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Taylor Carlson – Greenbush Bakery
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So you found Authentic Business
Adventures,
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the business program that brings you
the struggle
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stories and triumphant successes
of business owners across the land.
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One thing I think we can all agree
on is that donuts are awesome.
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Think that’s safe to say.
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So we brought Taylor Carlson,
the general manager and co owner
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at Greenbush Bakery.
How are you doing today?
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Doing good yourself.
I’m doing awesome.
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Yeah, I’m doing I’m excited because
we’re in this new studio here.
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And so this is the first
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video, live video that we’re doing
the podcast interview on.
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So.
So welcome man.
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And if anything breaks, sorry.
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Yeah.
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So Greenbush Bakery.
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Let’s start out first.
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Where did the name come from?
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So Greenbush Bakery
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came from the neighborhood
that our original location was at.
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Oh.
So that neighborhood down
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off Regent Street is known as
the Greenbush neighborhood.
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And it’s always, you know,
it was where the Italian immigrants
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arrived and it’s still named the Greenbush
neighborhoods is kind of where that name
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came from when my grandparents
bought the business.
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OK.
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So there was a bakery that was down
on Regent Street few years back,
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and that’s my grandparents purchased
the bakery when it was kind of rundown
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and dingy and
changed the name to Greenbush Bakery.
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And they bought that in March of 1996.
Wow.
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So they’ve owned the business
for 24 years now.
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That is so weird.
1996 to me
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it seems like that was just the other day,
right?
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Yeah, I was crawling back then.
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I feel old.
Yes.
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So that was our original
location down there.
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All right.
And we built another location
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on the east side of Madison
a little over three years ago now.
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Sure.
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And then we just relocated that original
location at the end of August.
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So it’s almost like a year now
since we’ve moved to that location.
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And we just moved it
down like the block.
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Sure.
I’m still on Regent Street.
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OK.
So it’s just kind of a new spot and.
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Sure.
So we’ve got two locations in Madison now,
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so.
All right.
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Yeah.
So do you know the story about why your
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grandparents chose a bakery
or specifically that bakery?
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It was.
It’s kind of funny.
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My grandpa always talks about,
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like all things kind of led up to his life
to owning the bakery.
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All right.
So he’s done numerous things in his life.
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He was in the Navy.
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He sold insurance.
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He’s worked at Oscar Meyer for numerous years.
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So he
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has done all these
different jobs where he kind of
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I think it was kind of almost like
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an impulse thing where he just decided
just. Let’s just buy a bakery. Do something new and
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ended up in the bakery business.
All right.
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So, yeah, it wasn’t really any,
like, crazy story behind it.
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I think she was just kind
of opportunity that came up.
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And when he originally bought the bakery,
he had a business partner in on it
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with him that he ended up buying out
a few years after they purchased it.
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So him and my grandma like the main ones
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that have owned the business
for sure all these years.
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So he had to be older ish, relatively.
Yeah.
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He bought the bakery.
He’s in his 70s now.
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So he was in mid 50s.
Mid 50s.
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Yeah. Around 50.
All right.
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So.
So career shift.
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Yeah, a little bit.
Going from insurance to selling donuts.
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So did he,
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the bakeries itself was existing
at the time that he bought.
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Yeah, there was there was a bakery there.
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It wasn’t Greenbush but there was
a bakery there when he purchased it.
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So he had to do a lot of upkeep
to kind of bring it up to speed.
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And that’s kind of what,
you know, has made the business.
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What it is, is just his
ability to be a handy man.
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And now, sure,
every aspect of the business and kind of
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do things on his own to kind of, you know,
bring the business where it was.
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And it’s I mean, even the last like five
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years of us getting
the East Side location.
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yeah. And relocating,
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it’s completely different game
than it was twenty four years ago.
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I bet. Just as far as the locations
and volume that we do now.
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But I mean. Is it more or less?
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Well, yeah, a lot more.
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What do you attribute that to?
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Is it more people just around Madison?
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I think just how Madisons
growing and you know, with us
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just being a staple in Madison
for such a long time
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you know, I think with,
you know, the university kind of growing
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and just the Madison as a whole, even
like the outskirts, Sun Prairie here.
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Yeah.
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You know, I think that’s
kind of a tribute to it.
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And we’ve just kind of always had a high
quality product where, you know, people
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word of mouth kind of talk about us.
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And,
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you know, we kind of do something
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that a lot of places there’s not too many
places in the area that do what we do.
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So I think as far as bakery here.
Yeah, I mean,
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I think just with the quality of stuff,
I mean, sure, there’s bakeries
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all around Madison.
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But right now, our main focus
is I would say donuts.
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So, you know, there’s a lot of bakeries,
good bakeries in the area that do,
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you know, cringle or cakes
and stuff like that.
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But as far as what we do,
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I don’t think there’s really too many
people that can compete with us for what we do.
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Sure,
sure.
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So,
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yeah. That’s cool.
Yeah. That’s cool.
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Yeah.
So I feel like donuts are one of those
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things that just seem to be
popular at anytime, regardless of
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the health kicks.
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I guess that people may
or may not claim to be
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right.
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It’s a cool look around
the world you like.
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Well, not too many people.
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So I mean, you show up to a party or
with some friends over the box of donuts.
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No, it’s going to be like
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even if it’s January 2nd,
I’m going to lead them.
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Yeah.
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So tell me, is your bread
and butter business.
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The one on one,
like the the person walking in buying
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a few dozen or a dozen or six
donuts or something like that?
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Or is it a huge
butter wholesale where you’re saying yes.
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So we try we do wholesale stuff in
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local grocery stores
and markets in the area.
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Okay, so we’re in like
the Hiva Mecca Sherriffs Willie Streets.
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All right.
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And Woodman’s.
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So we’re just in the
Madison area for that.
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And we do package product for that.
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OK, but that’s really only probably like
a fifth of our business that we do.
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So it’s mainly like our
retail or both locations.
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Our Eastside location is kind of gradually
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grown and I think that’s just what
the area here sure has kind of.
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There’s apartments and houses
going crazy over here.
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Oh, my gosh.
And I like weeds.
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Yeah.
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In downtown, you know,
with the students or.
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Right on campus down there.
Sure.
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Anytime they’re at athletic events
going on down there, we’re busy.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
I think, you know, with our retail, that’s
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definitely our, you know,
big business that we think.
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So I think,
you know, with everything that’s going
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on too, it’s been tough because we were
able to keep doing that wholesale stuff.
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And that was, you know,
with people only being the go to grocery
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store here these last few months,
we’ve been really busy with that in our
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wholesale accounts have kind
of grown as far as like volume.
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All right.
Okay.
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But obviously, not having that retail
has been kind of a tough situation.
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Right.
But we were able to kind of
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we were doing some curbside
stuff out of our location.
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That’s where we do our
wholesale production.
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And that’s kind of the main reason we got
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that say location was
for our wholesale stuff.
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So we had kind of just outgrown
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the region, street location
as far as production.
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We were probably doing 16,
17 hour days with our wholesale and retail
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stuff when it was just Regent Street at
the end of before we got the East Side.
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Okay,
so we were kind of looking at another
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location to do that mass
production for the grocery stores.
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Sure.
And we kind of fell out here.
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So we do all that production out
at the East Side for the grocery stores.
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So that’s the last few months.
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We were still doing that.
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And we added like the curbside pickups.
Sure.
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When we didn’t have our retail open,
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which was kind of fun because we were
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doing at first we were doing
just Friday afternoons.
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And we were really busy with that.
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And we started bringing back some of our
full time employees kind of gradually.
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And we started doing Thursday through
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Sunday mornings where we
are doing the curbside.
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And there is a few days where we would
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we would have like a line
all the way out past that.
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Steinhoff ls like out to the real
Mother’s Day we had.
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It was probably like a 45 minute
wait for people to get there.
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Don’t worry.
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We did we did like all
preorders for it too.
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Sure.
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Because otherwise we would’ve had no
idea what to make sure to expect it.
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We would get all the orders in place
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and kind of have like a pick
pickup time for everyone.
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And they would come and
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wait in line and we’d run the Donitz
up to the car, take payment.
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So we were just kind of been getting
creative with the last few months here.
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And now we’ve got both of our retails open
both locations with more open six to one
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from six a.m. to one p.m. every
day right now at both locations.
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And then after Fourth of July weekend
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here, we’re going to kind of expand
into some afternoon hours.
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So,
yeah, it’s been an interesting few months,
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but I mean, every day it’s kind
of been dealing with the same stuff.
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That’s the name of the game, right?
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Anybody that’s in retail or we have
some consumer contact of any kind.
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And that was the hardest part about it,
too, is, you know,
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the biggest thing for us is having people
come in and see the donuts and kind
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of lose out with donuts they wanted
and not having that for people.
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You know, we were doing the preorders,
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but we were also having people call in the
morning of like, hey, are you guys open?
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Oh, we’re doing curbside.
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But sure, we were making extra stuff
for people to kind of try to accommodate.
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But it was kind of a tough thing when you
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don’t have the customer coming
in to see what you have available.
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Right.
You know.
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And we do so many different kinds
of doughnuts where
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it was kind of just first come,
first serve, and if we were looking
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for specifics, we were trying
to accommodate them to that.
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And with our business,
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we’re not like a normal restaurant where
it’s like making the stuff on demand.
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It takes a lot of work and prep time.
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You know, it’s not like you can order
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a cheeseburger in like it’s
ready in 15 to Shern and it’s.
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So that was kind of a tough aspect of it.
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But we just kind of been doing what we
can do and get creative as possible.
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Yeah, we think so.
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But I think a lot of people have been
having to do that the last few months.
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Oh my gosh.
Yeah.
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You’re not alone.
Yeah.
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And that’s kind of the ease in it.
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Just like, you know,
it’s not just us deal with it.
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It’s everybody’s right.
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So tell me about
the region’s street place.
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You moved you switched locations
up a block away or something.
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Yeah, yeah.
It was a bigger is a better more traffic.
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So the old location that we had,
we had a basement there.
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So a lot of a lot of storage,
but it’s kind of unused storage.
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But as far as our location now, we pretty
much just cut down on that storage.
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Okay.
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And we’ve got a lot of space that are you
said location where
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a lot of the extra equipment that we
kind of accumulated over the years,
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unneeded space.
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We’ve kind of put all that equipment over
in our storage of the East Side and just
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kind of cut down on the storage at the new
Regent Street spotter and then our retail
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at the new Regent Street.
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We actually have we had
some seating inside.
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Yeah.
But we’ve kind of put it out now.
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So we’ve got it.
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So we actually we’ve got more
space in like our retail.
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And it’s that old reason street location.
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You know, I’d been there
for so long and it was kind of
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it had some character to it.
Sure.
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You know, even if we our lease was kind
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of coming to an end there where we kind
of just made the decision to move to a new
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spot and kind of revamp and
have a fresh start there.
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So it’s I mean, it’s a beautiful
spot that we’re in now.
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Yeah, I’m in the way that we’re
in the region apartments there.
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OK, so it’s right across
the street from SCOTNEY Bar.
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Sharon Luckies.
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So we’re like right in the shadows of
Camp Randall Pretty Ranch, which is nice.
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So that building itself,
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it’s got a lot of it’s kind of a long
spot where there’s a lot of windows.
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So we’re actually the way we’ve got
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that set up is we’ve got some of our
production actually visible for customers.
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Wow.
So out in front, we’ve got like a little
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patio area for, like,
the apartment complex.
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Okay, we’ve got some lights.
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They’ve got some seating
and stuff out there.
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Sure.
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And then were that seating is all the
windows are with like our sheeter room.
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So you can see them actually making donuts
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throughout the door and a little bit
of visibility with our production.
[00:12:49]
Sure.
That’s another cool aspect of it, too,
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because there’s not really any places
that you can go and see them right.
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In your doughnuts or anything,
whatever it may be.
[00:12:57]
So that’s cool.
[00:12:58]
Yeah, and it’s kind of a,
you know, a process.
[00:13:00]
A lot of people had no idea how donuts are
made or, you know, never seen that before.
[00:13:04]
Right.
[00:13:06]
What kind of a cool off
aspect of Suresnes, too?
[00:13:08]
So, yeah, it’s interesting.
[00:13:11]
My kid
[00:13:12]
likes to watch TV every once in a while
and they tell me you get to learn
[00:13:16]
something from whatever you watch
of watching these how it’s made shows
[00:13:20]
like we got to watch how it’s made
[00:13:21]
on chickens,
like from Chicken Animal into the
[00:13:26]
contenders or whatever you say,
love with my wife.
[00:13:29]
Because just being girls.
Oh yeah.
[00:13:32]
There’s some stuff you don’t want to see.
[00:13:34]
But there’s nothing really
girls would note it’s.
[00:13:39]
I mentioned the little girls.
Are you.
[00:13:41]
Yeah.
I mean
[00:13:42]
with our events and stuff too,
[00:13:45]
you know, it’s pumping all
the air out from our hood system.
[00:13:48]
Sure.
[00:13:49]
So if you’re walking by the bakery
to you can just smell the donuts.
[00:13:52]
Oh sure.
Bring him in.
[00:13:54]
He’s like, for me, it’s kind of you come
immune to the smell a little easier.
[00:13:57]
And everybody that comes in like, oh, I
could smell it from a block away are your
[00:14:02]
thoughts.
[00:14:04]
So tell me a story about how you got
[00:14:06]
involved, because, yeah,
1896 is a while ago for you.
[00:14:09]
So I’ve kind of grown up with
being involved with the business.
[00:14:15]
So when I was a kid,
my grandpa would always take me
[00:14:17]
to the bakery and Hensher sweep up or
whatever, just kind of I was babysitting
[00:14:21]
me and when I was like in college,
I went to ATC for two years and then I was
[00:14:28]
up in Stevens Point
to finish up my degree.
[00:14:32]
And whenever I was in college,
[00:14:33]
back for the summers or winter breaks, I’d
always kind of help out at the bakery.
[00:14:37]
Sure, I was actually able to use
[00:14:39]
the bakery as my internship to go
to graduate for business.
[00:14:44]
So my last semester of school,
I only had a few days of classes where I
[00:14:50]
was kind of commuting
back on the weekends.
[00:14:52]
Sure.
And I was kind of using that as my time to
[00:14:56]
I didn’t really know I was going
to be working at the bakery.
[00:14:59]
And so probably like
my senior year of college.
[00:15:02]
So it was kind of just like perfect
timing with my grandparents, like.
[00:15:05]
Sure.
Getting older and
[00:15:08]
needing to kind of expand the business
where I’ve kind of came into play.
[00:15:13]
And it was kind of good
to use it as an internship.
[00:15:15]
Sure.
[00:15:16]
It’s because I knew that what I was gonna
be doing and just kind of learning
[00:15:20]
the aspects of the business
and great real world.
[00:15:22]
Yeah, for sure.
Sure.
[00:15:24]
So once I graduated, I kind
of started full time with the bakery.
[00:15:30]
And that’s when we just had the region
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street location, the old
region street location.
[00:15:35]
But a year in from when I started,
that’s when we kind of
[00:15:39]
got the East Side location.
OK.
[00:15:41]
So just kind of like perfect timing.
Sure thing.
[00:15:43]
With my family.
[00:15:44]
So did your grandparents ask you about
the second location or did they.
[00:15:48]
It was your kind of decision.
I mean, over there.
[00:15:51]
Yeah.
[00:15:51]
I mean, I was kind of as far as like
finding a location and kind of getting
[00:15:55]
everything set up as far as
build outs and stuff like that.
[00:15:59]
I was pretty much in full control, almost
like obviously I had some say with it and
[00:16:05]
but I was kind of taking over, you know,
[00:16:08]
most of that stuff for sure is
getting that kind of in place.
[00:16:11]
So.
All right.
[00:16:12]
So, yeah, that’s cool.
Yeah, that’s cool.
[00:16:15]
How did you guys land
on the East Side spot?
[00:16:19]
So we headed looked at a few locations.
[00:16:22]
We looked at
[00:16:24]
a spots that we were pretty
we weren’t sure about it.
[00:16:27]
It was kind of a nice spot.
Was read over by carbon for sure.
[00:16:31]
And he said, you won there.
Yeah.
[00:16:34]
We had looked at that one first and then
[00:16:35]
we looked at a few other
locations where we
[00:16:39]
were just trying to think because we
wanted to have that wholesale production
[00:16:42]
there, but we also wanted to have
the retail sector earnings.
[00:16:45]
That’s a tough combo.
Yeah.
[00:16:47]
Yeah, exactly.
So we needed a lot of space and we needed,
[00:16:50]
you know, an ability to be
able to draw a retail crowd.
[00:16:55]
We get a lot of foot traffic down
[00:16:56]
on Regent Street and we don’t
really like that at the Eastside.
[00:16:59]
It’s more driving in.
[00:17:01]
But we were kind of just looking
[00:17:03]
for something that would
fit both of those aspects.
[00:17:05]
And the spot that we’re in right now is
actually like, you know, it’s perfect.
[00:17:09]
We’re sure of like right between
Madison and some prairie and right.
[00:17:13]
There’s just apartments
going up crazy and.
[00:17:15]
Yes, like crazy.
[00:17:16]
So,
[00:17:17]
you know, it’s taken some time for us
[00:17:19]
to kind of grow accustomed
customer base out there.
[00:17:23]
Sure.
[00:17:23]
But that’s kind of for any
business, you know.
[00:17:26]
You know, for us being a small business
to it’s not like I have,
[00:17:30]
you know, thousands of dollars
for a marketing budget.
[00:17:33]
Perfect segue way.
[00:17:34]
Perfect segue, because I want to ask
you about marketing for a donut shop.
[00:17:37]
Yeah.
Like, how do you market that donut shop?
[00:17:40]
A lot of it’s word of mouth.
[00:17:42]
So we I really don’t do too
much as far as marketing.
[00:17:47]
A lot of it’s just social media.
Okay.
[00:17:49]
We did some stuff when we started
the Eastside location for like
[00:17:53]
Google ads and stuff like that just
to kind of get our listing some
[00:17:59]
some variety.
[00:18:01]
People searching specifically for.
Yeah.
[00:18:04]
Yeah.
I mean, it’ll pop up now.
[00:18:06]
That was kind of a learning
aspect when we first sure.
[00:18:09]
Started the business because,
you know, if the new Google listing.
[00:18:13]
Yeah.
[00:18:13]
You Google like McDonald’s
shows up on like the map.
[00:18:17]
Right.
A single McDonald’s that you have.
[00:18:18]
But with the new like Google listing,
it doesn’t it didn’t show up.
[00:18:22]
Greenbush bakery right away.
[00:18:24]
It showed the region street location,
but it didn’t show any side.
[00:18:27]
So that’s why we kind of did some ads
with that just to kind of get some,
[00:18:32]
you know, some traffic with that location.
[00:18:34]
And
[00:18:35]
there seems to be a little
bit of a pay to play.
[00:18:37]
Yeah.
In that regard, they don’t say that we
[00:18:39]
still you know,
it’s gotten better over the.
[00:18:42]
I think there’s a lot of people,
[00:18:43]
especially in Madison now,
where people are kind of moving
[00:18:45]
in for jobs and stuff where
they weren’t born and raised in Madison.
[00:18:49]
Sure.
A lot of people born and raised in Madison
[00:18:51]
have probably heard of Greenbush
bakery or our bakery.
[00:18:54]
But, you know, with a lot of new people
kind of moving into the area and a growing
[00:18:59]
you know, we still get some people coming
[00:19:00]
in and go, I didn’t know you
guys had a east look sharing.
[00:19:03]
But,
you know, it’s kind of we’ve got kind
[00:19:05]
of our core group of customers
that write in every weekend and stuff.
[00:19:09]
And obviously you get new people coming
in and out of town, people and stuff.
[00:19:14]
So, yeah, it’s taken some time to kind
of grow that customer base over there.
[00:19:18]
And,
you know, we were starting to really get
[00:19:20]
rolling right before everything
started happening with.
[00:19:23]
Sure.
[00:19:25]
Everything’s coming to a halt now.
[00:19:26]
Right.
[00:19:27]
We’ve still been kind of busy,
you know, on the weekends.
[00:19:30]
We’ve been like super busy Saturdays.
Sundays, really.
[00:19:33]
That’s cool.
You know, during the week,
[00:19:35]
like Monday through Thursday,
it’s been, you know, pretty slow.
[00:19:38]
But I think that’s just with a lot
of people kind of working at home now,
[00:19:43]
not getting donuts for the office
and wanting to get donuts for the office
[00:19:47]
if they are, because, you know,
people’s people touching stuff.
[00:19:51]
So we’ve been doing some stuff as far as
[00:19:53]
like individually bagging products,
sharing, kind of doing that.
[00:19:57]
So.
[00:19:59]
Yeah, I don’t know.
It’s been interesting.
[00:20:01]
All right.
So tell me, do you.
[00:20:04]
Are you essentially taking over?
Yeah.
[00:20:07]
I guess the management side or where?
Yes.
[00:20:09]
So I mean it.
[00:20:11]
Right now.
[00:20:12]
So my grandparents are still kind
of involved with the business.
[00:20:15]
You know, they kind of do a lot of stuff
out of their house as far as like
[00:20:19]
paperwork and making sure they’re
paying bills and stuff that.
[00:20:24]
But we’ve kind of tried to ease them out
of things just because they are getting
[00:20:27]
older and they don’t need
to be working every day.
[00:20:30]
Sure.
Right.
[00:20:31]
Got me to do that.
So.
[00:20:33]
So actually, my dad, he worked at FedEx
and retired and started working for us.
[00:20:39]
And he was he’s been doing like deliveries
and doing some like banking at both
[00:20:44]
locations like that,
like my grandparents were doing and some
[00:20:48]
of the daily statements
and stuff like that.
[00:20:50]
So he’s been doing that for us.
[00:20:52]
And then my mom is actuallya teacher.
[00:20:56]
I’m in the Madison School District.
[00:20:58]
So she usually, like on weekends will
kind of help us out a little better.
[00:21:03]
And then, like during the summers when she
doesn’t have classes and stuff,
[00:21:05]
she’s been kind of helping
out so to whenever needed.
[00:21:08]
So we’ve kind of got the whole
family involved of things.
[00:21:11]
Yeah.
Right.
[00:21:12]
My brother just graduated from school
[00:21:14]
and he’s been looking for a job, but he
graduated with a physical education
[00:21:21]
degree.
It seems like.
[00:21:22]
All right.
[00:21:22]
Well, right now, you know,
he’s looking for jobs.
[00:21:25]
To where.
Sure.
[00:21:27]
A lot of places prior and hiring for.
[00:21:28]
Because they don’t know what
the situation is going to be.
[00:21:31]
It is an uncertain world
that we’re in right now.
[00:21:33]
He’s been he’s been working for us, too.
[00:21:35]
So, yeah, we got everyone
involved with that.
[00:21:37]
But the ultimate goal is for me to kind
of take over the business and sure.
[00:21:43]
Is just kind of aligned like perfectly as
[00:21:45]
far as, you know,
them kind of getting to the point where
[00:21:48]
you want to step down a little bit
and meet graduating school and you’re
[00:21:51]
growing the business and
taking over things.
[00:21:54]
So that’s fair.
That’s right.
[00:21:56]
Tell me why you guys chose Eastside
versus West Side or North Side.
[00:22:01]
So I think with us, you know,
our family is kind of always
[00:22:06]
lived on the east side of Madison.
[00:22:09]
So I think that kind of factored into it.
Sure.
[00:22:11]
A little bit.
I mean.
[00:22:13]
I mean, you said so, I’m told.
Yeah.
[00:22:15]
Yeah.
[00:22:15]
You know, I think too, with like,
you know, like I was saying before,
[00:22:19]
a lot of the areas around medicine are
kind of certain explode as far as growth.
[00:22:24]
So I think, you know,
with just looking at like how much some
[00:22:27]
prairie was growing, we kind of wanted
to be in that area a little bit.
[00:22:31]
And I think just as far as like, you know,
having that downtown location,
[00:22:36]
it was a pretty good distance away
from that, that we really enjoyed it.
[00:22:39]
And I think, you know, with, you know,
my future, I’m only twenty seven.
[00:22:42]
Sure.
[00:22:43]
So I don’t really see
the business getting any smaller.
[00:22:45]
You know, I’ve got this I think, you know,
my ultimate goal would be to kind
[00:22:49]
of eventually get like a location,
maybe West Side or shareowner over there.
[00:22:53]
There’s been a lot of good stuff going
[00:22:55]
on like the last three years as far as
the relocation and getting the East Side
[00:22:59]
location, where
that’s probably not in the horizon
[00:23:02]
anytime, you know,
in the next couple of years.
[00:23:04]
But, you know, down the road, I’d like to
pray you get another location somewhere.
[00:23:07]
Sure.
So we kind of cover all of Madison, right?
[00:23:10]
But,
[00:23:12]
yeah, I think the big thing was just kind
of our family being from the east side
[00:23:15]
of Madison, kind of wanting
to be close to that.
[00:23:17]
So that’s fair.
Yeah, that’s fair.
[00:23:20]
I want to ask you about
the equipment needed for a bakery.
[00:23:23]
Yeah, because I feel like there’s
got to be hugely capital intensive.
[00:23:29]
Yeah.
That’s pretty much, you know,
[00:23:31]
and like the main expenses as far as you
know, when we had to when we had to move
[00:23:36]
our region’s relocation, we will do
going to relocate a lot of that stuff.
[00:23:39]
We went from just having the old Regent
Street to getting a whole new location.
[00:23:45]
We had to kind of find all new equipment.
[00:23:47]
We didn’t have that stuff sitting around.
[00:23:49]
So do you just walk me
through what is needed?
[00:23:51]
There’s a mixture, I imagine.
Yep.
[00:23:53]
And mix.
Yes.
[00:23:55]
You’ve got two mixers at both locations.
[00:23:57]
We got one bigger one that we
use for like our raised dough.
[00:24:01]
Sure.
Like our frostings and stuff.
[00:24:03]
And then we’ve got kind of a smaller one
[00:24:05]
that we use for like our
cake donuts and like our old fashions.
[00:24:09]
OK.
So fans.
[00:24:12]
Yeah.
And drinks now.
[00:24:16]
So now they’ll take an old fashioned.
[00:24:18]
They’re going to be alone.
Yeah.
[00:24:21]
It’s a short one.
[00:24:23]
So yeah, we’ve got the mixers.
[00:24:25]
We’ve got obviously the fryers that we
[00:24:27]
fry or doughnuts and sure
we’ve got one fryer at Regent Street
[00:24:32]
and then we’ve got two fryers
at the Eastside location.
[00:24:35]
OK.
[00:24:36]
And then we’ve got proof boxes for like
our Ray’s donuts and fritters.
[00:24:40]
OK.
It’s basically just like a sauna for like
[00:24:43]
the doughnuts to kind
of help them rise and get.
[00:24:45]
Oh, really?
Yeah.
[00:24:47]
I don’t know anything about that.
[00:24:48]
So it’s kind of like
same thing with bread.
[00:24:50]
They’ve got four proof ovens for that.
OK.
[00:24:53]
And then like our
shitters that we use for,
[00:24:56]
for cutting like there is doughnuts.
It’s kind of tough to, like,
[00:25:00]
explain a lot of stuff, like you’re just
you and me without leisurely sharing it.
[00:25:04]
Yeah.
So this is who I have to to buy.
[00:25:08]
But for now, we just
live with what we have.
[00:25:09]
Yeah.
Yeah.
[00:25:10]
So when you talk about big mixers
versus little mixers, how big is big?
[00:25:15]
We’ve got like 80 court big mixer.
Okay.
[00:25:18]
And then like a 40 chord small mix here.
Wow.
[00:25:21]
That’s so huge.
Forty four.
[00:25:23]
You’re talking ten gallons.
Yeah.
[00:25:24]
So that’s that’s a lot of fashion.
[00:25:28]
When you say old fashioned, you mean.
[00:25:30]
So those are like.
[00:25:33]
Let’s see.
So we do five different flavors of them.
[00:25:36]
They’re kind of like a cake, don’t it.
Okay.
[00:25:38]
They’re dunkers.
Okay.
[00:25:41]
So you’re talking about the basic Gruntal.
[00:25:42]
Yeah.
[00:25:44]
Kind of like flare out a little bit.
Okay.
[00:25:46]
Yeah.
So guys are like the old fashioned donuts.
[00:25:48]
We do them like sour
cream is like the base.
[00:25:51]
That’s like a regular one that we share.
[00:25:53]
And then blueberry cherry
chocolate and apple cinnamon.
[00:25:56]
Okay.
[00:25:56]
Our main old fashions and those
are actually probably like our most
[00:26:00]
popular doughnut that we do
the regular and blueberry ones.
[00:26:02]
Okay, so that’s kind of our main product.
[00:26:04]
We do for like our wholesale to surance.
[00:26:06]
So we do those in six packs
and then we do like our
[00:26:10]
big fritters in like a package
too for like the grocery store.
[00:26:14]
So.
Huh.
[00:26:16]
Yeah.
That’s cool.
[00:26:17]
Yeah.
So how much of the process was manual
[00:26:20]
that has now been automated or
will that make thing with us too.
[00:26:24]
I mean everything as far as like the
doughnuts, like we do everything by hand.
[00:26:29]
Pretty much.
Wow.
[00:26:30]
So like all of the doughnuts,
[00:26:32]
a lot of the places like QuickTrip
in these big production.
[00:26:37]
Yeah.
[00:26:37]
Got like the fryers that kind
of manually flip it.
[00:26:40]
Well sure.
To you know, fire itself.
[00:26:42]
But everything as far as our doughnuts
[00:26:45]
is either dispense or dropped in or
flipped by hand buyer whiteflies.
[00:26:50]
So it’s pretty labor intensive.
Yeah.
[00:26:53]
Sounds like jobs.
[00:26:54]
But you know, that’s kind of what makes it
special to just because it’s not like a
[00:26:59]
cookie cut during it and it’s got
some love and hard work put into it.
[00:27:04]
Sure.
That’s fair.
[00:27:05]
That’s fair.
Is tough to find employees then?
[00:27:10]
No, not really.
[00:27:10]
I mean, we we’ve got probably around
close to 30 employees.
[00:27:15]
But do you really both locations?
[00:27:17]
Well, about half of those
are full time employees.
[00:27:21]
Half hour kind of part time employees.
[00:27:23]
A lot of them are students.
OK.
[00:27:25]
So with our downtown location,
[00:27:27]
we get a lot of UW students
that worked for us for a few years.
[00:27:30]
And then once they graduate
and move on and find other jobs.
[00:27:33]
Yeah,
[00:27:34]
we just we get a lot of those.
And then for the East Side,
[00:27:37]
we’ve got a few like MTC students
that work for us part time.
[00:27:40]
Okay.
[00:27:41]
And then as far as like our full time
production people,
[00:27:44]
we have kind of had like the same core of
those workers for sure, numerous years.
[00:27:51]
We’ve got a really good group of full
time workers that work for us.
[00:27:54]
And well, it’s also our big thing with our
[00:27:57]
full time, we pay 100 percent health
insurance for all of our full time people.
[00:28:01]
And then we pay pretty well, too,
for insurance and people, too.
[00:28:05]
So we’ve got a pretty good, loyal, OK
workforce that, you know, stick around.
[00:28:09]
We’re not sure.
And it’s cycling people in and out.
[00:28:11]
Right.
So that’s kind of how you get.
[00:28:14]
That big aspect for our business, too,
[00:28:15]
is kind of having people familiar
with the production business.
[00:28:18]
So.
So health care has been an issue since
[00:28:23]
1980.
[00:28:25]
However, I guess as far as the cost goes,
[00:28:27]
I’ve heard a lot of business books and
they were complaining about it forever.
[00:28:31]
Yeah.
Like, I’m looking I’m reading in the sky.
[00:28:35]
Oh, I think it’s called
the Great Game of business.
[00:28:37]
And I’m reading this book.
Super interesting book.
[00:28:39]
I rebuilds.
Yeah.
[00:28:40]
Engines for Caterpillar, whatever.
[00:28:44]
And he’s complaining about
the cost of health insurance.
[00:28:46]
I was like one of his written 1992.
Yeah.
[00:28:49]
I thought, oh man, this guy
could see the premiums now.
[00:28:52]
Yeah, it’s crazy.
I mean, that’s kind of been our focus.
[00:28:55]
You know, even like the last few years
[00:28:57]
to where we’ve been like
growing more people.
[00:28:59]
But, you know, we’ve kind of wanted
to keep that aspect, you know,
[00:29:02]
because we think see that as an important
thing externally with our,
[00:29:06]
you know, full time people kind of,
you know, getting married and getting kids
[00:29:11]
and whatnot, where we want
to kind of have that as a
[00:29:15]
kind of a rock for them to kind of rent,
[00:29:17]
you know, not only help them up to kind
of keep them around for us to share.
[00:29:20]
So,
[00:29:22]
you know, I think a lot of people don’t
realize, especially if you never had
[00:29:25]
to pay your health insurance,
you know, expensive.
[00:29:27]
It is.
And yeah.
[00:29:29]
Yeah, it’s definitely a nice
perk for our full time.
[00:29:32]
Right.
[00:29:32]
Well, has it been tough to maintain
them through even the past decade?
[00:29:37]
I mean, it’s expensive, but, you know,
I think it’s kind of our main
[00:29:44]
thing that we do for the employees
as far as benefits.
[00:29:48]
I think that’s been it’s expensive,
but I think that’s just kind of you know,
[00:29:52]
you’re kind of shy to keep
it that way for guys, so.
[00:29:55]
Sure.
Yeah.
[00:29:56]
Fair.
Yeah, fair.
[00:29:58]
Let’s call.
[00:29:59]
So I guess what do you see
in the next let’s call it?
[00:30:03]
It’s gonna be a tough question to ask or
[00:30:04]
answer right next five years,
presuming the things
[00:30:09]
you want to say, go back to normal.
I don’t know what normal would be.
[00:30:12]
And I feel like after it’s been
this way for a few months.
[00:30:14]
Yeah, this is normal.
[00:30:16]
I don’t think we can maintain that.
[00:30:17]
Yeah, whatever.
[00:30:19]
So I guess where do you
see the business going.
[00:30:23]
We’ll call.
Yeah.
[00:30:23]
I mean, like I said,
I don’t see you get any smaller.
[00:30:26]
You just with the last few years.
[00:30:29]
Looking back at like financials and stuff
like that, we’ve had continuous growth.
[00:30:32]
Have you really.
Yeah.
[00:30:34]
Oh that’s awesome.
Yeah.
[00:30:35]
And it was,
[00:30:36]
you know, in the last probably six, seven
years as far as the business itself.
[00:30:40]
Obviously we’ve added the East Side
[00:30:42]
location, but the business itself,
as far as volume, we’ve doubled.
[00:30:46]
So we’re in six, seven years.
Yeah.
[00:30:50]
You doubled.
Yeah.
[00:30:51]
Wow.
What do you attribute that to.
[00:30:53]
I don’t know.
[00:30:54]
I mean, I think it’s there’s
a lot of aspects in looking good.
[00:30:57]
Like I said, just like with adding the
second location, I’m sure that’s helped.
[00:31:02]
All right.
[00:31:03]
And I think too, which is how much
Madisons kind of grown over that period.
[00:31:06]
That’s fair, because I think
that’s kind of helped it, too.
[00:31:11]
As far as like our wholesale accounts,
too, that’s kind of grown over the years.
[00:31:15]
OK.
So we when we moved to the Eastside
[00:31:18]
location,
we picked up a few more accounts just
[00:31:20]
because we had a little bit more
ability to do that mass production.
[00:31:24]
So sure, we picked up Woodman’s,
which has been a nice account for us.
[00:31:28]
Yeah.
[00:31:29]
So we’re just in the three Woodman’s
in the Madison area right now.
[00:31:32]
OK.
So there’s some prairie east and west side
[00:31:35]
and then that’s kind of,
I guess what the next five years.
[00:31:39]
I’ve got a few things that I’ve kind
of want to do as far as like growth.
[00:31:44]
I think expanding kind of that wholesale
[00:31:47]
aspect of things
and getting into some more
[00:31:51]
grocery stores and stuff.
[00:31:52]
I think that’ll kind of help us out.
Right.
[00:31:55]
So we’ve been kind of looking
at possibly getting
[00:31:58]
some kind of distribution for,
[00:32:00]
like maybe all the Woodman’s or try to get
into some more
[00:32:03]
maybe stores down in like the Milwaukee
or Assurance in, you know, area maybe.
[00:32:08]
Okay.
So that’s kind of
[00:32:10]
a thing we’ll be looking at down the road.
[00:32:14]
And I think to we’re actually working
[00:32:17]
on it right now, but we’re
adding our own branded coffee.
[00:32:21]
Really?
Yeah.
[00:32:23]
So we’re actually we haven’t
really made public yet.
[00:32:27]
Well, you
[00:32:28]
know, I mean, we’re
gonna be announcing it.
[00:32:31]
We’ve been kind of waiting for it.
[00:32:32]
It was kind of in the works before
the whole Colvard situation.
[00:32:36]
And then once we did kind of shut down our
[00:32:38]
retail, we kind of put it
on the back burner for sure.
[00:32:40]
It’ll bit okay.
[00:32:41]
So we’ve partnered with True Coffee Shop
and they’re based out of Fitchburg.
[00:32:46]
So they’re going to be doing
our own brand of coffee for it.
[00:32:48]
And we’re doing an Italian blend and then
[00:32:51]
a donut shop blend where it’ll have
our own logo and everything on it.
[00:32:55]
And the best thing about it, too,
is we hadn’t really talked about yet.
[00:32:58]
But we’re a kosher bakery.
[00:33:00]
I was just yeah, actually, I was good.
[00:33:02]
The best thing about it, too, is that
they’re kosher, so it’ll be your coffee.
[00:33:07]
So it’s kind of a whole weird kabuki
[00:33:10]
with the kosher, but we can kind
of talk about that a little.
[00:33:12]
I would love to because I have no idea.
[00:33:14]
So we’ll beearly next week.
[00:33:17]
We’ll be kind of we’ve been waiting
for the coffee to kind of get situated
[00:33:20]
and we’re gonna be doing
like our own retail bags.
[00:33:23]
So we’ve been doing some, like
labeling and bags and stuff like that.
[00:33:25]
We’re kind of waiting on sort of true
take care of it or you guess.
[00:33:29]
So they’ll be kind of doing everything
[00:33:30]
for us as far as like
manufacturing company and stuff.
[00:33:34]
So and then as far as like distributing
all that and like Hollis and then selling
[00:33:38]
it by the cops and by retail
bags and both of our locations.
[00:33:42]
Yeah.
It’s going to be cool.
[00:33:43]
I mean, we were doing
[00:33:46]
we did some as far as coffee.
[00:33:48]
It was SEGRA.
[00:33:50]
It’s kind of like a worldwide brand.
Okay.
[00:33:52]
I mean, it’s good coffee,
but I kind of wanted to
[00:33:56]
look at getting something local.
[00:33:58]
So I think a lot with Madison, especially
a lot of people like to support local.
[00:34:03]
That’s fair.
And I think we wanted to kind of partner
[00:34:05]
with a local business
to kind of share collab.
[00:34:08]
I’m getting like a Greenbush
coffee rageous for us.
[00:34:11]
So they kind of like worked out perfect
[00:34:14]
with the coffee distributor as far as,
like, setting it up and stuff.
[00:34:17]
So our plan is it kind of eventually,
[00:34:20]
you know, reach out to our wholesale
places out we’re in right now as far as
[00:34:24]
selling our donuts and adding
the coffee to it, too.
[00:34:28]
And then with our stores to be selling it
right by the cup and by the retail bags.
[00:34:32]
So that’s cool.
So it was the idea for that.
[00:34:36]
What did you have to come up
with a recipe or something like this?
[00:34:38]
Or do they have you know,
they kind of helped us sell.
[00:34:40]
We actually went to their Roseberry
[00:34:43]
a couple weeks ago,
kind of check out their process of it.
[00:34:46]
And it’s kind of like the same thing
[00:34:47]
with donuts as far as like
the production of donuts.
[00:34:50]
Yeah.
[00:34:51]
You don’t really ever get
to see people roasting coffee.
[00:34:54]
So we ended up going there.
[00:34:55]
Never kind of.
[00:34:56]
We tried out a few different.
[00:35:00]
Mixes that they did as far as flavorings
[00:35:02]
and stuff like that, and we kind of got
to decide what flavorings we liked.
[00:35:05]
Sure better.
[00:35:07]
So we kind of chose out
the different donut shop.
[00:35:09]
Blend in Italian blend.
That’s cool.
[00:35:12]
And yeah, it was kind
of a cool process to see.
[00:35:14]
You know, I said a few different coffees.
Yeah.
[00:35:17]
What makes an Italian coffee?
[00:35:19]
I think it’s I mean,
as far as my understanding,
[00:35:23]
as far as like the different beans
that they use just for different
[00:35:29]
to mix up and kind of do
different flavoring.
[00:35:31]
Qahar is like the locations
of where the beans come from.
[00:35:34]
The whole coffee thing is kind of a new
thing, a new aspect of it for me.
[00:35:38]
Yeah, I learned a lot when we
went there that want to share.
[00:35:41]
So yeah, they’ve got different beans
[00:35:44]
from different locations of the world
where they kind of done different like
[00:35:48]
mixtures of to kind of add
different flavorings to show
[00:35:52]
their Italian coffee beans.
[00:35:54]
And I know I think it’s just kind of like
[00:35:55]
the name that we came up
with some oregano in there.
[00:36:00]
So the coffee shop coffee
in comparison to the Italian coffee.
[00:36:05]
I’m sorry, they’re doing it on a chaplain.
Yeah.
[00:36:07]
Coffee shop.
Yeah, the donut shop blend, I guess.
[00:36:11]
What is the difference between the two?
[00:36:13]
The donut shop blend is a little bit more
[00:36:15]
lighter of a roast, so the Italian
blends a little bit darker.
[00:36:19]
So punch in the face.
Yeah, go on.
[00:36:21]
Those are kinda too big.
I like that.
[00:36:22]
Donut shop is just chill.
Relax.
[00:36:24]
You know, kickback.
Enjoy your coffee.
[00:36:27]
Don’t shop blend and some donuts.
That’s awesome.
[00:36:30]
So will you be selling
that wholesale as well?
[00:36:33]
Yeah.
[00:36:33]
That’s a plan where you try to get that
at all of the grocery stores that in.
[00:36:37]
Gotcha.
[00:36:37]
So we’re we’re still kind of waiting
to reach out to them out.
[00:36:40]
Sure.
[00:36:40]
To kind of get some
of the retail bags in hand.
[00:36:44]
That’s kind of what we’ve been waiting
[00:36:45]
on right now, is kind of getting
that gotcher that up.
[00:36:47]
So,
[00:36:48]
you know, once we kind of get that all
taken care of and that’s kind of why we’ve
[00:36:52]
been waiting to kind of roll
it out in our stores, too.
[00:36:54]
I want to share and have everything kind
of put together at the same time as far as
[00:36:59]
the coffee and the retail bags.
[00:37:02]
So we’re hoping sometime early next week
[00:37:05]
we’ll be able to kind of roll
that out at both locations.
[00:37:07]
Wow.
Super cool.
[00:37:08]
Yeah.
[00:37:08]
So for those listening,
that means right about now.
[00:37:13]
All this thing air.
Yeah.
[00:37:15]
Give or take a few days.
Yeah.
[00:37:16]
That’s cool.
[00:37:17]
And we’ve been we’ll be posting
everything on our social media.
[00:37:20]
Okay.
[00:37:20]
As far as when we do that and I
think we’ll probably,
[00:37:24]
you know, do some promotions as far as
like maybe do like a weekend where we kind
[00:37:28]
of give out some free
coffee to customers that come in.
[00:37:31]
Sure.
To kind of get people to try it out and.
[00:37:33]
Right.
So that’s cool.
[00:37:35]
Yeah, that’s cool.
Zameen, you’ll have a little a
[00:37:38]
little carton’s to bring
to the office and stuff.
[00:37:41]
We, we’ve never really done that.
[00:37:43]
I mean we might get into doing that.
[00:37:45]
That’s the other thing too.
[00:37:46]
I think we’ll kind of see how things kind
of play out with the charades like
[00:37:50]
the Colbert situation is
like offices and stuff.
[00:37:53]
If people are gonna be interested
in doing something like that.
[00:37:56]
Right, we might have that as
an option for customers.
[00:37:59]
Mm hmm.
Whatever.
[00:38:00]
You know,
I guess on a shift in to talking a little
[00:38:04]
bit about the corvids stuff
that you’ve done, the East Side store.
[00:38:07]
Yeah.
Zis that store.
[00:38:08]
I’ve been there and you have
[00:38:09]
a lot of space, you know,
and there seem not a ton,
[00:38:12]
but enough that you could certainly be
away from each other.
[00:38:15]
Yeah.
Have you remove those tables.
[00:38:17]
Are they still there.
[00:38:18]
So we haven’t been having
any seating for us to.
[00:38:21]
It’s not like the seating was like
a necessity for our business.
[00:38:25]
A lot of the business that we do is kind
of people just coming in real quick,
[00:38:28]
picking out their donuts and then
heading off to wherever they’re going.
[00:38:31]
Yeah.
The way I kind of see the seating is just
[00:38:34]
kind of an added bonus for us,
you know, and it’s kind of cool.
[00:38:37]
Like on the weekends we would get
a lot of families to come in and.
[00:38:39]
Sure.
[00:38:40]
Hang out and grab some donuts
and a carton of milk and go.
[00:38:43]
So we would do.
Yeah.
[00:38:44]
It was an excuse to go somewhere.
Yeah.
[00:38:46]
So it was nice to have that.
[00:38:47]
So we’ve for right now, obviously,
we’re just not dealing with the seating
[00:38:51]
chart just to kind of protect
the business and our customers.
[00:38:54]
It’s the best thing to do.
Sure.
[00:38:56]
And then we’ve kind of set up both
locations for precautions and rules.
[00:39:01]
As far as
[00:39:03]
limiting as many, we’re only letting
five people in at a time for customers.
[00:39:08]
So, like on the weekends, we kind of,
[00:39:10]
you know, during when we’re busy,
we get a little bit of people waiting
[00:39:13]
outside, which for us, it’s not
too big of a problem just because it is
[00:39:18]
such a quick process as
far as people coming in.
[00:39:20]
Great.
They’re doughnuts and just leaving.
[00:39:22]
Right.
[00:39:22]
So it’s not like people are
waiting super long for donuts.
[00:39:26]
And then as far as like
[00:39:28]
other things we’ve kind of implemented,
we’ve got some shields in front of like
[00:39:32]
our PBS stations kind of protect our
employees and the customers and add.
[00:39:37]
Sure.
Base there.
[00:39:39]
And then we’ve kind of taped off as far as
[00:39:41]
like spots to kind
of distance the customers.
[00:39:44]
And then we’ve taped off in front of,
[00:39:46]
like the cases and put some roads
and stuff and find the cases.
[00:39:49]
So people aren’t kind of like leaning over
the cases and just staying away from.
[00:39:53]
Sure.
Our guests are our employees.
[00:39:57]
Yeah, it’s been kind of.
[00:39:58]
Just, you know, the city’s kind of set out
their guidelines and information as far as
[00:40:03]
us to follow, and we’ve
done everything that we should.
[00:40:06]
And then beyond as far as trying to
[00:40:08]
keep us safe environment for not only our
employees, but the customers come in and.
[00:40:13]
You know, we’ve always kind of took pride
[00:40:16]
in as far as keeping it clean and the
environment in the retail area.
[00:40:22]
And we’ve kind of just implemented some
[00:40:23]
more rules as far as frequency of wiping
things down, ensuring cleaning things.
[00:40:28]
So,
[00:40:30]
yeah, it’s been interesting,
[00:40:31]
kind of just trying to it’s been weird
here, abide by things and try to,
[00:40:35]
you know, do what’s best for everybody,
but also to keep the business going.
[00:40:39]
Sure.
Interesting.
[00:40:40]
Yes.
Cool.
[00:40:42]
So who I want to ask you,
who’s doing the sales?
[00:40:44]
Are you running around
to the grocery stores trying to.
[00:40:46]
So, I mean, we’ve had like our most of our
wholesale accounts, like in place for
[00:40:52]
quite some time.
[00:40:54]
It’s not really like you’re there to,
like, sell them on stuff they’ve had,
[00:40:58]
like, their set numbers
that we get them every week.
[00:41:00]
OK.
[00:41:01]
And then we’ve got
a wholesale manager that
[00:41:04]
as far as keeping track of,
like numbers at both locations,
[00:41:07]
I’ve he’s doing deliveries
or my dad’s doing deliveries.
[00:41:10]
We kind of keep track to see
how things fit selling out.
[00:41:13]
We’ll kind of bump them up a little bit
or it’s they’re getting some waste.
[00:41:16]
We kind of cut back
the numbers a little bit.
[00:41:18]
Sure.
[00:41:19]
So as far as like the wholesale
accounts and stuff,
[00:41:24]
I go around, you know,
sometimes if we’ve got people reaching out
[00:41:27]
to us about adding us as a wholesale
account, you know, I’ll either reach out
[00:41:30]
to them over phone or stop by and drop
off some samples or something.
[00:41:34]
They reach out to you.
[00:41:35]
We’ve had yeah, we’ve had it actually
wouldn’t vesicle Woodman’s actually
[00:41:38]
reached out to us about
getting us into their stores.
[00:41:40]
Well, it was the sumptuary
store reached out to us and then that led
[00:41:44]
into getting to all
the Madison stores here.
[00:41:46]
So.
So yeah.
[00:41:48]
I mean, I go around and kind of Rechelle,
[00:41:50]
we’ve added some like
churches over the years, too.
[00:41:52]
And a lot of it is people kind of reaching
[00:41:54]
out to us about adding,
oh, that’s for you.
[00:41:57]
That’s been in the local things
like churches that we do.
[00:41:59]
Yeah.
[00:42:00]
So we probably have about
12 to 15 different churches that we were
[00:42:05]
doing product to get on a Sunday shirt
kind of on and off.
[00:42:08]
Some of them were like every
week somewhere like every other.
[00:42:11]
Sure.
Like once every month or so.
[00:42:14]
So that’s kind of came
to a halt too, right?
[00:42:18]
So I mean, a lot, Don.
[00:42:19]
I mean, I don’t know what
churches are doing now.
[00:42:21]
Yeah, well, I think some of them
[00:42:25]
are kind of limited in capacity.
[00:42:27]
But it’s another aspect, too,
[00:42:28]
of not wanting to have products kind
of where people are picking through it.
[00:42:32]
Right.
[00:42:32]
So we start is then you
stick your finger down.
[00:42:35]
It started to ease back a little bit.
[00:42:37]
Some we’ve got a couple of the accounts
[00:42:39]
back, but they
also don’t want to kind of force people
[00:42:42]
to start bringing it back,
especially if people aren’t comfortable.
[00:42:45]
Right.
[00:42:45]
I know, too, it’s, you know,
worrisome to kind of have the virus kind
[00:42:49]
of come back and things
start to shut down.
[00:42:52]
Sure.
[00:42:53]
You know, it’s it’s tough
not having that business.
[00:42:56]
But I also want people
to kind of be safe to.
[00:42:58]
Right.
Just fair.
[00:42:59]
Have any of the riots or protests or stuff
like that challenge your business at all?
[00:43:05]
No, not really.
Does it?
[00:43:08]
Yeah, we’re out of the fray.
[00:43:09]
Yeah, we’re kind of tucked
away a little bit.
[00:43:11]
Were there.
[00:43:12]
We’re not really close
to like State Street book.
[00:43:15]
You know, I was worried
a little bit there for a while.
[00:43:17]
I think a lot of people
in Madison were worried.
[00:43:19]
But yeah.
Yeah.
[00:43:21]
So, yeah, we didn’t have
anything happen with that.
[00:43:23]
Okay.
That’s good.
[00:43:24]
Yeah, that’s good.
[00:43:26]
One less thing.
[00:43:28]
There’s so many headaches going on.
[00:43:30]
So I guess you have a favorite on it.
[00:43:34]
There’s a few.
I mean presumably.
[00:43:37]
Yeah.
Greenbush be agreed.
[00:43:38]
No.
Yeah.
[00:43:40]
Yeah.
[00:43:40]
I really don’t really eat
donuts too much to be honest.
[00:43:42]
Like I obviously I’ve had my gosh every
single donat one year, 500 pound.
[00:43:47]
When you’re around it every day,
[00:43:48]
like it’s not like I go to work every
day and eat two to three doughnuts.
[00:43:52]
But you know, every once in a while take
a bite out of a doughnut while there.
[00:43:55]
Right.
And if I did choose, I would probably say
[00:43:59]
we do like a Auriel cream filled donut
that’s probably somewhere up there.
[00:44:03]
And then just like a cake doughnut with,
like, just chocolate frosting.
[00:44:07]
Okay.
Relatively sure there, too.
[00:44:09]
So that’s cool.
[00:44:10]
We do a maple blueberry
cake doughnut, too.
[00:44:12]
Okay.
[00:44:13]
And that’s when they’re like
fresh out of the fryer.
[00:44:16]
Yeah.
There’s like nothing better than that.
[00:44:18]
All right.
[00:44:19]
So who comes up with the recipes and stuff
like that for new stuff that you do.
[00:44:24]
So we really don’t do too
much like new product.
[00:44:26]
It’s kind of just been like
the same stuff over the years.
[00:44:29]
And we’ve added some new,
[00:44:30]
like fillings and different flavors
and stuff like that over the years.
[00:44:34]
But a lot of this stuff’s
kind of been in place for
[00:44:38]
forever.
We’re kind of just been doing the same
[00:44:41]
stuff and just adding here in there
and try and some new stuff.
[00:44:44]
But we don’t really get too wild as far
[00:44:46]
as, like, adding all these
different candy bars.
[00:44:49]
Sure.
[00:44:50]
No bacon on top of a donut
hole that’s kosher.
[00:44:53]
We can’t we can’t do any meats.
[00:44:56]
We didn’t get a kosher.
[00:44:58]
Let me ask about bacon a lot,
but I’ve had some bacon doughnuts.
[00:45:03]
I like bacon, but I’ve had bacon
topped doughnuts and like,
[00:45:07]
I don’t really think there’s anything.
[00:45:08]
Now, that’s just it’s kind of like.
[00:45:11]
Because when you have bacon,
it’s, you know, warm and.
[00:45:13]
Yeah.
You know, greasy.
[00:45:14]
But when you get it on a doughnut,
it’s kind of cold.
[00:45:17]
And most of time it’s like chewy.
[00:45:18]
And you’re like, yeah,
there’s is opposing ideals.
[00:45:21]
I suppose they do.
[00:45:22]
But bacon is I mean,
a lot of people love bacon like grant
[00:45:25]
white people, but with us being kosher,
we can’t have any meats in our facility.
[00:45:29]
So we went to zero meat such as pig.
Yeah, zir.
[00:45:33]
We’re kosher dairy.
[00:45:34]
So, okay, we can’t do any any
meats in our production facility.
[00:45:38]
So tell me, what is kosher work?
What’s the definition?
[00:45:42]
Yes.
So who base their certification?
[00:45:45]
Yes.
So we have a rabbi.
[00:45:47]
Okay.
That comes every year to recertify us.
[00:45:51]
Okay.
[00:45:52]
So basically the best way to describe
kosher, it’s kind of just like another
[00:45:57]
form of supervision
to kind of ensure quality.
[00:46:00]
Sure.
[00:46:01]
So every product that we use as far as
like our mixes and flour and stuff like
[00:46:06]
that and fillings, anything that goes into
the process has to be kosher certified.
[00:46:12]
Okay.
So if you go to like a grocery store,
[00:46:15]
a lot of places, a lot of like products
that they have there are kosher.
[00:46:20]
They just don’t advertise it, you know.
[00:46:22]
But if you go look on like cereal boxes,
[00:46:24]
they’ve got the little symbol on there
that they’re culture certified.
[00:46:28]
OK.
So a lot of things are kosher.
[00:46:30]
OK.
[00:46:30]
But as far as like bakeries,
there’s not really any kosher bakeries.
[00:46:35]
So that’s kind of a cool aspect
that we kind of pride ourselves with.
[00:46:38]
Sherman kind of advertise.
So we.
[00:46:41]
Yeah.
Back to like the rabbi.
[00:46:44]
Things that he has to come every year.
Yeah.
[00:46:46]
To both locations and kind of just check
[00:46:48]
over to make sure that we
haven’t added any new products.
[00:46:51]
Okay.
That wouldn’t be kosher certified.
[00:46:53]
Okay.
And then just kind of checks in to make
[00:46:55]
sure everything’s gonna
go on smoothly with it.
[00:46:57]
Sure.
[00:46:59]
And then
[00:47:00]
that was kind of a learning process for me
too, because when we came to the
[00:47:04]
Eastside location
most of the time with like the region
[00:47:07]
street, he would just kind of come
in and check things once a year.
[00:47:11]
And then with the East Side,
he to come and bless like the East Side
[00:47:14]
location and make sure everything
was kind of set there.
[00:47:17]
Okay.
So what we had to do was with our fryer,
[00:47:20]
we had to put water in it
and make it come to a boil.
[00:47:23]
Okay.
And all of the
[00:47:28]
like, even utensils that we used to.
[00:47:31]
So nothing can come in contact with,
like, meats in the past.
[00:47:34]
So if we were to bring in let’s say we
brought in like some old,
[00:47:38]
like equipment and stuff like that to be
sanitized so that it wasn’t
[00:47:43]
in contact with meats before and then
it was being used in our facility.
[00:47:47]
And everything that we get is new as far
[00:47:48]
as like utensils and stuff like that,
where it wasn’t a problem.
[00:47:52]
But what we do when we had the East Side,
we had to bring water to a boil
[00:47:56]
in the fryer and everything that we had as
far as like utensils and pans and stuff
[00:48:00]
like that, we had to submerge
into the boiling water.
[00:48:04]
So it was sanitized.
Okay.
[00:48:05]
So, yeah.
[00:48:07]
So it seems like it’s more a sanitary
thing versus a religious thing.
[00:48:12]
Yeah.
I mean, except for the rabbi.
[00:48:14]
Yeah.
Yeah.
[00:48:15]
And we get a lot of people ask us to for
it for our family’s Jewish, but we’re not.
[00:48:21]
But my grandpa was reached out to the
[00:48:25]
Jewish community about getting kosher when
he first bought the business assurance.
[00:48:29]
So it kind of started like right away when
he was down at the region street location.
[00:48:33]
Right.
[00:48:33]
So, yeah, I would say it’s more of just
like a quality control and sanitary.
[00:48:37]
Okay.
So so the the grease that you use is not
[00:48:42]
animal that has to be
vegetable or whatever.
[00:48:44]
So we use a trans fat free soybean oil.
Okay.
[00:48:47]
Fry grease.
[00:48:48]
And it’s kind of like a
we actually switched over to this.
[00:48:53]
And it probably was four or five
years ago to this fragrance.
[00:48:57]
Okay.
So the way things are kind of
[00:49:01]
changing is you can’t have any
trans fat fry grease.
[00:49:05]
OK.
We kind of got ahead of the curve
[00:49:06]
with that where we switched over
to this trans fat free fry grease.
[00:49:10]
Is that a Kosher thing? Or is that a.
Yeah, it’s kosher.
[00:49:12]
The world’s getting fat.
Oh, yeah.
[00:49:14]
It’s kind of like a
[00:49:16]
nationwide thing where
they’re switching over to it.
[00:49:19]
But
[00:49:21]
so, yeah, we switch over this fry
grease where it’s trans fat free.
[00:49:24]
And we were actually like the first people
[00:49:25]
in Wisconsin to start using
this fry grease. Really.
[00:49:28]
And now so it was kind of like
[00:49:30]
we actually went up to one of our
suppliers, to their
[00:49:33]
facility to kind of test it out to see how
it kind of affected the doughnuts.
[00:49:37]
But we didn’t notice any difference.
[00:49:39]
And when we switched it over,
[00:49:41]
we didn’t have any complaints as far as
[00:49:43]
like the change in the taste of doughnuts
like and you couldn’t even tell.
[00:49:47]
OK, so because a lot of times if you’re
using like a cheaper fry greaser.
[00:49:52]
Yeah.
[00:49:52]
Switch your friary so you’d be able to
notice, like, the difference in the doughnuts.
[00:49:56]
Yeah, but when we switched
over we didn’t have any
[00:49:58]
any complaints about anything,
[00:49:59]
if anything, it’s kind of turned out
better as far as wow doughnuts themselves.
[00:50:03]
That’s cool.
Yeah.
[00:50:05]
So and that’s kind of like a you
know, a big thing, too,
[00:50:08]
is having that trans fat free and having
that high quality fry grease where,
[00:50:13]
you know, it’s not leaving like
an oily, doughnut, for you.
[00:50:17]
That’s gotta be rare.
[00:50:18]
Yeah, I feel like any doughnuts.
Yeah.
[00:50:20]
I mean, we fry everything.
[00:50:21]
Sure.
[00:50:23]
You know, it’s it’s not like
we have oily doughnuts at all.
[00:50:26]
Just kind of.
A lot of a bit
[00:50:29]
bakeries in Wisconsin too.
[00:50:31]
I’ve kind of heard of started
switching over to this.
[00:50:33]
Fry grease too so it not use partial for this
[00:50:36]
and then kind of use a different
fry grease for the others. Sure.
[00:50:38]
So now I’m curious.
[00:50:41]
I like metrics and stats
and stuff like that.
[00:50:43]
You have any idea how much grease you use
in a given week, month, whatever?
[00:50:49]
I wouldn’t say we probably
[00:50:52]
we probably go through
[00:50:56]
like four or five, 50 pound
[00:50:59]
blocks of fry grease. It comes in blocks?
Yeah,
[00:51:02]
comes in like solid form.
Yeah.
[00:51:05]
That’s cool stuff.
We need to know, right.
[00:51:07]
Yeah.
We go through a lot of fry grease.
[00:51:09]
OK.
[00:51:09]
But were also making a lot of donuts
too. Totally understand.
[00:51:12]
I don’t know how else you make a donut.
[00:51:14]
So that’s cool.
[00:51:15]
I’m just picturing this
guy opening up this huge
[00:51:18]
soybean oil.
Yeah, that’s cool.
[00:51:20]
Well, awesome, man.
I appreciate you being on the show.
[00:51:22]
Yeah.
[00:51:24]
I got one other question, I guess.
[00:51:25]
Well, we end it here.
[00:51:28]
You’ve been with this business,
since essentially you’re crawling.
[00:51:31]
Yeah.
So you probably learned some stuff.
[00:51:33]
Is there anything,
[00:51:34]
a piece of advice that you’d give
to someone that is considering starting
[00:51:37]
a business of any kind that you’ve
learned over the course of the year?
[00:51:40]
I think the biggest thing, you know,
you I think was schooling.
[00:51:44]
I think the biggest thing with,
[00:51:45]
like schooling is learning kind of time
management and kind of socializing.
[00:51:50]
Sure.
[00:51:51]
And then as far as like business side
[00:51:54]
of things, a lot of it’s
kind of learn as you go,
[00:51:57]
especially when you’re very kind of like
[00:51:59]
specialty trades,
especially like doughnuts.
[00:52:01]
Like you don’t learn anything like that in
college as far as like business specific.
[00:52:07]
But it’s kind of just kind
of learning as you go.
[00:52:09]
And
[00:52:11]
I think that’s the biggest thing,
is just having that experience and kind
[00:52:14]
of having new situations kind
of challenge you to kind of.
[00:52:17]
Sure.
[00:52:18]
You know, learn and kind of, you know,
girl great with the business.
[00:52:22]
So that’s kind of been my biggest thing,
is just kind of having these little things
[00:52:26]
pop up where, you know,
like, OK, what do I do here?
[00:52:29]
And then my grandpa has been like
a perfect guy to kind of uses like,
[00:52:34]
hey, what should I do
in this situation?
[00:52:36]
Or hey, this is broken.
[00:52:37]
Like, what should I do for that?
[00:52:39]
He’s so handy as far as, like,
fixing stuff where he’ll kind of
[00:52:42]
come in and fix pretty much
anything with no tools or anything.
[00:52:46]
He knows exactly what needs to be done.
[00:52:47]
And that’s kind of been the biggest thing
for me, is kind of learning how everything
[00:52:50]
kind of operates and learning
every aspect of the business.
[00:52:54]
You kind of have a full
grasp of everything.
[00:52:56]
Sure, yeah.
That’s cool.
[00:52:57]
Yeah, that’s cool.
I love it.
[00:52:59]
This has been Authentic
Business Adventures.
[00:53:01]
The live version
[00:53:04]
brought to you by Sun Prairie Community
Studios through Bank of Sun Prairie.
[00:53:09]
My name is James Katamon
[00:53:10]
and Authentic Business Adventures is
brought to you by Calls on Call,
[00:53:13]
which we’re in their office because of our
receptionist or their home offering,
[00:53:17]
calling, answering services for small
businesses across the country
[00:53:21]
and Draw In Customers Business Coaching,
offering business coaching services to
[00:53:26]
entrepreneurs in all stages of their
business,
[00:53:28]
as well as the Bold Business Book,
a book for the entrepreneur in all of us
[00:53:32]
available on Amazon and wherever
fine books are sold.
[00:53:35]
We’d like to thank
Taylor. Thank you so much for being on the show
[00:53:38]
this is super cool.
[00:53:38]
Thanks for having me.
Where can people find you?
[00:53:41]
The two locations.
Yeah.
[00:53:43]
So we’ve got
our one location on Regent Street.
[00:53:46]
It’s 1402 Regent Street.
[00:53:48]
And it’s in the store front on the Regent
apartments right across from Sconny Bar.
[00:53:52]
Cool.
[00:53:53]
And then our East Side location
is on High Crossing Boulevard.
[00:53:59]
So it’s kind of right over by Mr.
[00:54:02]
Brews and Steinhafels and all
the car dealerships over there.
[00:54:04]
All the cars, the car alley there.
[00:54:07]
Yeah.
[00:54:07]
So and then we’ve got a list of like all
of our wholesale accounts on our website
[00:54:12]
that we’re in four grocery stores so we
can find you wherever they are, you know.
[00:54:16]
That’s cool.
[00:54:16]
Find us airing at 103.5
Wednesdays at 1:00 p.m.,
[00:54:20]
Sundays at 2:00 p.m.,
as well as SunPrairieMediaCenter.com.
[00:54:24]
Past episodes, as a reminder,
can be found morning,
[00:54:26]
noon, and night at the podcast link
found at drawincustomers.com.
[00:54:30]
Thank you for listening.
We’ll see you next week.
[00:54:32]
I want you to stay awesome.
[00:54:33]
And if you do nothing else.
[00:54:35]
Enjoy your business.
Thanks, man.
[00:54:36]
Yeah.
Thank you.
[00:54:37]
This has been cool.
Was good.
[00:54:39]
Yeah.
