so that was encouraging. But we did not have investors. No. And we thank goodness we'd earned enough money in New York and saved a little nest egg, you know, to be able to start start small. And one of the reasons we did manufacturing versus retail, we actually wanted our. One of our many ideas was to open up a fresh pasta shop. But this is before Artisan Bread. There was no bread and company, no Provence. This is before Nashville had any kind of, you know, specialty food places except for little markets. But we realized that the risk to open up a retail store, you know, with all the everything you needed to purchase was too much.

20:06So we decided to go the manufacturing route. We had kind of sales and manufacturing background. So we were comfortable with that. And it was a little bit less expensive to get started in case it didn't work out. You know, so. Yeah, so I took on investors only 18 months ago for the first time, and that was 21 years into the business. And the in the beginning, I was thankfully able to get bank financing to help, because I certainly it was not inexpensive to get into the bakery business. In fact, I think my first plant was over 15 million dollars. And when I sold my restaurants, I had four point three million from the sale of the restaurants that I put down. But I had to finance the balance and I didn't have any manufacturing or baking experience. So I really did chuckle when I got off the phone with the banks going, golly, you mean they're going to loan me all that money?

21:08And I don't know what I'm doing. You'll be surprised at how banks will come alongside you. If you have a good customer, I've always said you need your good customer. More important than a good idea is a good customer. So and a good story. I mean, I think you had such a great story, too, that people, you know, banks want to lend you money, but they also want to understand and be be along for that storytelling. And if you can tell a good story, even if you don't know what you're doing, that sometimes can work and help. Yeah. Yeah. Do you want to talk a little bit more about that, the storytelling piece of it and how that played out for all of you? I'll tell a funny story. So I moved to town with my three sons, one in elementary school, one in junior high, one starting ninth grade, still single. And I had been as an adult, always living in a small town.

22:13The biggest town I lived in had less than 10,000 people in it. OK. And I owned restaurants in towns of 2500. So when I moved to Nashville, I was way overwhelmed with the city. And I didn't know my way around. I was constantly lost and and overwhelmed. So I got an invitation to be involved with the chamber while I was always involved with the chamber in the towns that I lived in. And so I said, sure. Yeah, great. Signed up. Went. Well, it turned out not to be the chamber at all. It turned out to be Leadership Nashville. Well, you all probably have been through Leadership Nashville. And I arrived at the nick of time for the first meeting only to find out I have committed myself to one day a month for 12 to 14 hours that one day a month. And I'm like, I can't. You know, I was having trouble paying him to sleep, more or less.

23:16Do this Leadership Nashville. Anyway, I did it. And then at the end, when I got at the very end in the closing ceremony, they stood up there and we're talking about each individual in our class. And then three of the guys turned around and they had on those bare naked buns and they called me the bun lady. Well, I never called myself that. I had never heard that being said, but that just resonated with people. And from then on, I was the bun lady. And I've never marketed it. I've never paid. I've never put it on any marketing, but it was so funny. How that went. And then a few, you know, probably seven or eight years later, I got a call, you know, I got a call and a visit from the president at the time, George W. Bush, and he's even, hey, bun lady, can I have some of your buns?

24:19Like, so so it's funny how the storytelling and the marketing, you know, can come out of nowhere. Yeah. And Bailey, I remember your story. I've never forgotten it because it had it. It was as a journalist at the time, it was super fun to tell. And I think everybody likes telling it. So is that something that sounds like, Cordia, it kind of happened for you. But for for these other two here, did you think about that when you were going into it? Can you talk about that a little bit? Well, I mean, I think in the craft beer industry, part of part of why it works and resonate like craft, the craft beer industry has become a thing is that people want to know you. They want to feel connected to the product and to the people who make it and kind of they want to know what you're about. That's that's a big part of the fun. And so we knew from the start, I think what was easy about ours is our whole story is really authentic and it is what it is.

25:27And it's some funny, funny things happen. We're kind of funny people. We do funny things. And and so almost like everything we do, there is an actual story behind. And so it's easy in that sense because it's not like how, you know, we didn't really have to contrive anything, I guess. But I would say for our part or on my part, there are parts of your story that you might not even know are interesting to people that kind of will sometimes take a much bigger arc than you realize. You know, I think for me, I didn't realize when I was starting because I'd never really I'd never worked in the beer industry. I didn't know that there were hardly any women in it. And so I didn't realize it was going to be an interesting thing to be a woman in the beer industry, but it really was. And that's a part of our story that people pay a lot of attention to that.

26:30It's, you know, again, not not we weren't coming in being like, we're going to be lady brewers. You know, it wasn't like, oh, we're, you know, we're different. But it is it has become a bigger part of of kind of Jack Lopes story, I guess, or what people notice about it. So, yeah, but I think, you know, we we were the first brewery to open in Nashville in eight years. And so, again, it was like, you know, Blackstone and Bosco's had opened in the 90s as brew pubs. And then Yazoo opened in 2003 and then like crickets for a really long time. And then us. So one thing we're lucky about, too, is we just we put a press release out being like, hey, we rented this space. And the next day, the news was there. And we're like, what? You know, and so I think that was another thing that was really just lucky for us was there was not a lot of noise. There weren't other breweries opening. We were we were we were, you know, pretty pretty much the only the only one.

27:35And so it was a unique time for that at that point. Carrie, is there anything you want to say about? Yeah. So it's so funny. We were kind of doing something at the time. People people were having a hard time understanding pasta in fun shapes. But that's the way we connect with people. So our story is really like our products. What we love about it is how much we connect with our customers, whether it be, you know, a sports team or an interest that they have or a holiday. That's always really motivated us. I think what people think of us. But I was thinking about you, Bailey, in terms of being kind of an early person. And you're in, you know, before a craft beer now seems pretty common. Like, oh, you know, everyone drinks craft beer and all this. But to be an early and innovator, basically, I think is pretty cool. So we're we're kind of like that in the pasta business. You know, the big Italian pasta companies have no idea what we're doing. They think wagon wheels is a kid's shape. You know, so we're just now saying, you know, people were very resistant.

28:41And the first part of our, you know, company timeline, just not really understanding what we're doing. Grocery stores weren't really carrying specialty food. They didn't, you know, we were kind of gifty. We weren't really a food. They didn't know what to do with this. But as things evolve, part of our story is, you know, we're still doing the thing we felt passionate about from the beginning. And now it's a lot, you know, it's embraced. It's wanted. You know, it's something that's finally 27 years later. You know, it's finally people understand it and has a place in the marketplace. So it's it's fun to see. But we people call us, oh, you're the pasta people. I'm like, yeah, you know, you're still doing the pasta thing. So it's kind of a things happen like that. It's funny. I was wondering, do you guys have a favorite? Do you have a favorite shape that you make? Well, hard to say. We make I'm going to make all kinds of shapes, but maybe dinosaurs, princess, things like that, things that are kind of kid focused. I like to see the kids get excited about it. But when our latest kind of innovative product is a low carb pasta and it's actually an Italian shape, muffled DNA, which is like a little ruffle, like a little mini lasagna.

29:46And that's been really fun. And you're not so carb heavy. And by the way, I was thinking about this last night about all of us are in the wheat carb type business here on the panel. We're all heavy wheat and carbs. That was kind of interesting. But. Awesome. And I wanted to ask you about resources when you were starting out. What what was there for you? What what wasn't there for you? I know, Cordia, you mentioned leadership, Nashville. What what was helpful for you as far as resources? And what do you feel like was lacking that you wish existed at that time? And Cordia, let's start with you. OK, so I think that the resources I believe Nashville came out in droves with resources to support. Nancy Eisenbrand from the chamber and our CPA firm, Kraft CPA. And it just felt like that people were cheering us on from the sidelines.

30:50And literally through leadership, Nashville, I found my attorney at Bass, Barry and Sims. I felt like I always had a place to turn. And there were plenty of times I did not know what I was doing. So it was really nice to not feel stupid, to reach out and ask a question. And I think that Nashville has the most welcoming entrepreneurial spirit and giving people in in the world. It's it's just the right place to launch a business. I heard that many times, and I hope that that's still true. When I worry about Nashville changing, that's one of the things I worry about, because I do think it's a place where when people open a business, you're sort of you're not waiting for them to fail. You want them to do well. Kerry, anything you'd like to say about that resources in the beginning and also just this spirit of entrepreneurship in Nashville?

31:57Yeah, I mean, I agree with what Cordia said about this, how Nashville supports small businesses. I really wish back then that I had more, I guess, people that were in food specific specialty food. There just weren't a lot of us back then. So we really relied on our trade shows and to go to places where we could, you know, talk with other exhibitors about what they were doing. And that was kind of where I got a lot of the support. But personally, I think my family support was the biggest, just always there encouraging us. We had some networking groups. I did some of the chamber and all that, which is great. But we were it was so long ago. I'm just so happy now that like even this lay dom group is so important. I feel like, gosh, we can really help each other and be there for each other. And to me, that's been this has been a wonderful addition to what Nashville already had. Bailey. Yeah, I think, you know, similar. I think Nashville is an amazing place to start a business because you. Yeah, people are focused on local and what, you know, what local people are doing and really paying attention.

33:04And so, you know, for us, again, there wasn't a lot of what we were doing in Nashville. So I think the resource we we like to joke that we goodwill hunting our way into it because we pretended to be Vanderbilt Business School students. And we would go into the library at the Vandy Business School and talk to the librarians. And they would help us as far as getting the information that we needed to kind of help write a business plan. Like we wrote the business plan. But if we needed information on demographics and stuff like that, they would help us find the books that we needed. And we also and some of the professors there as well knew we were not students, but helped us with it. You know, Jermaine Bear is a professor who focused on entrepreneurship. And he helped us as far as again, reading, reading the business plan, helping us kind of through through that, you know, Linus from Yazoo, Kent from Blackstone.

34:15They we are in an industry where people tend to pay it forward. So they helped us a lot when we were like, we're thinking of setting up, you know, our tanks here. We're thinking of doing this, you know, they really helped us with that quite a bit. I think for us, the hard part was that we're a really highly regulated industry, but it wasn't happening very much here. So on the regulatory side, they're like, we know there's something going on, but we don't know exactly how to handle you. So, oh, there's a bear. Oh, my God, there's a bear like at the house. Oh, cool. Guys, I'm in Vermont. I can say this is the only time I've ever known a bear to join, I assume. So that was about 10 feet outside the house. Wow. Well, you never know.

35:17So anyway, so, yeah, that was kind of the thing that I wish there was a little bit. I wish there was a little bit more of just as far as being like, you know, we we know there's something, but we don't know exactly what on the regulatory side of how to deal with us, really. And even now, I've got kids that are in college that, you know, you can actually major in entrepreneurship and they have so much more focus at at the schools now for people who want to do something on their own. And, you know, we had nothing and we had just marketing, you know, or a small business major kind of thing. But this is pretty neat now. So I wanted to ask, once you launched your business, what what did you worry about that didn't end up being something you needed to worry about? And then what did you not worry about that you realized was a major issue? I think we worried about and I say worry might be a strong word again when we were so excited, we weren't worried.

36:20We're probably not really not worried about anything. This is going to be great, you know. But I think in terms of bringing employees on before we had enough sales to do that, you know, really taking the risk of having other people, you know, leave their jobs and be willing to join you and what you wanted to do. And the great thing is our three, our first three hires are still with us. You know, we have a small team, but we're very close. And so it's been that's been kind of fun. So well, we never, you know, we we thought about it. Wow, this is kind of risky. But then we just move forward and it, you know, it's all worked out. So. Cordia. I think when you asked that question, the first thing that came to mind is cash flow. It took it took a lot of cash to cash flow the bakery when we first opened. And we didn't cash flow break even for a couple of years. So I was pretty naïve about how money worked at the time.

37:21And so I cried myself asleep a lot. Maybe I worried about it too much because. You know, it just takes time to get businesses started. I think we as entrepreneurs think it's going to happen like that. And I've never launched a business that has performed as quickly as my mind thought it should. So, you know, cash flow was probably my biggest concern. And I think I should have worried about hiring the very best people instead of the people that I could afford. That was that took me a while to for that to resonate. And while we've still got a lot of our original team. In order to grow, especially the fast growth that we've we've accomplished, you've really got to have people that have either been there, done that, or they just have a natural ability and understand how to scale.

38:32So I would say that would be my answer. And can I ask you a question about a kind of a follow up question, even though I'm not Jennifer? You said recently you took on investors for the first time. What was what's the reasoning behind that? You know, Kerry, it wasn't something I set out to do. I was literally at an American Baker Association dinner in June two years ago this month. And sat next to a guy by the name of Greg Purcell, who is a private equity guy out of Chicago. It was by happenstance. There were 500 people in the room. And we talked about the industry and the consolidation that's going on and where the big opportunities lied ahead. And I was getting ready to build a new bakery in Arkansas. And it was a seventy seven million dollar bakery. And my estate attorney, Michael Sontag, is going like, and how old are you?

39:35You know, and he thought I should talk with Greg and that I needed to educate myself with how valuable the business really was, because I was clueless. I never even thought about it. So within 67 days, I got the business evaluated. Greg made an offer to become our partner. I was able to take a significant amount of money off the table and I'm still CEO. And in the last 18 months, we've built two mega bakeries. We bought four companies and we're well on our way to becoming a billion dollar business, which I could have never done with just my savings. Wow, that's such a good I mean, that's exciting. Cool. Absolutely. Bailey, how's the bear? Are you all OK?

40:37The bear, the bear is still out there somewhere, but I don't see it anymore, but I think we're OK. But my my two year old really having a good time now. Yeah, I mean, I think I was trying to think of anything. I don't think I over worried about anything. Like, I can't think of anything that I was like, that might be a problem. And it wasn't. But I think. Yeah, I think maybe it's Cordia who said there's like a certain amount of, you know, naivete that you have and, you know, when you're when you're starting a business and you haven't before that, you're like, well, like I mentioned, our tanks being late. It was like, well, we told them, you know, we need them in February and they said they're going to be here in February. So they're going to be here in February. And then when they don't get here for seven months after that, that's like a surprise. So I think I didn't I don't know if it's worry, but like I just kind of took things that face value, maybe more than I should have in the beginning.

41:47And then you learn very quickly to adapt and some of your best, the best parts of your business come out of that. You know, like I think that is a really important lesson is that like you again, I keep harping on it. You've got your plan. Then things are going to change and that's OK. It's actually better than OK, because you need to listen to. To how the community interacts with you, you can't, you know, shove a business people don't want down their throat, you can't pour a beer down someone's throat they don't want. Pretty sure that's probably not legal. And but, you know, when, you know, for us, you know, our biggest selling seasonal is called Lovebird and it's become this huge thing, you know, for Lovebird started as a homebrew beer before we started Jackalope. Sorry, I'm going on a total tangent, but where it was my business partner who started the company with me, Robin, it was we're roommates and it was her birthday.

42:56And we're going to have a birthday party. And they said, what what kind of beer do you want for for your birthday? And she said, I want a pink beer. And that's Lovebird was born. And so it's a strawberry raspberry wheat beer. It's a little bit pink. And so it was like that was a homebrew. And then we're like, oh, we'll bring it in. And it we didn't realize what what the reaction was going to be to it. But then and then at first we're like, oh, this needs to stay super limited, super limited. And then it was like, why are you doing? You know, so maybe that was something I knew I worried about that I didn't need to was, you know, trying to fight it or something. But I think, yeah, I think being able to adapt to the actual world is just a really important part of letting go of some of those worries, I guess.

43:58So when you talk about adapting, it makes me think about this past year and all the all the pivoting that everyone had to do as entrepreneurs. Were you sort of already doing that all the time anyway? Can you talk about maybe the lessons of of last year? And yeah, just the lessons of last year. Carrie, you want to start? Sure. I think I mean, there's so much. I really think about the last 27 years. I mean, last year was a challenge, but we have reinvented ourselves so many times because we had to, like Bailey's saying, like you think you have a plan for a certain thing. And we've been back when gift baskets were really popular. We had a whole gift bag. We're making cookies. We're making all kind. We've been in snack mix, all kinds of business trying to adapt to the changing market, especially when specialty food didn't. The marketplace wasn't there. We were so early in it. So I think being able to be open to what happens to you.

45:01And of course, last year was part of that in terms of all of us going, what is this? But some of our it gave us time to kind of pause in a way that we hadn't and really regroup and focus on things and see things through new eyes. And so it was to me, it's just another was just another opportunity, another change. But I think we're coming out of COVID stronger and better in terms of where we're more focused. So it kind of helped us, you know, clear some things up, shed some old skin, really focus. And so it was, it was, I don't, I mean, COVID was very challenging for personally, you know, for people personally and whatnot. So aside from the health issues that time, I enjoyed it. I mean, in terms of helping us get really having kind of a little bit of a break and having a forced break to really think, I think it was helpful stress. I mean, stressful too, but helpful.

46:04Yeah, I was just going to say like, that's extremely similar to what I would have to say about it. Like crazy stressful, very difficult on our business. But I think ultimately a lot of really great things came out of it for us. And the pause, so to speak, or the, the time to catch your breath. Yeah, I think again, so it was very tough. You know, the tap room was closed, you know, we're, we're, we're onsite from, what was it, March, March through mid August. So we lost about five months of our high margin revenue and nobody plans for that. And I think the phone call to our staff, I remember on March 23rd, telling them almost everybody was furloughed and I didn't know when they were coming back was the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. But, you know, I think as a business, we, we put out 27 different new beers last year as these like limited release canning things that we were never going to have time to figure out how to do that, that, and we really wanted to.

47:17And so now that we're kind of back up, you know, we're mid March, suddenly it was like, oh, we need to start making draft beer again. I guess people are going out, you know, we're getting draft beer orders. So now that things are kind of humming again, being able to keep those, you know, not, not, we're not going to do 27 of them this year, but we'll probably do 15. And we never would have been able to do that. Yeah, it was, like you said, in the pause, we didn't have time to think about what we wanted. And we've, we've been able to do that. And I feel really, really great about the direction where we're moving in. Cordia, what about you for last year? A little bit different boat. We're an essential workplace. And so we never did close. And, and things definitely shifted for sure.

48:20Because we had so many restaurants that closed. So it was, I would say the majority of the time we spent trying to figure out how to take care of our employees, how to keep them safe, how to give them the hours that they needed. Um, you know, it, it wasn't, it was busier. It wasn't business as usual. It was crazy busy, even though we did not have the, you know, the business, the volume that we needed, you know, trying to figure out how to get those served that needed to be served and how to distribute when you lost half of your distribution. So, you know, it was, it was a crazy time. Well, we just have about 15 minutes left. So I figure I should open this up to our audience. Is that what you say in Zoom? Anybody have any questions that you would like to ask our panelists?

49:25And I see here, Anne Elizabeth, silver lining was the closing. Was that the closing of the tap room? And thanks to Bailey's support, I was able to launch my business out of that location. That's cool. Yeah, it was awesome. We, so, um, our eighth Avenue business, uh, we always knew we were going to be closing that tap room with our original facility. We're closing this year. We knew, um, and we kind of had a year and a half transition going on into our new facility in Wedwood, Houston. Um, and so when we had to close it in March of last year, and it just kept being closed, kept being closed, kept being closed at some point, it didn't make sense to reopen it for just a few months. So, uh, so Anna Elizabeth, uh, has a really awesome business called Host and Toast that she's been using our space for. Awesome. So I can ask another question while we see if anyone else has anything they want to chime in with. Um, we touched on it a little bit, but I'm curious about, given my role at the food project, especially marketing and branding in the beginning.

50:32And, um, how did you go about that? What do you wish you did differently? Anybody want to chime in on that? I really think we, we missed that when we launched our business, we were, you know, we weren't really focused on the brand. We really didn't have, we were, I mean, our name was the pasta shop. Clearly we were not brand focused. There are a lot of the pasta shops out there, but, um, but now, you know, as we've evolved and now we're our brand is possibilities. Um, and we're much more brand focused. I think too, with all the digital, the digital world has changed everything in terms of really needing to have a, um, understand who you are, your brand presence, what that means, your target audience, all that kind of stuff has helped us, um, refocus. Um, so now more than ever we're brand. In fact, we're doing like a brand refresh thing right now. Um, but I wish we had done that a lot earlier. We just didn't. I think we're, we're focused more, you know, manufacturing product development, not, um, you know, we didn't take the entrepreneurship class, you know, we didn't exist back then.

51:36So I would encourage anybody though, who's starting a business to definitely focus on your brand first. And I'm sure Bailey did obviously. Um, but we just didn't, we were kind of a little late. I hate to say that, but it's true. Anyone else want to talk on that topic? I can't. Yeah, I mean, so yeah, clearly the brand was a big piece for us. And I think, uh, something to always remember, uh, is your intellectual property. Um, so we did end up, uh, having to actually buy the Jackalope trademark, um, from another, a brew pub in New Mexico that had a, just an IPA called Jackalope, cause in our, again, I should have been paid more attention in trademarks class in law school, but, uh, you know, we were naive and like, we're, oh, that's a, just a beer. We're a brewery. It's a different thing, but it actually got our trademark denied in the beginning. And so then we ended up having to license and buy it from them. Um, and so I think one thing is don't put, I mean, I'm very glad we did Jackalope.

52:42There's a reason our brewery is named Jackalope. I couldn't imagine it named anything else, but on the flip side, uh, try not to put a lot of value into your marketing until you know that it's your, that branding is actually yours. Um, because once it has value to you, because you've been putting it out there, um, if you lose it, that's, that would, that would be a real bummer. And I think, uh, the, the beer, you know, there's so many breweries now just nationally, uh, the intellectual property space is, is becoming crowded. So, um, yeah, I would just say, uh, think about your intellectual property. So we do have a question here. If you were going to start a totally new food business today, something not related to your current business, what would you consider, um, what is the future? Anyone have an answer to that?

53:44That's a good question. I think COVID, um, because of COVID individually packed snacks, um, would probably be a great category to go in. Um, where one person, one pack, you know, that, that safety and health, um, that was really something missing in the market during COVID. And I would say just trends with better for you products, you know, there are a million and one, everything's out there. So how are you going to differentiate whatever you're getting into? And I would probably, we're doing this on our, even with our innovating our pasta and making it healthier and using unique ingredients and, you know, customers want attributes. They want, you know, high protein, high fiber, other things like that. I'd probably encourage anyone who's looking at it to do something that is along that healthy, certainly individually packed, you know, snacks, that are a big category right now, but, um, something that has real differentiation, no matter what it is, the stores want that.

54:47We know we go to these grocery meetings and they're, you know, there's a ton of pasta out there, but it's like, how are you, how are you different? And so you just have to be very clear on that and find something that is different. Claudia, anything you'd like to add on that? We have a couple other questions too. If maybe we should keep moving through these, um, what have you all done to build and maintain relationships with the city and community? Yeah, I mean, I think that's a, that's a big part again of our business. Um, there's a lot of different ways to go about it. Um, you know, one is, uh, we, we work with a lot of different nonprofits, whether we're, you know, donate donating beer or money, we, we have a program with our tap room where we're always donating a portion of our sales to a different local nonprofit. And so I think, you know, trying to actually get to know the people who work at those places, um, and being involved more than just with the check as much as possible, um, is really good.

55:57Um, we do, uh, you know, Nashville, uh, does have, um, I think a fairly communicative, uh, local government. So I think getting to know your Metro council people, uh, getting to know, trying to get to know anyone in the mayor's office that you can, um, just, uh, I think is, uh, is do it very doable considering the size of city that we're becoming. Um, and I think, um, you know, it's like, we'll hold, uh, we, we love the environment, so we'll hold, uh, litter pickup events and, um, events that people can feel like they're actually, uh, doing something good and then they can drink, drink a beer after. So, um, I think the, the types of things that you want to just thinking about, okay, what can I do to make this space better than, than when we came in here? Um, I think is, is always on our mind. Anyone else want to say anything about that?

57:02Um, we've got one more question. I think, uh, as Tom has evolved, it's been, uh, really fun to be involved with different nonprofit organizations and right now, um, our focus is on trying to help Nashville get a major league baseball. We just think that would be great for families, um, but we're still involved with churches and schools and Ronald McDonald houses and every community that we're in. And we try to provide opportunities for our associates to have time and money to donate on behalf of the company. Um, I guess now we're at 1200 associates, so we try to leverage ourselves to give them opportunities because nothing feels better than doing something for somebody else. And so I'm going to skip to a follow-up on, um, that previous question, uh, how do you successfully operate in the beginning while focusing on generosity and the community too?

58:14That's easy. I can say I felt like I, I had to live that night. That was where I didn't have cash, but I donated time when I didn't have cash. I donated time. And now then I went to a period of time where I had more cash than I had time. And now I'm at a better place where I've got time and cash. So I think you just, it depends on the cycle that your life is in. Anyone else want to say anything on that one? Yeah, I was just going to say, yeah, you can always do, you know, it's okay to just do a little bit in the beginning, but it helps you, uh, think about it. Helps you, uh, stay focused on kind of what your, what your values are. Um, and, and yeah, you know, as Cordia was saying, as your, um, ability to do more grows, then it'll help you, you know, you keep doing that. So, you know, again, for us, environmental stuff always mattered.

59:14So, uh, you know, we always had our piping done so that we could reuse water and we always donated our spent grain to farmers, those types of things. Now we also have a carbon dioxide recapture system. So we recapture the CO2 off of our fermentations, um, which we were maybe the third small brewery in the country to do that. And so wanting to now, you know, it's like, okay, and now that's in place. Now what can we do, uh, to just kind of continue to, to up our sustainability game. So yeah, to me, it's about, yeah, upping your game when you can, but doing every, every little bit helps. You know, I think just having a part of your company culture, you know, I think that sounds like, you know, it has to be authentic to who your company is. And honestly, there's so much more, like I look at our company, how much more we could be doing. And again, it's that time, time and money and this and where to go. And I say, and I think sometimes it's a struggle to figure that out, but we like to also work with our, our, you know, our team members to, you know, what do, what are they interested in and what gets them excited?

01:00:21Um, so it's a culture thing too, which isn't easy at the beginning, but. Yeah, I was going to say, um, as a, as someone working at a nonprofit, um, Bailey, when you talked about just even a little bit and we get excited for the smallest thing, because that it's that community connection that really matters. Um, so even we had a, a class of kindergartners bring over three bags of lettuce and, you know, we do like 5,000 meals a week, but we incorporated that lettuce and we love that donation so much. It was so special. So, um, yeah, Natasha has a question here. Are there any resources available for entrepreneurs in Nashville that haven't already come up that you might recommend? Well, there's the entrepreneur center, um, is a, is a big one as well. Um, I'm trying to think.

01:01:23I was going to, I don't know if y'all have ever used score or not, but it's, um, society of retired executives and their services are free and they will literally walk along the side of you to try to help you deal with the day to day issues you're dealing with. And I think also trying to reaching out to business owners in an area, like if you're looking to get into packaged goods, you know, I, you know, I talked to a lot of people who just call and say, Hey, can you spend an hour of your time? And that's a great way to, and I think people want to share. So, you know, I would, wouldn't hesitate to reach out to people in the community and just say, here's what I'm working on. Can I, you know, ask you some questions? And I'm seeing one more in the chat, um, that I think we have time for, who are the women business leaders that you look up to? There's so many, so many great, you know, these gals on the screen right now.

01:02:24Um, I think Sherry Deutschman's amazing, Beth Chase, um, and, and, and, and Martha Ingram, uh, just such great, uh, legacy of women in business in Nashville. Yeah, I think, um, Van Tucker, if you know her, uh, she's a pretty incredible person and, uh, uh, someone who we've got connected with along, along the years. And, uh, she's, she's always been someone who, uh, who I've really admired. And it's fun because all these women have different skillsets and bring something, you know, bringing their unique angle. And that's, you know, that's incredible about just the Lay Dom group to meet everybody and, and really get to know, um, how people approach their businesses different than you, what are they doing? And so there's so many women that I've met in the last few years since I joined this group that I really admire for just different reasons. Same.

01:03:24I love all the different types of work that people in this organization do. Well, I just want to say thank you for, um, for being a part of the panel today. Thank you to participants. I believe that someone there's Erin to, um, hi, this was, this has been such a fascinating conversation and I really appreciate just the candidness and openness of you all sharing all of your stories and, um, and your knowledge with us. This is so important and appreciated. So thank you. Um, just a couple of little service notes. We do have another discussion coming up in August called doing digital right. We will send out details soon and that will answer a lot of questions about just navigating the world of the digital and social media. And as Natasha wrote in the comments on the, there is a, we have a grant and scholarship opportunity that is now open. Um, keep an eye out. It's for women run businesses. Um, we also have scholarships for education.

01:04:26So check out, um, Lidam nashville.org. And again, thank you, Carrie, Cordia, Bailey, Jennifer. You guys are awesome. And we really appreciate your time today. Thank you. It's a lot of fun. Appreciate it. Thank you all. See you soon. Thanks for having us. Thanks. All right. Thanks for tuning in today to the Lidam Discoffier Table Talk series. We will have another one coming up for you next month in August, which we're talking about digital social media, how to, uh, stay on top of that with your business. Remember both Brandon's book club and talk and shift July the 11th. We have a huge week coming up here at Nashville restaurant radio. So stay tuned. Lots of new episodes coming soon. Hope you guys are being safe. Love you guys. Bye.